Ladies and gentlemen, please
welcome your host for tonight,
Nabil Abdulrashid!
Woo!
What's happening, Apollo?
Never fearSouth London is here.
I'm gonna be honest with you.
I
-I genuinely
This isn't I don't It doesn't
matter if you guys enjoy this.
This is for me.
Cos it's all about self
-love.
Cos, as you know, narcissism is OK
with the right packaging.
I have problems.
Problem number one
- I am a dad.
Oh, you think it's funny?
I hope you all become dads tonight.
You know, one of
the interesting things
about being a father is this
-
you're responsible for these
little things that eat your food
and don't pay for anything,
and if that wasn't bad enough,
you have to bring them up.
And there's always this question
-
how should I raise my kids?
People say, "Oh, raise them
with your culture."
Therein lies the problem for me.
You see, I'm British and Nigerian,
and I've lived my life equally
in both countries,
which means I'm equally unwelcome
in both countries.
Africans in the room,
you ever been home and they just
look at you like
"Look at him. He said, 'Excuse me.'"
"You must be new here."
When I'm in Nigeria,
I miss British stuff, you know?
I miss queuing and
..constant electricity and,
and apologies. I miss that stuff.
But then when I'm here, I miss
really Nigerian stuff, you know?
I miss being able to get a job.
I miss being treated nicely
because of who my family is.
And most importantly I miss being
able to bribe police and judges.
But I suppose that last bit
doesn't make me a Nigerian.
That just makes me a Tory.
That is the first time you'll ever
hear anybody get cheered for saying
they're a Tory, even in front
of other Tories.
They don't even love themselves.
They're just in it for the benefits.
The only Tories that are proud to be
Tories are Nigerian Tories. Right?
I don't get it. The audacity.
Listen, you know why it's easy for
so many Nigerians to be Tories?
It's because every Nigerian believes
that one day,
they're going to be rich,
even if it's the day they die.
So they'll vote against their own.
It's like,
"Yes, I need benefits now,
"but why should I pay for
those future broke f*ck?"
Look, I was born in London,
but my parents had me
moved back to Nigeria
to make sure I learned to
speak English properly and
The thing is, Nigeria is
an English
-speaking country
cos we were colonised
by the British. Safe, innit?
Though I am not a fan of
colonisation.
I just realise
it could have been worse.
It could have been the French.
We saw how that went.
Sacre bleu!
No, the thing is, the British
colonised Africa differently.
I mean, yes, there was m*rder and
plundering and all that fun stuff,
but what the British did
that was different was this.
They essentially came over to
Africa, you guys came over
and gave us all the stuff
that you don't need any more.
Kind of like how back in the day
you would give your younger
brother the PlayStation control pad
that wasn't working, right?
They did the same thing to us,
but they didn't give us
PlayStation control pads.
No, they gave us the Bible
..and the dictionary. Right?
"Well, we won't be
needing that any more.
"What's the worst that could
happen? Mandem, tally
-h*!"
I remember going to school in
Nigeria, being taught English people
are the only people that cannot
speak their own language.
"What the f*ck
are you talking about?"
And then, I moved to London
and I was like, "Oh. Oh, wow."
The thing is, I came here
speaking English English,
real English, you know?
I came with all the classic
British greetings like,
"Hello."
"Good morning."
"Good afternoon."
And of course the quintessential
British greeting,
"Assalamu alaikum."
The official greeting of Birmingham.
Nothing could have ever prepared me
for "wagwan".
I can remember the day
I was initiated
into the brotherhood of wagwan.
Oh, yes, it was a sunny afternoon
..and I went out on a leisure stroll
and happened perchance
to stroll through
the Royal Borough of Brixton.
Yes, and I was welcomed by
some very odd fellows.
I believe the scientific term
for them is roadus manus.
Or in French, l'homme de rue.
They were gentlemen of the road.
Now, I don't know who here
has spent any copious
amount of time in the ghetto,
but you will always know
the local roadman in the ghetto
from the interesting way
that they traverse.
You see, when they walk,
their arms don't swing.
But when they stop
their arms catch up.
Like so.
Now, these fellows,
they have a very,
very interesting turn of phrase.
You see, they refer to themselves
in the third person,
and they begin communications
with a fake expl*si*n
from the mouth, and then proceed to
ask you what they were saying, even
if they were silent before you came.
I was out grocery shopping
with my mum.
Yes, we were procuring plantains.
And a gentleman of the road,
he came to me and he said,
"All right, boom,
what's man saying?
"All right, brother, big man ting,
yeah, what man's trying to say,
"yeah, big man ting, yeah, no long
ting" And my mum said, "Ah?!
"Nabil, what's wrong with this boy?"
I said, "Mum, I think
he wants something. Wait."
He said, "Nah, what man saying,
it's hot right now, you get me, fam?
"Big man ting, yeah? It's peak
for the mandem right now.
"Swear down, fam, I swear.
Big man ting. Don't piss man off."
My mum was like, "Ah?
Which man is he talking about?
"Are you sure this boy
is not possessed?"
I said, "No, Mummy,
he's trying to communicate."
He said, "Nah, fam, I swear down,
it's peak for the mandem right now.
"You know the way there, fam,
you know the way there, fam,
"where it's just mad.
It's mad in the dunya, you get me?"
My mum said, "Nabil, has this boy
said anything?"
I said, "No, Mummy."
"He's still warming up."
I came over here and people
were using the word "safe"
interjectionally as a way to say
"thank you" and "bye".
Does anyone remember that?
A guy come up to you, like,
"Eh, yo, cuz."
I said, "I'm not your cousin."
"Eh, yo, cuz, have you got
the time?" I said, "Certainly."
"It's four."
Man said, "Safe,"
and just walked off.
I'm like, "Come back!
"Was I in danger before?
"What do you mean?
"Safe from what?
"Safe from who, cuz?"
Oh, dear, my darlings,
it was such a stressful experience,
such a culture shock.
It was so hard to communicate.
I ended up joining a g*ng
by accident.
I thought it was the Boy Scouts.
I thought all the tattoos
were merit badges.
I remember one time,
I thought to myself,
"Oh, goodness, this inner city
fraternity I have joined
"is so industrious, but I wonder,
why do our patrons spend
"so much money on these odd little
cookies that we sell on the street?"
"The packaging is terrible.
"No marketing whatsoever.
"But I suppose they're
relatively low
-calorie.
"The only thing that goes into them
is baking soda."
Now, I'll show you. You see,
while I was in our
inner city fraternity,
it was a long time ago
and the slangs have changed.
There were so many colloquialisms
for dispossessing people
of their personal effects
without their consent.
Yes, I was in the property
reacquisition sector
of our organisation,
and every now and then
I dabbled in some urban pharmacy.
Yeah.
I'm Nigerian, so I also tried out
some freestyle accounting.
Like I was saying, there was loads
of slangs for robbing people, innit?
But the most popular slang
at the time, in South, was "suck".
Yeah. You can imagine
when I found out.
I was in the park with the mandem,
and our leader, Gasman.
I mean, you can't be out here
robbing people
with a name like Charles,
so Gasman it was.
Gasman was a very serious fellow.
He said, and I quote
He spotted some opps.
That means opposition. Ha
-ha!
He said, "Yo! Mandem!"
And then we assembled
..and formed Mandem
-a
-tron.
He said, "Yo, you see them opps
there, cuz? You see them opps?"
We're like, "Yeah, blud,
man sees them, man sees them.
"We see them, blud.
We see them, blud."
He said, "Yeah. Come we go suck
those boys for their shoes."
And the rest of them were getting
up, like, "Yeah, I'm on this ting."
I'm like, "Wait, no, no, no, no, no.
"My brother, no.
I need to see the small print."
I said, "Excuse me, Mr
Can I call you Mr Mr Gasman?
"Now, for the life of me, I could
have sworn you just instructed us
"to, er" He said, "Yeah, blud!
"You heard man!
That's the motive today.
"That's the prime objective. Today
we're sucking man, blud. Yeah?
"We suck man for their shoes, their
watches, their chains, their cash.
"Anybody coming through that gate
that's not in our g*ng
"is getting sucked
"mercilessly."
I said, "Bro, I'm not involved."
He said, "Either you suck man
or man suck you." I said, "Whoa!"
"Can we talk?" I said,
"Brother, why? Why, my brother?
"Why are you doing this?"
And he gets philosophical.
He said, "It's all I know."
"It's how I survive on the roads."
"I didn't choose to suck man.
Sucking man chose man."
I said, "Is this why
you have a g*ng?"
He said, "What?! Nah! I don't need
a g*ng to suck man.
"I suck three, four man by myself."
"Ask all them boys on the estate.
"I sucked all of them, bro."
"Listen, I even sucked this boy
in front of his dad."
"In front of his dad?!"
He said, "Yeah!"
I said, "What did his dad do?"
He said, "His dad
didn't do nothing,
"cos he knew one false move,
he'd get sucked too, rude boy."
I said, "My God.
"This man is prolific!"
He said, "Big man,
I don't know fear, you know.
"I don't care how big a man is."
"How hard man is."
"I'll look man in the eye
and suck man, fam. Are you mad?"
I said to him, "Bro, you are broke.
"I am also broke.
"This is my last £5. Take it.
"Wallahi, you need it more than me."
"Foot Locker is still hiring.
"In fact, do you want me
to make you a CV?
"We can go together."
He said, "Nah!
"I don't suck man
for minimum wage."
"Man's got aspirations."
At this point I had to ask him,
"Bro, what if they don't let you?"
He looked at me like I'm the one
who's crazy. He said, "What?!"
"If they don't let me suck man"
"If they don't comply, obviously
if they don't let me suck man,
"I have to lick them down."
I said
And that's how I went to jail.
So, you know
Now, my darlings,
I mentioned before, you know,
I'm raising kids, and it's tough
choosing what culture
to raise your kids with, not just
because of the two cultures
I represent, but even
in my marriage,
we're both from
different cultures.
My wife isn't Nigerian.
She's originally Pakistani,
um, so
We're very different.
We don't look alike.
She's not a six
-foot,
25
-stone Nigerian man.
Or at least she wasn't
before I left home.
And, you know, um, it's interesting,
because, you know,
when our kids were really little,
they didn't look like their mum
either.
They looked very African.
They had big afros,
big, beautiful, glorious afros,
and my wife's this little
Asian woman in a hijab.
So when my wife went out
with my daughters,
they didn't look like
mother and daughter.
They looked like the front page
of a really woke feminist magazine.
Like, "Yass, queen! Rock the hijab,
rock the afro. Yass, slay."
Right? And like, I used to
have fun with it, right?
I would pull pranks on her.
Like I'd make them run away and
scream, "Help! She's not our mum!"
And then all these really nice
people, "Oh, my goodness,
"what do we do? Who do we grab?
What's less r*cist?"
"Do we grab the hijabi
or the afro babies?"
Oh, fun times!
The thing is,
even at home, you know,
what we do at home is different.
Like, I know most people, like
couples, they do Netflix and chill.
My wife and I,
we have our own variation of that.
We don't do Netflix and chill.
We watch a programme
called Border Force.
I see a few of you
know the programme,
and some of you are pretending
that you don't.
To explain it, Border Force
is like Squid Game for racists.
It basically follows, like,
a team of immigration officers
running down, like, trying to catch,
like, ill*gal immigrants,
or people who have overstayed,
and deport them or detain them.
And my wife and I watch it
and we keep scores
..to see whose family members
are being caught more.
"Oh, no, not Mr Khan!"
The thing is,
it's such a horrible programme,
but it's so much fun to watch,
right?
So much fun!
The thing is, they know
who their audience is,
cos when they go to catch people
they don't come to places like here
where it's a melting pot
and randomly ask people.
They look for the most stereotypical
place to catch each group of people.
Like, whenever they
go hunting for Asians
they don't just go to a cinema
or a theatre.
They go to the most rundown
restaurant in East London,
kick down the door, "Pow! Mr Khan!"
And I swear to God,
there's almost always
a guy sleeping on the floor,
and one guy at the stove
just cooking.
Like, "Mr Khan!" He's like,
"Oh, no, I'm not Mr Khan.
"My name is Michelangelo."
"You're not Mr Khan?"
"No, no, no, no, no.
"Mr Khan is my cousin brother."
Like
"What? You don't own
the restaurant?" "No."
"Then why is your picture
on the wall?"
"Because I'm sexy guy, yeah?"
My favourite group of people
to see them catch
is my people, Nigerians,
because we always escape.
This is a challenge.
Watch any programme to do with
immigration, police,
customs, TV licence,
bus inspectors
-
Nigerians always escape.
And it's not because of voodoo,
you racists.
And please stop calling it voodoo.
That is problematic.
It's not voodoo.
It's African technology.
When you guys call someone on
a screen that's in another place,
it's FaceTime.
When I do it with chicken bones
and a bowl of water, it's voodoo.
r*cist.
The real reason the Nigerian
always escapes from these situations
is simple.
A true Nigerian always answers
a question with a question.
You don't believe me?
Some of you drove here and I bet you
you're getting tickets right now.
Go outside and try and stop it.
"Oi, what are you doing?"
Nigerian
- "What does it look like?"
"Asking me stupid questions."
I remember watching the episode and
they, um, when they went to Peckham
to find Nigerians.
I think someone gave them a tip
-off.
Turned up
- "Oi, you!"
Nigerian
- "Who, me?"
"Where are you going?"
"What's your business?"
"Have you been in this country
for a long time?"
"How long is long?"
"Mate, do you even have a passport?"
"Do you want to buy?"
Ladies and gentlemen, are we ready
for the next comedian?
I worked with this guy recently.
Welcome Jake Lambert!
Over And Over
by Hot Chip
Thank you! Aww!
Thank you, hello!
You good?
Don't worry, I'm not going to talk
to you. Don't worry.
I don't do that, talking to people.
Not just onstage, offstage as well,
I don't do it.
Not for me.
It can go wrong too easily,
can't it? I've tried it.
I got on a train the other day,
and there was a guy sat on the train
wearing the same jumper as me,
and I just went, "Oh, nice jumper."
Looked down, realised
I wasn't wearing that jumper.
Forget it.
What's worse is
when you go to tell a joke
and the other person doesn't get it.
I had this recently.
I was in America and they didn't
get my humour at all.
I was walking through a mall
just on my own.
I walked passed Victoria's Secret
and there were two girls
that worked there, outside the shop,
and as I walked past, one of them
just went, "Hey, are you shopping
for a wife or a girlfriend today?"
and I just went,
"Wow, I didn't know you sold them."
They just looked at me
like I hadn't said anything.
Because there are, there are
huge cultural differences
between us and America.
We speak the same language,
but it's so different.
Like for example, I was in Texas
and they couldn't believe there
that we just don't have g*ns
over here. Couldn't believe it.
They were like,
"So you've never owned a g*n?"
I was like, "Absolutely not."
They were like, "Wow."
They were like, "You've never
been hunting?" I was like, "Nope."
"Wow." They were like,
"You never felt the urge to k*ll?"
I was like, "Oh, yeah"
"Every time I go to
the Post Office."
But of course, to us, it is crazy
that they have g*ns, but I'm sure
there are things that we have
that would be weird to an American.
Like imagine, for example,
trying to explain to an American
the concept of a lollipop lady.
Just trying to explain to them that
before we let schoolchildren cross
the street, we just send an old lady
out first to make sure it's safe.
That's quite weird.
Yeah
But, yeah, they didn't
get my humour in America.
I'll be honest, this next joke,
it needs quite a bit
of goodwill in the room.
I hope it's there.
We'll find out.
Because they just didn't always
get my humour in America,
and I was visiting my friend
in Houston in Texas,
and he had a job, so I spent
quite a bit of time on my own,
and then what happened one day,
he was at work
so I went to do a tour of NASA.
Incredible thing to do.
I can't recommend it enough,
but what happens is,
they pick you up downtown
on this bus
and they take you there,
we're on this shuttle bus,
and this tour guide is there,
telling us all these facts
on the way, facts about NASA,
and we get to these crossroads.
He said, "If you turn this way,
it's NASA,"
he said, "If you turn this way,
it's the headquarters of the KKK."
He said, "One way you've got
the greatest minds on Earth,"
and I said,
"And the other way is NASA."
I wish you'd been there.
Absolutely nothing.
Do you know how hard
you have to work
to be the most r*cist person
in Texas?
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Now Australians, Australians,
they've got a great sense of humour.
Everybody is funny over there.
I was lucky enough to go.
Australians are in. Course they are.
I love that. I was lucky enough
to go. I was in Melbourne.
Everybody's funny in Australia.
I was out one day in Melbourne,
just clothes shopping,
just looking through these shirts.
There was this old lady
stood next to me.
I hadn't spoken to her at all.
She's stood here.
I'm just looking through
these shirts.
Her husband came out
of the dressing room.
He's clearly trying a shirt on.
He just went, "Hey," he goes,
"does this shirt make me look fat?"
and she went, "No."
He turned and walked away.
She looked at me and went,
"It's not the shirt's fault."
It's a free gig!
But they are, they're
the most confident people
I've ever met, the Australians.
They're so confident. Again, perfect
example. This was in Melbourne.
I was on a train one day.
There were two guys sat opposite me,
started talking about how drunk
they'd got at the weekend,
one went, "Oh, right, mate, I got
so drunk at the weekend, right
"I ended up butt naked in the middle
of the street, it was crazy."
The whole train carriage
could hear this, by the way.
The other one went,
"That's hilarious, mate.
Have you got any photos?"
He goes, "I have, mate, yeah."
Pulls his phone out,
starts showing him photos
of him naked in the street.
They're both laughing together.
Then the train pulled
into the station
and the guy with the phone went,
"Oh, I've got to go. Anyway
"Nice to meet you."
You can't compete with that.
But I do, I get to travel with
this job a lot, which I enjoy.
I get recognised as well,
which is a strange experience.
It's not always from being on TV.
Sometimes you just get recognised
the next day
if you've done a gig somewhere.
I had this recently. I was up north
and I'd been doing some gigs.
The next day I was just in the hotel
having my breakfast, and there was
a couple in the corner, and I
could see they kept looking at me.
They must have been sort of in their
50s, and they kept looking over
at me, and I was just having my
breakfast, and as they got up
to leave they came past my table
and they stopped, and the lady said,
"Can we just say," she went,
"you were amazing last night."
I said, "Oh, wow, thank you so
much." She was like, "Honestly,
"our cheeks are still hurting."
I said, "Wow, thank you."
and her husband was like,
"We just love finding new people."
I was like, "Wow, thank you
so much," and they walked away,
a few people turned to look at me.
I thought, "Well,
"they're probably disappointed,
they don't recognise me,
they don't know who I am,"
and then I thought,
"No, that's not it at all, is it?
"It's because at no point
during that interaction
"did anybody mention
that I was a comedian."
So all that happened
was this couple approached me
over a hotel breakfast and said,
"You were amazing last night,
our cheeks are still hurting,
we love finding new people."
But of course the issue is there,
that the people there
Of course you can't tell from
looking at me I'm a comedian,
cos you can't judge someone just
by looking at them, can you?
I mean, you can, but you shouldn't.
But you can sometimes, can't you?
You know, like for example,
if you see a man over 55
with a ponytail
..you can make assumptions,
can't you?
Like he's either a magician
..or he knows karate.
You know one thing for sure
-
he's definitely divorced.
Like you shouldn't, but you can,
is my point.
But of course ultimately,
you can't.
You can't just judge someone
just by looking at them.
Like, you wouldn't know,
for example, from looking at me
that I've got epilepsy, would you?
Cos I haven't.
No, I do, don't worry, it's fine.
It's good news. I've got it.
In fact, fun fact for you,
I had my first
-ever seizure
during National Epileptic Week.
Which was fitting.
I'll tell you about the first
seizure I ever had.
Is that OK to do? Is that all right?
Thank you. I know sometimes people
get a bit funny
if people start talking about
health conditions.
I know some people don't like
to talk about their own ones.
I've got a friend called Paul.
He's got psoriasis. Doesn't like
to talk about it at all,
he'd rather just sweep it
under the carpet.
So, people are different.
Some big fans of psoriasis stuff
down here.
There's more if you want it.
Just scratching the surface.
But no, we'll move on.
One condition at a time.
Yeah. Sorry.
The, um
The first seizure I ever had,
it was my first year at university.
I was in Topshop, trying on
a pair of jeans in Topshop,
and I had no idea
that I had epilepsy.
I just went in there for the jeans,
fell to the floor, had a seizure.
I woke up, still in Topshop.
I had no idea what was going on.
I just woke up.
There was this bright light
and three women looking over me.
I thought I was in heaven.
And then one of them just went,
"Excuse me,"
she went,
"do you know what day it is?"
Now I didn't know that was a thing.
And I remember just thinking,
"Can you not ask someone else?"
It was like to me, this woman
had just walked into Topshop
and just gone, "What day is it?"
"I'll ask that guy there
on the floor.
"The one who's bleeding
from the mouth
"and appears to have wet himself
in a pair of jeans
"that he'll be forced to pay for,"
which was unacceptable.
I was glad when they went under.
Anyway, I had to go to the hospital,
and I went to see the doctor.
The first thing the doctor
said to me, he said,
"Is there epilepsy in your family?"
Which there is, I should say.
I've got two older sisters.
My older sister, Claire,
she's got epilepsy.
In fact, growing up,
my sisters used to share a bedroom,
and we've got Hayley,
my middle sister,
she's got really bad OCD, so every
time she leaves or enters a room
she has to turn the light switch
on and off about 12 to 16 times.
She shared a room with Claire,
who was epileptic,
and nobody did anything about that.
For five years, that went on.
Just, "Night"
"Oh, she's gone again!"
So he said, "It sounds like
you've probably got epilepsy."
He said, "What would happen
"This would've been your first
major seizure,
"but you've probably been having
a thing called absence seizures
"since you were about 14 years old.
"You'd have been blacking out
about five to 15 seconds
"and nobody must have noticed."
And I went, "Oh, right."
Then I went, "Hold on,
I'm not sure what little input
"I've been putting into
conversations"
"..that I've been blacking out
for up to 15 seconds
"for five years
without anybody noticing?!"
I was thinking about how I must have
been perceived at school,
cos I know one way I was perceived
at school, separate to this,
when I was in Year 10 one day, my
headmaster called me to his office,
he said, "Jake, we've got
two new students starting today,
"a brother and a sister.
"I thought it would be good
for you to show them around.
"I know you've got good experience
with the school.
"I know you've sort of
been bullied in the past"
and I went,
"I've never been bullied!"
And he went, "Really?"
That was my headmaster!
It's why I don't want children.
I just don't think I'd have
any authority over them whatsoever.
I've got a cat.
I think that's enough for me.
I've got a cat called
Richard Parker.
Any of you know the reference?
Named after the tiger
from Life of Pi.
Yeah, let everyone know
I've read a book.
..seen a film. But anyway, he's
All you can say about my cat,
he's only got one eye. He got shot.
He's fine. He can do the same as any
other cat, the only difference is
he's only got one eye.
So the only difference is
sometimes I can't tell which end
I'm looking at.
But other than that
he's the same as any other cat.
The reason I'm telling you this
is, I love it when other people
make mistakes, because it makes me
feel so good about myself,
because when he was at
the animal hospital,
I had to call up to check on him.
I called up, the receptionist
answered, and, er, I said,
"I just need to check on my cat."
She said, "OK,
what's the cat's name?"
I said, "It's Richard Parker,"
and she typed it into the system
and she went, "Oh We've actually
got two Richard Parkers
"with us today,"
and I said, "Well, mine's the one
with one eye."
And she said,
"Oh, they're both spelt the same."
It makes you feel good
about yourself, you know?
But I do, I like it when
other people make mistakes
because it makes me feel better,
because I make mistakes often.
Even going back to when
I first found out I had epilepsy.
I got put on this medication,
and I'd never been on any
prescription medication in my life.
I had no idea how it worked.
I remember I just went to
the chemist to pick it up
and I handed over the slip,
and the chemist came out later
with a box of medication.
He just went, "What's your name?"
and I said, "It's Jake Lambert,"
and he went,
"And what's your street name?"
I said, "Oh, people
just call me Jake."
Like, absolutely no idea.
Ladies and gentlemen, you've been
absolutely incredible.
This has been an absolute dream.
I've been Jake Lambert.
Thank you very much. Thank you!
Jake Lambert, everybody.
Are you ready for the next comedian?
Please welcome the one,
the only, Rachel Fairburn!
She Bangs The Drums
by The Stones Roses
Hello!
Oh, thank you.
What a lovely welcome!
Are you all all right?
I'm Rachel. I'm from Manchester.
Yeah, a few of you in.
The tickets WERE free. Lovely.
I live in London now,
and it's a difficult situation
as a northerner to live in London
and still be northern,
because what happens is,
you live in London, you live
in a multicultural area,
you've got a Polish community,
Caribbean community,
African community, but when I speak,
everyone's like, "Are you just
down 'ere for the weekend?"
"Have you got tickets
to see Phantom of the Opera?"
"Have you come down here to
seek your fortune?
"We don't need chimney sweeps
any more."
I go back to Manchester,
me family are like,
"Oh, remembered us, have ya?
"Think you're better than us,
do ya?" I'm like,
"Oh, my God, don't be so stupid.
I don't think I'm better than you.
"I KNOWI'm better than y
"I use cutlery."
"Just watched you eat a bowl of soup
"using the corner of
an Argos catalogue."
I'm a working
-class person.
Yeah, not many of us left.
I have a lot of middle
-class
friends, right,
and my middle
-class friends
know that I'm working
-class
because they call me things
like "salt of the earth".
We know what that means, don't we?
It means, "Oh, you're quite
articulate and intelligent
"for a deprived person."
"But please don't marry
into my family."
I notice differences about us,
you know?
There's differences between us,
me and my middle
-class friends.
Shopping, there's one instance.
Middle
-class people,
you get your shopping delivered.
Give me a cheer if you do that.
Oh, yeah
You get the shopping delivered. My
middle
-class mates are always like,
"Oh, yeah, it's literally so easy.
You just, like literally,
"press a button and the shopping
just appears at your door.
"It's totally amazing. And what I do
is I give the driver like £10,
"and what he does is
he puts it in my cupboard,
because I can't because of my"
I'm like, "Your bad back?"
"No, my sense of entitlement."
Working
-class people, we go to the
shops, we bring the shopping back.
My earliest memories are going
to the supermarket in all weathers,
carrying the entire week's shopping
back with my mother.
A trip to Asda should not evoke
the words of World w*r I poet
Wilfred Owen.
You know the poem I mean? That one.
"Bent double, like old beggars"
"..under sacks, knock
-kneed,
coughing, like hags."
Your mum's screaming at you,
"What are you coughing for there?
You not got your inhaler?
"Cos I'm telling you now, if that
Viennetta melts, I'll batter ya."
Carrying all that shopping.
Do you know what?
There's donkeys in sanctuaries that
have had easier lives than me.
We spend money as well,
working
-class people.
We love spending money.
We love spending money!
As soon as we get it
..get rid of it.
Don't talk about it, spend it.
And this is ancestral.
I'm telling you, right?
I know that my ancestors
were probably like,
"Right, we've been paid.
"Tomorrow we might die of cholera
under a spinning jenny."
"Let's go to the pub."
My middle
-class mates
do not spend money, right?
You do not spend money, and I've
noticed it. Especially if you live
in a city that people want to visit,
right, and you have a spare room,
don't tell anyone
that's middle
-class.
In fact, brick it up.
Because what happens is,
they want a weekend away,
and they find out about
the spare room,
and the messages come pinging in.
"How are you?"
What do you want?
You notice the last messages
between you were 18 months ago,
when you were lying about
having to self
-isolate.
I miss those days, do you?
Oh, the weddings and birthdays
I missed!
Now if you say you've got Covid,
you're just a liar and a coward.
But the messages come in,
and cos I'm salt of the earth,
I can't say no.
I can't say no. I let these people
stay at my house, right?
And the problem is,
I hate people staying at my house.
It upsets me.
It upsets my equilibrium, right,
because I have obsessive
compulsive disorder.
I have OCD. I have it officially,
and not fashionably.
I have an actual diagnosis,
and when people come to your house
and they start staying, right, what
happens is they change the rules.
They start making their own rules
around your life.
"Shall we go out for breakfast?"
No.
I live here.
My food is in the cupboard.
I have to have Corn Flakes at 7am
every day for the rest of my life.
If I don't, my family dies.
That's how OCD works.
And I don't like it cos people have
bits that fall off and out of them,
do you know what I mean?
They're going around their lives,
like, their daily lives,
and there's bit of skin,
bits of hair, bits of nails
falling off them,
farts out the back.
Unwanted opinions out the front.
I don't like it.
There's rules. If you want to stay,
I think it's fair
for me to say to you,
"If you want to stay at my house,
you've got to shave off
"all your body hair
"..and I mean all of it
"..and wrap yourself in clingfilm.
"If you want to use the toilet,
there is a pub down the road."
Cos my mates are always talking,
always talking,
the middle
-class mates, always
talking, telling you everything.
They like to talk about their mental
health, not got a problem with that.
I just mentioned my OCD.
That's absolutely fine, you know,
not got a problem with it. But they
tell you too much, you know?
Always telling you too much.
One of my mates said to me the other
day, she went, "I just feel
"I just feel like I've got nothing
to get up for in the morning."
I was like, "Oh, my God,
why are you crying?
"I'd love to feel like that."
I'd love to open my eyes
in the morning, go,
"Brilliant, nobody needs me.
"Anything that happens today
can happen without me."
I would be absolutely over the moon.
I'm like, "God, stop crying, mate.
"Let's go to Alton Towers."
People tell you everything, though,
now.
Strangers tell you things now,
right? Too many things.
People talk about sex too much,
far too much for my liking.
Listen, I'm not a prude, either.
I've done a**l with an Australian.
It was a misunderstanding, to be
fair. When he asked if I fancied
the bush or the outback,
I thought he meant a day trip.
Weirdly, that's what
it sounded like.
They say too much, though.
I met someone the other week,
never met this person before,
a stranger, right?
A stranger, right, within
three minutes of talking to me
had told me that
they were polyamorous.
Right? I'm not interested.
I was like, "Mate, you do you,
"and everyone else,
by the sounds of it.
"I don't care," right?
And then you get accused of
kink
-shaming,
cos you say you're not interested.
I'm not shaming your kink.
I don't care about it.
You can tell me what you want,
but I've got the right
to think you're a weirdo.
I was talking to a very posh girl
recently, and she said to me
"Oh, yeah, so I'm
literally just trying to find, um,
"I'm literally on the lookout for,
um, like, um,
"environmentally
eco
-friendly sex toys."
I was like, surely
..the remedy is literally
in your own hand.
Then she said to me, "I've actually
found
- really interesting,
"actually, I've found
a zero
-waste dildo."
I was like, "A zero
-waste dildo?
Is that not just a baguette?"
Maybe it's the way I carry them back
from the shops, I'm not sure.
I do love my middle
-class friends,
though, I do,
but I like my working
-class friends
more, right,
cos I've known them longer
and they're more down
-to
-earth.
It's a group of girls that,
you know, you meet them
for Sunday lunch, and you wake up
and it's Wednesday in Ibiza.
You know where you are
with these people, you know.
We've got WhatsApp groups.
I guess we're all in WhatsApp
groups, aren't we?
I love the WhatsApp groups
with my mates, you know,
things like they're called Girlies
and Prosecco Time.
And for every one of those groups,
I'm in a spin
-off one
called Leanne's A b*tch.
Cos that's what we do, women.
We're good people, you know,
we take our bitching elsewhere.
Men, I don't know
what's wrong with you.
I've seen your WhatsApp groups.
If people haven't seen
a man's WhatsApp group,
let me explain them to you.
There'll be a bit of chat
about football, a bit of banter
about what they're doing that
evening, and then, for no reason,
out of the blue, a video of a man
bumming a dog
..falling off a building.
You people are in charge
of the world.
No wonder it's such a bloody mess.
My mates are growing up a bit now.
They're getting quite, you know,
serious about life.
They're getting married,
they're having kids.
I still feel very immature because
when my friends, you know, tell me
they're pregnant, I'm like,
"Oh, my God, have you told your mum?
"She's well going to shout,
in't she?"
And it still seems a very grown
-up
thing to me, you know.
As I say, they're having kids.
They're getting dogs.
They're having rescue dogs,
cos everything's got to be vintage.
Adopting these dogs, right?
One of my mates is adopting a dog
rescued from the meat trade
in China.
It's called Cupcake.
Don't make it sound delicious!
Gives you information about the dog,
right?
The dog says things like,
"I'd like to live in a house
"rather than a flat
and have access to a garden."
Wouldn't we all, Cupcake?
Nobody gets the dogs I had
growing up.
You know the dogs,
the working
-class dogs,
the dogs that look like
your dad's mates.
The dogs that look like
they should be
leaning out of a window
of a white van
..shouting, "Nice t*ts!"
Nobody gets those dogs any more.
I think we're too, er
We take dogs in too many places now.
I know we're a nation of dog lovers,
but we take them everywhere.
You know, there's dogs in shops
This is what annoys me, right?
It's normal dogs that are allowed in
everywhere because they don't have
respect for the assistance dogs,
you know, those brave dogs,
the dogs that have trained to help
the human
-
the guide dogs, the hearing dogs,
the seizure detection dogs.
Not those dogs
that can sniff cancer, though.
I don't like those dogs.
They bring the mood down.
I honestly thought it was every dog
that could sniff cancer.
I was going round for years thinking
I had cancer of the clitoris.
And on that note, thank you so much
for listening.
See you later. Thank you!
Rachel Fairburn, everyone.
Have you had a good night tonight?
So let's hear it again for the acts
we've seen tonight.
We've seen Jake Lambert
..we've seen Rachel Fairburn
..and obviously we've seen
man like
..South London's finest.
Thank you all. God bless.
Goodnight. Croydon running tings.
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