CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
What could this man do in 28 seconds?
Where's that silly laughter coming from?
Who's sniggering at the back of the class?
He's Scottish, his name is Robert Liston...?
19th century. 19th century?
He's a surgeon, a surgeon famed for his speed.
He could amputate a leg in 28 seconds.
SARA: That's too quick! Yeah.
Yeah, I reckon I could do it quicker, actually.
What's that, half a second? No, but you've got to
tie all the veins together!
Oh, you've got to finish the job? Yeah. You've got to finish it off.
His catchphrase was, "Time me, gentlemen".
LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH
In those days, theatres were called that for a reason because people
sold tickets and there were spectators. Yeah.
So, what happened on this one particular occasion,
it did not go all that well.
One time, he accidentally chopped off a patient's testicles,
AUDIENCE GASPS
JOSH: No! Too high up the leg. I know!
On one occasion, he was doing the amputation,
so you have to imagine, he has to be fast cos there's no anaesthetic.
Yeah. He brought the knife down,
he managed to sever three of his assistant's fingers...
AUDIENCE GROANS
..and as he brought it back up, he slashed the cloak of a spectator.
The patient and the assistant both died later of gangrene,
their wounds became infected and the story is that
the spectator died of fright because he thought he had been stabbed.
It is the only operation on record with a 300% mortality rate.
LAUGHTER
So, did he lose his licence? No, darling!
People queued up to see him, they absolutely did,
because his mortality rate was one in seven and... One in seven?!
Well, the average was one in four.
So, you know. But the idea that people don't make mistakes now,
ah-ha, let me tell you, in 2019, a hospital in Leicester
paid out £20,000 to a man they had circumcised by mistake.
He'd gone in for a procedure on his bladder.
No! He said he got distracted chatting to the nurses.
What? Yeah. So he didn't notice he was having the wrong operation
until it was too late.
He described it as a real surprise.
LAUGHTER
20 grand, though.
I'd take it.
Proximity. So, Alan...
..I want to ask you...
She's only just got castors. Oh!
Just can't stop now, can you?
Am I close enough to trigger your reaction bubbles?
LAUGHTER
Without a shadow of a doubt.
Is it uncomfortable at all? No, no, just feeling it now. Yeah.
So, why is it uncomfortable? Does anybody...? No, don't go!
We were so close!
Do you know why that might be uncomfortable?
Well, proximity. Yeah, it is. It's the study of proxemics.
It's the discipline of studying
the space that we keep between ourselves.
So, the founder of it is a US cultural anthropologist
called Edward Twitchell Hall.
There are four main zones, and you can see it up here.
First of all, we have the public space, that is the distance
at which you are comfortable... Oh, there's zone six, as well.
Oh, yes. You can go right out.
The distance at which you feel comfortable addressing a crowd.
Then there is social distance, that's where I would interact
with my acquaintances and then, there is personal distance,
which is coming up to four feet,
so that's for friends and family. Now, I'm going to pick...you.
This is intimate distance, OK?
So...
I've never met you before, have I?
No, Mum.
Ladies and gentlemen, my son, Theo.
APPLAUSE
What's red and roughy?
Ooh... Oh! Oo-o-o-oh... Oh, hello. Hello!
Who'd allow that photograph to be taken of themselves?
TOM: It's mine.
When I did Strictly Come Dancing, they said,
"It's in high-definition and you wear a leotard."
And I thought, "Oh, got it."
What they were saying was, "Please do something."
Because the first time I got the fitting, I was wearing shorts
and so I had to go, for the very first time at the age of 43,
TOM GASPS
And it was the most terrifying thing that's ever happened
in my entire life, it really was.
It was a exposing and strange
and afterwards, I was so cold!
To be fair, Susan, when somebody suggested you have a wax
if you were wearing shorts...
"These are going to get shorter, babe...
"..unless we are transporting tarantulas, I think, uh..."
Isn't it one of those things that when you've been
married for 17 years, you just kind of stop caring cos
neither of yous are going to find anyone else,
so you just kind of let it all join up?
Well, it's also knowing what's in vogue if you haven't
been on the "market" for a while, isn't it?
Cos, you know, I've been with my partner for 20-plus years
and back then, it was plaits and beads.
Sort of Willie Nelson, if you will.
So, did you...? Um...
LAUGHTER
Did you go...? Oh, what's the thing? Bermudan...?
Or what's the thing to get? It's a Bermudan...!
A Bermuda..?! A Bermuda Triangle?
Where everything disappears!
A ship disappeared up there!
Two pilots, like, "Oh...!" "What year is it?"
"1942?" "The things I've seen..."
What's it called when you have...? Brazilian!
Brazilian!
Not Bermudan Triangle - Brazilian!
So, the Hollywood's nothing, the Brazilian's the strip
and then, there's something where you just go,
"Just make me a bit..." The Macclesfield.
"Sod it!
"Deal with that!"
Oh, quickly, we're moving on!
Enough, enough!
The question was, "What's red and roughy?"
And it has nothing to do with these pants at all.
Why are we looking at this picture, then?
Well, it was meant to spark conversation and, weirdly, it did.
APPLAUSE
How would you test to see if it's warm enough
to put your plants outside? Go outside?
It's still in underpant...
..bottom...
Well, If you take them off and you shrivel up...
..it's too cold!
Put your pants back on. Yeah.
If it looks like a little mushroom peeping out of a bush...
How smelly your pumps are. Is it that?
Excuse me?
I love this, but I can only describe it as a cul-de-sac of conversations.
Let me steer you back to the motorway of actual information. Oh!
It's not that, then. It's not that.
So, in order to assess, you sit down with your bare bottom
in the ploughed field and if it is comfortable enough to sit
on the field, then it is warm enough to plant out your crops.
I'm telling you, science funding is a sham!
They are having a laugh out there, making stuff up!
Last day... Yeah, get your pants off and sit over there!
Unbelievable!
Does this does this initiative actually work?
Are there hundreds and thousands of farmers up and down the country
wearing no pants and sitting...?
With bum prints across their fields, as far as you can see!
Maybe that's how they get crop circles.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
Which is better - symmetrical knees or symmetrical nostrils?
Ooh! I know! Who would have thought there was a choice.
Which is better? Yeah, which is better?
I'd say knees. Why would you say knees?
To have your face exactly the same on both sides... Is weird.
..would actually be really odd. Yeah.
I thought the height of beauty was having a symmetrical face.
OK, let's have a look at ourselves with symmetrical faces.
Oh... JOE: Oh, no!
Oh, God... Here we are.
LAUGHTER
Alan!
This is the left side of your faces replicated.
It's had more impact on your hairdo, hasn't it? Good God!
I look terrifying. I look like a chipmunk.
So, that's our left sides, let's have a look at the right sides
and see if we think that's any better.
ZOE YELLS
That's amazing! ZOE: Oh!
Christ, you're straight out of Star Trek! That is...!
Alan, you don't look like yourself at all!
Aw, look at Alan! I feel really sad for him, there. I don't know why!
Here's another interesting fashion for royals. Louis XIV,
he had a fashion that courtiers should have one long fingernail.
Why was that?
My husband's got one special toenail for scratching his eczema.
AUDIENCE LAUGHS IN DISGUST
That's genuinely true!
Is that the sort of thing you were after?
I feel, in this show, you and I are in danger of oversharing.
And you seem to be fine with that, though, that's...
Yeah, as long as he keeps it to himself, I'm all right.
Right! Yeah, yeah, yeah. He hasn't, really, has he, now? No!
He's only told me quite recently, and we've been together
for nearly 15 years.
So there's nothing I can do about it now, is what I'm saying.
No. I'm stuck with it.
Except maybe pay more attention in the future.
So, the one long fingernail, what do we reckon?
Is that a cane he's leaning on or is that the fingernail?
I want that to be...
No, he didn't have the fingernail, it was the courtiers...
the fingernail? Yes.
Let me just get that out of my head.
LAUGHTER
What's it doing in your head?!
Just imagining... LAUGHTER AND SQUEALING DROWN SPEECH
SARAH GIGGLES
There's your takeaway from this show!
A pulsating termite and a fingernail up Louis XIV's arse.
Now...
DAVID: So, he... In this...
In this reality, he said, "I want any of you to be ready." Yes.
"There's no telling who I'm going to ask..." No. "..to stick
"their fingernail up my anus...
"..so I want you all to grow it. I don't want it to be a specialism.
"I want to say, 'You, now. Come here.'"
Time for an experiment.
I'm going to show you what happens when water reacts with magnesium
and silver nitrate.
So, I have to ask the panel to put their safety goggles on, please.
And I have to charge this. Are you ready?
Woo-hoo! Whoo-hoo-hoo!
You didn't do that?!
I did, isn't that fantastic? That didn't come from that!
So, that is what happens when water reacts with
magnesium and silver nitrate.
Can anybody tell me when a reaction like that happens in the body?
When you've eaten a lot of very spicy food and you have gas.
It's a very specific moment, like that,
but on a much, much smaller scale.
Sneezing? Ejaculation?
Well, you're close... Conception?
It is the moment when the sperm and the egg meet
ALAN SINGS ANGELICALLY
HE BLOWS A RASPBERRY
..literally fly.
So, when a sperm enzyme activates a human egg, there is an explosion
of zinc and the human egg has got about 8,000 zinc compartments
and each one contains around a million zinc atoms.
So, at the point of conception, they're all released in a display
that looks just like tiny fireworks and it goes on for about two hours.
So, did you just fire semen at that? Was that what that...?
So, is it like a firework display? Different ones...? No!
Yes, but tiny, darling, it's not as big as that! Yeah, yeah!
Zinc compartments...
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
OK, we're going to have another go,
but I'm going to let you all have a go.
I'm a 50-year-old man, that's a bit far away!
Are you ready? Yeah, so ready.
Pull it out now, as it were... What do we do?
Three, two, one...
Fire!
AUDIENCE WHOOS
Come on, boys! Uh...
Oh, for goodness' sake!
How was it for you?
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE