Scott and the team orchestrate an elaborate prank on Laura, who’s convinced her boyfriend James is misbehaving at a conference in Belfast — with hilariously incriminating results when they phone the hotel posing as her.
Laura has been paranoid all week because her boyfriend James is away at a conference in Belfast, which Scott describes as notorious among university staff for being a “pull fest” full of drunken behaviour. When Laura asks Scott to phone the hotel to check on him, Scott decides to play a trick: instead of calling the actual hotel number Laura provides, he calls his friend Emma, the actress, who plays along as Holiday Inn Express Belfast reception staff.
What follows is a brilliantly executed wind-up. Scott, pretending to be Laura, asks whether James has been staying in a double room and whether anyone else was in the room with him. The fake receptionist provides increasingly incriminating details: James upgraded from a single room to a double on Tuesday, ordered room service including a tuna melt, club sandwich, and — most damningly — a bottle of champagne with two glasses. Scott’s reaction as he realises what this implies is genuine shock: “My heart just lurched. There was a bottle of champagne with two glasses.”
The prank captures the show’s characteristic blend of elaborate production (recruiting an actress friend to play the part convincingly), relationship comedy, and the satisfying moment when the listener realises exactly what’s been set up. Laura’s paranoia about the conference appears to have been justified — or at least, that’s what Scott wants her to believe.
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