Off Air... with Jane and Fi - A long way from Katie Boyle

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

Fi's feeling buoyed after a weekend of sunshine - we hope you are too. They chat Eurovision, ageing and plot holes in Red Eye.Plus, co-creator of the hit show 'Blue Lights' Declan Lawn speaks to Fi about season 2.You can book your tickets to see Jane and Fi live at the new Crossed Wires festival here: https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/book/instance/663601If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

what's wrong with that no there's nothing wrong with that at all but i often feel sorry for hairdressers because if they've got a very very chatty client they can never say oh hang on so i'm the problem now voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings so you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Greetings, greetings, greetings. We've had the most monumentally gorgeous

welcome to summertime weekend here in London town. I hope it was sunny. I hope it was mildly burnt shoulder weather wherever you were as well because it does lift the spirits. Lido's very, very, very busy. Was it? Oh my goodness, you can't really fit in.

Did you fit in? I did. I squeezed in. You're only tiny, aren't you? You could get through a hole in the fence. I would never do that. Do you pay? Of course I pay. No, I don't mean do you pay. I meant does it cost anything to get in the fence. I would never do that. Do you pay? I always pay. Do you pay?

No, I don't mean do you pay. I meant does it cost anything to get in? Yes. Oh, I see, does it? Yeah, it does. I wasn't really sure about that. Yeah. Okay, I wonder what happened to the campaign for a West London Lido.

There was one at one time, but I don't know what's happened to it. Someone will know. Somebody will. So where would your nearest open-air pool be? Oh, open-air, well, I don't think we've your nearest open-air pool be? Oh, open-air. Well, I don't think we've got one. We've got pools, but not open-air.

I think the idea was to put it somewhere. Duke's Meadow in Chiswick, Rings a Bell. Oh, yes. That would be lovely. Might have been out there. Yeah, that would be very nice. And Duke's Meadow sounds very regal, doesn't it? It does indeed.

And I've often zoomed past that. Well, not zoomed, actually. I've just done a very solid 20 miles an hour yes that's right Fiona actually we've done very well, neither of us has been on a speed awareness course now for getting on for a couple of years no I did, oh you did

not funny so I did, it wasn't speed awareness it was safety awareness because I'd gone through the back end of some temporary traffic lights so I was on was safety awareness. Because I'd gone through the back end of some temporary traffic lights. So I was on a safety awareness course. It was really interesting, Jane. I actually properly, properly learnt a lot of stuff.

Hang on, which course is this? I was quite sad when it ended. So this isn't speed awareness? No, this is safety awareness. It's a different course. I am working with a criminal. You are? I did not know this.

You're working with a six pointer. And as one of our lovely correspondents identified herself as an 89 stitcher, you're working with a six pointer 36 stitcher colleague. I'm mentioning this in jest because actually, there's a news story today, isn't there about the need for a commissioner to look into maternity services and particularly to do with birth trauma. And obviously we've been talking about this on the podcast for, I mean, well over a month actually. Oh, we started back because we've just been looking back in the emails.

It started more or less in the new year, January, February. And we've had some remarkable testament, but overwhelmingly with women saying it was so difficult and I was either silenced or gaslit or certainly not helped through birth trauma. And it can last a lifetime. So we're talking about it on the actual radio show today. And I think it can only be helpful for people to be able to air their grievances and talk about their stories. But it's very sad for people who've carried it with them for an incredibly long time and felt that they couldn't talk about it.

I think it is slightly opening up a wound for a lot of people at the moment. If you'd like to listen in, then you can go back on the Times app and it'll be between three and five this afternoon. Yeah, and we did have so many wonderful emails from you two off air i say wonderful because they were you know soul-bearing weren't they um but in the end we had to stop reading them because i think they were actually becoming quite they really were traumatic that's because you the emailers had been through terrible trauma and as fees just said it doesn't i'm afraid it doesn't leave you no and it can really impact on your relationship with a partner definitely and also tragic most tragic of all on your relationship with the child and that

might be never ending that particular so so so much thrown up by all this and there was a a key phrase by somebody who appeared on times radio breakfast this morning talking about what she described as the absence of kindness in her maternity care and that that did ring true and i think we're afraid to say that because nobody shouldn't be but nobody wants to diss the midwifery services nobody wants to diss the very very hard-working doctors and nurses but but actually you know a lot of patients have been falling between the gap of care and kindness. And sometimes, well, I think nearly always, you find yourself alone after birth if you've gone into hospital. And that's just a very modern thing. No woman would have been alone in times of yore. You'd have your family around you,

somebody would be with you. You know, the midwifery services, I mean, for heaven's sake, they were lying in hospitals, weren't they, there for women where you would go after giving birth and you would be surrounded by only one type of care and that has definitely definitely gone so then there is so much to talk about loads of very funny emails though over the weekend and thank you for uh thank you to everybody who has suggested that if you and i ever want to embrace a new venture later on in life we could set up a waxing emporium called off hair yeah so many of you at least three people have made that guy it's great it is great and listen we'll give it thought because i think hair removal by a couple of keen amateurs would probably be I think be all right because we could we could also do a bit of

our trademark banter while we while we worked I think so my sister has this theory about me that I could never colour up to the edges and it was a bit of a metaphor for the rest of my life okay so maybe I'll do this I'll do the tougher job yeah so could I just do aftercare okay uh but please um if you have any other ideas actually for businesses that we could run in our, well, more of a dotage than this, do let us know. You were talking about, on the breakfast trail this morning, about hairdressers, whether or not people wanted to talk to hairdressers.

And I do now. And you like talking to your hairdresser. Because I know her. That's why. If I didn't know her, but I've been going for so long, I know everybody in the salon. What's wrong with that?

No, there's nothing wrong with that at all. But I often feel sorry for hairdressers because if they've got a very, very chatty client, they can never say... Oh, hang on. So I'm the problem now. But no. But hear me out.

They can never say, I'd rather cut in silence. Whereas as the, now. But no, but hear me out. They can never say, I'd rather cut in silence. Whereas as the, obviously, paying customer, you are allowed to say or give off the vibes that you don't want to talk. So I go to a hairdresser where on their website, when you book, there is a little box you can tick if you don't want to talk, which I think is a wonderful really invention okay i

didn't know that yeah because obviously hairdressers have got so fed up with hearing about family holidays family dilemmas all of that type of stuff oh dear it says quite a lot about me it's never occurred to me that somebody might not want to listen i thought they enjoyed the ups and downs of my media career what they they don don't? I don't understand it. Right, this is much more important from Claire in New Zealand, and she says she was really moved by the listener's letter recounting her journey to commemorate her father's death at Monte Cassino. It meant such a lot that you shared it,

as some of these fearsome battles are so often overlooked. I live in New Zealand now, and I'm struck by how many people in the UK just don't realise that the relatively tiny population here lost hundreds of young lives at Monte Cassino. Many young Kiwi men seeking adventure, completely unaware of European politics, found themselves thrust into the heart of the conflict. My grandfather, who was in the Coldstream Guards, was among those who fought at Monte Cassino when he was just 23. He suffered severe injuries when a German mortar bomb exploded in his trench, leaving him unconscious for hours and deaf in one ear for the rest of his life. And that's just one example, isn't it? Before this, Claire says, he and his comrades took shelter in a ruined chapel

only to be struck by enemy mortar fire. Despite the chaos, my grandfather displayed remarkable bravery and realising that his sergeant major was badly wounded, he carried him down the steep terrain under fire. Sadly, the sergeant major didn't survive. He died in my grandfather's arms. He had so many deep scars, but he rarely spoke of it. And this is what absolutely, it's so impressive

and we just need to acknowledge it. And I know that time is passing and that people will, I'm afraid, they will lose sight of events like Monte Cassino. It's probably going to happen in the relative near future that there'll be no one around to honour the people who sacrificed so much. But anyway, Claire, thank you for telling us about your grandfather's experience. And it obviously lives on very much in you, which is a testament to you, actually,

for taking the time to become aware of your family history, because not everybody cares all that much, do they? No, they don't. Quite often they don't. We should, though, shouldn't we? I'm going to change tack completely because Liz is feeling like a complete plonker. And Liz, when I read your email I thought oh I should check that out

and I wonder how many other people are going to feel the same way. In the same vein as accidentally turning off a main switch at the back of a cupboard when we moved into our house we had to have a completely new central heating system. Our builder told us it fitted a large and well insulated hot water tank. i was so impressed

that the water stayed hot even when we've been away on a two-week holiday i idiotically thought it really was well insulated some 10 years later something tripped the main fuse i isolated where the problem was i i found the fuse switch responsible but couldn't identify what it related to eventually i gave up and called an electrician who immediately told us it was our immersion heater. It can't be, I said. We don't have an immersion heater. Turns out we did, and it had been on for 10 years.

Oh, my God. The switch was hidden behind some linen in the laundry cupboard. I still feel a complete plonker that I hadn't worked out. It was simply impossible to have piping hot water in our tank when the boiler had been off for a fortnight now i've got a horrible horrible feeling jane because we've got a very very hot tap downstairs in the kitchen that never isn't hot even when there's no hot water upstairs in the showers. Well, I think that probably, I think there might be. I'm going to look into it. I'm going to get back to you.

But Liz, that's the true crime podcast we've all waited for, isn't it? I don't know. She's going to look into it, everybody. Things like this are absolutely superb and I think I'm about to be very, very grateful to Liz. Just on the podcast thing, are you watching Bodkin on the Netflix? I have heard of it. I'm not watching it.

Should I? Well, it's set in Ireland. It's about podcasters. Is it with Brian Tuberty? No, Tubbs is nowhere near. He's not there. Not in sight. Not there.

But there are some dastardly people called the McArdles. And there are a lot of people with incredibly fair skin. And it's brilliant. I'm really enjoying it. Oh, it's had some rather lukewarm reviews. Oh no, I really like it. And because it's got a very

dark, funny female lead and a rather prattish American bearded podcasting wonder who does all of those rambling kind of thinker pieces at the beginning of a podcast. Where everything is hypothetical. Is it genuinely funny?

I found it funny. I haven't got to the end of it, so it's not a complete recommendation. But I have enjoyed it very much. Okay. Well, I haven't got to, I've got to finish Red Eye. I think I'll just watch the final episode tonight because I won't be, I'm on holiday next week,

so I won't be able to catch up with it on the terrestrial telecast. OK, you can... I'm just going to go to the end because I'm getting thoroughly fed up with it now. Will that plane ever get to Beijing? Well... And it will be left alive by the time it does. Also, there are so many things that don't ring true about it. The size of the aircraft, all of that type of stuff,

the fact that they don't land anywhere, the fact that they just wrap up a dead body and leave it kind of in situ. The fact that a woman could get on a plane with a pooch in a bag, whereas there were dogs in the hole downstairs. None of it makes sense. But the thing that really doesn't make sense, Jane, is it's an 11-hour flight

to Beijing. They haven't served a single meal. Oh, they have, because the passengers aren't happy. One fellow was killed by the poison. No, but that was just a first-class tray. But otherwise, the trolleys haven't been out in donkey class for 11 hours. And everyone's sleeping peacefully. That wouldn't happen. There'd be air rage if you didn't get your double gin and tonic.

We'll make that two. And a bag of definitely not nuts. But something else. Yeah. A bit of deep-fried gristle. People. Yeah. A bit of... That's silly. A bit of deep-fried gristle. People are calling their man drawers all kinds of things. Would you like to describe the potentially useful drawer

that has come in? That's from Jilly Bob, who has... I think Jilly Bob might be coming to see us in Sheffield. Oh, now we've got news that we can't yet reveal about who our very special guest is in Sheffield. Can we not? No, not yet, we can't say, but we sort of know who it is or who we think it's going to be, and it'll be well worth it.

So that's the Crossed Wires Festival, May 31st, in Sheffield, Crucible Theatre, 7.15pm. It's a name that you're going to recognise. You'll recognise it. Unfortunately, Jilly Bob can't make it because she's at a gig down the road in Nottingham. Oh, for heaven's sake. But don't worry, her swimming friends, Jules and Jane, will be there.

And Julie Bob says, if you fancy a wee dip on the Saturday before heading back to the tropical south, we'd love to share the delights of Matlock Bath Lido with you. No chlorine and geothermically heated to a very pleasant high teens temperature. Well, I wish we could, but we're dashing back, aren't we? I have been to a wedding pleasant high teens temperature well i wish we could but we're dashing back aren't we i have been to a wedding in matlock bath though we're dashing back on the saturday

no the friday night aren't we on a very late night train well that slightly implies we've got really busy exciting lives i'm just gonna let the dog out well exactly yeah um yes we've also got a lot of interesting emails about what you call your parents and we are you'll be glad to know or not, that we're doing another of our very successful email specials this week, which will pump out, I think, next week. Is that right? Well, I think it gets pumped out on Monday because you're not here and second-hand Jane can't make it.

Right, exactly. Okay, so that's potentially good or bad news. Oh, that's great, isn't it? So I don't have to do a podcast on the Monday? No. You don't have to see me either okay oh double bubble greetings from perthshire says rachel i'll miss you jane obviously loyal listener first time contributor i'm contacting you regarding the chat about kitchen drawers for a random guff for years i've referred to mine as the jesus draw

based on endless mutterings of jesus i can't find X, Y, nor Z. Teenage kids now just use this phrase as if it's an actual thing. Shall I tell them before they have to visit their first Wren kitchen showroom? No, I wouldn't, Rachel. Keep it yourself. Yes, I would just let them walk into that. A tenuously linked phrase used in our household is, have you had a Bradley look? Which refers to that level of looking for a random object by a family member. Mum, of course, finds the object within 10 seconds of being in previously searched place. Bradley referred to in this phrase as the father who can't even find the shoes he's wearing and invented the art of superficial looking.

Now, in our household, we call that a man search, Rachel. Where literally somebody is standing in front of the fridge saying, I can't find the mayonnaise we call that a man search, Rachel. Where literally somebody is standing in front of the fridge saying, I can't find the mayonnaise. It's a man search. I'm going to say though, I've got an all-female household. The kids can't find anything ever and it's because they don't look behind things and they

refuse to move things. Yeah, exactly. They just stand there. Yeah, they stand there and expect it to be right in front of them. And there comes a time in your life when when I'm here to tell you, you have to move things and look, and then you might find your marmite. Right, this is from Marie, and I get this completely. She says, I'm just wondering if you or your listeners

find yourselves in this predicament. Double-figure temperatures have arrived, and I just can't put it off any longer. It's time to ditch the tights and the layers and it's dawning on me how much groundwork is required to make certain parts of the body presentable in public. There's the feet, largely ignored for the last six months. Time to get out the nail clippers, tree loppers. Why do nails get thicker as you get older? Nail file, varnish and buffers. Although I have recently started going to a salon for a pedicure. I have very pale skin, but not in a Nicole Kidman way.

It's been my lifelong dream to achieve a sun-kissed look. In reality, my bare legs resemble lumps of uncooked dough. Hold on to that thought for a moment. Then imagine it's accidentally been dropped onto the floor and has picked up a couple of stray hairs. This is an accurate description of how they look. And she does go on, she features her underarms as well and claims to have sweat patches. I refuse to believe that. It is interesting because we were at this glittering awards ceremony last week and it's

still rather a bitter blow that we didn't make it to the podium to achieve a trophy. But we did both make an attempt with our appearance in the sense that we had frocks on. I wore my heels and it was extremely uncomfortable. But what we did both notice is that some of the, not all the men who achieved success and tottered onto the platform just could look a shambles. They always have the option to look a shambles. And women are expected to routinely turn up at functions of that nature and others that are similar having done something

to themselves well the women look gorgeous they did i mean people had come from all over britain i expect they'd been traveling for a lot many many hours they either had a frock on or had done something with their hair or i don't't know, just buffed up. Something had been done. Some concession had been made to the different nature of the evening. This is an awards ceremony and I'm going to look as though I've made some kind of an effort.

And there were just a lot of chaps in unstructured clothing and that's being really kind. Yeah. I mean, just... Do you know what? chaps in unstructured clothing and that's being really kind yeah just i mean just some of them just looked a little bit unclean jane and that whereas marie there is worried about you know what the things she feels she has to do to her feet to make them socially acceptable and of course i'm completely 100 with her i had my first pedicure a couple of weeks ago i'll be going back for more now right across the summer i feel as though it's ludicrously my duty i know just to add to the gaiety of the nation but why is it that we feel this way well it's just crazy isn't it it's uh it's crazy it's generations of scrutiny isn't it? It's a... It's crazy. It's generations of scrutiny, isn't it? It's internalised misogyny, everybody.

That's what it is. So Liz Hurley, Elizabeth Hurley... Oh, yes, no, you met her, didn't you? ...guest on the show. She'll be on on Wednesday, and she came in to do the interview on Friday. And we had quite an interesting conversation about that, actually. It started off being about ageing,

and, I mean mean she's astonishingly beautiful i wouldn't know she is mesmerizingly beautiful in real life and she said some very so she's nearly 60 isn't she she said some really honest things about having that level of scrutiny upon her and especially now because of high definition. And she said that the way that everybody photographs each other on their cameras is so unflattering, it makes you even more aware of every single flaw and every wrinkle and all of that kind of stuff. But she also said that she just doesn't go anywhere

where she's going to be photographed in public uncovered. And that surprised me because I know her as a woman who's got an age-defying cleavage, which is quite often on display. But that's only when she's in control of who's filming her and how they're filming her and all of that kind of stuff. And I did think afterwards, just what an incredible... You must start off your life as a very beautiful person,

thinking, you know, this is great. There must be something about your choice to go into the acting profession or whatever it is where you enjoy seeing your image. That's completely fine. I'm not knocking that at all. But then that terrible, corrosive creep of the invasive lens, what that must do to a life. I just don't know. But she was coming into the building for two radio interviews, albeit they are filmed now, little clips are sent out and all that kind of stuff. She just looked extraordinary. At 8.30 in the morning, which was when she started up

on the top of the tower with Chris Evans, she was 10.15 down here still, you know, not an eyelash out of place. The amount of thought that went into that. So, you know, I suppose what I'm saying is we do a tiny bit of that, don't we? Because we're going to appear on a stage and we want to look our best. But imagine if that is what is powering you through. And you simply can't not do it because actually, you know, and she's right. The reaction to her just bearing all and being

normal would be so vicious that's the truth of it isn't it there is one newspaper that would pay a fortune for a picture of liz hurley's natural wrinkles or unshaved legs or bad toenails or whatever they'd pay more than they'd pay for a normal picture. Is that the newspaper that regularly features women's knees? Yes, and does before and after, where the bit in the middle is called life. It's just astonishing. How dare someone who is radiantly beautiful at 25

look slightly different at 70? Yeah. I mean, that's just incredible, isn't it? But honestly, the pressure that she must be under. And you could could say couldn't you and perhaps people are shouting back at the podcast well it's her choice and she could age in public or whatever but i i don't know actually i think it's easier said than done that taking that road of letting it all hang out well we're trying to be a bit more even-handed aren't we i know the

times today has got an article about comparing the fashion choices of messrs starmer and sunak and actually i rather welcome that kind of thing. I don't think either of them are especially stunning dresses, but let's just treat them in exactly the same way as we would a couple of female politicians. Let's pull them apart. But then, even as I say that, I'm thinking, is that fair and is that really the way we want to go,

being as horrible to men as we've always been to women? You see, I disagree. I would just rather find a way of taking our foot off the pedal. Just be nice to everybody. No, we've got such big shit going on in the world at the moment, Jane. I mean, we really, really have, haven't we? So actually the length of somebody's trousers. But I wonder whether because we've got so much shit,

it's just so much easier just to talk about the length of someone's trousers and how aged and wrinkled some people's knees are looking. Yeah. No, I suppose it is, isn't it? Did you see Eurovision? No, I did see some clips afterwards. I just think that... So did you watch Ollie Alexander's? I didn't see it live. OK, well, it was kind of... What was that performance?

I only saw... I didn't see it live, so I've got to be... Was it cottaging porn? Yeah, do you know what? At the risk of sounding like somebody, Colonel Bufton Tufton, who might be a little too over-familiar with the letters page of the Daily Telegraph, I didn't like it much. And I wonder whether we've done that now. Can we think of something else?

Is that being, I'm not a homophobe, but, you know, please God, I'm definitely not. But really? I found it very... Oh, I don't know, Jane. It made me feel quite old-fashioned. Oh, yeah. And you're not a homophobe either.

No, so I was having this conversation uh with a friend and and we were saying it's just a bit uncomfortable to say out loud what that what imagery yeah was making us think and actually if you know if you would if you were going to create the heterosexual equivalent what what will next year's entry be? Dogging? Well, what's the lesbian equivalent? I don't know, Jane. Well, no, I mean, it's true, isn't it? Can you imagine? We're sailing as close to the wind as we ever do on this podcast.

Maybe we may have crashed the pier. We would very much welcome your thoughts and I don't think, I think we can probably wave goodbye realistically to the UK winning the European Soft Contest for many, many decades ahead. But one thing's for sure, we're not going to win it that way, as Saturday Night Illustrated. Well done. It just didn't have the pizzazz of a George Michael video. Because he made that fantastic video, didn't he, for Outside?

Yeah. You know, which was just so funny and wry. And it was him also just making a really, really good public statement about what... I didn't know he was gay. But I felt that Olly Alexander's performance just slightly lacked that subtlety. And Eurovision, I don't know. I mean, lots of kids... Family fun!

Stay up for the night. Stay up with your gran and grandad to watch. No, I know. It's, lots of kids. Family fun. Stay up for the night. Stay up with your gran and grandad. No, I know. It's a long way from Katie Boyle. That's one there for the older listeners. Right. Now, our guest is coming up very soon, very quickly. We don't do birthday requests,

but Oliver in Suffolk just says his mum, Emma, has a birthday very soon. And as Oliver says, life has been giving her a hard time recently. So, Emma, a very happy birthday from us both and just to know that you are much appreciated by everybody so uh happy birthday have a good time and i hope everything improves for you and oliver you're a very kind son as jane said we've got an email special coming up so we will get to more of your topics later on during the week i just

wanted to say hello to sue who is listening from Yate in South Gloucestershire, catching up on the week's podcast in my relaxing bedroom. And I just had to say that there are times I do not want to leave it. Over the last six years, our bedroom just became a mess as my husband's health deteriorated. From being a restful room,

it gradually became shambles due to having to have a hospital bed in there and everything else that entails my single bed at my age. The hospital bed is now in the lounge and I have a new bedroom for me. Apart from sleeping there, I love being in there reading or listening to the radio. I've got all that I need, a chair, a double bed, wonderful wardrobes, TV and books. It's decorated as I wanted and will last me until I get taken out in my wooden box. I did say to the guys that if that happens,

the carpenter can make the coffin out of the wardrobes and line it with the carpet so I can take it with me. That's lovely. Great. And he just wrapped me up in my room and sent me out. Oh, gosh, that's gorgeous. So thank you for that, Sue. And yeah, I think lots of people find their bedroom is their sanctuary.

And I do. I creep back into it during the day. Well, you've said this before and you know how I feel about that. I know. I'm sorry to be such a disappointment to you, Jane. But the great, she was an editor and became a great writer, Diana Athill. I remember interviewing her in her later years and she was living in a home, an institution. I've got to be careful how I phrase this.

A setting, I think, that has now closed in North London. And it was a place for... It was like a creative almshouse. It kind of was. It was sort of very much artistic, retired, gentle folk. And Diana spoke so movingly about everything in her room. She had had a huge place to live. She downsized and downsized and was now in a room with a bed and all her favorite books and some of her favorite things and she just talked about it brilliantly and passionately

as being not in any way a bad thing it was her sanctuary they were her things and in the end for all of us that's what it will come down to probably really let's be realistic without being incredibly depressing it will be one room with all your favorite things yeah and that's if you're lucky yeah so i'm sorry that really is a that's a downbeat note but i thought diana rattle she's well worth uh looking up if you've never heard of her she's a brilliant writer will you keep your awards and a small photograph of me no i've actually i've all my awards i've i've your name's been etched off. There's a speciality place I go to.

You just drop them off on the night. I take them straight there and they cross your name off. It's wonderful. There's so many wonderful crafts people about. You just know who to ask. Oh, you're very mean. You'll be in a very small room. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen.

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And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. The Times has a new Royal podcast, or more exactly, The Royals with Roya and Kate, presented by our hugely experienced Royal editors, Roya Nika of The Sunday Times and Kate Mancy of The Times. And it combines reverence and a certain amount of irreverence. Here's a bit now.

This is the first Royal podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times. This is a moment in the history of the Royal family where good sense and care are needed. It's also a time when a little humour is needed. And if both the King and the Prince of Wales can find something to joke about, so can we. The Royals with Roya and Kate, a new podcast from The Times. And the Sunday Times. About the Royals. Not about us at all. No. Well, maybe just a bit. I think that's good.

And you can listen to the first episode now. Get it wherever you find your podcasts or after you've listened to this one. Right. If you haven't seen the BBC police drama Blue Lights, then you really are missing out. It's a superb cop show set in a police precinct in Belfast where gang violence and the shadow of paramilitary violence lurks. But at its heart, it's a show about a group of coppers, three new recruits in Series 1, Grace, Annie and Tommy, and how they all get on with each other. Spoiler alert, if you haven't watched season one yet, come back and join us in a couple of minutes. Declan Lorne is the writer behind both series, along with his writing partner, Adam Patterson. Declan is a former investigative journalist. The first series was a massive hit. So I asked him if he always knew that there would be a season two.

So conceptually, we'd always planned for it and we'd always imagined and thought about what we would do in series two. And we thought about that maybe about halfway into writing series one. We knew where we'd go. But in terms of the BBC, I think it was commissioned just as Series 1 was going out. So they had watched it in the edit and were really happy with Season 1 and told us pretty promptly they wanted a Season 2. So we had laid a lot of groundwork, already done a little bit of research for Season 2. So yeah, we were kind of ready for it because the interesting thing

having absolutely loved series one coming to series two i suddenly thought oh okay that makes even more sense what had happened in the first series because you pick up with these new recruits when they're just a bit further down the line and also they are still grieving the death of one of their colleagues, Jerry. And it's such an interesting, different place to start a series from, isn't it? So, yes, the idea of looking at grief in a TV cop show, I think it's probably quite radical. I mean, a lot of the cop shows that I've seen when someone dies, maybe in the next season, certainly in the next episode, that person is almost never

talked about again, because it's not seen as propulsive. But for me, part of the story of our lives in Northern Ireland and this place is loss and grief and missing people on a societal level and sometimes an individual level. And so I think that it would have been really remiss of us as dramatists to tell a story about Northern Ireland without losing somebody that we loved because it's such an integral part of our experience here. And then we go into season two and that person who we've lost, who I think we've agreed we're going to we're going to allow the spoiler is Jerry um they miss him and they're all formed by their grief there's

actually a line at the end of season two where Aisling says I think you're all grieving and nobody has actually considered that before but it's quite clear that they all are so exploring the idea of grief but more, growth from grief was really interesting to me. My own father died quite young. He was only 57. I was 32. And it was a real terrible experience, you know, for several years. But it also changed me. It made me more willing to take risks. I think it's the reason I became a screenwriter and left journalism, as I just thought, you know, life is short. And I've kind of funneled all that into this show.

And the death of Jerry becomes a catalyst for every one of those characters to change. So that's the funny thing about writing. You know, it's like a lot of subconscious and barely conscious stuff goes into it and then you read it sometimes you watch it and you go oh that's that's what I was talking about you know it's an odd thing. How careful do you have to be about the politics when you're writing and how much do you need to just assume a certain level of knowledge about the politics of Northern Ireland in the viewer? So first of all we assume a great deal of knowledge and probably a lot more knowledge than most viewers have because right now people are

watching it in Spain and the US and all sorts of places. And we've absolutely never compromised in trying to do expository dialogue, because I think that just makes really bad drama. And our take on it is... So that would be if one character said to the other, oh, you know, where were you on the day of the Good Friday Agreement? And somebody said, oh, well, oh, the Good Friday Agreement. And then you have somebody kind of explain it. Yeah, or tries to explain the kind of mindset of loyalism or whatever. Viewers can sense smell it a mile away

and it makes for terrible drama. And all of my favorite dramas in the past have been really hyper-local. I mean, The Wire is a good example, extremely hyper-local to Baltimore and yet universal in its appeal. And so in Blue Lights, we always decided, even in terms of small bits of vernacular, like words and phrases that we use here, we just decided we're going to keep them all in.

We're not going to really explain them. And if people are interested, they can Google it. Sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? But it's worked so far. I mean, I think people watch TV drama at its best, not to see things they already know, but to see things in places that they don't have a clue about. And I think they're willing to put up with a lot of assumed knowledge for that kind of real experience.

And yeah, if it makes people interested in contemporary they're willing to put up with a lot of assumed knowledge for that kind of real experience and yeah if people are if it makes people interested in contemporary or historical northern ireland yeah you know i mean i'm not being facetious i mean literally you should google it it's interesting yeah but it's such an interesting perspective that because um other writers have spoken about how difficult they are finding it to um to make things that are appealing to an international audience that will garner the sales we live in a world of global streaming and and actually i think the boss of itv has said that that's been a problem for them with mr bates versus the post office hasn't it people absolutely it, but maybe there isn't a desire

for a foreign company to buy it because they might not understand that intricacy. But you're saying completely the opposite, really. You're happy to stick with the tiny detail. Yes, I think I am saying the opposite. I think if you try to retro-engineer television drama to make things appealing to an international audience, first of all, international audience is an incredibly amorphous and nebulous term. I mean, what does that even mean? Who is the international audience?

To me, all that means is you're just filtering out all the good stuff. So I think you really just have to roll the dice. I mean, some things that are extremely local will work internationally. For some, you know, in television, nobody knows anything. I mean, Blue Lights appears to be working abroad. And I read, I think it was Kevin Lago from ITV, he was talking about Mr. Bates. And for some reason, maybe I think he was saying that that isn't.

It's all alchemy, really. But I would say that the worst thing we could do as dramatists in this country would be to try and appeal to some, you know, nebulous global Netflix audience. I think that way lies really insipid, vapid work. I know that a couple of people, I think, is it notably the Belfast Telegraph, and I don't know whether it was editorial or, you know, opinion within the paper, might have suggested that you've portrayed Belfast in quite a negative way. How do you feel about that as a criticism? I'm conscious of it.

And this also refers back to your earlier question that I didn't answer, which is how much responsibility do I feel towards telling these stories and showing the city? And the answer is massive responsibility, like sometimes really onerous and oppressive responsibility where I almost stop writing because I'm like, can I really go here? And that goes also for the representation of Belfast.

Now, in series two, as you've probably noticed, it looks and feels a bit different. It's a bit wider. You see a lot more shots of kind of, I suppose you would say, you know, those nice bits of Belfast, rowers on the river and, you know, five-star Michelin restaurants and lovely pubs. And that was deliberate, you know, those nice bits of Belfast, rowers on the river and, you know, five-star Michelin restaurants and lovely pubs. And that was deliberate, you know, and there'll be more of that in series three and four as well, try and get the full tapestry of the city.

By its nature, police work tends to involve, you know, parts of the city that maybe don't look quite as nice. And that's a balance that we're always trying to address and sort out. But yeah, the sense of responsibility is crazy. I mean, I live here, you know, I'm speaking to you now from my house in Belfast. My family are here. I'm always going to live here. I'm never going to move. So I feel like myself and Adam, he's the same.

He lives around the corner from me we have a kind of personal stake in trying to show this place as it is um because it's our place and but it's difficult there's some really difficult issues here and i think you have to be kind of unflinching and you know there's no point in glossing over them either sure and so the obvious question now is also that one about balance because you've set season two in a different part of the city and it is a loyalist gang theme in this season so is there any kind of editorial direction that comes at you from above that says you know we're the BBC and we need you to be balanced in what you're showing from both sides

of the troubles no funnily enough none at all which is a big change from my 16 years as a BBC journalist because those would have you know those were concerns impartiality balance as you know you know we um but in drama no they I've never had um had any BBC exec come to me in drama and say, you've shown this, now you have to show this. Our desire, mine and Adam's desire, to show loyalism was, after showing republicanism, it just felt like the right thing to do. It's another important part of the city. It's been an interesting journey for me in terms of dealing with these issues in drama,

because it feels to me like people are more willing to talk to you, first of all, if you're writing a drama in terms of things they've been through. And also, I think you can deliver really important things emotionally and quite impactfully and drama things things that were maybe even harder to say in journalism I think I can say in Blue Lights to be honest um so it is it's a it's a it's very different and nobody ever tells us what to write and the police also the police are they cooperate with us in many ways in terms of uniforms and vehicles. They allow us to ride along in the back of police cars sometimes for research, but they never, ever, ever ask what we're writing about. And if they did, I would tell them to go away. So do they play their own music in their police cars? Because it's a beautiful little kind of subtext throughout your work, you know, that different police officers are popping on different playlists when they're out on response.

Yeah, I find that all of the things that really resonate with viewers are real. that really resonate with viewers are real. So the things that I make up are fine. And the things that I transcribe from real life are the things that everyone latches onto, you know, like the phrase take a beat and straight from the mouth of a police officer. And so, yeah, when they're out in their response cars, as soon as the blue lights go on

and they're going to a call, the music generally goes off pretty quickly. But when they're not on an actual call, they tend to have a kind of an agreement or a tradition where the driver gets a song and then the person in the passenger seat, the observer, as they're known, gets a song. A lot of them are quite into good coffee and good food. And so all of this stems from, you know, you take what you can get in terms of comfort because it's a 10, 11, sometimes 12 hour shift depending on overtime. And so those little comforts like good music, music that you love, good coffee, something nice to eat, it becomes extraordinarily important to them because the flip side is quite a lot of trauma. So there's just the most fantastic little meme isn't there with Stevie in his Tupperware box that he opens you know with these incredible baked products inside and it is honestly Declan it's little it's touches like that within this great big piece of work that's just kind of punchy and gripping that just make it so lovely to watch. You've mentioned Series 3 and Series 4. Any hints about where those might take us as viewers?

I mean, I'm literally like I'm sitting here at my desk in Belfast. And before I came on this call I was I was writing series three um and we have a very very good idea of the end of series four I mean to be honest you know we know the last like five or six scenes in series four so it's just a matter of getting there um so the only thing I would say without trying to provide any major spoilers is that we kind of expand the view of the city again. You know, we go to like a different place that will probably be a bit unexpected. And, you know, I'm quite interested in the apparatus around organized crime, the kind of professional apparatus and the people who enable it. So, yeah, without saying too much, I hope that every season of Blue Lights,

this is my hope, is that people go, well, that was different. That wasn't like last year. That was different to last year, but still good. That's the dream, is that it just keeps evolving.

That was Declan Lorne. And if you haven't seen Blue Lights, then do just treat yourself, actually, because it's wonderful plotting. It's a really fantastic characterisation. And it's just got these lovely details, that little detail about the fact that the coppers each take it in turns

to play their own playlist in the car as they're driving around. Just adds this whole layer of who likes country music, who likes a bit of dance. It enables them to have a little conversation with each other that's just not about the plot at all. Little things like that make it absolutely superb television.

It's a great show. And I've actually just remembered something I meant. We were talking about birds last week, weren't we? Swift, notably. By the way, wonderful peony pictures still coming in. Thank you for those. I do love them. But I was in Liverpool on Friday and my to say my parents like to talk about birds it's true they do and they've got the Merlin app

and so you're sitting outside it's a beautiful day the weather was really warm even on the Mersey Riviera it was gorgeous it was like the south of France except in Liverpool and um you can sit outside and the Merlin app's going in full flow so every now and again I put somebody over the age of 90 says something like blackbird that's a magpie oh chiff chaff and you think okay right how much longer now oh magpie again and it just keeps it keeps coming uh so the Merlin app is wonderful for the oldies and indeed for the younger folk you can just get a but I this is why, and I'm worried about this, this is why people leave a lot of money to the RSPB. They start to become really involved in bird world.

All I'll say is, don't forget your human rallies, OK? We're still here and we have needs. And the birds will be fine. I mean, they're dinosaurs, aren't they? Well... They are connected to dinosaurs. Yes. And so they'll do fine without your charity money.

Leave it to your kids. Like I said, it'll be a small room in the home. Well, it will be in this room. Very few visitors. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio.

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