A Brief History Of Popcorn At The Movies

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Hello, listeners.

Richard here.

Just before we start this QA podcast, I just wanted to let you know we had so many questions about MasterChef this week, understandably, that we've done a special standalone podcast which you can download.

Thank you for not saying emergency.

It's my absolute pleasure.

Our special emergency podcast on MasterChef,

you can download now, but this one is a MasterChef free zone.

Let's get on with the podcast.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Wrestling's Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition.

I'm Marina High.

And I'm Richard Osman.

Hello Marina.

I love the little, you always get a a little look on your face when you get through the first bit of the show and don't mess it up.

It's palpable, isn't it?

I can feel it myself.

It hangs in the air.

I did it.

I said hello.

I said it's Q ⁇ A and I said my name.

In the right way.

Until that moment, it's hung like a psyche call over this studio and then it's now it's evaporating.

Yeah, you can relax.

Yeah, it's in the middle of the face containment.

And what people don't know is it was the seventh take, but that's okay.

What are we talking about this week?

There's a question for Mark Brotherton that I want to ask you.

He says, I was recently at a Rob Beckett show in Portsmouth.

I'm sorry about that, Mark.

We love Rob Beckett.

We do love Rob Beck.

We truly love him.

And when I arrived, I found out that my seat had been moved to the front row.

The idea of being picked on by a comedian is a deep fear of mine, and I spent the entire evening avoiding eye contact with him.

Do comedians have a system for who they interact with while on stage, and what is the best way to be left alone?

God, that's such a great question.

Also, that, I mean, that is the worst nightmare.

I always think I'd go to Edinburgh every year, and in that place, sometimes you're in an audience of like 12.

And like the odds of you getting picked on a lot of people.

And you're six foot seven.

and you're six foot.

It's very, very difficult.

Yeah, the best thing that ever happened to me was becoming well-known on TV because then people never pick on me.

Uh, but before then, I'd be picked on by everyone all the time.

If Mark doesn't become well-known on television, just say he does, just say he doesn't create a career for himself on that medium.

What's the second best way?

The second best way.

Okay, I get it.

And this is such a common fear by people.

Audiences know comics know as well.

I talked to so many comics about this because I just thought I'd be interested and get different perspectives.

And they all had the exact same perspective which was everyone likes doing a bit of crowd work it just means every show is different you can sort of tailor it to an audience it makes the audience realize that you're making stuff up as you go along as well but they every single one of them said there are two types of people I will always always always avoid on the front row that I would never talk to I would never talk to someone who's obviously not making eye contact so Mark he did a he did an absolutely grand job there congratulations they might talk to your wife for example who's sitting next to you and then you will be be dragged in so anyone who definitely doesn't want to be picked they they can pick up on uh but also anyone who desperately wants to be picked so so those are the two classes of people every single comic said this to me it's like somebody doesn't want to be put there's no fun in that for anyone yeah and somebody desperately wants to be picked i know it's not going to be funny because they were already they've probably already got some material that they want to use and they probably got like pretend they've got some hilarious job or something like this and they've got some comeback that they got for me so then it always always goes wrong so you just pick someone who's just enjoying themselves maybe they've laughed at the first joke you've done so you know you know they're on side that you know they're friendly or maybe they haven't laughed at the first joke but you can sort of this there's there's there's a vibe to it so it's it's reading that row i would say you're unlikely to get picked on in a sort of touring comics show a touring comic show do you think people had not booked those seats in the front and that's why they moved because having no one in the front doesn't look great or do you think someone had said i'm so sorry i've got a condition i cannot stand this i don't want to be in the front always always always a comic will get the front row filled up always and the first few rows if they can if there's if there's even two gaps every comic will tell you it's all you can see throughout the whole performance you know if there's someone not laughing at any point you can see that person and if there's like the spare seats in in there um you absolutely see them so the job of the uh stage manager and the job of the uh the the crew whatever venue is to fill those gaps normally they would fill that with volunteers because actually front rows do tend to set out fairly quickly so normally that would be be filled with volunteers.

I don't know what's happened to Mark where he's been frog marched.

That feels a bit harsh.

There must have been somebody else around him who would have gone, I'd love to be in the front row of a Rob Beckett gig.

But I think that people worry far more these days because in clubs, that really is somewhere that you should probably avoid the front row.

Because in clubs, you know, comics are filming their things.

We've spoken about it before.

Yeah.

Putting them online, you know, and they've got all sorts of tricks they can use with people in the front row.

But if you're if you're going.

Sign a ticket automatically serve as a release form for that stuff.

Normally it would.

Normally there'd be a sign up at the door saying, you know, your, you know, your likeness might be used in a video.

But that would come down to the comedian rather than the club but that's a very very good question so you should write right right in i'll write in right in another word i will they they do not want you to have an uncomfortable time no you know they really really don't i have a question on a very different subject uh for you although it is a question about audiences suzanne asked a question what is the history of eating popcorn when going to the movies.

Suzanne, the second I read this question, I thought I want to know the answer to that.

How did popcorn get that upgrade of image and that gig?

Popcorn is a really old snack and they found corn cobs that were used for popcorn in Peru that have date back to something like 4700 BC.

Popcorn is crazy, by the way.

Popcorn is one of the weirdest.

I don't think you ever find out that that would happen in the whole world.

And the rings.

How long would you have to do that with egg whites to write?

I think, my God, this is actually quite cool.

Yeah, you must be so angry about something.

Yeah.

I'm really just going to, I'm just going to do half an hour of this.

Yeah.

The type of corn that they use is mostly grown in the American Midwest.

Popcorn itself is a very,

and it's the association with the movies is very American.

Even before then, early 19th century America, it was called something else.

They were called pearls or non-paré or things like this.

Eventually,

there was a guy called Charles Creeters and he had a sweet shop.

I think it was in Ohio.

He had a nut roasting machine, which he adapted.

And that's how

this mad thing, like how they thought, all right, if you really heat it, and then it will pop.

It's crazy.

But Charles Creeters, when he first saw it, just must have gone, I might be the greatest genius I've ever lived.

God knows what else he'd put in that machine before he hit on popcorn.

You imagine all the mistakes.

Finally,

46.

Runner beans don't work.

Yeah.

So he, he had, anyway, so he created this and then he thought, well, hang on a second.

Why don't I just attach these to carts?

And then, so he had a mo, you know, he had a mobile unit, which was, as we know, one of the great snack innovations of all time.

But the main thing is, in the Great Depression, it was very, very cheap.

If you think, but movie theater owners were very snooty about popcorn at the time.

Remember what movie theatres were like?

They were so amazing.

Wanted it to be the art form of the people, but they put like carpets everywhere.

The theatres, there's some, I've got, I read this book by, I've got this actual, there's a great guy, I think this book will both be out of print, but I do have these somewhere in my non-unpacked book.

So people can just knock on the door and borrow them.

Yeah, absolutely.

He's a guy called John Margulis, and he wrote this book.

He wrote one about a sort of majesty of American gas stations called Pump and Circumstance.

And he wrote one called Ticket to Paradise, which was this, it's like a beautiful book of all these old movie theatres.

Remember, things like The Roxy in New York are so incredible.

Like everyone, you know, where do you find these books?

I don't know.

I once went to a talk by this guy at somewhere like Reba, the architects place.

I can't remember, long time ago.

And I love it, but it was beautiful illustrations.

And

something like The Roxy, which in New York, which was a complete picture palace.

It really was.

It was amazing.

You know, they nearly went bankrupt building it.

It, you know, seated 6,000 people.

They had organs.

There was guilt everywhere.

Remember all this stuff?

So the movie theatre owners were like, yeah, no, you can't bring your crap in here.

You know, you know, but people started selling it outside.

What were they selling?

Were you not allowed to do it?

No, they didn't really want you to sort of no, they

it's not a restaurant, yeah.

It's not a reason, it's a cinema, right?

Well, as we now know, it is a restaurant, it's it's you're essentially a food court with some sort of digital screening service attached to you.

You are in food retail if you work in these places, that's where you make your money.

Um, but back then, people would not, but because it was so cheap and it was the sort of thing that people could still afford to do just about in the Great Depression, which is still a huge boom time for movies, they had the carts outside.

People would think, this is a great way we'll sell on the way in.

Eventually, the movie theater owners thought, this keeps happening.

We're going to own this.

You can buy it inside from now on.

And that's how it got that role.

But it is actually not that messy compared to what many other different types of snacks are.

I actually remember Claudia Winkle once telling me saying, I've thought of the best snack for kids on a plane, right?

And you can't do it if anyone's got a nut allergy on the plane.

But pistachios, because they take so long to open each one.

Let small children, they take a really long time to open each one.

They're not sticky at all.

And it just,

it's very labour-intensive and it's not sticky.

By the shelves, I'd worry about the shelves.

Sure.

Popcorn isn't that desperate to clean up and it's really not that bad.

But these carpets that they had, even though it was in the Great Depression, you know, things like the Roxy had the world's largest oval carpet.

And they'd been sort of, you know, hand-spun by something.

They wanted to make these.

places complete palaces for the working person and they are amazing when you look at these pictures of these things honestly, like you're going to, they were going to the Paris Opera.

They really kind of put it all out there.

So they were a bit snooty, but in the end, they realized they could make money.

And that's how it got the job.

But it is helped by not being that messy.

But who did

flavoured popcorn, sweet popcorn, and all that stuff?

Well, the Rookheim brothers in Chicago in 1870 were like, well, they were the original people who just thought, what about if we just made this like 100 times more sugary?

And they did caramel popcorn.

Wow, the Rookheim brothers.

Yeah.

I love this.

And I've talked too often about the first flavourings and crisps, but I've never knew about the first flavourings and popcorns.

Well, there you go.

My son always goes half and half.

Yes, I think that's the best.

I've come to realise that is the best.

It's like the revels of popcorn.

Because I had some assumption in my head, I had not spent any time thinking about it, and it's good to hear about it.

My assumption was that it was just a snack that didn't make a lot of noise.

That's helpful as well, but it's not.

But it's interesting it didn't take over from like people were not eating crisps or something.

And someone said we need a...

Popcorn was the first one in through the.

It was, yeah, it was, but it was because it was so cheap it's a lot cheaper to make popcorn than it is to make crisps the markup on popcorn is insane um what do you think in cinemas when people eat like nachos and things that to me is you again i've told you you're in food retail now and there are loads of cinemas they'll bring it to your seat they've all of these things have changed and upgraded and they're always trying to sort of sell you these in the same way that you know the two most important things to work out about cinemas is that you're in food retail and kids run movie chains because that's the genre that makes the most amount of money.

You may think all sorts of other things are true, but actually, really, yeah, I don't love that.

And if they're very air-conditioned, it can kind of get away with it.

But I think I don't completely love it.

But people will bring you drinks and coffees and everything.

Yeah, these days.

If you have a a snack, like a Maltese, anything with any sort of crunch, anything with any sort of noise, I'm very, I don't like noise in the cinema, so I hate making noise in the cinema as well.

Do you do that thing?

And sometimes you can't do it.

There's certain films where you're like, oh great, I can't eat my Malteses that you would, I'd only crunch when there's something loud happening on the screen.

So if you're watching a Marvel movie, it's great because I can have some Malteses because someone's about to eat.

You could have got through a lot in Jurassic Rebirth, let me tell you.

Oh, really?

Yeah, you could have got a lot, absolutely no problem.

You could just bite down every time a dinosaur did.

A very, a very Maltese-friendly movie.

But sometimes

you go see movies and you think, I mean, there's no noise here at all.

It's inappropriate that I might have this snack.

This something that was torture us.

Literally having to suck my Malteses.

Yeah, you've got a certain subject matter that is a Maltese sucker.

They don't put it on poster.

They should do.

But there should be a rating that just says

you will be sucking this.

Elegaic movie.

Yes,

it's a real Maltese sucker.

Yeah.

God, I love an explosion if I've got some pick and mix.

That's quickly a real Maltese.

Everyone in the cinema at the same time.

And the second it finishes, just like one person, just three away, just still crunching.

And everyone goes, come on, man.

You've had 17 seconds of a nuclear bomb going off.

You're still eating.

Popcorn, thank you, Suzanne, for that question, because I love a question where I'm desperate to know the answer as well.

And I still remember Mr.

Creeter.

But being someone who invents something that massive,

what would he think now if he knew that we were still sort of he'd go, that was me.

And he probably made nothing out of it.

Probably.

I mean, I think he did fairly well at the time.

And his idea he was obviously very innovative.

Okay.

He was the sort of the mobile snack carts.

Are they big popcorn conglomerates?

Like, what is big popcorn?

Who's who's

Butterkist, of course.

I was thinking I couldn't think of a popcorn continu company, but Butterkist.

I wonder what Butterkist board meetings are like.

I often think that with companies like that.

But you know what I mean?

Like, all they're talking about is popcorn.

Maybe they're just thinking about how can we make the packet smaller.

That's what I think a huge amount of confectionery nowadays is.

What if you kept it the same price and made the packet smaller?

That's essentially the job.

Imagine if you work for Butterkist and you listen to this and you've been listening right from the start.

We talk about all sorts of industries and you're going, here we go, finally.

This is a bit of me.

They know nothing about it.

They're just purely speculating.

And they were trying to get more into a bag.

Yes, exactly.

If you work for Butterkist, do right in.

Someone must do, right?

Yeah.

People are working for Butterkist.

It's not just like a sort of self-automated.

It's not AI.

Someone automated about someone pressed the button on in 1992, and it just continues to occur.

Big Butterkist, please get in touch.

Shall we go to an outbreak?

Oh, my God,

what if Butterkist automatically goes to the bottom?

I very much hope I can hear my own voice in a minute reading out something about Butterkist.

Oh, my God.

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Welcome back, everybody.

I don't know if you had any adverts for Buttacus there, but.

Can I say, by the way, also in the studio, you are eating off-brand frazzles, which were on the Spotify snack tray.

I'm eating something that it claims to be great for your gut.

I had some already, but I finished mine.

I know, and I can't now.

I have to just wait until you talk really loudly and I can just crunch one more.

Maybe you'll do it in this question about the 1% Club, Richard, because Andrew Davis says, How long does it take to record each episode of the 1% Club?

The lighting presets must take ages after each question and working out who gets a blue light, who gets a gold light, depending if they answer correctly or not.

Plus 101 microphones to control and the people Lee speaks to after each question.

I'm guessing a lot of this is cut.

Thank you, Andrew.

I saw a couple of episodes being made last week because we were up at House of Games and they film in the next studio and they were still going when we were finished because we tend to finish quite early.

And this speaks actually to we talked on our AI episode on tuesday about the creativity of the of people behind the scenes in tv and the one percent club i'm going to say it's the most surprisingly quick television show i've ever seen because i was exactly like andrew i'm thinking this feels like a nightmare because if you don't know the show it's a hundred people each of them can be spoken to at any time each of them has an individual light on them and when they get knocked out the light turns off lee talks to people after each show and you go all the way through until you've got one person left so i went along to see it i'll say one thing about it is they only do one a day which is unbelievable These you can tell when something is a huge hit when they're allowed to only do one a day because the cost of doing one show a day is immense.

But when I heard they did one show a day, I was thinking, oh, of course, it must take five hours.

And it really, really doesn't.

So simple things.

So, you know, we talk about there have to be 100 lights.

And there are 100 lights and they're all, you know, set to look at individual people.

But, you know, an awful lot of that is on an algorithm and on a computer.

And when the computer says that numbers 8, 14, 21, 49 are out, those lights switch off.

It's as quick as that.

So all the work there has been done before, all the work has been done beforehand and just gone, okay, I've built this system, this incredible system that means anytime you get to the end of the round, the thing that holds us up is not me.

It's not my team in lighting.

Okay, we have done our job as quickly as we possibly can.

And the lighting director on that, Gerdip, he's done a million brilliant things.

He's an absolute genius.

But again, he's thinking.

There may be some delays on this show, but they're not going to be Gurdip delays.

Okay, they're going to be somebody else.

The sound, I think, even more interesting because anyone who's ever been near a TV show knows that, you know, getting mic'd up, you have a little lapel mic and you've got your pack, and each of them has got individual batteries.

And, you know, at any given time, certainly one out of a hundred battery pack is going to be

going down.

It's going to be dying.

And actually, nobody is mic'd up on that show.

What is mic'd up is the set.

So all the mics are in the set, and those mics are directional.

So anyone who is anywhere is essentially

already pre-done.

Again, the sound crew are going, listen, there might be a delay on the show.

It is not going to be our delay because they've done all of their work beforehand and come up with a creative solution.

In terms of who Lee talks to, Lee has an iPad instead of cards.

That's the biggest thing that's changed in game shows.

And Lee...

The producers who are up in the gallery, Andy Arbach and Dean Nabarro, who put this show together, and have had a huge, huge, huge hit with it and have been working for years and years, done loads of great things.

is lovely to see them have just something that, you know, is absolutely going all around the world.

You know, they and their producers know

something about every contestant.

Again, all this work is done beforehand.

The researchers know something about all of these people.

They'll be an interesting little fact, an interesting little story.

And for any given question, five people have been knocked out, 95 people are still in.

Lee will have a top five people to talk to.

and something to say about.

So you'll see it on the show.

And Lee will go,

so someone's been knocked out.

John, but you've been knocked out.

Your Your brother is still here.

Okay, so the gallery has done that.

The researchers have done that.

You know, they're not kind of after every question going, oh my God, what can we ask?

What could Lee ask?

All that stuff is pre-done.

Plus also they go, oh, someone who's still left in Lee is this guy and he's got an amazing story.

So let's make sure we talk to him while he's still in.

So Lee will have the top five people to talk to.

He will talk to those people.

You might edit in.

three of those depending on how those conversations have gone.

And again, the producers are smart enough that as the show goes on, in that top five people, it's not just the stuff they've heard before from the researchers.

It's, oh, it was funny when he talked to person X earlier.

Let's make sure that's a runner.

Let's make sure we continue that conversation.

So actually, the whole show is the art of pre-production.

You know, every single thing has been done so brilliantly and so thoroughly that when you get on the floor, I was genuinely shocked with the speed it went.

Because normally anything with any sort of camera moves or any sort of lighting things or any sort of talking to those of people, it goes on forever and ever and ever.

I really just thought, what a crew they've got on this show.

It's incredible.

So the producers are brilliant because it's a great idea and it's made brilliantly.

The question writers are brilliant on that show.

But I left that studio thinking, what a crew.

This is crazy.

The speed with which they go is absolutely mind-boggling.

It'll be hard to do maybe more than one or two in a day, even though they do one.

I mean, you could,

I don't want to tattle-tale.

You could definitely do do two.

I'll say that.

You know,

there's a world in which you could do three.

There's a world.

There's a world in which you could do three.

But

who benefits?

Nobody.

You know, for the crew, they'd rather do one a day.

For the studio, they'd rather you were doing one a day.

For Lee, he'd rather do one a day.

For the contestants, they'd rather do one a day because it's all your day.

And it's, you know, the only people paying at ITV and ITV have got a hit.

So ITV don't mind so much anyway.

So I loved them seeing just one a day.

I kept walking through because we were doing five a day at the same time.

I know you don't like to talk about it.

And

you'd walk past the holding pen, and there's like a hundred people all getting there briefing at the same time by this amazing woman called Olivia van der Werth, who is sort of an adjudicator on all quiz shows.

She's like the kind of the god of all quizzes.

And she's sort of talking to them about what to do, what not to do.

And then there's a cardboard cutter of Lee that everyone gets their photo taken in front of.

And that every single day, every single day, I walk through the double doors and I think there's Lee.

And it's a cardboard cutter.

But every day I do it.

Anyway, that's a little behind the scenes peek.

But yeah, it is surprisingly quick and it's surprisingly quick because it's got an amazing crew.

Marina, I have a question here that I think I have views on as well.

I suspect you'll have views on it.

It's from Alistair Otto.

And Alistair says, every so often you see an open letter in the media signed by a list of well-known names calling on the government to act on a particular issue.

How does that actually come about?

Do these things tend to go through agents and publicists or is it more informal?

Do you ever sign these?

Good question.

I've probably signed a couple.

It's a nonsense.

I really think these things are a nonsense.

But anyway, in terms of how they're actually got together, I'm relatively, I don't know, I'm not even maybe that often asked, but I've been asked all different ways.

Sometimes they might go to your agent and your agent might pass it on or your agent might think, yeah, I'd protect you from every single one of these that comes via.

So I could be being asked lots.

I just don't know because my agents, neither of them pass on ones except in maybe unless exceptionally think they think it might be align with your interests i suppose or it's like mr motivator wants to get in touch yeah and you're like yeah pass that on yeah obviously it goes without saying just give him my home address i think that open letters are to a huge extent they're performative they're designed to make the signatories feel better about whatever it is and i fundamentally don't believe they work like i would love to know the time in history when an open letter i'm actually thinking of martin luther and his 95 thesis nailed onto the door of the church.

That's not an open letter.

It sort of was an open letter.

Finally, got a reformation out of it.

Okay, certainly.

And then went on to be the money-saving expert of that.

Yeah.

So same guy?

Let me, yeah.

Martin Luther money-saving expert.

I mean,

some money was saved.

That's a show.

Yeah.

Okay, but I mean, if that was an open letter.

In general, no, I don't think they were.

I mean, remember, God, I mean, obviously there are lots of ones

about cultural boycotts.

There's lots that happen because of sort of peer pressure, the Bailey Gifford sort of thing, which we've covered a bit about festivals.

Lots of AI ones now.

Lots of AI ones.

I am not convinced at all.

I do think that people's talking heads might make some difference.

I don't know, but I really don't think open letters do.

I remember during the Brexit campaign where, because the side that I didn't want to win, one, but I remember thinking, oh, that's going to, I was just feeling more and more because I was thinking, how are they actually doing this?

And it would be like, today there is a letter from 100 business owners in the Times.

It'd be like, geez, is this what, is this it?

Is this the plan?

And then today, 150 small to medium enterprise owners have written a letter to the Times.

And I remember thinking, again, I mean, I talk a lot about the dead languages of politics, but that to me is like, sorry, there's a letter in the Times.

Is this what you think is going to make the difference?

Because I just don't feel it is.

And I thought it was really weird that that was part of a concerted campaign by the Remain campaign, Strongerin, or whatever they were called.

I remember just thinking, this is meaningless.

That's when you go down to Ladbrooks and bet on leave.

Yeah.

I made the smart decision a long time ago of not having an agent, so it's very hard to get in touch with me.

I think, yes, I think usually they're counterproductive.

I get it.

I understand it.

But there's something about it saying, we, the undersigned, you're going to be shocked and surprised when you see the names on this list.

Yeah.

Because you're thinking if all these people agree with each other on something, then something's up.

And it's a group of people who you think, of course, you agree with each other on this.

My assumption would be you'd agree with each other on this.

And there were a few AI things that came around and I'd spoken about it.

So I was people who sort of posted me to do that.

But nothing really absolutely represents the thing that you think.

And also, I always think, who are you trying to persuade and how you're trying to persuade them?

And I've never been convinced that an open letter to a newspaper, which people then can then, you know, retweet or whatever, or put on Instagram.

I've never been convinced that any of that has ever changed.

anyone's mind about anything.

And so

I'm not sure of efficacy of putting one's name to it.

I get it if you feel angry and you feel you want your voice heard, but often these are people who have a forum for their voices to be heard anyway.

And you think you can't just have a hundred of you who most people reading this would assume think the same thing anyway, just all saying that.

Who are you talking to?

Are you talking to the public?

The public are not interested.

I mean, firstly, they're never going to hear about it.

And secondly, if they are going to hear about it, they're going to tut and just go, yeah, of course.

Or are you talking to policymakers?

And, you know, policymakers are not looking at an open letter and think this is not a tiger that roars.

So I understand why people do them.

I've never felt the need to add my name to one of them.

Every now and then you think, oh, I think there's been some sort of sea change of this issue because people who wouldn't have said, put their name to something like this suddenly are saying, well, I actually disagree and this certain thing should be allowed to be said simply because of free speech or whatever it is.

But it's as like as a small kind of bellwether or something.

I don't think it's particularly meaningful.

It's usually an open letter saying we should be allowed out at night and it's signed by 400 cats.

I know you think you should be allowed out at night.

I get it because you meow constantly.

The other type of open letter I think I hate even more.

This is the one that Andreas Williams Smith, who was a person and one of the founders of The Independent, said that a journalist writing an open letter is an act of madness.

And it's when you see those letters that people write, you know, dear Donald Trump, it's like,

I just don't think he's going to see this.

That is, for me, a hangover to a real kind of a completely different era.

And you don't see them quite as much as you used to.

They sort of normally come from a place of love.

There was a really weird period in, this was all before the political upheavals of 2016, where I remember there was a spate of like comedians writing open letters to each other, which were basically newspaper columns.

And David Mitchell wrote one in The Observer to Steve Coogan saying, I don't think press freedom is under threat by what you're pushing for in there.

And then Steve Coogan wrote one back to him, you know, dear David.

Then I think Russell Brand, you'll have to remind me what's happened to him.

I've guest edited an edition of The New Statesman in which he wrote something to readers.

And then Rob Webb, David Mitchell's comedy partner, wrote an open letter back to him.

I mean, this is quite an odd sort of set of exchanges that are having quite a trend.

The reason I think I hate that type of open letter the most is because it's a column that's trying to pretend it isn't one.

Right.

And, you know, just write a column.

Yeah, exactly.

Listen, right.

Listen,

this is the most unionised I've ever seen you.

You're like, that is not, you are doing a column, but you're pretending that.

No, that's fine.

Listen, let's not pretend the column's an art form because really let's not.

But that's what you're doing.

But it sort of purports to be going over the head of the people to whom it's actually meant to be read by, which is, I hope, the readers.

You would want to send something privately like that.

And if you'd like to say something about X, Y, Z or about something that Donald Trump's doing, don't feel the need to address it.

You know, we don't need to conduct a public life in this epistemary fashion.

And sometimes it happens less than it used to.

And it does, and sometimes it is as this is a sidebar, but sometimes if I'm asked to write something about a particular area, and I do, I usually respond in saying, I just think there are people at universities up and down this country who really, really, really know what they're talking about on this.

And I would be saying the first thing that comes into my head.

And listen, I get it.

And, you know, I get lots of people nodding, hmm, that's really interesting.

But there are super smart people out there who might be better to hear from.

Also, I don't want to do it and I don't have time.

Yes, also, I don't want to do it.

I don't have time.

That reply purports to be something as well.

I am watching the snooker.

Okay.

I will have literally no snooker time if I do this.

So I have to, in the end, make hard choices.

Yeah.

Or I started it.

I got three paragraphs in and I ran out of things to say.

I thought maybe get someone intelligent to write this for you instead.

Some comics don't seem worried about that, do they?

No.

Although, do you know what?

Some comics, not many, some of them are super smart anyway.

But,

you know, sometimes you read things, you think, I mean, maybe someone else could have written that.

I don't know.

I like your columns, though.

I do like those.

Somebody else could have written all of those, I can assure you.

Shall we finish with

a short one, a very apt short one?

Andy Hunt says, It is well known that Orlando Bloom had very few lines in Lord of the Rings, but it was still, in my opinion, a great performance.

In your opinion, what are examples of great performances where an actor had either very few or many, many lines?

Andy, thank you.

Okay, so yes, he's Legolas.

He's the elf.

He look, I mean, he looks great.

Was it an epic performance?

I'm not quite sure.

An epic film and

he's got 17 lines

in that movie in total.

17 lines.

But looks, looks the part.

The shortest, the famously, the shortest time ever to win an acting Oscar is Beatrice Strait in Network.

She's on screen for five minutes and two seconds and it's an incredible straight scene.

She plays William Holden's wife and he's basically telling her he's leaving her and it's just this unbelievable little scene in their apartment.

But it's so epic.

And it's anyway, she couldn't believe it.

And of course, when she got it, she said, The script was amazing.

And this is how I got the Oscar.

That best supporting is a category you can get away with very, very little for.

I mean, think Isabella Rossellini just suddenly remembered this.

She was up for Conclave.

I mean, I don't know how many lines she had.

She didn't know it.

She had so few lines in that.

And I was sort of astonished that they had even, but I think, you know, they thought she's wonderful and we should have given her something before.

So they put her in.

Judy Denchin, Shakespeare, and Love is, it's not six minutes, it's under six minutes.

She got the Oscar for that.

Um, I'm trying to think of the other ones for the actual best actor, Oscar.

Anthony Hopkins got one for Hannibal Letter.

That's a very short performance.

That's something like 16 minutes, 15 minutes.

Compelling, though.

Yeah, unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

But I remember at the time, there was a lot of talk about how lots of the sort of supporting actor categories that year were on screen for much longer and had many more lines.

So, yeah, the supporting category is like Am Hathaway got one for being Fontaine and Les Miz, and I can't remember the other, various other ones, very short ones.

Long things.

Now, Jim Carrey used to say more words than anyone in films, and he averages 5,338 words per movie.

Is that right?

He's like the most speaky.

He talks fast.

I mean, it helps if something like if you helps if you've got a voiceover, that always is going to help you.

Also, comedy as well, and shtick and bits, you know, and there's lots of business in those films, and he's racing through them, rattling through stuff.

So, I guess it's a lot of words per minute.

Yes,

I think the most is Robert De Niro in Casino, and he has 26,798 words.

Wow.

That doesn't seem that many to me.

When I think about audiobook readers and books like 90,000 words and they haven't, and they think De Niro's doing 26,000, that's the most anyone's ever done.

That's like a quarter of an audiobook.

But think how many times he's had to say each of those words.

Of course they have to do it.

And on Radio, he's probably said

about, I don't know, what do you think he said?

He's probably said

200,000.

Yeah, Bobby, I take it back.

I'll take it back.

You know, he's a grafter.

But yes, the supporting category is really where the gold mines for that are.

And that actual, that absolute shortest one, Beatrice Rate, honestly, it's one scene.

Do you think that Orlando Bloom's performance, do you agree with Andy Hunt's opinion that it is a great performance?

No, I told you, I think he looks absolutely perfect.

And there's something very ethereal about him and the hair and all of that.

And that particular stage of his beauty.

He is perfect for that.

So, it's incredibly arresting.

And I, yeah, I think it's

captivating, but I don't think it's

captivating, but you're not about to sign an open letter about it.

I'm not about to see him not recognised by the Academy.

Yeah,

dear sir,

we the undersigned

a retrospective career achievement, Oscar.

For Orlando Bloom, please.

Signed, Sir David Putnam, Stephen Hawking.

Anyhow, I think that does actually wind us up for today, Richard.

Lovely.

Listen, it's always good to be wound up.

We have a special bonus episode tomorrow.

We're starting our greatest British sitcom of all time episodes.

We begin tomorrow with some of the runners and riders for what might be the greatest British sitcom of all time.

That's for our members.

And you can join at the Restors Entertainment.com.

And if you have any questions for us, please keep them coming to the restaurants entertainment at gallhanger.com and we will endeavour to answer them or go to people who also know the answers.

Yeah, I'm also very happy if you want to ask opinion questions because I always want to know what Marina's opinion is on various things.

The more obscure, the better, because of stuff that we wouldn't be able to do on the main show.

And otherwise, we'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday.

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