The Frank Skinner Show - Only Human

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

In this podcast Frank, Emily and Ania Magliano discuss a conversation on the Tube, single dinners and a trip to Cadbury's World. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, flights on Air Canada. How about Prague? Ooh, Paris. Those gardens. Gardens. Um, Amsterdam. Tulip Festival. I see your festival and raise you a carnival in Venice. Or Bermuda has carnaval. Ooh, colorful. You want colorful. Thailand. Lantern Festival. Boom. Book it. Um, how did we get to Thailand from Prague?

Oh, right. Prague. Oh, boy. Choose from a world of destinations. If you can. Air Canada. Nice travels. It's Frank off the radio Featuring him and that posh lady-o And the one with the French name

From South Africa came They're all here, open brackets, hooray! Close brackets today. Are you ready? Are you ready for love? Yes I am. Okay, maybe you should start podcasts with that when the other two hosts are women. Not that one can only love women if you're a man. Oh God, help me. I'm joined today by, oh this is Frank off the radio, you must have heard of it. I'm joined by Emily Dean and Anya Magliano

is with us. Hooray. Follow the podcast on X and Instagram. You can email the podcast via frankofftheradioatavalonuk.com. You can WhatsApp us on 07457 417769. not sapos on. Oh, seven, four, five, seven, four, one, seven, seven, six, nine. Oh, okay. That was interesting the way you were trying to make that happen. Monk Gregorian chant style. I could have gone more monk. I'll try it again. I forget loads of monks right here. We're not going to get monks. We have had a judge, Anya. Really? Do you remember that, Frank?

We had a lovely judge get in touch with us. I was quite shocked we had a judge as a listener. Not a bad judge, I thought. So yes, Anya Magliano is with us today, who I do a, are you aware of this, Emily? We do a radio for sitcom together called Do Gooders. And we've only done one series, I'll be straight with you. Is that the one you were nominated for an award? Well, I wasn't going to bring that up in front of Max, who wasn't nominated. I was critically panned.

You weren't. Yeah, but we've already established you're winning on the social media front. That's true. The show was critically panned and I was that bit of gold left in the end of the pan at the end. Did you win the award? No, the show wasn't critically panned. Great show show I thought it was really fun. It is coming back. I think so yeah. I don't know if they'd told you about that. No so so Mags plays a sort of Gen Z, Wokey type person. And who do you play?

I play an old fascist. I play a really grumpy, difficult, difficult. How did you get into character? I think he's been method. Yeah, he's quite a nasty old git, isn't he? But very funny. I think has some of the funniest lines, although perhaps none of the funniest lines in it was your performance.

I'm not taking anything away. Hang on a minute, he's very funny, but he's a bit of a git. Why do you think they cast you for it? I don't know. Well, the funny thing is that the guy who wrote it, I don't know if this happened to you, but the guy who wrote it said to me ages ago I've written this TV script for Radio 4 do you want to be in it? And I read it I said nah. And then he wrote to me and said actually it's not gonna be on TV it's gonna be on Radio 4 and I said okay I'll

do it. Oh I only got contacted for the radio part which does make me feel insecure. No I would maybe it was an actress who died in the interim. Oh, hopefully. Things crossed. Just trying to think, have you got the old, can you rerun the old BAFTA, who did we lose this year? In memoriam. Get the Jeff Goldblum in memoriam out. We'll work it out. Dime and an eagle.

Why did you not want to do it? Why did you not want to do it Frank when it was TV? Oh, you know. No I don't. I don't want to have to change my outfit. Oh. I don't know why really. I don't want to give some idea that I'm turning downloads to TV because I'm not.

I just go, it's a lot of faff. When it's Radio 4 something very, I don't know about you, but I found it a really enjoyable production. It was so fun. It was really, really fun. So anyway, we spent three full days recording the series. And then I do another Radio 4 thing, a panel show called One Person Found This Helpful. And I thought, oh great, Anya's on this week. We had a great time on the thing.

She turned up like she'd never met me before in my life. I thought you didn't remember me. You don't. I thought, well, oh, I couldn't make the first move, not in the current climate. Okay, talk me through what happened. So, I thought, oh lovely. I was looking forward to seeing Anya again. And then she turned up and I thought, oh God. What did she say? Nothing. You said allow, I think. In the context of the status here, I thought it was so plausible that you maybe didn't

remember me or something because I didn't want to overstep a boundary. That wasn't status, that was senility. You were thinking, we spent three whole days together working on a... I know, but you're a national treasure. You meet people all the time. Yeah, but I... This is not going to get out of this. No, but no, I understand this. I think that's true because I think sometimes... I couldn't be friendly to you until you'd been friendly to me. Really? Like a cat? No, it's, you know, I've got my career to think about.

He's more of a cockapoo. How are you planning on saying hello? Well, I just thought as long as she's sort of, oh, then I'm all right then. No one thinks I'm up to anything. Oh, well, I'm so sorry. If I had known that I would have a hundred percent been like that, I was being timid and respectful. Well, so was I. But you see, we had different ideas of status. I thought I can't be friendly to a young woman until she's given me permission, if you know what I mean.

Until she's given consent. I live next to these ponds in Hampstead where people do wild swimming. If I saw a woman drowning in one of those, I'm afraid she'd just have to die. Right, Phil Collins. Because I know if I so much as, you know, if I grabbed that one by the ankle and started dragging her out, there'd be people on the bank saying, no, what's he up to? Oh, Frank, for God's sake. It's true.

That's so interesting though. Well, that he wouldn't save a woman from drowning. Yeah, I find that really interesting. I find it quite alarming. It's an interesting thought experiment. Yeah, I guess, well, I was talking about this yesterday with my boyfriend because I've been having a lot of nosebleeds recently because of hay fever, and people haven't been giving me tissues. And he said some of the men might be worried about coming across as creepy. And it sounds like that is a concern for people.

Well you told me earlier about, and I don't want to cue you up for anything, but it's relevant to this, about a conversation you had on the Tube and I thought, God, I would never, if I was that guy, I would never have gone there. Do you mind? I don't mind repeating it. It's not as bad as it sounds. But a guy just sat next to me on the tube and saw I was writing in my notebook and he said, Oh, are you writing a poem or a story? And I said, Oh no, I'm just writing some notes for work. And he said, what do you do? And I said, I'm preparing for a radio show because I didn't want to sound too interesting. Sorry, no, that came across badly. It is interesting to do a radio show, but I just thought I didn't want to give him, I'm not going to say I'm

a comedian basically. No, it's always best to avoid that. Always best to avoid that. And he said that he ran a mosaic shop and that they had Jamie Oliver in there yesterday filming something, I think maybe a show for Channel 4. And he told me the name. Jamie Oliver was in a mosaic shop. It does sound like Channel 4 have started sort of randomly pulling the fruit machine to come up with show titles.

What would be this? Jamie Oliver? What would the title be for that? We need to workshop that. Jamie Oliver in pieces. Wow, first time. That's incredible. They're not going to better that. They're not going to better that. Anyway, go on. And he told me the name, Jeff's Art Classes, and I wrote it down, and he got off at the next stop and he said, yeah, you've got to network. Those were his parting words.

What did he- He's got fancy telling that Anya Magliana, the network queen. So hang on. When he said you've got to network, he meant, I don't quite understand what he was saying. He said, well, he said, have a look at the website, you might like what we do, you've got to network. So I think he was basically plugging his business, which I'm now plugging for him on this show, having not seen it.

I'm saying it more as a warning. Yeah, I haven't checked the website. So if there is anything, if it's sort of like mosaics, what's because I haven't looked at it. Well, I live quite near the London mosaic school. So I wonder if he operates from there. But look, it worked, didn't it? It worked. We're discussing him now. Yeah.

Frank Skinner knows about it. I'm saying I would, if I saw a woman writing, I mean, I've found, I have written on public transport and in like cafes, people are pretty anxious if you read a book in that context. If you start writing, they honestly think you are a lunatic because nobody writes in notebooks. Yeah, and I know they type in their phone or they, I don't like the people on tubes who I don't mind it on phones so much. Just leave it there. Frank!

Who get the laptops out. Oh yeah, that's ridiculous. I just think it's a bit, I'm so important. I can't wait 20 minutes. Yeah, I completely agree. It's very performative. Oh, Frank's gone quiet. He does that.

No, I don't. I've never really got, I've Never got with it with the laptop. You never got what? You don't have a laptop? I've got one. I've got one, but I'm not fond of the laptop. Do you prefer desktop? No, I like writing stuff. So adorable. I love it. No, it isn't adorable.

Vintage, very vintage. Oh, well, I feel better about it now. Yeah, I'm so, that's mortifying for me. Not mortifying. Okay. I just thought, yeah, don't lie. I just thought. It is.

It's so, because if someone who's anxious, I get worried about how I come across in those situations. So I always assume. A loop in code. That's so. You don't have to wander anymore. A luff. Wow. God.

I don't know. I guess we're all human is the motto of the story. That's great. Maybe we could call the X out there. Yeah. Only human. This is vaguely connected to this subject. Only human after all.

Sorry, Anya. It doesn't last long. Rag, rag. Keep your noise down, mate. I just want to share this with you whilst we're on the subject of, well, we weren't really on this subject. It's connected though. It's from Mrs B of Bath. Frank, you recently, she sounds very points of view, I like her, you recently poured scorn on...

She sounds like a theatrical landlady. I keep a nice clean house, I do, I don't want any of your funny business. Is she the wife of Bath? Chaucer's wife of Bath for shortenance. Yeah, it's the wife of Bath. I like the way Anja added Chaucer's in case we'd never heard of the wife of Bath. I've never been so insulted in all my life. I'm coming across really badly in this episode. No you're not. Perhaps when I did a luff.

She could have said the whiff of Bath. This is what happens to people who live on social media. Oh come on. Mrs B of Bath. Geoffrey Chaucer's wife. Or Geoff as we call him. Since you poured scorn on those of us who like a real newspaper, do you remember doing this Frank? Yes, my partner's mom said to me, I go to Mass on Sunday mornings and she said, will you get the Sunday Times? What? She said, will you get the Sunday Times? And I said, well, where from?

People still buy newspapers. And I went in, it was like eight quid or something for the Sunday Times. Someone like that. Someone outrageous. Wow. There's loads of it. I thought she's gonna read motoring. Stop thinking what kind of prats read this. Did she want to do the crossword? I don't think so. She never mentioned it. She didn't want to do it with me. Let's put it that way. In answer to your question what kind of prats read this. Mrs B. Mrs B, the wife of Bath. Look at me, I'm Mrs B. Stop it. I don't like where that song goes. Wow, I could tell you had a dog from that. That was so canine.

I like to read the hard copy. Anyway, Mrs B continues, we like the paper so we can read and perhaps do the crosswords somewhere peaceful away from a screen. I wonder how you will react to the news that many of us have a milkman and also a man who comes round the streets shouting out for old iron. Really? Is Mrs B writing from the 1950s? Is this one of those, you know those stories you get in the paper now and again, a postcard that was sent in 1934. This is, it finally happened with an email from the 1950s. I mean Mrs B all fits in, doesn't it? This is a woman with one of those scarves around her head and a pinion.

A bath as well. Who's been scrubbing the step all morning and then likes to read the nose button one. Do a nice crossword. Well Mrs B is not the only one because Charlotte has reached out. Frank, how do you keep up with the news? Just online or not at all? I am 37 years old. I have a newspaper subscription and often enjoy sitting around

and reading the paper, particularly with a lover. I also... Hold it! What does that mean? I don't know! With a lover. With a lover. I suppose it's porous. Maybe she's French. You can't mop up with a laptop. I don't think the MacBook Genius Bar accepts repairs at that time.

I'm sorry, my lover was over again. Luckily, I've got a blotting paper page on my Filofax. I also find it a much more refined accompaniment to a single lady dinner. Well, that changed quickly. Oh, no, of course, I can't comment. Yeah, but there was the lover, now it's a single lady dinner. Do you guys do single lady dinners? What's a single lady dinner?

Well, just going out dining alone. Are you comfortable dining alone? Oh, I guess if I'm on tour, I have to do it, but it's a wizard. How do you find it? Single lady dinner makes it sound quite classy, whereas it's me eating like a chicken innandos. Sounds like you're just me and Beyonce, it sounds like. Yeah, exactly. No, do you?

Do you go out for single lady dinners? I do sometimes, but I've never been entirely comfortable with it. I think it's my generation. Because I always think I just feel a bit strange sitting there on my own. I find it embarrassing. Are you okay with it? If I had dinner with Beyonce, I wouldn't be able to resist ordering onion rings and then going, if you like it, then you should have just put it on my hand and just thinking, God, is he going to eat that now?

Anyway. I used to, as Mag says, when you're on tour, you either buy something and eat it in your car or on a wall, or you go and sit in a restaurant. Restaurants went through a period, I don't know if it still exists, of having small tables for the single eat out. Oh, is that right? Single diner. But I'm fine with it. I quite like staring and into space. Well, Charlotte... Looking for Katy Perry. And Gayle King. Let's not forget. We forgot Gayle King.

Charlotte continues, as she says, I find it a much more refined accompaniment to a single lady dinner, a book too clunky to read and a phone... Well there goes modern and story culture. And you've made it so much bigger than a book as well. Yeah. Sorry Dostoyevsky, a bit clunky. I've never read a book and then looked at my fingers and they're black after, which so often happens with the newspaper. A book too clunky to read and a phone just a little too depressing in personal experience.

I can see that. Praise redacted. Charlotte, may God continue to bless you with free lunches. That must have been a reference to you having a free lunch. Was it when you stole one off the taxi driver? Frank once stole the lunch off a camper. I didn't steal it. You did, Frank. What happened? Will you tell anyone what happened? We were very late for an event. I was interviewing several members of the current Doctor Who team on stage. Trying to legitimize it. And we were sitting in traffic and I said, oh, you shouldn't have come this way. This is a nightmare. I'm not going to be able to eat. I'm going to have to go up there and

do it hungry. I won't have any energy. And he said, well, my wife made me a sandwich this morning. You could have that. I said, oh yeah, I'll have that. Oh my God. And I told this, I just thought it was like, you know, the practical way we get through life's little downfalls. And I was ridiculed. What flavor was the sandwich? Well, it was really, he was a Romanian driver and it was something, it was a sandwich's go. It was quite an exotic thing. Lovely, in fact. Oh, do you remember his number plate? I might try the same thing. I don't remember his number plate. I was eating off it at the time. Did I say it was a Frankfurter hot dog? Imagine eating that off a number plate. That'd be great, wouldn't it?

That feels like the sort of restaurant that will pop up in Shoreditch. Oh yeah, exactly. I would like to just finally share this with you. Johnny Hollis from Bromsgrove, in case you're unaware of this, and I thought, Ania, this might interest you to know, Frank once did a sitcom called Shane. The entire series was filmed by ITV but never released. Filmed, edited, dobed

and never ever shown. Why? Why do you think? Because it was so good. They're not ready for it yet. The British public, they can't take it yet. It turns out they are because Johnny Hollis from Bromsgrove wants to draw our attention. He's a huge fan, by the way, of Shane. All episodes available on YouTube. Are you aware that there is currently a petition on change.org urging ITV to petition series two of Shane? I've signed it and 121 other people have too. Surely this is evidence enough to get it on

the telly, every blessing. I've had a look at the petition, I'm showing it now, there's 121 signatures. I didn't think there'd be that many, but it's not well changing, is it? And also, if it went out now, it'd be a mournful experience because many of the cast are no longer with us. Well, I'd get cast in it. I'm going to sign. It's change.org where if it gets to a 10,000, it's going to go to Parliament. We need to get it to 10,000, it'll go to Parliament. And I want this to happen so that it's debated in Parliament. And Keir Starmer says, we come to Shane and Frank Skinner.

I don't think Starmer will be a fan of mine. Do you think not? No, no, he seems a very serious man. Well, according to Change.org, it says the first season was well received by audiences and critics alike for its innovative storytelling and compelling performances. No, it wasn't. Maybe in his house, but not in the general. Well, I mean, we got a second series. Okay. Did that get made as well? Or that just didn't get made?

No, the first one went out. Oh. But there's the second one that didn't go out. Oh, right. So they're just saying sort of release the footage. Yeah, exactly. It's another hostage anecdote. If anyone wants to sign this. It's in a dark room. So that it does get to Parliament, because that would be my ambition, certainly, if it was to be. You wouldn't want it really debated. It would be quite, I wouldn't want my work debated

in Parliament. Oh, I'm okay with it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You'd want them to pros in parliament. Oh, I'm okay with it. Oh yeah? You'd want them to pros and cons it. My brother-in-law's work was talked about in parliament just a couple of weeks ago. Do you know this? Do you know who Frank's brother-in-law is? He's a serial killer. No he's not. He's not Frank, it's Jack Thorne. He wrote Adolescents.

Yes. Yeah, that was talked about. Wow. Oh, because it was so powerful that it got brought up in parliament. Keir Starmer made his children watch it. I say made. Maybe I shouldn't have to answer for that when I get back. Yeah. So yeah, I was in Acton yesterday and I saw a sign on a wall, like a pasted up sign, and it said something like, in fact, I'll tell you exactly what it said. I have it at my fingertips.

See, that's the great thing about the smartphone. It said, adolescents, who is to blame for toxic masculinity? That was the poster, and it says, there's a talk, West London Trade Union Club, High Street Acton, Wednesday the 16th. So a TV show that's leading to talks in trade union clubs. Wow. That's really, that does make me think about like, it's quite nice to hear about

stuff like that. I think if you work in the creative industry, it sometimes feels like, oh, how is this helping anything? But it does help. Not my work, but your brother-in-law's work. Yeah. Not my work. Yet. No, exactly. You've coped very well with him becoming so famous and successful. Certainly on the surface. I liked being the most successful person in our family. Did you? Yeah.

But luckily he's so nice. Nice doesn't diminish the impact. Oh God, Frank. Would you be an adolescent series too, if they offered it? No. But you have been in one of your- Playing the boy all grown up. No, I'm-

This is what could happen. Light end. This is how it ends. That is what could happen. Light end. This is how it ends. That's what I do, light end. Well, you have been in one of your brother-in-laws. In our family, we're known as Gritty and Witty. Oh, that's very nice.

I love that. Frank, you were in one of Jack's things, weren't you? By the way, speaking of ponds, I had a great idea for a pond. National treasure. You know, yes, a great idea for a pond. National treasure. You know, yes, that was what I was in. She just wasn't just pointing. Oh, I thought that was just like you were addressing him like that. It wasn't just looking. Yeah, she sometimes just calls me that. I'm contractually obliged to say that twice. I saw a bit of Bradley and Barney Walsh breaking dad.

Have you seen that? I haven't seen that. What's that? It's one of those shows that was commissioned purely on the strength of the title. Okay. Yeah. So because they thought breaking dad, that's great. So I think the idea, I haven't actually seen the whole thing, but I think Barnes, the son, I think forces Bradley to do various adrenaline junkie type activities

to try and break dad in some way. But I thought if I'd have been in the meeting, I would have suggested dadly Walsh. What do you think? Ooh, I think it's preferable. I like that. Yeah, it's also, as I said, it's light end. It's better as well because they can take that with them wherever they go. It's also because the thing they've forgotten is people who watch the Bradley Walsh vehicle on ITV I've never fucking heard of Breaking Bad so it's slightly wasting as ponds go. Anyway a little tip so here's the thing I'm still reeling from I'm not very happy not being the most successful in the fam. I'm alright with it you know but it's it's sort of it's a double-edged sword because I'm the most

recognised. He doesn't get any of that. Not that I don't love being recognised. He's got what my father used to call the Martin Amis fame. Where people don't know if you're in public. My dad said that's a good kind of fame to have because you'll always get special treatment and you'll always get a table in whatever restaurant but you won't have people going, legend. You'll be able to wear a name badge. I don't think Martin Ames ever wore a name badge.

I don't think he entered the Celebrity Big Brother. I like getting recognised though. Yes you do, I forgot. It's great. How often does it happen? Still quite a lot. Yeah, that's quite rude. No, I just mean the statistics. What if I'd said never and then

broke into tears? What would you have done? Not this. Anna, do you know that when Frank goes to hotels, he goes to the breakfast so he can, he says, why do people stay in their room? Then no one will recognise them. No, I like watching people at breakfast as well. I like the intense self-consciousness of middle-aged men going out for food. Yes, you're so right. There's a vulnerability about us, isn't there? It's all right, mate. You're just putting yoghurt on it. You're not breaking any barriers here. They really look so, oh god, everyone's staring at me.

That could be what you write your adolescence about. Yeah. The men at breakfast buffets. That's my level. Yeah. Stay with what you know, that's what I say. I watched Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. Oh, I do love that. I'm waiting for Anya to say,

oh, by William Shakespeare. And, um, it was, do you ever, have you ever seen the fly, that Jeff Goldblum movie? Do you know, I saw it for the first time only recently. That is a million to one shot.

It was horrific, isn't it? I didn't know how upsetting it was. Fly two is it fly two he puts a dog in. How can there be a fly two after what happened? Things ended very badly as I recall. Pretty sure there's a fly two. There is you're right. Unless I fell asleep in the middle. They don't put a dog in it. They do put a dog and when it's transported in the machine, it's been transported inside out. I have, I cannot figure out what you're talking about. Sorry, the fly, what happens is that a man, is there's a man who's built a machine and if I remember rightly, you can, you know, it's one of those, you can transport yourself

from one place to another. But when he does it, he doesn't realize a fly has got in the machine with him. So when he arrives at the other end, he's half man, half fly. And he gradually morphs into the fly. He gets more fly-like. More fly. Is it a scary film? Is that the genre? He's pretty fly for a white guy. It is scary, but I don't watch horror films because it's something else I'm frightened of. Who was it made, it's not David Cronenberg is it? No, I don't know who made it.

I never give a shit who wrote it or directed it. Okay, that's an interesting, I'll let your brother-in-law know. Look, if they don't want to be recognised, then don't be recognised. I'm not interested in the backroom boys. It's Jeff Goldblum. David Cronenberg, the backroom boy. I feel I'm turning into a fly and I don't know how that happened. And he, sometimes I see people and they look like two people who've got in the flowing machine and morphed into each other. And Kenneth Branagh in Henry V, and check this out, he looks, well first of all he looks like Claire Bolton, there's no getting round it.

He does! Yeah. Oh my God, he does! At the very opening scene you think,, oh, where's the dogs? But then you can see there's an element of Claire Balding in the fly machine and the Spider-Man actor Tom Holland got in there as well. And then it's kind of perfect. Wow.

But I mean, Balding Branagh works perfectly well. She could have been a great stunt double for him in the Ashing Corp. Don't call him balding Branagh. No, sorry. I don't think he'll like that, Frank. You know what I mean, the Claire Balding looking Branagh. Do you like Kenneth Branagh? My boyfriend last night was watching Kenneth Branagh in Hamlet, so is he sort of having a comeback?

Well, Henry V was on at the weekend, so I just... Frank's binging on Shakespeare at the moment. What happened is my partner and child went away for the weekend, leaving me behind. Now, a lot of men, of course, it's... leaving me behind. Now a lot of men, of course, it's, ah, good, do, do, do, ah, darling, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, you know what I mean? For me, I watched seven and a half hours of a 1960s Peter Hall production of The War of the Roses and Branagh's Henry the Fifth. Party on down. What's Frank getting up to? Just hear the effects. Take leave my lord. You know I do get a bit like that when I've watched, like I say that War of the Roses

is really long and like Cath calls and says those things at home. I do see many strange and wondrous things. Stephen Fry come over again. It does get into your head. Never. Imagine that, him getting cards out and telling you stuff. What do you mean? Getting cards.

Sure hope. Sure hope about it. Got an incitement for you. Shut up about it. You've got an inside alphabete here. Yeah, so check it out though. Which one, Branagh? The Branagh balding thing. I'm saying Branagh balding. I'm worried that's a bit weird. Well, I mean, it's on... But you're absolutely right. It's only just occurred to me it's because she does, but then Claire has always favored the, the Agincourt chic for the hairdo.

Yeah, but he doesn't go for, you know what, um, Olivier's Henry the fifth, he's got a purdy, purdy cut. Yep. What's that? Pudding, it's sort of a pudding bowl. Jo, uh, Joanne Lomley was in a thing called the New Avengers and she had this cut that went round like any medieval thing. She looked brilliant with it and Henry V I gotta say looked pretty cool. He hasn't gone that far. He's just he's gone very croftsy and balding. I felt he was at his his peak, absolute peak. Who? Uh, Branagh, Henry V. Okay. Okay. Who would have thought we'd get that review? I saw it.

What about this for an age thing? I saw Branagh's Henry V at Stratford. On stage. In the Shakespearean days. In the Shakespearean days. Anya's going to say Stratford on age. And it was quite revolutionary because that was when men played all the women's parts,

of course. But I tell you what he did, he had like a big sheet of metal hanging down, like copper, like a big copper curtain, which stopped about three feet from the stage. And when they had the battle of Agincourt, they all ran up to it, the actors, and started hitting it with saw and the noise was terrifying. It sounded like you kind of imagine what the battle might have sounded like it was fantastic. Just saying. That does sound good. Is it on? It's on um on iPlayer. Yeah it's on everything's on iPlayer in my experience. Okay. What else? What have you been up to? We haven't

really asked you about your life. What have I been up to? Well I've just finished my... I really hope this nickname takes off. It would be interesting to see the power of this podcast. Yeah, exactly. It won't take off. If you don't like it, tell me. I'll call you something else. I like it. I like it. Um, well, I've just finished- I'm just amazed you're speaking to me. Carry on. I can't believe this. Now tell us, tell us what you've been up to.

Well, well, I've just finished my tour, um, my stand-up tour and I'm sure you're very familiar with this, but the thing that I struggle with is if I have like a day in a place and I don't really know how to fill it. And previously I would force myself to like do my emails, but I found that quite draining. So then this tour I tried to spice it up by doing experiences. And I had a day to kill in Birmingham. And I went to Campreys World. Oh, yeah. Have you been there, Frank?

Could you still drive in a big Campry's Egg? No, and that was why I went because I heard about the egg. They've just seen the parking lot. You can't get access. Oh, they're still there. I thought they kind of sold them off, can they? You never see them driven around anywhere. Yeah, you don't see driving lessons happening in them. I like that part, can't someone drive? I'm at the embryonic stage of driving. Can you explain the egg? Is this a thing then? It's a normal, you can explain it. You've recently seen them.

Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. They made a big cream egg car that you can drive without the filling, I imagine. Yeah, otherwise the driving would be terrible. They should have the seat fabric made. You have to wear a breathing apparatus. Obviously you're in the midst of all this. Oxygen tank. Yeah, whatever that white stuff is in there. Oh, what is it? Nectar from the gods. Yeah. Is it Nougat? No, it's not Nougat. I wouldn't eat it if it was. But I was really excited to see that and I didn't get to see it. I haven't been for a long time. They're decommissioned.

Yeah. And there's, it felt, because I'd been as a child and I thought I would go and it would be quite like a nostalgic slash interesting experience to learn about chocolate because I'm a very sweet tooth. But it was a Sunday and it was in half term. And so I was there on my own. And that I really felt like quite self-conscious about being on my own at my single lady's cab-free world. But imagine if I'd gone there on my own. It did feel like I had a kind of privilege in that sense that... Well, you did, because people would think, well, we know why he's come here on his own after.

What? Oh, Frank. Well, they wouldn't be thinking that. Frank, they wouldn't think that. You've over thought that. Look, if I used to take my kid to the playground, and then he'd disappear off somewhere on the slide, and I'm going, come back! Don't leave me! I'll be wrestled to the ground by angry mothers. When I say angry mothers, I don't mean in a straight out of Compton kind of way. Some angry mothers! You would get a lot of, be recognised a lot at Cabrio as well though, wouldn't you?

Probably, being Birmingham. Did you get lots of free samples of chocolate? There's a few, yeah, you get a chocolate bar on the way in, and then you get a tiny little pot of melted chocolate about halfway through, which is really, really the best bit. And I could have had a much higher portion, but I wasn't allowed. See, we went, I remember going to the whole chocolate making process, and at the end of every one they gave you chocolate. And then you get to the gift shop at the end and think, oh god, I hate chocolate. We used to get like, they used to give us one of those cars but just made out of chocolate. We had to eat on the way, we had to eat it as we drove.

So we didn't wind the winder down, we ate it. That would be my dream. It just did make me think like it was, I was so self-conscious of being there on my own that I felt like I had to, at one, so at first, my first technique was to try and orbit families and look like I was... Auntie, Auntie Anya. Oh, that's a good idea. Switch between, so everyone thought I was someone else's family. But then I got so self-conscious,

and I think this was a real low point, I got out my phone and I made a note called Cadbury's World and I thought people might think I was like a reviewer or something. Oh God. Please tell me a man drove past in an egg and said, are you writing a poem? A mosaic egg. Yeah, we break eggs and then reassemble them at the mosaic. Plus...

Anyway, look, we've come to an end. It's been lovely having you on the last two episodes. Oh, it's been lovely being here. Thank you for having me. I feel right now I've cleared up our falling out. Yeah, we'll never speak again, of course. Next time I see Anja, she'll be cold as ice! Yeah, exactly. Ah, distant and aloof.

Can I put that on my poster? It's the Frank Skinner podcast. A new winter change is blowing. It's the Frank Skinner podcast. I'm not totally sure how it's going. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Make sure to like and follow so you never miss an episode. And if you want to get in touch, you can email the podcast via frankofftheradio at avalonuk.com.