You Would Be The Shittest Doctor Who Companion.
I have been to see the recording of the first episode of the second series of You Have Been Watching, with anewcitylife, causethesounds (EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: causethesounds at the time) and derryderrydown! (It's a shame my username isn't 'bionaleonhart'; we almost had an alphabet theme going.)
My companions were wonderful. The recording was extremely enjoyable; not quite as funny as the recordings of The Unbelievable Truth, but, for reasons that are about to become clear, just as engrossing. The problem is that I am going to be unable to provide a detailed report, as I was more than a little distracted throughout by how much I needed to have sex with Charlie Brooker.
Seriously, we found ourselves sitting only four rows back, so we had an excellent view of his stupid weird attractive face, and I proceeded to spend the next three hours fighting back bizarre sexually-frustrated noises and the urge to run onto the set and, I don't know, lick him or something. This is not something that has ever happened to me before. How can that man exist?
I was actually shaking afterwards. It's ridiculous.
(Oh, yes, there were panellists, weren't there? They were David Baddiel, Liza Tarbuck and Kevin Bridges, but I'm afraid you won't see a great deal of them in here. LOOK, I CAN'T HELP IT IF I WAS STARING AT BROOKER THE ENTIRE TIME.
Actually, I've managed to recall a little more than I thought I would be able to.)
The episode will be broadcast tomorrow (Thursday) at ten in the evening on Channel Four, but obviously I'll be covering some things that won't be in the final cut.
- Brooker: (coming on-set, to the audience, rather sarcastic) Hello. (sits down) That's the rapport done. (audience laughs) No, seriously, that's all you're fucking getting.
(When I say 'coming on-set', by the way, I mean that he was walking onto the set. I love that Brooker requires such clarification.)
- Brooker's hair was a bit ridiculous and fluffy, as it has been of late, and Baddiel commented on it during the sound test. When Brooker protested, there was a call for a show of hands from the audience regarding whether the hair was good or bad; the results were not encouraging. Brooker was appalled. 'My hair looks good! I've just been backstage; everyone there was telling me how good my hair looks, and now I come out here and you all just mock me for it. You monsters.'
He continued to be a bit insecure about it for the rest of the recording. 'What's my hair doing now? I can't see what it's doing.'
- Very near the beginning, Brooker fluffed his reading and shouted, 'Oh, fuck you' at the autocue.
- Whilst talking about Doctor Who, the panel got into a discussion about what one would use time travel for.
Brooker: What I've been wondering is if I went back in time, right, if I walked in here right now and gave myself a handjob, would that be a homosexual experience or just incredibly advanced masturbation?
CHARLIE BROOKER HAS THOUGHT ABOUT GOING BACK IN TIME TO GIVE HIMSELF A HANDJOB. Not only that, but he has thought about it to the extent of wondering how to lexically classify it. I love him.
(He also suggested using time travel to form a choir with oneself: 'Keep going back until there are four of you and you can form your own Glee club.' And using it to make money through historical product placement: putting up billboards at the locations of famous events before they occurred, so the footage to be endlessly replayed in the future would feature an enormous Coca-Cola advertisement.)
- When talking about the Third Doctor, Brooker pronounced Pertwee as 'Per-twee', rather than 'Pert-wee'. Tarbuck mocked him for this. He redid the line, pronounced it 'Per-twee' again and swore. This happened again later; he pronounced 'John' in the French manner and then did the exact same thing when attempting the line again. I was tremendously amused.
- A conversation about Matt Smith resulted in the conclusion that the British public care more about the actor of the Doctor than they do about who runs the country, and that there should therefore be a general election for the next Doctor.
- On Amy Pond:
Baddiel: The BBC were obviously worried that she was a bit too sexy, so they gave her a completely unsexy surname. A pond is not sexy.
Brooker: A pond can be sexy, if you find a body floating in it.
- Apparently, Brooker was once very depressed and spent about a month lying on his side on the sofa, watching television. He actually turned the television on its side to facilitate this.
- Brooker: I find it difficult to get excited about food. I just think of every meal as a poo I haven't had yet.
- Bridges suggested making a bowl of Rice Krispies on a fancy cookery programme. 'Rotating the bowl as you pour will ensure an even distribution...'
- Brooker wants to get to the final of Masterchef, then produce a bicycle chain as his dish and force the judges to eat it. He also wants a Masterchef egg timer that shouts at you in the voice of one of the judges when you turn it over. 'THAT'S NEVER ENOUGH TIME! What're you still looking at me for? Start boiling the egg!'
- Two of the shows discussed were the incredibly twee The Delicious Miss Dahl and the incredibly gory Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Tarbuck suggested running them in succession to mitigate the corrupting effect of Spartacus. Brooker proposed switching between them at five-second intervals until all the viewers went mad.
- After showing several clips of Spartacus in which a group of men laughed at people being injured (which Brooker described as 'his locker-room nightmare'), Brooker commented, 'That's how I imagine prison will be like.' (I enjoy the 'will be', as if Brooker's imprisonment is inevitable.)
The subsequent exchange:
Brooker: I don't know, what do they do in prison? Things with spoons and bits of heroin or something.
Bridges: 'Things with spoons and bits of heroin'?
Brooker: Yeah.
Bridges: ...taking heroin.
- Regarding sex:
Brooker: Still, as I've learnt, how long you last doesn't really matter; what's important is getting through it without crying, defecating or yelling 'Sorry'.
- Baddiel gave an answer at one point, and Brooker tried unsuccessfully to cover up the fact that he was looking through his cue cards by stalling in a high-pitched voice. 'Is that the answer? Is it? Is it really? Is it? ...yes, I'm doing admin, you caught me.'
- After discussing David Cameron surprising Jeremy Clarkson on his birthday by dressing as the Stig, Brooker said, 'Let's hope he celebrates Richard Hammond's fiftieth by crashing a jet car at three hundred miles per hour.' (pause, then, in amused disbelief) 'And now, for impartiality reasons, I actually have to say that I also hope Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have car crashes.'
- Brooker occasionally forgot that his guests couldn't hear the voices giving him instructions in his ear and held one-sided conversations with the air. It was sort of adorable.
- At the end, Brooker had to repeat various things. This was bizarrely hilarious, particularly when he was just saying, 'That was amazing! That was brilliant. That was strangely eerie. That was sexy' with no context at all. (anewcitylife squawked at the last of these. It's good to know I'm not the only one who enjoyed hearing Brooker say 'sexy'.) He also expressed frequent disbelief ('What, literally just that?') in response to the voices in his ear telling him what to say, apologised for being about to say things that sounded a bit weird out of context, and pulled the most delightfully stupid expressions. I couldn't stop giggling.
The admin bits went on for quite a long time, and the panellists eventually began to become restless.
Tarbuck: What I wouldn't give for a cup of tea.
(pause; Brooker is talking to the voices in his ear)
Tarbuck: If we all ran at him, he wouldn't be able to do anything.
Brooker: Don't plot a mutiny! It's happened before, and six people died. (shuffles cue cards) This is a fucking hostage situation.
Oh, I can't remember anything else. THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY: CHARLIE BROOKER IS A SEXY BASTARD. I don't know how or why, but it is true.
My companions were wonderful. The recording was extremely enjoyable; not quite as funny as the recordings of The Unbelievable Truth, but, for reasons that are about to become clear, just as engrossing. The problem is that I am going to be unable to provide a detailed report, as I was more than a little distracted throughout by how much I needed to have sex with Charlie Brooker.
Seriously, we found ourselves sitting only four rows back, so we had an excellent view of his stupid weird attractive face, and I proceeded to spend the next three hours fighting back bizarre sexually-frustrated noises and the urge to run onto the set and, I don't know, lick him or something. This is not something that has ever happened to me before. How can that man exist?
I was actually shaking afterwards. It's ridiculous.
(Oh, yes, there were panellists, weren't there? They were David Baddiel, Liza Tarbuck and Kevin Bridges, but I'm afraid you won't see a great deal of them in here. LOOK, I CAN'T HELP IT IF I WAS STARING AT BROOKER THE ENTIRE TIME.
Actually, I've managed to recall a little more than I thought I would be able to.)
The episode will be broadcast tomorrow (Thursday) at ten in the evening on Channel Four, but obviously I'll be covering some things that won't be in the final cut.
- Brooker: (coming on-set, to the audience, rather sarcastic) Hello. (sits down) That's the rapport done. (audience laughs) No, seriously, that's all you're fucking getting.
(When I say 'coming on-set', by the way, I mean that he was walking onto the set. I love that Brooker requires such clarification.)
- Brooker's hair was a bit ridiculous and fluffy, as it has been of late, and Baddiel commented on it during the sound test. When Brooker protested, there was a call for a show of hands from the audience regarding whether the hair was good or bad; the results were not encouraging. Brooker was appalled. 'My hair looks good! I've just been backstage; everyone there was telling me how good my hair looks, and now I come out here and you all just mock me for it. You monsters.'
He continued to be a bit insecure about it for the rest of the recording. 'What's my hair doing now? I can't see what it's doing.'
- Very near the beginning, Brooker fluffed his reading and shouted, 'Oh, fuck you' at the autocue.
- Whilst talking about Doctor Who, the panel got into a discussion about what one would use time travel for.
Brooker: What I've been wondering is if I went back in time, right, if I walked in here right now and gave myself a handjob, would that be a homosexual experience or just incredibly advanced masturbation?
CHARLIE BROOKER HAS THOUGHT ABOUT GOING BACK IN TIME TO GIVE HIMSELF A HANDJOB. Not only that, but he has thought about it to the extent of wondering how to lexically classify it. I love him.
(He also suggested using time travel to form a choir with oneself: 'Keep going back until there are four of you and you can form your own Glee club.' And using it to make money through historical product placement: putting up billboards at the locations of famous events before they occurred, so the footage to be endlessly replayed in the future would feature an enormous Coca-Cola advertisement.)
- When talking about the Third Doctor, Brooker pronounced Pertwee as 'Per-twee', rather than 'Pert-wee'. Tarbuck mocked him for this. He redid the line, pronounced it 'Per-twee' again and swore. This happened again later; he pronounced 'John' in the French manner and then did the exact same thing when attempting the line again. I was tremendously amused.
- A conversation about Matt Smith resulted in the conclusion that the British public care more about the actor of the Doctor than they do about who runs the country, and that there should therefore be a general election for the next Doctor.
- On Amy Pond:
Baddiel: The BBC were obviously worried that she was a bit too sexy, so they gave her a completely unsexy surname. A pond is not sexy.
Brooker: A pond can be sexy, if you find a body floating in it.
- Apparently, Brooker was once very depressed and spent about a month lying on his side on the sofa, watching television. He actually turned the television on its side to facilitate this.
- Brooker: I find it difficult to get excited about food. I just think of every meal as a poo I haven't had yet.
- Bridges suggested making a bowl of Rice Krispies on a fancy cookery programme. 'Rotating the bowl as you pour will ensure an even distribution...'
- Brooker wants to get to the final of Masterchef, then produce a bicycle chain as his dish and force the judges to eat it. He also wants a Masterchef egg timer that shouts at you in the voice of one of the judges when you turn it over. 'THAT'S NEVER ENOUGH TIME! What're you still looking at me for? Start boiling the egg!'
- Two of the shows discussed were the incredibly twee The Delicious Miss Dahl and the incredibly gory Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Tarbuck suggested running them in succession to mitigate the corrupting effect of Spartacus. Brooker proposed switching between them at five-second intervals until all the viewers went mad.
- After showing several clips of Spartacus in which a group of men laughed at people being injured (which Brooker described as 'his locker-room nightmare'), Brooker commented, 'That's how I imagine prison will be like.' (I enjoy the 'will be', as if Brooker's imprisonment is inevitable.)
The subsequent exchange:
Brooker: I don't know, what do they do in prison? Things with spoons and bits of heroin or something.
Bridges: 'Things with spoons and bits of heroin'?
Brooker: Yeah.
Bridges: ...taking heroin.
- Regarding sex:
Brooker: Still, as I've learnt, how long you last doesn't really matter; what's important is getting through it without crying, defecating or yelling 'Sorry'.
- Baddiel gave an answer at one point, and Brooker tried unsuccessfully to cover up the fact that he was looking through his cue cards by stalling in a high-pitched voice. 'Is that the answer? Is it? Is it really? Is it? ...yes, I'm doing admin, you caught me.'
- After discussing David Cameron surprising Jeremy Clarkson on his birthday by dressing as the Stig, Brooker said, 'Let's hope he celebrates Richard Hammond's fiftieth by crashing a jet car at three hundred miles per hour.' (pause, then, in amused disbelief) 'And now, for impartiality reasons, I actually have to say that I also hope Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg have car crashes.'
- Brooker occasionally forgot that his guests couldn't hear the voices giving him instructions in his ear and held one-sided conversations with the air. It was sort of adorable.
- At the end, Brooker had to repeat various things. This was bizarrely hilarious, particularly when he was just saying, 'That was amazing! That was brilliant. That was strangely eerie. That was sexy' with no context at all. (anewcitylife squawked at the last of these. It's good to know I'm not the only one who enjoyed hearing Brooker say 'sexy'.) He also expressed frequent disbelief ('What, literally just that?') in response to the voices in his ear telling him what to say, apologised for being about to say things that sounded a bit weird out of context, and pulled the most delightfully stupid expressions. I couldn't stop giggling.
The admin bits went on for quite a long time, and the panellists eventually began to become restless.
Tarbuck: What I wouldn't give for a cup of tea.
(pause; Brooker is talking to the voices in his ear)
Tarbuck: If we all ran at him, he wouldn't be able to do anything.
Brooker: Don't plot a mutiny! It's happened before, and six people died. (shuffles cue cards) This is a fucking hostage situation.
Oh, I can't remember anything else. THE POINT OF THIS ENTRY: CHARLIE BROOKER IS A SEXY BASTARD. I don't know how or why, but it is true.