Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet
This programme contains some strong language and adult humour
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome your host for tonight,
Iain Stirling!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to Live at the Apollo!
CHEERING
Pleasure to be here in London.
Where are my Londoners at?
CHEERING
I've lived in London 15 years.
Eh, 15 years I've been in London.
What a fantastic place.
When I first moved to London, I moved to South London.
My friend said to me, "Be careful, mate,
"in Saf London, bruv, yeah?
"They'll fuck you up, yeah?
"Saf London, you know what I mean, yeah?"
But, erm, I moved to Richmond, and, erm...
..they were lovely!
If anything, I mugged them. D'you know what I mean?
It's nice to have a nice mix of people in.
We've got some older... I see some older people.
I see some young guys. There's some young people in.
We've got some Gen Zs.
Welcome. They can't...
They can't cheer too loud because of their anxiety.
HIGH-Ooh!
Oh, oh!
I'm triggered!
I'm going to hide!
They're good people.
I'm jealous of you.
I mean, I'm a millennial.
I don't even know what clothes to wear any more.
I used to have the skinny jean. Do you remember that?
I think, "Well, what do you wear?" Do you know what I mean?
I see the Gen Z-ers, and they've got their cargo pants.
That's what the young guys wear, cargo pants.
They've got so many pockets, you know?
It's for all their medication.
And, erm...
As a millennial, I'm like, "Phone, wallet, keys."
They're like, "Anxiety, ADHD...
"..house keys - can't afford them. Antidepressants."
No, but I get it, right? I'm not taking the mick.
Like, young people in this room, of course you've got anxiety.
Do you know what I mean?
You've got legitimate things to be anxious about.
You're young people, you know?
I'm a millennial. I've got anxieties as well.
They're not as big.
But, hey, my feelings are valid, OK?
OK? Check your privilege at the door.
Thank you very much.
Yes, yes, Gen Z-ers are anxious - about by the age of 40
they're all going to have to swim to work due to global warming.
We get it. I've got to go to the dentist every now and again, OK?
Yeah, the dentist.
I can't go. I'm too anxious about it.
I'm not scared of drills or any of that.
I just can't be left in a room on my own with a man,
as I get slowly reclined into the therapy position
and then lie to him about how much sugar I've had.
No, the reason I can't go to the dentist, and please tell me
this isn't just me, is every time I go to the dentist
and whenever the dentist puts anything in my mouth -
please say this isn't just me - but when anything enters my mouth
at the dentist, my tongue starts to behave...
..like a professional porn star.
"La-la-la-la-la-la! What the..."
Trying to deep throat his drill.
"Ahhh!"
Like I'm possessed. "Your mother sucks cocks in hell!
"La-la-la-la-la!"
And I salivate too much as well, so that's a genuine thing.
The last time I went to the dentist, I needed four fillings.
During the second filling, I was salivating so much
the dentist had to send for a second woman with another suction hose.
I got double suckies that day!
Two suction hoses and a drill in my mouth at the same time.
My tongue was like, "Woo, gang bang! La-la-la-la!"
APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
But it's nice back doing stand-up.
I took a couple of years off.
I was actually a stay-at-home dad for a bit.
CHEERS Yeah.
To the people from Richmond, a stay-at-home dad,
it's like a nanny, but it's you.
So...
It's great being a dad. I learned two things being a dad.
One, I love being a dad. I'm a good dad.
And two... Thank you.
And, two, I learned that it is so easy...
Ladies, please wait!
Look at the mums. "Fuck you. I'm going to...
"I'm going to stab him, right here in..."
It is so easy to be a good dad
because society in the UK has set the bar for dads,
oh, so wonderfully low.
I thought it'd be a challenge.
People just coming up to me, "Is your daughter alive and dressed?
"You're a hero!"
"Thank you very much."
"Are you sober right now?"
"No."
"Well, it's 3pm and it is tricky,
"so don't be hard on yourself."
But I love being a dad.
It's so much better than the alternative, isn't it?
Being a mum.
Urgh - no, thank you, actually.
Very different societal, you know...
Harder.
It's a joke.
It's... Even on a biological level, it is a joke how unfair
that balance is, even on a biological level.
Biologically, a lady has got to grow the baby in her body
and then feed the baby with her body.
It feels like God could have split that...
..50-50?
That is the most useless you'll feel as a bloke,
when you get your partner pregnant.
I'm just stood next to my wife.
She's performing magic with her body, growing someone else's
shin in her own stomach, and then I'm just stood next to her,
with my nipples that don't work, actually.
Just... "I'm helping, I think.
"Maybe it's like almonds and they'll find a way!"
Being a mum - no, thank you!
And you've got to give birth.
Blech!
What?
As a lady, you've got to give birth -
major surgery, or you've got to push a baby out of your own body.
And if you're lucky enough to be married,
you might have the opportunity to stare across the hospital ward
at your husband.
Mm! What comfort that is.
You've just given birth and you just look over to someone going...
"Mm-hm-hm! I've been sat in a chair for 30 hours!
"My neck's kind of sore!
"You won't understand because you've been allowed to lie down, but...
"..my neck's very sore.
"Do you remember when I got you that Lucozade?"
"Yeah, thanks for the Lucozade, but currently my arsehole
"and vagina are the same thing, so...
"Take your Lucozade, shove it sideways, pop it up your arse.
"Thank you very much!"
And then the new one. Get back to work -
that's the new one for mums.
"Get back to work, quick as you can.
"Don't be a drain on society.
"Get back to work, quick as you can.
"But not straight away because that means you don't care.
"But get back to work. But not straight away.
"Get back to work. Not straight away.
"You don't care. And lose the baby fat.
"Oh, my God, will you look at the state of you? Lose the baby fat.
"Don't lose all the baby fat because then other mums will
"judge you, but lose the baby fat. Not all of it. And breast-feed.
"Oh, my God, you must breast-feed.
"If you don't breast-feed, your baby will have eight arms and ADHD.
"You must breast-feed. But do it in private, you dirty whore!"
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
So, you know, getting back to work,
losing the baby fat, breast-feeding,
but your baby's under a cape in case you're in the office and your boss
gets a hard-on, the creep.
And now the new one - you've got to post on social media.
"Be a good mum, post on social media.
"Show that you're a good mum.
"But cover the baby's face with an emoji because paedophiles."
What is going on?!
No, I think I'm a good dad.
Husband is harder.
I really want to be a good husband, but it's harder.
I'm going to say that right now.
I feel I'm being quite generous to the women in the room so far,
but when it comes to marriage the power balance is insane.
I feel like women have access to all the rules, and as a husband
you don't know the rules and then your life is guessing.
"Is that the rule?" And she goes, "Yeah - new rule."
And that's marriage.
And, you know, I'm not... No, listen.
We've had a fun few minutes here, but, you know, this is..
It's on the telly. This is...
I'm a serious guy, and I want to talk about,
you know, serious stuff.
Yeah?
Because in all long-term relationships,
sometimes this happens.
And the man does this thing, and it is, erm...
It's repugnant.
Please.
And I'm not proud of it, but I did it.
And, erm, basically, what happened is, at night, in bed...
..I started, erm...
..breathing.
And straight women fucking hate breathing -
they hate it.
I don't know what happens to ladies' hearing when they go above 25,
but they all become X-Men. It is insane.
The minute your head hits the pillow, you're like,
"I just heard a door close in Leeds."
"How did you hear that?!"
And what I hear is, and the men'll know this,
men get tarnished with this brush,
that we're all these, like, clumsy idiots
that just bound about at night waking you up.
We're not!
We don't want to wake you up.
We don't.
The most anxious we feel is when your partner goes,
"All right, babe, that's me off to bed.
"Don't wake me."
You're like, "Fuck, that's impossible!
"How do I not wake her?"
I get... Breathing!
There'll be men in this room that have been woken up
in the middle of the night, just...
"What happened?"
"YOU were breathing. You were breathing...
"..too loud." My wife gave me a curveball.
She told me I was breathing too hot.
"Too hot?"
"You're breathing too hot."
"Sorry, that's absolutely on me.
"That's the whole being alive thing. That's my bad.
"That's my central nervous system.
"It's creating heat which is escaping through my mouth.
"I've got blood, selfishly, pumping around my body.
"I apologise. I'll tell you what, I'll hold my breath -
"you go to sleep. You've got about 90 seconds before I pass away.
"Have a melatonin, please. Thank you."
I told my friend that story, and then he told me that one
time his wife woke him up because he wasn't breathing loud enough,
and she wanted to check that he was still alive.
That's too loud, too hot, too quiet!
What are we meant to do?!
And then we've got to get to bed and not wake you?
We hate it!
Every man in this room will know the loudest step on the stairs
up to their bedroom.
We've all gone, "One, two. Nope -
"I've been caught out by that in the past."
There'll be grown men in this room that have snuck...
Snuck, like little mice, into their own bedrooms,
like that, "Don't wake her.
"Whatever you do, don't wake the goblin. She's...
"She's ever so angry when she's awoken."
Holy water in your back pocket.
"The power of Christ compels you!"
You've got to sneak.
Adult men, sneaking into their own beds.
And then they've got to dangle over the bed like Tom Cruise
in Impossible.
Lower yourself onto the pillows, just very...
"Don't wake up, for the love of God, don't wake..."
And you can feel a bead of sweat coming down your brow.
And it drips off the end of your nose and delicately
touches the pillow.
And she's like, "What the fuck was that? Argh!"
But then, like I said, in marriage the rules change,
just slightly, don't they?
Because that's what happens when the wife is asleep
and the husband comes in late.
But when the husband is asleep
and the wife comes in late,
very different state of affairs, actually.
A little bit subtle - see if you can notice it,
but it's sort of more like this.
"Babe, I'm home!"
Your high heels on - it sounds like you've ridden a fucking horse
into the kitchen.
"That's me back, baaaabe!
"You won't believe what Claire said tonight."
"Well, I hope she said go to bed. It is 2am.
"How is this fair?
"I sneezed last night and you flicked me in the Adam's apple."
"Be up in a minute, babe.
"Just going to make a quick drink, OK?
"A smoothie!"
HE IMITATES BLENDER
"Would you like any of my late night smoothie?"
"I'll be up in a minute, babe.
"I'm just going to put up these shelves, OK?"
And then it's upstairs to bed.
"Mm... Upstairs to bed, but what light to put on?
"Hmm? What light?
"All of them!" Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
All the lights on. She's holding a torch.
Where did she get the torch from? Nobody knows!
Upstairs to go to the toilet.
But it's not any toilet, is it?
Because it's a lady that's been on a night out wee,
which means she's not weed in about four weeks.
And then the loudest wee known to man starts happening.
Men have half a beer and we're like,
"I'm going to piss myself, immediately."
Women just store it all in, and then you just see them, door open.
Pshhhhh!
"Have we turned on white noise? What is going on here?"
Pshhhhhhhh!
Why is that? Why is that?
The women know.
The men, some of them don't know.
I'm about to tell you why.
Those are the rules. And it's very simple.
It is because women...
..gents, women resent us, OK?
They resent that men are simple creatures,
idiots who at night can just go to sleep.
Men - "No worries for me. Goodnight!"
Watch the news, watch the news.
No worries. Sleep.
Whereas women get into bed and they're like,
"OK, time to have every thought, ever. That'll be fun."
HE LAUGHS
Little joke for the women.
Here's an impression of every man going to sleep, ever.
Erm, am I hungry?
No. HE SNORES
Men just conk straight out.
But women, they get into bed. "OK, time to sleep. Just sleep.
"It's easy. Just go to sleep.
"It's fine. Go to sleep. And...
"..we've got people. We've got friends round on Sunday,
"and there's not going to be enough chairs for everyone.
"There's not enough chairs for everyone to sit
"at the table for lunch. But that's OK.
"We'll get the office chair from the spare room.
"We'll get the office chair. We'll bring it.
"It's not high enough for the table, but that's fine.
"We can put Claire's weirdly tall husband there,
"and get him away from me.
"They've got cats. He stinks. I'll just get him over there.
"That's fine. We'll get that done. That's fine. Just...
"It's Sunday - that's Sunday. This is Wednesday.
"Just don't think about it. Just go to sl... Have we got a will?
"Have we...
"..made a will? I'll ask him.
"'Have we...' He's asleep.
"He's asleep. He's asleep, and we don't even have a will.
"How can...
"How can you sleep when you don't have a will?
"That makes no... He's scratching his balls while he's asleep,
"and we are will-less. How can you do...
"How can he sleep with..."
"What happened?"
"YOU were breathing, OK? You were breathing."
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen at the Apollo,
are you ready for a fantastic night?
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Your first act is one of the best comics on the circuit.
You are in for an absolute treat,
so please go wild and crazy,
and welcome to the stage Harriet Dyer!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
All right? LAUGHTER
Do you think I've got the face of a vegan?
Face of a vegan, morals of a sausage.
And I've got a very long neck.
I've got a neck like a swan.
And I know I've got a neck like a swan
because once I was in a park and a swan followed me,
and I think cos it was trying to mate with me for life.
I knew a girl in Cornwall that got her kids taken away
from her because she left them with a group of swans.
But I think, if you can't trust something to look after your kids
that used to be protected by the Queen -
Andrew aside...
..who can you trust, you know?
I said it in court and I'd say it again.
Once I was being gormless in London,
and I got swept up as part of an exchange trip...
..because the woman in charge genuinely thought
I was a German boy.
Das ist nicht gut!
Sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like
if I'd have got on that coach.
I think, "Would I have lived till longer if I'd have started
"a new life as a boy, as an adult?"
Something for us all to think about.
I love, like, rubbish TV.
Like Come Dine With Me.
Love Come Dine With Me, right?
A CHEER Ooh... Oh!
Wa-wa-wa-wa! Love it.
And my favourite thing about Come Dine With Me is
in every single episode there's always a middle aged woman,
and she always turns up at everyone's house,
and she always has a bottle of wine, and she always says these words.
She always goes, "Oh, the party's here!"
I once, before I drove,
I once, after a night out, woke up in the middle of
a roundabout in a car that wasn't mine,
with all the doors open,
and on my lap there was a cat.
And in the boot of the car there was a fold-up bicycle
and a massive bag of pills.
And I unfolded the bicycle, put the cat in the basket,
and cycled to a party, knocked on the door with a big bag of pills.
And even then I didn't say,
"The party's here."
Give us a cheer if you're mentally ill.
CHEERING Ah, ha-ha-ha!
Woohoo!
Yeah, I'm mental.
"What?!"
Yeah. My thing is I've got bipolar,
and, once, I was on a date with a man - always a surprise.
Erm, I'm...
I'm surprised!
I don't look like I'd be a fan of the sau-sage.
I was on a date with a man, and I had me bum bag on
because players gonna play.
And my... I had my medication in my bum bag, and my date goes,
"What's that?", and I said,
"Oh, it's my medication because I've got bipolar."
And he goes, "Oh, bipolar.
"Does that mean you're going to murder me in the night?"
So I said, "Well, it DIDN'T mean that."
Yeah, I feel bad about a few things I did when I was mental.
Like, obviously I couldn't help it because I was being...
I was mental, but, like, I upset a lot of people,
I worried a lot of people, because I used to spend my time
creeping up on people in alleyways.
Yeah, and I'd, like, stand really close to them from behind.
And I'd whisper over their shoulders,
"I'm your shadow."
It's upsetting.
And something else I used to do when I was very mental,
and if I'm completely honest with you, I wouldn't rule this out
for happening again in the future, is...
This world is very overwhelming,
so sometimes I'd be like, "Mm... I've had enough.
"I'm off down the sewers. Ah..."
And once I was down the sewers, and...
And the manhole cover got stuck.
So then my brain was like, "Well, guess this is my life now.
"Just...
"Just me beneath the sewers."
And that's the good thing about being consistently mentally ill,
is if ever you do go missing it'll only be a matter of time
until someone's like, "Has anyone checked the sewers?"
There I am. "Ha!"
That's my "I'm down the sewers" voice, which is the same as my...
You know when you change your duvet cover, and you, like,
get inside the duvet cover to make the corners meet,
do you ever pretend you're a flying fox?
And you go, "Ha!"
It's also my voice... He's just like, "Absolutely not.
"What are you on about, you mad bitch?"
I'm quite spitty as well. It's good that you...
If you noticed, I'm really spitty.
Yeah.
Once I spat on this lady at a gig and I said, "I'm so sorry,
"I've just spat on you."
And she goes, "Oh, no, you didn't. You didn't spit on me."
And I said, "Well, it's ever so nice that you're saying I didn't spit
"on you to make me feel better,
"But I know that you're lying because it lit your phone up."
Like, the light...
The light came on.
Something I like to do after I do gigs on the weekend is I go
for some chips.
I go for some chips, I go to a kebab shop.
And what I've learned is, whatever kebab shop you go to late at night,
there's always a man in there doing this at the menu.
So I like to go in and just do this opposite him.
For long enough until he's like, "Shit, am I the menu?"
Oh, well...
I've moved house. I moved house, and then didn't have internet in
the new house so I was waiting in for the internet person to come
fit the internet in the new house.
And it got to five in the evening, and my partner - a man...
..he text me and he goes,
"Why didn't you let the internet person in?"
I said, "Are you blooming kidding me?
"I've waited in all day listening to the door, and I haven't even
"had lunch cos I've been listening."
But I wear hearing aids.
Who gets the one person that can't hear to stay in
listening for something?
I think there should be a thing when you're filling out a form
for someone to come around your house, or do the internet
or whatever, there should be a bit at the bottom of the form,
"Are you a deaf bastard?"
"Yes."
So the person comes round, rings the doorbell.
No-one answers. They're about to leave.
Then they look at the form and they're like, "Wait a minute.
"This person's a deaf bastard."
So then they put a hedgehog through the letterbox, right?
This is not just any hedgehog.
This is Clarice the...
'Rat-a-tat-tat-tat, someone's-at-the-door' hedgehog.
And he goes to the floor, starts doing laps.
Because you don't need ears for that.
Your peripheral vision will tell you that's there.
WILD LAUGHTER And it's...
Thank you, fellow mental.
And it's not a hedgehog for no reason.
Its little spikes will be dredging up the carpet.
And then even if I'm in a different room, it will just suddenly be,
like, whipped out from underneath me,
and I'll be like, "Whoa! Like, what the hell is that?"
I'll be like, "Oh, it's only bloody Clarice the...
'Rat-a-tat-tat-tat, someone's at the door'."
And I'm no Poirot,
but I reckon someone's at the door. You see?
Pick him up, go to the door.
You'll never guess who's at the door.
A massive hedgehog, with hearing aids,
and next to him is a little me going,
To tell him that I'm now at the door.
Quite a long bit, that.
Still not finished!
And then...
..I go like that,
and then Clarice, the...
'Rat-a-tat-tat-tat, someone's at the door', and the...
..me both get on my back and off we go.
And they've been breeding.
You might've noticed there's a lot of hedgehogs going around now
with very long necks.
But less accidents - when was the last time you seen
a squashed hedgehog?
Because now when they go to cross the road, they just...
..have a good old look.
Anyway, so there's that.
Or they could just text.
To let you know they're out the door.
My partner, he's a lovely chap.
I fell in love with him because he's the fastest slowest walker
I've ever met.
So he walks like this, he goes...
"Can't stop. Must dash."
And his dad passed away before I met him.
So I asked him what his dad looked like, and a normal person
would show me a photo.
But with him, I said, "Oh, what did your dad look like?"
And he goes...
I've since seen a photo and it's spot on.
Does anyone here have to take a photo of where they've parked
their car in order to know where it is,
and then you follow the pictures back like Hansel and Gretel?
Yeah.
And I thought, because sometimes if I've been saying stuff onstage
for a bit, I think it's not even true any more,
so I thought, "Maybe I'm just saying it onstage and it's not true."
So then the other week I didn't take a photo
of where I parked my car.
What a hullabaloo.
I didn't even know this was possible.
I've ended up blooming paying for parking for a car park
that my car was not in.
And then my car was captured in a different car park.
So you always take a photo, right?
That's what I did the other month.
Multistorey car park, Level 5.
Took a photo. Off I went.
Came back.
"Where the Dickens is my car?"
And then I've gone all the different levels looking for it,
and I was like,
"Every level is Level 5."
Five mile an hour sign
is what I was taking a photo of.
Ay, ay, ay!
Oh, well, this has been a dream come true.
All the best in your endeavours.
Genuinely, I really appreciate it.
I've been Harriet Dyer.
Thanks so much. Cheers.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE Cheers.
Harriet Dyer, everybody!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Oh, wow.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Apollo, are you ready for your next act?
CHEERING
She's absolutely fantastic. You're going to love her.
Please go wild and crazy.
Welcome to the stage Maria Shehata!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Ah! Hi.
Oh, this is amazing.
I live in the UK. I love it here.
Moved here from LA. CHEERING
All right, I'll take that. Thank you so much.
That was warm. That was... I felt that in my heart.
That was beautiful.
I miss LA a lot, like, right now.
And I... You know, I miss the way everybody there came up to me
speaking Spanish all the time.
Right into Spanish. I don't speak Spanish.
And they get upset if you don't speak it back.
One guy was like, "What's the matter, mija?
"Your mother never taught you Spanish?"
"No,"
because I'm Egyptian - I don't know why she would've done that.
It seems totally unnecessary.
He wouldn't let it go either.
He's like, "You must be half.
"Are you half Latina? You must be half.
I'm like, "I'm not at all. But I get it.
"I'm short. I'm brown.
"My name is Maria." Um...
"I've got a big ass - I get it.
"I've tricked you, and I'm sorry. I'm just...
"I'm not at all Latina, OK? So if you don't mind,
"I'd like to get back to eating my burrito. Thank you very much.
I know Americans aren't very popular right now.
SILENCE THEN LAUGHTER
Forever!
No-one's ever come up to me and been like,
"You're American? I love Americans. Let's hear your story.
"That's awesome."
I get it - we suck. I know.
But, still, my favourite people in the world
by far are New Yorkers. CHEERING
Yeah? That's great.
Good. Welcome.
No, but you're my favourite people in the world
if you're from New York, because I was just in New York -
New Yorkers will just talk to you like they've known you
their whole life.
Even if they have no idea who you are, they'll talk to you
like you're family.
Like, I was in New York, I was waiting on the subway.
I had my stuff on the seat next to me, and this lady comes up to me
and she's like, "Move your shit."
"I'm sorry?
"Did we grow up together?"
She's like, "Move your shit. I want to sit down."
I was like, "Sorry Mom loved me more. Damn."
You know, like, I don't know where they get their familiarity
but I love it.
Like, I was at JFK, I was waiting on my flight.
It was the final boarding call.
And instead of getting on the intercom and being like,
"This is your final boarding call. Please make your way to the gate",
this lady from New York gets on the intercom and she goes,
"Amelia, honey, you got 30 seconds, baby.
"You need to run.
"Stop talking to that guy. He's not even worth it.
"Get on the plane."
I've been living in London for years.
I love it, but, like, the culture seeps in, right?
Um, your words seep in.
I can't use them. I can't use them.
I can't... I can't get away with saying, like,
"Oh, cheers, mate."
Because we all felt that.
It was disgusting.
I have an Irish friend. I can't use her words either.
I... We were talking about this guy, and I was like,
"Oh, I like him - he's good craic."
She looked at me like I had just put on all her mother's
jewellery without asking.
She was like, "What are you doing?"
I was like, "He's good craic. Is that not right?"
She's like, "It's right. It's just not yours. Take it off."
I was like, "That's bollocks."
Um...
I ended up moving to London because I met a guy who lives here.
We fell in love.
CHEERING
Thank you. We fell out of love immediately after.
I don't even think I had landed yet.
And, um...
..it turns out what was working about our relationship
was the distance.
Like, that 6,000-mile buffer, that was perfect.
We should've kept it there.
I always pause after I say, "I fell in love."
I want to see if UK audiences will give me a big cheer, you know?
And it's never once happened.
I only got a noise here because there's so many of you, but...
Usually it's silent after I tell people here
I fell in love.
One time I got booed.
I like that about you, but...
I'm used to American audiences because they lose their shit.
As soon as I say I fell in love in America, they go crazy
because we love love in America - and guns.
And we just go nuts.
They're like, "Woo! Pow-pow-pow, pow-pow!
"Hell, yeah, bitch, you did it!"
Damn. You don't do that here.
You wait for more information.
I don't know... I don't know if you're more jaded
or more realistic, but you're like...
"Is that it? Good for you. I hope it lasts.
"It might not. A lot of people end up alone."
"That's just life. I hope you like cats."
When I say I fell in love it sounds like an accident, doesn't it?
Like, "Oh, shit, I fell in love. It's all over my shoes."
But I'm a woman. There was nothing accidental about it.
Women don't accidentally fall in love.
We hunt that shit out.
We look for love everywhere.
If love were a pool, guys would be the ones that fell in,
or got pushed in or kicked in or however they ended up there.
But women, we're down, we're in the pool.
And we're swimming around like a bunch of alligators, just waiting
and looking, just like,
"No, no, no, it's totally fine. You can come close.
"What? No, I just want to have sex too."
SHE LAUGHS AWKWARDLY
Vroom! You know?
So I caught him.
And I threw him back.
We, uh...
We didn't get along.
You know when you move in with somebody and you're like, "Oh!
"I hate you"?
I flew 6,000 miles to be with him,
which is a long way.
And I might have brought that up a couple of times.
Every small fight we got into, I might have mentioned it.
Like, we went out to eat, and he took the booth seat
at the restaurant right away.
OK. I heard some murmur...
Yeah, you understand that's messed up.
That is the most comfortable seat.
You can't just sit down in the booth seat.
You have to have a conversation about it.
"Do you want the booth seat? Should I have it?"
He just sat down. I was like, "What is going on?"
And then I was like, "That's OK, you can have the booth seat,
"because I got to have the window seat on the plane when I flew
"6,000 miles to be with you.
"So enjoy your booth seat and your life."
Um...
We were engaged.
So when we broke up I gave back the ring, which I didn't want to do.
It held a lot of monetary value for me, so that was...
That bummed me out.
And I ended up staying in the UK cos I like it here.
But it's weird when you're in a new country and you meet people
for the first time, because you don't know - you're like,
"Did I just meet somebody who's typically British,
"or did I just meet one asshole?" Like, you don't know. And...
You're not assholes at all. You're actually very lovely people.
But you vomit in public a lot.
It's more than anywhere I've ever seen in my entire life.
Friday, Saturday night.
There's always like fountains of vomit. I'm sliding everywhere.
All you have to do is eat before you go out.
That's it. Have a sandwich or a meal deal.
Um, yeah.
It's not cheating. It's just sensible.
And I was talking to a guy outside of a pub,
and we were having a nice conversation.
And then just out of nowhere, he was like, "Oh-oh. Um...
"Mm...
"Sorry, just one sec. One sec..."
SHE RETCHES
Right? Like, he turned around, which was sweet,
and then he comes up, and he's like...
"Where are you from?"
"LA. We do that in the toilets...
"..after we eat, like normal people."
My parents are disappointed I didn't get married because,
like I said, I'm Egyptian.
I'm in my 40s, so I was supposed to be married 30 years ago,
so they're like, "Tick-tock.
"When's this happening?"
But they don't understand dating.
My parents didn't date. They were an arranged marriage.
They met on The Bachelor, Season 3, I think.
They don't get that joke, or anything I do, but...
I was supposed to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer,
which is pretty typical for Arabs, actually.
Like, I went to Palestine once to do comedy there,
because that's what that region needs, just dick jokes.
So I thought I'd help.
And after the show there was a Q&A and somebody in the audience
was like, "Why did you decide to become a comedian?"
And as a joke, I was like,
"Oh, I wasn't smart enough to be a doctor."
But they didn't get it. They were like, "Oh, I'm sorry.
"Maybe if you study harder you can do it."
I was like, "Yeah, definitely. This is a lifelong dream.
"That's all right."
My dad thinks I'm his responsibility
until I'm my husband's responsibility, but at no point
am I to be my own responsibility, right? Like, the women in my culture
need a chaperone through life.
Like, we just don't have the same rights as the men.
Because my dad wanted to move from Cairo to America,
so he just moved. "You're a man - bye!" Right?
My mom wanted to move from Cairo to America,
and they were like, "Well, let's find you a husband in America."
And that's how they met.
Three of my aunts became nuns.
That's a lot of nuns for one family.
And I was like, "Mom, why did all your sisters become nuns?"
She was like, "Cos they didn't want to get married."
And then she caught herself. She's like, "Because they love God."
I was like, "No, I knew it."
They saw their options.
"Meet Samir.
"He doesn't know how to do his own laundry, and he has hummus
"in his beard right now.
"You can have sex with him every night, or meet God -
"the only thing you have to do on your knees is pray."
And they were like,
"Yeah, God, that's perfect. Thank you."
I love being in London because it's so close to the rest of Europe.
I love to travel. I go to Paris.
I tell my American friends I'm going to Paris.
They get so excited for me.
They're like, "Oh, my God, Paris. We love that for you.
"We love Amelie."
Then I tell people here I'm going to Paris.
You don't give a shit - at all.
All you ever say when I say I'm going there is,
"Oh, cool. How are you getting there?
"Are you taking the train?"
"Oh, the train's so great. You're going to love the train!"
Like, cool.
Every time.
"How are you getting there? Are you taking the train?
"Oh, the train is so great!"
Like, so is Paris. Why can't I talk about Paris? What?
I'm going to go to cafes and museums.
I'm going to see Jim Morrison's grave,
and you're like, "That's cool.
"How are you getting home, though? Are you taking the train?
"The train's so great."
Like, it's a good train. Relax.
It's good to vomit on. And...
..last time I was there, this Parisian man walks
right up to me. He was like, "You have fire."
This is why I love the French.
What a thing to say to a stranger.
"You have fire."
"Yeah, you're damn right I have fire, sir."
Right? I'm a strong, independent woman.
I'm a comedian.
He didn't know any of this, but he must've just seen
something in me, like my aura, and he had to come up and be like,
"You have fire."
Turns out he was just looking for a lighter.
Which I had - I had one. I had one.
I just wish he'd told me before I fucked him.
Sorry.
You guys, thank you so much. I'm Maria Shehata.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Maria Shehata!
Ladies and gentlemen, give it up one more time
for Maria Shehata! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
And Harriet Dyer! CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I've been Iain Stirling. Have a nice night.
Goodnight. God bless. Thank you!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE