The Rest Is Entertainment - Would you give Nigel Farage £1.5m?

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Richard Osman and Marina Hyde welcome you to the first episode of The Rest Is Entertainment. Each week they'll explore the world of television, film, books and celebrity gossip. First up for discussion, is Nigel Farage a good booking for I'm a Celebrity? And will a stint in the jungle help his PR? Why did Jeff Bezos agree to an excruciating interview and photoshoot along with fiance Lauren Sánchez in American Vogue? And Richard explains why he loves the new Netflix game show version of Squid Game, while Marina takes a rather different view. Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Recommendations; Watch Ronnie O'Sullivan - The Edge Of Everything Read Roger Lewis - Erotic Vagrancy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Only at Burger King, where you rule. Best Western made booking our family beach vacation a breeze. And it felt a little like... a breeze, and it felt a little like... Life's a trip. Make the most of it at Best Western. Hello and welcome to The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osman.

A brand new podcast all about film, TV, showbiz, gossip. Music, celebrity, scandal. All that sort of stuff. All the fun things that you escape to. We will be covering every week. what's the worst that can happen well we're going to start this week we're going to talk about nigel farage in the i'm a celebrity jungle so possibly you've just answered that question and we're going to be talking about lauren sanchez's photo shoot and interview in american vogue she is the fiancee of mr jeffzos. I had not heard of her before this week,

and you made me do my research. Oh, it's quite something. And then we're going to talk about the most expensive game show ever made, which has just come out, Squid Game. We have both watched it. We have yet to speak to each other about it. I suspect we might have different opinions.

I've certainly got a lot of opinions. Excellent. Shall we start with Nigel in I've certainly got a lot of opinions. Excellent. Shall we start with Nigel in the Jungle? Nigel in the Jungle. Okay. So, first of all, I'm a Celebrity has been so long ITV's biggest show, I think. And it's still the biggest show of the year, actually. Ratings-wise, it is the biggest show of the year already.

And Nigel Farage is, I think, their most expensive contestant ever at £1.5 million. I think he is a good booking for ITV. And I will say that that's because what he's done is he's got people to watch the show who perhaps might not otherwise watch it. It's one of those slight marmalade droppers when you hear it and people think, I'm going to tune in. And then I guess you hope that they get caught up

in the stories and the other contestants and whatever, by the way i don't think he's a fantastic contestant but we can come on to that in a bit well there's two things they don't like my nigel farage being given 1.5 million pound but i don't think anyone likes anyone being given 1.5 million pounds even your best rate if like your best friend said someone's just giving me 1.5 million pound you go oh no that's annoying and then the question of should he be in there and is he going to use it in some way to leverage that sort of attention to further his ends? I think this, I think that I'm a celeb, by and large, never does contestants much good

if they're not particularly likeable. And he's not particularly likeable. I think what he thought was, I'm going to go in there, I am going to be voted for every single task because I'm the bogeyman. Oh my God, people love to hate me. And what's happened is people have gone, no, just don't really care. Now, I think Farage even said, he said in one of the first episodes, he was not voted for a task. So he wasn't voted and genuine shock on his face, like he'd lost another by

election. Okay. So he had that thing like, oh no, the dolphin has got more votes than me. election okay so he had that thing like oh no the dolphin has got more votes than me and he said if you get voted for the task you get 25 of the airtime okay so that's his game he wants to go in there he wants to set himself up as sort of a man of the people but the beautiful thing about reality tv is you can try and be whatever you want but people find you out the trouble with farage i think is is that he's's actually, and why he's not an interesting contestant, is that he's a very boring man. He has no sort of hinterland whatsoever. Can you imagine him listening to music? If he did listen to any music, it would be like a sort of CD that would have come free on the Sunday Times in about 2001. Absolutely no interest in anything. I once

interviewed him and asked him for his favourite film and genuinely he couldn't think of the name of a movie and in the end he just had to say something and he suddenly remembered Richard Curtis as an idea and said, I think it would be one of those Richard Curtis things, you know, so he was a really emotional human and said, and I, yeah, Love Actually was the only one he could remember clearly. He literally, I was thinking, just say The Great Escape, say The Dam Busters, I mean, it's not hard. All I'm thinking of now is what's my favorite film if i was being interviewed by marina what

would i say my favorite film is that's the thing so nigel ferrari has spent a long time in politics and in politics he is a charismatic man because he's more charismatic than other politicians however if you put yourself in a room even if you put yourself in a room with Sam Thompson from Made in Chelsea, you disappear. He did a task where he had to drink various things, you know, cow's anus, the usual stuff, kangaroo's anus probably. And you could tell he was trying to be the sort of hail fellow, well-met sort of man of the people, alpha male. But, you know, he's up against Tony Bellew, who's the world cruiserweight champion, who's like an actual alpha male. And Tony Bellew is amazing for that show. He's perfect because this is a guy who's been through all sorts of challenges.

And Farage disappears. I noticed this last night where they said to Tony Bellew, Tony Bellew was telling the story and saying about that Usyk fight and it went out in the eighth round, but he can't remember anything about the eighth round. And he said, essentially, the referee saved his life. And then they said to Farage, tell us a story. And he said, do you know what?

When I first stood for parliament, I didn't even care if I was going to win. I thought, OK, A, lucky, and B, what? And the camera just sort of panned away because it's so boring. He is always on. He is trying to hit prepared lines on a reality format, which is just bizarre. He's treating it like he's going on one of the Sunday politicians shows. For a start, he had quite a few sort of prepared jokes.

So he'd be like, I have some snakes. I've met some snakes in the European Parliament. And then, you know, like when he had to eat someone's anus or other, he said, oh, what's the thing? I think I've got the back end of this deal. And I was thinking, you've got about four days left of this material. And then you're kind of on your own with your own personality, which isn't enough. See, when people say ITV shouldn't have booked him, the BBC should not have booked him 30 times for Question Time, is the truth.

Because Question Time is easy for Farage. Because again, he's up against people who have zero charisma, usually. And something like that is what Boris Johnson is very good at. If he knows he's got three minutes to answer a question he knows he can say exactly what he wants and so long as he keeps going and keeps going nothing will come back at him in the jungle you can't do that in the jungle you can you could say occasionally he tries to say something political fred syriac is the only one who really picks him up on stuff uh and you can you can see finally faraj is like this is what I'm here for I'm going to talk about the fact that you know there's too many immigrants coming into the country and you think

nice this is uh this is this is not where we are and Fred is actually sort of doing some useful things around the camp you're just like you know one of your dad's friends but he does this sort of he goes to the bush telegraph which I guess is the equivalent of Big Brother's Diary Room or something like that. And there was a thing, a sort of monologue he did where he said, you know, a lot of people are saying just about little old me, what happens if conservatives lose the next election

and does Nigel become leader of the Conservative Party? And it went on like this and you're thinking, are people saying this in the camp? This is so weird. You look ridiculous. I have not heard Marvin Humes ask if you're going to be the next leader of the conservative party none of them actually they have asked him if he would run again i don't they're really unclear on like who he is prime minister how you become an mp anything like that in the main clearly what he has taken as his sort of impetus obviously nigel's idol is donald trump

who famously was the biggest reality star star of the first kind of golden era of reality TV, if you can call it that, which I personally thought it was an amazing particular time. But Trump, as the host of The Apprentice, the US Apprentice, had he not done that, he would not have ended up as US president. It was absolutely key. It kind of put him right into everybody's homes. He became a sort of famous person again, having been a kind of a big deal in the 80s. And I guess Farage thinks he can use I'm a Celebrity to parlay his way back into his home. If it does happen to him, by the way, and if he does somehow, you know,

and he does become readmitted to the Conservative Party and become significant and senior within it, it won't be because of this show. But anyway, Richard, can you just, as someone who obviously has lots of reality tv experience can you talk to me about booking the booking see it's interesting with farage so he's got 1.5 million which is a lot and itv no he's not a great booking he's an okay booking because mainly i think honestly because people don't really think he's authentic

so they wonder who he really is okay so that's an interesting booking you know because like matt hancock you think i don't know i have no idea who you are and the generation who grew up watching reality tv knows that they will find something out about this person they know the first three days he's going to do his pre-prepared lines and then the mask will slip so it's an interesting booking in that regard. Here's the thing. When they're booking that show, you want to get a mix of people, right? So they've got Marvin Humes and Josie Gibson. So that's the ITV mainstream absolutely covered off. The show pony stable. Beautiful.

That's people, you know, absolutely we feel safe, we feel at home. They know Sam Thompson is going to be very funny. And he's sort of, people slightly recognise him but don't quite know him yet. So they know they've got someone to introduce to the wider public who the wider public are going to love nella they're thinking great we got sort of a youtuber which is that's the obsession with all these things is have we got a youtuber it's like when strictly got joe sugg on they're like we got a youtuber guys guys we got a youtuber uh you know that's the klaxon goes off uh what they didn't have there was perhaps somebody

older somebody more mainstream and more establishment who you know that's you sort of want that they were in talks

with a lot of people they were in talks with Boris Johnson they were in talks I know he would be a nightmare I mean that I would watch because he really would

show himself up he got quite far down the line I think he would I think he at some point well I guess he'll look see what happens to Farage which in my view won't be a whole lot

and then he will decide whether or not to do it, but he'll get desperate eventually. Retention, not money. Exactly. Well, listen, soon we're going to have Boris Johnson on GB News and we're going to be doing a podcast when that starts and that's the thing I'm looking forward to most in 2024

because he is a guest not a host he is going to be a terrible terrible host and they will have paid him an awful lot of money and like everyone who pays boris johnson an awful lot of money they are not going to get their money's worth but i digress they get him in a golden handcuff still and then it's them wearing the handcuffs yes but so with nigel farage i think they didn't have that elder statesman figure. So they're thinking, well, we've got to get one. Les Dennis is doing Strictly, so we can't have Les. And so, you know, Farage is in a situation where they want him, of course.

I get it. Should they want him? You know, you can argue it either way, but they want him. They've probably got quite a lot of money left over in their budget because of some of the other names on there i would think because i think they've got really good people on there but you know nella is not going to cost you a load of money grace dent wouldn't have cost you a load of money danielle danielle harold who's brilliant so jamie lynn spears would have cost you some money yeah but no one else so you've got plenty

of money left over and if farage is sort of saying well i want three million and you're saying i'll give you half a million and suddenly you're one and a half million and the advertisers are going to cover it and you know it seems fine and you've got three weeks until you've got to get your whole lineup put together then that's when you end up paying it's not like they thought get me faraj we will throw every bit of cash we have at faraj this is it's you get to the stage when you're booking something when you have a gap and it narrowly it comes down to any one person's going to fill that gap and you have a sum of money left and you think well okay we can he can so he got he got he got very lucky there it's a slightly different format and I guess we'll

talk about this in a minute when we talk about Squid Game as well but because that does require more of a psych test they do have a sort of psych test to see whether people are mentally up to these things do you think they do the same with the celebrities or are you just regarded as like you're already in public life of a sort and therefore you don't go through the same sort of thing you'd go if you're going through Big Brother I mean I was talking to people who are involved in Big Brother this year and they say oh yeah you know the cast you end up with are basically the fourth choice of a full cast. So you're kind of like 80 people in, essentially, because all the other ones above

have failed the psych test because they're not mentally up to it. Or the criminal reviews board, you know, stuff kind of, but they do it all the time. There's very, very few people out there who want to be on shows you don't have some sort of criminal conviction somewhere.

So it's, see, the psych test is interesting. I was looking through, because Grace dent pulled out this week i was looking through the people who have pulled out of i'm a celeb over the years uh freddie star brian harvey daniella westbrook katie price jemma collins john lyden richard madeley all of those people those people have pulled out. They wouldn't be your first picks when you think of some of the contestants. I'm putting all of those together.

That's a show. That's a... Woodwatch. Yeah, it's an interesting one. And celebs, you know, things I think Farage is allowed to smoke, for example. And I think various people, you know, you can ask for one and a half million plus.

I need a pillow. Oh, he's got a huge rider. Yeah. I mean, he's got a huge rider. Yeah. I mean, he's such a diva. Little old me. Talk about little old me and talk about himself in the third person. That's the trouble. You're sort of watching someone who takes himself fantastically seriously.

And as a person who always says, you know, I don't take myself too seriously. It's like, well, you do though, don't you? Yeah. Otherwise, you wouldn't keep it. You can show us that in your behavior rather than telling us that. See, that's the thing. Farage exists in opposition to people right his entire rise and and the rise of what he believes in exists in opposition and he's always weaponized people who disagree with him and the many many people who talk about boycotting I'm a celebrity who talked about this is outrageous those are actually the people who've given him the oxygen

of publicity over the years that's the irony of the thing. Coming on I'm a Celebrity, there is no publicity for him there because he can't game it. There's no way he can game that. You know, Anton Deck and their script and Andy Milligan who writes it with them, you know, they are merciless towards him. The edit is not going to do him any favours. It's not being mean to him because that, by and large, is not what you do in a favors it's not you know it's not being mean to him because that by and large is not what you do in a reality edit even though people think that

you do so he has no control he has nothing to weaponize you know fred has sort of had a go at him a couple of times about brexit and you see nigel sort of going oh this i remember how to do this and even then everyone just walks away but yes and i think he probably thought he'd have more arguments about brexit but it is interesting that when it happens, people just start moving away from the campfire. We're all moving away from that particular campfire. In fact, we started moving away from that particular campfire in about 2019, where you just couldn't hear another word about it. Yeah. But I do think it's worth saying that, contrary to what people said, I'm not going to watch it.

The overnights are down. Perhaps you can tell us what the overnights are in just one second. Well, the overnights are the... That's,'s you know the next morning you find out how many people watched it yeah the overnights are down but in terms of catch-up which is what's happening to lots of linear tv now is that it's absolutely fine it's absolutely fine and so if you put the two together it's at its normal levels and it's still the biggest show of the year listen i i don't love him getting a million and a half he He is not a great contestant. No.

And I don't think ITV will think they've got value for money in any way whatsoever. I suspect he got the money because he was the last person booked. I think he will be forgotten. I think in a lot of ways, it was worse booking Matt Hancock because he was a serving politician and should have been serving his constituents. And he was the subject of a national inquiry as well. I which at the time was pending though richard so in many ways and that inquiry isn't doesn't even have statutory power so in the end watching matt hancock be subjected to a number of trials that might might be our only real courtroom as far as he's concerned

so you know i'll take it court yes we've put them under and listen perhaps that's how we do politics in the future but the interesting thing about i'm a celebrity is it is mass culture and mass culture and mass market is not interested in politics in any way whatsoever politics is like football the people who are interested in it are obsessively interested in it and know everything and are obsessed with every single thing that happens you know if Unai Emery says something at Aston Villa everyone's got an opinion but 90% of people do not care. And the same is true with politics. And you see it when he's in there,

the second he starts talking, they go, oh, so what have you done there? And so have you run for, are you a politician there? Would you run again for prime minister? Would you run again for prime minister? And also, because he's so vain, he never quite disabuses them

in the fact that, you know, by the way, I've never even made it. I failed seven times to become an MP. He can never quite tell them because he thinks, oh, well, if no one knows, maybe in here I'm the big man. But honestly, the joy, the absolute joy of that is seeing him not being chosen for the task and seeing him suddenly go, oh, no. Little face. I thought people hated me. That's all I've ever had.

And people don't even hate me. Shall we leave Nigel Farage there boring people around his campfire what if we could leave in there uh yeah let's do this so what we're going to talk about next is um Jeff Bezos and his partner have done an interview and you drew my drew my attention to that I knew nothing about it but I'm now broadly obsessed and I think that anyone who hasn't seen it is also going to be obsessed okay Okay. So Jeff Bezos, just as a recap, Amazon founder, recently ripped, now looks a bit like a Vin Diesel, regional Vin Diesel lookalike, and is sort of hands around the world's richest man title between him, Elon Musk, and Francois Pinault.

So they kind of hand it around. I think Pinault's got it at the moment, but he's either the second or third or first richest man. Where's Zuckerberg? Oh, he's below. He's below. Yeah, I mean, you know. What a beautiful story. Yeah, this is for US Vogue, not the cover

but we'll come to that later. Anyhow, the interview takes place at various locations in the West Texas ranch from which Jeff also launches all his space rockets and Lauren flies them around the ranch, locations in the West Texas Ranch from which Jeff also launches all his space rockets. And Lauren flies them around the ranch, flies Vogue and all the fashion people because she's in many different outfits in this shoot in her helicopter. Yeah, she's a helicopter pilot. And if your next question is, do they have a climate foundation? Of course. Anyway, if I had to say, what did I like about it? I would pretty much have to say everything. So let me paint you a word picture of what we can see.

Behold, Lauren, at the 10,000-year-old clock. Now, this is something Bezos has built on his ranch. It's 500 feet deep. It's loads of sort of blue cogs. It goes really – if you're wondering what it means, Lauren says it represents thinking about the future. No, nothing more. What what is it a clock it is a vast clock it's a 10 000 year clock it that's all we hear it's a massive infrastructure problem anyway what you can see is lauren lying across one of the cogs in sort of category five dolce

and gabbana anyway next behold her in the blue origin space facility itself um in one of those sort of in a, again, I think, Dolce & Gabbana dress that honestly looks like one of those foil blankets they give you after a disaster. Maybe this photo shoot. Literally everybody, by the way, is now looking at this online. So just wait till the end and we'll all look together. And then Lauren and Jeff in the front seat of a truck. Now, Jeff is wearing a cowboy hat, a very fitted black T-shirt. He's got ripped in recent years. And he's also wearing Lauren, who's draped over him,

along with various sort of leather bracelets and so on. The Bezos-Sanchezes would like you to know that they are extremely hot for each other in this interview. The reason I really love this interview is because I've been asked to write for Vogue a few times, and I never end up doing it because I always say, I know you think you want my writing in Vogue, the sort of thing I write in The Guardian, but actually, when it comes to it, you'll be like, oh, no, we can't have this in our magazine. And the last time I did it, someone said, well, you know, what would you say about Kris Jenner? And I said, well, the Kardashian

mater familias, as it were. And I said, I would say that she is one of the hardest women on the planet, but yet not Armenian. It was the husband who was Armenian. Therefore, perhaps she's a succubus and sucked all the Armenian out of him, leaving him, Robert Kardashian, a man so wet that he would end up being played by David Schwimmer in a TV adaptation of the OJ trial. And they said, no, you're right. Probably we wouldn't have Latin vote. Anyway, but the writer of this, Chloe Mao. I've never read Vogue, by the way. Well, I mean, I just do it for the pictures. Okay.

I read Q. Anyhow, but it's very hard. You're not really allowed to be funny. Anyway, the writer of this, Chloe Mao, has done an unbelievable job because it is absolutely hysterical, as you can see, profile and interview. But Lauren will have loved it, which I sort of love. Someone actually, when I first started writing on tabloid newspapers, said to me, tabloid journalism is about doing people over and then having them ring to thank you in the morning,

which I thought was exceptionally bleak. But this is an example of that because Lauren will have absolutely loved it. Can I just give you some of my favourite facts from this interview? Yes, please. Okay, seven people refer to Lauren as a force, which is quite euphemistic. Yeah, that really is euphemistic. Like when a friend comes around and goes, no, listen, she takes a while to warm up. Okay, for a recent present, Jeff bought Lauren a mug reading, woke up feeling sexy as hell again. And yes, he got it for her on Amazon.

Oh my goodness, that's awful. Do you know what? I might pull my books from Amazon. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Big swing in the fastball car. Big swing.

Yeah. He thinks that her intuition is so beyond limitations of other humans that she has almost witchy powers. Really? She clears up the fact that on the bed have you i don't know if you've seen there but he's got the biggest yacht in the world now a sort of trireme that is called koru and it's so big it has to have its own support yacht that trails along behind it has boring little stuff like the helicopter pad and some

other things as i said they've got a climate. And on the front of this thing is a sort of large-breasted figurehead in a diaphanous thing, a wooden thing, on the prow of this boat. And a lot of people thought it was Lauren. Lauren uses this interview to point out that it isn't her because if it was, it would have had bigger breasts. So what's Bezos' motivation for doing this interview? He doesn't need publicity. Well, that's a really interesting thing. I think first of all you would think that the shoot is by annie

leibovitz and you would think that it looks like a parody of an annie leibovitz shoot but you think you would think that they would demand the cover because when you're a big celebrity or a big whatever you demand the cover and actually i've done i've done tv choice twice did you get the cover yeah no i'm saying i've got both times with zander but listen you'll take it that showbiz and it was john leibovitz who's uh yeah he's uh with a big polaroid but what people say about bezos is that he really you know people ask why why are you in the prestige tv why are you why is amazon in streaming why is amazon sort of bankrolling films he was so excited when they got their first Oscars. They got some from Manchester by the Sea, like a pretty depressing film. But he picked it up as a distributor, really. And he was so thrilled

that he was going to be anywhere near the Oscars, the Golden Globes. He's a guy who really wants to go to the Golden Globes, Jeff Bezos. He gives big parties around it. He really wants to be part of that sort of thing. And she obviously, really wants to be famous. And so they've agreed to do this. And despite all the opprobrium that they've, people have laughed at this interview, but they want it so much. I suppose it's because they don't need to do it, but they want it so much. And so you're looking at two people who genuinely have obviously everything in the world, but really want to be famous. But also perhaps, you know, he's got that very, very typical,

slightly dweeby male thing of saying, look at my girlfriend. Yes. It's like a, you know, it's a really expensive way of saying, look at my girlfriend. There's a fantastic quote in it where she said, well, people are talking about her clothes, which are, you know, quite out there. She doesn't leave a huge amount of the imagination, Lauren. And she said, she says, I always found it interesting that people say well lauren you definitely dress more for men i actually dress for myself and then from the corner of the room comes this little voice it's jeff saying but it works for jeff oh my god i actually am going to

take my books off amazon i'm so sorry there's uh anyway but there's a very good paragraph in this interview that says lauren wakes up thinking about how to help people, says Elsa Collins, co-founder of This Is About Humanity, an organisation supporting separated and reunified families at the US-Mexico border. Very good cause, obviously. Which recently received $1 million from Sanchez. $1 million?

Okay, he earns $205 million a day. Okay. So this is like someone on the average UK salary giving about 35p to charity. I mean, why does no one call them a philanthropist? The Bezos's are what I would call faux-lanthropists. But also, I don't think that's what she does wake up thinking about. Oh, no.

She's waking up thinking, I need a wee. Or she's thinking, is it late enough I can do spelling bee? New York Times. Has H homes under the hammer started yet she's not waking up thinking about the charity and if she is it's because she forgot to do something like oh I forgot to send that check to the Mexican people oh that's annoying oh listen I'll do it later but it's a hell of a person to get married to oh she's brilliant she's planning an all-female space mission. Is she? Yeah, in the Blue Origin craft, which I just like. Good luck, space. I mean...

The bits I've read, I've quite warmed to her. Oh, she's... I have to say. She's a force. Yeah, yeah. Richard, she's a force. She takes a while to warm up. She does.

But she is... Literally takes nought seconds to warm up. She is on from the start. She'd be a fantastic I'm a celebrity contestant, let me tell you that. Oh, that's... Unbelievable. I mean, listen, she doesn't need the money. No.

For all time. But she likes the fame. Yeah. On that note, we're going to take a quick break. Working at your local Tim's is more than serving coffee. It's building connections with a team in a great environment, connecting with your guests in the community, and participating in programs like Smile Cookie and Hockey Card Trade Nights.

So join your local tim's team today apply now at careers.timhortons.ca we are back i've just been looking up that mug on amazon you're not kidding so it woke up sexy as hell again 11.99 and it's included in amazon prime absolute steal i'm amazed he didn't pay wholesale for it. But also, she should say, woke up sexy as hell. She goes, I wake up thinking about the problems at the Mexican border, my friend. So enough of this. Either make a mug of that or shut up. Yeah.

Shall we talk about the single most expensive game show ever made, which is Squid Game, which just launched on Netflix. We've both watched it. We've deliberately not spoken to each other about it it is an extraordinary production so it's a kind of live challenge version of squid game so squid game is the biggest show in the history of netflix um you know been watched over a billion times added over a billion dollars to their sort of net worth uh an extraordinary piece of tv and now they're sort of they've gone to studio lambert who make all sorts of brilliant tv shows and traitors traitors race across the world yeah undercover boss millions of millions of great

things and they've made this tv version of it in an enormous hanger like set near bedford um so it's a uk production made by a UK production company. International contestants, as long as they're English-speaking. I loved it. I absolutely adored it for a number of reasons, which I'll go into. But what was your initial thought? I thought it was unbelievably accomplished and amazing,

but for various reasons, which I'll also go into, I found it fantastically bleak. It is bleak, for sure, but that's how I like my game shows. That's why I love The Wheel with Michael McIntyre. It's not as bleak as that, Christ. I take it back. I like The Wheel. No, I found it bleak for other reasons, but we'll come on to those. So you've got 456 contestants in there,

and they play the same games as you've seen on squid games with one exception with one exception so the first game is the red light green light with a doll whose head turns round and everyone's in the green tracksuits and off they run so as a game show producer i'll say this game shows are dying so the sort of things i've made all my life i've done quizzes but also these sort of shiny floor saturday night, which are disappearing. You know, it's that kind of mid-market television, which is completely gone. And Netflix have not really had hits with this sort of unscripted game show type stuff. And suddenly this is the biggest show in the world.

It's number one in 78 countries. It is outperforming The Crown, this show. Listen, it's got a $4.56 million prize, which has something to do with show um listen it's got a 4.56 million dollar prize which has something to do with it but it's also beautifully made it goes against every single rule of game shows like it looks so like the show i mean the lighting everything about it is obviously extremely expensive it's far more expensive than the show which we'll come on to well the the the creator of the show was that was has been down on set and he was you know he was um involved in how it looked in the production design and and and all that kind of stuff but tv you know with a game show um the first thing people always say to you

need to know who the contestants are and on this show of course you don't because there's so many of them did you spot in the first game which is the red light green light uh a 90s british television legend no i didn't amongst the contestants he got knocked out in the first round but you can if you go back over it wolf from gladiators is in there shut the front door 71 years old michael van wick and he is in that yeah that's incredible that just shows you i mean it was really interesting that game because i was thinking how are they going to do this? How are they going to deal with like, they found a way to have people speaking about their backstories before the game starts to camera. So you kind of get invested. But it was really interesting. There was someone who's in that first game and you hear her saying, you know, I want to, she explains what she wants the money for. And they're kind of quite sort of sad facts of modern life, just that feeling of of being an endless debt and in lots of ways speak to the themes of the original drama and she and you think oh wow I wonder how long we'll be following her she's honestly mown down by about after about 18 seconds in red light green light that's it so you've just got to kind of get in with new stories

but it manages it and I remember actually the documentary maker, Adam Curtis, who's a brilliant category of one, brilliant sort of kind of polemicist and thinker. He worked a lot with Stephen Lambert and said to me always, the reason Stephen Lambert, who is Studio Lambert, the reason that his reality shows are always really good is because he spends so long on the casting. And so he thinks so hard about their stories and he hears kind of every detail about all these people's stories and things. You know, how will you work on the Gogglebox sofa in concert with all the other Gogglebox families or couples or whatever it is.

And he thinks very, very deeply about that sort of stuff. And that's why it really particularly works. That's why Traitors works so well. They went for people who did strategy games and they really found kind of brilliant contestants, which really elevate it. And clearly he's done that here. I think that's exactly right. And Tim Harcourt, who is a sort of right-hand man who does the same stuff I mean that's a hell of a stable they've got at the moment with Traitors, Gogglebox, Squid Game, Race Across the World I mean everything they do is turning to gold at the moment but yeah so in shows in a

traditional game show you do ask people what they're going to do with the money and I've always said you don't need to occasionally it's interesting but usually it's not because usually that it's going to be you know they're going to mend the fence and when it's four and a half million you don't need to ask because it's it's four i mean what do you mean what are you going to do with the money i mean it's going to change everyone's life you know that's that's three times a farage four and a half million so you don't sort of need to need to ask that another thing i love about it is very faithful to the original um thing which is great so everything you see looks very very familiar they don't explain the rules at any point that's my this is i'm gonna i'm gonna do some

behind the curtain stuff on on tv game shows my absolute bet noir is any show you do say oh you explain the rules explain the rules to us and you go there's two types of people in this world what and about 50 50 half people understand what's going on you don't need to explain it to them the other half haven't worked out what's going on and the more you explain it to them the less they understand in the same way that if you ask someone directions if you say oh sorry i'm looking for the town hall and they go okay it's about 100 yards up on your right and then if you turn left either i stop listening after it's 100 yards up right if it's not just up there then i've stopped listening and that's the same with explaining rules to people this show has no host so for the youtube generation who will not watch those

saturday night tv shows because why would they because they're used to something where you're straight into the show you're straight into the, you're straight into someone getting eliminated. And that's what happens on this show. There's none of this, hey, welcome to the show. This is Squid Game, the show where none of it. We don't need any of it. We go straight into gameplay and to talking about people, which makes it feel incredibly modern.

And I think it might reinvent Saturday night shows because Saturday night shows are stuck in their 80s and 90s and earlier. That thing of host comes out in a suit. Welcome along to the show. Big applause. Shall we meet our contestants? John, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Daventry. And John, what do you do for a living? No one cares,

right? Honestly, I can look at John from Daventry. I'm British. I can look at him and I have a view already. If anything, I want to know at the end yeah yes tell me your story you know like there was nigel in the australian version of traitors you learned at the start that he'd been taken hostage and then i went back at the end and read his whole story and it was an absolute mind blower but you know you they don't explore it at all in the format of the show and that is all to the good which even with an amazing story like that still works better.

One of the things we're going to do on this podcast is really, really recommend stuff and be incredibly positive. There's loads of great TV and the Australian Traitors. If anyone hasn't watched it, watch the British Traitors. If you haven't seen it, it's brilliant. It's coming soon, the British Traitors. The new series, I know. But the Australian Traitors is kind of a masterpiece. But yeah, so it breaks all the rules.

And again, it's made by the same company. And, you know, there's a reason for that. So this show, it's sort of, it's behind the scenes and it's a reality show, but it's a game show. And as you say, they've, I mean, I'm a geek about it because I'm fascinated with how they're doing the sound design on it. Because they're isolating mics in the middle of this room and the way they've choreographed the guards so that the

guards can actually direct the contestants so it's far more immersive for the contestants than if some sort of floor floor producer shouting off to the side how to do it um I can't begin to imagine how long it took to film can I can i now sound a note of dismay because first of all a note of dismay yeah a note of dismay because okay the creator um huang dong yuck who is obviously a creator of the original tv drama there's a few things we should understand about because he sold that to netflix uh and as you say it made a huge amount of money for them although it's always very secretive how much it actually makes for their company. They paid him a flat fee,

and it didn't matter that that show became the absolute biggest show on the planet, their biggest show ever, far bigger than Stranger Things, bigger than anything. He got absolutely nothing more. And he got nothing for this either, as far as I can see from what's being reported.

And that's because when Netflix buy your original idea, they buy everything. Now, the fact that a show, I mean from what's being reported. And that's because when Netflix buy your original idea, they buy everything. Now, the fact that a show, I mean, it's really interesting. When you do a TV deal, and I'm doing a development deal for an original idea, and I'm in the middle of one at the moment, but every time I've done one of these deals and every time any writer has done a deal like this for TV writing,

you'll say, it takes ages to do, and you'll say to your agent, how's it coming along? And she'll say, nearly there, do and you'll say to your agent has it coming along and she'll say nearly there and it weeds on a couple of things uh things like you know what percentage of the box office if it became a stage musical and you're like okay i'm pretty sure my like half hour comedy on podcasters or the tv industry or whatever is not going to become a stage that said i want 17 and a half percent yeah well you know the squid game but they're offering 15 no okay we're walking we're going to amazon i'm very good friends with lauren sanchez

i know jeff yeah i will never say that again though because huang dong here probably thought okay i'm pretty sure that my peak tv prestige tv very dark satire on capitalism that features a game show is not ever going to become a game show. Yeah. Well, here we are. A lot of people have said, and I think it has slightly, the message of the show I care and it is pretty sledgehammer. We're not talking about the Sopranos here, but it's pretty sledgehammer.

And, you know, capitalism is kind of iniquitous and it makes, pits people against people in these horrible ways. Is making a game show in order to rinse more money out of that original idea for drama kind of not just misunderstanding the point of the original show, but maybe blunting it and in some ways cannibalising your own product? What I'll say is this. So Hwang Gong-hyuk, who, as you say, came up with the original one, he was an advisor on this so

he's down on set so he is getting a lot of money for it well they found a way to pay him then a lot of money and got not an extra penny from for his show in the world but that's the case with the bbc that's the case if you do a show for the bbc you're not getting any uplift you know you don't suddenly if you have a huge hit you don't suddenly get more money for the next series and you know you can't exploit it and various things so that's the case with a lot of things and one of the things with netflix is they pay an awful lot more up front than a traditional broadcaster but they do keep all the rights and you know that's that's one of those things that you go well should we go with netflix should we go with somebody else you know retaining

the rights is usually the key thing in any um uh negotiation when you're selling a show but if you try to sell it to everyone else and no one wants it and netflix are willing to buy it there we go then you'll take it then we'll take it so as you say the success of the first series which obviously made netflix a lot of money in various ways subscribers and what have you he is not directly sharing in that however he is the brains behind that show. Netflix want a second series of that show. Yes, they do. Netflix want to have a game show version of it as well. So he will have made out like Bezos on those two deals.

He will. And actually, thanks to the WGA deal, the Writers Guild of America, which went on strike earlier this year, which, as you may have read, and finally came off strike in September, one of the deals they got was on streamers' residuals. And residuals are kind of success-based royalties, broadly speaking.

If they rerun your show, if it's on a network, or if it becomes a huge hit on streaming, at the time, you didn't necessarily get on streaming, you didn't get any extra money. And obviously, he didn't get any extra money for Squid Game. And he was very clear about it in several interviews afterwards that he got nothing more and he was kind of you know capitalism's going to capitalism about it all however that has now changed and Netflix will give you a sort of fraction of residuals if your show becomes is watched by 20% of its audience in any of the

territories once within three months of its release. So Squid Game would obviously have qualified for that. But I am struggling to think of any other. I just don't think it's, however good the show is, I do find the idea of doing it very bleak. And I'm struggling to think of any single other network streamer, anyone who would do this with their own prestige TV drama. I'm really struggling to think.

And maybe you think, oh, well, that's why Netflix, that's why they're geniuses and that's why they're winning. But for me, it's quite bleak. And I just, I don't really like the idea of it. I think this, I think you've got a drama that's about a sort of game show. There's no way you're not going to turn that into a game show. Mr. Beast did it. So Mr. Beast did his own version.

Well, Mr. Beast, who I love, and I want to do a deep dive on Mr beast in one of our upcoming shows definitely um mr beast is a youtuber and he did do his own version of squid game but that is a different thing to the people who actually own the ip the intellectual property i mean he didn't actually even ask them permission i don't think well that's the thing so he did not ask he just did it anyway and it's sort of good for the brand but certainly huang gong yuk is not making any money from that and neither is netflix but it was huge it was enormous no way in a million years you're not going to do the game show version of it if you were the bbc if you're amazon whoever if you're itv any of them you're going to do the game show

version of it i think it's they've only released the first five episodes, I think, then four more, then the final. I think they have now dropped the rest of them, perhaps, possibly. I think that Stephen Lambert and Tim Harcourt are smart enough to understand they have some existential bleakness at the heart of this format. And they lean into that quite heavily in the first episode. They're smart enough to understand that actually what we want is redemption. And what we want is a story that has heart. And you can see it as early as the second episode. They're working that out. that actually what we want is redemption and we what we want is a story that has heart and you can see it as early as the second episode so they're they're working that out so i think

they're going to tell a very interesting story i think it's an extraordinary bit of television making there's amazing things the very end of the first episode you have to go on to the second one there's a task where four people each of them have to choose one symbol to do that cookie cutter game and one of the symbols is much worse than the others and they have to agree within two minutes and of course no one wants to get the the umbrella symbol is the hardest one no spoilers you know and essentially if they don't decide then they get eliminated themselves and it's just it's such a such a brilliant moral quandary they place uh everybody in and i think that firstly I think it might be a real shot in the arm for the game show industry.

And I just think it's brilliantly made and full of, I mean, I cry at all television. My wife, Ingrid, cries at all television. She was crying at the mother

and the son on the first episode. The mother on the first episode is incredible. So you can see they know where the heart of the show is. I think they're

heading towards it. Well, can I now change on something different, which is tactics because I you are the format now you're in and I know I'm in anyway I mean you know it's my fault I'm watching all this stuff you see so I'm part of it but uh what are the tactics to succeed within that format so far like in the early episodes is it good to just not become someone with a target on your back like people know your number there's someone called 432 who is some kind of monster um and that there are is it better to be just someone who no

one would ever sort of pick you to be eliminated or pick um or just to just not be known of course it is as my grandfather who's a police officer used to say if you're ever called to a fight in a pub be second through the door that's what he always said don't never never be in the vanguard of any reality show ever never ever works out for you at the start but does it become does the do the tactics change as the game evolves and is it then better to become someone who people regard as a leader or is it even in things with like i suppose without when i'm a celebrity or anything people that people regard as a leader or someone that they feel has heart. I think, honestly, the best thing on all those shows

is to be true to yourself, is the thing. But yeah, I think people have watched Squid Game, so they understand that they might need alliances at some point, and they might need people who have brains at some point. They might need people who have strength at some point. It's interesting how literate the players are. As you say, it's great that we don't have

to have the rules explained, but people are so literate of these are of the, as you say, it's great that we don't have to have the rules explained. But people are so literate of these formats now and they understand what's, you know, as I suppose as Farage was doing, talking about 25% of airtime. People really understand like that they might need alliances. They understand far more than we did in the early days of reality TV where people were just like, oh, we've got some cameras on people and no one knew how to behave. Yeah, honestly, I think it's a show slightly, it's a reality show mixed with a game show in a way i've never quite seen before i think it's i could understand watching one episode and going this is a bit bleak for me uh but genuinely i trust in studio lambert and i trust in the brains behind the original tv show that it's going to be something quite compelling and extraordinary.

And the scale of it, I mean, it is extraordinary to see. I mean, the original show cost, the original drama cost, I think, $2.4 million an episode, which by the standards of prestige TV, you could be paying 10 times that for an hour. And this, I mean, I don't know what this is. This is costing many multiples of that per hour. This would be, I mean, officially, I mean, really, it would be the most expensive game show ever made. But it's not. And I'll tell you for why. Because something like The Voice USA, the talent costs, which are millions and millions and millions.

So the talent costs make that more expensive per hour than this would be. But in terms of what you're seeing on screen... Wow, Blake Shelton, the final point of Catalyst. Exactly that. But in terms of what you're seeing on screen, no one's ever spent more money on a game show than this. And I really think it shows. So it's on Netflix.

It's certainly a spectacle. It is a spectacle. I would honestly give it a go. If you don't like it, I get it. It is amazing. But it's quite something, isn't it? And I can see why it's beaten the crown in virtually every territory around the world as well. Well, I can certainly see that, yes.

We should talk about the crown next week, maybe. Maybe. Shall we sign off with a few things we've loved this week, just recommendations for people to watch and read and so on? Absolutely. I would like to recommend a book called Erotic Vagrancy, everything about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton which is an absolute masterpiece by

a man called Roger Lewis it is everything about Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor perhaps the first celebrities Clive James always thought they were because they became more famous for being famous than for the acting that they which brought them to fame and it is it's a very long book and it is honestly I can say it's one of the

great reading experiences of my life I felt drunk when I was reading it it is like a book and it is honestly i can say it's one of the great reading experiences of my life i felt drunk when i was reading it it is like a fever dream it is funny fascinating he is a brilliant brilliant writer and it is an extraordinary study of two people what's it called in erotic vagrancy that's a bad title it is a bad title but i tell you what it's called that because when they were in rome and they came came together during the filming of Cleopatra, leaving some of their other wives and husbands, they were carrying on so obviously that the Pope wrote an open letter, which in a journalist is always an act of madness, but possibly not in potpourri.

I'm not so familiar with the business. But denouncing them for erotic vagrancy. And he wrote it to the Vatican newspaper and it was published while they were filming cleopatra in rome imagine being so hot the pope has to write a letter and they were and more oh my god what a study of appetites and the pope of course is a guy who has a uh woke up feeling sexy again mug uh on his bedside table uh what i recommend firstly i thought uh this week strictly was extraordinary if you haven't watched it bobby brazier, who's Jay Goody's son, does a dance for her. And it was so beautiful. And Jeff Brazier is there and he's in tears. It's just one of those things.

I think Strictly is one of the most quietly revolutionary shows on television. It does beautiful, beautiful things. And we were just sitting there watching. We were in absolute floods of tears. It was very beautiful. But also, in amongst all these documentaries recently, which maybe we'll talk about at some point you know Beckham and Robbie Williams and Arnie the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary on Amazon Prime is so good I mean hashtag no filter it's really really really good what a subject though I mean he's he's wonderful yeah I mean it's it's it's quite a story and you

you don't have to love snooker to watch it. Listen, if you love snooker, there's plenty of action there. You know, Osada movie, Selby, all sorts going on. But yeah, it's a really, really great thing to watch. So I would recommend that to people. Well, Richard, I think that about wraps it up for our very first week. That was fun. I had a huge amount of fun.

Shall we do it again next week? I think we should. And if you are listening to this on the 28th, on the day it comes out, that's my birthday. But if you're listening the next day,

the 29th, I'm at the dentist. So I'm having a rollercoaster for a week. I'm having a Hollyoaks of a week. And we also want to say if you want to send in

any questions, we would love to hear from you. So questions on All Matters Entertainment at therestisentertainment at gmail.com Please write to us

and we will answer them in some format sooner or later on pretty much anything try and do a question about someone who Marina doesn't like because that's the thing

I love most I love a proper rant and anything you need to know about say Escape to the Country or Homes Under the Hammer you just ask me okay thanks so much

for listening I hope you enjoyed it and we will see you next week. See you next week.