COMEDIANS Jason Manford and Phill Jupitus have told of their "disaster chat show" appearance on the BBC NI's Nolan Live.
The pair appear punch-drunk as they recount their "bonkers" experience as "two comedians having to follow" an intense debate about the murder of prison officer Adrian Ismay with light chat about their musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which is playing at the Grand Opera House.
"I'm stood in the wings, wearing a microphone, thinking `We can't come on now'," Jupitus recalled on YouTube.
"Here's this debate raging about a murder, about Sinn Féin, about politicians, about bombs - really, really heavy, really heavy stuff," Manford tells the camera, shaking his head in disbelief.
"... You go on and it was so heavy, the conversation before, like really heavy, people getting angry (because) somebody wasn't condemning someone for murdering someone, and then the guy, the Stephen Nolan guy - I'm sure he's a very experienced broadcaster - just like goes up, says thanks to the people and then goes `Anyway' and segues into a show about a flying car."
The comedians recount how they tried to tell jokes but failed to get a laugh out of the crowd who they said were still reeling from the previous discussion.
"It's obvious there's an atmosphere," Jupitus said.
"(It's) just the heavy stuff in Northern Ireland that goes on and we're two Englishmen, we sit down and so he says `Who are you playing?' and I turned to the audience and said, `You've seen the film, haven't you. I play the Dick Van Dyke part and Phill's Truly Scrumptious'."
However, even the thought of the hirsute Jupitus as the dainty heroine failed to raise a chuckle and so it continued, with Manford asking the audience at one point if they realised he had just told a joke.
Manford and Jupitus also spoke of their disbelief when the presenter questioned him on his absent father.
"He gives it: `So Phill, you didn't know your father...' and I'm: `Sorry, what?'" Manford said.
"Straight into the `I'm a bastard material', so the whole room's unplayable," Jupitus added.
"We come in after the death debate, sectarianism, all that that we're just not equipped to deal with, we've been gigging all night, we're tired..."
"We're on a show about flying cars," Manford interjected
"I tried that... nothing, not even a titter," Jupitus said.
"And who can blame them? It was literally like shell-shocked people sitting there, windblown with ideas, awfulness...
"For me the cherry on the whole thing was, we're there, just dying ... on his TV show, and then he goes: 'Ladies and gentlemen - Level 42'."
The pair collapsed into laughter, with Manford saying: "It's so random."
"That was one of the maddest half hours I've ever done in my life."
