Test Match Special - #40from40: Richard Osman

Episode Date: June 25, 2020

TV's Pointless star Richard Osman joins Aggers during the day/night Test at Edgbaston in 2017 to discuss his love of cricket and career in television.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. To embrace the impossible requires a vehicle that pushes what's possible. Defender 110 boasts a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms, a weighting depth of 900 millimeters and a roof load up to 300 kilograms. Learn more at landrover.ca. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Classic View from the Bound. On BBC Sounds.

Hello, welcome to classic View from the Boundary from Test Match Special. I'm Jonathan Agnew. And during this series, we're picking out some of our favourite interviews from the last 40 years to celebrate four decades of welcoming famous cricket fans from all walks of life to the TMS Commentary Box. Well, for this offering, we're going to a famous game in 2017. That was the first day-night test played in England. The games are one-sided affair.

England beating West Indies in three days at Edgebaston, but we did have. have time for a memorable interview. Richard Osmond has become one of the most recognisable faces on British television as co-host of the cult Tea Time TV show Pointless. But as we'll find out, he got in front of the camera purely by accident. And with the floodlights shining at Edgebaston, Richard began by telling me about his love of cricket. I'm a watcher in a studio, I'd say. I've got very bad eyesight.

I can't drive. I can't see, you know, I can never see a ball when cricket's going on. So I can't play it. You know, I've tried to bowl a bit. But I can't. I just can't see the ball. so there's no point me ever playing. But I've always loved it.

I love watching, you know, I love just kind of hearing it. And, you know, I love the TMS and, you know, the atmosphere of the thing. But, yeah, I can't tell a straight ball from a googly, from a, I can't tell any of the nuance, never have been able to. That's not surprised a lot of people, I think, who see you on the telly every day. Well, I think, you know, it's one of those things is, you know, I do have vision. I'm not, you know, but I'm visually impaired. And, you know, I don't see things at speed. I don't see small things.

I don't, you know, I can't do it at all. But, you know, as anyone who's listening, who's visually impaired, I know the plenty of you are, you do compensate, you know, there's things I can see and my brain fills in a lot of the rest. And then, you know, it's voices, you know, people sometimes say, oh, I like to see sport without the commentary. And you think, oh, I can't. I can't do sport without, I need to, sometimes I need the commentator to tell me what just happened because, you know, I don't always see it. No. So how do you, what enjoyment do you get them from watching a sport?

Do you find it hard to see you? I think with something like cricket, as I say, what I'm not seeing is the nuance. I'm not seeing some sort of, you know, beautiful sort of turn of the wrist of a boulder. I'm not seeing the ball turn, all that kind of stuff. But what I like are the personalities and the stories. You know, that's what I've always liked. You know, so in this test, for example, you know, I am interested in this young West Indian team and what happens when you're put under this sort of pressure.

And, you know, they've come over to England and they're going to have three tests of this and what happens to them as men. I think that's interesting. I am interested in, you know, who is going to be Alistair Cook's opening partner? Are they going to find someone? What happened to Hamid, for example, which I want to ask you about in a bit? You know, I like that, I love the soap opera of it. That's what I like.

And, you know, this is my favourite England team for a really long time. And it's, and it's because of the people. And I like the personalities. You know, I like Stokes. I like Moeen. You know, I like Joe Root as a captain. I like Johnny Birsto. I think it's a really, really interesting team.

But, yeah, I like the stories. I like the soap opera of a sport. And everything else to me is just, everything else is a storyline. Yes. You know, that's what I like. Digging beneath the surface, really, and getting under the skin of it. It's like if you, if you love music, but you don't play music, you still enjoy it.

You know, I can't really tell if someone's playing the guitar world, but I know I like a song. And I'm like that with sport. You know, I'll always, I like the stories. You know, I like what's going on beneath, if you know what I mean. But, you know, who is going to be Alastair's opening partner? One day someone will come along who will become a star, you know, and I love seeing that.

And when you get a certain age, you see so many promising careers start, and you see that only a few of them really bear fruit. So you remember Joe Root starting. And you're thinking, oh, maybe we've got a player here. But we think that about everyone. Yes. But, you know, he does become a player. And even as to cook, when he's starting, he thinks, oh, maybe we've got one. And now, you know, he's sort of part of our natural, you know, our national life.

And you think, well, is that going to be Wesley? Is that going to be Jennings? You know, who knows? Who knows? And that's what I love. What I love also hearing you talk about it, and I try and do it when I go talk to kids or where it may be, is that there is so much to sport other than actually having to playing it. Yeah. There's so many other aspects of loving a sport, falling in love of the sport, for all the reasons you've mentioned, actually. Yeah.

The fact that you're unable, for whatever reason, perhaps to go out there and actually do it yourself. Well, you know, it's interesting a few years ago when, there's a few years ago now, the London Olympics, and suddenly you were getting all these non-sports fans going and saying, I didn't know, this is amazing. And I wanted to say to them, you know, if you love sport, we have this every single day of our lives, we have something like this. We have this excitement. We have the heroes and the villains. We have the old rivalries. We have the fathers and sons who played in the same team.

You know, our entire life is this incredible soap opera. And if you've ever watched a reality show or extenders or coronations, that's what we've got for our entire lives, but it's not written. You never know what's going to happen. And I just think a life without sport, you know, it gives you so much, doesn't it? It gives just the joy it brings you and the stories it brings you. There's very few other things where you can sit at this table, you know, for the whole day, one person coming in, boy, comes in, Kurt Lee Ambrose comes in and no one ever runs out of things to talk about. Yeah. You know, isn't that wonderful? Well, thank goodness we don't. You can watch this, by the way. Watch the interview on the TMS Facebook page if you, if you fancy it. I know. I'd have dressed up if I'd known. Actually, you were smarter than most of us. It used to be, back in the old days, used to love going on radio, because you didn't have to shave.

You didn't have to touch up these days. They've got... Well, actually, I'm very smart for me, because I knew I was meeting you. Well, do you know what? I haven't actually shaved this morning, and no one's mentioned it, apart from boycott. Immediately said, you haven't shaved young man.

That's probably the first words you ever said to you. Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. No, he said, you're not as smart as you look. We have to put up with Jeffrey. Having, obviously, followed cricket, are you surprised by Geoffrey, therefore? Have you, that was your first encounter, was it presumably, with the great man? It's very, it was my first encounter, actually. I feel like I have met him.

Do you know what I mean? I think it's impossible to have grown up in England not feel like you've met Jeff Boycott at one time because he's so familiar. You know, when you go to New York for the first time and you think, oh, I've been here before because it's so familiar from films, that's what meeting Jeff Boycott is like. But, no, working in telly, so I thought, you know, you work with everybody. And some people are very different on screen to how they are off screen. Some people are very funny on screen and very sort of larger than life and you meet them off the screen

they're very sort of doer and very, they're keeping themselves to themselves. I would say that from the two minutes chat I just had with Jeffrey Boycott is literally identical to how I thought he was going to be. They didn't let you down. No, you know what? He really didn't.

I don't know if that's a show, but listen, you've put up with them for many, many years and that is... I did stitch him up the other day, though, you may or may not have seen, but anyway, that's another thing. So I would imagine, and I'm guessing a bit, Richard, but are you a big test match fan?

I mean, do you like your sort of analysis of the game with Test cricket? Obviously, there's endless material there. But, I mean, do you like the one-day game as well? Yeah, you know, I prefer the one-day game. In a funny kind of way, I like the one-day game because it's more happens quicker. Right. You know, and I like that, and we get to the result quicker.

You know, I'm a TV format. This is your reality TV side coming out. But it is really, you know, that's been my job forever as you think of a format and you make it half an hour long and you have the beginning, a middle, and then somebody wins at the end. Yes. You know, I'd do 10-10 cricket. Wouldn't worry me.

You know, just get it done and do it three times. I love, to be honest, I love all forms of the game. I do love test cricket because, you know, I love the rhythm of it and the mood of it and, you know, the TMS thing of just, okay, we're going to sit down. This is what we're doing today. You know, that's lovely. Exactly. Where your company for the day.

Exactly. But I love 2020 because it brings other people into the game. And I do think it's an entry drug. You know, I really do. I think if you've watched. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And, you know, I think it's, look, in. Football, I have a supporter team.

International football, I'm not fussed about, but test cricket, I love. You know, I love watching England and I love supporting England. And, you know, and in terms of county cricket, because I'm a Sussex boy. Oh, right. And I used to go to Sussex all the time. I love to sit and watch cricket there. Oh, my God, it's just great. Down at the county ground, it's an absolute joy.

Because I live in London and have done for many years, I just don't get the chance to go down there, so I've sort of fallen out with county cricket a little bit. So test cricket is where I get my cricket. fix these days. And I suspect if Sussex, you know, one that won the title again, you know, so I got briefly interested about 10 years ago. But, yeah, I would love to move back down to Hove, you know, get nice, one of those nice little photos by the county ground and spend my days there. Perfect. But with your television head-on, though, I mean, what could you do with cricket, do you think? Because we're searching, obviously, for audiences and, you know, to make the game more

appealing. Can the game do anything else to help itself, do you think? I mean, it's shortening its format. It's trying to play at night? Is there anything that you think you grab people? I honestly, because I think about other sports a lot and I think there's various sports that really need to get their games in order. I think 2020 is one of the few kind of sporting things that actually works beautifully.

And I think once we get this city-based version of it. I think it's going to really, really work. I think people are going to like that. You know, if you're working in TV, you need something that takes a certain amount of time. That's what you need. If you're running Sky Sports, you're running BBC or something,

you need something that's two hours long, three hours long that you can schedule and you can put in because that's how television works and whatever people think about TV dictating sport it sort of has to if you want to grow your game and make money in your game TV has to because that's where the money comes from so you sort of have to take that and if you want test cricket to grow I think you need to bring more people in I think 2020 is really beautifully done I like the way they do you know I like going to see it live I like watching it on television you know the one thing to improve cricket in this country is the weather and there's nothing we're ever going to be able to do about it but

you know, enough of watching things and they get rained off, you know, one in three games getting rained off or going down to Duckworth Lewis, you know, it's not great, but literally there's nothing we can do about it. That's why it's so huge out in India and Pakistan because they can do what they want with it. Yes. Because you know what, it's by and large you're going to get the game played

and you can see the IPL, you know, they kind of... Sure. Yeah. So we're right to keep cutting down to satisfy the demand of less attention span or whatever it may be, rather than trying to encourage people, hang on, actually, you know, it's actually rather more glorious to actually extend things a bit and enjoy the whole full flow of a test match.

You think, cut, cut, cut, and just give them what they want. Honestly, that's my opinion. I know it's not a popular opinion, but it is my opinion. Well, no, but also people don't agree with it. And I think culturally, that's where we go in almost every area. You look at music. I was made to go to the proms the other day for a podcast, and it's kind of fine, and it's all right.

But, you know what, someone's written a three-minute pop song, and that seems to work better for people. Now, if you get into music through pop songs and then suddenly you hear Brahms and you love it, you think, great, that's great. And it's the same with cricket. If you've got kids who can watch any sport they want, by the way, and they can play anything they want on Xbox

or whatever they want to do, if you show them a test match, very, very hard to sort of catch them for them to work out what it is that you love. Because what you love is the fact that you sat around as a child bored out of your mind because we had nothing to do as children because we grew up in the 70s

and there was nothing to do and if you ever bunked off school there was never anything on telly unless there was a test match and if there's a test match you think brilliant I'm do three hours of this and I've pretended to have a headache right that's not going to happen anymore

that world doesn't exist anymore which is you know it's good and bad but it doesn't exist anymore but how do we keep test cricket then whereas well this is what I think if you're a mum or dad and you're sitting watching the 2020 and your child comes into the room

and there's a bit of music and suddenly someone's hitting a six whatever it is you know and they get to know the personalities and they get to know some of the players and they get to see ben stokes and they might go oh like this guy i like ben stoats and he's hitting sixes and then you know you watch a few 2020s watch it and then suddenly this is on and they're like well what's this now and you go oh look you won't like no this is not for you it's five days long you won't like it at all no no no no no no you honestly this is not you don't have the attention span to watch this you go but that's ben stokes yeah yeah but he's not he won't be hitting sixes like he normally does so just leave it and you know what they'll be

looking over your shoulder and you know five minutes later suddenly they're sitting down on the sofa and they're saying oh i'm a reverse psychology i might have a little bit of cup of tea because cricket is cricket cricket is about someone bowling to someone and them trying to hit it as hard as they can yes you know that's all cricket is you know and you have to distill that down for people to see the beauty of it and then they will find out for themselves that you know you can watch this for five days and it adds to your life you know because it's uh it is but you can't, no one grows up like we grew up anymore. That generation has gone.

Yeah. Are you into the stats of cricket? I mean, I can imagine, because you're going, your brain's going a million miles an hour. Yeah. We'll fan out a minute if you are the sort of know-all figure or not. Very much not the know-all in cricket. But the brain's going, isn't it? Yeah.

Are you energized by numbers and stats and records? I'm energized by that. I'm energized by top tens. I'm energized by who the top ten batsmen in the world are and who the top ten boulders in the world are and who the top ten nations. You know, I like a list. You know, that's what I like things being ranked and being ordered. Because otherwise, why are we playing?

You know, I mean, why are England playing the West Indies? You know, I quite like us to be the number one test nation in the world. So let's try and win this 3-0 because it'll help us out there. But otherwise, there's no need to play. You know, there's no reason. We're not going to get relegated if we lose. So, yeah. So context is what you're talking about.

Yeah, exactly. You know, I love looking at the county averages. And then I like looking through the averages and see, how comes he's got, you know, seeing how many knots there are and so what the average actually means. And so, you know, so I love all that. And just because it tells a little story, all those numbers tell stories. And those are the stories I like.

Yeah, exactly. And then seeing, I like seeing if people, oh, who was high up last year and they're low down this year. And why is that? What's going on with them? What's the problem there? Or who was low down and now they're suddenly up here. And, you know, that's what I love. I love the human stories.

And numbers always tell you the human stories because you can't spin the numbers. The numbers behind large don't lie. Right. And do that, well, that is true. And do the numbers stick? I mean, you like Andrew, who sits from my left here, who somehow has got this voracious brain that just hovers up everything.

But what's so annoying, Frank? But what is amazing? It all stays in there. Yeah, I mean, that's incredible. I think it's one of those things. I was thinking, when I was 10, 12, 14, I could tell you everything. Real off everything about cricket, football, snooker,

all the end of every one is one, every tournament, blah, blah, blah. I think when you get older, there's too many of them. You know, I've seen too many test matches now. I couldn't tell he won the cup final last year because it's just thing, because it's always roughly the same. Yes. So over the years, a lot of it drops out.

But names I'm quite good with. I'm good. I like remembering stories and people's names and all that kind of stuff. Right. But, yeah, the numbers, I mean, you just told me how many first-class wickets you took

and that's a number I'll never forget. Well, you won't forget that. Yeah, six, six, six. Even I can remember that. Yeah, that's very good. I know. That impresses you to do it? Yeah, I think that's brilliant.

I can't, honestly. I would have, after 666, I would have just put the ball down and walked off. But, you see, what it seems to be typical of you, and it's a great question, is that you said, how many balls did you bowl after you took your 666? And I mean, I didn't even think of asking myself that question. I don't look it up now. But that's interesting, because you must have known that 666. You also must have known.

I don't think I did. Oh, really? I don't think I did know. But you must have known that I'm about to head off and do something else now. Oh, you know, I was going to finish. You must have thought, when you took that 666th wicket, Chris Adams, I don't have that knowledge you told me nobody sort of howled like make a devil

noise or something but you must have a little bit of you must have thought I wonder if that's the last wicket I'm ever going to take so you must have known what you're going to do next and that I find fascinating I rather wish I had now I think yeah yeah yeah

because it's we just walked off on a cold derby day but isn't that amazing pack my kit up because that's what you've done for however many years you were playing and it's the last time that you did your the thing that you were paid to do for so long and the thing that bought you

everything you've had in your life and that's the last time you did this amazing. I'm terribly shallow, you know. Yeah, yeah, we all are. But I don't think you are, can you just take me to a little depth 30, see, that I should have really thought about at the time. But it's, you know, sometimes it's nice to work up the last time we're ever going to do

the thing that we do, because there was always, there's a last time for everything, isn't there? I suppose, I suppose. It's a terrifying thought. No last time for pointless it, I hope. We are grateful on your show. Oh, you lot were so brilliant. I love it. Whenever we have sports people on, it's so competitive. Very competitive. In such a petty way.

And especially with you, lot, because you all knew each other so well. You were not just sports people, but you were mates. Colleagues and friends and sports people, I know. I absolutely loved it. It was a heady mix. We don't have to do anything. Sometimes you've got to gee people off

and sort of, you know, get amongst people. On that, you're just thinking, there was just a bunch of people here were desperate to knock everybody else out. You know, a lot of people, when Ebony and Blowers got knocked out in the first round, getting 200 points, which is humiliation.

Now, a lot of people, a lot of people who were friends might have a little, you know, might feel a bit bad for them. No, no. Or might put an arm round a shoulder. No, no, no. Literally all six of you, honestly, openly mocking. Just thought it was the best thing that I'd ever happen.

Does it happen very often, 200? It does happen. It does happen, because sometimes if someone gets 100, you try and chase a low score, and, you know, you go out on a limb, which I think, to be fair to Ebony is what she did. So it does happen, but yeah, not a huge amount of time, and certainly not in front of all of your friends. She's laughing at the back go. We've forgotten about it, honestly.

We'll never mention it again, but it was. I just stood up for you, Ebony. You heard that. I know. It's a pleasure. But here are you, that's sort of the colossus in the corner, who's got all the information at his fingertips. I mean, is that really you?

Are you really this person who's absolute, out of all knowledge? Well, it's interesting, because on a quiz show, one of the things is important to have a quiz master. In the same way, you always have ex-pros doing sports commentary, because you know you've been there, and if you say something, you have some authority. And it's important on quizzes, I think, to have someone you think they know the answers.

You know, and obviously I don't know everything, because there's so many different subjects on Pointers, and I'm not great at science, and I'm not great at that kind of dates, you know, kind of 16 seconds. You know what's coming, pushing with, though, do you? Yeah, well, I've just got a bit of paper in front of me. But my general knowledge is quite good. I've got quite a good pub quiz intelligence. I don't have a great, you know, other intelligence. But that, I can do trivia and things like that.

So I know a lot of stuff, and anything I don't know is absolutely is down there for me. Or, you know, I've got an earpiece and people are telling me stuff. But, you know, I think people like to think that you know everything. But if they stop to think about it for one second, I think it would occur to them that is I don't think he can possibly know. So when Xander, Zanda doesn't know any of the questions. And quite often we'll fill in a board of options. And people always say, there's no way he knows all that stuff.

He must be cheating. And I say, well, he does, you know, he does know the stuff. But the thing is, I only ask him if I can see that he wants to be asked. Right. So if there's a board on a subject he knows about. He'll be like a puppy dog. like looking at you, you know, like it's tea time. And I go, oh, Zanda, you can want to fit in the board?

And if it's like World Snooker champions, he'll just be looking away, he'll be looking over somewhere. And I go, oh, maybe I'll just fit in this board with that. So I tend to only ask him if I think he's up for it. But he's very bright as well. It's such a popular show, though, isn't it? And such an obvious, simple format, as these massively successful programmes seem to be.

And you were there from the start of it, weren't it? Well, you know, my day job is to think of TV formats and quizzes and all sorts of stuff and entertainment shows. And it's a really inexact science, it's the truth. And, you know, you really don't know what's going to be successful and what's not. And with pointless, it actually has a format. It's got a really nice hook, which is, you know,

we asked 100 people, you've got to come. You know, that's a nice, that kind of reverse family fortunes thing. In terms of as a format, it's got lots of clunky bits in it, actually, you know, we're never foreigners because we sell lots of shows abroad. And they watch it, and they go, what on earth are people watching here? Because I think it's so British

because it has such goodwill towards its contestants and it's so sort of it's, you know, it's very idiosyncratic in its own ways and you know you show it to the Italians

or the French and they're just going what it what's everyone laughing at and so it's very inexact and it's not something you would have put money on but especially a daytime audience

who are the most discerning of all when they take to a show they really take to it and you know so point there's the chase there's lots of other bargain hunt on appointment of you

are people they set their days by yeah exactly and it's becomes part of people's routine in the same way that a test summer becomes part of people's routine you know having TMS on is that thing of just going this is the thing that I love to do and we're very very very lucky that that one caught you know it's weird for me because I've never presented anything I've never dreamt of presenting anything and I accidentally got into this and that the one I presented became long running was was was serendipity I would say right well and it's led to I mean I've got to ask you about this

and the the women's weirdest crush I mean There are some strange things out there, aren't they, that people vote on somehow? Yes, yes. How did you feel about being voted as the weirdest crush? Well, is that a little... Heats magazine. You know what, it's fine? Look, you can't say weirdest crush without saying crush, I guess.

So it's fine. I'm deeply comfortable with it, I have to say. Is it flattering? Is it... Listen, it doesn't affect my sense of self, which has been built up over many years. What's your kids think? I have... They're appalled by it.

I mean, goodness, me, can you imagine? I mean, my kids are teenagers are the worst thing you could ever possibly hear. I mean, it's just sickening. It's bad enough, I'm on television without this. I was surprisingly voted on a radio four women's hour thing, thinking women's crumpet.

That's not surprising. Well, I was surprised. Not least because I didn't know anything about it, and we were on holiday. And my wife is lying on a sunbed or something and his harumphs came out. I said, what's up, dear? She passed with this newspaper.

And there was a headline saying, Jonathan Agney was thinking women's crumpet. This is bizarre. Honestly, I didn't know anything about her at all. I was quite pleased, actually. Well, no kidding. I mean, she wasn't. But anyway, we really...

That would say she's made a good lifestyle. No, no. We went home and sort of tried to open the front door of the house. It was like a mountain of press releases and requests to do this and that. This is fantastic. And I was about to phone Peter Baxter up and say, I'm really sorry, but test match, special, frankly, forget it. Something rather big has come up. I'm going to do a calendar.

Well, exactly. Exactly. And then I saw the list, and there I was at the top. Richard Gere As case you love Richard Gere was fourth Really? Yeah

Imran Khan I think was ninth Nelson Mandela was in there somewhere It's only when I saw Henry Winkler Fonzie Oh you beat the Fond He was at the bottom

No way That I realised what had happened And it was one of the most shattering moments of my life that some fool had simply put it out in alphabetical order Oh no

And I wasn't thinking Women's Crumpet at all Oh That is a shattering Shattering realisation You're in the top ten Well I think it was Top 50.

It was essentially a list of British men in alphabetical order. Yeah, it was. It was. It was most disappointing, but these things happened. But they're weird, but you kind of get over the weird side of it. No, that's fine. You know, because it's Heat Magazine. And Heat Magazine, you have to be Ryan Reynolds.

You have to be 23 and have torso of the week. And I accept that I'm 46 and I don't have torso of the week. So if I'm going to be any sort of crush for that audience, it's going to have to be a weird one. So, yeah, I will happily take that. You know, Women's Hour have not been calling. I'm not sure if they still do their thinking women's crump it. It doesn't seem very women's out anymore, does it?

No, I think it's changed now. Times have changed in so many different ways, aren't they? It was quite a long time. We're moved in all sorts of sort of corkscrewish directions, aren't we, by our culture? We are. But you seem quite a reluctant... I mean, you must be recognised everywhere. When you're in Norma, you're ridiculously tall.

Yeah. Curtley, Ambrose style. Well, they're taller than Kurtley. Well, we just had a little head-to-head, didn't we? It was quite impressive. He's taller than Kurtley. He's clearly in the 6-7 club. Yeah, he is.

So you also think it recognised a lot. But is it something that you, when do you enjoy that? And given that you, say, you started behind the other side of the camera and creating these things and suddenly you created yourself in a huge... Yes, I know, it is, it is, I will give you that, it is bizarre. I don't mind it. And, you know, I didn't get on camera until I was 40 odd, you know, and, you know, you sort of know yourself by the age of 40.

And I'd worked with celebrities all my life. And I saw some people who took to it very badly. Some people who took to it very well, and they heard different techniques. So I think I was fairly well. armed. If I take my glasses off then I am sort of unrecognisable or much less recognisable. Because there's such obvious glasses. I can't see anything I can't see anything with them on but with them off I really

really can't. So I was just up in Edinburgh last week for the festival with the kids and so we go there for a week and go see loads of comedy and Edinburgh Festival because it's just for the students and so you can't walk anyway. It's just crazy but take glasses off, baseball cap and with my two kids, one of them leading me by the wrist just so I don't bump into anything and I don't get hit by anything. You know, you can get through the traffic. So there's, you know, there are ways and means of doing it. It's like if you're ever out with Sarah Milliken or Alan Carr, they take the glasses off and you're completely anonymous. And I sort of,

the height is still difficult and some people do recognize me without the glasses on. But if you recognize me without glasses on, you deserve a photo. That's fine. Honestly, that's like where's Wally? You can, honestly, you can have it. But yeah, if I take them off, It's a lot easier. And obviously, you know, there are certain places like when I go down to see, I'm a season ticket holder and where I live, everyone knows you, so you don't, you know, you just get normal, just people in the village saying hi to each other

and, you know, I don't mind that. But, yeah, there are certain places where you think, oh, I might just slip the glasses off today. Birmingham New Street today. There's a lot of people get off the train. I thought, I might just slip the glasses into the pocket here and hope I can somehow find my way up. You can find your way out of the station.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Talk me through child genius. It's not a program I've seen yet. but um well i obviously have because i've been catching up i mean there's some controversy there isn't there and again where you are looking to push tv into sort of an edgy area perhaps um see i mean i don't think it i mean child genius if you haven't said it's essentially a competition to find the cleverest nine to 12 year old in the country and menser involved and all this kind of stuff so it's something they they do anyway and it's televised um and well in terms of

controversy people say well should should kids be competitive isn't not too much pressure my honest opinion having grown up in the 70s is there's not enough pressure and competition with kids and if kids are putting themselves forward for it I think that's a positive thing If the kids putting them forward or the parents pushing them forward

There are some parents putting themselves forward But like in cricket You know what You can make your kid practice cricket But if they don't want to do it It's not going to happen You know and you know if you're training Tiger Woods up Tiger Woods needs to want to play golf

If you're training the Williams sisters They need to want to be on that court At 6 in the morning otherwise it's not going to work And the same you know the same with cricket And I think the same with these kids, you know, there are very competitive parents, there are very competitive kids. You've grown

up, your whole career's been around competitive people, as has mine. I think it doesn't affect me, it doesn't worry me at all. And, you know, there are occasionally tears on the show, because it is stressful. But, you know, I see an hour later, you know, smiling and laughing and playing with their friends and stuff like that. You think, I think it's quite valuable sometimes to go through some competition. It's valuable to lose

sometimes as well. Correct, and to lose well. To lose well, exactly. With dignity and with respect. But also to win well too with the same the same values and that's what I always say to them I think the whole thing is an opportunity to to learn lessons and sometimes you do get kids who haven't done brilliantly but you can see the effort they put and you just say at the end of it you know what that was so brave that was fantastic well done mate and it's you know it's a lesson learned and these kids also they find their tribe when they turn up you see it they're all the kids at school and

you know you can see they feel slightly other to the other kids because because they are super bright and suddenly there with all these kids who are also bright and it's lovely to see them looking after each other and hanging out with each other and you know you see kids after the kind of week of competition leaving looking completely different you know shoulders not stumped anymore head held high bigger smile you know you see it and and you see a lot of the parents who are saying this is what I wanted for my child I wanted to give them this confidence I wanted to show them a there were other kids out there and be that they can put themselves through something yes so do you take complaints seriously yeah yeah we're well in a very complaining society there's very easy to complain these

days, let's face it. Remarkably, and knock out complaints and demands for apologies and so on. Exactly right. There's Twitter I wouldn't look at. There's no point because, you know, there's someone will, it doesn't matter what you do in the world. You know, someone will say something, so you have to ignore it. However, you know, if smart people come up to me and talk to me or you hear from organizations and they say, oh, I'm not sure about this, I'm not sure about that. I'd always take it seriously. You know, I've made telly all my life and in TV programs, you have a duty of care to people. And this program had been on for two years before I did it. Right. And I'd seen it and I liked it and I liked it for various reasons and I knew what people would say and I knew people would say, oh, but some of the parents are too pushy and the kids are too stressed. And my view is neither of those things are correct. You know, and I hold those views very, very strongly and I will defend them to the hilt and having done it for two years and chatted to the kids and chatted to the parents, I still hold them. I hold them even more firmly than I have done before. And so I was very comfortable doing it. But it's only because I'd seen it and I thought, no, you know what? I could see why your first first impression might be that, but I think there's something more interesting going on. It's a really good show. But is it all very carefully monitored?

I mean, the whole question, I mean, it really is. Yeah, there's psychologists there the whole time. There's, you know, you don't record very long. You know, there's all sorts of breaks and all this kind of stuff. And, you know, I always make sure I go, I hang out with the kids in the morning and just chatting them through. I tell them what I think is going to happen. I tell them, look, 19 of you are not going to win this, by the way. But what you can do is come out of it, feeling better about yourself than you came in.

And, you know, and I always tell them at the very end. end, I say, look, you're born with something, which is this intelligence, right? And that can sometimes make you feel very different and people can pick on you for it. But actually, it's a real gift, right? And the one thing you've got to do with your intelligence is use it, A, to make the world a better place, and B, to make yourself happier. Those are the two things you can do with that intelligence. And that's the message that, you know, I just want to talk to them and say, those are the things that you can do with what you've been given. You know, if you've got a group of young cricketers, nine and 12, you know there are life lessons you can teach them via

competition and via getting out. And that means success and failure. Yeah, exactly. You know, you drop a catch. You know what's probably one of the best lessons you're going to learn. Absolutely. Horrible feeling. Horrible feeling.

Where is it all going to end television? I mean, where can it still go, do you think? These sort of shows that you are involved in and creating. Well, it's interesting. You know, five years ago, though, it was the death of television and all that kind of stuff because of Netflix and this are there. And listen, I'm a business person, it's the truth. And Endemort is with the company that I'm the creative director of.

You know, we're a multi-billion-pound business. So that's my job, is to be a business person and to build revenues and stuff. And actually, there's never been a better time to be in telly. Because all these services, you know, Netflix, Amazon Prime, television becomes all of these things. And people say, kids don't watch telly anymore. And they spend more time on their screen than any generation has ever spent. I mean, so much more time. And everyone is making the content they're looking at it.

Whether it's YouTube, whether it's a game, whether it's a television program, whether it's scheduled in the way that we would watch telly, They are watching their screens more than any generation has ever done before. I wasn't had a fascinating insight into the world of telly, and my own appearance on Pointless lives long in the memory. If you enjoyed that, how about something very different from 2005, when Hugh Grant join me at Tea on the final day of the ashes. We were all rather nervous.

Yeah, I'm suffering, I think, more than anyone in the wild crowd. I can barely speak. It's hell. I was just saying, yeah, you spend all this money on tickets, and in fact, then put yourself through two days of unmitigated misery. Yeah, how do you feel at the moment? Well, one tiny milly fraction, less frightened than I was 10 minutes ago, but it looks like an awful lot of overs. Apparently you can go on until it's dark.

Oh, we can, yes, we'll keep plugging away. Was there a moment I felt when Peterson got its hundred, that there just seemed to be a little bit of a release of that pressure, almost like just taking a bit of the top of the steam cook and just a little bit. Yeah, I think there was a lot of very frightened and semi-drunk people who needed to let off some steam there. And I know I was one of them, and it was very, it was amazing. It was amazing.

I, you know, I worship him now. In fact, I'm now going to dye my hair. I'm going to eat in. That'd be interesting. If I can get any more die-in, actually. Yeah. I mean, he had some luck. Let's be honest.

Dropped a couple of times, I suppose you needed. I know, weird. And who should drop him, but Shane Warren, amazing. Amazing. And even I could have taken that, and I am the world's worst cricketer. So you obviously do go back in farewell with cricket, then, you? Yeah, well, I've. I was a big watcher, originally because of smoking.

I used to go with my friend Simon Berger to Lords and watch Middlesex play, mainly so he could smoke Ken Caesars. Oh, right. So quietly without anyone seeing? Well, especially at a county game in the early 70s, I think there was about 400 people in the ground, the whole of Lords. And that's when my worst ever cricketing experience happened because, you know, little boys used to jump over the little fence

and throw the ball back to the field. And the ball finally came to me and Simon. And I jumped over, very excited, got the ball ready to throw it back to John Snow, I think it was. And the release mechanism in my hand failed, because I was so excited. And I threw the ball underarm back over my head and into the upper tier of the stand, which was actually closed off for the day. Oh, that's not good. It was such a small crass.

And the ball had to be retrieved by stewards and the derisive cheers from all round lords. Well, the full interview with Hugh, as well as many more is available via BBC Sounds. All you have to do is to hit the subscribe button. Classic View from the Boundary with the Test Match Special Team. Alan Shear and Ian Ryder in my kitchen. What's going on here? The all-new Match of the Day Top Ten podcast, answering a huge football question every week.

This has not been easy, hasn't it? Like the Top Ten Premier League strikers. Personally, I think it's really hard to have Shearer anywhere near the top ten. The Match of the Day Top Ten podcast. Only available on BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts