Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Chaos trying to be reigned in (with Anneka Rice and Gyles Brandreth)

Episode Date: September 4, 2023

Jane is off on holiday, so it's up to Fi (with help from Anneka Rice) to wonder how many Camparis she's had so far. They're joined by Gyles Brandreth to talk about his new podcast 'Rosebud'.If 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: Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No, no, no, and here we go. Everything from here on in is recorded. So, do you know how you're going to make this work? So, we're going to make it work. Tell me which bit I say again. Yeah, it's really, it'll be absolutely fine. This is me and Annika Rice, by the way, everybody. Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Jane is still away on her holidays. I won't give away her destination, but I think it's... What do you think she's doing right now? Oh, she will be just getting towards... What time is it? It's approaching five o'clock. Oh, she'll be well under the table by now. She will. She will be trying to finish off the last chapter in the Ken Follett book.

She always likes to go away with a Ken Follett or maybe a Robert Harris. She may well have had her first Camparian soda of the evening. Oh, yeah. Will her dutiful children be lining them up? No, I don't think so. I think she's kid free this week. Oh. Yep. Well, she'll definitely be lining them up. Yep. I think she's basically on a

it's a friend's 60th birthday party. So she is on a booze cruise around an Italian island Juan will be lining them up Fabrizio I'm sure she's having a lovely time I hope she's having a lovely time

it does mean that I have the pleasure of your company today and on Thursday and on Tuesday and Wednesday it's Claire Balding I know, always a joy and we are both very much enjoying calling it's Claire Balding. I know always a joy. And we are both very much enjoying calling it the Claire Balding Sandwich Week. There's no other word for it. There's no other word for it. So we met because we should do this shouldn't we for our lovely

listeners. We first met you reminded me of this when you came into the studio this morning, about 10 years ago at the inception of me and Garvey's on-air relationship. Yes, you just started. You barely made eye contact because, you know, it's like a first date I was witnessing. And you were doing very grown up presentations with all the great and the good in the radio world. And I think I was booked to abseil in, probably in a lurex jumpsuit and run onto the stage, say hello. And then we all sort of slightly dispersed. But you and Jane have stuck as this force of nature. Yeah, we were at the radio festival in Salford, weren't we? Yeah.

And it was about a decade ago. And it's because Jane and I then sat in a dressing room together for long periods of time over those couple of days waiting to do our introduction to the next session and just had quite a lot of gas bagging fun together you did indeed and you developed it into a whole brand of gas bagging frankly and then of course I did fortunately your other podcast. Do we mention that a bit? Yes, it's there on BBC Sounds and it's nice.

Yeah, you know, it's a body of work. It's your oeuvre. It is, you know, over there and now we're over here. Now you're over here. But after I did that and we talked about fallopian tubes and all sorts of things. Anyway, I slightly fell in love with you both. And so I think I invited you for a Christmas lunch. And as far as I was concerned, Fi, we had done the gastronomy,

does that make sense? Equivalent of, you know, blood, blood brothers, blood sisters. So I thought, oh, this is lovely new friendships. You can never have enough friends. Never heard from you again. And I tried. I tried so often why didn't you all come up to the Isle of Wight and made it so easy for you I'll pay for your ferry I'll pick you up absolute tumbleweed that's not true Annika it's not true so there was some enthusiasm to come to the Isle of Wight but there wasn't universal

enthusiasm to come to the Isle of Wight which but there wasn't universal enthusiasm to come to the Isle of Wight. Which meant that you quite liked the idea, but by that stage you were so entrenched, you know, like the Ant and Dec with the Jane and Fee, that you couldn't do it on your own, which I thought, hmm, a bit pathetic. Yeah, thanks. But it's all right, because me and Nancy are very happy to come now. Yeah.

And I'm sure Jane would love to come as well now, so let's not ever, ever leave. Well, no, I think always leave the door open. Yes, always. For reconciliation. Yeah, no, definitely. And we don't want to start some kind of terrible womanly thing where we're setting each other up against each other.

No, no. Because do you know what? In all honesty, an awful lot of female friendships run aground on that kind of you like her more than me type thing. Yeah. It goes down. Well, the thing is, I'm easy on this because neither of you like me at all. So it was easy.

This is so not true. It's really easy to cope. You know, it was linear, really. There were no subtext. Anyway, it is really lovely that you're here now. You're extremely welcome as co-presenter of both the On Air show, 3 to 5, and Off Air, the podcast. And we had a right old blast today, didn't we? Because, and we'll get to him in just a couple of moments time,

Giles Brandreth was our guest and you just have to ask him one question. That's it. He's off. He's off. And I've known him for a thousand years. I think we both started on TVAM, which used to be the sort of breakfast show on itv and i used to always be rather worthy because i was the sort of the news person interviewing politicians about the economic strategy of the you know march in 1982 or whatever it was And Giles would come on in a bright red jumper, often with flickering lights and a giant ice cream cone on the front. And I never could quite understand what he did or, you know, but he was a force of nature. And the good thing about Clive, Clive, I keep calling him Clive because Clive Anderson on Loose Ends. The great thing about

Giles is that once you're once you've met him and he likes you he scoops you up and you're you're with team Giles and it's it's been a lovely friendship it's really weird that we met on a sofa and I thought it was interesting and you you'll be able to hear this in the interview that you did uh just ask him what on earth he was doing when he was working at yeah I had no idea I had no idea and and actually And actually, it's funny because I know him as a former MP actually, and the first time I came across him through work was because he volunteered to do kind of politically interesting diary pieces for a couple of the programmes that I was working for back at the previous Insignificant Broadcaster. But you're absolutely right to kind of challenge him

about exactly what it is that he does. He had no idea half the time. No, because way back then, he had presumably just turned up in TV and gone, I'm here. I'm here. And he just constantly reinvents himself. And we did have fun at TVAM.

You know, I always remember Herb Albert coming in once and me saying to him, now, Herb, it's great to talk to to you but I gather you've got something between your legs you'd like to show us and because he'd brought in his trumpet and I remember Giles and everyone they'd just collapse and I didn't really because I was on a trajectory I was working hard anyway so the bloop the bloops as they call them um and david frost used to collect mostly my bloops what do you call them bloopers bloopers yeah and send them off to mbc or something in america um yeah lovely yeah yeah uh what do you think is your worst ever blooper was it that one i think possibly that one um yeah can't think of another brilliant blooper what's yours oh gosh well i did once say and it's it was in the coleman balls

column uh two terrible ones actually i once said that for most of us death comes at the end of our lives and the other one that i said was uh no but that that's true. But it's also asinine. And then the other one was that we did have to do better education about the use of condoms because it was a message that needed to be rammed home quite hard. Oh, yes, yes. But you made Coleman balls. I'd forgotten that. Yes.

That was a real sign of excitement, wasn't it? Well, it was the only thing that really genuinely made my dad kind of chortle and... Proud. Yes. Genuinely. It was that. Nothing else. Just the cock-ups. But I think there'll be many more actually, Annika, but we'll pass over those. I can't i can't luckily they've you know i'd have to ask giles he would know he's probably written a book about my bloopers he's written over a hundred books so if there's not one about you know my particular

personal bloopers yeah that would be astonishing but he is funny because he is my neighbor and so i do see him quite a lot and uh he's an absolute force of major. I must get you round, Annika, because Hayley Mills lives around the corner from you. And then you'll have this sort of glorious dinner with Hayley Mills. You know, he does know everybody, doesn't he? And do you move in very showbiz circles? No, not at all. I really don't at all.

I don't at all, except, you know, Giles helps me out with that by occasionally giving me a bit of glitter and excitement. No, I always seem to be on a shift somewhere And Giles helps me out with that by occasionally giving me a bit of glitter and excitement. No, I always seem to be on a shift somewhere or in a drafty basement wiring something, you know, because of my job. I'm on a building site, aren't I? A lot of the time or, you know, it's not I haven't chosen the glamorous path. No, but you are a glamorous person. And it's interesting watching you come into the building here today because everybody knows who you are we have quite a young workforce here yeah and maybe that's me just saying that because i'm a bit older now they're about 55 it's very cruel you've got a dark side to you i've got a very dark side um no we've got lots of people in their mid-twenties and upwards working here,

but they know who you are too. And I wonder how does that kind of level of recognition sit with you? Do you ever just get fed up with it? Do you know what? I've just always had that because even when I was a youngster, I joined the BBC on one of their training courses literally 47 years ago now and after that I went to work in Hong Kong and I became a newsreader on television so age 19 I'm reading the news every night and already that that whole thing started but when I got back to the UK I thought I'd carry

on with my career as a journalist behind the scenes. So I applied to the BBC again. And then my career took such a swerve because I got the job on Treasure Hunt, which couldn't be further from a newsroom, except that Kenneth Kendall was in the studio. Oh, he was terribly serious, wasn't he? He was terribly serious. With his great big maps and pushing things around. I know, I know.

So my career did take a big swerve, but it has meant I've been famous all my life. And the funny thing is, when I had small kids, I gave it all up. I just went to the BBC once. I'd done a few years of Challenge, Annika. And I said, if you don't mind, I think I'm just going to have a break. And I gave up work for about 10 years when my children were very young. But I forgot you actually don't become unfamous at all so but but my children laughed because their childhood was extraordinary because

they just think the world is full of lovely people because wherever we went everyone went come in you know we'd go to Heathrow and some lady would appear and take us backstage and you know we would never have to stand in a queue for anything so they got a very warped sense of life but I was all the time pretending I was just a very normal mum. And when you took that decade out was it did you find it fulfilling did you regret not staying working? I didn't look back for a second it was extraordinary I enrolled at Chelsea College of Art because I thought I needed to do something to put all my energy because i'm very energetic and so i went and painted and i'd get home from college and i'd have my paintings and my children would come home from

nursery school and they'd have their paintings it was a really happy period of my life because I just did walk away from it completely so lucky to be in a financial position to be able to do that yeah that was the reason I could do that obviously and is there genuinely no place that you can go in the world where somebody doesn't reference helicopters jumpsuits and challenging of course there are and i'm so liberated i behave in a most liberated way and it can be in all sorts of um niche places um but i realize i'm a completely different person you know at the moment i can barely get changed in a public changing room i you know i'd have to go into a cubicle i'd no more walk around naked. Would you?

No. No. No. But I wouldn't anyway. No, I was going to say, but I think that's an all-girls boarding school problem, actually. I don't know how I'd be if I hadn't always had that level of fame and people scrutinising and writing about me. I've no idea.

It's such a weird one, isn't it? Because, you know, it doesn't matter how often the stories are told of the corrosive nature of fame it remains an incredibly powerful and powerful but funnily enough in my case because i'd always had it and i remember i started working in a newsroom backstage i was the sub-editor i did all the grime i was making the cups of tea and the coffee i did my apprenticeship and did all that sort of staging um so i didn't i didn't go into it to be on the telly that was just luck well sort of luck if you call it that because the newsreader was taken ill in hong kong where i was the sub-editor in the newsroom and they never traced it back to you

sub-editor in the newsroom and they never traced it back to you he actually died no making that joke no but they um they said have you ever done any on-screen stuff and i just said yeah thinking how difficult can it be and so i had 24 hours to psych myself up to becoming the newscaster to the nation and i was so nervous that on the way to the studio I ran someone over oh my word yeah that was awkward well were they okay they were fine okay and it was a very very crowded area of hung hum and this guy was a bit off his face with drugs so luckily everyone sort of just stepped over him and his face sort of sprawled down my windscreen in slow motion and the police were called they realized the situation but meanwhile I was in a terrible panic I was shaking too much to be able to drive my car so they took me to the news room

to do my first broadcast live having never done this before, in a police car. It's insane. That sort of really set the tone for the rest of my life, which has just been beyond off the scale strange. So I just get the sense about you that there's chaos trying to be reined in, in Annika's life sometimes. I, the thing I have, which most of my friends look at me as if I'm completely mad, I have no fear, weirdly. I have no fear at all. I have a huge sense of jeopardy.

I'm always trying to, with my kids, to try and encourage them to taste fear because especially nowadays, lives are so sanitised and saved and protected. So how does that manifest itself? It manifests itself by saying, yes, I'll read the news tomorrow night. Okay, no, but I mean for your kids, what have you tried to get them to do? Occasionally I've done things like when one of my kids was at university, had no interest in acting, and I said, well, just go and audition and get the part and feel good that you've got the

part and then just say no sorry I can't do it now and you did that you know and it's just putting yourself out there yep yeah I used to do that in Hong Kong I used to go for auditions I remember there was a show called Tom Prulery which is a sung through comic past comic review program written by this brilliant guy called Tom Lehrer. And I went for the audition for it, knowing I couldn't sing. And because I looked like I might be able to sing and be a bit of a performer, the producer was so excited when he met me to come in and sing and gave me one of the songs to sing. And I just knew I couldn't sing. I just didn't care. And he went went oh that that

that's good could you try it with a bit more force because I can sing in tune but I've got a real sort of girly soprano voice you know I was always that person who sang the solo and once in David Rowe City but it's never developed yes whilst everyone hid behind their hymn books going what is she doing anyway so yeah i do put myself out there to be scared basically well uh i mean thank goodness thank goodness that you do because that's why you're here with us now uh i also think it's worth saying and we'll maybe talk about this a bit more on thursday and i think you are a woman who underplays her compassionate contribution to society because you don't make a big deal out of how much charity work you've done and the causes that you've supported. Just on the programme today, we talked about your work as a Samaritan and we then talked about your experiences of Alzheimer's, which both your parents had.

And I think you're one of those very rare people, actually, in showbiz, and you have been in showbiz for most of your life, who really properly looks outwards, not inwards. Would that be fair? I do, I think, actually. I do. I like to be part of something bigger than myself, definitely. And I mentioned on the programme this lovely Winnie the Pooh quote from Piglet, who I love. Piglet was so excited at the

idea of being useful, he forgot to be frightened anymore. And I always encourage people to get out there and volunteer and, you know, maybe do some befriending or what doesn't matter what it is actually but being part of a community you know i love a community which is why i devised the challenge format because it just seems so obvious to harness all that power of telly and and put it into something useful and all the volunteers that come along that's why they come along they love it's like running away to the circus and on the last series we do we did the volunteers were just so keen on taking part that they came with us from challenge to challenge extraordinary they funded themselves they didn't obviously get paid for everyone's volunteer so danny bought his digger just never every challenge we did there is Danny with his

digger digging another hole um and it's just so lovely isn't that just glorious but I think it just um it it says something about human nature that we all want to help but what we often need is someone to go come on yeah come and do it no definitely i will make it fun i completely completely agree come and get dirty so we're going to talk a bit more about alzheimer's and we're we're going to have two interviews in the podcast today so annika will introduce a really really interesting playwright who has written a fantastic piece about the experience of alzheimer's and what music can do actually to people who are suffering from the disease. So shall I read the intro into Giles? Yes.

Which is just a hilarious interview. And he says it of himself that if you don't like name drops, it's not an interview for you. But here it comes. Giles Brandreth's latest venture is a podcast called Rosebud. It's about childhood memories and looking back to those moments that can then shape the rest of your life. It's a really stellar lineup in the series. Episode number one is with Dame Judi Dent,

who just happens to be a very close personal friend of Giles. Everybody is. We also know Giles for his wordcraft with Susie Dent, once being an MP, his time on the sofa at TVAM, being a close friend of the royal family, biographer of Queen Elizabeth, and one of the country's finest raconteurs. And then there are the jumpers. So we started by asking him whether or not he kept wearing the

jumpers on a hot day like today. Well, the jumper is a good thing to wear on a very hot day because it works like a thermos flask. You know, with a flask if you put ice into it it stays cold and if you put hot soup into it it stays hot a jumper is the same thing put a cool body inside a warm jumper and you stay cool all day put a hot body inside a jumper and you stay warm all day you are turning my world on its head john i told you it would be trouble i just honestly so i just i i love my jumpers. And I'm doing a tour at the moment with a show that I did in Edinburgh. And in it I sport a jumper that is

for the new reign. You know, new reign, new knitwear. And this has the new king, King Charles III's cipher on the front. And when the new king saw this jumper Oh, by the way, if name-dropping is not your thing, please don't listen for the next 25 minutes. It's just going to infuriate you.

I'm going to pick them up as you drop them. When the new king saw me wearing this jumper, he said, I think it would be rather more effective as a hearth rug, don't you? Which I felt was a bit disparaging, but there you go. Yeah, it was one of the first things that Annika mentioned about her first memories of you, because you two go way back. Back to TV. And Annika said that she had to try and work as a serious journalist on TV

with you wearing knitwear that basically had twinkling nipples. More or less, because I used to sit in for Ann Darman one week and every five, and I'd be there doing quite a sort of erudite, you know, interesting chat with Dennis Healy about the economy. And then you'd be there ready for the next item with an ice cream cone on a bright red jumper. What were you doing there at that time? Well, do you first remember the day that Willy Brandt,

the Chancellor of West Germany, came on and he found himself sitting on the sofa, Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany, came on, and he found himself sitting on the sofa, Willy Brandt, Chancellor of West Germany. Between me and Willy Brandt was Roland Ratt. And this man didn't know what, he didn't know what, and his English was impeccable, and he couldn't understand what I was about, and he certainly couldn't understand what the rat was about.

But I was brought on with the rat. When TVAM began, it was the first commercial breakfast television station in Britain, it had high aspirations. David Frost, Michael Parkinson, Robert Key, Angela Rippon. It was going to be the mission to explain a daybreak. But the people were not interested in having things explained to them at daybreak by these learned scholars. And turned off in droves. In fact, they didn't even turn on. So after a few months, they got rid of all them.

They brought in Anne and Nick, more accessible. And then they brought in Roland Ratt and me. And I remember... Were you an MP at the time? No, I hadn't become an MP. Oh, okay. And I had to keep quiet about it when I went up to being an MP. And I was told by an advertising man, Maurice Sarchie, he said to me, Giles, you're not a looker. You're not a looker, let's face it. But television, He said to me, Giles, you're not a looker. You're not a looker, let's face it. But television, 83% of what people remember is what they see, only 17% what they hear.

And you think you've got the gift of the gabber, but no one is interested. Most people, when you come on, are turning the sound down. If you want to be noticed, you've got to wear something noticeable. And that's how the jumpers began. I always remember Bruce Gingell, who ran the station. He made us all wear pink. Yes.

He liked pink. It was very weird. No, it wasn't weird. It really worked, because the bright colours in the morning, people want a little bit of sunshine. And there's lots of research that shows, put people into a blue room and put people into a pink room, and the temperature is the same, but you tell them you're turning down the temperature.

The people in the blue room feel colder much sooner than the people in the pink room and the temperature is the same but you tell them you're turning down the temperature the people in the blue room feel colder much sooner than the people in the pink room pink yellow bright colors but you still haven't answered why you're on that sofa in a jumper what were you talking about i was brought on uh to be a kind of a bit of like relief to be to be vaguely knowledgeable but reasonably larkyy. And I think I was doing the post. I came in and read the letters from the listeners. Yes, you did. But I loved it because, as well as being on the programme, you then got to be in the canteen. It was a beautiful building.

And you met so many amazing people. I mentioned Willie Brandt. But, I mean, everybody. I mean, Rex Harrison, of all people I met there. Anthony Hopkins. I sat down with Anthony Hopkins and he said, have you met Laurence Olivier? I said, not recently. And then he did the rest of Breakfast as I met there. Anthony Hopkins. I sat down with Anthony Hopkins and he said, have you met Laurence Olivier? I said, not recently.

And then he did the rest of breakfast as Laurence Olivier. I mean, what's not to like? It was glorious. And I like being at the beginning of things. That, for me, is exciting. And that's why, to be honest, I love meeting people. That's what gave me the idea for Rosebud.

Now, do you know why it's called Rosebud? You were too clever. No, but I don't know about you, Phee, but I reckon he's going to tell us. I'm reeling from how clever that link is. So congratulations on that beautiful turn. Beautiful turn. I assumed it was Rosebud

because it's about the beginning of something. Well, it could be. And it is in a way. But when I was a boy, my father had a favourite movie, and it was Citizen Kane, written by, starring and directed by Orson Welles. And my father took me every year. There was a cinema called the Baker Street Classic in Baker Street in London, and he took me.

There was a summer season where they showed this film every year, and I went. I never saw the film properly because we had to sit on the right-hand side of the cinema where smoking was allowed. In cinemas in those days, smoking on the right-hand side, no smoking on the left. My mother sat on the left-hand side and saw all these films. But I sat with my dad on the right-hand side and saw them through a haze of smoke. So I saw this film. And in this film, Citizen Kane, who's a figure like a great William Randolph Hearst figure,

or, dare I say it in this building, Rupert Murdoch figure, a big, you know, newspaper man, reflects on his childhood and he remembers, he has this memory of a sledge on the day he was taken away from his mother and the sledge was called Rosebud. So the podcast begins with me asking the guest every time they come on, for example, Annika, when you come on, the first question will be, what is your very first memory?

Not the memory that you remember from a photograph and therefore, oh yes, we were on the beach at Margate, but in your mind's eye, can you remember? What is it in your eyes? Oh, mine's quite dark. Mine's being taken away from my home. I was about two or three and my parents disappeared and I was sent to be looked after

by some people who weren't very kind to me. So actually, I wish you hadn't asked that because I'm now quite traumatised. I'm like, I have to take a small break. It's fine. This is what we will unpack when you come on to Rosebud. That's why it's so intriguing. You actually dive straight in to people's

first recollections. But it's just interesting because, I mean, in a way, that memory for me has defined my life in that I always expect the rug to be pulled from my feet and a degree of jeopardy, and I've made a career out of it. And it has been again. And you must find that with your guests, those early memories, they filter through life. Well, we've already done 13,

and it's been a little bit disturbing with one of the guests. I went pre-empt to it is. I asked the first question, and all we got were tears before the answer came. But it's, and other people, wonderful memories, like, for example, Judi Dench, which you've heard, or who we've got, it's Alison Hammond next week,

who is just so infectious and full of fun and life. But then everybody, you find there's a dark side. I remember this. Years ago, I went to interview Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa. And you can drop another of your name drops there. Yeah, no, I'm on my hands and knees.

I was going to say underneath the desk by a child. I went to interview Desmond Tutu. And he was one of the most wonderful people. Did either of you ever meet him? No. He was like being in the presence of sunshine. There was a warmth about him, a sweetness and a warmth. And I began the interview and he stopped me and he held my hand and he made me say a prayer with him. But I went along with it. And we spent, oh, the day together. And by the end of it, I realised that this man who just gave hope

and positivity to the world himself had a lot of suffering. Eventually, we were talking about his children and problems with his son, with the law, with drink, with drugs, all of this. And yet his job was out there spreading sunshine. So what interested me about Rosebud is we now live in an age where most, this is an exception, your program is an exception, whereas most things outside of podcasts are soundbites. You know, radio, TV, it's a soundbite. Go on a chat show, Graham Norton, huge fun, but you're there to plug your product, get a laugh, move on. We want another A-list guest. And I thought, let me invite people in and let them talk. And I've deliberately asked people who I might not naturally be thought to like or be interested in.

For example, I was in Edinburgh doing the Edinburgh Fringe. And I was in Edinburgh. Who's the most famous woman in Scotland? Nicola Sturgeon. So I thought, I wonder if I can get hold of Nicola Sturgeon. So the way to, I tell you, I was taught to do this by David Frost. Do you remember David? Bing!

Not everyone remembers David Frost, but he was a lovely person. He always phoned people up if he really wanted it himself. So I got a hold of Nicholas Sturgeon and said, will you come to my flat? She said, really? I said, yes, it's quite respectable. I said, unless you're going to lend me your camper van, you'll have to come to my flat.

So she came up to the flat, and we did, we talked for about two hours. What was her first memory? Her first memory was a boy called Sparky sparky's magic piano well no it was magic something else when we got around to it we actually worked up to that but it was no but what was quite interesting was that she clearly she sparky was important to her because she was quite an isolated child she was quite and she felt she had to please people. And really what I found interesting was spending two hours with Nicola Sturgeon

not talking about Scottish nationalism, not talking about politics, but talking about her, what made her tick, what it's like to be, you know, somebody who is in the public eye, who initially clearly wasn't a person built for the public eye. All very intriguing. So that's what the conversations are about. And that's why I'm doing it. Giles Brandreth is our guest this afternoon. There are just so many things that we could

talk to you about, Giles, but this podcast does sound really fascinating. And I was really interested that you have some quite young people in the podcast series as well as older people. Because it's definitely true, isn't it, that the older you get, perhaps the more vivid those very early childhood memories can become. As we like to return as elephants to the valley in our head. So do you notice that there's a difference in the way that your younger guests answer the questions about their memories? Well, some of the younger guests are still within their childhood, it almost seems. You know, it's the day before yesterday, their childhood. It's much more vivid and easygoing.

And then they tell you things, and then later on they contradict it, which is interesting. At the beginning of the conversation, because we do it over a couple of hours and usually at home, we had a brilliant person called AJ O'Doodoo. Do you know her? Yes. She's fantastic and she's such fun. Anyway, she was telling me about her wonderfully happy family and her parents and how they love each other and they're married and it's all been brilliant. They've been married for 40 years and AJ's the oldest girl, etc. And then towards the end of the conversation, it became clear to me that her parents lived totally apart.

But in her head, they are still her parents. So they're still living together. It's still a happy marriage. It was just a sort of... She was expressing it in a different way. So what we've found with the show, it's like being in the psychiatrist's chair without the psychiatrist. So I'm up anthony claire oh gosh i love to remember that not only do i remember that i was lucky enough to know anthony claire yeah and i went when i was a bit unhappy

uh you should have come and knocked on my door said i probably wasn't born no well no i was unhappy funny enough i was unhappy were born. No, I was unhappy. Funnily enough, I was unhappy. It's a silly thing. I was unhappy in the same year that I lost my seat as an MP. People find it hard to believe I was an MP. And I shouldn't have been. I was going to be swept out anyway, you know, in 1997. All people cleared out who were Conservatives, a lot of them.

And they say you shouldn't take it personally, but I did. I felt rejected. But it was also the year I think my father died, and my brother died. He was only 51. And my sister died aged 61. And my best friend from school, you may remember him, an actor called Simon Cadell. He died. Happily, my wife still struggled on. But it was a lot of trauma in the family. And I thought, I'm not as happy as I should be. And I thought, well, take professional advice. So I thought I'd go to the top. So go to the top.

So I went to Professor Anthony Clare. I flew to Dublin. And I sat with him. And we began talking about my father. And I said, now tell me about my father. He said, tell me about your father. He's just died. I said, explain this to me.

Why did my father talk about the Second World War sometimes very rarely when he did as one of the happiest times of his life? I said, he was in the army, risking his life for six years. He said, that's easy to explain. I said, oh, but please explain. He said, well, the men, the women, but the men mostly,

the front line during the six years, the war, they were risking their lives on a daily basis, but they were also being tested on a daily basis. And being tested, being challenged, is a key element to finding happiness. You very rarely find happy people sitting around not doing very much. Because we're programmed as humans to be hunter-gatherers and to do stuff and explore and push ourselves.

Absolutely. And then I said, what about my mother? Bombs were falling in London and she was looking after my three older sisters and yet she talked about the happy war years. And he said, well, again, that's easy to explain. There was a sense of community, of common purpose in London at the time

and that makes people happy. So unpacking happiness was interesting. So what the podcast is about is unpacking things. If you want a name drop, can I do another name drop? Oh, God, do, because I've got the dustpan and brush out now. I'm now sending myself up with name drops. Impossible. This Friday is the anniversary of the death of Elizabeth II.

And I've written a biography of her, and there's a new edition of it just out. And I put stuff in this conversation I had with the Queen once about the Second World War. And I think in the original edition of the book, I just had her talking about Winston Churchill and how he was her father's prime minister and how remarkable he was.

But in this edition, because I thought it's a year now and this is quite, you know, why not tell these stories? I wrote about how the Queen was happy during the Second World War at Windsor Castle because of the entertainers who came to entertain the royal family, people like George Formby. And there was a woman who came called Florence Desmond. Have you heard of this woman?

Yes. You've heard of her? Yes. She was an impressionist. Fee, you won't have heard of her. She was an impressionist. She did female impressions, like Marlena Dietrich, Mae West, Vera Lynn.

And the Queen told me that if she hadn't been going to be Queen, she might quite like to have been an impressionist. I said, really? I said, what can you do? She said, I can do George Warmbie. And there and then, the Queen picked up... She didn't do When I'm Cleaning Windows.

She did. She picked up an imaginary ukulele and sang to me, When I'm Cleaning Windows. And she could do regional accents from all over the country. She could do people. She picked up an imaginary ukulele and sang to me when I'm cleaning windows. And she could do regional accents from all over the country. She could do people. Apparently, I didn't hear it, but apparently her Ian Paisley was to die for.

Oh, I was to die for. I mean, I can't remember that. This is glorious. And she could do things as well. She could do horses, different breeds of horses. She could do Frankie DeTore on the horse, jumping off the horse and feeding the horse. She could do Concord landing over Windsor Castle. The approach. The wheels coming down.

Was this all in one conversation? All in one conversation. All in one conversation. It was a heck of a conversation. It was a heck of a conversation. And then, of course, you know, this is the trouble with somebody. There should have been, there was an invisible moat

always around Elizabeth II because she was the queen. And she was of an age, even when I was having this conversation with her, which was some years ago. And I went too far. I realised I went too far when we began talking about teddy bears. Because my problem was I couldn't talk about dogs and horses,

which is her real love, because there's nothing about dogs and horses. So I was talking about teddy bears because I knew that she liked Paddington Bear. And I said, what about Winnie the Pooh? And I boasted that I'd met Christopher Robin, the real... Boasting to the Queen. She said, yes, I met him too. I said, of course, of course, you're the Queen.

She said, well, actually, better than that. She said, better than that, in 1930, A. A. Milne wanted to dedicate his Winnie the Pooh songs to someone, and he wrote to my parents, the Duke and Duchess of York, and asked if they could be dedicated to me. So, yes, I have quite an association with Winnie the pool. I said, now what about Rupert Bear? I thought I'm not going to let it go on this. I said, what about Rupert? Oh sure, I love the Rupert annuals. And she said, I encourage Prince Charles to read Rupert Bear. And I said, now look, Your

Majesty, do you know that a lot of people believe that Rupert Bear isn't a bear at all? They believe he's a boy with a bear's head. He's got fingers, he's got feet, he's a boy with a bear's head. He's got fingers. He's got feet. He's a boy with a bear's head. And she looked at me with a beady eye and said, there are some things in life I think it's better not to know. Yes, you swam across that moat, got out the other side... I did. ..and shook yourself off in front of her. I did. I did.

Bowed and made my way backwards out of the way. Last time you came to see us on Times Radio, he's priceless, isn't he, Annika? We were talking about Harry's book Spare. It was just after the publication of that. And with your unique insight and knowledge of the royal family, you did say that you thought it would be a kind of a mild cut, actually, in the monarch's side.

It wouldn't be a wound that would never heal. And I wonder whether that opinion has changed at all now. About right, isn't it? I mean, one of the things about writing about the late queen was that she had seen it all. This too will pass, was a phrase that she used. And whenever I think of a royal scandal, I think, of course, well, the queen, she saw Mrs. Simpson and Edward VIII and the abdication. Then in the 1950s, she saw Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend. Then there was Diana. These things, they come and they go.

And the fascination of the royal family is it's been there for more than 1,000 years because somehow it adapts and goes on. And I think from the point of view of the king and the new queen and the Prince of Wales, the Princess of Wales, the show is going on and proving successful. We're getting gradual change, but it's working well. So I think, yes, I would agree that. Not a mortal wound, a cut. And of course, it's, but I think actually they wish them well. I think they genuinely, the king obviously loves his son

and wishes him well, wants him to make a success of his new life in California Do you know if they're in touch much? I don't know if they're in touch much That's the only time that he's given a very succinct answer Yes, he did. It didn't go anywhere that conversation, did it? Well, I like to think that my stories are accurate, even if they seem quite unlikely

I probably haven't got time for one last one No, I'm so sorry, Charles Do invite me again. Oh, please come back any time. Because this next one is a really corker of a story. That's all I'm telling you. Well, can you just pop round to my place? Because we're neighbours. You can just pop round and have a cup of tea and tell me the story.

When I come to do Rosebud, the podcast with Annika Rice, maybe one of our Christmas editions, one of our Christmas specials, play your cards right, Fi. We might get round to you eventually. Eventually. Eventually. No, because we are doing younger people as well. Well, that's kind.

Oh, hang on. Suddenly this is quite so flattering. So that was the one and only Giles Brandreth, and he is welcome. We could just have a whole, we could have a day a week dedicated to Giles Brandreth, and he would never disappoint. I know.

He's fantastically good value, and he must have a very very patient wife right we're going to make a gear change now because we also devoted quite a lot of time on the program today to talking about alzheimer's because we are at the beginning of world alzheimer's month aren't we there is so much that people need to know about the disease and one of the things actually that you wanted to draw our listeners attention to is how helpful music can be so you have come across a playwright who is Matthew. Yes now he has written an extraordinary play which is going to open actually tomorrow night in London and he talks about how dementia and Alzheimer's have affected one particular couple that he

writes about and it's a glorious piece and Matthew will tell us all about it. And what is your connection, your personal connection to Alzheimer's? Well both my parents had Alzheimer's. It started with my dad and he just started behaving very strangely. And this was the 2000s when people didn't talk about Alzheimer's at all. I had no idea what it was. And he would ring up the police at three in the morning and say, my daughter, Annika Rice, has been abducted by terrorists. And so the police would ring me up at three in the morning and just check I hadn't been abducted it's extraordinary how they had my number but anyway it happened so often i was on sort of speed dial with the police

and i had three small children at the time i was busy doing a a special project actually in um sri lanka post the tsunami and so i was talking about breeze blocks with save the children and this was this medical emergency I was suddenly confronted with. And I had no idea how to deal with it because I'd go to my dad and he'd be sat frozen in his sitting room, staring at the table lamp, going, look at him, look at him. He hasn't moved for two weeks. What do I do?

And to start with, I'd go, Dad, don't worry. Don't worry, darling worry darling it's nothing and then i realized that it was something because that's what happens when you have alzheimer's so from that moment on i just went with it and you enter this very sort of dark parallel universe hinged with um you know a certain amount of humor so i just go don't worry dad let's go for a walk he'll be gone by the time we get back and from that moment on my life changed forever it seemed and I went I had 15 years of going down quite a dark hole it was a horrible thing to deal with and sadly it really is an experience that more and more people are going to have taking care of somebody they love

who has some form of dementia. So that's what we were talking about this afternoon in the studio. I used to take him into the doctors and say, what's wrong with my dad? And they'd give him a cognitive test and he'd pass it 10 out of 10. He did know who the prime minister is. You know, that's the problem with Alzheimer's. It's so weird.

It just spins off in all sorts of directions. For ages, he thought he was in a health club and so we'd sit for he came to stay with us in the end because i didn't know how to look after him well i'd sit in the health club with him and he'd go look at that valerie singleton she's gone right to the front of the queue for the steam bath and i just go i know dad those blue peter presenters are so up themselves but it must be is it frightening to you to think that that might be what happens to you there is no causal hereditary link is there i'm pretending i don't because my mother also then got it almost the day my dad died it's but it's but they were advanced age you know so my dad was in his 90s eventually when he died but it's just a terrible thing I mentioned earlier the this dementia village project um I

worked on late late last year and oh my goodness it cracked my heart wide open because um the challenge was to build this 60s village and there was a pub a a cinema, a cafe, a baker's shop, there was a record shop, you know, one one lady literally sat in the record shop all day just clutching her album of Elvis and the idea was that dementia sufferers who used the centre at Age UK and Birkenhead where the challenge was set could safely wander around having a coffee, watching a film, allowing the 60s memorabilia to trigger memories. And it was extraordinary to see. And Lynn Hamilton, who runs Age UK, what a visionary you are, Lynn, because it was quite extraordinary.

There was one guy, John, and I mention him because it links into our next guest. I met him. He can barely talk. He grunts. When I met him, he had cuts all over him because he'd forgotten how to walk and he'd fallen over. Because with Alzheimer's, you forget how to walk, you forget how to eat and eventually forget how to swallow. And I sat with him and I just started singing rather spontaneously,

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, which is what I used to sing to my parents. And he launched right in, word perfect. It was so beautiful, I can't describe it. So he had a big sing song at the end with someone playing the piano in the pub we'd built and everyone was word perfect having been completely off the planet in every other way.

But it is an amazing way to connect through music and a play is opening tomorrow night in London, highlighting the effects of dementia and Alzheimer's by looking at the effect it has on one couple. It's written by Matthew Seeger, who should be there on the line. Are you there, Matthew? I am. Thank you so much for having me. Hello. This sounds so exciting.

The play is called In Other Words. Why don't you tell us about it? Yeah, so, well, my experiences, I suppose, inspiring me to write the play seems so similar in a lot of ways to what you just articulated. I was a university student about 10 years ago now. I was studying at Leeds University and we were doing a sensory stimulation workshop

in sort of applied theatre, an applied theatre module, and we were in a dementia care home and we were sort of we do a couple of weeks on each sense seeing what would stimulate memory or sort of be a catalyst for social engagement and things like that and we decided at the end of our first session to play well I sort of did some maths and figured out that if the average age was 80 or a bit a bit older in the, 85, then the songs that they may have been listening to when they were in their 20s and 30s would have maybe been something like Frank Sinatra.

So we decided to play a Frank Sinatra song at the end of the session. And I remember, I mean, it probably is a life-changing moment for me, I suppose. But I remember going, and it was a room full of people with all different diagnoses of dementia. Some were hallucinating, some were non-verbal.

And I placed these song sheets, Frank Sinatra, My Way, on the table in the hope that if we played the song, anyone wanted to try and sing along, they could look at the song sheets and sort of stood at the back and pressed play on this CD player. And it was, it felt like magic. Almost every single person in the care home stood up and sang that song word for word. it felt like magic. Almost every single person stood up. That song, word for word.

I mean, I was 19 or 20 years old. I'm 30 now. And it sort of formed pretty much the most consistent part of my career as a writer and actor now. This play specifically, but also working to do with dementia and other shows as a writer and performer. And so that was the inspiration for it. So the play spans 50 years of a couple, Arthur and Jane's life. And it's about their connection to a Frank Sinatra song,

Fly Me to the Moon, and about how that keeps him connected to her right through to the very end of his adventure journey. So that's kind of, yeah, that's the lens through which we explore it. And it's a non-linear structure, isn't it? Which totally explains the brain of someone with Alzheimer's. Yes, yeah, exactly. And I think that's sort of 75 minutes long. And I suppose that's the difficulty, such a complex issue.

But we start at the end and then we see how they meet. But also we're able to come out, myself and leanne harvey who plays jane we're able to come out and talk to the audience and comment on the action quite a lot which i suppose proves very useful in terms of one being able to reference things but also it feels really important that we're able to fall in love with that couple with their relationship with each other and with us as the audience in order to uh do enough work to experience what's being lost and for that to have sort of the most profound effect i suppose oh my goodness this sounds extraordinary and it started off um theatrically um you took it online

didn't you for a while how did that work yes so we we did it in 2017 first in London, and then we were remounting it just before the pandemic. And obviously we couldn't do that anywhere. And so we made like an online digital version, which we shared digitally and with Players for Life, who were a charity we were working with at the time. They were able to integrate it into some of their higher educational e-learning resources and things

like that because I think it's a really interesting way if you're a nurse or someone or a carer or something like that to sort of understand what it is to be as empathetic as possible and maybe place yourself in the shoes of someone living with dementia just for sort of brief moments and that's some feedback that we've we've had from from how the play can affect people. So September is World Alzheimer's Month so I'm sure that we will had from how the plague can affect people. So September is World Alzheimer's Month. So I'm sure that we will continue talking about the subject. And obviously from the podcast perspective, if there are any stories that you would like to share with us,

then we would love to hear from you. It's janeandfee at times.radio. And Annika will be back on Thursday. It is Claire Balding and Claire Balding before then. And also I do just need to mention our lovely new book that we've all been reading for Book Club. And that episode will be released on the 22nd of September. So you've still got a couple of weeks. If you've not yet read My Sister, the Serial Killer by Ayinka Braithwaite. Have you read that book?

No. Well, it's our book club. She said, writing it down. Yes, please do, Annika. Please do. We would like to hear your thoughts on it too. And obediently, can you just say, I am writing it down. Yes.

Excellent work. I read it in two great big gulps on my holiday, lying on a sun lounger with Nancy, my greyhound, next door to me. So I really loved it for its pace and ability to make you want to not put it down. I've stopped watching telly and I've started taking up books again and I'm not exaggerating.

I'm reading three or four books a week. Brilliant. Well, if you can read that one. In one gulp, as you say, because I've got nothing else to do when I'm in my leisure time. I think it's really, really brilliantly written. I really can't wait to hear

what our lovely listeners think about the ending because the ending really took me by surprise and i had to read it twice because i thought i just missed something here so all of your thoughts about that book if you've already read it and you want to send us an email just put book club in the title because that makes everybody's life a little bit easier when dealing with the email inbox and we will fully discuss it on the 22nd of september it's so lovely to have you here i've loved it i'm looking forward to thursday i'm so excited about thursday already very much i'm glad you mentioned that otherwise people might tune into the radio show tomorrow and think well she didn't last long she's off they've got that it's not x factor there's no there's no judge's house

we see jeopardy i'm expecting i know you are this is radio absolutely no jeopardy whatsoever i'm going to parachute out of the building now okay well i'm just going to take the lift talk to you tomorrow we're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast off air with jane garvey and fee glover our Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. But don't forget that you can get another two hours of us every Monday to Thursday afternoon here on Times Radio. We start at 3pm and you can listen for free on your smart speaker. Just shout Play Times Radio at it.

You can also get us on DAB Radio in the car or on the Times Radio app whilst you're out and about being extremely busy. And you can follow all our Tosh behind the mic and elsewhere on our Instagram account. Just go onto Insta and search for Jane and Fee and give us a follow. So in other words, we're everywhere, aren't we Jane? Everywhere. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.