Vic Reeves

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and three, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:23

Mike Castaway this week is an entertainer. As the lead half of Britain's most celebrated comedy double act, he can extract laughter from almost anything, plumping a cushion, cooking beetroot, or the shape of a Dairy Lee cheese slice. It's a talent which has kept him and his partner on television in a variety of shows for more than ten years now, the most recent being Shooting Stars and Randall and Hopkirk deceased. But it was a long climb to the top. It started in the pubs and clubs of London, where he used to introduce acts, and then developed into being the star of the show himself. He also sings, he had a number one hit, and he's an artist too. He's recently had a one-man show of his drawings and paintings. It all comes naturally. Anything is achievable, he says, as long as you have a mixture of conviction and complete lack of pride. He is Vic Reeves. In other words, you just don't have to mind making a fool of yourself, is that it?

Vic Reeves1:15

I don't mind if I make a fool of myself nobody in this profession should do, because that's the whole idea of it really at the end of the day, I think.

Presenter1:21

Yeah, as long as people are laughing w with you, not at you, or don't you mind

Vic Reeves1:26

Oh no, I think with and at.

Presenter1:27

Okay.

Vic Reeves1:28

And alongside the behind and in front and wherever else you like, you know, as long as they're laughing, it doesn't really matter.

Presenter1:32

As long as they're being entertained.

Vic Reeves1:33

Yeah, it doesn't matter where it's directed.

Presenter1:35

But that that's really the point, that what you do is, it seems to me, good old fashioned light entertainment. I mean, people have applied all sorts of smart words to it, like postmodern and so on, haven't they? But it's it's good old fashioned silly walks.

Vic Reeves1:45

But

Vic Reeves1:48

Well it's musical at the end of the day.

Presenter1:49

At the end of the day. Yeah. So who would you say I know y you probably hate m saying who your antecedents might be, but one immediately, of course, not least'cause of the glasses sitting on the table there, one thinks of of Eric Morcombe when one looks at you.

Vic Reeves2:02

We got labelled with the like new Morkerman wise, which we aren't, because I think mainly because I was taller, had specs and Bob was shorter and rounder. And we were double acted and we were from the north. You know, we we are along those lines, I wouldn't deny it. But we're not the new Morkerman wise and we don't follow in their footsteps and we don't copy them around.

Presenter2:22

But you would no, but you admired them, obviously. Oh, yeah.

Vic Reeves2:24

Oh and yeah.

Presenter2:25

And but I mean, what about other people? Laurel and Hardy, Arthur Askey, these are the other names.

Vic Reeves2:30

Well, after asking Harry Lauder, you know, Will Hay.

Presenter2:33

Hmm.

Vic Reeves2:33

I mean, I like I loved all those films when I was a kid. That's you know, I wouldn't go out to play if there was a har a Will Hay film on.

Presenter2:40

But what's interesting is is that those all those kinds of people were kind of bygones when you came along in in the sort of late eighties, early nineties, and there wasn't anything like that around. People were either stand ups like Ben Elton or they were you know uh they did imp impersonations or sketches like French and Saunders.

Vic Reeves2:57

Yeah.

Presenter2:58

That kind of straightforward being wilfully daft had gone away, hadn't it?

Vic Reeves3:02

It's gone away, hadn't it? Well, we were we were unique because we're th we were probably the only people on television or on on stage doing comedy who weren't filled with fury and vitriol. That's right. I mean the

Presenter3:12

That's right. I mean there's no there's no political humour there. There's no

Vic Reeves3:15

No, we just wanted to fall over and then you know you know there's you still can't beat your trousers falling down.

Presenter3:17

Yeah.

Presenter3:21

Yeah, no.

Vic Reeves3:21

Yeah, no.

Presenter3:22

And there's no sexual human. Well, I suppose there is when you kind of rumpy through the middle of the middle.

Vic Reeves3:25

Well, there isn't well, there's always a section, but it's a very juvenile, boyish sexual, you know, a twelve-year-old sexual approach to

Presenter3:32

So it's just a case of never growing up, really, isn't it?

Vic Reeves3:35

But it's well I remember when I was a kid, me and my friend used to love knocking on people's doors and and asking if Peter Pertwee lived in, there was one of them I particularly remember, wasn't it? It's not funny in the slightest, but we used and walking into shops and asking for things in stupid accents. And I used to I must have been about ten or eleven at the time, and I remember thinking, When I'm forty

Vic Reeves3:56

I'm going to still be doing this, but I'll be able to get away with it.

Presenter4:00

And you'd be getting paid for it.

Vic Reeves4:00

Any beginning?

Vic Reeves4:01

Yeah, well I didn't think I just thought I could walk into a shop and ask for a a Mars bar in a stupid accent and get away with it because I'd be treated with more respect.

Presenter4:09

Respect'cause you were grown up. This is a very grown-up programme. You've got to choose eight records to take to a desert island. So before you pour any more water, tell me what the first one should be.

Vic Reeves4:18

The first one is Voodoo Child by Jimi Hendricks and I was on holiday at Butlin's in Bridlington, or Thiley I think, um with my parents and they used to have a tannoy which played music which was played by the the um camp DJ and I just fell in love with it there and then.

Vic Reeves4:40

I'm picking up all the pieces and make an island.

Presenter5:06

Jimi Hendrix and Voodoo Child, they don't make'em like that anymore, you say.

Vic Reeves5:10

No, they certainly don't know which they would do.

Presenter5:12

Why didn't they?

Vic Reeves5:13

I don't know, I think everybody it's all become very asinine and people want to be, um

Vic Reeves5:17

Cruise ship singers are

Vic Reeves5:19

Cabaret singers, you know.

Presenter5:20

But there's a singer in you trying to get out all of the time, isn't there?

Vic Reeves5:23

I think everybody fancies themselves as a singer or a footballer or something or other, but, um

Vic Reeves5:28

Out of a singer or a footballer I'd choose a singer, but I'm not desperate.

Presenter5:33

But neither you didn't set out, did you, to be an entertainer, as I did. You you you might have been an engineer, you might have been a pig farmer, which you were at one point, you might might have been a

Vic Reeves5:40

Yeah.

Presenter5:42

In the civil service. It's very strange that you didn't, and quite often when you look at people's lives, you can see that they were kind of set fair for their to achieve their great ambition.

Speaker 35:52

Uh

Vic Reeves5:52

Yeah.

Presenter5:52

Y you never thought you would, did you? Or never in fact had it as an ambition?

Vic Reeves5:54

In fact, it had a

Vic Reeves5:57

I mean, I was a yeah, I went did an apprenticeship. I was an engineer. But that was kind of what you did. You had no aspirations. That's just what you did. You left school and you went to work in a factory.

Presenter6:09

But as I understand it, underneath all of this there wasn't a one of these days I'm really going to get on a stage, I'm really going to entertain people. It that wasn't part of you.

Vic Reeves6:17

I did want that but um when you go to work in a factory and you're sixteen years old and mammon takes a grip when uh you get offered a bit of cash in your pocket so you can buy a new pair of loons and go out on a Saturday night, you're very happy. So it wasn't in I wo you know, I didn't want to get on a stage.

Vic Reeves6:38

I didn't think it didn't.

Vic Reeves6:40

Cross my mind at all.

Presenter6:41

And yet the fact is that in your mid twenties, suddenly there you are in a pub in South East London somewhere. You you've been booking the acts for them and one of the days you think, I'm not going to book the acts, I'm going to get on that station, I'm going to do it myself, and that's what you did. How did you know you could do that?

Vic Reeves6:55

What did you

Vic Reeves6:56

The reason I got up there was because I didn't know how to book anyone, so I thought I'd do it myself and take their wages. So once again Mammon raises his head.

Vic Reeves7:05

And then

Presenter7:06

But no nerves, no I mean, had you prepared? Had you thought through any material?

Vic Reeves7:09

Yeah, I prepared it, yeah, I thought it com through completely, but you know, it was basically all based around what I'd been doing at art school.

Vic Reeves7:17

And I didn't really mind if it failed, there was nothing there wasn't anything to lose.

Presenter7:21

Yeah, except that you'd thought it through beforehand, you've just said, and you'd planned it. So, you know, you invest something in it. I can't accept that you can just walk on and think, Well, it doesn't matter what the hell happens here. You you know, you really planned it. You had in your mind what you wanted to achieve and therefore you had a goal.

Vic Reeves7:24

Yeah.

Vic Reeves7:38

Well, you know, I did want to get on stage and do it, you know, there is there's that urge that lust to stand on the stage.

Presenter7:44

And what is it? What is it that you get out of it then? Do you can you remember that first night? Well how does that feel when it's

Vic Reeves7:49

Well, it's always okay what anyone says. There's always a thrill, there's a kick about doing anything on the stage. And it was a

Presenter7:54

Show nothing.

Presenter7:55

It's getting approval. What is it?

Vic Reeves7:56

Well, yeah, it's a bit of everything. It's showing off. It's making people happy.

Presenter7:56

What?

Vic Reeves8:00

It's, um, all those things rolled into one and at the end of the day, if you actually pull it off and you get applause at the end of the night, you've it it's like winning a short race.

Presenter8:09

So, the Vic Reeves big night out was born back in the mid-80s. Vic Reeves, of course, not your real name. Did you say that? No, and there's another thing.

Vic Reeves8:15

No, and there's another thing, because I remember sitting quite clearly at home in my flat thinking, Now I'm gonna do this one night. It was the first night and I thought Jim Moyer is not a good name m'cause I've spent my life nobody been able to pronounce or spell Moyer. Um, so I thought I'll think of a a new name and I think it was a Vic De Mone film on

Presenter8:35

Or Jim Reeves was on the record player with

Vic Reeves8:36

Jim Reeves was on the record player.

Vic Reeves8:39

It was gonna either beat Vic Reeves or Craig Wildfowl.

Presenter8:44

Thank God you chose Victoria.

Vic Reeves8:46

Yeah.

Presenter8:46

But is it a kind of persona that you hide behind?

Vic Reeves8:50

Well, the or uh the original idea for him was that he was a big overblown bluff kind of thought he was the best light entertainer in Britain and uh was uh you know b basically just a a a holiday camp performer.

Presenter8:50

Well it

Vic Reeves9:06

So that was the idea, really, of it.

Presenter9:09

Tell me about record number two.

Vic Reeves9:10

Well, record number two I've always loved this music. When I was at school I'd never got taught any classical music at all. So when I discovered libraries lent out records for ten P or something, that five P whatever it was, so I went through them all and uh decided what I liked. And this is was my favourite then and it always has been my favourite, and it's the Larkis Ending.

Presenter10:23

Part of Vaughan Williams's Lark Ascending, played by Michael Davis, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Bryden Thompson. Let's go back to the beginning. Your mum and dad, what did they do for a living?

Vic Reeves10:33

I was born in Leeds in nineteen fifty nine, and my dad worked at the Yorkshire Post.

Vic Reeves10:37

and then moved to Darlington where he'cause he moved to the Yorkshi the Northern Echo.

Presenter10:42

Good paper. Darlington. Isn't that where you actually saw Jimmy Hendrix?

Vic Reeves10:45

I do, yeah.

Vic Reeves10:47

I mean, yeah, I was uh about ten and I was out shopping with my mum and dad on a Saturday and he came past in a a white daimler and I just ran off straight after him. But I remember his fan his fantastic hair in the back of a white daimler.

Presenter11:00

Wonderful. And what were your mum and dad like to you? I mean, what went on at home? What kind of upbringing did you have?

Vic Reeves11:07

It was um

Vic Reeves11:08

A lot of walking, endless walks, endless visits to castles and historic spots, beauty spots. I used to follow my mother around the kitchen, getting on on her nerves a lot, finding out how to bake and cut and cook.

Presenter11:22

So you really do care about cooking beetroot and what slices of beef you should have and all that stuff.

Vic Reeves11:25

Oh yeah.

Vic Reeves11:27

Yeah, yeah. I've I've currently started doing cakes. I'm really getting into that now.

Presenter11:32

You could do a cookery programme really, there aren't many of those around.

Vic Reeves11:35

Yeah and woodwork at the same time.

Vic Reeves11:39

And we used to have seances for some bizarre reason occasionally.

Presenter11:42

Really? What Ouija boards and things?

Vic Reeves11:43

What we bought?

Vic Reeves11:44

Yeah, it was bak a lexicon set set out in a tumbler.

Presenter11:49

Do it work?

Vic Reeves11:49

Just as far as I can remember, yeah, we used to get in touch with the, you know, Cromwell and people like that.

Presenter11:54

Oh, just just Chrome one.

Vic Reeves11:54

Uh

Vic Reeves11:56

BAAP

Presenter11:56

Boom.

Presenter11:58

But no tele no mention of television here. So, I mean

Vic Reeves12:01

Yeah, we uh it was only ever on for Coronation Street as far as I remember.

Presenter12:05

So you don't have any of those early influences. I mean, what about Monty Python would have been on the right? Well, yeah, I mean, that was going to be.

Vic Reeves12:09

Well, yeah, I mean I was getting a bit older then, so I was getting more interested in television, so yeah, I used to adore Monty Python.

Presenter12:11

Yeah.

Vic Reeves12:15

And I remember my mum.

Vic Reeves12:17

Dad, grandparents, they couldn't see any humor in it at all. Nothing at all. But I just got everything and I thought it was fantastic and we should go to school the next day and

Presenter12:21

Yeah.

Vic Reeves12:27

Play'em out.

Presenter12:28

What recite them all?

Vic Reeves12:29

Yeah.

Presenter12:30

Yeah. So you must have done the dead parrot a million times. Yeah. What would you like to think is your equivalent of the dead parrot?

Vic Reeves12:33

Yeah.

Vic Reeves12:38

I used to say you wouldn't let it lie and we used to go in two and I had to say that every night and it got it used to stick in the throat and I remember at one point it took about five minutes for it to actually come out and the look on Bob's face was like, I know you don't want to say it, but please you're gonna have to do it

Presenter12:53

It's a terrible thing you get bored by your own catchword.

Vic Reeves12:54

Yeah.

Vic Reeves12:56

Yeah, so people used to recite things like that, you know, I'll just show them still do show them.

Presenter13:00

But it's just it's great power, isn't it? When you've got people going around saying what you say, dressing up like you dress up, you know, imitating your characters. It's it's fascinating actually that you it it that you can inspire a cult.

Vic Reeves13:06

Yeah.

Vic Reeves13:15

It might have been that, you know, just that time.

Vic Reeves13:18

you know, late eighties, early nineties that people work'cause I can't imagine anyone doing that nowadays.

Vic Reeves13:24

For anyone.

Presenter13:25

Well, you'll have to invent some more.

Vic Reeves13:26

Well, maybe we shall.

Presenter13:28

Record number three.

Vic Reeves13:29

Oh, record number three is Ella Fitzgerald and the very thought of you. My um father was a big fan of Ella and we used to have a lot of that on in in the house and I still love it.

Presenter13:40

The very thought of you

Presenter13:44

And I forget to do the little ordinary things that everyone ought

Speaker 313:54

What to do? I'm living in a kind of daydream.

Presenter14:02

I'm happy as a king And foolish though it may seem Ella Fitzgerald and the very thought of you.

Vic Reeves14:10

Hell of f

Presenter14:13

A lot of people who kind of were around in the sixties in their teens, like me, think that the seventies were very boring really, that you were just trying to m manufacture.

Vic Reeves14:17

Think that's

Presenter14:22

All kinds of zany things, and punk was a kind of, you know, you were trying too hard. Did you really think that?

Speaker 314:27

Never feel ready.

Vic Reeves14:28

Yeah, that's

Presenter14:29

Let us have a debate.

Vic Reeves14:30

Let's have a debate.

Presenter14:31

Vic

Vic Reeves14:32

Well, I thought the seventies was g but maybe it's that, you know, your not your formative years, it's your post formative years, isn't it? But I mean, I just liked glam rock and all that stuff. I s you know, when I first saw Roxy Music on Top of the Pops I thought this is fantastic I mean, look at the state of'em and that there was a tongue in cheekness about it. It was humor, there was the skill, the musicianship and everything and and the theatre and the pantomime and everything.

Presenter14:57

But what would you have looked like, for example, in say 1975?

Vic Reeves15:02

Well, I went in seventy five from wearing um striped blazer with very long hair to chopping it all off in seventy six when I when punk rock arrived and I thought this is a new, thrilling, exciting thing. There was certainly a something amongst the people of the teenagers that had that that sort of home made art school kind of mentality which was like you don't need to buy cl clothes out of the shops, you you just make'em. I'll get something from Oxfam and then I remember I had a pair of huge old man's trousers from Oxfam which cost me like five P and I stuck bits of fag packets all up the back of'em.

Speaker 215:27

Okay.

Presenter15:36

Yeah.

Vic Reeves15:39

But it was all that kind of thing, you know. It was a very inventive time.

Presenter15:42

But it's very interesting that although you were doing all of that, you know, so called rebellion and dressing like that, that you were actually being a very good boy and at sixteen you left school one O level, I think, in R.

Vic Reeves15:53

Yeah.

Presenter15:53

You hadn't concentrated very hard. You could have done. You could have done it.

Vic Reeves15:56

I didn't concentrate at all now.

Speaker 315:57

Yeah.

Presenter16:01

Oh, did you?

Vic Reeves16:02

Yeah.

Presenter16:02

To the library.

Vic Reeves16:03

Yeah. I mean I didn't I really and I still agree now, I didn't wasn't taught what I wanted to be taught at school.

Presenter16:08

Okay.

Vic Reeves16:08

I don't think I was taught anything that I mean I learnt everything from reading and from my parents.

Presenter16:13

But you went into the factory and you stayed there in that factory for four years between the ages of sixteen and twenty. You lived at home, you know, you were a a kind of good, decent, hard working boy, huh?

Vic Reeves16:18

Because

Vic Reeves16:23

I brought home the bacon. Yeah.

Presenter16:26

Yeah. Is that all it comes down to? Or was it did you think that that was what life had to be about for you? That you could, you know, in your spare time dye your hair orange, but actually

Vic Reeves16:36

Yeah.

Presenter16:39

But in the engineering family?

Vic Reeves16:40

It was

Vic Reeves16:41

Oh, that was terrible. It was dull and but, you know, you made what entertainment you could out of it. But I that was just really it's all I knew. That's what I did. You know, I went to work and

Presenter16:48

That was

Vic Reeves16:49

I was going to do an apprenticeship because that's what was expected, and that's what everyone else I knew did.

Presenter16:50

Yeah.

Presenter16:54

But then when you were twenty you decided to cut and run to swinging London. Great liberation.

Vic Reeves16:58

Great.

Presenter17:00

And you went to work in the civil service?

Vic Reeves17:02

It is bizarre how that busin uh organization works.

Presenter17:06

Huh.

Vic Reeves17:07

you know, the, um if I had a message like, Can I have a cup of coffee? it'd have to go all the way right around the houses, right th you know, to Hansard and everywhere before it comes back and you get a cup of coffee.

Presenter17:17

So you chucked that in and went to art school eventually, didn't you? But anyway, we'll come to that. Let's pause. Record number four.

Vic Reeves17:20

We'll come to

Vic Reeves17:23

Oh, number four well, it's Henry Cow and Devana for Mice.

Vic Reeves17:29

I don't know what I can say about this but I loved them when I first heard them and I like very complicated and peculiar music. So this is Henry Cow, who are a band and not a person.

Presenter18:07

Henry Cow playing Nirvana for mice. I think that's a first on Desert Island.

Vic Reeves18:11

I used I I got really into this you know avant-garde jazz and stuff like that and I invented this I got a long piece of workman's grey pipe about twelve foot long and a funnel and a piece of garden hose and a saxophone mouthpiece and invented um a playable sort of Tibetan pipe which I wanted to start my own avant-garde jazz band with.

Presenter18:16

I can tell, yeah.

Vic Reeves18:37

Never happened, but it will do.

Presenter18:38

Well, it might sound as good as that, really, mightn't it?

Vic Reeves18:41

Well yeah why don't you join? We can we can do this.

Presenter18:42

We could make music. Vic. Anyway, let's go back to you now that moment in the pub when you invent the Vic Reeves big night out by yourself for a couple of years.

Vic Reeves18:50

Uh

Presenter18:54

And then suddenly up pops in the audience, I think, this chap called Bob Mortimer.

Vic Reeves18:59

Well, he was a friend of a friend and he just came along and there's uh some rumors that he was heckling but Bob's never heckled anyone in his life. Um, he just uh was watching and he had a good time. And the the whole nature of the thing was that if there was a friend wanted to get involved,'cause there was always it wasn't just me on my own, I'd bring other people in to do things.

Speaker 219:09

And that

Vic Reeves19:19

Uh if you want to do something, go ahead and do it.

Presenter19:21

And you didn't mind sharing the limelight,'cause in the end that's what you did, as we've established, you invented the whole thing. The big night out was Vic Reeves' big night out.

Vic Reeves19:25

No, I didn't.

Presenter19:29

You've never seemed to mind that sort of thing.

Vic Reeves19:31

Well, I'm not a big fan of the Lyman. I'd rather you know, if it's good and it's funny, I'd I'll be the Bill Wyman, I'll sit stand right at the back. If somebody's got a good gag, which I may have written,

Vic Reeves19:42

then let'em have it.'Cause it's the it's the humour and the laughter that is it's not about wanting to be the best.

Presenter19:50

So when was the moment that you were discovered for the big time, as it were, when you sort of because there you were dabbling on the on the the outer fringes of alternative comedy. You couldn't get much further out.

Vic Reeves19:59

Common.

Vic Reeves20:01

Well, we weren't alternative. I mean, it it was beyond that.

Presenter20:03

Well quite.

Vic Reeves20:04

Yeah.

Presenter20:05

Postmodern, dear.

Vic Reeves20:05

So yeah, I will go back to that, yeah, probably post modern.

Presenter20:09

Anyway, who brought you in from the cold?

Vic Reeves20:09

Anyway.

Vic Reeves20:10

From the cold. Well, we we we we left doing the uh Big Night Out in a pub and we went to the Albany Empire Theatre in Deptford, which held about three hundred and fifty people, I think, and that was so we we'd do these shows every week. And uh one night Michael Grade and Alan Yentob was there at the same time and they both wanted us Alan wanted us for BBC and Michael wanted us for Channel Four. So there was a toss-up really and um I think Alan I think Alan's dad died, I think he went to America, so he disappeared off the scene for a bit and uh so Michael jumped in and we went to Channel Four and that was it.

Presenter20:53

Record number five.

Vic Reeves20:55

Bob and I have got a party piece which we do, which is um we both love free and Bob and I play the bass solo together with our mouths. Well like as in a bum bum bum style, but this is the bass solo from Mr Big played by Andy Fraser.

Vic Reeves21:36

Mr. Big

Presenter21:41

That was spree with Andy Fraser on bass playing Mr Big. You billed yourself Vic Reeves in those early days as Britain's top entertainer and the Vic Reeves big night out and all that which was ironic as it's all those superlatives used in sort of it's a kind of parody of show bisery. Um but I mean just to be pedantic for a minute, once you got into the big time and on on on television I mean it was a big night out, you kind of lost the gag, really.

Vic Reeves22:07

Um, when we did the Big Night Out on television, it wasn't r you know, it was a bit of a fantasy world. There was a lot of characters which we c you could move around each week and tell whatever story you want. I like I always like the s subliminal stories that run underneath. Like one of the characters who you thought was very nice turned out to be the devil, which is only spotted when I spotted hair hairs on his palm and things like, you know, there's little things, but we used to change it all the time anyway.

Presenter22:32

I liked Otis Redding and Marvin Gay sitting on a wall with speaking in Yorkshire accents. I mean, I

Vic Reeves22:36

Speaking of

Presenter22:39

Very cute.

Vic Reeves22:40

But there's a the you know, there's that nervous laughter at something which is not right. Marvin Gaye puppets in a wardrobe, it with Yorkshire accents.

Vic Reeves22:49

It creates a nervous laughter because there's something horribly wrong.

Presenter22:53

Hm. Or you coming on as David Bowie, I mean, uh not looking like him or sounding like him at all. I mean, kinda talk about suspension of

Vic Reeves22:59

Yeah. Uh

Presenter23:01

of disbelief. What what's the difference for you doing that kind of stuff in a pub or in a big theatre? Or in in the end you were doing it in the Hammersmith Odeon and filling the place for kind of nights on end?

Speaker 323:12

Yeah.

Presenter23:14

And doing it for television when I mean, there's a big difference'cause you can make it very slick on television. You can edit, you can cut things in. Here's a little sketch we prepared earlier.

Vic Reeves23:20

Is it

Vic Reeves23:22

Well, that's what I like. I like doing that more because, um I mean, I like it's an equal part because there's a great roughness about what you do on stage, especially if you c you veer off the track. If I had to choose, I'd probably say television. You can edit it, of course, at the end of the day.

Presenter23:32

They fight to

Presenter23:36

Yeah.

Presenter23:37

Yeah, you can cut it out if it doesn't work.

Vic Reeves23:39

Yeah.

Presenter23:39

Bit like this programme, really.

Vic Reeves23:41

Yeah, this one will trim down to about three minutes.

Presenter23:44

But tell me about shooting stars,'cause that's what you do. You've now done five series, I think. I mean, with kind of now you've got Will Self and Ulrica Johnson as as team captains and all that sort of thing. And it is very funny. But

Vic Reeves23:49

How many of you have?

Vic Reeves23:52

Johnson

Presenter23:56

It can get a bit cruel. I'm thinking of putting nice Damon Hill in a tank full of mushrooms and walking away and leaving him.

Vic Reeves24:03

Walking away.

Vic Reeves24:05

Yeah. Well, we'd only do it to people who we knew could take it and would find the humour in it. If there was anyone of a nervous disposition who might fright at that kind of behaviour, then we wouldn't do it. We don't really humiliate people. I think we we're very careful about that. We wouldn't purposefully make people look humiliated.

Speaker 324:19

Yeah.

Speaker 224:19

Yeah.

Speaker 324:19

Cool.

Speaker 324:25

Sure.

Vic Reeves24:26

Yeah.

Speaker 324:29

She couldn't have sex.

Vic Reeves24:30

Have you you've never been on shooting stats haven't you? No, I haven't asked.

Speaker 324:31

No, I haven't. She's never gonna see.

Vic Reeves24:36

Ah, number six. Now I believe that there this is quite a manly piece of music, I think this, and because I've never I've I know men who like this music, I d I've never met any women, and I think it's because men have a particular love of the sound of a internal combustion engine. So this is Bocephalus a Bouncing Ball by the Aphex Twin.

Presenter24:54

Strictly for the boys.

Vic Reeves24:55

Oh, I if I think girls might like it, but but I've not found one yet.

Presenter25:29

Let's have some more luck ascending.

Presenter25:33

Bucephalus or bucephalous bouncing ball played by Aphex Twitter. Another first, I think. Um, so now then there's Randall and Hopkirk, Brackett's deceased brackets, and and you're Hopkirk you're the one in the white suit who walks through the walls.

Vic Reeves25:44

You're the one that

Vic Reeves25:45

Yeah.

Presenter25:46

Yeah. I mean, that's good. Or do you not like doing that? It's quite different because it's acting. I mean, it's.

Vic Reeves25:46

Yeah.

Vic Reeves25:51

Well, it's the same thing, you know, acting in sketches and acting in drama's the same thing.

Presenter25:55

Is it?

Vic Reeves25:55

Is it?

Presenter25:57

Yeah, but there's no room really for I mean, there's a script and there's a tight script and somebody else has written it, haven't they? There's no room really for your kind of creative spontaneity.

Vic Reeves26:02

There's no problem

Vic Reeves26:05

The second series we changed the script a bit more than we did in the first, but yeah, it's uh I mean, we you know, if we write a script and for a sketch we'll learn the lines and do it, you know, if someone else, Charlie, writes it we'll it's the same thing, but

Presenter26:16

It's difficult to believe you learn your lines'cause they all come tumbling out, overlapping and, you know.

Vic Reeves26:22

Well if if they're meant to do that then they do. But um

Presenter26:25

Oh, I see, it's cleverer than we know.

Vic Reeves26:27

Oh, it's incredibly deep. And very funny about it.

Presenter26:30

And in the meantime you've been on Celebrity Mastermind.

Vic Reeves26:33

Yeah, I failed miserably, but I wasn't I didn't disgrace myself, I don't think.

Presenter26:35

That was

Presenter26:37

Well, I I I gather you did actually. Did you? Well, someone said you were bottom, weren't you?

Vic Reeves26:39

Did you?

Vic Reeves26:42

Well, I yeah, I came one or two points behind Jan Street Porter, but, um

Presenter26:46

Well

Vic Reeves26:46

I did all right, you know.

Presenter26:48

What was your special specialist subject?

Vic Reeves26:50

Um piracy between sixteen eighteen and seventeen twenty.

Presenter26:53

W did you I mean, did you mug it up, seriously?

Vic Reeves26:56

No, I I've you know, I started reading about that period of piracy about five years ago and I got into it.

Presenter27:01

Yeah.

Presenter27:02

So you did do it seriously, but at the same time you didn't mind if you made a fool of yourself?

Vic Reeves27:04

But at the same time

Vic Reeves27:08

I don't know. I mean, d d do people who come last are they necessarily fools?

Presenter27:12

Well, it depends whether you kind of can't answer a question. That's the great danger. Well, that's it. That's why we watch it, isn't it? That's what's dangerous about it, that people can be made to look very stupid.

Vic Reeves27:16

I'll ask him.

Vic Reeves27:18

Yeah.

Vic Reeves27:19

Yeah.

Vic Reeves27:22

Well, I don't think necessarily. Now, I did answer all the questions that were required of me correctly, to my ability.

Presenter27:28

Right.

Vic Reeves27:30

If I did horrifically, terribly, I would I'd you know, I'd hang my head in shame, but I don't think I did bad, honestly, I don't.

Presenter27:30

Type.

Vic Reeves27:39

I see you raising eyebrows.

Presenter27:39

Yeah.

Presenter27:40

I'll watch it again. Tell me about your seventh record. You're a brave man, Rick. Yeah, well, why not?

Vic Reeves27:41

Yeah.

Vic Reeves27:44

Yeah, well why not? What can I say, he's a very good friend of mine and uh it's Jeff Beck with Where Were You?

Presenter28:21

Jeff Beck with Where Were You. What's been your parents' reaction, Vic, to your Jim to your success?

Vic Reeves28:29

They love it, you know. They they get it and they like it.

Presenter28:33

They get it.

Vic Reeves28:34

Yeah.

Presenter28:34

What's the best thing you've treated your parents to, from your hard earned dosh?

Vic Reeves28:34

What's the best?

Vic Reeves28:39

Well, I bought a bungalow the first money I got, which was the least I could have done.

Vic Reeves28:44

And uh so that was it, yeah, I suppose. Getting getting that bungalow for

Presenter28:48

Okay, so now we're going to send you to um a desert island. Your very own novelty island.

Vic Reeves28:53

Yeah.

Presenter28:53

Um as a one-time engineer, you're obviously very good with your hands, you've not got a problem with uh kind of knocking up the shelter routine.

Vic Reeves29:00

I'm terrible. It's uh I'm a appalled.

Presenter29:03

But you're an inspector.

Vic Reeves29:04

I know, and I spent, you know, I was I was taught for five four or five years, whatever it was, to to be, you know, accurate within sh within tolerances that that exceed eyesight, you know, but I can't do a thing.

Presenter29:16

So you won't create a camp, or could you, of some kind?

Vic Reeves29:19

I couldn't no, it takes me about four weeks to pluck up courage to put a light bulb in.

Presenter29:23

And how would it be for you without an audience? Could you survive?

Vic Reeves29:28

Yeah, I'm quite happy with myself as an audience.

Presenter29:31

I am.

Vic Reeves29:32

Yeah.

Vic Reeves29:33

And then there's always, you know, like in uh what was that film with Tom Hanks? He had his footb he had a football, he had an audience of of football, wasn't it? That's fine to me like that, a coconut or a walnut.

Speaker 329:37

Castaway

Vic Reeves29:42

Something like that. I'll split the walnut in two and have two people in the audience.

Presenter29:47

So Vic Reeves does not need other people, huh?

Vic Reeves29:50

Well, yeah, of course I do. I l as virtually everyone else, yeah.

Presenter29:53

All right, but does Jim Moyer?

Vic Reeves29:57

Yeah, I think uh

Vic Reeves29:59

Oh, I think Vic Reeves, if you say Vic Reeves, probably needs a lot more people, but Jim Moyer can be quite happy with um very few people.

Presenter30:08

Last record.

Vic Reeves30:09

When we f we were very first started in a a little pub in Deptford, which was called Winston's Bar, one of the first people ever to come and see me was Glenn Tilbrook, who was the singer in Squeeze. And uh he was very

Vic Reeves30:23

helpful by being so thrilled and excited that uh that I was on stage. And uh so that was a big encouragement really and um I've always been a fan of Squeeze. But now he's done this album on his own, which I think is

Vic Reeves30:36

One of the best albums I've heard for a long, long time, so this is Parallel World by Glenn Tilbrook.

Vic Reeves30:42

Combining growth

Speaker 230:47

My words were after that you know

Speaker 230:53

It's time we just let go

Speaker 330:59

Well the time is gently rolling by Everyone sees eye to eye We're not needing separate lights

Presenter31:08

So star

Presenter31:11

Glen Tilbrook and Parallel World. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records to this island of yours, which one would you take?

Vic Reeves31:18

I'd take the larcas ending.

Presenter31:20

Would you?

Vic Reeves31:21

Yeah. I've never tired of it. I can you know, it's almost like every time I hear it it gets better.

Presenter31:26

And what about your book? You get the Bible and you get the complete works of Shakespeare.

Vic Reeves31:31

What do I want to do with them?

Presenter31:34

Read them.

Vic Reeves31:35

Yeah. Well, I wouldn't want the Bible to be honest. I would probably use that as f if I didn't have any firewood.

Presenter31:37

Yeah.

Presenter31:41

Okay, so we've burnt the Bible, we've read the Shakespeare, what extra book would you like?

Vic Reeves31:46

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. It's the only book that I've actually ever laughed out loud at.

Presenter31:52

And what about your luxury?

Vic Reeves31:53

Uh this might be controversial, but a potato seed.

Presenter31:57

Mm-hmm.

Vic Reeves31:58

Which I will cast away willy-nilly and uh eventually it'll turn into potatoes because I love

Presenter32:02

I will eat them.

Vic Reeves32:03

I will eat them eventually, will you?

Presenter32:04

Oh, well you can't have it then.

Vic Reeves32:06

I'm going to throw it away and forget about it, and then mysteriously potatoes might appear on the island.

Vic Reeves32:12

But it's nothing to do with me throwing the potato away.

Presenter32:12

But it

Vic Reeves32:17

So it's an underhand w uh way of am I allowed this or not?

Presenter32:21

Oh, well, I find it very difficult to say no, really. And you can't think of anything else, I presume.

Vic Reeves32:26

Uh a rifle? Am I allowed anything like this?

Presenter32:28

I think that would be too useful'cause you'd shoot yourself.

Vic Reeves32:30

I'd like um a decommissioned ship.

Presenter32:35

No, no, and no. Mick Reeves, a.k.a. Jim Moyer, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island is.

Vic Reeves32:37

Blow.

Vic Reeves32:42

Thank you.

Speaker 232:49

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.