Test Match Special - View from the Boundary - Chris Addison

Episode Date: September 4, 2021

Comedian, actor, writer and director Chris Addison takes a “View from the Boundary” with Jonathan Agnew at the Oval. Addison discusses watching the 2005 Ashes climax at the Oval, his admiration for England opener Tammy Beaumont and what it was like playing Ollie Reeder in “The Thick of It”.

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Today we welcome someone who's enjoyed huge success as a comedian, as an actor, a writer and a director, as a comedian. He'll have seen him on programs like Mock the Week. As an actor, you'll recognise him as Ollie Reader in the political satire, The Thick of It. And he was also in the spin-off film In The Loop. He created, or co-created at least,

the BBC sitcom Labrats and the parental comedy breeders. And he's now an award-winning director, working on HBO, the sitcom Veep, films like The Hust. and hallelujah and of course it's Chris Addison and it's lovely to have you here Chris I can't tell you what an honour it is to be it's a genuine career highlight

That's lovely and I'm despite I'm afraid it is a bit sealed off you're in a sort of a little Perspex cage in there I'm sorry about that It's fine, it's fine I understand the protocols I'm happy to jump through any hoops to sit here with you And look at this glorious place Well that's nice and I mean Ignore what's to our sides

And is this more or less what you expected to see of a test match special box the times that you've sat and listened and thought and, you know, put yourself into this place? Yes, I think so, because whenever we see little video clips of you of you guys, we're looking sort of backwards into the box, I suppose. But yes, this is the most glorious view I've ever had at a test ground. It's quite a job. Do they pay you as well, or do you just... Well, occasionally, I mean, obviously it's the BBC and times are tight.

Yeah, yeah. But no, they do. And I mean, yes, of course, you have to pitch yourself, don't you? Because wherever we go to commentate on cricket, or most places, there we go, you end up with more or less a view like this. Because actually, it'd be quite tricky to do it without a view like this because you've got to try and see everything. Yes.

How much are you using what's in front of your face and how much are you using sort of ancillary screens? That's a good question. Okay, so you always, and even we're doing television as well, you always look out, say commentate live. Yeah. And then, yeah, we've got a couple of screens. There's a screen to your left where we'd get replays and stuff.

We get a screen in front of us here if the producer gets across and tells us something to shut up or something or emails, whatever. That comes up on there, but no, generally... You're looking out. Yeah, because you want to talk about what's going on all around, don't you? So is this your sort of home ground, then? Yeah, very much so. The Oval is the place where I've come most to watch Test Cricket and any sort of cricket, actually,

which is peculiar for somebody who grew up in Manchester. But, in fact, I've never been to Old Trafford, shamefully. But, yeah, the Oval, I've been coming here for many years with Zaltzman amongst other people. Oh, yes, I saw a note that you've worked with Andy's ultimate, haven't you? Andy and I worked, when did we first work together? 20 years ago? I think it's 20 years ago. In fact, I was thinking the other day that we would have had the conversation about making our radio show about 20 years ago this month.

Because it was when we came back from the Edinburgh Festival doing separate shows at the Edinburgh Festival in 2001. And we were backstage at some awful gig, some awful student gig somewhere. I feel it was Kingston University. and we were talking about doing something political and we ended up doing a radio show Andy and John Oliver and I ended up doing three series of a radio show on Radio 4 political show so yeah that's 20 years ago I think

did you talk obsessively about cricket then statistics obviously yeah I can remember so we used to meet at Andy's house and to write in the kitchen and I can remember amongst many distractions that we had over the time I can remember buying

Andy a wisdom a wisdom cricket quiz book for your birthday and we got no work done what I discovered on that particular day was you were very good on Australia almost impossible like he knew everything about any game

that England had played against Australia pretty good on India everything else was shaky oh I'll remember that but he knew everything we'll try and try and catch him out because actually didn't you come here and watch cricket

with him. Yes, well, we, we, I mean, we've, I've got many memories of, of being here with, with Andy. I remember being here for Alex Stewart's last test, weren't we, on that, on that Monday. I remember being not that far from where we're sitting now, I could just, just down to, down to our right, watching South Africa the day before that, I think, and, and Andy getting increasingly furious, because we were right next to the Barmen Army, and they were getting louder and louder, and he doesn't like that, because this should be here to watch the cricket. But he and I and my friend Anshman, who is here today as well, sitting over there by the player's balcony, we planned. We joined Surrey and planned to be here for the final test of the 2005.

Oh, wow. So we came to all five days of the 2005 final test. We lived it. We lived that. And I think of that test often in terms of just every session. up and down, wasn't it? Every single session of that test. It was remarkable. And I think of that often. So we

came to all five days. We had guests join us, didn't we? Every now and then, my wife is here as well she came and, but the three of us came to all five days. It was like an 18 months. We were all over the place. We were sort of, mostly we were over by the, what

is now the new stand? Yes. Over there. We were sort of around that, around that kind of area. I do remember, taking his son hat off and the Australian fan singing, does Paul Simon know you'll hear? No.

Yeah. Yeah. You do get a bit of banter, don't you? That last day, it was a day that no one here will ever forget. Oh, it's a market. We were sitting here, obviously. So, again, we've got some amazing view behind where you'd have been, and everyone hanging out of the windows

and clinging to chimney pots and stacks and hanging out of the school. all the way around. Do you remember all that? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I remember all of that. I've got very clear memories of, I've got very clear memories of Peterson going in, I think, the second innings because it was, I was listening, you'll have to forgive me. I was listening to Richie Benno

because it was his last, that's fair enough. It was his last commentary in this country. And the moment that he was swapping over, I think, for the final time, was Peterson's wicket. So that's really drilled into my head. I remember an awful lot of, I remember the ashes being dropped, the shelling of the catch and all of that. Yeah, the drop catch.

Ironically Shane worn. Yeah, ironically Shane worn. You've dropped the ashes, mate. Yeah. All of that, it was a remarkable test match because it was everything that people who don't like cricket, all of the sort of clichés about cricket being boring,

things not happening, you know, low rum. It was all the opposite of that. The whole series was. the whole series yeah yeah we rewatch oddly enough i think possibly maybe i was subconsciously doing it in preparation for coming in here but i am we we rewatched a highlights program the other day of the of the of the of that series and i'd sort of forgotten how i can remember actually being i remember that edge baston test and i were were in edinburgh at the fringe doing our doing our shows and i can remember being in my in my flat on my knees on the on the carpet and just right in front

of the television, begging, begging them to take the wicket. That's one of my key memories of that. And I also remember we were doing the thick of it at that time. Right. And we were, it was just at the beginning of the thick of it, actually. It was the first year that we did it. And the way that we did that show, we sort of filmed three episodes in January because the reason we did three episodes was Armando Unitschie, who made the show,

had been given enough money for a pilot episode. And he went, I can't show you what. you need to see in half an hour so he sort of begged and borrowed and stole what he could and stretched it all out to make three episodes and then they did okay so they they asked us back so the next time we went back it was i remember going to the rehearsal rooms which were in north acton there's these in these quite famous rehearsal rooms um which all you know doctor who in the old days used to rehearse that everything every BBC drama you ever saw used to rehearse at these room rehearsal rooms gone now but i remember going there and um james smith who played glenn and

chris langham who played hugh were massive cricket fans everybody else couldn't give you know rats they just couldn't but i can remember being going there the morning of that first lord's test where it felt like we were in control do you remember yeah i do felt like we were totally in control it felt like a completely different thing like we've been rebuilding for the last couple of years and everything from that sort of south africa series in 2003 that andy and i came to all of that onwards have felt like a rebuilding of the team. And I remember going into the rehearsal room going, this is it, this is it.

And then coming out and checking my phone and going, this is not it. This is not it. Well, somebody in the background must like TMS on the thick of it, because my commentary with Jim Maxwell from Australia was used as a sound backdrop, was it Julius sitting thoughtfully in his whatever committee room he was in or something. And there had,

Jim and I have a commentary. in the background. So I thought, yeah, it's not often to get on on something like that. And it was a nice thoughtful piece of commentary. I don't think anything that's happening particularly, but it's just there as that sort of back soundtrack. I love that that sort of, that slightly,

because Julius, as a figure in the thick of it, is a somewhat, he's a bit esoteric, isn't he? He's a thinker and all of those kinds of things. And I love that through the night, through a panicky night, he was listening to TestS special. All as well with the world. Did you play? Because you, because you went to Manchester Grammar,

which is a serious. there was a couple of serious players come from there Abbotton came from there and Crawley Crawley yeah I haven't seen the name Addison necessarily what happened you won't have done I was and this is this sounds like it's a lie I promise you it isn't

I was not allowed to play cricket because I was so well yeah so here's what happened when I was in my first two terms at my Instagrammer I you know we played football and rugby or what you know those were the games that were being played I didn't play them I didn't play them at all well because

I'm extremely bad at all sport and also a coward and so these contact sports rugby particularly terrified me, didn't play it very well and when it came to the summer term what they did was they took so it's a boys school and they took every class was about 30

boys or so which is enough for what that's enough for two teams plus eight unfortunate children yours the last to be picked that's right so what they did was they they sort of picked 22 boys out of each of those classes as I recall but instead of sort of agglomerating the eight pathetic remainders

and forming other cricket teams out of them they gave us a special game to play because we weren't to be trusted with cricket they made up a game for us to play so it was so it was what sort of a game no it's called puddocks it was called puddocks

and it was and it was it was sort of based on a on a cricket pitch sounds like a Harry Potter game was up to doesn't it though doesn't it doesn't it I believe It's spelt Podex, which Zaltzman's gone, but he's a classicist, so he'll know. I believe it's a rude Latin word. And this sounds so horrific, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does. I mean, and it was played on a pitch that was slightly shorter than a cricket pitch, and with a sort of the kind of ball that wasn't going to hurt anybody. And I remember it being played in the fields over the road. You know, we were not allowed near the school. We had to go in the playing fields. Like I always felt like they were basically hoping that one or two of us would be taken by cars, you know, like natural selection

in action. It was wildly humiliating, isn't it? It was wildly humiliating, made much worse by the fact that those particular playing fields were shared with the girls' school over the road. So the only specimens of manhood this poor women, young women saw as they developed was these sort of wheezing, knock, knee, pigeon, chest, you know, kids with a patch over their eye. All of us, you know, playing puddocks, it was genuinely pathetic. So, I was never allowed to play cricket.

Do they still play it, though? Are they still going on? Do you know what? I must find out. I'm still in contact with my old teacher, Richard Kelly, there, so I will ask him if it still exists. But yeah, it was wildly humiliating. But you all the time were desperate to just wanted to play cricket.

Well, I'd love to play cricket. And I can remember then my friend Bob, who was a big cricketer, saying, well, look, I'll just take this bat. And I'll just, I'll pull a couple of balls at you. And I was thinking, fine, this will be fine. I had no concept of how hard or how fast that ball would be. And I think he bowled a couple of balls at me, and I thought, I might have missed my opportunity to get.

I think maybe products is the way to go. Maybe that's the way for me. So how did the love then develop if you didn't play it? I mean, you were into the game by then, were you watching it? Yeah, I think. Supporting Lancashire, maybe? Supporting Lancashire, yeah. Right, they were mighty as well, were they?

Were they? Oh, yes. I suspect probably a different generation. of cricket than yours. So what year are we talking? What sort of time? I suppose this would be the kind of early 80s and so on. But my real love of it developed later on when I was a bit older

when I was, I suppose, sort of university age. So my friend, my friend, Anshman, who we, as I say, here today and Andy and I came to the test with, the very first time I met him, I wasn't at university with him, but I knew him through a friend of mine at university, my best man. and the first time I ever met him he came to our house in Birmingham where I was studying and I opened the door and he said

where's your radio because it was the middle of a test match where's your radio not hello I'm Anshman or anything like where's your radio and he went off to tune into it and it was that sort of I think it was around

it was the early 90s it wasn't that extraordinary Dominic Cork innings or anything to be just before that. But I think around that time, sort of starting to get to know him and our friends who we come to the cricket regularly with,

that's when it started to kind of... Right, when the light went on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Late developer. A late developer, yeah. Isn't that fascinating, though? Because there's been so much... We did it yesterday, talking about,

you know, getting people into cricket, so much going on, you know, with numbers declining and participating and so on, that actually here's you. And it only took, just listening to the radio, really. It didn't take some huge incentive, multi-million pound thing to get you doing. It was just listening to it and getting into it.

Yeah, and also, of course, at that time, you could watch it as well in a way. And that, and this is a, it's a cliche now, isn't it? We all know it, that the fact that it has disappeared from free to view TV is a big part of the decline in the audience ship. But however, hasn't it been a fantastic summer to have, so much on the BBC just on the on the on the TV it has made a difference people things like the hundred did you've been to a hundred game though yeah yeah so we came to a

hundred game with the with family uh we went to lords and watched uh the two london uh games the one that was um two london teams the one that was uh rained off the men's rained off but that's fine we were mainly there for the women and uh which which we did see um yeah and it was great and there were lots of kids and stuff i do wonder you know when everyone was going it's great there's loads of kids coming. I did find myself going, are these kids who would not otherwise have been coming? Because whenever they were interviewed on the TV,

they're going, yeah, yeah, you know, I play for a local club. Okay, so you're already coming into this game. It's been tempting when they've shown pictures of little kids here at the test matches to go on and say, yeah, kids do come to test matches as well. Yeah, they do, yeah. Because it is there.

But it has been clearly focused very much on trying to get new people to come. And actually, you said you went for the women's game, We did, yeah. Yeah. Right. So you've really taken to the women's game? Well, yeah.

I mean, we've been watching, like, as a family, we've been kind of going to see the Southern Vipers for a few years. My father-in-law also here today is a Hampshire man. And, in fact, he had trials for Hampshire. And he, you know, he sort of started to take us, take the kids down to watch that. And we go to the now Egeus Bowl and watch, you know, there'd be 30 other people.

people in there. So it's been thrilling actually during the 100 to see big, big crowds for the women's game. I do hope that next year with the 100, which I still have very mixed feelings about, but I do hope that they, I know they're talking about keeping the doubleheaders. I hope they flip, they flip a few of them at least, you know, so that the men are playing at 3 o'clock and the women are playing, you know, after work when people can come and see it. Wouldn't that be interesting? Yeah, I think it would be worth a go. Yeah. What is it about the women game then that clearly attracts you to it? Well, I mean

I really like... One of the things I love about the women's game is the pure joy of it. Like there's no cricketer I'd rather watch than Tammy Beaumont. Right. Because... Well, she can play. She can absolutely play. But you're watching somebody who is

as thrilled as they could possibly be with their life. And when she's at the crease, there's clearly nowhere that she'd rather be in the world. They're having the best time. and I don't I think you do often get that in the men's game but not not sort of to the same to the same degree and I think there's a kind of there's a passion behind the women's game that it's not that it's missing from the men's but it's just so evident and I think that's

wonderful I've always liked one of the things I've always liked about women's sport when I sort of thought about this first really not that long ago when when when the when London hosted the Olympics and on the BBC Red Button you could see everything that you wanted to see that when you were watch if you compared you watched men's volleyball and then you watched women's volleyball you were watching when you're watching the women's game

you were watching a much more elegant thoughtful skill based it seemed from an outsider's point of view version of the game because the men's has so much sort of power and shoving about it whereas the women's because they are less physically powerful there's more in the way of

you know thoughtful skill Yeah, yeah, finesse, exactly. I'm not like that with tennis, actually. Right. Much I'll sit down and watch a women's tennis match than the men. Because men's, bang, so, bang, so. But I just think a classy women's guy, she's got much more interest to it for me. Absolutely.

But isn't it interesting that that's why Federer is such a popular player? Because he's not that kind of, he's not from that era of Sanpress and Agassian, that just kind of ace, ace, ace thing. It's somebody who's, oh, great, he's going to go to the net. We're going to see something. Yeah, he's a craftsman. Chris Addison's our guest here at lunch on the third day of this test. The floodlights are so long, which is disappointing.

But the player will be getting underway here in about 10, 15 minutes or so from now. 108 for 1 is the score. So just that one bucket taken by England this morning. It was Rahul who was caught behind. A bit of controversy about it, but it's caught behind after he and Sharma had at his 60 as open. So he was out for 46. So the situation is that India is just in the lead by 9. runs. So taking our view from the boundary,

lots of cricket talk, but come on, the thick of it. I've just got to, I've just got to talk to you about. Okay. It's an extraordinary programme. As I said on here yesterday, there was a former Prime Minister here yesterday, tucked away up there under a baseball cap. And I said, you were coming on, actually.

And I said, come on, how accurate is the thick of it to political life and how much it's clearly complete parody? And he said, these days, it's a documentary. So that was a great line from someone perhaps looking a little cynically now

at politics is now out of it but I mean gosh if that really is a documentary what politics is like now we're all in trouble I wonder if it is I think it's less a documentary

and more a kind of sort of picture of a rosier happier form of time because the level of happier it's all relative the level of of competence in

government now just seemed to have sort of dropped since the days of the thick of it. There was, I mean, you know, when we were making that show, constantly people would be getting in touch with Armando and saying, how did you know? You know, we would make stuff up and then it would happen or we'd be told it had happened. You know, I can remember, for example,

there's a scene, in the very, very first episode, there's a scene where my character, Olly and Hugh and Glenn, in the back of a ministerial limo, they're on their way to an announcement. They have to announce something, but they've just been told by Malcolm Tucker that they can't announce what they want to do. I'll just watch that again another night.

Right, okay. And they're desperately trying to think of something. And we've sort of improvised these ideas in the back of the car. And I said, what about a national spare room database? That happened. That happened.

After, you know, a few years later, that happened. And James says, what if everybody in the country had to carry a plastic bag? Well, no, you fundamentally do have to, do that. Like, these things have all sort of happened. And, and, but I can remember one government minister from the, the sort of the new Labour government, which was still in, when we were first making the show, contacting Armando and saying, I've been in the back of that car. I've been there. You've been there and lived that moment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the extraordinary

thing about it. I mean, just, but sort of the anger in it is when I've sat there and watched. I thought, how do you get yourselves? How does Malcolm Tucker, I've never met obviously he's probably a very nice quiet chap is wonderful man how does he transform himself with this raging monster and the language

and you stand there and you take it but you all seem to be angry at times do you literally have to sort of count yourself into just going from normal people into these well I don't know you're sort of raging in some cases surprisingly there's little in the way of working

up I can remember very clearly one time with Peter Capald who played Malcolm Tucker, who is an amazing, lovely human being to whom I owe a great deal, actually. But I was walking, we'd finished lunch, we'd been on the dining bus, we'd had a lovely lunch, and we'd spent it sort of chatting, and we were going back up to start filming a scene in which Malcolm comes across Olly in a toilet and sort of threatens him to make him do something. And I can remember, we walked up these stairs, we carried on chatting, the sound people came along and checked our mics. We carried on chatting.

The makeup came along and just touched up our makeup and we just carried on chatting. And somebody went action and he screamed in my face. And I was so shocked because on a six-pence, he turned from lovely Peter, my friend, into appalling Malcolm...

And he said some dreadful things, not just to you, but just people generally, I mean, some of the lines he was given to say to people. Well, you had to have quite a thick skin because it became very personal, very quickly. I must have done. Yeah, I can remember but we had a table read, which is before you shoot an episode of something,

often enough, as a cast and with the producer and director and writers, you'll sit around and read the script out loud as though it was sort of a radio play to just get a sense. Because it's the only time that it'll ever be performed as a piece, you know, so that they can get a sense of what they might want to rewrite. Anyway, we were doing one of those with David Haig, who was getting very brilliant, brilliant actor, writer, wonderful man. who came along and played a character in, I think, the third season.

And it was full, it was the first time he'd met any of us, it was full of little insults about him, calling him a Lego Man, and, you know, he's got a porn star mustache and all of these sorts of things. And I remember, we got to the end of the episode, and Amanda said, yes, we should probably have warned you about that. It just became, it was so brutal for everybody. Yeah.

And still, you know, to this day on Twitter, I would think every three days or so I get somebody quoting a Malcolm Tucker insult at me. And was the Alistair Campbell? I mean, were you putting names to the characters? Well, the way that Armando always talked about it, and I think this is a good way, is that he was saying,

Tucker really represented the culture of that time and of those people, of the Mandelson's and the Campbells and so on. Peter Capaldi himself, in terms of how he put that character together, always says that he said well I've never met Alastair Campbell so I don't know

he said I am I said for me I just based him on Hollywood agents that I know which I thought makes sense

yeah yeah yeah yeah and it does live on though doesn't it I mean it's not one that you know drift off into its own little time warp

I mean it does anyone who hasn't seen it yeah it is it is pretty special I tried to find VEEP today you better talk about that because I was

got a bit confused where I could watch it okay I think you can get it on sky in this country rather than I think, if you have Sky. So that's a sort of an American,

an American-eyed version. Yeah. So after we made, as you mentioned at the beginning, we made a film from the, the Thick of it team made a film called In the Loop that sort of had American... I should watch that.

You'll enjoy it. If you like the Thick of it, you'll like in the loop. And it's got, you know, and it's about, it's sort of about, it's like the Iraq war. It's like the decision to go to war in Iraq.

It's sort of satirizing that. And it has American, fabulous American. American cast, including the wonderful late James Gandalfini, Mimi Kennedy, all sorts of wonderful people, David Rashi. And after that... Is Tucker in it, by the way? Tucker is in it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tucker's in it.

And HBO in the States were interested in making a political show at the time. And I think that sort of brought Armanded to their attention a little bit. The think of it was already out in the States and had been doing okay sort of amongst people who know kind of thing. So eventually, so with HBO, he made a show based in Washington politics in the office of the vice president, Selina Meyer, played by the wonderful Julia Louis Dreyfus,

who is such a huge star from Seinfeld and so on. But basically, it's the same writing team. It's all Brits writing it. And to begin with it, it was all Brits kind of directing. For an American audience? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there was a lot of, there was an awful lot of, I would say, you know, we would put things in scripts and they would go,

we would never say that. Quite often I ended up with a sort of shorthand with Julia, because I directed quite a lot of it, where she would go, she'd put in a thing in the script and go, this is a bit too, and I go, you want it a bit more? Yeah, that's it. Do they ever say we would never laugh at that? Because I'm not very good at American humour, if I'm honest with it.

I can't quite make the change, but do they find our humour funny? Yeah, I think they do. I mean, you know, they're all big, they're all big Python fans and they love, like the office was huge over there. There are always things that hit quite big. I think in the last couple of years, Fleabag has been a big thing over there. So, yeah, they definitely do. They definitely do. And I think, but, you know, fundamentally, the comedy of Thick of It and the Comedy of Veep is about incompetent people under pressure.

And that's a fairly universal thing. And is very similar, actually, to The Thick of it, then. It sort of is. I mean, I think of it as it's a merit. cousin. It's in the world of politics. It's about, it's the same kind of scramble to do damage limitation. But I think the difference is that with the, with VEP, is the difference between Thick of it and Veep is the difference between Westminster politics and Washington politics, which is that the latter is bigger, slicker, there's more money. And we sort of had to represent

that. If you look at, if you look at the thick of it, it's all, you know, the grotty, rat runs of British political power, you know, whereas the thick of it is all the big gleaming marble corridors of, of Veep, sorry, it's a big gleaming marble corridors of, of DC, you know. Where are we with comedy at the moment? I mean, the world sort of, it doesn't feel a very funny place at the moment, does it? So, I mean, are you still doing stand-up and things as you're moved on from there? But if you, if, are you doing it?

Well, I don't, I haven't done stand-up for a while, weirdly enough, I guess, since you ask. Zaltzman and I are doing a thing together on Tuesday. Yeah, we are, yeah. I didn't know that. And he's much beloved long-running satirical podcast, The Bugle. We're doing a live version of that, and I'm guessing on that. So I do little things like that. Is it hard to be funny at the moment?

I mean, is it challenging to make people laugh at the moment? And is anything about what's happening in a moment ever going to be considered to be funny, do you think? I think with time, most things, and you end up finding a funny angle to most things with time. But I think that what comedy people, what comedy is attractive to people changes depending on how things are. So in the boom years, people quite like cynical, you know, quite bleak comedy. In difficult times like this, people much prefer something warm and fun. and less challenging and so on. And I think there's, it just, it's peaks and troughs.

It just, it's a cycle really. Yes. And does it take to one person to kick it off, if you like, this whole thing as being a subject that's okay to, to tackle? Well, do you know, it's interesting because I noticed a trailer on the TV the other day for a drama about it. And I was thinking, and really good people in the drama made by really good people. And I was thinking, oh, I don't want to, I don't want to see a drama about COVID. You know, we're in the.

middle of it still. It's definitely not something I want to do, but I think there's, it's like Brexit. At some point, there's a really funny comedy to be made about that. And it might not be the thing that we're imagining it is. Like, it might be about, like, I think probably the comedy about Brexit is going to be about the negotiations, about what that was like, something thick of it like about those negotiations. That's the funny, the funny bit. And what the, what will eventually be a comedy about this, this time? I mean, I don't know where that comes. It's hard to see at this point, isn't it? It's hard to imagine laughing at this.

It's hard to imagine. The Ashes, I mean, as a cricket lover, let's go back to cricket again before the players come out. I mean, what's your thoughts on that and the role that sport is playing and the ashes and the families and all these things are going on at the moment for England's cricketers. Do you have any thoughts on that? Well, I mean, I think sport is massively important just from a point of view of sanity. In fact, you know what?

This is a really lovely opportunity for me to thank you and your entire team, in fact. because you saved my sanity last year. The TMS and the cricket last year, you know, behind closed doors, all the bubbling that you had to do. But having you there for that amount of time, sounding like some version of normality, just it was so, I can't stress how kind of important that was.

Well, that's interesting, because it was an odd thing doing it, because obviously there was no crowd. There was no, the sound effect was just the sound effects real going around. You could hear the same woman laughing every. Oh, if you noticed that, that's horrific, isn't it? It's like a Chinese water torture. It was.

You do when she was coming. But it's so, yeah, I get, it's quite reassuring that it actually did serve a purpose. Oh, totally. So for the ashes then, this winter, again, you know, that puts England's players really under the spotlight, doesn't it? About whether they go, whether they go with their families. If they can't take their families, do they go and so on? That's really quite a big issue. I sort of feel like, obviously, like all cricket fans, I want to see the ashes.

That's a thing that I really want to see. However, I also feel like what these people have done for us and been through in the last 18 months is huge. And I would want to guard their well-being and their mental health ahead of everything else. If the families can't go, I just don't think it's fair to ask anybody to go realistically. Do you give England any chance over there? What do you think? Oh, I never give England any chance in Australia. Do you?

I've only seen them win once. Yeah. I've been there a few times. Yeah, I mean, I just don't see it. It was a great moment. It was the best, the best ever. I can imagine. To see you can win the ashes in Australia.

Yeah. It's special. But it would be a dream come true. But the likelihood, I don't know, I guess. Richard McDonald emails, in response to today's view from the boundary, I played Puttocks in the 1970s. Sunday school summer camp as an excellent way to involve

all participants, irrespective of ability, I've attached a set of rules. Yeah. As you can see, a hard ball is clearly to be avoided and therefore to be more appropriate for those of a nervous physical disposition. Does that sound me up? This sounds right, although I would say that probably not a foam ball that can

get whipped away in the wind, as we occasionally have. Here's the rule. So this game can be played in any suitable open area or a sports hall with an arbitrary number of players. You can see how important this is and well... Yep. Equipment is a lightball, suitable for tennis or volleyball. Or the nervous. Yeah. A rounder's bat, which is optional.

The wicket is a cricket or a bucket. Yeah. Or anything of convenient size. And it's got A and B there. It doesn't quite, and the two crosses. Can you remember what they all are? I think that's, I can't remember. I think my brain will not allow me to remember too many of the...

I don't think it's a very demanding game. The bowler bowls underarm trying to hit the wicket from position A. Yeah. The batter defends. the wicket at position B using his fist, his forearm or his bat. The one thing I remember about it is that you had to run whether you hit the ball or not because if you waited for one of these idiots to hit the ball... There you go. He's played the ball. He has to run round the bases.

Mark X, those two bases there and defend the wicket. Irrespective. Oh, so even if you haven't made there, the bowler throws the ball again, and if you're not there, he's still got to try and hit it. Yeah. It was wildly humiliating. This could be the ashes or something, couldn't it? I mean, this could be the formation of something really, really special. Oh, God, I'm going to have to have therapy now. It's brought back too many.

You've introduced me to a new game, though, Chris. It's been lovely to have met you. And you've introduced to a new film, I'm going to go and watch as well tonight. I've got nothing else. I'm going to go watch it. Watch the film of it. Thanks for coming on, being a lovely guest. It's a pleasure.

And I'm glad that it's a special day for you to come, which is lovely. It's an honour. Thanks for having me. You're listening to the TMS podcast from BBC Radio 5 Live. You have to get this out of the way, right? Oh, yeah. Are you happy to deal with it? I think it's good.

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