difficult kovid was coming we could sense it everyone was talking about it but we of course only thought it would last a couple of weeks we had a big week the week before we went out now horn was here he was doing four performances a sketch he had one performances where he's literally walking through the audience I remember that week so well we were all kind of like hearing about it James and I were sat in his office and on the news it was like okay we're shutting down the country America at a

standstill tens of millions of people stay home because of the coronavirus schools businesses and public places are forced to shut down we went from something that was a news topic that we spoke about to something that was a national emergency and changing the way we lived it's been a scary time without an audience so earned from like no audience to like no crew to not being allowed in the building in like three hours I remember we had a text chain with the other show Runners of late night all of the late night shows actually talking to each other and trying to figure out how can we do shows we're all going through the same thing together and even if nothing feels particularly funny right now where you

can at least talk and that's helpful and important and I remember a real turning point in the thinking of it was don't think about what you can't do because what you can't do is irrelevant it's just going to frustrate you what can we do how can we make the best possible show it pivoted pretty quickly to figuring out how to create a show in James's garage but we didn't want to ask anyone to put themselves in danger that we weren't willing to do so that ended up being me and Tim mancinelli the director and Robin Galla the producer like emptying James's garage out and carrying stuff down into his basement and Lou Travy coming in and building a little set Robbie rub it yes oh hi Robbie the technical

challenges of covid were immense you know we're taking what's a long tried and true facility of cameras and switchers and things like that and putting basically a zoom into James's garage the speed in which we had to adapt and the talents of the people we've surrounded ourselves with to figure things out and the fact that we could just rise to an occasion that very Uninvited very unwelcome occasion but figure out a way to make a television show during that period the first idea that we had was to do a show called home Fest which essentially was to try and get the biggest artist in the world to perform from their homes and I had this thing I said to Ben I was like let's try and bring everybody together

to keep everybody apart welcome to me on what is without question one of the strangest specials uh I'm ever likely to make the idea was that we could feature artists that were going through the same thing everybody else was going through they're on lockdown they're stuck in their homes and get to the absolute Global nature of it because tonight we really just wanted to make a show to try and bring some joy and some music into your home that home show was a raw show it was so unknown and I'm here on my own with just these three cameras I can show you my view here this is what I can see we pushed everything out it's all behind that curtain and now it's just you and it's me for the next hour plus some of the biggest artists in the world are

going to join us and we had Andrea Bocelli in Italy that was suffering so bad at the time we had BTS Boys in South Korea we had Dua leaper in London and it was essentially like we're all isolated right now we're all going through something but actually watching home Fest showed our viewer that they weren't alone and I think that was what was really lovely about that show because we absolutely will get through this we will and that's why we wanted to make this show to try and share in these feelings together share music that we love with people that we love and then James at his desk in that garage there was something quite Charming about it something quite honest about it that's where we held our show for the next two or three months

we're here we're doing it I mean Ian is there a worse setup for comedy than what we're doing right now no this is as bad coverage shows were probably some of the hardest shows we ever did we still wanted to entertain we still wanted to do games but none of these things have ever been tried the great thing about late night we have to react to whatever's happening whether that's good or bad and how do we make the best of it I felt the worst for James having to do a monologue to no one I can't imagine that was a lot of fun you know safety comes first comedy comes second so keep that in mind as we head into today's headlines I mean that those weeks doing the show in my garage were they it was horrible it was

just so Bleak because also the news that you were getting every day was so Bleak we're all going through something and you're just trying to keep everybody employed sorry now I've got that out the way I hated every waking second of the garage shows yeah I'm just going nowhere just like always but now I'm in my garage going nowhere couldn't you honestly believe that this is on TV probably the low point of my time uh on James's show is uh that period where we were all at home with too much time on our hands and James hired a bunch of people to either be Frozen or Frozen it was a great illustration of people using a pandemic to no it was actually a horrible illustration of people using a pandemic to entertain are you frozen or are you posing Frozen

oh there we go Josh you're good at this so there was a lot of stuff we did during the quarantine era of the show that was like good for quarantine and now looking back on it you're like oh four months we've been doing this and I got to tell you it hasn't got any easier welcome back now you might be wondering you know what's going on why is the door opening what who's what's going on I don't think there were great shows but there was something beautiful in the fact that we were doing them okay guys how you doing hey I think we did the best with what we could but I just remember thinking we've got to get back in the studio as soon as we can it's showtime let's do this good it's all good I think nobody could

have been more excited than James probably that he got to do the show back in the studio even though it was going to be different than how we did it before after four months away it's so nice to see so many people in the studio again our camera crew Mark Joel Jimmy P look at Pete look up here I never thought I'd be this happy to see Pete in lieu of an audience we needed there to be some atmosphere in the room and so we all decided just to be in the room together and we'd be the audience for James do you want to do the headlights no Lawrence joins you the headlines no all right well yeah we're doing them I was like we have to be the group of friends that people can't meet up with at the pub people are at home they can't

meet up with their friends where we will be those friends what's your ultimate sandwich yeah we haven't got time what I think the last thing that this show should become is a group of friends chatting about something happened and it just became kind of magic in here nice shirt tonight Pete thanks we're looking at here sharks fins up baby yeah I think it unlocked the part of James that I had known for eight years that a lot of America had not gotten to know the show that it was for the first 20 minutes in those shows back in the studio in govid were the thing that I always thought the show would be who's had the worst first date in this room what do you think oh CeCe go on uh a guy took me to see Schindler's List on our first date

and he had already seen it building these characters of the crew Pete and Mark and Joel and Susan and like finding these things that just became us so oh my God we're doing it we've done 866 shows for you at home this isn't for you this is for us it kind of reminds me of like sitting in a green room after a show with other stand-up comedians I'll wrestle you now I know you'd wrestle me now but I'm not wrestling you now why and for me it was like a dream because for half an hour to 45 minutes every night like I could go out there and just like joke around with like a bunch of my good friends I'm genuinely losing my mind look at what we're doing and then they put that on television which is insane I would be shocked if anything

that happened in the last 45 minutes gets on television tonight we did like covering ourselves in glow sticks and turning all the lights off and dancing and chucking a shrimp into Ian's mouth Ian you want a shrimp I would laugh so much what's happening on the show right now is so great because you are teetering on the knife's edge of Sanity it felt weirdly dangerous because you really didn't know where the conversation was leading and like all of a sudden James was calling Oprah this is madness Oprah hello is that Oprah it's Oprah it's James Corton oh man it was such fun the relationships that were created in that moment that I would I would treasure it every day viewers were also excited to know what was going on with this group it was kind

of incredible what's been going on here guys and you explain who wait here oh my God I know this sounds ridiculous I genuinely think some of those shows were our best shows in terms of like are we doing something that no one else can do yes at 100 we should do a week of shows from a cruise ship only if I can share a room with Pete nobody checks our bags when we get on post covered we've held on to the looseness that we discovered during that kovid less audience no audience garage show period so there's this like really upsetting moment that always happens is like you're saying something we're interacting then you know he comes over and he brings the mic but then he decides when you're done so like maybe you'll

I think the way that we do the monologue now I really plays to my strengths far better than it did when I would stand on a mark and tell these jokes and stuff we've added a new noise to the thing listen to this defined a lot of what our show is today the interaction James has with his team crew the banter the relaxed part one who thinks there are more doors in the world okay and who thinks there's more Wheels okay there's no way there's more Wheels you're sitting on five Wheels forget it we've held on to certain things and ways of doing things that we would have never ever known about never been forced to learn about had we not had the experience of 2020 2021 that all came

from covid and was a really good addition to the show but it was something that we had to learn by going through that pandemic from the absolute bottom of my heart this has been the strangest and oddest and hardest year at points but coming in here and sitting down and talking to everybody here has been without question the best part of most of my days and I will always cherish this feeling that we've created in here I mean it I will miss it hugely