The Rest Is Entertainment - Celebrity Traitors and Rupert Murdoch

Episode Date: April 22, 2024

With Celebrity Traitors on the way, Richard takes us through a quick history of celebrity versions of TV shows. Marina gives us the details of Hugh Grant vs. Rupert Murdoch in The Sun's privacy case AND some exclusive news on the casting of The Thursday Murder Club film for the podcast! 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 Osman. Hi Marina. How are you Richard? I'm not too bad. How you been? Busy? Well I've been devastated. I did not receive a pot of Megan's jam which I don't know if you noticed Megan sent her first product to 50 influencers. No, who got some? Some people, some various people I don't really know. What flavour is it? Strawberry. Is that okay? Yeah. Gosh, she's really gone out on a limb there. Yeah, she's gone out on a limb. Where did she get her ideas from? I guess we'll find out. But I didn't get that. What I did get is the Ava Mendes sponges. That we spoke about

a while ago. By the way, this is not sponsored content. I'd like to say neither for American Riviera Orchard, American's company, nor for Ava Mendes' sponge company. But the sponges have arrived. If you're watching this on YouTube, I'm just going to hold it up. Oh, they look really spongy. This logo will fade when the sponge is basically finished and you should throw it away. Long story short, says Ava, I found Scorospongers and I went from an obsessed customer to co-owner. Yes, co-owner. Told you I was obsessed.

She really has cut that story short because there would have been lots of negotiations there. She's done about a month's worth of kind of negotiations in one paragraph. It's actually the most interesting part potentially of the leaflet which she's failed to realise, but anyhow you will take one of those home with you too. Oh my god, that's amazing. So next week product review. Yeah. That's how you get people back in. Non-sponsored product review. Also today, by the way, I'm gonna Exclusively announce the casting or most of the casting for the Thursday Murder Club movie So for those who celebrate I'll be I'll be telling you who's in that. I celebrate and I'm dying for it

And what else are we going to talk about? We are going to talk about talking to people who haven't been cast in the Thursday Murder Club movie Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch, yeah. We're talking about who I suspect wouldn't be solving the crimes in those books. Taylor Swift, also not in the Thursday Murder Club. Foolishly, very foolish. We're going to have a little one. A rare misstep from Taylor. Imagine just her with the Thursday Murder Club under her arm.

Yeah. I mean, yeah. The book, not the... That's a book fluencer. Not the club. I bet she's got some of Megan's jam. And we're also going to be talking about a leaked announcement that possibly there's going to be a celebrity traitors. We're going to talk about whether there is going to be one and also about the history

of celebrity television shows, which seem to be everywhere at the moment. Dying for this. Dying for this. Okay, well, let's start with Hugh Grant. You'll remember he has been one of the people fighting the cases against Murdoch for the longest time really. He has settled reluctantly out of court his privacy claim, his claim against, it wasn't just for privacy but we'll discuss this in a minute, against Newsgroup Newspapers, which is the publishers of The Sun.

People who've got these remaining cases against them, and by the way, they are for all sorts of what Hugh Grant was alleging was things like not just phone hacking, medical record hacking, bugging, car tracking, burglaries to order so quite a lot of... Wow, burglaries. Yeah a lot of big stuff. The Sun has not admitted any wrongdoing in Hugh Grant's word as it's common with entirely innocent people they are offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court. I mean I always always pay people millions when I've done nothing wrong, but they've had to do this in a civil court. That's ironic. Yeah. The remaining holdouts, sort of Hugh, Prince Harry, there was Sienna Miller, are being offered these huge sums to settle. The trouble is, if they don't

settle and then they end up getting offered even a penny less in damages than was offered to sort of make the case go out of court then you're liable for both your costs and the cost of news group newspapers which is a sort of quirk of the civil courts and means that he could be on the hook for by now you're i mean it's definitely a seven figure sum and it's probably an eight figure sum so it could be over 10 million so if they're offering him 10 million he says no to it which you know you just think oh my god that would be amazing I'm going to just say no I want I have my day in court and he has his day in court and the court 100% says this happened we award you five million pounds in damages suddenly it's going to cost him an absolute fortune.

He's got to pay all of their costs and his costs. That's crazy. Yeah it is and actually having spoken to, what he was really trying to achieve with this civil trial, where the judge was going to find such sort of awful behavior, because it would be heard in open court, that the CPS and the police would then start a criminal case. Regressively, I would say that that was probably not going to happen, because I have to say that in my experience, and also my opinion, but also my experience, the police investigated this always in the most quarter-assed, eighth-assed way.

I mean, I'm going down to the teenth-hasts. To me, I suppose what's sort of interesting about it all is that, or particularly interesting, first of all Murdoch has now paid over a billion. They've settled 1 claims. But in terms of court time and settlements, he has paid over a billion keeping this out of the courts. He would argue, oh, it's incredibly expensive to litigate. So these people are a nuisance to me. I'm going to pay them some money to keep it out of court. There is an argument that other people might make that he is actually saying, I don't want things to be in court.

So I'm willing to spend some money. Whichever of those is true, and I'm sure we both have a view, is costing over a billion. Which is an extraordinary amount. When you think also that they settled in the US with Dominion voting systems, which lots of the Fox News anchors wrongly accused of being caught up in some completely nonsense-confected conspiracy about how the election was stolen from Donald Trump, they settled that for about 800 million. But these are sort of bigger conspiracies in many ways. If true, and of course, news international newspapers have admitted no wrongdoing, but

as we've said before, if true, this is a far bigger criminal conspiracy than anything, e.g. Sienna Miller was involved in. This is extraordinary. The biggest story of all was the way the stories were got and I think that's really fascinating and I also think what's fascinating I'm afraid to say is that the fact that I say that I don't think that the police investigated properly Also, don't forget there was another whole strand of this which was payments to corrupt police officers for information for giving stories and things Like that which sort of petered out really so in your view

Is there a reason police didn't investigate this quite as thoroughly as they might have? Well, we know that the police were caught up in some corrupt payments. I think the scale of it is much more widespread, much, much more widespread. And I think lots of people who've worked in tabloid newspapers would say the same. And I feel that what's so sort of interesting about this is the way that Murdoch, who always presented himself as the skirt, you know, the outside of the Australian, the scourge of the establishment, the establishment has really completely closed ranks.

It hasn't probably been investigated. It won't come before the courts. He's become the ultimate insider. They've closed ranks to protect him. A lot of things in public life in many countries remind me of that shot at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Remember when they got the Ark of the Covenant and they're like, and he's like, what's going to happen? They say, oh, we've got our top men, our top men looking at this. And you just see it being wheeled into this warehouse, along with all

the other stuff they're not looking into. And I suppose people are thinking, well, what's Keir Starmer going to do about press regulation? I'm going to, I don't want to call it now, but I would say not a whole lot. And again, why would that be? I think Angela Reyna wants to do stuff to a bit. Well, yeah, I mean, maybe that's, you know, to some extent, I mean, I don't want to cast it in such a sort of simple light, but it does feel a lot to me with this current Angela Reyna story

that there's a sort of establishment closing ranks on someone who is a working-class woman who this is a tiny amount if there is alleged that she has committed this I can't even, can you call it fraud? Snafu. Then it's sort of 1500 pounds or something and this is being driven by Michael Ashcroft a non--domiciled tax avoider, Rishi Sunak, whose own wife was a mega tax avoider. And it's sort of like, I mean, really, this is, it does sort of slightly feel that the establishment is dealing with her in some ways. I don't know.

I'm, that's a bit of speculation, but I would say to you that Angela Reyna is more solid on press regulation to some extent, whether or not you agree with it, but in terms of what she is more solid on doing something on improving it, then I think Starmer will be. But that's, you know, maybe I'll be proved completely wrong. But like all of these things, like, oh, we're really into electoral reform, we're really into press reform. If you win with a landslide, you're not into any of these things.

I'm going to ask two things then. Firstly, I want to ask you about what the culture was like in the tabloid newspapers back in the day, because I know you were adjacent to it. And secondly, from what you've just said there, whether things have really actually changed. You know, I think back to the 90s and 80s and before, you look at any front cover of any of those newspapers from 20, 30 years ago and it's sort of mind blowing the things they used to say, the things they used to get away with, the hypocrisies. And it was seen as very much part and parcel of that's just what the British press was. And you weren't able to complain because if you

complained they would immediately come down hard on you. So there's a generation of journalists there, some of whom you must know. Do they know what they were involved with back then? Is there sort of guilt and culpability amongst some of them? It's really interesting. Obviously some of them have become whistleblowers for the culture. I remember just sort of being part of it, being around and listening to people talk at the time, and you think this is in the early 2000s. I don't know if they felt that a celebrity was lying to them I think maybe the celebrity just doesn't want to talk to you about the thing

Then almost anything for some for some people not for all not at all But for some was fair game to prove that they were not telling you the truth So, you know, you're there was some sort of moral obligation to spill your guts to I don't know the news the world or obligation to spill your guts to, I don't know, the news of the world or whoever it was. I think that they, at some level, they got caught up in a sort of, the newsrooms were often very unpleasant, quite vicious places where it was regarded as a kind of status symbol to scream at people and to abuse them because that's what had been done to you. It was like a sort of hierarchy of bullying as it passes down the school or something like that. And I think that at some level you think you're doing God's work. But then different things have happened. So as I said

before on the podcast, I mean, I don't really, you know, what are the big showbiz stories now? They're just things people want you to know. People just sit there on Twitter and Instagram and who's unliked someone or who's followed someone or who doesn't, you know, who hasn't liked someone's post in about three weeks. And that becomes the story. I mean, I just can't remember the big last big showbiz expose. And I'm sure people will write in and tell me what it was. And it was two weeks ago, but I'm just not conscious of it. It was such a big driver of the tabloid economy. It was on the front all the time, the showbiz. And then first of all, you have all of this happens, all of the phone hacking, all of this stuff comes out. It was investigated by, it was done by journalists and investigated by journalists. But this happened, so that there were all

these court caters and some people went to prison. And then the big political shocks of 2016, politics became the new showbiz to some extent, and politics was on the front of the tabloids a lot. And showbiz has sort of, to some extent and politics was on the front of the tabloids a lot. And showbiz to some extent melted away. So showbiz, do you think, was at the heart of the real sort of avarice and problems in the tabloid press back then? It's hard to say, but in my view, the people who started doing it, the sort of patient zeros of this thing, were working on showbiz.

Were the showbiz and then it bled out because you hear about this great trick that you could use to just find stuff out and wander around, effectively a form of electronic burglary because you're wandering around in someone's private places on their messaging systems or whatever it is. But then of course it would spread to the royal reporters and people like that but it was a particular time and I don't think and I think that they thought it wasn't illegal. Yes. Although it probably was.

And did they think that... Because it wasn't explicitly banned by law because it was just sort of new technology that people didn't really know but it was covered by probably misuse of communications and other laws that were pre-existing but maybe they didn't think at the start it was illegal. But did they think even if it were illegal they would sort of be protected and they were working under a sort of mafia don who would make sure? I'm sure they thought they'd be protected and also the things they thought that were in the public interest was essentially anything the public was interested in. I mean there are still remaining privacy claims. Prince Harry still has a privacy claim against the Sun. And people are saying, well, will he be the one? Because last time he said, I'm slaying dragons and the work continues

after his last case. But I'm afraid he has now dropped one claim against the mirror. But whether or not he will continue against the son, him and Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenagers, Stephen Lawrence and Elton John, they still have a case against the male, against associated newspapers, so that will go forward. But again, it's difficult with these court payments. And so they all face the same problem that Hugh Grant faced. They do. It's slightly different with a privacy claim, but it just depends. Even Prince Harry, who people imagine has limitless funds, but as he keeps telling everybody about his security, who knows what the actual truth is he certainly dropped a claim against the

mirror and even he may end up feeling obliged to settle. Well I'm very glad to start a crowd funder for Doreen Lawrence if she's gonna lose money on that we should all pitch in shouldn't we for the sake of our democracy. So Murdoch he was at the helm of Sun, News of the World, News International for all of that time. People went to prison on his watch, we know that. He has signed off an awful lot of money to stop these things going to court, we know that. And as you say, the tabloid press and the press in general, even still today, seem to be having this sort of weird power over us in a way that is not commensurate with the amount of people who read the tableau press now. What is Murdoch's power now? What does this hold over the establishment of Britain now?

I still think people just don't want to cross him and there was a whole thing when all this happened and people said oh the spell is broken he's lost his power but he hadn't lost his power and he has many many meetings still. Also I think that politicians are not of a particular high caliber and they don't necessarily make those judgments that you make they think oh It's much better You know Alistair Campbell always used to say it's better to be riding the tiger than have it ripping your throat out But that was in 1997 that was a long time ago. Yeah, that tiger's dead Yeah, I don't know how long tigers live. Yeah, maybe it maybe it isn't because the amount of private meetings You'll see that even

Sunak has had with him, people still believe that he wields immense power. Also I think a lot of what he does is to protect Rebecca Brooks, who I think he sees as a kind of like a daughter figure as well and she was acquitted in one of the phone hacking trials and she's now the chief executive. But you know the summer party, he had a summer party last summer and everybody was there, you know, Starm was there, they all still bend the knee and they all will again this summer, you will have to see who will, perhaps we'll clock in with it again, but you'll see, they'll all go.

But also, just... It's a failure of imagination to some extent that they think it's absolutely necessary. I promise we'll start talking about celebrity traitors in a bit. But you do think, God, what for? What was it all for, Rupert? All of this stuff. I think he's loved it. Yeah, of course he has. Listen, people have different personality types, don't they? I think he's had a great ride. I think he's got a different personality type to me.

That elite thing is fascinating. You see it everywhere now. Liz Truss has just written a whole book about being brought down by elites and you're a prime minister. I'm against the people in charge, it says the person in charge. That's clever, isn't it? Shall we go to some adverts, talk to people in charge and then we will talk about celebrity traders for which, by the way, Murdoch would be an amazing booking. I genuinely don't think he'd understand the format. But Murdoch, what about Murdoch and his fiancee? His newest fiancee, not the one he had a few months ago. Yeah, so listen, that's a story for another time. When he has his next wedding.

Oh god, I'm going to be all over it. All over that. I'll talk to you in a moment. I'll talk to you in a moment. I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Director of Communications and Wall Street financier. And I'm Cathy Kaye, US Special Correspondent for BBC Studios. I've been covering American politics for almost three decades. Welcome to The Rest Is Politics US brought to you by Goalhanger. In this pivotal year for the United States,

democracy, and world affairs, Britain's biggest podcast, The Rest is Politics, is launching Stateside. Uncovering secrets from inside the Biden and Trump inner circles, and how they shape the world's most important economy, but also the global economy too. New episodes are released every Friday morning.

Just search The Rest is Politics, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome back. Now, I believe we are going to talk about celebrity editions of civilian shows, if I can refer to them as that, Richard. Yeah. So there was an announcement this week, an announcement this week. And one of the papers said the BBC is set to announce, set to announce, Celebrity Traitors. And you think, well is this true? And then later on it said, it is suggested that Claudia Winkleman will be hosting. You say, yeah, I think? That's how you knew it was absolutely true.

This is what I mean, showbiz now the pinnacle of the reporting sections. So Celebrity Traitors, and when it was announced everyone was saying oh no come on that's going to ruin it or this isn't right for traitors or why there's so many celebrity shows. So I just wanted to talk about it, I wanted to talk about whether it's going to happen. Spoiler yes and whether there really are too many celebrity tv shows and also a little experiment I did with some great people online about what the first ever celebrity version of a civilian TV show was. Oh, I wonder whether I... Yeah, okay, very good.

Oh, you think you know? No, I don't think I... Yeah, it goes back a long time. It does go back a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Is it in the 1970s? We will find out, won't we? We will find out. You see, that's formatting. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. and we'll find out in the third section

of this item on this podcast. Exactly. So, celeb traitors, is it gonna happen? Yes, it's definitely gonna happen because there isn't a single television show, really, successful television show that doesn't have a celeb version game show or reality show. Just this is like a very, very brief rundown

of some of the shows, which were regular shows and became celebrity shows. The Chase, Bake Off, Pointless, Tipping Point, Mastermind, Masterchef, SESOU, Tough Enough, Child Genius, University Challenge, Only Connect, Big Brother, Love Island, First Dates, Lingo, Bridge of Lies, Strictly of course, the mummy and daddy of them all, Bargain Hunt, Antiques, Road Trip, Weakest Link, Spelling Bee, X Factor Apprentice, Countdown, Deal or No Deal, Tenable, Escape to the Country, we go on. But it's almost impossible to have a show, the only one I could really think of that hadn't done a proper celeb version was Dragons Den, and even then this series they've had

celebrity dragons on there, Gary Neville and so on. So why is that? Well, they really, really, really work. There's certain shows now, Catch Rays would be one, Family Fortunes would be another, where they only do the celeb version. They call it All Star Family Fortunes. I'll be the judge of that.

When you start pitching those things, you do think, how can I just not call this celebrity the name of my show? So Pointless Celebrities was an absolute gimme, because it used to trend every week because people would use the hashtag to say who they thought you know To talk about Kim Kardashian or whatever the best one. I always think was Tipping point which is tipping point lucky stars. That's clever, isn't it? It's got stars in it Yeah, stars in the game. Yeah

Exactly that but yeah, they work There's that bit at the start of every single game show which which drives people mad where you say, and who are you and where are you from? And you say, I'm Marina. I'm from London. What do you do for a living? Do you know what? All sorts, all sorts, largely, largely, I bash Murdoch. So you have that bit of the show and having a celebrity version of the show is essentially that. It's essentially saying some of these people, you'll know who they are. Celebrities come along, you know they're used to what to do on camera and stuff like that as well. So hopefully it's just an easy way to do a format that people like already. That's the idea behind it. We knew Pointless was doing well when

after about three series they said, do you want to do some celebrity ones? You think, oh, okay, we're now in the big league. But you know, now they do it after the first series of things. So Bridge of Lies, which I love on BBC One, the Ross Kemp show, I think went to a celebs sort of immediately. So now it's almost sort of, you know, pre-promoting programs to say, oh, this one's a big hit, look, we're doing a celebrity show. So every single show does have a celebrity version. And I've been on a few.

So for celebrities, it's quite a nice gig. I went on Celebrity Catchphrase and made fifty six thousand pound for a really lovely charity I support you think well that's lovely and easy isn't it I went on million celebrities also get an appearance fee Richard on some shows they do yeah if ever I do a celebrity show yes you would always get paid the reason that they're often for charities yes because people always imagine celebrities to be rich as creases and they don't want to watch celebrities being made richer on television shows.

I don't want to watch H from Steps winning £1800 on the Bridge of Lies. It's just unacceptable. But there are often quite good appearance fees as well. Yeah, almost always. Occasionally things like Bake Off or Stand Up to Cancer, children in need shows you wouldn't get a fee. But other shows you do get a fee if you go on Who W to be a millionaire or something like that, or celebrity catchphrase. Most people, and listen, I don't choose to speak for everyone, most people donate that as well. Their fee, exactly. You don't have to, of course, and no one's checking up that you do or not. At the same time, by the way, the channels are still making their advertising

money, production companies are still making their cut, and everyone else is getting paid. So listen, by and large, it's a good thing. But people love them. You know, the ratings for the celebrity ones are almost always higher than the ratings for the regular ones. You know, there's a reason why Weakest Link now is just a Saturday night show with celebrities and it's because more people watch it. Well enough though, the US, I think, US killed millionaire with this. Millionaire died out really, who wants to be a millionaire died out really much too early really in the US killed millionaire with this millionaire died out really who wants to be a millionaire died out really much too early Really in the US because they went all celebrity which for me

And I'm sure you would agree just a fundamental misunderstanding of that format Which is kind of like in a night you change your entire life in you, but it's a huge cash prize Yeah, it's literally the title of the show. Yeah, it's I mean and who is already a millionaire They knackered it completely and they did they killed the format Yeah The UK one millionaire is one of the few that still has regular contestants rather than celeb contestants The other thing people do now is you'll have a show like blankety blank which is on Saturday night the wheel Which is a great show where it's regular contestants, but you have a panel of celebrities. You've got your celebrities covered.

Your spirit animals are seated around the edge of the wheel and you... Yes, exactly that. The big new game show that doesn't have celebrities on is The 1% Club, but again, it doesn't focus on the contestants at all. There are very few big shows around now that start with what's your name and where are you from. They usually start with, and of course we'll remember you from Heidi High, you know, that's by and large how those shows start now. In terms of celebrity traitors and whether people think it's a good idea, I'll go on record as saying I think it's going to be a great idea.

The Traters was a celebrity format, okay, so the Dutch version is all celebrities who play. I hated the US version, which the first US version of the traitors in its current organized iteration, which was half celebrities, I would call them sub-lebrities, they'd essentially appeared on formats like below deck. I mean a true monster was found from below deck. Oh she was great. Oh my, she was, yeah.

But then half civilians and half celebrities. That to me was just like, just pick Elaine. See I didn't mind it because I didn't know who any of the celebrities were. Of course I had no knowledge but I felt sorry for the ones who weren't used to just staring into a camera saying, I'm just going to refuse to do it. I'm just going to say no. Yeah, I quite like that. Because they've done that on a lot of other shows. But so yes, I think that there was a sort of imbalance there but in general.

So now the new American version is all celebrities. So they've got rid of the thing of having and John Berko. Yeah, so that's all famous people which will address what you're saying there. So it was always a celebrity show. I think Studio Lambert who made it over here said no, this is we want to do this with normal contestants. It's much much much more interesting and the BBC backed them and so that's why the first few series were that and will continue to be that by the way. They're not going to stop doing the regular version I do think that we talked about the traitors as a format before it's one of those it's it's a movable feast that format Yeah, and actually it really depends on me. Yeah, yeah, it really depends on who's playing It's not like we could think of something where it's the same every single time and you stick by the rules and it has a kind

Of linear way through it really really depends on who's playing it and therefore I think it's absolutely acceptable to have a version where there are people who we already know, who by the way, they sort of know each other as well. It's an interesting dynamic to put into that format. And also a selection of people who almost are defining characteristic is they really need to be liked. Yes, exactly. And they really like to be liked. And then it's like, well, are you hungry enough to win the show?

Do you want it enough? Oh my God, they should call it, celebrities, do you want it enough? Yeah. If you had to do a celebrity TV game or quiz show, which one would you do? I'd want to do that because I love it. But I think I'd be terribly bad at it.

By the way, I think I'd be bad at all of these things. But I think I'd want to do that because I find it the most intriguing and I think I've... Like a lot of people about to lose big, I think I would have a system. Exactly. I think I would win. Out in the first episode, yeah. You'd have to do the challenges as well, don't forget. Oh, no, I'd quite like that.

Oh, would you? Swimming through lakes and stuff and putting out flames. It's better to be in than to have to watch them. That's one of the issues with the format. But yes, I'd like to be in the challenges, but it's so much better than watching them. And Traitor or Faithful? Well we've discussed this before. I believe that the best position is to... Traitor is obviously best because you control the game, but I think it's probably best to

be recruited as late as a traitor, having worked out who the apex traitor is. No, traitor from the beginning for me. If they asked me, I would say I'd do it, but I have to be a traitor, and therefore they couldn't promise me that, because that's what everyone would be asking. I'll do it if I get the cover. Do you think there'd be a lot of agenting into who would get the job? A hundred percent.

There'll be a lot of attempted agenting, but you can't allow your the agents to fight it out for who gets to be a Traitor from the start. I mean if they were going down the Farage route, which I suspect they won't know they won't Yeah, you imagine his agent kind of going he'll do it. But yeah, if you're Farage would you I mean what's better for the day? He'll do it if you can smoke you can have this you can that you can go on the phone half the day I mean, you know again a non a non-elite, massive elite. Yeah, I'd love to watch him be a faithful and go, yeah, I've worked it out. I love, honestly, overconfident faithfuls are the best thing in that format. Which is the only type of faithful you ever see.

Yeah, it's true. So they will definitely do a celebrity version of it, that's for sure. My guess would be that Claudia Winckelman will host. Yeah, no shit. That's what I would say. And also, Iman will host. Yeah, no shit. That's what I would say. And also, I think it will be good for the format. I think it'll be a lot of fun. And Studio Lambert, who make it very bright,

they'll work out what it is about celebrities that's gonna make this format interesting. And they'll throw a few little hand grenades in there as well, I suspect. And as you say, when you've got a brand new show with lots of contestants, you're not quite sure what the egos are and personalities are right at the very beginning. You know, you've done your due diligence, but people take you by surprise. With celebs, you can do a little bit more prep for that because you sort of

know who people are and you can throw in people who sort of know each other and friendships we know are already established. But in terms of celebrity television shows, because there didn't used to be quite so many. No. Is the truth. But there wasn't quite as much television. Well that's true. And that's worth bearing in mind.

That is true, yeah. So I was trying to think about where this came from, the first ones, and there's a wonderful guy on Twitter. His handle is at Brigbother, like Big Brother, but with the R transposed. And he writes a lot about game shows and quiz shows and has a big community around him. He writes about that. So if you're interested at all in quiz and game, he's a really, really good person to follow. So I messaged Brigg and I said,

can you get your army on this and try to work out? I know that Bob's Full House had celebrity versions in the 80s, I could kind of work back that far, couldn't get back any further. And he's got a whole gang of people, they've got some subreddit or other. So the 70s was easy, so we got back into the 70s fairly quickly. It's a Knockout used to have Christmas specials. And they used to do it on Cut Final Day.

Cut Final Day it's a knockout and Christmas it's a knockout. Yeah. Exactly. The Cut Final Day was, as you will recall, an entire day of build-up questions sports specials Yeah, everything all day long. Yes, I'm not count specials So we've got back that far the first one of those interrupts Yeah, you say that at some point we're going to have to do an absolute deep dive on one of my biggest obsessions Yeah, which is the Prince Edward royal?

It's not actually called the Grand Knockout tournament that is one of myessions. I'm sorry, this podcast will one day have an almost entirely dedicated episode to it. Why don't we do a special? Yeah, on it. That'd be quite fun. It would be so fun. Given the people who's involved and let's do a where are they now since incarcerated. Some of them yeah paid off people. Yeah, it's a it's it's an extraordinary event and the history of it and how it happened and what a disaster It was and what it meant for the royal family what it meant for all sorts of different things are really fascinating Okay, I should just say that Gary Lineker was in it as I've discussed before

Hold the gold. Yeah, I mean there's so much gold. We'll never get yeah I've got a number of pieces of memorabilia, which I will also bring in no way. It's not just sponges Richard I've got I'm low and strong in these suits. I've got lots going out there. Wow. Well, yeah, we'll get everyone to watch it. We'll find a YouTube. There is a YouTube now.

I also used to have my own special disc of it. Did you really? Yeah, for a long time. Because they've never repeated... Anyway, we must hold the gold. We won't talk about it, but it is going to be... I would love to do a deep dive on this. We'll do a watch along. Because you won't believe it. You won't believe about it, but it is going to be, I would love to do a deep dive on this. We'll do a watch along.

Because you won't believe it. You won't believe it actually happened. And I'm going to have to try and put pictures somewhere on show notes because I've got a book about it and you will not believe the pictures you're seeing. I can't actually. That's so on brand, the first show that we genuinely think, do you know what, we should actually really investigate properly, you know, we should look at the, yeah, it's a royal knockout.

That's really important culturally. The 1987 calamitous. We will do that. So we got into the... Sorry, sorry, sorry. No, God. The first one I could find was a month after I was born, which was Christmas 1970, celebrity knockout.

So first one we could find. Then someone came up with Bobby Charlton was on Double Your Money in the 1950s. So Bobby Charlton goes on, wins a thousand pound, brackets fifteen thousand pounds a day on Double Your Money, where his specialist category was films. Okay, so we got back that far and then one of Briggs' acolytes, they're not acolytes, at Wilton Spinach came up with a show called Spelling Bee, been all sorts of Spelling Bees over the years, but essentially it was a radio show and they decided to adapt it for television and the way they adapted it for television was to have the winners of the radio show

play against celebrities. So this was the first ever ever celebrity show, the first time ever that a civilian show had been turned into a celebrity show and that was 1938. No! 86 years ago. So we've been having these shows for 86 years now. In the UK? In the UK, yeah. That is fascinating. In the US they had sort of shows like Hollywood Squares, where by

the way if you look at people who've been on Hollywood Squares it reads like a who's who of like mega entertainment personalities. This is a sort of really arcane thing that went on for so many years. Sweeps. In US TV once four months of the year, only four months of the year, they would make the ratings available to the local networks. And how much people would pay to advertise it was determined by the ratings during those four months. So in those four months, they threw the kitchen sinker, absolutely everything. You get a celebrity and a soap opera. The news items were all things like swingers parties happening right now in your local

community. So people were like, sorry, everything had to just rate off the scale so people would pay more for the advertising for the next three months. Yeah, absolutely. And we've always had things like Celebrity Squares and Superstars that are just for celebrities. And it's, yeah, it's this slightly more what I would have considered to be a more modern thing of celebrity versions of civilian shows, but I was incorrect because it's an 86 year old idea. And by the way, the celebrities they would play against would be brilliant. They would all it would be like, um, Don's of Oxford colleges.

You play against Fortons or it would be they played against a BBC all star team, which they said, which consists of a commissioner, a presenter and an engineer. Wow. OK, I would. How it should have been back. Yes. Yeah, I would watch that. So I do think celebrities will be good. I think I absolutely trust the people to make it. It will definitely be happening. It is definitely not official though, so the

article last week was speculative nonsense, but then that's what we're doing. Here's an example of why these Celeb shows work. So we've got Countdown on Channel 4, which has been on forever and ever and ever, and does perfectly well in the afternoon, three, four hundred thousand years ago. God, it must have been 10, fifteen years ago now, Channel 4 did like a mash-up evening of combining some of their shows and they said to us, we're making eight out of ten cats, they said would you do eight out of ten cats does countdown? And we're like, oh that's quite fun because I love countdown anyway and so we said to John and Sean, you know, would you fancy playing countdown against each other? John immediately, yeah, of course, Sean as always, yeah well, would you fancy playing countdown against each other John immediately? Yeah, of course Sean as always

Yeah, well, I don't know about this and then does it and is brilliant So we did that and it did well rated Well channel four said oh, maybe you could do another one and we thought what do you mean do another one? We did it already John one. I think you can't really I think I would maybe just do one more I go all this do a rematch, we'll do a rematch. So we did a rematch of it. And you know, you've got people in dictionary corner and stuff like that. And the rematch did incredibly well. And they're like, maybe you could do a third one. And we're like, I don't know if there's the material, is there material to do a third one? And then actually, this

combination of having celebrities, having comedians, having this amazing game right at the heart of it, and a great producer called Rich Cohen, who started spinning out these ridiculous things around that format. They've done like 150 episodes of that now. It's absolutely huge. Everyone's been on it. Everybody loves it. Everyone around the world loves it. And it just came from taking a really, really strong, solid format, countdown format, and putting ridiculous celebrities in the middle of it. And you know, you can see why they do it. Yeah, I would say you can see why they do it. Also, God bless Sean Lock as well. He was just such a genius on that show. And it's so fascinating when you give a great comic, a really solid anchor in the middle of a show

that you can always go back to, you can always go back to the numbers and the letters. Someone like Sean then is free to do whatever he wants. And if you gave Sean Locke the freedom to do whatever he wanted, something amazing always came out of it. And it was such a joyous television show and comes from a celebrity version of a civilian TV show. Well, that was a little Palate Cleanser, wasn't it, after Murdoch? Always required. And talking of much loved billionaires, Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift, I mean, breaking. Unless you've been under a rock, you will be aware that Taylor Swift has dropped her

new album, double album, anthology, the Tortured Poets Department, I think it broke all the records. It had 300 million streams in its first day on Spotify, which is obviously an extraordinary... I mean, it busts everything. I think it busts her own previous record, obviously. Biggest ever daily streaming for an album and biggest ever daily streaming for an artist. Yeah, breaking her own records, should be said. Yeah, exactly. own records. Breaking her own records, yeah, exactly. It's really interesting, it's sort of all Taylor's version

of everything now, and you kind of feel, because for a long time people said, oh, no one can ever really be as famous as those celebrities back in the 80s, 90s, like the Madonna's, the Michael Jacksons, because culture has become much more siloed, you know, it's more atomized and people just, what's I think so amazing about her

is how it's surely one of the most unrelatable existences on the planet, but she has managed to turn it into, via her songs, into the most sort of relatable, commercially relatable things that there is out there. It's a really hard needle to thread and yet here we are. But also that thing of, you you know whenever one splits up with someone you sort of think oh yes you know you you worry about your reputation and so on but I mean wow. I mean literally so if you're Joe Alwyn or Mattie Healy you think okay listen she's going to have

something to say about it and that's okay but to have something to say about it and for that then to be downloaded 300 million times in one day. For the whole industry talking about it. I mean, we don't judge people by the quality of their enemies always, do we? But if we did, Richard, Mattie Healy of the 1975, he doesn't really seem the greatest Moriarty. Is he the worthy foe, the fighter on the right and back falls? I sort of feel not.

The interesting thing about Mattie Healy is he provides us with such a short bridge Between Taylor Swift and Barry chuckle from the Chuckle Brothers the late Barry chuckle, which is of course Matty Healy's father Tim Healy who who used to be Dennis and Alfie the same pet but also for many years was was Leslie in Benidorm and Who else was in Benidorm? Barry Chuckle. So you go Taylor to Matty, Matty to his father Tim, Tim to Barry Chuckle. I mean, they could have met. She's failed to monetize that, but could at some stage.

She announced this album while she was collecting one of her Grammys, which by the way, a lot of people in the industry thought was really sort of unclassy and like, oh, how much is enough that you're now going to drop another album? Then something's sort of mad and you kind of steer away from writing these kind of oral think pieces. But in a world of failing institutions that don't deliver, that you can really be guaranteed that she will be giving you a huge number of new songs every year. She just like over delivers. And it's weird how many people talk about her as being like the absolute kind of master at capitalism. I mean she's a

billionaire. Yeah. And listen, who amongst us can say that? She, her music, I like her music. I can understand how you wouldn't but genuinely I think she's producing great music and if somebody's gonna be a billionaire, then I'm fairly comfortable that it's Taylor Swift. Oh, I really like this. I mean, another thing that's quite interesting is that because of the sheer sort of weight of her power, Taylor Swift obviously owns her masters, well, with the exception of her debut and one other that she hasn't re-recorded, but she's going to re-record them all as Taylor's versions, as we know, so she can sort of do what she likes with them. Unlike any other artist at Universal, she has gone back onto TikTok to promote this album and by the way you notice how big she how extraordinarily big all this is

because all the platforms have done sort of special things for her like Mark Zuckerberg was very pleased to welcome her for her first post on threads. TikTok have done the thing where you can you can answer lots of questions and they're so gamified and then you can get a frame, a special sort of tailor frame. Now, all the other artists, if you remember, we've talked about this on the podcast before, at Universal, their music is not on TikTok currently, which is by far the biggest music company in the world. And Lucian Granger, who's the chief executive, everyone has been pulled off TikTok and cannot promote that. Yeah, I've heard it said.

And cannot promote their albums. So if you are Ariana Grande or Olivia Rodrigo, whoever, you'd be thinking, well, I see she's out there, Taylor's out there. So she's done that unilaterally? She's done it completely unilaterally because she can. I mean, that's sort of her essence really, isn't she? That she can do anything she likes. She can film her concert film and then sell it, try and talk to Disney about it, and then they're not really be very helpful.

So she think, oh, I'll just sell it directly into theatres myself. When she removed her work from Spotify for quite a long time back in the day, she did say, well, this is about smaller artists being ripped off by Spotify or whatever it is, they're not being paid enough per download, and I'm doing this for people who don't have a voice. Well, the smaller artists on TikTok who may wish to be back on TikTok or may wish to have more money from the platform, whatever it is, may now feel that she no longer feels she needs to help those smaller artists, because she's gone straight back to promote this onto TikTok, even though everyone else from her record label can't. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

Because if I was Ariana Grande, which, and who's to say I'm not, by the way, in these days, you'd be having a word with your record company, wouldn't you? Well, I think a lot of artists on Universal would very much like this dispute finished yesterday because it's become such a massive tool for promoting their work. But the basic principle is the album is pretty good, I mean it's way too long, don't give me 30 songs, come on. I mean that's crazy right? She can. Yeah but they're good. I've very much enjoyed it but it's sort of, I think another reason it's sort of tapped so much into the age is because the first thing that people do which is Quite unusual is to sit there and to pick apart what it all means. What are the Easter eggs? Who does this refer to?

We do live in a an era in which the conspiracist mindset is dominant and it taps into all that people want to decode everything They want to see hidden messages, numerology, anything in everything. And she definitely knows that and she definitely does a lot of it. So it does tap into that kind of spirit of the age. Definitely. If Alan Turing were alive today, they would somewhat someone would work on this. Universal. Can you give us your report on Taylor? And he got any four more years. I just need four years. It's all I need.

Alan's version. Can you give us your report on Taylor? And you go, I need four more years. I just need four years. It's all I need. Alan's version. There's an interesting sidebar. As you know, I love the charts. I'm one of the few 53 year olds who listen to the charts every week. And it's been dominated for 10, 15 years by dance music, by dance pop and that sort of thing. I mean, for years and years and years. But in the last six months, country and folk has had an incredible resurgence. I think Taylor has something to do with it.

She writes songs with The National and stuff. She's writing kind of folksy kind of country with a pop twist. So last year, the biggest song of the year by Amara was that song by Noah Khan, Stick Season, which is a brilliant, brilliant song, but absolutely comes out of country. It was number one for ever and ever and ever. By the way, it comes a lot out of TikTok as well and he would be the first to say exactly that and all of these artists I'm about to mention all got big on tick tock, but they're all country artists If you like country music or you know that sort of stuff the charts are the place for you at the moment

Teddy swims he's in the top 10 at the moment. It's got a great name Teddy swims The sort of thing I pitch on Dragon's Den. It's called Teddy swims name, Teddy Swims, a sort of thing I would pitch on Dragon's Den. It's called Teddy Swims. Anyway, there's Benson Boone, who's slightly more rocky than country, but it's the same thing. Beyonce, of course, number one album with her country album, Texas Hold'em is in the top 10. Michael Marcagi, he's in the top 10. Mark Ambor is in the top 10. Richie Mitch and the Coal Miners are in the top 40. But the top 20 at the moment, it's all country music, great little pop country songs. Taylor has to be behind that in some way, but as you say, TikTok absolutely has taken country music and folk music to its heart, and all of these huge new artists are coming out of that world,

and it just hasn't been seen for years and years and years and years. So if that's the kind of music you like, and if you despair of the charts, have a little listen to the top 20 this week. I think you'll find stuff in there that you'll really like. And Taylor's gotta take some credit for that. Listen, we've covered an awful lot, haven't we? We have, covered a huge amount. I don't know if we came to a conclusion about Taylor Swift,

other than it's worth talking about her as a phenomenon. It's Taylor's version, we just live in it. Yes. That phrase about Frank Sinatra, it's Frank's world, we just live in it. Yes. That phase about Frank Sinatra. It's Frank's world, we just live in it. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much. Before we depart, you cannot just drop in some Thursday Murder Club movie casting and

then not deliver. Oh yes, I forgot. Okay, so I'm now allowed to officially announce it to three of the four members of the Thursday Murder Club anyway. So Elizabeth is going to be played by the person who people most often shout at me in the streets as them wanting to play Elizabeth. So Elizabeth is going to be played by Helen Mirren, which is very exciting. Joyce was still in negotiations, but again, the name is the one that people most shout at me in the street. Ibrahim is Sir Ben Kingsley.

So you've got Helen Mirren and Sir Ben Kingsley. And then for Ron, and Ron, if people haven't read the book, he's a real sort of left-wing bruiser, ex-Trades Union official. Ron is going to be played by, I'm going to say the most handsome man in the world. So he's going to have to dull himself down a bit. Ron is going to be played by Pierce Brosnan. Oh my God. So yeah, Mirren. I cannot wait to see what he does with it. I know. Mirren, Kingsley and Brosnan, we're filming this summer, filming from the end

of June through to September, all in England, so filming the whole thing in England. Chris Columbus is directing, as well as directing lots of huge films. Home Alone, First Harry Potter. But also he wrote The Goonies, which is Ingrid's favourite film of all time. And he's working on the script at the moment. Which is not the wrong answer, actually. Well done, Ingrid's favorite film of all time. So and he's working on the script at the moment. So I'm just not the wrong answer actually. Yes So yeah filming this summer all in Britain

largely British cast Pierce Brosnan Irish of course and lots more casting to come in the following weeks and I know if he haven't read it I know that's boring. But if you have read it, I hope that's I hope that's interesting Mirren Kingsley Brosnan. I can see the poster now. I'm dying for it. We're gonna have to have lots of gossip from the set. I'm sure we will do. I reckon they're all great gossipers by the way. Oh my god, can you imagine? A lot off the record, but it will be cracking. Yeah, as summer goes on, any questions for the Q&A edition about Sir Ben Kingsley, his views on things, just ask me. Drop it in. Yeah, I'll be having a cup of tea with him

on a bus. Well, we will see you on Thursday. just ask me. Drop it in. Yeah, I'll be having a cup of tea with him on a bus. Well, we will see you on Thursday. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks for listening, everybody. Take care.