Oh! Suits you, sir! Suits you, sir! Were you out with a lady, sir?
Oh! Did she want it, sir? Did she? Suits you, sir. Suits you.
This programme contains some strong language.
They often say, "Suit you, sir."
I'm like, "It's nothing to do with me!"
That phrase "suits you, sir" is in the lexicon of the language.
I like the two guys in the shop.
There's a shop called Suits You.
Oh! Ooh! Oh, sir!
"Oh!" What's funny about that?
There was a bloke who worked at Hackney Council who was like that.
He did used to go, "Hello, sir. How are you?" "All right. How are you?"
"Radiant. Were you out with a lady?
"Did she want it? Oh! Suits you!" So, we...
Just stolen.. ..stole it and made him a tailor and put Mark Williams in.
It's normally me and Paul talking filth to anybody who'll have it.
It's a licence to be disgusting.
Oh! Picture you now, sir, strolling through the park,
your cream suit fresh, crisp, flowing beautifully
as you push your lady wife against a tree
and give her a jolly good seeing-to. What did you say there?
Give her a jolly good seeing-to. Is there a problem?
Yeah, there is a problem!
Why? Doesn't the lady want it, sir? Have you tried tying her up, sir?
Oh! Suits you!
Paul first come up with the Suit You characters for Harry.
I don't know why, but I don't think Harry got it or liked it.
Bloody "suits you, sir" all the time!
Paul is relentless about these things.
"Suits you, sir," all the bloody time, and I never found it funny.
When I first read that, I went, "This is just Monty Python.
"Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink. Croydon."
And it became the most successful character
in the series so it shows how much I know.
People ask me what I do and I say, "I'm a tailor in Savile Row."
And they say, "Oh! Suits you, sir!"
And, after a while, it can,
you know, get on your nerves a little bit.
He's probably being quite sneaky, Paul, creating all these characters.
If Harry didn't like them, he'd put it on the back burner, use it later.
I'll make a few thousand pound out of that one meself.
Most of my friends think that I float around going, "Oh, sir!
"Suits you. That's fantastic, sir!"
How many times have you said, "Oh!" on camera?
Well, this is my big opportunity!
Ever been to a cockfight, sir? Hm?
Two proud cocks, in peak condition, advancing menacingly,
erect, ready to do battle.
Brutal, sir. Brutal, but strangely compelling.
They never give up, sir. Suits you, sir. Suits you.
There were lots of characters like that, they'd come up with.
I'd go, "No, no," cos I was the boss.
"No, Paul. No." "No, Charlie. No."
Charlie, could you do your standard answer
about how we engendered The Fast Show?
We never intended to be Harry Enfield's writers full-time.
It was just a job we were doing at the time.
While we were working on Harry Enfield's Television Programme,
we came up with some characters who,
for one reason or another, were not suitable for the show.
Either they didn't feature Harry... Or weren't funny.
Or he didn't find them funny. Or they weren't funny.
We had a press preview for my second series,
and...Geoff Posner, who directed it,
had cut together a five-minute version of the first half-hour show.
And we enjoyed it, didn't we?
We thought it was funnier than the show. On...catchphrase...off.
We were surprised at how well the characters worked.
We were on...catchphrase...joke...off.
Brillia-a-a-a-a-ant!
Thus was born The Fast Show. The great...
..fucking Fast Show!
I thought, "They can go and spread their wings.
"All right, they're little upstarts. I invented them.
"I found you on a skip in Hackney.
"Do your show. No-one will notice it and you'll come grovelling back."
Cap in hand. Bent over like this.
"We must learn from you, Harry." I thought!
But then they hitched up with some talented people.
And look what happened.
Paul would come and see me perform at various stand-up places and say,
"We'll do a show one day. Loads of little sketches. Very quick."
Then he came back three years later, and the rest is history.
I think, I HOPE, Paul and Charlie thought I was funny,
so they asked me to write some stuff,
and I did and it grew from there.
I like the idea of using how much more visually literate people were -
the whole idea of it being fast and just using the important parts
of sketches rather than great preambles.
I knew when I read it that it was just quality.
Caroline had worked with John and Simon a lot.
And someone who I'd seen on the circuit who was brilliant.
I'm Sister Mary Immaculate. A lot of people ask me,
"What is heaven?" I say,
"If, on Earth, you only have one leg, in heaven, you'll have two.
"If, on Earth, you're ugly, in heaven, you'll be beautiful."
So it's great news for that girl there.
When we were writing the first series,
we were less sure of who was going to do what.
We knew Paul's characters, but others we didn't know.
Andy the Affair Man was Paul and Charlie's character,
and it was the first bit of filming I did for The Fast Show ever.
Andy, Christine is joining us in Accounts. It's her first day. Hello.
Look, Christine, forget it. It's over.
People said it came out well because I was so nervous.
Ted, I don't really know how to say this without hurting you.
I'm very flattered, but I'm just not gay.
If you look at me on film, you'll see the young boy with cheekbones,
huge head of hair, twinkle in his eye.
And this jaded, old fool you see now, three series down the line.
Paul and Charlie said,
"Do someone who's like you. Insecure and neurotic."
Does my bum look big in this?
She was on a ledge with someone who was trying to commit suicide.
And she was going, "Everyone down there is thinking, 'Does she look FAT in those shoes!'"
And the guy jumps to get away from her.
Everybody's characters work because they've got to have another twist.
It's funny man with very strange preoccupation in weird set-up.
..Which was nice.
Actually, Nice was Nick Coleman who was...
..talking to me about middle-aged actors who say,
"Then I did a telly, which was nice."
And I said, "I'm nicking that. I'm having that catchphrase."
But then he turned into an Eldridge Prior. He just lied. Or did he?
I was rummaging around in the attic
and I found the original copy of the Bible...which was nice.
There's bound to be something you'll like in it.
All the characters are based on people you can see anywhere.
Ron Manager, they'll be debating that one in Luton for some time.
Good first half, wasn't it? A lot of intelligent running for the ball,
marred only by crowd disturbances.
Does alcohol have a part to play?
It certainly does in my life, especially at Christmas.
Ron Manager is based on a bloke called Alex Stock,
who's an old manager.
He managed Luton, Fulham...
I was talking to someone yesterday, and he's now at Yeovil Town.
Well, it's like VE Day, isn't it?
They've got the streets decorated.
The kids are coming for the jellies and blancmanges.
They're getting the joanna and the beer out later on.
In his heyday, he would always answer a question with a question.
"So what do you think of the first half, Alex?" "First half, isn't it?
"Ball knocked about, wasn't it?"
Far cry from small boys in the park,
jumpers for goalposts, mortal fear of parkie. Who can blame them? Mm?
Because it's what I used to do -
play football in the park as a boy, with jumpers for goalposts.
Anyway, we made him mad.
Like most of them. They can go off into flights of fancy.
"Wasps are frightening - especially in the car. My wife's left me."
Paul's the one who's effusive and lots of ideas and lots of lines.
Charlie's the disciplined one.
He goes, "Yeah. No. Structurally, that will work with that."
Just sits there, doesn't laugh. "Yeah, that's funny."
Paul and Charlie are like the perfect boss split in two.
Paul's everyone's mate and Charlie's just a grumpy old so-and-so.
Good cop, bad cop.
You've always got to be careful of the nice one. Know what I mean?
We met in 1977 in Norwich at the University of East Anglia.
1977! Yes, we were both punk rockers.
Student punks! And we've kept this far apart ever since.
When did we first meet Paul and Charlie? You met Charlie years ago.
I met him 20 years ago in Norwich, and he used to flounce about in...
This is what Charlie USED to wear and what I've modelled myself on.
He used to flounce about Norwich in clothes like this.
He was gorgeous then. The hunk of Norwich.
He was called Switch Higson. Bless him.
What did you call yourself? I called myself Switch.
I was young! Hey! I had bleached hair.
I was frightened of him. You know, I was sort of 16.
Charlie was 19 and lived with a girl!
I don't remember him!
Just some little squit sleeping on someone's floor! He's bald now.
He was in his own group called the Higsons.
# ..Hold me back. Gangway
# Get out of my way
# Journalists and moralists and businessmen
# Us poor devils in the zoo... #
We had three albums and a number of singles.
Hardly a "frustrated" pop star...so much as a pop star! Well...
Remove star. Remove star. A pop, really! A pop performer.
No, but it's a young person's thing.
Comedy's an old, middle-aged man's game? I think it is, actually!
I started writing with Paul and Charlie in '87.
Um, I invented them because they... Charlie had...
The Higsons had stopped, I think, by then and Paul...
I really wanted to write with Paul.
Harry got me to write with him, and I employed Charlie as my armed wing
so that I could pretend to be nice.
I said, "Will you write?" Paul said,
"Only if Charlie does it, otherwise I won't get up in the morning."
Welc, every chappies!
I'm a-feeling really frustrated this week. Really, really frustrated!
Can you guess why? That's right. I really want to give myself one.
Oh, no! Stop the mess about! I mean a fag!
If I'd known that they'd get uppity,
when I first hired them for me for nothing,
that they would get so big for their boots and start demanding money
and then go on to be... these rather ludicrous cult figures,
I never, never would have let it happen!
I think The Fast Show is complete and utter bollocks! I like it a lot.
It's one of those reviews I wake up in the night sweating about.
When I first saw The Fast Show, I thought it was atrocious -
ill-conceived, badly performed, badly scripted. Gibberish.
It's the context that's important.
And the idea I didn't get about The Fast Show
was the cutting out of the context.
So you're just left with someone saying, "Suits you, sir."
Just before it went out, I did a couple of interviews with Time Out.
I remember thinking, "Oh, my God!"
I was recalling what sketches were in the first episode and thinking,
"Was it too laddish?" I had a few moments thinking,
"Whitehouse fails to excel in weak sketch show."
"We find the defendant guilty of co-writing and starring in the most dazzlingly awful comic sketch show.
"You have to go to Russ Abbot's show for anything comparable."
So there it is. You can't argue with that.
There it is in black and white.
It's not something that gives me any tremendous professional pride.
What am I meant to say? What are you asking me to say?!
I said The Fast Show was like a fart.
It makes you laugh, but isn't intrinsically funny.
It did what we wanted,
which was build up a big swell of underground support. Did it?
People started saying, "Oh, you must watch this."
"But the first one was rubbish!" "You have to watch more."
And then it's rewarding? You are rewarded with toffees and nuts.
A fast show with lots of sketches is a good idea.
And when they do have a remarkably high quality throughout...
There have been quite a few shows since, what they call broken comedy,
little sketch shows,
which, I don't think, have achieved the same success rate.
I think one of the reasons the show worked was that,
because there was a large group of people involved in it
on a writing/performing level,
the self-editing process was very strict.
Mark Williams makes up a lot of his own characters.
Usually from talking to small children.
He DOES talk to too many small children.
If it didn't make us laugh, then it wasn't working.
Everybody accepted that very quickly.
This week, I have been mostly eating bourbon biscuits.
I'd been to New York and I came back and I'd got a really nasty bug.
I was in the flat and all I could do was drag myself out
every now and again to get something to eat.
I was just buying pre-cooked chicken.
I was thinking, "This week, I have been mostly eating chicken."
Mark hadn't written comedy, so he was nervous. He got a lot of stick.
Paul would be, "Actor? I'm a comedian. I do acting AND comedy."
When I show Paul and Charlie my material, they don't take prisoners.
They just go, "No. No. Why do you think this is funny? That's good."
But that's my relationship with them.
Someone would have written a character and start doing it.
It was tough. You had to be funny. Paul would go, "What's the joke?"
Charlie's hard as nails.
He'd go, "Yes. Well, it's a copy of so-and-so," and just deflate you.
You had to get it past the panel, which was all the others.
I mainly came up with Girl Who Boys Can't Hear
from Fast Show rehearsals.
I just sit there and everybody ignores me.
You a member of the AA?
No. I know what to do.
Get a tennis ball, cut it in half,
put it over the lock, hit it and the air pressure forces the lock up.
There's a sports shop round the corner.
I got it! I know!
You want to get a tennis ball, cut it in half,
put it over the lock, tap it
and the air pressure pops the lock up. There's a sports shop there.
Problem solved. I tell you what, though...
Can any of you actually hear me?
Simon admitted it, "It's a good character. It's us lot, isn't it?"
I did a Billy Bleach sketch about golf.
I wanted to make a comment about racism in America.
At the end... Before I went on, Paul came and..."Say this."
It was about Tiger Woods. He's mixed race - part Vietnamese,
part Dutch, part American, part white.
Afro-American, that's his natural grace for his driving, right?
The Vietnamese for when he's in the rough. You got me? All the jungles.
The Dutch makes him laid-back for temperament.
The white man in him means he can get on the course in the first place.
And he came up with that.
One shouldn't underestimate the contribution of Simon Day,
John Thomson and Arabella.
Somehow, their characters leaven it out.
I love Competitive Dad.
I don't do very much in that except for go, "What a twat!"
Come on, boys, pick a bat...stumps...
..balls and score pad and pen. You can get that.
Right, come on. Chop, chop!
I noticed dads with their kids.
I was in a swimming pool once and a dad was there with two small kids -
one was a baby, one was very young.
And he was saying, "Would you like a race?" And they said,
"Yeah, Dad!" I assumed he'd let them win.
He took off and hammered across the pool and then waited, going...
And the kids... One of the kids
was drowning, swallowing water and coming up again.
And the older kid beat the kid with water wings
and that was a triumph for him. He took the dad's lead.
The dad was... He was genuinely pleased.
Toby, over here! Your mother will adjudicate. ..Right, then...
No, no! Underarm. Easier for you.
Just get my sights. Thank you. Away we go.
Three...four...five...
..24...25...26.
26 of the Queen's runs.
Loads of dads have come up and said, "You've done me up!"
38...39... 1,040!
Was it on telly? Yeah.
I first met Paul and Charlie when they worked for Harry.
I was starting a project called One Hour With Jonathan Ross.
Myself, Paul and Charlie, and Vic and Bob were part of a game show
called Knockdown Ginger, which was quite crap, really.
People from the audience would go
and knock on doors and various funny characters... Humorous characters.
..would open the door and ask them a question.
Half-arsed bollocks. But great fun to do.
It was very basic, but effective.
It's funny and you're laughing, but you don't know why.
Charlie was very quiet. Couldn't work him out at all, really.
He kept himself to himself.
But Paul I liked immediately. I did like Charlie, but he was just quiet.
But Paul was very funny.
OK, another door. Five. Number five.
It's Mike Smash, the DJ!
Hi, kids! Mike Smash. Radio Fab's most flip-flap, flobadobadopolus DJ.
AUDIENCE CHEER
I did Mike Smash, Britain's most poptastic DJ, for the first time
on that programme. History was made.
What did Bob Mortimer say?
"Paul, that Mike fuckin' Smash is fuckin' terrible!"
They wanted to do their own sketch.
Paul was doing stuff with Harry, and Charlie had done a lot with us.
Swiss Toni was created by Vic and Bob - Smell of Reeves and Mortimer.
My favourite character's Swiss Toni.
When you're selling a car to a man,
it all comes down to who's got the biggest todger.
You have to make him think that his is bigger,
but you have to KNOW that yours is the biggest.
You have to tell yourself, "I've got the biggest todger in the world!"
I've got the biggest todger in the world. It's not as big as mine.
The voice was based on my feeble attempt to do Sean Connery.
Swiss Toni is everywhere. You think he's an overdrawn stereotype,
but I know a thousand Swiss Tonis.
Do I find you reading a book, Paul?
Sorry, Swiss, there were no customers. I'm going camping.
Putting up a tent is very much like making love to a beautiful woman.
Unzip the door, put up your pole and slip into the old bag.
My favourite character to play - Jazz Man.
I had no idea how popular he'd be. It's just a joy to do.
Hello and welcome back to Jazz Club.
Nice. Tonight, dinner jazz.
He's a cross between Whispering Bob Harris and Roger Moore.
Hello. Welcome to Whistle Test.
Mm. Mellow.
We're very pleased to have on the show the most popular exponent
of dinner jazz working in America -
Stepney Green with the New Headhunters.
Great.
It's not the original Headhunters line-up, of course.
How could anyone replace the late, legendary Charlie "The Bulb" Robson?
The new drummer - Mint Green - under the tuition of his brother Soilant
is...really quite good.
I remember getting on a train...
..going to the butty wagon part of the train,
walking through the thing,
and kids went, "It's him. Jazz Man."
I got me sandwiches, came back and they went,
"Mm. Nice." And I went, "Great." And they went, "Wa-hey!"
And I made their day! It was great!
Really great!
I think that's slightly ironic, actually.
People are coming up to HIM to say to him
things that I used to say as an aside. There's an irony in that.
Lovely. Great. Amazing. Really nice.
People see me and go... And there's no catchphrase they can think of.
They now say, "There's someone sitting there,"
cos I managed to come up with one catchphrase.
Someone sitting there, mate.
You ain't seen me. Right?
I was standing on Clapham Junction and this train pulled in.
I was stood where the driver was and he just went... And drove off.
Characters that The Fast Show would take the piss out of
do characters from The Fast Show. People can't recognise themselves.
I'm a alien! I'm a alien!
Are you really, Colin? I'm a alien.
Did you watch it last night? Watch what? I'm A Alien.
On BBC Two. No, I don't watch it.
It's the best sketch show for years!
I think there's a lot of Colin Hunts in offices enacting The Fast Show,
so we did that sketch where he tries to enact his favourite sketch.
Bonjour, Monsieur!
Like I say, I watched the other side, a programme about beetles.
It's really good.
They've got these massive antlers and they fight each other...
Is that...? Piss off, Colin!
I liked the foreign television bit where they all spoke nonsense,
which was, um, actually, the bit that was closest to being satire.
"Chanel 9, that is just shit. That's just kids mucking about."
Now it really makes me laugh.
At the time I thought, "What's funny?"
Republika presente doctor a mia cas desela Chanel 9!
Bono estente. Bono estente.
Lacrimos esputa e fallio ming!
Deputo poco rich a wich. Catandra millio Patagonia.
Chanel 9 was supposed to be every foreign country.
Welsh. Swedish, German. Greek, cos I did Greek at school.
Aknopo dopera fila Whiskas fulla meaty goodness.
Charlie wanted breast nudity in every Chanel 9 sketch. I argued...
How can you parody a programme, yet not make it as extreme...? Rubbish!
# O TV gizmo! #
You weren't on some moral crusade!
You wanted to see some tits.
No. Yes. That was a small part of it.
When we get the girls in that are doing the odd sketch -
the bustier, prettier girls -
it's like being in a boys' changing room. They're all...
Ribena.
Lantinato adios ton Wonderbra favore.
El Presidente!
They're caught between, "I'm a comedian. I should know better."
And, "Have you seen the tits on that?!"
Chris Waddle. Skopolos e mia cantathos enzyme scandabroad.
The guy I was rooming with went, "Did you hear that?!"
And I went, "I did. Was it me?" Then the photo came up.
Fallia hella, fallia hella, fallia hellay, fallia hellay. Chris Waddle.
And it kept going on.
Psshit la grados Chris Waddle. Week after week, it continued.
# Chris Waddle
# Chris Waddle... #
People were saying, "Why do The Fast Show keep saying your name?"
We liked the idea on Chanel 9 that, occasionally, English words pop out.
He was keen on the Welsh thing.
The Welsh language is ich ha deroch chinty top of the wardrobe.
Ich harno dich clercha remove the brickwork.
Begara ach tochi lech Margaret Thatcher.
You think, "Let's think of an English name to put in,"
and you come up with Chris Waddle.
Then you think, "Wouldn't it be funny to keep repeating it?"
In the end, it may look like a joke.
# Chris Waddle
# Riva-a-ar bara me... #
I want to give you a word, let you try it on for size. It's naturism.
Now, today, I'm wearing a simple thong -
there might be kids or old people watching.
Normally, at this time of day, I'd be au naturel -
stark bollock naked. Now...
LAUGHTER
Who's worst fluffing their lines? I would say me. Me and John. But me.
If you're interested in naturism, write to Dave Angel... Oh, sorry!
John did a spectacular performance on Denzil Dexter. He did.
It was John's character, but didn't we write...? We wrote...
I've got a skull, I think, and I go, 'The mind is a powerful tool...'
And it's take... 'But we have not yet begun...'
..after take... 'But we have not yet begun to tap into its awesome potential...'
..after take. 'Shit! Sorry.'
The human mind was not an incredible thing that day,
and I was, quite frankly, rubbish.
I'll go back over here and do it again cos I am a turkey.
The mind is a powerful tool. We have not...
We have not yet begun to tep... Tep?
But we have not... Argh! What do you think of the show so far?
I remember Charlie and Ian wrote down the words on an idiot board
and they held it up like that.
And it said, "I am a c...!" Argh!
Rowley Birkin is my absolute favourite. I'd like that...
I wish, you know, I wish I had that.
Cairo!!! HIGH-PITCHED SQUEAL
Brrrr! Hi pes deriadara, rushing through the...
Almost everybody I remember at school's father was like that!
I quite liked him, but I liked him ONCE.
I first met Paul, fishing in Iceland...
..um...'94/5.
Rowley's based on a guy you went fishing with. Yeah, we were fishing.
Lovely river...hubbling and bubbling.
The New Lodge looks both ways.
You can look up the river or down the river.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS
Pere...a poisonous monkey.
They come zooming in on you to sting you and they stop about an inch off,
fly away again and we don't get stung.
Felt...and I...sudden... "Snake! Snake!" Argh! Bewrwrww.
I-I-I had a dram or two, but I don't think more than that.
I was never conscious of anybody being drunk.
I freely admit that I was very... very drunk.
My favourite characters in the whole show would have to be Ted and Ralph.
Yeah, it would have to be Ted and Ralph because it's just so sweet
and so mad and so weird and so many different levels to it.
We used to get the scripts and we'd read them, and you'd go through them and say what you think.
Mark always went, "Can I do that?" But when we saw Ralph and Ted, me and John were, "Can we do this?"
We both did it. And they went, "No, that's ours."
This odd relationship, unrequited love -
at least I assume it's unrequited.
It's unrequited love, which will not be bound by class or sexual alignment, which has to break out.
It's almost reciprocated in a touching sort of way.
They'll hate me for saying this, but it's verging on the profound.
VOICE ECHOES: Ralph. Ralph.
Ralph!
Sorry, Clive, what were you saying?
Ted and Ralph were created by Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews who write Father Ted and Big Train.
Before they were famous and too busy to work with us, they gave us ideas.
I thought I was putting on a British accent, "Hello, there."
And Paul just heard, "Hello, dere!"
Which is why... Why he ended up... Why I did him with an Irish accent! "Oh, well, I'll do him Irish!"
Get a move on, you silly little man. I'm sorry, sir, the dog was slow. Don't you blame my dog! Sorry, sir.
I beg your pardon? Sorry, sir. Oh, begorra! He's a bloody bog trotter!
A long way from home, aren't we, Paddy?
HE MUMBLES
What did you say? Nothing, sir.
HE MUMBLES What?
Clive, look! They've startled some birds. Ah, too... They've gone.
There was a good chance Ted and Ralph would have been chucked out.
But they stuck with it. Even when audiences were a tiny bit puzzled.
It was very brave of them.
Are you doing anything on Friday, Ted?
Well, er, there's plenty to do down in the lower field, sir.
No, you misunderstand me. I did mean...in the evening.
It's just I have, er, a couple of tickets for Tina...Turner.
Oh, right, sir.
Do you like Tina Turner, Ted? I wouldn't know about that, sir.
No, no.
I thought, "Charlie's a brilliant actor!" It's the first time I was aware of it.
I think he's fantastic in Ted and Ralph. Paul is as well, but Charlie is the revelation.
I'm very fond of Ted and Ralph,
mainly because it was the first big character I'd ever done on the telly and...
I did it very well!
I enjoyed doing it and I remember looking at it, thinking, "It's all right. Maybe I can do this."
He has been a popular character and he's good fun to do.
But I like all of them. I like other people's characters too. Do you? No.
Best sketch of the last ten years is...
the Ted and Ralph...potato, tomato... your wife...
"No, sir, play the game."
My favourite sketch is when he gets involved in this drinking game.
Ted, really...
Tomato, here's, aubergine, your, potato, drinks. We've got a new nominee!
This is a private matter... ALL: Gong!
Er, tomato, it's, aubergine, a...
potato, private, turnip, matter.
You've got the hang of it now! That's right. Go on, sir.
Tomato, Ted,
aubergine, your,
potato, wife's, turnip, dead.
Sorry. I mean...tomato, sorry.
It was a very dull process for me, filming Ted and Ralph.
That's all I do. "Sir."
I like the end product, but I found the filming of it very dull.
..But I'm a professional. I'm sure I never gave it away!
I was so engrossed in my own performance, I never noticed you.
It was absolutely marvellous when Paul won the BAFTA and not me.
I'd trained him for years and, finally...
It was a bit like Elsa the lion. ..there was Paul getting the award and not me. I was overjoyed.
Paul Whitehouse for The Fast Show!
..Ta.
Sorry, Harry. We... I did feel very, very sorry for him.
His sad little face. I know. And Lucy, his beautiful wife, dressed up.
He'd worked so hard for many years on his television stuff.
Actually, I never thought he was that good after I stopped working with him. ..Mm.
Due to the nature of the characters and the way they have entered people's lives,
the way the catchphrases are a part of people's lives, it is, I suppose, the Python of its generation.
The trick is that it's so fast, you don't have time to think,
"This is bollocks." Then you realise it isn't.
It's deconstructed humour. It just comes all the way down just to... let's just cut to the ejaculation.
I think the main reason it became a hit was it's very, very good. And we're very, very good in it.
And people slowly came to that understanding. "They're very good!
"I thought they were bad, but, actually, they're very good!"
I think it's the best job in the world, so it's not hard. We get on AND have a laugh.
Yeah, we all make each other laugh, immoderately.
Sometimes the atmosphere can be quite hairy,
and sometimes it's a real laugh. It's like school, really.
End of series three... was the best moment.
Just getting away from those sad, tired faces.
Big, daft character who comes on with the funny wig and shouts,
"Arse!" Yeah! That's all it is!
Arse!
Put on a wig or a 'tache, say a word and get off.
Ed Winchester - it was a tragedy.
We don't really discuss him.
I don't know why they used it.
I can't say.
Paul won't like that.
It was just that we didn't want to use him.
Nothing to do with any of the other stuff that didn't happen.