Read The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad Online
Authors: Karl Pilkington
Tags: #General, #humor
The Further Adventures of an Idiot Abroad (16 page)
Around 250 to 300 people turned up to watch the show. It lasted around an hour and was hosted by two compères – a man and a woman who were like the Richard and Judy of dwarf world,
a few singers (a Peter Andre and Lily Allen) and loads of dancers. There was a little bit of magic where a dwarf with a Mohican ate nuts and bolts and then coughed them up again, and then the show
finished with a big song-and-dance ending with what looked like seventy or so dwarfs on stage as the king of the dwarf empire came out and waved to the spectators.
Richard, the director, was worried about featuring this in the programme. I texted Ricky to get the number for Warwick Davis to run the concept by him. He was in the film
Star Wars
dressed up as some little bear thing. He’s played a leprechaun and probably a gnome in something. To me there’s no difference in what he does to what they’re doing here.
KARL
: Hey, Warwick. It’s Karl, Ricky’s mate.
WARWICK
: Yeah? You alright? What you up to?
KARL
: I’m doing this travel thing, and, uh, I’m in China. I’m looking at a dwarf village and I was just saying you’re the
only dwarf I know at home, and I wanted to run the whole concept by ya, ’cos I know that people at home might get a bit funny about it, saying ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be having a
little dwarf village’ and all that. But, it’s really good, the people are dead happy, uh, nice little show they put on, and I just thought it would cover me if I spoke to you and
said, ‘I’m at a dwarf village’, and you went, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard of that. It’s nice. Good on ya.’
WARWICK
: Yeah, I have heard of it. Definitely. But I don’t think it’s nice.
KARL
: Why not?
WARWICK
: Well, it’s like going back to the days of the freak show, really. I mean they’re all in there together, and you’re all
going in there to gawp at them, basically.
KARL
: Uh, well, yeah, I did, and, you know, there are blokes in little funny outfits and all that, and you do sort of smile, but they’re
smiling. I think it’s alright, innit?
WARWICK
: I think it’s terrible, Karl. I can’t believe it. How would you like it if I and everyone else watching the programme popped
round to your house and watched you do the washing up?
KARL
: No, they’re alright, honestly. You’re as bad as everyone else, going ‘They’re not happy’. If you weren’t
in
Star Wars
and all the pantos you did, what would you be doing?
WARWICK
: Well, I dunno, but I’m complicit. I actually want to do what I do. These people in the dwarf village in China – they might have
no other choice, and that’s what worries me, ’cos there’s exploitation going on there. You don’t know who’s behind the scenes running it all. Did you meet them?
KARL
: Yeah, there’s a king.
WARWICK
: And is he little?
KARL
: Course he is.
WARWICK
: But that might be a show king.
KARL
: No, no, it was the head man. He was at the top. He had a little cloak and a crown on, shades, and you could tell he was in charge.
WARWICK
: But he’s just a performer, and it could be an act. These people, they might not want to be there. Seriously, I think it’s a bad
thing. You’re just encouraging more of this sort of thing, by showing it and, basically, enjoying it.
KARL
: So, if all your work dried up – they’re not making a new
Star Wars
, you can’t dress up as a little monkey,
you’ve got no money coming in – you wouldn’t think about coming here then?
WARWICK
: Definitely not, that would be the last thing I’d do. I’d just get a proper job.
KARL
: But you wouldn’t get a proper job. I’ve never seen a dwarf with a normal job. When I’ve had plumbers out time and time again
for my knackered boiler, a dwarf has never turned up.
WARWICK
: But that’s not to say there aren’t any dwarf plumbers.
KARL
: I haven’t seen any. I’m 38, Warwick, and I’ve never seen a dwarf plumber.
WARWICK
: But dwarfs do have regular jobs. There will be a dwarf plumber out there somewhere, but what’s happening out in China is segregation.
It’s exploitation, seriously.
KARL
: You haven’t been. See, this is what annoys me about people. I’m in the thick of it here. I’m stood by their houses, and
they’re all happy. There’s a woman I met who’s a little dwarf, she’s only been here four months, and she’s already got her own mushroom to live in. Now you tell me
that’s wrong.
WARWICK
: You actually asked her, did you? Are you happy living in this mushroom? And she said, Karl, I’m having a wonderful life . . .
KARL
: She looked happy.
WARWICK
: That’s it, that’s the key word. She ‘looked happy’. It’s a performance. They might be miserable once
you’ve closed that mushroom door. You know, she’s in there and she might be miserable.
KARL
: I just wanted your backing. I thought you’d be up for it.
WARWICK
: I’m a bit disappointed in you, to be honest.
I know I was only there a few hours, but the only dwarf I saw who didn’t look happy was the one who did the magic. But I think that was just his onstage persona, which considering there
were over one hundred of them wasn’t bad going. When you think of Snow White there was a grumpy one, and there was only seven of them. I’d go so far as to say, compared to Pascha, the
first man I met when I got to Russia, this lot were all ecstatic.
The plane wasn’t direct to Australia. It stopped at Thailand. Not sure why, planes can hold enough fuel to fly direct these days. Maybe the pilot wanted a fag break. Ricky
and Stephen said that seeing as it stops there, you may as well see the place. I was fine with the idea. I like Thai food, or, as I call it, ‘posh Chinese’.
Suzanne told me not to be going to any rude shows. She said the women do things with ping-pong balls. They should introduce that as a way of ‘Releasing the Balls’ on the National
Lottery, it would make it a lot more bloody interesting. I don’t know why the Lottery is televised. Four people it takes, as well. A presenter, an adjudicator, a bloke who hits the start
button and a fella who does the voiceover telling us ‘The lotto machine is named Lancelot and has made 52 appearances’. Who wants to know that! Four people to select six numbers, yet
cutbacks on staff at the council mean I can only get me bins emptied once a week.