The Rest Is Entertainment - Box Office Battle: Spielberg vs Nolan

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Which films will help rescue the box office in 2026? Why is former Disney star Ashley Tisdale crashing out over a Whatsapp group chat? Have The Traitors uncovered the most unhinged contestants yet? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde assess the upcoming TV and film releases for 2026 - what will hit and what will flop? High School Musical star Ashley Tisdale is causing a stir over a drama-filled celebrity Whatsapp group, what's the real story behind the headlines? It's halfway through The Traitors, we look at every twist and turn and ask if this show can get any madder? WIN TICKETS TO 'THE TRAITORS LIVE EXPERIENCE': To celebrate the launch of the new series of The Traitors we’re giving you and a friend the chance to get a taste of the ultimate game of deception and tactics. Sign up to our free newsletter by visiting ⁠therestisentertainment.com⁠ and you’ll be automatically entered into our competition to win two tickets to The Traitors Live Experience in central London. T&Cs Apply. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Adam Thornton & Joey McCarthy Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the creative team behind the Brutalist and starring Academy Award nominee Amanda Seifred in a career best performance, Searchlight Pictures presents The Testament of Anne Lee. With rave reviews from the Venice Film Festival, this bold and magnetic musical epic tells the story inspired by a true legend. Anne Lee, founder of the radical religious movement, The Shakers, The Testament of Anne Lee. Exclusive Toronto engagement January 16th in theaters everywhere January 23rd. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello gang. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you?

I'm very well. I think, listen, an oasis of fun and calm from us this week. Oh my God, can I just say, I'm so happy. We're talking about all these various bits of fun today and not World War III. I will say up the Iranians, go. But this is a place where we can just, we're just going to be talking about amusing and fun cultural things. And specifically which things are we talking about? It's a huge year for movies. It's just been the Golden Globes last night.

And it's a huge, when we're recording this, which is Monday morning. It's a huge year for movies, a kind of recovery, amazing bounce back year. There's lots of fun stuff coming out. So we're going to talk about those. Yes, and I'm going to talk about the biggest TV coming up in the UK as well. And particularly, but bigging up some of the incredible writers who've got things coming out this year. Some really, really great telly coming up. We are going to talk at the end.

We're going to talk about traitors. We didn't do a live reaction episode because I'm writing at the moment. I apologise for that. But we have got an enormous amount. We were literally a delayed starting recording this by about 10 minutes. We were talking about it. Then we said, no, we have to listen. We have to hold the gold.

So we're going to be talking about traitors. We'll do that right at the end. So if you haven't seen it, you can absolutely avoid it. And also, if you don't watch it at all, you can avoid it as well. But if you've been watching it, I think that would be a lot of fun. And in the middle in this sandwich, in this fun sandwich. A celebrity has left a group chat and it's massively toxic. and it's incredibly low stakes, all the things we really love.

So we're going to be talking about Ashley Tisdale, formerly of High School Musical, and leaving a famous sort of famous L.A. Mons group chat because it had become toxic. Or maybe Ashley had. Who knows? Let's decide when we discuss that. As you say, though, the stakes are low. The stakes are low. Exactly how we like it. Having said that, the stakes are pretty high for Hollywood.

We've said many times before that to sort of stay as it is, in a state of kind of semi-crisis, Hollywood needs to get to $9 billion in box office gross a year. I was just shy of that last year. But pre-pandemic, it was pulling in much bigger returns. Now, this is the year that people are really hoping it's going to be a bounce-back year and that they're going to get to 10, maybe beyond.

And sorry to talk about in terms of money like that, but it is a business and it does sort of show, like, are they going to put out enough films that people actually want to see? That's the thing. So I'm going to kind of rattle through the different months, maybe. And we'll take whatever conclusion. we can from each thing.

Last year what happened is they had a very bad first quarter. Things were good in the second quarter. They had a bad, very bad third quarter. And then it all sort of came good enough, just about not quite in the fourth quarter. So it's interesting where movies are spread. And lots of that's because, you know, if certain holiday things don't hit,

then you've got a sort of desert for the next bit. I'm going to talk about the things that are obviously the biggest movies and the ones that have most sort of hype and marketing about them. So remember, there have been actually relative, they've been sort of 60-ish, I think, billion-dollar movies in the whole history of Hollywood. 60. Yeah, and it's like Avatar, Endgame, Avengers End Game, another Avatar, Titanic. So, you know, it doesn't happen very often. It used to happen for a long time with Marvel.

Almost all of them were. But anyway, what I'm also interested in this year are what are the things like sinners, weapons, conjuring last rights, you know, the genre horror, the genre thing that brings. breaks out and becomes really big. That was all from Warners last year. We talked about that amazing run by Mike Deluca and Pam Abdi. What are those ones that are not things that people think are going to do really well, particularly, or they'll do quite well, and then kind of double or triple or even more expectations. So in January, you've got a lot of holdover stuff still doing very good business.

Bone Temple 28 days later. It's not Danny Bowles. It hasn't directed it. Near DeCosta's directed this one. It'll do, I think that I'll do pretty well. But well enough. Big, I think. February Wothering Heights.

Emerald for now Jacob Allaudi Margot Robbery this is going to be like she there's something about Emerald for now she just understands something about the zeitgeist just able to you know

those silly jokes people say about things being you know just things are just like it hasn't got lots of gifts has it got a potential of lots of gifts can it be a TikTok there'll be some this will be like a culture war

because people will be like I can't believe they've done this to a Bronte but this is absolutely disgusting it will become I think it will be really really big and also people want to see those stars they're young and people want to see them.

Margo Robbie and Jacob Allaudi, people want to see them. I think it will be kind of huge. I would not recognise Jacob Allaudy if I tripped over in the street. He's in euphoria. He's very tall. He's in Frankenstein.

He's in lots of things. He's blown up. Oh, listen, I'm absolutely certain. It takes me a while. Yeah. It takes me a while with face recognition. Well, he's one of the very few people in Hollywood that wouldn't be kind of up to your knees.

So if you ever meet someone and think, oh, hang on you must be Jacob Allerdy. Yes. I go, I go and I go back you on the head. Yeah. And he'll say, no, I'm not Jacob Lordy. I'm Tom Cruise sitting on Danny DeVito's shoulders. Okay, then I then do, there's some action stuff,

but I don't think the first quarter again is going to, and people will have more crisis and say maybe nothing's going to happen. What do you make of this, the housemaid movie, which is on the freedom at Fathamberg? Because that's been huge. The housemaid is huge. That's doing amazing business now in January. It's a sort of holdover from last year, but it's absolutely brilliant.

Yeah. My God, Richard, what about making movies based on the world's biggest Selling books, starring Sydney Sweeney with Amanda Sautford. Yeah. What about doing that? I can't believe it's making money. And directed by Paul Figue as well. Who's got wit about him and understands the business.

Freedom McFadden, by the way, who wrote The Housemaid. This week's paperback chart in the UK, six of the top seven books are Frieda McFadden. Six of the top seven best-selling hardbacks in the UK are by the same author. Isn't that unbelievable? It's, yeah. Harlan Coben just in the middle of there's so much I want to talk about this actually I slightly feel I want to talk about this in the Q&A episode because I know there's been a lot of questions about that let's do that we'll talk about the house made in

in that because it's fascinating okay we get to April right now we've got some really big things we've got Super Mario Galaxy movie that last one was the biggest of movie of the year like insane the games are sort of the new superheroes really they're either the worst movies ever made or the biggest movies ever made aren't they and sometimes both yes yeah yeah now also in April, Michael, the Michael Jackson movie, I think it will be massive, particularly globally, but I think it'll be massive. As you know, I believe him to have been predatory paedophile, but he, people, that

won't be the line they're going with on the posters. It'd be amazing. That would be amazing. As you know, I believe. I believe in to be predatory pedophile. Marina Hyde, the rest is entertainment. And then just watch it storm to a billion. Sorry, but it won't get that far, but it will do, I think it would do very, very well.

Because someone mocked that up for us when the time comes. May, we've got, this is a weird one. The devil wears Prada to. Yes, that's exciting. No, not exciting? I don't know. Listen, I love all the principles, and they're all bad. There's Meryl Street, Anne Hathaway, Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt.

I'm not sure anyone really needs this. I'll be interested to see how they deal with the fact that magazines are about, apart from newspapers, the most irrelevant thing in the world. And also that last year, Spinal Tap and Naked Gun, although a lot of noise was made, did not do a great deal naked to gun did all right they made a complete mistake on the certification there if they made that a 12

then so many more people would have got to see my children were turned away from it yes so I mean that was ridiculous for a couple of jokes to make it 15 that's ridiculous and then mandolorean and grogoo now grogues you know baby Yoda so they're taking something that's been brilliant

for them on streaming and they're putting oh god I've just got to say do people care about Star Wars they've so kind of flogged it and rinsed it for every possible dollar they can. I just don't think this will be as big as they, you know, it's not going to be like when the Force Awakens came back and that was enormous.

We get to June. Now, once we get to summer, there's some absolute mega hitters. I don't know what Masters of the Universe will be like. Jared Lito is Skeletor. So I, that, you know, I don't know what that would be like. Like a live action we make of. Yeah. You may laugh, but I'm looking forward to Scary Movie 6.

And I'll tell you why, because they haven't had one out since 2013. We didn't have like prestige horror then. I'm interested to see what they do with parodying all of that because it could be really fun. And is it the same team? Yes. So I hope that that will be good. Now, Disclosure Day. Spielberg.

Spielberg is back with the story he's come up with himself. Someone else has written it. Aliens. Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth. Thank you for looking after Brits. No one knows a huge amount about it. We're not alone and everyone's trying to sort of tell everyone at the same time. It seems to be what you could glean from the trailer.

That will be really fascinating. Can he still make a mega, mega blockbuster hit that people want to see? I mean, obviously, I just think he's absolutely brilliant, but whether or not in today's market people want to see that. He was doing things like the Fablemans, which were obviously smaller movies, that basically no one went to see all those movies, which were Love Letters to Cinema. But lots of guys made them. Who'd have thought?

So it would be really interesting to see if he's still got the old blockbuster mojo. Could go either way that, couldn't it? Yeah. Toy Story 5. Now, the villain in this is screen time. there is, which is, but you know, that's, yes, I know, but it's good, I think. Yes. I've heard people say it's absolutely brilliant.

It's lily pad. It's a tablet. And Greta Lee does the voice. Now, remember what they do with Inside Out where they took something that, you know, everyone loved and had sort of grown up with. And then they flipped it for Inside Side 2, and My Hawk was the voice of anxiety. And so you're able to totally change it and make it quite up to day. If they do it quite badly, then, of course, everyone will say it's very disapoint. But I'm told that people think it's really, really good.

And it's a good update that. I think. So I think to it Toy Story. And also, what else are you taking your child to win in June? Supergirl, don't care. I just don't care about that. Sorry. Sorry, DC.

I care more about the Clayface, a horror in September. But again, that will be much smaller just by virtue of it being a horror. But July, live action Moana, the rock right back where he should be in the multiplex. Yeah. Showing 15 times a day. That could be enormous. And then the Odyssey. Matt Damon is Odysseus.

in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. Everyone knows the story. And what's quite crucial about that? I'm not sure I do know the story. Well, this is interesting. And this is what I thought. It is, for however many decades, it has been a set text in American sort of 14 to 16 girls.

So they all know it. So they do, yeah. It's like the American and inspector calls, which everyone in English schools has to read. Yes, yes, exactly. I think it must be more fun to read an inspector calls than read, The Odyssey. He should have we made that?

Well, he likes, you know, the great men of history. I don't know what we're on. Tetralogy. Will it be a non-ology? I don't, would you ever make a movie with a female lead? I don't know. Matt Damon is Odysseus. Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya, Le Peter Nongo, Robert Patterson, Charlies.

I mean, it's huge. That will be enormous. It's just a question, because Christopher Nolan, people go for Christopher Nolan films. He is awfully committed to theatrical. He's like the art house James Cameron, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, I don't think he'd think of himself as an art house at all, actually. No, but I mean in terms of someone who can make a billion dollar movie.

Just his own way completely. He can just get an... He is the stuff. He is the IP. He is the talent. He is the everything. Yeah. And everyone wants to be in it because he's very brilliant.

What is the story of the Odyssey? It's a wandering hero returns for more. I'm not going to give you any more than that, Richard. Yeah. Okay, so we've got that. We've got Spider-Man brand new day, which has got Tom Holland, Big month, big July for Tom Holland. Big July for Tom Holland.

And when we've got Minions 3, mega minions. Okay, great. If you don't think that's making a lot of money, wake up. Remember, autumn is when it started to get really bad again last year. But this time you've got, I mean, practical magic, Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock are coming back. I don't. People will watch it. Resident Evil, now, it's a game.

It's, and you would think, oh, do I particularly care? But it's Zach Kregor who wrote and directed weapons. So I've resident. And remember, horror people absolutely love and it has done huge business last year. Things like that people don't really talk about in the kind of culture and in all the page. You know, something like conjuring last rights got half a billion. But you don't sort of see everyone talking about all those things. Anyway, then very interesting, Digger.

Tom Cruise is in Alexander Inurito film. He is playing someone who isn't Ethan Hunt or Maverick for the first time in more than a decade. I'm really up for this. Is it a live action Bob the Builder remake? It's not. Sorry. He hasn't gone that far off his own piece. With Glenn Powell and Jacob Alaudius, scoop and muck.

I want to see Tom Cruise back on screen being a screen actor. I think he's an amazing screen actor, obviously, a problematic human in many ways. But a fascinating person. And brilliant. October, we got a Colleen Hoover. Yes, again, why not make movies out of books that people really like Verity? that's got Dakota Johnson and Hathaway Josh Hartnett. That could be something like it ends with us.

Hopefully it doesn't go quite as off the rails as it ends with us. But in terms of things like, oh, how strange this has become a real hit? It didn't cost very much because... And everyone's read the book. Yeah, everyone's read the book. And it doesn't involve lots of CGI and locations. The social reckoning. Now that's the sort of part two of the social network.

Sadly, not directed by David Fincher, but directed by Aaron Sorkin, who's done the script again. Is it? Yeah. Oh, that sounds fun. Jeremy Strong is Zuckerberg, so there'll certainly be a lot of acting occurring. Street Fighter, based off the arcade game, there have been earlier streetfighters. They've got an insane cast for that. It's like an ensemble of people like Jason Momoa, 50 Cent, I don't know.

Maybe Street Fighter will be people's guilty pleasure in October. November, now it gets massive. You've got Narnia, Hunger Games, Sunrise on the Reaping. Although Hunger Games ones don't do so well now, now that's not. Jennifer Lawrence in that original franchise. But the cat in the hat, don't bet against doctors use over the holidays because you've got to take your children to something and fuck her in law. I'm looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward to foe in law. Normally I'd say, well, who really cares? We haven't we seen every iteration? But it's sort of built around Ariana Grande. So it's a meet the parents. Yeah. But she's and she's and it's, and it's, and it's, it's Ariana Grande in a comedy. Remember she started in comedy as a child actress.

So I would like to see, I think that will probably do better than people, because people will go and see her. And then December is absolutely massive. There is... It's been massive all year so far. It has, but there have those danger periods of the first quarter and the third quarter are still there. December, Avengers Doomsday.

The Russo Brothers are back. I've got a feeling it could be a little bit like... People will go and see this, but remember last one... I can live without Avengers now. Oh my God, please. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I can really live with that. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's a second stint at Chelsea. It really is. Yeah, it really is. Can the Rousseau brothers bring back some of that old magic.

To me, it's going to be like his third stint at Chelsea coming up soon. Don't. It will be huge. It will make a lot of money. It'll get over a billion, I'm sure. I mean, if it doesn't. But if it goes anything lower than that, then it will be judged. The last one got 2.7 or 2.8 billion.

It's unbelievable. It will be judged, you know, a huge thought, and we won't have to deal with Marvel in our lives anymore. You know, here's hoping. Because I just think it was an amazing run. They're the most amazing producers. They did an extraordinary thing. But enough now. I don't think all of our stories need to be sublimated through the medium of men entights any longer.

June part three, that's just grown each with each, the first two. And again, it's Denny Villeneuve and it will be. June, Timothy Salome. They're having June in December this time. My new favourite because of Mottie Supri. Yeah, they're having Shalameh and Zendaya. And I think we can be quite clear that people turn out for those two. And they turn out for this franchise and it will be the biggest, I think, of all of them so far.

And Jumanji 3. Yes again, yeah. You know what? We don't need to see in the Smash Machine Rock, because we're going to see you in Jumanji 3. You're going to be dropped into the jungle again as somebody else's avatar, and that's how we like it. So that, I think, rounding off the year,

that's the thing. We've got the big family movies. We've got all of that. Can I talk about once I'm excited for the aren't those? Yes, can I ask you one question before that, though? Which of those is going to be the biggest movie of the year? Would it be June? Would it be Super Mario Galaxy?

Would it be the live action Moana? Would it be Spielberg? What do you think? I don't think it would be Spielberg. I think it could, you know, You just don't know. It could be the Odyssey. It's just such as a range.

It could be the Odyssey. I think Moana will be enormous. I don't know if I want to stick everything on the Odyssey. But he's got that thing where people just come out for him in that. And they come out for a long time in the same way that James Cameron has. It doesn't matter if you didn't do that much this weekend because people are going to keep going to see Avatar. I mean, I think June will be big, but I don't think it'll be anything like that big. I think Odyssey.

See, I thought maybe Super Mario Galaxy. It could be. And I feel like we're going to get over $9 billion. Yeah. And imagine if you got to 11. There's a lot. So that's love. If we take care of $9 billion, that's good for the business, good for the industry, good for workers.

But creativity, what are the movies outside of that? Exactly. Where we sort of fill in and you have films that you just love to go and see and feel good about yourself because you're watching proper old-fashioned cinema. Okay. The moment, which is a mockumentary, Charlie X-X-E-X plays a sort of. of dark, it's A-24 of Charlie X, EX, plays a sort of dark mirror version of herself, about to embark on her huge first world tour. So that's fun. Looking forward to that. Sorry, I'm going

to go to the cinema and see the Melania documentary because there's going to be a documentary in a cinema again. Wow, that's interesting. I'll have to see Brett Ratner's take on Melania. I don't know why. I've watched a trailer for this and I'm thinking, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to go, but maybe I'm going to go. Project Hell Mary. Ryan Gosling, for some reason, a middle school teacher, is for some reason, I've watched a trailer about six times, the only guy who can go to space and save Earth, and he meets an alien out there.

I don't know. I can't, I can't help that way. Oh, really? Well, that sounds fun. Yeah. And is it based on a true story? I think so. And the drama, Zendaya and Robert Pattinson, they're like a couple, that's another A-24,

they're getting married, and there's some sort of secret is discovered, and they can't, it's a sort of comedy drama. So I'm looking forward to that one, because I love both those performers. Can I just talk to you about something called whale fall. Called what,

sorry? Whale four. Whale four? Josh, Whaleful. I didn't see Whale 3. Whale fall? Whaleful? Tell me the plot of whale fall.

A man, Josh Brolin, dies. Oh, come on, man. Yeah, I know. I've seen that movie. Yeah, and they're trying to look for his son is trying to look for his remains, Austin Abrams, who was actually in weapons with Josh Brolin, and gets swallowed by a sperm, whale. I presume he's looking for

his remains underwater. Yeah, you'd hope so. Otherwise, it's a hell of a different picture than I'm imagining. But, um, and it gets swallowed by a sperm mail. Can he think of a way to escape before his oxygen runs out? I can't. Listen. I'm there on day one, Richard. I'm there on day one. I can think of two ways

to escape. I know which one I prefer, but I can think of two ways. Actually, three, if you count the blowhole. I would not call that movie whale fall. I would call it, uh, don't discount the blowhole. And peeky blinders, the immortal man? Stephen Knight's so that will be... That's exciting.

I mean, there are lots of other small ones. There's lots of good horror coming and there's lots of interesting things like that. But I hope it all works out. And there certainly is more to watch. Yeah, yeah. With quite obvious plays for massive multiplex, big things that people actually want to see. So I hope it works out because plenty of other things aren't. Exactly.

And I'd say the same for television, actually. Tell me about the television. There's lots of... I'm going to give you a top five. And they're actually all based on how much I like the... the writers of those things. But there's all sorts of big things. Come out.

Heated rivalry is about to drop in the UK, which is this ice hockey love affair. I'm watching it. It's going to absolutely massive in the States based on some books as well. So that's been absolutely huge. We're going to have a new euphoria as well. The pit is finally going to come to UK TV. It's been a huge hit in America.

People absolutely adore it. And for lots of reasons, I think, because of the delay of the... It's a hospital drama. It's a hospital drama. Russell T. Davis has got a new show Tiptoe on Channel 4. Jimmy McGovern is bringing back time, which always has a different cast, David Tenets, in it this time. Richard Gad, a baby reindeer, has his new show, Half Man.

That would be a very, very interesting thing to watch. About the two brothers. Exactly, about the two brothers. Dear England, the Gareth Salisgate drama, is coming to TV. George Kay, one of my favourite writers, is a show called War, where Dominic West plays a tech titan, and Siena Miller plays a film star. You think, yeah, count me in, George Kay's writing and those two. But the five things

Rivals is coming back Can't wait for that. Line of Duty is coming back for a seventh series So there's loads and loads of good things to come up Yeah exactly Here the five things on I love that they're doing that by the way Thank you for serving the audiences

The Gibbons brothers Neil and Rob Gibbons who write all the Partry stuff have got a sitcom with Lenny Rush called The Reluctant Vampire And that feels like if that's as good as everybody involved is then it's going to be a huge hit I'm going to give you five shows all of which come from writers I love.

Stefan Godoshefsky, he wrote, Mum, is back with a show called Babies. So I'm with Papa Essia Doe is in that. He's an unbelievably great writer. Tony Schumacher, who wrote The Responder, and that was his first ever TV show, and it's people who watch that or tell you how great it is. He's back with a show called The Cage,

which is Sheridan Smith and Michael Sochardtcher working in a Liverpool casino, and they both want to rob it. And he's like, okay. Then, in which case, I will be watching your show. We have Michaela Cole is back with First Day on Earth. Lisa McGee is back. Lisa McGee, who the writer of the wonderful Dairy Girls.

We had a lot of people, family over for Christmas, and a couple of them had not watched Derry Girls. They absolutely blitzed the whole lot. They were like, this is unbelievable. And it is unbelievable. You forget how brilliant Derry Girls is.

So to have Lisa McGee back as brilliant. It's called How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, which is on Netflix in February. The show, genuinely, I think, is going to be an amazing show because I absolutely love her. Daisy Haggard, who did Back to Life, which was, I think, a wonderful bit of television.

She has written a show about witness protection where she plays Bella Ramsey's mother and it's called Maya. It's written the whole thing, directed the whole thing. It's on Channel 4. Channel 4 got a bunch of really, really good things coming out this year. So it feels like all of our best writers have got something new coming out for us this year.

So I know there's lots of good movies coming up and it's important to go to the cinemas and watch that. But it feels like there's BBC, there's Channel 4, there's the streamers as well, but so many good bits of tele coming up for us to be able to talk about. Some of them will be disappointments, I'm certain, but some of them won't. And that's the thing I love about the entertainment industry is, you know, however much you want to sort of, you know, bemoan things. Every year someone does something where you just go, oh my God. Yeah. I mean, this didn't exist before and now it exists forever.

And there's a huge potential in both of those particular mediums this year, I really do think. Exactly that. I think at the top end with the high end stuff, things are very, very, very healthy. A huge problem in the middle of television. You know, there's not kind of 100 other commissions and daytime commissions and quiz commissions and entertainment commissions. Yeah, exactly. There's not kind of a huge groundsword of telly, but the stuff that is being done at least seems like it's going to be a treat. Shall we have some ads? And after that, we're going to be talking about our very, very low stakes, WhatsApp celebrity drama. We've all had WhatsApp dramas, all of us.

But this one's better than all of ours because it involves some very, very low-rent celebrities. And we're also going to talk about the traitors. So it is wall-to-wall drama after the break. It's all fun. No one's getting stuck in a whale. Welcome back, everybody. Now, I am going to make a admission to you.

you. Before this week I did not know who Ashley Tisdale was. Okay. You know that I would have known who she was. Now I barely know who she was, but she's in the middle of a huge WhatsApp drama. Can you fill us in? Yeah, I can. I'll tell you who she was. She was, oh, you know, I can. She was, um, she played Charpe. She was a bit of a drama queen. So big, big stretch there. In high school musical. Um, so she was part of the whole, you know, Disney. the Mousses childhood-raising factory, which involved countless other stars, some of whom we'll end up mentioning.

Anyway, she was in a group chat, a new mum's group chat. Or new moms? New moms. Because they were all American. Yeah, they're all American. I'm going to speak in English for this, I think. But she was in group chat with various others.

The admin of this group chat was Hillary Duff, who used to be in Lizzie McGuire and other Disney shows. Yeah. See, her I had heard of. You had heard of her. I mean, I couldn't pick her out of a lineup. No. If she was married to Jacob Alordy and I walked past him in the street, I wouldn't know who that couple was.

Well, she is married to somebody who gets a part in this story. So hang on, hold on to your hats. Mandy Moore, who's a singer. Yes. Megan Trainor, who's an alleged singer. I know Megan Train. This is the funny thing since you got a Grammy. Seriously, I've loved this so much.

This story is my favorite thing. I can't. It's the best group chat story since that one about bombing Yemen, but that was real. It's more destructive this one in some ways. Hillary Duff and Ashley Tisdale must have met on the Disney channel in the Norties It's like anything

You know people have been on a reality show You know whatever it is You have your group And you know Things go back and forth Memes They put a lot of stuff on Instagram They're hanging out

They were exchanging sourdough Oh no really Yeah exactly I mean You don't even have to care about these people Because they exchange sourdough on Instagram So that's it for me So it's quite performative

Yeah Anyway on January the 5th The Cut Which is New York's magazine, one part of New York magazine, published an essay based on Ashley's blog. Yeah, you know it's the Nauties because she's still got a blog. And she called it Breaking Up with my Toxic Mom Group and she said, I thought I found my village. Instead, I was back in high school.

Like real high school, not East High School, which was, I was want to say the word, her fictional alma mater. Her fictional alma mater, East High School, wherever they were, I think it was said in like Albuquerque or something. She says she was, as she said, she said she was left out of a couple of group hangs. She seems to have been frozen out in some way via the medium of a dinner party plasmal. And she started saying maybe I'm not cool enough. Anyway, so she says in this essay, so I texted the group, this is too high school for me, and I don't want to take part of it anymore.

And saying, you know, people were talking about each other derogatory when they weren't there. I wasn't included in things, blah, blah, blah. The other thing she said was this, this has also made some wannabe online sleuth. try to do some investigating like they're on CSI. Please don't even try. Whatever you think is true isn't even close. For clarification, what everyone thinks is true is true. Because Hillary Duff's husband's now dialed into this.

In a really funny way. But actually, she did deny it once it was spinning out of control. And her agent said there is zero truth in it. You can imagine on their actual group chat, our agent saying, you've done what now? You've written it. To who? With Hillary Who?

You've written an essay for the New York Magazine. about a really easily identifiable group chat. She did brilliantly straight afterwards, said, no, this is about a different group of moms who I'm in a group chat with. Okay. Are you like, okay? Are they in the room with us now?

She said that this is where it becomes deeply relatable, though. She says, the whole reason she wrote this essay, she felt alienated, unlike nobody took her questions to heart, since other moms wouldn't reply to her links and memes. Oh, my God. We've all been there, haven't we? You know if you're in like a particularly active WhatsApp group and you post a little, like a little joke or something and no one comes back for 10 minutes, you just think, oh, great,

I'm going to have to emigrate. That's it. Everyone hates me now. This is, and the first person who breaks the ceiling comes back with a like little cry laugh or something. You just think, oh my gosh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. But so that's what Ashley was. Exactly.

But that's where Ashley was. She'd obviously done some meme, which for her was either heartfelt or hilarious. And everyone's like, oh, Ashley. He's done a meme. I don't know. She did a Charlie Kurt tribute, which I don't think they loved. Yes, I think that might be more. Once again, America's toxic politics just gets everywhere.

And so the Queen Bee of this group was the sort of Regina George, but it was definitely Hillary Duff. Who's Regina George? She's the mean girl and mean girls. She's the head of a mean girl in mean girls. Do you know what? I did know that. Yeah.

Thank you. And her husband, she said, I'd had children before and they were all on their first babies. Oh, right. I really want to be in this group. All right. Yeah, we do. Right. Hillary Duff's husband, Matthew Comer, bear in mind that everyone's saying, like,

Ashley Tizz is like, this couldn't be further from Madrid. He's posted a picture of his own head superimposed onto the picture they used for Ashley Tisdale in the Cut Magazine. And he was written, when you're the most self-obsessed tone-deaf person on earth, other moms tend to shift focus to that actual toddlers. I mean, should we go through that again? Read that again. This is great. When you're the most self-obsessed tone-deaf person on earth, other moms tend to shift focus to their actual toddlers.

I mean, they're in Hollywood. Yeah. So we call tone deaf and self-obsessed in Hollywood. That means something. Wow. And I'll tell you what, Hillary Duff, not only that, Hillary Duff's in the middle of a comeback. Oh, no, how unfortunate.

She's got a new album. Hillary Duff sounds like a Coronation Street character. She does, completely. She'd be in the snug with the rovers. I mean, her name, not her accent. Yeah. She's not like that, too, Rudolph. So there's all this other stuff about why they iced her out.

and but the stuff that's coming in anonymous but obviously very pointed briefings from all the other people in the group are she shared a Charlie Kirk tribute she didn't help enough in the wildfires I tell you what Hillary Duff was housed by Mandy Moore all the other way around I can't remember and I'm not going to look it up so just let's just assume and the phrase misalignment of values has been used okay I mean there are WhatsApp groups where a meme comes through you're like huh oh oh that's interesting because It assumes a complicity of everybody on that WhatsApp group. Can you imagine the side group chat, though, about this group chat? Oh, that's the group chat I'd be interested in. There must have been a non- Ashley Tisdale WhatsApp group before Ashley Tisdale was phrased out. And she would have obviously had abortive attempts to create her own side chats that didn't work out. First of all, I want a reunion show.

I want it televised. Yeah. This matters. Yeah. I'd like it to be on one of the major news channels instead of some of the awful news for at least an hour. Yeah, that's a really good idea. There are lots of famous group chats, and I know The Avengers has got one, and Chris Evans actually once left it because it all got too much. They had lots of roasting and whatever.

But Scarlett-Hansans says sometimes people post box office numbers on it, which I quite like. Maybe that's why Chris Evans left. No offence. Taylor's squad, can you imagine how many group chats she's got? Oh, God. You would be so if you had, I mean, that's an MVP in your group chat, isn't it? It is. You'd love to have Taylor.

You'd be worried about the side chats. All the Spider-Men have got one. All the Spider-Men have got a... I mean, you know, but Andrew Garfield, Toby McAye. You think they'd just go on the web? Yeah. Very good. Do you know what?

Is it... I think that, you know, sometimes people say there's nowhere as lonely as a marriage that isn't working. I think being frozen out of some group chats can be as lonely as that maybe. Because we didn't have these things a few years ago. And now they sort of run the world. And when I say they run the world, they really do literally run the world. As I say, the US National Security Advisor added accidentally, the former US National Security Advisor,

acted accidentally a journalist to a group chat about bombing Yemen while it was happening. So we know they run. Group chats run the world now. You can't map them and no one knows what's happening with them, but they know they're there. And the whole point of WhatsApp was it's supposed to have some privacy to it. And as soon as something's opened up to like friends of friends of friends, you think, I don't think there's a lot of privacy here.

I don't think it takes a lot, you know, especially if you've got like a famous mom's WhatsApp group. That's a, that doesn't feel private to me. No, you need to have a very, very, very, like strong initiation process. A bit like those racists in one battle after another when you just, it takes absolutely age. To be sure that this person is a really proper, completely cast iron, bona fide, a racist who you can be in your little clan. And I'm using a K version. And if there's any possibility that they're not fully, if there's a misalignment of values, Richard, then you can't have them.

But they do think that it's all groups settle into characters. So you've got like the admin, the comedian, the person who is like an emotional manager, the one that everyone goes to for side chats. And it's actually, despite being a relatively new thing, has settled into something almost like pantomime. The side chat to WhatsApp group is, much, much bigger than, I mean, almost any big WhatsApp group is fairly quiet, but the side chat WhatsApp groups are absolutely on fire.

Well, that's what all these podcasts are. They're like the side chat of the broadcasts. They became the side chat of TV things and what people wanted was the things, the things that you'd say that you wouldn't say in a more conventional setting, but they've sort of become, but they do run the world, I think. I've spoken before about every single reality show that's ever been made. They set a WhatsApp group afterwards. or the celebrities who've been on it because they're like, I really think I've met my best friends since I've been in here.

And I've seen various people who've been on various shows in their various WhatsApp groups. And it just the way it peters out breaks your heart. It honestly breaks your heart. You know, the last, I would love someone to do a book, which is the last post on every single failed WhatsApp group. Just the final thing that was. said the last cry, the last echo into the darkness before everyone just went, let me just leave it there, shall we?

And just do it as a coffee table book. That would be amazing, wouldn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And I call it, everybody has left the group. I feel like have to segue into our next subject matter because the WhatsApp group for this year's traitors wouldn't be interesting. Wouldn't it just?

It's the midpoint of the series. It has been some absolutely. Epic TV. If you haven't watched it, stop listening now. You're very welcome to you. If you haven't watched episode six, this is going to talk about things that happen in episode six, or anything up to and including episode six. Yeah.

So not this week's ones. We're not talking about that last week's ones. No. Now, Richard, when Fiona departed, it was interesting. People were saying, what a woman, what an amazing woman. Were they watching a different Fiona to me? I did not experience her as a wonderful person. First of all, my charisma considerations to the, whatever.

the Welsh local government office because that is a colleague in a half. The drama of that was she played it like an American nihilist like Kate from below deck in season one of the US traitors. I just a complete, she had a sort of

in some ways to me she represented boomerism as an idea within the game given every single possible advantage, unprecedented really, squandered it all and probably ruined it for everyone coming after her. I mean, sorry. And took none of the blame.

Yeah, should be given an executive producer credit on this series. It is fairly extraordinary. Every time you think, I wonder if this, I wonder what they're going to do, what's going to happen in this series of traitors. You go, oh, okay. Something I've never seen before. Worth noting that the ratings for this series are higher even than the celebrity

traitors ratings. I think some of that is to do with putting it at 8 o'clock, which has opened it up to a slightly younger audience. Even though a lot of people aren't watching it at 8 o'clock, it just means that it's bringing more people into the tents. we spoke on our first reaction video about the secret traitor being a thing that you put in very early just because we've all worked out that nothing is really happening in the first few episodes and saying we said they would end it quite early they ended it very early in the end

because they found a traitor so I think the maths of the whole thing was not working so they brought Fiona in I mean I've never seen an episode like it and it all stands it absolutely stems it doesn't stem from, you know, a suspicion or anything. It stems from jealousy that somebody else was told something that you were not told, the whole thing. And that's why Traders is such an amazing television program, because one person feels jealous that somebody else has shared a secret with someone that they think they should have shared with them. And so rather than kind of going, okay, and maybe I'll think about who I am as a human being, they go, I'm going to blow this whole thing up. Not only am I going to blow it up, I am going to win. She has picked on the wrong person.

She picked on the right person, I think. Yeah. My most terrifying older woman this year since Aunt Gladys in weapons, if you've seen it, you know. But there was an element of like, you know, oh, you want a president kidnapped. You want me to invade like a country for some minerals. I'll do that. Yeah. She had a huge main character energy.

Yeah. And it was interesting that, you know, when people say young people are self-obsessed, I thought, okay, give her a chance. Amazing TV, though, Fiona, you have to say. And as always, just give her an EP credit. But it's incredibly, it's worth remembering always on these shows that people come across differently on television than they might do if you meet them in real life.

If they're placed in those situations, bits of their character might not be exactly who they actually are. But in terms of the narrative of this program, oh my God, she's been absolutely extraordinary chaos, which is what you want, controlled chaos. If you stayed in, Can you imagine if on that round table they had voted out Sam and Stephen, who don't forget, voted for Fiona, Stephen and Rachel and Fiona had all gone back into that turret.

I mean, I would not have been able to watch. I would not have been able to watch. I would have to just go like England and a penalty shooter. You know what? I have to go in the other room. You have to tell me when it's all over. But she has that right reality distortion feat. She said, I couldn't put Rachel down because she deserves to win.

Okay. Is that what you're already telling yourself? Because also, by the way, you put, and quite rightly you put Sam down because he's the only person who had any heat on him at that round table. So your only chance of surviving is that Sam gets more votes at the year. That's why you put Sam down because no one was going to vote for Rachel. I agree. And Sam, it's quite unfair they're voting. You know what it reminded me of.

There's always been people in American politics where people, and by the way, they don't often make it. But people look at them and say, yeah, but he looks like a president. Like Mitt Romney, like Paul Ryan, John Kerry. there's kind of slightly patrician or kind of kind of guys. The problem with Sam is he just looks like a traitor. Yes, he really does. It's, what can I tell you? Yeah, yeah. It's, I don't make the rules. It's hard. It just looks like a traitor. And, you know, he's, and he's one of the few standout people from that large blob of kind of 30-year-old men who were in the show this week. He was the sort of first one to put his head above the parapet. You know, every week they seem to have introduced a new man that we haven't seen before. Like Matthew, you're like, oh, hello. Well, hello. Oh, yes, Matthew.

Well, they were giving him, what they did with him is that they gave him an entrance, really, because there are sometimes that you think, I haven't really seen much of them. And then it means so much more when he walked into church and was like, I'm ready to do a deal with you. Yes. And you're like, oh, I've sort of seen this guy on the round table. Have I seen this guy? Yeah, he's one of the guys who sit at the round table. Oh, and now he's, okay, so oftentimes you will go light on someone in the edit because you know that there will be more coming. They're a big player later on.

So, yes, he's been interested. He looks, by the way, exactly like Owen McLaugh from Father Ted. You know, the little kid who all the grannies love, the singer. He looks exactly like him. Harriet, can we get on to Harriet? Yes, we must. The stand-up star of the piece so far, I think. Yeah, probably the best faithful we've seen,

although Jessie's very good, but she's good on one tack, but Harriet knows it all. The trouble is, she's right about lots of things. She thought it was traitor-on-trater, And there is something, there is a peculiar energy to a confrontation, isn't there? There just has been, obviously, you've seen a certain number of series that you just know that it's, even if you didn't know much about it, you think there's a strange energy here. And I guess the assumption is this is because it's traitor on traitor. Yeah, there's two friends having a row and you think, oh, I've missed some.

I have missed something. Something has happened when I haven't been in the room. And in the traitors, nothing happens when you haven't been in the room unless it happens in the turret. But is she going to be the ultimate victim of the stupidity premium, which we've talked about before, Harriet. it because either they recruit her or they murder her now in the next episode. Well, if she seems to be hinting that she will keep Rachel close, which would be the smart thing to do. You know, if I were her, you know, the next play is to say to Rachel, here are the two people I know for a fact are faithfuls is you and choose anyone else. Doesn't matter who else you choose.

But just so Rachel's like, oh, okay, I've got Harriet on board. That's good. I think it's too dangerous. Why do you not just murder her? If you think that she is of use to you. If you think that you can have little, you know, don't forget you can murder people, but, you know, you can't banish people. But if you've got a very strong player like Harriet, if you're Rachel, you can say, oh, okay, we can't murder person X because it looks too obvious. However, Harriet might be able to banish them for us.

So she becomes like an adjunct to the turret if you trust her. But I ultimately think that Rachel is intrinsically a lone wolf person. And actually the traitors position is very strong if there's a team of at least two and you can have one liability within that turret. I love Stephen. Oh, he's just a reaction meme. He's 65 reaction memes per show.

Okay, there's only a 60 minute show. But he's got, because I don't get enough of it. I didn't think anyone would ever go redder and look more guilty than Ann and Carr. Yeah. But every time you're like, Stephen, it's sort of, you know it's sort of showing. But you've got to say something. So you just say, are we going to discuss this? Bless him.

But listen, it helps if there are two who are really tight. But Rachel has never had that. She's never acted that tight with him, within the turret even, and felt like they're a total unit and they're going together. You don't get that vibe of her. And I wonder whether she's intrinsically just too... Well, they haven't had the chance to coalesce at all, really.

When there were three of them, you had the secret traitor. So that was an issue. Then... We had Hugo, who's a liability. Hugo left. So that's difficult. Then suddenly the secret traitors there. Then you've got mega liability coming in.

The Ashley Tisda out of the piece. And so they haven't really had the chance to be proper traitors and to formulate a plan or a plot. You have to formulate a bond and I don't think they have that bond. I found it absolutely. I felt like did I miss something when everyone kept, when Stephen kept saying, I'm so close to Fiona.

Yeah. Because I hadn't necessarily got that vibe either. But obviously they have to just kind of, there's only a limited amount of time. But anyway, so Harriet, we were talking. Yeah, carry on, please. Which is interesting. I just think you have to murder her.

I think that there is a route through, but that route through is at Rachel's side. I don't think there is another route through or being recruited. She's got the ability to go into the church and ask questions. I don't know what questions I would ask. Even Matt's question. It was because they can lie, they can say whatever they want. So his question was sort of, his questions made, which is who are you going to get rid of next? And, you know, if you, you know, would you like to recruit me?

they make great television as questions. I think as a traitor, I don't know if they particularly... I think I'd say who would you most like me to go after at the round table? Because then they're most likely going to give you the name of... At least you'll know that. The one piece of information you'll get is that that person is... It's vanishing and unlikely that person's a traitor

and that they're doing a double bluff. So at least you'd know that that person was a faithful. Yeah, I don't know, wouldn't you? I mean, just for one piece of information, you've got two questions. You could get one... You could know for sure about one person. person with one of the questions. Oh, by the way, an absolute, absolute textbook thing that they missed this time around, which happens a lot, is when the four of them were in cages, Sam and

Stephen and Mazz, and Sam went first, then Stephen went, and so it was Reese and Mazz left in the cages. Yeah. And everyone's like, well, I'm suspicious of Reese. I think it's Reese. You know for a fact, they wouldn't put this in the edit, but you know for a fact that if there are two people, left in the edit, one of them cannot be a traitor because you know who's going. So you know for a fact that Reese is a faithful. You know for an absolute fact that Reese is a faithful. Nobody picked up on it.

If I was in there, the one thing I'd know is, oh, okay, I know somebody is a faithful. That's someone I can take aside and say, look, I absolutely know for a fact you're a faithful. But of course, as is the way of these things, they got rid of him there. So he was a mercy killing. And then he's like, oh my God, I literally was just,

excited that I could finally go back in there and do nice things and they got rid of me. So I don't think it was a mercy king. No, no, that was some more reality distortion. Yes, yeah, exactly. I'm going to vote you off a show you won't stay on. That's not a, no. Harriet, here's an interesting thing that everyone is, everyone in the book trade is talking about. Okay, so Harriet is a real deal novelist, right?

So, like, you know, is, you know, absolutely top of her game. Blood Orange, which is the first book was a big bestseller. Everyone knows that everyone in the industry knows Harriet. And there is a question which is what does this show do for book sales? So publishing is an industry that's in sort of perma crisis about how to reach people, how to get anyone to find authors, how to get people, find their books. And suddenly you have an author who is on far and away the biggest TV show in the country. I mean like crazy.

And not only is on far and away the biggest TV show in the country, but is sort of the standout star of it in terms of what you would want a crime novelist to be which is absolutely getting people's motivations. It's on brand. It could not be more on brand. And there was a thing in the bookseller saying that her book sales had gone up 93% in the previous week,

which sounds impressive, but they'd gone up from 181 to 343. Okay, that was a number they were talking about. Now, there was an enormous opportunity for her and for her publishers now. Maybe in that first week, you know, people, you don't necessarily going to read a book just because you like someone on TV. However, if you're a publisher, this feels like your Instagram game has to... Do you understand publishing, Richard? Well, no. You know what? Increasingly, no.

So Harriet has a new book coming out called Witch Trials. And so I was looking up the date that it's out. And it's out on February the 26th. Oh, well done. And this show finishes on January the 23rd. Now, there's lots of different reasons why it's very hard to bring books forward. You know, supermarket slots and things like that have to be booked kind of sometimes six months in advance. But this show was finished a long time ago.

Harriet would have known that she's done a pretty good job a long time ago. You would think you would move heaven and earth to get that hard back to come out in the week that Traders finishes. To give you an idea of the economics of these things. So she's going to sell a lot of her backlist. She's got four novels already. and they're already doing good numbers. That's not really where the money is going to come. You make like a pound per paperback.

On a hardback, it's very, very, very, very hard to sell hardbacks. I think her last book sold 3,000 hardbacks, which is absolutely not bad at all. But if you bring out witch trials in the week that she comes out of that castle, and every single chat show in the land will book her in that week, they all will. She's shown what it is that she does, who it is that she is. You can go

onto Amazon and read reviews of her books and see, oh, this is, she's the real deal. Like people really, really love what she does and people who've read advanced copies of which I'll say it's terrific as well. You've got an opportunity to sell 100,000 hardbacks for that author. And

the money side of you, you get £4 pound of hardback or something like that. It's like it's for a publisher to have an opportunity to break a great author and to put them into that next level is it happens so rarely and it's absolutely come along here and by the way maybe they will trying to be kind to that business is it possible that she's the I've never seen the copy of the the the agreement they have to sign is it possible that the NDA is just so limiting that you can't say that you to anyone

that you've been on it or can you just quietly break that and You're not to say, you know, can you keep... I think you can say you've been on it. I think people I've spoken to knew that she was on it before it was announced. Yeah, for sure. In that case, I've got nothing. And also, if you are, Harriet, like, Harry is not someone who's backwards in coming forward in terms of her views and she represents herself very well.

You know, she can, even if she's not telling her publisher, she's on it, she can say, I think there's a strong argument to say that we move this forward a little bit. I mean, again, she wouldn't know exactly when Traitors is being shown. but she knows it's not going to finish at the end of February. So, yes, you have to, you know, you have to plan these things like a long time ahead. And, you know, bookshops have certain space for certain things. But as an industry in publishing, we're trying to get people to read. We're trying to get more and more people into bookshops.

We're trying to get more and more people to get into great authors. There's this huge opportunity here, absolutely staring us in the face. And it will maybe everyone will step up and maybe. at the end of February when this comes out, it'll do huge numbers and maybe they'll have a campaign in place to deal with it. I don't know if they would or not, but that's something I'm going to keep a very, very close eye on because what an opportunity. And by the way, for someone like Harriet, this is not a friend of mine's daughter was talking to me about traitors and she said, you know, on Love Island, you know, a lot of people go on Love Island just to boost their

only fans and their Insta following. So she said, would Harry's, Harriet be more interested in the prize money or which would be more interested in book sales. And certainly in terms of money, I mean, I think it has been very widely reported. I think she's in a fairly comfortable position anyway. I don't imagine the money would go to anywhere other than charity. But as an author, there's one thing you want, and that's for people to read your books. Yeah. Because it's really hard to write.

Yeah. You pour so much of yourself into it. And the one thing you want is for people to read your books. So the one thing Harriet will want out of this, doesn't matter what it is, prize money winning. none of that will be as important to her as people finding her books, loving her books, recommending her books. And next time she writes a book, more and more people read it. And just to find a readership.

And that, I think, will be the most powerful takeaway for Harriet Tice. And I think for the book industry, I think it'll be a reckoning. Can we take advantage of it? How do we take advantage of it? Can we move at speed? Can we turn a super tanker around quicker than we normally do? And it's very possible that they will be able to. it's very possible they won't be able to

but the answer either way will tell us a lot about the publishing industry and where it has to go next. Just before we wind up, can I ask you about this fan theory that everyone has some kind of connection with everybody else because there's that family tree in the castle we already know that Judy was Roxy's mother

and that Ellie and Ross were each other were boyfriend and girlfriend and there is this sort of fan theory there's a thing that happens on Uncloat when you get these two parchments or they call them scrolls or whatever. It's not a scroll actually, it's a parchment, but it's fine. And they say open

the first one and that's the one that tells you who the traitors were that you don't know. And if there's two are they not waiting, is there not going to be something they're filming and that they're gathering all the reaction shots and that we haven't yet seen that and they're going to say

and also and then that will detail all the or maybe I'm just being a complete conspiracy theorist. No, you would certainly assume so. Yeah, okay. That's what I would say about that. Right. But again, hats off to Studio Lambert and the whole team making that show.

You know, to follow up celebrities, which was so huge and to put together this show, which is so compelling in a completely different way. I bear it mind they're filmed back to back. They've been filmed back to back last summer. I mean, it's absolutely extraordinary. and to innovate within the game in these kind of completely unexpected ways. It is so easy to mess this show up. I cannot begin to tell you how simple to be.

And by the way, they would at some point. But, God, they haven't yet. They haven't no way. And that's very, very impressive. I can't wait. Is it Wednesday the next one? Wednesday. Wow.

Have you got any recommendations? A couple. Yes, I usually recommend the Harlan Cobain show that comes out on the year's day. And this one I think is his best yet. It's called Runaway. I'd really recommend that eight episodes, twisty turning. as always. And I want to recommend a book I mentioned at the top that

I was reading an amazing book. My mum recommended it to me. It is called When the Cranes Fly South, which sounds like the sort of name I would make up if I have to pretend I'm writing a book a prize winner. But it's called When the Cranes Fly South. So don't let that put you off it. By Lisa

Ridson, who's a Swedish author. And it is about if it doesn't sound like your sort of thing, I would say don't read it or listen to it, but It's about a guy in his 80s in Sweden and his family and his son is, he's getting increasingly infirm and they want to take his dog off him. You're like, oh, it is so heartbreaking and funny and beautiful and wise. And it's, I just think it's an absolutely extraordinary book. As I say, my mom read it and she said, you have to read this book.

And if you do have relatives in their 80s or if you're in their 80s, it's very, very truthful about life and living. and, you know, it's, it's, I won't say anything more about it other than I'm finding it very, very beautiful. And it's punctuated by the notes that his carers leave when they come and visit him each day. So it's a huge, huge swath of stuff of him and then just these little kind of notes about, you know, their visits. But it's really, really good called When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridson. So thank you to my mum, who has absolutely exemplary tasting books. And this is a, this is a case in points. So runaway the Holland-Coburnshaw on Netflix I love,

and when the Cranes fly south by Lisa Ridson. How about you? I'm going to recommend heated rivalry. Ah, so you've actually seen it. Okay, yeah, I love it when something like this happens. I love it when something that is not, doesn't really have massive hype at all. This is the gay hockey romance.

It's on Sky or Now. It's been out in the States and Canada beforehand and it's just come out now and it's in the UK and it's been this huge hit over there. And I'm not going to talk to you. much about it because I definitely want to talk about it. I know there's been so many questions about it. We'll definitely talk about this on the Q&A.

I think it's really interesting. I like romances anyway, but I love it when I just find it when there's a cultural phenomenon. I'm desperate to like see it. What's everyone talking about? I will talk more about my thoughts about it in the Q&A. But I'll recommend that because it's, if there's something that big, I always think, if you get a chance, have a look and just see what everyone's talking about.

Not everyone, but many. Excellent. Thank you so much. So we will do a Q&A on Thursday. Oh yeah, we're doing it. So much. And yes, to everyone at home, thank you so much for listening. If you want to become a member, don't forget,

wrestersentatement.com. You can do that if you wish, ad free listening, all of that stuff. We've got a bonus episode about Popeye the movie, the most, and this means something, the most cocaine-fueled set in movie history on Friday for our members. But other than that, we'll see you on Thursday.

See you on Thursday.