The Rest Is Entertainment - The Art Of Match Of The Day

Episode Date: December 26, 2024

What is a little know fact about the Downing Street door that is in front of our eyes and set designers have to get right? Richard and Marina reveal the art to the Match Of The Day commentary, why a signed book makes a special gift, and when is an opening night really an opening night? Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad free listening and access to bonus episodes: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producers: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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of all-inclusive vacation packages that offer big value for low prices. Take it from us, we've been here since last year's sale. Hey, get away from my fries! Oh yeah, book with your local travel advisor or at... Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I am Richard Osmond. This is going out on Boxing Day.

Peek behind the curtain, we are not recording it on Boxing Day. No, we're not in that way that we this morning once tried to pretend they're recording on Christmas Day and they were just like people randomly walking to work in the background. Not the worst thing this morning if you've ever tried to pretend. It's not the worst thing, is it? Merry Christmas everyone. Listen, we're going to keep this tight because it's lovely to chat to you, but you've probably got other things to be doing, but we've got some fun questions to answer in a Christmas

spirit. Yes, you've got leftovers to main be doing, but we got some fun questions to answer in a Christmas spirit. Yes, you got leftovers to mainline and so have we. Matthew Wishart has a question for you, Marina. I saw a post about Joseph playing in Edinburgh and they were congratulated on that opening night last night, but it had been playing for almost two weeks. I thought opening night would be night one. Yes, but opening night is actually the first official night and what happens before a show goes to before that is what's called previews. Previews actually weren't allowed for many years.

They were only allowed in I think 1968 and even then you could do sort of like a couple for charity and then you have to go first into it and have the critics there. Now you can be in a rehearsal room as much as you like, because anyone will always tell you, and once you get it on a stage, lots of things might need to change, and that includes the script, it might include songs. So you want to have the chance to work out in front of an audience, but before the critics are invited in to feast,

or pass their judgment, or whatever it is. Almost all big things do that. In the old days, as I say, you used to have to do it somewhere else. But you can change a lot. We've talked about Wicked before and when they first did that, they did that in San Francisco. And Stephen Schwartz, the guy who wrote the music for all of that said that doing three months between then and when it went open on Broadway was totally saved the show, completely reworked, lots and lots of it. And it made a real difference. In Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim wrote one of the biggest songs in the middle of

previews, and they only sort of put it on towards the end, which is Last Midnight. And you sort of need it, but as like lots of things, it's kind of broken down a bit, but they can go on way too long. That's Spider-Man Into the Dark. I think you too did the music for that, didn't they? Do you know that had 182 previews before it was officially released. Technically incredibly complex. I think it just didn't work.

It was a disaster anyway. But it was delayed and delayed. And in the end, the critics were like, we're just going to buy tickets and we're going to go in. Because they've always had this nice arrangement where we understand we are people of the theater ourselves and we understand that you must have a chance to work things out But of course like many things in the internet has broken it also by the way preview tickets used to be much cheaper Which was good, so you were you know you were paying for not seeing the final polish version

But of course now people come in and just post about it on the internet They're not I don't want to say not proper critics because you know everyone's a critic, but and so it's sort of broken down that thing and also preview prices have gone up and now people think well I'm entitled to say what I like about it when I paid this much. But you do still have the opening night and I mean I spoke to a director recently who was like we're going to be in preview for four weeks which I thought was pretty long. But it can happen. But opening night is quite stressful because you've got all the sort of friends and family, all the critics. Opening night is also press night, essentially. So they're both the same thing. And yeah,

it feels unusual, doesn't it? But if you're making a film, you do a bit of rehearsal, then you film it, then you can edit it. The fascinating thing about a play or a musical is there's so many moving parts. It's the same as having a soft launch in a new restaurant, isn't it? Sometimes a restaurant will open in your area and they say, look, we're actually going to be opening in three weeks, but we need to test out our kitchens. We need to test out our menus. Would you like to come along and have an incredibly cut price food and feel part of the community? And that's the idea of-

I accidentally went to one of those recently. I thought, oh, is it already open? And I went in and then it came to the bill and it was half price. We were very excited. I would have ordered differently. Was it good? Yeah, exactly. Was it good? It was terrific.

Yes. So it's one of those things that is absolutely essential. It's not like, oh, you should have rehearsed more. It's just you cannot until you are there, until you're actually on there, and sometimes until the theater is full, and sometimes you hear when audiences are laughing, when they're reacting to things, you know, until you just, until you see it, until the director and the writers are just sitting there in their little box watching the whole thing and watching the audience and hearing what they say coming out.

And then hopefully by press night you're in a stage where you think, okay, this is the version of the play that we really, really want to show people. Because in the theater still those reviews are a huge deal and can make or break plays in a way that they can't make or break TV shows quite so much anymore. So it's- The trouble with these online reviews is that they have, quite often, directors will now tell you it was ruined before it started. And it wasn't right that people posted things in the. We were working things out and a lot of that

had changed. The buzz can be created quite easily these days. But the big reason you'd have previews before opening night is the great thing about TV and film is that thing of we can fix it in post. That's what we can say. We can fix this in post. The one thing you have to say about theatre is you cannot fix it in post. That's what we're gonna say, we can fix this in post. The one thing you have to say about theater is you cannot fix it in post, so you have to fix it in pre. Ah, question about signed copies of books, Richard. This must very much be for you by Sam Whiteman. He says that, oh, could be a lady.

Could be. Is it true that as an author, if you sign a book in a bookshop, then that means the bookshop can't return that copy should it flop. Do some authors charge around bookshops signing as many as they can, even if that's not what the bookshop wants? Yes.

A signed book is a sold book is a mantra in the book industry. But what that means is actually, you know, the world of signed books is quite heavily regulated. And I'm always in a situation, the different bookshops want signed copies of their books. If you sign books, they sell immediately. So it's almost meaningless that they say a signed book is a sold book because they're never returning them anyway. If you sign, however many sign, they will sell those first. People will always buy the signed copies first. So W. H Smiths will want signed copies, Waterstones will want signed copies, the supermarkets, the Indies, you

know, America, Australia, so everyone wants signed copies. And it's just a really, really, it just works for booksellers, you know, because especially if books are gifted, it's just a little extra something that makes it sort of a better present or just makes it feel more personal to you. So it's one of those things that right from the beginning of time absolutely works. And if you look at vintage books now, if you've got a signed one, they're worth an absolute fortune, always been worth more money. But they do sell very well. I've always traditionally tried to sign a lot. When you're signing for other countries and things and suddenly you're doing 45,000 and you can work out if it takes you four seconds to sign a book, times that

by 45,000 and see how long that takes you. Oh my God, I can't even imagine. I did 5,000 and I did it in two days and it sent me absolutely mad. I saw someone I knew in the street and thought, I am basically like the Jack Nicholson character in The Shining. I've been writing the same thing, sadly, my own name. You forget how your signature works sometimes. Yeah, but you've set yourself completely, in a way that when you look at any word, it goes, it ceases to mean anything. It's a pure existential crisis that you're doing with every time you put your name down.

But I do love to do it and I love it because I love booksellers and also I just think it's nice. It's a nice thing to have. So I always try and do as many as I could. This year I wasn't able to do quite so many because I was doing all sorts of bits and bobs. But then a few weeks ago I had a day off, so I said to my publishers, let's sign 3000 for Indies just because so just the Indie bookshops up and down the country and people who've been using their Indie bookshops up to Christmas.

How do they offer an existential crisis? How brilliant? It's fine by me. But you know, the Indies are always so supportive of authors and it's just, it's a nice thing because Indies have to charge you more money for your book and it's not because they're con artists, I say this all the time, it's because they've got bricks and mortar to look after and they've got bills that are not, you know, it costs more to run a small independent bookstore so they have to charge more. And if you can give them signed copies, which means people will go directly to

them to buy those, then it's a really, really great thing to do. So it's one of those things that seems to work for everyone. Um, if you were to go into a bookshop and sign your own books, um, I guess it would be okay, most books would not have, you know, 400 copies in their local waterstones, so, you, so most people wouldn't walk in and sign 400 copies, which then they couldn't get rid of. I think if you're a local author and you want to sign books in a bookshop, people are absolutely delighted and it will mean that those books will be displayed front and center.

So yeah, I don't think it's a thing that can be abused particularly. You're absolutely right, Sam, that a signed book cannot be returned. So if you've got the Boris Johnson books, which were hugely over ordered by bookstores before Christmas, there are piles of those which will be returned to the publisher after Christmas. And essentially, the publisher will lose money on all of those. The bookstore won't lose a penny. If they had been signed, they wouldn't ever be returned. But the truth is, the signed ones would have been the first ones to have sold.

I've never heard of a situation where someone was sitting on a pile of 400 signed copies of something, a bookstore, and just thinking, no, there's nothing I can do here because I can't send them back. So it's one of those signings that works for authors, works for bookstores, works for readers, works for Christmas, works for bookstores, works for readers, works for Christmas, works for birthdays, is one of those things that just seems to work. The other thing of course is in-person book signings. I'd rather go and tour 10 different bookstores and sign 100 books in each one than do one signing somewhere that people could come to because it's-

Well, it's much less efficient. It takes a very long time. Yeah. And it's lovely for that one bookstore. Yeah. But I'd rather be lovely for 20 bookstores. It's not scalable. Exactly. The one place where you can come along and absolutely get stuff dedicated and that is book festivals. So if you do that, you'll get queues and you can have things dedicated. But by and large, the best thing for bookstores, the best things for authors is you just sign lots and lots of copies and they get sent off around the country and people can pick them up. But yeah, it's not a system that can be abused, I don't think, but it's

one of the rare systems in show business that just seems to work for everybody. And if you've got a signed copy of We Sold Murders This Christmas, I apologize that some of my signatures are not as good as others. Actually, knowing the backstory is kind of evolving. Ingrid came in when I was signing some American copies this summer, and she just looked over my shoulder and said, no. And I went, you know what, you're absolutely right. And then I had to, you know, the signature was getting so scrawly that I had to get rid of the 20 previous ones I'd done and start again. You have to have total silence there because otherwise you end up writing down the thing that people are saying.

I see it, but I listen, I have podcasts. I'm quite happy with that. I'll sit and listen to podcasts. I'll listen to, I don't know if you know, The Rest is History. Heard about that. Yeah. So yeah, I'll sit and listen to podcasts. But yes, they're lovely things for everybody.

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And with seating for up to seven, everyone can enjoy the journey. Learn more at LandRover.ca. Welcome back, everybody. Robert Cardwell has a question for Marina. It could be for either of us, I suppose, but it's going to Marina. Robert, be for either of us I suppose, but it's going to Marina. Robert, I hope that's okay.

I want you to chime in please. Well, listen, I might do. I've just finished Black Doves, which we recommended on Christmas Eve, and they have scenes featuring the entrance of 10 Downing Street. Is there a ready-made set of the entrance out there somewhere which can be hired? It's on all sorts of shows, isn't it, Downing Street? Yes, it ends up being part of our stories quite often. One of the most popular ones is the Royal Society of Arts, which is actually round the corner from our place in Spotify and John Adams Street where we normally record.

Yeah, we could throw a stone and hit it from there, couldn't we? Yeah, we're not there when we're recording this one, but it's actually only, it's very close and it's very close to sort of Westminster in general, but it's almost an identical match. The same architect, I think, isn't it? Yes. We've done the row of houses. Yes. I'm also going to talk a little bit about the House of Commons set because there have

been so many of those over the years. The only House of Commons set used to be Granada TV, which was one of the regional TV franchises, if you remember from your rivals history lesson. They used to have one. They built it for First Among Equals, which is one of Jeffrey Arch's many and different novels. And they had it for that. And then it got used for The New Statesman, which was a sitcom about an MP. And then Paul Abbott, the dramatist, bought it because he wanted it for state of play.

No, really? Yeah. And then it went to Wimbledon Studios Studios. Then Wimbledon Studios shut down and they auctioned it. Honestly, started on for about, you could buy the House of Commons, the opening bid on the House of Commons is something like 50p, but I think it went up further. So I asked Stephen Frears, he is a friend of mine who has made a lot of,

the director has made a lot of things which involve the House of Commons. He says, oh, poor Hugh Grant, that is, for a very English scandal where he played Jeremy Thorpe. Yeah. The Commons was built in a barn, but the editor asked for a wider shop, which was obviously unavailable.

Oh, that's funny. Then they've done other ones on a stage. There used to be a permanent set at Old Oak Common in Acton, where HS2 now finishes. We shot the deal there, but that's gone. Then they did build a set for the redacted Churchill film. So they constantly build this, but it's quite a big set that.

So it takes a lot to store. The one in Granada, I think, was like 5,000 square foot. But even when they stored it, it still needed 2,500 square foot because of the nature of the galleries and things like that. My absolute favorite thing of going to TV Center still is you go into the outer ring around the studios and they store all the daytime ITV sets, I would say just before Christmas, and every single Christmas tree and decoration from Lorraine, Good Morning Britain, This Morning, Loose Women, they were all in the same place, just this incredible winter wonderland of bizarre TV Christmas tree.

I love all TV sets. And also all movie sets, anything like that. They did actually, I'm just trying to think that they did let, I think they've let people shoot inside the actual House of Commons chamber. Now there was one with Sean Dooley and it was about Harold Wilson. Oh really? Yeah. I don't want a little bit of politics here, but it is empty most of the time.

Yeah, you know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? You know what? Even when it's full, do you know what I mean? Sorry. Sorry. That's a bit political. Sorry, guys.

And I don't know. I think they managed, I think Lindsay Hoyle, who was the speaker, they managed to get permission for that because he'd been an MP and had known Wilson, whatever it was. But they are now occasionally allowing it to be used. And I'm not quite sure if you work in the House of Commons and would like to explain the esoterica about how some things are and some things aren't allowed to shoot in there. But as I say, you know, if it's not being used. Yeah. But yeah, so that John Adams Street one is interesting. I talked to Joe Barton,

he wrote Black Dives, Not the footballer, and he was saying that the building is identical, exactly the same architect, but they had to replace the front door because the front door was different, so they had to bring in their own black front door with the 10 on it, and for Black Doves they had to put a Christmas tree outside it as well. The zero, it's not, it's with an O on it, it's a one and an O, they didn't have a zero when they were originally putting on the actual number 10. Is that right? Is that an O?

So that's why it's got that very round zero. If you look at the zero in the 10, it's very round. Is that right? Yes, it is. One O. Yeah. One O down extreme. Not going to catch on, but it's... I bet you don't get that on. The rest is politics. Rory Stewart's not telling you that, is he? Perhaps they did it in a bonus episode or perhaps they just talk about Die Hard like we do in our bonus episodes. The most incredible one is

the diplomat where I think just because of the money they had pretty much every single location they go to foreign and Commonwealth office, the outside of the ambassadors, Winfield House, it's all the real places. It's absolutely incredible. I guess if you throw enough money at it, then people will rent it out to you. You can do what you like. Yeah. Robert Wisely has one here. Robert Wisely is a good name. Yes, it is. You can see that one. One of the wise men.

He has often wondered how the commentary works for the highlights on match of the day. With it being the BBC, I'm not aware of them having the rights to show the full games anywhere apart from the radio. And this is different commentary. Does the commentator do the whole game just for the use of the highlights or is there somewhere that the full games are shown? I think it's a question a lot of people ask actually because you can watch match of the day for years and years and years and you do think how are they getting those commentaries together so quickly and I think people think that people come in and sort of do commentary over the highlights or you, and it's

not the case. BBC contractually have to provide full commentary on every single Premier League game, and so they do that. So every single game has full commentary, which can be accessed by Five Live, and the highlights are cut with the commentary as it actually is, which is an incredibly difficult skill. It is, but if you were just doing it over the highlights, it would sound completely because you'd be so knowing.

Something's happened, but I don't, yeah, this isn't going to mean much. You have to do it. Not as live, it is live. Yeah, because you would be so tempted to go, I've got to, it looks like he could be, I think he's going to score in a minute. Yeah. I said he was. So no, absolutely, it's pictures are cut, the words are cut,

but every single game has a full commentary at all times. So, when you watch it, it is impressive, because if you think about when they start the highlights, at what part of a move are they starting the highlights? And you then have to start the commentary at that same point. And it's hard for a commentator, because if a commentator's halfway through an anecdote about, you know, one time he saw Alan Shearer and Anandos, and a goal happens, you think, oh,

we don't have the, we need the whole first half of that anecdote about Alan Shearer and the Anandos now, so we have to go back further than we wanted in these highlights. So it's an incredibly difficult skill, made even more difficult by the fact that, you know, they're cutting those packages usually between 5pm and, you know and 10pm on a Saturday night as well. It's so skillful. It's incredibly skillful, but all the pundits watch all the games together with the commentary. I've been in that room. I've been in that room.

Yeah. Next year, by the way, we'll get to talk about the replacement strategy for Gary as well. Absolutely. And what happens to match of the day. I saw loads of comments saying, oh, this is the end of match of the day. And happens to match of the day. I saw loads of comments saying this is the end of match of the day and you think match of the day actually is in really, really robust health. Yeah. While ratings are falling everywhere on every terrestrial channel, actually match of the day remains exactly where it was and people love to hate it because sports fans have to have an opinion on everything. But if you are someone desperate

for the downfall of match of the day, I have bad news for you. It's sticking around for a while. But we will talk about that because it's interesting. Yeah, absolutely we will. Is that us done? I think that is done. We've got to do a short one because it's Boxing Day. It's Boxing Day, people haven't got the energy. Yeah, exactly. They've got to get to the leftovers.

They've got to get to the strawberry creams. Please don't. An absolute pleasure. A joy. We're going to be talking on... New Year's Eve. We'll be back with you on New Year's Eve. Yeah, with all sorts of fun things to talk about.

What's come out on Boxing Day is all of Squid Game. So if you want to have a little look at that, we'll be talking a bit about that. Don't worry, we're not going to be talking about the whole season or anything like that, but just the return of Squid Game. Absolutely. And also giving our heroes and villains of 2024. See you on New Year's Eve. For that and so much more. See you next Tuesday.