The Rest Is Entertainment - Dangerous Drivers & Best Ever Headlines

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Are sub-editors the unsung heroes of the news room and what are the secrets of creating a brilliant headline? On shows such as World's Most Dangerous Roads, how much danger are the celebrities really in? Plus, why is to so hard to recreate sport in films? These are just some of your questions Marina Hyde and Richard Osman answer on this episode. Twitter: @restisents Instagram: @restisentertainment YouTube: @therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn 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

That's the sound of unaged whiskey, transforming into Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey in Lynchburg, Tennessee. Around 1860, nearest green taught Jack Daniel how to filter whiskey through charcoal for a smoother taste, one drop at a time. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Hello and welcome to another edition of the Rest is Entertainment Questions edition.

Questions and answers. And you are? I'm Marina Hyde. Marina Hyde. There's so much information in that link, isn't there? Yeah, we will be offering media training for people who just want to maybe emulate this polish. I'm Richard Osmond, by the way. Welcome to the Question and Answers edition.

Hello everybody. Right, come on, hit me with a question because it's too embarrassing. Simon Thomas has a question which is perfect for you. Simon says, I believe that sub-editors are the ones creating titles for newspaper articles. In an era where a title is often the only thing shared and stirring up reactions on social media is that still fair and Why don't journalists get to write their article titles? Thank you very much that question Simon I'm gonna slip into some real professional. I'll go here and say that we call them headlines. So they're not the article title

They are a headline Sorry, I'm losing people already. But anyway, so that would be the title of the article title, they are a headline. Sorry if I'm losing people already, but anyway. So that would be the title of the article you would call in the newsroom. Yeah, I mean again, it is arcane, so stay with me. Subs are brilliant. Sometimes people will sort of complain about subs, but subs in my experience are absolutely brilliant. I'm very grateful to all the subs who work on my columns. They do come up with the headlines because the reason is they are better at it.

There was a guy who used to write at the Guardian who doesn't write columns there any longer, but he did write columns and he would always take an issue with his headline. And I know this is going to sound wrong, but he did slightly feel like the headline should be just my point in the article. And you know, often the headlines your point in the article, nobody's going to want to read it. So they would put these things in that would hopefully be sort of reader nip to some extent. And in the end, he would write his own headlines. And I'm afraid the numbers went significantly down. What you're always trying to do with headline is get people to read the article. I know that sounds very obvious. Nowadays, there's all sorts of things like SEO, search engine optimization, which is

a way of how those things are picked up. And that's by the way, with search engine optimization, which is a way of how those things are picked up. And that's, by the way, with search engine optimization, it's often, if you are writing a question, we were talking about the rock on Tuesday's episode, if you had an article that mentioned him even vaguely, you might put his name in the title because his name is searched for so often, it goes up in the search engine optimization stakes. Yeah, that's exactly right. And we do actually, one of the things I've talked about, the fact that the Guardian give you all your data, the Guardian where I write my columns, it's absolutely, they also have a brilliant thing every day,

which is like an audience email. Different people write it every day, but they write it in this great sort of conversational tone, but it contains so much fascinating information. I read it top to bottom every day saying, these are the biggest- I want to get this. Yeah, you'd love it. I mean, obviously I think I'm not allowed

to share it at all with anyone, but this is, and it says what the biggest hits on the website that day were, and going really right down, what the most deeply read things were. And then someone might do a little breakout thing saying, we're having real success at the moment with these incredibly like powerful first person quotes from the article, and they will analyze why a sort of

first person quote in an article made that piece do really, really well that day and they'll say, this happened to mention this, a time and then something really weird at the end that you're thinking, hang on, what's that? I must read it. I really value that as a sort of piece of audience. What's your takeaway in terms of, because we have to come up with titles for these episodes as well and again that works on the same thing, search engine optimization. What are the best words to use? At the moment, you'll find a lot of first person quotes from the article,

and it will start with something that will be quite a dramatic statement, and then I never saw them again, and you'll be thinking, hang on, wait, you did, I don't know, XYZ, which sounds quite interesting in the first place. Those two, that thing, that sort of, you know, a story in 16 words, but ideally you want the person to have said it, of, you know, a story in 16 words, but ideally you want the person to have said it or it ought to be a line in the thing and they can be so arresting those. And you want it to raise a question as well.

Yes. And what you're really asking people to do, by the way, when you're reading those, they're often for long reads. So you're kind of asking people to spend five or six minutes of their day, maybe seven minutes. It's a long time. And so you need to think, where is that quote? By the way, if it's in the third paragraph, that's not very helpful. You kind of need to keep people to keep them involved all the way through. And it's amazing how long and how engaged people stay till the end of often these articles. I find it so interesting.

And I don't know if other newspapers do it, but I love the fact that we get sent all this data and you can just look at it. And it's just really interesting. I feel like I'm a complete amateur in it. So it's a privilege to kind of see how other people are trying to make your stuff get read. I would love it by the way if someone from the 1950s did some time travel and came here and heard you just say, you know, it's a six or seven minutes, a really long time. They'd be like, sorry what's happened to culture? I know, I know. The other thing I will say is that what you've asked Simon is you've said that the headline

is often the only thing shared and stirring up reactions on social media. Yes, and I do notice people who don't take pastoral care of their writers. There's a lot of people who will get their first ever piece in a national newspaper, and it will be one of those things I've just been talking about, a first person confessional, and it will often be like probably their worst story or a terrible thing that's happened to them or like some really ridiculous position or point of view they've adopted or maybe they haven't maybe the article is more nuanced but if you get something slapped on the top of that that makes you look an absolute idiot in the headline I would say it's never your job and I always try and say to younger writers or to people when I'm you know going and

talking to you know trainee journalists or whatever even though you feel like it's not my job to write the headline, you can always say, could you let me know what you're going to headline it with? Because it is your name above the door, and you're the one who's going to get dragged on social media if it just makes you look like a fool in order to hook people into the piece. Well, yes, the Times keep advertising on my Twitter feed, and they'll have articles, usually, as you say, by young female journalists saying, oh, why I stalked my ex or something.

You read the article and of course it's about this awful, terrible ex and how they teamed up with three other people to track him down and warn other people. So like this amazing article. But the headline would be, why I stalked my ex and a picture of that person. And hundreds and hundreds of comments. Awful, misogynist comments. Because they're not reading it. hundreds and hundreds of comments, awful, misogynist comments. Just off the headline. Yeah, because they're not reading it. No.

And then also, which my other bugbear, people saying, yeah, it's behind the paywall. You think, yeah, that's their business model. Journalism costs money, and there are different views on how to get people to pay for it. You don't go into a newsagent and say, I cannot believe that Marsboro is behind the paywall. This is absolutely...

But 100% you see people hang out to dry all the time. And that is the example of a sub not doing the right thing and just failing entirely in a duty of pastoral care because I really think that people who end up getting dragged in that way, it's impossible to explain what it's like if you're at the centre of one of those kind of mad Twitter storms for a day. It's properly traumatic. Especially as you said, listen, the first thing you'll often write for a big national newspaper is your biggest story. It's the biggest thing that happened to you. You think this is the thing that I can... But don't do that. Don't do that. It may take longer to get in, but don't do your confessional

stuff first because honestly, wait till you're a really good writer and do it then. Thank you so much, Simon. And also there's some legendary, brilliant headlines as well, some amazing creative ones. There's the football one when Inverness Catedonia Thistle beat Celtic, which was super Cali go ballistic Celtic are atrocious. I think Xander one day came back from a corporate, he often does. I think he chose on the headline of the year and that was as a car theft one. It was the hunt for red hot Skoda. Oh, that's brilliant.

Which is a good one. The New York Post headless Body and Topless Bar. I love that one. One of my favorites is a sporting one, and it just shows you the absolute kind of Titanic status of the guy and of his particular innings. It's a Donald Bradman one, and the headline was just the whole of the page,

and it was, he's out. It was such an epic innings. There was no question that you wouldn't even know who the he is about. Sometimes people can be first name in headline, and there are only certain people who get, you know, obviously someone like Boris could be a first name and there are lots of different people who can be first names only in headline but not that many of them.

But this is just a pronoun in the headline. He's out. I love that. Bradman. There was a good Formula One one, I think it was Benetton which caught fire in the pits. Everyone was absolutely fine. And just a picture of this conflagration with the ignited colors of Benetton.

But it's great. I think it wasn't there, one, when Frank Sinatra was having an aging treatment, he was having sort of sheep cells sort of kind of injected, and the headline was, I've got yous under my skin. Amazing. Yeah. We could go forever on this one. But again, people are not clicking on pun.

That's the point. It used to be great, you'd do a pun, and now it has to be mention the rock or ask a question that people have to. It's so annoying when you click on something. I hate it so much. When it said the four reasons why you must, you think, oh God, I know that this is not going to be the answer that I want, but I'm going to click on it anyway. I can't help myself. Let me now ask you about World's Most Dangerous Roads, Richard. Which is, again, that's a show that tells you everything in the title.

It's all right up there in the headline. You're not kind of going, I wonder what that's about. Graham Waggott says, how much danger are the celebrities actually in when they film World's Most Dangerous Roads? I understand it's for our entertainment, but surely the insurance wouldn't allow them to risk life and limb just for a laugh. I often think that. You often get asked to do celebrity shows that involve some sort of jeopardy. And you think, oh, I'm just sort of trusting my life to somebody, you know, the sort of person who used to be an AP on something, and now kind of head of security on something. I think World's Most Dangerous Road. Funny enough, I talked to two people who were on that, and if this is helpful, Graham, Lou

Sanders, the comedian, said, oh, it wasn't dangerous at all. They made it look dangerous, but it was actually amazing fun. And David Baddiel said, yeah, it was incredibly dangerous. He said, but mainly because I don't think they could believe what a terrible driver I was. So it's one of those things where obviously they do everything they can on shows like that to make it as safe as possible While sort of ramping whilst looking as dangerous as possible looking as dangerous as possible

But you know there are there are support cars and things like that there was a show the BBC did it did a show about some sort of walking in the Arctic and Gethan Jones and Kate Thornton were both on it They were both on House of Games recently and they they said, oh, we thought we were going to die at one point in that. It was genuinely sort of, kind of, going, no, we just, we only got an hour left of light. We need to get up to this ridge, you know, in the kind of blinding snowstorm. We're not actually one of the expeditions. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I think there are certain shows where you kind of go,

you have to take it on trust that it's going to be okay. Or if they sort of drop you naked in a forest forest you're not going to be eaten by a bear. But anything could happen. I'm such a klutz. I'm David Bedield of the piece. If you put me anywhere, I need extra health and safety wherever I am. When we used to do... Your rider is, just get me a load of health and safety please. Yeah. I genuinely think on big shows there's always a health and safety expert. I remember we had a health and safety expert on Total Wipeout when we used to do that. And it genuinely comically, the worst things that would happen to him, he would trip on everything. He was like, it was the

perfect person to be a health and safety expert because anything that could happen would happen. And so we'd had about a week out there in Argentina. He had fallen off a curb He'd been in I think he'd generally been to the doctors once and the hospital once and then we were having a laugh about this We were having dinner and he came along and we're having it was a mate. I Mean, it's hilarious You're a health and safety expert because everything goes wrong can happen to you and I swear to God this is true He had the menu in front of him and it caught light on a can Amazing I would say that by and large television productions take the absolute utmost care of this if anyone's ever at any sort of risk I was

gonna say particularly celebrities but there's probably some truth in that. Yeah. Don't break the celebrities. Enormous sort of health and safety things but stuff can go wrong right that's what I always think with I'm a celebrity when they're sort of underground in something you think well what well, what if something goes wrong on this? So I don't know, I wouldn't, I couldn't do it. Oh, no. No. But yes, but world's most dangerous roads, I think, they're certainly on dangerous roads. But yeah, if you're a good driver, then dangerous roads are not dangerous. And if you're a bad

driver, then you know, every road is dangerous, isn't it? That's what I think. Thank you. Safety first on this podcast, always. Yes, exactly. Marina, a question from Natalie, who very much like Kylie doesn't need a surname. I say Natalie, we all know who we mean. Thank you, Natalie. I cannot believe Natalie listens. Thank you very much, Natalie. Can you believe it? No, I can't believe it. That's so great. Just put that in the essay, yeah?

Natalie says, I have always wondered if people can copyright their voices. Surely it would always be cheaper to hire an impressionist rather than the likes of Stephen Fry. What stops this happening? Or does it happen all the time and I have been duped? Ah, Natalie, you have not been duped. It doesn't happen all the time. And what stops it happening is a tort,

which is a part of civil law, and it's called passing off. And you can protect against a voice clone or all sorts of other things with it. There's three ways that you can say, okay, passing off has occurred that the subject, it saves Stephen Fry for the sake of argument here must have goodwill. So you think, oh, Stephen Fry is the sort of guy they would ask to do an advert. Therefore, you know, and that's because people like him and they like the voice and whatever. So if you've faked Stephen Fry's voice, you've gone against that. There has to be a misrepresentation, i.e. people think it is Stephen Fry.

There are people, as I think you and I have talked about before, who sound quite like the celebrities, but not entirely. And on a sort of, if you're doing two things at once, you might think it is, but you must be very careful not to make it sound like it's, it can't be a Stephen Fry impersonator, or Rob Riden could just do all the adverts. Yes. And there must there have to be damages arising from that misuse. So obviously, you know, you've lost the fee for the advert or whatever it is.

But there was one Eddie Irvine that said he was listening to Talk Sport. The former The One Driver. Yeah. Right back in 2003. And he was like, this is a false advert. I wasn't listening to Talk Sport or whatever it was. That was passing off. More recently, there were some t-shirts in Topshop no longer with us, Rihanna t-shirts,

and it sort of looked like tour merchandise, but it wasn't, and she sued saying, this is passing off. You've basically used my likeness to make money, and she won on that. So you can do it, but you can't do impressions, and you can't make it look like someone has endorsed something when they haven't. Well that's the interesting, your third bit about passing off whether it does do damage to the celebrity, by the very nature of an advert you sound like you're endorsing something. And if you haven't chosen to endorse that thing, then you're going to win in court every single time because that's super easy to prove. I often think that, I often think it would

be cheaper just to, you know, it must be easy to impersonate people, but that's interesting, but you're not, you're not allowed to do it. And AI can do it increasingly brilliantly as we've seen, you can take, give a tiny bit of... But you would have exactly the same issue, which is that whether it's a real person or AI, the celebrity could just go to court and say, this is not me, I didn't endorse this, people think it's me, and it's not something that I would do and they would win that case. Absolutely and the thing is with AI now where it will be possible to do it, you may find that many celebrities are allowing, sort of saying you can use an AI of my voice, I can't be bothered going into Soho and standing in a booth and advertising whatever this product is, just use my AI. And you may find that they sort of contract it all out to a computer. One day we'll have to talk about voiceovers for adverse because it's a very very very funny industry. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one We'll do we will talk about that talking of which shall we go to an advert?

It might be one of our AI ones or it might be somebody else or it might be someone pretending to be Stephen Fry I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Director of Communications and Wall Street financier. And I'm Katie Kaye, U.S. special correspondent for BBC Studios. I've been covering American politics for almost three decades. Welcome to the Rest is Politics U.S., brought to you by Goalhanger. Go on, tell us, were those donations you made, like Obama in 2008, was that idealism? Were you hoping to get something out of these campaigns that would serve your own business interests, for example?

So I think this will either make this podcast incredibly successful, Cady, or people will be horrified and they'll shut it off right now, because I'm gonna be very real with you. The Obama donation, I had gone to law school with President Obama. We were not classmates.

I was a few years ahead of him. It was 2007. It was then Senator Obama. I had a check in my breast pocket. I went over to the senator. I said, Senator, I said, you and I didn't really know each other in law school, but I'm about to hand you a big check. Can I lie to my friends and tell them that you and I knew each other in law school, but I'm about to hand you a big check. Can I lie to my friends and tell them that you and I knew each other in law school?

Well, Obama looks at me, had the best smile in American politics since Jack Kennedy. Forever. Yeah. He lights up, he looks at me and he said, I'll tell you what, if you double the amount of the check, we'll take it back to Hawaii. Okay? And I looked at him, I said, you're done. I had another check in my pocket.

I ripped it up. I doubled the amount of the check. And I'm going to tell you right now, I've been to more White House Christmas parties during the Obama administration than the Trump administration. 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. 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, US, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody. Straight into the Liz Truss book Richard, top of the vein on the show. Okay, Henrik Dahlberg.

Friend of the show, the Liz Truss book, not Henrik, although Henrik is as well. Yeah, Henrik Dahlberg, you are now a friend of the show. Are books sent out for review and similar included in the sales numbers? If so, would that mean Liz Truss sold close to zero copies of her books? Oh, that's a nice thought Henrik. No, so books sent out for review, what you do with a book, you get your proof copies kind of a long time in advance, like a year in advance sometimes you send them out. None of those count. Nielsen have to sell your book for you. And they're Nielsen essentially, every single big high street retailer is with Nielsen,

the Waterstones, all the supermarkets. Your local independent bookseller will have a Nielsen thing. If you ever do a book festival, the one thing they always say is, we do have a Nielsen-supported store at the book festival, just because no one ever wants to sell a book and it not to be in the charts. So yeah, they all have to be with Nielsen. Yeah, so Liz Trust last week, I think was number 263 in the charts, so she didn't manage to keep up the 70th place in the first week. And yeah, the magical kingdom sticker book continues to soar. But rightly, it is an excellent product, not sponsored. But should we promise that's the last time we mention the Liz Trust book?

Yeah, unless there's some sort of sudden revival in sales, which if it happens, we're going to do a whole episode on it. Yeah, because something very weird will have happened. Something mega will have happened. Or unless they make a movie of it with Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Playing the same character again. I have a question for you from Chris Harmon. Chris says, oh, this is so good.

I've always wondered why it's so difficult to weave sports activity into drama or films. Always, always looks so inauthentic and contrived. That is so true. Is it because of cost, sports knowledge on set, or is it just not possible to replicate or film the appropriate skills on display? Okay, that is, I love this question. Sorry, he also goes on to talk about when they film crowds at full football stadiums and then you go onto the pitch and it looks like the dog and duck are playing the Jolly Farmer.

Okay, that's brilliant. I love this question. First of all, I would say that apparently there's a school of thought that sort of all speciality scenes like music, video gaming, I'm told guns in movies, if you know anything about it, they're doing it all wrong and it looks terrible and blah, blah, blah. And actually, in many ways, most of us are not even generalists. So when we see this thing, of course we think the guns are authentic, of course we think whatever. But if you know anything about it. Yeah, if you ever see your job on television, if you're a nurse or if you work in insurance or if you work in shipping, and you see someone do that job, you go, hold on, that's completely not like my job. And then you do have to go, are they lying about all jobs on television? Not really. And actually there's

something, you know, everyone gets pretty about their own little job and actually generalism is great and it's fine. Can I mention past favourite show where the action looked really good, which was, do you remember Sky's dream team? Which I... Yes. Okay. Sky used to have this soap opera kind of drama, fictional football club called Hatch the United, you played in purple. And because they were able to use real footage and they're just sort of like quite badly VFX the purple onto everything. Their football always looked like Premier League football because it was.

Because it was on Sky wasn't it so they had the rights. Oh yeah they had everything. That was one of the reasons that show got off the ground. Also I love you Fletch. Do you know what Fletch does now? Do you know what I didn't know what he did then and I do not know what he does now. Okay well he was what Richard he was the stri I do not know what he does now. Okay, well he was, what? Richard, he was the striker of Heartless United. I'm so sorry.

But he's now, I believe, a doorman at Annabelle's. No way. With the, formerly the sort of, doyen of kind of, Maverick private members clubs and now this kind of palace of horrific bling owned by that dreadful caring, I think. That's like Zamo from Grange Hill, who always used to work at the locksmiths on St Anne's Court. Yes, yes. Very similar, isn't it? Slightly different vibe than the locksmiths to the Temple of Bling.

Yes, but anyway, but yeah, so I think... The Temple of Bling, by the way, another good name for this episode. Yeah, just put it, all of our episodes call it that, please. But yeah, sport is incredibly hard to show. You've got actors and they can't do it, and even if they're just doing the cartouille shots and you you're trying to make it's very hard to make it look authentic. You often hear people saying when you're watching actual live sport, oh you couldn't write this. And you think all the time, well people write most extraordinary, amazing fantasy. So you

could, but in lots of ways you couldn't write it because you certainly couldn't act it. And I do think that there's just something about it. I was thinking of writing something that I still really want to write that does have, that is sport adjacent. But I do think that there's just something about it. I was thinking of writing something that I still really want to write that does have, that is sport adjacent. But I did think the only way to do this is to not literally, you will never see the actual sport. You may see reaction shots to the people. And it was kind of, I was kind of lucky because it wasn't really about the people who were

playing, the athletes in particular. But I think you should only ever see the reaction shots because it is so instantly undermining when you think, yeah, what am I actually watching? It is like the dog and duck or whatever it is, depending on the sport. Well, it's, you know, if you imagine in a script, someone says, you know, a ball is crossed from the left wing, the guy heads it and the goalie just misses it. That's almost impossible to do otherwise. Otherwise, all football matches would be 100 all if you could just do what you wanted all the time. So even if you had the best players in the world, you literally wouldn't be able to do it. I think most of those shows

do have consultants who know how a football match goes and they do have professionals. Escape to victory. Do you know what? Chris actually says, under no circumstances mention escape to victory because this is sacrosanct and he's absolutely right. So the football in that is terrible, but there's a lot of real footballers. Yeah. And there's an exemption. John walk is in there, Bobby Moore is in there, Helle's in there. There's a lot of the Ipswich team of the early 80s is in there. And that great generalist Sylvester Stallone, who could do really any of the sports. Listen, if he wanted to be a professional footballer...

I think he could. He could have been one. But yeah, so it's very, very, very hard to choreograph, if you think about a game of football It's very hard to choreograph but even it's hard for the players by the way If you said to actual football players, can you do this exact thing? They would suddenly go your fingers and you just can't yeah No, I can't we should try and get Gary and Micah and Alan to we should give it Here's a specific thing. We need you to do try and try and do this and they're three professional footballers I bet they couldn't do it. Yeah, it's really interesting

My absolute bet noir is if ever and it happens, you know on lots of things if ever someone's playing pool or snooker on a TV program Because when you're filming something, of course, you need continuity So you might do eight different takes and so when you've got Pool balls, you know, you need them to stay exactly where they are. You need the same shots to be played every time. So if you ever see a game of pool, it's always like there's four balls on the table. They're all literally over the pockets. So it's completely impossible to miss.

And you know, so because you know, they've had to film this eight times, so it has to be like the order has to be absolutely. And they probably had to do it 100 hundred times to get even the eight. Yeah exactly that and it never looks like a real game of pool or like someone has to pop the black otherwise they're going to be killed by a gangster and suddenly it sort of goes around 15 angles you think I physically but I don't know if that's possible that shot you played. While I'm talking I tell you a sport that you absolutely could fake on television really, really easily is darts.

I knew you were going to say that. Because it has the split screen. Yeah. Okay, so you've got your actor, you've got Danny Dyer on this bit of the split screen throwing. You just need to look like you know how to throw a dart, which is do it. You can train an actor to look like you can throw a dart. Oh, you can train one to do it for you, for biscuits and things like that. Yeah, exactly. And on the other screen you just got like a professional player throw, whatever score

you need at 171, you know, actually you can't do 171, if you want 170, if you want 142, you just have someone throwing until you get it. Please can you do a dance movie Richard, I would love to watch a dance movie. I would love to watch a dance movie as well. Some friends of mine from university always wanted to write one about table football that they were going to call Rods of Steel. Which is really like you have to play on bad sticky tables and stuff, you know, you're working way up, it gets big. I mean, there is speaking of actually any sport Sylvester Stallone can do. Have you ever seen Over the Top?

Yes, the arm wrestling one. Sylvester Stallone in an arm wrestling movie. See that you can do. Table football you could do because there's enough going, you know, you can, anyone can sort of, you just keep playing it and then just film it. But anything, it's like a ballet football really, it's like an improvised ballet. And Well that's what Scorsese does in like Raging Bull where the opening titles which were absolutely beautiful for Raging Bull, it is made to look completely balletic and you're already put in a different frame of mind when you're watching

it so he does that very cleverly. And there are ways and means in boxing movies of making that look good because people are so used to sparring and with camera angles and stuff like that and with sweat pouring off you. But there's something unique about football and cricket and all that you just think. Team sports are a nightmare. Oh my god. Just any, if you see anything, especially American shows when they have soccer, that have like the daughter plays for like the soccer team of her school, and you see

this all the time, it just have legs, and her just dribbling past four different people, all of them trying to get a tackle in, but they can't quite do it, and then sort of getting in front of the goalie and then just knock it into the corner, the goalie doesn't, dives the other way. And you think, no wonder Americans took a long time to get to like football, if that's what they think it is. Yeah. But it's honestly- Golf, now that's one you can do, and that's why there are so many golf movies.

But you, well, hmm. Whenever I watch golf on anything, I always look at people's swings. And sometimes they'll go, oh, you're supposed to be a great golfer. I don't think so. You're gonna ruin Tincarp. But it's very, very, it's very hard

to make it look like you've got a good golf swing. But things where you're supposed to have a good golf swing. I think you can get away with golf and that's why there are movies. Also, because most people watching it, you know, the kind of audience for making a golf movie without Adam Sandler, it's like for dads who also don't have a great golf swing. So they're kind of okay with it. And they're never playing, you know, I mean, I guess Tin Cup is a rarity because he is actually doing quite well in that even though he's a an outsider. I'm terrifically excited about Happy Gilmore 2 which supposedly is coming out I love Happy Gilmore. Well Caddyshack highest played

movie star in the world. There's loads of good golf movies. Yeah there's and there's a reason for that. Sorry what's your question are there loads of good golf movies Chris? It wasn't no it was. We went on a magical mystery. Yeah. OK. But essentially they absolutely try their hardest and they will all have consultants who can tell them how to play football. But best ever sporting movie? It's hard. Probably for me, Raging Bull.

Probably. But there are so many good ones, but they've normally got around that issue that we talked about. Yeah. Moneyball. Yes. Love Moneyball. Yeah, that's about maths. Do you?ball. Yes, well. I love Moneyball. Yeah, that's about maths. Do you, yes, hold on a minute, but do you say maths isn't a sport?

Yeah, I mean it's a contact sport the way you do it, yeah. Having said, Paul has always badly done The Hustler. Yeah, Paul Newman has done a lot of good sports movies. Best sports documentary, Next Goal Wins, the one about American Samoa. Oh yes. Yeah, Kingpin, that's about bowling, but that's a good movie. Anyway, listen, reply to the YouTube thing with your favourite sports movie, because we would have forgotten loads.

And from that, I'm going to ask you a question about casting that Claire Mahoney asks, and I would also love to know this. With the casting of Helen Mirren in the Thursday Murder Club, the movie based on Richard's brilliant series of books, in fact the first one, I wanted to know whether when writing the character of Elizabeth, you had Helen in mind for the film and whether there were other actors you had in mind for other members of the cast. Oh that's funny, well listen I'll talk more generally about what writers think, for me definitely not because when you're writing you're not thinking this will be a film.

That Helen Mirren will be in. Yeah, that Helen Mirren will be in, you're literally thinking how do I get to the end of writing this. But were you thinking of someone, you know, some people say, write with an actor in mind if you're writing things, because it just, it so helps to visualize the kind of co-heared person. I don't, because I don't have a very visual imagination, so I, you know, I wouldn't do it. I interviewed Stephen King and he said he can't picture people unless suddenly they look in a mirror or something, because he's looking through the characters' eyes all the time.

And I'm feeling the characters' vibes rather than looking at them. But yeah, listen, she's absolutely perfect for it. But lots of writers do, and lots of writers even, you know, you'll read books, you know, when they'll bring a character on and instead of sort of long description of what they look like, they'll say, who looks a lot like the actor Kiefer Sutherland. And everyone's like, okay, I can see exactly who that is now. But, you know, when you're pitching shows and you're, you know, we make decks these days when you're pitching a film or if you're pitching a format, you would always, always, always put dream actors on those decks.

Yeah, and it seems so arrogant when you're doing it. I've done this for a couple of things and they're asking you, and who do you see as this? And they're naming some of the biggest actors in the world and you're thinking, I just don't think they're going to be in this. But they want you to say that, you know, it's a so-and-so type. Yeah, you would. If you're essentially pitching a thing, you will send a deck off and that deck will have a picture of Ryan Gosling on it.

And you know, it'll have Viola Davis on it. And you know that that's not who you're going to get, but everyone's like, oh my god, yeah, that would be amazing. And if you pitch a TV show, it's always, oh, it's, and we've got Michael McIntyre and Dawn French as our hosts on the front of this thing, this format that we want you to buy. And there's not, in a million years, you're not going to get that, but it helps everyone to sort of- But the Thursday Murder Club story is within a million years because all the people are

like, oh my god, you know, I think it is amazing actually. And I do think a lot of readers have had those people in their minds when, I wonder if subconsciously they were, but my funny enough, I actually was for Elizabeth when I was reading it, thought of Fiona Shaw, who obviously does the audio. So I always thought of her. And she, that's exactly as I sort of pictured her, but because it works, say, well hell of course I can see Helen Mirren as it yeah exactly and that you know some like one who who you know is a Sort of slightly overweight West Ham supporter. I thought of him as Bob Crow Always loved to hear anything every time he taught he was just so sort of mesmerizing and like Bob Crow the person you get To play Bob Crow in the film is Pierce Bosnian

But that but so obvious, but that's the brilliant thing about Hollywood casting is because of course And like Bob Crow, the person you get to play Bob Crow in the film is Pierce Brosnan. Yeah. So obvious. But that's the brilliant thing about Hollywood casting is because of course, if you were casting Elizabeth, you'd cast Helen Mirren. She's literally perfect. But the reason casting directors are so great is they'll look at Ron and go, do you know what, why don't we ask Pierce Brosnan? Because he's a great comic actor, Pierce Brosnan because he's a great comic, a great comic actor Pierce Brosnan and he knows what the character looks like and he knows what the what the character's vibe is and so that's when casting directors really earn their corn because no writer in a million years writing Ron would be thinking and I tell you who I see when I think of Ron I see Pierce Brosnan. Yeah, even directors won't think like that. The casting agent is just it's an extraordinary role

and I keep saying we're going to do an interview but we should get a really good one on to talk about that because it is genuinely fascinating. A lot of directors will say to you, oh it's the most fun that it ever is in the process when you're just talking about all the different people who could be this one role and a lot of directors think, and now I've actually got to direct this movie or whatever it is, but they love the casting process. But definitely if you're writing a novel, I think it's not helpful for me, but a lot of writers it's incredibly helpful to think who would be this person in a movie. It just gives you a sort of extra vibe and it helps you kind of see how they move and

how they might talk and you know rhythms of speech and things like that. So I do think for lots of people it's super super useful. If they were making a goal hangeranger the movie the rest is politics The rest is history all of that. I mean, that's a casting job. Oh, I'd love to cast that I'd have to think about it. Cumberbatch is Rory Stewart. Absolutely Alistair Campbell just just give it to all the oh, that's a good idea. I need him up a little bit. Yeah Campbell I mean, he's a he's a very young man. You and me, I'd be Zamo from Grange Hill.

Yes, and I would be Fletch from Dream Team. Either that or Gillian Anderson, of course. Oh yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. Although I do notice that once you've played Thatcher, you kind of get Thatcheritis for the next two roles afterwards, so you're sort of slightly always playing Margaret Thatcher in all the next so you could be Gillian Anderson's root out of Margaret Thatcher Yes I'd like to give her an exit strategy because she was a strange Emily Maitlis seemed a little bit like Margaret Thatcher in the News night Prince Andrews story that was turned into a Netflix drama So if you're Gillian Anderson and in the spirit that Pierce Brosnan can play Ron, then maybe I could be David Duchovny

Oh, yeah, absolutely. No, I don't want that Anderson and Duchovny in the rest of the meeting And I think they might have small roles mother and scholarly the original mother and school. They're rebooting X-files. Yeah. Okay. Listen that feels like I mean, I don't know what would have to happen to the podcast for someone to dramatize it I don't like I don't like to think about it They would have to be a siege. It's incredibly dynamic. It's very, you know, people talk to you about Aaron Sorkin all the dialogue But this is like I mean, it's essentially an action movie if they do do the podcast. It's an action movie What about yeah something where it's the two of us playing pool? Yeah Hold on. That's a hit isn't it? Would even I be able to pot some of those? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, ideally

I'd like Statham to play me, but of course I would. Oh, I'd love that. I think that might be us done. I think it is. But we would very much like you to join us next week. So as is now becoming our traditional sign off, I think we should say... See you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. And also if you're Jason Statham's agent, get in touch. Touch.