The Rest Is Entertainment - Russell Brand: Trial By Podcast

Episode Date: October 19, 2026

Are Russell Brand podcasts a case for good? Why is an anonymous male celeb trying to censor the press? Will shock Elizabeth Holmes doc win big at the Oscars? Richard Osman and Marian Hyde discuss the growing trend of turning criminal trials into podcasts. Is this blatant sensationalism, or a good thing for court reporting? A “well-known” man has asked the courts to stop two media organisations from publishing allegations of sexual offences against him. How would an injunction like this work? Nathan Fielder’s documentary about tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes has proved a critical and commercial hit. Could it shake things up at the Oscars early next year? The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Sponsored by Lloyds. Learn how to avoid scams and protect yourself. See how Darkhorse Anti-Fraud Technology helps keep you safe from fraud. Search Lloyds protect yourself from fraud. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at ⁠therestisentertainment.com ⁠ For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to ⁠⁠www.goalhanger.com⁠ ⁠ Video Editor: Louis Mealing & Caroline Kaye Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Ami Bennett Filmed at⁠ ⁠www.westdigitalstudios.com⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Resters Entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy, whose generation business backs, builds and manages renewable energy projects. On screen, though, the practicalities of sourcing power are slightly more negotiable. Certainly in scripts. I mean, my favourite energy source story, back to the future, of course, they're supposed to have plutonium. They don't have plutonium. So they were light. Back in when they go back in time.

When they go back, yeah. So they need to get 1.21 gigawatts. Which they get from the lightning strike, which they know is going to happen at, at 1004, very clever. Monsters Inc. Now, you know where the power source is on Monsters Inc? Everything in Monstropolis is powered by children's screams, which is why they need to

sort of harvest them. Yeah, may not work in real life. On screen, keeping the lights on does seem to require an unnecessary amount of drama. Now, Octopus Energy Generation has rather less need for a screenwriter. It backs, builds and manages renewable energy projects with 5.7 gigawatts of capacity across its portfolio.

Enough to power all the homes and businesses at Birmingham, Leeds, and Manchester combined. A slightly more conventional approach to generating power. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass. Shop online and get the same low No Frills prices delivered. Get your first year of PC Express Pass for just $2.50 a month. Learn more at nofrills.ca.

Hold music. Not what you want to hear when a pipe dispersed in your basement is flooding. That's why intact insurance answers 2 million claim calls per year within 20 seconds. So instead of hearing this lovely track, you'll hear this in seconds. Hello, intact insurance. Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Resters Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, everybody. Hello, Richard. How are you? Yeah, I'm okay. How are you? I'm fine. I ask this, even though I see you every day currently. With our Traders episodes, and yes, I interviewed you in Cheltenham on Saturday for your book,

and we put to the test this idea. We talked about Yorngate. And on that episode, I said, of course, if you yawn, then someone else will yawn. It's the easiest way to make someone yawn, and you said that was insane. So we asked an audience of about 1,500 people, and how many people are on your side there? I'd say, but three? I'd just say not as many as yours. About three. Yeah.

You also said that I was a psychopath and that it was a recognised element of psychopathy or sociopathy. Yes. And I said that the audience was weak. So, yeah, we all said some stuff. How was the book signing? To me if I didn't say you're a psychopath, I just said it is a very recognised sign of a psychopath that they don't yawn when someone else yawns. Because you don't empathise with that hardness.

Well, I don't know why it is. Anyway, that was absolutely put to the test, but that is not what we're mainly focusing on today. No, we've now got that out of the way. We are going to talk about the Russell Brand trial and the sort of media ecosystem and changes in the media ecosystem that have built up around it. and also within that the case of the unnamed celebrity who is trying to injunct the Guardian and ITN at the moment from mentioning sexual assault allegations. And finally we're going to talk about you can see everything. The Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim documentary about Elizabeth Holmes, which has gone absolutely gangbusters in the US where it opened this weekend.

Commercially and critically. Yes. And we will talk about that. Let's start, shall we, with this crazy ecosystem around the Russell Brandy. trial. Can I just say I was looking through the top 20 podcasts currently. I won't say where we are. We're number one. The Times, the Tried of Russell Brand, Sky News, Russell Brand on trial, BBC sounds, fame under fire, the Russell Brand trial, the Russell Brand trial, all there in the top 20. This feels like a new development. We're not going to be talking about the case.

We will get to contempt of court within this item for sure. And by the way, we will be talking about the case when the verdict comes in. Yes. We'll be talking about the case in some detail. A lot. But technology for sure, as you say, is changing court reporting. All five major outlets are doing these podcasts about the trial. The Channel 4-1 marks the launch of a sort of new investigative podcast franchise,

which is called For the Record, which is going to be investigative in true crime. It's really interesting. So I had a look at lots of them. The Times one interested in me because a lot of the report. about Russell Brand that led to perhaps people coming forward and to led to some of these allegations which are currently being heard in court came from the Times. And they have Ros Irwin who led that reporting,

Charlotte Waze, who's the investigation correspondent. And it's quite interesting. So you watch this thing. Say they're 20 minutes, depending on how much has happened in court that day. But they are a sort of an event. There is background music. There are people sitting in a studio. It's not kind of super low.

and they say we can't film or a chord inside the courtroom, but we can assemble here to tell you exactly what happened. So there is this whole new way of covering courtroom things and we're obviously going to get into the fact, is this exploitative, is this, does this compromise open justice, does it turn justice into entertainment? All of these questions are becoming much more prominent. The background to all of these is that the mail did a podcast called The Trial of Lucy Lettby during that trial. And two of their reporters, Liz Hull and Caroline Cheatham, who were long-term court reporters, turned their shorthand notes into scripted courtroom exchanges that were performed by actors.

And that trial unfolded as a podcast, which was sort of pioneering. And it just had millions of listeners over its course. And, I mean, we talked even last week when we were talking about, you can see that the audience that came to media outlets like the mail, like the Guardian, like all sorts of other places, like the Times, for written content, I don't say print anymore if it's online, but written content have now moved much more towards video and audio formats, which is why everyone is pivoting to these different ways of providing,

I don't know if it's the same analysis or the same coverage, but it's a different way of providing coverage. Yeah. I would say it's slightly more discursive sometimes. It is, but you have to be so careful. I mean, that's where the worry comes with this particular area. Yeah. The trial, that trial, the trial of Lucy Lettby,

because it was so successful, the trial became a sort of scalable audio enterprise. They've now got something like 300 episodes of this covering lots of major high profile and medium profile trials. They've built it out into something, really, really big that drives a huge amount of revenue and engagement for them. And I suppose what all this comes from is all, as I've said, all of these media outlets thinking how do we repurpose what we already have?

Because the speed with which people have moved away from the written word and into video and audio formats in terms of what they're actually interested in, and you can see the explosion in podcast, the podcast market at the same time as you can see the very clear downturn is print readership. So what have you already got? You've got reporters, often who have reported the allegations. They're there all day. Which have led to the trial in the first place.

And as I say, particularly in this case at the Times. And these reporters are not people sitting in their bedroom really on the edge with contempt of court, discussing what they think they've seen or read that day coming out of, in, court reporting. By the way, we're losing court reporters at an incredible rate in this country and it's really, really significant and we do have them. So anyway, in my view, of making this sort of thing work as a commercially, because it has to work commercially as well as, you know, as a public service. So you think it's a good thing? I have to say that rather than having nothing, yes, because we're losing them at such a fast rate and what, but it's a good thing

when people who know what they're doing do them. But to boil it down, what you're saying is, you know, If you watch your local news, if you watch anything, there'll be a reporter outside a trial who will give a 30 second piece to camera. So this is what happened in court today. The trial continues tomorrow. So that person sat there all day. They've taken all of their notes. They do a 30 second piece to camera or in the Daily Telegraph. They'll do a two-paragraph thing.

So they'll do that. And instead of doing that, we're just saying, well, why don't those people actually sit down for half an hour and talk us through exactly what happened? Give us a slightly deeper version of it. but because they're skilled at their job, they are not crossing any boundaries that shouldn't be crossed. But it's the same people with the same research just doing a much longer form. Yeah, in a longer form way, in a way that people are engaged with. I think it's very important that justice is seen to be served. This is one of the cornerstones of our democracy.

And would it be also be safe to say in a newspaper environment that those columns have always taken up a certain amount of space? But actually crime and court reporting is one of the things that newspaper readers are most, interested in. You can do pages and pages and pages of foreign affairs and all sorts of important things and, you know, the Westminster shenan shenanigans, but actually crime reporting trials, criminal trials, are one of the things that really drives traffic to newspapers. We know they are. Look, and across the board, think of, in fiction, in written fiction, in TV fiction, in cinematic fiction, crime is enormous and it always has been. The other thing I would say before we go any further is what they have, you know, when you're looking at what have we got in this media organization that we can repurpose, they've got a legal department.

Now, as you know, from my final column in The Guardian, I yield to no one in my absolute love and admiration for newspaper, as it used to be, newspaper legal departments. Legal departments are so expensive because lawyers get paid a lot. But if you've got one, then you can do this because you've got somebody who is going to go through every single line and say, We can't say that. That amounts to some sort of comment. We can't comment on the trial. We can report what happened. But once we get into comment or once we get into anything that might prejudice it, then you're at risk of contempt of court. Now, in my memory, you know, the Sunday Mirror collapsed the trial of two Leeds footballers, not even, I mean, you know, whatever it was 20 years ago. But it's possible for people to make massive mistakes in this department that are incredibly expensive and lead to very, very bad outcomes. So not only would you be held in contempt and,

there would be costs, but the trial could collapse. Say this current trial that's going on, ends in whatever verdict that ends in, that verdict could be overturned one way or another if you are. Actually, something that I have found myself contemplating over this Russell Brand trial is because he is posting through it, let me just put it that way, and he posts a lot of religious adjacent content

saying that God is in the courtroom with him, things like this. There is a point at which, things like that, you can commit contempt of court on your own trial. Yes, I would have thought so. He posts bizarre sort of Sunday religious services with him and his wife in their dressing gowns in their house. They're talking about dignity in the courtroom, about God being in the courtroom with them. I actually think it would be worth keeping.

And that wouldn't collapse it, you know, without warning. But I don't think it would be beyond the realms. for the judge soon to speak to him about the things he is posting because you can commit contempt of court in your own trial. And I think, you know, that it's sort of quite extraordinary what he's doing. I mean, that would just give him more content. It's the truth. Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. And then just, and you buy more time or whatever it is before you have to go through the whole thing again. But there is a democratic and journalistic value to making people aware of what happens in courtroom. And as I say, we're losing court reporters at such a rate. It's so expensive to pay someone to just sort of sit there and, as you say, just get tiny bits of something through it. And in terms of there always being courtroom fascination,

I was going back and looking at sort of things in history. And Willie Dalrymple's book The Anarchy about the East India Company, there's really interesting stuff about the trial of like Clive of India and Warren Hastings, who is a Bengal governor that was in the 18th century. He used to play rugby for Scotland. Yes, a couple of centuries later we'll go on. to pay rugby for Scotland. They were, and those were, they did it in Westminster Hall.

They were hugely attended. There were cues around the block. And they were talked about and gossiped about. And, you know, ladies, society ladies were particularly interested in all of this. We know that true crime has ever been thus, right? It's ever been thus. A very, very interested. Women are very interested in true crime stories.

Can I say in this particular instance, there is a slightly different issue, which is the crimes that he is accused of and the victims of those crimes. I imagine it's incredibly difficult. So any sort of allegation like that to court, it must be incredibly traumatic. And I wonder if this makes it worse. If you look in America at the Cornell rape cases, that's all over the media in the States at the moment. And so, but what you're saying here is actually having proper court reporters doing these things

sort of stems the tide of amateur court reporters, which seems to me to be a real issue. Amateur detectives and amateur court reporters who firstly cause immense distress for almost everyone involved. And also, as you say, it's possible for them to collapse a trial. Now, of course, there are loads of cases we've seen solved by people who are amateur detectives that the police have left behind 20, 30 years ago. It's vanishingly rare that someone sees a news report and goes,

oh, I don't think I'm being told the whole truth and solves the case before the police. And this whole world of the amateur detective and the amateur lawyer feels to me to be... Yes, it was awful when that poor woman went into the river, Nicola Bully, and police had to issue sort of evacuation orders for anyone who didn't live in that village because it was just swamped by people by TikTokers basically who think that they're going to discover something. I would say, and at the other end of this, you've got situations where other people who have actually been found in contempt of court

because they don't understand it or they just want content, I would definitely include someone like Tommy Robinson in that who, you know, has nearly collapsed grooming trials before. And knows exactly what he's doing. Yeah, I mean, I'm really fascinated that you care about women and girls because if you do, you wouldn't possibly risk these women having to go through the horror of having to testify on what they're testifying there twice. If you collapse a trial, that is what will happen.

And trials do collapse. So for me, I think that although it may initially seem quite exploitative, we need this for... These podcasts. Or it may... Because it's new. People are like, what is this? Is this entertainment?

But as you say, and the Times, especially, who, you know, are behind an awful lot of things that went into this case. You sort of feel like that. They've done it very, very carefully. The other ways which are more problematic, and we've definitely seen start to happen, is with the Diddy trial in the US, people did AI reconstructions. I find that there's a lot of concern about the use of AI in this. And AI, you know, AI recreations are big. Yeah, yeah. And I can't remember the name of their channel.

it's called the Law and Order Channel or something like that, they did it. And the trouble is, is that because as we know, everything is clippable and everything is shared and things become so quickly online in our hyper, fast digital world, unmoored from the original context, people think that these AI recreations are the original court transcripts. And once they've become pulled out of their context, which happens with lightning speed, it's very, very difficult. But for me, I would say that I think we must find ways of keeping court reporting a viable, it has to be as commercially viable as possible, to some degree it never will be. And I don't think that these have been done particularly sensationally.

I mean, I don't love the music, but it is what it is. You have music and news reports nowadays. But it's essentially the job these people would be doing anyway in a couple of paragraphs, but actually given a little bit more space to breathe. But with those AI reconstructions, which we're going to see so many more of, because anyone could really get one of those up. I feel like I would be anti those. Yeah, I feel, yeah, because at what point,

because you can see, if you are following court reporting and you have some access to the different reports that are filed throughout the day, maybe someone will file four or five updates on the brand trial, as an example, at what point does a sort of, if you were doing an AI reconstruction of it, which I'm slightly surprised people aren't doing, at what point does a sort of faithful recreation of it

tip over into dramatization? and then that spirit of open justice, I think, is something quite, that is definitely compromised. But for now, we support these news organisations doing this in this way. And you can do it only if you have great reporters and a really great legal department. Can I ask you another question talking about legal departments, which is lots of people who have seen a story about a well-known celebrity who's had allegations, who has taken a legal action to stop allegations even being aired. And obviously we can't name who that person is or what the allegations are. Described as a well-known man.

Yeah. But what's the process there? What's happening there? And how does that happen? That one is interesting. A well-known man is the description settled upon, is seeking an injunction against the Guardian and ITN to stop them reporting allegations of sexual assault.

Now, three women have made allegations against him. This has been going on a few months now, as often in these cases, if you want to find out who it is online, you can. This person is seeking a permanent injunction under European human rights law. His lawyers are now saying he suffers from very serious mental health problems. He's a suicide risk. Again, this is an ongoing kind of request for a court order. But what are the arguments that that person could use?

If the allegations have been made and have been made, because we haven't been made publicly, maybe, but if it was apported, they would be made publicly, right. They've been put to him in letters, which is why, and he is saying the contents of these letters are such that if they were reported, you know, I would attempt suicide and so on, and has private clinicians working on his behalf saying he would be a suicide risk.

It's interesting because you have to balance that, I think, and the judge is going to have to balance that against the fact that reporting is a significant part of who comes forward. In the case of the Russell Brand allegations currently being heard in court because of that reporting, other people came forward and made criminal allegations and those are the ones being tried now. These three women in this case with the well-known man can make criminal complaint. I should stress, I don't know the details of their cases, so I don't know whether they have made complaints yet. or whether they are considering complaints. But the Guardian and ITN will be arguing that he's not detained for his own safety.

They say that he was offered NHS assessment of his safety and follow-up staff, and he declined to take it preferring to stick with his private clinicians. But we're in a sort of situation where should the ability to publish be decided in court, which is certainly the position of the Guardian and ITN, or should it effectively be decided by private clinicians? This well-known man had made of one-hour video recently addressing at some level all the allegations. He denies the allegations, but addressing at some sort of length or in some type of way. And the judge at a hearing last week said that the existence of this filmed interview raised a question of whether the celebrity had at all times been truthful with his clinicians.

So as you can see, it's really complicated and it's sort of ongoing. But also we are very close to the terrible tragedy with Jason Ardei and things like that. So newspapers and commentators, you know, this is something that has to be weighed up. Yes. And I think that in the case of this person, they have relied for a very long time on extremely expensive lawyers. And the sides of that are, well, they're just protecting their, they deny everything and they're protecting their rights. And the counterpoint to that is that this is a form of lawfare, which we sometimes talk about when we talk about Russian oligarchs and whatever,

we kind of sue or legally threaten people into just not being able to publish anything. So that is ongoing. Do we know when it might come to a head? If the injunction is granted in perpetuity, I think that would be, I personally, my opinion is that injunctions should not be granted in perpetuity in general. I mean, the vast, vast majority of cases. What would be the sanction if one were to breach that permanent injunction? If one newspaper just went, you know, we'll go for it,

or somewhere or an online publication decided to. Well, then you're, you know, you've, you've, you get sued and you've broken the law and you've committed a criminal offence and you're in a whole other, which you know, you've knowingly committed a criminal offence. I think they'd find it quite difficult to argue anything else. you can always have an MP say it in Parliament. I don't know whether I think an MP would give them what we've just said and given the hypersensitivity around when anybody mentions suicide

or the possibility of suicide, I think they probably wouldn't. But there are a lot of crazy people in Parliament, Richard, so we have to say. And I think this is a question that lots of people always want to ask, which is when you have these cases where there's a super injunction or someone's taken that injunction, does everyone in Fleet Street know who the person is? Is it an open secret that they know who that person is usually? It's not difficult for anyone listening to this podcast to find out who this person is.

You're not recommending they do? I'm not recommending they do, but it's not difficult for various reasons to do with the process. In other cases, it has been difficult and people are often way off base when they suggest certain people. people in connection with certain stories and say, oh, this must be so and so. And it's like, well, actually, I happen to know it isn't. Often everyone in Fleet Street, as we used to call it, does know. You can certainly, in certain cases, you could ask your legal department so you don't make a mistake. Occasionally, we used to get sort of legal warnings saying there is an injunctional you can't

do this. And for reference, the celebrity is, you know. So they have to stop you making an inadvertent. An inadvertent. Yeah. And it's better, but it's also better not to put it in an email even. But I would also be right in saying when we say open secret, that sometimes sounds like people are gossiping and it is not that.

It's almost always like when the police know something and they can't do anything about it. It's more a frustration. Yes. It's more of a wish we could do something about this. To be clear, ITN and the Guardian will feel they have a moral duty to report these things for the reasons I've said, which is that people come forward in these cases. is he denies all the allegations. And I suppose his counterpoint is that they have a moral duty not to

because he is a suicide risk. Yeah. Whether or not, I mean, this is quite a strong case because of the way that this has been mounted to go to say, I am a suicide risk. But equally, you can see that there are things that kind of weigh against it. And I wonder how long this person can continue this tactic which has been successful for a very long time.

But as you say, people can know things, but it's very different for it being reported by every single media outlet for days and days and days. And then maybe some sort of, maybe people, further people coming forward, maybe some of them make criminal complaints. I don't know. He denies all of this.

But you have to sort of wait and see. But it's an interesting one again, and it's finally balanced. And it's a very expensive. thing to have to pursue. Okay. Shall we? Yeah. So let's leave that there for now.

Shall we go to a break and afterwards we talk about, you can see everything. There's Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes, documentary. I know a lot of our listens will be very excited to see. Yes. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Lloyd's. Now, let's talk about movie con artists. Who are your absolute favourites? Movies, TV and book.

My answer is the same. And it's Tom Ripley. I was going to say him. It's one of the greatest characters of all time. So from the Talented Mr. Ripley books by Patricia Highsmith, there's five of them. So if you like Talented Mr. Ripley, you are in luck. He's like one of the worst men in the world, but you absolutely root for him at all times. Now, of course, deception makes for excellent entertainment on screen. In real life, when it's your bank account being targeted, the charm somewhat disappears.

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Now, before we dive into the Nathanfield at Elizabeth Holmes documentary, just a reminder that we're doing reaction episodes to every Traitors episode, including after the final, which is next Friday the 30th, a live stream. It's been amazing so far. The amount of people walk down the street would literally take out their earbats and say, I'm literally listening to you talk about traitors. We love doing this. Our dream is to watch television and talk about it straight after.

Yeah. They need to be more shows as amazing of bigger celebrity traitors. We do it every week if you're listening. us. No, we love it. It's been really, really, it's been really good fun. And the amount of messages have had from contestants, former contestants, saying, yeah, because we can say things they can't say on other shows. We certainly can. I've had a, I've had a lot of dial-in from previous contestants about, and many from the civilians as well. Yeah, exactly. Now, there is a documentary. It is called, You Can See Everything. So Elizabeth Holmes invites Nathan Fielder into her

home. So the film essentially covers, she's about to go to prison. She's just had a baby. She's about to go to prison. The film covers her last 40, 45 days before she goes into prison. She's there with her husband, who is quite a character, I would say. He certainly, yeah, listen, he... Let's just watch the doctor. You will be interested to meet this gentleman and their child. So we have the 45 days before she goes to prison. He's in the house the whole time. And that feels like, oh, I've sort of, sort of seen something a bit like this before, a bit Louis-thru-esque, that sort of thing. And then after she goes to prison, he no longer has access to her, the film becomes something different.

So that's the film. That's why it's three abs. It's sort of split into those two hearts, kind of pre-going to prison, post-going to prison. But that's the kind of basic setup of the thing. One of the most interesting things I have read in the aftermath of it was Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim saying they realized they had a great film when the people who were actually filming and reviewing and editing the footage as they

went completely disagreed about what they were seeing. Oh, really. Yeah. Which you can imagine. People will definitely disagree. Yeah. On what they're seeing. And the resultant documentary, you can see everything,

has just opened to enormous numbers in the US, is tipped to be the first documentary in history to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. And is, I would say, an almost unique case of both content, marketing and filmmaking. So we wanted to talk about it because we've seen it. We have seen it. And we will not do any spoilers. Because one of the key things about this film, I think, is people want to go into it. Absolutely.

People don't want spoilers. They are, I have to, I don't quite understand what this is. I've seen it. I still don't. I don't quite understand what this is. I want to go in and just watch something that I haven't seen before. So what can we say about the genesis of this thing as much as anything and the phenomenon? You're right.

In terms of the phenomenon, it is amazing. It's opened to $15 million in America. We know that we know they have such great audience metrics, which makes me so sad that we don't have them in our country. But the critical reviews are like 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences score 98%. It is an extraordinary achievement to, it's made by A24. By the way, I should point out it made twice as much as Digger

in a quarter of the screens. It's on under a thousand screens. And it costs $7 million. So, yes. It is an extraordinary. achievement to have people literally queuing round the block to see a three-hour documentary. Best ever opening for a documentary behind Fahrenheit 9-11, which is Michael Moore's one in 2004. And it's only just on wide release. People sometimes ask what counts as wide release,

600 plus screens. It will go wider next weekend, which will be sort of interesting. And people just haven't been able to get in to see it. So it will do, and as I say, it cost 7 million. It's currently the highest ever score of anything on letterboxed, a community which it won't surprise you, it would naturally appeal to. So as I say, A-24 in quite a nice position this Monday morning when we're recording, because people are saying, well, should they have had more theatres? This is a great question for people to be asking about your films. Should we talk a little about who Nathan Field it is?

Because I think over here, people know him less, I would say. He feels almost like, I think when it comes over, people will think of him as a Louis Theroux type, in that he's a documentarian who's always in the middle of everything he makes. But he's very different to Louis. He's a comedian as well, though, you see. And I think that... And he's very situationist and he will do either a show called the rehearsal, and the singers he like rebuilds sets and rebuilds situations

and takes real people into slightly surreal reimagining of their real life. And Nathan, for you, which predated that, which was this extraordinary, you know, where he would give people terrible sort of business advice, really. But it's very hard to explain. You need to watch it. It's sort of cranky. It's sort of our...

art. It's sort of Louis Thruhe-esque. It's got a little bit of everything, but it's a very, very specific flavour. And I think I would say before you see this film, maybe watch a couple of these things. If you haven't, I know lots of people here.

Oh, I do too. But I think this is going to be such a phenomenon that it will reach an awful lot of people who do not know who Nathan Fielder is. I mean, it is an art movie in lots of ways. In terms of how they did did it. No one knew of its existence. No one knew that Nathan felt, you know, this has

been four years happening. And Lance Oppenheim, we should say, he co-directed it. Who's the director of prime time? So he's having a good year. Yeah, he's having a good month. I mean. So they didn't realize, definitely A-24 did not realize how big it would be, even though I'm sure they thought it would be hugely interesting. And we'll talk about why she is kind of an interesting as a phenomenon and why she just remains this kind of mesmeric figure for a whole generation. So they screened it at Telluride, which is the documentary festival. And it was a sort of surprise screening.

People didn't obviously know, as I say, of its existence and his access. And people went absolutely nuts for it. Now, this is why I feel a bit – it's difficult for us to talk about it, but we have to talk about it because it's become so big in the US this last weekend. But they don't have what's called day-and-date release in the UK. And it's not coming out until the 20th of November in the UK, because you've got to sort of pre-book lots of this stuff and they didn't realise, no one realised quite what a phenomenon would be.

I mean, understandably, it's a three-air documentary made by someone who does not particularly have a profile in Britain. I think if I was 824, I wouldn't be going, let's book a load of theatres. In terms of how they marketed it, they are so great at marketing. You know, they particularly understand how to appeal to Gen Z. And they, you know, 70% of people who went this weekend were sort of, I think, we're under 25, order. They don't spend bazillions on marketing, and they don't act really, really pushy or blitzie. They sort of create materials, as I would, I mean, in the world of when you're actually trying to publicise something, professionals will call it assets.

They create effectively things and hope they put tiny little clips and bits out and hope that those are taken up organically. As so they, my goodness, the first bit that anyone saw, you would have seen that meme frenzy of there's a close shot of her looking at him. and she looks kind of crazy. Elizabeth Holmes. I'll get him at Nathanville there. And also him looking at her, like, what the hell? And those have been taken up and memed beyond...

You just get other people to do it all for you. Yeah, well, the big strength of this is everyone is asking the question, yes, but what is it? And interestingly, after you've seen it, you're also asking the question, yes, but what is it? I loved it. I have to say, I actually loved it. No, no, absolutely. I'm just extraordinary.

So it is a genuinely extraordinary piece of work. and anyone who's interested at all in television and film, any of that stuff, we'll definitely get stuff from it. But it's fascinating over here. Like Elizabeth Holmes and Nathan Fielder are both names that a lot of our listeners will know, but a lot won't.

Or a lot will go, oh, yes, is she there wasn't a podcast about her. And there was a drama about her. And there's a drama about her with Amanda Seafreed. The issue we're having with talking about this is normally at the top of it, something like this, we'd give a little praise of what the film

is. We're going to go, oh, it's into it because this happens, this happens, this happens. Having seen it, I would be incapable of providing that prissy. Would you? I would not want to because it would spoil it. There's only one thing that I will mention, and I should say, as, you know, disclosure, I have something in development with A24, but there is a scene in this that I would have thought would have got, obviously A24, taking all the applaudets for this, but I would, there is a scene in it in which involves A24 executives effectively agreeing a form of payment for this documentary that is not wished for by Nathan Fielder. And I haven't seen that get quite the attention I thought it might

because there'll be a lot of creatives out there who think, huh, well, is that how you compromise your talent? Do you do a deal like that in front of your talent, a deal that really compromises them? I don't know. It's amazing. I'm so thrilled. They funded it all. etc, et cetera, et cetera, but it's quite interesting that particular thing. And I think a lot of creatives would be like, oh, dear, I don't love that. But they are an amazing company, and, you know, they're an amazing company, but I think that's quite an interesting scene. Perhaps it will be discussed more in the coming times.

But something I am interested in is her as a subject, her as a kind of cultural idea. It's really interesting. For me, she's almost synaptically twinned with that Billy McFarlane from the Fire Festival. They all, it happened in the same year. It was 2017. Oh, really? It's one of those things where everyone fell upon it. They became complete sort of frenzies.

They gave birth to a million memes. People felt like some sort of curtain had been ripped. It's like, oh, I see. When people became very media literate, which I've said before in this podcast about people and that paparazzi pictures being staged and things like that, that was a sort of watershed moment. And that was long ago, long ago, back in the 2000s. 2017 was a sort of moment where a new era of kind of online grift was seen to be exposed

and also it was it happened to dovetail with the whole sort of not all of these were Netflix but the idea that you could get a really successful podcast about something and a book about it and then you'd have a dramatization follow really soon and maybe there'd be a counter-documentary it's like how many times am I going to watch this same story and the answer is people would watch the same or read the same story four or five however many times How many times have I seen documentaries about the S6 boys, the drug dealer shot on the Ranger Over? I watch it. And honestly, I must have seen 40 of them.

It's fascinating. But it also marked a sort of thing where, you know, an idea that, oh, it's all just some Gryft Matrix. Everything's, nothing's true. Everything's just people. I like the Gryft Matrix. The Gryft Matrix. But, you know, and the idea that she had a box that actually contained nothing and didn't really do any of the blood tests it said. Or that all those.

influences like Kendall Jenner went down and were selling this fire festival and it was really like some sort of storm hit thing with things in carball boxes. Yeah, so Theranos, it's interesting. So Therunus, that box, the whole idea of it is you have a box which can run diagnostic tests on a single drop of blood and it can predict likelihood of diseases, lots of lots of underst diseases or find them. And it became apparent during the process of sending that company that the box did not work. Yeah. That technology didn't work.

And so essentially what you had was an empty box with lots of flashing lights on the outside. And that to me sounds an awful lot like our culture. So God bless Elizabeth Holmes for giving us a lovely allegory. Yes. The other overarching thing that I think is interesting is that for a generation who are sort of raised on self-commissioned documentaries, here is one that is effectively self-commissioned.

Yeah. But much in a way that you're never going to see the Beckham documentary do, the lines on that issued are blurred and it foregrounds the fact that it's self-commissioned by at least, by at least one of its subjects. I'll leave it at that. And I found that quite, that is interesting because it shows it's working so much that for people who are so used to watching these very, very polished documentaries and you think, oh, I see it as executive produced by the person who is the subject of it, this is different. And that's why. I think it's sort of landmark and why it's so educational and why you might teach it in film schools. It has a very weird innocence to it. Yeah. And I also wonder about it. The other thing it got me thinking this is just a sort of sidebar is whether you can ever really profile somebody without sort of opening yourself as the supposed documentary or profiler personally to them. Almost in a very – without – if you can ever do it brilliantly without slightly.

opening your heart. I really felt like I would love to ask this question of Taffy Brodus at Acne, who I've talked about before, who's the New York Times profiler and is absolutely amazing. A lot of her profiles contain a lot of her personal reactions to them. And you know those cladder rings that says I'm open to love? There's a type of ring. It's an Irish, I'm open to love. And I sometimes wonder whether anyone profiling someone has to slightly allow themselves the possibility of falling in love with their, in some weird way, with their subject. We hear so much about objectivity in documentary making and it's fetishized and it's whatever, but I wonder whether you can ever, and it's very, this is a question that the film certainly

asks, whether you can ever not have some kind of porous barrier between yourself and your subject if you get really, really close to them. And I definitely think that's interesting here. And I sort of wondered whether you can ever not quite slightly fall in love if you're going to go really deep. And I definitely think that some of, for instance, Taffy Brodus at Akna's profiles involve a form of opening herself to her subjects. And I wonder whether it's, I definitely thought about that throughout watching this. And I think it's so interesting because we do live in an era, these incredibly polished documentaries, which conceal their subjects' involvement in them.

This doesn't in any way. Yeah. And you certainly leave this with more questions than answers, but in a way that satisfies you. Yes. I think I would say. And yes, and in a way that is kind of intellectually... Interesting. Yeah, really interesting, particularly for this era that we live in.

I said right at the beginning, no documentary has ever, ever been nominated for the best picture, Oscar. Yeah. This seems to be a shoe in now. People are saying that they would be shocked if this wasn't nominated for the best picture. First thing, it's extraordinary that no documentary has ever been nominated. I assume that they couldn't have been because there's been enough documentaries over the years that have definitely been one of their best ten pictures of the year. I was written a great piece in The Vulture, talking about how, that I think everyone thinks that it will be nominated for their best picture Oscar.

But they were saying it probably won't be nominated for Best Documentary because the Best Documentary Shortlist is put together by the Documentarians. And the documentarians, I think, by the way, quite rightly, are very, very, very protective of what they believe a documentary to be. There was a case a few years ago where there was a whole series of very worthy and well-meaning documentaries on the Best Documentary Shortlist. and my octopus teacher was also one, that beautiful one about the octopuses. And so the academy members, which are the people outside the documentaries, voted for my octopus teacher to win best Oscar. And the documentaries were furious because they thought there was more worthy fare. So they're saying actually they now don't like to put some of those crowd-pleasy things on the shortlist

because they think that the wider academy will vote for them and that's not what they want. Never underestimate this process's ability to completely get in its own way. I mean, just completely. We know what the academy are like. Half the people don't watch the films. But I definitely think they need something like this that's different and that will get complete attention throughout the awards race to people saying, will it be nominated?

That will be the question until the nomination is coming. And then will it win? So I would say to our listeners, so it's coming out in the middle of November, we think over here. We haven't given any spoilers. We really haven't. It's a very rich and complex film. And lots and lots of things happen.

And we have not said any of them. genuinely it's three hours long but we'd recommend going to see it because you will definitely leave with questions about it and perhaps when it has come out and everyone's seen it we'll have a different discussion about it but for now I think it's just worth talking about as this extraordinary phenomenon that's happened that's done huge money,

it's going to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and it's coming over here in a couple of weeks. Any recommendations? I read R.E. Emmanuel's Roll the Calls. Oh, that we talked about last week. Which we talked about. I am a completest in any books that I can read about Hollywood agenting and also Hollywood Monsters, as you know.

I got both. Loved it. Roll the calls. Ari Emanuel. And we finally finished this season of Ludwig, the David Mitchell, Anna Maxwell Martin show on BBC. And I do think it's worth remembering sometimes that this is a big show

that's watched by a lot of people right in the middle of our culture. And it's really good. Yeah. It's really playfully written. It's beautifully acted. It's really well directed. I love the cinematography in it. Yeah, it's beautiful.

It's really, really good. So how lovely to have something that's a big mainstream hit, but there's also brilliant. A lot going on this week in terms of other episodes. We will calm down when Traces is over, I promise. Wednesday is the final episode for members for our bonus series about Big Brother. We're going to be talking about Jade Goody and also the iconic David's Dead moment. You can join at the Rest is Entertainment.

We will also have Celebrity Traitors' Reaction episodes. Which, of course, are free to everyone, as always. And always will be, don't worry. For episodes seven and eight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't wait. And, yeah, oh, and we're back for Q&A on Thursday. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

It's a busy old week, isn't it? It is a busy old week. Sorry, everyone. All right, then. See you tomorrow. Yeah. See you through the week. Unlock unlimited free grocery delivery with PC Express Pass.

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