The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret - 12: Good Omens (TV) Pt.1 (Bicycle Screaming)

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

The Truth Shall Make Ye Fret is a podcast in which your hosts, Joanna Hagan-Young and Francine Carrel, read and recap every book from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series in chronological order. This week, Part 1  of our recap of “Good Omens” - The TV series. We’re talking about episodes 1-3 of the recent BBC/Amazon Prime adaptation of Good Omens.  Squid Arms! Shipping! So Much Love! Find us on the internet:Twitter: @MakeYeFretPodInstagram: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretFacebook: @TheTruthShallMakeYeFretEmail: [e-mail] to follow your hosts and their internet doings? Follow Joanna on twitter @joannahagan and follow Francine @francibambi Things we blathered on about:Neil Gaiman's tribute to Terry Pratchett (at the April 2016 memorial)Wintersmith, Steeleye SpanThe Quite Nice and Fairly Accurate Good Omens Script Book (Discworld Emporium)Good Omens the radio play (BBC)Merlin (Wiki)Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch: first trailer launched online (Guardian)Neil Gaiman’s TumblrHow to Do the Basic 3-Card Monte Trick | Table Magic TricksThe Stand-Up Monte (YouTube)Horrible Histories (BBC)The League of Gentlemen (British Comedy Guide)Out To Lunch with Jay Rayner (Acast)Plebs (British Comedy Guide)The Globe TheatreGood Omens: Here’s why David Arnold’s soundtrack is literally out of this world (Classic FM)

I'm gonna cry at some point in recording these two episodes. Oh, Jesus, really? Okay. I mean, not actually, but like, the inside. Okay, good. You know I can't cry on the outside. Because I think I've got some tissues underneath all that crap on the other table. Oh yeah, alright, fine, I won't have an emotion. I was just thinking about when we first heard that there was going to be an adaptation for both of us.

That was at the memorial, although there was a bunch rumored. Honestly, until you reminded me, we'd heard about it. Yeah, because it was a very emotional day and I didn't really care that much about TV adaptations at the time. It was a very emotional day in multiple ways. Yeah. Partly me wearing heels around the Natural History Museum, which was a mistake. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah, my feet were killing me by the time we got to the actual memorial.

I forgot we went to the Natural History Museum that day. Yeah, I kind of didn't take much for ink. I was a bit more focused on how the hell we were going to get to the Barbican from South Kensington. It always works itself out. Yep, eventually. Brackets, Joanna always works it out. I have my uses. But yeah, so the memorial in my head, I remember the music because I'd never listened to any of what's it.

Steel Ice Band. Steel Ice Band at the time, although a couple of the songs from that album are now on my permanent playlist. I love that album so much. Yeah. They did the Winter Smith album. You and To Make A Man are the two that I've got on permanent placement. Yeah, To Make A Man's really lovely. I like I Shall Wear Midnight as well.

It's very sweet and a little bit sad, but not too sad. Yeah, I do like that, but I feel like that's one if I play too much, I'll get sick obviously. That's every now and then when I feel like listening to the whole album. And I remember Neil Gaiman. Also, he read the letter from Terry Pratchett asking him to make Good Omens. Yeah. And it was very sweet and very sad at the end. He said, all right, you bastard, I'll do it.

Oh, I do remember now. Oh, yeah, I forgot about the letter. Because then they gave him Terry's hat and it was very sad. Like that was a... Yeah. That memorial was amazing. That's the bit that bashed into my memory over the Hulk and Omens, but it was the hat. Sorry.

So I've got the script book handy and there's a little intro from Neil Gaiman. That's a nice book. It's really lovely. It's so good. What's under that dust jacket? Wow, that sounded pornographic. Sorry. Ooh.

I like it. I love a plain black and it's a really nice spine. Gold font. Very good. So the letter that Terry Pratchett wrote to Neil Gaiman was, I know that you're very, very busy, but no one else could ever do it with the passion that we shared for the old girl. I wish I could be more involved, no help, any way I can. And it was just so sweet.

And obviously he passed away before it actually got written. But so I thought it was... It's very sweet to have this background context of how it was made. And I'm really glad it was made the way it is because I don't think any other adaptation of a novel has ever had quite so much love for the original work behind it. No, I can't... I can't think of any other. And I can't imagine this being any better.

No. Also, we've brought so many new people to it who had not read any Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett. And we're like, oh, what's this weird show? Oh, hang on, I'm really obsessed with all of these characters and love them now. Yeah. One of the nicest things as well is like a huge internet fandom has kind of... Obviously there's already a huge Terry Pratchett internet fandom and a huge Neil Gaiman internet fandom. But the very specific Gaiman's fandom that's kind of sprung up and become so much bigger

off the way through the TV series is like the least toxic fandom I've ever seen online. Yeah, there's no gatekeeping from the existing fans. Yeah, the people who've read the books and have battered ancient falling apart copies aren't sort of saying, well, we liked it before it was cool. They're just sort of saying, oh, cool, you like it. Come sit with us. Come sit with us. Isn't it good?

Yeah, more people. Yeah, it's like in a world of horrible, toxic online everything. Yeah. The Good Omens fandom is a very nice part of the internet. I also feel like a lot of us Pratchett fans are kind of treating it as a gateway drug. Oh, yeah. For other people like, oh, you like that, do you? Well, try a little bit of this on there.

Saturday night and see how that makes you feel. Cheeky bit of disc world. A little bit of disc world, maybe, you know. Scat around the witches arc. Oh, for you, sir. For you, I'd recommend possibly the watch. Yeah, the guards, yeah. Oh, you've read all 40 books.

Is that a good drug dealer impression? I don't know. I don't know what drug dealers are. My only interactions with drug dealers are with people who sold weed in school, which is pretty low key. Yeah. Shall we make a podcast then? Yeah, let's make a podcast. Awesome, let's make a podcast.

Hello, and welcome to the Two Shall Make You Fract Ineffable Edition. Usually, this is a podcast in which we are reading and recapping every book from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series in chronological order. But we are here today to talk about Good Omens. I'm Joanna Hagan Young. And I'm Francine Carroll. And having talked about the book, we are talking today about episodes one to three of the Good Omens TV series. Obviously, we are a spoiler light podcast and avoiding spoiling any future events for Discworld books and including all events in the final Discworld novel, The Shepherd's Crown, as far as Good Omens goes.

I'd say major spoilers for the book, but we will avoid spoiling the end of the TV series because this is going out just before it's finished. So we will try and keep our discussion to episodes one to three. Yeah, yeah. So, quick follow up from last week. Yeah. We were talking about Radio 4 and Radio Play is airing on Radio 4. And we kind of completely forgot to mention that a really good Good Omens radio play exists. Oh, well, you forgot. I didn't know it did, so.

Have you not listened to it then? No. Oh, it's really good. It has Peter Serafinowitz as Crowley and Mark Heap as Aziraphile. Okay. And a bunch of other really good people in it. The one whose name I can't remember, who's Oregon and Fresh Meat. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And she's in Ghosts as well. She plays Anathema. Okay. Colin Morgan plays Newt, which is perfect casting. I don't know who that is. He's Merlin. Oh. You know, like the BBC series Merlin that's like Young Merlin, it's got Anthony Head.

No. Have you never watched that show? No. Jesus. Francine. Okay, sorry. It's like, it's really bad, but watch it. It's so good.

No. What? It's not really bad. It's amazing. Is it worth paying my TV licence for? Oh, it's on Netflix. Okay, then. Yeah, I might.

It's got Anthony Head in it. All right. Okay, I'll watch it. But I guess I'll listen to the Good Omens radio play when I feel like another rendition of this. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I've almost overdosed on Good Omens now, having read through the book twice and watched the TV series twice in two weeks.

The other thing, obviously, I mentioned last week that I was going to wait and talk about the definition of ineffability this week. Oh, you did, did you? Yeah. You looked it up. No. I was going to text me the definition, ineffable, too great or extreme to be described in words. And I'm really grateful that I was texting the definition because otherwise I would have

accidentally gone on a rabbit hole on etymology and spent an hour that I didn't have on that. So thank you, Ebony, for texting me. Thank you, Ebony. And that's your low key shout out. Now, stop asking for one. I'm such a... Does she want a high key shout out next? Maybe.

We'll do a musical number. I feel like doing a musical number on a podcast is not... I mean, there's no point getting elephants and dancing girls in if no one can see them, Francine. I could see them. Where are we going to put elephants and dancing girls in your flat, Francine? You're always steaming my creativity, but fine. We can do a musical number next year.

But if I move house, we can do it in the garden. We can't record in the garden. So, you see, we don't have a previously on because we're talking about the beginning episodes of the TV series. Yeah. So Good Omens, the TV series is based on Good Omens, the book, which was a collaborative book by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, who is the author of the books we usually recap. This is a bit of an oddity, really, isn't it?

Because although it's based on a book partly by Terry Pratchett, Terry Pratchett sadly died before this was made. So it has very limited role in it. Very limited role in conceiving of the fucking thing. But then normally an adaptation doesn't have the creators of the original source material that heavily involved in it. And so this is a bit of an oddity in that Neil Gaiman literally wrote the scripts and show ran.

Did he write all the scripts, did he? Yeah, he did all the writing and he was the show runner, which doesn't normally happen. What does show run mean? You're in charge of the whole thing. So it's your creative vision from top to bottom, basically. It's one of the biggest roles you can have. Like D.B. Weiss and David Benioff were the show runners of Game of Thrones. It's a big thing.

Are they the ones that fucked it? Yeah, definitely. I had some guys fucked it. Yeah, they fucked it. They didn't do good things to that poor show. Sorry, this is not a good Game of Thrones podcast. It never will be. I mean one day we will do that bonus episode where you get drunk and explain Game of Thrones

the TV series to me, especially the final two seasons. But we really don't have time to get you drunk today. Oh, fine. So yeah, so that is basically the context of it. It's a TV series that... It's a limited six episode thing. It's very good. Yeah, six episodes hour long each.

It's well worth watching, as I'm guessing any listeners already know. Yeah, I'm assuming if you're listening to this you've watched it. Yeah, and although I can't say this for sure, I imagine it's pretty enjoyable whether or not you've read the book. Well, I've got friends and people who are in my life who have watched it, haven't never read the book and are obsessed. And I have now since like gone back and picked up the book, but... Yeah, there's definitely...

There's another layer of nerdy enjoyment. They're super into the book anyway because you go, ooh, Easter egg. Yeah. Oh, there's so many good Easter eggs. Right, shall we talk about it properly then? Yeah, let's talk about like the actual first episode, yeah? Cool.

Episode one in the beginning. So in this episode, God explains the entire history of the universe. Pretty succinctly. Yeah. We begin in the Garden of Eden. We see Adam and Eve kicked out and the whole Apple thing, and we meet Aziraphil and Crowley, the angel and the demon. Then we jump way forward into the future to Crowley receiving the Antichrist.

We see the amazing baby swap that also takes place in the book, and the Antichrist go home with a lovely couple from Tadfield. We see Gabriel interrupting Aziraphil as he enjoys a nice meal of sushi to talk about things being afoot. John Ham. Ah, John Ham. Aziraphil and Crowley, the friendly angel and demon, panic about the end of the world, get very drunk in a bookshop after dinner at the Ritz,

and make an agreement to co-parent the Antichrist till he comes of age in the hope that they can prevent the apocalypse. Perfect Friday night. Excellent Friday night for me. So we jump to five years later. We see Aziraphil as a gardener, and we see Crowley as the wonderful Nanny Ashtereth looking after all the child they think is the Antichrist. He isn't.

We see the Antichrist grow up. Eleven years later from the birth of the Antichrist, we come to what we think is the Antichrist's 11th birthday party. When a hellhound fails to turn up, Aziraphil and Crowley realise they've got the wrong kid. Water waste. Yeah. At which point we meet the real Antichrist, Adam, and his gang, the them. With lovely twangy background music.

Yes, as they hang out in an idyllic little village in Oxford. Golden light. It's always three o'clock in the afternoon. And Aziraphil and Crowley say welcome to the End Times, before trying to prevent them. Just as well really. Yes. Very good of them.

So let's have a look at what you've written about this. Well I thought I'd start with talking about some of the characters in the casting. This section will fade away as we get forward to episode six. Yeah. We meet the most new characters here obviously. So Francis McDormand voicing God is an amazing thing. Yeah. And not just, ooh, it's a woman voicing God.

But like Francis McDormand's amazing as well. Yeah, yeah. And she's going to be in the new Wes Anderson film, which I'm really excited about. The trailer came out for it yesterday. Do you know who Wes Anderson is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what the film's going to be.

The French Dispatch. It's kind of loosely inspired by the New Yorker. It looks like someone has gone, what is the platonic idea of a Wes Anderson film? Okay. That sounds good. Yeah. I'm very excited for it.

But also I just really like Francis McDormand existing and doing things. Hmm. And I think she voices God perfectly. Like the whole opening voiceover where she says, I don't play dice with the universe. I play an ineffable game of my own choosing. Yeah. No, it's very nice.

It's authoritative and slightly smug, just as I imagine God would be. Yeah. And also like, obviously, they know making this that a lot of people will really love the book and there is so much good writing in the book that rather than lose any of it, that there is, they found a way to use God as an orator so they could keep in like a lot of the best lines from the book. Yeah. Which is definitely a stroke of luck that they've got that voice of God option because

this wouldn't have worked without the relation. Yeah. I think that really makes it. They'd have had to work in some really awkward exposition. Oh, yeah. And I hate awkward exposition. There are still a couple of. Hi, we're awkward exposition with, as you know, Bill.

Um, Zerophellen Crowley, obviously Michael Sheen and David Tennant. I don't think anything has ever been cast quite as well. We're not spending the entire episode thirsting over David Tennant Francine. I'm not thirsting over anything. I was sighing with happiness. Okay, I'm thirsting. Thirsting comes later. Okay.

In a bath. He's still got the weird hair right now. I like the weird hair. I don't mind, I don't mind his 11 years ago hair. The man bun that he has sort of five years later. There's a brief man bun moment that I could definitely do without. I didn't notice the man bun. I think I just blocked that out.

It's a very short scene. I like his 90s hair, which I assume it's 90s. I don't know. Just going by the sunglasses. Yeah. That was early 2000s maybe. Yeah. Anyway, David Tennant's hair aside.

Yeah. We meet both. Obviously the characters of a zero fell and Crowley are kind of it's weird. The shift is definitely more focused on them than the book is. Do you think that happened after the casting when they realized how good it was? No, I think it happened during the right that if you look at the script and I think it happened during the writing process. With the scripts kind of done and finished by the time casting.

I think so. Yeah. There's a couple of jokes about casting the script that are quite funny. Um, there's a bit, uh, it's like, I think it's like episode four or something where the script says that a character should be played by William Shatner. Obviously it's not in the TV series, but I kind of really wish William Shatner had a cameo and get over this now. But yeah, Michael Sheen and David Tennant are perfect casting.

I did find it quite interesting. I was reading an interview with Michael Sheen and he talked about the fact that he intentionally did play a zero fell to be a little bit enough with Crowley. And yes, if I had to have one criticism of any of the acting in it is that a zero fell is a bit more camp than I imagined him. But I mean in the book, people say he's as gay as a tree full of monkeys or something. Oh yeah. But I, he not in a, he's quite silly.

Okay. And sort of deaguely. And I always pictured him as a little bit more restrained in the book. Sure. Some of that's just my imagination. Yeah. And I love what Michael Sheen does with him. But I think he sometimes almost comes off as a bit of a bus of a joke.

Yeah. I can see what he's doing because he's trying to make the kind of that the love not in a weird way, just in a super I admire this guy so much kind of way. Yeah. Like there's always a very cute little crush. Yeah. Yeah. He's very sweet and he's very flirty and giggly.

And it's, I really like it. It's just very different from how I imagined it when I read the book. I do. I think it helps to contrast with his serious moments though. When he has serious moments, God, he's such a good actor. I mean, they both are. But Michael Sheen, the things he can do with his face without seeming to move his face at all.

That's it. They've got quite different acting styles in that way. Haven't they? Yeah. David Tennant is very expressive with his whole body and face. Yeah. And Michael Sheen is very restrained. And does amazing subtle things.

I mean, the way David Tennant like in the whole show seems to move entirely from the hip, which is very, have you ever tried actually walking like that? Yes. While not in heels. Although I still got a bit of a Cuban heel thing going on. But just the way he manages to lead entirely from his pelvis without seeming like he's drunk, apart from the scenes in which he's drunk, and do that much with his arms. Yeah.

There's just, the listeners can't see, but I'm doing a squid impression. It's very nice. Okay. So yeah. So obviously we love the casting there. We meet the Youngs, Mr. and Mrs. Young. How old is Daniel Mays? I was making an internal guess and I can't.

He's got a proper baby face. He's got a baby face, but in a really ageless way. Yeah. Like he could be anywhere between 20 and 40. Yeah. I didn't look up any of the actors ages, but I do think they're again, they're really good casting. They managed to look like a very, very, very suburban couple. It's been fun going through like the IMDB pages of all the actors in this because almost every

British actor that was in this has been in Casualty, Hobby City, Doctors and the Bill, which is a way to... Is that just the general circuit? Yeah. This is the rite of passage that all the young British actors go through. But it's so ubiquitous to the point where like I was in where we were playing actors, had a silly song where it was sort of... And we've all done the bill.

So the Dowlings, the American couple who give birth to the spare baby that's supposed to end up with an anti-Christ for a child. Nick Offerman. Nick fucking Offerman. You've written it down. I just really fucking love Nick Offerman. No, I just really fucking love Nick Offerman. Do you love Nick Offerman?

There was something in the script book about it that Neil Gaiman, I think, basically said I cast him before I wrote it. And Jim Winter... Jill Winton Witt plays his wife, but I was mostly excited to just see Nick Offerman because he's... They needed someone to be very American and if you're going to cast someone to play an American, like that is very perfect. He is very American.

Although it did disturb me to see a moustache this because I'm very used to him as Ron Swanson. Well, yeah, when he doesn't have a moustache, usually it's because something's gone horribly wrong in Parks and Racks. Yeah, so I was very concerned about his moustache. What's wrong with your face? Rubbed off due to friction. Sorry. Oh, no.

Okay, we don't need to fill this with Parks and Rec references. We meet all of the Chestering nuns, obviously. Sister Mary is played by Nina Sasanya and it was really bugging me that I couldn't work out what you're from. And then I realized it was from love, actually. Okay. Her character in love, actually. Oh.

She's the one that's like the assistant to the Prime Minister and she's really mean and calls Martin McCutcheon fat. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I didn't recognize her. It did take me a minute. I'm so bad at recognizing faces. Oh, me too.

I will sit there just kind of half angrily for most of an episode before going. Yep. We've got Haster and Liger as well, played by Ned Dennehy and Ariane Bacare. Oh, that's a bit of follow-up. Didn't you actually find out what Liger was, finally? Oh, what? The origin of his name? Yeah, because I found Haster and I couldn't find Liger.

Yeah. I am not going down a whole rabbit hole of looking at Neil Gaiman's Tumblr. Mm-hmm. And someone asked someone... I think that one doesn't have porn on it. There was very little porn on... No, there wasn't any porn on Neil Gaiman's Tumblr. Hi, Mr. Gaiman.

Just a quick question. Where did you get the name Liger? It appears to be a Roman surname, an ancient region in Italy, origin of shrimp. Or did it come from somewhere else? And his answer was, I made it up. It sounded demon-y. Cool. Yeah, good.

I'm really glad it wasn't something as ridiculously obscure as that shrimp thing. Yeah. I mean, Haster and Liger have both done so well in this. They managed to get just the right amount of demonic looking and creepy face stuff. Uh, Haster is... I just thought, absolutely fantastic. Like, I've written it down somewhere that, um, the... The way he plays off.

The overstated shrieking and emotion and, like, hysteria through it. Yeah. He could have fallen back on, oh, cool, calm, collected demon. But he just, like, went full shriek and I loved it. I thought it was such a good choice. There's so many good little comedy moments he gets. And for a demon that doesn't have a sense of humour, like, that actor has such good comedic chops. I haven't really seen him in much else.

Uh, no, me neither. But he did... Oh, fuck, it was just so good. Yeah. I really loved both of them. And then, obviously, one of the most perfect bits of casting and character in the whole thing is we meet Gabriel, played by John Hamm. Fucking God, he made me laugh so much.

So Gabriel's not even really in the book, but, um, like, uh, again, in the script book, in the introduction, and I've seen him talk about it elsewhere. He said a lot of the extra stuff that they put in was stuff that they sort of had ideas for the sequel or they had talked about or wanted to put in somewhere at some point. And Gabriel was very much part of that. Yeah. And it's so good. If you've got John Hamm.

Oh, man. Sorry. I kind of, um... Briefly pausing my David Tennant thirst to thirst over John Hamm. I kind of forget that he's such a good subtle comedic actor because I see him in a lot of American shows, honestly, and that kind of... He doesn't get comedy scripts often, but when he gets comedy script, he's so funny. Um, like, cause obviously Mad Men's, Mad Men's a great show, but it's not really a funny show.

No. I was thinking the other comedy role I can remember him in is in 30 Rock. Oh, yeah, where he plays the guy who doesn't understand that he's ridiculously handsome. Yeah. And that's very funny, but it's in a much more over-the-top funny way, which I fucking love 30 Rock. Don't get me wrong, but it's a different kind of humor. Yeah.

It's an American sitcom. Yeah. Um, but yeah, in this, he is so, so subtly funny just by being slightly off-center of what humanity is. He just looks a little bit sociopathic around the eyes all the time, and then that comes out more as it goes on. And he's sort of got that weird, like, intense, friendly businessman vibe. Yeah.

Like, someone who definitely... What is your name too much? Oh, yeah. When someone meets you and they're like, oh, yeah, it's Francine. Very good to meet you, Francine. So have you heard Francine about our new project, Francine? Put down how to make friends and influence people for three seconds. And try being an actual human being.

Yeah. Like one of those people who makes way too much eye contact with you because they've read that you make eye contact to seem personable. Yeah. Or puts their hand on your shoulder. Oh God, that's the worst. Yeah. And probably puts his hand on your waist to walk past you as well.

Oh, that's another step towards a different kind of businessman. Oh, that is a step towards a different kind of businessman, but I still think John Hamas, Gabriel would do it, but not in a creepy way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just in that I'm not aware of the fact that some people don't like being touched because human bodies are new to me. Yes. I do love the whole, I don't sully this temple with gross matter.

I do like the clothes. There's a... In the script there's a couple of scenes that were written and didn't make it into the show. And one of them is just a very silly scene of Xerophile in sort of Regency England. And they're trying to promote him and say that he's not working on Earth anymore and he's trying to get himself out of it. But it would have...

I'm really, really... I get why they cuss it. It was... It didn't need to be there. It was just a really silly, funny scene. But we could have seen John Ham in Regency or a Tailoring and I'm really upset that it was cut for that reason. It's a shame they didn't film it and then like release it with the Blue Ray Edition or something.

I just... I just want to see John Ham and, you know, the White Sox because I bet he's got a very well-done cough. I bet it's a very well-done cough. And then the curly wig. Oh, no. Here are specific yums part ways of how you join us. Sorry, I don't...

Are you yucking my yum? I am... No, I am stopping the description of this yum so that I do not have to yuck it. Well, fair enough. We also get a little bit of Beelzebub here and played by Anna Maxwell Martin who, again, is a really, really funny actor. Her and Gabriel almost have like a more distant version of Xerophile and Crowley's relationship. And when you do get scenes with the two of them together, it's brilliant.

Yeah. They play off each other really well and you can tell they're really enjoying it. But I think just Anna Maxwell Martin in general is having so much fun doing that role because she sort of sneers at everything and is very bored of everything. Yes. Not as in the actor is sneering at the character, but the way Beelzebub is sort of... Yeah, yeah. She's very...

Bored and nasal and has this furious supervisor vibe to Gabriel's over-friendly businessman. So, yeah. So, obviously, when we talk about a book, we normally pick out some favorite quotes. I have picked out some favorite quotes and I'm reading from the series because it's so good. And there are little bits that aren't necessarily in the book. And one of my favorites is... This is Xerophile and Crowley heading to a Xerophiles bookshop having had lunch at the Ritz. And Xerophiles sort of saying, well, yes, because you're evil.

You're a demon. Get thee behind me, foul fiend. Oh, after you. Yes. Also, the one I noted down so I don't have one to go with. Oh, I'm sorry. No, it's good. It was...

Oh, I fucking love those two, man. Oh, it's so good. It's so irritatingly good. How dare they be that good? Yeah. I also wanted to pick out, like, not for every episode, but the way they use Queen in this, I really like that it's never stated that things that stay in a car become a best-of-Queen album the way it is in a book. But they've still nodded to it by using the music of Queen just randomly playing in Crowley's car a lot.

And that's after, like, there's a shot of it being something else and then put in, isn't it? No, no. It never... I don't think it ever actually addresses it. Oh, okay. I think it is just... They use the music, which, again, looking through interviews with Neil Gaiman and stuff, he did say about the radio play, he said,

we couldn't get Queen for the radio play. Brian May wouldn't give us permission to use it. So we approached him about it for the TV series, expecting him to say no. And he said, no, no, of course. And I'm really sorry. I wouldn't use it before. So he had a complete change of heart somewhere in those four years, which I thought was very sweet. Yes, my favorite...

You literally might have just been caught on a bad day last time, isn't it? It could be something like that. My favorite use of it in this episode is Crowley as he drives up to Haster and Liger. The line from Bohemia and Rhapsody of Beelzebub has a devil for a... It's not Beelzebub has a devil for a sideboard, but I wrote that down because I was very tired and I'm not sure what the actual... So I've been looking through the script as we went along to see little bits that might have made it there that didn't make it into the show.

And there were a couple of scenes written for the sort of opening scenes of this episode. Sure. You see a zero-fell hangout in a shop and just sort of performing very sweet small little miracles like helping a woman struggling with a pushchair. And there was a whole scene of Crowley invading the BT Tower with an army of rats to do the tying up the mobile phone networks. Oh, sure, sure. That I'm kind of...

I didn't make it in, but I found it quite funny in the way Neil Gaiman wrote about it in the script saying that he wrote in these extra scenes of a zero-fell performing small miracles and Crowley invading the BT Tower and then said... And then I realised that after all, the story does start with a demon turning up to a graveyard to receive the Antichrist. And 27-year-old me is laughing and pointing at me very smugly. Yeah, fair enough. Any other really big change from the book for this section?

Obviously there are lots of small changes and things. We don't get to see the bit where a zero-fell and Crowley are a bit older and they're warlocks' tutors, which I would have quite liked to have seen both of them in a classroom setting or a private, like a homeschooling setting because I think it would have been quite funny. Yeah, yeah. I always find it interesting seeing what little moments can be cut to streamline a story and what can't. So I was having fun paying attention to that. Yeah, I can...

Yeah, I can see why they cut that bit of the two. Yeah, it didn't need that. It's not as funny as David Tennant in drag. I mean, I would wear that outfit. Oh yeah, yeah, sure. That's a pretty good outfit. It's a nice aesthetic. Speaking of aesthetics, I really want David Tennant's sunglasses in the first part. So Antichrist, 11 years ago.

Oh, so not his Valentino sunglasses with the other ones. No, yeah, their Purcell PO3166S is the exact make of those sunglasses. I wanted them so much, I actually looked it up. Yep. And they are quite expensive, so I'm going to find an ASOS GP version. That sounds like a better plan. But I really like them. I'm super into circle lenses now.

I've got some giant pink circle lenses, and I do really love them. They make me look ridiculous, but everything's literally roast into glasses. They're great. So I thought it was quite interesting, especially in these first three episodes, how much the focus of the series is more on Aziraphale and Crowley. I know I already talked about it a bit when we talked about the book, that it really is more focused on them for the first half. Yeah.

But for this, it's like, no, this is a story about these two, and everyone else are side characters too. Like, if you watch the opening credits sequence, which is an amazing, gorgeous animation of the two of them. Going through it all. Yeah, yeah. So, Remark, this part of the story in the book then, where else is the focus? No, it is really focused on them at the beginning.

I'm just saying that they are much more the main characters throughout, whereas in the book, the focus really shifts away from them for the second half, and they're separated for such a big chunk of the second half. Which, again, we'll talk about that when we get to the next episode of the podcast. Yeah. But also, like, the way it builds the relationship with them, there's a lot more to do with their relationship. So, I'm going to come back to them as we talk about each episode.

Yeah, yeah. Because there is so much more than there is in the book. Yeah. Like, they are friends and colleagues, and really quite fond of each other in the book. Well, there's a lot you can do with the visual medium that you can't do in the same way in a book, isn't there? Yeah, there's a lot to do with storytelling,

as well, because the story is being told in such a different way. Like, you watch the relationships between all the characters develop, whereas in the book can go, these are characters in established relationship. Now, let's see what they do in that. Yeah. That I don't think you can do in a TV series, especially a limited series like this, that you need an arc for them.

There is a moment, just a throwaway line that I did like as a sort of look at their relationship. They say something about a smell and something's different, and Azir if I was not saying, oh, well, is this Nicolay and my barber and Crowley just went, oh, I know what you smell like. Yes. Yeah.

I thought the way the baby swap bit was done was amazing. The whole three-card Monty thing. Yeah. Where they actually using this animation of the playing cards and someone doing a three-card Monty as they show the thing. And it was fairly accurate to, like, I know enough about how three-card Monty's are done. Oh, I don't, yeah.

Yeah. That it was fairly accurate. Your husband is a magician after all. And I used to do it as well. Oh, yes, of course. I always forget that now. One of my favorite tricks to do was, and I didn't perform it very often

because it was difficult and quite stressful, but I had like a stand-up version of a three-card Monty where you're putting these cards down in someone's hand and they're changing and the lady's shifting. Oh, sure. That's, I mostly like, because it was designed by a really good magician

called Garrett Thomas, who is really, really nice. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Out of all the like nice, the big well-known magicians I met while I was doing it, he was the one who was immediate like, cool, a girl's doing it.

I don't meet many girls doing it. So I'm going to talk to you and ask how my trick works for you. And if you would do something different and try and make it more gender-neutral. Because, yeah, no, misogyny in the magic world, that's a thing.

I bet it is, yeah. So I thought that was really lovely. The drunk scene between the two of them after they go for lunch at the Ritz. Sorry, I'm leaping from topic to topic now. Yeah, no, you're good, you're good, you're good. I didn't realize Monty was spelt with the A, by the way. That's new to me.

Yeah. Cool, good to know. What does Monty mean? In that case, that sounds like it's Italian or something. I think it's like a reference to Monty Carlo, but I could be wrong. Okay. I could be completely wrong.

That's complete conjecture. Sorry. Yeah, no. Drunk, drunk in a bookshop. Yeah, so after the three-card Monty and the baby swap, they go for lunch at the Ritz and then they're drunk at the bookshop. I already talked a bunch about how much I love that scene

and I got to see David Tennant do it. She's really funny. He was doing his Michael Sheen impression. Is it good? It was, it like watching it. Yeah. They was like watching it. I mean, I know we get to see him do a Michael Sheen impression

at some point very briefly, but watching him do a whole scene must be really cool. It was so good. Well, it was, it was from the book. So it was, it was him doing his voice narrating and Crowley's voice and Michael Sheen's voice. And, oh, so good. So, so good.

But one of the other things I love is the camera work in that scene. There's some really good camera moments throughout this, but the way the camera moves, it kind of sways as if it's drunk. I didn't notice that. Oh, did you not? That's so cool, yeah. Yeah, it kind of spins around them

and it's a technique that gets used quite a lot, normally it's really heavy-handed and irritating, but this is just enough that you feel like you're kind of swaying with them and you're, the room is, you're seeing it through their eyes of the room spinning a bit. Oh, that's cool. It's really subtle.

Also, David Tennant's drunk voice is very Eddie Isard. Yes. There was the bit where he's, what are they putting in bananas these days? And it was, it was so Eddie Isard. Covered in bees. Covered in bees.

Control beep, sorry. Don't put jam on a magnet. Don't put your granny in a bag. Oh my God. Sorry. I'm sorry. I really like Eddie Isard. You thinking of Eddie Isard

as like your version of being possessed during a sale? Yeah, pretty much. Also, sometimes they start speaking French. Ah, maybe. It is our own. Don't put jam on a magnet. St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians. Corinthians, that says back,

what the fuck are you writing to us? I wouldn't watch Eddie Isard. No, come on. We're making a podcast. We can do an Eddie Isard spin off podcast. That would just be rubbish though. That would just be us doing bad impressions of Eddie Isard.

Nothing to say about stand up. So yeah, so I just, I thought David Tennant was doing that very well, but I wouldn't be surprised if he took some influence from Eddie Isard there because that was such a bizarre line. I know he's not the only person who does that. Watching actors do drunk is funny

because there's two ways of doing it. There's doing I am clearly drunk, which is the way David Tennant does it. And there's the less funny, but more realistic way. I'm trying not to seem drunk. Exactly, yeah. Which I think Michael Sheen did. Michael Sheen did very well,

and I'm glad it was sort of one of one and one of the other. Because if it's drunk and it's meant to be comedy, like it needs to be exaggerated and not realistic. But he did it in a good way. He didn't do the bad acting, exaggerated drunk, which is the... Drunk. And then after you get their arrangement,

like we were talking about him as Nanny Asteroth and Michael Sheen as the gardener, the teeth. Oh yeah, that was... Michael Sheen's weird, false teeth. I was testing, I didn't like that. So I'm not hugely involved in the fan fiction and chipping side of the fan fiction just because it's not my go-to thing

I look for on the internet. But I follow lots of Good Omens accounts, so I have seen lots of it. And one of the funniest ones was someone sort of fan theory headcanon that obviously Aziraphale and Crowley are in a relationship by this point and they're both intentionally trying

to gross each other out with their costumes and be like, hey, he's still fancy me. And as much as I'm not super into the shipping, I do kind of like the thought of Aziraphale going, ha, he's still gonna fancy me even with these stupid teeth in. For those of us who don't spend that much time on Tumblr, what's headcanon?

So it's just what someone thinks could be going on in the background. Their personal idea of what the canon of it is. Okay. Yes, and shipping is when you think two people are in a relationship. Canon is... So canon is the...

Canon is the actual facts of the matter and then headcanon is like your own personal facts if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah, I like that. Sorry, I forget not everyone lives on the internet quite as much as...

I mean, as we said before, I do live on the internet as well, it's just different corners of it. Yeah. And I'm starting to think, maybe I should shift a little on to your neighbourhood but it's less infuriating than Reddit. Yeah, I limit my Reddit time quite a lot.

I did my usual recycling, killed my account, made new one, followed nice subs for a bit. We'll see. Well, within two days, I broke and resubbed to Am I the Asshole, but we'll see. So you're only following Am I the Asshole,

the Twitter account, the reposts, Am I the Assholes? Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, because then I just get the good ones. While we're talking about the bookshop, sorry. Yeah, sorry. What are we doing? While we're talking about the bookshop, there's so many great little Easter eggs

and set dressing moments. One of them is Azerafell's bookshop opening hours, which I've written down here. Oh, I'm glad you did, because I just took a photo and I can't be bothered to try and scribe. I'll read them out because it's perfect. I open the shop on most weekdays,

around 9.30 or perhaps 10am. While occasionally I open the shop as early as 8am, I've been known not to open until 1am, except on Tuesday. I tend to close about 3.30pm or earlier if something needs tending to. However, I might occasionally keep the shop open until 8 or 9 at night.

You never know when you might need some light reading. On days that I'm not in, the shop will remain closed. On weekends, I will open the shop during normal hours, unless I am elsewhere. Bank holidays will be treated in the usual fashion, with early closing on Wednesdays or sometimes Fridays.

For Sundays, see Tuesdays. That's part of the kind of technique of not wanting anybody to buy your books. Yes, people who own fancy secondhand bookshops don't want anyone to actually buy a book in there. Actually, I suppose that's the only reference to that, in the show, isn't it? Because I'm guessing they don't want a show,

as they're a fail, being rude to customers. Yes, he's made in some ways almost a lot nicer in the show. Not like in a bad way, but I think you see a little bit more of his mean streak in the book early on. Yeah, yeah. Or he's a lot nicer to humanity, I should say.

Yes. He's got a lot more time for humanity, whereas in the book, at least early on, he sort of treats them as a bit of an inconvenience, unless they're benefiting him. He cares about the composers and the chefs. Yeah. Oh, the sushi.

Also, watching this really made me want sushi. And yeah, the last thing I really wanted to talk about with this episode was the amazing visual of heaven and hell. When you see them going in through the main entrance and the way they do the thing with the escalators. But then also the aesthetics of it, rather than hell being fire and sulfur, it being a dingy, leaking, squalid office building.

Yes. That was so effective that I hated watching it. Yeah. Oh, God, it made me want to crawl inside to myself and hide and wear a coat. Yeah, yeah. And then heaven being this big, wide-open, modern space with no furniture.

But a really cool view. Oh, yeah, they had all of the wonders of the world. They had the skyscrapers and the pyramids as part of the view. Yeah, big van and, yeah. I thought that was really cool, but also just as horrible place to spend time, like if you worked in one of those really open-plan spaces. Yes.

Yeah, no. Or I don't like that aesthetic. Right. Oh, yes. I mean, it looked chilly. It looked very chilly. Gabriel's got the whole roll-neck jumper thing the whole time. It's very chilly in heaven.

Yeah. And then I guess the middling bit would be... Earth. Earth and maybe the book shuffle, something like that. Yeah. Because it's pretty close together, isn't it? Like the contrast between the coziness of the places where...

as Eryphale and Crowley hang out. Yeah, they very much have their own home comforts. So, yeah, so that's episode one. Anything else you want to say about episode one? That you particularly liked? Or disliked? What have I got here? Sister Mary.

What's her chops? What's her name? Nina... Nina Sasania. Yeah. Nina Sasania. Her expressions are beautiful. She's a really good actor.

Oh, yeah. Her eyebrows do so much work there. Yeah, yeah. And the bit where they do the interpretation of the wink. Oh, that bit was so good. But it sort of pauses in there. Yeah, she's got a really beautifully subtly expressive face. And I just thought she was fantastic in such a little bit part.

And she obviously puts so much heart into it. Well, I think as much as it's a bit part, it's a part that... It's an important bit. It's an important bit. And I think it's people who knew the book would have been watching for. Yeah, yeah. I like the level of cameos across the series, actually, because you could have stuffed every famous actor in there.

You could have just done nothing but cameo. But there is a nice mix of a lot of the bigger name characters and not huge name actors. Like the woman who played Anathema. I haven't seen the whole bunch else and the horse people. Yeah. And where you do have little cameos of slightly better known actors, it's because they're very good actors. It's not just...

Yes. It's another... And here's David Jason. He appreciates the characters for what they are in it. He appreciates the audience and doesn't just try and go, oh, look at the thing. Yeah. The only other note I'd say, it's not directly this episode. It's all of them, but it's a general one.

It's very fast-paced. The cutting and the dialogue and it's this and that and that. Yeah. I love that in a TV show and films. And it's such a contrast to the colour of magic TV show. Yeah, that was... To me, it is the antithesis of what I hate about that kind of 90s shitty adaptation TV that we had to watch for the colour of magic.

It wasn't 90s, it was 2000s. Well, it fucking looked 90s. They're long, slow pans and a lot of long walk and talks. Walk and scenes. Yeah, walk and talks. Oh, God, I hated that. Can't believe. I don't hate it, but I definitely like the pace of this.

I think it works with the pace of the book. If you think about the fact that when we did the episode in the book, we were saying the first half of the book is 4,000 years and the second half of the book is two days. The pacing and somehow all of that pacing works. And I think they keep up the momentum really well in the episode. Momentum, that's the word. Yeah, they keep it.

You think about how many characters have to be introduced just in this first episode and how much has to be established. Because obviously we briefly meet Adam and the them as well and we see Adam get a dog. I thought the animation on the Hellhound was really good and becoming the little terrier was perfect. Yeah. I think the dog is excellent casting. Yes.

And the dog did get a named credit. Dog, comma, England, Ollie. Ollie, the dog. Oh, Ollie. In South Africa. Milo. Oh. What was I saying?

Oh, yeah. The kind of fast pace of it, I think particularly, probably suits me because of the ADHD thing. It's like to grab my attention. It needs to keep changing. Yeah. I mean, it's why I don't watch many movies. Yeah.

And I don't watch that much when it comes like feature drama TV. Yeah. I don't think everything needs to be like that. Like that. But I think for this it was perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think everything needs to be like that.

I very much realize that I have a particularly short attention span. Yeah. And I don't have a great intention span either. And I struggle with movies and long slow walk and talk things. Yeah. Like I do have to say as much as I didn't dislike the color of magic as much as you. If I had had to watch it without having to take a bunch of notes on it, I would have got bored a lot faster.

Yeah, yeah. Like it is quite long. Yeah. But if you think about like, yeah, the amount of story that's being put into six hours here, how economic it is with the storytelling and the fact that it still gives itself time to have really nice playful moments. Yeah. And it still has time to put in, you know, little snippets of Pratchett's writing and

the narration. So much of that. I mean, this is why I like that it's narrated. And I was saying earlier, like otherwise it would just be expositional. It means that they can cover a lot of ground very quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So that's episode one. Should we move on to episode two? It's episode two. Sorry. You can't see my thumbs up through the microphone. Yes, let's. Episode two. The book.

The book. In this episode. Sorry. Let me rustle my notes. I thought Nate had started drumming again. Then I realized it was me playing with my biro. Excellent. Francine.

Well done. So in this episode, it is now Thursday. We start with Gabriel popping into the bookshop to have a chat to a zero fell. Sure. About the Antichrist. Yes. As Haster and Liger interrupt Crowley's morning telly to do to do similar. I can use words.

We see war summoned by the international express man interrupting some peace accords in the process. Then we flash back to the burning of Agnes Nutter. And we meet both Agnes and thou shalt not commit adultery Pulsifer. We briefly see young Anathema learning to predict the future with the prophecies. And we see young Newt. A very nice place. Yeah.

Very nice place. That was a terrorist and a half. Their family have done well for themselves. Knocking out the electrics for the neighborhood. Then we get adult Newt who starts a new job, loses a new job, meets Shadwell and joins the witch finder army. I look like a shit job waiting me. What a busy day for him.

Yeah. Anathema enters the UK and begins hunting the Antichrist. She meets them who are themselves about to engage in a bit of witch hunting with the tire swing. A zero fell and Crowley having lost, realized they've lost the Antichrist, travel to Tadfield Manor to try and find him, get caught up in a vicious paintball game. They learn about the fire that destroyed all records. Very rude.

And then literally bump into Anathema as she's trying to cycle home, give her a lift. And once they've dropped her off, a zero fell finds the book of prophecies in the car and they agree to contact their own agents. A zero fell right at the end of the episode works out where Adam is. Yes. He has found the Antichrist. And his mug of cocoa goes cold. And can I just say that's a very nice mug.

Oh, the little wing on it. Yeah. Throughout the series, I've noticed various accessories I want. Yeah. I've got tenons, sunglasses, zero fells, mug, and peppers, wellies, the three main ones. Yeah. It's going to be a weird outfit, but I think I can pull it off. Yeah.

No, I think you can get away with it. Yeah. I still like a little bit of me thinks that Crowley bought a zero fell that mug like he sort of thought. Oh, cute angel mug. Calm the fuck down. Sorry. Sorry.

I'm now going to go and turn them into a weird married couple. Wait. All right. It's not me trying to turn them into a weird married couple. Okay. So characters will be characters we meet in this, we meet Newton Pulsifer played by Jack Whitehall. Jack Whitehall also plays, thou shalt not commit adultery Pulsifer.

Yeah. God, that's hard to say. I've got to say it as much. I can see why you call him adultery for sure. Adultery Pulsifer. It was kind of nice to see Jack Whitehall not doing a posh British accent. Yeah. I know you hate Jack Whitehall, but I don't hate Jack Whitehall.

I just don't really like Jack Whitehall or get the hype about Jack Whitehall. Is there a hype about Jack Whitehall? Maybe I just know really basic people because I know a lot of people are like really into his comedy and I just don't think he's that funny. I think he's funny. I can recognise that the stuff I don't like of his is just for a different audience. Yeah. To be honest, a younger audience.

Yeah. I do think he's really funny and fresh meat. Yeah. I think he's great in that. I've enjoyed him on a lot of panel shows and I think he did really well in this. I thought he was going to be shit and he was actually really, really good. I will say having said, you know, I didn't enjoy reading about Newt so much in my recent reread and I think that's more that I've just gotten really bored of bits of narrative

around basic white men when there's more interesting people around them. I actually didn't dislike Jack Whitehall as him so much in this and I actually liked his character a bit more in this than I did in the book, I think. Okay. I can see that. Yeah. He's more... I still don't think he's good enough for anathema.

Well, no. He's punching well above his weight though. Well, yes. I mean, also she should be with me. But you found that... You found that note that might explain why. That's for the next episode, Francie. Okay.

Spoiler, sweetie. Sorry, I just turned into... Spoiler, sweetie. There are a lot of Doctor Who references in this, actually. Yeah. I was talking about anathema. Adria, are Hona? Side note.

Our friend Cara. Yeah. I haven't watched Doctor Who for ages and I've seen her more recently and now in my head she is Riversong. Yeah. So... Yeah, no, that's fair. That's quite weird.

She does do a very good Riversong cosplay. Yeah. Actually, she also did a really good Aziraphale cosplay for Comic-Con last year. I was going to say, for Halloween, do you want to do an Aziraphale currently? Yeah, definitely. Okay. I don't know... I can either, so I'll let you pick.

I mean, I could also be either body type-wise, you're a bit more Crowley, but I can do multicolored hair. Yeah. I might have short hair. Should we see what length our hair is? Yeah, let's basically see what our haircuts are at the time and then choose because either of us could do either quite happily. Also, I'm pretty sure I can do either out of what's already in my wardrobe.

Cool. Anyway, sorry. It's a total side note. Planning our Halloween costumes. It's February. But we like to be organised. Oh, God, no, we really don't. We're recording this like two days before it goes out.

Have fun editing. Yeah, no, I will. We should... Oh, yeah. Fuck, that's why we wanted to stick to the time limit. Oh, yeah. Okay. Cool.

Sorry. So, yeah, so we meet you. I actually think Jack Whitehall's really quite good in this. Yes, no. Okay, good. I'm glad we agreed because I was going to defend him. Yeah. He's not playing full posh boy the way he does and stuff like fresh meat?

No, that's it. I think usually he's exaggerating his own personality a lot for these things. Yeah. And then it's quite nice to see him dial it back instead. Yeah, he's very... He's quite softened and sort of stuttery and shy in this, the way I would picture Newt. I also think like... Don't get me wrong, I'm not into him, but he's maybe a little bit too handsome for the

part. Yeah, and I wouldn't have said that before I saw him in this. Yeah. Like, I don't think of him as particularly handsome, but for Newt, he's quite handsome. Yeah, yeah. But I thought he was great. But then Anathema is supermodel pretty. Yeah, Anathema is.

So, like I said, Adria Arjona plays Anathema. I haven't really seen her in anything else. No, I've never. And she's fucking gorgeous. God, she's ridiculously beautiful. Yeah. What the hell? Like...

Those freckles, like... I could just look at her. Yeah. It's like someone came along and just like put those freckles on, like an artist did that. Yeah, yeah. No, her face is... And maybe they did? No, I'm pretty sure that's just her face.

No, I think that's just her face. God, she's so pretty. But if you think about how Anathema's described in the book, possibly a bit too pretty. Yeah, but I mean... It's TV. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought she was also really charming.

I like that she could have easily, they could have easily made her very yoghurt-weavery and they didn't... No, they made her... Very sophisticated. Yeah, sophisticated and like this kind of intense hyperactive believing it all instead of the kind of laid-back yoghurt-weavery too many bangles. Yeah, she could have easily been Hilda Goatfinder levelers of Geordie. Yeah, she's like...

Yeah. So, right, sorry, whales, nuclear power stations, the Antichrist. Let me bring up my spreadsheet. And I like that they kind of acknowledge the whole background history of the devised family, like of course they have lots of money and they live in a big mansion. Because how would you not if you had access to all of that about the future? Yeah. And I like that her mum is like South American, I think, it sounds like.

Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, she's got... Or Italian, maybe. Or slightly... No, I think she's meant to be like Hispanic and I think possibly sort of Puerto Rico type area. Yeah. I didn't look up where the actress is actually from.

Yeah. Which I like that it just kind of seems, not seems like in place that the family has kind of ended up going all around the world over the generations and now comes back to England. Yeah. There's a nice sort of, I mean, I like the fact in general throughout the series, the casting is fairly racially blind and gender blind. Yeah. There's some gender-specific stuff, like I feel like it would have been weird if Adam

hadn't been a boy because he's written as this kind of scabby-need boy and a Xerophiline Crowley written the way they are. If you've made one a different gender than... Then that thing would have been tweaked. It would have been ridiculous. But yeah, I like a bit of racially blind and gender blind casting, especially things like you know, women playing B.L.s above and the angels being the way they are. Yeah.

Pollution being non-binary. Yeah. It would have been nice if they cast a non-binary actor but we can't have everything. Oh, is she not? No. Anyway, screw gender. Giving that up. That's what we said.

Sergeant Shadwell. It's not Calvin. Sergeant Shadwell played by Michael... Sergeant Shadwell by Michael McKean, which I can't slur my way through, unfortunately. Yeah, you can't really slur the word Michael McKean words with his mad... I like that he kind of just sounded Scottish and didn't have the accent careening around quite as much as it's described in the book because I just don't think you could bring that to life.

It would be difficult, especially for an American who I think he did marvellously with his Scottish. I thought he did brilliantly. That sounded very patronising from me, I'm sorry. He's a very good actor in a lot of things, so I can... Yeah, and I thought he was great. Jack says he's seen him in a lot of stuff where he does play British parts. Yeah. And so he clearly is just very comfortable with that.

He's got a very... Have you heard him speaking, you know, as an American? Yeah, he's in like short circuit too. Yeah, yeah. He's got a very soft accent. He doesn't have like that harsh, brash accent. But he can. Yeah.

I think if you hear him speaking in like interviews and stuff, he doesn't sound like American. He's just very vocally talented. He's very good. I love the way Shadwell's done in this. Especially his sort of like grubby Mac and sugars and his standing there preaching with a white board. The kind of grim expressions he does on his face, sorry to draw the parallel again, is I feel like what a lot of people in The Colour of Magic were trying to do and failed.

And we're just gurning instead. Yeah, David Jason's gurning. Dial it back to a good actor and you've got what's his job to Michael McKean doing Shadwell. And then who's next? Adam Tracy. And who's that? Miranda Richardson. You've got a one, two, three, four, five exclamation marks.

I really fucking... The kind of, what is it, unhinged mind. Unhinged mind. Just really fucking love for Miranda Richardson. And I think, again, I keep just saying, oh, this is good casting. This person's perfect, but she really is. Everything about how she plays Madame Tracy, when she opens the door to Newt and she delivers what could have been a big comedy moment really, really subtly.

She's sort of saying, oh, well, I don't do this. And if it's intimate discipline you wanted, I'll have to never. And she sounds quite tired. And a different actor could have played that really, really brush comedy. Yeah. Very chatting in your face. And she doesn't. She's really, really mellow and sweet with her.

Everything she does. And I think it's, again, like I was saying in the book, this is a fairly sympathetic portrayal of a sex worker. The fact that she has sex is not really played for laughs. No. And I think the show does that really well as well. It's quite amusing to think of somebody as a psychic slash sex worker just imagining trying to fit two freelance roles like that in your day.

Oh my God. I mean, you know more about trying to juggle multiple freelance roles than I do. Yeah. But at least mine are all on the laptop. Yeah. Whereas if that, if you've got to get your crystal ball and your flogger and you don't want to mix them up. Yeah.

I'm just throwing a crystal ball. We all have that days where we get the lube mixed up with the ectoplasm. I don't think we all have those days, Francine. Oh, okay. I think that's something for Tumblr. So yeah, so I'm really happy to see Madame Tracy here. And I'm going to talk about her a bit more in the next episode as well because there are some amazing acting moments.

Yeah. Yeah. We'll do her in that. I'm going to talk about the little Express driver who was really, really not how I pictured, but I really liked the guy doing it. Yeah. I think he did well. I think.

Because I thought of it as a little old bloke, you know, like really short bald glasses. Yeah. Absolutely. I think they probably, I think they probably made him younger so they could do like the young family at home thing. Yeah. I mean, he's not young, but he is younger than I pictured him. Yeah.

The guy playing him. Yeah. Yeah. The guy playing him. He was in something with the Douglas McKinnon who directed all of this. Okay. He was in something with him. And I think he's like, he's got the same name as the character he played in that show.

I can't remember what it is. Nightfall or something. I should have written that down really. I'm so good at research. Simon Merrill's is the guy playing him, but I think he does it really well. He's still got the nice friendly chattiness to him. Yeah. And he's got that sort of slightly charming and handsome in a like, I wouldn't go there,

but like, oh, that's nice. I would enjoy being delivered a package by him. Yeah. Because he'd probably be quite nice and not judge me on the fact I've answered the door at 2pm in my dressing room. I do worry what the postmen think of me. Oh, God. Oh, crap.

I'm getting a package delivered today. Hopefully Ben's going to. Sorry. Yeah, we meet all of them. I'm not going to go through all of the actors, but Sam Taylor Buckping, Adam, I think did an amazing job in this. I think all the kids did. All the kids were great.

To me, special shout out to Wensley Dale, though. He was my favourite. Oh, really? Actually, this hurts quite a lot. And he does do the posh little lines really well. I think he, yeah, no, I just, possibly I just love the fucking character, but yeah. I do quite like the character. Adam obviously did very well.

It's a much more complex character, but I just, Wensley Dale made me smile. Pepper bugged me a little bit in just that some of the kind of feministy jokes, the line readings fell really, really flat. But yeah, I think that's difficult. If you're going to try and make like a 10 year old say those things, it's always going to be like, yeah. It to the point where like, it sounds like she's reciting. It does sound very much like she's like this.

Possibly the joke. Well, yeah. But then I feel like she wasn't playing it that way. And there were a couple of, I did like when she's sort of ranting about the bike and stuff, especially in. Yeah, that was good. At the end of episode one. Yeah.

And I quite like that she's moaning about her having a girl's bike with a basket. And then the next time you see them running their bikes, Adam's bike is one that has a basket. Yeah. And like, that's probably just a random set dressing thing, but I like the thought of them having a conversation where Pep is like, women's rights and Adam's like, oh, but basket. That's what, because that could very much happen.

Yeah. But yeah, there's, if you look through the scripts, there's twice as many of those feminist jokes in as actually made it into the show. And even the ones that are in get to the point where they feel a bit heavy handed and cringy. Yeah. I don't think the girl was a bad actor. No, no. It's just, there's no real way to have a 10 year old say those lines without it coming

across as heavy handed. Yeah. It felt really, there's one. I'd dial it back so it sounded like it was coming from the 10 year old one. My mom says this is funny because it's reciting what my mom says. But then after that, maybe trying to make it like, you know, sound like it comes from a kid. Yeah.

There is, there's one I really hate that I'll talk about in the next episode. And then we also meet Agnes Nutter played by Josie Lawrence, who also voiced her in the radio play. Oh, okay. Good. And we're so good at it. Neil Gaiman asked her to come back and be in this. And I thought she was brilliant.

Yeah. She was very good. She was also someone who I could just quite happily look at for hours. Face. Good faces. Such an excellent sort of, she's got a very expressive face, but it's, it's, you know, in the book where it talks about how anathema would have been described as vivacious. Yeah.

I would say she's got that very vivacious face. Yeah. It is every bit of it's full of life. Yeah. She is that slightly older woman that I would desperately want to be friends with and know all of her secrets, but be way too intimidated to actually befriend. Yeah. She's got a bit of, sorry, not relevant, but she reminds me a bit of our friend Helena.

Yeah. Yeah. She's got that face. Yeah. So I thought, I thought she was great. And yeah, bless her canceling the milk. Yeah. But she probably was a witch if she runs for health.

So my favorite line reading moment in this whole episode has got to be John Hamm saying, thank you for my pornography. I just, yeah, I paused that to kind of do an impression of it. So Jack just like, I love the idea that that's what an angel thinks the human interactions in a shop are like. Yes. I would like to buy something in the back. Pornography.

And it comes in with the fact that he hands a zero fellow book and says it's pornography and it's Mrs. Beaton's household management. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which I really need a coffee of. Do you not have one fancy? Well, no, we've got the current to Brett's guide up there and I think that would go really nicely next to it. I'd quite like to get a copy of Mrs. Beaton's actually.

I have spotted vintage ones around, but they tend to go a bit pricey. Well, I don't know how vintage I want it because for it to be vintage enough for it to be cool in that context, it's going to be too expensive and fragile for me. So I might just get a nice new-ish version, you know, 80s, 90s. Anyway. It's my favorite use of a Queen song in this episode is Bicycle. Jesus, okay. Sorry, I tried to not actually yell that.

Yeah. Even whisper shouting, is there? It's quite shocking in these headphones. But yeah, it's just bicycle screaming as they're driving anathema home. And as she sits awkwardly in the back looking at Zerafell and Crowley looking a little bit confused. I really like how she plays being angry at those two. The kind of intensely, no, I'm not just going to let this go. I know my bike didn't have gears.

Yeah. I love that. The fact that having been hit by a car and being driven home by a couple of strange men might kind of put off and make some women a bit shaken and make some people a bit shaken and on edge. She's like, no, I know my bike didn't have gears. Yeah. Or like clearly shaken enough to forget about.

Well, she was. She had just been hit by a car. Yeah. We'll forget about that. Also, the plot needed that to happen. The plot didn't need that. And Agnes Nutter, therefore, yeah, it would happen. Good old Agnes.

Good old Agnes. Right. So my Zerafell and Crowley check-in for this episode is, let's talk queer baiting. Right. Yeah. So I deliberately didn't look this up. What the fuck is queer baiting? You've had this a few times now.

It's really hard to describe, but what I mean in this specific context is shows that have queer coded characters and call it representation without any actual queer representation. Okay. Now, like obviously I love their relationship in this show. Yeah. And I'm going to probably massively contradict myself by the time we're talking about episode three. Yeah.

But very specifically their interaction in this episode. And I'm just going to grab. You can just turn around and get it. I know what I was talking about. It's reaching blindly behind you. Oh my God. I forgot how psycho that book looked. So many posters.

Yeah. So the reason this kind of got me the wrong way a bit here or in this particular episode, more than anything, I do really hate when people are like, oh, it's so queer. It's queer friendly enough to get queer viewers with still the only relationships that are on screen are heterosexual relationships. But they don't have, yeah. No, no. I'm not saying I needed to see a Xerofel and Crowley kissing.

I'm not necessarily saying I disliked the way their relationship was built up. Yeah. I'm saying that in this episode where they play off some of the tension between them, it feels cheap and unearned and like a cynical ploy to get the queer dollar. Right. If you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. I do get that.

And there is something that bugs me a bit. And the specific scene, when they go to Tadfield Manor and they both get shot and Xerofel is complaining about the stain on his jacket. So a couple of different things I'm going to reference for this. In the book, when Xerofel gets this stain on his jacket, Crowley suggests he miracles it away. He says, yes, but I'll always know the stain was there, you know, deep down, I mean. And that's it.

Yeah. It's not discussed again. And it's a funny little thing, like for perfectionists, that's very much the way it is. It's showing him being Taipei. Yeah. Now, their relationship is built up a bit more in the series than it is by that point in the book. Obviously, it's more of a conversation in the book.

And I've gone less mad with the post-its on this, but they're still a little bit mad. I think that is a sane amount of post-it notes. Yeah. They're not in order, though. In the script book, Crowley says you could miracle it away. Xerofel says, yes, but I'd always know the stain was there underneath, I mean. The stage direction is Crowley gestures the stain vanishes. And Xerofel says, I thank you.

Gestures. What happens in the show is David Tennant does a very, very irritatingly charming leans over his shoulder and blows it off. It is ridiculously flirty. Xerofel blushes and giggles. I mean, I think possibly Michael Sheen just blushed and giggled. I would blush and giggle if David Tennant blew with me. We're both kind of blushing and giggling now.

I am blushing and giggling, just thinking about it. Like, and, you know, choices are made to portray something that way. And I'm not saying it's a bad choice. I mean, like I said, I know Michael Sheen said in interviews that he was playing as Xerofel to be a bit inter-Crowley. Yeah. I know everyone ships them for really good reason. And some of this is just what happens if you have two incredibly charismatic actors

with really good chemistry playing this kind of friendship. Yeah. And it is a relationship. And I'm definitely not saying that you need to have actual snogging or sex happen to call something a relationship because God knows that's not the only thing that defines it. Well, to me, do you know what I was thinking? They came across as asexual but romantic. Yeah.

I think that's very much the case. Well, yeah, but later in the series, yeah, but in this episode, it plays off some sexual, especially there's then a scene like two minutes later where Crowley hasn't pushed up against a wall saying, I'm not nice. Don't call me nice. And I must. Yeah. Both of those moments did stand out to me as weird when I watched it as well.

So yeah, no, I totally agree. But this is my point about queer basing is it feels, here it feels cynical. The rest of their relationship throughout the series and that's what I mean about, I'm going to contradict myself in about five minutes feels earned and very sweet to watch. And I love where it is and where it gets to, but just in this episode. It's possible that just like there was context that got cut. It's an unfortunate bit of editing. Or just that it's the way the actors chose to do it and the way it was directed.

And like I said, I still really like it. Yeah. Yeah. It didn't spoil the episode or anything. It was just a, but it can be really frustrating to watch stuff and people will be like, oh, but this is such a queer show. And it's like, is it queer? Or if they just put some sexual tension between it in between two people of the same gender

because they know queer people or watch it. It's a bit like people talking about the queerness of Buffy the vampire. So yeah, before willow comes out and it's like, do you mean queerness or do you just mean Buffy and faith being each other up because like that's not a relationship. But if it's queer people saying this, then what they're getting out of it is the important thing, isn't it? If it's not the show people saying, hey, look at how inclusive we've been, which I don't think they have.

No, they haven't. And this isn't like me having a go at Neil Gaiman. No. But it does. No, I'm thinking aloud rather than contradicting you. Yeah. It feels like there is. If people who need it feel like they're being represented, then that's kind of the important

bit. And throughout the rest of the series, I just think their relationship is a really good thing and really beautifully done on screen. Yeah. But I don't really like this whole section in this episode and it is still grating because it's a bit like, well, yes, but why can't we also just see a normal happy queer couple on screen? Yeah.

When you read the script book, was the original whole scene in this, because this was in the nunnery, wasn't it? Yeah. The convent. During the paintball bit. Was that originally longer? Because my thought was, while I was watching it, I wonder if they left more of the scene in and then cut it weirdly.

No, that's pretty much it. Like I said, and the stage direction for the scene is literally crowing gestures. Because I was sad that we missed. Oh, Mary Hutch's backstory. Yeah. I understand. Like that, obviously. That was, as we've said before, one of Terry Pratchett's wonderful habits is putting in

a complete tangent side note, building up a side character's life for no reason at all, other than it's good. Well, that was the next thing I was going to talk about, actually. Oh, okay. So I'll stop looking at your lovely bit of paper. Oh, God, no, it's fine. So yeah, so talking with Mary Hutch is the whole office team building thing. Yeah.

A Ben Willbond is perfect casting here. He's the Nigel Tompkins character. So we start with Newt getting this new job. And he's in this office and they're talking about team building exercise and then he gets fired and then that's the team building exercise. Yeah, that's not tied in in the book, is it? No, it's not. But this is, I really, really love really, really good comedy where they just crime in

extra jokes where they, oh, there's a corner. Yeah. And you did not need to connect these two events, but they managed to cram in an extra bit of funny anyway. It's a bit like the way Terry Pratchett puts these backstories in. In the book, I'd say the corresponding shoved in jokes bit are the, all of the firms called Incorporating Brackets Incorporated or whatever. Yes.

Yeah. We love that they brought this in, but we did lose Mary Hodge's backstory. And I thought it was kind of, yeah, I thought it was kind of interesting because it's a lot easier to cram in something small and funny, like having a very good Ben Willbond who plays Nigel Tompkins. He's from the group that do like horrible histories and then they've done ghosts and they did a really funny one as Victorian surgeons as well. Like they're a really good group of comedy actors and he's really funny.

So I was a bit just excited to see him. Can I say I saw the trailer for the horrible histories movie and it looks shite. Oh, it's not good. It's not the group of people who kind of rebated the TV series. Okay. I was going to say, because I know you like the TV series and that does not look like the kind of historical portrayal that you would enjoy. So the TV series when it sort of started up again was this very particular group of

comedy actors and they've since gone on. They made Bill, which was like a comedy Shakespeare film. And then they did a weird series called Yonderland that's very funny. And they've got a series on the BBC now called ghosts, but it tends to be this group of people working together. Ben Willbond is one of them. The horrible histories movie is not that team. It's actually all right though.

It's a bit funny. It wasn't like laugh out loud. I don't like the horrible histories books. I loved them and they taught me actual history. It's got good bits of actual history, but it does not make me belly laugh. The way the horrible histories like the other episodes of the show do. We will link to this in the show notes. Anyway, sorry.

So I think it's interesting that where you could cram in the extra bit of comedy in the show was to use a funny actor and tie those two office things together. The book, the extra comedy was giving Mary Hodges a backstory and you couldn't really do that in the show because this needed, didn't need much on screen to cram in this extra joke of having using that. Yeah. That's about 30 seconds. You'd have needed the narration for the exposition and it would have been weird having the voice of God talk about Mary Hodges backstory.

And it would have been a good solid three, four minute bit. Yeah. It would have taken too long. Yeah. To not be funny enough. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. So I can completely see where they cut that, but I thought it was interesting.

But I couldn't see how you could really do her backstory justice on screen without it dragging. Yeah. So I thought that was cool. Yeah, we see Crowley's flat in this episode for the first time. It's so not like how I pictured it. I can't see it in my head now. It's really dark. Yes, there it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it's not described like that in the script book. It's described as like white and I always pictured it as very black and white, not gray at all and modern and sleek. I was imagining it like, oh, you know, and command the way he describes his apartment. Rich Mahogany. Many leather-valued books and my apartment smells like a rich Mahogany. Oh, see, for me, that's all an Azirafell thing.

There's like two versions of that, though. There's the American Psycho version, which is what I was imagining. Oh, right. And there's the nice, sorry, now I'm going to sound like really pretty. Now then there's the nice English version, the English Psycho version of the upper class. But I did always picture Crowley's flat as written by Brett Easton Ellis. Like it is that kind of weird, modern, slightly too modern, slightly too clean. Stuff that shouldn't be made of glass is made of glass.

Yeah. And there's an odd sculpture somewhere. You can tell, like, higher cleaning people. Yeah. Dark gray cement, house plants, and a big red chair. And I don't know, I think there was the most jarring thing for me of differences from the Burgers, how Crowley's flat's decorated. Yeah, I guess it's just literally the set designer got a different interpretation here. And it was in it so briefly, I didn't care.

There's a couple of, like, big scenes in it, though. The whole, like, later on we've got everything with the holy water and him deciding where to go. I'm trying to be kind of vague because I can't remember what's in which episode, so I'm not sure if I'm spoiling anything. Was this the one where he was doing the plants? Yeah. We see him yell at the plants, which I thought he did. Yeah, that was weird to me because it's the only time I see him be mean in the whole thing. Yeah, he's not really mean.

That and him, like, holding a zero fell against the wall. Which were really jarring to me because they're just him being aggressive. Crowley's not very mean. Yeah. It's kind of almost jarring in the book because you don't really see Crowley being, for a demon, you don't really see him being particularly nasty, apart from to the house plants. And that feels like, almost like it's from a different draft when he was meant to be more of a villain. Yeah.

Because he's not, at any point, a villain. That you were always meant to root for Crowley. You were never meant to not want things to come out well for Crowley. He's never written, really. Yeah, I think the bit in the book, honestly, is because it's funny. Yeah. It's less jarring in the book. It's funny.

Here it feels weird. And because you're not watching it, it doesn't feel weird that he's being mean to plants, whereas here, like, they're trembling. I did like the trembling plants though. Yeah, again, it's funny. It's funny. It was just jarring. Yeah.

And we, yeah, the conversation, this is near the end of the episode, where the them, so Adam, Pepper, Brian and Wensleydale, are all outside the shop eating ice cream. And as you see them have the conversation, we get just a little bit of narration introducing each one. Yeah. This is such a perfect way to introduce three characters really rapidly on screen. Yeah. Because as well as the narration that gives their little bit of backstory, which keeps

their backstory from the book, and is very good, because they all have really good backstories in the book, just the way they eat their ice creams tells you everything you need to know about their character. Okay. The way Wensleydale is eating his very fastidiously and Brian's face is covered in chocolate and Pepper is almost too busy talking to eat it. Yeah, yeah. And Adam is kind of sat back relaxed and enjoying watching them all chat.

Yeah. They're overseeing the... Yeah. And it's two minutes on screen, plus the little bits of narration and little flashes off, like you get the little footage of Pippin' Gladri or Moonschild's sheep farm that she was growing up on before her mother came back, and you get Wensleydale in a family photo. He's so sweet. And the only thing that's stopping him from becoming an accountant is time.

Yeah. Oh. I love Wensleydale. He's so sweet. Yeah. But using the ice cream just to show everything you need to know about a character, I thought that was a really clever bit of filming. Yeah.

Related. Pop quiz. How many flavours of ice cream can you name? Go. Vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, ripple, bubble gum, Ben and Jerry's cookie dough, Ben and Jerry's cherry, Garcia, Ben and Jerry's snafu, fish food, mint, mint chocolate, and sorbet, mango, all that really good green and black star chocolate one. Can I stop now?

Yeah. No, that's fine. Yeah. You went on for longer than I thought. Well done. Well done. How many did they say America had? Thirty-six.

Yeah. I believe that we could get to thirty-six with some effort and a list. I've been to Ben and Jerry's factory. They had at least thirty-six. Yeah. But again, is it things being mixed up? What do you count as the flavour of ice cream? Well, this is the problem because you're saying name flavours and do you-

The mint chocolate chip to me is a flavour. Yeah. But- Fish food is a branded flavour. Yeah. Do you count branded flavours as separately from flavours? I think probably. Ah.

Ooh, marmalade. Marmalade ice cream. There's a really good little ice cream place right by the coast. It sounds so much like a zero fail right now. It's in Wells next to the sea and it's by the really, really good fish and chip shop. Ooh. And there's a really nice little ice cream place and they had the best marmalade ice cream from there and it was so good.

Well, we'd better stave off the apocalypse a bit longer because I've never been. Have you never been to Wells next to the sea? No, I've been there. I've been to the ice cream shop. Oh, okay. I've been to the fish and chips but I think we usually went in the evening. Ah, so you always go in the day, get sunburned. I really like Wells next to the sea.

Yeah. It's my favourite seaside. Should we try and go together this summer? Yes, let's go to the seaside. Yeah. Sorry, right. Jack's going to have like some days off now. Oh my God.

Yeah, we can do a little fun little trip. Yeah. Take the dog. Have a little day. Yeah. Go play in the arcades. Right. Sorry, can we make up a bit of English?

Yeah. That was, I think that was all I really had for episode three though. Okay. Cool. The only other note I've got is, do you know what I kind of, I should really be more detailed in my notes. I've got a cult versus ethereal. Who's saying that ethereal, not a cult?

Is it the aim, a zero fail? Yes. A Crowley refers to himself and a zero fail as a cult beings. And a zero fail is very offensive. No, not a cult. I'm an angel. Angel is a ethereal. Yeah.

Because I can see what it is, like in the tone. Yeah. But I'm not sure. I'm not sure. A zero fail is like always played throughout the six episodes. He's played as really like a torn between these conflicting loyalties and who he should be and who he really is. Like he should be an angel, who he is his mates with Crowley, who is meant to be his opposite.

Yeah. And every time Crowley more directly references the fact that they are more similar than different, he feels like he has to protest it. Yeah. And it's almost like the angel doesn't protest too much. Okay, cool. It's like the freedom fighter versus terrorist. Yeah.

But a cult versus ethereal. Yeah. And I didn't actually look up the definitions, which I should have done. You've got your phone, could you? Well, a cult is of cultishness. And ethereal is floaty. I made that up. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I can tell. Google hold music. Google hold music. Oh, the creaky table is a really good foley for the creaky door. You can use that. Yeah. I'm really excited. All right.

Sorry. So a cult. Sorry. Oh man, this blanket smells like dog. Mystical supernatural or magical powers and has its origins in Latin. Solare is into Hyde, which goes to oculare, conceal, secrete, covered over, becomes a cult in the late 15th century. Ethereal comes from Greek, ether, extremely delicate and light in a way that seems not

to be of this world, heavenly or spiritual. So they're not direct opposites because they have completely different origins. But they do have very different tones. Yes. So that is episode two. Yeah. Shall we talk about episode three? Yeah.

I was just about to say what happened in episode three, but you're probably going to tell me. Yes. I thought I might summarise it. I mean, this is the big one. This is every one I think really pointed to was, oh, isn't Good Omen's good. Uh-huh. Why is that? Well, I think it's got something to do with a 25 minute soft open that shows the entire

history of Aziraphale and Crowley. I love it so much. Oh, me too. It's so good. I did notes in the script book for this one, which is that Neil Gaiman said as he was writing, he suddenly realised there really wasn't anything for them to do in the middle. They sort of had this weird, but they obviously needed to use them because they've made them so much more the main character and you've got these really good actors.

So what do we do? So they put in a 25 minute soft open with the entire history of Aziraphale and Crowley, which is also one of the bigger budget drains on the series. Which was your favourite outfit? Oh, shall I summarise it? Yeah, summarise first and then I'll make you talk about fashion. In episode three, we have a 25 minute soft open that takes us from 4,004 BC to 3,004 BC in ancient Mesopotamia with Noah's Ark, 33 AD in the crucifixion, ancient Rome 41 AD,

337 AD in Britain with the Knights of the Round Table, 1601 AD with Shakespeare at the Pogloib. Sorry, I just really want to put that in. 1793 in Revolutionary France, 1861 London, 1941 World War II Blitz London, 1967 Soho in the Swinging Sixties. Terrible haircuts. Oh my God, I love the haircuts. After the soft open, we see Anathema having a tantrum about her loft book and Adam comforting

her. She gives him some interesting magazines. It's Friday at this point. The tone of voice he said that in was a little... Oh yeah, that sounded a bit dursier than any duty. So it's Friday at this point. Crowley meets up with Shadwell. Interesting side note, they meet up in a greasy spoon calf.

There's something playing on the TV in the background. And it's the witch funder general. With Vincent Price. Yes, Jack pointed that out to me. Yep, that made me happy. Because Jack watches movies. Well, I've seen that one. Have you not seen the witch funder general?

No, I haven't fucking seen it, Joe. Jesus. Stop looking surprised every time I've ever seen it. It's to do with local history. Is it? Yeah. Oh yeah, of course it would be. All right, well, I will watch that one.

Azirafel meets up with the angels who are getting a bit suspicious of him trying to prevent the apocalypse. Azirafel is oblivious to that. Yeah. Anathema meets RP Tyler, who is only credited up until like the last episode as Tadfield neighborhood watch. Oh. Newt brings up Tadfield's optimal microclimate to Shadwell. Shadwell decides to send him there after getting a call from Azirafel about Adam Young at four hook back wood. Because at the end of episode two, Azirafel worked out who the Antichrist was.

Yeah. Famine receives his scales. Adam is- Famine's fucking gorgeous, by the way. Right. Adam- God, I sound like just- Oh god, we're so perverse through this entire thing.

Usually I'm a proper prude through these episodes, but I'm afraid this show is just very attractive. Yeah, no, everyone's really beautiful. Yeah. Bless Adam tries to tell his parents about all of the new exciting things he's written in the magazines, and they ignore him and send him to bed. So he has a sherbet lemon and a power station and uses all of its nuclear material. Yes. And we end the episode at the bandstand and a fight between Azirafel and Crowley. Which, by the way, it's not really worth mentioning later, but what a shit place for a rendezvous.

Like a secret rendezvous. This empty bandstand. A, nowhere to sit. B, you're very obviously the only people around when you are. Yeah. It was a bad rendezvous choice. Yeah. Oh, which was my favorite outfit?

Yeah, like your favorite time period aesthetically. Oh, difficult. Very difficult, but I think I'm going to have to go with the Shakespearean because I've got a thing about, like, Tudorira stuff in general. Have you? I like a man in a doublet and hoes. Yeah. I mean, I like Tudor- I really enter Tudor history, and I'm a big Shakespeare geek, and I really like the glow. Oh, that's probably what comes from, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, that was definitely part of it. What about you? Oh, I will say honorable mention to one or two because, ooh, the suits. Yeah, I think, for me, it was between Revolutionary France and World War II, so I think World War II. I really liked Crowley's hair in the Revolutionary France, but he had the ringlets. I like the- It makes me wish we'd had that Regency-era scene.

Yeah. Because that would have been in this bit as well. Mm-hmm. The great flood bit. Oh, the Noah bit. Yeah. When he says he's just, just drowning the locals. Oh, yeah.

I thought that was really good. The Native Americans haven't pissed him off. Yeah. I think it was just a good reference, I guess, to the fact that, you know, people have worked out that there was a flood around that time in that part of the world, but obviously, people who didn't know about other parts of the world might have just assumed the whole fucking world was underwater because everything was underwater. Yeah.

There's a really clever acknowledgement that it's a part of that world's real history as well as the biblical history. Yeah. Also, I really like the bit about one of the unicorns running away. Yeah. Sorry, I still got one. Like, I'm going to talk about this more as we talk about this episode, but Crowley's reaction to the fact that the kids are going to drown too.

Yeah. And the moral standards that Crowley and... Yeah. The moral standards that Crowley and Azirafel have are really quite interesting. Yeah. And a lot of Crowley's are more closely aligned with human. Mm-hmm. I think Azirafels are by the end.

Yeah. I have a whole bit. I suppose actually that would make more sense. This is why Crowley has been damned already. Because he questioned. Yeah. Yeah. The whole idea...

And Azirafels is still quite close to the beginning. Yeah. Okay. So this is a whole thing in Catholicism or what I was taught growing up is that hell was not a place of fire and brimstone and torture. It was a place where you were fully cognizant of God's love but unable to receive it. And you only go to hell rather than purgatory if you fully reject God's love in all forms. So it's this idea of...

That's the only unforgivable sin, right? Yeah. So my idea of Crowley is damned because he questioned rather than because he is bad. Yeah. That I think is quite... Like the whole question of morality and humanity, I generally find quite interesting. I like it within the context of this really kind of silly TV show as well. Yeah, yeah.

And in the book. So yeah, so characters and casting, some amazing cameo bits in this. Go. We've got Three of the League of Gentlemen. Yes. It is an amazing town and when people ask me what my hometown is like, I sort of explain it's a bit Royston-Vasey. Meet Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a tale of Daisy. So Reese Shearsmith as Shakespeare and then Mark Gassis and Steve Pemberton as Nazis in the Blitz scene. And I mean, God, I love Mark Gassis. He plays creepy so well and he plays creepy German so well.

You played him for a sucker. I am played for suckers. You are played for suckers. He is. He's played for suckers. He's played for suckers. He's very funny. I like.

No, that came out bad. I can't do a good German accent, not like Mark Gassis can. They do actually both speak fluent German. Oh, that was interesting to read. Yeah. They are actually proper German accents, so that makes sense. Yeah. Rather than a la-la with German accents.

Yeah. They weren't. I think that scene was generally done very well. Yeah. As far as cameos that happen throughout the series is some of my favourites because I really love League of Gentlemen. Yeah. And them as comedy writers.

And Mark Gassis was also in Sherlock. Yeah. He plays Mycroft. And obviously worked on Sherlock and directed it. And he's been in Doctor Who. He's really interesting actually. Yeah. There was Jay Rainer who hosts Kitchen Cabinet, which we were talking about last week.

Has a podcast where he just takes someone interesting out to lunch. And he did a Mark Gassis episode. And he like grew up across the road from an insane asylum, which explains a whole bunch. And just generally had a very interesting life. And so he eventually became a very successful writer and actor. Yeah. That does explain that. Yeah.

Anyway. Yeah. I think we get a lot more stuff with the other angels than Gabriel here. All of which are really well done and really well cast. You've got Sandalfern who's sort of, he's the one who in episode two and Gabriel turns up to buy his pornography. He's the one kind of weird Gabriel. He's got the teeth.

Yeah. And he's, he's that guy in the office, isn't he? Yeah. Who like, I don't know, just stands a bit too close to you near the filing cabinets every now and then. Yeah. And he's just a bit graced. Yeah.

He comes across as oily. And he's the one who says, has some wonderful line readings of quotes from favourite things later on. And yeah. This is another musical he quotes as something, Brogson Hammerstein. Angel and Michael played by Doon Mackie Chan. I don't know if I'm saying her name right, but I love her. She's in plebs.

Uh-huh. Um, which have you seen plebs? No. Oh, very funny. She watched plebs. It's a bit like in between a certain ancient Rome. Okay. That sounds like something I wouldn't like, but okay, I'll give it a try if you think

it's good. It is, it is. You've never liked me a story yet, so. It's very well acted. Apart from the colour of magic. It's very well acted. Which is a pretty big black mark on your ankle, but. I mean, I never actually said it was good.

I just said we should do an episode on it. You said you didn't hate it. I didn't hate it. It's got Sean Aston in it. Alright. I like Sean Aston. Okay. Okay.

Sorry, we're not talking about that. We're talking about Good Omens. It's fine. I'm not really still angry. I like that Angel and Michael has a bit of her own sinister double cross here. You know, it's talking about the fact that you've got, um, like Aziraphale and Crowley are their opposites, and then you have Gabriel and Beelzebub as their parallels. Yeah.

And Michael's got this parallel with Haster and Liger. Yeah. And they're sort of giving each other a call, and they're keeping an eye on the Angel. Do you know what I love about the Angel aesthetics is that they've kind of gone a real nod to the hypocrisy with it, because they've all got these simple white robes on. And then Michael has like gold leaf on her face, and sandal on her gold teeth, and they're all like that special rich kind of minimalist. Oh yeah.

I really hate this. Yeah. I can afford not to have anything, not just like I don't have anything. Yeah. I think Chinese furniture is expensive. Um, and Uriel played by Gloria Obeño. And again, I like that there's no, like, looking at gender when it comes to the Angels. Yeah.

Like it's just, that's who it is. Guess why would it? Well, I mean Angels. They're meant to be well above any kind of human biology. If you read some bits of the Bible, they're meant to be just big balls of flaming eyes. Yeah, which is... I'm glad they're humanoid. Pretty big hit to the FX budget.

Yeah. And like, obviously. But they were... And people were on drugs a lot when they read the Bible, huh? God, they really were. Oh, sorry. I'm having another rustle because there's another fun bit in Neil Gaiman's introduction. Having a rustle?

Having a cheeky rustle. I like that as a... Yeah. In Neil Gaiman's introduction in the script book, he says, the Angels, for example, they weren't in the novel. They were going to be in the next Goodamons book we wrote, only we never wrote it. But we knew what they were going to be like, and a version of them showed up in a Goodamons film script, Harry and I wrote in 1991.

Although that was mostly interesting, if I remember correctly, for the Angels, using their halos as glowing killer discourses in the British Museum. So, I like that the Angels are here, and I'm really sad that we didn't get them using their halos as killer discourses. I feel like it loses something from that. The budget of getting the British Museum. Yeah, all right, fine. I didn't have to be in the British Museum.

I just wanted killer glowing discourses. Yeah, yeah. We, in one of the flashbacks, the one to the 60s, this is another thing that wasn't in the book, because none of these flashbacks were, but I like that they were implied. But this is the main one that's relevant to the plot, because it introduces Shadwell. We get young Shadwell. Yeah. Four.

Yeah, yeah, no. I can see that he's handsome. I was not expecting this TV series to lead me to any kind of fancying Shadwell in any way, shape or form, but young Shadwell. Yeah. Little bit better for four there. He is handsome. He is really quite handsome.

And you do like directionless revolutionaries. I do like directionless revolutionaries, but he does look like the kind of guy where, like, I'd have a huge crush on him, but also would never expect him to text me back. Yeah. Yeah. But I would enjoy following him on Instagram nonetheless. Yeah. It's a very specific sort of fancying.

And then, yeah, Sable, again, four. Sorry, so Shadwell's played by Scott Arthur. You've just got much louder. Sorry. I've got very enthusiastic about the use of gate word who plays Sable. He's in the originals. I did recognize him, which is a spin off from The Vampire Diaries. Okay.

Because I have really trashed TV tastes. They're not good shows. They're really not. I love them, but they're not good shows. At some point, get me drunk and get me to explain the plot of the final few seasons of The Vampire Diaries TV. Okay. It'll be great.

I know I watched some of The Vampire Diaries with you when we lived together. Ah, Damon's Avatar. King of inappropriately attractive actors. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. He's really hot. I should not believe that.

Yeah. His headshot is not so much while he's in the industry. Okay. I'm not into him while he's being crucified. Yeah. It's not my thing. I did find it quite interesting though. I looked him up.

Adam Bond has played Jesus before in a documentary about Jesus, about all the different writings and mythology. And so I thought that was quite cool. Yeah. I mean, typecast. Hopefully he gets to do something else before he just like just plays Jesus. Yeah. You get a bit bored of that eventually, wouldn't you?

Mm-hmm. It's also the first time we get RP Tyler, which as I said, he's not credited as RP Tyler yet. Yeah. I don't think he is. It's interesting they've made him not from around there. Yeah. He's Scottish.

Scottish, was it? Yeah. I can't remember. Yeah. I think that might just be because they got Bill Patterson. Yeah. Who's really good. He's the dad in Fleabag.

Ah, that's it. Yeah. And I'd also, and the accent works because it makes him very stern. Mm-hmm. But I kind of like that he's not named in the credits until he's finally introduced, and I think episode five. I can't believe he noticed that. He watched the credits each time.

Yeah. Because, you know, the gorgeous theme, like the whole score from David Arnold is really good. Yeah. And he composed the theme as well. So originally, like, and it says about this in the script book, there was a Buddy Holly song they were going to use that was going to kind of be the theme and they were going to use different instrumental versions of it.

Okay. But then David Arnold put that theme together and like, oh wait, no, hang on, this is it. And they use it in various ways. Yeah. And it's... Sorry. All right. Let's see if we can continue with the puppy on my lap.

So there's a different version of the theme over each end credits. It's the theme, but in different styles. So like, this episode gets like a sixties version from the Soho thing and there's another one that's like really dramatic and orchestral and there's like a weird sort of accordion-y one at one point, I think. Oh, okay. Yeah. So the end credits just for the different versions of the actual theme.

I think Amazon skips them for me. It does. I had to... It took me forever to figure out how to make it not skip them. Oh, okay. It was irritating. And then one last like just fun little cameo is in the nuclear reactor scene right at the end where they realised that stuff's gone.

There's a good comedy character actor called Tony Way who I spotted because it's... Oh, he was in that episode of Black Books. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. He works at the chicken place and at the cinema. Well done. It was... I'd never looked up for the actor before so I'm glad I now have written down that that

is Tony Way. Tony Way. He pops up as just a little bit parts in lots of British comedy. Character actor. Yeah. So I liked that. Cool. My favourite line reading of this episode was when they're watching Jesus Get Crucified

and Crowley says, I showed him all the kingdoms of the world. Zerophiles says, why? And Crowley says, he's a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited. And it's like that as a reference to Jesus being tempted in the desert for 40 days and fasting for 40 days and 40 nights. And the idea was that the devil was showing up and showing him all the wonders of the world to try and tempt him.

Yeah. What were you trying to tempt him into exactly? Well, abandoning his father and... Oh, all right. God, not his stepdad, the carpenter. Yeah, yeah. And abandoning the path of goodness. Because, you know, there's parallels between the Antichrist thing and the Jesus story.

Yeah. He had to make a choice. And slightly Antichrist. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah, no, sorry. I didn't think about how stupid that was until I said it out loud. No, no, no.

I didn't mean that in a you're being stupid way. It was a slight moment of realisation for me. But they're both messiahs and they both have to make a choice. And obviously Adam's choice is to be human. And in Jesus' choice it was to be slightly more than human and very good. Yes, ever so good. But I love the idea of this demon tempting him and showing him the wonder of the world. I wasn't really trying to tempt him.

It's just, oh, he's not going to get a lot, is he? He might as well have this. Yeah. Like, that's all I can give him. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. But there was the other line that follows on from that very quickly is, what is it? He said that's got everyone so riled up.

Be kind to each other. And you can see a little moment of doubt in Zerophel's eyes there. Yeah. And it's a doubt in humanity. Should I be trying to be good for these people? And then Crowley's like, oh yeah, no, that'll do it every time. Yeah. I think he's realised that already.

Yeah, Crowley gets cynical a lot faster. Obviously the biggest change made from the book in this episode is putting in this whole of Zerophel and Crowley backstory, which I love. Yeah, it's really good. And it reverses my position from the previous episode. And like I was saying, I dislike the whole queer basiness purely in the previous episode because it felt so unearned. Watching the relationship develop here, especially when you have 100 years where they're not

talking. Yeah. Because they get into a fight over the Holy Water. Yeah. And then Crowley turning up to save him. And that sort of little conversation about Crowley's name, which is, I've changed it in Anthony J. Crowley. J?

What's the J for? And he does a very good shrug. A whole Bonnie shrug. A faux nonchalant whole body shrug while he's dancing on hot sand. Yeah. But he's so good. Just the physical comedy, it really is. He's such a good physical comedy character.

Yeah. But now the interest in their relationship feels earned because we've watched it develop from co-workers to friends to... Yeah, so chronologically the other thing would have technically been and but us as the viewers have not seen it being earned. And so it was weird. Yeah. And it just felt really, like I said, it felt attention grabby, whereas this just feels

like watching a really sweet natural progression. It makes me very happy. And Crowley working on Holy Ground 4 as Arafal is sort of adorable. And even if you don't want to read it as romantic interest, it's lovely seeing a friendship develop like that. But there is a moment and the score does so much work. Anyway, I mean, if you've changed the music, you can definitely read it however you wanted, but the fucking score.

Yeah. The moment after the church blows up where Crowley reveals that he did a little miracle and saved the books for Arafal. And there's a moment of Michael Sheen just looking while this music swells in the background. Have you ever seen anybody adore anybody so much as Michael Sheen can adore David Tennant? I mean, that's my face looking at Michael Sheen. I adore him so much, especially in this. He's so sweet.

Yeah. I think that's it, isn't it? It's the innocence of the adoration. Yeah. And every time Crowley sort of does something lovely for him, he is surprised by it. Almost didn't he doesn't expect it because he doesn't feel like he is deserving of that sort of. He's never expected someone to think of him like that because heaven has not necessarily

thought of him like that. And he's the one who gives. Yeah. And because he's a giver. He's the angel. He does things. He does something for him. It's beautiful.

And the way the music is used in the bandstand bit as well. The slow build up to the acquisition of the holy water is really good. Yeah. Because it becomes such a big plot point, but we never really think it's really thrown away in the book that just, oh, Crowley's got some holy water. It's like, it's a lot for him to have that thing. Yeah. Especially for an immortal being like the one thing that could destroy him.

Yeah. It's like trying really hard to get a wooden stake, some sunlight and a bit of garlic. Yeah. Um, there was something else. The, oh, the, the line in the car after a 012. You go too fast for me, Crowley. Yeah. After he's given him the holy water.

And Crowley like looking like slightly non plus and upset. Yeah. Because they've almost, because if you think that's only 25 years after the blitz thing. Yeah. It's so weird to think of the sixties as so close to the forties. I don't know why. But it is. That's only 25 years.

Oh, there's a huge sea changing culture. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. So kind of shift the focus from having that build up between them to what happens at the end of the episode where they have the fight in the bandstand. Sorry. The puppy wiggling or a son.

Um, so to see that relationship build up and get to the point of you go too fast for me Crowley and then to come to modern day and to come to the bandstand. What are they arguing about in the bandstand? Well, so a zero fell hasn't told Crowley that he knows where the antichrist is. Yeah. He's just been acting weird. Yeah. So he's still got these split loyalties between heaven and hell.

Crowley has given up on about in the apocalypse and wants to go. Yeah. I want to zero fell to abandon this loyalty to heaven and come with him. Yeah. And it is this huge fight of, um, you know, Crowley saying things like there's no heaven and hell. There's no sides. There's us against everything else.

And a zero fell sort of saying, I don't even like you. And he's sort of like lying to himself. Obviously. And the way the way the score is built up there and to the point where to the point where a zero fell has to reject Crowley. Yeah. And you can see like David Tennant's face there. The way he's sort of very brief kicked puppy moment before he storms off.

It is. It's like that bit where you have to in whatever movie it is where they're yelling at the animal to get back in the woods. No, go away. Yeah. No, we don't want you here. And it's, I mean, I think a zero fell story is kind of the most interesting and resonant for me throughout the series because of the way he goes through his relationship to heaven

and having done the most of faith thing. Yeah. I'm not sure Crowley really evolves that much as a character. I think he, he didn't start off bad. No, I mean, started off questioning. Yeah. And he keeps questioning. And I think what Crowley finds is actually a bit of peace with himself and that he realizes

that actually it was probably all right to question really. Yeah. And he's managed to get a pretty good life out of it. That's probably a bit nicer than being in heaven. Like Crowley becomes more and more human. Yeah. And I think a zero fell does eventually. That is more conflicted about that.

Yeah. Because he's always thought he's on the good side. But to go through that relationship and then see them have their break up scene. I mean, it's easy to break up scene in the bandstand with that music playing. But also if you think about the pacing of this compared to the book. Yeah. The book comes, obviously we're reaching the halfway point where the book comes to this very natural shift of, okay, the end of the world is about to start.

While that's happening here, there's actually very little tension in this kind of middle section and it needs something to happen at the end of this episode. Yeah. And this breakup gives it that tension that the book kind of, that the TV series needs more than the book. It's a really good thing. Because it needs to be sectioned. Yeah.

Because it needs to be sectioned the way it does and each episode needs kind of a thing to end on. The first episode ends on, you know, welcome to the end times. And the second episode ends on whatever the second episode ends on. Jesus, sorry. My notes are sorry. Something else. Yeah.

The second episode ends on a zero fell figuring out who the antichrist is. Sure. This needed a hook to end on and the hook is a zero fell and Crowley breaking up. Yeah. And the band's a bit of narrative tension that would have been missing otherwise and that the book didn't need because the book just kind of keeps going. Yeah. So I thought that was a, that was a good bit of writing.

Yes. That I liked. But I did think it was weird that that was a rendezvous point because. Oh yeah. I mean, the bandstand is still a terrible rendezvous point. Yeah. I've made for a really, really good series of shots. Yeah.

I mean, which is obviously where they picked up. Yeah. Um, which takes me, shifting morality. And this is what I brought up with Crowley and the Noah scene. Neither of them have particularly black and white morality for an angel and a demon. No. Crowley is the one that points out it's really cool to be drowning kids. A zero fell leaves the French Revolutionary.

Really, I'm cool to be drowning kids. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm cool. Sorry. It's really not cool to drown kids, dude. A zero fell leaves the French Revolutionary to die in his place. Yeah.

Which is a bit, I mean, okay. So he was going to kill him, but. Yeah. That seems a bit weird. Yeah. There's a couple of little moments like that. And he doesn't look that conflicted over it. Yeah.

And a big part of the con conflict between zero fell and Crowley at the end is, and a big part of the conflict between them in the whole thing is, okay, we get to the antichrist. Are we going to kill an 11 year old boy? Yeah. Like, and that's the thing they are both grappling with. And the zero fell is almost, a zero fell really wants to stop the apocalypse, but is almost more willing to kill the boy than Crowley is. Or more willing to have him killed.

More willing to have Crowley kill him specifically. Yeah. Because he's saying, well, you can do it. You're the demon. He doesn't seem to value human life as much as long as it's not him pulling the trigger. Yeah. So he didn't kill the French Revolutionary. He just knew he would be killed.

He just left him to die while he went for pancakes. He didn't make the place flood. He just watched it happen. Yeah. And a lot of that is because of his own, as far as he's concerned, the French Revolutionaries are kind of on Hell's side. So I thought the actual way you see the different realities of zero fell and Crowley was really interesting because neither of them are particularly good or bad.

Yeah. And in some ways, a zero fell almost performs like, if you're going to keep school, more relaxed because he thinks he's, it's in the greater good because he's got more faith to heaven and Crowley doesn't really have any loyalty to hell as loyalty as to himself. Yeah. I suppose it's the, the kind of philosophical thing of whether it's an evil act if you just watch it done and watch it happen and do nothing, which I think most people now agree. Yeah.

But possibly that, that's quite a shifting. That is a very shifting thing. And then if you also look at is what's more important, the action or the intention, which is something we used to talk about in ethics classes quite a lot. And obviously Crowley. Is there, is it action, intention and consequence or is consequence and action mixed up together for that one? I think we always sort of would mix up action and consequence.

Very in mind that I remember what happens in the good place a lot more than I remember, which is probably not helpful. Onto something a bit more fun. Yeah. The Shakespeare scene. Oh yeah. Love the Shakespeare scene so much. I'm sure you do.

Go on. Go on. Wax lyric. Go about it. I'm a nerd. I mean the Globe theatre is just really fucking, have you ever been to the Globe? No. It's so good.

Sorry, the pergola. But it was rebuilt and you can go see plays there now. It's, it's still only a fiver to go. Yeah. The tickets for the groundlings bit if you stand are only a fiver. I'm not fucking standing through Shakespeare play. It's more comfortable than sitting on those little wooden benches that cost 35 quid each. It's great.

No, I went to, I saw Amelia there, which was, it isn't a Shakespeare play, but it was a play about Amelia Bassano, who was potentially Shakespeare's dark lady. Oh, you did tell me about that. And it was such, and I was leaning on the stage watching the whole thing. The actors are right there in front of you. If it rains, you get wet. Yeah. It's great.

I saw a production of King Lear there and it was just perfect timing. It started chucking it down during the storm scene. Great. It was great. That would be cool for a performance. It's so immersive. It might be cold and I don't like standing up. It was, it's amazing.

Like, genuinely, if you, any listeners who are near-ish London, go see something at the globe. It's totally worth it. And like I said, it's only a fiver. And there's also the Sam Want to Make a Playhouse there, which is a little indoor building these in winter where they use no technology. So it's all candle lit. Oh, that's great.

Very cool. Yes. It's also, I also really like the comedy of like the really early developing productions of Hamlet. Yeah. The fact that no one's come to see it and it's a total flop. And Shakespeare asking them to do a sort of, he's behind you type moment. Because that's what theatre would have been like in those times.

There was a lot more heckling, wasn't there? There was a lot more heckling. Nothing was sacred. I like that you'd be a not-to-be-speech, but I... Even saying that Beth wasn't bad luck then. No, it wasn't. That was 1700s, 1800s. I think that really became like a superstition.

Yeah. Hot potato of a straw, pluck to make amends. Sorry. That's fine. We're not playing the tennis ball. I'm not playing the tennis ball. By any stretch of the imagination on the stage. No.

Not even slightly. Yeah. I obviously like the to be or not to be bit. Yeah. The fact that it's Richard Burbage. Now that... And there's a nice throwaway line of Crowley saying age does not... Oh, I can't remember the quote now, but it's something that's...

It's a nice line and Shakespeare goes, ooh. Yeah. And it's something from one of the sonnets. But I found this quote from Douglas McKinnon in an interview where he was talking about filming in the Globe. He's the director, sorry. Yeah. There's a scene in episode three where we go to the Globe Theatre to see the first week

of Hamlet. Neil originally wrote that scene. It was the first week of Hamlet and it was a huge hit. Place was packed out with 500 people. My team got access to the Globe Theatre for the first time in history to film in there, but they could only get us five hours. I said to Neil, even if we could afford it, we won't get 2000 people in and out of the Globe Theatre in period costume and everything else.

So he rewrote the scene better and made it the first week of Hamlet and it's a dud. And nobody's coming. Nobody's turned up. And suddenly you see the architecture of the Globe. It's a great gag and you can see David and Michael. Yeah. So logistics wins the day. Very much so.

And I'm glad it was like that. And also that you have Crowley on his way out doing a little miracle and so I really like that. And yet the only other thing I had for this episode was there's a scene where Adam and his parents are watching TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you can just hear, you can just hear a couple of lines in the background. I wanted us to read the script.

So I knew that the actual script for the TV show that was playing in the background existed. And I was pretty sure Neil Gaiman had tweeted it at some point. So I started looking through his Twitter and his Instagram and I couldn't find it. So I tweeted him and said, I'm looking for this excerpt and it's for an important podcasty thing. Can we text a little bit? Yeah, it is. There it is.

I tweeted him and said I was looking for this thing and he said he thought it was on Tumblr. So I went back through his Tumblr and found it and got retweeted by Neil Gaiman in the process, which was very cool. Yeah, yeah. Like I'm such a sad fan girl. No, no, I mean, I agree. I feel the same way I'm just not very emotive in my voice today. If any of our listeners for this episode have come to us having seen that tweet, then hi,

welcome. Hi. Hi. So we've prepared a dramatic reading of what's on in the, and by prepared. Prepared is a very strong word. This is what's on in the background with Adam's parents watching TV while Adam's trying to tell them about the magazines. You look at me and you see the Queen of England and Scotland.

No, I look at you and see a woman. A woman whose life you are going to have to protect with your own. As long as you're with me, your majesty, you're safe. You can't protect her. You're tied to a chair with a bomb on your lap. You made one huge mistake. You frisked him for a gun. You didn't frisk me.

What? And the swift fight. I was just like, can we just get the dog to make some noise? Where did you learn to fight like that, your majesty? Before I was Queen. I was a semi-professional kickboxer. I did not know that about you. Class A writing.

That's beautiful. And honestly with that dramatic reading to listeners, I think we've said everything we could possibly say about the first three episodes of Good Omens. So on that to listeners, I think we've said everything that we could possibly say about episodes one to three of Good Omens. That's true. No, that's not true. But we really had that stop.

Yeah, unless you want a five hour episode. So we'll be back next week at the same time to talk about episodes four to six of Good Omens. In the meantime, follow us on the internet, on Instagram. Not in real life, please. Not in real life. Unless you know us already, in which case. No, still don't follow us.

Oh yeah, no, don't do that. Anyway, follow us on Instagram at the true Shamiki fret, on Facebook at the true Shamiki fret. I'm hot billing now. Are we? It's just the order. I wrote it down today. Can I just do the outro?

All right, fine. Fuck Sammy. Find us on Twitter at makeyfretpod. Email us your thoughts and queries and albatrosses and castles and snacks at the true Shamiki fret pod at gmail.com. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. It helps other people find us. And what do you think, Francine?

Well, as we're here, actually, I think we should probably just record the next episode. So can I tempt you to another podcast episode? Temptation accomplished.