The Rest Is Entertainment - The Real Life Gossip Girl: UNMASKED

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

Who is the secret influencer behind the nation's most vile hate website? Has Rachel Zegler saved her career with her West End performance of Evita? How did DAZN secure the rights to the Club World Cup, and is it all legit? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde peel back curtain of the murky world of Tattlelife, the toxic gossip website dedicated to tearing down z-list influencers - its owner has finally been exposed and it may surprise you. Jamie Lloyd is reinventing theatre once again with his controversial take on the Rice & Webber classic 'Evita'. Does Rachel Zegler's balcony performance live up to the hype? Finally, we explore the complicated broadcast relationship between FIFA, Saudi Arabia and DAZN. Do football fans even matter in the 21st century? Recommendations: Barry Diller - Who Knew (read) / The Gold (iPlayer) The Rest Is Entertainment AAA Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to our Q&A episodes, ad-free listening, access to our exclusive newsletter archive, discount book prices on selected titles with our partners at Coles, early ticket access to future live events, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestisentertainment.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestisentertainment. The Rest Is Entertainment is proudly presented by Sky. Sky is home to award-winning shows such as The White Lotus, Gangs of London and The Last of Us. Visit Sky.com to find out more For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Assistant Producer: Aaliyah Akude Video Editor: Kieron Leslie, Charlie Rodwell, Adam Thornton, Harry Swan Producer: Joey McCarthy Senior Producer: Neil Fearn Head of Content: Tom Whiter Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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or go to volvocars.ca for full details. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hi, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm really well. Have you had a nice week?

I've had a lovely week. It's been, it was too hot last week. Yeah, it was, I mean, I actually, there I say I like it, but there were moments of... I don't want to turn this into the rest is weather. No, no, there were moments where I have access, surely. I'm heading up to Manchester this week and looking forward to it because not only is it Manchester, which is a bit cooler anyway, I will be indoors most of the time.

Now what are we going to talk about this week? You're going to give me an education in Tattle Life, this scurrilous website that seems to exist only to slag people off and the person behind it was exposed this week, so I'd love to hear all about him and his motives and his income. We will talk about him. We're also going to talk about Dazone. Dazone. You write it D-A-Z-N, Dazen. But this is the broadcaster by which you can watch the scintillating competition, the Club World Cup, taking place in the United States of

America. And it's very interesting why you can watch it on Dazen. It's very interesting why you can watch it. Also, you last week, I know, went through an entertainment epiphany. You went to see something that you thought was so extraordinary that we have to talk about it. It leads us into a broader discussion, but our final item will be about a thing that… It happened to me last night, so yes. It happened to you last night, so we will be talking about that. Shall we begin with

Tatl Life? Tatl Life, yes. Now, Tatl Life is, if you don't know what Tatl Life is, you know, put your rubber gloves on now. It is a website that essentially comprises a selection of threads that you can talk about. Mainly influences YouTubers, YouTube families, bloggers, that type of celebrity, but having said that, that also has masses of traditional celebrities as well. Are they sort of lumping those people together as the undeserving famous? Is that the vibe? Well, I think everyone now in our era is undeservingly famous.

I think that's a mood of the age for definite. It is self-described, Tattle Life, as a commentary website on public business social media accounts. By the way, it also says it has a zero tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful, or harmful. So yeah, they say a lot of things. They say lots of things, Richard. I saw they said they had 1200 times more content moderators than Facebook have. And you think that's just like they got a guy who does that, who isn't that fussed about it. It's full of people's home addresses, pictures of their houses, places where they've been,

places where they actually are in real time. Caroline Hirons, the skincare influencer, says there's pictures of her grandchildren on there. I should say that they have absolutely, as far as we know, huge numbers. There's different ways that you measure all of these things. So there's slight caveats with all of these figures, but they have around 11.5, 12 million monthly visitors. Now, to put that in perspective, that is much more than say GB News. It's bigger than the Times and the Sunday Times website, okay? And it's lots of these threads that are happening all the time. It is extraordinarily sort of vicious. And it's in the news at the moment because it has been run for many years by someone

called Helen McGregor. Helen McDougall. Helen McDougall, forgive me. Helen McDougall has been running this. And there have long been discussions about who Helen McDougall might be because she seemed impossible to track down. And an Irish influencer couple took title life to court. And as part of that, Helen McDougall's identity was disclosed. And we will come to who Helen McDougall is, a man, would you believe? Spoiler, it is not Helen McDougall's identity was disclosed. And we will come to who Helen McDougall is. A man, would you believe?

Spoiler, it is not Helen McDougall. It's not Helen McDougall. It's a man called Sebastian Bond, a 41-year-old person who I think grew up in England, may now be in Thailand, we don't know. Let's go back a tiny little bit in the story and talk about how this person was exposed. And as you say, it was in the High Court of Northern Ireland, a couple, they're called Neil and Donna Sands. She's got a clothing line, he's got various, I mean, small businesses. And she was alerted to the existence of the site, Tatalife, when

one of her friends rang her and said, oh, the young people at my work are laughing about you and stuff that's been written about you on this website where she discovered a 45 page thread. To be quite clear, she's got a small clothing business. And anyway, it went on and it got worse and worse. They did that thing where they tried to, they made it very clear that they were having a bad time. So they wrote in to Tattoo Life. Oh, they tried to do it. I know it's not Swap Shop. They sent letters saying, please desist. This is not true. This is causing us harm.

And it remained and it became more and more intense. They sent letters saying, please, desist, this is not true, this is causing us harm. And it remained and it became more and more intense. You know, there were people saying reporting must have sat next to them in restaurants and reported their conversations, all sorts of things like that. And by the way, just to be on Tatalife, anyone can read this stuff. You have to become a member and then you have an anonymous account. But because it's open and anyone can read them, these threads appear very high on Google searches. So people feel that their mental health, if they read it and care about it, which most people do read and care about these things, and their mental health has been destroyed.

But in many cases, their businesses have been destroyed. And they decided, I mean, it will have been against the advice this, if you know anything about defamation law, it's just really difficult. And they will have been advised not to sue. However, Neil and Donna Sands decided that they were going to sue and they sued for harassment and defamation. And they actually won. They actually won not quite two years ago. But this week week the Northern Ireland High Court lifted various reporting restrictions and different orders that had been protecting it and revealed that Sebastian Bond is the owner of this site. And it's really interesting how they tracked it down. They got some kind of data investigators as well as they also

used other influencers and they did what the site does. The site is almost the methodology of the site, if I site is almost the methodology of the site, if I can put it like that, is looking at the stuff that people post and saying, oh, there's a disconnect here. Finding inconsistencies. What people are always saying in this age that supposedly prizes authenticity above everything is, we talked about this a little bit when we were talking about the Beckham family feud, you're mis-selling yourself. You are selling us a lie. But the

way these people talk about it, what's interesting in the wake of this, and I'm actually going to come further to this in a minute, but I don't think they would even realize how deranged it is. It's like, you're talking about this like it's Enron. What, someone forgot to say that something was sponsored? Or maybe didn't forget. Maybe an influencer didn't say that something that they were doing was sponsored. But I mean, so what? Maybe today they're saying, I worry about my child's mental health. And you go, yeah, but last week you were saying that your child was using these Duplo bricks. Yeah.

Yeah, because I'm a human being. I have inconsistencies in my life. Yeah, and what they do is that they track you down and they see you said this, you said that. In the background of your image is this, but you must have moved house since you were doing that. Or maybe you don't even use your own kitchen in this, or maybe it's a fake kitchen or whatever it is. I have to say, most ordinary people have never heard of. If maybe you're obsessed with mommy bloggers and you follow lots of them, then maybe you'll

know who these people are. There are also lots on someone like Stacey Solomon. Katie Price, she said that the stuff about her son Harvey who has many disabilities is absolutely grotesque and disgusting. She cannot take it down. It's very, very difficult. And many people say their home address has been revealed. And it's really interesting because it's such a sewer in a way. But I honestly, because of this judgment that Neil Sands has said, one half of this couple, the usernames of everyone who has attacked us on this website are listed on the court order and we are going to take action against all of them.

Oh, that's fun. So I mean, this isn't necessarily the end of it. And by the way, obviously, anytime there's a legal judgment like this, it forms a precedent and all sorts of other people think, well, hang on, the Sands rightly won compensation. They won 300,000 pounds and costs as well, which takes it to about 2 million on current estimate. So other people think, you know, this has made my life hell. Why would, if you were Caroline Hirons, if you were Katie Price, if you were Stacey Solomon, why would you not think, well, I'm going to go after them? And it seems fair enough, and I know people say the law's got other stuff to do, but if

someone was to say that to you on television, you would go and sue them in a heartbeat. And it's not saying fair comment, it's not saying I don't like this person or I find this person's motive suspect. But if you're making a direct allegation, which is provably untrue in public, then why would you not take that person to court? No. And I mean, when I write a column in which you could be perfectly quite rude about someone, everything has to be based on facts, has to be defensible in court and cannot be libelous. And if it is, I will get sued for it. I'd love to see the first drafts of some of your columns, by the way, before the lawyers. No, you must know by now what you can and can't say. Can I ask you

one question about Sebastian Bond? So we have this site, which is all about essentially undermining influences and saying that influences are the worst people in the world. Can I ask you, and listen, viewers may be ahead of us here, what does Sebastian Bond do for a living? Richard, he's a vegan influencer. Is he? I didn't expect that answer. I don't know what that is, my darlings.

But what is a vegan? He's done a cookbook under a different name, another different name, Bastian Derwood, a vegan cookbook, I believe. I mean, there is obviously an irony in that Tatalife has defended their business model on various occasions prior to this saying that the influencers who monetize their personal lives should be open to scrutiny as it's a totally unregulated industry. I mean so are gossip websites to some extent. But it's interesting, the disconnect between how Helen McDougall has presented themselves or maybe Bastian Derwood, vegan cookery influence, I mean, what is that, has presented themselves. It's a hell of a pseudonym.

Yeah, it is. I mean, it's quite eye-catching. So there should be lots and lots of threads on Tattle Life about him slash Helen McDougall. There aren't, no. Really? I've had it. Well, not that I could find. There's certainly not up there with the sort of five tons of information that's pushed out every day. That's weird because that's a perfect example of an imprimatur being something that they're

pretending not to be. You think that would be perfect fodder. There is that expression, no snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche. And I just think people just simply, such a sort of deranged herd mentality now on lots of these sites that people just think you're lying to us. They have got the lie, if it is one, or even the sort of poetic license or whatever it is, so completely out of proportion. As I say, you'd think this was genuinely Enron. You'd think it was a huge financial scandal. It's really not. Well, there's something about that parasocial relationship, isn't there? Yeah.

In that we all sort of understand when we see a movie star, when we see Tom Hanks, when we see anybody, that his life in private is probably slightly different to what he projects. Because he has to, because he's a human being, goes to do his job, he's got his family life, you have to present a certain side of yourself. We can usually tell if that side is entirely different to who they are as a human being. Tom Hanks, you figure, is probably Tom Hanks when he's at home, but a little bit different. That's how you get to be Tom Hanks. Exactly. But we, because we see them on a big screen, we pay money to go see them. There's a bit where we go, I understand that business model. We can have fun discussions about, you know,

whether that image is real or not, but that's where that ends. In the age of parasocial relationships, which is, I am an influencer, I'm gonna bring you into my life, I'm gonna have conversations with you, it's like a friend is letting you down. So Tom Hanks, it's like someone else's friend in another town has done something, so you can have a good gossip about it, but not worry. But this is like a mate of yours is lying to you.

And so you get into that mindset where you think, well, I'm not gonna have this. In the same way that when you're at school, which is what it reminds me of more than anything in the world, you're like, someone did something, your place in the pecking order is slightly in danger because of that person. So you try and bring them down and just like a whole website devoted to minor playground squabbles. Yeah.

And what they describe, you hear these phrases like doing God's work, a valuable public service. I mean, imagine if this much energy, you sometimes see people have posted, I mean, hundreds of times in a day. Imagine if you're putting this much energy into actual public service. Maybe we'd have economic growth, Richard. Maybe we'd have economic growth. What it reminds me of nothing more than those incredible investigative agencies who track

down war criminals, because they will see a shot of them on a grainy video and there'll be like a church spire in the background or there'll be a piece of graffiti. Yeah, I know. And they'll spend like a month working out exactly where that person is, which is doing God's work. You can't be the Simon Wiesenthal of Molly Mae Haig. I mean, you just can't be, okay? There is no world in which this matters in any possible way I mean listen it's a head of a catchphrase I mean it's my new twitter biography yeah it's all

predicated on the fact that all of celebrity in the modern era all of it yeah is a business decision probably a grift yes and that exposing it pertains so specifically to this age and not even, I would say, 10 years ago. This is such a thing of now, this idea that these people must be hunted down and exposed and it must happen all day long. And I think that genuinely, if they do start going after individual users, by the way, I mean, they would have been told not to see the site in the first place. It's interesting to see from a legal point of view where they'd get with individual users. But saying we're coming for all of you.

Listen, it's, you know, oh no, it's the consequences of my actions. Oh no, yeah, there is a neatness to this. There is a neatness. Now, the interesting thing about this is, I think, I mean, there's lots of interesting things about it, but the fact that all these accounts are anonymized and what that does to our culture. You can see that on Twitter as well, where you can be as anonymous as you want, and the bravery that gives certain groups of people, and the strength in numbers that gives certain groups of people. And I think one of the really interesting things

in the recent, even in the last six months or so, is the huge, huge rise of LinkedIn. Now, a year ago, if you talked about LinkedIn, I go, oh yeah, that's where marketing PRs talk to other marketing PRs, people get jobs and I absolutely understand It was a total joke. It really what it had become having been there all along Yeah, I'm being along as the joke social network a super lucrative It is now now seems to be the place mainly because it is not anonymized It seems to be the place where people have gravitated to everyone said I will be threads that we blue sky to be mastodon Yeah, remember mastodon

But actually LinkedIn seems to place where a lot of journalists, a lot of PR professionals, people who actually want to read interesting things about interesting things have gone to. With the author's name attached. With the author's name attached. You sort of can fake who you are on LinkedIn, but it's much, much harder. You have to at least have a phone number and email address, which are trackable. Businesses get actually verified. You're not paying $8 to be verified. If you have a verified thing, you know you're talking to the real person.

I'm not a LinkedIn member myself. No, I'm not. But I'm sort of tempted to dip in now. Every time you look at an article that's on LinkedIn, you go, oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, I know. I agree with you. I have seen lots of interesting things. Professionals in their fields telling you something about their fields and then the

comments being from other professionals in their fields also talking about that. The Times did it with their comment section, which the Times not that long ago said everyone who wants to comment must say their actual name. And I read like absolutely tons of newspaper comments. That explains a lot about your personality. I'm obsessed with Mail Online comments and read huge amounts. Actually it was quite interesting this week because they ran quite a lot of articles on Tatalife Mail Online.

What did the Mail Online commenters take on it? Well they said, don't be stupid. The stories run by Mail Online are like, this place is completely other, it's a sewer, it's revolting and you know, this place is completely other, it's a sewer, it's revolting and this guy's been exposed. People in the comments below were saying, oh well, it's not anything worse than you'd see on the comments on this website and also I think it's valuable and MailOnline is just trying to distance itself.

When everyone was saying nothing ever will happen with reform, nothing will ever will happen with them. Because I spent so much time reading mail online comments. This is a few years ago. I could see just how often the simple comment in a result to any story was simply reform or I will be voting reform. And this is when they were like right down on, I don't know, two or 3%. And no one said, and they said, even if they get up to whatever it is, first-person post makes this or that impossible. But I remember thinking, oh no, something has really happened because it's always, they're saying the one word response to any type, lots of different types of story was this. So I felt like, and it's also a window into people who aren't sort of, you know, people like me, chattering

liberal twatterati. The Simon Wiesenthal of Molly Mae Haig. Yeah, exactly as my biography is just about to say. Those are still anonymized, those comments. Whereas the Times, people use that real name and you can still find some quite lively views down there in the Times comment section, I would say, but they are argued out and again,

you can of course fake these things, but pretty much against someone's name. Total life is still up and running? No, I think the last couple of days Google have restricted their ads on it which is where you make sites like this make all their money. That's where the money was coming from. It's coming from ads and because they had so many monthly visitors and what have you. That's the key with something like LinkedIn now is you know they're getting an awful lot

of income because it is a safe place to advertise. Twitter's advertising income has gone down an awful lot. LinkedIn has gone up an awful lot. It made $17 billion last year, LinkedIn. It's got 1 billion users, which to me sounds like a few too many, because that's like one in seven people in the whole world. It's a big deal now, but anywhere that there's a safe port of call for advertisers is a good business model. Twitter is interesting because the engagement on Twitter has absolutely fallen off a cliff.

Maybe not for some people, but you know... No, even those people are complaining about being... It's amazing. I follow lots of figures on the kind of wing that American right. And even they complain about being shadow banned. The thing is they'll look at they've got a million followers and you go, most of those are not actual people. Oh, there's so many bots now. It's crazy.

There's so many bots. I thought you were supposed to be able to get rid of those. It's so many bots now and it's just nonsense. Endlessly weird AI versions of the same comment. Nothing to do with anything that anyone has said. It's really odd. It's eating itself. There's that brilliant tool which is you can audit anyone's Twitter account as was, and

it will tell you what percentage of their people are bots. And even for like the top, top, top ones that didn't have many bots, it was like 33% bots. And these days it's just an insane amount. So the engagement is so small now on Twitter, which is a real shame because you can use it for all sorts of interesting things and it is a good way to bring people together, it was a good way to bring people together. But Instagram, the engagement is still right up there, LinkedIn seems to be up there, but Twitter does seem to be falling off a bit of a cliff.

I mean, I still literally only go on it to put my articles on it after I've written them and I don't even really know why I do that, but it's I can't get into the new ones I'll have a look at LinkedIn, but I feel It's just a time suck. Yeah, I wonder if we don't need a social network at all. Yeah, it's almost it's possible It's just possible that they've brought more harm than good Richard. I don't know. I'm working on that It doesn't sound likely. Yeah, I mean that certainly we wouldn't have had the World Cup of crisps without it I would just say that when the history is written I mean that will be an entire chapter. It'll had the World Cup of crisps without it. I would just say that. When the history is written.

I mean, that will be an entire chapter. It'll be the World Cup of crisps versus the rise of fascism. And we will watch this space, right? So Sebastian Bond, as you say, appears to be in Thailand somewhere. Is he? Helen McDougall as was. The advertisers are escaping that ship. But it's just something about the anonymization of people's comments online

and the fact that we talked a bit about it last week with Noel Edmonds, that thing of we didn't used to have all this feedback about the world, we didn't used to have it, you know, we didn't, and obviously it's almost always the noisiest people we hear from, and it turns out that only hearing from the noisiest people in any society is not good for anybody's mental health. But it does to me say so much more about the commenters than the commented upon. The commented upon and just having sort of relatively minor careers in this or that. A deep sociological dive into why people comment.

I always think that if Keir Starmer or the Telegraph or whoever tweets and just you look at the comments beneath and you think he's, mean he's not looking at them is it but you know to me that that thing of also and we've been doing this like 10-15 years now I mean we it's it's the same thing every single day and you're still going to do the comment it hasn't had any effect on your happiness it hasn't had any effect on kiss the armor on the daily a telegraph nothing has changed by you doing that and yet day after day after day, still it comes. I get it though, because again, we're given the illusion of power in this world. That's why there's a celebrities tweet, because they have this illusion that they have a platform.

And you think, I mean, no one's listening to you. They're using their platform, Richard, as I believe. They're using their platform. Yeah. Listen, it's... Just sell me your words and be on your way. Yeah, exactly. Something like that.

I think it's interesting because it's yet to play out and you would really expect many other people to follow with legal action. It'd be great to find out a little bit more about what Sebastian Bond's doing, maybe just on a beach, but let's find out. And I'm really interested in the people who basically work for the site for free and provide all of this content all day long. He was making, someone say maybe half a million a year from this. You know, it's not bad work if you can get it.

I bet that's more than his vegan cookbook. I'm almost certain. I now want to buy the vegan cookbook. Do you? Yeah, I just have to have a look at it. Well, because you think he's going to be struggling for money now. No, you're right. Well, maybe I could just anonymously browse it somewhere.

It's obviously, we should make the note that it has been very, very important in lots of societies to have anonymized accounts. We get that Arab Spring and all these things, but that I don't think is a defense of calling a footwear influencer a bitch. Yeah, I just don't think we can bring the Arab Spring into this particular one. Yeah. Well, listen, we try as we might. But there is legally a good reason why some people would have anonymized

accounts. This doesn't feel like it. And it's not a massive corporate fraud. It really isn't. There are lots of big, really serious frauds on the public going along, but none of these are it. Influences are interesting. We Solve Murders is available now.

It's a great summer read. I do murder some influencers. And people, you know, whenever people talk about it, they go, oh, you know, God, they're a real scourge, aren't they, these talentless people. I make sure in that book as well that I have an influencer who is somebody who would never have got anywhere in the mainstream media and is able to make a living doing something they love because of the world of influencing. And I've often thought that there are people who are able to avoid every single gatekeeper existed in the early 90s when I started, who are able

to talk directly to the public. So I think that the world of influencers has very positive things, but at the same time, I recognize as well that there's a grift, but it wasn't with grifting for the moment we turn up at primary school. But it's really not one of the great frauds. It really isn't. Even if, I mean, it really isn't. Yeah. And on that note, let's go and see what's being influenced in the break, shall we, Richard? That's clever. Clever link. This episode is brought to you by Sky Cinema, the ultimate destination for movie lovers

to enjoy the latest blockbusters, with Paramount Plus included at no extra cost. Now, Anora, this year's best picture winner at the Oscars has just landed on Sky Cinema. If you haven't seen it, it follows a Brooklyn dancer, a Russian oligarch family, and a Cold War with the in-laws. It's sharp, it's stylish, with five Oscars to prove it. Add Twisters and Wild Robot to the mix, and Sky Cinema doesn't just offer films, it premieres them straight to your living room. Paramount Plus, as Marina said, included with your subscription at no extra cost, bringing

you blockbuster movies, new originals and hit shows. The full series of Mobland is available to stream now as well as exclusive blockbusters like Gladiator 2 that's on there. Plus enjoy hit series like Lionesses and Landman, which I love, exclusively on Paramount Plus. One subscription and suddenly you're choosing between Toggers, Turf Wars and Tornadoes. Search Sky Cinema to find out more. Paramount Plus basic with ads included for Sky TV customers with Sky Cinema only. Hello to our lovely Rezzes Entertainment listeners. This is me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello everybody. Now, our two-part deep dive into the chaotic production of Jaws, the first blockbuster, has been a smash hit, a bit like the film itself, and that has been a huge hit with

our club members. Yeah, the response has been incredible. Thank you all so much. Deep dive is an unfortunate thing to say in relation to Jaws, but I know what you mean. It's great to be able to do these deep dives into the entertainment stories that are off the beaten track. We'd have to do topical stuff. We can tell like amazing stories about amazing movies, amazing albums,

amazing characters, amazing stories from the past of show business. It's like the rest of history but you know you get to talk about Noel Edmonds. Okay so here is the thing, just like Universal who were desperate to get their money back with a nationwide release of Jaws, we want all our listeners to experience what our club members have been raving about. Hold on a second, are you saying what I think you're saying, which is for a limited time you can access our Jaws series absolutely free, just by visiting therestisentertainment.com? That is exactly what I'm saying. You have got to be kidding me.

It is the perfect way to discover why our bonus content is so special and why club membership is absolutely worth it. We're going to need a bigger podcast. Join the Rest is Entertainment Club today by visiting therestisentertainment.com. We'll see you there. Welcome back everybody. I think time for a bit of joy now. Where were you last night, Marina? Last night I was outside the London Palladium Theatre where Evita has just opened, but has actually yet to have its formal opening night inside, which stars Rachel Zegler.

And you might well have seen, because it's attracted so much coverage, she comes out and at the start of the second act onto the balcony at the front of the Palladium and sings Don't Cry For Me, Argentina to everyone in the street. And there's a camera following her and people in the auditorium are watching from the camera. And this is, anyway, as I say, it's a new production of Evita, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical and it's directed by Jamie Lloyd who is a sort of very iconoclastic director. He's very interesting. He's a very interesting person.

He's trying to make theatre an awful lot more accessible. Yes, he definitely doesn't come from a traditional theatre background at all himself and he really wants to bring more people into the theatre and he's experimented with this a little bit before in the Romeo and Juliet he did which had Tom Holland in it, Spider-Man. There was some stuff out on the street. They should have called it Spider-Man and Juliet. Yeah, Spider-Man and Juliet. There was stuff on the roof and there were drones filming there.

In his Sunset Boulevard, which is just sort of sweat the Tonys, it's on Broadway now, Joe Gillis, the screenwriter who's played by William Holden in the movie, it starts outside and there's a steady cam shot of him coming, again at the start of the second act, coming all the way up the stairs and onto the stage. So he's experimented with this, but this is sort of, I don't want to say final form because I'm sure it could go many other places.

But there's something so perfect about this because of the story matter of Evita, which is, as you know, which is about Eva Peron, who's the... She was Madonna, right? She was Madonna. She was Madonna, basically. OK, I've got the right story. She's sort of a populist and she was there, as she said, for the Ades Camisados, the shirtless ones, the people with nothing. And it's, I have to say that I wanted to see, because I've seen there's been a lot of coverage

of this. There's so much to say about this particular story. Because it feels, by the way, could just be a stunt. You think, oh, that sounds clever. And you know, we're used to celebrities sort of doing things in public and drawing a crowd and that being shared on Instagram. You think, oh, good for you, that sells tickets. How actually is it as a piece of art? Well, I thought I wanted to go and see it and I just felt I must. It has obviously,

it's immediately become an event. I absolutely loved it. I found it incredibly moving. You're waiting this you're waiting on Argyle Street, which is just by Oxford Circus and There's an everything steakhouse right opposite if you need it if you need it Yeah, they're actually looking up at the street. There's all these you know, all different bits of London are continuing to happen There's there was a drummer playing there's all the noise of Oxford Street bits of London are continuing to happen. There was a drummer playing, there's all the noise of Oxford Street. The blue plaque on the house just a couple of long from the theatre is the guy who started Ordnance Survey. Oh really? Yeah, you'd have loved it. You're sitting there waiting and you're looking around.

Was that Sebastian Bond? No, it was not Sebastian Bond, no. Anyway, so you're waiting there and there's such an expectation and I don't know, it's not for me to over editorialize, but it does feel like it's a crowd of people who would not necessarily be in the theater normally. And I go to the theater a lot, and I sometimes love theater people, and I sometimes hate them,

as in the people who go and the type of crowd. And I'm one of them, so whatever. I get that. But there were all sorts of different kind of people, lots of very young people. Everyone's waiting to catch up with their phones. I do slightly feel like, just have the experience. But anyway, I had the experience.

I completely loved being a part of it. I completely loved it. I will always remember it. It happened last night at about nine, 10. On other nights, it's happened about two minutes past, five minutes past. I don't know, it's the start of the second act. Be there just before nine.

She comes out, there's a long retractable arm of a camera that comes right out to capture her. She comes out and obviously she's got her hair, the sort of, you know, platinum blonde now and all these diamonds. And it is absolutely amazing. First of all, Rachel Zegler, I mean, God, what a trooper, okay? Because she has not, we know she was in the so-called woke Snow White. She's had so much online vitriol and, you know, people have got all sorts of views of her. First of all, I love him to stage it, Jamie Lloyd to staging it like this.

But for her for agreeing to it after in this particular year, you don't know what you're going to get on the street. You do when you've got a nice crowd at the Palladium and I'm sure they've all paid to see you and they want to see you. But you don't know what could happen out on the street. And I mean, to me, it's so sort of courageous after the year, particularly that that start has had. But again, people on the street are not anonymized. You can see them. Yeah. You can look them in the eyes. I mean, they're real human beings right there. Nobody sang along, which I thought might happen.

I didn't know. Maybe they do on other nights. So it's Don't Cry For Me, Argentina. Don't Cry For Me, Argentina, which is the biggest song. Now, she makes it feel, it's incredible. I mean, as I say, it's so in line with the subject matter of the show. She makes it feel like it's all about you. I was millions of people back. There were hundreds and hundreds, many more than a thousand people. show, she makes it feel like it's all about you. I was millions of people back. There

were hundreds and hundreds, many more than a thousand people. Wow. And it's going to become, I think it's going to get even bigger because as I say, and there's a reason this is interesting, the musical has not formally opened yet. What happens with any of these things is that any stage show, as you probably all know, is that things happen in preview and the critics can't come and then there was a formal opening night. Now that isn't till July the 1st. Okay, so that's the press night and that's when they can all write their reviews. That's when you may write. There's an embargo, meaning you can't publish anything before

a certain time or date. Anyway, so I have to say that there's that, do you remember, there's a famous, really famous Kenneth Tynan, who was the theatre critic line from right back from the 1950s when he saw Look Back in Anger. And he said, I doubt if I could ever love anyone who did not want to see Look Back in Anger. And I have to say after seeing it myself last night, I don't think I could ever love anyone who didn't think that this was just totally cool and brilliant. Challenge accepted. So now onto the backlash, which is now the front lash,

because there's been so much negativity about this. And I have to say, I'll tell you why. If we try and unpick it, obviously it's the biggest song in Evita, it's the one everybody knows. And people have said, oh, I'm so sorry, the tickets are so expensive, you're telling me that she doesn't sing it to the people who've paid, just to some random people in the street. All of that negativity has happened and maybe we have some sympathy with that. I have to say that from what I can gather, I have not seen the show inside and if I could perhaps I wouldn't be allowed to say as a member of the press, but it does appear more than once in the show. Oh does it?

Yeah, there's one on the balcony of the Casa Rosada, which is the Perón residence, and once in her final broadcast. So maybe the people, I don't know, I haven't seen the show, so I don't want to say for definite, but I have seen in comments, newspaper comments, some people saying, oh no, I went and it's, you get it twice. Yeah. But the press reaction in general has come across as so negative. I mean, there are lines in these things you just think, oh my god, are we still in this era? You know, there's a huge but coming. But in the times, Mr. Lloyd is to be commended for his innovation. Yeah, but. And it's like, oh my god, do we still talk like this? What happens, of course,

when something like this happens is that people scrape the negative reaction off social media. Users are saying, yes. Saying, I loved it. Fans are saying. this happens is that people scrape the negative reaction off social media. Users are saying, yes. Saying, I loved it. Fans are saying. Fans are saying, people are saying. And I think that a part of that, and I'm wondering whether a part of that, is the sequencing.

Because I can already see the curtain call for this on TikTok. I can see all sorts of stuff from inside the theatre. And as we know, they get very angry about things being filmed in theatre. Or do they? Lots of the productions now effectively invite influencers in and they let them do things like the curtain call, do whatever and that it builds... That infuriates me. I wish there was a site I could snag them off on. Yeah well I mean I'll listen if I find one I'll let you know and then you can start a big thread about it but what we don't have to balance out this supposedly

negative reaction of people saying, oh, this is a gimmick, this is a whatever, is an in-the-round review of all of this from someone who's in the theatre because the critics can't publish their reviews till... Are they filming the audience as well, by the way, when they're doing that? Forgive my ignorance of Evita, but is that song sung to a crowd? Yes, it's sung to a crowd. So that's the crowd. It's the balcony scene.

It's the balcony of the Casa Rosada and she's singing to the people. And her people were... I mean, that sounds perfect. Oh my God, it's so cool. Honestly, and people, the mood was just... There was such a mood of expectation. It was the hottest day of the year so far. And then people at the end, people just erupted.

But they were so silent listening to it. When she'd gone back in, what was the mood like amongst the crowd? Oh my gosh. I mean, people were saying, oh, I wish I could go and see it. By the way, it goes without saying, he's so clever. I mean, I might not have gone and seen Evita, but I now desperately want to go and see it from the inside. It is a huge PR driver. And we've talked before about things that become a life of their own. They're not a stunt. They become written about on all the news pages. And so every day, hundreds of media outlets are basically, this is being written about in America. I saw it in the

Hollywood report in New York Times. Everyone's writing about this thing that is happening outside on the balcony of the London Palladium. It's amazing for Rachel Ziegler as well, because as you say, the last time she was in the public consciousness was for the Snow White movie. and this immediately puts her somewhere back. We see her singing an incredible thing to an adoring crowd every single night. I mean, you couldn't have better pictures. As a flawed, slightly impossible woman. Yeah.

I mean, it is so on every level. It's very, very cool. It feels, from Jamie Lloyd's perspective, it feels like something that's utterly in keeping with the mood of the piece, but also an incredible PR coup. And if I was sitting watching that, I mean, you can go and watch it, Evita, however you want with just someone standing there belting that song out, but you can hear that on a CD. But to go to something that has some point of difference, some bit of extraordinary, something that takes what Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice did and puts it in a new context,

you know, presents it in a different way. It feels to me like everybody is winning there. I couldn't agree with you more. I would think, oh, I went to that amazing production where she actually went out onto the street and sang, because it's so, as I say, it's not a gimmick given that it so fits with the matter matter of the piece as it were and I would think I was part of that and yeah I sat in the auditorium and I watched on screen but you can see the people below it's it's I think it's amazing too I would love to say that I bet and I don't feel like oh I would resent that I didn't see the biggest number and maybe you do we don't yet know because the critics have not

yet been able to write what they see so So maybe they do do it again later in the second act. Jamie Lloyd has a history of trying to make theatre tickets more accessible and cheaper and bringing different crowds into theatres as well. So his motives are probably not to be questioned in this. He's not just going, I'll get a load of people paying an absolute fortune to come and see this. He's trying to open the stuff out, he's trying to get these things seen and always has done. Yeah, I think it sounds amazing. You know, if we want people to, theatre audiences who are lucky enough to already be part of the

crowd that can pay that much for a ticket, and there are lots of £20 tickets I should say, all that, as all productions now try to do, but if we want people to grow up and love theatre in a way that means that theatre can continue, then we just have to find different ways of getting people in. And Angelo Weber, who's suddenly having such a sort of moment in lots of different ways, again, and Someset Boulevard's obviously just swept the Tonys and he's been really interesting, I thought, on the AI bill. But I think one of the things he said, I actually, I wonder whether we're going to be allowed to keep doing this because, which was written up in an incredibly negative way, as he said, you know, Lloyd Webber fears something bad happening,

whatever it was. But actually, it's becoming so big. Just the size of the crowd. Yeah, it's becoming so big that it disperses incredibly quickly. Once it's over, it's over, and you've had this moment. And you're in the middle of London, you can head off somewhere, can't you? I do think the social media stuff is interesting, though, because you can see lots of this stuff.

And I know that critics have said, various critics have said, I spoke to a critic this week who said to me, I would love to be able to write about the show and what actually happens and whether people really think it's amazing how it works on the stage, but I can't until July the 1st, which is quite a long time away from the time you can see all the social media videos of this, see all the sort of negative reaction to this because the papers haven't necessarily got anything else to write about, see all the in-theater videos of curtain calls and so on. And it's quite a long lead-in time. It's like working for one of those mad defense periodicals where it's got a four-month

lead-in time. And finally, you'll be able to see the reviews of these on July the 1st. I guess it there's lots of good reasons for things being able to exist in preview in the way that they do because things get changed and especially with any complicated production, even though this I think is quite pared back, you want people to be able to find it completely on stage before you invite the person. But on this one, you're literally wearing your pants outside your trousers. Yeah. It's quite hard to keep the colour of your pants a secret.

Yeah, it is. If you are passing near Oxford Circus and you're there, as I say, it happened about 10 past nine when I saw it, but I think it's happened as close to a couple minutes after nine. Just go and be part of it. It's worth a trip in, isn't it? And as you say, you're done by quarter past nine, you can go home. And it's the sort of thing that would go out and tour.

It's short form theatre, Richard. Very short form theatre. Yeah, very short form theatre. But it is, what an incredible experience seeing a world class singer singing a world class song outside a world class theatre with a thousand other people for free. And just competing with the sounds of the rickshaws on Oxford Street and the madness of all of it and everyone with their phones, even though it's a period piece and everything. It's all, it's so kind of vital and fun and I absolutely loved it. I couldn't love anyone who didn't

want to see that. People are going to start dressing up for it, aren't they, at some point? Oh, I hope so. They're all going to turn up as Wanisarians from the 1950s. 1950s? Yeah, 50s dress and a load of diamonds. Yes, please. And then revolution. Well, anyway, I loved it and I strongly recommend anyone who finds it easy to go and see it.

Talking of revolution. Oh, talking of it. DAZN, the sports company, D-A-Z-N. You'll have seen it. Why have they done that, Richard? Why have they given their company a name? There are so many videos of them getting sports people to actually say how you say it. You pronounce it Dazon, even though you spell it Dazan. Yeah, I like how many eggs you really like. Dazan. I like things like that, because it makes people feel like they're part of the in-crowd when they can... I mean, don't forget

the biggest sportswear brand in the world is either Nike or Nike, and still no one knows. And the next biggest one is either Adidas or Adidas. But they haven't deliberately tried to create this obscurantist name. Yes, because names have run out. Oh my god, that's an unbelievable take. Sorry, can I just get that once more for the microphone? Names have run out? Names have run out. That's why all companies now have to call themselves, they take all the vowels out of their names or something like that.

Why can't they call themselves Dazon then? Do you think people would think it's Danon? Yoghurt? Dazon. I imagine there is a Dazon already, otherwise they probably would have called themselves that. There'll be a Dazon something somewhere. Well, let's go back to the start of them. They began in London in 2016. They're now owned by Len Blavatnik, who bought them, I think, for 25 million. So he's made his money, you know, minerals, petrochemicals, huge cultural donor and a knight. How often they're related. He runs A24, for example, one of the huge broadcasters that are having an incredible

few years. Well, yes. I mean, I think the people who run A24 run A24, but yes, he's one of those figures. I just think it's easier to run something when there's a billionaire who you've got on speed dial. That's my experience of the business of television. It's handy to have a billionaire owner. It's very much like football, running a studio. If you've got a billionaire owner, everything just goes a little bit easier.

Well, speaking of football, the reason we're talking about them is because they currently have their broadcast rights to the club World Cup, which is taking place in the US now, ahead of next summer's World Cup. If you have vaguely heard of D'Azone, it would have been by and large for boxing, mixed martial arts.

In other territories, it does all sorts of sports, but it's really concentrated on those. That's Eddie Hearn has done a big deal with it and matched them sports. Lots of those deals didn't work out. Lots of these sort of startup things that try and get these rights. They're going to show the Premier League in Canada or whatever it is. They're showing things. They tend to be, can we pick up the rights for this out of territory? Even though their core markets are, I think, UK, Germany, Japan, whoever they are.

Yeah, exactly. They had done things like Canelo Alvarez, they signed him up for 11 fight deal, which is $365 million. How intense is that? The most money anyone's ever given to an individual athlete for an individual deal. So that stuff, again, as I said before, the sort of thing you can do when you've got a billionaire owner who's happy to dip in. But they didn't manage to buy BT Sport, which is one of their plays. They didn't want to discover he got that.

They wanted to. But here's the fascinating thing, and why we're talking about the zone now. Just before Christmas, we got this thing, the Club World Cup, which is a FIFA thing. It's the World Cup, but for club teams. Enormous prize money. It's like a billion dollars in prize money. Does ZONE get the worldwide rights to the Club World Cup? When you say get, is it a little bit like the way people get World Cups now?

In many cases, a lot of people don't actually want them. So does ZONE bid for the Club World Cup, bid a billion dollars for the Club World Cup, which is something that people don't really know. They didn't have a broadcaster. By the way, FIFA didn't have a broadcaster. Exactly. So, FIFA can't sell it, can't get a broadcaster involved. You have to, to kick this off, you have to get a broadcaster involved.

Suddenly Dazon comes in, gives them a billion dollars. They think, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what their business plan is. I wonder where they got the billion. They then say, oh, it's going to be free to air. We're going to provide it free to air for everyone. So over here, you'll see it on Channel 5. And in various other territories, it's on places. So you think, okay, you're a company, Dazon. They lose about a billion dollars a year already, Dazon. As you say, they're speculating to accumulate, which is

often the case with big media conglomerates. So they're losing about a billion dollars a year. They spend a billion dollars on this. And a lot of people have said, well, sorry, where's this money coming from? Where's that? Is this billion seems to... And they go, oh no, this is from our reserves and this is, you know, we're not looking for any extra funding. You know, this is just part of our business plan.

And everyone's going, okay, I wonder if an announcement is due. So they do this in December, a billion dollars. In January, a subsidiary of the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which is the Saudi state, they buy a stake in the zone, less than 5%. We're not sure exactly what it is, but it's certainly less than 5%. Do you know what they pay for that stake? I don't know why I'm getting the figure of one billion. They pay one billion dollars for a stake in the zone.

So this thing which is owned through various Saudi subsidiary companies, which by the way, you're allowed to launch a club world cup, absolutely nothing wrong with that, has Saudi teams which are also under PIF ownership, suddenly now has taken a one billion dollar investment in a company who just put a one1 billion investment into their club World Cup. And then you go, that's why it's free to wear everywhere. That's where the zone got the money from. Listen, as I say, it may just be entirely a coincidence, but it certainly seems- The zone's emerging markets executive is a guy called Pete Oliver, who said there was

a lot that happened, but these things are not necessarily connected in any way. Listen- Pete said a number of other things as well, which I'll come to. There's definitely a world in which they might not be connected. There is definitely that world. I wonder also there's a world where they are connected as well. I mean, listen, I don't love this messenger, but Seth Blatter said Saudi Arabia has taken control of international football.

Seth Blatter is, of course, the disgraced, as they say often, our former FIFA president. It's now run by a guy called Gianni Infantino. Friend of Salt Bay. Oh my God, friend of Salt Bay. He was won back from, I think, the oligarchs, the oligarch alley at the Trump inauguration. I remember this thing. What was he doing there? Was he Infantino?

Yeah, well, this week, and then he was, did you see this week, they had Juventus in the Oval Office, who literally just stood sort of masked around Trump. They look very uncomfortable. They look, yeah. I mean, they literally look like sort of masked around from. They look very uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, they literally look like they were defending a kind of last minute free kick from just outside the area. It was literally, everyone was like this. And then he was saying things like, could a woman be on your team?

They're like, I didn't sign up for this. What are you doing here? The weirdest thing was, there was nine of them standing up and one of them was lying down on the floor. And then Fantino was there sort there smiling over all of it. I do think in general, it's interesting just before we get back onto Dazone, but people do say everything out loud now in football, which for a long time, people would say, I'm trying to grow this sport, I'm trying to do whatever.

We're just interested in people being able to watch this or anything. And actually, what Pete Oliver, to return to him, the Dazon emerging markets executive said was, Saudi Arabia has wanted to own a sports broadcaster for well over a decade and has never known how to pull it off. FIFA needed a global broadcaster for this tournament that could fund this thing. And Dazon now has a direct relationship with FIFA. All three parties have got what they wanted out of this occasion. And you're like, is there a fourth party, which is like football and the fans? It's like, no. Okay.

The way these people talk about football, which I find so fascinating now, this is what I mean by the, for a while, you know, people talked about the football as products and content and that seemed dreadful. Now I think it's beyond parasitic. It's like what I'm using football to do. It's just it's honestly just a random plot device Completely companies want the ability to reach consumers and get their data Because everybody wants to be a tech company and these people just want to be a tech company They want the tech company and crucially they want the tech money

Yeah, so football is just like some random MacGuffin, some thing that they can use in order to extract those things. Yeah. The history of the last 15 years or so in the media has been you want to be valued as a tech company rather than a media company because your multiple of your earnings is hugely enhanced if you're a tech play rather than a legacy media play. And the Zones certainly feel like they have an air of tech play about them. But again, it sort of doesn't matter what you are if you have PIF, the Saudi government

behind you one way or another, because you can deficit fund absolutely everything. Another deal Dazon have just done, again, unrelated, is Live Golf, which again has been Saudi backed for many, many years, has always struggled to find broadcasters. That's one of the key things. It has now found a willing production partner in that by the name of Dazon. So they are now selling those rights to 200 territories. So, you know, Live Golf is also going to go through Dazon. Club World Cup is going to go through Dazon. Blavatnik says he wants this to be the Netflix of sport, which is interesting in itself because we still can't rule out the fact that Netflix is going to want to be the Netflix of sport.

They always did what was called sport adjacent content, as we've said. They've now done an NFL game. They've now done, well, they did a sort of stunt fight, but they're going to do lots of other stuff. So every time they say, we're not interested in getting into sports, they weren't interested in a whole lot of things. But it's interesting that someone is trying to be that global sports platform. Yeah, it is. And I like the fact that it's a British company. I like that. That's a nice one. I bet it's a lot of fun to work there. I imagine being high up at the zone and having been at high

up at the zone ever since it started is probably quite a fun ride. But as you say, what it really does is it shows very nakedly what the levers of power are doing at the moment in the media and with their money. And if you do have a billion dollars to launch a tournament, if you and I wanted to launch a Club World Cup, nothing's stopping us, we could go and see what it is now. If we decided five years ago to do that, we would be about a billion dollars short of being able to do it. And Dazon have found a way to not be a billion dollars short and the Saudis have found a way to get a production partner.

And as you say, FIFA, Dazon, PIF, everyone seems happy. Well, I mean, lots of football fans aren't happy and that's obviously the crucial point, but it's I mean I'll say this I mean, I've been around a long time and I've never known a time where football fans have been happy I agree ever another interesting sidebar to this was not even a sidebar Really is that so it's been showing on Channel 5 these these games in the same way that the Channel 4 this week I've been showing the the England on 21 team That these games are getting somewhere around six seven hundred eight hundred thousand in the same way that Channel 4 this week have been showing the England on the 21 team, that

these games are getting somewhere around 600, 700, 800,000. Now, five years ago, that would have been a disaster for any terrestrial channel, which is why football was always on, you know, Sky Sports and these things, where if you get those numbers, you're absolutely delighted, because it's an audience who are paying you and an audience you can, you know, really, really focus your advertising on. But the world ofrestrial TV now is of such that if channel 4 can get seven and a half million for two hours and if channel 5 can get six of seven hundred thousand for Four hours then that's that's that's a good return on their investment for them Especially as their investment in in this case the Club World Cup, is very, very small. So there is a world now where there are huge amounts of more markets

for sport because something that can get you half a million is valuable in virtually every country whereas it wouldn't have been 10 years ago. It would have been meaningless. You'd have had to go to a pay board. You get it in 200 countries. Yeah, exactly. If you can stick Lift Golf on Channel 5 across the weekend and Channel 5 are getting eight hours of coverage each day, very, very heavily deficit funded and are able to get three, 400,000 people to watch that, then that's working for absolutely everyone in a way that it wouldn't have done.

And so I think there's a moment, maybe last weekend, where Channel five was showing club World Cup game, Auckland City FC were playing Bayern Munich. This was the 10-0? Yeah. They were an amateur, they're an Auckland team, a New Zealand team. They were, yeah. But they're getting like 10 million to take part in the club World Cup, so, you

know, and they get to play against Bayern Munich. So I think they're okay. So that was on Channel five. The England under-21 match was on Channel 4, and Soccer Aid was on ITV, and I think on BBC2 there was the World Athletics. And you think, okay, I know sometimes people complain there's too much sport on TV, but that's four of the five terrestrial channels, all showing quite long form sports. They also complain there's not enough sport on terrestrial, so there we go. But it feels like maybe there's going to be more of that to come. More wall-to-wall sport on television, deficit funded by various regimes. Well, we'll be talking a lot about that in the run-up to the World Cup next and all the sports

broadcasting things about that. I see people already calling for people to boycott it. The next World Cup? Yeah. Is it America the next one? Yes. Yes, next year. Oh, that's why. I'm at an age now where I've lost track of World Cups.

If you told me when I was 16, 20, 24, there would be a time where I would have forgotten who won the last World Cup. I'd have thought you had lost your mind because I could have told you every result, every player, where every player played for at their clubs, every single thing that ever happened, every goal that was ever scored, where the player then went afterwards. And now I'm like, I don't remember who won the last one. It's because you're old, there's been so many of them. Yeah.

Now, any recommendations this week? Yes, I'm reading a book that I'm absolutely loving, which has just come out, I think, last Thursday, which is Barry Diller, the legendary television, film executive, media executive really. And he's written a memoir and it's called Who Knew? He is a brilliant writer. It's really well done. It's a great tour through his time in show business and deal making really.

I mean, it's fascinating. I mean, he tries to work it. But it's also hugely actually about his repressed sexuality when he was younger. Then the fact he completely falls in love with Diane von Furstenberg, which is a turn up for the books. Anyway, it's brilliant. It's really well done. It's a great showbiz deal making memoir and I'm loving it. So Barry Diller. Who knew? Who knew?

I saw a clip of him and I can't remember what his answer was but someone was asking what was the most Coke Adored production he ever set foot on and he said Popeye, the live action Popeye. Oh, with Robin Williams. Yeah. That feels like a bonus episode waiting to happen. Gosh, I need to look further into that but anyway I haven't got to that bit in the book but what about you?

I will recommend the second series of The Gold, which you can see on iPlayer. The first series I loved, which was about the Brinksmack robbery written by the brilliant Neil Forsythe, I think is one of our greatest writers. The first half deals with the stuff we know about, Kenneth Noy and John Palmer,

and essentially half of the Brinksmack gold, but the other half of the Brinksmack gold has never been found. And so Neil Forsythe has sort of written, there's bits of fact in there, but there's like composite characters about what might have happened to the other half. It's so good. He's such a great writer and the performances are absolutely terrific. If you haven't seen the first series, really, really recommend that. If you did watch the first one and haven't yet caught up on the second one, strongly recommend it. It's a real romp, I would say. Did I tell you about my cabbie the other day, whose dad

was one of the great train robbers? Really? No you didn't. Oh, he's the one that got away. Oh really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was interesting. How fun. Listen, we do not have time for that. We got Cypher today.

Listen. Or Barry Diller's cloned dogs. Barry Diller's cloned dogs. I'm sure at some other point that will come up. But Danny, if you're listening, thank you so much for all the insight. Q&A on Thursday? Q&A on Thursday. We have a Q&A on Thursday. And for our members bonus episode on Friday, we're going to talk about our summer reads,

our recommendations for summer reads. Mine and my actual summer reads. So I'm going to tell you. Just 20 minutes of recommendations about stuff you can take on holiday with you. Nothing more complicated than that, but loads and loads of great books to talk about. See you on Thursday? See you on Thursday. This episode of The Rest is Entertainment was brought to you by Sky, who've made watching TV feel effortlessly smart.

Just use voice control and ask Sky what you want to watch. It's so quick that before you found your snacks you were already halfway through a series. It's basically TV with a sixth sense. Say, show me crime dramas and suddenly you've got three new obsessions, a reason to cancel plans and a lead detective you inexplicably trust with your life. If you need suggestions just ask what should I watch and Sky lines up recommendations based on the kind of things you normally go for so you can trust it won't miss. Got a favourite actor? Just say their name and Sky brings up a selection of what they're in across all your apps and

channels no judgement. Whether you're after something niche, nostalgic or new enough to dominate the group chat. Or reliving Fudum's finest Europa League hour. 4-1 against Juventus, frankly who wouldn't? Sky's got you covered. Search sky.com to find out more.