Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Does Mark think BACKROOMS is a-maze-ing?

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

The Take is now on Patreon: www.patreon.com/kermodeandmayo Become a Vanguardista or an Ultra Vanguardista to get video episodes of Take Two every week, plus member-only chat rooms, polls and submissions to influence the show, behind-the-scenes photos and videos, the monthly Redactor’s Roundup newsletter, and access to a new fortnightly LIVE show—a raucous, unfiltered lunchtime special with the Good Doctors, new features, and live chat so you can heckle, vote, and have your questions read out in real time. Our guest this week is James Graham, one of Britain’s most prolific and successful writers, including of the brand new BBC series Dear England. Adapted from a play which Graham also wrote, it charts the journey of Gareth Southgate’s England men’s team from the disappointment of the ‘golden generation’ to the success we all cheered on in recent years—except for Mark, of course. No chance of him following the football. James talks to Simon about the highs and lows, moving from stage tp screen, and why Gareth Southgate has a redemption narrative straight outta Shakespeare. Mark reviews it too, plus three more of the week’s big releases—a packed show again. We’ve got Power Ballad, a dark musical comedy of unfulfilled potential and stolen success starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, Backrooms a new A24 horror that started life as a viral YouTube video, and Tuner, the crime thriller starring Dustin Hoffman and last week’s Take guest Leo Woodall. All that plus the usual lovely nonsense. Enjoy! Timecodes: 00:00 Introduction 10:04 Power Ballad review 16:38 Box Office 10 30:29 James Graham interview 47:00 Dear England review 53:33 Laughter Lift 01:00:31 Backrooms Review 01:08:22 Tuner review The fundraising page for Dave Mitchell, director of Alien On Stage can be found here: https://www.goodhub.com/go/helpdave You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo. 🌎 Get an exclusive 15% discount on your first Saily data plans! Use code [Take] at checkout. Download Saily app or go to https://saily.com/Take ⛵ A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts To advertise on this show contact: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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There's never been a better time to become a Vanguard Easter. Free offer, now available wherever you get your podcasts. and if you're already a Vanguard Easter, we salute you. Now Mark, you were telling me the other day about this Saly ESIM app. Which one was that? Well, the one I just install on my phone before I go abroad so that I can save loads of money on roaming and data charges when I'm there.

Ah, yes, it's dead simple. Install the Saly app on your device and choose a data plan. There are multiple plans in over 200 destinations available at some of the best rates online. Follow the instructions on the app to install the e-sim and it'll be activated instantly on arrival. So I don't have to buy a new SIM card when I get there? Nope, there's no queuing at a dodgy airport kiosk.

A SAILI ESIM only needs to be installed once and then you use the same one for each country you visit. Great. Does it let me skip all the other cues too? Well, funnily enough, with SAILI Ultra, you can enjoy VIP travel perks like airport lounge access, fast track services, priority support, advanced online security and much more. You'll be telling me we've got a voucher code,

Oh yes, and don't forget to apply the code Take, T-A-K-E at checkout to get a 15% discount. Hey, sweetie, your mother showed me this Carvana thing for selling the car. I'm going to give it a try. Wish me luck. Me again, I put in the license plate. It gave me an offer. Unbelievable. Okay, I accepted the offer. They're picking it up Tuesday from the driveway. I haven't even left my chair. It's done. The car is gone. I'm holding a check. Anyway, Carvana. Give it a whirl. Love you. So good, you'll want to leave a voicemail about it. Sell your car today on Carvana.

Pick up fees may apply. Today's program, hello, by the way, is that battle which many people have fought this week between quietness and coolness. And I have just shut the door in my home little studio here, which means that as we progress through the show, Mark, I will be turning pews. Are you cool there?

I'm fine. I mean, actually, because I'm in my bespoke studio downstairs in the chapel in Cornwall, although upstairs on the roof, there are several people banging nails in because the roofwork is still going on. But actually, it's quite cool because it's an old Methodist chapel. So they're built with, you know, that's like that stone that just actually stays cool. So I'm fine. I'm sorry that you're swelter.

I know how hot it is upstairs in your house. It's like it's a whole new country upstairs. It has to be said. But I'm sort of halfway up. And halfway up the stairs is the stair where I sit. There isn't any other stair quite like it. Anyway, but I am doing a show in shorts today, which is really not kind of a good thing.

You know, you should never go to work in shorts, but I feel as though people will understand, you know, my personal circumstances here. Can I tell you an uplifting story? Well, a story. I'll be quite quick, okay? Right. Is it uplifting or not? Well, I think it is. I don't know whether you remember, but I used to wear a signet ring. I had this signet ring that I wore all the time, and it was my grandfather's signet ring.

And when I was, when I was a kid, he used to let me put it on my thumb, because he wore it on his little finger. He used to put it on my thumb, and I would, because I was so impressed by it. Anyway, after my grandfather died, the signet ring was left to me, and I wore it ever since I was a, you know, since I was a kid. and it's one of my favorite things. And about seven months ago, I lost it. I had it adjusted because it was too, slightly too small, and my hands had got larger,

amazingly. And I lost it. And I was pretty sure I knew how I'd lost it, and it had come off in water, and it was gone. And I was really kind of upset about it, but I also did the thing about, okay, fine,

there's nothing you can do. It's gone, it's gone. Anyway, last week we had a car in the yard that had been sitting there for ages and ages that we had to finally had to sell and somebody came along

and towed it away and there was just like leaves and muck and everything under it and the good lady professor her outdoors was sweeping up the leaves under the car and she found my grandfather's ring

it must have come off when I was fixing the exhaust and I literally feel like it's come back to me from, because I had in my head, I had completely got used to the fact that I had, how long was it gone for? Six months. And it was literally in a load of leaves that she was sweeping up and she was sweeping

them out onto the thing. So she could have not seen it. She could easily, if it was literally sitting there under the car. It must have come off when I was doing work on the car. And I had, anyway, so there it is. I have it back and I can't, I can't tell you how happy it's made me. In that spirit, we're going to have to. zoom our hunt for our missing Rembrandt

just in case. That's right. I forgot. It's fallen down the cracks somewhere. Just refresh the listener's memory. Oh, well, we had a, part of the, it was a question smet

in, what have you lost that's upset you or something like that? And there is this much, you know, it may well turn out to be absolutely nothing, but a friend of the good lady's sarahicitor indoors is form a part

was an art dealer who many years ago gave the good lady ceramicist her indoors like a drawing on a sheet of A4 which looked pretty ancient followed it away and a few years ago we were in Amsterdam we went to the Rambrat Museum and there's a series of his illustrations and it looks exactly like the one that our art dealer friend gave to him so came back to look for it thinking no I don't think it can be I can't find it anywhere so so that's it So somewhere in the house, there might be one, or tentatively, he might have been done by this guy, and it's worth like Tubbins-Tainee. Well, I can tell you for a fact, it wasn't under the car, so I'm sorry about that. No, all right.

But that's very good. When you find something like that, that is just amazing. It was so thrilling. And she did the thing, but I came in, and I was grumpy because I can't remember what was going. I was grumpy because I was doing something. And she just said, close your eyes, hold out your hand. And I did. And it was like, it's like, you know, that folk song in which there's the,

the woman who throws the engagement ring into the sea. And then years later, she's working in a fish shop and she slices a fish open and the engagement ring falls out. You know, that, it's like, it was literally like that level of magic. I can't, I'm so, I'm so glad to have it back. Do you have only her word for it? Because it could be that she hid it. She could have pawned it.

And then for six months and then she made some money, then got it back and then just handed it to you. I used to have this musical notes jumper that I thought was very, rockabilly and she thought was very horrible. And then I couldn't find it for ages and I wrongly accused her of having hidden it. What parent has not done something similar to one of their, one of their offspring has just got some terrible, terrible trousers or shirt. No, I put it in the wash. I haven't seen where it is and it's right at the bottom underneath the towels. Anyway, on the show, as we slowly heat up, well, Mark doesn't, but I certainly will. What are you talking about? Pack show, we have reviews of Tuna. You interviewed Leo Woodall.

last week. Power Ballads, which is the new film by John Carney, if I'm a big fan. Backrooms, a creepy psychological horror based on a viral series. And Dear England, on that there, BBC, IPlayer and television, which brings us to our special guest. Yes, he's James Graham, one of the most prolific and well-regarded playwrights in the UK. So nice to talk to a writer. James Graham will be along. And in take two, Mark, what's going on? The directorial feature debut from Kristen Scott Thomas, my mother's wedding, and Fairyland, which is produced by Sophia Coppola.

You can get Take 2 with No More ads by heading to our Patreon page where you'll find all kinds of loveliness. An email from Sophie in Leeds, Warwick alumnus 2007, Dear Tossal Flats and Hume Cresents. Very good. Last week, Simon mentioned

a might of trouble that University Radio Warwick got into regarding submarines. Yeah. So I mentioned that we were taken off air as a university radio station because we were broadcasting to submarines, even though most of the university couldn't pick it up. Anyway, as a former engineer and treasurer for URW, or as it was in my day,

raw, R-A-W Radio Warwick, I can confirm the veracity of Simon's story and provide some context to it. One stipulation of student radio licenses is that you have to be bound, you have to bound your broadcast area to broadly the students' populace of that university. So as Warwick is a campus university, the easiest way for URW to do this is via an induction loop system, which is very similar to what you find at banks, post offices, cinemas and such for people with hearing aids. The aim of an induction loop is that everyone within the loop can receive the radio signal, but almost no one outside can.

However, if you give a group of keen engineering students several miles of cable to surround a campus and the associated transmission equipment, you run the risk of ending up with an extremely over-engineered system, one that not only broadcast so loudly on the AM frequency within campus that it interfered with most other radio and TV signals, but it also ended up transmitting at a much lower frequency and at very high power the other way out of campus. Unfortunately, this was the frequency used by the Ministry of Defence to talk to submarines in the North Sea and North Atlantic. And it turns out was somewhat louder than the MOD's transmitters. Suffice to say that even in my time at Radio Warwick in the 21st century,

the cease and desist letter from the MOD was still framed and in pride of place on a wall of the control room. Hello to Jason, up with student radio and down with the loss of long wave, which I don't think we've discussed, but anyway, Sophie, thank you very much indeed. So they are genuinely true, even though it was just full of student broadcasters trying to be, what were we trying to be, I suppose, Noel Ledman's or someone like that. Most of the campers couldn't hear it, but all those submarine commanders could. It's worth remembering that Radio 5, before Radio 5 became Radio 5 live, when it was Radio 5, it was set up simply to protect 909 and 693, which were the wartime frequencies that the BBC owned,

but weren't using anymore. They were just running, I think they were repeating World Service on it. And there was a change in the legislation which said you can only hold on to those frequencies if you broadcast something new. So they literally made up Radio 5 overnight, which was why in its early stages, Radio 5 consisted of like Johnny Walker doing phone ins, pop records,

and Wiggly Park, which was the kids, you know, series. And then me and Karen Keating somehow bumbling our way through a sports-related afternoon show where neither of us knew the first thing about sport. Yeah, I would quite like to hear you do a sport show. You wouldn't. No, I think it would be quite entertaining.

Anyway, correspondence at covenombo.com. Thank you to Sophie and Leeds for sending that in, proof that I wasn't going mad. Anyway, if you see a film, do let us know what you think about it. Send us an email. For example, something that's out this week would be. Power ballad. Power ballad is a new film by John Carney,

who's the Irish director of Once, Begin Again, Sing Street, which you know I'm a huge fan. He is far and away the best director of films, about making music and being in bands. He's one of the only filmmakers who actually gets films about being in bands right. So this is co-written by Kani and Peter MacDonald, who also has a co-starring role here.

Also features former Kani collaborator Jack Rayner and Havanaugh, Liu, who will come up again because she is also in Tuna, which you spoke to Leo Wardall about last week. So Paul Rudd is the main star. he's Rit Power. He is the singer and guitarist in a wedding covers band called, get this, the Brideon Groove.

I'll do that again. The wedding covers band called the Bride and Groove, isn't it? So he was once a pop hopeful. And in the opening scene, when we see him playing a wedding and he's filling the floor with all these kind of bangers, and then he says, right, now I'm going to play a track for my first album and, of course, the dance floor cleared. At the next gig, one of the guests is a guy who is a former boy

band member played by Nick Jonas, of the Jonas brothers. Of the Danes brothers. He then, you know, had, you know, so he gets up and sings a song with the band. He sings a, you know, I wish with the band. And it goes down very well. He is called Danny Wilson. Now, Danny Wilson, not to be confused with the rugby league player, Danny Wilson, or the football player, manager, Danny Wilson, or the character from the film, Meet

Danny Wilson, or the band who took their name from Meet Danny Wilson, although the front man of that band was, is Gary Clark, who is the regular collaborator with John Carney. So I imagine that that's why it's called Danny Wilson. So Danny now wants to put his, you got all that. Danny wants to put his boy band career behind him and be taken seriously because his record company told him, you know, really you need a hit. And he spends a drunken evening with Rick after they got up on stage together and did the I Wish thing, riffing on songs, you know, including one that they knock around called How to Write a Song Without You and they drink and they play and they bond and they get on really well and Danny gives Ricky's guitar and they go their separate ways.

Sometime later, Ricky's walking through a supermarket and he hears the song, the song that he co-wrote that Drunken Evening with Danny Wilson. But ironically, Danny Wilson is now claiming that he did write that song without you. And Rick is not best pleased. So the whole thing is, what do you do when you wrote that song, but apparently you didn't? Anyway, here is a clip. Because every song I ever wrote in my life, it's about you. So good.

Okay, so do you have a bridge yet? No, man. I've been working on that. That thing's dogged me for years. We could finish this right now. I wish, no, I can't. I got to go. My daughter.

I've got to get to school. My wife has work, and if I'm not hauling and take her, she's going to skin my... Not a phrase one hears every day. No, thankfully. So, anyway, look, as I said before, I'm a big John Carney fan, and I like his films because they tend to have that thing, that combination of feet on the ground, head in the clouds. In the case of this, firstly, Paul Rudd is surprisingly convincing as the once-one-be American rocker

who shipped up in Ireland, fell in love, settled down, parked his touring dreams, got on with leading a slightly more mundane but also very honest life. Blotted to Nick Jonas too, who is very, very good as the boy bander, who you absolutely believe in as somebody who's trying to put his pass behind him and be taken seriously, he'll be dropped by the label if he doesn't get a hit. Now, the story is somewhat outlandish, particularly in the latter bit of it, when Rick and his cohort Sandy, who was played by the co-writer,

go to L.A. to confront Danny about the writing credit thing. But even when the plot gets a bit fanciful, the basic idea about I wrote that song and you stole it sticks. And one of the reasons that it works here is that the thing that he's really aggrieved about, it isn't the money, it's just that I wrote that. You know, I was involved in that. I did something. I actually wrote something that's become successful.

And there's a great scene which I won't. spoil in which there is a discussion about why only he could have written that song. And I think what was smart about it is that in the midst of all this other stuff, there is a heart in the drama, which is that it's about the thing about something that you created that's personal, somehow being taken away from you. The script, incidentally, also has, to return to a word that we've been trying to define for such a long time, has a very, very good denouement, the way in which it finally ties itself up works because the real themes of the film that aren't to do with with money,

although money is a part of it, the real themes of the film kind of emerge organically and a very nice, some people might think the ending is a little bit too neat. I rather liked it. Also, if you're a John Carney fanboy, there's a very, there's a very amusing busking cameo, which if you loved once, I think you'll find really interesting. I really enjoyed this. It was the last thing I saw on Tuesday, yesterday, in fact. And I had ahead of me a very, very long and very, very hot train journey, which was, you know, five and a half, six hours down to Penzance. And honestly, this just put a real spring in my step. I thought it was, I thought it's my favourite Paul Rudd film. I've not really been a huge Paul Rudd fan in the past, but I thought he absolutely nailed it in this. Did he have Aircon for five and a half hours going down to Cornwall? We had passing aircon. There were some seats had more aircon than others.

I think that's called Having the Window Open. I think that's what that is. Still to come after the break, Mark will be reviewing Backroom's Tuna. We'll talk about Dear England because James Graham, one of the most prolific and successful writers in Britain today, will be joining us shortly. Okay, well, let's rock with the top 10 movies, according to our box office information that has been made available to us.

Go ahead. At number 15. Tom and Jerry for Big Compass. It's nowhere in America. But, yes. See, last week's show for review, Cosmos Kiru from our YouTube channel, Tom and Jerry is huge in China. This is basically Warner Brothers licensing out the IP rights

to a Chinese film company to take advantage of that name and specifically made for mainland China, which is what Mark was saying last week. Carl says, Dear Tom and Jerry, a long-time listener, yada-y-da, yada, you asked parents who took their children to see this to write in and tell you about it. I did, so I am. My daughter, being seven and not even a little discerning,

enjoyed this film, but I'm not sure she actually knew who Tom and Jerry were beforehand. Precisely. So that blame lies with me. However, as your review was on the Take Two Pod, along with Wonder Dog, You held back, which was the bad film, and sadly, I, as of yet, had no subscription and I went in blind. I'm holding a mild grudge on you for that one. Afterwards, I caught up with your review on YouTube, and that was clearly something I should have done first, and I'll carry that regret for a long time. Good grief.

What even was this? By the time Jerry appeared, I was half convinced I wanted to leave. By the time the compass thing sent them to wherever it was, I knew I wanted to leave. I too tried to parent snooze through what I felt were the worst bits, but it was just too loud and annoying. I hate people who check their phones in the cinema as it disrupts my immersion. And although I tried to do it very quickly and quietly, I apologize to the other four parents who also had to suffer through this experience and may have caught me doing it. But I had to know that time was moving forward and that there was going to be an end sometime. I can only imagine I annoyed them slightly less than having spent money on this atrocity.

I have so much more, less polite things to say about this film, but let's keep it radio-friendly and just simply say, avoid with the power of an immortal phoenix or whatever the hell that was. Here's the better films ahead, yours, Carl. In fact, you said, Mark, it was one of the worst films you have ever seen. I've ever seen, and I would like to say that the message you can take away from this is, subscribe. You could have saved yourself all that pain.

Yes, and saved yourself the ticket price. It would be cheaper to subscribe. Yes, not contributed to this horror, which as a result of you paying money for it may now produce another one. Interestingly, though, it's not in the American chart, and neither is Charlie the Wonder Dog, but it is at number 11 in our chart.

Well, it's better than Tom and Jerry. Okay, the Christopher's is at number 10. Yeah, I think you and I both think this is terrific. It would just be interesting to see whether or not anyone remembers it come awards season. The Super Mario Galaxy movie is at nine? Huge hit, so brought a lot of people into cinemas. It's a shame the film isn't much good.

Finding Emily, is at number eight? So I thought this was quite cute. It definitely looks like an advert for Manchester Nightlife, which I am up for. And it has a certain degree of charm. But I think it's also, it doesn't surprise me that it's not higher than it is. I mean, it's okay. it's perfectly fine. Number seven here, number six, their passenger.

Which I thought was very creepy. I think all that the sort of car breaks down in wood and weird stuff that you can't quite see through the trees was very well done. And incidentally, we are currently in a period in which there are some very, very good horror movies making the top ten. There'll be another one that we're going to review this week.

So if you are a horror fan, and I have to say particularly a mainstream horror fan, And there's a lot of kind of very interesting mainstream horror at the moment. Number six is The Sheep Detectives, number five in America. Bizarrely charming, strangely affecting. I love the fact that we've had emails from people talking about how the film is actually about addressing grief, because you would never think that a whodunit starring sheep could be that, but I think it is. And number five is Drisham 2.

Yeah, this wasn't press screen. This is a Malam language Indian crime drama. If anyone's seen it, do drop us an email. The Devil West Prada is four here and four there. This is obviously Devil West Prada too. Yeah. Huge amount of money. Not much imagination. Much too much plot. Obviously, with the caliber of people involved, it has certain pleasures. But I have now spoken to four separate people who went to see it and went, yeah, it's not very good, is it? Obsession is at number three. An email from Nick who says, Dear Nicky and, in inverted commas, Nikki. Long time listener, rare caller, but I simply had to write about obsession a film that has stuck with me since I saw it the weekend it came out. I truly believe that it's one of the best horror movies of the past decade.

It is absolutely nerve-wracking throughout and my heart was still racing half an hour after I left the cinema. It delivers on the thrills and the gore, but also has some strong thematic meat to it, exploring coercion, consent, abuse, manipulation and yes, obsession. The way it is shot and lit is fantastic with not. Nikki, often being in shadow while speaking, but with a glint in her eye, giving a deep sense of unease. All of this, however, would be nothing without the astonishing central performance of Indy Navaretti's Nikki, who gives an unbelievably creepy and unsettling performance, but who never loses sight of the tragedy of the character. Highly recommended, and there is a fantastic scare that is all the more impressive because you can see it coming a mile off, and yet it made me jump out of

my seat. Love the show. So, so, so, so. so, so, so, so, so, so, so much. And down with the Nazis. That's very funny because that is also a self-referential joke because that's how much she loves him after she is cast under. He loves him so, so, so, so, so much. That's very, that is a terrific email.

And actually, I think that's probably a better review than mine. I don't think that's true. Anyway, number two is Michael, because that's still hanging around. I mean, yeah, it's, what you're going to do? What are you going to do? See previous weeks for correspondence and March Review. And it's number three in America. And number one here and number one there is the Star Wars colon,

Mandalorian and Grogu. Okay. Have we got emails? Yes, yes, yes, we have. Let's dive in, shall we? Well, first of all, let me try and assemble some. So I said that, because you gave your review last week and you were talking about the fact you haven't watched the TV series.

Yes, that's right. And I mentioned that Child One loves it so much. He's big Star Wars fan, and he has a Mandalorian. helmet on his shoulder or on his arm, no, top of his arm. He has a tattoo, Simon. If you say he has a Mandalorian helmet, it makes it sound like he's a grown man with a toy helmet. You know, given the chance.

Which he may have as well. Given the chance. But what I said to you was, could you ask Child One to go see the film and report back from the point of view of somebody who is a devotee of the TV series? Yes. And he sent me a photograph of the ticket. He went out. He got special dispensation and he went out and he watched it for us, basically.

He got special dispensation from childcare duties because amongst other things, Child One is also parent. Correct. To two boys. So here we go. So basically he said, did I enjoy the film? I did enjoy the film. It is cute and some of the action scenes are very good.

It is clearly not a movie. It's clearly supposed to be the fourth season of the television. And you could see where all. the episodes have been cut together. Each half-hour section, he says, is different from the previous half-hour section. All the best bits feature Grogu. The Mandalorian doesn't change.

He's just the guy with the helmet. Obviously, he does good things, but that's what he stays. He stays as the guy doing good things. He said, so I was left thinking, I really enjoyed the film. Is it a good movie? I'm not at all sure that it is.

but it's better than the book of Boba Fett, but as I hadn't seen that, that doesn't mean anything to me, but he has seen and read everything. He said the recent years have been very disappointing apart from on the TV side, Andor, which is brilliant, and the first series of Mandalorian,

which is also brilliant. So he did enjoy it because he's immersed in it, but it's not convinced that it's a good film. But that's great, because honestly, that's very encouraging, because what Child One is saying there is what I was assuming

was the case having not seen the TV series, was that he's quite right, it's not a movie. Even to my untrained eye, it looked like a TV series that had just ended up on the big screen. Absolutely right that all the best stuff is the stuff with Grogu, because the puppetry stuff is the best stuff about it.

And it is, I think that even as a fan, he seems to be in line with my response, which was me. Someone who appears to be called Zop says it was mesmerizing in IMAX 3D, I really loved it a lot. I had no expectation. Saw it as an extension of the canteener scene, which was my number one childhood memory of Star Wars. I think the phrase, the old protect the young, and then the young protect the old nicely sums up the film, and it has a positive message.

By the Mandalorian choosing to care for his child, aka Grogoon, becoming a parent, he heals his own trauma and confined peace. I appreciated that Jabba's son is a hero figure and a very likable slug. I give it an A because it was satisfying like a great slice of key lime pie with a macadamie, crust and coconut flakes to finish off the whipped topping. Okay. That's a very specific reference. It is, very much so. Paul Buck says, I wanted to share my thoughts on Mandalorian and Grogo.

For context, I've been a Star Wars fan since I was five, staying up late in 1982 to watch it on TV. Even broken up by adverts, it completely captivated me and made me fall in love with the movies. The post-return of the Jedi era has been a mixed bag. Rogue One was a high point. Force Awakens showed promise and all was Star Wars at its best. Season one of the Mandalorian was genuinely great,

overall though it's been a bumpy ride, which brings me to the Mandalorian and Grogu. I have never experienced sitting through large parts of a film in such despair, hunched forward with head in hands, to sum up how I felt here's a slightly edited version of the message I sent to my Star Wars loving friends. Okay. I would rather sit through Ewok's Caravan of Courage again.

The whole thing felt like an AI hallucination. The story centers on a buff, ripped son of Jabba the Huff. a Vin Diesel, Seth Rogen hybrid. I have no idea how that character survived a first draft. One Grogu joke stretched to about 15. It's just overlong meandering set piece after set piece. It jumped a blue whale, through a ring of fire, into a shark and straight out the other end.

For balance, most of the Grogu scenes are genuinely great, especially Grogu trying to get Mando into the tiny shelter, and some of the cinematography is among the best Star Wars has ever had. Sadly, none of that could save the film. I don't hold much. I don't hold out much hope for the Dave Faloni era. He's the guy who created all the animated stuff. Yeah, that's right.

The issue is, this is, according to Child One, can he do the big stuff like Tony Gilroy did? He also gives Dave Faloni gives himself two cameos in this film apparently. Anyway, Paul says, long time fan of you both, your passion, enthusiasm, and occasional despair about movies is always a joy to listen to. Anyway, it's a big movie. It's a huge hit.

And it's number. number one in the book. And does it appear to be, even though you haven't seen the TV series, is it clearly obviously, as far as you're just like edited together as a, you know, a TV show into a movie? It was interesting when Child One said that thing very astutely that every half an hour, it's a different film. My version of that was I said it's plotted like a video game, which is, okay, in this bit, you have to go to this place, do this thing and get that thing. And that it was a series of those things. But I think Child One's explanation that it's Half an hour, half an hour, half an hour,

actually makes a lot of sense. Okay, more discussion on current films in the Overflow car park in Take 2, which you get on Patreon. Moments away from my chat with James Graham we'll talk to here England in just a moment. Hey, y'all's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder, what if?

Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Every style, every home. Okay, so stand by for a chat with James Graham.

Quick reminder, you can get Take 1 and Take 2. Add free, plus our bonus Take Ultra every fortnight. We're doing one today. Plus access to the... I was speaking on Wednesday, so it's already gone out. Anyway, plus access to the Wittitt Entertainment. It was great, I think. Plus access to the Witt Entertainment community on Patreon.

Does Bob Dylan allow you to send in your best ad jokes? No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. I hope he doesn't anyway. Otherwise, it spores the love. line. So this week we're going to talk to James Graham, the writer of Dear England and one of Britain's most acclaimed contemporary dramatists. His writing often explores British institutions, power, national identity. He's responsible for quiz based on who wants to be a millionaire.

The Coffing Scandal. Inc. about Rupert Murdoch's rise in 1960s, Fleet Street, soon to be released as a film director by Danny Boyle, which we just touched on at the end of this conversation, and hit BBC drama Sherwood exploring post-industrial tensions in Nottinghamshire. So you'll hear my conversation with James Graham after this clip from Dear England. We're looking for someone to man the fort temporarily until we find a permanent replacement for Sam. Oh, okay, right. Of which, I'm sorry if you don't mind me saying, Greg, you will also be in the running for long term, of course. Just to say it out loud, no caretaker manager is ever.

gone on to actually be the manager, have they? Well, you never know, you know. You're like, oh. Yeah. Well, I would obviously only be able to manage the team in a way I'd want to do it, even on a temporary basis, and to work on the things I think urgently need to be done. Of course, and what do you think needs to be done?

I think there's something really wrong here. something has gone wrong in England. And that is a clip from Dear England. I'm delighted to say that it's writer James Graham, one of the most esteemed writers in the country, I think it's fair enough to say, joins us. All right, James, how are you? Good, Simon. How are you doing?

Well, I think looking at you and looking at me, we're both perspiring somewhat heavily given that we're talking during a heat wave. Dear England is on the television. All the episodes will be on iPlay. I guess most people really know where we are with this, but assuming someone is coming to this completely blank, they've got no idea what we're talking about. Where does this TV drama take us?

So it's the four tournaments, basically, under Gareth Southgate, when he took over the England team back in 2016. And to me, I feel like I'm slightly biased in this, having invested a lot of time in this story, and being in Gareth Southgate's head, I think it's one of the most remarkable examples of redemption and resilience in our public life that I can think of in a decade, essentially. It's one of the few examples where somebody took something that was not working, in this case the men's England football team, took it when we're at an historic low. We got used to being kicked out of tournaments in very early stages.

And then suddenly this guy comes along who was basically remembered for this one tragic event. 20 years ago when he missed a penalty, comes back as the manager. And not only does he transform the team tactically, he transforms the team culturally as well. That was his big thing, the culture. How do I change the culture and the environment and the mindset and the psychology

and the relationships of England men's football team? So that's it. It's like a classic sporting underdog story where someone comes in, transform something and hopefully takes them to success. I won't spoil the ending for you if you don't know it. Well, that's the trouble is we know, we know most of the endings, even then we've forgotten the agony,

you bring it back to us like in every episode. So the play was fantastically well received, one and Olivier. Adapting it to the TV required what, are you good at adapting your own material? And what did you add or subtract from this? I actually do find it really hard to adapt, particularly from stage to screen. For some reason, had I been commissioned, I think,

to write an original screenplay, TV or film about the Gara Southgate Shakespearean arc, I would have found that infinitely easier. There is something weirdly difficult, even though, like you say, it happened on stage. So you've got a lot of the dialogue, you've got the characterisations, you've got the world, you've got the research,

you've got the information, and yet somehow I do actually find it really, really hard to unpick what you've made in one particular grammar, one particular language, in this case, theatre, and how you restructure, reshape, redefine that on screen, You sort of have to perform a factory reboot on your brain. You have to unlearn all the things that you've learned in terms of structure and style and form.

And begin again, you have to ask the question, if I was starting this on screen, what would it be? What would the structure be? What would the shape be? Obviously, theatre is a very abstract, expressionistic form. TV is more naturalistic, more literal. But it gives you those strengths as well.

It can be more intimate. You can get inside the character's heads more. where you can reduce the amount of speaking and trust your actors to tell a story with an eye flicker or a look of the, yeah, things like that. So I do find it hard, but I'll leave it to you and the viewers to see if it feels like, hopefully, its own piece of screen work well than the play on telling.

There's some words that appear before each episode, James. The dialogue has been imagined by the author. Yes. I was interested in that because we obviously know that because you are the writer. And it was a line that I kind of wished to always appear before every episode of The Crown, which people took us gospel,

you know, that we now know what the Queen said to Howard Wilson, which of course, we don't. Was that your suggestion that you put it in? Because obviously you have created these conversations. I'll be honest, it's not. And I do find, I know people's opinion on those cards are quite split. I agree with you. I think they can be incredibly useful when you're dealing,

and actually a sort of a moral responsibility when you're dealing with real life people and real life events. You just have to constantly remind the audience that, to a greater or lesser extent, this is art. And we're not shying away from that. I'm not apologising for that. I would have invented certain things and changed certain things so that it works as a piece of drama.

Sometimes I find them really patronising. Like an audience is really sophisticated. They do know, I think they know what the contract is when they're watching a piece of real life. You reference the Crown and you're right. I think they can be important. Equally, an audience does know that Peter Morgan wasn't in that meeting between Harold Wilson and the Queen.

They know that and that he is to a greater or lesser extent. Having to, using the best research possible, imagine what those conversations might be. I wasn't in the dressing room when England played Slovakia in the Euro 24. and an audience knows that. Tell us about Joseph Fines who played Gara Southgate on stage

and here he is reprieving the role. Was he the only... Do you audition for this? Did you just know that Joseph Fines was the guy straight off? We spent a long time and it wasn't surprised you to know that it wasn't that sophisticated

when you first start trying to cast a famous person. You basically go, who looks a bit like Gower Southgate, who's roughly Gareth Southgate's age. and it took a long time myself and the director, Rupert Gould on stage we just kept cycling through people in our heads and I remember one day I got a text from him

with just the words Joseph Fine's question mark and it was like a, yeah, it was like a lightning one from the sky, it felt completely right and he'd just come back from a long stint in America doing The Handmaid's Tale and we thought we heard he was looking for some theatre he's a great theatre actor obviously famously he played Shakespeare

in a very, very good romantic comedy. And I imagine that Joe Fines probably thought he was going to come back and play Hamlet or do a Tennessee Williams or a Chekhov. So when we, when we rest of him saying, he wanted to play Garret Southgate. I'm not quite sure what his first reaction was, but he did come in. You would never audition Joe Fines, but he did come in for a meeting just so that three people could look each other in the eye and see if they all want to go on this journey together.

and he very generously read a monologue where he's talking, it was in the first episode where he's talking about his trauma from the penalty miss. And it was a, gosh, it was like a real privilege. It was the first time here it was on my arm sort of went up.

There was something about how he connected to Gareth's introversion, awkwardness, smallness. But the thing about Gareth Southgate for me is yes, he's, quote unquote, like a quiet, small sort of character. He's not Henry V. But there is something big about him.

There's something huge about his journey, about his aspiration, about his ambitions and desires for this team and these boys and how he radically wanted to fix them. And that's what I saw that coming through, Joe's great theatre gifts when we first met. And then, of course, the huge honour of seeing him translate that to the screen for the BBC. How do you decide which players to,

cast or to concentrate on James, because obviously you have 11 players in a team and there's all the backroom staff. And Jodi Whittaker plays Dr. Pippa Grange. She introduces some very interesting dynamics. But for telling this story, presumably you have to think there are two or three of the footballers that we're going to have to tell this story through. I imagine different football fans in particular will have different views on who I should have focused on and who the real protagonists were in that team. What's useful about Gara Southgate's tenure as manager is a lot of those players have actually stayed the course through three or four tournaments previously a lot more

would drop in and drop out. You'd have to have a more rotating cast of ensemble and that can be quite frustrating for an audience sometimes when you can't invest in people. But if you think of characters like Harry Kane, the captain, that was an obvious one. He was Gareth Southgate's first captain and he stayed with him right to the end. And so I guess there's a little narrative arc, I guess, about leadership and finding your voice, finding your style of leadership, finding the courage of your conviction, and finding your voice of which I think Harry Kane really did.

I think he's one of the great Englishmen of the past 10 years. He entirely embodies Gower Southgate's, I guess, values, this sense of decency and goodness, not necessarily the traditional extroverted alpha male kind of captain who shouts and screams. but he just carried that quiet decency, I think, of Gareth Southgate. In the second episode, we meet and then lose quite quickly, Deli Alley. And that was a case for me of being very lucky, actually, that someone like Delhi has spoken a lot about his own mental health, has been very public about that, about his struggles.

That is, again, that feels emblematic, I think, of the Gara Southgate project where someone like Delhi was able to find a language to talk about the pressures and the fear that anyone would experience in that team. So you look for little characteristics like that, I guess. We've talked a lot on the show about masculinity in the last couple of years. A lot of that fueled by adolescents, written by the equally prolific Jack Thorne.

But I wonder if in a way your play and Gareth Southgate were ahead of the curve here because they were trying to change the perception of masculinity. years earlier. I agree. I think that is, and Gail Southgate should take the sole credit for that. He handed me this story, but I agree with you. I think there's something about, well, obviously we are living through a moment. People talk about, and I don't love this phrase, the crisis of masculinity, because I feel like if you keep saying that to young lads, they start to believe that there is something wrong, that there is something innately difficult or problematic about

being a young bloke. And obviously we know that's not true, but it is important to define something so that you can fix it. But what I like about this particular story in comparison with other great narratives when it comes to focusing on young men is that it is the definition of a story of find through vulnerability, through introspection and through sharing

those worries and those doubts as these young men were encouraged to do and encouraged to do so way more than they had been previously, if at all. They managed to find a bond with one another famously. In a generation before that, the so-called golden generation

of young English man who played for their team. They could not knit together. They've spoken about this. People like Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard, Stephen Gerard have said they, in some cases, didn't particularly like each other,

but they certainly didn't trust each other. So they didn't play creatively and with freedom and with expression. Has Ted Lassow made this adaptation more difficult? Yes, to the extent that everyone has that. I think it's a frame of, a cultural frame of reference in their mind, which I understand. I tried to, no shade on the creators of that show. I tried to aggressively avoid that show.

I haven't really watched it beyond a couple of the first episodes, just because I think tonally up to, totally, it's obviously a bit different. It's way more comic and romantic, and we wanted something, I guess, a bit grittier. It's hugely pretentious to say, state, to the nation, but do you do want to look at the nation when you do a play or do a TV drama like this. You can't not, when you whack England in the title, you've got to look at yourselves in the mirror. I mean, I gave up on Ted Lassau after the first series, but I think the damned United would

probably be up there as one of the best in terms of encapsulating something about football and putting it on the screen. I would agree. And I think that's because what they did so well was it's essentially a love story, isn't it, between Brian Clough and I think Peter Taylor. It's about male relationships again. It's about the court of personality, this incredible manager who believed it

was the top one out of one in the world. Obviously, there is a big, as you mentioned, big political context to everything that we follow in over the four episodes, the political situation in the country, Brexit and COVID and so on. Towards the end of the second episode, we see a clip of the Queen's broadcast to the UK, where she concludes with the lines,

Better Days will return, we will meet again. As just as I remember thinking at the time, as most people were struck by the resonance of those lines, the brilliance of those lines. As a screen writer going back to those lines, they were extraordinary, weren't they? I really agree. I think famously actually didn't. I think the Queen wanted to take that line out apparently because she thought it was too schmaltzy. Yeah, as a writer, I always admire when anyone, a politician, but also a monarch or a football manager, manages to, in a particular. phrase, capture an experience that we're all living through.

That's what great art should do, isn't it? Whether it's a letter to the nation or play or a TV drama, what you're trying to do is create that moment where the listener or the viewer leans forward and nods their heads and go, yeah, I felt that. I remember that. That connects with me. And on that note, that's why that letter, the Gara Southgate wrote, which is titled, I nicked, Dear England,

when he just wrote to the nation after the pandemic, before we hosted this tournament. The phrases, the language he uses in there to try to describe one, what we've all just been through, the great loss, the grief, the pain, and why football has this potential to connect us together again as a nation.

What these big national events do is help us create a collective consciousness in a nation. It makes you feel part of a story. And it's how we view time, memories that get created and then knit together a narrative in our head. and in the nation.

And that's why football matters. That's why art matters. And for an England manager, an England football manager, a sporting figure to use language like that, I found it incredibly impressive. And once again, it sort of reassured me, it gave me hope that there was a story here.

Finally, James, you work on many projects. famously, you know, you've got a number of different things going at the same time. What is most exciting you about James Graham work, which we are about to see at some stage in the future? Oh, I'm just about to lock a film. I did a movie adaptation of a play I did called Inc about Rupert Murdoch arriving onto Fleet Street in the 60s. So that was directed by Danny Boyle. I wrote screenplay stars Jack O'Connell and Guy Pearce and that should be in cinemas, I hope, end of the year. Well, ink sounds extraordinary. Jack O'Connell, Guy Pearce, Danny Boyle and James Graham.

I mean, that's all we need to know. and I think we'll be queuing up at the cinema as soon as it comes out. James, thank you so much. Cheers, Simon, thank you. James Graham, the writer of Dear England, all the episodes will be on BBC Eye Player. Just before your thoughts, Mark, it only occurred to me just listening to that.

I mentioned the scene in the Crown where I just thought, the Queen and Harold Wilson. The role of Harold Wilson in the Crown was played by Jason Watkins, who in Dear England makes a brief appearance as Greg Dyke, the outgoing, boss of the FA. So Jason Watkins is a great actor.

He does turn up in all sorts of things. But anyway, he's like the continuation there between those two TV shows. Anyway, so we're into football here, but it's sort of football and it's about other things as well, which is why you might like it. I'm not sure. Anyway, what did you think of during this? So I've seen the first two episodes, which are the two that are currently available in I play at the time of recording this.

show, which I think is, I think, the same as you, you'd seen the first two. Is that right? Yeah, fine. So, as you just heard, it's a football drama, but more, that takes its title from a letter, a football manager wrote to the nation in the wake of a great period of upheaval and suffering. I love the fact that that phrase, assuming someone comes to this completely blank, you know, who could possibly do that. Well, that would be you. Yeah. Thank you very much. That would be me. Although it's interesting that all the things that you cited, you know, adolescence, damned United, even Ted Lassau, I'd say Saipan, I would add to that, are things that I know because everything I know about football, I know about through movies and television programs. So there were some grand claims in that. James Graham's seeing the story of Garris Southgate as one of the most remarkable examples of redemption and resilience. So he's a player who famously missed a penalty, lived in the shadow.

of that miss and then came back to lead England and get them to face up to the fact that, again, I didn't know this, that apparently England never, ever won on penalties. It just didn't happen. And he therefore transforms the team partly by transforming the culture. James Graham also talked of this story as a classic sporting underdog story and talks about the challenges of tackling, and this was his phrase, the Gareth Southgate Shakespearean arc, which I thought was a really, really terrific phrase. Now, there was a question, he said, whether or not, because it began life as a play, and he said it's up to the viewers and listeners to decide whether or not it plays like a play,

it doesn't. The two episodes that I've seen, it doesn't feel like a play on telly at all. It feels like a very, very accomplished TV series. What it does feel like, for me, is a very, very good dramatization of, at least on one level, the horrors of the penalty kick thing. I mean, I've never really thought about this. I mean, I agree. But the idea that really what it's about is facing up to your greatest fear.

And the way in which they dramatize the thing about what's involved in taking a penalty. I mean, Jody Whitaker is the character, Pippa Grange, who is described as the penalty whisperer, who says in the part that I've seen so far, it's not what happens when they take the kick. It's what happens afterwards. And she talks about the fact that if they miss, they literally run. roll up into a fetal ball. And I think, oh no, that's right. I have seen that.

I have, yes, that is, that is something that's significant. Joseph finds, to my eyes and ears, looks and sounds exactly like Gareth Southgate. I mean, on one level, that's not surprising because Gareth Southgate is one of the very few people in that area who has a kind of immediately identifiable uniform. You know, the beard, the waistcoat, you know, you could drew, you could almost draw like an outline of him and you'd know who he was in the same ways, you know, the image of our show is our two pairs of glasses. He's got things about him that you just got, okay, I recognize that. But it's also to do with the fact that in his performance of the little that I have seen of

Gareth Southgate on television, he gets that kind of quiet concern, right? I mean, there's lots and lots of shots of Southgate on the sidelines in which his reactions seemed to me, I was actually thinking at one point because I know that sometimes they're cutting between actual footage. I'm assuming that's what they're doing. This footage of the matches looks like it actually is footage of the matches. Yes, it is. Yeah, yeah. And you're seeing long shots of Gareth Southgate, and I am going, that is Joseph Fines, isn't it? That's not actually Gareth Southgate. So the performance is terrific. However, beyond all of that, the reason I have liked it so far in these first two episodes is exactly what you were talking about, which is that it's really about something

much bigger than that. On the one hand, it is about the redefinition of what masculinity means and what vulnerability and what being able to bond and being able to sort of face your fears actually means. And also, it reminded me that I had known things that I had forgotten that I knew. At the end of the second episode, there are flashes, brief flashes of the response to, what happens when those penalties get missed. And they're quite horrifying. I mean, like, really, really, oh yeah, that did happen. Because there's a lot of talk in the second episode

about addressing the underlying racism involved. I mean, I don't think I'd really clocked the chanting, the really horrible racist chanting, that noise that gets made, which and just how deeply, profoundly upsetting it is. And so I think that even for somebody who knows nothing about football, this reminded me of a few things. Firstly, it reminded me of the COVID era and that you discussed that very eloquently in terms of that. You know, we will meet again.

But also it did remind me that even as someone who doesn't know anything about football, I did sort of peripherally know that all this was happening. And I think that so far what it's done is engage me in a story that I wasn't really engaged in and reminded me that I was more engaged in. it than I thought I was, because that thing about the Gareth Southgate Shakespearean arc, the thing about, it's about decency, it's a celebration of people being decent, a celebration of people actually being good. And I remember, sorry to, I will do this and it will offend everybody. I will get an exorcist reference in here. But Bill Blattie once said, he said it in writing, but then he said it to me later on, he said, that a friend of his had once said,

you spend so much time thinking about the nature of evil, why don't you spend some time thinking about the nature of good? And Bill said, but I kind of, that is what I'm doing, but it is harder to celebrate good. And I think that so far of the two episodes that I've seen, this is doing a pretty good job of it.

Yeah. Let us know what you think. Correspondence at cabbdemeur.com, Deer England, as you mentioned, is on IPlayer and on, you know, traditional BBC television. but easier to watch an eyepayer.

Thank you very much. So will you watch the rest of it, do you think? I will, yeah, I will because I'm invested in it now. And I'm not just saying that. He does look and sound like Gareth Southgate, doesn't it? I mean that's... And also because, as you mentioned, he talks about the Gareth Southgate-Shakespearean arc,

which, given that he's a quiet man, actually quite melancholic, despite the fact that he's asking people to play with smiles on their faces to bring back the joy. He doesn't immediately strike he was a joy-filled person. He was a very thoughtful, very quiet,

very melancholic person. But they managed to capture that, absolutely managed to capture that. And Joseph Fines did a wonderful job. I just don't think of anyone else who would be able to do that. No, no, I think it's a great... I've just had a note from Heather,

Dear England, the first two episodes are on IPlayer. The series will continue this Sunday at 9pm on BBC 1, then on IPlayer after broadcast. Okay, well, let's, speaking of joy, which is obviously what we try and bring you in every single podcast. Let us grab that joy. Let us discard our melancholia and step with abandon into our much-loved laughter lift.

I have to say, I don't really, yeah, I'm going to sack the script writers because the material this week is slightly distasteful, I would say. All right, go on. Anyway, hey, Mark, I'd be married to the good lady's ceramic sister in the doctor. for so long, I can tell when she's lying just by looking at her. I'm also getting pretty good at spotting when she's standing up too. Hey! That's okay. That's okay. Monk, do you know, do you have any unusual sleeping habits?

Because I sleep completely in the buff. Absolutely fine at home, but it does raise eyebrows on long haul flights. I mean, what is a no-fly list, by the way? I just got so very strange angrily later. I went to the doctors this week, and I've been happy. I mean, I have a lot of trouble trying hard. Right. Yes.

And the GP said, Mr. Mayo, are you familiar with the phrase fecal impaction? And I said, certainly I present the UK's biggest film podcast stars Glenn Close and Michael Douglas, 1987. Abandoned its internal logic just to deliver a crowd-pleasing revenge spectacle. That must be a Simon Paul joke. You would imagine so, would you? But I just apologise for actually saying fecal impaction on the show because it's a child. it feels very distasteful. Anyway, Mark was still to come.

I'll answer that question. Okay, you go, you do. It's Mark's review of backrooms and also tuna on the way. So last week, we had a suggestion about playing the Muppet game, which is where you recast a film that you like, or maybe a film you don't like, but you keep one character in the movie and everyone else is turned into a Muppet.

Yes. And we came up with various suggestions. We have so many. so many contributions W.A, which is not a name, obviously, but that's what it's signed. Gonzo as Pizzou, Mark. Sorry, you're wrong.

Uncle Deadly is Pizzou. He's not playing Pizzou. He is Pizzou. Okay. The answer has to be Lord of the Rings, says Rob, the lone goldsmith. Insane a little. Borderline sacrilegious, probably.

But think about it for more than two seconds, and it swims into focus. And all singing, all dancing cast of Muppetry, dwarves, elves and so on. And wasn't there the threat of actually doing a puppet version of the story at one point? In any case, the Jackson trilogy is certainly untouchable. And it's unlikely the story will be revisited cinematically anytime soon, although I think, as we heard from Leo Woodall last week,

he's off down under to do some of this. Unless I would argue it's Kermit on his way to Mordor Banjo and all Ian McKellen obviously retains his original role. Dear Bigger and Boat regarding the Muppet game, Jaws with Kermit as Chief Brody, Gonzo as Matt Hooper, Oscar the Grouch as Quint and featuring Animal as the Shark. And I'm retaining Peter Benchley as the reporter because of respect is Don Perry. And Chris from Bristol, in reference to the discussion of the game of Muppets in film in last week's show, there was a reference to Muppets in Die Hard, delighted to say that a show Muppets Die Hard,

exists and was played at the wardrobe theatre in Bristol back in 2014. I can remember heading upstairs to the White Bear Pub into the wardrobe theatre, which was unsurprisingly very small, and watching two hours of one of the best shows I have ever seen. From memory, Kermit was the director,

Miss Piggy was Holly McLean, and Gonzo was Ellis. They used a generic Muppet for John McLean, and the real-life actor was Alan Rickman, an Alan Rickman look-alike, who I have to say, stole the show. Amazing writing, creative low-budget props, and actors who clearly had an amazing time.

They brought it back for a couple of runs in larger venues a few years later. Sadly, because of copyright, it had to be renamed MDH Puppets Do a Movie, which isn't really as good as Puppets Die Hard. But anyway, still a great show. The same group did a few more mash-up shows over the years, some of which equally amazing.

One called Goldilocks, Stock, and Three Smoking Bears, which is great. Edipuss in boots. I think they're still going and put on a show over Christmas and New Year. So well worth checking if listeners live in Bristol. Keep up the great work. Enjoying relaxing to the podcast and painting after a long day at work, Chris in Bristol, who has shared a link to the Muppets Die Hard show.

Oh, really? Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes. So if you want more on the Muppets Die Hard and those shows, then look at our show notes and follow it from there. Correspondents of Kodomo.com. Tell us something that's new. and horrific. So Backrooms, which is the very promising

and deeply unsettling feature debut from Kane Parsons, a young YouTuber at either 20 or 21, he is, quote, A24's youngest feature director. I mean, scary. He created the Backroom's web series, which was this kind of creepy. Do you know what this thing,

creepypasta is? No. No, so it's like viral horror on, it's like a popular term for sort of viral horror means. legends, that sort of thing. So in the web series, there's a research institute that is exploring these anomalous backrooms that were first discovered in the 1980s, into which people keep getting dragged. The feature, which is the thing we're talking about now, is written by

Will Sudec, follows two central characters. The first is Chuita Leshiafors Clark, who runs a furniture store with a weird sort of piratical theme. We see him doing local TV adverts dressed as a pirate saying, all the furniture here is a steel and all that sort of stuff. His life is in chaos. His relationships fall apart. He gets angry with his therapist, Mary, played by Renata Reinsfer, who's the person from, worst person in the world,

and sentimental value, brilliant actor. So the store, the furniture store, is in some form of decline. At night, the electrics play up. The lights flash. There are power outages. Weirder still, on the circuit breaker, you know, on the fuse board,

there is a switch that doesn't seem to be attached to anything at all. And one evening, after hearing noises on the other side of a wall down in the basement where the circuit breaker is, Clark discovers a door, or rather a not door, a wall through which you can walk, which leads him into a whole other building and a whole maze of back rooms. Here is a clip from the trailer. I found something in the store. What did you find? The place.

Look, I know how this sounds, but you're going to understand. It's massive in there. I'm not saying I don't believe you. Okay. I'm going to come back here with proof. All right, you feel me? Yeah. Follow my lead.

Clark, what is this? That's what I'm trying to figure out. I've been there every night since I found the place and I still barely scratched the surface. I just take it slow. So, at the beginning, those endless rooms look a little bit like the set from Severance. You know, the underground bunker, it's just faceless. But the more you see them, the more they start to look like a kind of bad imitation,

mirror imitation of the real world. There are stairs that don't go anywhere. There are rooms with pools that aren't quite pools that no one could swim in them. And at one point they describe it as it's like as if someone who had never seen a dog was trying to describe a dog. And more importantly, the room seemed to. go on forever. And then when Clark goes missing, Mary, the therapist, goes looking for him and finds herself in this ever-expanding world closer to her patient than she could ever imagine.

So, Kane Parsons had said in an interview that I had read before, that the feature would be in direct continuity with the web series, meaning that if you knew the web series, you know, there's loads of Easter eggs for the web series, but the feature wouldn't contradict the web series. Crucially, however, if you don't, and I didn't when I saw this, I've seen stuff now, but I didn't know about it beforehand.

The film works completely as a standalone venture. The reason that it does is because the narrative discovers the rooms from the point of view of Clark of Tuite-Ele-E-Fa-Fort's character, who knows nothing about what he stumbled into, and who is completely baffled, as indeed is Mary. So both the leads act all the way through,

like they have never seen any of this before, which is the experience that I had as a viewer, although the screening that I saw, I was in a room with loads of people who obviously knew the series beforehand. Apparently, on the series, they used 3D software. They used Blender and Adobe After Effects to create the world.

For the film, it has been reported that they built over 30,000 square. feet of backrooms and the set was so long and so big that it was possible to actually get lost in it. I don't know what the truth of that is. What I can tell you is that as a viewer, you do absolutely get lost in this world, which has this kind of David Lynchy, nightmareish logic. This is a shadow world. It's the kind of place that you encounter. If you ever have the, we all have weird dreams, I have quite regularly have dreams about being in a

version of my house, which isn't quite my house. and I'm in the loft and I can't get out in your house and your loft that you can't get out of. And rooms that are upside down and staircases that just go down, down, down, down, down. But you can't see where they go to. So plaudits to the two lead actors for their utterly convincing WTF reactions to what's going on in the discovery of this alternate world. Plaudits too to Kane Parsons for maintaining this. really genuine air of mystery and sort of unfolding weirdness because the film itself leaves the audience with more questions than answers and it also crucially leaves you eager to earn more

more now it was interesting that i saw there's been some stuff recently that mark duplasty is involved in this went online it went to social media to address reports that came parsons hadn't really directed the film because the film's got many executive producers which include Oz Perkins, James, Sean Levy, so quite established talents. And so some people have said, well, obviously this 20-year-old didn't direct this. I have to say, I saw an interview with that 20-year-old,

and they seemed to know exactly what they were talking about. I mean, they seemed to know this world inside out, and they seem to know what they were doing. So I have no insider information in this at all, but despite the extraordinary youth of the creator of this world, they seem to know absolutely what they were doing. I mean, there are moments of proper nightmarish horror, moments of kind of cracked consumerist satire.

But the whole thing has a really engulfing air of intrigue and dawning horror. It's not an expensive movie, but it does create an absolutely complete other world, anti-world, upside down, whatever it is. And I was really, really gripped by it. And I knew nothing beforehand. And I absolutely shared the leads experience of what is going on. And I found it genuinely engrossing and often very creepy.

The movie is backrooms. Let us know where you think. Correspondents at curbinameau.com. Now, last week on the show, Leo Woodall was our guest. And we were ambling through some thoughts about Tuna, which is the film which he stars with Dustin Hoffman. So the interview went out last week. you haven't heard that, it is worth going back to just so you get a general feel for where Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman, which are like two of the central characters in this movie, how they link up.

But we couldn't review it last week because it's only out this week. So with the conversation with Leo Woodall in mind, Mark, take us through Tuna. Well, as you said, he was the guest last week. I think that Leo Woodall found it quite hard to describe the film. Let's see if I can do any better, okay? Okay, go ahead, yes. Low-key crime thriller from Canadian co-writer-in-elected Daniel Roa who made the Oscar-winning Doc Navalny, which you talked about in the interview. So Leo Woodle is the tuner of the title.

And just to be clear, if you're listening to this, T-U-N-E-R, not T-U-N-A, although there is a gag about that. A young man named Nicky, who had to give up a promising career as a pianist due to the fact that he suffered from hyper-accusing. which is hypersensitivity to sound. And this was not something that I knew about beforehand, but the film does a pretty good job of explaining. What it means, it means that, you know, he's got these, he has to wear these earpieces all the time in order to blank out the sound

because effectively the world is too loud for him. And as a result of it, he can't play the piano anymore because the piano would be too loud. So the condition has stopped him leading a normal life in inverted commas unless he wears ear protectors all the time, but it has made him an extremely good piano tuner. And as it happens, a deft safecracker because he can hear the tumblers in,

and certainly an old-fashioned safe, he can hear them falling. This trick is very useful, particularly for Nikki's mentor. And I mean, Dustin Hoffman is effectively, he's a father figure, isn't he? His memory is failing. He forgets the combination to his safe.

Nikki can open it. He can listen to the clicks. This also attracts the attention of Yuri, who is the leader of a gang of thieves, who sees Nikki's safe cracking in action and goes, we need that guy. And at first, Nikki isn't interested, but when Dustin Hoffman's character, Harry, falls ill, he needs money. And so this side hustle of cracking safes proves useful.

The film also stars having a Rose Liu, who we mentioned before, who's in Power Ballad, as Ruthie, who is herself a talented pianist looking for a play. as an assistant to a celebrated composer, played by Jean Reno, with whom Harry wants him to hook up. Anyway, here's a clip. Hi, nice to see you again. Hey, introduce me. I don't know her name.

I'm Ruthie. Hello, Ruthie. I'm Harry Horowitz. You can call me Harry, just he'll call me late for dinner, the Rumpumpump. Steal that line for my grandmother? No, I never stole anything in my life.

This is Nikki. He is my tuning apprentice. He's more like my nephew, though we're not related. And I'll tell you one thing, he is very eligible, but he has a hearing condition, as you can see from his plugs, which are not hearing aids, although it's a common mistake. He's not being rude, it's doctor's orders. And did I mention, he is very eligible. Harry, please, stop. So last week, if you remember, we did one frame back, and we did films about people with special sets of skills.

And somebody came up with the Harvey Kytel film, Fingers. So Tuna actually does have a, I hadn't seen Tuna at that point, Tuna does have a thematic connection with Fingers. Fingers is a 1978 James Tobac film about a young pianist who is torn between music and crime and family ties. And also with the Jacques Odiear film, the beat that My Heart skipped, which is effectively a French language remake of Fingers. The film does, Tuna does have a very 70s feel about it in that basically it's a character drama that happens to be playing in. out within the framework of a crime thriller. The plot is very twisty, I mean, overly so, in my opinion, particularly in the third act, in which the coincidences come very, very thick and fast. But it's also functional because the crime narrative is really a device for allowing us to experience the world as, rather than being seen as heard by its central character, who has oversensitized hearing. And therefore, it's putting you in his position and saying this is what this world seems like to him. I think in the interview,

Leo Woodall said, you know, the world, it's just too loud. And it can seem like there's just too much of it. And then you crank that up with this crime thriller narrative in which they genuinely is too much of everything. It was interesting that Leo Woodall did find it difficult to talk about the movie, because there is none of that hesitancy in his performance. In his performance, he completely seems to embody the character. He's absolutely convincing as a piano tuner and a safe cracker. I mean, I wasn't completely convinced by him as a piano player, but that's okay, because that's a lesser part of the plot. Havana Roseley, certainly, I was watching her thinking, wow, you really are good.

No, yes, she really genuinely seems to be, to be doing that, isn't she? So, it was, I think the fact is that the reason, the reason that it works is that in that 70's way, it's really a character drama that's just posing as a crime thriller. It's funny that that clip we played was pretty incidental. It was just Dustin Hoffman saying, oh, yeah, this is my nephew, blah, blah, blah, blah. And what's interesting is that you just buy into the characters. I'm sure that Dustin Hoffman absolutely loves doing that sort of stuff. It also helps that you have sound designer Johnny Byrne.

You talked about this before. Johnny Burns' credits include Zone of Interest, and he's worked with Jorgas Lanthimos. He's a genius. And like Darius Marder's Sound of Metal, which had a different sound designer, but again was very much about the way in which the world is evoked through the sound design.

This creates an audio world that you live in because the way the sound design works is that it takes you with inside the head of the central character. We really do hear the world through Nicky's ears. I do think the third act descends somewhat into contrivance and melodrama, but there is enough about the characters that rings true that means that even when you get the overpowering, clanking gears of the plot, I know whether you agree with me about this,

but I think in the third act, there is altogether too much plot. But what it doesn't ever do is overwhelm the grace notes of the performances, because in the end, what you're really interested in is the character, and the characters are established well enough and their world is established well enough that you're interested in them less so than the crime mechanics of the plot which you literally seem to be there

to just drive the thing along. What did you feel? I was having a whale of a time really and I think it was just, I mean, of course, what you say is correct, but I was going with it because I was enjoying Leo Woodrow's performances. You say he's a master in this film

even though he did sound a little bit more hesitant when we're doing the interview. But there was so much to admire in it, and I was just along for the ride. So, you know, I take the points you're making. Also, it's a very, very small triumph of the film. There are three Israeli bad guys, led by Leo Raz, who's the co-founder,

the co-creator of the Fowder TV show, which was very successful. But they had three Israeli bad guys in a movie now without making it feel inappropriate, without making it feels there any, and they're there for a reason. It's all, you know, it's all part of the plot, you know, it's there. It's not, so I just thought, okay, well done. No one is complaining about this.

They're there for a reason, and Leo Raz is very good. Yeah, so I thought it was a small. So I was admiring a lot. And I also, without giving anything away, I enjoyed the ending and the final line is very good, well-delivered nicely. The final line is a good punchline to a shaggy dog story. It is. And it's almost, I wonder if they knew that when, I wonder if it was written like that.

I wonder if there was more stuff after that. And then someone said, no, let's leave it there. Let's just cut on that because it is a good final line. If you see Tuna, let us know what you think. Correspondence at kerbidamo.com. That is it for this week. This has been a Sony music entertainment production. This week's team, Jen, Eric, Josh and Scarlett, producer was Heather.

Redactor wasn't in. He's gone to France. Right. Is that a euphemism? Is that you? He's gone to France. He's lost in France with Bonnie Time. Ollie Wilson was the executive. Come and join us on Patreon for all the good stuff, Mark.

What is your film of the week? Well, I've got to say it's a very, very strong week. And honestly, any of these could. But since everyone threw their hands up in horror when I did three best films of the week last week, I'm going to have to pick one, so I'm going to go for backrooms. Okay. We'll be back next week with reviews of Masters of the Universe, Savage House, Scary Movie.

And more, I will be surprised. a year's ultra membership to correspondent of the week. I'm going to go for Sophie in Leeds who right at the beginning of the show told us about the submarines and Warwick University and the radio station

there. Very good. So you have an ultra membership. Sophie, if you'd like a bit more after take one, head over to take two for reviews of my mother's wedding and fairyland. Also be answering your questions and your shmestians. If you have anything for us, please send it to correspondence at kerberdomeo.com.

com.