Once a double act, always a double act. These may not be propitious circumstances for backchat: I’m meeting Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse in that graveyard of cut-and-thrust, the three-way Zoom. But it’s not long before Harry and Paul (comedy collaborators of 40 years’ standing, their shared sketch show a Bafta-winner) are slipping back into the old ways. “I was meeting with [former BBC director of comedy] Shane Allen at a pavement cafe,” says Enfield: it’s the origin story of the pair’s new show, a spoof documentary to mark 100 years of the BBC. “It was during that period when outdoor one-to-one meetings were all we were allowed to do.
“I was reading him a show outline off my laptop. Then a scooter came up, the rider reached his hand out, and he nicked my laptop while I was reading it!” Cue Whitehouse, chiming in supportively. “I’ve seen the CCTV footage. It was very dramatic.” Pause. “And then he dropped it back later, didn’t he Harry, with a few improvements to the script.” Ba-da-boom.
