Watch Katy Perry Soap Opera With Jack McBrayer, Claire Danes on ‘Corden’
James Corden, Jack McBrayer, Claire Danes and Christine Baranski form a complex, melodramatic love rectangle in The Late Late Show‘s mock soap opera “The Bold and the Lyrical,” featuring dialogue comprised entirely of Katy Perry lyrics.
The sketch opens with Corden waking up in a Las Vegas hotel room, clutching cherry chapstick. Mentally foggy after a night of hard drinking, he’s shocked to see Danes by his side: “There’s a stranger in my bed; there’s a pounding in my head,” he says, referencing Perry’s tale of decadence “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.).”
Realizing their one-night-stand, Corden and Danes try to retrace their steps, which essentially involves reciting half the lyrics to the aforementioned funk-pop track. They realize they took “too many shots,” danced on table tops, got “kicked out of the bar,” went “skinny dipping in the dark” and dabbled in mé·nage à trois. Their third partner? McBrayer, who pops up in the bed with his trademark dopey grin, questioning whether a mark on his neck is “a hickey or a bruise.”
Baranski further complicates the situation, channeling the “eye of the tiger” (à la “Roar”) with her pissed-off entrance. And in the bit’s funniest moment, Baranski twists one of Perry’s most absurd lyrics (from “Firework”) into a histrionic soliloquy: “Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?”