11 MP3 Audio clips from Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2005)

PLAY ALL 11 CLIPS

Clip 1

Who knew that Groucho Marx was such a genius? Only, Steve's right, isn't he? People really do fool around with themselves constantly.

Tristram Shandy

Ah... Groucho Marx once said that the trouble with writing a book about yourself is you can't fool around. Why not? People fool around with themselves all the time.

Clip 2

So what is a "cock and bull story"? Well, it's a British colloquialism for something which isn't true. A lie. A fiction. Oh, and it's the title of this movie!

Tristram Shandy

There are those who say this is a c*ck and bull story. Uh, that's the bull, my father's bull, and, uh... I'll show you the c*ck in a minute.

[Laughs]

Clip 3

We forget, don't we that it would have taken days to travel to London in a stagecoach. Unless you lived nearby, of course. Then it might have been a little quicker.

Tristram Shandy

In the September before my birth, my mother, being pregnant... or so she thought, insisted my father take her to London.

Walter Shandy

You all right, my love?

Elizabeth Shandy

I'm fairly comfortable.

Walter Shandy

Not long now. Just another two days.

Clip 4

Forceps. There would have been a time when natural childbirth would have been done without these glorified sugar tongs. Imagine that!

Susannah

You're not fixin' to use them on the little child?

Tristram Shandy

Yes, this is the very latest.

Doctor Slop

With these... I can extrude the baby's head before the mother has a chance to mash it's head to dough. I can show you, Captain Shandy. Make a baby's head of your hands. You're to imagine these sleeves are Mrs. Shandy's... funnel, and...

Captain Toby Shandy

Funnel?

Susannah

Meat curtains.

Captain Toby Shandy

Meat curtains? Brother?

Tristram Shandy

My brother knows nothing of women.

Clip 5

For one particular scene, Steve is to be suspended upside down in a giant, anatomically correct womb. That's how dedicated he is to this movie.

Steve Coogan

How about filming the other way around? The right way up, and then just flip the image?

Leo

Well, maybe, but I'd have to have a word with Mark about that. I mean, I think he wanted the realism.

Steve Coogan

He wants realism?

Leo

Yeah.

Steve Coogan

Yeah, I'm a grown man talking to the camera in a fu*king womb.

Clip 6

In order to be realistic, Steve will need to be as naked as the day he was born inside the giant, anatomically correct womb. Starkers. Nude. In his birthday suit. Yeah. Not happening!

Leo

I think the clothes make it tighter. It'll be all right on the day.

Steve Coogan

I'm not doing it naked.

Leo

Well, that's how babies are.

Steve Coogan

But babies don't have to be funny.

Jennie

I think you'd look funny naked.

Clip 7

Rob Brydon is famous for his impressions and he does an absolutely cracking Alan Partridge. Or is it Steve Coogan? Is there any difference?

Steve Coogan

I should dominate totally in those scenes. It should be like I'm Gandalf and he's Frodo.

Rob Brydon

"You shall not have the ring."

Debbie

[Laughs]

Steve Coogan

Very good, very good, Rob.

Rob Brydon

I do Steve as well.

Debbie

Can you?

Steve Coogan

Can we just sort the shoes out first?

Rob Brydon

[Mocking]

"Can we just sort the shoes out first? I've got a big house in the Hollywood Hills. Look at my pool!"

Steve Coogan

See, that's Alan Partridge. I don't speak like that.

Rob Brydon

"I don't talk that way. Yes, I do."

Steve Coogan

Stop it!

Clip 8

A scandal is on the horizon. Involving Steve and his one-night-stand with a lap dancer called Heather Gobbler. Unusual surname, that. Wonder how she came by it? No euphemism intended.

Adrian

Do you remember anyone called Heather?

Steve Coogan

Garbler?

Lindsey

Gobbler.

Adrian

She's a lap dancer and by the sound of what she says you got up to in your hotel bedroom on the twentieth of January, you ought to be able to remember her.

Steve Coogan

[Sighs]

Oh, fu*k!

Adrian

Did you have sex with her?

Steve Coogan

No.

Adrian

Drugs?

Steve Coogan

No.

Adrian

You didn't have sex with her?

Steve Coogan

No.

Adrian

No, you didn't?

Steve Coogan

No... I did.

Clip 9

Seven kids. Seven. Kids. Joe is a busy boy. He must have no central heating. Or perhaps his TV is broken. Whatever the reason, he needs to keep it in his trousers, to be honest.

Steve Coogan

How are the kids?

Joe

Good.

Steve Coogan

How many is it now?

Joe

Seven.

Rob Brydon

You've got seven children?

Joe

Yeah, seriously.

Steve Coogan

One for, uh... every day of the week. Do you know that there's a Grouch Marx... a good Groucho Marx story about... well, you see, he meets a woman with seven children and says, uh... "Why've you got seven kids?" and she says, "Because I love my husband." and he says, "Well, I love my cigar, but I take it out now and again."

Clip 10

Rob has a thing for Agent Scully. You know... Gillian Anderson. She makes him go all "gooey", and that's not good because she's going to be in the movie with him.

Rob Brydon

The thing is, I can't act...

Steve Coogan

I know that.

Rob Brydon

... with Gillian Anderson. I have a proper sexual thing for Gillian Anderson. I covet her. If I have to do a love scene with her, I will blush.

Clip 11

The birth of a child can seriously affect your sex life. Just ask Steve. Or Rob. Because Steve will deny it but Rob knows the truth. And he can do a great Steve Coogan impression, too!

Rob Brydon

Oh, listen, Jenny mentioned about this stuff... with the, you know... it's not been as good since the baby and everything.

Steve Coogan

What? Did she?

Rob Brydon

All men lose their libido.

Steve Coogan

I don't... no, they don't... Rob, I don't have a problem with my libido. I just don't have the fu*king time. For fu*k's sake.

Rob Brydon

[Mimics]

"Ooooh. I have no problem with my libido."