This programme contains some strong language
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Merry Christmas and welcome to QI, where we're
snowed in on a silent night and wishing you season's greetings.
A lowly shepherd, Sally Phillips.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
A wise woman, Bonnie Langford.
Thank you.
An immaculate virgin, Joe Lycett.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And in keeping with tradition, Alan Davies.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Let's hear their adorable acting.
Joe goes...
PIANO INTERLUDE
CHILD: We must go to Bethlehem on a donkey.
LAUGHTER
Sally goes...
PIANO INTERLUDE
CHILD: I was just washing my socks when an angel suddenly appeared!
Bonnie goes...
CHILD: Behold, I bring you fra... fra...frank...frank...
..frankin...cense. Frank...
Behold, I bring you gold!
Alan goes...
MANDY COHEN: Now, you listen here!
He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!
LAUGHTER, LIGHT APPLAUSE
All right, based on what you are wearing,
who's probably going to win tonight's show?
Joe. Hmm? Joe? Why?
Because he's Mary and Mary is the star of the show.
Well, actually, you have got it right.
That is right, but why do you think that might be?
Cos I'm so clever and gorgeous!
Well, I present a religious show on Sunday morning,
so I know that there was a piece of research that tried to map
the parts that people played in the school nativity with lifetime
success, but I can't remember who came out best.
So, they did survey in 2019 and
they asked 2,000 people what parts they had as children
and then they had a look at their lives and see how it worked out.
Now, people who'd played oxen ended up earning the most. No! Yes.
So, twice as much on average as those people who played lambs
or sheep, OK? Wow.
Marys - most likely to be content with their adult life,
with Josephs coming second.
Mary also had the most social media friends.
So, the most popular, OK?
@JoeLycett, if you want to follow me.
The person with the fewest social media friends, the narrator.
Way behind. Narrators are just always annoying, aren't they? Yeah.
And narrator most likely to work in education and enjoy horse riding.
I mean, what are the chances of these things?
The donkey - most likely to work in IT
and do gardening and enjoy puzzles.
The Angel Gabriel - most likely to work in marketing
and communications.
What were you in the nativity?
I... Well, I was the star, and when I say that,
I don't mean I had the main part.
I played the actual star. Aww! Aww!
I just wore a twinkly headband and appeared over the stable like that.
Aw, sweet!
It sounds slightly creepy. Yeah. Rarrrgh!
I think it is a bit creepy.
You know, it wasn't actually a star.
What? I'm just going to say it, it was Uranus, Sandy.
Hurray!
Wasn't it two planets close together, isn't that the theory?
Yes, absolutely. It's an unusual occurrence, isn't it?
But if Joe is Mary, you are more likely to win the show,
partly because Mary earns more than the average,
so, about £39,000 a year, whereas the angels, about 25, wise men,
about 26, shepherds, 29, and has the most social media friends,
so, likely to be the most content, therefore likely to be
the luckiest, therefore most likely to win the show.
The trouble is all these parents now going to the Nativity,
looking at it and going, "Oh, no, they're a shepherd, they're
"going to be useless now, they'll have no career, no life, nothing."
"I'll be very happy in marketing!"
Can we just admire the set, which I think does look...
Beautiful. It's amazing. Beautiful. Amazing.
This might very well be illegal in France. Why would that be?
Cos it's covered in cocaine!
Is it cos there's a fire risk of candles near hay? No.
It's about depictions of the nativity.
It's illegal to display them in public places if it
demonstrates a public recognition or preference for a specific religion.
So, the only way you can get round the law is by proving that it has
some cultural, artistic or festive significance.
It can't have religious significance, it's not allowed.
So, some mayors have protested about this in France.
In January 2021, the mayor of Beaucaire, which is
in Provence, insisted on keeping their nativity scene up
in the town hall till Candlemas, which is February 2nd, and he argued
that there was a cultural history to have these nativity scenes.
And that is true in a way because they feature
these things called santons, or little saints,
and the point is that these are traditional Provence figures
and these have been traditional
since the French Revolution, actually.
But, anyway, the guy in Beaucaire, he was fined 5,000 euros a day
for each day that the scene was up.
I know, it's a lot of money! That's a lot of money! It's a lot of money!
Anybody remember...? We've mentioned it before on the show.
Alan, do you remember what the Catalan version
of nativity scenes include? Yes.
Did you want to share with the other children?
No, I don't... No.
A caganer? Oh, caganer, yes. A caganer is part of the Catalan...
Is it? ..nativity, yeah.
It's a crouching... Uh, how can I put this politely?
..defecating statue.
Oh, yes, the poo one! The poo one!
It's in all the Catalan... Yes.
It's a squatting man. That is.
It's a traditional symbol of fertility.
What's funny about it is that when you go to the area,
you can buy these little figures of...
You know, you can get one of Donald Trump
and you can get one of David Beckham, whoever you want to have.
I'd want Timmy Mallet.
Why not?
With or without his mallet? Yeah.
Just Timmy Mallet having a shit - that's what I want for Christmas.
Wow. You remind me a tiny bit of Timmy Mallet.
Stop right there.
I will walk from this show!
But nativity scenes have had a long history of controversy,
not just in France.
1890s, there was an English priest
who issued knuckle dusters to his congregation
so they could repel attacks on local nativity scenes
because people felt so strongly about it.
They were hardline Anglicans, anti-ritualists, they were called,
and they didn't want any religious decoration of any kind.
And, in fact, one of the leaders of the anti-ritualists movement
was Lady Wimborne. She was Winston Churchill's aunt.
There she is. Formidable, isn't she? Marvellous.
Cornelia. There's a whole...
Peta have got a big campaign against using animals in nativities.
What, like, real animals, or...? Real animals, live nativities.
There's been a real issue with them trying to escape and also...
LAUGHTER
..sheep being sexually harassed...
By who? By the Wise Men?
Who's doing this?!
There was genuinely a thing where a guy got into the nativity scene...
"In America". But also true...
Why did you do "In America"? It is a real place.
Put it down! You bad man!
Stop! Stop! Leave my sheep alone!
No, you don't, you pervert!
He was arrested for...? What sort of a shepherd are you? Look at this!
But, yeah, no, and he had sex with a sheep.
Oh! During the nativity?
Yeah, they had a stable set with live animals
and someone broke in at night and had sex with a sheep.
Be honest - was it Timmy Mallet?
Well, that's covered nativity plays, I think, very succinctly.
Apparently future success can be predicted by your school
nativity play, which quite frankly is "virgin" on the ridiculous.
Aha! Boom, boom. Ratta-tata-ta!
OK, do you want to take your beard off, darling? You can.
I'm all right if you are. Yeah. No, what's great is that people will go,
"Who was that person talking about sheep sex?"
Why is there always too much to do on Christmas Day?
Oh...
I think Christmas Day is when you can relax, isn't it?
It's like the lead-up to Christmas Day that is a bit of a night...
Well, not quite relax.
Once you've got to Christmas Day, the worst bit's out of the way.
I can't take you seriously.
You look like you're about to serve nachos.
Speedy Gonzales over there!
Mind you, Alan's looking a bit more like Speedy Gonzales,
with his tea towel over...
I think Alan looks like one of those guys that plays the panpipes on...
Yes! Yes! ..the steps of the... Selling their albums.
When you're all quite done!
Why is there so much to do on Christmas Day?
Is it because we're all so busy doing things that we
leave things till the last minute?
Or else, we... Well, I did this one year.
My daughter was very little, I got her lots of presents
and hid them all and forgot where I'd hidden them.
When I was a kid and I wanted a computer, it took up an entire room!
Hard to hide!
The mistake that we make in modern times is that we squeeze it...
We get married, and then we have two lots of traditions, is that why?
I like yours better, but no.
The idea is that we try and cram it
all into one day, and they never used to do that.
So, medieval and Tudor period, for example,
Christmas lasted for a full season, so you'd start possibly 1st November
right through to 2nd February,
so All Hallows' Day, it was called, all the way to Candlemas.
And there'd be huge feasts on the way,
things that I think we should bring back.
St Martin's Day - who celebrates that? Anybody? Martin?
Martin Clunes. Martin Kemp.
November 11th, it started a full 43 days of advent.
I like him, St Martin of Tours,
he has an eclectic list of things he's the patron of.
Geese, horses, innkeepers and reformed alcoholics.
They would seem to be...erm, cancel each other out.
I know, the innkeepers and the reformed alcoholics.
But the Middle Ages, I mean, goodness,
they were really rowdy at Christmas.
There was a Lord of Misrule appointed always,
from among the peasants, to lead the revelry.
So, this is not a good story.
In Lincolnshire, 1637, the Lord of Misrule was taken through
a mock ceremony in which he married a fellow citizen
and after this sham marriage,
in the words of one Victorian historian who documented it,
"The affair was carried to its utmost extent
"in front of the crowds."
GASPS
Publicly consummated marriage with somebody they didn't really know.
And there were a lot of complaints at the time about the amount
of chambering that went on at Christmas.
It is a very good old word for "doing the deed". Chambering?
Chambering? Yes. Yeah.
Now it's just called Married At First Sight. Yes, absolutely right.
Right, guys if you want to take off your, I don't know,
your frocks, if it's a bit more comfortable.
There we go.
Take that, Timmy!
I say!
Is that your own jumper?
No! I borrowed it from Pam St Clement.
Some people sometimes dress as panders at Christmas,
why might you do that? What, panders? Panders with an ER.
P-A-N-D-E-R. Oh, panders.
It's an old word for a pimp. Is it? Stroke pimp.
Yeah, things used to get very out of hand, frankly,
particularly in France, and the Feast of the Fools was very rowdy.
They used to have something, we could call it a Mass for the Ass, frankly.
There was a song about the beauty of the donkey,
and it was often accompanied by a donkey being led into church.
It had a sort of serious purpose to start with, which was to thank the
donkey for the, you know, part that the donkey played in the story.
But then it became... Well done. Yes, well done, donkey!
Is this where they used to do a parade where
they reverse everything so the king is the...? Yep.
That's the Mass of the Fools? Well, it's the Feast of the Fools,
and then the Mass of the Ass,
is the way I'm going to make you remember it.
It's kind of interesting, because the hunchback of Notre Dame,
they used to take all the disabled people and throw them
out of Paris, they used to have to go and live in the forest.
Yeah. And then once a year they'd come in and parade through the city
dressed as kings and things. Kind of awful... It is shocking.
But it was the Christmas period generally,
there were all these different celebrations.
Now, time to start opening presents.
I've got you all some Christmas stockings. Oh!
Sally, you take yours out first and tell us
what you've got in your Christmas stocking there.
OK. I've got...
I've got a bar of soap and a tangerine.
OK, so, what do we think the soap is all about?
Washing.
It's a gift for Santa, and it's not from him.
So, in 1910, the Ivory soap company, they created a, I have to say,
a short-lived tradition of leaving soap out for Santa
so he could wash the soot off when he came down... The chimney.
And parents would leave a dirty towel and some soapy
water by the fireplace for children to discover that Santa had washed.
That's nice. Seems inappropriate,
he's going to go up the chimney again
and get completely dirty again, it's sort of, like...
Have to leave another bowl at the top of the chimney.
I did say it was a short-lived tradition.
Joe, let's have a look at yours.
That looks exciting. It's an arson kit.
It's some flammable twig... Do you know what kind of twig it is?
Is it Birch? Absolutely right, it's a birch rod. Oh!
I mean, that would hurt. Yes. Yes.
From at least as far back as 1800,
naughty children could expect to get a birch rod in their stockings.
There's a poem called Old Santeclaus With Much Delight from 1821,
explains about the birch rod and it's Santa who's telling this...
"I left a long, black birchen rod
"Such is the dread command of God
"Directs a parent's hand to use
"When virtue's path his sons refuse."
It's horrible, isn't it? Really.
I used to tell my children that Santa spied on them
in the form of wildlife.
The robins were informers, all Santa's informers.
If you want presents, the robin can see, he'll tell Santa,
the worms can see you!
They'll tell Santa.
Do your children ever go out now? Terrified to do anything?!
I would say I am reaping the whirlwind. Funny.
Let's have a look at your stocking. My stocking, right.
Oh! A nice bottle of wine. Sherry.
Oh, it's sherry. Who's it for?
Timmy Mallet. The re...
The reindeer? The police?
What kind of parties do you go to?
At the Tio Pepe winery in Spain,
they leave out a glass of sherry every day,
complete with a little ladder leaning for the mice to enjoy.
There's all sorts of stories about how this tradition started.
Possibly there was a winery worker who had a soft spot for mice,
or possibly a mouse once snuck a sip from a worker's glass,
or maybe it's just to keep the mice from nibbling at the casks,
but it's rather sweet, isn't it?
I don't know that it's all right to get the mice pissed!
It's very wrong. Alan, let's have a look at your stocking.
Yes, certainly.
Oh! What have you got there? Fortune-teller miracle...
It's a Swedish fish! I love these. Mind-reading fish.
I love those.
Do you want to open it up and see if it will tell you? OK, here we go.
Put it on your hand and then you will have to tell us,
read the thing to tell us what it...
I reckon it's going to curl up and roll over. Yeah.
Oh! Oh!
Moving head - jealousy.
Oh! And... And tail...?
Curling sides - fickle.
Jealous and fickle.
Motionless - dead... Oh!
That means suicide. Yes.
Anybody know why that...? How that works?
It doesn't work, it's not a... Those aren't facts.
That's never stopped us before, Joe!
This is all lies. It's lies!
It's about how the fish is made.
So, cellophane is made with all of the strands of cellulose lining
up, and it's the same as in wood, it's easier to chop along the grain.
So, some of the fish are made with the grain going head to tail and
some are made the other way, and that makes them move in a particular way.
It really is not to do with Alan, although he does seem to be...
I mean, you've made a troop of them now.
That's like synchronised fish telling.
It's like an Oscar-winning animation.
Dub some dialogue over it.
Who's the man with the beard? He was hilarious!
I was hoping for some sheep shagging - they're all talk.
Anyway... Who would you least like to jingle your bells this Christmas?
Timmy Mallet.
Let's put this down.
Which bells are we talking about? The doorbells?
Yes. Oh, carol singers.
Yes, it is. Oh! Why?
Because they can be really annoying? I don't know. Yes.
Is that it? Yes, very annoying.
It turns out, people dislike carol singers, and they always have.
They always have?
Yes, so, in 2020, there was a YouGov survey,
5,300 people were asked what they thought of them,
21% did not want carol singers to visit because of Covid,
55% did not want them to visit whether there was Covid or not.
And only 13% actively hoped they'd turn up. Yes.
In fact, in 2009 the Lancashire Police and local councils distributed
signs to people's homes and to libraries and GPs and so on that
read, "Sorry, no carol singers, I will not open my door to you."
There was a demand from locals who said they didn't want it.
Large groups made them nervous, coming to the door.
That bloke in the hat doesn't know
anyone else in that picture, does he?
Christmas Eve 2018,
North Yorkshire Police revealed they had a call from a woman in Harrogate
reporting the presence of carol singers in her area.
She said she believed they were from Leeds and therefore up to no good.
Our local church had the worst choir
in Britain and I absolutely loved it.
Did they know they were terrible?
They do now, if they're watching this!
Well, actually, they all got sacked. They were really upset.
And they've been replaced by better singers, some of whom are paid.
But it's quite difficult to sing really badly.
You have to be able to sing to be able to sing badly, really,
if you want to do it properly. That's not true.
OK. But if you want to do it in a
comedic fashion in a show or whatever.
But, yes, there are those that
really can't sing, and it's fantastic.
Bad singing is an art, I think.
Should I put it on my CV?
Yes, go for it.
Really bad singer.
This is me!
There is a Welsh equivalent of carol singing and it's a tradition
called Mari Lwyd, and somebody used
to parade around town draped in a cape
and holding a real horse skull on a pole
while their companions dressed as undead attendants.
And usually they had a spring so that the jaw could open and close
and then if you wanted to keep them out of your house,
you had to defeat them in a rhyming battle of wits, like a sort of...
Welsh rap. Yeah, like a rap battle.
And if they beat you, they got given ale and food.
Very popular in the 19th century, it sort of faded in the 1920s
but it is making a bit of a comeback.
And it probably grew out of the Feast of the Ass.
Things gradually fall apart, don't they?
I was asked a few years
ago around Guy Fawkes time by a couple of kids in Islington
who said to me, "Penny for the guy." And I said, "You haven't got a guy."
And they looked at me and they said,
"It's not a penny anyway, it's a pound."
I would imagine Welsh carol singers
would be rather lovely to actually...
I would have thought... ..have outside your door,
that's quite different.
Now you're asking for it. One of my very good friends is Welsh, and...
That's a lovely story.
How very liberal of you!
And I'd ring up on Christmas Day to say happy Christmas and hear all
this drunk singing and fighting
going on in the background and be kind of
really jealous, as my family sat and ate crisps in different rooms.
Right... End of story.
Thanks! We've all got different dreams!
Speaking of carols, we all
like our snow deep and crisp and even.
But what is it mostly made of?
Woke lefties, that's what it's full of! Woke lefties?
Yeah! Snowflakes! Oh... Yeah!
Mainly air, isn't it?
Yes, it is mainly air.
So, powdery, freshly fallen snow is made up of tiny crystals
of frozen water and each crystal is surrounded by air,
so it's incredibly fluffy and porous
and up to 90-95% of its total mass is just air.
And that's why, when snow melts,
it seems like there's so little of it, doesn't it? Yeah.
There's a really good rule of thumb. One inch of rain corresponds with about ten inches of snow.
Really? Yeah. Wow. What does it make, snow...?
If it's got so much air in it,
what's it going to give it as a quality? Cloudiness.
Oh, um, transparency. Excellent insulator.
Oh! Cos it's full of air. So, if you're inside a well-built igloo,
let's imagine it's -40 degrees centigrade outside,
your body heat trapped inside all of that air is enough to make
it a very nice 16 degrees inside.
In Denmark, because we get quite a lot of snow,
it's always recommended that you carry a single tealight
and a box of matches,
and a single tealight lit on the dashboard of your car will be enough
to keep your warm for the entire night if you're stuck in snow.
Wow. Oh, that's quite a good tip.
I mean, if you get a few across the dashboard, it's roasting. Yes!
Some marshmallows.
Ooh, get your top off!
Pouring wax on yourself.
Steaming up the windows.
"What's going on in there?!"
"We've run out of petrol! Bugger off!"
And ice does not have the same insulating properties as snow,
that's why they never build igloos out of ice.
Although, you do get some igloos where a block of ice
has been put in as a window.
A friend of mine took his fiancee to the Ice Hotel.
Has anyone been to that? No, I want to go!
Apparently it was horrible! Oh! Cold?
It was a bit chilly! It was!
Hith tongue thticks to the window!
Thith hotel's shit!
How often are you licking windows in hotels?
How else do you know they're clean, Joe?
Have a look at this. What do you think is causing it?
Oh. Timmy Mallet. Sorry, I can't stop.
HOOTER
No!
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Oh, wow. So it's called an ice shove.
And it is caused when ice is forced
up over the edge of a lake or body of water,
by the currents underneath.
And it's almost impossible to stop. Yeah.
It'll crush trees and houses in the path. There was a, what's known as
the Great Ice Shove of Montreal, 1836.
It brought down an entire whisky distillery.
Snow is one of the very few things that isn't mostly made of water.
What kind of parasite sticks around at Christmas
and extracts food from the host?
An actor. Yes!
Anywhere to get a free meal!
Is it that thing that lives in the carpets?
Those are your feet, Sally, they're your feet!
"It's those things in the carpet again!"
Can I ask something? This headband you're wearing,
is it decoration or is there a serious injury...?
It's very, very tight.
I'm talking about mistletoe. There we go.
Hey! Oh! Yes. That's a parasite? It's a parasite, yes.
It's part of the sandalwood family, it sinks its roots into
tree branches and then it sucks the nutrients
and the water that it needs out of it. Wow.
So, how are they going to make sure that their seeds are deposited
on tree branches rather than on the ground?
Birds. Birds, berries... Birds, yeah.
So, the seeds have evolved to be sticky, and when the birds eat them,
the seeds stick to their bottoms at the other end,
when it comes out the other end.
And it's actually Anglo-Saxon... Oh... That's a nice...
That is a mistletoe flowerpecker. Isn't it beautiful?
I think the name is from the Anglo-Saxon, meaning bird poo.
Mistel-tan. Yeah, it's "mist" is shit or dung. Poo.
And "tan" is twig. Poo twigs.
Poo twigs. That's what they are. Yeah. Shit stick. Shit stick!
Yeah. So what happens is, they get these seeds stuck to their bottoms,
and then the only way for the bird to detach them
is to find some kind of hard, angular surface to wipe them on,
and the tree branch is often the very best candidate.
And they're usually deposited along with a rather handy
covering of fertilising faeces. So, it's absolutely terrific.
Sometimes they regurgitate the seeds instead
and then they just wipe their beak on the branch.
It's incredibly clever.
The mistletoe genus is called viscum, so...
It's Latin for mistletoe. It's where we get viscous from.
Sticky poo. Yeah. U-poo, if you will. It is!
Do you know how it became romantic? Why do we kiss underneath it, then?
Yes, it is a weird thing, isn't it? It's a bit like...
Have a snog under the shit stick!
It's like, honestly?
One of the main birds that does this is the mistle thrush.
Do you know what? I was once the voice of Canesten thrush cream.
Were you? Yes, they did a radio commercial...
And what did you have to say? ..where I was the voice of Can...
Well, the marketing people had decided
that for the purposes of this audio-only advert,
the Canesten was going to be a, um, stand-up comedian.
"Have you got an itch? I've got an itch."
"I went to a bar, had a little bit of an itch." Yeah.
It was exactly that. And I thought...
I did a slightly different voice.
"You ever suffer from embarrassing, burning itching?"
"I don't know, do you?" "Yes..." You know.
I thought, well, no-one will ever know because I've done
a slightly different voice. OK.
And then I got recognised on the Tube by a blind woman!
"You're the thrush lady!" BONNIE: "You're the thrush lady."
"I'd recognise that voice anywhere. You're hilarious!" Anyway...
"What are your thrush jokes?"
..why we use it for romance, nobody really knows.
It may be associated with fertility by the Druids.
The white berries may represent semen, I'm afraid.
So, poo, semen and kisses.
Right. What can I tell you?
Merry Christmas!
Right, in the original pantomimes,
the lead character magically transformed
the scene halfway through by waving
around a magic what?
Wand! SALLY: Wand.
KLAXON
Where's that, Bon?
I think that was Guildford,
the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. That's a good wand, actually.
It's a nice wand. Is there a trick to doing a proper wand?
One needs to always make sure that the top of the wand is upright.
You must never...
We've each got a wand, so you can give us a quick lesson....
Oh! Oh, look! ..in wand holding. Voila. Aha.
Yes, this is rather a...subtle wand. Um, one...
Wow, diss the props!
One must hold the wand at the bottom
and then support it a bit like a sceptre. OK.
Like this, and always make sure that the magic is held upright
and then bestowed on the person. Mine bends to the left.
And I don't think anybody's surprised. Yeah.
LAUGHTER
So that's it, wand work. That's it. Anyway, the answer was not wand.
I think the answer is slapstick. Is correct.
This is where slapstick comes from.
Yes. Is that right? So they were initially...
Pantomime, you're kind of looking about the early 1700s,
and they were initially called harlequinades
and every show would begin as a rather serious melodrama
and then about halfway through, a mischievous magician called
Harlequin would start bashing bits of scenery with his magic bat
and they were hinged so they would collapse at a particular moment,
I mean, which must have been great,
and reveal new scenery behind. And the sound of the stick smacking was
also the signal for the stagehands to run on and transform the set,
and from that moment on, the whole tone of the show changed.
It wasn't a serious melodrama any more.
It was, well, it was out-and-out farce with absurd chase scenes and
comic pratfalls, and it turned into,
by the 1800s... BONNIE: Oh, yes! ..a proper slapstick.
So it is two sticks joined by a hinge.
Yeah. I'm not very good at it.
LAUGHTER
And that's, um, that's where we get the word "slapstick" from.
That came from commedia dell'arte, didn't it? Yes.
So commedia dell'arte is where we get improv from, it's where we get the
beginnings of panto and Harlequinade from in the 16th century. Yeah.
But the interesting thing about it is that women played equal parts
in commedia dell'arte and then that disappears.
They were kind of ahead of the game
as far as women performing on the stage was concerned.
So slapstick is often cited as one of the earliest special effects
and there is an even earlier one, and I love this.
It was invented by a playwright called John Dennis.
So in 1709, he staged his own play called Appius And Virginia.
It doesn't sound very good. It was a tragedy set in ancient Rome.
Nobody liked it. But what they really liked
was his new thunder machine. It was amazing.
He generated these really realistic sound effects for stormy scenes.
Anyway, the play did not do very well
and it closed after a few nights and was replaced by Macbeth.
And when Dennis, the playwright,
turned up to watch the Macbeth production,
he was outraged to hear his very distinctive sound effect being used.
They had literally stolen his thunder.
BONNIE: Oh! And that is where...
Is that where it came from? Is that "steal my thunder..."? Yes.
Oh, well there you go! It's great, isn't it?
And the thunder, was it because they used a sheet of metal?
They used to use sheets of metal but there was also a thing
called a Thunder Run, which I wish they still had.
They used to make a pipe, set into the wall of some theatres,
so it would start very high up, sort of in the gods
and it would wrap its way round the building,
and you dropped a cannonball into it and it would rumble,
so it was almost as if you could hear the thunder going all
the way around the building. Cool. Ooh! That is cool, isn't it?
Yeah. That's clever.
It would be annoying to start it at the wrong time, wouldn't it?
"Stop!"
"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou..." Oh, dear. Oh, no.
The word claptrap comes from the same period,
anybody ever engaged in claptrap?
It's a theatrical thing. Is it?
So it comes from the 1720s. I love this. It's a phrase
or a gag put in by a performer
to elicit easy applause. Oh!
Yeah. It's just...
It's a trap to get people to clap.
Yes. But there are many people who love their entrance round.
Yes. There is this...
..way of getting applause when you first walk on if you want a sort of
an entrance round. You walk on and you go, "Ohhhhh! Thank you so much."
And also, I do remember,
being in the audience when... I remember going to see Hello, Dolly!
with Carol Channing, and her husband used to nip through
the pass door, from backstage through to the auditorium,
and would start the applause for her as she walked on.
That was his... A clapper. Yeah.
But I've seen people, particularly in musicals... Just one person. Wow.
..do a big number and go off into the wings,
and as they go off, they go, "Brilliant!"
And it just gets people going.
Mind you, if you went round through the pass door and on she came,
and you went, "Boo!"
Well, then it'd be divorce, wouldn't it?
Get off, get off! Yeah, get off.
There's also "ah" baits as well, isn't there?
Where you try and get the audience to say "ah".
Oh! Yeah.
Just kind of... Yeah. Yeah.
So anyway,
how did Charles Dickens cook this person's goose?
Was it not that Charles Dickens...
So Scrooge sees the Cratchits who are very poor, having a goose. Yeah.
And therefore he gives them, as a luxury item, a turkey.
Therefore, from then on, people decided that if you had a goose for Christmas, you were considered
to be poor. That's exactly right. Very good.
APPLAUSE
By the 1840s, elaborate Christmas celebrations were sort of dying out in Britain.
And it was Dickens who famously rebooted it by publishing Christmas Carol.
And the goose had been the traditional Christmas fare for...
..well, since medieval times, really.
And then, as you say, in the story, he gives them a turkey instead.
Now, it's possible he was just indicating a shift in preference anyway,
that was happening in society, going from goose to turkey.
Queen Victoria always served a boar's head for Christmas dinner.
Hmm. Well, I like the story.
I like the idea that it's just a boring person. Yeah.
Who shall we have for the boar's head this year?
So what used to happen was the German Emperor and
the King of Saxony both sent her a boar's head at Christmas.
But the cook thought they didn't cook very well so he used to get a normal
pig's head and dress it to look like a wild boar. And she never knew.
Ah! Yeah, painted the eyes to look a bit more boary.
Brussels sprouts are a Christmas dinner staple
but is there any way to make them bearable?
Well, my friend's family, they play, um,
fart tennis at Christmas.
So you eat as many sprouts as you can, and then you have one side
of the table against the other side of the table, scoring fart for fart.
But you don't do it with an actual ball? No? It's just...
No, well, you do it with a fart, so you...
"15 love!" No, I like the idea that the fart was so powerful
it could propel the ball across the table. That would be good. Yeah.
Chestnuts make sprouts bearable.
Well, I think roasted, they are absolutely lovely.
I steam them a bit and then fry them in curry powder.
Whoa!
So you have some sprouts. Do we?
Do I? Yes, you have some sprouts in a tin.
Oh, Auntie Sandi! I know. BONNIE: Oh, look at that!
So open up your Brussels sprouts
and then you also have a glass of red wine.
What scientists have discovered
is that Brussels sprouts taste less
bitter if you take a sip of red wine
between each mouthful, OK?
Have a sip of red wine and then...
Well, I might do one as a tester.
OK, fine, do that. What, to see if it tastes disgusting,
and then it's better with the red wine? OK.
Then... Fucking hell!
LAUGHTER
So the astringency of the red wine, so the rough dry mouth feel
you get when you drink it, it's possible it stops your saliva
being able to pass the bitter taste to your taste buds.
Or you just get piddly-pom. Does it work with the red?
The red wine is working.
Is that working? Yes. That's it, it is, yeah.
It's going to be 15-love in a minute.
SANDI LAUGHS
We will win, my friend. We will win.
We're going to murder them!
Bonnie Langford's farts can only be heard by a dog.
BONNIE: Is there a tune?
Well, it's almost time to wrap up for the present
but not before you total turkeys get stuffed by General Ignorance.
I tell you what, let's make it a bit more festive.
You can light your Christmassy candles, OK? Ooh! OK.
We've got a lovely candle here How lovely.
There we go. Um...
Oh. ..like that.
Oh, look at that. Isn't that pretty?
It is pretty. Let me light that up. CHILD'S VOICE: Donkey!
It won't stay on.
That was a very good doorbell. Donkey!
LAUGHTER
Here's the thing, because of, um, because of health and safety...
Donkey.
LAUGHTER
Oh, God, why did we give you the ass?
I now need you to snuff your candles
and you have what you need to snuff them beside you.
Oh, very nice. Look at that.
OK...
Not like that?
I didn't do it, I didn't do it!
SANDI LAUGHS
What are we supposed to do with it?
In fact, it is an expression that is always used wrongly today.
It actually means to cause the candle to burn brighter
and what you do is you do it by trimming the wick,
in order to make it go brighter,
so, you cut a little bit of the wick
like that and the flame will go up.
It is actually the opposite of what we think it is. Oh!
Sandi. Yeah. I don't think it works. Oh!
Don't cut the whole thing off, you fool! Just a tiny bit.
Thank God you don't do circumcisions.
You get it in Northanger Abbey. Jane Austen says she attempted to snuff
the dim candle but to her horror she only succeeded in putting it out.
Can I just show you a trick?
So first of all, I'm going to light my lighter.
BONNIE GASPS
Is it because you... Just the smoke?
The smoke is enough to draw it back down.
That's so cool! Oh, that's like a magic trick.
Have a look at the video and it makes it a little bit clearer
but it is actually as if the flame is passing down through the smoke.
Mm. So there, it goes out.
Into the flame, smoke...
..and look at it travelling.
Ah! That's amazing.
Boom. SALLY: That is... Wow. Cool, man. That is a good trick, isn't it?
That's a very good trick. BONNIE: I like that.
Is it dangerous to do that? No, darling, not in the slightest.
BONNIE GASPS
Oh! Agh! I've got hot wax on my finger.
God, it reminds me of that car journey with Alan.
LAUGHTER
I thought you were going to say... You weren't cold, though, were you?
LAUGHTER
Um, does anybody want to see my candle salad? Hell, yes.
BONNIE: Oh, I say!
Reminds me of that car journey with Alan.
LAUGHTER
It's really disturbing!
It's hard to believe this was a popular dinner party treat...
JOE LAUGHS
..a popular dinner party treat in America in the 1950s.
It was used as a way quite often of introducing children to cooking.
It's supposed to represent a candle, OK?
It is a banana sticking out
of pineapple rings with a cherry,
that's the flame, fixed to the top,
and the mayonnaise dribbling down the side... Mayonnaise?!
..I'm just saying,
is meant to represent candle wax. What's wrong with these people?
And, apparently, people who presented
these recipes were totally naive about what it actually...
..looked like. Really?
What does it look like, Sandi?
Um...
LAUGHTER
Those things that live in the carpet.
LAUGHTER
The candle salad was a perfectly innocent culinary treat
and I don't know why anyone would think otherwise.
Finally, what was the name of the guy who invented this screwdriver?
Gold! Phillips!
Oh...
No, it was actually... The man Phillips that it's named after was
a businessman who spotted its potential.
It was invented by an Englishman called John Frierson in the 1870s.
It is known as having a cruciform orifice.
That's the Holy Grail, isn't it? I know, right? Of screwdrivers.
LAUGHTER
This businessman, Henry Phillips,
he bought the patent and he introduced it to General Motors and
then World War II happened and all the military manufacturers used it.
But what else is a screwdriver which is more interesting at Christmas?
Angels! Ah!
Alcohol. Yes, it is a cocktail.
Everybody's got a drink. Have a drink.
Ooh. BONNIE: Wahey! Right.
Sally, do you know what you've got? Orange juice.
It's a Screwdriver,
apparently, a drink that arrived at the end of World War II
either from the Armed Forces or the oil workers and most people say it's
because they used a screwdriver to
mix the vodka in with their orange juice. Oh.
But I've got my favourite drink
and it is the S series, so it's SH-ampagne.
BONNIE LAUGHS
Shh!
Cheers. Cheers! Cheers! Cheers! So let's have a look at the scores.
Oh, the biggest loser in our Nativity with -8,
oh, it's Bonnie. Yes.
APPLAUSE
Thank you. Thank you.
In third place with -6, it's Joe. Ah, that's nice! Yay!
APPLAUSE
In second place with two whole points, it's Alan. Yay!
APPLAUSE
In first place, with 13 full festive points, it's Sally!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Thanks, to Bonnie, Joe, Sally and Alan,
and it only remains to say, from all of us here, Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, you filthy animal.
Merry Christmas. Don't drink it!
Happy Christmas. Merry Christmas. Cheers.
Merry Christmas. I hope you are, too.
Cariad's pissed. I'm so pissed!
Merry Christmas! Happy Christmas.
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Happy Christmas, please.
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
HAT JINGLES
Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, happy New Year. Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas. Merry Nish-mas.
Wow, it's like Jesus himself wishing it to you.
Merry Christmas, one and all.
And a very Merry Christmas to you.
Merry Christmas.
Nollaig Shona daoibh go leir! Ah!
Merry Christmas, everyone. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.
Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas.
That's what I'm like at Christmas. Well, all the year round, really.
Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas.
Happy Christmas.
I didn't sell that, did I?
Can I do mine again?
Do you know what? Happy Christmas.
Oh!
Merry Christmas.
Oi! Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas.
What the...?
I, I don't know....
Keep it in! Keep it in!
Happy Christmas.
APPLAUSE