The Rest Is Entertainment - When Award Shows Go Wrong

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

How do the BRITs deal with sweary artists? What happens when an awards show goes off script? Who are the greatest voice actors of all time? In this Awards Show Special, Richard Osman and Marina Hyde delve into the world of seating plans and citation readers. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Max Archer Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Octopus Energy. Now, it is award season. Everyone is wondering who's going to clean up. And we tend to think awards are about that one big moment, like, oh, my goodness, that one night, that speech, I can't believe I've won. But. The effort that goes into winning an award. Everyone going for one of those big movie awards. It's not a coincidence that academy members or whatever are saying, oh, did you see that thing?

You did. It was really good. There is a remorseless, many months campaign. And there are tens of people working on. every single film's awards campaign. I thought you're going to say tens of thousands. No, no. But there are tens.

Yeah, there are tens. But that's quite a lot when you think of like one. And it's a full-time job. We mention this only because we are announcing our presenting partnership with the lovely people at Octopus Energy who have just won the which recommended provider of the year for the ninth time in a row. And that is not something you get just by year. Which is hard to win.

Which is hard to win. Which is hard to win. Which is hard to win. But nine in a row, I would say that. makes Octopus Energy the Merrill Streep of the business. Oh yeah, they're the Merrill. They're the Merrill. I call them Merrill Energy.

That's what I call them. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Resters Entertainment, Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina. And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello, everybody. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard.

How are you? I'm very, very well. You ready? Oh, yeah. I'm ready as I'll ever be. Born ready, right? I don't wait. I sleep.

I know. I don't wait. I don't sleep. I don't sleep. I wait. Oh, okay, that makes more sense. Whereas I, don't wait, I sleep. I have a question for you.

We've had lots of questions on this similar line, but it's from, which you'll understand when I read it, from Louise P. She says, like so many of my generation, I was devastated to hear about James Vanderbeek's passing last week. What were your favourite moments from the show? Oh, my God. I was also devastated. This is James Van der Beak,

who is the Dawson of Dawson's Creek, and he died of cancer last week, age 48. I want to talk a little bit about sort of teen dramas in general but they talked so much about their feelings. It was such a sort of talky show and their love and their angst and that kind of that young love, that limerence, that word which I hadn't heard of about three weeks ago and now see absolutely everywhere

which is this kind of infatuation, this young love thing and it's limerence. Limmerence. Yeah. And they talked about their bad timing in that way their only teenagers can talk about bad timing in relationships. But I went back and, oh God, it was awful. I just watched those titles and the music just taking me right. I was too old for Dawson's Creek, by the way. But because I always have to watch the things and all my life, I've sort of had to watch the things that were the big things, in the same way that I watched gossip girl and I was also too old for that.

I loved it. And those titles, God, the four principles, it's, there's something just so tragic about or difficult or poignant about how their lives unspooled because he is now dead at 48. Joshua Jackson is he carries on Katie Holmes not knowing that she's going to end up marrying this much older person, Tom Cruise, and I don't think anyone thinks that that was a fairy tale. And Michelle Williams, who ends up falling in love with Heath Ledger and they have a baby, and then he dies of a drug overdose when he's 28. And there's something so sort of these incredibly idyllic titles where they're all so young. And you can't freeze them in time.

And actually there's an element of us that always wants to freeze these people. moments where because they meant so much to us. When those things hit hard, those teen things, they make such a huge impression. And I remember reading something with Molly Ringwald, who was such amused to John Hughes, who obviously was an absolute poet of this sort of teenage experience. And she was in for him, the Breakfast Club and 16 candles and pretty and pink. And he couldn't quite really deal with her getting older and wanting to do different things. And there is that tiny element in all of us that slightly needs to be managed where, you know, you always want them to be back in Dawson's Creek when they're young and sort of perfect and nothing ever changes.

But teen dramas in a weird way, they haven't, back in the era when everything, and we got all the American ones, by the way, all the big ones. And I'm starting with things like DeGrassey High and fame and things like that. But the big one that really hit was Beverly Hills 90210. And that was, I mean, that was a new era of teen drama. And that was enormous. And then, you know, Dawson's Creek, my so-called life, Buffy, the OC, Gossip Girl. we didn't really have these things

I was trying to think if we had anything like that With Grange Hill Well, I didn't give a press gang Press gang Press gang was our version of that I think if you don't know what it is It's so hard to explain But it was like iconic

Dixon Fletcher Julius Orr Yeah It was like moonlighting But with British teenagers It's ruined by Stephen Moffat Press Gang wasn't it He's gone on to do such extraordinary things He ended up being pretty good

Maybe that was his masterpiece so because it was so good. But there's something about those teen ensemble casts that get people right in their heart. And that is for me, and for everybody really, a big part of why stranger things was so enormous because it did feel, and that feeling that everyone is watching, sorry, we talked about this on Tuesday, but it's the feeling that everyone is watching something at the same time and that actually in a world where we don't really have shared culture anymore, some few things are so big that they break through and become shared culture. But the fascinating thing about why James Van der Beek's death has, I think, proved so emotional for people is, you know, there's always been these extraordinary works of literature that have, you know, pride and prejudice and those characters live forever at the same age.

Yeah. And so they're very important to us. They mean something to us. You know, what happens to them mean something to us. Dawson's Creek and shows like it, absolutely those characters are crystallized in time. but there is an alternate timeline where the people who we associate with them, very, very powerfully associate with them. So it's the first time we ever saw those people get older and things happen in their lives

in a way that characters from books don't. You know, there's something about television, there's something about the fact that actors playing people. So it is almost like a character from your favourite book has died because the actor has. And I think that's a very powerful thing. Absolutely. And I think he was such a, he was such a lovely person.

He seems like a great kind of way. Yeah, he was such a lovely person and he never wanted to be sort of cool or anything and he laughed that he became the ugly crying meme. Those people who mean so much, it's incredibly hard to come to terms with. And I absolutely understand your question, Louise, because it is devastating. There's a beautiful picture, Alfonso Ribeiro who was, I mean, this is the absurdity of what we are as human beings. So Alfonso Ribeiro, who is a real human being. Yeah.

But it is also Carlton from Fresh Prince. And so it means something to, like, has a, and suddenly he's there with James Vanderbeek, as James Vanderbeek is dying, and the two of them clearly love each other. And you just think, well, that's a very peculiar thing to deal with if you love television, and you have that parasycial relationship with characters,

which, of course, we all do, especially, you know, from certain ages of our life. And it's, I think it's a deep privilege to live in an era where we have that culture. I think it's a deep privilege to be part of that culture if you're James Fanderbeek and Alfonso Ribeiro. You know, for all the tragedy of James van der Beek's life, at least he had that.

At least he understood that, you know, he had that meaning to people. And I think, you know, in amongst all the sort of chat about entertainment and what it is, it makes you understand quite how important it can be in people's lives. Richard, one for you from Hayden Beresford,

who says, listening to you recommend when the cranes fly south made me think about how crucial translators are. how do people become translators and how much are they paid? Are there any superstar translators out there? Thanks, Hayden. And also thanks for your comments about when the cranes fly south, which now I seem to be getting credit for being in the Charleston.

It's my mum. It's 100% Brenda, not me. So, yeah, Lisa Ridson's When the Cranes fly south, translated by Alice Menzies. If you haven't read it, genuinely, everyone since we recommended that on an episode, everyone who's read it seems to absolutely love it. So I feel happy that that was,

That was a good recommendation. Yeah. In terms of this question, yes, I think there's sort of an understanding that all you have to do is speak the other language and you can translate a book, which is nonsensical. If you really think about the books that you love, you know, you can translate a story, but can you translate language? Can you translate idiom? And can you translate, you know, what a character, what the vibe of a character is, which, you know, if you write a character in English, they have a very English sensibility and there are certain bits of humour and certain bits of meaning which don't quite come across in the words. You know, if you're reading German, there are certain words which mean 15 things at once. We know that in our language.

There are words which we know what you're saying, but you're actually saying something different. And the translator has to be able to deal with all of all of that. It's not a question of, you know, just literally doing a literal translation of something. You have to get across the idea of something. So being bilingual absolutely is not enough to become a translator. A lot of translators have sort of very specialized degrees. So Alice Menzies, funnily enough, who translated when the cranes fly south from the Swedish. She has a master's in translation theory and practice from UCL.

So, you know, it's a big deal. So you have to do a lot. But the pay is not insanely great. I would say that. And actually literary translations are generally paid less than people who do business and legal translations and things like that. Even though it sort of is a harder job, I would say, you tend to, there's the Society of Authors Recommend as an absolute minimum rate of £100 for every thousand words. So a book, my book's a 90,000 words, so you get £9,000 for that. That's the minimum.

And also that's recommended. So there will be people being paid more than that because there are certain translators in certain countries who can charge more. I figure Alice Menzies, for example, and you've just had this big hit with Lisa Ridson's book, you can ask more for the next one. And, you know, once a book like when the Cranesify South has become a big hit, people will be seeking out more Swedish literature and stuff that's like that, and Lisa Ridson's next book. And you hope that that's a relationship, Lisa Ridsson and Alice Menzies that grows. And, you know, there's good money in it for Alice Menzies because she did an unbelievable job. Are there any superstar translators? there's a guy called Gregory Rabassa

he was American but he translated a lot of Latin American literature and Gabriel Garcia Marquez says that Rabasas's version of 100 years of solitude is better than his

he said he translated it so brilliantly he said I prefer his version of it so that sort of counts as a superstar and his background Rabassa was in romance languages

that was what he studied but he was also a codebreaker in World War II as well and sometimes that you need to be able to solve puzzles as a translator. And the way he said he translated, which I think is interesting,

is he did not read the whole book and then go back. He would just translate it sentence by sentence because he wanted to get the sense of what was happening as it went along. And if he was taken by surprise, he understood that if a certain sentence sounds bland, but you're aware that it overturns the thing that just happened, that it needs something.

You need to be showing something else. That's how I do it too. Just start. Don't bother planning. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. There are people now... Regrettably, I can't do any of the languages. And that's your problem.

Yeah. Another question we've had a while, you know, a few times is could AI do this? And it will not surprise you to learn. There are companies who will charge you 100 quid to do an AI translation of your book. It will be beyond terrible because we all know if you do a literal translation of anything, it's awful. And, you know, any book that's worth reading has a love of language and use this language in a certain way. And translation does not do that. But absolutely, you know, you can translate a book for $100, but it will be beyond appalling.

I mean, just terrible, terrible, terrible. So it's a tough gig being a translator. It's not as well paid as it should be. The best ones are absolutely worth their weight and gold. If I can give a shout out to some of my translators, and every now and again, when you go to other countries, you meet your translators. And that's what was my favorite things to do. Because they'll always have, they've always got questions about the characters, and they've always got questions about certain bits of idiom.

And they were always like, I was worried that when I did this, that actually you meant something else. And so they've always got, you know. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, they take it incredibly, incredibly seriously. Albert Huente Sanchez, he does my Spanish translation. These are just ones I met Sabine Roth, who does the German one as well. Roberta Corridin, she's the Italian one, Ingrid Buechland, Sweden. But all of my translators, and I've met a few of them, thank you so much for everything that you do.

but it's a tough gig and there's a reason why the best ones are in demand because it's really difficult to translate a book. You can translate the words of course you can but can you translate the meaning that's the skill of being a translator I would say is translating the meaning

of a book. Right, I think it's time to go to a break now but after the break we have had so many questions about awards and we're going to discuss some answers that we've got from like an award special. Yeah, a second half award special. We've got some answers from people who've run the Brits and people who produce the BAFTAs and they've got all sorts of different responses.

Hello everybody and welcome to the Book Club, a new podcast from Gollhanger. Hosted by me, Dominic Sambrook. And me, Tabitha Syrods. As some of you may know, I've been Dominic's producer on The Rest is History and we even did a mini-series last year about all things books. And since we enjoyed that so much, we have decided to roll it it out as its own show. So it'll be coming out every Tuesday. We'll be doing a different book each time and digging into all the stories behind them. And we are going to be talking about the historical

contexts behind some of the greatest and most famous books of all time. We're going to be digging into the remarkable people behind them, the unexpected stories behind the stories, and also unraveling the plot of each book a bit and delving into the depths of the story. Now, you don't have to have read the books to listen to the show, but we hope that by the end of each episode, you will be able to pretend to people that you've read them. That is the key thing. And either way, whether you read them or not, we hope that you'll learn lots of fascinating facts, you'll do lots of great stories, and maybe Tabby the odd laugh. We will be looking at thrilling Gothic bodice rippers like Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein,

as well as iconic stories like The Great Gatsby or Little Women. And then also some more modern stuff. So Game of Thrones, normal people, the Hunger Games, Hamnet, or manner of exciting stories. So please join us on our journey into all things books, wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for The Book Club every Tuesday and hopefully we will see you. You might be tempted to let Taco Bell's new Lux Value menu go to your head. Because 10 indulgences for $5 or less makes you feel fancy. Like you might think you need cloth napkins.

Well, you don't. Just use the ones that come in the bag. Don't let the Lux go to your head. There. Welcome back everybody. Now we have, we've always got lots of questions about award ceremony. So we thought maybe we would put some of them together and ask people who really know about these things. Since it's the season.

Since it is the season. Tis the season, exactly. We will start with a question from Lucy Rose. Thank you, Lucy. Lucy says, The Brits have become synonymous with sweary performances and award speeches. How do the decisions get made on what should and shouldn't be beeped out? Now, who's helped us with this one?

Sally Wood, who is the executive producer of the Brits. Thank you, Sally. There's a 30-second delay. In the truck, in the room next door to ours is ITV compliance, a team of people. They're listening to the show. If they hear a swear word, they write the time code down, then they pass it down the line, and then when we reach that time code, they beep. Now, when I first started, they used to play birds tweeting.

And we used to get lots of complaints saying, why are birds tweeting on the Brits? There's something wrong with the audio. The technology has been updated now and it's just silence, but there is a lot of leaping on the show. And Kanye West, who was booked 24 hours before because Rihanna had pulled out. So it was a very last minute performance.

And he broke the record for the most swear words on TV, 47 in the three-minute song. So we were getting ready to deal with an off-com. nightmare then Paloma performed in her beautiful rain performance shows about to end Madonna comes on she falls over our first thought is has Madonna fallen over because of Paloma's water that wasn't true the water was not on stage but that was my most chaotic memory from working on the show was Kanye swearing into Madonna falling over us thinking momentarily it was our fault yeah it was chaos thank you so much

It's one of those things, isn't it, when you think you're going to get in trouble for Kanye swearing. And then you think, oh my God, Madonna's falling over. This is going to get all of the publicity. I remember that they used to have the bird's song on Big Brother as well. Yeah, I was going to say that when they were talking. It's so weird. But mostly when they were talking about the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or they're talking about Tom Cruise or something. Yeah. Or libeling people. Yeah. So if it went on forever, you'd be thinking, this is the longest swear while I've ever heard. What is it? I'd like to use it once up myself one day. Super-cala fragilistic XB Ali.

What? I love a proper old-fashioned beep. If ever on panel shows and stuff, you have to beep things. We still have to even very often. But a beep is one of the few things that can actually keep a joke as funny as it was anyway. Yeah. There's something about a beep and the way we hear a beep that actually you go, oh no, that counts as a punchline. Exactly.

And it is split seconds that timing. Yeah. And sometimes, do you know what? There should be an award for best beep. But it genuinely is sometimes, you know, if you, like, do I lose the, you know, do a coming after the f? Or do I come in before the, and it's different each time. And occasionally you'll get a three-er that someone's, you know, blah, blah, blah. And that is almost, if you can absolutely time those beeps perfectly,

then you can make it much, much funnier than it was in the studio. Question from Hannah about seating plans. How do award ceremonies decide the seating plan in the theatre? Everybody thinks about this. Are there on written rules about where nominees, winners, and industry power players sit. Now, to answer this, Emma Baer, who's head of content and awards at BAFTA,

and has had to do a few plasmal in her time, has said this. Well, if you've ever had to do a wedding seating plan, you'll know how difficult it is and where to put people can be quite tricky. If you add to that the fact that there are two and a half thousand guests, as 46 films nominated, everyone needs to sit within their production,

within their film. It's a bit of a jigsaw to get around. and with 256 nominees, ideally you'd want everybody in the front few rows, but that's obviously not possible. So they're all spread out through the room. And nobody in that room knows the winners, not the people that are doing the seating plans. So it really adds that kind of tension and excitement about who's going to win. We have this amazing person who is in charge of the seating.

and in terms of the skill to visualize who's in every seat, it really is amazing. So she'll be there on the night, 10 minutes before we go live, looking at the seats, checking everyone's in. She has this ability to know the names and the films and where they should sit. And she can literally go, D7, they're not here, where are they? And if somebody's in the wrong seat, there has been the odd occasion where she can't remember faces. So we've had a situation where she was walking, Amy Bell to his seat and there was someone sat on the end of that aisle. She tapped them on the shoulder and she said, excuse me, are you a seat filler.

Seat filler is not meant to be in at the beginning of the show. Please can you go backstage? And the very polite Adam Driver did explain to her, I'm actually a nominee. And we've obviously never let her forget that. Oh my God, can you imagine? Oh. I always, whenever occasionally if someone's working on a show, they'll send you a picture of it during the day. And during the day, you've got everyone's faces around.

on sticks when they're doing rehearsal. So it all say Adam Driver and picture of Adam Driver's face. And so if you know people who are working on a production, you can work at who you're sitting next to as well. But it is that you always assume when you get there, oh, does this mean I'm not going to win or I am going to win? And it's utterly meaningless. You know, sometimes people will come from behind you to win.

Sometimes people from in front of you. You're always on an aisle anyway because, you know, the camera has to go up and down the aisle. You won't sit in a theatre if you're not in an aisle. Well, I can't. I know, exactly. Because people behind me go crazy. Medically, I can't. Medically.

I have to be in a winning seat. Medically, I cannot. Never been in a winning seat, of course. At the broadcast of wars the other night, my wonderful producer, tomorrow, who I've talked about before, said, oh, yeah, we've lost again, by the way. That is now 19 in a row.

19 losses in a row, isn't it just? It is ticking up. Isn't it just? Yeah. Listen, to scam interceptors, we lost to them, and that's a good show. It's a great show.

Yeah. Honestly, there are times we've lost where I've been like, I don't know about that. And there are times we lose. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that seems fair enough. But 19 in a row, that's a bit.

And wherever we're sat, absolutely meaningless. But you also, the interesting thing is not just where people are sat. It's you have to, when you were in rehearsals for those shows, you see the shot that you're going to have every time a nominee is put up. So you know who your most famous people are. So, you know, if you're at the Oscars, it might be De Niro. If you're at the BAFTAs, it's David Tennant, you know, it's Olivia Coleman, whatever it is.

And you can see the shot you're going to get. of them either reacting to something or when they're nominated. And you can see the triangle, the little cone of people behind them as well. And sometimes you just want to make sure that that cone has also got famous people. It makes it look really, really deeply impressive. So you know your fields of vision. You know the people who are going to be in shot at any given time. And so you...

You want it to a long and strong in stars. Exactly that. You want a little bit of depth of field in your celebrity bookings. Thank you, Emma. We've got another answer from Emmerich, which can we do this one? as well, because I thought, because there's an interesting bit of information in it. We had a question from Sean Gadfrey, thank you, Sean, who said, how are citation matchups made? Those are the people who read out, you know, the nominees and what have you.

And what happens when they don't stick to the script? So if we can go back to Emma, who has an answer for that as well. Thank you, Emma. So citation readers are the presenters. It's the fun part, you know, it's one of the fun parts of the evening working out who goes where. We have to think about all our audiences. So not only those that are in the room, we have a broadcast at home on the BBC. We have international broadcasts, but we also had last year 130 million views across our social platforms.

So we have lots of different audiences. So we have to be as broad as possible and cater for all tastes when we're selecting those citation readers. When it comes to pairings, it's all about people that have worked together or know each other, our friends. we don't want bad chemistry. We all remember Mick Flea Wood and Sam Fox. So it's really important that we get that right. Recently we had David Johnson and Amy Lou Wood, who presented the nominations that we did last month.

They actually knew each other at school. So it was very joyful to watch them reunite, and that really came across in a lot of fun when they were announcing those nominations. And then we look at, you know, what's really important, where is there a platform when somebody needs to say something. And for me, seeing Michael J. Fox using that as a platform to make awareness of Parkinson's was equally important moment.

We do have moments when citation readers want to rework that script and they want to tweak it. That's absolutely fine. We're really happy. We'd rather they do that and they add their thoughts and humor to that. But we do sit beforehand. There's only one exception that has presented a few times for us. I won't name that person, but they come and scribble something backstage, flash it at us and go on. But we allow that because this is somebody we know always delivers and has worked with us before.

So talking of citation readers, I do have a little exclusive, Richard and Marina. I'm really delighted that personal favourite of mine is going to present the children's and family film category this year. And that is Paddington Bear. He's coming to the Royal Festival Hall. We're very thrilled to have him there and we can't wait for him to present that category and obviously we are stocking up on marmalade sandwiches in the green room. Paddington.

Paddington. Are you kidding me? It's an animatronic feat. I hope when eventually tomorrow and I do win an award is presented by Paddington. Yeah. Oh my God. That's what they've been waiting for.

I don't need to get it from Nick Knowles. I would love to see you and Paddington in the same shot. It would be so sweet. I would love that. Whenever I have my photo taken with people, they would say, I'm sorry, I'm so short. You know, I get my photo taken with children as well. I mean, it's okay. You know, cameras are designed for that. Ah, Paddington. I wonder who writes for and stuff, Hugh Grant. That's my bet. You trust him, right? I don't know. I would have said. I would have provided that little piece of detail. Oh, would you? Yeah. Yeah, because that's a nice thing.

Because they weren't, it wasn't like, and they never will work with us again. Well, maybe that's a question we can have for next week. Yeah. We'll ask, we'll ask Emma. and we'll get the name of that person. Do we have one time for, do we have time for one final, I think we do, for one final question for you. Okay, a question for you from Claire. She said, off the back of your conversation about how the Academy Awards

overlook comic performances, I'd also argue that outstanding voice acting performances have been wrongly ignored. What great voice performances deserved an Oscar? Oh, that is, there's so many good ones. And I really, there was one, okay, I thought about this, and I have left not quite making my top three. a number is...

So let's say number four. Let's say number four. Would be another way of saying that. Four. Well, I'm not doing a top of... Well, you are doing a top four. The Jeremy Ains is... Uncle Scar.

That voice is amazing. But it's not probably... It's not the most villainous, Jeremy Irons, for me. It's not the... Have you ever seen Dead Ringers? No. The Radio 4 impression show.

No, not that. Jeremy Irons plays... It's like a horror, a body horror. Jeremy Irons plays twin gynaecologist. It's not a big chick, let me tell you. Yeah. It ain't a date movie. No, psychopathic twin gynecologist Elliot and Beverly. Anyway, doesn't matter.

He's number four. Yeah, that's number four. Okay, number three, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader. Yeah. And let me tell you something, okay, it's a shame you can't do C3Pio, but Anthony Daniels is actually also, it's unbelievable that he is incredible physically, but also the thing about George Lucas's dialogue, and this is incredibly bad and also,

incredibly good at the same time. You know, Harrison Ford famously said, George, you can write this shit, but you call it as sure as I can't say it. And there are other shows. I mean, when I think of, I'm trying to think of other things like that. Game of Thrones is also like that. There's a, you know, that line,

when you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. Unfortunately, that line has to be delivered by Lena Heady, so it's a bit on an uphill struggle. But James Earl Jones can deliver anything. Anything at all. That kind of half sounds like a battle-arized version of the Bible, half sort of portenters. The Darth Vader, it's an unbelievable voiceover and it makes it, it's so chilling. It's extraordinary. I mean, I really love those first four, first three

films. Do we know if James L. Jones ever recorded the famous Darth Vader joke? Which is, you know, I know what Luke Skywalker got for Christmas. I don't know if he ever recorded this joke. Yeah, carry on. What did Luke Skywalker get for? Oh, should we do it? Yeah. So I won't do the voice. Yeah. But if James L. Jones did it. I know what Luke Skywalker got for Christmas. What did he get to Christmas? He got. a subbutio set a jigsaw and a new bike

oh my god how'd you know that I have felt his presence I would love it if James Old Jones did that could he elevate that he could do anything He written you do better than me Yeah I think he'd just edit that So he's number three

Yeah he's three number two Tom Hanks as Woody in Toy Story The whole arc through the first three movies is ridiculous. But the bit when he says goodbye to Andy when he's going to college and he just says, so long partner,

that contains, that is Oscar worthy. I actually had to have a look what got the Oscar for Best Actor that year and it was Colin Firth in the King's speech. Not even close.

Not even close. Hank's, no. Hank's is number two. At number one, because the sheer creativity of it, it changed the whole way that people thought voiceovers could even be done

is Robin, Williams is the genie in Aladdin. Huge amounts of it, improvised. It was revolutionary in what people felt could happen with animation. And the idea that there was something that was almost for the parents in these children's films. All of these things, it was completely groundbreaking. I remember talking to Josh Gad a lot because I love his voice. He is the voice of Olaf in Frozen.

And he's obsessed with Disney. He's actually obsessed with Star Wars, but he's obsessed with Disney. and when he got that he thought even though it's just like a tiny little snowman or whatever the possibilities of the form

because of Robin Williams having gone earlier and actually Deola voiceover is unbelievable and it became sort of iconic itself but so Robin Williams is the genie in Aladdin is number one

it's just phenomenal good top three perfect order a little bit of nonsense about number four but that's okay inevitable yeah not bad at all

we can't have no nonsense tomorrow for our members I'm going to be asking you for book recommendations in the first of our series which doesn't have a... At the moment it's called bookworms but I think that our listeners might be able to come up with a bit

a better name than that. I'm really looking forward to it. I've actually bought it and then once I got into it I'm really looking forward to talking about these books. Okay, fine. If you want to become a member, it's the rest of entertainment.com. You get ad-free listening, you know, early access to tickets,

all sorts of things like that. But for everyone else, we would be delighted to see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday. Troy, the Odyssey, the Iliad. All of these great ancient epics depict a monumental collapse that destroyed the interconnected empires of 3,000 years ago. And to understand the Bronze Age apocalypse that Homer wrote about 400 years after it happened, subscribe to Empire. World History, a fellow go-hanger podcast where we are deep diving into the biggest imperial collapse in ancient history.

To get a flavor of the series, here is a clip from our episode with none other than Stephen Fry. It is one of my favorite subjects, the story of the Greeks. and the Siege of Troy and Odysseus's return home, of course. I say Greeks. Homer called them the Achaeans, the Danians, the Argyves. The word Greeks is a much later one. But it refers, really, to the Mycenaans, a warrior aristocracy, essentially, obsessed with honor and reputation that would give them an eternal glory, a Cleos, as they call it. It's the Cleos that's in the name of so many Greeks, you know, Cleopatra and all the sort of

I haven't worked that. That's the same word. Heracles, Hercules, who's Hercules, you know, Heera's glory. He was actually named Heracles because she hated him because he was a love child of Zeus, and she never liked Zeus's love child, her husband, her errant husband. And so as an attempt to placate her, Tariasius, because he was born in Thebes, suggested that he changed his name, as a baby, this was, to Heracles, the glory of Heron. He didn't help much. It didn't help at all.

And then Athena even put her on Hera's breast when Hero was asleep because it would bond them if he suckled her milk. But she woke and saw it and tossed him away and her breast milk spread across the sky to form the milky way. I didn't know that story. Because Galaxy, of course, is from the Greek for milk, galactic, as in lactic. So the chocolate makers are right. Anyway, this is completely separate. Keep going. Keep going. Don't start. Well, we really hope you enjoyed that clip.

to hear more on the Bronze Age Apocalypse and how it shaped the ancient Greek epics, just subscribe to Empire wherever you get your podcasts.