The Rest Is Entertainment - Noel Edmonds And The Apocalypse

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

Can Noel Edmonds defeat Jeremy Clarkson in ratings? Why has the Deal Or No Deal supremo upsticks to New Zealand? Do the Chinese have the answer to the Hollywood box office crisis? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde have watched the much-anticipated 'Noel Edmonds' Kiwi Adventure', from iron knights to healing crystals - the pair reveal their thoughts on the 'singular' television host. What is a micro-drama? The Chinese invention, turning hour long movies into 60 second clips, has already raked in billions ocerseas. But are they any good? Recommendations: Adam Curtis - Shifty (BBC iPlayer) The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah AkudeVideo Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry SwanProducer: Joey McCarthySenior Producer: Neil FearnHead of Content: Tom WhiterExec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Sky. Now, they really know how to put on a show and to make it easy for us to enjoy them. Everything is just there. No digging around, no endless scrolling. Absolutely. And here's the magic. If you know what you're in the mood for, just say it into your remote. You want something specific, say Sweet Pea and Sweet Pea would appear. If you want something a genre, just say, show me horror and your Sky will show you horror movies, horror TV shows, anything in that genre. It really is magic. It's not magic, it's technology, but it feels like magic.

It's like having a shortcut to your perfect evening. You speak, it listens, and suddenly you're three episodes in. A feast of entertainment right at your fingertips. Feast, schmorgersbord, banquet. Which makes me very hungry. Yeah. I wonder if you can get snacks from your remote. Try it. I'm being told you can't. It's just the world of entertainment at your fingertips, the world of food you have to go elsewhere. So if you're ready to dive into top-notch entertainment, just head to sky.com to learn more. Hello to our lovely Rest as Entertainment listeners. This is me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello everybody. Now, if you just can't get enough of Marina and I speaking each week, you must join us

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Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hi, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? Yeah, I'm very well. It's very nice to see you. Listen, everyone, there was going to come a point in this podcast. It was always going to happen where our attention was going to have to turn to Noel Edmonds. It was fated. Yeah, and today is the day. His documentary is out on ITV. So we are going to be chatting a little bit about Noel, what he means. The documentary about him, I wouldn't necessarily describe it comes off as his documentary, but buckle up everybody because we're going in.

We are going in. We're also going to talk about this amazing new world of micro dramas, which has become very quickly become a billion dollar industry and a tiny new way of making and watching television, which a lot of people haven't yet heard of, but everyone is about to hear of. It's totally fascinating and it's fascinating for the industry and it's a really interesting thing. It's either the best thing that's ever happened or the worst thing that's ever happened.

Yeah, I haven't called it yet. Perhaps when we're talking I'll make the decision. Okay, shall we get into Noel's Kiwi Adventure? Yes, shall we? It's a three-part documentary about Noel Edmonds airing on ITV. I would say my top line review of it is bring back Philip Schofield, but let's not get too deeply into that because I think we should for our younger listeners, you might want to say who is Noel Edmonds? He sort of bestowed

the world of light entertainment for a long while back there. For many, many years. Short colossus, very short colossus. Yes, he was the Radio One breakfast DJ in the 70s. In the early days, the Swap Shop and Breakfast Show and Noel's House Party, he was zany. He would do pranks, the gotchas on House Party. He was the lord of misrule. A lord of misrule, exactly that. And he bestowed Saturday Night TV like a Colossus. He was the big one. He's as famous as it's possible to be. He was the most famous presenter on television.

He went on that journey, which is, you start on kids TV, then he went to prime time. Then there was a hiatus, which we'll talk about. And then he came into your orbit, your direct orbit, didn't he, Richard? He did, so he'd done, late at night breakfast show no House party yet there have been a few years where we hadn't seen Noel on screen and

Then we were looking for a presenter for a show which we were certain wasn't going to work called deal or no deal He came in we cast him in that and he reentered the public consciousness for lots and lots of reasons Then again when that ended there was another dip and now we're in the sort of the third act of the of the Edmonds career. What he's done, we should say what he's done, he's moved, Noel Edmonds has moved to New Zealand, he's moved to a place on the South Island called Natimoti and he's bought 800 acres of land, something like 30 million dollars worth of property, which he's rechristened River Haven. And part of that, there's a business on it, the Bugger Inn, which is a pub, there's a vineyard, obviously

it being Noel Edmonds, there's a significant spiritual dimension to the estate. There's a crystal room, his house. There's an energy garden, I think. They're trying to build an energy garden. And so what we're looking at here really is one of those new life, new business, relocation type of documentaries. Famous person goes to a beautiful place and does something interesting, is essentially that. It's sort of like, you know, can ITV recreate Clarkson's farm? Can they do a thing with someone who everybody knows,

doing something intriguing with a band of people working for him. Civilians. Civilians working for him. Not everything goes to plan and not everything that doesn't go to plan is included in the documentary either. I think it's fair to say there's quite a long backstory before this documentary starts about his life in New Zealand. Yes, I think there is. I mean, if you see this place, by the way, it's so beautiful. So beautiful. It's really like, I mean, it is Middle Earth, but it's the Shire bit of Middle Earth,

rather than any of the sites of the great battles in Lord of the Rings. And you are praying for orcs throughout, I was anyway. I mean, he is quite insufferable and we'll dive deep. Now it's a psychiatric portrait of him as much as anything else. But, and actually I did think, you know, all those tech bros have got their, those bunkers in New Zealand. And you do think, oh, it's so annoying, you know, cause it's them who will cause the apocalypse.

You know, with some quantum computing error and they'll get to go and fly there. But I feel so much better about that now that I know that Noel Edmonds will be waiting for them. So there will be a hell of a hell of sorts awaiting them. So I feel a lot more relaxed about the apocalypse and their exit strategy for it. But anyway, let's continue. So he- Why does he go to New Zealand in the first place is a very interesting and disputed thing

as well. So Noel after Deal or No Deal came off air on Channel 4, it had a long run and a very, very, very successful run. It got to the point where it's too expensive for the ratings it was getting as with all shows. Noel had a few attempts to reinvent himself. He did Noel's HQ on Sky, which is an extraordinary watch. I really want to talk about that later. attempts to reinvent himself. He did Noel's HQ on Sky, which is an extraordinary watch. He did Cheap Cheap Cheap on Channel 4, which is one of the most extraordinary game shows in history with him and a series of young improvisers. I'm used to say that, that means something.

It's amazing. It's like Keir Smith-Bino, who now we know from Ghosts and those things. He's sort of a sidekick on there and I've spoken to people who were on that production and it was quite a ride. I think it's... This is your Watergate, this particular item, I have to say. You know what? He talks to a lot of people on a lot of productions. My favourite thing about doing this podcast is I get to think about things. You know, so I love it.

We decide what we're going to talk about. You know, I could spend a few days, think about what I think about stuff, talking to people. This is the most intense one I've had to do I have to say talking to people Yes, I am too close to it and I have a lot of opinions which I will get on to spoiler alert I retain a fondest for no, okay So we will that we will get to that so it did cheap cheap cheap again that didn't trouble the scorers particularly Then he goes on I'm a celebrity. This is this is the big roll of the dice. Goes on, I'm a celebrity. Goes in late. Not deliberately late.

He was the highest paid celeb on ever at that time. He's got about 600 grand. He's been beaten by people like Colleen since, but he was the biggest one at the time. 600 grand. Goes in, is made emperor of the camp. Gets voted out first. Gets voted out first. And it's not even we vote out the person we like least. You vote for your most popular person, he got the least votes. And I think, like for anyone, that would be harmful to one's ego.

I think after that, there were various talks about maybe he could do a show with Harry Redknapp, because there was a relationship they sort of had in camp. None of it comes off. He then, and it may be coincidence the next year, decides he's going to emigrate to New Zealand. We should say that before all this, this is, and the reason that we're kind of weaving in all these kind of looking forwards and backwards parts to this story is

because he epitomises so many particular things I think about British Light Entertainment and that's why he's interesting in other ways to talk about. There was that incredible bit bitterness about leaving the BBC originally before he even did deal or no deal and I there were there are a lot of people who were like that but he I think went further and further than criticizing him but there was a point where he was even saying I'm working with the consortium when we're going to buy the BBC. I mean how are you doing that? Where do you begin? He said I no longer pay my licence fee because, you know, that we're

no longer represented. And the people said to the BBC, surely you should prosecute him. And they said, Oh, no, we've checked our records. He does pay his licence fee. But I can't stand all these guys. There's so many of these guys who had, and by the way, they were all men, who had these incredible sort of 30-year careers in primetime or whatever it was and when eventually they have to bring some new people through instead of thinking thank you very much you made me very rich doing what I loved they are I mean not sound like JD Vance they're so bitter but you know did you even say thank you did you even say thank you no but he was so angry about being sort of let go as he put it by the BBC. No, they just didn't give you another decade's worth of prime time show. And I thought that that bitterness is a huge

part of the character. You see it a lot in this documentary, despite the fact his relentless insistence that he is only about positivity. There is such a sort of partridge-ian, if I may use that, which is why Alan Partridge, we'll have to talk about him as well, is such a brilliant archetype. There is such a level of bitterness that he cannot expand. There's such a needless to say I had the last laugh energy going on. Noel's great tragedy, I think, is that he's actually incredibly talented. That's the big problem. And most of the people in his generation were not.

And I have to say of all the presenters I have ever worked with, he is head and shoulders the best. He's as close as you would say to a genius in light entertainment presenting. He just is. He's unbelievable. And when you are a producer and you see a presenter who can produce on the floor and can make something out of nothing, you have to admire it. He's brilliant. He's brilliant at what he did. He was brilliant on Swap Shop. He was brilliant on Noel's House Party. He was brilliant on the Radio One Breakfast Show. He was brilliant on Deal or No Deal. The first time we ever did a run through, walked straight into this thing, just absolutely hit the ground running, nailed it throughout series after series of Deal or No Deal. He did a genuinely

unbelievable job. He's incredibly good at what he does. How do you think he fares in the documentary format, which of course is different to being the presenter of a light entertainment format? Well, the interesting thing about being the presenter or a producer of a light entertainment format is it's actually rather useful if you like to control your environment, if you like to control a narrative, if you are able to see what's coming and channel it in a certain direction. That's the real skill. He's one of the most, I think, watching this documentary, he's one of the most controlling people you can possibly imagine. Outside of people like magicians and in my view butchers, but that's just it. Butchers?

Yeah. I think there's a level of control there that I find quite interesting. Gosh, this is, I wish we weren't talking about Noel because I'd like to explore that. Well that's what I'm doing for a future podcast. I don't think we'll have time. Anyhow. But his brilliance at being a TV presenter is that ability to control his surroundings, to be a ringmaster. In the same way that a circus runs, if you have an amazing ringmaster, right, that's how a TV format runs. And you know, you know you've

got to get from A all the way through to Z and he will take you there in just a brilliant way and make it a better show than it would have been before. He's brilliant at it. That skill is not useful in daily life. That skill is an incredibly bad one to have in daily life, the ability to control your environment and be a ringmaster for your environment. It's great for you, of course it is, because you can avoid pain, you can avoid vulnerability, you can avoid anything inconvenient. It's not brilliant for people around you, because in the real world there's a thing called truth. and if you are always controlling your environment then truth tends to bump up against you and I've always felt with Noel that his life would be so easy if he just accepted who he was

What he does the skills that he have which are many and varied I've seen him being enormously generous to an enormous amount of people. He has inside him such a kindness and such a skill that his life should be the easiest life that anyone has ever had because he's really good at what he does and the thing that he does is really, really lucrative. He can get paid an awful lot. But at some point- As he keeps reminding us. As he keeps reminding us. But this documentary is interesting because you see him, you see that out in the real world. Well, you see him trying, actually what I think, and not to get because you see him, you see that out in the real world.

Well, you see him trying, actually what I think, not to get too meta about it, you see him trying to control the documentary. That lots of things happen in the documentary that you think, this happens slightly sometimes with people who write lifestyle columns, and you think, why are you doing this? Oh, I see, because you're going to get a column out of it.

There's a bit where he's found some's think he's found some scientific paper. We'll have to come to his the type of science he believes in in a minute. But he hears that he's read some paper from decades and decades ago that if you play play music to plants, they grow better or whatever it is. And so to the vines in the vineyard, he gets a sort of piano on the back of a low loader. And he is going, you know, and you think, I see see why you've done this what you've done is that you think oh

well that will feel they'll like this for the documentary and now he's trying to control and actually all you can think about because it's very very difficult to escape the format all you can think about is you're doing this for the documentary and it and he can't he can't he can't control the environment fully I have to say that the Rob Brydon voiceover is a masterclass. It's, you know what? I found the documentary very interesting

because it doesn't hang him out to dry. It doesn't show him as a figure of fun. It doesn't, it's sort of all things to all people. I thought it walked across a very interesting tightrope. The goths from the touch of Rob Brydon. That voice over is really difficult to do when you see the images that you're having and the scenes that you're having to sort of gloss. And then listen, at the end of the documentary, you'll also see, to speak to your point just then, you will see in a documentary, like you don't have a credit, we just, we know what the documentary is,

it's about you. At the end it says, series consultant and featuring Noel Edmonds. It's what it said, it doesn't say featuring at the end it says series consultant and featuring Noel Edmonds is what it said doesn't say featuring anyone else so serious consultant and featuring Noel Edmonds. He would have fought tooth and nail for that particular credit that no one else would care about. Yeah he says at the end and this is the key to all of it he says I hope people watch this and maybe come out with a different opinion of me maybe and Noel is always trying to make people have a different opinion of him you know that's the thing. You know, I think people disappoint Noel quite a lot. You know, I think that...

People of the collective. People of the collective and individual people and councils and anyone he comes up against tend to disappoint him. Noel has many times in his life been the smartest person in the room. He's very, very, very bright, Noel. He's a very smart guy, but he's not always the smartest person in the room. He's very, very, very bright. No, he's a very smart guy, but he's not always the smartest person in the room. I think sometimes he lacks the vision to see sometimes. He's always worked brilliantly when he's with a great producer. So when he's

with Michael Hurl in his early bit of his career, Glenn Hugel on Deal on No Deal, people who could put him up on stuff and make him better. And in the same way, the Clarkson's farm works brilliantly and all of Clarkson's stuff works brilliantly because you've got Andy Wilman with you. And, you know, and Clarkson knows that Wilman is as smart as him and his instincts, you know, are razor sharp. And when Noel loses that, and it's just Noel,

I think people want to him less is the truth. And that's the opposite of what he wants. I think- But not to know yourself and to accept yourself is the great tragedy of, and actually weirdly the great tragedy particularly of many people and definitely many people in that particular generation of light entertainment. And let's just be grateful that he's gone to New Zealand because a huge number of those people of that generation... Still with us.

Still with us or they ended up in a panorama in that was their documentary or in the files of Operation Utrea. So there's none of that with Noel Edmonds. Well there really isn't any of that with Noel, that is not his issue and he was, it's interesting because there was a time when he was the most famous person in Britain right. Yeah it was a sort of nationalised zaniness really wasn't it? Yeah but that's heady and it was a time where culture wasn't quite so atomised. So if you were famous, you were properly famous. Everybody loved you. And also, you didn't really hear about the people who didn't like you in those days.

Because when you're gonna hear it, people might write into the BBC, but no one's showing you the letters where people don't like you. So you're able to be famous with everyone and only hear nice things about yourself. And that, by the way, is not Noel's fault. And that by the way is not Noel's fault. And that's the culture in which he is raised.

And you know, whatever his personality type is, that was the thing that it all filtered through. Now you come back to his, come back on Deal or No Deal and so on, and I think more particularly post Deal or No Deal. We now live in a culture where, we don't live in a monoculture. So there's lots and lots of different things to watch.

So his fame is not exactly what it was before. So he gets this great fame and did, and they did as a huge hit and as a cultural touchstone, but it is never gonna be what Noel's house party is because we don't live in that world anymore. Also, you get so much more feedback now and lots of people are saying they don't like you because whoever you are, if you're being watched by half the country, there are people are saying they don't like you. Because whoever you are, if you're you know being watched by half the country

there are millions of people who don't like you. It doesn't matter you know you can be David Attenborough and they'll be like you go to a pub you'll find someone who goes Attenborough, no not for me. You know a bit smug I always think. You know there will always be people who don't like you and if you've grown up in an environment where none of that touches you I think it is I think it can be very difficult and I think it can knock you off course if you've grown up in an environment where none of that touches you, I think it can be very difficult and I think it can knock you off course if you're someone who's prone to being knocked off course. Anyway, if you're someone who needs to… Brittle and obsessive.

Listen, your words, not mine. If you are someone who needs to control the emotions of the people around you, it is a difficult culture to live in now because you can't do that. It is impossible and it was possible to do that in the 70s and 80s. Now you cannot. And there are certain characters who that could send mad. Let's talk a little bit about some of the features of the property River Haven. The bugger in obviously. I mean, he's desperately trying to sort of assert parity. There's a point where he says, I quite fancy the bugger in taking on Diddley Squat in a pub quiz. We'd wipe them out and

you just think, oh, it's so obvious. I mean, it's so no voiceover from Rob Biden at that point because why do you don't need to say anything? The beers are called things like tits up and old gits. Noel Evans is very much one of those people who still uses the phrase with the word me thinks, which come my revolution, as you know, we see you immediately shot not even against a wall. Out across the property, he's got various things. Now, probably the most notable is Guardian. Now, one of the things we didn't mention is that Noel had a long battle with Lloyd over some sort of financial impropriety. I think, listen, I'll leave it to him to tell

the story. But if you do want to find out the story, he's mounted it on a sort of weatherproof plinth behind the vast statue of a knight, which he calls Guardian, who is on the property. And he says, as he says, it's become a place of pilgrimage for local people for all the right reasons. Again, there's no one there when the cameras are there, but I make no comment. Now this is a very, very big statue of a sort of kneeling knight, guardian. It's made by the prop studio who did lots of things for Avatar and Lord of the Rings, obviously.

That's just one of the very, very odd things that's there. I have to say, you're always dying for Liz, his wife, to come on screen. They met as a makeup artist. All the clocks are set to something like 11.06 in the house. Which is the moment they met. The moment they met. You know, they've got the, all the kind of ridiculous, boring cliches, the live, laugh, loves and the only positivity here and these sorts of signs around the house. Which are always, by the way, red flags. If you're in any company and you walk into any

executive's office and they have only positivity here. Yeah. Because you know they're the person who's going to... You'll be giving your people 45 in about three seconds. They are going to be the person who makes your life a nightmare. Anyway, but he says, as you can see, our messaging is very clear. I mean, who talks about interiors in this way? As you can see, my messaging is very clear. We have to quickly just get into the whole grasp of science.

He's got a very, very distinct new age. I don't know whatever you want to call it. It's a bit like Dave St. Hubbins in Spinal Tack, all sorts of bits of Eastern philosophy have drifted across his trance. He gave a number of interviews and he said things like, you know, I see my parents, they're all the time, they're two balls of light that follow me around. He was clearly imbibing a huge amount of spiritual... He talked about cosmic ordering, which is you ask the universe for something and it delivers. And he said, oh, you know what, and actually it delivered Deal or No Deal to me. And this is why, listen people, feel free to believe in cosmic ordering. But the reason Noel got

Deal or No Deal is not cosmic ordering is the fact that he was massively famous. He auditioned to do Countdown on Channel 4. And Kevin Ligo, who was head of Channel 4 at the time, said, I'm not sure he's quite right for that you know but is there something else so we said look we've got this thing did I know deal so maybe we'll try him he came in and he was brilliant at it and that's why he got it no other he didn't he didn't call it into being it could have been someone else's show he was just ready at that point you have no idea what a pawn of the planets you are Richard and I'm

afraid you were being manipulated by forces far, far beyond your ken but anyhow I will say that he yeah he of course like many people believes in reincarnation he can't actually quite deal with the fact that one of the other people who works for him on the on the estate also believes in reincarnation and he he's a bit worried that the guy might be slightly senior to him in part in the past life in which they previously met. And Noel really has spent quite a long time trying to discover his rank, but in a very sort of trying to be really relaxed about it and failing. He keeps trying to say, I've got a bit of a power complex. Don't worry, you don't need to say. Liz is hilarious. Liz says, she's talking about the frequencies that they have on these kind of,

they've got a crystal room and all these sort of things. She says they're apparently healing frequencies. Now if you listen very carefully, I rewound that clip about six times, I think you can hear a slight parenthesis around apparently. That's a frequency that only the very, the cynical ear can hear. But Noel doesn't hear it, I don't think. In the same way that he is incredibly talented as a TV presenter and that you just think just just do that. He also he looks unbelievable for 76 years old. He does look good. I mean he looks incredible. The hair's ridiculous. You haven't seen that. The hair has never changed and I don't know how he gets the lift in it and the crystal tips and all of it. I mean you know he'll tell you that he drinks only structured water which makes a little vortex in the water

and then he says it doesn't have to go through your kidneys or liver. Very interesting. There's a bit where he's got a life, two rafts that he wants to do white water rafting down his local river. He's trying to explain to the guy, his sort of head groundsman or wherever he is, there's all these people have to work for him and just absorb it all. When we took out the uninflated raft, it was so much heavier. And now it's so much lighter.

Do you know why that is? And the guy just doesn't say, well, I mean, you know, because obviously when you carry something like this, it's much more dense and then it's the larger surface area. Sort of. It's actually actually Richard scientifically, it's actually something to do with the weight of our spirit and the weight of air. And therefore when we die, our bodies become much lighter. And that actually is the lesson of that raft inflation. You couldn't possibly argue with him about any of these things.

There are certain things that are unarguable because they're true. And there are certain things that are unarguable because you're like, where do I begin to argue with that? There isn't, I can't even start. And he likes those things. He likes to have the esoteric information that he can then impart, which is another form of controlling behaviour, I think. Yeah, and listen, he wants his Caleb and, you know, the kind of stars of Clarkson's Farmer.

You know, you can see him all the time trying to promote various members of his staff, but he sort of, he can't let them, he can't let their personality be the thing. It has to be his version of their personality. It has to sort of be filtered through him. Well they're all just straight men, his foil. Yeah. They're given these tiny walk-ons in scenes where they, and where the message is always a kind of sledgehammer. Noel is wacky, Noel has so many ideas. How are we going to do all Noel's amazing ideas? But you know what? He's a genius and he has vision and, you know, anyway.

How many years? That's the problem. I wouldn't say at estate management but perhaps at light entertainment formats. I'm not qualified to say. In that way I really felt like he epitomises that lifestyle you know like it's like egg, larvae, pupa, moth, it is isn't it? It's like kids TV, prime time, bitterness, ironic documentary subject. That is actually, well, that's one of the life entertainment lifestyles. We've discussed the Utrea version earlier, but there is a darkness to those people. There is a darkness to some of those men, not the darkness that we keep alluding to, but there is a sort of weirdness.

There's something about it. Listen, all of us in our 20s and 30s have something wrong with us. By and large, we'll address that. I still have loads of things wrong with me. By and large, we'll address that. I have loads of things wrong with me. Yeah, exactly. But we'll have the big thing that comes from our childhood or whatever it is. And we'll either go to therapy or we'll marry someone who understands us and sorts it out for us. Or you know, you go through things and you sort it out. Because life becomes

unlivable after a certain point if you are difficult. Whereas if you have been as famous as that generation of presenters were, same with rock stars, you know, there is nobody to pick you up on your bullshit. No one's going to do it. And this is not to say that these people are uniquely bullshitting. They're not. Everyone, everyone has bullshit. Most people have it picked up on at some point. But if you are a rock star or if you're a TV presenter of the eighties or if you're a tech bro now, you are surrounded by people who do not pick you up on your bullshit, it doesn't happen. And if that lasts through to your 50s,

it's slightly too late actually to become the person you were supposed to be. So you're stuck with this character who you were when you were 23, probably, and you never did the work on yourself, you were never able to be called out on it to the extent where you go, actually, do you know what, that's right. I'm going to become a real boy now. You are forever

stuck in the person you were in your 20s. And if you are that person, but you find yourself in 2025, it's really, really difficult because what do you do? Because it's an entirely different world. And you keep butting up against reality. either you are wrong or reality is wrong. Only one of those two things can be right. I know which is wrong in Noel's case. Well, if you've gone through your whole life knowing for a fact that you are not wrong, then of course it's reality that's wrong and of course, you know, you start looking at, you know, all sorts of different things that would make sense of the gap between you and reality

that seems to have opened up. So I'm not saying that about Noel necessarily, but I'm saying that about that generation. If you're the same person you were 30 years ago, the world is a very odd place and the way that you deal with that comes out in your personality. I agree, but I do think it's really weird. I think I was talking to Chris Morris about this. He hit on something with that Noel's HQ show, which was this very weird show he did on Sky. It was genuinely 2008 to 2009. It seemed completely bizarre. He was railing against, I don't know, I suppose, to some extent he was railing against elites and elites could even be members of the local council. He was railing against a world that

didn't work, a broke form of broken Britain. Okay. And it seemed to kind of liberals like me in our ivory tower, like, what are, you know, this is so ridiculous. But he was attuned to something that, in fact, completely defined the next decade, certainly from 2016 onwards, when we became powerfully aware that, actually, maybe Norse HQ wasn't such a nutty show after all.

But it was really early. I mean, it's a long time ago. It's so mad. But you honestly, now you look at it and it could have been made yesterday. It's very, very 2025. It's very light. Lots of those kinds of things

that have become very successful. GB News, all of those sort of things. People railing in quite a lo-fi environment about a world that doesn't work anymore. And actually he was ahead of his time on that. I have to say. I mean, listen, as we discussed, he has much to commend him. I would really recommend watching this documentary. about a world that doesn't work anymore. And actually he was ahead of his time on that, I have to say. I mean, listen, as we discussed,

he has much to commend him. I would really recommend watching this document. It's really well-made. It's really entertaining, however you wanna take it. If you like him, it's entertaining. If you're not a fan of him, it's entertaining. There's stuff to be taken away. But as you say, he keeps telling you who he is,

which you were able to do in the 70s and 80s. You were able to say, this is me, this is my brand, this is what I do, this is how it's controlled, and you were able to be that. You can't be that anymore. You cannot tell people who you are, you have to show people who you are. And so Noel is telling you who he is

all the way through this documentary, but what he's really doing, of course, is showing you who he is. It's up to you as a viewer to decide who you think that is. He wants you to see him differently. You may well do after this documentary one way or another, but that's the central thing of it is we watch television very differently now.

We will make our own mind up. And the more you try and tell us what the truth is, the more we think, huh, well, I wonder if there's something behind that. I genuinely found it fascinating. And I do, as I say, I've thought a lot about this over the last few days, because, you know, I worked with Noel for while Glenn Huger and Richard Hague did most of the deal on their deal, but I was there at the beginning. And he was extraordinary, extraordinarily brilliant, great in meetings, you know, just a fascinating human being in in in many, many ways. And as I say, I do retain a fondness for him. And he made that show a bigger hit than it would have been if we hadn't had him. But being a great

light entertainment television presenter, it's not really anything. You know, it's lovely to be able to do it. And it's lucrative and it's great and it brings joy to millions. Being right about how to present a TV show and being right about how a TV show makes people feel does not mean you're going to be right about other things as well. In the same way that you can build an electric car company or a space company and not be right about how democracy should run. You know, skills are not necessarily transferable. So in my world, the world that I'm from, that I'm very, very protective of,

the world of light entertainment and the world of bringing that entertainment into homes, I genuinely, you will always have my absolute admiration and respect. He always will do this. I do think you have to take him at his word and say, see what you think of me. And it's an amazing character piece. This documentary you will, you will definitely have thoughts after watching it. Don't you think? Yes, absolutely. I mean, absolutely. And there are so many things that have changed how we see television in that way, actually. And I think obviously things like the documentaries

of Louis Theroux, which ushered in that sort of need for people to show themselves and not tell themselves anymore. But also it's so extraordinary. The creation of Alan Partridge is one of the most, it is so prescient that Alan Partridge, obviously, who sort of has this brief firework of a light entertainment career and then we just sort of exist in his bitterness

in the last few decades which I love. He struck so clearly on something about those guys. Yeah he was very much based on the Noel Edmonds generation definitely and people who are less successful than Noel and but you know you can see bits of all of them in there. It's really completely fascinating how that particular streak of bitterness and that particular kind of way of talking about a lost country and all sorts of things, Partridge epitomised this thing sort of before they happened or before you picked up on them, in lots of ways that he satirised the future. And so as these people have become more and more, as I say, moving in that life cycle from moving away from prime time, and then they have their bitter period where they

keep telling the newspapers this or that. And then they become subject of these ironic or otherwise documentaries with that ironic distance. Yes. This felt post ironic, this documentary. Yes, I think so. I mean, you just had to point the camera. Yes, you just point the camera. I think the program makers were quite bright. They just went, we don't need to over egg anything here. It's very light touch and you can see, yes.

Can I say one other thing about Partridge though? Is one of the reasons we love Partridge so much is you also feel for him. You also see where it comes up. So you see him being nasty to people around him, all of that, but there's a bit of you that slightly roots for him because you see what he wants. You can see the thing that he needs, which is

somebody to love him. You can just, you know, you see it. Although I'm, do you know, at the time, I remember when the office came out, I remember someone telling me that Stephen Coogan had said, is he such an amazing creation? David Brent. David Brent, you'd have a point with, whereas Partridge, you wouldn't. Partridge has, has mellowed. He stayed with us because there's something about him that is slightly tragic tenor despite Noel Edmonds kind of relentlessly upbeat supposedly positive and kind of Zany persona there is something that's as you say very sort of Shakespearean about it

It really is I really recommend it is if you're not interested in know do not watch it Oh, no, no, no, my children have no idea who on earth he was. Of course they do. They were like, I mean, they were totally scathing about him. Totally. They didn't know who he was at all because obviously they haven't watched any of those things. They were born after he was off air in most of them, but they were completely transfixed by the character. There's only one currency these days and that's authenticity. It is the only currency. And in the old days, in the 80s,

you were able to fake authenticity and you no longer can, or if you can, it's very, very, very hard to fake authenticity. Just be yourself. And if you're young enough to change, be yourself. And if you're not, then at least, no, at least kind of think maybe this isn't me, I don't know. Whenever you meet with anyone who's involved in that world,

all they want is stories about that generation of presenters. And by the way, some of the best stories in the world are Noel Edmunds stories. And they're not horrible stories, but they're just stories where you're just going, you are kidding me, that's unbelievable. Because he came from that era where he was so famous and the world was at his feet and so mad stuff happened all the time. Whenever you tell any of those anecdotes, you know, the coogans of this world are listening, I think. When I was writing on the Guardian's diary column, we made him a bit of a character because he was constantly... No.

Yeah, because it was in this real bitter phase and he would get people to come and do an interview with him. And he'd be so proud of the fact that he had the largest estate in England at the time without any public right of way through it. And I can't quite remember why I had to end up taking him out to dinner but we went to... Whoa, this is new information. Ended up taking him out to dinner, we went to the Woolsey and it went on a bit, I must say. And then, do you know, it was so funny Richard because when I got home he rang me on my home number quite a few times. It was after midnight but I didn't pick up I don't

know perhaps he'd perhaps I'd accidentally picked up something from the table he'd left something I couldn't put my finger on it very strange anyway that that was those were in the years where he was searching for something perhaps oh by the way you know our argument about whether interior design masters was better than Citizen Kane I was checking to Glenn Hugal who was who was the other genius behind deal on a deal the two of them he was talking was talking about this amazing episode where Noel was asking people's advice about what the person should do. That's the beauty of that show.

You can sort of jump up and down and it could take the weight. And then he decides literally just on a whim to go outside of the studio, walk out, go up onto the main road, stop a car, get in a car while a steady cam is still with him. And Glenn was saying, you know, that's why I love working with him. He said, that's the closest I think I've ever been to making either Citizen Kane or Interior Design Masters. Very good. After the break, micro dramas. They're gonna change the world as we know it.

Okay very good. This episode is brought to you by Sky Cinema the ultimate destination for movie lovers to enjoy the latest blockbusters, with Paramount Plus included at no extra cost. Now, Anura, this year's best picture winner at the Oscars has just landed on Sky Cinema. If you haven't seen it, it follows a Brooklyn dancer, a Russian oligarch family and a Cold War with the in-laws. It's sharp, it's stylish, with five Oscars to prove it. Add Twisters and Wild Robot to the mix and Sky Cinema doesn't just

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Paramount Plus Basic, with ads included for Sky TV customers, with Sky Cinema only. The GMC employee pricing event is on now. Get a big cash purchase discount of up to $12,300 on the 2025 GMC Sierra 1500 and the 2025 Sierra HD. With Sierra 1500's premium interior and advanced tech or Sierra HD's impressive power and capability, you'll have everything you need to get from work to play with confidence this season. Hurry in, employee pricing is on for a limited time. Visit your local GMC dealer for details. Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, National Security Journalist, and I'm David McCloskey, CIA

Analyst turned spy novelist. Together we're the co-hosts of another Goldhanger show called The Rest is Classified, where we bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spasms. We have just released a series on the decades-long battle between the CIA and Osama Bin Laden and this week we are stepping into the devastation of the 9-11 terror attacks to understand how Osama Bin Laden was able to carry out such a plot right under the nose of the CIA. It was a moment that changed global politics forever, shifting the focus of spy agencies away from nation states

towards hunting for terrorists and understanding the extremist ideology that drove them. We will then go into the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, which culminated in a dramatic raid at his compound in Pakistan in 2011, which killed the world's most wanted terrorist. So if all of this sounds good, we've got a clip waiting for you at the end of the episode.

We talked for quite a long time about Noel Edmonds. I mean, for people who don't know him, I'm so sorry, but it's... It doesn't matter. My children loved it and you don't have to know him. You know the type. Now, let's talk about micro dramas. What these are, they started in China and they're essentially, they're sort of films but they're cut into one minute chunks.

So they are one minute long episodic dramas. They're often called vertical dramas as well as micro dramas because they are made to watch on your phone. They're literally made to watch with your phone held vertically. And you don't turn your phone horizontal to watch. It's a, yeah. So you can only fit about one or two people in any frame. Exactly.

Which is quite sort of the aesthetic. The episodes are a minute long, sometimes up to three minutes long, but usually a minute and a half. They all end with a cliffhanger. And as I say, there's about 55, 60, 70 episodes in each one. You watch the first few for free. And then if you are hooked, you then start either paying for them by watching adverts and earning coins or you physically pay for them. So that's the business model is these

incredibly hooky and cliffhanger heavy dramas usually about werewolves or secret billionaires or all of these things. They're very soapy. If you want to see some by the way there's there are platforms like Real Short would be a big one. And you can easily just download it and watch hundreds of these. And you can watch the first couple and you don't have to pay at all but you'll get the vibe of what they are. They started in China not that long ago. Within four or five years they were worth more than the entire cinema box office of China. Within a few years $6.8 billion a year were being made by these micro dramas.

Hollywood California takes nine billion, ideally at the box office to retain its status as anything like the business it is now. It didn't manage to get all the way there. And if it doesn't, that industry contracts a lot. That gives you a sense of the scale of these things. And- Absolutely enormous, very hooky, very, very addictive, very schlocky. But again, that

thing we've often said, give people what they want. So this is enormous in China and it stayed pretty much in China. The Chinese government then cracked down on it because they felt that there was a vulgarity to some of them. They liked the ones that were about ancient myths and all of those things, but other ones they felt they didn't like so much. So these companies started looking to the States, started looking abroad essentially for their revenue. And so Real Short was begun and it's backed, it sounds like a plucky young startup, but it's backed by Baidu and Tencent, two of the biggest companies in China. It's already worth billions. In America.

In America. In America. So now we have all these American ones. There's people from Hollywood working on these things. People on their way up, people on their way down who are making these things. There are lots of in-program purchases as well. Yeah, in-app purchases is a big part of how to limit the money. And you know, you can, like there's an epi-, there's one- Real short alone made a billion. Yes, real short alone made a billion. So KFC have made their own one. For example, about an ancient empress looking for a chicken

leg in her kitchen, suddenly being transported into the modern world. That's some of the high end of these dramas by the way. And finding KFC. But the interesting thing in America, firstly, the growth is exponential, it's massive, but they discovered that the spend on in-app purchases in America is six times what it was in China. Not only are they getting millions upon millions of people watching these things, those people are also spending an awful lot of money. So suddenly we have this thing, this entirely new medium is the truth, which

is being unbelievably successful. They remind me of some things slightly. Okay, I'll tell you the things that I think they have a bloodline from. And this I don't know whether other people say this. They're across by the way way I would say it's across just a summer it's across between Netflix and TikTok. Yeah. So it's taken the shortness of TikTok, taken the narrative arc of a Netflix and multiplying them together and it's really really really worked and is and it's coming to a screen near you soon. In South Korea they had those webtoons you

know they had those series mobile series and people a lot of people made those because they wanted to get bought and then made in and what which has happened with lots of the big K dramas have started as a webtoon. Many of them have a sort of moral message. There's a guy on YouTube, I don't know if you know him called Darman and he does these, yeah, we're not just telling stories, we're changing lives and he has these trite little sort of homilies, you know, like mean girl shame a girl for her looks or you know mother smashes up Charles PlayStation for gaming too much and they all have a little moral message they slightly remind me of that the acting is sort of terrible and funny enough I've watched so many of these now and I've never

dived in and gone for all the way and paid so I've watched lots of the starts of them but it was really interesting I saw so many actors and I was then googling to see if that was in fact the girl who was the best friend on Californication and whatever it was and it was. Well because there's no work around and suddenly there's work. And I actually spoke to someone this weekend because I knew we were going to talk about this and someone who said I just don't want you to say that I've done this. They live in LA, there is no work and they have done lighting on lots of these. They're telling me about what it's like to shoot one.

Often the directors just like really don't know what they're doing, but there's lots of seasoned crew. There's also lots of really enthusiastic film school graduates, because remember, these Californian places are still producing huge numbers of people who in the old days were almost doing a vocational degree and would end up going straight into the industry.

And now they're going straight into the industry. No, well, there's a job there. Why wouldn't you go here? This real short has got enormous studios. They're pumping out a huge amount of content. They need a huge amount of people. And as you say, it tends to be people who are finding it hard to get work on traditional things plus film school graduates. And they do. It's totally non-union, which is... I've never quite understood how they get away with that. Well, it's a different form of... It's non-union on Yes, I've never quite understood how they get away with that. But it's a different form of...

It's non-union on YouTube. Lots of people have complained about that in America and said that for all sorts of different reasons, from safeguarding to the fact that the unions are very powerful, but then they're becoming less and less powerful because they don't have any kind of aegis over any of these areas, these new areas, anyhow. But this person was saying to me, if you're shooting

sort of high end drama, you're not doing very many pages a day at all. Well this, they can do 55 episodes in four days. I mean, they absolutely. They just absolutely know that. Yeah, they do like minimum 20 pages a day and they really burn through it. People don't want to say that they're doing it. First of all, it's non-union. I mean, I think they're awful at the moment. At the moment. And I just have to say that if you go and watch these, you'll be like, oh my god, this is truly dreadful. It's the end of civilization. But I wonder if you're about to say what I think.

Yeah. Why should it be? That's just, someone hasn't made good ones yet. I think it's for a creative, and loads and loads of creatives listen to this on both sides of the camera. If someone says to you, look, it's one minute episodes and there's 55 of them. Yeah. Go away and think about it. Hold on. Okay. Okay. I can see the potential there. Brilliant people can do something brilliant with anything. And you know, we said before once on this podcast when we're talking about public service broadcasting, we've got this thing in our mind that public service broadcasting has to be delivered in one hour shows or half hour shows. Why? Why does it have to be? Why can't the BBC start making these? Why can't all sorts of people start making these? First of all, it's great because the barrier to... I like anything now where the barrier to kind

of from where you think of it to where you can view it. Because everything else that people are watching, you can do it. Because everything else that people are watching, you can do it and put it up the next day. You can be really agile with this. It's interesting, I saw that there was one, I haven't watched this one, by the way, there's one that's clearly based on, I just read about this, based on the Luigi Mangione story.

I mean, imagine how long television would take to do the Luigi Mangione drama. Like, see you in the 2030s. It would take a really long time. And so there is something about that that allows maybe traditional broadcasters to respond in that agile way because everything else they're dealing with, like we said before on sketch shows, how can you compete with a sketch show when you've got someone who can just do a really funny sketch about that

day's news and put it on TikTok? And that's where all of the stuff is. By the way, some of the names of them. My beautiful maid is a spy, the double life of my billionaire husband, I married a millionaire stranger, married to my boss's enemy, fake husband, real feelings. It's like, you know. They sound like YouTube titles. I have to say, they sound like the titles of YouTube videos

or TikTok videos or anything like that, but particularly YouTube videos. The CEO becomes my secretary. Yeah, or Mils and Boons, actually. Yeah, well, I was gonna say, at the moment it's about 74% female skewing in terms of people who are watching these. Well it's got ties with that romantasy hasn't it? Exactly and paying for them and you know romantasy has absolutely saved publishing. You know this is saving you know content but Jerry Gia and lots of other people in this space are going

I don't see why we wouldn't start making things that are more male skewing. I don't see you know if we think certain things are male and female skewing, which of course some things are, you know, we could make more thrillers and, you know, war films and all this kind of stuff. That's what they want to do. They've got so big, real short, so quickly, the app, you know, it was, it was, it was outselling TikTok at one point, the real short app. We have people coming into the industry who were going to expect different economics from that industry. You would hope we would get to the point with this where the budgets

are going up and certainly you know the double life of my billionaire husband is like $300,000 for a film length thing but that's more than you know you're paying $50,000 for some of these Chinese ones. So you know budgets can go up, I think creators will be very interested in writing these. Yeah, because at the moment the scripts are basically like porn scripts. I mean, they're that bad. Well, people have said- And the acting's terrible.

People have said, is it AI? Yeah. Okay. There are AI elements to it. Is this writing AI? And Joey Gia says, you know, in real short, we have in-house editors, we have in-house writers, and I'm absolutely sure he's, that's

right. I will say this, you could do it with AI. You know, if, I mean, if... This hasn't been done with AI, shame on those humans. One thing that AI can do is give you 55 cliffhangers in a row. That's the thing that it can do. It can't give you heart and emotion and interesting, you know, long form stories and stuff that really, really makes you weak, but it can tell you what a cliffhanger is and it can do 55 of them in a row for you. So as I say, I'm sure they're not using AI, but they could. I watched a few ages ago and I've been interested in it getting bigger and bigger and bigger and but I was interested in the kind of, oh my God,

is again, is this the fall of civilization? After when you watch a few, you're not you're not hooked into the stories particularly, you are definitely hooked into the stories particularly, you are definitely hooked into the medium. Yeah, but like early cinema is crap as well. So, you know, it's just, it becomes an art form. Yeah. So it's micro dramas, vertical dramas, they'll probably come up with a slightly better name for it at some point. But it is definitively not going away. And I do think it's going

to be an interesting world for younger creators or even older creators who are thinking You know what the the gatekeepers sort of shut the gates Here's a place with without gatekeepers his stuff where I can I can get this funded and I can prove you know I'm gonna be proof of concept really really easily and I can make These episodes and after 10 when we start charging I will see if it's good because people will tell me if it's good because They will they will pay for it immediately. That is the dream for all creatives. The dream for all creatives always is the shortest possible line

between the idea being in your head and somebody else seeing it. That's always the dream and this feels like a world in which it's possible. You know, I think the romantises will always win out but it feels like there is a market there and there's a creative opportunity there and if the two of those things come together it might be quite an exciting world, the world of micro dramas. Now I think because we were talking beforehand we have the same recommendation this week. We do I think we're both going to recommend Shifty which is the new series of Adam Curtis films which has gone straight onto iPlayer at the weekend and it's absolutely fascinating and brilliant in the way that all his films

are but it's really interesting it's a sort of I suppose social history of what it's felt like to live through the last 40 years in Britain and this the huge shifts that have happened to do with power and money. But done through archive, done just through archive so you'll be moving from something political to like incredible music to just the quirkiest thing, like clips you've never seen before for certain places, just tell you a story about Britain. And it's mesmeric. And so we in fact, we both loved it so much. So he's going to come in and speak to us on our Q&A on Thursday. On Thursday.

And We're doing our first ever interview. Yes, we are. He's very easy to talk to. Oh my god, we're going to be so bad at that. Yeah, we'll be really terrible, but luckily he is very good at talking. So please join us for that and otherwise we will see you as always on Thursday. See you on Thursday. This episode of The Rest is Entertainment was brought to you by Sky, who've made watching TV feel effortlessly smart.

Just use voice control and ask Sky what you want to watch. It's so quick that before you found your snacks you were already halfway through a series. It's basically TV with a sixth sense. Say show me crime dramas and suddenly you've got three new obsessions, a reason to cancel plans and a lead detective you inexplicably trust with your life. If you need suggestions just ask what should I watch and Sky lines up recommendations based on the kind of things you normally go for so you can trust it won't miss. Got a favourite actor? Just say their name and Sky brings up a selection of what they're in across all your apps and channels. No judgment

Whether you're after something niche, nostalgic or new enough to dominate the group chat Or reliving Fudum's finest Europa League hour. 4-1 against Juventus, frankly who wouldn't? Sky's got you covered. Search sky.com to find out more. I'm Gordon Carrera and I'm David McClaskey together with the co-host of another Goalhanger show called The Rest is Classified Here's that clip we mentioned earlier on together with the co-host of another Goalhanger show called The Rest is Classified. Here's that clip we mentioned earlier on. When I look back on it now, you still see that, you know, there's plans, there's memoranda, there's notifications, there's all these things, but they're never actually executed.

They never actually kind of pull the trigger on anything, do they? I'm a little bit of two minds on this because I agree with you that the theme of this episode really is a series of missed opportunities to get Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11. Yeah. But we should also note that once Tenet and the CIA understand that Osama bin Laden CIA understand that Osama Bin Laden is coming for us, in particular after the East Africa bombings. There is a push to improve our collection and our understanding of Al-Qaeda pretty significantly. I mean, there's a bunch of human sources who get recruited in this period. There's a lot more

technical collection. Alex Station is beefed up to more than 40 people. There's a bunch of connections with foreign partners on Al-Qaeda that hadn't existed before. I mean, interestingly, there's a PDB, President's Daily Brief, in December, December the 4th of 1998, which is titled, quote, Bin Laden preparing to hijack US aircraft and other attacks. And so there's a lot of strategic warning, I think you could say, about what Al-Qaeda is up to. other attacks. And so there's a lot of strategic warning, I think you could say about what Al Qaeda is up to. And yet, there's an inability, I think, to translate that into practical efforts and operations to stop these attacks and stop Al Qaeda from ultimately carrying

out 9-11. If you want to hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.