00:02min
The panel settle down to watch the fourth episode of the second season. “By now we all hated each other,” deadpans Gordon Kennedy.

0:45min
A couple (Jack Docherty and Morwenna Banks) are sent drawings by an African orphan they are adopting, and deride them as “excessively stuipid”. “This was basically an excuse to get away with political incorrectness,” recalls Pete Baikie. “It was just after Band Aid...” adds Gordon Kennedy, “...and compassion fatigue was setting in,” continues Docherty. “Morwenna and I did actually adopt a tiny African baby and got some numpty who couldn’t draw, so we sent her back.” “So what happened to her?” asks John Sparkes. “She’s an expert on crop rotation in Lusaka,” concludes Kennedy.

3:50min
A nasal voiceover from Sparkes introduces Stoneybridge, a hopeless Scottish town. “We’d had a rule of no catchphrases but were beginning to break it quite spectacularly in this series,” notes Moray Hunter. “Pete used to do the music for a corporate video called Sean Connery’s Edinburgh, and the guy who did the voiceover had an unfortunate voice,” adds Docherty. “He’s the basis for all the characters in the sketch,” says Sparkes. “We could all do nasal voices and didn’t like John getting all the laughs,” says Docherty.

9:04min
Hunter plays a vicar in a sketch about amendments to the Bible: the Old Testament becomes the Odd Testament, and Jesus Crisp is the son of Marge. “So that’s racism and religion,” Baikie notes. “We really are ripping into the big targets,” Kennedy adds. “I don’t remember doing this one at all,” admits Hunter. “The parting alone is worth mentioning,” chuckles Kennedy. “Moray’s hair was the star of the show in many ways.”

11:40min
Enter Gwyn, a Welsh hardnut played by Sparkes. “He’s a Welsh archetype,” Sparkes explains. “He was based on a bloke we used to call Tin Head, but not to his face. He was a middle-aged man who collected the glasses at the pub we used to go to in Three Crosses on the Gower Peninsula. You didn’t want anything to do with Tin Head – he was hard.”

13:13min
Baikie appears as a smugly verbose, Richard Stilgoe-style piano player. “There were a few real smart-arses going around the comedy circuit using long words who used to annoy the crap out of us,” explains Kennedy. “Clever-looking bastards,” adds Sparkes.

14:29min
We meet Bert, an accident-prone pensioner. “He was loosely based on an old man I used to drive around when I worked for the social services,” Sparkes explains. “I did him as a stand-up character and Jo Brand told me I was the first person she ever heard use the word ‘quim’.”

18:48min
Banks delivers one of her “little girl” monologues. “These sketches were almost a stream of consciousness,” says Sparkes. “It wasn’t based on anyone – it was just Morwenna, aged 5,” adds Baikie. “I find my daughter watching them and just nodding,” smiles Docherty.

29:49min
Enter Docherty, with a packet of branded cigarettes. “Fags on TV, that’s now illegal!” splutters Kennedy. “Plus, I’m dressed like a member of Spandau Ballet,” winces Docherty.

VERDICT

“It wasn’t as painful as I was expecting,” said Docherty. “We’re barely recognisable, which makes it OK to watch,” added Kennedy. The second series, all agreed, was when they were still excited by TV but gaining in confidence and revelling in the lack of outside intervention. “It feels coherent,” noted Docherty. “For good or bad,” added Kennedy. “Which is why people either really like it or really hate it.”

Absolutely Everything, a complete boxset of all four series, is out to buy on DVD on Monday.

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