Beef And Dairy Network - Episode 30 - Phillip Mushroom

Episode Date: December 19, 2017

Daniel Rigby joins in for this episode in which we speak to Phillip Mushroom, one of Britain’s most well loved television actors. We’re also treated to some new music from singer-songwriter Paul Paul.   By Benjamin Partridge, Daniel Rigby and Rhodri Viney. Thanks to Richard Elfyn.   Music: Nouvelle Noel by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/   Dairy Queen Music by Rhodri Viney, lyrics by Benjamin Partridge.   Stock media provided by Setuniman/Pond5.com and Soundrangers/Pond5.com

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Plunge. Coming up later, we have new music from troubadour Paul Paul, but first, I was joined this week by one of Britain's best-loved television actors, Philip Mushroom. The son of a butcher, Philip is best known for his roles in Sunday evening television dramas written by Kathy Rettman, first playing the eponymous hero Detective Beef in her police procedural Beef Justice, then taking on the role of DCI Bankside in the canal police hit Bankside. He's currently promoting his first film, a big-screen adaptation of Bankside in the Canal Police hit Bankside. He's currently promoting his first film, a big screen adaptation of Bankside, out in cinemas next week. I started by asking Philip where it all began.

Well, my background really was in butchery. Basically, I went into the family business at 18 instead of going to uni or drama school. It was through that that i started doing performance art of a kind right we used to do i mean my dad would always entertain me as a kid with puppetry um with the cadavers that he'd use and um eventually when i was 18 i started doing my own sort of um corpse theater and um a producer saw that and took me up to the Edinburgh Festival where I did a whole month of cadaver puppetry. Clips of that Edinburgh show surfaced last year on YouTube. Yeah. Quite horrifying in a way, but also beautiful. Yes. Yeah. Well, thank you. Yeah. I think that the video that you're talking about was a clip actually from quite late on in the run,

and we didn't really have the budget to change the cadavers. So by then they were quite putrid, and it was a very hot venue. And for me, that added to the whole immersive experience of it, you know, audience members throwing up and passing out and crying. That was a whole purgative kind of experience that I wanted everybody to have. Well, often theatres describe in reviews and such as visceral. Yes. But this truly was visceral.

It was literally visceral. Yeah, there was viscera everywhere, flying everywhere, chunks of it in the faces of people watching. And can you draw the link between that show at the Edinburgh Festival and being cast in Beef Justice, which was your first big role on telly? Yes. Well, as a result of that show, a producer saw that and cast me in an episode of The Bill,

in which I played a policeman. And quite often, as happens, people look at you in a part and they say, oh, he can do that. And I got the audition. I got the audition for Beef Justice. I mean, for that Bill episode, one of the things that I like to do is I do a lot of my scenes with my back to the camera.

And I know that that's something that we carried on in Beef Justice that's right you know handing out the stroganoff you know with my back to the camera as a sort of reveal which which kind of lightens the atmosphere as well it's a sort of punch line yeah in the first series of Beef Justice we don't actually see your face when you're playing detective beef you're always shot from behind that's right yeah and that was something i really insisted on and i got a lot of pushback from the channel about that and from the producers saying things like of course we need to see the face of the lead actor that kind of thing exactly yeah which to me is just i think it's limiting i think if you're always wanting to see the face of your lead actor saying the lines i think it's just a bit bourgeois and that first series of beef justice wasn't the lines. I think it's just a bit bourgeois.

And that first series of Beef Justice wasn't the hit, I think, that the channel and the writer Cathy Reitman and the producers hoped it would be. And actually, people were amazed that you got a second series. But when you did get that second series, that became a huge hit. Now, what do you think was the difference? I turned around. I turned around and started facing the camera. And that was something I was happy to do at that point because I felt the character had developed to a place where probably he would turn around. So Beef Justice, big hit. I mean, I think most people listening will be aware of it,

but if people aren't and they all have heard, they'll be putting two and two together. But the basic premise is you've got Detective Beef, who is a young detective working for the Metropolitan Police, and he feels like Beef can have a a more instrumental role in the justice system and against the wishes of his elders he introduces beef into his everyday work with great results yes it's exactly right yeah it's the sort of um the redemptive power of beef and um particularly beef stroganoff um it's it It's definitely his belief in beef

and what beef can do that is the kind of crux of the show, really. And the writer, Kathy Rettman, put that into her drama because that's what she believes. Yeah, she really believes in the power of beef. And you see it quite often in the episodes of Beef Justice

when the criminals are always, when faced with the stroganoff, breaking down, confessing, saying they're sorry. I mean, I've never seen it in real life. I've seen it in the script, but I believe in it too, even though I've not seen any evidence for it. So four seasons of Beef Justice, huge success success and then that came to an end and everyone was very surprised by that why do you think that the show came to an end? It came to an end because the main character died yes and that was one of the main reasons also because all the other characters died in the in the last episode of that series. Because it's always tempting, I think.

I've spoken to a lot of writers over the years, and they'll put that kind of event in their TV show, and then there'll be a bit of pressure to maybe have another series. And there's a simple fix, isn't there, which is the ghost-based series. Yes, yeah. I mean, it's been done countless times, the ghost-based series. Exactly as you say, the ghosts return and carry on as if nothing's happened. Yeah.

Apart from the fact that no one else can see them. Yeah, but that's a minor thing, isn't it? That must have sort of crossed her mind. It was mooted, but she just felt like the return of all dead characters as ghosts had been done so many times before, she didn't want to fall into that trap. So when Beef Justice ended, what was life like for Philip Mushroom? In the immediate aftermath, there was some downtime. A few days later,

I got a call from Kathy describing a new series to me. She said to me very cryptically, have you ever been on an arrowboat? And I said, no, I haven't. And she said, I've got this new idea. It's a show. You'll be a detective working the towpaths and canalways of the UK and you'll be investigating canal crime. And I thought, wow, who's done this before? No one? Who would even dream of doing this? Only Cathy. And who would agree to doing this? Me. And that, of course course was Bankside. Yes. Which is a huge hit. Needs no introduction really. No, no, not at all. And you played DCI Bankside. Yeah. DCI Bankside, that inimitable character. I remember sitting down with the script, the first, reading the first episode and I was just blown away i had to you know lie down for about a week after reading it and just cry and cry and cry i mean i had gastroenteritis as well which didn't help but it was uh partly script and partly um bacteria

when it was announced that the bank side was was replacing Beef Justice, people were kind of worried that it wouldn't live up to the characters we all loved. And also there was a worry that maybe there wouldn't be enough storylines to keep that going and for it to be interesting. But it's actually been very varied over the couple of series you've done. There's a murderer pushing someone into a canal. Yes. A German man falling into a canal yes a german man falling into a car by mistake yes which wasn't a crime but had to be investigated because someone had

witnessed it and thought it was exactly yeah um you've got the the little girl pushing her dad into the canal yes yeah um you know it's amazing actually how much you can get out of out of a simple idea like that also one of the things that we were able to explore is something that isn't talked about a lot in mainstream media and and that's duck-based crime. The most well-known episode probably is the one where he finds the moorhen stuffed with heroin. Heroin, yes. I don't think people realised that that was something that could happen, but that is something that Cathy saw happening in real life and put into the drama? It's based on an experience Cathy had seeing someone feeding a duck heroin.

And she, from that, got inspired to write the Moorhen stuffed with heroin drug trafficking episode. But yes, it's certainly something that we've brought to the attention of the British public. They didn't know this stuff was going on. And in a way, it's not. But in a way, it is. I think the moment we all gasped and we all realized that this episode was a real special one was when your character dco bankside finds the swan which of course was a fake swan with a fake back which he then takes off yes um yeah the dog disguised as a swan it turns out it's a dog yes with a with a fake back. And it's full of pills. Pills, yes.

The problem of people disguising dogs as swans and stuffing them full of E's and trafficking them through England that way. Using the canal system. Using the canal system is something that people need to know about. It's something that we need to do something about. But again, it's something that isn't actually really happening in real life oh no yeah it doesn't actually happen but it's something that certainly we need to look into how did you feel last month great right i mean specifically about something oh which which is that the metropolitan police came out and said

that as a result of the showed bank side thousands of young people had come forward wanting to become canal detectives. Yes. And they were quite clear in saying, well, that role, that job doesn't exist. We don't have a special canal part of the police. Yes. I think that the police should hire hundreds of people to work as detectives on the canalways, even if we don't need them. I get letters all the time from kids who have gone out onto canals and they've found, well, I mean, normally rubbish.

They find bits of rubbish and, I mean, littering is one of the main problems of canals. More after this. Are stacks of unread books taking over your apartment? Do you constantly miss your train stop because you're caught up in reading? I'm Bria Grant. And I'm Mallory O'Meara. We party hard.

And by party hard, we mean read books. So join us every Thursday on Reading Glasses, a maximum fun podcast about reading and book culture. Get more out of your reading life. We'll help you conquer your to-be-read pile. Get out of that book slump. And squeeze more reading time into your busy day. Learn how to read better. that was good some of the best things that we film on bankside are of course the narrowboat chasers absolutely um which if you'd have told me before we started doing the series

how do you make a sequence in which two vehicles traveling at about three miles an hour chase each other how do you make that heart stopping i just vehicles traveling at about three miles an hour chase each other how do you make that heart stopping i just said you can't make it heart stopping but um then i watched back um episode three and i i just couldn't believe my eyes my heart was pounding in my chest as the two narrowboats crept up to the lock. And that is the problem inherent in a narrowboat chase, is that you will eventually reach a lock. And I like the way that Cathy has kept all that in. We don't edit out the lock process,

and that's something that I think adds to the texture of the whole piece. In some of those episodes, that's taking around 45 minutes. Yes. Yeah, it does take an awful long time. But that's the truth of canal waterways, and that's the truth that we want around 45 minutes. Yes. Yeah, it does take an awful long time. But that's the truth of canal waterways. And that's the truth that we want people to see. That, you know, life isn't all roses and chocolates. You know, sometimes you wait 45 minutes at a lock chasing a drug dealer.

Who's filled a duck full of... Amphetamines. And has disguised a dog as a swan and filled it with ecstasy. How does that go over in America? Very well. They love it in America because they don't actually have canals in America. Really?

Yeah. It's a very little known fact. They don't have canals. They weren't allowed. They weren't allowed? Yes. Yeah. What did they use instead then to get goods around the country

a horse right and um i think kids i can't remember but um yeah it's just they just don't have canals so they're fascinated because they've never seen anything like it i get invited to go over and do comic-con there and there's always a screaming, screaming crowd of people. Do they dress up? Yeah, dressed as narrowboats. It's a very awkward afternoon because some of the costumes are really elaborate. You can't get in and out of doorways very easily or turn around. We'll hear more from Philip later with news about the upcoming Bankside movie. But first, friend of the show singer-songwriter Paul Paul is releasing a new album next year and is giving us an exclusive first play of the first single from the record.

The song, Dairy Queen, is inspired by an experience Paul Paul had on his tour of US restaurants last year. Whilst travelling on a plane between restaurants in Turkey Canyon, North Dakota and Turkey Springs, North Carolina, he was idly flicking through an in-flight magazine when he came across a photograph of a smiling young woman wearing a heavily stained milking smock flanked by pails full to the brim with creamy milk. It was love at first sight. In the liner notes for the album, Paul Paul writes, It was love at first sight. In the liner notes for the album, Paul Paul writes, For me she represented the platonic ideal of beauty.

Large dark eyes rivaling a cow's eyes. Big hands like a policeman. A broad barrel chest suggesting the sheer grunt necessary to overpower a spooked milker. The stains on her smock spoke of a life already lived. The full milk pail surrounding her seemed to represent the nourishment needed for our long future together. Until that moment, I thought I knew lots of things. My own name, the capital of France, the best way to stack a dishwasher. I was wrong.

I knew only one thing for sure. That this woman would be my wife. The magazine article accompanying the photograph explained that the woman had been photographed for a newspaper upon being declared the Dairy Queen of Wisconsin, a title given to a young woman every year who then becomes an ambassador for the state dairy industry. However, the article also revealed that the photograph had been taken in 1937 and that she had died just two years later, after a brawl in a dockside bar with a room full of angry sailors. As you can imagine, reading that, Paul Paul felt a complex mix of emotions.

He can't remember exactly what happened next. All he knows is that he emerged from the plane in North Carolina, in the arms of a sky marshal, naked, apart from an inflated orange life vest and a tiny packet of nuts covering his gentleman's business. Here's Paul Paul's new single, Dairy Queen. When I think of all the things that define me A love of milk is one of those things

Sniff the milk, follow your nose and you'll find me Please be my queen and I your king Your king I know you could be with anybody I never knew such grace and poise could exist The milk cascading over your body I see your face Through the lactose mist

Let's co-exist Dairy Queen, my Dairy Queen I see you churning through my dreams I saw you in that magazine Fill me up with butter and cream Every morning I want to wake up and greet you A world without you fills me with dread But I know that I can never meet you After all, this is all in my head But I know that I can never meet you.

After all, this is all in my head. And you're dead. Dairy Queen, my Dairy Queen, I see you churning through my dreams. I saw you in that magazine. Fill me up with butter and cream. We're not magazine. Fill me up with butter and cream. There is a way of things. A natural hierarchy.

We live as the bee and the ant. A labyrinth system. A loving bureaucracy serving our queen. Our Dairy Queen., our Dairy Queen. Oh, Dairy Queen, milk for me, milk for me, milk for me, my queen.

Dairy Queen, my Dairy Queen, I see you churning through my dreams. I saw you in that magazine, fill me up with butter and cream. Fill me up with butter and cream. Fill me up with butter and cream. Fill me up with butter and cream. Oh, dear Queen, my dear Queen, I see you churning through my dreams.

Thanks to Paul Paul for giving us that exclusive first play of his new single. The album, titled Making Butter at the All Night Milk Casino, will be out next year. Now, more from our big interview with Philip Mushroom. The reason you're on the show primarily is to promote the new movie yes bankside the movie very very excited about that because obviously the end of the last series was ended on that bit where he was actually sort of thrown out of the police yes yep um yeah unjustly i think is how i feel about it and i think that's what kathy was trying to get across yes the pen pushers in London didn't understand what Bankside was doing. Yeah. I've got a

clip here just to remind us of what went down. Oh, I'd love to hear me. You can't be serious. What you don't understand is that if you cut me, I bleed slow-moving green water. My blood vessels are arranged in an exact map of the British canal system. You can take away my badge. Sure, you can strip me of my uniform and official wellies,

but you'll never stop me policing Britain's historic waterways. Okay. Was that a hard scene to shoot? It was a very hard scene to shoot. I think it was terribly emotional for everybody involved. And obviously there, he's lost his job in the police. And we saw him going to that grotty pub and drinking all that Guinness. Yes.

And then taking his trousers off and what have you. It's quite an undignified end to the series. Yes. Are we picking up the story in the Bankside movie? Not exactly. And how did the Bankside movie come about? Because that's being made in Hollywood, right? Yes.

It came about from a conversation I had in a bar with Mel Gibson, which was a really fun night, actually. He's a character. But from that, we came up with the idea of maybe a Bankside spin-off. He hadn't seen the series, but he agreed to... I mean, this is very, very late on in the evening, but he agreed and actually signed a contract there and then to make the movie, which he didn't remember, but he had to remember legally. And so we started making it and Mel's had some ideas about changing things up just to make it more international.

And we've been rolling with those ideas. Right. So it's not going to be the same bank side we know and love? It will definitely be the same bank side that we know and love. But it jumps a bit to another world where people are animals. And this was one of Mel's ideas? Yes. And is Kathy happy about these changes? What happened when the ideas were first mooted of the animal world

and the fight for the moon, which is one of the main threads of the film. And that's another one of Mel's plot ideas? Yes, it was one of his ideas, kangaroos versus hippos. She didn't like it at all, and in classic cinema world style, they challenged each other to a joust. Of course. And Cathy lost that joust, unfortunately. Legally, it's binding. A joust unfortunately legally it's binding

a joust is legally binding in cinema so she had to relinquish her control over the project What's been the biggest challenge as an actor to make her jump from telly to film? One of the biggest challenges about this project was learning the fictional language Harashmu

all the characters speak in and that's an entire language that was made up by linguistic experts from top universities around the world they all joined together with mel and uh made this wonderful language up and i assume then the film is subtitled in english but is we hear the harashmu no we, we're not going to subtitle it exactly. Mel wanted people to get the full, pure experience of the world and for you to hear harashma as you would in real life. So an entire feature-length production

in which they're speaking a language that is unintelligible to almost everyone. Everyone apart from people who worked on the script, yes, it's pretty much unintelligible. But for that reason it's a much more authentic four and a half hours spent in the cinema. A big thanks to Philip Mushroom

for that interview. Bankside the Movie is released next week. So that's all we've got time for this month. But if you're after more beef and dairy news, get over to our website now, where you can read our guide to both steaming and glazing beefs, as well as our off-topic section, where this month we speak to representatives of a new group

who are convinced that Roy Orbison never existed. So, until next time, beef out. Thanks to Daniel Rigby, Roger Viney and Richard Elvin. And thanks to you for listening and happy holidays. If you'd like to give us a Christmas present, I can suggest something that

definitely will not disappoint would be for you to write a review on itunes they're really useful and we're very grateful when you do that and they're often very funny so um if you feel like doing that please do so and finally just as it's christmas i've got a special treat for you coming up now three top tips from Slab She Chef, Cliff Trent Roberts, that's right, TV's Mr Beef, on how to have the perfect Christmas. My first tip is, replace the turkey. Specifically, have you considered beef? While it's well known there was a cow in the Bethlehem stable, slaughtered soon after Jesus' birth to provide nourishing beef for the Christ child,

in the Gospel according to Matthew, a turkey was the wise-cracking personal sidekick of King Herod, the biggest bastard in the Bible. If that hasn't convinced you, how about this? In recent years, biblical scholars have begun to believe the original translation of gold, frankincense and myrrh is a translation error, have begun to believe the original translation of gold, frankincense and myrrh is a translation error. And in fact, the three wise men brought Jesus gold, frankincense and several lasagnas. Tip number two is, why not supercharge your crackers? Sure, crackers can be fun, but let's be honest, the contents often disappoint.

A limp hat, a tiny set of screwdrivers and a joke written by a simpleton? Rubbish! Instead, why not fill your crackers with beef? A fine-grade mince will pack very nicely into the body of a cracker and once released with a bang, acts as a beautiful accompaniment to your beef meal or, if you're missing the Christmas headgear, you could try and sculpt it into a beef hat. My final piece of advice is dump Santa. In my house, we are visited by Papa Beef, a red-faced butcher who brings beef gifts for all the family in his transit van pulled by six magical heifers. You'll never forget your child's face the morning she wakes up

and empties her stocking of scorching mints and onions, memories and burns that will last a lifetime. So those are my top three tips. Have a great Christmas and always remember the reasoning behind the seasoning. Going into a Bullseye interview, I know that it's somebody who does amazing work, but it's an actual conversation and sometimes it gets real. No, but my mother, I remember when I got... This is going to become a therapy session very quickly.

Does that make sense? I feel like I'm in therapy. That was a great interview. Bullseye. Creators you know, creators you need to know. Find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts. MaximumFun.org or wherever you get podcasts.