Great line-up tonight.
We've got Ant and Dec, we've got Ricky and Cate, plus,
Elvis has entered the building.
Let's start the show!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Hello, good evening, you're all so welcome to the show!
We are going to have such a great evening.
Drink, laughter, chat.
It could almost be described as a work event.
Yes, there have been accusations this week of yet another illegal
party in the Downing Street garden.
There's Boris, laughing at the people who have
to follow the rules.
There were claims that the gathering could actually have broken the law.
If only there'd been a policeman nearby.
On Wednesday, Boris faced a grilling at Prime Minister's Question Time
where Keir Starmer urged him to resign.
Difficult to believe, but that man could soon be walking
up to the doors of Number ten...
and congratulating Rishi Sunak on becoming Prime Minister.
But in the end, the big question for us all remains -
did Boris Johnson mislead Parliament and the British public?
I just don't know!
So, let's meet tonight's guests!
Later we'll have music and chat from rock'n'roll
legend Elvis Costello, ladies and gentlemen.
CHEERING.
But first, he's the multi-award-winning creator
of The Office, Extras and the record-breaking
hit show After Life - It's Ricky Gervais, everybody!
CHEERING.
They're the nation's favourite kings of Saturday night television,
it's the two and only Ant and Dec!
CHEERING.
And she's the double Oscar-winning star of Elizabeth,
Lord Of The Rings and The Aviator - it's Cate Blanchett, everybody!
CHEERING.
It's good, it's good.
Well done.
Good clapping, Ant and Dec, thank you.
Thank you!
I could really hear it.
I wa like, wow, that is some solid clapping over there, well done.
Welcome, all.
Cate Blanchett, it's been a while since you've
been in the studio.
Yes, since I've been anywhere!
And Ricky, is it true you are pleased that the sofa is gone?
Yeah.
I never liked it.
It was always awkward, it wasn't comfortable.
I mean, I like this.
I don't like people much.
No offence.
And I like these because I've got a bad back, so this is perfect.
Ideal.
Because we are doing the socially distanced,
but of course, you will notice, Ant and Dec, no.
Are you in a permanent bubble?
Not a permanent one.
We are.
An occasional one.
We bubble up together when we do TV shows and stuff weekly testing.
We just bubble up together.
It sounds so wrong!
But it feels so right, Graham!
You know that's prison talk.
LAUGHTER.
Pass the soap!
And the Ant'n'Dec thing.
So it's always been like that, but apparently
at Buckingham Palace, not like that?
No, it wasn't like that.
They know which way it goes at Buckingham Palace.
No, we were very lucky enough to be awarded OBEs a few years ago,
and you get called to the Palace to get them, so we're there,
and we get our little briefing on the little anteroom.
Anteroom, yeah.
Anteroom.
And the Dec-eroom.
Wasn't one, was there?
And then they say you will be called, and we do this
alphabetically, so Mr Donnelly, you'll be called.
I said, "What, sorry?"
So for the first time ever, I got to go first and received the OBE,
so I've had my OBE slightly longer than Ant's had his.
I like how he said, "And when you get offered the OBE,
you've got to go to the Palace to collect it."
Like you'd go, "Yeah, drop it off."
But I went to the Palace to have lunch with the Queen.
I was playing Queen Elizabeth.
I'm Australian, but I've played her twice.
And I went to have lunch.
I went in a cab, because I thought that's just what you do,
and that was a bit weird.
And then I sat down, and there were 12 of us at the table.
There was the head of the Fire Department,
I think there was a scientist, and there was me, and I was sat next
to him, and he spent the whole lunch asking me how to connect the wires
in his DVD player.
What?
It's like he thought, I'm an actor, I would know how
to connect the wires.
Do you think I'm a technician?
I couldn't quite work out why I was there.
I didn't get an OBE, though.
Know what I've got?
I've got nothing.
Nothing.
Not a sausage.
I was invited once, early days, and I said I couldn't make it.
Maybe that's it.
What were you doing?
Yeah, what were you doing if you couldn't make it?
I didn't want to go, did I?
Royal people.
Yeah, whatever.
It was early days, The Office had just been out,
and they sent me a thing saying, we'd like you to attend
a party with the Queen, and the thing to tick,
I will attend, I will not attend.
And I thought that was so harsh.
So I put we will not attend.
But then I called the number and said, I didn't just
want to send that in, do not attend, so I'm just
saying I can't make it, and it was some butler or something,
he went, "Oh, you're the first person that ever bothered calling."
So maybe I got some good points.
Not an OBE or an MBE.
I think they went I don't want to mess with that,
I want to go straight for a knighthood.
They don't want to waste your time.
Exactly.
DEC: Playing the long game.
They know you don't like leaving the house, so when you do,
you want the top gong.
It's got to be worth it.
Now, here's the thing.
Cate Blanchett, when you're doing the press for Nightmare Alley,
you had a bit of a nightmare.
What was the thing?
Was it the premiere in New York, and everyone
was there but you weren't?
Yes!
Yeah, I couldn't travel, because no one wants anyone
from England to travel anywhere.
And all the cast were there in New York, and I couldn't get there.
And they said, "You're going to be...
"We're going to put you up on the screen for a little bit,
and you can say hi, and then that would be great."
And then what happened was, you know how big cinema screens are.
The cast were like this, and all of a sudden they cut to me
and it was like whoosh!
And I had to look at myself.
It was so...
We've got the moment when you realise what is going on.
So this is the cast, there they are.
Look at how small they are, and then they introduce Cate Blanchett.
LAUGHTER.
APPLAUSE.
How long were you there?
Way too long!
You look horrified.
I was there for like an hour.
No!
And so I really quickly realised that I had to sit like this,
because I was going to be too distracting.
And all it made me do was want to go to the bathroom.
Who thought that was a good idea?
Just have a telly at the end.
Let's have her face 40 feet tall.
That'll work.
It was horrible.
Let's start tonight with Cate Blanchett's latest movie.
This is called Nightmare Alley.
It's in cinemas from the 21st of and this is the latest
It's in cinemas from the 21st of January and this is the latest
from the brilliant mind of director Guillermo del Toro.
So, tell us all about it.
Who do you play, what's it about, all of those sorts of things?
I play a psychiatrist, a very attractive psychiatrist,
to Bradley Cooper's conman, who has moved through the circus
into polite society and is trying to make an enormous amount of money
by fooling people through mind power.
And then I face him at his own game and get him to try and face
the truth of who he is.
And basically, as a therapist, which I didn't realise,
I did a bit of Freudian therapy, and the couch was there,
and I never got on it, it was a bit too confronting.
But as a therapist, you spend most of your time looking up the nostrils
or at the eyelashes of your patient, so it was quite interesting looking
up Bradley's nostril for five weeks.
Very attractive nostrils.
Let's watch a clip.
This is Bradley Cooper's character meeting you in your
psychiatrist's office.
PIANO MUSIC PLAYS.
Mr Carlisle, come in.
Slow day?
Have you not heard?
We are at war.
I'm aware.
How did you know it was me?
What brings you here?
You left me your card, didn't you?
So...
Here we are.
Oh, not me.
I never drink.
Microphones.
That's right.
Wire recorder.
You recording this?
No.
My office is wired to record all analysis sessions.
You've got the smoother line, but you run a racket, the same as me.
Is that what this is?
APPLAUSE.
Ooh!
It's a great kind of late '30s, early '40s potboiler,
but when you saw that, I mean, the look of this thing
is just so beautiful.
Amazing.
I mean, the production design was incredible.
It was like the whole set was like a Rorschach test, you know,
it was so incredible.
And every single detail, Guillermo's across.
We had the lighter from the Maltese Falcon,
and we had the crystal from some other movie.
He collects movie memorabilia.
There.
Is that the lighter there?
It took about 97 takes to get it to work, but it was worth it.
And it's not just you and Bradley.
It's got a great cast including your Carol
co-star Rooney Mara.
Yes, yes.
But it was complicated for Rooney, because she fell pregnant.
Do you still use that expression, you fall pregnant?
You fall over, you go, oh!
You walk up and you go, oh, I'm having a baby!
LAUGHTER.
Anyway, yeah, she fell pregnant, so it was...
Do you fall or get?
At my age, you have a fall.
That's when you know you're old.
He had a fall.
You have a fall.
So she fell pregnant, that in the middle of the film?
Because there was a big break?
Well, the pandemic.
Have any of you masked people out there, this thing
called the pandemic?
LAUGHTER.
Yeah, I mean, my stuff was so hermetically sealed
in the office, but then there was a break.
Everything stopped, and then everything kind of started again.
Because, Ricky, in the latest series of After Life, you chose to kind
of ignore the pandemic.
Yeah, I mean...
It was like a year building up to it, and then I made the decision
that hopefully it will be over, and in ten years' time,
I don't want people watching it going, "Oh, yeah,
remember the pandemic?"
So there's no one in masks.
It's mentioned that it sort of happened, but I didn't
want to feature it.
I didn't want it to hang around forever.
It's such a complicated thing, you know, making...
There's before and there's after, and so the things I've done
subsequently, you feel like we can't not mention the thing, but then,
you don't want to dwell on it.
In terms of dealing with the pandemic, and and debt,
In terms of dealing with the pandemic, Ant and Dec, you,
I feel, have had to deal with it more than most.
You must have been so surprised and saddened to be in
Wales for a second year.
LAUGHTER.
Not saddened.
Surprised, not saddened.
But similar to Ricky, as well, is that, you know,
you don't want the shows to feel too Covid heavy, because people are
having to deal with it every day.
Yeah.
You know, television and movies and stuff is escapism,
and you want people to enjoy it and forget about their
troubles for a little bit.
So we tried to do that as much as we possibly could with shows
like I'm A Celebrity we were back in Wales, but, you know,
there was just no getting around it.
Sometimes when the storms blow and rip up your production tents,
and you've got to evacuate the site, and then you can't, you know,
you can't put everybody back together because they've all got
to go and isolate and form Covid bubbles.
And you're right, all the other things still carry on through Covid.
I had a year worrying about closing down the set for Covid.
We didn't lose one minute to Covid, but it rained.
So there's always...
But you're in England!
Why are you surprised by that?
I like to control everything!
When the production shut down, though,
were you able to leave Wales?
No, we had to stay.
It was quite strict protocols for us, because we couldn't even
have our family come to visit us.
We were just in these little fishing cottages next door to each other,
so we'd pop to each other's, share a bit of a dinner,
and then just hang around until the storm passed
and we could get back on with it.
I think we've got a picture of the two of you enjoying Wales.
LAUGHTER.
APPLAUSE.
That was one of the days that the show wasn't
on so we decided to go for a lovely walk on the beach.
Brisk walk.
A brisk walk.
CATE: The height of summer.
And so next year, are you going to do it again,
are you going to demand it has to be in Australia or we're
not going to do it?
No.
If it has to be Wales, then we will do it in Wales,
but we want to go back to Australia.
Australia is I'm A Celebrity's spiritual home, and, you know,
that's where the show has been for 20 years, and we
want to go back.
And the weather's great and we love it there.
Because basically every celebrity in Australia is saying,
I'm a celebrity, get me out of here!
If we can possibly get into the country,
we would love to do it.
Because, Cate, you do sound quite adventurous.
What was the...
Was it a swimming thing or a boating thing you took your
kids on in Australia?
Oh, no, I had this moment where we went to this water hole
that was called Rose's Hole.
Said the actress to the bishop!
Where was this place, you say?
I must visit it.
Anyway, Rose's Hole...
I love Australia!
And we were swimming for two hours and I
suddenly thought, the kids were in there and I thought, I should
probably ask, are there any crocodiles here?
And they went, no, no crocodiles.
So, we swam for two hours and we were sunning ourselves
on the rocks afterwards and we said, why is it called Rose's Hole?
And they said, oh, because once Rose,
who is now 80 years old, found herself sunning here and there was
an alligator beside her.
I went, so where did the alligator come from?
Oh, they are in the water!
And so they thought I was concerned about
crocodiles, but I would be fine with my three children swimming with
alligators.
I went, no.
No, actually, no.
Yeah.
That is the way it is.
Because you have never been to Australia?
It's too far.
This was a chore for me.
This is the first time I have worn underpants in a
year!
Australia is a long way.
Spiders, snakes, alligators.
Crocodiles.
Jellyfish.
Sharks.
Because it is properly dangerous, isn't it?
I mean, you suffered.
You.
You know.
They're not your own legs, are they?
These are.
Bitten by a wombat.
I got a very nasty spider bite on a Bush Tucker
Trial.
Is that your nickname for it?
LAUGHTER.
It wasn't nasty, it was a tiny little...
We were not even sure what it was.
It was on my hand.
It was during Martina Navratilova's Bush Tucker Trial.
And we were down there...
That is such a weird sentence.
Did it involve Rose's Hole?
Did it have anything to do with your life?
We were watching Martina Navratilova doing a Bush
Tucker Trial.
Eating testicles or something.
And offering words of encouragement, you know, you are
doing great, Martina.
Get it down ya!
LAUGHTER.
We went back up to the production office afterwards and I
felt my hand swelling up a bit.
A mouse spider.
It could have been.
So, anyway, I went home that day and then...
And then he went in the next day.
I went in that day, and it kept getting worse and I woke up the next
morning and it turned into two blood blisters
on the side of my hand and
I saw them and I was like, oh my god!
And I am a bit queasy anyway at the best of times.
So, we got back into the production office and I was
like, I need to see the medic, I need to see the medic.
So, they sent the medic up to the office.
We have desks which are opposite each other,
like this and so the medic comes in and he says, can I sit in your
chair, I am going to lean over, I have got to give him an injection?
So, I said, no problem and I got up and I just
left the office, shut the
door and I thought I would give them some privacy.
And then I thought, it has been a while and I opened the
door, he was on his back, with his legs in the air,
with an oxygen mask on his face.
And the medic was fanning him.
I had passed out!
Because of the needle.
The needle!
Oh, really?
Not the spider bite!
It was the needle that got him!
Did you know it was a spider at the time or
did he tell you that?
Did you see a spider bite you?
No.
He told me, he said, that is a spider bite.
A mouse spider, did you say?
A mouse spider.
They get necrotic.
They come inside when it rains.
There are so many things.
They are evil, they are evil!
So many things in Australia that can just kill you by looking at
you, you know.
All these little tiny things and the Australians as
well...
Can kill you.
By looking at you.
They can kill you.
Yeah, they don't hide in your toilet or come up
your sink?
The Australians make it great sport, they take great
pleasure in scaring British people about the dangerousness of their
animals.
And still you want to go back there?
It is I'm A Celebrity's spiritual home.
OK, fair enough!
And also it is four weeks in Australia
in November, December.
It is lovely.
So Cate's Nightmare Alley is in cinemas soon,
meanwhile Ant and Dec
bring us a new Saturday night TV treat, Limitless Win.
It is a new game show.
It is currently running Saturday nights on ITV at 8:30 and it
is available on ITV Hub.
So come on guys, this is your first new format
in, what, ten years?
Ten years.
Ten years, yeah.
So, is that exciting or is it frightening?
What is it?
It is a bit of both, yeah.
It is quite exciting, but then you do realise
that you are putting something new out there to be criticised
and there are so many more ways that people
are criticising things nowadays that there was ten years ago.
But, yeah, one of them has been on and it has
gone really well.
And we love filming it.
So, obviously it is a quiz, you ask questions, people win
prizes, but what makes this different?
What is the unique selling point?
It's unique selling point is there is no limit to what
you can win.
It is the world's first limitless jackpot.
Can I go on it?
Absolutely!
I really want a new bathroom.
And I need about £15,000.
Perfect, yeah.
You can do that.
But then in the gallery you have somebody from the insurance company,
because you have got to insure against these potential huge wins
and they never want us to lead the contestants in any way, so,
as we do, we just play along and get excited, and if we think that the
contestant hasn't understood it, we will just say, read the question
again, but that is as much as we can say.
There is someone there with a briefcase who is sweating.
LAUGHTER.
That is the real show!
That show right there.
Like that.
Every other quiz show in the world has a top
prize, you can win £1 million, you can win £100,000, whatever.
This one, as long as you can stay in the
game, and keep going, you can keep climbing
the limitless ladder.
And the answer to every question is a
number.
So, for example, Ricky, how tall is an Oscar statuette, you
probably know this, in centimetres?
Now.
18 and a half inches?
What happens with this is, the number you
give is also...
You can't win the money now.
I take quizzes this seriously.
If you get this right, we will buy Cate a new kitchen.
What is in it for me?
Why do I care about that?
She is not a charity, why am I doing this for her?
So, the answer you give is also the number of steps
you take up the ladder.
Now, if you give us an exact answer, you bank
the money, if you are under the exact answer, you lose lives,
if you are over the exact answer, even by
one, you are bust and it is game over.
Are you saying that there is a point to it?
If you are exact, you win the money.
If you are below, you lose lives.
If you are over...
You lose lives?
It is a high-risk game.
Do I get something for being close, then?
You stay in the game.
And you can keep going up the ladder.
So, if I just go low and I get it wrong, I
am still in the game?
But, when you run out of lives, you are out.
33 centimetres.
Can you have your family members?
Please get it right, Daddy!
We are making it sound very complicated.
33 centimetres.
Right.
That is not an exact answer.
Right.
So, you are losing lives.
Right, OK.
OK, what is the exact answer?
You don't say that yet.
You are losing one life, it is 34.
Oh!
So close!
So, that would mean...
I nearly said 34, but then you said if you go
over, you are out.
Exactly.
I mean, come on, work away!
Let's watch a bit.
We have got an exclusive clip, I think this is from episode three.
This is Limitless Win.
Your time has started.
Camel toe!
Have you got a picture in your head?
Is it two?
Has everybody got a mental image now?
I know I have!
Can you talk us through what you're thinking of?
Really, no!
Not really.
Two, two.
Two each.
Four legs.
Makes eight.
I would say eight.
We don't find out!
We don't want to spoil it.
I think it is more than eight.
I bet you camels have some odd toes.
Well, the thing is, they are mammals and actually,
they would have five digits on each thing
that would be fused, so do you
count...
It would be like that.
Sorry, I take this very seriously.
You're the insurance guy!
Yeah.
I think they got it right.
So, it is eight?
Two, four, six, eight, yeah.
Eight.
Just after we asked that question, the whole audience were just kind of
like doing this.
You say you can't help them.
No, not at all.
Also, we don't know the questions or any of
the answers before they come up.
We have purposely said, don't tell us
the questions,...
You definitely don't want to know the answers.
We won't.
We kind of want to live it with them and we want to go on the
journey with each set of contestants.
You have changed.
We were talking in the office, and remembering Wonky Donkey.
Oh, yes!
And Wonky Donkey...
Wonky Donkey!
You were so horrible to the people who called in!
Particularly Dec.
I would say you were particularly...
I have mellowed slightly.
This is a little clip of Wonky Donkey back in
the day.
Ten seconds, what have we got here?
Scottishgator.
It doesn't rhyme for goodness' sake!
A Scottishgator!
What?
An Scottishgator?
Doesn't rhyme!
I think we have established it is not a Scottishgator.
APPLAUSE.
I want you to host Limitless Win like that.
Just shouting at people, you're stupid!
We would be cancelled within a week.
What was the answer?
What?
What was the answer?
Jock Croc.
Because it is a crocodile in a kilt.
Good, good.
We used to do that every Saturday morning and the only one rule to
that game was, it had to rhyme.
And these kids used to ring up every week and go,
Scottish crocodile and I would go, it doesn't rhyme!
There is one rule, it has to rhyme!
It used to really wind me up.
A lot of that was genuine.
Right.
I am still waiting for you to bump into somebody you shouted at on
telly in the street.
Bop on the nose.
But you did a children's book.
Look, you have done some amazing things, but Flananimals...
Flananimals, yeah.
Years ago, yeah.
I did a children's book, just made stuff up.
That works, though.
That is exactly how fiction works, just
made it up.
There was an amazing animal, that gets really, it is so
cute and cuddly, but if you tell it it is cute, it eats your head.
Yeah, there is a lot of that going on.
Is that the basis of your comedy?
Well, no, it is about the sort of futility
of nature, it is all sort of quite sad and horrible.
Like, there is one that is just an eye, but it is
blind.
LAUGHTER.
That's nature!
Did any of them have, like a number of toes fused
together?
There is one that is born without legs and it swallows its
hands to walk on, but then when it finds food, it cannot eat because
its mouth is full.
LAUGHTER.
APPLAUSE.
Now, you hosted the Golden Globes.
Is it five times you have hosted the Golden Globes?
Five times over ten years, yeah.
OK.
I don't know if you guys know, you probably
don't know, the Golden Globes have just sort of vanished.
They didn't happen this year, for loads of
reasons.
Because of you?
I am getting the blame for it, I am, yeah.
It changed, because the first time I did it, like ten years ago,
the sort of press, particularly the industry press in America
was like, why is he saying these awful things
to the most beautiful people?
And then by the last time, right, they
were going, good, give it to them, we are sick of celebrities!
So it was quite zeitgeisty, it hit a mark
last time, but I am really glad I did it,
but I think that is enough.
Were you in the audience for any of Ricky's Golden Globes?
Several times.
It was a little bit...
I think it cuts to you in one of them.
I think when you talk about Jeffrey Epstein and then,
why it does cut to me?
Woo!
But it is a little bit like, the experience of being in the
room with you at the Golden Globes is a little bit like the tail end of
the family Christmas.
Yes.
The drunk uncle.
Do we show him where the bathroom is?
Or do we just let him...
I can feel that and I can see the tension and then when
I do a joke about them, they think, oh, that was all right.
Leonardo DiCaprio was sort of laughing,
thinking, phew, he could have said a lot worse, you know.
That is the lovely thing for us watching, as
well as, the jokes are obviously funny,
but then it is seeing the
faces in there and how they take it.
Did you always say every joke or did you ever stop yourself?
No, I went there, you know.
It was my adrenaline rush.
I am not a brave person.
So, that is my only extreme sport that I do.
Saying things in front of them.
I just wondered if there was a gag where you thought,
oh no, that has gone a bit far.
Oh, yeah.
Most of them!
You know, you think the things I say are terrible,
think of the things I think!
LAUGHTER.
APPLAUSE.
Ricky Gervais brings us the third and final series of his
acclaimed sitcom After Life.
It is streaming on Netflix right now.
And this has been a phenomenal success.
Yeah.
Hundreds of millions of people have seen it.
Yeah, overwhelming, I never dreamt it would become this
big.
The nicest thing is the emotional response to it, you know.
Like, people come up to me in the street,
just saying, I lost my husband, the week before or my
brother and you suddenly realise that everyone is grieving and things
like this sort of give them a chance to start a conversation.
I was worried about it.
I thought, hold on, how are people going to laugh at
a show about a guy who wants to kill himself because his wife dies of
cancer?
And they can, because real life is like that.
It goes on all the time.
I think we second-guess the audience a little bit too much, as a
broadcaster, oh, can they take that?
They can, yeah.
And even, like, the swearing, somebody said, there is a
lot of swear words in this, yeah, but that is how people talk!
That is how people talk, you know.
I sometimes have to explain to Americans that the C word isn't
quite the same here.
It is a term of endearment!
Absolutely!
They can't get that.
Tell yourself that, Cate, yeah!
In America, it is a misogynistic, horrible insult and
here...
I was in Edinburgh, a few years ago and I was walking along,
and there were two policemen and they came along and one of them
went, oh, Ricky Gervais, you're a funny BLEEP!
Oh, thank you very much!
LAUGHTER.
I'll take that!
Yeah.
So, this is season three.
Have things happened between the end of season
two and the start of season three, where do we find you?
It is sort of that nebulous time jump.
It has moved on, but, you know, you can
watch it all as one.
Yeah, it is sort of a few months have passed,
yeah.
He is going through the seven stages of grief and, I suppose, it
asks the big question, if you lose everything,
is life still worth living?
Listen, let's watch a clip from After Life.
This is Tony finding some joy in life.
HE LAUGHS.
Oh my God!
Prat!
Maybe life is still worth living!
Oh my god!
That's not funny, actually.
Wow, I disagree.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Because this is Netflix, it gets translated.
How many languages is it translated into?
160 languages.
Wow.
I didn't know there were that many languages.
But it does, yeah.
I suppose all different dialects, you know.
Do they dub you?
They do, but I watch...
I mostly watch foreign dramas now and I never watch the
dubbed version.
They're unwatchable.
I always watch it with, you know, subtitles.
A very good question though, for the next series of
Limitless Win, our quiz show, how many countries is it shown in, how
many languages?
I can tell you that exactly, though.
You don't want to go above.
I might be ending on 59.
Ricky Gervais said 160.
We'll have that.
Do you know how many questions?
Yeah, I got a few.
There you go, right, yeah.
Amazing.
Does the bad language translate or do
some countries just go, oh, golly?
I don't know, but some people send it
to me and it really makes me laugh, with me, in an accent, saying it,
like my voice, but someone speaking French or Italian.
That is funny.
The really weird thing is, so, they get actors to dub
you all over the world, but they actually sound like you!
Is it the same person in every...
No, no.
They find people, that not only speak that language, but that sound
like the actor they are dubbing.
So, it is really weird.
I think it sounds like me speaking French and
Spanish and Italian.
You know, if they dub you, say, in The Office and
they dubbed you in Extras, does the same person...
Yes, that's right.
I suppose they are sort of doing an impression.
So, you can't die, otherwise that actor will be out of
work?
Yeah.
I have never thought of that.
Again, that shouldn't be my worry.
Have you met the French Cate Blanchett or the German Cate
Blanchett?
Yeah, there is a German Cate Blanchett, I think, but I have
not met her.
That would be weird.
Wouldn't it?
It'd be weird if she went, I hope she makes a good film next!
For once!
Something that someone will see!
I hope she's got more dialogue in this one!
I hardly said anything in the last one!
Talking about international careers, ladies and
gentlemen, let's not forget, Ant and Dec, huge international pop
stars as PJ and Duncan.
Oh, yeah!
Yes.
LAUGHTER.
APPLAUSE.
That is bubbling up.
It's horrible.
You look like you're farting!
I do.
Peter Stringfellow.
I did not remember that photo being taken.
Just let one out.
Maybe you were preoccupied.
Yeah, I was preoccupied.
I farted!
Yeah, we had a very small pop career, for about
three or four years.
It went far, I think there was a story where I
think the big thing had gone but you still had
contractual obligations and you were in Indonesia.
Yeah, we had to go to Jakarta, because we had
a few contractual gigs we had to play and, I call them gigs,
but you would just turn up at the Hard Rock
Cafe and you would kind of mime along to a couple of songs and the
fans would be there.
You will take the money.
Take the money and get out of there.
But we landed, we landed in this place in Jakarta.
We were not that bothered any more, we
knew that we didn't want to do it any more, we thought...
23 and already jaded!
We wanted to concentrate on telly, we loved doing
TV, so when we got back to Britain, that was what we were going to do.
So, we thought we would just turn up, do our thing, be polite, get out
of there and we turned up and the guy from the record company
says, no, you have to do a press conference, the press are there and
we want you to meet them and talk to them and then of course, you can
sing a cappella and...
Well, what?
Sing a cappella they said, the Backstreet Boys were here last
week and they sang a cappella for the
press.
Yes, because they can!
LAUGHTER.
We can't sing a cappella!
We are not doing it!
We don't want to and we can't!
So, we said no, we're not going to sing a cappella,
we will go and we'll chat and will answer any questions.
And we will mime to the track.
It was also Let's Get Ready To Rumble.
They wanted you to do...
Yeah, you can't!
Yeah, Let's Get Ready To Rumble, so we
said no and then on the walk down there, they were going, please,
please do it for them.
I was like, no!
They are just the press, there was maybe about ten people there or
something.
They don't want to hear it, we don't want to do it.
So, we sit down.
We are answering the questions.
It is all going pretty well.
It was kind of wrapping itself up, nobody asks us to sing a
cappella.
We were just about to leave, the guy from the record
company says, how about you sing a cappella?
What?
And then all the press go, yeah, that would be good,
yeah, let's do that!
We are like, no, no, we will come back, we will
do the show later.
And they were like no, a cappella, a cappella!
And they went on and on.
So, we said no, we're not gonna do it, we get up and
we leave.
The press started to boo us.
That was in the press conference.
What did you do?
Did you do it?
Did you sing?
I almost started on the guy from the record
company.
Do you want to hear them do it now?
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Do you want me to move?
We could easily do it.
# Let's get ready to rumble.
# Get ready!
# Get steady!
# And rumble!
# Everybody rumble!
See?
That was good!
It was like Little Mix were in the room.
Right, it is time for music.
This man has topped the charts for almost 45 years and is
today releasing his 32nd album.
Here performing Paint The Red Rose Blue,
accompanied by Steve Nieve from the Imposters, please
welcome Elvis Costello!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
# He was the youngest of five and the only son
# He called his wife by a nickname as his father had done
# Not the root, not the branch, not the flower or stem
# He had the wildest of dreams but he rarely remembered them
# Turn the red rose
# Paint the red rose blue
# What was he to
# But turn the red rose
# Turn the red rose
# Paint the red rose blue
# What was he to
# But turn the red rose
# He haunted the shadows
# And waited until
# They had secrets to sell him
# And some practical skill
# Theatrical blood is convenient to spill
# He turned on the light switch and watched her undress
# Oh, you'd never guess
# What came next, unless
# He said "All of these hours that I've skulked in the shade
# The sun never struck me or made me afraid
# Now she and I share unspeakable pain
# I have to believe in something, in anything"
# Turn the red rose
# Paint the red rose blue
# There's nothing left to do but paint the red rose
# Paint the red rose
# Turn the red rose blue
# There's nothing left to do
# But paint the red rose blue #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Elvis Costello, ladies and gentlemen, and Steve Nieve!
Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Come on over, Mr Costello.
Thank you so much for that.
Have a seat, sir, do.
Brilliant.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
That was gorgeous.
And it's on the new album which is out today, The Boy Named If.
And these are songs about a childhood.
Is it your childhood, or a...?
If you listen to those songs, and you think how sad and dark
they are, don't I...?
Everybody's childhood, the record has different scenes
and characters over the record.
I didn't write it like a concept record.
I leave that sort of thing to Ricky.
But it is the idea of each song is like a scene when you're
in your early teens, you're all about wonder still.
Childhood.
You can stand on your head, you can imagine fantastic
inventions, you can sing, dance, skip, and all those things
that the minute certain types of impulses raise their head
within you, then you become totally, you know, consumed with teenage lust
and the study of algebra and other useless objects that you'll
never use in real life.
So I wanted to catch what that felt like and then catch what it feels
like a little bit later, and I'm looking back at a sinful
scandal like, you know, the sort of thing you've been
in your life.
I feel very judged!
Now, Dec, you've met before?
We both have met.
You came on our Saturday morning show years ago.
Yeah, we go way back to show business school together.
We do.
And I was thrown out of class because they couldn't have two Dec.
Because I'm a Declan as well, we're the two Declans in show business.
Name a third!
Yeah.
There isn't, is there?
That it!
I know.
I thought, he's stolen my act when I...
I thought, what's going on?
I had to change my name to Elvis, you know?
To get out of his shadow!
There's no other Elvis, is there?
LAUGHTER.
And you and Ricky, you've worked together.
Yes, he did me a lovely favour.
He just did me a favour out of the kindness of his heart.
He recorded a song for me for one of my films, early days,
The Invention Of Lying.
He did a version of Cat Stevens' Sitting, and it's just beautiful.
That was great, by the way.
I love his voice.
Thank you so much, Ricky.
It's got even better with age.
And Ricky persuaded me to do this song, and I have to be honest,
I knew Matthew And Son and, you know, I don't know
the other songs by...
Morning Has Broken.
I didn't know this song.
He introduced me to this lovely song, so I had to learn it.
You turned it round in about a day.
You went into a studio with some of your mates,
and you sent it to me and said, is this all right?
I went, yeah!
That's all right, yeah!
Well, you know.
And Cate Blanchett, you have met?
Can I tell this story?
Have I got time?
I'm not in charge!
But you usually are!
You are very worried about time.
You are very worried about time!
Please can I be in charge?
We were in showbiz school together, we decided
to take over Graham's show.
The first and only time that my wife Diana Krall ever
accompanied me on stage...
We were not yet married, and I was playing at a benefit show
with her, and I decided that I would really impress her
by singing this Elton John song, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word.
It's always a good way to start a relationship.
A song I'd never sung.
So she's playing it beautifully.
She looks so elegant.
I'm totally in love with her.
I'm trying to pluck up the courage to ask her to marry me,
and I go for the last line...
# Sorry seems to be the hardest...
And what I forget at this crucial moment of hitting the high note
Because if you're going to propose, you want to be
wearing brand-new shoes.
# Sorry seems to be the hardest word.
And the next thing, I am on my arse, and the shoes go from under me.
And I said, did the audience see that?
They might have noticed it.
I scrambled to my feet, and I sort of try to cover my embarrassment,
staggered to the wings, where the first two people I saw
were Cate and Sting.
Now, Sting and I go back a little bit.
We have a little history of rivalry over the years,
and in front of Cate, he said, "I thought
it was part of the act."
I said, "Of course it is, I do it every night!"
And very quickly, you're going back on tour with the Imposters.
Yep.
Is that this June?
I certainly hope so, yeah!
Fingers crossed!
And all the UK dates are in June.
Listen, good luck with the tour, and thank you for that
beautiful performance.
Good luck with the album.
Elvis Costello, everybody!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.
Right, that is nearly it, but we just have time for a visit
to the Big Red Chair.
Hooray!
All right.
Who's there?
Hello.
What's your name?
Augustine.
Augustine, lovely.
Where are you from, Augustine?
I'm originally French, but I grew up in London.
OK.
And what you do here, Augustine?
I'm an advertising creative.
Ooh.
Like things we might have heard of?
Stuff like Bombay Sapphire and lots of period ads.
I don't know if you've seen any of those.
I've seen ads for periods.
I really want one now!
No, they're really selling them.
Good work, Augustine.
Off you go with your story.
So when I was ten, the police came to my house to arrest my parents...
I love it!
You can walk!
I like how it starts with so.
So...
I love that.
That's great.
OK.
Because I'd written a quiz called "the horny hamster quiz"
and I posted it on my Bebo and also obviously e-mailed it
a link to all my mates, who were also ten years old.
But the problem was the police just could not believe that an actual
child had written this quiz, because it had questions
like, would you lock a hamster, yes, no, maybe?
If you had to lock a rodent, would it be a hamster,
a mouse, a gerbil?
Obviously the correct answer was a hamster.
What do you call a hamster having an orgasm?
Hamstergasm.
Honestly I was ten, so my wordplay was not up to scratch.
And so I was summoned to the living room, where I saw my mum and two
policemen holding four transcripts of the quiz, and my very distressed
and also very French mother were screaming,
how does she know what an orgasm is!
And so luckily I quickly confessed to my crime and neither
of my parents went to jail for hamster-related
grooming felonies.
You can walk, Augustine!
Well done you.
Right, that is all we've got time for tonight.
If you'd like to have a go in the Red Chair yourself,
and tell your story, you can contact us via our website
at this very address. Please say a huge thank
you to all of my guests tonight, Elvis Costello, everybody!
CHEERING.
Ricky Gervais!
CHEERING.
Ant and Dec!
CHEERING.
And Cate Blanchett.
CHEERING.
Join me next week with singer Emeli Sande,
Kiwi comic Rose Matafeo, star of the new West Side
Story Rachel Zegler, Line Of Duty's Vicky McClure
and the great Sir Kenneth Branagh.
I'll see you then.
Good night everybody, bye-bye!
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE.