The Rest Is Entertainment - The Power Of Drive To Survive

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Drive To Survive, the colossal Formula 1 Netflix hit returns to our screens. How has it shaped reality sport documentaries that now dominate the documentary space and what can we expect from the latest series? The 1975, Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo all announced as 2025 Glastonbury headliners. Something for everyone and yet like every year there are cries of “worst lineup ever”. Richard and Marina discuss if it is the worst ever and provide a bluffers guide to some of the names playing. Marina has sat through With Love, Meghan so you don’t have to. She has thoughts. Recommendations: Marina - Israel and the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October (iPlayer) Richard - Amandaland (iPlayer) 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 Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Producer: Jake Liascos Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are delighted to announce that our good friends at Sky are once again proud partners of the rest as entertainment. We are extremely delighted Marina. Sky has a huge 2025 planned and they're excited to share their unrivaled range of entertainment which has never been easier to discover. And there is no better way to enjoy their selection of new shows and films than by using SkyTV. SkyOS powers the SkyTV experience and it lets you control your SkyTV with your voice so you can find your favourite shows and movies from Sky and the other apps without lifting a finger, my favourite way. Oh, I love not lifting a finger, I love not lifting a finger. Just say hello Sky, followed by what you want to watch, who you want to see and it will be on your screen before you know it.

Without having to lift a finger you can get all your favourite entertainment quickly with both Sky shows and other apps in one place. Visit sky.com to find out more. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde and me Richard Osborne. Hello Marina. How are you Richard? I'm alright, I've had a busy week. I've been up in Manchester filming at Morehouse of Games. We just started the new series of that. How is it going? Good. Yeah, really good. Good fun. I always, every time I go up there, I think I'm going to forget how to present this. And every time you just think, oh, it's just four really

nice people. Let's just do some silly games. So yeah, I really, really enjoyed it. It's been a lot of fun. Can I say a couple of things though? Yeah, I feel you're going to. Yeah. One thing, one of the contestants on the show has just been working on a Guy Ritchie production and this contestant said it's one of the best directors they've ever worked with and incredibly hands-on, incredibly hands-on. So I thought that was interesting. But also after our lovely discussion about YouTube last week, since House of Games has gone on YouTube, the youthful part of the audience has grown massively. It's really made a genuine noticeable impact. It's always had been quite

young skewing House of Games, but since we're chucking out there for free on YouTube, it's noticeably grown. Isn't that interesting? That is very interesting. I know you don't approve still, but... Well, no, it's good for you. I'm sure YouTube will benefit from that. But I benefit from it as well. YouTube and you, yes. And the production. So who's not benefiting? Who's losing there?

I think probably broadcasters giving their stuff free to YouTube means that YouTube will take the benefit of it. They don't think I'm watching a BBC show now that's been bought and paid for by the BBC. But literally, since we put it out there, people have come to the show on BBC and are watching it in a linear fashion. Let's see if that scales. Yeah, let's see if that scales. Let's call the podcast that. Literally, like, all we'll do is, like, next year we'll work out if anything either of us has said scales. We've got anything right.

Yeah, how's your week been? Okay, well, things we're going to be wrong about today, if I can summarize our topics as such. Drive to Survivors back, Richard. Yes. Netflix's searing look behind last season's Formula One season. The grandparent of all these sports reality shows. Absolutely. We're going to talk about that and also what's going on with sports documentaries? We're going to talk a little bit about Glastonbury, and as is traditional,

it has been described as the worst lineup ever. We'll discuss whether that's true. Spoiler, no, it's not true. No, it's not true. But we talk about, you know, who's playing, and like maybe a little bluffers guide to some of the bands you might not have heard of, but you should have heard of.

All the young people listening will know all of them, but I'm talking to the oldsters there. And then I'm very much looking forward to sitting back and hearing your views on our friend. Duchess Meghan's show dropped on Netflix and we will talk about how it's gone down and by sat through it all and what it was like really. I've written a column about it.

But listen, this is like an audio column. This is very much an audio column. Marina Hyde's audio column. Shall we start with our good friends at Drive to Survive? Yes, as I say, this is Netflix's behind the scenes look of the season prior to the one that's about to start, the Formula One season. Last year's season, you could call it. Yeah, last year's.

So we're in that sort of Kardashian form of time where the things that have happened in the news, we now go back and look at them supposedly behind the scenes or what I would call their version of behind the scenes because this is really a remorseless propaganda vehicle about vehicles and the men who drive those vehicles, maybe the women who love those men. You remember Christian Horn. Oh, this is the big thing for this season. Well, this is, I mean, Christian Horn of Bizararelli, who is the Red Bull team principal, he is bizarrely the star of this show, I think just because he wants to be.

And also because he's not wearing a helmet most of the time. He's not wearing a helmet most of the time. Although I'm guessing halfway through this season he puts one on. If you don't happen to know this story, he was accused of sending controlling text messages to someone who worked for Red Bull, obviously, who isn't a senior as him. Not Max Verstappen. No, not Max Verstappen, the senior driver. And there was a big sort of blow up about

it and they had an incredibly opaque internal inquiry into it, which immediately cleared Christian Horner. And then on the eve of, I can't remember if it was the first or second race, someone just doesn't dump of all the text messages. So I guess that's the big plot line in one of the first episodes, you know, I need to just keep saying things like, well, I've just got to get through it. Just got to get through it. So that's what I mean about behind the scenes. This is ultimately a propaganda vehicle for the sport of Formula One.

It is pretty remorseful. As I say, if she was still alive, Lenny Riefenstahl would probably be doing second union on it. It has got one point of view that is being pushed all the way. I love the way that you would explain to listeners who Max Rostappen is but we'll leave Lenny Riefenstahl where she is. That's good, I like that. No listen I like it. Lenny Riefenstahl was Hitler's documentarian. Actually funny enough I was reading, sorry this was going right off topic, there's a very good book about Hitlerahl was a Hitler's documentarian. Actually, funny enough, I was reading, sorry, this was going right off topic. There's a very good book about Hitler's people called Hitler's People by Richard Evans, who's a brilliant historian, and the chapter on Lenny Riefenstahl is very interesting.

She lives very long and she gets really annoyed when people ask her, it's like, yeah, you know, this was a job I did in the 30s and 40s. Oh, the Hitler thing again. Oh, this is coming up again. Hi, I've also like filmed some people in the desert I've made a load of other documentaries. Everyone keeps asking me. Yeah you know I made Inside Asda for channel five and yeah this is all I get asked about. Yeah it's sort of unbelievable. Yeah I'm completely unrepentant anyway. But yeah it's a PR job. I mean it's good I love Drive to Survive and I know the results of things but you know I love watching it. Formula One has always had the thing of you can't really see the drivers and that's been something

Between a mass audience and Formula one and now of course in that documentary you can you know They're it's I would call it try to survive helmets off And so you can see them and it becomes a soap opera and the second sport becomes a soap opera You will watch anything because you want certain people to win and certain people not to win But the Christian Horn I think is fascinating because of course, in this new world of being in documentaries, every crisis happens twice. Because it happened in real time. And as you say, he was very stoic. He said, we've got to get through this. And my goodness, he got through it. But now he has to get through it again. Because everyone's going to watch it.

But that's what happens if you turn your sport into a soap opera. If you do it, and the reason that they've done all this with so many of these sports is for the reason that everybody wants these globalised audiences. They've worked out, it doesn't matter whether it's football or Formula One or whatever, that the actual sport happens for, you know, potentially just 90 minutes a week and during a season. And in order to sort of keep people interested, just the sort of that that's just a tiny little part of it It's just one of the plot lines the rest of it has to happen all the time

So that you can watch it and have it in other forms of content sport is just one other form of content And I didn't get very spoofable and memeable though this particularly particularly there's something about the way they do it And the style is so particular and by the way, how many imitators, which we'll get to in a minute, but there's something about it that is just very, very spoofable and memeable, but they're sort of the sort of people who'd say, yeah, but you're still talking about us. You're still talking about us. I hate it when people say that because it's true. But it's been an enormous success and genuinely an enormous success, big success for Netflix

in the first place, but also huge success for Formula One, as you say. You know, Netflix don't show the races, that's why we see this a year after it happens, because that's when they can use all of that footage. But even the North American rights for Formula One, which are with ESPN, they've gone up from $5 million a year to $75 million a year since Drive to Survive started. It's absolutely through the roof. Something like more than 50% of people who say they're new fans of the sport say they came to it because of Drive to Survive and they are those very very desirable demographics, women, young people and the Americans.

Ah, three of my favourites. The trifecta basically, this is what you want. And so it's drawn people in. And it's interesting because viewers sort of know they're watching corporate PR, but they don't particularly care. It's effectively a form of advertising. And what Formula One has done is quite interesting. That F1 movie, I mean, as I mentioned, I saw the trailer during the Sleep at Boat, which I thought was a mess. Bear in mind, this is the initial budget for this movie was 300 million dollars already making it sort of one of the most expensive movies ever. And I think it's definitely sort of gone over. They have done something with the helmets which is that you can see in the trailer that the helmets

are slightly clear. By the way so for that film to break even it's basically needs to make between seven or eight hundred, nine hundred maybe at the box office I wonder if it will it doesn't really matter something to revisit it doesn't really matter because it's basically sort of being paid for it's for Apple Jerry Brookham is producing but so much of it is coming from you know Mercedes are putting huge amount basically it's being siphoned from Petro Estates it's marketing money it's marketing money yeah and it's and marketing money doesn't doesn't need a return on it and investment from ticket sales. Yeah. It needs this. It needs people talking about it. The car that he's driving, Brad Pitt, in it has sold

more sponsorship than many F1 teams which I think is says something. Mercedes have produced all the cars they've modified the FT. Lewis Hamilton is a producer but not in a sort of like I'm an executive producer as in I've done absolutely nothing apart from take a fee apparently he'll go line by like he's quite sort of meticulous and earnest you know so he goes line by line through the script say no this wouldn't happen yeah I mean really oh I like so he's saying this wouldn't happen that I like yeah I thought he was giving character notes and then he said I think we might be okay I don't think we should really go that far yeah but yes sports movies where someone says actually this wouldn't happen if you think, I think we might be okay. I don't think that we should really go that far, yeah.

But yeah, sports movies where someone says, actually this wouldn't happen. If you think of every football movie ever made, that could have used a, you know, Every football ever made movie ever made could have used one. Other ones are fine. Other sports have been treated, I mean like golf, that's all they ever play, so they actually know what they're doing when they make a golf movie. So there were things like Drive to Survive and The Last Dance, which started this whole... The Michael Jordan documentary, which is also terrific.

And then you go further back and there are kind of great documentaries. The Zidane documentary. There are lots of good ones. There's non-stop. I mean, Netflix is full of amazing one-off documentaries about sport, for sure. Amazon have so many. They've just announced another one called England's Lions, which is going to follow like, oh, Palmer. I can't remember which specific players have agreed

to be filmed by them, but it's going to be behind the scenes. But I would say we are now in a big era of diminishing returns with these things. They're sort of platform starch, they're kind of slop. And it's weird, one of my children was watching one the other day. I just walked through the back of the room and all I could see was two young guys in a car dealership. One was obviously going to buy a G-Wagon and the other one was just sitting there thinking in future maybe I will be able to buy a G-Wagon. And I reflexively said, what sport is this?

Because I knew that just from that visual language, I must be watching a sports documentary and he said, oh, it's Six Nations Full Contact. Six Nations Full Contact, wow, that's passed me by. What I find sort of quite very depressing about it all now is that what they're always saying is, and there's voiceovers saying things like, money is pouring into rugby. And what they're saying is, money is pouring into this thing. They're able to buy these types of cars now, therefore you should care. And all the people in all the different sports documentaries, they want, you know, they want

the same clothes, they want the same, they want a G-Wagon. Yeah, weirdly for a lot of those documents, at least, it's a very masculine version of that Megan show, which we're going to talk about. It's sort of the idealized version of what it is to be a young man at a certain time with a certain amount of money in a certain society. And, you know, it might as well be called, Cole Palmer with love. Yes. Yeah. So, Drive to Survive has been enormous. I mean, genuinely huge.

I mean, it is an unimpeachable hit in every way that it can be, other than Christian Horner's next couple of months. And by the way, they used to do loads of these documentaries, Last Chance You, which is a wonderful documentary on American football, if you haven't seen it. Really, really terrific stuff. But now the sports are getting on board and the sports are promoting themselves. So Full Swing was the next one really out of the box. And that's on its third season now. And that's just started. And I absolutely love full swing because I'm fascinated with golf, but it's the same thing.

The very first scene of that is Donald Trump holding a putt. But it is very, very, very money obsessed. Will you know why? Because it's the money men of the club or the team or the sport or whatever it is who said, get these people in, this is a way for us to make more money. And so sports is sort of presented as a route to money and it's unsurprising given it's basically been commissioned by the money men. Well, Rory McIlroy is very, very interesting on it. I think it might be the first sportsman I've ever heard say this. He said, in golf at the moment, we are being paid way too much. The return on investment that the sponsors

are getting, that the people, you know, hosting the tournaments again, he said they're not getting any return on investment. The players are getting given such a huge amount of money. Some of that of course is because there's soundy money now in golf and on the live tour side of it. Some of it is that venture capitalists are looking for something that has that young appeal, but also ages up a little bit and has some luxury brands involved with it. So people always want to spend their money on golf, but Rory McIlroy quite rightly spots when he's doing full swing and looking at the houses that everyone's living in and looking at the ratings for golf, he's kind of going something here is not quite adding up, which is

fascinating because we're in this sports bubble now. So Netflix, the big question of course is, it's all very well done these documentaries, but does that then mean that you start bidding for sports rights? And that's always been the thing with Netflix, they're saying are they going to become the next big sports broadcaster? Because if they are, that's an awful lot of trouble for an awful lot of people because they got the money to do it they got the bandwidth to do it they don't seem to desperately want to do it but they have done some of it they have done some of it sports adjacent content they keep saying they're not going to do it and then they do it then they get some NFL and we have to say it's not at all clear and I don't think you should take them on anything they say but the credo has always been we're notsports we're pro-profit that's what they always said and the one thing they have avoided is signing other than with WWE is signing long-term deals say with the Premier League or you know to be the official partner of one of those big sports for five years or 10 years what they like to do like with NFL is

have those games at Christmas and they're huge. Tyson versus Paul, I don't really think that counts as a sport. Right. I don't think that's a reality show rather than a sports show. They signed up the rights for the women's world cup for America, the next two women's world cups. And you know, they're saying we will get a little pick and mix of if a big sport event comes along at the right time at the right price, but an individual one, we will absolutely do it.

But at the moment, they show no signs of kind of bidding for say the Formula One rights or bidding for the Premier League but three or four years ago they said they wouldn't do any sports and now they are so it would not be a shock if next year we're sitting here and Netflix have made a massive massive offer for some of our biggest sports. I don't think it would be either. What I do worry like as I say, I walked through the room and I saw my son watching that thing and I thought, it's really weird that you think that this is a documentary now and I think that what happened to sports documentaries

and why it happened is for two reasons. If you go back to like the noughties, I remember people the whole time said, this is the first time when you really had players walk out of training and 19 year olds and football journalists might ask them something and they'd say talk to my agent and it suddenly became this thing where there was no access at all absolutely zero access and everything became about and some radical sports writers in the US

would say people like David Zirin and people like that would say you know they can put anyone out of the clubhouse they can say you can't come in the locker room so everything is about accessing you but you got this kind of very bland form of coverage because otherwise you're excluded. And it even happened with some managers chucking people out of their press conferences in the Premier League or whatever it is. So you had that. At the same time you have, I've always loved documentaries and I'm, you know, most, the documentaries I love were made by people who have a fantastically strong personal creed and ethics and how they do these things. Sometimes they're very different, like someone like Louis Theroux can be very

involved and then other people, they're never on the camera but they're there. I just watched an incredible Norma Percy, who's the most amazing documentary maker and she's done The Road to 7th of October, which is on iPlayer now, it just came out like last week or something, it's absolutely brilliant. She's talked to everyone involved, Israel, Palestine, it's the most extraordinary long-term, spans decades, it's basically faultless. But there used to be a bloodline between that type of documentary and, I don't know, one about the Rolling Stones or a sports person, because the people who would be making them would have a sort of ethical distance in some way. Now, the Beckham documentary was enormous. It was commissioned by Beckham. He's now doing

another one for his wife because it's become marketing. But so you now have to have an ethical proximity. It's all I mean, documentaries always been idea multiplied by access. And it used to be idea would be the biggest thing and access was a smaller thing. Now access is everything for most documentaries because most documentaries are, I say, you know, hagiographies of people people and, you know, it's not just access, it is the person themselves is in the edit suite. It's advertorial. It is pure advertorial and it's very different. And another thing that also happened, I think, which also kind of knocked documentaries off course in terms

of the sort of perhaps what we might call an ethical course in lots of ways, is reality TV. And so people were sort of feeling they were watching a form of factual or real life entertainment and there was a sort of blurring when in fact they weren't. They were watching very manipulated stories in lots of ways. And I've found it quite interesting how many reality stars now front documentaries about very serious subjects. So you'll basically what you'll do is you'll go on a reality dating show of one type or another, then I guess you'll get a podcast,

which is called something like Wine Time or something. And then you'll do a documentary about human trafficking, whatever, you know, or sex work or eating disorders. And these are very serious subjects. And these people are not at all qualified. They're sort of faces of the documentary for an art form. And I do think it's an art form that has had such a sort of, you know, a wide set of principles, but very strong principles, the people who

were behind the camera for those things, it's completely gone. And you're sort of shooting advertorial for, in the case of what we're talking about, a sport. And what that means is because they are, as I say, they're sort of platform slop, they're the whole of the platform in so many ways, these type of documentaries. To some extent, people are forgetting what those original searching, educative documentaries are actually like. Because you're thinking, of course I'll watch the one about, I don't know, the young England stars.

Where actually, you know, some of the, in the old days, you might have watched something really obscure about someone who's just trying to make it out of the local leagues or whatever. And it all Ken or Ken Burns's documentary about baseball. Oh my god I mean Ken Burns would not make Drive to Survive. Let's put it that way. I'd love to see it Ken Burns version Okay, right. Give me all the footage and then I'll do my documentary. I would like to watch that The Norma Percy of last F1 season. So Drive to Survive dropped on Friday. Listen, I absolutely understand everything you're saying. I still love it.

Oh yeah, I've already watched the whole series. Sorry. Sorry it wasn't clear. We want very, very high-end documentaries, plus Drive to Survive, if we possibly can. But also Game of Thrones is really worth watching, the dark song we've talked about, which is on Sky. And then of course, there was Harry's one about polo. Yes. You know, the drive to survive. Yeah, about elite polo. Do you think that's non-elite polo?

Well, that's what they were trying to say. Urban polo. Lots of these people are just coming in a car on a Wednesday afternoon. It's like, yeah, why aren't they at work? I mean, we'll come on to that after the break, shall we, Richard? Yeah, we will. Yeah. As we mentioned earlier in the show, we're delighted that Sky are once again proud partners of The Rest is Entertainment. Sky is full of unmissable shows including the brand new series, season three of The White Lotus, which we have enjoyed very much indeed. We've spoken about it before on the show. We love the White Lotus and our regular listeners will remember we have talked about it on the

main show before. Following the massive success of the first two seasons, the White Lotus Series 3 is already one of the most talked about TV events of the year. Yeah, Jason Isaacs is in this new one, Amy Lee Wood from Sex Education is in it, Walton Goggins is amazing in it. I love him so much, Patrick Schwarzenegger. Patrick Schwarzenegger who plays the single most annoying character ever in the history of television.

It's so brilliant. In the history of White Lotus means something, but in the history of television, I agree. And the setting is absolutely gorgeous as always. And of course, like all good TV series, Richard, it contains a murder. Starts with a murder. You've got to start with a murder.

Created by Mike White, luxury resort in Thailand. Even though there are murders and all sorts of things going on like ratings and bookings have gone absolutely through the roof for that place but we loved the White Lotus all three seasons available on Sky right now. Watch the brand new series of the White Lotus on Sky. Search Sky Stream or Skyglass or visit sky.com to find out more. This episode is brought to you by NordVPN. Now it might be a new year, Richard, but online fraudsters continue with their same old tricks.

I feel you're about to help me avoid some online disasters. I'm always here to help. I live to serve. And with that in mind, I want to tell you about NordVPN's threat protection. Threat protection? It's the first Steven Seagal movie. Threat protection 2. That could be his comeback. He doesn't necessarily need a comeback. But yes, once again, we are claiming copyright here on this podcast.

Anyway, many ransomware attacks start with phishing emails or malicious websites. By encrypting your data, NordVPN can protect against certain types of attacks. Threat protection reduces the risks of accidentally downloading ransomware from malicious links or even from ads. As does threat protection too. I think I speak for everyone when I want to thank you Marina and NordVPN for keeping our data safe online. Yes, I am a huge part of it but you can keep your family's data safe too as one NordVPN account can be used across 10 devices. To get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to NordVPN.com slash TRIE and our link will also give you 4 extra months on the 2 year plan. There's no risk with Nord's 30 day money back guarantee and it only costs the price of a

cup of coffee a month. The link is in the episode notes. Welcome back everybody. Now I believe we're going to talk about the Glastonbury lineup which has been released near the end of last week. It has, yes if you were to believe social media, worst lineup ever but you know if you had to believe social media it always is. The three headliners, the 1975 Friends of the Podcast due to Mattie Healy, I'm sure we'll talk about him, Neil Young ironically surnamed and Olivia Rodrigo is headlining on the Sunday night and people are not happy, they don't think that's the quality that we should have at

a Glastonbury. Which people are, I mean certain generations are not happy is what I'd say because I think it's more relevant in lots of ways and more kind of of the now than many recent years of headliners have been where you're gonna get these kind of big beasts who I'm not including Neil Young in this particularly, I should say. Have you heard of him? Do you know him? He's very good. I hear he's young. In lots of ways it's much younger and more and these they're very very successful artists. But also forget the headliners it's all about all the other and there's some amazing acts playing and as you say that actually when you talk about social media, really it's Twitter and Twitter is always all the only good act There is Neil Young and then people go no look super grass are playing Franz Ferdinand are playing the libertines are playing you think

All of these bands are really really old and there's some amazing people on this line I mean Olivia Rodrigo for a start will be an incredible act on Sunday night. If people, again, if people don't know her, great pop tunes with, you know, rock guitars. I mean, she's just awesome and will absolutely fill that field like crazy. But, you know, you look at on the rest of the bill, there's endless amazing bands out, Amel and the Sniffers. If you like, you know, the Supergrasses and stuff of this world, Amel and the Sniffers, you'll love, Australian punk band Ezra Collective are playing who won the Brit for best band a couple of weeks ago and they're essentially like a South London jazz band. The first jazz band ever to win the Mercury Award, well they're jazz and they're Afrobeat and they're a bit hip

hop or something like that. That's a genuinely great band. If you want to say this is a mediocre line up and there are no bands, there are so many good bands, Ezra Collective being very high up on that list, kneecap, the Irish rap band, incredible. From start to bottom, it is amazing. And you know, if you haven't heard of them, genuinely at this point it's on you, it is not on them. I hate to begin a gambit with Come My Revolution, Richard,

because as you know, I'll be very busy Come My Revolution. Oh my God, it's gonna be crazy. I'll be going, I'm trying to get through to Marina, and she is constantly on Out of Office. She's just putting people up against the wall. Okay, I'll tell you who's my lawful prey. Anyone who goes onto the internet in any context and types the word who? Question mark. They are my lawful prey. So when the glass and rehab don't like to come out, so many people type in who. Okay, sorry.

There's two possibilities here. One that you literally don't know who they are, in which case, we're on the internet right now. So would you mind typing it into Google as opposed to recording, you know, by asking the question, you're clearly interested. You go, oh, this, this sounds interesting. I wonder who that person is. I shall find out. And second of all, you only ever see this happen with like musicians or actors or whatever. I tell you what, you never see this happen is in sport. No one ever says read a football report and writes underneath it about Cole Palmer who? Because I tell you why. I think

it's because they think that other men, because I have to say that I have a view on who's typing who question mark quite often. And I just think it is, I think that's quite a gender divide. It's quite gendered. Yeah. They think that other men will think less of them for not I just think it is, I think that's quite a gender divide. It's quite gendered. Yeah. They think that other men will think less of them for not knowing who Cole Palmer is, even though they actually, whether they do or don't know, they definitely, people say it about Kim Kardashian all the time, sorry who? Oh, I'm so sorry, she's a very significant cultural figure, like it or not. And if you don't know who she is, then as

you say, that's on you. Yes. If you want to ask who, either you're interested in which case look it up or you're trying to make yourself sound clever. You're trying to make it go, well me, I actually am interested in different things to that and I'm not interested in that person. And always, just in case you're someone, I suspect no one who listens to the podcast ever does it. But if you do do it, you are absolutely showing yourself up as the worst sort of Dalhade.

I think you could potentially make it funny if it was someone in the cabinet. Yes. If it's the Chancellor or something you're like, who? And also whenever someone comes... Perhaps you're making a political comment now. I don't know, I'm trying to work out whether that could be funny. I'm not saying it definitely could, but it cannot be if it is about an actress or a musician or anything like that. The only time it's funny is at a football match when the opposition brings on a player.

So the opposition brings on like Carlos Tevez and you go, who? Yeah. And that's funny. That's funny, but that's making a joke with other people who realize, of course you know who it is. But yeah, so lots of people not knowing these bands, but genuinely it is such an amazing lineup. Rod Stewart is playing the Legends slot.

£378.50 it costs to go there. 210,000 tickets they're selling. The first ever one was a pound and you got free milk with that. It's 378 pound 50 and you don't know who's playing. That's the interesting thing. But the reason is because it's Glastonbury. It sort of doesn't matter. They're not going to book idiots. If you are interested in music at all, if you have a soul at all, which a lot of these people who say, oh, they're so bland, it's so mediocre. Like you're saying to me, oh, I'm really interested in music. I'm an Eastleat who understands music, oh, they're so bland, it's so mediocre. Like you're saying to me, oh, I'm really interested in music.

I'm an Eastleet who understands music, really, really gets it, understands what mediocrity means in music. If you are going down that list and there is nothing there that even vaguely makes you interested or even vaguely makes you think, oh, I wonder what that's like, then you do not know about music.

You made a very significant mistake. Well, by the way, as always, you're allowed to have that opinion but don't tell other people because it makes you look so dumb. You know, don't tell people that you think that 99% of this of the lineup of Glesby on that poster are mediocrities because they're just not. They're relevant and they're big now. I actually slightly feel like they've made a, in terms of choosing those headliners, they've sort of left out a Gen X band really, because they've thought, or artists particularly,

because I think that they just want to sudden, I feel like it's a real sort of push for youth, which I think is good. Well, and yeah, you go, the deeper down you go, so Gracie Abrams and Lola Young are both playing, and they've been monopolising the number one slot on the charts all this year until Kendrick Lamar took over. And they both have very interesting lineages, Gracie Abrams and Lola Young. So Lola Young's the one who did Messi and again, if you think there's no good music in the charts, you are...

You're not listening to the charts. I'm so sorry, you're incorrect. I mean, it's all right to be bored with music and to go back to what we liked, we all do that, but to say there is no good music, there's loads. But Gracie Abrams, of course, is the daughter of J.J. Abrams, the film director, very famously. But Lola Young, less famously, is the great niece of the author of The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson. What do you think about that? No, I did not know that. Yeah, do you like? I really like that fact.

Isn't that cool? Who? Gruffalo, who? Yeah, never heard of the Gruff Gruffalo. Sorry next they don't write good kids books anymore in a blight and is the only good author There's ever been for kids, but yeah, that's cool. Isn't it? So they're both playing this There's a rumor that Chapel Rowan will be playing we don't know that for sure But you know Neil Young got over his worry that was all corporate. Yes. He pulled out He he revealed accidentally that he was playing by saying I'm putting out because it's run and controlled by the BBC. By the state broadcast yeah. And then two days later he went I'm afraid I've been misinformed

and and I shall be playing Glastonbury. Can we speak about the 1975? Yes. You know first by the way the 1975 are so successful. Yes. Like people. Stealth huge. Yeah stealth huge and because they're massive in America. They've actually been on a touring hiatus for about a year and a half. But they toured a huge amount. Because they've got to spend their money. They toured a huge amount. Matty Healy, obviously he had a relationship with Taylor Swift and is immortalised in various

torture poets. Although more importantly he is the son of Denise Welsh from Loose Woman and Tim Healy from Alfie de Zayn-Pet. Yeah, I realise you were going to correct me. That's the answer to his who. It's funny because although they're very successful and they're huge and the lyrics are really good and they do turn them on themselves and they're sort of sharp-tongued and whatever, there is also something faintly ridiculous about 1975 at the same time. I don't know if that's a sort of Britishish sort of thing. You know what I mean? This is no sort of...

They are. As I say, that thing of being stealth huge is very, very interesting. It's like SZA last year, where you were either absolutely love these acts or you have not heard of them. They've kind of left you cold. And the 1975 is sort of that, but for rock music. Like art, pop. I mean, they're a bit of everything aren't they? Yes they are actually. And I do actually think by the way they have, they clearly love touring and anyway but they went on a sort of indefinite hiatus. I think they will put on a massive show and people who don't really know about that, I

think they'll do something quite visually, I think they'll go all out for it. And I think that it will be interesting and lots more people will be like, oh, okay, I see. 100%. And also the people who book Glastonbury, they are not idiots. They're thinking, who is absolutely going to make this go off? And if you've seen 1975 Live, they are very good live. They'll be great.

And there's a huge amount of people who absolutely love them. There's lots of people who think they're the voice of a generation. As they say, there is also a slightly ridiculous element to them, but Do you know where their name comes from? I think it can all exist within the 1975. Do you know where their name comes from, by the way? Yes, I do. Which I think is really cute.

It was, Mati Healy had a textbook and, no, it was like a copy of some book, I think. On the road. Jack Kerouac, yeah. And the person who had owned it before had written the date at the front and it was like 1st of July the 1975 and in his head he'd always remembered that someone had written the 1975 instead of just 1975 and he thought well that's the perfect name for a band which actually it is. They have actually been doing this for about 20 years now maybe a bit more. They used to be called the 1955. This is kind of squally in the radio one six music or in terms of headliners. I think it's great and

also Gastonbury is not about the headliners, Gastonbury is about the whole thing. I did though look back to see if I could find the best lineup of headliners and the worst lineup of headliners in Gastonbury history. It's interesting, 1995, so we go back 30 years to 1995 and this was really the first time, so 1994 the headliners were the Levellers, Peter Gabriel and the Pretenders. So you're the headliners were the levelers, Peter Gabriel and the pretenders. So you're going to have a good time, but you know, but you sort of know what you're getting. 1995, it was the Cure, Pulp and Oasis. And that's when Glastonbury, I think really got an absolute rocket under it. You know, from then on in fact, the next

Glastonbury was the Prodigy, Ash and Radiohead. So, but I think maybe, maybe Pulp Oasis and The Cure was one of the greatest ones, but I think the biggest selling headliner acts ever was 2011. So 2011, the three headliner acts, U2, Coldplay, Beyonce. That's a lot of records, isn't it? Yeah. And I don't want to say what's the worst one ever, but I just want to go back to 1992 and just say this is what glassamy more like how glassamy used to be. Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, who I love, Shakespeare's Sister and The Shaman. And those were your three headliners. There you go. You know?

And I think the 1975 Neil Young and Olivia Rodrigo can match that. I do love Carter the unstoppable sex machine though. I think they might be back. What this year? No, no, no, but just in general. There's a load of bad stuff. 1995 Supergrass played, they're playing again now. 1997 Prodigy played, they're playing again now.

Listen, there's something for everybody. There's something for everyone. But loads of good acts. So honestly, you should check Ezra Collective if you don't know them. You should check them out. Amel and the Sniffers I think are great, Knee Cap are amazing, The Big Moon are amazing, loads and loads of great bands but loads of cool young pop acts as well Miles Smith is playing who's amazing, Self Esteem is playing, it's like it's an absolute festival and if anyone tells you otherwise they don't like music. Enough about the 1975, who are going to put on a great show, I think.

And to someone who has tried to put on a great show, Megan, with Love Megan is now out. Now we spoke about the show when we were just excitedly looking forward to it. It has now dropped. Everyone who's going to watch it has watched it. Most of the people, their opinions have not been completely positive. I would say you've watched the whole thing. I couldn't get through the whole thing. And I just wanted, we very rarely talk about the same thing twice. I just, I really wanted to hear your opinion on the whole of the episode and what on earth happens next for Megan for this project. What

happens with Netflix? I couldn't make it through all of it. I have to say I watched the first bit where they're looking after bees and she says, how long do bees live live and they said between four and six weeks. And I thought, well, I mean, that's how long a Netflix series lasts as well. Well, yes. I mean, I suppose my overwhelming feeling with this about it was we said before what she was trying to do. She's trying to develop a new persona because the previous persona was victim of the royal family and the British tabloids, fine. It's quite hard to go from victim to guru unless you're becoming a sort of anti-royal family and British tabloid guru, which she's not. She's trying to become a lifestyle guru. You could probably pull off that sort of a turn in wrestling if the WWE people were writing your plot lines for

you. She hasn't pulled it off here. The show is sort of impossibly trite. The house it's in is not her house I mean that this is right from the very beginning Sounds coming over obviously he's coming over to the house, but I'm gonna make the things for him here I think they're not then I've on it genuinely and this is just from a TV producer point of view I have completely lost interest. There's no point you being in a house You might as well just be in a lab somewhere. There's no point you being in a house if it is not your house. Well, her house is too big, unfortunately. And also security things. So I get it. So you know, by and large, you don't film in

people's houses. But if the whole show is my friends are coming over, I'm making for them, you know, I love entertaining somebody. It is fatally flawed. You should not get past a first meeting for a TV show if you're saying, oh, the whole thing is about hospitality and the whole thing is about, I love to cook for people and I love to have guests over to my house, but it is not in my house. There's so much process talk and then later I'm going to carry these over to the house where he'll be staying and then he'll put them in the room, which you don't see because it can't be going.

And tomorrow I'll bring him over here. And then I'll bring him back down to the fake house where you know I'm gonna make some pasta with him. It's sort of ridiculous. I have to say that she and them, but she particularly knows that it was always on the point of seeming ridiculous because it's very kind of one percent of the one percent. Yeah. She lives in the most rarefied sort of billionaire's communities in the whole of America. And it looks beautiful. The fake house looks beautiful. I assume it must be near her real house. I assume quite near, although you know I think everybody's got a long driveway, let's put it that way. She's sort of going off and buying hundreds of dollars of flowers and

then saying, oh, it's the little things that count. That's all sort of absurd, really. Anyone who sort of criticizes Gwyneth Paltrow for her kind of rarefied, kind of mega rich lifestyle stuff should surely offer the same thing to this because to me it felt particularly like it felt like the past it felt like a cultural relic I really feel that this sort of it first of all it does it did seem to fulfill that brief initially that you know that Netflix say they want TV that's just on it honestly felt like just something that it was wallpaper in the background because there's nothing you don't get it it's not like Martha Stewart where she shows you in the right quantities how you're making this thing. You can find it later and then you know, it's not one of those descriptive lifestyles.

There's just an occasional voice off camera saying and then what would you do? Yeah. Oh and have you got a lot of those? And that seems to be it. She's quite a good presence by the way. No, I thought she was not a good advocate. No, I think she was very restricted because I think she fears what people will say and so she's very very bad at that. Absolutely, but if I were a producer I'd be thinking this person could work on TV. If I give this person a format or a show absolutely would be great, but as you say she's trying to be herself whilst also not being allowed to be herself really. And not revealing herself.

Being a version of herself, so it's impossible for her, but there's a great show in her, I'm sure of that, but I suspect this is not it. Oh, you see, I don't think there is at all. I think we've seen her great show, I'm sure. And that was the documentary about their leaving the royal family, all of that. That was good because even though this show has, as I say, I've written a column about it, so many people have written about it. People wrote about it in advance and it was kind of hugely covered. But the controversy is not within the show and therefore doesn't translate into ratings. And I would love to

talk to you about the ratings because we don't know the ratings until Netflix do their data dump in six months time. But I can tell you that it so briefly got it to number six in the UK Netflix chart. Just that morning when every single person was writing about it and people wanted to have a look at it, clearly nobody stayed with it and it immediately dropped out. It was dropped out by the afternoon, by the way. Delighted to see, by the way, that Toxic Town is very much number one in the UK. Toxic Town is so number one. It's like number two in America, by the way.

Yeah, that's incredible. And then on the US Netflix chart, it's got nowhere near, it's not in the top 10. So it is not in any way a rating success. I mean, we talked last week about very, very little in that top hundred streaming shows are anything outside of dramas or scripted or a few sort of like proper documentaries. There aren't a lifestyley type shows there. There's reality type shows, but this sort of show would be unusual if it was in the top hundred. But if you spend that sort of money on it and shows, but this sort of show would be unusual if it was in the top hundred.

But if you spend that sort of money on it and have someone with that sort of profile, then that's the gamble you're taking. You're trying to parachute something into that top hundred and trying to parachute a new genre of television into that top hundred. It doesn't feel like it's going to parachute either the genre or the presenter anywhere into the top of the ratings. It just feels like Instagram. As I said before, it looks like Instagram when I'd only seen the trailer. Now I top of the ratings. I tell you what, it just feels like Instagram. As I said before, it looks like Instagram

when I'd only seen the trailer. Now I've seen the show. This is honestly like watching somebody's reels or someone doing a little display of how to make this or that. I hate the way they talk always. It's that kind of holy language or everything. You're honoring something, everything's a ritual, we're always blessed, you know, it's incredibly explicit religious language. But really what they're trying to do is make you get involved in retail. They say, you know Netflix are doing these pop-up stores, there's this whole kind of real, I mean, farm to table nonsense and she's saying I'm going to have my products in the shops or whatever. It's like, where are the shops? They're in Dallas. Jason Vale Right.

Anna Chalmers So yeah, that's traveling quite a way. And a town called King of Prussia in Pennsylvania. Oh, I drove past it on my American book tour and I said to my driver, why is that called the King of Prussia? And he said it was named after an inn that was called the King of Prussia. Well, there's going to be a net, the first two Netflix stores that are sort of going to be permanent rather than pop-ups. They've done a pop-up in Vegas and I can't remember where else are going to be in Dallas and King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. He's got the biggest mall in America pretty much. Well that's where you're going to be able to get jam and bath salts made by Megan.

Lavender honey. She's making bath salts in the first episode and it's really an industrial process. Yeah. She's got, we just take some magnesium flakes. You go, oh yeah, I'll just, hold on a minute. Let me look. Where are my magnesium flakes? Where'd I put the magnesium flakes? Oh, in the top cupboard, let me get those down. And then sort of mixes, it's really rarefied. Well, it's an interesting lesson,

I suppose to sort of summarize, I would say it's an interesting lesson into how controversy doesn't always translate into rating success unless it's part of the program itself. It was absolutely intrinsic to the Harry and Meghan documentary because they were talking about all the things that had gone wrong. And so it was folded into the format itself.

If you were Harry and Meghan, how would you make money? Now, I think, well, that's what my next question is, because I can tell, okay, first of all, there's not going to be sort of a severing with Netflix. They're not going to renew, but they might say we're continuing to develop projects with them. You know, I can't remember which book they bought, maybe it was successful, that she's going to maybe produce it to make it a film. I have to say, and this is the reality, is that a lot of people are hanging around in case there's a divorce, because then they will definitely, and that might be Netflix or whoever it might be who's got to deal with them might keep a vague hand in.

That might be the bleakest thing I've ever heard. I'm sorry to say but it is. I've heard some bleak things on this podcast. I mean we were talking about Lenny Riefenstahl only minutes ago. I know. And now look at us in the abyss. Yeah well that is the abyss. And the abyss is staring back.

Yes it's difficult to know now. I mean they got a big chunk. Don't forget they got £20 million from Spotify for that archetypes podcast which nobody listened to and was just like, I don't know how many, there was something like 12 or maximum 20 episodes. Say I was Ryan Murphy who we talked about on our last bonus episodes. If I was Ryan Murphy, right, Megan is an actress. I know. Caster in something.

This is what I always say. And if I was Megan, take a job in something, like a really, like you could pretty much name your price and project for the first thing you go back into acting for if you're Megan. It's what she does, it's what she was known for, she's good at it, do that. I would have married him, got the two kids. You would have married him. Got divorced. Yes. Then ran back to Hollywood to be Julia Roberts for my 40s, but she's not followed that plan. not followed that plan so Wow, even though you told her? Yeah, even though I shouted it through our letterbox. Wrong house though, wrong house. No, wrong house, just a little house. I think there will be a third act but I'm not sure. Don't say they're gonna get divorced

again because I can't handle the death of love I'm sorry. I haven't said that Richard I think there will be a third act but I don't think it will be it won't think it will be, it won't be with one of these ventures which they control, which they think, you know, I am now a lifestyle guru, I am now, I sit on the board of various companies, I'm a thought leader. It won't be that. You can be useful to other people but yeah, you don't always have to be the boss. Any recommendations? Or you've given us a wonderful recommendation already. The Norma Percy, Road To The 7th of October is absolutely brilliant. That's on iPlayer. I want to recommend, I thought I already had, but I haven't, Amanda Land, which is just an absolute classic modern British sitcom. Spinoff from Motherland, very very funny. Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley as her mum.

And as with Motherland, just great supporting cast as well. But just great jokes, great plot, great jokes and one of those things you know every couple of years we get just get a classic new British sitcom and Amanda Land is definitely that. And we are going to do two more episodes this week. We will do our questions and answers episode and also a bonus episode where you are going to talk to us about something very exciting. Well you say something very exciting. No I'm assuming I are going to talk to us about something very exciting. Well, you say something very exciting. Now, I'm simply I'm going to recommend the three greatest short books of all time. I love a short book.

I'm going to talk about some of the classic short books in history. But then I'm going to give you my recommendations. The top three short books of all time. You can read all three of them in the time it would take you to read one normal book. One normal book. You know, normal books. That is on Friday. And if you want to join our club and get early access, access to the

Discord and ad-free listening, of course, you can sign up at therestisentertainment.com. Other than that, we will see you all on Thursday. See you on Thursday, everyone. This episode was presented by Sky, proud partners of The Rest is Entertainment. Sky has a huge 2025 planned and they're excited to share their unrivaled range of entertainment which has never been easier to discover. And there is no better way to enjoy their selection of new shows and films than by using Sky TV. Sky OS powers the Sky TV experience and it lets you control your Sky TV with your voice so you can find your favourite shows and movies from Sky and the other apps without

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