The Rest Is Entertainment - Zendaya's Secret Weapon

Episode Date: July 22, 2026

Who is the genius stylist behind Zendaya’s red carpet supremacy? Does publishing have a female violence problem? What do The Wizard of Oz and Shakespeare’s plays have in common? Richard Osman and Marina Hyde answer questions on celebrity stylists, unhinged album promotion and storytelling tropes. You can email any questions you have to restisentertainment.com The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations. Lending is subject to status. You could lose your home if you don't keep up your mortgage repayments. Conditions apply. 1996 average first-time buyer deposit based on Office National Statistics House Price Index data. Summer sale is here: get an annual membership for a third off with code SUMMER26. That's ad-free listening, every bonus episode, and full access to our exclusive members' series. Sale ends August 31st, so grab it before summer's over. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Josh Smith Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Emma Jackson Exec Producer: Ami Bennett Filmed at www.westdigitalstudios.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, Flowers, Richard, are a very important part of show business. And there is a reason we're talking about flowers. As always with Octopus Energy, they do very interesting things where they're customers, we will get to what they do with flowers. But yes, it's sort of a currency that runs everything. Yeah. I mean, in The Bachelor, it's actually part of the format, right?

The rose ceremony. So that flower is really earning its money. Yeah. Can you imagine the person, by the way, there will be a rose wrangler on that show who has to make sure that the roses are absolutely purpose. Perfect. That's a completely full-time job. Also a full-time job doing flowers for Elton John. Oh, my goodness.

One of the great lines in a court case ever when one of his managers was accused of ripping him off. And they discovered in court that he'd spent £293,000 on flowers in 20 months. Kesee was like, sorry, how's that possible? He said, I like flowers. Now, shall we get on to Octopus Energy? They have a sort of committed team who always look after your account. So if you get an email from them, it's the same people. but also they get to know you so well

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So go on and make every moment count because there's no better time than now. Grey Goose. Make time wait. Sip responsibly. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osman. Hello, everybody. Hello, Marina.

Hello, Richard. How are you? Yes, I'm good. I have a Mayor Culper to start with, but I think you might have one as well. I have one too, and I can hardly believe I'm saying this, but the QR code inviting people, just asking if they would like to sign up to pay the licence fee that was shown during the World Cup games. Which we talked about a while ago. Which we talked about.

As the tournament went on, has in fact been very successful. I'm not going to get into specifics, but it has been very successful. And I think it's interesting. The honesty box approach, as it were, has actually, which I felt created some friction in advance of watching a game if you didn't really need to do it. I stand corrected and I'm very pleased to say that many people have signed up for the license fee that way. So I stand corrected. And it's worth it for Guy Mowbray every time just saying, and if you want to pay your license fee, the QR code is there. And for the last time, please don't shoot the messenger.

And this is a guy who's just like, I cannot make it clear out. I'm live, so you can't stop me. I cannot make it clear of that. You do not want to say this. But it works. Well, thanks for saying it, Guy, because it has worked. Yeah. My Mayor Culper is, we spoke about reunions that didn't work.

And I was talking about E17, the documentary we made about them. And I said it's unbelievable. They're not back together. Andrew Forecastle said, I have great news for Richard. East 17 are back. They performed recently at an annual passholder event at Chessington World of Adventures. They were brilliant. Wow.

Of course it were. They've got the songs. Yeah. They have got the songs. They've got like eight songs. You go, oh, and this one. Yeah. And this one, yeah.

Okay. So very, very good news for license fee and East 17 fans. Yes. Should we get on to some questions? Please. I have a question for you. It is from Philip Sawyer. And Philip says,

I saw the most incredible TikTok featuring a person called Law Roach, taking a jet to Paris Fashion Week, grabbing an oat cout couture chaparelli gown from the runway, then taking a private jet to London immediately to dress Zendaya in the gown for the Odyssey red carpet. First off, I like a question that has first off in it. First off, who the head is law wrote, and when did Stylis become so powerful?

Okay, this is a great question because he is absolutely amazing. He has been with her a long time. He calls himself an image architect. Okay. He is genuinely amazing. The Zendaya collaboration has made him famous. He was the one who actually leaked that her and Tom Holland, not leaked, but answered the question

when someone said they're married. Only he could be so indispensable to their internal setup that it wouldn't even matter if he said it. Oh, that's a law for you. Yeah. They started a long time ago in 2011 when she was still a Disney teenager, basically. A lot of big houses turned their noses out

and he, I mean, so confidently he'd say, if it's a no now, it's a no forever. So much confidence that she'd be amazing, okay? Now, what he has done, first, I think styling is so interesting and you're so right, Philip, it's become a massive thing in much a different way than it was in history. He has really pioneered that theme dressing.

In the old days, it was like a bit naff. Like if Kate Middleton went to Wimbledon and she was in a white dress or she got off a plane and she looked a bit like an air stewardess, it's like, he has rescued this thing from taboo, along, by the way, with Andrew Mukamel, who's Margot Robbie stylist, which you remember the Barbie tour, this theme dressing. Do I remember it?

Well, you do remember. No, I don't. You don't. Again, well, she dragged that movie around the world. a pink outfit for everything, and it was a huge, huge thing. It's a big part of the publicity. If you look at something like challenges, like Zendaya was always in all this kind of tennis stuff. And instead of being naff, it was just kind of endlessly reinforcing.

What he understood was how to go viral. He quickly saw that he did psychology at college. He comes from a pretty difficult background. He understood that to get the best clothes, you needed to create the greatest moments. And he has the most extraordinary process. Like, he can spend over a year on an outfit. outfit developing it. It's like the development of a script.

For one of the June things, Zendaya saw this kind of corset, a moulded corset and said, could we do this bit in a dress? So they changed the colour to a kind of sand dune colour. He really only does her now. He occasionally will do it. Yeah. But you're really lucky with her because you've got an amazing

principal who obviously is incredibly beautiful. And they must really trust you to that. Yeah. And we'll do very, very out there. I mean, really out there things. She's been in sort of robotic costumes, amazing things. He has an encyclopedic memory for archives.

So one of the other things that you want stylists to do is like pull stuff out of nowhere. And it's not like the thing that's just come down the catwalk and basically anyone can buy or get. And you're very right, Philip, to say that they've become much more powerful. There has been a huge shift in power from editors and magazines in general. These guys, these stylists, men and women, obviously, they control the narrative. They have the archival access and they understand virality and the red carpet. better, but you become a business brand in your own right. And as you say, this did not always happen. In the Golden Age of Hollywood, the studios dress their stars, and that means that the wardrobe

would, for their off-duty clothes, would make them things that Rita Hayworth looks good like this. She can go out of these clothes, right? Then eventually you get fashion houses getting interested in some stars. So Givonci obviously has Audrey Hepburn, Bob Mackie and Cher, those kind of crazy kind of cobwebby costumes that she used to wear. John Paul Gautier and Madonna, all the chronicle bras, which become really iconic. But the Oscars and the awards season was not what it is now, which is this absolutely military fashion campaign where you've got to have, I don't know how many outfits for,

if you're in contention for an award, you have got to have an unbelievable number of outfits. Stars would sometimes buy their own clothes. I think when Diane Keaton got the best actress for Annie Hall, she just got a blazer and a skirt out of her cupboard. Okay. We do not live in this world any longer. And then the 90s, which sometimes people say just the absolute kind of desert of red carpet.

People made lots of mistakes. And, you know, Jody Foster just bought a dress on holiday when she was in Rome and then wore that to the Oscars. It's like, oh, my God, this can't happen any longer. Now, none of this happens any longer. There are certain moments in styling that are so amazing that they lead to kind of almost, or they certainly precipitate technological advances.

J-Lo, when she wears to the Grammys, this tropical print, green, plunging Versacey dress, which you probably remember me just from me describing it, But that was the most popular... I remember you describing it. You remember me describing it. Yeah. But it was the most popular Google search ever at the time.

Okay. In response to the fact that Google realized that people didn't actually just want to hear me people like me describing it. Yeah. They wanted to see it. They launched their image search function off the back of it. No. And then you get all these other stylists that come up and they become famous like Rachel Zowe, who became this, that's a real Y2K aesthetic.

And she was doing like Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lowe and all those sort of things. But the best stylists, understand what your screen persona is, and they understand how even in non-costume, you can reflect that persona. So it's more important than ever in the amount of noise there is out there, to be on brand, to be somehow instantly readable as yourself, but also to still to surprise.

And the best styling, I've talked before, maybe I talked on Tuesday about Anne Hathaway and how actually the hate campaign against her was quite just an online thing, and it wasn't, you know, she was in big movies at the time. But Erin Walsh really rescued her from even that online thing by putting her in these kind of really fierce outfits and she just sort of came back against the hate. The power of clothes can be absolutely amazing.

Law Roach is at the absolute peak of his game. He's amazing. He's very lucky with who he dresses because she'll do anything and wear anything and they've been together forever. But it's such an interesting business and you're totally right. It has totally taken power away from those old legacy centers like magazine editors and so on.

And it's very interesting. It's an incredible business. Yeah, I find I genuinely, because, you know, fashion is not my, it will shock you to learn, not my kind of greatest love or something. I particularly have a kind of fix on. If I see someone like this guy, Lor Roach and Zendaya, you do think, okay, it's extraordinary what they're doing. Yeah.

I get that that is an art. I get that that is. My only worry is, and also, by the way, I guess I know that that's a lot of fun. I know fashion is like incredibly expressive and incredibly fun. But if you are a Jody Foster or a Diane Keaton, I worry that there is no room for that anymore that you can just turn up in something you bought. I worry about the pressure that,

because some people are so unbelievably brilliant at it, that everyone feels they have. There's a huge amount of pressure to dress up for these red carpets now. And just, I just... Well, because fashion has become... The business of fashion is led by these sort of things now. It's not really led by what's in vogue or whatever. It's led by these viral internet moments that people see things

and they have a trickle that. We talked about it. When we talked about jewelry and lending jewelry to stars, it's amazing. But I feel if ever I have to go somewhere where I'm going to have a photo taken or something, I'm like two hours beforehand, I think, oh my God, what is this suit? And I'm a man so I can just wear a suit and like a tie. But I think that's a real power move, just turning off him, whatever you like. No, but can people still do that?

It's my worry. I don't want people spending a whole day. If you're Britain's bestselling author and you wrote the book, No, not me. Yes, but you can know. You can do that because, and the powerful people just wear whatever they like. I've got a friend who's really, really powerful, and she said, I'll wear a t-shirt and skirt on the red carpet. It can, and I don't care.

Okay, that's good. You can still do it. But you know, you're like a backstage. You know, she's taking four films there, whatever it may be. The powerful people don't have to be like that. But there's so much. Yeah, it's hard. I mean, I'm always glad.

If you love it, if you look, I absolutely see if you're Zendaya, I 100% see. That is like a huge positive. A lovely way to express yourself. But I do think, oh my God, it's hard to be a celebrity. It must just be so... Well, it just takes so long. I remember when we talked about the devil was part of the thing. There were so many women there who I just thought,

my God, this has been your whole day getting ready. And I'm so glad my face isn't my fortune. But it's such a lot for you to do. But it is, you know, it's part of... That is your business. And it's... Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I'm glad it's not me.

I agree. Oh, this is a very good question, Richard. Ellie Stanhope says, I saw in the Guardian that nine of the ten best-selling fiction paperbacks in the UK last week have one thing in common. A woman is murdered. Does UK publishing have a female violence problem? I saw this as well and it's, and it had a huge amount of response. And I am aware that a male author talking about this is not the best, but I do think there are issues with that contention. I would say that. If you look at the top 10 books this week, I mean, there's a lot of crime fiction in there. And definitely women get most. Murder in crime fiction, men get murdered in crime fiction. You know, what was the gender split of people who were murdered in? And then there were none. So definitely that. There is definitely a sub-genre books which are written by women for,

principally for women readers that are about, you know, women in peril. That's for sure. But you actually look at the list. It's slightly disingenuous to say it. Firstly, I mean, I'm on the list. I mean, the top ten and a woman isn't murdered in my books. So factually, I can't speak for everyone else. but there isn't one in my book.

Oh, dare. So, I mean, fine. There's Robert Galbraith there, you know, J.K. Rowling, and she's murdered so many different people in her time. There's Claire Douglas. I mean, almost all these books are written by women, by the way. They are predominantly read by women as well. And then I keep seeing comments and say, yes, but who is commissioning them?

Who are the editors? I go, well, I'll tell you now it's usually women. I said publishing is very, very unusual in its incredibly female-friendly, industry all the way up to the top these days as well, all the way up to the very, very top. It has female consumers, it has all the biggest writers in the world now are women. If you look at this top ten as well, I mean, the big story in this top ten is you've got Florence Knapp with the names, you've got Virginia Evans with the correspondent. Again, you say how hard it is to make it as a writer.

These are two people who did not have a name and have written a brilliant book and are now selling millions of copies of books around the world. One of the books is Freedom McFadden. Again, somebody who was just self-publishing and has become one of the richest women in the world, just through the, you know, her enormous readership. So I think there's lots of stories in this top ten. Quine fiction is very, very popular. Are women killed more often than men?

I suspect in female written books, maybe they are, but I wouldn't have the numbers to back it up. Is there a misogynism issue in British publishing? I don't think there is because it's... I don't feel like there is, whereas in a lot of TV drama... Yeah, TV drama, I'm so sorry. I find it... There is so...

When I was growing up, there were like very few... shows or anything that or films that doubt with rape at all. And you'd see there'd be something like the accused or there'd be deliverance. And these were just kind of, they were kind of like monolithic awful things because it, and they did it brilliantly by the way, both those things. But the amount of TV dramas, like just throwaway stuff that start with rape. And it's like a late or something, just these incredibly baroque things being done to the female body.

when you know when it's just been done so lazily and it's just a way to make you instantly invested in the story because it's so horrific. A woman in peril trope. It's to make you care because you can't be bothered to write it any better so that people do care. I think it's amazingly, amazing how desensitized

to seeing really horrific things on crime TV that we have become. So I'm speaking to an actress recently who'd been offered a part on Law & Order SVU, special victims union. And she said, make of this what you will, the opinion amongst her and lots of her active friends was that it's a rape show.

And it is true that an extraordinary amount of violence is visited upon women in that particular show. Most of it is about absolutely horrific things, often plucked from recent news stories or whatever, happening to people. I think in publishing there used to be much more of that issue. I think now there are very empowered authors out there. If you read those top 10 books by,

the way, I don't think you will come away thinking that publishing has a misogany problem. And that it was gratuitous in any... Yeah, exactly. I do see gratuity on TV a lot. I think that's right. I think authors worked out a long time ago that that was a trope being used by certain authors, you know, maybe in the last decade and people have gone in a slightly different direction. You look at a writer like Claire Douglas.

I mean, she's a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant crime writer. If you're a crime writer, you're going to write about murder. But when I started writing The Thirstly Murder Club books, the one thing I really understood and this is why you should never write for the market. You should never think what's selling. The stuff that was selling, there was a lot of blood and gore and violence and all this stuff. And I didn't like it. It's not what I wanted to read.

I want to write about crime and I want to write about wrongdoing, but I'm not interested in that side of things at all. And I think almost all the writers on this list are not interested in it either. You know, they're just not. So it's a really, really good discussion to have. Lots of factual inaccuracies about it. As I say, there's a, you know, I'm on the, list and the woman isn't murdered in my book. That's absolutely by the buy because it doesn't

take away from the thrust of the discussion. But I think if you look at that list, it is an extraordinary celebration of what a powerful industry publishing is for women and for different voices of women. I mean, it's skewed, of course, because crime books are very popular. This is, I take issue with the maths. So nine other top bestselling books have a murder of women. There's eight because mine doesn't, and I can't speak for anyone else there. So of the 98,000, books sold that week in the bestseller list, 81,000 had the women being murdered as central to the plot. So, and this is the maths, 84% of the books people are bought and read in the UK this week involved a woman being murdered for entertainment. You think, I mean, if you think, I mean, the top 10 is not all the books being built and women are not being murdered for entertainment.

There's lots and lots of reasons to write murder mysteries, lots of reasons, lots of motives, lots of people who are doing the murdering, lots of victims, lots of investigators, and everyone is playing with gender. in all of those roles. That's the interesting thing. If you're a crime writer, you've read a lot of crime. You understand, you know, and crime again, in the 1920s and 1930s,

what other industry was absolutely dominated by women? Yeah. You know, and this was, Dorothy Ossayas, Agatha Christie, Josephine Té, all of these people

completely dominated, and every crime writer understands that lineage, that we understand where they come from, and you can play with gender in all sorts of ways if you're interested

in writing about the world as it is. And it is a very primal fear of women's, that you are prey? Exactly. that. This is why women know that they walk with their keys in the hand and do all those things that we know that we do. So I think, yes, I agree it is simplistic. And there are plenty of female writers who will write those books and plenty of female readers who will read them,

but there are also plenty of female writers who are writing very different books, who are writing about something incredibly different. So I think I would be surprised as the author of that had read all of those books. The point is interesting. I think your point about TV is incredibly powerful and it's definitely been a trope for a long time. I don't think that's a lesson we take from that top 10. I think that top 10 I think tells us a very different story. I agree. Now shall we go to a break? Let's do that. This episode is brought to you by the Lloyd's 5K house deposit. Lloyds are offering a 5K house deposit which was last seen in 1996. What are your entertainment

memories of the 1990s? I feel guilty talking about the 1990s because you look back and it was It was such a golden era. We'd never had it so good and we didn't even realize because we were young and we just thought we were entitled to it all. We absolutely took it for granted. Yeah, Brit Pop was absolutely in its pomp, Oasis playing to a quarter of a million people. You had blur and suede and pulp.

Spice Girls, amazing movies at the cinema, train spotting. I mean, it felt a time of absolute optimism. But at the time, you just assumed that was the way that the world was going. But a very British type of optimism. Yeah. But part of the optimism, of course, is that mortgages were more affordable. And that is what Lloyd's is dealing with right now. Yep. Last seen in 1996, Lloyds are now offering 5K deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. Search 5K, first-time buyer.

1996 average first-time buyer deposits based on O&S data. Subject to status, your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments. Conditions apply. Hey, this is Michael and Hannah from Gollhangers. The Rest is Science. This episode is brought to you by Cancer Research UK. What if your immune system could learn to recognise cancer. cells. That's immunotherapy. One type is car T cell therapy. T cells are your body's watchmen, and doctors can now extract these and reprogram them to spot cancer. Car T cells, they've started

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survival in the UK. I mean, this shows you how far research can take us. For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit Cancer Research UK.org forward. slash rest is science. The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine,

the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th. Only on Hulu on Disney Plus. Welcome back, everybody. Marina, a question for you from Mickey Baxter. That's a good name. Yes. That's a good, like, kind of Cockney villain name.

In my new book, I've got like a gang who pulled off like a heist, and I had such fun coming up with the names. But Mickey Baxter could have been in there. Anyway, hello, Mickey. Mickey says, returning to the era of Macuffins and Chekhov's Gun, things we've spoken about before, could you explain what Deus X. Machina means and give your favorite examples?

Okay, that's a good question. It means God from the machinery. and it's from ancient, it was actually started in ancient Greek drama, but it carried on through in ancient Roman drama. At the top of the theatre there'd be like this rigging in the roof and a god would descend at the end and basically resolve intractable plot points. It's essentially like a children's version of I woke up and it was all a dream.

And it was obviously, as I say, it's used a lot in ancient Greek Euripides does it a lot. Madeira ends like that or Arrestes ends like that. So it's not my favourite way. We asked me for a favourite example. my favorite way to resolve a plot at all, but... It's essentially when a writer can't end what they've got, and they go, I'll tell you what, yeah.

Well, it's interesting, yeah, I agree. When it's done really well, you wouldn't really notice it was happening at all. There's some quite fun ones, but I'm not going to... The Spanish prisoner, there's something that happens at the end of that, which I love, which is a David Mamet movie, if you haven't seen it, see it, but I'm not going to give away anything of that. The end of the Lost Boys, I quite like. If you're a great writer, you can play with the fact that the Deosette's Machina is supposed to be lazy and it is a trope and so you can have fun with it. Well, Charlie Kaufman, in adaptation, despite Jones movie, Charlie Kaufman, who, the

Nicholas Cage, Charlie Kaufman wrote it, but Nicholas Cage is basically playing him. And he gets told by his writing guru, who is the famous Robert McKee, the writing guru, but played by Brian Cox, just never to use Adair's X. Machina. And he's sort of desperate for an ending. He says, don't you cheat, don't you dare bring in Adairs X. Machina? Anyway, it's lampshaded, as they say, which is sort of like when a trope is inverted, but by the fact that at the end of that film, he does use one, but it's already been set up earlier, so it turns into a Czechos gun. So I like that. Again, I like meta things. I have to say, and you're going to hate this, but I love it. All of the late plays in Shakespeare,

there's like four things at the end towards the end of Shakespeare's life, where he is essentially inventing a new format and it's things, plays start as a tragedy and end as a comedy. And they're Pericles, Symboline, the Winter's Tale and the Tempest. And all of them have a version of this in it. Because it's quite difficult. You know, you've got this tragedy, and then they're these weird redemption arts, and they're kind of resolved in comedy and in marriage. Why wouldn't I like that?

I don't know, because you said you don't really like Shakespeare. Sorry, sometimes we have to talk about it. I'm just teasing you. Just as a recommend, he's quite good. Anyway, so in Symboline, Jupiter literally descends. In Pericles, there's like the goddess, Bernard descends in a dream and says, oh, you need to go to my temple, and there you're going to meet up with your long, lost autumn, whatever. In The Tempest, Prospero is sort of won all the way through because he controls the narrative, the island, where the characters go.

So he's really one all the way through. I found the Tempest very moving. You like The Tempest, do? Yeah, because it's about him as a writer, right? Oh, my God, it's one of the greatest things of all time. Thank you. Yes. And I don't know.

The rest of his stuff, I can live it out. Okay, there's a bit in, there's one where it doesn't come off, I don't think, quite as well in this. And that's the Winter's Tale, which I absolutely love, which is a brilliant play. But I think there's something that happened. I don't know if you can do spoilers for something. I'm going to do a spoiler for this because it's written 400 years ago, let's face it. There's a statue sort of comes to life. Like in Covent-in-Garden?

And she wasn't dead after all. Yeah, exactly very much like one of those. Wow. So he invented that? Yeah, he invented living statues. My God, is there nothing he can't do? There's nothing, nothing. So the tragedy's not really redeemed there.

But my favourite one of all, I think, is because it happens so much at the end of the Wizard of Oz, which is a perfect movie. I will not be taking any questions. It is a perfect movie. But it's really weird. First of all, when Dorothy throws the water that kills the witch, they don't know that water kills the witch. It's just like some random thing that happens. And it ends up completely resolving the plot. Not only that, then all the people, all the wicked underlings who work for the witch turned out so hated her all along. It's like, did you not have your own water bucket? You could have done this age. ago. So that happens. And then when she's, obviously, she's trying to get that home, and she tries to get in the wizard, the professor's balloon, and then it floats away. And then that glinda turns up, the fairy, and says, but you've had the power the whole way through because you've been wearing these ruby slippers. And so there's that, this is, you just put your clear your heels together and there's no place like home. I've never seen the Wizard of Oz. Oh my God. It doesn't sound great. Oh my God. But that doesn't sound great to me.

Well, thanks to giving Shakespeare, sort of half the house. thumbs up. But yeah, The Wizard of Oz is also really good, Richard, and I'm going to break it to you. It doesn't sound good. Okay. Well, millions would disagree. No, but you accepted that the way you've just described it. Yeah, that's why I'm saying it's amazing that you don't really realize it's happening at all, and it doesn't matter. It is such a perfect film, and the resolution of it is also sort of perfect. And yeah, when you think about that, there's masses of plot holes, there's masses of whatever, things that would work. I'm essentially slagging it off. I'm not flagging it off.

Sounds like you were. It sounds like, you know what? Why didn't they just? just throw water over in the first place. Yeah. Well, they have to do a lot. You know, they work for her. They're essentially enslaved by her. So they, just during one of the cleaning tasks, they could have done that by it. Well, you would think she would accidentally get splashed at some point. Well, that's really what happens because Dorothy's trying to put the scarecrow out. He's on fire.

You are kidding me. Yeah, sorry. You don't need to see it now. No, I'm back in. That does sound interesting. I feel, it's one of these films I feel like I've seen because I've seen a million clips. Okay. I know the memes. You know?

Okay. Yeah, never seen it. Well, all right. Well, it's, so I like that one just because it happens so many times at the end of something that is nonetheless a complete gem and perfect and you don't mind. And so, but in general, it's not my favorite way to resolve a plot. And I would have felt really cheated if I've been sitting there in ancient Greece and it's like, oh, okay, well, if anyone can do that. Yeah, I mean, that is quite a sudden. But again, I don't think Madea is shit.

You don't think Madeira is shit. I don't think Madeira is shit, no. Okay. I'm sure you're a massive lover of Euripides. Euripides, you pay for these. That's the only thing I know about Euripides. Yeah, I don't know so much on all that stuff. Okay.

I ain't so bright. Oh. I like Renta Ghost. You know I love Renter Ghost more than anything. Do you know I do? More than anything. So you like Renta Ghost more than Shakespeare? No, I don't like it more than Shakespeare.

But it's up there. It's up there. It's up there. Again, a lot of supernatural elements. Supernatural things resolve those plots in many cases. Yeah, a lot of Deus X. Maconairian Renter Ghost. In a way.

Yeah. and Widow the Whisp. Yeah. Emily Griffiths has got a question. She says, I live in Manchester and I'm a big fan of Blossoms. I saw recently that they performed a surprise live concert outside a nightclub in Deansgate and crashed three weddings to promote their new album. What are the craziest things that bands have done to promote a new album or tour? You do have to do stuff these days.

By the way, I love Blossoms. If you don't know Blossoms, then you wonder where all the guitar bands have gone. They're a great band. They're the band who backed Rick Astley when they were doing the Smith stuff as well. But yeah, I love blossoms. Well, I mean, the most famous one is you two. And I'm only going to talk about it because I want to talk about someone else who did it first and never gets any grief for it whatsoever. So you two in 2014 when they release Songs of Innocence.

Apple bought the whole album. They bought it for $100 million. Apple gave you two $100 million. And automatically pushed the album directly into the libraries of all 500 million iTunes accounts worldwide. So if you had an iTunes account at that point, as I think I did, suddenly you've got this U-2 thing. People went nuts about it. But it sort of feels like quite a good idea.

And as you two, people sort of quite like you two, you're giving people a free record, you know. So it feels like, well, that works for consumers because it's free. It feels like it works for you too because you're getting your album into the hands of people who would not otherwise have heard it. Many people won't want it. That's absolutely fine.

But, you know, you'll get those people on the periphery who are like, oh, I wouldn't have bought this and start listening to it. And you would think that it would work fast. Apple because it's, you know, good publicity to something. But yeah, it was it was the single most disastrous PR stunt of all time. People went crazy. People were furious. It's like you two had turned up at their door and started playing when they were in the middle of watching something. There was immediate backlash. In fact, you know, we talked about JLo's dress earlier and Google. In the top Google search in the week afterwards was how to remove U2 from iPhone immediately.

So, you know, so it sort of did something. Apple had to set up a new website to allow users to do just that. They literally had to create a new technology for you to be able to remove that from your phone. Bono later apologized on Facebook. He said, I mean, listen, he knew the gig was up. He said, oops, I'm sorry about this. I had this beautiful idea, and we got carried away with ourselves. Artists are prone to that kind of thing.

A drop of megalomania, a touch of generosity, a dash of self-promotion. and deep fear that these songs we poured our life into over the last few years might not be heard. So you sort of see the thinking. So they got grief there. Today, he didn't get grief was Jay-Z, who did the exact same thing the year before. So Jay-Z, Samsung bought a million copies of his new album before it came out. So his album was Magna Carta Holy Grail. Samsung, they bought a million copies up front for $5 a copy.

So listen, it's not 100 million, but it's plenty of money. and it was made available for Samsung users. So that's exactly the thing he did. It was a huge hit anyway, but essentially he got a million sales immediately didn't count towards the charts. So he didn't get in trouble at all. But my favourite bit, the only reason I mention it

is because it was Magna Carta Holy Grail. And not only did he do this slightly nakedly commercial thing of selling a million copies to Samsung, he also visited the Magna Carta in Salisbury Cathedral. and the dean of Salisbury said, it was great to welcome Jay Z to Salisbury Cathedral. He was clearly moved by seeing the original Magna Carta. I think it may have surprised some of our visitors.

That's the showbiz news I like. Those are the things that I like Jay Z and Salisbury Cathedral, looking at the Magna Carta. You know, forget brand extensions. I would have thought he would care less about the Magna Carta. You not think? No, it's like part of our origin story. Yeah, but it's kind of fun.

It's old, don't you think? Yeah. Like, yeah, yeah. And he's on an album called it. But that, to me, that's proper old-fashioned publicity. That's the sort of thing you could do as a... Great for the cathedral as well. Great for the cathedral.

A little bit less good than when those two Russian spies came over and said that they were just on the... That was amazing publicity. Again, this cathedral has some incredible publicity. Yeah, but they are thinking, oh, God, it was it really ten years ago that Jay Z was here looking at the Magna Carta. We've been waiting for this. This is got the newsletter that week. The guy writing the newsletter must have been... I've got something to talk about.

But anything that could be a VT on Bargain Hunt, I think that's the kind of publicity I like. I like for an album. The Samsung stuff, less so. But yeah, in a world in which Blossoms, as you say, they crash these weddings and it was very charming and they're very, very, very likable boys. So I'm going to repeat the name of the Blossoms album.

So I think people will love it. You can listen to it wherever you want. Songs from the Wedding Cake. It will not be downloaded to any of your devices without anyone asking. It's not released until October. But if you don't know blossoms, check out blossoms immediately. I will say that. And big up to Jay-Z for enjoying Salisbury Cathedral so much.

Not the first, not the last. Well, I think that winds us up for today. But we would love to hear your questions, as always. The email address is The Restors Entertainment at gollhanger.com. Please send us your inquiries. You know the kind of stuff we like talking about. You get it. You know, Shakespeare, Rent-A-Ghost.

You know the kind of things we're interested in. Best are an episode of Rent-A-Ghost. Oh, okay. No, we can't. We can't. It's gone on too long already. All right. Thank you so much.

We will be back next week. But if you haven't listened to Richard's great bonus series, remind us again. This week it is the World Cup of TV theme tunes. I'm with Bella Hull and Ivo Graham. It's a lot of, they were really good fun, the two of them. And, yeah, it's, again, it's just an excuse to have a wallow in pop culture. But with a competitive element at the end, which obviously, I think, makes everything better. And the first 10 minutes are available free as well.

You can have a little listen and see if it hooks you in. Perfection. Yeah. All right. Other than that, we'll see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.