The Rest Is Entertainment - The Best Advice Jedward Ever Received

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

Who are the actors that are fed lines in their ears? Do those on Below Deck pay for their super yacht holiday? Are authors and screenwriters compelled by publishers or producers to use American English to appeal to the largest audience? What is the best advice ever given to Jedward?  Just a few of the questions answered in this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment.  *** The iconic Royal Albert Hall plays host to the first The Rest Is Entertainment Live on Wednesday 4th December! Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for access to pre-sale tickets from 10am on Thursday 24th October before general public tickets go on-sale 10am Friday 25th October.  Expect Christmas treats, a live Q&A and more surprises *** Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: www.therestisentertainment.com Sign up to our newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport As always we appreciate your feedback on The Rest Is Entertainment to help make the podcast better: https://forms.gle/GeDLCfbXwMSLHSUHA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restors Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello. Hello Marina, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. We have to talk about our Royal Albert Hall show because tickets go on sale today to members and to non-members tomorrow.

So yeah, you can please buy tickets. If you're a member of the Restors Entertainment Club you can buy today otherwise they're on general sale on Friday. We have resisted dynamic pricing. Yeah they asked. Despite being offered. They asked we said no. And tickets are available for starting at £30. Yeah we are against our better judgment doing it but everyone around us told us to do it. Richard we're doing it on our own judgment. I have to say whether or not it's against our better judgment. We can but everyone around us told us to do it. Richard, we're doing it on our own judgment. I have to say, whether or not it's against our better, we can't keep acting as though it's happening to us.

It is technically happening because of us. What's happening is happening to me. Yeah. Well, me as well. I can physically sense it, that it is something that is happening to me. It's gonna be mega festive though, because we're both obsessed with Christmas.

Yeah, it's gonna be a world Christmas. Should we get on with some questions? Please do. And by the way, if you want to join the Restless Entertainment Club, go to restlessentertainment.com, you get ad free access, all that stuff. We won't keep banging on about that. Bonus episodes. You know how podcasts work. Yeah, we're about to start releasing some bonus episodes about all sorts of nonsense, but let's get on with the actual meat and potatoes, which is the questions and answers. Rob Henson has a

question, Marina. He said, I wonder if authors and screenwriters are compelled by publishers and producers to use American English to appeal to the largest audience, for example an English character saying they're putting something in the trunk of their car rather than the boot. Rob, this is a really great question and I actually somebody on Twitter had also asked me about US and UK swearing. Oh wow. Yeah, so hopefully sort of put them all in together. First of all I would say that to some, the nation that pays the writer is getting their version of the language used. If Americans are paying, you're going to say ass and not arse. What you'll probably do, if you're trying to put that word in the mouth of an English character, you know that any English person watching it is going to think it looks stupid because we say arse and not

ass. So you'll probably avoid that. And funny enough, when we were working on the franchise the whole time, luckily we had some Americans, so when you're doing stuff really quickly on set, we would constantly ask my friend Julie Wiener, who's brilliant, so funny, do Americans say this? And she'd be like, what? The one thing that she found completely difficult, by the way, is that quite means something totally different America. I would be like, what? No, it doesn't. You know, you're gas-quiting us, if you will. Apparently, quite in America means a lot. So when we'd say, she'd say, oh, is it good? And we'd be like, yeah, it's

quite good. She'd be like, oh, great. So genuinely, quite means something different in America. And her great friend, when he'd been writing on to Succession, was like, oh yeah, well, I had that trouble with them all. I didn't know what they were on about. So quite means a lot in American. So that is one worth bearing in mind. But in terms of the swearing, I went to the high priest of swearing, Ian Martin, who was originally listed as the swearing consultant on The Thick of It, and then obviously went on to write for Veep. And writing for Veep and The Thick of It, he really is a very proficient swearer translator. As he says, they don't swear, they curse the Americans, which he likes because

it sounds like you're actually cursing someone with bad language. So sometimes you might want to have a British word, something like in the loop, which has got some British, some American characters. The minister said something, you just sat there like, what do you British say? A wanker. And it sounded great with a sort of horrible little sarcastic air quotes. He thought that in the sort of US UK linguistic, you know, Bureau de change, two dicks for a cock. So you say a lot of dicks in American, but you'd have to produce cock more rarely. Really? Yes.

They're more dick friendly than cock friendly? Yes, I would say so. Some stuff doesn't like travel culturally. So, you know, when Selena Mayer, the president, when Gary's sort of silently chiding her for smoking, she says, don't give me that quaker and a titty bar look, which obviously as Ian points out would sound a bit different if Judy Dench said it and you couldn't quite understand what was happening. Sometimes things just totally read across. So you dim fucking bulb could be said in VEEP, could be said in Think of It, could be said in Ablify, everyone knows what's going on.

But in general, you do have to think particularly on swearing, which ones work and which ones don't and whether they get the sort of swearing references. And it's quite a big thing because that will be the moment that it will really jar. As I say, if you see British characters in British accents saying ass, it's embarrassing in some way and you know, it doesn't work. So you have to be quite careful on that. But Ian is the master of all this. So I defer to him. I have to say that he's got a very funny Boris Johnson book out at the moment, which is called Unhinged. And I've seen that lots of W. H. Smiths have put the two books next to each other because they've both got the black and white cover. Ian's got one picture in which Johnson looks absolutely deranged

and it's had to have the words a parody put across the front of this book because otherwise people... but it's really funny. And he's in such a purple patch at the moment. He's got another book coming out next month in November called So You Think You Can Be Prime Minister, which, you know, on the basis of some previous occupants, lots of people can, but he's very, very funny. And yes, so I defer always to him on matters of all swearing, but particularly British American swearing translation. Yeah, in the American edits of the Thursday Murder Club books on We Solve Murders, I always find it interesting. Very, very little really needs to be translated. And you know, I write

a lot of sort of parochial, very British things. And actually, they're very good at thinking of American readers, if they don't know the reference, that's kind of fun. Like we will watch The Simpsons and they'll talk about Rory Calhoun and you go, well, I don't know who that is, but I like the sound of the name and I understand that the sort of thing. Very, very occasionally, like, and I think in the very first book I talk about John Lewis and that made no sense to them because it doesn't sound like a shop and John Lewis was a very famous senator. So they said, could we change that? And you go, yeah, of course you can. The only real problem they had at one point, normally they're very, very good. They said, we don't understand this bit, there's a character called Ron in the books, we don't understand this bit.

Has Ron killed someone? And I was like, huh? Because there's a scene, did Ron kill someone? I go, no. He goes, there's a scene here, it says, uh, Ron goes for a slash in the woods. And I was like, okay, okay. Yeah. I see, I see where we've got this. So that we changed. I love this. Yeah.

You don't. So does Greg stay in as an example? Greg stays in. They have no access to Greg's or universal healthcare, you know, to two tragedies in American life. Yeah. And yeah, the two sort of cancel each other out a little bit. Yeah.

See it's Japanese edition of their footnotes in the Thursday murder club saying the Chinese one is literally it's all footnotes. It's all the really is so thick and half of it is footnotes explaining who Nigella is and Oh my god, this is so cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All of that. I want one of the translation of the footnotes and how they actually describe them to non

English speakers. I really want that. You look through it, you know, just like a page it was, it was a, you know, reference 47 Nigella Lawson, reference 48 Oliver Bonus, reference 49 Holmes Under the Hammer. You're like, you're like, oh man, did I write all that on one page? But by and large, I think Americans quite enjoyed reading British slang. But this is what your mum said. I think his books be really good for people that don't know English, which sounds like a bit of a diss.

Yeah, it was a diss. She said that they'd be perfect people learning English as a foreign language. But also like a replicant coming to our country and having to pass as someone who can like talk about like the clutch on a voxel course on Homes Under the Hammer and can just somehow pass, you know, as a humanoid. Well, we were talking about Nick Harkaway's brilliant John Le Carre novel. And actually, yeah, if you were a Hungarian spy coming to England, yeah, just read the Thirsty Murder Club books.

You'll honestly, you're going to have pretty much any conversation you want. Just, you know, say that and, you know, there's even football stuff in there. Yeah. Complain about a meal deal. Yeah. Complain about a meal deal and say who was the best Captain West Ham ever had. You know, done. Is it Bobby Moore? Is it Billy Bonds, is it Mark Noble? Arguably Blade Runner would have been a different film if they'd used that as a way of passing, but listen, anyway, we continue.

Shall we do another question? Yes please. I love this one about explaining rules on game shows, Richard. Chris Hudson says very occasionally when a celebrity appears on a game show, they will state they don't know the rules or have never watched the show before. Their lack of understanding can be entertaining, but is it really possible that no one in the production team has explained it? Firstly, Chris Hudson is a character from Thursday Mooderclub. He's the cop. How about that? Thank you, Chris. I wonder if he just called himself Chris Hudson because he knew I'd pick up on it. Maybe we did.

You're overthinking this. Yeah, you think? Yeah. There's a wonderful line in The American Office once where Steve Carell is holding a photocopy of Salesman Hostage in his office and Jim is saying that you have to let him go, this is not going to end well and Steve Carell says to Jim, you're overthinking this and Jim goes, no Michael, you are under thinking this. Anyway, Chris, thank you very much for your question.

Yes, quite often if you do celebrity versions of shows, people will not have watched the show before, I sort of get it. I look poorly on it. I know. Yeah, I don't love it. People come on shows, especially House of Games, pretty much everyone has seen it. So when they come on it's nice. But point to celebrities, I think, because there's eight of them and sometimes people bring along a partner. So it's not always the case that everyone has seen the show. It's a booking that's come through their agent. Wait till you have an anxiety dream. Just turn up on a show, you've got no idea what could happen

to you. Yeah, but the thing is that that's not how some people's brains work. Some people are like, oh yeah, okay, what do you need me to do? Where do you need me to stand? What are you saying to me now? Yeah, you're right, it's better to be that person. Yeah, exactly. And yes, every time you come on a show, you are given an extensive briefing about how

the rules of the show work. You're given an extensive briefing about how round one might work, how round two might work. Truth is, people are not listening. People either watch the show already, in which case they get the rules, or they haven't watched the show because it's not the sort of thing for them, and they do not understand what you were saying to them.

It's the same with normal contestants. You know, I've always said a million times, viewers at home as well, for years people say, you've got to explain the rules, explain the rules, explain the rules. Either people understand the rules, or they're never going to understand the rules, and they don't really mind. They're just watching it, and they got to explain the rules, explain the rules, explain the rules. Either people understand the rules or they're never going to understand the rules and they don't really mind. They're just watching it and they want to answer the questions. So

we had, Jedward had been on a few times. We were walking along the river in Richmond the other day and these two youths on bicycles sort of skidded by and they go, Richard, Richard. And then we turned around and it was Jedward and that was us. Oh my God, I love that they're just out there on their BMX's probably. They live the brand. I mean, they truly do. They really do. They're always an absolute delight to talk to.

Anyway, they came on the show and I always remember in their briefing, their manager said to them, they said, boys, points to their mouth, he goes, you've got one of those, points to their ears, you've got two of those. So listen more than you talk. That's what they say in primary classrooms. But again, it's the brand. Listen, I absolutely get it. So everyone gets every single rule explained to them at all times,

but most people are absolutely not listening. In the same way that if you stop someone for directions, you say, you know, how do I get to the SO garage? And they go, obviously, go up here, turn left, then it's the third right, and then you get the roundabout, and there's a second after that, and then you just take a quick sharp left and you'll see it there and Me and I would say 80% of people stop listening after you go up here and turn left you think well I'll go up here turn left and ask someone else because I'm not hearing the rest of it But yeah, yeah, sometimes you'll have people on the show and they don't understand where they are. I would say almost always

They get knocked out very very quickly There's something about someone who has no interest in what the rules are and no curiosity about the show they're on that also means their general knowledge is not always where it might be I would say. So you know often they don't last too long. An appearance fee for not even bothering to read rules? No, they should be knocked out. I know but then if you've only got six contestants on a Monday morning and you're filming in an hour's time you're like you, you know what, whoever you got, bring them on. Also, some shows are quite complicated.

If you have really had to explain pointless in 10 minutes to someone, it would be quite hard to do, is the truth. House of games is lovely. House of games, the briefing we do on house of games. I always really, really enjoy because it's just me going, there is absolutely no point me telling you what's going to happen because it is every single round is different. At the start of each round, I'll tell you a rough idea of what's going on. If you don't understand, we'll do one question and you'll get it. And so it's like an anti-briefing and it makes for much more fun for everybody. I like it

on House of Games where you get to the end of the round and someone in seat three will go, oh, I get it now. I understand what we've been doing for the last five minutes. And it's, you know, it's different brains, you know, react to different things. But just sit there and answer the questions is usually the thing to do. But pointless is funny because people go, sorry, am I trying to get the lowest answer? You go, yeah, we've literally been here for the last hour. And that's what everyone's been doing. And the last however many years. Yeah, exactly. But I have a little earpiece sometimes in House of Games.

We do a round called the Nice round where you get the name of a film or a book and you have to write down one word to help one of your fellow contestants get it. And every time it starts, Tom or Abby who are in my ear just go, yeah, just one word. Because every single time everyone says, just one word. Is it just one word? Like every single time. Never, ever done it without someone going, is it just one word? But so, listen, rules are rules, but it's fun if people know them, but if they don't, they usually get knocked out fairly quickly.

Thank you, Chris Hudson, if that is your name. I have a question here from Evan Green, who asks, I've heard rumors that certain actors are fed lines through earpieces on set. Is this true? If so, how frequently does this happen? And is it on the rise? That is a good question.

They're called earwigs, the little thing, and someone could, if you haven't bothered learning your lines, be telling you them just as you're about to say it. We talked a bit on the Tuesday episode about the idea of certain performers believing they're indispensable. This is only able to happen if you're mega big. Robert Downey Jr. does it, by the way. Yeah, other actors really don't like it, by the way. If they know that someone's acting with an earwig, they think it's really disrespectful. They've learnt their lines and they don't really like, Robert Downey Jr. claims it's part of his process.

That's clever. Yeah, and actually what he also says is, I don't like learning lines because I want to spend more time with my family. So I mean, you're only being paid like a hundred million quid here or something. Do you mind? Wow, part of my process is I don't like to get up

before 10 a.m. It's how I get into character. Yeah, it's just my method. But famously, Marlon Brando did a lot. I mean, in The Godfather, he didn't have an earwig, but honestly, other actors had cue cards stuck on them. So if they were being shot from behind for his coverage, when the cameras, as we talked about coverage before, when the cameras just on him, those cutaways in the scene, they had like his line stuck to them. You can see why people don't like that either.

But again you know he's indispensable. The Island of Dr. Moreau, by the way, oh we talked about that a lot in the writers room for the franchise, there's a really great documentary if you want to see something called The Lost Soul, The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley's Island of Dr. Moreau and it's, you can watch it on YouTube and that is a story of a sort of idealistic filmmaker who's going to make this movie about quite a dark and weird book and every actor in that and it goes so wrong, he goes really quite mad. It's a really good documentary if you want to watch that one. But Brando turns up on that. I mean, if you don't want to watch the documentary, just Google Marlon Brando costume Island of

Doctor Moreau. You've never seen anything like it. It's wearing sort of beekeepers hat. It's extraordinary. For that one, again, he had to have it all done via an earwig and wouldn't do it. Johnny Depp in the later parts of the Caribbean, I'm afraid. My favourite one of it though is Rita Ora is in Fifty Shades of Grey. I mean, Rita Ora arguably not indispensable to Fifty Shades of Grey. She had it for four lines. She's got four lines in the whole film. I think she's Christian Grey's sister. She is Christian's Grey's sister, but she had an earwig for that

because she said, oh no, I just couldn't possibly. It's like, but you can learn, you're like all your songs. I guess it's just, you're in a different milieu. She is a star in another milieu and I guess she's not on set for very long and that's how they did it. But as I say, you have to be mega important. I wouldn't say it is on the rise.

I don't know whether it's on the rise or not. There are so few actors who can really get away by just saying, I am doing this. Especially because nobody else likes it. Yeah, exactly. I do think there's one sort of slight caveat, which is sometimes older actors will have lines just so they're there, just so they know they're there. Because you'd have spent a whole lifetime learning lines, but they just get to the point where they go okay I just you know what I want just a little prompt sometimes or you'll have words. A security blanket of knowing it's there is enough often to... A security blanket and of course any actor like that of course they absolutely do what they want because they prove what they can do

time and time again and it's just something that they need but it's um yeah that's I didn't know that a little earpiece. Yeah earwig. Wow earwig that's cool good question shall we go into a little break? Let's do that. Okay welcome back everybody and I'm just gonna have to go straight into a question that I've so wanted to know the answer to. It's from Chris Cowan and it's about Below Deck that absolute zenith of reality television. I often find myself watching one of the many series and spin-offs of Below Deck, currently Below Deck Mediterranean. By the way, these are set on super yachts and they're about the crew on super yachts.

I'm curious, apart from the draw of being on TV, what is in it for the guests to book a charter on a boat with the show, which are super yachts, by the way, do they get a discount for possibly being portrayed as a nuisance and crew swarming all over the boat? This show is a new obsession in my house. My daughter's watched it for ages now, my wife is watching it and therefore I am watching it and it's really good. I mean it's really it sort of feels almost like...

End times? No, not end times. I love it. The producer gets less involved in this than they would do on certain other shows but funnily enough my daughter asked exactly this question which is why are people doing it? Are they getting it cheaper or not? Because the sums for these boats are absolutely enormous. Sometimes when we go on holiday and call for food, lots of them come by and we're always like looking at them with a binoculars and then immediately googling how much it costs to rent a week. And it's insane.

It's like hundreds of thousands of pounds. It's absolutely mad. And so the show, you know, people charter it, you get put like eight or 10 people, they'll be like family groups or, you know, work groups or something like mad. And so the show, you know, people charter it, you get like eight or 10 people, they'll be like family groups or, you know, work groups or something like that. And so the crew are always there. So you follow, you know, the captain, you follow the engineers, you follow the, you know, the people working on the ship. And it's just each new episode, there's a new group of people coming in. So you've got the soap opera of the crew, but you've also got every week, new people

to judge, which I think is the story of the. Which I think is the- Story of the week. The joy of the show, story of the week, exactly that. Now, Mark Cronin, who created Below Deck, he says this, and you know what, genuinely, what I said to my daughter is no, it'll be free, they'll get it for free, the production will pay. And maybe be paid. Yeah, exactly, because they'll just,

are you an interesting group of people, let's put you on the ship, but that is not the case. And Mark Cronin, the creator says, guests get a 50% discount on the three-day charters and get their flights paid for, but guests still have to pay for all of their food, any excursions, and of course the all-important tip, which is a big deal on Below Deck. 12 grand the guy gave him on the one I was watching last night. And that is expected to be 50 to 20% of the total cost. So for the honour of being a side character for one episode of Below Deck you'll be paying

about 45,000 pound for three nights. For your holiday? Yeah. To have... being filmed. It's just so mind-blowing people really want to be on TV don't they? Yeah. And they will risk paying 50 grand to look like an utter asshole.. You're gonna have to explain it to me. I suppose if you are interested in hiring a super yacht anyway then you might have a certain personality type. Do you think they don't realize they're arseholes? So they don't realize they're paying 50 grand? Well a lot of arseholes don't realize that they're arseholes do they? No, they're paying 50 grand to be themselves. That's the very point of it. So I think that honestly I think if you are trying

to impress a group of people or if you do have a family holiday imagine if you're sitting down now so the whole family's got to get together we've got 10 of us and what should we do? We're gonna have a week somewhere and three or four of you watch and like Below Deck. Actually if you say well why don't we go on Below Deck? Well we're going to spend some money anyway on our holiday. We're stupidly rich anyway and we waste our money anyway. This might be a fun way to waste that money. Oh my god. People like to be on TV. But they don't realize what TV involves. But a lot of them come across quite badly. Probably because they're so annoyed they've had to do the same thing, you know, let's be honest this is like managed reality so they've probably had to do the same

scene asking for the espresso martini about five times. There must be cables everywhere tripping over them all the but I mean I just don't understand it. But they also leave in all the bits where every single guest tries to sleep with every single member of the crew. Yeah. Like every night at the end when they've had a few drinks. I think that's mandatory. Yeah but it's like you just think you know that there's a camera looking at you when you do that, you understand that. All I knew about Ploydech in the olden days was that Kate from US Traitors was in it and watching her. Yeah and she is a monster. Yeah, but she's... My monster.

Yeah, she's very good at her job. I would say that. So yeah, people are paying a lot of money and the tip is for real and all that kind of stuff and the people who've seen it know the tips can often be absolutely huge. You know, and the crew is real and all that stuff. I have, as I say, has a new convert to it. I don't believe it's End Times. I think it's quite an enjoyable bit of television, but very expensive it turns out to be on. There can't be many other shows

that you're paying to be on. God, what a sucker. They think they've won these people, but they haven't. They've lost. Well, it depends what game they're playing. Is the game I look like a dickhead on television? In which case they've aced it. If you haven't watched Below Deck, I hope. By the way, do watch it. Yes. It's most surprising.

A lot of people paying to look like this on television. Well, that's the thing, I can now go and watch this and go, wow, you're paying a lot of money. Wombled every minute. Yeah. I mean, they must have a lot of money. Yeah. Like a lot.

Yes. Not anymore. Not much sense. Marina, a question from Grace Revel. I was wondering why so many series seem to have a certain number of episodes and why is it always an even number? Well, hello Grace. It was normally an even number in the old days.

They used to have, I don't know, and by the way, series used to be miles longer and you don't see that many any longer. You know, you'd have 24 episodes of your show in the US. UK always used to have six, but actually since streaming, I'm not quite sure that... I've worked on a show, Avenue 5, and that had nine episodes, but that was actually because the set partially burnt down, so we went from 10 to nine. But the second season had nine as well. Last of Us, I think that was nine. Baby Reindeer was seven. That was the thing about streaming, that first of all when House of Cardsards came out and I think Orange is the New Black, they were the sort of new things for Netflix and

they were 13 each. It was sort of, suddenly you didn't have to fit these little blocks that had been there since time immemorial. And also if you didn't want to make it an hour long, you could make it 62 minutes. It didn't matter. You weren't. And so, and stranger things have obviously in most recent season went, we had hugely long episodes.

Some of them were like an hour 45. I can't remember what they were, but they were very long. It's weird. Binging has actually led to shorter seasons. And so because people wanted to kind of do it all in one, if you said to them, right, there's now 22 episodes of Lost to watch.

Anything you watch on streaming does not have to be equal numbers and isn't any more at all. If the episode can be told in, I'm trying to think actually even on Channel 4 wasn't it's a sim wasn't that five episodes so it doesn't matter in the same way that it used to. Of course if you actually look at miniseries lots of things have a 3-1 hours so we have a lot of that I'm not convinced but now anything can be anything really in a much more loose way than it ever was before. Yeah but in the in the older days when you know we had five terrestrial television channels you know they're each filling 52 weeks a year and they would do that in very very structured

box and they would be planning 18 months in advance and so they would know exactly what's fitting where and so they would traditionally understand that if a sitcom was coming that would be six weeks and take up six weeks of their time and so it was just one of those things that got written into the DNA of television, I think is the truth. And, you know, then producers started to understand how to make six episodes and writers understood that as well. And some of that, by the way, is to do if you spent lots of your budget and there were certain earlier episodes on something like Doctor Who, where you could see they've had a really expensive episode. And the next one, they're all going to be kind of locked in

a crypt or something, which is a lot cheaper to make. If you ever see an episode of any sitcom or anything where it's just the two characters and they're locked in a bank vault it's because... Look what happened earlier on or later because that will be the inexpensive episode as either it just happened or is coming up. Exactly that but then you know it was be 52 weeks and so you would cut that down and you know you'd have a huge thing probably up on the wall in the old days where you would sort of block in what was going where and so six weeks or eight weeks or ten weeks was just a very simple thing to work with across 52

weeks of the year. Yeah it just came from that really but as you say with streamers they don't have to worry about when you watch something they don't have to worry about fitting something else in the following week so they can just do exactly what they want when they want. Weirdly as a producer and writer you bit of you still going, well, presumably this will be six or eight episodes, because there's a hangover from those olden days. And if someone says, well, we could do seven, you're like, oh, seven, really? Yeah. I don't know about that. And then also that confuses people who are watching, because

when you get to episode six of any drama on TV, you do have to go on IMDb and see if this is the last episode. And you go, oh, oh, okay, there's nine, there's 10. And it's so, but it's, um, yeah, it's just one of those things has always been and was because things used to have to be commissioned just absolutely in chunks and now, yeah, I suspect the odd numbers are having their day. But it's great for storytelling. If you think, well, actually, you know, we want to just, can we have an extra episode out of this sometimes in the, right.

And also can we cut it down? Can it not be six? Can it be five? Can it be something like maybe reindeer seven? Perhaps that's less conventional. But if it just works, then it's great to be able to do that now and to not feel that there's got to be slack episodes or something where it didn't quite work. And you think, yeah, that should have been pushed together or divided into two. The traditional thing you used to do on panel shows and what have you,

if they commissioned six or eight or 10 or whatever is you'd always be kind of you know stocking up the off cuts of various episodes that you had to cut out for time and you would do a bonus episode or would I like to I think do two bonus episodes each time which just means that you know 10 episodes become 12 and it's one of the few shows would I like to you where the bonus episode are just absolutely sensationally brilliant. Normally on a show where the bonus episode of just absolutely sensationally brilliant. Normally on a show when the bonus episode comes out we think okay but with would I like to you just think oh great this is a series of amazing stories. Richard this is about the We Solve Murders audio book from Katie Bateman. Oh that's a good name I like a name that's got an internal

rhyme Katie Bateman's got that yeah great okay great. Okay. Thank you, Katie. Thank you for your name. Yeah, and also for your question, which is all we have time for. Her question is, I'm partially sighted, so I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I've recently been listening to the audiobook of We Solve Murders, read brilliantly by Nicola Walker. It got me wondering how audiobook readers chosen and do authors get to say in the matter? Thank you, Katie. Yeah, she's amazing, Nicola Walker. say in the matter? Thank you, Katie. She's amazing. Nicola Walker. I'm the same because I'm visually impaired.

I listen to, you know, I can get through printed books, but it takes me a long time. So I love having an audiobook on the go at any given time. Katie, you do get the choice. Well, certainly I've had a choice. A lot of authors read their own audiobooks and people, if you're Mark Billingham, who is a stand up as well as a brilliant writer, it's great, he knows exactly what the voice of the characters is.

His main character in lots of his books, Tom Thorn, you sort of feel is Bittingham-esque anyway, so that makes absolute sense. Because my books are sort of, I would say, female led. I felt it was inappropriate for me to read them. Also, I can't act. It'd just be awful. And also I'd want to rewrite as I was going through. I just, I don't know how to do it. And so, you know, there are some people who do

audio books and you can listen to the, you know, versions of them. But with Thirsty Murder Club, we sat down and made a list of people we'd like. I wanted to be someone who's slightly older. And so Leslie Manville and Fiona Shaw were both on that list and they both done two each and did it absolutely brilliant. And it's so important because they have to get the spirit of a book. You know if you're listening as Katie will tell you if you're walking around with that person's voice in your head all day and so it becomes you know it's incredibly important that it's intimate but it also gets across the drama and the comedy of the book and both of those do brilliantly. So with We Solve Murders because there's a character called Amy who was slightly younger and a lot of it

sort of goes through Amy, I wanted someone who was slightly younger but someone also is people know for kind of murdery type things but also has done comedy and Nicola Walker of course ticks all of those boxes and so we went for Nicola Walker and she said yes and the lovely thing is that they then ring you and talk to you about the book and they talk to you about some of the characters and they say I was thinking of doing this and maybe does this character do that? And so there's a lovely back and forth between audio reader and author. I think in the future there's going to be an awful lot of, and there are already some, AI read books. And if you ever listen to one it's sort of, you just can't do it because everything

is too flattened. And again, if you've got that voice in your ear the whole time, it would drive you absolutely mad, I think. You know, if you can find someone who can read an audiobook in a great way, then you just hold on to them forever, because it just makes your book more magical. And so yeah, I've been very, very lucky with Leslie Manville, then Fiona Shaw, and now Nicola Walker. But yeah, you do get the choice. You certainly ask for someone, you know, or if you've heard someone before in your ear, you kind of look for them. And Patchett, I'm always, I always think is amazing because she had Tom Hanks reading

one and then the next one was Meryl Streep. Do you think that's pretty good going? That's wonderful. There are certain, there are certain books that I hear in when I'm reading them. I hear them being read to me by, I always imagine when I'm reading them, I hear them being read to me by, I always imagine when I'm reading Woodhouse, and I actually ended up telling Hugh Laurie this, I just said, it's because I just imagine you reading the books to me. And because I suppose I saw his Jews and Worcester at a relatively young age, that was probably in

my teens, and I imagine him reading them. I hear the voice in my head, he might as well have done the audio book. I don't know if he has done the audiobook, but I've always felt that way and I told him that he said I can't actually read that I feel I'm sort of you know taking word to house, but I said no I hear you reading them to me I did a book show between the covers on BBC two recently and Ben Mitter was on and He said that he and since you said this I've asked other people other people do it He says that he reads the book at the same time as listening to the audio book. So he has the audio book talking while he reads the words in the book. Oh.

Can you believe that? I can't. I don't, I have not heard that book. Is that, that will be a whole thing. We'll have opened a can of worms with this. It'll be a whole subtitles discussion. Yeah. I'd like to hear more from people who also do this. Cause I will sometimes have the book and I'll have the audio book. And if I'm out for a walk, I'll be listening and then I'll turn to the bit in the book I've like to hear more from people who also do this. Because I will sometimes have the book and I'll have the audio book. And if I'm out for a walk, I'll be listening and then I'll turn to the bit in the book I've got to.

I sort of get that. But no, he literally sits reading the book and has the audio book on at the same time. So does both at the same time. If you do this, please write in and explain why. The address is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com and I definitely want to hear from you. I think that's us done, is it?

I think it is. Don't forget those tickets for the Royal Albert Hall Show are out now for members and they're out tomorrow for non-members. We'd love to see you there. Restesentertainment.com for all the details, but all that aside, perhaps we'll see everyone next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.