Title: What IS the story in Balamory?

Soundcloud Time: 1:35:58
Youtube Time: 1:37:54

Original Record Date: October 7, 2013
Soundcloud Publication Date: October 30, 2013
Youtube Publication Date: May 27, 2015

Please Welcome a Man
Who if you heckle him, or even if you don’t, he’ll hit you with an electrified tennis racket.

Cool Kids
N/A

Guest Best Known
As the weatherman who appears in the TV in a back-shot of one of the Harry Potter films – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. He was also a shoe salesman in Revolver.

Audience

Better or Worse than Last Week: Better
Like or Unlike Wikipedia: N/A

Member Member Note
Ruth touched by the electrified tennis racket in the previous episode
RH asks if it would be alright if he slept with Soren
shown on RH’s hand-held camera
Soren Ruth’s daughter
shown on RH’s hand-held and stage-mounted camera
RH likened her to Sören Bonk, the previous lead singer of the band 6 Day Riot
student
Lucy Ruth’s sister
documentary producer
works for Al Jazeera

Emergency Questions

Ben Evans: How was it being in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix?

Well it was an enormous privilege. No, what happened… when I first moved to London in 2006 I had an agent – I still have this agent, nothing upsetting’s happened. And you have these things with general meetings where you go and meet a casting agent and you say, “Hello, this is what I look and sound like and these are the sort of things that I would love to do one day.” And so I went to this place in Twickenham and it was a really hot day, humid day and I though, God, this is going to be so embarrassing. I’m going to be so sweaty by the time I get there. And I sort of tried to find light clothing and linen stuff. And I got off the train at St. Margaret’s and I was absolutely… sweat was pouring down me and I thought, God, that’s dreadful and try and dry myself up in the gent’s and I went into the meeting. And I was dry when I went into the meeting. She started chatting to me and I started really, really sweating and I thought, Oh, God this is embarrassing. I wonder maybe she hasn’t noticed it. Then she said, “I know you’ve only just come in for a chat, but would mind awfully auditioning for the Harry Potter film while you’re here?” I didn’t actually have anything else on that day and I thought, Yeah, alright, let’s stick something on tape. No, I was very excited obviously. And I got this thing from my agent saying, “Yeah, they want you to play a weatherman.” And I said, “Is there a weatherman in Harry Potter? I haven’t read the books.” […] The scripts were top secret so you couldn’t see it, and I get there and they say, “Right, your’re playing the weatherman. And what’s happening is it’s a story device and there’s some terribly hot weather. And the weatherman is sweating very, very heavily.” And that’s what it was.

Ben Evans: Hello Miles Jupp. Or should I say, Archie the Inventor? You ruined my childhood. None of your inventions worked. Any new projects of yours?

Uh, I ruined his childhood because none of my inventions worked. I think that’s… well, yeah. He wasn’t a great inventor but also the other thing about his inventions, he’s sort of lying. A lot of things that my character invented in that programme are things that were already commercially available and then we would stick a bit of black tape over the sort of trade name, so that there was no sort of infringement. So if he couldn’t get the things to work that were commercially available in shops, you know, I sort of worry about his future in a number of ways.

Ben Evans: What is your favourite character on Balamory? Not yourself.

Edie McCredie was one of my favourites. There you are. Do I have to show my work here or am I allowed just to be confident?

Would you rather have a tit that dispensed talcum powder or a finger that can travel through time?

Well I can see – God, it’s so hard to choose between them because they both have so many attractive, uh… The talcum powder thing, I know a lot of people… it’s not fashionable anymore but I’ve always enjoyed… As someone who’s spent a lot… I’ve never really mastered drying, to be perfectly honest. You know that thing where you go to the swimming bar and you’ve been swimming for 45 minutes, but afterwards you think, I’ve been getting changed for about an hour now. I cannot… What have I done? My genitals are still soaking. I’ve dried them and then I got a bit hot; it’s a bit muggy. […] The thought that I could just turn my self up into a ball and just sort of empty a tit of talcum powder onto myself and just sort myself out. i would relish that to be perfectly honest. And I imagine that quite a lot of other people would say, “Could you just squeeze some of that onto here because I cannot…” […] So I would happily dispense to other fellow sufferers.

Have you ever tried to suck your own cock?

No, I haven’t. And I think that’s because I’ve got a fairly sound idea of how inflexible I am. Well, I’ve just sort of attempted to touch my toes I realized just how far short I would find it. I’ve not attempted to but obviously you’ve got – you’ve sort of piqued my curiosity. Is this the platform? Is this the direction I want things to take?

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Uh, I haven’t seen a ghost but there’s two things. One, I remember very clearly; this must have been… I have a sort of silly memory, because I have a very definite recollection of thinking, Oh my God, I’ve seen a ghost. But I cannot remember what happened. It’s odd, isn’t it? I think it was in Cornwall. I’ve got such a vivid recollection of thinking, I have seen a ghost. I can’t believe I’ve just seen a ghost. But I cannot for the life of me think what this apparition was that I saw. […] So I must have done. And also the Stand Comedy Club in Glasgow is thought to be haunted. I’m sort of on the board there and we have meetings and every now and then it’s one of the things on the thing – there’s this society that’s interested in ghosts wants to come to the club. And I did have an experience there once when I was on the stage – it’s a really great room […]. I was convinced that someone had walked across the stage behind me, and I thought, Oh it’s someone probably going to the toilet. It’s a big rude, but, you know, I’m mid-anecdote I’m not going to risk improvising. That could ruin everything. And then they came back again or whatever. And then one time, they weren’t making a noise, but you know that thing where someone’s walking across a floor that you’re standing on and you can just feel the floor dipping and rising. The person or whatever it was was walking really slowly, so I thought, I mind a bit people walking across the stage to the toilet when I’m on but to do it this slowly is really rude, actually. And I sort of span round and there was sort of no one there. I felt a bit sort of weird about it. When you’re sort of just about – just about – got a Glasgow audience on side and going, “Has anyone else seen a ghost?

Have you ever seen a bigfoot?

Yes, I’ve just seen a big sort of creature emerge from the lake, or whatever.

What is it like being *guest*?

Well, I quite enjoy lots of it. I work reasonably hard. I go to community exercise classes. Boxfit, I go to. […] It’s sort of quite nice. I have a family and I eat and can afford the mortgage.

If you were doing a Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, what emergency question would you ask?

That’s a very good emergency question. I’d say, “Describe the work of Stewart Lee in no less than 100 charming adjectives.”

Do you have any unusual phobias?

Oh yeah. You know when shop windows, they stick up stuff that sort of advertise what they do. If it’s a news agency they might have a montage of sort of newspapers. Or a kebab shop or something or delivery fans. They have photographs on it of things like lettuce or tomatoes. Photographs of perishable items that definitely now no longer exist makes me absolutely sort of shudder.

Notes

Shrek t-shirts now available.

RH says that the IRA’s post-Brighton Bombing statement: “Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always” is the coolest thing that any terrorist has ever said.

MJ claims that RH gave him little notice before the taping, suggesting he was a last minute booking.