Greg Davies recounts botched light switch-on

Comedian Greg Davies has fondly recounted a botched Christmas light switch-on he performed in his hometown.

The Taskmaster host and stand-up turned on the festive lights in Wem, Shropshire, in 2019, but it did not go according to plan.

Speaking on BBC One's The One Show, he explained how his microphone had not worked and the dramatic switch-on moment only powered up one "small Christmas tree."

"Wem looks very pretty at Christmas, but I was no help," he told hosts Lauren Laverne and JB Gill.

Sitting next to Avatar and Alien actress Sigourney Weaver, the comedian joked: "I landed the big fish. A small market town in Shropshire. Wem. Big up the Wem massive."

He added there were lots of things about the performance he had enjoyed.

"One, was that the microphone for me to talk to the crowd didn't work, so they just stood there, they all stood there in silence for 15 [minutes].

"I was talking but no-one could hear me. Then, they had this huge switch for me to turn it on.

"The whole high street is lit up but it turned out the switch that I pulled only lit up one small Christmas tree next to me."

In a video of the event on Wem Christmas Lights and Festival's Facebook page, Davies can be seen resorting to shouting his speech out to laughing crowds.

"The fact that I'm having to go old-school town crier is a great thrill to me," he told them.

He added the last time he had stood on the spot had been in 1986, when he was drunk, and then told off by the man from the video shop, so it was nice to be there "for a more wholesome reason".

He added he had only ever missed three Christmases in Wem, which he had "a great deal of affection for", including its "nice, kind people".

After the switch-on moment, a child can be heard saying: "Is it just that?"

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