...and how he's never forgotten Rufus Hound's compering error

James Acaster has settled an old score with Rufus Hound about a gig he compered.

Acaster has publicly outed the older comic for giving him a poor introduction at a gong show competition he performed in Cambridge called Beat the Boot back in the day.

Speaking to Chris Moyles on his Radio X breakfast show this morning, the comic recalled  said: ‘There was a giant stiletto platform boot that was the size of a child, that was above the stage horizontally. And if you got booted off – you got three red cards – it would be winched down as if it was kicking you off the stage.

‘I'd watch them, and the people with the cards got power crazy, and they were just carding people off who were actually quite good. So, Rufus Hound – shout out Rufus Hound, was compering it…  he got my name wrong. 

‘I was told I was on sixth; third into the thing, he says, "James Lancaster. James Lancaster. Please welcome James Lancaster to the stage!" I was like, "Well, that's not me". There were 20 young people here going on, I don't know any of their names. I'm assuming that's James Lancaster. I've been told I'm on sixth, this is third. He says it for ages. 

‘Eventually I go, "Does it say James Acaster?" He looks at it again and says, "Yes. Okay, okay, it does say James Acaster. But ladies and gentlemen, if your name was James Acaster, and you heard James Lancaster, wouldn’t you think this is probably me? So, this guy's probably going to be rubbish".

‘Rufus Hound won't remember that. I've met him since, he's a nice man. I’ve never bought it up. But all that to say, I went on and they barely clapped me. 

‘As soon as I started talking, because of that, someone put up their card, and then I looked at the other two people with cards and I said, "You're a…" And then said a word that I can't repeat on the radio. Then they put their card up, I said, "So are you," and he put his card up. And that was the end of my gong show. That was the end of it.’

Acaster also said it was ‘huge’ to be on Moyles’s show – because he thinks about the presenter every time he goes to the toilet

He said it was Moyles who first inspired to try to be funny – and to get into podcasting.

'That is a true thing,’ he recalled. ‘When I was 14, our house flooded because of a cracked ballcock, which may or may not have been Suzi Quatro’s fault, and I can't prove that. 

‘We had to move into a smaller house. I didn't have a television, so I started listening to the radio every day. I listened to you every time I got home from school. And because you mainly did banter with everyone in the studio, and not music, I really loved it. Started recording on a little tape player at home, and me, my brother and sister would do our own version of The Chris Moyles Show and record that.’

Asked where the tapes are now, Acaster replied: ’I dread to think…. because it's me trying to be funny at 14. 

‘And there's still times now when I'm doing the Off Menu podcast with Ed [Gamble] where I think, "I can't believe I get to be Chris Moyles. I can't believe this is it". So, yeah, I'm pretty excited to be here. It's quite surreal.’

Then he dropped the comment: ‘I think of Chris every time I do a poo.’

By way of explanation, he said: ‘On a couple of occasions, you and the and the crew on that show went off on a tangent about the dilemma of going for a poo at a friend's house. And Chris's contribution to the riff would always be, you would say, put down some toilet paper to deaden in the sound.’

‘I was 14, so this was a new concept to me… And I was like, ‘That's a good idea, actually, because I'm 14 years old, I'm scared of going for poos in people's houses.’ So, I started doing it because Chris suggested it, and so every time I put toilet paper down to dead in the sound, I think of Chris. That's every time I do a poo. 

‘I'm 39 now. I was 14. Over half of my life, I thought of Chris Moyles every time I do a poo.

Moyles replied: ‘Get in!’

• The Chris Moyles Show is on  on Radio X  weekdays from 6:30am to 10am and on Global Player. Acaster’s full interview is here.

Published: 11 Dec 2024