Greg Davies: You Magnificent Beast Page #6

---

to the whole populous, nearly.

I'll give you an example,

the seriously ill.

That's right. Yeah.

No one has taken them down before.

Here I am.

What do you ever say about them?

What ever gets

said about the seriously ill?

"How awful..."

"Poor thing."

I went to Leicester to do a gig.

And I got invited

to Leicester'sbiggest hospice...

to do a day visit, and I thought,

"F***! No!"

But, of course,

you can'tturn that offer down.

I went,.I thought it would be

the worst thing I'd ever have seen.

And it was one of the most

uplifting and wonderful places,

and I said, "I can't

believe there's any laughter

going on in this place at all."

And the lady who runs it said,

"Yeah, well, that's the prejudice we're

fighting against,

'cause these people are still alive.

And so, we want them to have good times."

You know?

And it really got me, because...

I avoid thinking about ill people.

And when I thought about it, my own dad,

who was ill for six years

before he died...

When I think back on him now,

I just remember some pathetic,

old, ill man. Right?

And he was loads more

than a pathetic, old, ill man.

So I started to think, once she said that,

"Were there any good times

in that six years?

Were there any fun times

when he was ill?"

And there were good times.

There were times that we all laughed.

I'll give you one.

When he couldn't go to the toilet

by himself,

my mom used to let him piss

into a Lenor fabric softener bottle.

I went, "Why do you use that?"

"It's obvious. It's got a large handle,

a big opening at the top

and 'the refreshing smell of Lenor.'"

I've changed your perception

of my mom, haven't I?

She's not a stupid old lady anymore.

She's a wonderful, caring wife, isn't she?

Strap yourselves in.

I went home one day,

there was a small bottle

of Lenor on the side

and a very angry mom.

I went, "You all right?"

She goes, "No, I'm not.

They've redesigned it.

They've redesigned it.

No handle, no big aperture.

I'm the laughingstock.

I've recommended it to all my friends

with ill husbands."

And I went, "I'm sorry.

I'm sorry Lenor ruined your system."

She goes, "It's disgusting."

Then I heard some laughter

from the other room.

And it was my dad, in bed,

laughing his head off.

And he shouted, "Ask her what she did."

And I go, "What?"

He goes, "Ask her what she did."

I went, "What did you do?"

She goes, "He's been lying in his bed

taking a piss out of me all morning."

"What did you do?"

[shrugs] "I wrote to them."

I had a vision of the head designer

coming in and going, "Stop!

It's a wonderful bottle.

It's half the size,

less liquid, more portable,

but none of you have stopped

to consider

whether we can get an old man's wang

into this bottle."

Do you know what?

Even on the day my dad died,

there was some mirth...

when me and my mom and my sister

were standing round his bed

on what I've always described

as the worst day in my life so far.

If you've lost someone,

you know what this is like.

We were standing there,

waiting for the inevitable,

and when I thought back to it,

someone made us laugh.

And if my dad had been more with it,

he would've laughed his head off, too.

It was a male nurse.

He came into the room, and he said,

"Ho!

I am having a bad week."

And we all went, "Yep, it's pretty bad

over here as well."

He didn't take the hint.

He went, "Yep. It's my son.

He is fat.

He is mega fat."

And we went, "Okay, sorry to hear

about your fat son.

It's just...

we're kind of dealing

with a thing over here."

And then he said this, "Yep.

He's ten stone...

and he's only six."

I've got to tell you,

that's when I walked away

from my dying father.

"Ten stone? A 140-lbs. six-year-old?

I'm in. F***ing stop talking

about your mega fat kid.

A 140-lbs. six-year-old?"

"Yeah. Super fat.

Super fat."

And I went, "Jesus Christ, mate.

What are you feeding him?"

He said... arguably my favorite sentence

I've ever heard.

He said...

"He eats a whole cooked chicken

every day."

And that's when my sister walked away

from her dying father.

She wanted to know about

the six-year-old

who's gobbling

an entire chicken every day.

Who doesn't want to know

about the fat chicken kid? We all do.

She goes,"You shouldn't be feeding him

a whole chicken every day..."

He goes, "I'm not feeding him."

"He's getting a whole chicken

from somewhere."

"He helps himself."

My sister's like,

"Why don't you stop him?"

He said, "I can't. He's stronger than me.

He pushes me out of the way

of the fridge.

There's nothing I can do about it."

That's when his luck changed,

because my mom...

stood up from her husband of 50 years,

and I saw her mouth dry up,

and she went, "What do you mean?

What you mean there's nothing

you can do about it?"

My mom is an old school disciplinarian,

and I'll tell you this now,

if she were here, she would deny it,

but it is f***ing true.

In fact, I want to get it on record.

When I was a child,

I wouldn't eat my peas one Sunday,

and she punched me in the face.

And that is true.

When she saw this show, she said,

"I object to that, Greg.

It wasn't a punch. It was a flat palm."

She heard the sentence,

"There's nothing I can do about it."

She went, "What do you mean

there's nothing you can do about it?

Stop a six-year-old from eating

a whole chicken every day.

Of course there's something you can do."

He goes, "There's nothing I can do."

And she said, "For God's sake, man,

don't cook him a chicken."

And we all pissed ourselves laughing

in unison

when he shouted back at her.

He went, "No! That's the problem.

He cooks it himself!"

Oh, man.

So...

inevitably, my dad died.

If you've lost someone,

you know how sh*t that is.

We were very close.

I want to fast forward

two and a half years

to Christmas two and a half years ago.

My sister had brought the kids home

and my brother-in-law,

and we were sitting in the front room

about to watch the Queen's speech.

Of course, a big tradition in Britain.

Three o'clock on Christmas day,

lots of people sit down

and listen to the Queen has to say

about the year that's gone behind us.

My mom never misses it. Now...

I did an award-winning fart.

It ripped through the room

like fork lightning.

I knew it was a classic,

'cause the Queen hadn't spoken yet,

but it caused my mom to leave the room.

My sister said this to me.

She said, "You know I've just realized."

I went, "Go on."

"I've just realized your farts,

they sound exactly like Dad's."

Now...

my dad was an academic,

a world traveler,

the funniest man I've ever met.

He would've bored you himself.

He once played cricket

with the King of Jordan.

And I thought to myself,

"Hmm, I wonder...

Is that the epitaph he would

have dreamt of?

That he has passed down

anus genes to his son.

That the strongest genetic...

gift he gave his son...

was the same anus."

I thought...

If I'm gonna talk about him in a show,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes