Kermode & Mayo’s Take - Have we found Mark’s film of the year already?

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Some exciting news—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. On this week’s Take, Mark and Simon return with another trio of fresh reviews spanning the big and small screen. First up, they dive into the BBC’s Half Man, a hard-hitting new series from Baby Reindeer creator and star Richard Gadd, who is also our very special guest on the show. It’s already prompting plenty of discussion—but does it live up to the hype, or crumble under the weight of expectation? Then it’s The Rose of Nevada, Mark Jenkin’s new seafaring feature that could see him launch into the mainstream. And finally, Michael—the Michael Jackson biopic that’s already divided the critics. Find out what Mark makes of it. And as ever, there’s correspondence from the faithful, a handful of cinematic detours, and the usual mix of passion, persuasion, and playful disagreement that keeps the Take ticking along nicely. Oh, and the Laughter Lift. You can contact the show by emailing [e-mail] or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo Please take our survey and help shape the future of our show: https://www.kermodeandmayo.com/survey EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/take Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee! 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] Timecodes: 00:13:34 Rose of Nevada review 00:23:19 Box Office Top Ten 00:40:20 Richard Gadd interview 00:55:13 Half Man review 01:02:13 Laughter Lift 01:11:16 Michael review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey Mark, you know I'm a really massive techie, right? No. If you saw me at my local coffee shop in Showbase North London, you'd probably mistake me for Neo. From The Matrix, without the illegal hacking or sunglasses indoors, obviously. What are you talking about? You're having some sort of breakdown. Do you actually even own a computer?

What I'm talking about... I'm on it now talking to you. Is the transformation my web browsing has been through now that I've got NordVPN on all my devices. I use NordVPN to keep my online activity safe with encryption, threat protection and dark web alerts to guard against hackers and to secure public Wi-Fi. Well, welcome to the future, Simon. I've been doing that for ages. And with one click, NordVPN can change your devices virtual location so you can access all the things you need when you're abroad. Unwrap a huge discount on NordVPN by heading to NordVPN.com slash take. With our link, you'll get an extra four months free on the two-year plan.

and it's risk-free with Nord's 30-day money-back guarantee. Check the link in the description. I want to tell you guys about a podcast that is near and dear to my heart, and I cannot believe it already came out a year ago, and you can all go listen to it ad-free by subscribing to the binge podcast channel. What podcast, Corinne? Tell us. Oh, it's called Blink Jake Handel's story. I created it about a man named Jake, who I met,

who is the only survivor of a terminal brain illness brought on by, heroin use, but there is a lot of mystery and medical malpractice and true crime elements that are very shocking and surprising and even some supernatural elements. So this is definitely an amazing story. It's very unique. Did such an incredible job telling the story and cheering it with the world. So if you have not listened to it yet, my goodness, where have you been? Because Blink is so freaking good. Thank you. Search for Blink wherever you listen. And subscribers to the binge will get the entire season ad-free. Plus, you'll get exclusive access to the over 60 other true crime stories on The Binge podcast channel. Hit subscribe on Apple Podcasts or head to get thebinge.com.

Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can become a Vanguard Easter and get an extra episode every Thursday, including bonus reviews. Extra viewing suggestions. Viewing recommendations at home and in cinemas. Plus your film and non-film questions answered as best we can in questions, You can get all that extra stuff via Apple Podcasts or head to extra takes.com for non-fruit-related devices. 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. I don't like technology and I don't like progress.

These are the two defining factors for my particular day today. Do you want to explain specifically to the listeners what is? it is about technology in particular and progress in general that has been knocking you this morning. Those who the Paymasters have decided that we have to improve the video content of this podcast, which is, you know, in general, a good thing. You need something to look as crisp and gorgeous. Do you? Do you then? No, not really. No, blurry lens, please. So I now have a camera installed here next to my laptop, which knows where I am

so that I'm looking at you, right? Yeah. But if I move off to my right, the camera follows you. The camera follows me, and I can't escape it. If I go down here, it follows me. It's like it knows where I, it's been programmed so that it follows me everywhere.

I just need to run away from this room, which obviously wouldn't make a very good podcast. It's the camera equivalent of the Mona Lisa, whose eyes follow you around these. Simon is now putting on an eyes wide-shut mask. Yes, this is how I intend to continue on the show. So that no one knows where I am. Well, I should point out that we both have the same camera.

And Josh came, who does all the sort of clever stuff. came around here and went into the, you know, and disabled my follow mark around the room function. So my camera, I can do this, and it's just it's staying absolutely still because I've killed it. Well, I need that function. Because, you know, if I go over here,

you can see all the shelving that's just arrived, which you shouldn't normally be able to say, I can't fool it. It knows where I am. And life has become like this. This can, I need to, even if I flip it, it so it is looking at the ceiling, it will just track down until it finds me again.

I'm going to make you a little bit louder in my headphones. Okay. Because I can do that. You mean you haven't got a machine that does that automatically for you? No. I'm sure you can find that. Anyway, welcome to the podcast. Oh, so we finished the technical discussion now.

This is now the Bonamy section. How are you, Mark? I'm fine, actually. Now that I've done the thing, in order to make you louder, the only way I can do it on this, this is technology again, is I have to. to turn me down and then I have to press a button and then I have to bring everything else up. Okay. Do you remember when...

You can't even see the T-shirt that I'm wearing, can you? Because of the angle which has been selected by the man. Can you stand up? Is it a brand-new flusies? No. As you stand up, it follows you up. It follows your head. So literally you stand up.

The logo brief comes. There it is. It just says minimal. Minimal. Very good. And I thought, Mark, I'll wear it on the podcast. It's very good. And because of our computer overlords, it's decided that you're not allowed to see what I'm wearing.

It's just really hilarious. If you're listening to this, not watching it, what happened was Simon's got the logo on his chest. So he stood up so that the logo would be in front of the camera. But because the camera is fixated on his face like a dog, it just looked up. Do you know what? I'm going to disable it. I'm going to put a scarf over it. There you go. There we go.

Suck that. Okay. Now I can't be seen. Okay. The computer overlord is going to be crazy at this point, isn't it? It's like putting a cloth over the birdcage. Okay. All right.

It's going to find me in the end. There you go. Anyway. You could just cellotape it in place. You could literally just put a bit of cellar tape over it. So even if it's robot brain wants to move, it can't because it's being cellotaped in place. I'm just waiting. Oh, God.

It's now looking at the ceiling. Ha! Look at that. You've defeated it. I have. Now it doesn't want to look anywhere else. Any way, pointless. What's the point of this kind of technology?

This is radio, isn't it? It's a sound, it's a podcast thing. Who cares what we look like? What's happening on the show later when we talk in radio terms about stuff that people can see with their eyes? We have some majestic reviews. We have Rose of Nevada, which I've been talking about for a long time, which is the new film by Mark Jenkin. We have Michael, which is the new film by Mark Jenkin. which is the long-awaited and much-debated Michael Jackson.

I don't know if you can actually call it a biopic, but we'll get to that. And Half-Man, which is the new TV series for which we have our very special guest. Who is actor, writer and comedian Richard Gad, the guy who brought you baby reindeer to much acclaim and lots of attention. He has a new series for the BBC, and it's called Half Man. and we'll be talking about that. Mark has seen the whole thing, and I've seen half of it, and you can hear Richard Gadd talking to us later.

Can we just address the elephant in the room, which is that when you said half man, at least half of our audience went, half biscuit. Yes, and there is a point in the interview where I should have made that point, but I thought Richard might crumble at that point and say, yes, you're right, I should never have made it. And whoever came up with this idea was completely correct.

Yes. By the way, on the Michael subject, there was a review in the Times. All right. I haven't seen it. Which used more curse words than I've ever seen in a review. Oh, really? All of them involving excrement. Yes.

Wow. Films in Take 2, Mark. Exit 8, which is a really kind of interesting psychological horror thriller based on a video game. And back in cinemas, reissued Fight Club, is punching its way back onto your screens. Also, in Take 2, you'll get even more of the good stuff, including Five Question Film Club. Three questions, Your Majesty.

Available for you on Patreon, our intros to Cold War, The Silence of the Lambs, Heathers and With Nail and I, amongst many others. So head on over to Patreon if you'd like to join the club. Plus, you get all the other top quality content, add-free. I'd say it to the camera there. I'm saying it to the camera. Add-free. There'll be questions, Schmessians, in which Mark and I answer top questions, including which film tropes most annoy you or even take you out of the film that you're watching, which is a very good question.

Now, I have to say, because of the high quality of our listeners, something that we've discussed many times, there are at least two emails in our takes today that I don't really understand. Okay. And here is the first one. Right. we have been inundated with existential emails following Mark's review in our discussion of Lettanger The Stranger and while we accept the existence of these emails we've struggled to find meaning in them

for example Robin Cambridge I'll show it to you wowzer Cambridge not a surprise shall we mark it and send it back to him Dear Cicephas and also Cicephas. So I'm already thinking, okay,

I really enjoyed your thought-provoking review of Francois auzons-letrangé and the wider dialogue surrounding it. However, I did want to put a word in for existentialists, if I may. And that is never going to be a paragraph or even two paragraphs, is it? No, it isn't.

No, okay. So I might bail out of this at some stage, depending on your body language. Right. Strap in, everyone. Though Sartre de Beauvoir Camus and other contributors to the loosely speaking existentialist tradition grappled with the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence, they didn't actually advocate for an attitude of callow indifference in light of this,

something which is displayed in the film. Rather, Sartre emphasized in a world without God to give our lives inherent meaning. Our choices shape our nature and we are solely responsible for them. his political engagement can be seen as an extension of his wider philosophy, informed by his time with the French resistance members, whose willingness to resist suffering and torture for a just cause was a model of a life lived authentically. It was.

Meanwhile, Simone, yeah. It was, and I acknowledged that in the review. Meanwhile, Simone de Beauvoir made enormous contributions to 20th century thought with 1949's the second-sex milestone in the development of feminism. Camus was also deeply politically engaged and explicitly rejected despair in books like the myth of Cicephas, where, spoiler alert, he concluded that even Cicephas condemned to pointlessly roll a rock up a hill for all eternity might find a measure of contentment in the task. I could be wrong, but I suspect that the image of these thinkers as resembling those nihilists in the Big Lebowski who believe in nothing come from a historic opposition between the European and Anglophone schools of philosophy. Are you aware of this, Mark? Yes. Okay. The latter caricatures the former as a gaggle of smug, sharply dressed socialites in sunglasses, making vague statements about the nature of being of being between puffs on their gall-wise. while anglophone philosophers are portrayed as aging tweed-jacketed dons, arguing about whether tables exist from the comfort of their armchairs. As someone with a little experience of academic philosophy, I have to concede that the bit about debating furniture is true.

It comes up so, so much, I don't know why, but the rest is more complicated and worth engaging with. Up with accept that, and that's the end. Up with accepting that furniture probably exists. And down with indifference in the face of tyranny and oppression. Well, I get that bit anyway. I mean, I thought that was actually... Yeah, I know, but of the Anglaph, they all sound like tosses. That's the point.

You know, the Europeans smug sharply dressed socialites in sunglasses, talking about the nature of being of being, or being someone discussing whether a table exists, we can do without that. Well, anyway. I should say two things. I was at college and in a band with, Andrew Hussey. Now, Andrew Hussey, OBE, of the Sorbonne and, you know, great intellectual thought.

And Andrew was very, very funny on the, I mean, you know, what he didn't know about any of this stuff wasn't worth knowing. But I remember repeating to him a joke which Alexei Sayle said at the beginning of the comic strip when the comic strip was at the upstairs at the Paul Raymond Review Bar. And the joke went like this. I met that John Paul Sartre. He was so stupid he didn't know he existed. I proved he existed. I nutted him. I argued empirically. Now, I'd like to be clear that in our review, we did say that in terms of such existentialism, because we talked about the move towards Marxism and the role of materialist philosophy. The point was, in terms of discussing Lettranger, the character in Lettranger that you were talking about as the guy he was disaffected, removed,

that he is that character. That is not existentialism en masse. He is that character and that's what we were talking about. But I have to say I've had a wail of a time going below the line on YouTube with the comments which begin oh, if I could just know

please people don't understand Existrate. So that letter that you just read out was actually very smart and funny and on the moment. Thank you, Rob. Thank you, Rob. But anyone who seriously wants to discuss whether a table exists or not.

The world has quite a few issues at the moment discussing whether a piece of furniture is in existence or not is not really at the cutting edge. Staying on the big question, Ian Hargreaves in Bath. In last week's take one, Simon was plagued by a wood chipper.

Mark asked, how much wood can a wood chipper chip if a wood chipper could chip wood? Which is, of course, a reference to the Woodchuck song from 1902. Correct. And also there's a Werner Herzog

1976 film with the same title. Mark said there was no answer to this important question. He might have said that because the answer is a challenging tongue twister. Just as much wood as a wood chip a wood chip if a wood chipper could chip wood. Amaze, amaze, amaze.

That's very good. Have you seen how much wood would a woodchuck by Werner Herzog in 1976? I don't believe I have. No, no. I don't think I have. And a woodchuck is a groundhog, which I didn't know until I looked at all over. Oh, no, I didn't know that.

So it's a reference, so it's just a colloquial term for a groundhog. There we go. Anyway, I'm glad we've sorted both those issues. Correspondence at codemeyer.com, introduce us to a film of interest, please. Or possibly the film of interest, because I've been talking about this since last year. Well, don't give away your movie of the week already because that would... But, you know, Simon, I've already... Suspense.

Okay, fine. It could be my... Michael. Well, after all those cussing words in The Times, which I haven't seen, but I will check out afterwards. Okay, so this is the new film from Mark Jenkin, you know, Cornish Cinematic Bard behind Bate and Ennis Main, both of which I love. Now, I think both of those films were brilliant, although neither of them had mainstream in inverted commas appeal. This, Rose of Nevada, I think does, not least because I think it has an emotional and accessible emotional edge. that I think has the potential to prove universal. So the story opens in a now rather desolate Cornish fishing village.

George McKay's character lives there with partner and child. The roof of their porch is leaking. The local businesses are boarded up. There's a food bank on the corner. Clearly the village has declined, died even. Then in the harbour, a boat appears, a boat that disappeared three decades ago, like the Event Horizon, returning in Event Horizon. Strange thing is that people don't seem that surprised.

They sort of expected the boat to come back. Indeed, they promptly set about crewing it so it can go out fishing. And the crew will include George McKay's character and new arrival played by Callum Turner. They are taught the trade. They learn the ropes, literally learning the ropes of fishing, and they head out to sea. But when they come back, they don't come back to the place they left from, the place they do, but the time is completely different. They have gone back to the time that the boat disappeared.

The village is thriving. You know, it's buzzing by comparison with the version of the we just saw the pub, is open and full of life. The post offices are going concerned. Most importantly, the fishing trade is providing a lifeblood for it. When they arrive at the harbour, everyone comes down to help them unload the fish. and so they're back in the past from which the boat disappeared.

The film, as with all of Mark Jenkins' work, is made in his distinctive style, so it's shot, silent, on a clockwork camera with all the sound and dialogue created and post-synced afterwards. Here is a clip. That's it. Is that it?

Old school, isn't it? But yeah. Can't take no more. back to that booza far away can't wait to be home again he can't wait to be back out again but all about that

only one thing works than being a sea boy any oh yeah not being a seat I ha ha ha I think that clip it works because you

can hear how much work the sound is doing. I said everything is post-sync with him. So everything, all the dialogue, all the sound effects, all the noise of the boat is all constructed after the shoot. And it's such a big part of the film. It's amazing how immersive the experience is. I mean, I was on set for one day. And there's Mark holding this handheld clockwork camera. And it captures images that put you right there on the boat. And it's thanks in no small part also to that soundtrack. I mean, this is a fishing boat that reminds you that fishing is one of the most dangerous professions that there is. This is a world of pulleys and ropes and engines and cranking chains and creeping, creaking timbers. And, you know, this is a, this is a brutal

world for all its beauty. But the wider drama, having sort of brilliantly kind of conjured this fishing milieu, which I think it just does so terrifically, the wider drama is about these two time periods, the past and the near present characters who are kind of broken and lost in one time frame being more connected and vibrant in the other. And the two central characters react very differently. George Mackay's character just wants to get back, wants to get back to his own time. He's bewildered. He's horrified by what's happening. Indeed, when he first gets on the boat, he finds a message scratched on it, which is get off the boat, which you suspect that maybe he has written to himself. Callum Turner's character, on the other hand,

seems to fit right in. There's a relationship that he appears to be in. It's as if he stepped into another man's shoes. And I think the thing that this is, I mean this is a really great praise for it. I was thinking when I was watching it of the amazing Mr. Blondon, which is, I don't know,

have you seen the amazing Mr. Blondon? See, I don't think so. So really wonderful film from the 1970s. It's based on a novel. The Ghost by Antonia Barber, who incidentally lived down here in Mousel, in Cornwall, wrote the Mousel Cat. But that's a world in which, that's a story in which two worlds coexist, in which there is the present world and there is the world of the past, and their characters are ghosts in each other's stories. And it's a story about having to go back into the past to change something to save

the future from itself. And in the case of this, there is a sort of redemptive thing going on about community, about the importance of community, about what it meant when this particular trade was thriving and how a village lived and then became something else. And somehow this looping back into the past, it's almost as if the sea, the waves, the boat is bringing people back because there's something that needs to be fixed in the past. And now, as with all of Mark Jenkins' previous films, you have to pay close attention to detail. You know, it's all, there's no one sitting around explaining the plot to you. You have to notice, for example, that the time that the ship, the boat has its nameplate,

Rose of Nevada on it, and the times that it doesn't tells you about which time period you're in, but no one's ever going to explain the plot to you. But I think that where this really, I mean, it's a Mark Jenkins film, from beginning to end, nobody makes movies like he does. But I think that what this has is a brilliantly constructed time-traveling narrative that has emotional heft. I mean, I think this is eerie. I think it's heartbreaking.

I mean, there is a really heartbreaking, two heartbreaking love stories going on in it that I think will connect with a much wider audience than, I mean, I said when I was talking about last year, I said, you know, a Cornish modern classic, eerie, heartbreaking, wonderful and I stand by that. I think that's on the poster. And it's also buoyed up by great performances, not just from the two leads, but also from regulars like Ed Rowe.

There's an all but unrecognizable appearance by Mary Woodvine in one of the stories in which I was, I mean, I know Mark Jenkins, I know Mary Woodvine, I was on set one day in which she was playing one of the characters, and I didn't even recognize that it was her. This is my favorite film of the year so far, and I would be really, really surprised if it gets surpassed.

I've seen it twice now and both times it just knocked me for six. I think it's wonderful. Is Nevada relevant? Or is it just the name of the boat? It's the name of the boat. But here's what I would say. There is nothing in any Mark Jenkin film

that isn't relevant. And I would make a comparison with David Lynch, which is that thing about we must pay close attention. when you make films like this, there is nothing that is in there by accident. But it's also there is nothing in there to be explained definitively. Okay. So the name of the boat is relevant.

What's the film to find? But it's, yeah, it's up to you. So it might not be relevant. That's not what I said. I said it's up to me whether I decide. It's up to you what you read. into that. Does it actually exist?

Does the boat exist? Yes. Yes. An existentialist. Oh, I see. Yes. It's not a piece of furniture. Yes.

It actually exists. Okay. And a big, big release? I mean, will it be rolled out everywhere? Weirdly enough. So I got in touch with the BFI, so I got this. You're like a producer on this film, I think. Thank you.

So it said that it's opening in 124 screens. including View and Cine World. So it's a BFI release. So for them, this is a big flagship. This is their Star Wars, basically. Wow. Okay. Correspondence at co-domere.com,

once you've seen Rosa Nevada, please send us your reviews. Still to come after the break. Mark will be talking about Michael. You'll hear about Halfman with our special guest, Richard Gad, plus the laughter lift where the jokes always reach the top floor.

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slash take. Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down top model. We talk about Jenna Jameson and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge. She just was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy. Brooklyn is their first kid.

He's had a little bit of the Nepo baby curse. We investigate orgasm cults. A woman's erotic power can unlock many other powers in her life. And, of course, we discuss people who have gotten into lots of trouble. My name is Molly McLaughlin. I am one of Jen Shaw's many victims. She was defrauding the elderly, and her tagline was the only thing I'm guilty of is being shamazing. Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart.

The show's called Infamous. Okay, here comes the box office top 10. At number 15, California scheming. Which, as I said, I think is an interesting, dramatic retelling of a story that was told previously in a Jeannie Finley documentary, the Great Hip Hopes, which I think was Great Hip Hopes, pardon me, which I think is the superior work. Number 14 is undertone. A really interesting horror film, really stripped down, tiny location, and all to do with the sound. The tagline for it was the scariest film you'll hear.

And I really enjoyed it. It's number 25 in America. Ian McCauley says, love the show. Is this, is Undertone the best film about Fergal Sharkey that was never made? Very good. And Nick says, Well, that was disappointing. After settling into a promising start and strong concept,

I spent the majority of undertones runtime, trying not to doze off, leave, or, heaven forbid, check my phone. When it picked up in the last five minutes, it was too little, too late, and all I could think of was, aha, they're trying to do a tie west, but without the tension ratcheting slow burn bill to pay off effectiveness of that director's work, such as X, House of the Devil, or the terrifying The Inkeepers. All in all, it reminded me of my unfortunate experience with the Blair Witch Project. In that, I found the characters double-dutch tilting camera work and supposed scary bits, equal parts, tedious and irritating in the film's lack of clear resolution,

nothing but immensely frustrating. But then I was in the minority on that classic. So maybe I'll be about this too. A bit of a missed opportunity, if you ask me, because the core idea of podcasts, found footage, horror, was a great one, says Nick. I mean, I think the fact that you, that you cite Blair Witch, which I think does relate to this, and that you didn't like Blair Witch, which some people didn't. I think in a way that's fine. I really did like Blair Witch, and I really did like this. And I would just remind people,

if you weren't there when Blair Witch came out, it's very, very hard to remember just how alarming it was. I have a colleague friend, now an actor, but was a film critic, who was so traumatised by it when they saw it can. There is film of them outside the screening room afterwards in a state of almost total collapse, hyperventilating, because they were so panicked by what they'd seen. To many critics become actors, I would have thought that's very unusual. Yeah, no, I don't think it's that common of role. Quite a few critics go on to become filmmakers, as we were discussing before, when we were talking about the whole Jean-Luc Goddard thing.

And New Valvaal, the film is called. But I don't think it's that common, no. Number 13, you, me and Tuscany. It's number five in America. Joe in Yorkshire, Dear Wetcher, Unbuttoned in one scene and missing in the next. Full time emailing, maybe first time to make. make it onto the show. There were three people in my screening of you, me and Tuscany. The first was my dad who fell asleep for half the film, then got up and walked around the corridor outside for the

other half. The second was myself who spent the whole film thinking that the endless spreads of gorgeous looking food would make me very ill with my IBS, former conservative leader, obviously. And the third was my 15-year-old younger sister who smiled and laughed and was happy throughout. And at the end of the day, does anything else really matter? Kind regards. Joe and you. Yorkshire, small plastic brick collector and 12-time failie of my Year 5 school swimming certificate. Very good. How can you fail? Wow, I mean, I suppose, Joe, you're fortunate to be alive if you failed your year-five

swimming certificate 12 times. Should have got the, I think you should have got the message after three or four. Is that a swim certificate when you have to do the thing about tying a knot in your pyjamas and then making a balloon out of them? And I always thought, but what happens if you, if. You get thrown in the water and you're not in your pajamas. Yeah, they hadn't thought of that. Very smart.

Anyway, you and me in Tuscany at number 13. Yeah, I haven't seen it, so I can't contribute. Okay. Number 10, we're rocking into the top 10 now. Okay, so I want to do this properly, so. Go on. Number 10, number nine in America is Booth Bangler. No, no, you've jumped over number 12.

I have, because that's what it says it. Okay, number 12 is Glenn Rothen. Right. Now, fine. So the last time you and I spoke, you were yet to speak to Brian Cox and you were yet to watch the movie. Correct. But then the interview went out, which I hadn't heard at the time we did the review. And I said, I had seen the film and then I interviewed Brian Cox. So then I reviewed the film. So now I want to know now that you've seen the film. What did you think? I was, I'd worked out of line. If Brian asked me what I thought of the film, I would say I was surprised how kind it was. that's a good line that's a good line that's it that's it really um yes i you know uh it was

it was uh lots of uh beautiful scenes and they're very you know watchable performances and a lot of whiskey was drunk and brian's a very interesting man that's what i thought and it's a very kind film and surprisingly kind Yep. Anything else to add to that? Well, it's creaky. You know, it is creaky as heck, isn't it? It's absolutely schmaltzy, sentimental, you know.

I mean, I quite liked it because I really like Brian Cox, and I thought that he kind of has the right. It's just, it's not the film that you would expect from him because it's so saccharin. Yeah, it's, but there is a role for saccharin. Yeah, there is. are addicted to saccharine. Absolutely is.

Absolutely is. So I'll stick with surprisingly kind. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, so there's hoppers at number 11. Yeah, which I kind of enjoyed. It was fun. Number 10, as I mentioned, Booth Bangler. So this wasn't screened before we went off.

The title translates as Haunted Mansion. It's a Hindi language, comedy horror film. If anyone's seen it, please send us a review. Number eight is the BTS World Tour Arirang in Goyang, viewing. This is a concert, not a film. BTS on an 85-day World Tour, 23 countries celebrating the fact they've done their military service and to heck with

all that, let's carry on being pop stars. So they're doing their Elvis thing. Okay, so that's fine. Number seven is Time Hoppers the Silk Road. Now again, since we've been off for two weeks, there are three films in this section that I won't have seen. So I haven't seen Time Hoppers the Silk Road. It is an animated story

of four gifted children who stumble upon time travel and are thrust into an adventure along the Silk Road to Save great scientists from an evil algorithm. I'm just reading the Pots. Sorry about that, yeah. Okay, so if you've seen Time Hoppers, let us know. Magic Fire Away Trier number six.

I really enjoyed, and I was very surprised by how much I enjoyed it, but I really thought it was charming, really properly charming. James Naler says, Dear Sergeant Angel and PC Butterman, my family and I attended a cinema, as we do once or twice a month, as there is just something special about seeing a film on the big screen rather than waiting for a streaming site to pick it up. we saw the magic faraway tree. This is an exceptional children's film

full of magic, hope and togetherness. My wife described it to a tea when leaving the cinema saying it's a wholesome family film when the world needs a wholesome family film. And it's interesting how wholesome becomes a kind of almost pejorative really, but actually, no, it just means

you can all go and see it and you can all enjoy it. You don't have to be nervous. It had some great actors and actresses in it, but the children stole the film, especially Billy Garson as Fran, whose Charmin wit makes the film flow and makes the 110 minutes fly by. Both children and my wife said they hope there was a sequel, as there are four books. And that should there be any, they'd be just as magnificent as this film.

Well, you know, I think it's been received well enough that there may well be. Like I said, I thought it was really charming. I think you're absolutely right about wholesome. That's not a pejorative. It's absolutely wholesome. Akira is at number five. We discussed, if you listened to the show last week on Take 2, the question about why the live action Akira proved to be such a stumbling block. And the reason is, well, just look at the animated Akira and go, okay, do that live.

Also, why would you? I mean, Akira is an astonishing piece of work. It's very, very edgy when it first came out, now back in cinemas, in IMAX presentation. and as mind-blowing now as it ever was. And number four, in the UK three in America, is Lee Kronin's The Mummy. Okay, so this is the other one that I haven't. I'm going to catch up,

but this wasn't actually press screen anyway until, it was Wednesday afternoon, and it was going to, you know, by that point, we were well off by that point. It is a reimagining of the Mummy franchise. I did, I have to confess, have a couple of people came up to me and said, have you seen it yet?

And I said, no, they said, oh, you need to see it. I said why. They said lots of exorcist references. I said in a good way, they went, no. There is a review from one critic that says absurdly, watch-checkingly, over long, tonally unsure and fatally not scary, or the exorcist with gauze. So I'm going to go and see that now. All right.

To be reviewed next week. Number three here, number four over there is the drama. Tabitha from Brighton. Yes. Says, Dearest Doctors. Tabitha from Brighton here, long-term listener, first-time emailer and first-time baby carrier. Writing about an amazing cinema experience I had recently in Glasgow,

having just attended a wedding in the Scottish Highlands, my husband and I were driving back for our late evening flight from Glasgow. My husband had been best man and was feeling more than a little worse for wear. Me being pregnant, on the other hand, was feeling smug and remarkably well-rested. We had a few hours to kill before the flight, and on a whim searched nearby cinemas. six-minute drive away from the airport, we found the showcase cinema in Paisley, showing the appropriately wedding-themed the drama.

Settling into what can only be described as fully reclining luxury beds, my husband, him indoors, settled back for 40 winks, and I got to enjoy one hour, 45 minutes of this slightly off-key, unhinged, dark comedy before making it back in perfect time for the flight. It was an extremely successful detour. I think Robert Pattinson in particular was perfectly cast, as Zendaya's Gooney but charming English boyfriend. It's a difficult film to discuss without spoilers,

particularly as the marketing has been so careful not to give anything away other than a wedding. I had no idea what the film was about when walking in. I wonder if the film will receive a backlash for making a comedy about such a sensitive topic. I thought the concept was fantastic, couldn't wait to get into it. Intrigued to hear your thoughts.

Good Doctor's work has been reviewed already at Tab of the Book. P.S. You might like to know that listening to your pod is part of my birth plan. I'll let you know how it goes. Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, no pressure then. But Tabitha, thank you. Anything to add to the drama? No, just don't just think gas and air, madam. No, I'll just have Kermuda Mayo. Yes, that kind of numbs me most times, puts me to sleep. Project Hell. I love the drama. I love the drama. I thought it was fabulous. I'm really, really glad you had a good experience with it. Anyway, Project Hell Mary. Yeah, is number two,

everywhere. And doing really, really, doing, just looking really well, and I have had so many people say, I went to see it in the cinema. It was a great cinema experience. How brilliant to be in the cinema with everybody enjoying a movie like that.

Anyway, we have some emails. Yes, yes, yes. Dr. Nicholas R. Moody M-Kem, MRS.C. A lot of emails along these lines, but let's delve into this one. Okay. Simon and Mark, I'm a biochemistry teacher at the University of Nottingham,

very fine university. and would like to comment on the scientific accuracy of Project Hail Mary. I spent the last 10 years in a biochemistry lab, for better or worse, extracting compounds from fungi, evolving bacteria to live in high salt conditions, and assaying enzymes essential for carbon fixation in plants. In fact, my PhD thesis was on the evolution of metabolic enzymes, so I feel I have some grounds to comment. Okay, well, carry on.

From a broader strokes point of view, the way the film touches on science is perfect, never going too deep. The concepts were given just enough details so the audience could jump to how to solve the problems. Having done a mutagenesis experiment, I can attest it would not make good cinema seeing a person listening to a film podcast in a lab coat while a clear plastic tray sits in an incubator. That said, Ryan Gosling's pipetting technique was all over the. the shop. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this, Mark. I have many friends who have gone into teaching after their PhD, and they have never forgotten how to pipette a viscous substance. His sample was full of air, Mark. Was it? He should have been using a cut tip or a positive displacement pipette. It was the wrong hawk, and he swam in the wrong stroke. He got the

sample transferred, but he would have got a failing grade on his practical if I was his supervisor. He then does the most egregious thing and does not balance his centrifuge. Centrofuge is push liquid in vial to the bottom by spinning at high speeds. A counterweight equal to your sample needs placing on the opposite side of the wheel. Otherwise the system will be unbalanced something else, Mark.

You did not point out. No. This would be especially torturous to Rocky as an unbalanced centrifuge would make a horrible high-pitched sound that I imagine for a creature who sees in sound would be like a flash bang. If I had a studio did this, I assumed that they were just trying to wind me up.

Otherwise, I really enjoyed the film. P.S., I spoke to people in elemental analysis, the way you do, and they enjoyed a lot of the shots of some of the more expensive equipment. Down with unsustainable fossil fuel consumption, and up with university funding, says Dr. Nick. That is a fantastic email. But it is definitely in the, it's the wrong hawk territory, that Ryan Gosling's, pipetting technique was all over the shop and the centrifuge wasn't balanced for this. I'd like to say that's not so much in it's the wrong hawk territory as in it's the wrong breaststroke territory. I mean, that's, that is taking nerdiness to an extreme and I'm impressed by that dedication.

Yes, Dr. Nick, we appreciate that. Thank you. correspondence atcom. And number one is the Super Mario Galaxy movie. And number one over there as well. Well, that's it. Is that it? Okay. So still to come, we have further discussion on films that have been out for a while in the Overflow Carpark.

That's in Take 2, which is available ad-free on Patreon. In just a moment, we talk to Richard Gad, about half-man, but not half-biscuit. Okay, special guest time. A multi-award-winning screenwriter, playwright and performer Richard Gad is our guest this week. Won the Edinburgh Comedy Award for his show Monkey See Monkey Do in 2016. is the creator, writer, star and executive producer of the hit Netflix series Baby Rainier, which you might have heard about, based on his own real-life experience

and started out as an Olivier Award-winning one-man show. His latest project is called Halfman. You'll hear my conversation with Richard after this clip. Yeah, come here, look at me, look at me. I'll see. Look at me. We men will flow through each other's veins, but we flow for each other's brains.

I don't think that. One more time, eh? For all time's sake. I just need to hear it. Before I lose you forever. You need to see eyes. Go on. Say it. What I'm a? Your brother from. And that is a clip from Halfman. It was written and created by Richard Gador, who stars in it. Richard, hello. How are you, sir? I'm good. Thank you very much for having me. Welcome to the show. How would you... Actually, do you like Doom, Promont? motion. Is it the kind of thing that you're naturally at ease doing? Oh, it's a good question. I do, I think I like it because my life is sort of exists, you know, sitting in edit suites and

being on film sets and it feels like a nice, exciting thing because it's just kind of like the pre-buzz to a show coming out. So, so it feels exciting. It feels, it feels, it feels nice to do. And how does, how does promoting Halfman feel as compared with when you were promoting Baby Rainier, when there was buzz about it, but you didn't know presumably quite how big it was going to get. How different does this feel? Well, I think with, yeah, Baby Rinder,

I suppose it was the unknown. I was still sort of, at that point, I wasn't as well known as I am now. And I suppose it was, there was a lot of, what if it was going to happen about sort of baby Rinder, is it going to land, isn't it going to land?

And with this, like, I'm just fully aware that there is expectation. there now and the following the first steps of baby reindeer is a big thing. And so the whole the feel of the press and doing the press feels the same, you know, meeting people, chat with people, that kind of stuff. But I'm very aware that the expectations are very different now. Of course. Of course. So introduce us to Halfman. As we start this conversation, what do we need to know, Richard? Well, Halfman is essentially the life of Rubin and Nile, the two main characters. And it traverses through the decades in their lives. And it's how they fail to co-euxing

how they love each other, how they fight and fall out. Essentially, the show is about the exploration of, I guess, male repression and male violence and male behavior. I just really wanted to dig deep inside the whole naughty subject and just try to get to grips with it in some way. Yeah. So you play Ruben. Jamie Bell plays Nile.

In the 80s scene, in the earlier scenes played by Mitchell Robertson and Stuart Campbell, who've written fantastic performances. We realize pretty much straight away that Rooson, is dangerous to be around. How would you describe Ruben your character? I think Ruben is, I suppose, the quintessential epitome of repressed male violence in a way. And I think that he's a man that does not like to be disempowered,

one iota. And his existence is a sort of reaction, without giving away, suppose, but he lives in a very reactive state where anything that's a dent on his masculinity, honest pride, results in very extreme behavior. In as much as you can tell us, as people begin this series, what's happened to him? Can you tell us that?

I don't think I can say that at this stage. It's a, that would be possibly too big a spoiler. But I think that I would say that, let's just say that it's an exploration of male violence the show, male repression, male damage. And I suppose I would say that there is contextualisation or an exploration of where that might come from. Yeah. So Jamie Bell, I mean, he kind of gets referred to, well, you call him Bambi, which is sort of like

another reindeer. There's like a deer thing going on there. Anyway, but you'd call him Bambi, and he's sort of like a stepbrother. What is your relationship with Jamie Bell's character, Nile? they for better for worse need whatever the other one brings there's a line in episode two which I think sums it up

one needs a head the other needs a body I don't think there's too much of a spoiler at this point and I think that I think they both have what the other person lacks one wishes to have the sort of physical dominance to the other the kind of confidence to the charisma the machismo and then the other one

probably wants to have the opportunity the success, the ability, I suppose, that the other one has. The polar opposites in a way, but at the same time, they're inextricably bound. You have physically transformed, even just sitting there on the sofa and your t-shirt. You're a fine specimen. What did you do to end up looking the way Ruben looks? Well, I've actually lost a lot of Ruben weight since filming. I think I didn't want to lug all that mass around anymore.

And then, of course, the motivation isn't there. And I'm in Edits weeks all day. So I've lost a bit of weight from Rubin. But I knew in order for people to buy me as Rubin, this kind of swaggering example of sort of masculine rage and violence, that I needed to change everything about myself. You know, I was raked in when I did baby reindeer. And I knew I needed to transform if people were going to buy me as a sort of burly,

um, burly sort of pits me of masculinity. I knew I needed to physically transform as well as, vocally transformed, kind of everything about it. And so I went through an intense year of intense working out, dieting, all kinds of things. I committed to it to the fullest degree. People will have been aware listening to this conversation, Richard, that you've talked about. Essentially, there's a lot of conversation about toxic masculinity. But my understanding of your writing process is that you've been writing this for a long time and that you would have started writing this before the Manosphere was part of the conversation,

we'd watched adolescence, which is also part of this comes up. You've been working on this show I think of about this, right, since, you know, soon after baby reindeer. Is that right? Well, what happened was I wrote a script run just before I think Baby Rainier was commissioned. I was doing the Baby Rainier live play at the Bush Theater in time. I think it was 2019. And they, Baby Rainier, the play was getting shipped about and shocked around and channels were bidding on it. And all that, well, all that stuff was having. happening. I was sort of pitching this idea out and got interest and then a script was commissioned off the back of that and I wrote that script and then Baby Rainier was commissioned. And so I put it on

pause. So I'd written one script and I put it on pause for all the time I did Baby Rainier, which was about four years. And then when Baby Ranger finished, I thought to myself, well, what do I want to do now? I want to go back to that script and pick that project up and do it again. And thankfully, the BBC was still interested. So really, I had a four years. I wrote one script, had a four-year hiatus, then wrote everything else. So I still think the bulk of half of mine, indeed everything bar that one script was done in two years since Baby Rangir came out. There's a piece in Hollywood reporter, Richard, from 2024, which is an interview with you in which you say this show is going to be called Lyons. And also that you weren't going to be in it.

So what happened? Well, Lyons was always a kind of, what's it called? like a bookmark name. It was never, I never really, I think I just thought like two men, two lions. I had, even the explaining shows that never was really grounded at anything properly artistic or particularly good.

And it was always like something that I thought I'd change at a later date. I think I just, I had male pride lines. Pride line. None of it, even now describing it makes me realize what a kind of weak title kind of was. And I think that I just knew our hope that a better title would come up and I thought Halfman really summed up the show perfectly.

The second I came up with it, I sort of knew that that was why I wanted to call it. And then I went on a big old campaign or convincing everyone. And luckily, everyone felt the same way. And then what was the other part of the question? It was there. Yeah, you said in the interview that you had no intention of being in it. Yeah, I didn't. I mean, after baby reindeer, it's very like, it's an extra lay of intensity when you're doing a,

when you've written the show and you're producing the show and you're always seen all the kind of creative decisions and a show running capacity, don't also act in it. And after Baby Wendor, I thought, well, I'll take one thing off my plate and I won't act in it. You almost have to see a show from a sub-internal and external perspective. You're in front of the camera yet, you're behind the camera. And it's really tough and it's intense, and you're kind of

analyzing as a writer and a showrunner as you're acting. And it's just a lot going on. It's just a phenomenal pressure. And I thought I wouldn't do it. I'd take a load off, and I take one job off my plate. But the more conversation emerged around the show and the possibility of me, being in it and the fact that that would sell the show better. And I found that it was kind of an exciting prospect for Jamie.

I remember Jamie Bell really, really wanted me to be Rubin. And the fact that he was so behind it and the fact that the channels were too. And it terrified me enough to want to do it, which is usually my doctrine in life. Could you have played Jamie Bell's character? Well, I mean, I'm up for any challenge, I think. Like I always like if that was, but I only really wanted Jamie for that role. I,

I sort of, I guess I, I thought in a lot of ways if I was going to be in it, I would maybe be like a bit of a sort of more side character maybe like comic relief character or I pop in. It's like a, I'd be like less regularly in it. Like I would be one of the leads.

That was my sort of vague plan. I might make a cameo appearance of some kind. But Jamie, I, Jamie just felt right to me. when I was writing it, I never, my mind never goes to actors when I'm writing, but the more and more, like I got into Nile, the more and more I thought of Jamie and I couldn't shake it as an idea. And so I thought, well, that has to come for something.

So I approached him. And he's always been my Nile ever since he's expressed interest back the other way. What did you, obviously there's aspects of baby reindeer which you can't talk about because of court cases and so on. But what did you learn from baby reindeer, which you were able to put into good effect here for Halfman? I think what I learned mainly from baby reindeer, I guess process-wise, was that the, you know, hard work yields results. I hope that's the same would happen. I don't know how it's going to be received. I hope it's received well.

One can hope and pray. But I think like, I think that baby reindeer was an astonishing sort of feat of effort, I feel. And I always look back at it and think I worked just so, so, so hard. And I guess as a result of that, you know, it did go well. and I realized that the more you put into a project, the more likely something is to come off the back of it. And I took all of that sort of hard work and sort of determination, and I reapplied it to half, but worked in just as hard a way on this.

So that was the main thing I took away from Baby Rainier. It's like life, you get out of life what you put into it. It's that never true word said, you know? You did say that since Baby Rainier, it's been like walking around naked. Do you still feel that? I think, yeah, I think that speaks to a sort of maybe, a sort of feeling of just maybe being exposed,

like just a bit more exposed, like just a bit like people know who you are, people look at you more. Yeah, I mean, in Baby Ring, you know, in the height when it was the most, sort of like, sight-guisty show on the planet Earth. Like it was way more intense than it. It's now, like things have calmed down like significantly now.

But like I felt like at that time, I almost couldn't walk past a single person without them stopping and saying something. And now it happens more regularly. You still get funny looks, you still don't know at any given time whether somebody's going to come up and they're just going to start chatting to you. You can be having a meal and it can happen, you know, and that's the feeling of being naked.

That's the feeling of just not really knowing, just people looking at you all the time. I guess that's the feeling. On the plus side, you get invited to do things like Socorade. Oh, Socorade is the best, honestly. That's the best thing I've ever thought of my life. I still can't believe it happened. and I think I'll, I've framed the shirt. I've got it on my wall.

If I think about it, I always get emotional. I just, what can I say? It was the best thing I've ever done. Who are you playing with? Oh, I've played with loads of people. I mean, I can take you through the whole lineup if you wanted it. But like I was sent her out. I'll keep it simple.

I was centerbacks with Vidich, which was unbelievable because Vidich, one of the best centerbacks of all time. and it was me and him at centreback together and that was just a real privilege and I had of Van Dasar who one of the best keepers Premier thinks ever seen

and just an absolute gentleman I could talk and talk and talk about it honestly I could yeah Harry Kuhl was left back it was a phenomenal experience Richard it's very nice to talk to you thank for your time do you know what you're doing next

is that is like a holiday I mean have you started writing the next thing already I haven't started writing the next thing I can't say what it is, but I do have an idea of my steva. I'm very keen to explore. But yeah, as you say before that, it's definitely a holiday. I certainly need a break.

Richard Gad, we appreciate your time. Thank you so much for talking to us today. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. Very appreciate that. Thank you. Would you agree, Mark, that Vidich is one of the best senderbacks? Well, can I just say on the subject of football that I'm instructed to say to you,

I'm so sorry for your loss. I've renounced football I'm not interested in football anymore I didn't even understand what the relevance of it was but then everyone went just tell Simon yeah I mean it's slightly premature

but not that much and I have separated my life now so I intend to have as much interest in football as you very good welcome to my world yeah

so Vidich one of the best centrebacks obviously I mean I think you'll probably agree with that? Yeah. I think he's nippy on his toes. He definitely, he's fast.

The thing that he's really good at is helping to set up goal scores. Yeah, probably not. Okay, there is one issue with half man. Half biscuit. Which I need to just mention. I should have mentioned it to Richard, apart from the half-biscuit. bit. And that is there's a, there's a disco scene, like a dance, so no one calls it a disco anymore. But there's, they're in a nightclub and they're all a boppin and a moving and a

shaking. And they're dancing to the boomtown rats. And you really don't dance to the boomtown rats. They're specifically dancing, they're specifically dancing to rat trap, which it's, which it's hard to dance to because it's got sections. Yes. And when you've been caught and then it changes very, and you're, and you're, What? You can't do that. So with the exception of the fact that you're not supposed to dance to the boomtown rats, let's talk about Halfman. So, a great interview incidentally. And I've watched the whole six hours of the series, although I'm very aware that I shouldn't discuss much more than just what you've talked about in the interview because I want to spoil it for anybody. So in that interview, Richard Gadd said that it's an exploration of male repression, male violence, male behavior, male damage. Centres on two characters, Rubin and Nile, who described to each other as brothers from another lover, chalk and cheese.

Again, to quote, one needs a head, the other needs a body. So one is intellectual reserved what Molesworth would have described as utterly wet and a weed. We meet him. Hello, clouds, hello, scy. Hello clouds, hello sky, exactly, Fotherington Thomas. And we meet him at school being bullied, beaten up, because he's got, I think they're Indiana Jones trading stickers on there. There's a running Harrison Ford joke. The other comes to live in his room, and he is a thug, loud, strong, dangerous, maybe not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

They are polar opposite. But the crucial thing is that they are, in many senses, two halves of a difference. divided soul. The series is called Half Man. There is an element here of Fight Club, we'll talk about, incidentally, in take two, that idea of two characters being two sides of one person. That's not a plot sporter. It's not literally that, but it's a, and as you mentioned, the original title was lions. That's lions plural, not lion and lamb. These are both men who have both been touched in different ways by the anxiety, the toxicity, the weakness of maleness. And it just manifests itself in very different ways. And that duality is also emphasized by the fact that there are two stories

that unfold in separate time periods. This relates back, partly as opposed to Rose and Nevada. We're going back between timeframes, and those timeframes speak to each other. So this is a movie that travels in time, even if it's not a time-traveling, maybe not a movie, a TV series. Gad says that Ruben is the epitome of repressed male violence. Sorry, there's so many great quotes in that interview. A swaggering example of masculine rage and violence who lives in a very reactive state. So if his masculinity or power is questioned or challenged, it provokes violence. And you asked what's happened to him to get him to that point.

And Richard Gad demures, well, I think one of the reasons he demures is that very much later on in the series, that question is to some extent answered specifically. But the thing is that's not the point. The point is you know that anyone who has this level of physical violence and rage in them, it's the phrase about hurt people, hurt people, isn't it? That you know that damaged people, damage people. So you know from the beginning that there are demons lurking in his past. Incidentally, in both time periods, the performances are terrific.

obviously, Jamie Bell never puts a foot wrong in anything. I mean, I'm getting to the point of just thinking, I'd almost want, I want to see Jamie Bell be bad in something just because, you know, he just never puts a foot wrong. But also the two younger performances, I think it's Stuart Campbell and Mitchell Robertson, they're amazing. I mean, they're amazingly good performances.

So here's a weird thing. Because of the way the BBC preview system works, I accidentally watched this out of order. I watched episode 3. three first, thinking, thinking that it was the start. I then realized my mistake and then went back and did episode one and two. But here's the interesting thing about it. When I watched episode three thinking it was the first episode, it made perfect sense. And I think that tells you something about the storytelling. There is a sort of labyrinthine tale unfolding here of conflicting

loyalties and unexpected allegiances and alliances. But the scenes that I was seeing in episode three told their own backstory because the piece does add up to a coherent whole. And I think that's because despite the profound differences of the characters, they all exist in a coherent ecosystem, an ecosystem in which that underlying male rage and weakness manifests in different forms, but you can see how they're all feeding into each other. I mean, it was so fascinating. You asked Richard if he could have played the Jamie Bell character. What's interesting isn't what he said in his answer. It was the fact that you asked that question. Because in asking that question, what you were suggesting is exactly one of the things that the program raises,

which was for all their protestations, these two characters are two faces of the same issue, that same kind of anxiety, shame, absolutely shame, repressed rage and sometimes not repressed rage. I mean, look, I haven't seen the Louis Theroux program, but you mentioned a scene in it in which there's this kind of bombastic alpha male character who's living with his mum. And, you know, he says, a mum, I don't want to do that. And I mean, the root of all of this is this kind of impotence, impotency posing as exaggerated testosterone. I found that I, it's the fact that I watched all six hours of it, I think, says something about the quality of it. I found it very hard at times. And at times, the way in which the drama leaps backwards and forwards, I can imagine some people being perhaps frustrated

by, because the way in which it reveals itself, right up until the last episode, it's revealing things that you, that you hadn't seen because the way the deck of the narrative is shuffled. But it is dealing with some really, really tough stuff, and I found it quite a hard watch, but I think it was really well done. And I think that, again, as we were saying last week, when we invented the, not the blather sphere, the dithosphere or the witter's fear, which we want to live in. It says something very, very important about the state of male, well, you know, as I said, to go back and exactly that phrase that he used in that in your interview, an exploration of male repression, male violence, male behavior, male damage. So I thought it was very impressive. The definitive answer as to what sphere we're actually in, it comes up in question.

Shmashen's, which will sort out intake to. But anyway, Richard Gaird, just a very interesting guy with lots of interesting ideas, and Halfman will certainly create a lot of waves and a lot of interest along the way. Thanks to him, once you've seen it, correspondence at codemoe.com. I think we could do with a laughterlift after that, because that's obviously it carries some serious subject matter. So it is time to ferociously stab the up button. and come to the most loved section of the show,

which people always tell me. They say, you know, you're okay. The other guy's okay, but the laughterlift is what we... That's what we want. And in the absence of the self-declared comedy genius of the redactor this week, the production team panicked and asked for help from our Vanguard Easter's on Patreon, who've had a great time suggesting material. To sum it up, A more on Patreon.

states, some of these are very, very funny. The rest are perfect for the laughter lift. So here we go. Play the music. Very good. Hey, Mark, you enjoyed the dogmatic theology joke so much last week that this week we're going to kick off with an existential one to placate the seemingly huge number of existentialists in our listenership. I was so bored on my holiday last week that I went to the local independent cinema to watch Francois Ozone's interpretation of Albert Camus Le Trongett. for the second time. I missed the ending, though, sadly,

because I needed a toilet break. I was full of en wee. So that is actually a joke from the production team. That's good. That's a good joke. It is. French term for Borden. I do prefer the German Langeweiler.

Seems to be more... Seems crosser. Yeah, it does seem more annoyed, isn't it? When I was on holiday, I got to spend some time with the younger members of the family. And I think their sense of humour may have rubbed off on me. So knock, knock. Who's there?

Europe. Europe. No, Europeu. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Thanks to Kathy Dolan on Patreon via her niece. Okay. That works.

I have to say that works. Europo. Europe. I went to the local video shop. Did you? Which, of course, it's just around the corner in showbiz, North London. and I said, could I borrow Batman forever, please? And he said, no, you're going to have to bring it back tomorrow.

Yes. Graham Hall on Patreon, a joke that's a few years old now. And Steve Hodgson on Patreon, I bought my friend in Showbys, London, an elephant for his room. He said, thanks, I said, don't mention it. Hey! That's a well-constructed joke. I love that. I think that's very good.

That's good. So the laughter lift, genuinely funny. Genuinely funny. Simon Poole. Stay away more. Who needs him? Who needs him? Mark, okay, I'm going to... Do you know what's coming up? This is the bit where I say what's... Michael. Michael? Michael? Michael's coming up.

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you deserve more confidence. Visit vw.ca to learn more. Suvw, German-engineered for all. Okay, so the Michael Byapick in just a second. Before we get there, Richie and Hampton. Yes. Very good afternoon to your big bad selves and glory to the production team.

With one thing and another happening in the world, I wanted to share a story of something purely positive if you'll indulge me. Yesterday I attended a re-screening of Jurassic Park at my local Odeon in Kingston, which I name knowing that they come out very well here. This is one of the films that I consider to be perfect, along with Mary Poppins, Inside Out, Watership Down and Terminator 2, if you're interested. Very good, very, very good frame of reference.

Yes. Because even films you absolutely love, you can acknowledge that they're not perfect in every way. So along with my long-suffering good lady, year six teacher, indoors, I went along. I arrived shortly before the start of the film and enjoyed several good trailers, particularly the new Masters of the Universe, which looked suitably bonkers, and it was at this point I noted something that had the potential to spoil the experience I'd be looking forward to. At the top of the screen, about an eighth of the picture was spilling over into the ceiling, and the same was true at the bottom, thus meaning a quarter of the

picture was unwatchable. I thought that maybe it was misaligned for the trailers, but when it changes over to the film, it will sort itself out. However, when the opening, to one of my favorite films began, this misalignment was still present. Even the opening subtitle, Ila, was in fact cut in half, with the bottom half of the subtitle, spilling onto the bottom mask. At this point, yeah, and I think Richie's, you know, that's what he was thinking. At this point, I thought, what would Mark do? But having read his very excellent book, The Good, the Bad, and the multiplayer. I knew exactly what he would do. I knew exactly what he would do. So I steeled myself to go and informer manager, deciding I would wait until after John Hammond's scene in the trailer, as I didn't

want to miss any of my favourite scenes. It was, however, during this excellent piece of acting from the late great Sir Richard Attenborough, that my grin from seeing the film went up a further notch when I spotted the picture being refocused to only be on the screen. I can confirm no one left the screening, and so the cinema must have done this completely on their own, demonstrating that even in giant multiplexes, there are people who still care. Very good. I went on to thoroughly enjoy one of the greatest films ever made, pity about the following six sequels, which I had never seen on the big screen before, even Hammond's Welcome to Jurassic Parkline, causing me to get totally emotional and finding myself welling up with tears.

I would very much like to hear a retro review of both of your thoughts of this film if you find time in your schedule. Tickety-tonged to you both and up with good old pictures that add our editors to remain on shot for more than a second. Also, up with the Hungarian people who seemed to have overwhelmingly voted for love, cooperation and respect over what many countries are dealing with. And I did check this morning whether we have any listeners in Hungary, and we do. This is according to the Iwitter app. Fantastic. Always worth of a huge amount of money.

Yeah, full of lots of interesting. And the map, of course, is just genuinely fascinating. And we do have listeners in Hungary. So we would love to hear from them if you want to get in touch, correspondence at cairmena.com. But that is good to know that someone was watching and refocused and didn't have to be told. That is really, really, really encouraging, really encouraging that that happened. So what a good news story that is. Rupert Wilson in Hollywood, but county down version.

Dear Happer and Moritz, long-term list of first-time email, I recently went full Kermode and watched Local Hero for the first time, while on a railway journey to deepest darkest Cornwall. How much more Kermot can you get? And Simon, before you go on, what t-shirt am I wearing? Oh, Knox Oil and Gas. Thank you for calling, Knox Oil and Gas. Explain?

What, Knox Oil and Gas is the oil company from Local Hero. Thank you. Having finished the film, I went on YouTube and came across a culture showpiece of Mark and Director Bill Forsyth attending a special 25th anniversary screening to celebrate the reopening of Penn and Village Hall where many of the classic scenes from the film was shot in 2008. So far, so heartwarming.

However, imagine my surprise to see several shots in the segment of Mark and Bill casually chatting in not so hushed voices while the film was playing in flagrant violation of the code. Mark claimed to have seen the film hundreds of times, so presumably knew every line. But poor Bill said he hadn't washed it in 23 years and was probably trying to concentrate, only to have Mark persistently buzzing like an angry wasp in his right ear. Another case of rules for thee, but not for me, from these media celebrities, types. While not shown in the clip, I presume another patron hailed an usher and had you both removed from the screening. Keep up the good work. Yours stickingly, Rupert Wilson in Hollywood. I'd just

like to absolutely clarify this because it, believe me, it's something that caused me some anxiety. I didn't prod Bill. What happened was, as we were watching the film, Bill turned to me and said, this is a cut version. And I said, no, it's not. He said, it's a cut version. There's scenes missing. and I said, Bill, I've seen this film like a hundred times. This is the film. And then Bill went, I think I must be mis- I think I must be remembering the script. And he, because he hadn't seen the film in a very long time,

thought that he was watching a cut version of it and kept saying, there's a bit, when this happens, and then he was remembering the script, it was one of the strangest things, one of the strangest things. But believe me, I was really, really conscious of the talking in the film. We were doing it in a Soto-Voche as was possible. But in my defence, I was replying to the director, not the other way around. Had you taken your shoes off? No. Okay. That's fine. Rupert, thanks very much indeed for

getting in touch. Correspondence at cumbernabeau.com. From the sublime to the ridiculous. Here we go. Michael, 12A for moderate threat domestic abuse. on the BBC website as biopic of US singer Michael Jackson, following various events in his life from his childhood to the mid-1980s. So from Gary Indiana as a child to stardom with the Jackson Five, then breaking away, becoming a solo artist and the Messiah. The films produced by Graham King, who also produced Bohemian Rhapsody,

directed by Antoine Fouca, who made Training Day, for which Denzel Washington won an Oscar, three equalizer movies, written by John Logan, who's Oscar nominated for Gladiator, also The Aviator and Hugo. So, you know, a very decent pedigree cast includes Jafar Jackson, son of Jermaine Jackson as Michael Jackson, a role which, that's in the adult incarnation, a role which he plays extremely convincingly. Miles Teller, as lawyer-manager, John Branker, Lawrence Tate is very gaudy, and most importantly, Coleman Domingo, as the Jackson Brothers dominating father,

Joe, here is a clip. Let me tell you something. In this life, you're the winner or you're loser. Y'all want to work in a still mill like me for the rest of your days? No, sir. Yeah, because I sure us held down. Y'all willing to fight for it? Yes, sir.

I need to hear you a little louder. Y'all willing to fight for it. Yes, sir. Ready whenever you are, Michael. Do you know what I'm after? You want to be the biggest star in the world? We need to cap. Life on Michael's success.

Because a Jackson family is the brand. That's a Coca-Cola. And we need to start selling. So? I'm planning an international tour. This is just the beginning. It is just the beginning. The film itself feels like just the beginning.

And the main question is, where's the rest of it? So the film is super authorized. In this story, Michael, and to some extent his brother, his brothers, is a victim of his father's ambition. and Joe forces them to rehearse, takes them out of school to perform, savagely beats Michael when, as a child, he isn't up to snuff. He's the band's manager and nemesis under his cruel tutelage. They achieve success, but Michael is also trapped.

He wants to go solo, his dad won't let him out of his grip. So, indeed, the primary arc of the story of Michael the movie is how young Michael escapes the strictures of his father's tyranny to become the singular king of pop and, as I mentioned before, the Messiah. So it is very much a story of triumph over adversity of a young, abused boy becoming an independent adult, someone who is blessed with an almost preternatural talent,

a talent that stuns everyone who meets him. Now, it's absolutely undeniable that Michael Jackson had such a talent, an astonishing talent. And the film is very, very celebratory of that. It's also some of the quirkiest stuff about Jackson that we all know. So we get the Peter Pan of Pop thing is there. His love of the original story and Disney cartoons and illustrations,

his childlike behavior as an adult, he goes to a toy store at one point, and buys all the toys and signs toys for kids. And then he brings Twister home, and he's upset because his brothers don't want to play Twister, They want to go out and do grown-up stuff. His devotion to the growing menagerie of pets, who he says, they're not pets, they're friends,

a rat, then a llama, then a giraffe, and then, of course, bubbles, infamously bubbles. There's also a very coy interaction with his poncho for plastic surgery. We see him looking at an illustration of Peter Pan's nose and touching it, and then going to get his own nose changed because he says it affects the symmetry of his face. The doctor telling him, you're a really good-looking guy. You don't need this, but he's going to do it.

it anyway. So a few brief references to Vitaleigo, the blotchy pigment condition that was used to explain away the gradual lightning of Michael Jackson's skin over the years. I mean, just look at the images, although the whole issue of the overall whitening isn't addressed at all. What is addressed is how Jackson became one of the very first black artists to break MTV, which as people are now sort of remembering was horrifyingly white in its early years. We have the still really alarming hair-on-fire Pepsi commercial incident that leaves him with pain and nerve damage, which will require plot point a very large amount of pain medication, something which he initially resists, although it's set up as, you know, we know that this doesn't end well. And we have an awful

lot of him being smilingly kind to children in need from an early scene in which young Michael is on stage and sees a young girl in the audience who particularly would benefit from him singing to her or to moments in hospital. When he's in hospital, he visits kids on the ward and finds a kinship with them in which he literally, he lights up their lives. I mean, he makes things better because he's got a gift. He's been given a special gift and his special gift. to be shared. He's there to make the world better. And it's during these interactions that he

realized his purpose. That's why he was put here with all this talent to heal the world. He is, in essence, in essence, becoming the second coming. He is the Messiah with a sing-song speaking voice, a pitch-perfect musical gift, a sense of otherworldliness that suggests that he would indeed have been best friends with E.T. And in one scene, having watched a news report about gang violence in LA, he basically solves gang violence by doing the dance moves for his latest track. All this is fine up to a point because I've seen enough hagiographic pop biopics to, you know, it would be peculiar to take issue with that. The problem is that when you've got all of that stuff and you've got central performances, which are very decent, as I said, the central

performance of Michael Jackson is convincingly Michael Jackson and Coleman Domingo really, you know, let's rip as the abusive father. The songs, incidentally, are, as you and I have discussed, bangers, The problem is there is a whole other film not happening. There is a whole other story not happening, around which this film is not so much doing the hot shoe shuffle as the 500 metre dash as far away as possible, as fast as possible. As I said, the film starts with his childhood and ends somewhere around the 80s, and one could possibly argue that because of where it ends,

oh, well, chronologically, that doesn't allow for any of the darker stuff. we know about. But we all know about the darker stuff. We all know that, for example, you know, Bad comes out in 87 and one of the high-profile accusers of Michael Jackson in that documentary Leaving Neverland dates their interaction back to around that period. I mean, do we remember the Martin Bashir interview in which Michael, Jackson said, you know, about having slept in a bed with children, which is just the most wonderful and natural thing. I think, no, it isn't. It absolutely isn't. The point is, chronology alone is not an argument enough for leaving out, not just some of the difficult stuff,

but all of it. Now, it's interesting because according to Variety, the film was originally going to open in 1993, with Jackson looking out of the window of his Neverland Ranch as the police arrive to, you know, at the beginning of all the legal stuff. Those scenes are gone. As is any reference to any abuse allegations. Some reports say that the last act of it had to be reshot because of a recent court case settlement with one of his accusers who now is not able to be represented on screen or is forbidden. Anyway, whether or not what the truth of that is, no idea. All I can tell you is what is in the film now. And what I can tell you is that the film ends with a card which says, his story continues. Now, there's been a lot of stuff in the

press about they're going to make another one, because if this turns out to be a hit, and with the songs that it has and the performances that it has, it's entirely possible that that will be the case. Bear in mind, the Michael Jackson musical has been running in the West End for as long as I can remember. I mean, you and I both walk past it four times a week. So, But if they're going to, how would they make a second film? I mean, there was talk of this film originally being a four-hour film that was then cut down, but at one point they were going to cut it down into two movies. I don't know, maybe there's enough footage to make another movie.

Certainly the studio have been teasing that idea. So how are you going to do it? How are you going to do it? Because the second movie is just going to be all the weird stuff. It's just going to be him dangling a baby over the balcony of, a hotel. It's going to be the earth song debacle stuff. It's going to be Jarvis Cocker, making that, you know, that much reported on-stage pop protest. It's going to be the weird stuff with Lisa Marie Presley and the marriage or the non-marriage, the absence of his face from promotional

materials because everything has become so changed and strange that they don't even want it in videos and the growing welter of allegations that just got grimmer and grimmer and grimmer. How is that going to make a part too? In the meantime, time, what you have is a film that for all its nuts and bolts efficiency, and as I said, it's made by people who know how to make movies, is comedically, horrifically, hey, geographic. I mean, at one point, I actually started to wonder if you could play it on a double bill with Melania, because it has the same kind of, I'm going to tell this story and I'm not going to do anything else. Now, I am not saying for one minute that if people want just Michael Jackson,

and the pop tunes, which were great, and a perfectly nuts and bolts pop biopic of that stuff, fine. The thing is, you can't just have that. You can't simply pretend that a whole other side of the story that has since overshadowed all of this doesn't exist. And as a result of it, there was no moment in watching this movie that I felt comfortable. In fact, what I felt was profoundly uncomfortable because it was literally like the movie was going don't look over there, don't look over there, don't look over there, don't look over there. And I just, I think it's really remarkable

that you could make this movie in the way it's been made and not expect people to go, where's the rest of it? Because you would imagine that the film, and a Michael Jackson biopic is obviously a great idea. obviously it's an extraordinary story but a movie that tells the truth would not get permission to have the music in so

that's the problem isn't it if you tell a story about that second bit you're not going to get permission to do it so you won't have the music and therefore it'll feel a bit bereft well Graham King the producer was quoted as saying that the Bipic was going to humanise but not sanitise Jackson's story that is preposterous in terms of what is now on screen.

What is now on screen is a second coming narrative. It is, I mean, the messianic stuff is absolutely nuts. Like laugh out loud, funny. It really, it's that level of hagiographic. So it's not just that it's not telling one story. It's that he is actively creating another story that is baloney. It would be very interesting to see what happens to this film because I suspect you're right, Mark,

in the same way that the musical is still there in the West End under very difficult circumstances, you know, all kinds of shows are struggling, that's still there. There are a lot of people who are very happy to just see that bit that you're talking about, to look the other way, to not be interested in that part of the story

and just concentrate on this bit of the story. Yeah, yeah. And that's what it does. I still think even those people are going to have a problem with some of the smiling, the smiling pop Jesus stuff. I think, I think, you know, but, but hey, what do I know? Correspondence at covenomero.com. If you see it, we would like to know what you think,

correspondence at covenomero.com for next week's show. Also, what we're after, and you can use that email for sending audio and sending videos for assorted what's on. bits and pieces. Cinematic or cinematic adjacent is where we've ended up, I think. And here's our first for this week. Hello, we're in 1927. We've made a big animated silent film to accompany Olivier Messiah's Tarangalila Symphony. It's going to be scored by the Royal Philharmonic, Stephen Osborne on piano, Cecil Ruffalo, on Margino, one night only, 23rd of April, Royal Festival Hall, 7.30. Just because you're making a video, it doesn't mean that you can ignore

the audio. So please make sure that you're actually in front of a microphone. And not over here. And as you did that. Welcome to our feature, which is really, really good. You can come and find us at the South Bank. That's not going to work. Did my camera follow me around the room? It did. It did. It was hilarious. Your camera followed you into all the nooks and crannies that are not supposed to be seen in the first place. Anyway, thank you very much. Okay. Here's our second one this week. Hello Simon and Mark. This is Joanna Callahan, director of Goodbye Breasts. This documentary tells the story of my two-time breast cancer diagnosis and my creative approach to recovery from it. We're on a Q&A tour with Picture House Cinemas in April

and May starting on the 14th of April in Brighton, followed by London, Norwich, Cambridge, York, Oxford, Bath and back to London. We'd love to see you there. Thank you, Joanna. I mean, better. That was great. Ponchy. Punchy. Yeah. Thank you for sending those. Please do send in your video clips, if you've got something that you want to advertise, please make sure that, you know, as a lot of people, in fact, probably the majority of people are still listening to this and not seeing the pictures. We would like to have the good video, but please make sure the audio is tipped off as well. That's it for this week.

This has been a Sony Music Entertainment production. This week's teen, Jen, Eric, Josh, Heather and Dom. The redactor, even though he's not here because he's on holiday like forever. Forever. Forever. Simon Paul. And if you're not following the pod already, please do so wherever you get your podcasts.

Come and join us on Patreon, of course, which is a really cool thing. Mark, what is your film? I'm not even going to ask the question. Go on. Everybody go and see Rose of Nevada. Let's make this a breakout hit. We'll be back next week.

Steve Coogan will be our guest talking about his new TV series. I will bestow a year's ultra membership to our correspondent of the week, who I'm going to say is Tavis. from Brighton, who's included us in her birth plan. She was the one who sent in the views about the drama. But I think if we're part of her birth plan, the least we can do is to give her a year's ultra membership.

So, Tabitha, thank you very much indeed. You can get in touch. Correspondence at coveno-moh.com. Another take has added alongside this one. We'll talk to you shortly.