The Rest Is Entertainment - Brat Summer & THAT Olympic Ceremony

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Thanks to Charli XCX's latest album 'Brat', this is brat summer. What thought is brat summer, and what is it with the slime green colour we're seeing across the internet and in the real world? Richard and Marina takes us inside the Olympic opening ceremony, revealing how it came together and what it takes to produce such a spectacle. And it seems it Hollywood is in a cycle of reboots. Marina & Richard look at the possible causes, effects, and what it says about audiences. Sign-up to The Rest Is Entertainment newsletter for recommendations - www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde and me Richard Osmond. You sound like you're not in the same studio as me. I sound like I'm not with you and I feel like I'm not with you Richard, which as you know is worse. I am in Corfu and we're parted but we shall soon be reunited but I have to say it's pretty nice. How's the temperature? It's hot but apparently it's hot with you. Yeah, but it's like English hot. Well, yeah, I don't know. It's about, I mean, it probably gets to about 35,

but there's always a reason that I don't mind it at all. Sounds absolutely awful. Sorry, I went bang on too much about it because there's nothing worse. What should we talk about today? Or what are we going to talk about? I'm not going to pretend that we haven't decided already. What should we talk about? We just talked about anything. With absolute inevitability, we are going to talk about? I'm not going to pretend that we haven't decided already. What should we talk about? We can just talk about anything. With absolute inevitability, we are going to get to the Olympic opening ceremony. Yes. Yes, I have some good insider goss on that as well.

Oh, good. I'm looking forward to that because I'd watch it on a Spanish TV channel, but as we say, you don't need the commentary. We're also going to talk about Brat and Brat Summers. You look like you're having a Bratt Summer and Charlie XCX and what that means. I'm 100% my aesthetic has been vocalized for me and I've been seen, yes. And we're also going to talk about the absolute craze for Hollywood reboots.

There are so many in the works, many of films that were not even successful the first time around, or were in my view, a distinct C or B movie. And also finally talking about Beverly Hills Cop 4 which we promised a couple of weeks ago. Not a reboot of House Saber, but in a way a reboot because it's been such a long time. Yeah. But I've thrown it in with the reboots because I felt guilty we hadn't talked about it.

And because you can. Yeah. It's one of the things you can do. Exactly. What are you gonna do? What? Out there in Corfu like you give a toss. You just want this over with. No I don't Richard,

I've been looking forward to chatting so why don't we get on to the subject of Brat. Okay let's do exactly that and now it's come into the public consciousness via a number of routes the Charlie XCX album Brat but now it has become more than an album, it's become an attitude, it's been co-opted by Kamala Harris. Can you talk us through exactly what Brat is and what it might represent? Okay, Charlie HCX has had an album out. I think it came out, it came out like June the 7th. It's our sixth album, so this is not some sort of sensational debut, et cetera, but it's really good. The album's brilliant. I can talk a bit later on, I will talk about

how I think that they have pulled off this incredibly successful campaign to make it the viral aesthetic viral attitude whatever it is People have tried to define it. She's tried to define it She says you're that girl who's a bit messy and lost a party and maybe says dumb things sometimes She's honest blunt and a little bit volatile. Like I said Richard feeling seen Yes, yes, I am feeling seen. Thank you for noticing. Fierce, hot, intimidating. People are saying it's inclusive, but it's also exclusive. I mean, it's one of those things, isn't it? But it's a sort of state of mind that has taken

over the summer. And one of the noticeable things about it is this slime green people calling it lime green. No, thanks, boomers. By the way, I'm just not being moving. Then my children have been calling me one dollar holidays. It holidays. It's like this slime green color and it's got that very simple aerial typeface saying brat and it's been co-opted in millions of ways. It's currently, I believe, the header of Kamala Harris's presidential Twitter campaign. So it says Kamala HQ on the slime background in the aerial font. So now that front cover is very interesting because that's almost been the lightning rod

Because you know every year there's music which is I'm uncompromising. I'm slightly messy Look at me. I'm arrogant, but I'm also vulnerable I mean that's that's that's been the stuff of youth culture and youth music forever and ever and ever but this is this is Massively caught on so that there's there's other things to it As you say all it is is a very lurid shade of green with the word brat written on it, which, you know, looks like you knocked it up on Photoshop in an afternoon. But of course they didn't knock it up on Photoshop

in an afternoon. There's six months worth of kind of testing that. There were 500 different shades of green they looked at before they found the lime green. Now what they're trying to do with that cover and Charlie XCX and the agency were very open about it. We wanted to make something that looked like it didn't fit, that looked like it wasn't right, that looked like everything about it was just slightly off. So the colour, they

say they went through 500 different ones until they went, yes, that is unpleasant. You just look at it, you think, oh no, I don't know about that colour. For the font, as you say, they went for an aerial or variant of aerial and And again, they went through lots and lots. They just they wanted the one you think, oh, that doesn't. No, they haven't really. That's not right. I type in aerial. Oh, do you? It's aesthetically unpleasing. And I don't like to type in anything that looks like it's already on the pages of a novel.

I like it to be really like basic. I always write in very cheap notebooks. So I just I like I like the idea of it with a bit. That's what I guess, because I don't want to be too highfalutin you know I don't want to go look at look at me with my fountain pen and my my Moleskine diary yeah so yeah it's it's deliberately the aesthetic is deliberately off even the font size they went you know slightly bigger it looked a bit better and slightly smaller it looked a bit better so we'd put it dead in the middle where

it just doesn't look right at all so it it's very clever and the colour in the same way that pink or lurid pink was the colour of last year because of Barbie and that's a very marketable thing, just a colour. This slime green is the colour of this summer and it's instantly recognised. But to literally have a colour that people suddenly go, oh yeah, that's Charlie XCX is quite an impressive, it's quite an impressive trick to pull off. She hasn't tried to copyright the colour, which by the way would be totally non brat. Yes, she hasn't tried. That would be non brat in my opinion.

Now that in my opinion, given that we're ruling everything, is it brass or not? It's a taxonomy. Everything in the world by the end of this cycle would have been divided into two categories. Anyway, but she's obviously decided that mass adoption of this colour is much better than exclusivity, which it is. And in fact, they did launch a Brat generator microsite so that everyone could already start copying and memeing this thing and putting it out in millions of different ways, which has been a big help to kind of drive it. I think the number of it is in the spectrum is it's hash eight, ACE, treble zero.

So if you want to find the exact color, that's what you look for. You can imagine there's so many moms and dads right now having to go to B&Q with their daughters or sons and just literally going to the guy who works on the paint thing, just going, could you do this? And he goes, yeah, do you know what? I've done it 49 times already this week.

Of course I can do that. Well, you know, in last summer, in fact, actually when they were shooting Barbie, they ran out of that particular shade of that pink and they were painting at Leavesden where they built it all and shot it. They ran out in the UK of the stuff that various pigments that create that shade of pink

It feels to me like and listen, this is a theory and it's just come up to me but perhaps we're going through a cycle of highlighter pen culture Yeah, and next summer I'm just going to invest in lurid yellow go with the yellow or the or the pale blue Yeah, yeah, there's a little tasteful. Do you know what? The blue, if there's three, it's pink, green and yellow, isn't it? And sometimes they come in a four, you go, oh, you've just got like a blue that isn't even really particularly shiny, you haven't put any glitter in it. The blue in a highlighter pack should not be there. That's my bit. Anyway, that's just my theory, highlighter pen culture.

I promise you everyone, we would do a separate item on what actually belongs in a highlighter pack, because the show is about entertainment to bubble. Now here's another interesting thing I think, now there's always been there's always been very countercultural female pop music since the mid 80s I mean before as well but that's when it got massively mainstream with Madonna and so on but the last 10 years it really has been an absolute tsunami, from Taylor onwards, Taylor and Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter and Chapel Rowan now as well as Charlie XCX.

These incredible artists who seem to make their own music, write their own music, write for other people, have their own uncompromising attitudes. I think when I was younger, a lot of music for teenage girls was sung by teenage boys and written by old men. And now you've got this incredible generation of women who are making their own music, writing their own music, marketing their own music, selling their own music. And it's been an incredible run of it for the last few years. And Charlie XCX is just

the latest version of this. Yeah, this is the other thing, the real world, because obviously a huge amount of this thing and how it's gone viral is the way that everything goes viral, which is on social media and it's digital. But she did have this kind of bricks and mortar version of this as well. You know, she did a private show that she did on a private fan group chat. And then she said, I'm teasing this.

And then what they did is they got this wall in Brooklyn in Greenpoint and They put messages on it saying whatever it was brat was the first message and then it kept Repainting it with all these other messages, but that wall itself became a viral thing But she went to the wall in a bratmobile Basically and stood out the roof of a car and sung and it's like this crazy You see like everyone's there and I suppose we should say that for everyone that, and there are very few that have been this successful and this all pervasive, there are so many people like meticulously planning campaigns and say, and we're doing

like this and then that, and we hope it will take off organic. You just have to hope that, you know, you've planted the seeds on good ground and it will work. Yeah, that's it. You know, when people go, oh God, is it that easy to do? Oh my God, culture is so dumbed down. You think, well go, oh god, is it that that easy to do? Oh my god, culture is so dumbed down You think well, no, because everyone is trying to do this firstly. They did it really really well Secondly, the album is absolutely incredible and but that's the key So what she's done is she's made an incredible album and then she's done an incredible marketing campaign on the top of that I agree and there's something about it being a six album

There is a thing like all people who write in all different kinds of ways know that moment where you've kind of, I'm not saying she hasn't found her voice on earlier albums, but suddenly like your voice is working and it's of its time. It just happened, it's a Zeitgeist thing. Yeah. She's such an interesting artist.

Cause as you say, she's been around a long time. She was very, very underground at first, written loads of songs for lots of other people, Iggy Azalea, Blondie all sorts of people she sort of made a deliberate attempt to go quite pop for a while to see if she could crack the charts in that way and sort of did and sort of did but it slightly didn't suit her. Well and a lot of this album is about that isn't it? Exactly that and so she's finally found the way of doing the stuff that she loved the underground stuff that she started out with, but doing it in a way that massively explodes

onto and into pop culture, which is very impressive, but it comes from being true to herself, I think. It comes from making great music, comes from being true to herself. So by all means, listen to the album and not enjoy it, by all means have the view that modern music is not like it was in the eighties or, you know, whenever we were growing up. But that is demonstrably a brilliant album. She's a brilliant artist is a brilliant record. It's a brilliant LP. And the fact that it's been marketed so brilliantly, I could make you resent it. But I think actually it's just, it's a masterstroke of 2024 culture.

It works like all of these things. When you hit your voice is because you're authentic and you're colliding with the times in the right way, it's about she's able to be authentic about the promotion now. Favorite song on the album? 360. Oh it's interesting because often in conversation you would then say to me what's your favorite song? But listen but it doesn't matter. I tell you what what's your second favorite song? Von Dutch. What's your favorite song, Richard? Oh, thank you for asking. I would say Von Dutch would be my... I love the fact that I've chosen the singles. God, we're such parents.

I mean, I think... Oh God, I'm going to get hated for saying this, but it's got a lot of punk to it. The aesthetic of it is very punk. The fact that it's a person doing their own thing and actually being uncompromising is very punk. The fact that it's a person doing their own thing and actually being uncompromising is very punk. The fact that it's somebody making music which you could make in your bedroom if you really had to, but you know, obviously the production is much more expensive than that, but it's doable. And someone who's made her own music for years

and years and years has made music in her bedroom, has made mixtapes, and suddenly doing these lurid Technicolor album, we think, well, that sounds like the Sex Pistols to me. Good luck to Neil with the post bag. The other interesting thing that reminded me of a bit when I was reading a thing saying, the smell of Bratz would be sweat and chips and Marlboro lights. And you think, well, that sounds a lot like grunge. But grunge was very, very male and women, to get involved with grunge, had to slightly subsume themselves.

And, you know, in the 90s you had that whole LADET culture. And it seems to me that this is women owning that culture more than they did in the 80s and 90s. This feels female led rather than a male version of what they'd want females to be. Yeah, because we know how we've discussed before how before how the Latin culture ended up for women poorly. So I do think, I think the basic message would be whatever you make of this music, if you don't like it, if you've got kids who are into it, if you're into it, if you've got friends who are into it,

whatever you think of it, I think is an incredibly positive bit of our cultural life. I think it's a great record, which will survive for a long time. I think it's very, very clever marketing. I think it's done by people who really understand what they're doing, who already get the jokes you think you're making. They're absolutely ahead of all of that game. So even if it's not for you, I hope you recognise as the summer

goes on that something good is happening and it's good for teens who are listening to pop music and it's good for our culture as a whole, I think. Absolutely. The one thing I'm going to have to put slight breaks on is the idea. I think it was this morning, I don't know because I'm slightly on one day behind on everything, but I saw a Telegraph headline that said, the brat British pop star who could decide the American election. You see? No, no. That is one thing that won't happen.

So it's going to be a brat summer, but it's not going to be a brat American election? No. No. And on that note, shall we go into a break, Richard? I would love to. Hello, everybody. Tom Holland here, the co-host of The Rest is History, with some very, very exciting news. Now, to celebrate this year's Olympic Games, which, of course, are being held in Paris,

we thought that we would dive into the story of another period when incredible spectacles were being staged in the French capital to much bloodier effect than anything we will see in the Olympics. And this is the story of the French Revolution. Over the span of eight episodes running throughout the duration of the Olympics, we'll be looking at the incredible life of Marie Antoinette, the storming of the Bastille, King Louis XVI's attempted escape from Paris with the rest of the royal family, and many more seismic events. So to hear our series on the French Revolution, simply search for the rest is history wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everyone. This is Richard Osman live in the studio. I'm talking to Marina Hyde live in Corfu. Marina, what are we? Not that everyone's jealous. What are we talking

about next? We're going to talk about reboots because there is obviously there you will have noticed there is an absolute craze for reboots. This year you've you will have noticed there is an absolute craze for reboots this year you've already seen Jake Gyllenhaal was in Roadhouse reprising the Patrick Swayze role there's going to be a remake of Ghost and these by the way that they're not sequels they are remakes or reboots reversions dirty dancing before you think they're going through all the Patrick Swayze movies and just remaking them which I've got a number of views on they just pulled the plug on the last minute on a

Dirty Dancing one and are going to do it again because they have already done a Dirty Dancing remake but it's now back in development. If I know anything about Dirty Dancing is you will not stop it. You can't stop it, whatever you want to do it those kids will dance. You will not place it in a corner, no you won't. So War of the Roses, Officer and a Gentleman, Parenthood, Splash, Spaceballs, Blair Witch Project, Happy Girl Mod, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings again, The Running Man starring Glenn Powell. Glenn Powell, he's, I mean listen.

We're going to talk about him again in a minute. Heaven Come Wait starring Glenn Powell. And I tell you what, Glenn Powell also wants to star in a remake of Backdraft. I am interested in Glenn Powell starring in a remake of Backdraft. I don't think I've actually been as here for a movie star. When I was laughing throughout Twisters, I was thinking, I don't think I've been as here for anyone since maybe the poem for Gerald Butler. And I like Gerald Butler and Glenn Powell both having names of people who I could have gone to primary school with.

But in a way, Glenn Powell, okay, he's supposedly the star of the moment and whatever, he wants to be in all its remakes. I feel that Glenn Powell is trying to remake all the movies from the era back when being a movie star meant being the biggest thing in the world. So it's almost like he's trying to, it's like a cargo car. If he just remakes those movies, then he will be as big as the star of those movies were in those days, whereas no one is actually as big as that now apart from just a very few few like, I don't know, The Rock or Tom Cruise or Denzel or whatever it is. But they're not even the same as they once were. I went to Twisters on day one of opening and that has turned out to be, by the way, a huge

hit. And I don't know if you understand why when you see Glenn Powell in a wet t-shirt in a barn trying to explain something about super absorbent polymers, he's just saying science words. You understand them more than Glenn does. I'll tell you the one thing you don't hear about in that movie is climate change. No, but it's interesting because part of the thing about reboots is everyone's saying, oh, why would you do it now? You know, twisters. Well, of course, that'd be related to climate change. I honestly thought you'd get one line about it in the movie, like why are we seeing this rash of these F5 storms or whatever?

They call them the tornadoes and you don't get any and I think it's because Glenn Powell has decided You know in the words of Michael Jordan that Republicans buy sneakers, too I don't think you'll see any of that stuff in a Glenn Powell maybe see that's the thing with reboots Listen, there's a lot of them and they say look it's crushing originality and all that stuff I don't mind them too much for a couple of reasons. Take for example Outrageous Fortune they are going to remake okay and as you say Outrageous Fortune was a sort of a hit movie, not a massive hit movie. Shelley Long and Bette Midler, a great film, came out in 1988. Films quite often is archaeology. When we were growing up in the 80s you could

pretty much look back over the history of movies and know all the films. You know there was a canon and it was being built up but you know it had only been built up for sort of 30 odd years in terms of big movies. Now since Outrageous Fortune came out 72,000 movies have been released worldwide so nobody in the future is really ever gonna dig down and find outrageous fortune again. Maybe a couple of people one weekend might take a look at it but as a cultural artifact it no longer exists whereas actually you remake it firstly you watch the remake, secondly you'll go back and watch the Shelley Long and Bette Midler original and you've suddenly found yourself an amazing movie so I don't mind it because I think a lot

of those smaller films that are great films are buried. But as you say, the key is, you know, I'm taking every single opportunity at the moment to ask Chris Columbus everything while I've got him. The IP that he's been involved with, the reboots swirl around it endlessly. You know, you've got Gremlins, Goonies, Home Alone, Mrs Doubtfire, Adventures in Babysitting, you know, you've got Gremlins, Goonies, Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Adventures in Babysitting, you know, just incredible sort of slate of things, all of which are kind of in that mix. And he said, well, I would never do a reboot unless, as you say, I have something new to say, unless there's a reason for making it in 2024, which we didn't have for making it in 1982.

I can tell a story, a different story because of the times and I can use these characters that one generation understands to tell a story a different story because of the times and I can use these characters that one generation understands to tell a Story for another generation But yeah, his view is exactly that of I would remake twisters If I could say something about climate change because it's I have something interesting to say about it I could I could remake ghost this is I'm not quoting him What are they they are actually doing it because they want to talk about mental health and depression apparently a ghost really? Yeah, I guess also we've had the great pottery throwdown since then so it's

maybe there's a spin-off maybe it could be set on that. That's an idea and then you have a competitive element to it as well. Reboots have always existed right as long as there have been stories there have been reboots that's what folklore is but Hollywood in the golden age remade things all the time. I do think there's something bigger now. First of all, they don't know what young people like at all. And they're trying to work out what young people like. What they can see is that they like watching TV programs that their parents watched. They like watching Friends. They like watching Gilmore Girls. They find things on TikTok and they kind of develop a sort of ironic interest in them that maybe then becomes a serious interest. And it's old stuff, they find old stuff and say, look at this. And it's a sort of weird nostalgia, that kind of false nostalgia for things you didn't actually experience. And, you know,

there's lots of people in the UK who feel like at some level, they lived through the Blitz, even though they were born in the baby boom, if I may say, after the war, but they somehow at some level feel they lived through the blitz and it was great. And there's that sort of feel to some of this, which is that there's a nostalgia for something that you didn't know the first time around. I also think it's really significant. We've talked about the gerontocracy before in politics and how it's just sort of bled into culture. It really has. The people who run the studios are so old now. There's a guy called Mike De DeLuca who they got to be the kind of green lighting executive at new line in 1993 He was 27 years old

27 he did Austin Powers. He did boogie nights. He did seven He did all these sort of things like that rush out all these kind of new things and they were all massive hits And it was a new kind of vibe and he was pretty you know when they went to find someone to be head of Warner's films last year, they got Mike De Luca. Now Mike De Luca is now, you know, he's now 57, you know, 58 and all of the people who are green lighting these films, who are green light level, apart from about one, is in their 50s and 60s. It sort of maybe shows that there's a big sort of, let's make them like we used to feel to all of this. I do think there's a sort of comfort to all of that. It's like the Elasticated Waste movie, isn't it? It's like a sort of, it's a very risk averse era and it's so risk averse. And it

one step more than we can't do anything unless there's some IP there is to remake IP that you've already made. Let's talk about Beverly Hills Copfall. What was that say? Listen, I'm going to shock you. I absolutely loved it. I loved it. I thought it was very good. But didn't you feel that it was just trying to give you a feel of that feeling that you

got? It's chasing a high. Honestly, I disagree. I'll tell you why I disagree. If Radiohead bring out an album and I like it, I want them to bring out another album. If I enjoy the Sopranos, I want another season of the Sopranos. I think this idea that when something is made is then sort of just sort of, you know, cast in stone like Harrison Ford in Star Wars and you know, never to be seen again. I think I want to see it again. I love I love the film. Why would I

not want to see the next bit of that film? Why would I not want to see those characters? Well, when they're old and he doesn't have the same... Eddie Murphy does not have the same joy of being on screen that he used to have. He just doesn't. And you can see that. And I felt that really strongly. And it's sad watching that. And even though it was very well done, and great car chases, and the stuff of the daughter was good, and all that sort of stuff, there is a level of soullessness to that kind of Netflix retread of it all. I don't know. No, and I know what they're trying to do. They're trying to get you back to the mood,

the mood of the original, which was, don't forget, quite early on in the blockbuster era relatively speaking, and it's that mood of the 80s. There's no message. You're just pumped. It's heightened. And if people are saying, well, that wasn't my 80s, it was the 80s of mass culture. But it's slightly trying to get you back to that mood in a time where we don't live like that anymore. I don't know, because I think if I'm Eddie Murphy or Judge Reinhold or John Ashton or Paul Reiser or anyone who came back for this film, I would think, do you know what? I loved making that film. I'm really, really proud of that film. It's huge. People absolutely loved it. Why do I, of all artists, have to just go, okay, I won't do it again? Because painters are allowed to paint similar things, but bands are allowed to make similar albums. Obviously, TV

executives are allowed to make the same show again and again and again and again and again. And I would have thought in a lifetime, you're allowed to make four versions of Beverly Hills Cop if it's something that people loved. I think, I think you're right. You're allowed. I'm not saying they shouldn't have done it. Go ahead and do it. And it was done perfectly serviceably well. And you know, it was really actually enjoyable. Yes. But for me, I find it quite sort of poignant at the same time. I really do. And I don't get saying anything about the passage of time or anything like that. I just feel like, no. I thought it lent into the, lent into the poignancy of it. That's what I love. I love something that's

40 years later. But when something's 40 years later, it has to be poignant. I think there's something rather lovely about that. I will say, however, if you've been put off by reviews or anything, it's genuinely, it's a lovely Saturday night, Sunday night, stick it on. It's a really good bit of entertainment, the new Beverly Hills Cop movie. You mentioned right at the beginning there that they're thinking of doing a reboot of Spaceballs, which reminds me when I think in the 80s they first asked Mel Brooks about whether he would do a sequel to Spaceballs. He said, yes, I am going to do a sequel and I've already got the title. I'm going to call it Spaceballs 3, the search for Spaceballs 2.

That is brilliant. Now, the Olympic opening ceremony, can we talk about that next? Because that occurred on Friday evening in Paris. I love a big swing. They went for such a big swing. I fear to say, I thought it rather missed, which was a shame because I love it when people try something completely radical and different and fathomated them for giving it a go. It probably looked great on the little model that they built. Yeah. Well, listen, it was a great moment on Twitter. That's for sure. It was one of those uniting moments.

Yeah. As you say, it's interesting. We constantly say culturally, people need to take more risks. Why are we so safe? And what they really did was take a risk. And actually the idea of taking out of the stadium where these things always are, and putting it on the streets of Paris, showing off Paris, showing off these incredible buildings, incredible French artists, I thought was a great idea. But when you saw it, what did you think? Well, firstly, it was raining. Yeah, I know that I can't bear it, the weather. I mean, I looked at

the weather. The only thing that worked with our terrible Wi-Fi was the weather map and you could just see this one blob over the whole of France That was it. That was this enormous storm but also is a weird sort of twofold thing in that it went on for a really really long time and The rain continued throughout Creatively, I thought it was a great idea lovely to have everyone go up the the sand That's lovely and it was all directed by, you'll be surprised to learn, an avant-garde French theatre director called Thomas Jolie. And he was the creative director in the way that Danny Boyle was the creative director

of London 2012. The interesting thing about this is it's the difference between sitting around the table having an idea and then watching it go out, which I've done a million times. And you can have ideas that around the the table, you think this is great. And then in a run through, you think, yes, this is really, really working. And then the second it goes out, you think, oh, of course, it's much, much, much too long. Also, you can tell he was a theatre director, because I didn't think it worked as a TV spectacle. It's important that people understand that this is almost always the biggest rating event of the entire Olympics. People are into lots of events and you think it would be the 100m men's final,

but it's not necessarily. The opening ceremony is always enormous. In the UK, it got, I think, 7.8 million at its peak. And I say at its peak because I don't think everyone's stuck around with the whole thing. But if only it were a ratings game, that isn't it. But it just didn't work as a TV spectacle, I think. And it must have looked great on the maquette when you've got the whole set, because you can see it all at once. But the whole point of the screen is that it's very limiting. And that's in a way why when you work within a stadium, you are working, he would have been better off doing that as a theatre director, and he would have been better off translating to TV

that way. But the inclusion of many elements, and mean I love the minions, why were they then, and the guy who with the torch barrel who definitely looked like he was, everyone said he looked like Assassin's Creed or whatever. Also, also by the way can I just say one thing, we've learned one thing from popular culture in the last 10 years, if somebody is wearing a mask, at some point they must be unmasked and the reveal must be unbelievable. You're a theatre director, what on earth? What happened? Why wasn't it unmasked? And it was, you know, obviously Macron or someone, you know, just because it has to be. Why didn't they do it? I mean, I have always got, if there are dignitary suffering, which there were in the rain, as the expression goes, hang that in the loo for me, I have always got, if there are dignitary suffering, which there were in the

rain, as the expression goes, hang that in the loo for me. I love to see some of the worst people in the world. If they're getting rained on, I love it. I enjoyed that bit. But let us be honest, opening ceremonies are almost without exception, sort of gibberish and really quite bad. And there have been, in my recent memory, two great ones. And I was very fortunate to be in the stadiums for both of them. Coincidence? I think not. Coincidence, yeah. I'm the lucky charm. Beijing, which was absolutely incredible. And when you were in the stadium, those drums, obviously the drums were amazing on TV,

but if you're in the stadium, you were the beat. You could feel it, your whole chest, the whole thing. At no point in that ceremony, and this is the other thing, is that in general, ours is an exception. Obviously, ours is the second very good one, I think the 2012 one. But at no point in that thing, you would not have felt it was weird if the stadium in Beijing had just opened up the floor and a massive super weapon had come out. I mean, China was announcing themselves to the world, this is like the Death Star or Bond Lair with a better percussion section. That is it. And there was something extraordinary about being there and feeling that this is like a real cultural moment where they, and we looked back a

lot in our ceremony. And maybe that says something about where our respective empires are. In general, they tend to work if you've got something to announce, you're an autocracy or a totalitarian state and you wish to announce yourself to the world in one way or the other, and then you kind of know what's happening because there's something quasi-militaristic about lots of it. There's a sort of cultural point to it. This was more of a tourism advert, whereas London 2012 wasn't a tourism advert. It wasn't saying like, come to London, any of this. It was saying, this is our culture, this is our history, this is who we are. And whether or not you agree with that particular take on it, and many people loved it, and probably many other

people thought, I don't like this at all, what on earth is the NHS even doing in this? Which was sort of inspired and bonkers and brilliant in my view. It was like a reboot of the NHS. Yeah, it was. Written by Frank Cotterall Boyce. Yeah, which happened only in that stadium, sadly not in the wider actually NHS estate. But anyway, so I think you sort of want it to feel like either a Bond villain has hired Busby Barclay, or in the case of ours that William Blake and George Orwell had hired Busby Barclay. And so it needs to be one of those things. You didn't get that in Paris at all.

I loved some of the stuff, but not a lot of it. I will say this, the French perceive it to have been an absolute triumph. In France, the mood is that it was an absolute tour de force. I think they've just been through a very bruising series of elections, and I think they saw something that's celebrated a diversity that's not always celebrated in France, and they thought that it was a triumph. Some wonderful bits of it, the robot horse, of course was was wonderful I want to see it want to see more robot horses. So the on making a comeback was was incredible As you say the she saved it the cauldron was amazing Although I thought it was gonna be up in the sky forever, which I quite cool

But now it's it's grounded again and you know those the flames around the bottom of the that balloon, you know, they're not real flames That is water mist and light. Well, yeah around the bottom of that balloon. You know, they're not real flames. What are they? That is water, mist and light. Well, they do it with mirrors. Have I shocked you? You have shocked me. I assume it's part of their sustainability drive, which always seems to me a particular irony.

I want to talk a little bit, because I know you didn't see the UK feed of it you were watching somewhere abroad. And I wanted to talk a bit about our coverage of it, because it was commentated on by Andrew Cotter and Hazel Irvin who I think the two of our absolute finest broadcasters, I mean they're both absolutely extraordinary and I want to talk about the incredible job they did is the truth because I've had a little chat to a few people who were who were behind the scenes. I had a little chat to Andrew Cotter as well and

Hazel and Andrew have done these opening ceremonies ever since Rio, Commonwealth Games and Olympic and Andrew Cotter says this is this is the gig that I value the most he said this is a this is a huge deal he said it's important and I take it incredibly seriously I love it and I want to get it right ordinarily in fact in every single other case you would have a dress rehearsal a couple of days beforehand. There was no dress rehearsal at all for this. Firstly, because you can't really do a dress rehearsal at the Seine. Secondly, the creative director wanted everything to be a surprise. Okay, so they have no idea what is going to happen

and when. They have no idea that Lady Gargo and Celine Dion are going to be doing their things. They've got no idea of that. They have no talk back Lady Gargo and Celine Dion are going to be doing their things. They've got no idea of that. They have no talk back from the director, which they would normally have, because all of it is supposed to be a surprise. Little things like they didn't know who the torchbearers were going to be. They didn't know who was going to light the cauldron. So right at the very end, the most important thing in any Olympics is lighting that cauldron, which is an extraordinary moment. The reason you got Andrew Cotter and Hazel Irvin is Andrew

Cotter recognizes Teddy Riener, the French judoist, and Mary-José Perrec, the sprinter. He knows who they are, but lots of the countries did not know who was lighting the cauldron. Oh my god, this is like an anxiety dream. Because they hadn't been told. Andrew Cotter as well, he's done months and months and months and research on every single country, so he's got all these great facts and fun little things. But because they're on a boat, he's got about 15 seconds to talk about all of them. And then suddenly they're cutting to a dance routine that he didn't know was going to happen. The final indignity for both of them is that they're in the open air, obviously it's raining,

they had umbrellas up, but all the broadcasters were told to put their umbrellas down because it was blocking the view of the horse. They were literally, him and Hazel Irvine absolutely soaked to the skin. It says like Zinedine Zidane picks up the torch, I had no idea he was going to get it, gives it to Rafa. Obviously I recognise him. I didn't know they were then going to go on a boat. And he goes, and I recognise of course that that's Carl Lewis and I know that's Raffa, I know that's Serena. He said, it took me a while to recognise a mid-60s Nadia Comanech. He said, because I didn't know they were going to be on a boat. I didn't know who was going to be on the boat and I didn't know where they were going. And so the two of them, I think, did such a magnificent job. And you can tell with Cotter, especially he likes,

he's very, a very funny man. And you said, you know, you said you can't go full Norton on these things. You can't go full Graham Norton because it's important and the Olympics is about something and you could, and you could tell that so all the way through. You can't ironize everything. And there is a sort of thing where people now just say, why couldn't we have commentary from X, Y, Z as well? Because what they want you to say is, oh, this is all absolutely ridiculous. It's like, don't worry, you can read all that in the papers the next day. In fact, you can read it up five seconds after this interminable show has finally finished.

Exactly. But you don't need to ironize everything. And there's enough that is ironized that I suppose you just sort of have to take it seriously. But you know and interesting after we talked last week about the one thing to really look out for and you made this point which is absolutely right is innovation innovation and camera work innovation in shots and the shots were what really let it down there's no because you had nothing to cut away to because the crowd were all on the banks there was let me tell you an innovation you can wipe the lens, you can get these raindrops off. That's the level of innovation that I mean.

I also felt that the crowd were like one deep on the Seine and sometimes non-deep. And you did slightly have that sense that everyone had been, which you never want to hear, and which cities always complain about in my experience, and everyone I've ever covered, and everyone where I've gone to the city, people hate the fact that people have been made to move and leave the middle of the city in order for it to come a lockdown zone. But as you see on the day, clearly these mega events are incredibly vulnerable to terrorism and to vandalism and to just any kind of disruption. But it did feel strangely spectatorless in some ways. Well, I think the rain may have had something to do with that as well. So I'll say a couple of

things. Firstly, Andrew Cotter and Hazel Irvin just proved themselves to be the absolute consummate broadcasters and the BBC are incredibly lucky to have them both. Secondly, genuinely, the French feel like it went better than we felt that it went. And thirdly, we're definitely going to remember it. You know, it's like there's there's loads of openings there, at least we don't remember it. We're not forgetting that in a hurry. I also think that part of the reason if you go, you know, when you're in France, if you watch their TV, it is very, very different to ours. And that a lot of their culture in lots of ways, you know, there's this whole thing of like, when you go to a cinema, they have very, very different to ours. And a lot of their culture in lots of ways, you know, there's this whole thing of like,

when you go to a cinema, they have very, very few American films on it, or even international films. They are very big on preserving their own culture. And in a sense that their culture has become slightly siloed in some ways so that what's good TV in France or what is regarded as good TV is not the same as the rest of the world. I mean, my husband and I used to laugh when we even TV in France or what is regarded as good TV is not the same as the rest

of the world. I mean, my husband and I used to laugh when we lived in France for a bit and we used to, you'd watch TV and an enormous amount of things right up into the sort of 2010s involved dinner audiences. Watching something occur on the stage was TV on lots of shows and you thought, this is so odd, I can't really imagine lots of little white tablecloths and people sitting around watching whatever it was that's happening. And this being a TV spectral because it's not what our TV looks like anymore and it never really did in the first place. We would sell game shows to the French, which would run for 45 minutes and you'd watch them and you go, oh, this is four hours long. That's interesting. And like, and like in the middle

of it, they'd be like a, like a group of people just talking on a sofa, you go, so what's this bit? Oh, they're talking about county planning laws. It's just in the middle of it, we took we'd like to because just in between the rounds, we thought it'd be interesting. Okay, that's, listen, it's different, isn't it? It's different. And if people at home thought it was long, Thomas Jolie, the creative director, the previous thing he did before he took this gig was a reimagining of Shakespeare's Henry the Sixth and Richard the Third Called H6R3 which was 24 hours long Goodness, now Richard do you have any recommendations this week? I do we just finished watching us a three-parter on Netflix called Dirty Pop

Which is about Lou Perlman who managed Backstreet Boys and NSYNC and had lots of other shady enterprises. It's really, really good. Loads of great archive of those bands and other less successful bands and an extraordinary story of this guy, Lou Perlman, who lived a very unusual life, I would say, but it's really, really good. Dirty Pop is good. Oh, I'll definitely get... I have absolutely no Wi-Fi, which is why I'm in producer Jerry's hotel room But I will hold on a minute. Why didn't we lead with that? Yeah Breaking. Yes

So I'll watch that when I get back and I will have a huge I will have a lot of books When I have completed my holiday reading to recommend or or otherwise But I should be talking to you again from Corfu on Thursday You may certainly will be For our questions and answers session. Absolutely. So send in any questions to therestisentertainmentatgmail.com. Enjoy the sunshine. I will do and I hope you...

There is sunshine or is it just heat? Oh yeah. Where we are right now is a very, very hot basement but about 40 to 50 feet above us the sun is shining. Take care. Bye-bye. So about 40 to 50 feet above us the sun is shining. Take care. Bye. Bye