The Rest Is Entertainment - Adolescence Conquers the World

Episode Date: March 25, 2025

It's the most talked-about show of the year so far. But has Netflix's 'Adolesence' put the final nail in the coffin of BBC and ITV drama comissioning? Richard and Marina discuss the sensational Stephen Graham drama. After the iconic Chris Rock slap at the Oscars in 2023, Will Smith's career and reputation has been in the doldrums. Marina and Richard have a plan to save the Fresh Prince's career, and it includes a big-old slice of Humble Pie. Recommendations: Marina - "Burn The Boats" is a Funeral for Joe Rogan's Comedy Career - Elephant Graveyard (YouTube) Richard - ‘Good Walk Spoiled’ & ‘A Season On The Brink’ - John Feinstein Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Producer: Jake Liascos Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Without having to lift a finger, you can get all your favorite entertainment quickly with both Sky shows and other apps in one place. Visit sky.com to find out more. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde and me Richard Osmond. Hello Marina. Hello Richard, how are you? Not bad, how's your week been? It's gone on, it's passed. It's been seven days long. It's been seven days long. Yours? And that's the best that can be said of it. No. Like many, many, many, many people, I watched Adolescents. I know. Well, listen, it's quite something, isn't it? We're going to talk about it today.

We've got exciting news about our Q&A on Thursday as well. But yes, we will be talking about it as a piece of creative art. And what happens when one of those shows makes the jump between being massively high rating or whatever, but becomes a sort of national conversation? I think that's very interesting and why that might happen, the particular ecosystem it comes out of. I've been messaging people about it all week and messaging you about it. We're going to talk about it. How impossible it is to spell the word adolescence. So I'm still absolutely nowhere near it.

What's it giving you? Just all sorts of other suggestions? No, I mean, there's the S's, the C's. I know it's not the biggest part of the jigsaw, but come on. But it is your exclusive part. You haven't heard that take on the show anywhere else. That's true. I haven't seen it in any of the reviews, but listen, it's going to chime with people I think. I think it will. Yeah.

Shifting tones slightly. Will Smith's comeback. Exactly. Richard, Will Smith. Yeah, he's touring, he's releasing an album, we'll be chatting about that. We'll be chatting about some of the unusual venues he's playing in the UK as well. Whether the comeback will be bigger than the setback. Right, well let us begin with Adolescents. Goodness me.

I hope there won't be any spoilers in this, but there will be sort of big mentions of the concept of the show. But written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, they developed it together, directed by Philip Barantini in this incredible one-shot, genuine one-shot rather than a synthesized one-take. Amazing performances, Ashley Waters, Erin Doherty. Every episode someone walks in, you go,

oh, I liked it when Ashley Waters was on. And they go, oh no, I really like you. Yeah, yeah. Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, honestly, it's such an incredible performance. I can tell you that I'm immediately retiring my theory that British kids can't act. I know you were absolutely adamant, weren't you? And then this show across every episode gives a number of examples of kids who really, really, really can act. It's almost like actually the theory is British directors are not very good at directing kids and Philip Berrentini is unbelievably good

at directing kids. Yeah, I mean that theory of mine is being boxed up in the crate going into the old Raiders of the Lost Art Warehouse of all my other terrible theories. Yeah, the bookshelves. And we're not going to see, don't let's start that one now. But anyway, this show has, it's amazing because it's topped the charts around the world. It's on Netflix, which is an interesting thing in itself. It's topped the charts around the world. They always want those local stories that appeal globally. I'm not sure that until, I don't know whether it's this show, but until pretty recently,

we thought that social realism could work on Netflix in some ways. You wouldn't associate the platform with it. Yes, there was always the charge that it's all very well and good Netflix releasing all these shows but you know they wouldn't do a show like the BBC or ITV, they wouldn't do a Mr. Bates versus the Post Office and now they've just done Toxic Town and Adolescence in a row. Both of them by Jack Thorne. The number one and two in the Netflix part.

Exactly and it just goes to show that you that Netflix are smarter than you think they are, because whatever criticism you've got, 18 months, two years ago when these things were being developed, they had already worked out that actually there were different things that they wanted to do and there's different bits of entertainment they wanted to show people. So if you are one of the other broadcasters, it's hard, man. When they're giving you Black Doves and The Gentleman and then they follow up with Toxic Town and Adolescence, you think, crikey, I mean, how do you compete against that? It's like the glory days of Man City where they just kept buying new midfielders every year. Well, the answer is that they can't compete with that. But I think we should get on to

that in a minute. Yeah, let's talk about the show itself first. I think the show is incredibly interesting. The way they did it. I can see that some people think it might not be very expensive because they only have to press play once. It looks so expensive. It actually takes the same amount of time really to film one episode of that. In fact, maybe more. I would think more, yeah.

Maybe more. Certainly what you'd be given on a PSB, which is the public service broadcasters every time I use that annoying abbreviation. Not the Pet Shop Boys. Not the Pet Shop Boys. I suppose they had two weeks of rehearsal and it's so like a sort of ballet really to make everything work and the dialogue last till you get through the door and round the corner and in the car. I think the amazing thing is because listen, you can all think of sort of clever little conceits when you're sitting down trying to sell something and you go, oh what if we did

this and it was like all in one shot. It was an idea we've heard before. And of course for a viewer you're like, oh that's interesting. Yeah, I'd be be interested to see something's all done in one shot. And then you go on Stephen Graham's and I really love Stephen Graham. Okay, I'll give that a watch. But to have that conceit and then produce a drama of that quality at the same time, you think, Oh, that's it. That's Christmas for everybody, isn't it? Because it is technically it's incredible, which we'll get onto. But the writing, the performing, the direction is so unbelievably great. I mean, listen, it's har, which we'll get onto. But the writing, the performing, the direction is so unbelievably great. I mean, listen, it's harrowing almost throughout. But to see such an almost perfectly formed and fully realised piece of drama on television, it just, you know, it

gladdens the heart and it reminds you of what talent we have in this country and what can happen when everyone pulls together. And yeah, it's just a very beautiful thing to watch a very beautiful piece of television. Those sort of creative relationships that have been built up over years and other projects are so important to this particularly. Obviously, Philip Barentini and Stephen Graham had worked together on Boiling Point, which is also a one shot, which is a super intense drama about a chef in a kitchen, Stephen Graham. And started by the way as a short and then was a feature and then was a series. And so

it's poor Philip Barentini going, I just, if I was just going to think I'm the guy who's single one shot. And you can see from this that he's got a lot more in his locker as a director, as we talked about that, you know, it's almost impossible to get uniformly brilliant performances like that. And whenever every actor is good in something, that's not just the actors, that's the director. So yeah, they had worked together, Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne had worked together and Stephen Graham came to Jack Thorne with this idea. This was the thing that he wanted to do. And, you know, he's through it like a stick of rock, but then, because he's such a generous actor, he just, he's through it like a stick of rock. But then because he's such

a generous actor, he just, he fills the whole thing with these incredible performances by other people as well. And then the last episode, we get a little bit more Stephen Graham. I mean, I watched it with, by the way, if you ever have teenagers and you want to watch it with a woman who just sits there the whole time saying, you're not involved in anything like this, are you? Are you? To the point where I was like, can you shut up so we can watch the show, please? Please tell me if you're involved in anything like this. I think it's really interesting that, and it happened obviously with Mr Bates, which was on a public service broadcast, but that moment where a show sort of fills a gap in

lots of ways where institutional failure, maybe political failure, it's extraordinary. It makes that jump to national conversation. I think that is really absolutely fascinating. Yeah, people haven't seen it. At the heart of it is a tale about teen masculinity and what is up with teen boys and toxic masculinity and Andrew Tate gets a name check. And, you know, so it is as well as being technically brilliant and emotionally brilliant, it is also about something and I think that combination has meant that everybody has watched it because it's one of those shows now you have to have an opinion on.

I agree with that. I do think it's interesting that Keir Starmer has said, or last week said, I'm watching this and I think everyone should watch this. I'm sympathetic to the idea of it being shown in schools. There is a group of Labour MPs who want to talk about it. There are all sorts of people. You know that it's hit in a completely different way because normally when it just on a sort of boring level normally and you know all this when a show is coming out people do pre-interviews for it and there's a promotional push so that you buy the ideally someone in the country

you'll have heard this show. Oh yeah, that's's that thing maybe I heard someone talking about it on the radio Stephen Graham was on Graham Norton yeah he was in talk sport so whatever it is and you think all right I'll have a look at that but the interviews have all been done in advance and then that the promotional of it and ideally it goes out the ratings and people watch it and so now everyone is scrambling to get all these people on they're coming to them after the event for all the interviews, which happened with Mr. Bates as well, where everyone was sort of saying, oh, I want to talk to the producers. Is this real?

How long has this been going on? Suddenly, you were seeing all these people giving interviews after it's come out, which is very, very unusual. But I think it's interesting when you look back at the shows that have actually made a difference in terms of either changing policy or bringing an issue to the forefront that it can't sort of be ignored in a way that perhaps it has been able to. You'd have something like, I don't know, something about, you know, the Birmingham Six, but you wouldn't have anything for another few years. Last year we had Mr Bates. This year already we've had this. I

honestly feel that we're living in a time that is amazing for drama and amazing that it can bring these stories to the forefront and make people care about it in a way that I think, or become engaged with the subjects in a way that I think, I don't know, politics or as I say, other institutions have simply failed to do. People are sort of crying out to be able to have the tools to talk about lots of these things. And we've talked before about the rise of long form podcasts, especially on the right and how people are desperately searching for being informed and intelligence and something long form and smart

and something that explains something to them. It's really interesting. I read an interview only the other day about young people saying how they reacted to it and all of them were saying, oh, it's really like that. To get it right from their point of view and then to get it right, obviously, if you're a parent, you're thinking, oh my God, to get it right from that point of view. It's extraordinary to have succeeded on every level.

The way that these conversations, these dramas are latched onto and it just becomes something so much bigger, why is that happening more frequently in the era we're now in? And I think it's because it's not being dealt with properly elsewhere, which is by the way terrific for drama because anyone involved in this truly believes in the transformative power of drama.

And by the way, it is being dealt with elsewhere, you know, politics is the same as it's always been, you know, they're incredibly hardworking people doing incredible things, just not reported in any way, you know, the dance between politicians and the media has got so bogged down and so toxic over the years that it's not fit for purpose anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. So whatever it is that politicians are doing, there's absolutely no way we would know about it because they're using the communication forms of the 20th century. And so there's a whole generation who do not understand what even what politics is, what politicians do other than they're the people who, you know, in charge of us, who are making

our decision and telling us what to do. And we've absolutely lost that connection between politicians, their passion for anything they care about, the stuff that they do to make the world a better place. And an electorate is completely gone. But the passion from the electorate is still there because they absolutely immediately this sort of thing comes along, they're obsessed with it. The politicians are the same as they've ever been. So there needs to be a translation somewhere in the middle, a little bridge, because you know, the writer worked out what that bridge is, and how to have that conversation. It's interesting that it speaks to the vacuum of how people are allowed

to witness politics. Can we talk a little bit about the British TV ecosystem from which this drama sprung? Because it feels, by the way, on the surface you think, oh my God, things have never been healthier. This is amazing. Homegrown show, someone like Jack Thorne, Philip Bantini, Stephen Graham, these incredible actors. You think, wow, drama has never been healthier. Netflix hit after hit after hit with quality stuff. But I do think it hides something. First of all, every single person involved with this show, from, you know, Jack Thorne, Stephen Graham, Toby Bentley, who scripted, edited lots of Jack's things on broadcasters

and is now, he's the UK, the series series manager at Netflix UK and Mensa who runs Netflix. Yeah. I mean all of these people they're extraordinary they would be the first to admit that they stand they came from public service broadcasters and what they do now stands on the shoulders of those particular giants but the fact is this couldn't really be made on it's too expensive for the BBC to make in so many ways it's a perfect BBC show it's very sort of specific it feels very specific to the UK, although it has these amazing universal themes, clearly, which is why it's number one in America. These things can't be made anymore. They are struggling so badly. And I mean, I slightly feel that there are all sorts of different suggestions

for how to help the public service broadcasters and people are saying, and I think you need some of all sorts of different ones. But you do need big joined up thinking and someone who really cares about it and understands that British TV dramas and public service broadcasting has been the most amazing tool of soft power that you can possibly imagine for the past few decades. It's an extraordinary product, makes things that people talk about and love around the world, to say nothing of our own country. I think that there are various different suggestions. Someone like Peter Kosminski, who's the director of WolfHall, said, oh, I think we need a levy for the streamers. Netflix made 39 billion revenue last year, and they paid something

like 14 million UK tax. Now, the profits of all of this stuff are being siphoned off somewhere else. As I said, this has nothing to do with the creatives, but it is the reality of the business. And I don't, unfortunately, you know, I, I sorry to have to go back to her, but you know, she is the culture secretary. Lisa Nandy has, you know, emerged with incredible rarity. She said one, she made one sort of thing about diversity on TV, which was completely misjudged and just didn't seem to understand the TV business at all. And then I saw her, you know, she's done an interview about Gino Di Campo. Well, I mean, this is not a matter for a secretary of state, however unpleasant he may be, or may not, I'm sure, you know, just to run the denial. But, you know, where is she? Why is she not talking about tax breaks or streamer,

you know, where is the big thinking or a stream of levy or whatever it is, or getting people together. We're not having this conversation in public and the money has completely made it impossible for the public service broadcasters. And if I can give people a concrete example of what we mean when we talk about money. First, I mean, listen, there's production values and you could see the sort of crew they're heading on that show and how it looked, but the fees paid to actors and writers are far beyond what you could ever get on the BBC and ITV. So the level of fees that are being paid for television work in the UK are something we've never ever seen before. And what that means is a large part of the talent pool automatically will go to Netflix because firstly,

they've shown they'll commission very, very interesting things. And they can be fairly hands off and can deliver an audience. So they have all those things. But then they'll pay you 10 times more. And as a creative, what's the downside here? Because there isn't a downside, you're not having to compromise quality, and you're getting paid 10 times as much. But what it actually means, of course, is if you're ITV or if you're the BBC, the rate for talent has just gone through the roof and the availability of talent is much less than it used to be at the same time when your

income is getting much, much, much lower. So, you know, they've done all sorts of things with sticking plasters of co-production on everything. You can't do any drama now on a PSP without a co-production with another country. But the co-production money's gone now. That's the trouble. The BBC have got so many things half agreed from their side basically, but they can't find the co-pro money anymore. And it's really, really difficult. I mean, I was in a development meeting for something I'm doing this week and we were talking about it and I kept saying, you know, I'd love it to be on a, you know, we're talking about it so much. We're saying, what if we did this? What if... The trouble is, it just, it's incredibly difficult to get something

in that particular space without going into what it was. It's just too expensive. And there's no, you know, I'm not saying we could do it this way. This is your, this is your, the thing people don't know about yet, that you're doing your version of the Megan show. Yeah, this is my, yeah. It's Marina's, Marina's Kitchen. I would have loved that to have come out with some more fanfare. But yeah, the thing is my ingredients are too expensive and they're just too expensive. And I can, of course,

you know, like the Saint I am, take a pay card to land that analogy for a second. That is sort of what we're talking about. You can say all along, like as people did on Wolf Hall, say, oh, you know, directors and actors were all going to work for much, much less and made a really big thing about it. But saying this is not really sustainable or scalable, you know, they're extremely successful, they can do that, but other people can't. And an absolute sidebar. I see that, I see that they've Absolute sidebar. I'd love to do a podcast called that. Announced a, yeah, just a series of diversions from the main point. I see they've announced

the second season of The Megan show and it absolutely goes to the thing that I've had a number of times in my career that if a channel has taken a huge financial risk on you, then it looks terrible for them if they don't commission the second series. So quite often they'll go, oh, let's just do another series. I won't extend it. It looks like we have already shot it. They shot them back to back.

So they all they already knew that they were going to. I agree with you so they have to do so they have to say and you know what we're doing another as I say it didn't meaningfully trouble the top 10 so it but that's you know this Jack Thorne it is extraordinary to have the number one and number two. So Jack Thorne did Toxic Town and then this and he might be a new name for some people anyone with a big interest in TV drama will will know who Jack Thorne is Toxic Town and then this and he might be a new name for some people, anyone with a big interest in TV drama will know who Jack Thorne is. All stage drama? Stage drama, yes.

It's unbelievable. I was trying to think of all the Jack Thorne things that I'd seen in like the last 18 months and I thought I'd got them and I suddenly thought, oh no, hang on, because it was one of the children's turn to go to the cast child so we did that and then, oh no, hang on, we saw that, the Don Marwin, Winston went to war with the wireless. There were so many things that, I mean, he is the most extraordinary person. I idolize him. Well, he's prolific and incredibly talented and his heart is in the right place. He wants

to write things about things. He wants to make the world a better place via his work. I think the one thing that you know me, I'm a bluff old, you know, commercialist and the fact that he wrote The Cursed Child, the Harry Potter musical, I know he's okay for money forever. Okay, so I know, listen, I know, I know he's been beautifully paid. Thank goodness, which means he can literally go I'm just going to do exactly what I want. Funny enough, he came out this week and talked about the ecosystem of British TV. And, you know, despite the fact he's just had two huge hits on Netflix, he did say, we have an issue with our public service broadcasters.

You know, he's saying that again, which you can do if you've got Harry Potter money. Working for public. Yeah, of course you will. Exactly. And he will. And so will Stephen Gray. And we understand all that. It's interesting, actually, they developed this with Amazon and then I wonder if you know. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And then they just took it in the internet face. Someone that I was speaking of which we're doing actually a bonus episode on the great rejection. Yes, rejection letters of big hits this Friday for our members. But that's just a sidebar on the sidebar. Yeah, sorry. Absolute

sidebar. Yeah, the absolute sidebar. The person at Amazon who said, you know, I think, or whatever, maybe it just wasn't working out. Maybe they felt, oh, they don't love this enough here. As there often is in drama, a huge amount of emphasis on the actors and people saying, this is incredible. And there's, by the way, it is, the performances are extraordinary. Every actor I talk to goes, yeah, but I mean,

because people are going, you know, they don't forget anything, they hit their cues, the lines, yeah, that's, I mean, that's theater. Actors are really, really, really used to that. It feels like witchcraft and it is slightly different. There's a lot more technical things in this and you've got to be in the exact right light and you've got to be exactly where you need to be all the time. So it is, it is much more technical, but it's, but it's a, it's a skill that they have, you know, the question that actors get asked most is how do you remember those lines? And that's the,

yeah, that's the easy bit of acting, You know, everything else is the tough bit. But you watch like Stephen Graham kind of collapsing, you know, in a pool of tears at the end of like a long episode where he's absolutely got to get it bang on and the camera is right in his face in a way that it isn't in theatre. So anyway, listen, the acting is incredible. Can I just say one thing about theatre while we're on it then?

As another person who was brilliant in the pandemic, particularly talking about this, but is ongoing brilliant talking about this, is another of our most amazing and prolific writers, James Graham. It's so intent on saying, you know, you have to understand that so many of these people came up via theatre. You have to all the streamers and all the big broadcasters, you have these people because theatre nurtured them. Yeah, and James Graham did Sherwood, by the way, on BBC, which is another example of something that is about something and stars an awful lot of theatre actors and stuff. But I think the key to it is it's an incredible technical achievement. I was talking to Pat Narnie, he's one of the great

sound guys, and he did the EastEnders Live thing and I just talked to him about it. 20 minutes of chatting to him and you understand what an unbelievable technical accomplishment the half hour EastEnders Live thing was for the sound department and what they have to do. And when you're watching adolescents and everybody is clear, you're hearing everything, that's not easy and the sound mix is exactly where it needs to be. None of that is easy. There are microphones everywhere that you wouldn't look cannot be seen that have to be picking up certain things after we're not picking up other things. The lights have to be exactly in the unit that it's not the most in a real police station that's

just lit with the light from the police station. It is a film set every single place they go, every corridor they go down, every single room they walk into is lit and is lit by people who know that they can't get this wrong in any way whatsoever. And my experience with people on that side of TV is it's just a joy to work with them. If you give them a problem and you give them just enough money to sort that problem out, they will go away and they will come back with something extraordinary. And the joy of television, whether it's drama or entertainment, is you've got the great show ponies, the actors, the presenters, stuff like that. And then you've got people behind the scenes doing the best version of what they could possibly do. And it's just that team effort and adolescence.

Every second of it, you're thinking, oh my God, the amount of people who are terrified. Every time there's a transition between one scene and another, the amount of people who are terrified every time there's a transition between one scene and another, the amount of people whose jobs are at risk and who've made three decisions, which are about to be either proved right or wrong every single time something changes. I just I thought it was a testament to the sound department, a camera department, lighting, I mean, just the whole shebang is extraordinary. The phrase tour de force is obvious, but not in this case, we had to break the glass on it. There was a really nice thing that Jack Thorne was asked once about his best advice that anyone had ever given him and he said, the stuff I go back to again and again is

an executive producer who said to me that everyone working on the project was as passionate as me and if I stopped behaving like a stuck-up fool then I'd be able to do that. It's advice I keep forgetting, it's so easy to get precious, I think. I fall into that hole all the time. I think Jack Thorne is pretty sensationally generous in every interview he's ever given. Everything I've ever seen. It is true that it is this phenomenal sort of, it's very musical. Talking about it was so, when you hear all the people involved with it, it is really like they're sort of plotting a ballet or something. It's a form of very, very intricate choreography.

It's the sort of, in some ways, the best way of understanding how you can simply just get in a car, then walk through a door, then do all of those things. It's sort of extraordinary and have enough dialogue to get you there. All those things that we've been talking about. Yeah, like when the shot on the bonnet of the car turns into a drone. Normally when I'm watching a TV program, I'm listening to the script. And in this you can't even listen to the script because Jack is so good, it doesn't even feel scripted. There's almost like not a single kind of wrong note anywhere that takes you into the script. You're always

watching the action. Yeah, when I am, you know, 1917, Sam Mendes's first World War, sort of epic. Roger Deakins is a cinematographer on that and he worked many times, but he's got this grip that he was worked with, a guy called Gary Hems, who I spoke to once a lot about how on a grip, grips are in charge of... Because 1917 is also... It appears to be one, It appears to be a one shot. I think the longest shot, I don't want to get this wrong, I think that was about eight or nine minutes, that longest shot. It appears to be in real time. Anyway, Gary

Hymns was talking to me about it and again, it was exhausting technically. Listening to the sort of mind-vill that is needed between the grips and the director of photography and the director is really amazing. I think we should say, because we could talk about this forever. Can I raise one other point, which is fascinating, Philip Barentini has spoken about it, is why have they done it in one shot? And it's that idea of tension and ramping it up and the idea that kind of things run away with you.

And he has spoken about you not being able to take your eyes off the screen, which my experience of watching it was absolutely right because you're constantly, you're aware you're in a real space at a real time and something really is happening in front of you. And you're just, you know, you're constantly aware of supporting artists walking along in the background and you're constantly aware of traffic and thinking that they all, that must, they must all be production cars. All of that must be production. And so you're constantly looking for something and it is

very rare to watch an hour long TV program anymore and actually watch it. I thought, I thought that the thing that they thought would happen did happen, which is you can't take your eyes off the screen. Yeah. I think either Jack or Stephen said the camera doesn't blink and it's extraordinary. I mean, the final episode, which I won't give any spoilers for, but it's amazing how much can happen. And over such a large distance in one hour, I was thinking that my God, look, what's, you know, why haven't I learned Mandarin in an hour? This is unbelievable.

There's a show. Let's ring Anne Mensah and say, Marina wants to learn Mandarin in an hour. Do you want to film it? We we're having a special adolescence Q and A and all the questions are gonna be answered by Philip Barentini and Matt Lewis, his DOP, director of photography. So all the questions you sent in, we've got loads as well. I've got one about that technical thing. I just, I really worry about everyone's battery packs

because there's so many mics there. And so there's so much stuff that's not plugged in. And the one thing that every single show always gets stopped for is changing your batteries and there must there's hundreds there's hundreds of that anyway that's going to be my question but I know our listeners have got a much better questions than that so this this Thursday is we're going to be asking Philip and Matt just questions about adolescence how it's made the process all of that stuff which I hope will be a lot of fun. So if you want to listen to it you can become a AAA member, the rest is entertainment.com. If you want to listen to it early otherwise it will be out on Thursday.

Shall we go to some adverts? Shall we? By the way can I just say what a pleasure that was to talk about. Thank you to everybody who made it. You made the world a better place and it's much appreciated. This episode is brought to you by Sky where you can watch unmissable shows such as the new season of Gangs of London, the BAFTA-winning Emmy nominated series starring Jo Cole, Michelle Fairley and Shope DeRisou. Now, Richard, in season three, chaos erupts after a spiked drugs shipment floods the streets, killing hundreds of civilians. But here is the twist. I mean, it sounds like a big enough twist already, but you know I love a twist.

I know you love a twist. Despite shipment, it wasn't an accident. It was a planned and calculated attack. Oh my god, knowing what I do about TV crime and writing and all that sort of stuff, I suspect this is just the beginning. Correctamundo. I love your catchphrase. So bring me and maybe anyone listening up to speed who hasn't seen the first two seasons

of Gangs of London. People absolutely love this show. In the first two seasons, we saw the battle for power between Sean and Elliot. Let's not forget he's an undercover cop. Oh man. It came to a climactic head with Sean's now in prison at the start of season three. Now the aftermath of all of that has sparked a brutal power struggle right across the capital's underworld.

We're talking tested loyalties, shifting alliances, unexpected betrayals. Who can be trusted? Elliot, who we've seen fight very hard to obtain power, struggles to hold onto it, while behind bars Sean is still able to wield influence and affect events outside the prison walls, meaning the various gangs are looking over their shoulders, not knowing who to trust. In my books I have a drug dealer called Connie Johnson who's always in prison, but she's always got like a Nespresso machine and her wifi is absolutely sensational. I cannot wait to see what unfolds.

Generally, so many people have told me about this show. Watch season three of the BAFTA winning Sky Original Gangs of London on Sky right now. Welcome back everybody. Now, Will Smith, very good friend of mine from the Graham Norton show. What's going on? What's the news? Well, by way of a brief catch up, he, as you know, he slapped Chris Rock in the face. What? Yeah.

Last I saw of him, he was rapping with Chris and Rosie Ramsey in the seat next to me. After then I haven't, I've not followed his career. Well, he won the Oscar that night for a flop, but unfortunately things have been a little on the down ever since. Bad Boys, Why I Dore Die did very well, sort of made back three times its money and it did very well. But clearly what Will Smith wants to do is make a comeback and he's been trying this over.

Well, he wants to be the biggest star in the world again and arguably there was a point where he bestowed the world like a colossus and he was super enormous. Yeah, so there are developments in the attempt to come back. He's announced his first new album, first in 20 years, based on a true story it's called and he is going to tour it. It's interesting. The places he's going, I always love a local news angle on a headline and there was one in the Newcastle Chronicle that I felt really captured where Will Smith is at this precise moment in time. It said Will Smith announces unexpected outdoor gig in Seaside Town two hours from Newcastle. Wow. Which yeah. Count me in. Yeah. Scarborough. He's playing the Scarborough open air theatre. I see. Although you know,

it's actually a good venue. Yeah. Shed 7 are playing there. I had a look while they were running and there's lots of things. Larry Barlow is playing there. Yes. However, it's actually a good venue. Yeah. Shed 7 are playing there. I had a look while they were running, and there's lots of things. Gary Barlow's playing there. Yes. However, it's quite a different thing what he's doing. And by the way, it's not just the Scarborough Open Air Theatre. It is TK Maxx presents the Scarborough Open Air Theatre.

Yes. There are various other sort of venues all around the UK and a couple in Europe. He's in this difficult sort of personal growth situation where he knows he has to mention what has happened. So the song Beautiful Scars has some sort of vague reference to it. I hate it when I lose it, but I face the music. Oh, why did he do it? See, I'm only human. Yeah, I mean, we all are. No one ever thought you weren't. That's the big issue there. It is that thing of, oh, God, I'm gonna have to

talk about it. He would rather, as would most of us, to be honest, just go, shall we just all pretend that didn't happen and get back to where you all loved me? Well, I agree. I don't think sublimating it into sort of crappy generic hip hop is the answer, but he can't quite get himself to that space, which I sort of love, which is why I'm not sure if he can do the other thing that people are saying he should do and might do, which is assure a route back to something. can do the other thing that people are saying he should do and might do, which is a sure route back to something. Netflix have done that big roast of Tom Brady, the sort of dream

quarterback and that was very, very successful for them ratings wise and everyone, you know, took the piss out of him and it was funny. The roasts are a peculiarly American thing where celebrities, where genuinely American TV's jokes, by the way, are usually not as rude as our jokes, apart from when they do roasts where they are much, much, much ruder. He could do that. And by the way, that would be not to be rude about the Scarborough opening of a theatre, but that would get a bigger draw on the public imagination to do a Netflix roast.

You think? I mean, I know a sort of joke is what kind of got him in the mess in the first place, but he would have to deal with a lot of jokes about that Yeah, you know the wife. Yeah scary the nepo kids has Will Smith got it in him I don't know I was reading an interview with him about beautiful scars because thinking is he able to have a roast done to him? Yeah, and he said I hate admitting that I'm only human my ego wants to be Superman the word I was thinking about when I thought about the last couple of years of my life was brutal. Brutal and

beautiful. Brutal and beautiful. I love that they even mess up better than you in the same way that like Gwyneth Paltrow, you could never get as divorced as well as her. You can have a bunch of young couples. Everything they do is better than you, even when it's really obviously really bad. Oh, you hit someone. Listen, let me tell you how I hit somebody. And whatever unbrutiful that should have been the Bernard Matthews catchphrase way back when.

It should have been Bernard Matthews. That's one for the younger viewers. Guys, he had a turkey company. I'm so sorry. Oh, I'm so old. Listen, Google him. But I'm always interested in the ways in which big stars deal with these open and shut cases of having basically been a total idiot.

Yeah. And I'm sort of surprised he hasn't clinicalized it, which I do think is the third route available to him. Make it seem like it's something you have to go to sort of slap pad for or something like that. I'm a snap addict. Well, yeah. One of my favorite interviews of all time, which I strongly urge you to seek out on YouTube

is John Mayer, the sort of singer and guitarist. He did an interview with Ronan Farrow, who you'll know as a sort of me too midwife, and I find him a cultural lyricist. Really? That's interesting. But he takes himself very, very seriously. I love the hinterland you occasionally hint at just in your in your absolute sidebars. Anyway, he does an interview with Rona Farrow and he talks about his ego addiction, which I love. Wow. Oh my god, that's great. John Mayer famously did this appalling playboy interview. Like it was so bad. It was a sort of real kind of career ender. What did he say?

The good things were like his stupidity where he'd say, because he thinks he's incredibly intellectual things where he was saying, I can think about stuff and I can do it on Twitter. For instance, I can say something like, wouldn't it be cool if you could download food? And so there was that element of him. And then there was a lot of stuff about porn and masturbation and famous celebrity women. Anyway, he comes to describe this as a thinking man's fiasco, which is very like, you're so close, John, but you're not quite there. Anyway, and he said my high speed crash was an intellectual one. And he talks about having an ego, an ego addict in a way that Will Smith could definitely clinicalize.

I think Will Smith, that's just narcissist. Yeah. No, it's not actually because it's a real disease. That's a line from Blades of Glory you may recognise. I'm not passing that one off as my own. One of the great movies. I love it. Anyway, so he says, I go to the Grammys, but I go home because if I had to say it, I'd get high again.

He's not talking about drugs, he's talking about attention. So he refers to mirrors as the original Twitter. I mean, if it's any consolation to John Mayer, in Britain, pretty much no one knows who you are, mate. Yeah, yeah. You can come and live here and do everything you like. Yes.

Honestly, you can walk down the street and it'll be cold turkey. Have a watch of this interview because it's probably in about 15 minutes. It is a celebrity just not really dealing with the problem in the first place, which I think is very well Smith. He says, if I save a baby from a burning building, and Kanye saves a baby from a burning building, there's more Google hits on Kanye and I'm fine with it. And the way he says fine with it, the way he says fine with it, he's never been less fine about absolutely anything. And also by the way, he hasn't saved a baby from a burning building. I mean, if he had,

then we would have started with that question. M.O.R. guitar riffs. He can do that. Before we talk about your ego addiction, the baby and the burning building thing, talk us through it. So to summarize, I would say that Will Smith, I mean, I would clinicalize at this point, but the best thing he could do is be the roast. Whether he's able to take the roast, psychiatrically, I don't know. And in failing that, I should clinicalize. I'm not sure that the route back is through touring UK venues Well, that's the interesting thing there

So he's turned back to music because you know, the world of movies has slightly closed itself off to him after the snap Understandably, he did it at the Oscars. But what's that? Why do people used to love me? Oh, I did the music as well people used to love the music. So, you know, he's gone back into the studio He's done. He's done all this stuff. He says and again, listen, I'm not suggesting he's an ego addict, but he said, I am a master actor. No question. I am a master actor, but I've never given myself the opportunity to elevate my poetry, my concepts to the level of mastery that I've attained as an actor. So essentially, he's like, completed acting, done that, I'll do the odd ride or die if you want me to.

I think probably now the time for me to become the greatest genius in the history of music. Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him. I put it so far past him. I wouldn't put it in the same galaxy as him, but carry on. I also looked up who's playing at the Wolverhampton Civic Halls and I looked at who else is playing there and it's more fun than the Scarborough one because actually Scarborough is everyone doing it is really good. So it was like Snow Patrol and Pea Force you think but the

Wolverhampton Civic called Matt Goss is playing there. Jeremy Kyle is doing a live show. They could have an ego addicts convention. Jeremy Kyle tells it like it is live. Wow it's a shame that they're not going on it's all not one night and you can write a play set in the green room of hell. Kyle Smith and Goss. I mean that is high. My favorite ever quote from a Jeremy Kyle show episode was there was this woman who thought that her boyfriend was cheating on her. So he had done a lie detector test and Jeremy Carl said, How sure are you that he's been cheating? And she went, Well, Jeremy, I'm 8030. That's my favorite ever Jeremy Calquait. But also, you know, this tour that's going on at the moment, which is Bradley

Walsh, Shane Richie, Joe Pasquale and Brian Connolly are touring together. golf in the day and do that. Oh, good. I hope so. I've worked with all four of them and I like all four of them very, very much. But they're called the Pratt Pack and they're doing a tour of Britain's theaters. I bet that's a great night out. Well they've done it for the laugh of the road show, I think. Walsh, Ritchie, Joe Pasquale, Connolly. Shane Ritchie, I think said the funniest thing, can't quote it, he said the funniest thing anyone's ever said to him, I think, when we were on the set of Sunday brunch, we were watching

someone else being interviewed and he just whispered something in my ear that was so funny, it's unrepeatable. Well, on that tantalising note, Richard. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Can I just say one other thing? This really is absolute sidebar, because I worry about Jazzy Jeff, because Will Smith has done so much and Jazzy Jeff actually seems to have lived his life in quite a fun way and is still in Philly and still enjoys himself. But his youngest child, I think second youngest child, his name is Geoffrey Towns and his

second youngest child is called Pleasant Towns. And if you Google Pleasant Towns, which I did, it literally just comes up with here are a series of places in the Cotswolds. It sounds like one of those confected Disney towns like Seaside and Celebration, you know that where everything's sort of picket fence and Truman Show like. Pleasant towns, Philadelphia. Pleasant towns. Jazzy Jeff's on the new Will Smith record anyway. Any recommendations Marina?

I enjoyed a somewhat weird but ultimately very satisfying take down on YouTube of Joe Rogan by the elephant graveyard, which is an interesting video. Joe Rogan sort of podcasting some advertising in general, it's quite bracing in a number of ways, but I'd recommend that. And I somehow missed last week the death of one of my favorite ever sports writers, John Feinstein. And if you've not read his books, I got into his books via his series of golf books in the 90s and the 2000s. So Good Walks Spoiled, it's just him behind the ropes on the PGA tour inside the qualifying

school. He was sort of the first guy to do that. I'm going to go into sport absolutely via the personalities and have absolute access to everybody. He was apparently one of the more irascible people you'd ever meet, but an awful lot of fun. But his absolute classic book, they say it's the best selling sports book of all time. I can't quite stand that up, but it's possible. Called A Season on the Brink, which is him with the Indiana Hoosiers college basketball team. And that's from the mid 80s.

And he was just, he's just a brilliant writer. If you like proper great sports writing, that's funny, that has absolute access to everything, John Feinstein is your man. So, Season on the Brink is brilliant, but especially if you like golf, there's an amazing one. Essentially anything he does, if you love NFL, he's got some great NFL books, but he absolutely specialises in accessing all areas to everybody and then just writing like a dream. So, RAP, John Feinstein. Okay, well I think that's about us for today, isn't it? That was fun. We have got a special Q&A on Thursday with Philip Barantini and Matt Lewis from...

Adolescence. Adolescence, the director and the director of photography. And then on Friday we've got a special bonus episode for our club members about the sort of greatest rejections in artistic history across the various... Publishes who turned down big books, yeah, movie studios who turned down big movies, just the world companies that turned down big bands. The worst decisions you could possibly make. And if you want to become a member of our club, you'll get access to that Adolescence Q&A immediately as well. It is thewrestisentertainment.com. I always get it wrong.

Yes. Is it? Yes it is. You got it right. There you go. Otherwise, we will see you on Thursday. See you Thursday, everyone. This episode was presented by Sky, proud partners of The Rest is Entertainment. Sky has a huge 2025 planned and they're excited to share their unrivaled range of entertainment which has never been easier to discover.

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