Will Saturday Night Live Thrive in The UK?

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Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

And me, Richard Osman.

Hello, everybody.

Hello, Marina.

Hello, Richard.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm okay.

Are you very well?

Yeah, I'm moving house this week, which is quite a lot, isn't it?

Do you know what?

That's like the worst thing ever.

Don't you think?

I do.

I mean,

I have to try and think that, but right now I'm just I've absconded from it to do the podcast and let's just, you know, make it a five-hour one.

So now you don't have to go back.

Oh, are you literally avoiding your movers?

Oh, I'm avoiding it.

I'm avoiding it all currently, yeah.

Yeah, and is your husband avoiding the movers?

Or is he there?

It's not possible, is it, when someone has to do a podcast for both people to avoid the movers?

It's very important.

You're like one of the soldiers who went off to the war in 1939.

I say that every week, anyway.

But yeah.

I like it in America when people actually move their house.

They put it on a low loader and drive it down.

That would be a cool way to move house.

Can you just keep everything and just some things have fallen out of the cupboards when you get there?

Because you've gone over a few speed bumps.

I don't really have any in America, actually.

There's beans on the floor.

And hello, by the way, to

the cabby.

I just had Tony, who's a listener to the podcast.

I said, if I was writing a cabby Tony, he'd be called Tony.

I've always got Tony's in my books.

Thank you, Tony, for listening.

And to all who listen.

What are we talking about this week?

We are talking about Sky has announced that they are making a British version of Saturday Night Live, an official British version of Saturday Night Live.

A lot of people have a lot of opinions on it.

I have an opinion which is different to many of those.

We will be talking about that.

I suspect your opinion might be different to mine as well, Marina.

I don't know.

What does that mean?

I'm guessing.

We're also going to be talking about Mischief Theatre, who are the brilliant theatre company behind the play that goes wrong and various spin-offs of that.

They've got a new comedy opening in the West End, and I want to talk about their amazing success story because I think it's really fascinating.

Yeah, it's a really overlooked British success story.

We are also going to talk about Universal are opening a theme park in Britain.

We're going to talk about theme parks.

We're going to talk about Universal.

Essentially, we're talking around whether that sounds like a good idea or not.

Absolutely.

Shall we start with Saturday Night Live?

Well, let's, because in partnership with MBC, Sky is going to make their own version of it.

And the big sort of headline of it, in a way, is that it's going to be executive produced by Lorne Michaels, who, of course, is the presiding creative genius or if you, unless you don't like SNL, behind Saturday Night Live, who's overseen it for sort of 50 years, borrow a kind of brief hiatus.

There have been many, many, many attempts.

I think we have to say, to get shows like this and shows like those big late night successes in America, bear in mind this goes on, you know, 11.30 or whatever it is on a Saturday night.

One of the interesting things about America is that they watch TV a load much later at night

than the UK does, which is why, I don't know, things like the Daily Show, all the late night talk shows, all of those are a really big thing, Saturday night.

It's crazy.

Honestly, I get to the end of Interior Design Masters at 9 p.m.

And we're like,

better hit the hay.

Imagine you have to stay up for another three and a half hours.

Yeah,

but

it's just a fact of their kind of TV existence is that they do stay up later, and which is why these shows have all different types of these kind of late-night shows, late-night comedy shows have been iconic and chat shows and successful.

And one of the reasons why they haven't worked in the past over here, but there have been so many attempts.

Yeah, Friday Night Live, Channel 4's have done it.

Yeah, everyone tries to do these sort of things.

Well, I was going to go through the various different attempts.

We've had,

well, there was Saturday Live, Friday Night Live, but back in the 80s, then

the 11 o'clock show, Tonightly,

the late edition with Marcus Brigstock, Recommended Daily Amount, MASH Report, 10 O'Clock Live.

10 O'clock Live, that was one of mine.

But then, funnily enough, things like Last Week Tonight, which is John Oliver's show.

I mean, he's be, I think he has acknowledged and be one of the first people to acknowledge that it was quite based on, although he came up via the daily show,

it was quite based on something much older.

That was the week that was, which was

David Frost before he became Star Humper.

What should I say?

Can we say?

Before he became Lord Frost Brexit Minister.

That's a different David Frost.

That's a different David Frost.

So there have been so many attempts over the years.

All of which have failed.

Yeah, why have they failed, do you think?

A number of reasons.

And certainly when this was announced, the glee with which almost every single commentator, almost every single person in the industry said, well, this isn't going to work.

This is going to be terrible.

The actual Saturday Night Live itself is terrible.

Have you actually watched the whole episode?

You know, it's so awful.

And, you know, I kind of get it.

Well, listen, why has Saturday Night Live in America worked?

Would be the question.

And

people seem to think that Saturday Night Live is about 5,000 different things.

Saturday Night Live will fill whatever vacuum it is you think is missing on television.

So people go, oh, it's a satire show.

It's this, that, or the other.

Saturday Night Live is a sketch show.

That's all it is.

It is a sketch show.

And they are allowed to show sketches on television because they have a big name guest hosting, which is clever.

They have a music act.

People always switch off in the music acts, but Lorne Michaels says it gives us relevance though.

You know, without it,

we lose the context of what this show is.

So even though, you know, NBC will tell you the ratings drop off a cliff every time, you know, the first note of music is played, you will always have it because he said it just makes people feel like this show belongs to them.

But it is a sketch show.

That's all it is.

And it's a sketch show that breaks new performers, introduces new performers and new writers.

And once a week, you have these sketches.

Now, in America, the money they spend is immense i mean it's immense i was talking to someone who's working with lawn michaels and he said on a on the wednesday they built this set they said it's the single most expensive set they'd ever built on saturday night live and it's proper you know like a whole series of uh of a british quiz show type set uh

rehearsal on friday they scrap the yeah sketch they scrap the set and they can do that they can pay writers a lot they can pay performers a lot and so it is of just a very very very high-end sketch show show with very big guests on it and it had probably reached roughly the end of its uh road just at the time when television became all about viral moments and became about have you got something for us that's two minutes long and clippable and saturday night live would go yeah oh there's something like the last season was it's something like 3.1 billion views of the clips which is crazy because

yeah it's made for that yeah so that's what it is and if you're hearing about Saturday Night Live and going yeah but I've watched it and this got boring but you think yeah I mean welcome to television but what it is it's been this machine for years and years and years producing stars producing big spin-offs and now it is a essentially a clip machine as well is the thing and every week it's gets in the press because they got big you know guests on it and big music guests so it's noisy and it provides an awful lot of viral moments now in the UK we do not have the money to make a show like that So in America on Tuesday in the States all the writers and there's a lot of them go in and pitch to Lorne and the other producers.

Lawn and the producers go off into a little room, decide the sketches they want for that week, loads more than are going to be shown, go back to those writers.

Those writers then become a producer for a week on that sketch and they're given incredible resources just to make sure that we're all know and they famously kind of sleep in the office and you never really leave and you know and it's just this whole is all-consuming thing.

yeah also can I just say one other thing which is that they have that is different to us is that they have this massive tradition of

improvised comedy which is where these you know we say they break news but these people have all done improv in places like Second City

which started in Chicago but there's also New York Groundlings all these kind of nationwide improv troupes they have a huge tradition and actually having worked with American actors on sync comms they've all done improv and they all done still sometimes do improv nights in LA they still also so they're so good at like all the ad-libbing and stuff like that because that's where they come from and we don't you know as you say people go into as you we've talked about how many times people go into stand-up so that the reason so it hasn't really worked over here despite the fact we're a very funny country and there's lots of talent behind the camera and in front of the camera is there's not quite enough money we don't work in the way that they do there's very few rooms that you would be working the hours they do on Saturday nights.

That's the thing though, but they don't.

And as you say, we don't have the,

but they put that's another part part of this: is the sort of UK commissioning process where you're always, are you going, you know, there'll be a long-off season, are you going to get another season?

You're kind of, okay, at some point, obviously, they're going to cancel SNL in the States, and that's at some point going to happen.

But in general, you know, you're coming back.

Your season runs from October till May, which is really, really long.

And they kind of always have a couple of repeats within that.

But you know, you're doing 22 episodes.

It's not like, oh, we're going to do 10 episodes and see how it goes, or even eight episodes and see how it goes.

This is everyone on that show's 100% main job.

And okay, sometimes when you're really successful in the SNL cast in order to like keep you sweet and keep you coming back, Lauren might let you do a comedy film in the offseason, okay?

And you might be allowed to do that.

But in general, whereas all our comics at the moment, you know, they've got, you can see why they do it, oh, they've got this panel show, they've got that.

This is the, you know, it's a sort of comedian's equivalent of a fragrance line.

You know, I need to be diversified.

I need to have one panel show.

I need to like do Taskmaster.

I need to, you know, whatever it all is.

And you kind of put together a year for yourself.

Yeah, a career in that way.

And I'll do some touring.

I'll do, you know, and it's a sort of tessellation in lots of ways.

Whereas this is like that, this is their huge focus.

It's the apex in lots of ways of their comic culture.

There'll be lots of disagreement on that, but you know what I mean.

Nonetheless, it is a prestige job to have, and as is writing on it, but it is...

it is your full commitment.

Yeah, and all of these points have been made

at volume this week week by people saying, what on earth is Sky doing?

This is so stupid.

And that, you know, it's not going to work in Britain.

We've tried it so many times.

It's not going to, you know, oh, it's going to be hosted by Robin Romes, isn't it?

And all of this stuff.

And can I, I just want to say.

Oh, me too.

I mean, I don't need to see him hosting Saturday Night Live.

I do hate SNL, but we'll come to that.

Yeah.

You know what?

It sounds like it.

But it sounds like the whole of British culture hates SNL as well.

A lot of American culture does too.

I will say this about what's happening.

I would say to every single writer, every single TV writer, every single person in the industry,

you know what?

Why don't we just get behind this one?

Because there's not much money left in Tele.

And the money that is, is going into drama and it's going into things like this.

Sky are spending a lot of money on this, a lot of money.

And they're casting new people.

They're casting new talent, new comic talent.

If you talk to the people who've been approached, it's not...

the same old faces.

It's not as

a review in The Guardian of Last One Laughing that described the cast as members of the Catstars Countdown cinematic universe.

And by the way, that's an amazing group of people to get for the show, and that was a huge hit for them.

Oh, we know.

I loved it.

But Sky are not going to do that.

Sky are going to go for newcomers.

They're going to go for new writers.

And if I can just give a modest proposal as to why this might work.

A modest proposal.

By the way, nothing works.

That's the first thing we know in TV.

Yeah.

But we try anyway.

So nothing works, but you've got to do something.

Now, on this, firstly, it is Lorne's idea.

So Lorne is behind it.

Lorne is coming across.

That immediately makes some noise.

Lorne also, for whatever you might think about him, is an amazing talent scout.

I was talking to a big comic

who had done an interview with Lorne.

And he said, look, if you and I were to sit in a room and Pete Davidson was to come in and do an audition for us, we'd be like, huh?

He said, but he comes in and Lorne sees him and goes, oh, this is our guy.

He's just very, very good at finding people who other people won't find.

And he's going to be part of the process of finding the talent for this show.

So, that I think is interesting.

The fact that they're skipping a generation and going for younger comics and younger comic voices, this is a group of people, this is a generation who are unbelievably good at giving you one-minute, two-minute, three-minute pieces of content.

Yeah, that's because we've seen them and we see them on

all the various platforms all the time.

Yeah, and I would say to anybody in the industry, at the moment, these people are filming that at home.

All they are is funny, right?

Which is all you really, really need to be.

But as an industry, here is an opportunity.

Lawn Michaels is coming over and Sky are putting a lot of money behind it that could be spent elsewhere.

There's plenty of people at Sky who think they shouldn't be spending money on comedy.

It should be spent elsewhere.

It's going on comedy.

And every single one of these people that are currently making one minute, two minute videos at home, they're going to be in a room with writers, new young writers.

They're going to be filmed by camera operators.

They're going to be in one of our studios.

They're going to be using our edit suites.

You know, this is a big thing for the comedy community.

It's a big thing for the television community.

This is a really, really big commission.

And it's a commission because it's Lawn and because it's Saturday Night Live.

If you or I or anybody at home, any producer were to say, right, I'm going to pitch 12 new young comics and 12 new young writers, okay?

It doesn't get off the ground.

For obvious reasons.

You know, especially, no, it's 12 new young comics, it's 12 new young writers, and it costs an absolute fortune.

Okay, that would be the dream for all of us.

That's what every comedy producer wants to do.

Say, let me go out and find that talent, give me an absolute load of money, make a load of noise, spend a lot of marketing money on it.

That's what they would love to do.

You can't do that.

That is what is happening here.

That is, if you really, really, if you don't look at the car and the colour of the car, if you look underneath the bonnet, that is what is happening.

New young talent, new writers, a load of money being thrown at it, and Lauren's name on the top of it.

The proviso, of course, is nothing ever works.

Of course, it won't work, but it just might.

And I'll tell you what, either way, I will love to read the oral history of it because,

although I say I hate SNL, I don't know why.

I love reading about it.

Yes.

You know, I love, I actually loved that, which I knew no one else would like, or not enough people would like, the Saturday Night,

the Jason Reitman film that just came out recently.

I loved it.

I knew I would.

But there's a brilliant book called Live from New York.

If you ever want to read a great book about SNL, even if you hate it, it's so good by James Andrew Miller.

And it's an oral history of Saturday Night Live.

And it is, you know, and he's basically spoke to everyone apart from, you know, rest their souls, the ones who are no longer with us.

And

even then, he had a go.

And even then, well, even then, I think he was able to sort of extract things from old interviews, but it's so, I mean, it's so involving.

I absolutely loved it.

Kirsty Sittenfeld, who is an author I absolutely love, I remember when I was like, oh my god, she's doing a new book, and it's called Romantic Comedy.

Amazing.

And it's like, what?

It's set behind the scenes on basically on SNL.

It's called something else, but it's basically SNL.

Having said that, of course I loved it.

Yeah, but also, you know, obviously 30 Rock, which is, I mean, they had so many shows.

That was that freak season where NBC, they have Saturday Night Live, which is obviously coming back.

They have 30 Rock, which is a new comedy at the time, which was one of the great TV comedies that I absolutely love, which is about basically maybe the best ever.

It's so good, which is basically about SNL.

And then they also have my guilty favorite hate watch, Studio 60, on the Sunshine strip, which is also basically about SNL.

So it is their huge thing in lots and and lots of ways.

I often feel, you know, satire isn't a format and I do sometimes feel it's a bit like their off-brand version of football or whatever.

You know, like, hi, we've also got a version of football.

The rest of the world's got a version of football, which we like much more.

And so, you know, why are you calling baseball the world series?

Because, you know, it's sort of that thing.

But I totally agree with you that all those young people you see all the time just doing absolutely lo-fiber, brilliantly, genuinely, really funny with small pieces of the thing.

Why not?

Why not try it?

And it's great.

Skipping a generation is absolutely crucial because nobody's interested in it.

I mean, those people can come along and play whoever play Rachel Reeves.

I don't even know what I'm saying.

I mean, this is the problem with the show.

That's the thing.

People kind of,

a lot of the people talking about it are under the impression it is a satirical show.

And it sort of is.

You know, they'll do cold opens about Donald Trump.

But it's...

funniest when it's just talk sketches about people.

Yeah, it's much better when it's unfunny things happening.

And there's got to be a room for that i know you know channel four are bringing back um mitchell and webb and sketch comedy should be on its way back is the truth we we know that it's expensive but there are now different ways of kind of um of monetizing things but sketch comedy is made for our times because of the virality this show which everyone will sag off after three minutes everybody will sag it off because it's it's sort of and it's it's it's not a jealousy but it's everyone everyone likes to think i wish they would give me the reins of a show like this i'd show them what to do And you wouldn't.

Oh my God, I would hate the reins of a show like this.

They're hard to make.

But after three minutes, everyone was sagged off.

All you've got to do on the show, James Longman.

I was about to say, James Longman's going to be the showrunner.

James Longman and Susie Applin are going to be the showrunners and will be very, very good at it.

See, they're from...

a generation who knows how to make television and you know they're going to bring on a generation who has not made television which i i think is a good combination uh james longman is is an interesting one he's worked on loads of big british shows but then went over to the states to work on james Corner's The Late Show.

And sort of is one of those very few people who can do American ambition and British sensibility, which is very, very hard to do.

And it's going to be absolutely key to this Saturday Night Live as well.

But, you know, we'd go over there.

Writers love him.

You know, performers love him.

So

you sort of couldn't.

But things like Carpool karaoke talk about something that just like

one viral thing can define a show.

Not that that was all that that show was about, but that particular thing where every single week that went viral.

Exactly.

But if you're James or Susie, the one thing they know, they've got an hour each week, which is a shop window for comedy.

There will be so much noise around that show and so much static around that show of people telling them it's going to fail or people saying, why have you chosen that person?

Why have you done that?

This sketch was terrible.

They just have to sit there and think, no, I've got an hour.

each week to showcase really, really interesting people, to give some money to some really, really interesting people.

And you know what?

In the perfect format for our times.

In the perfect format for our times.

If one thing on that show goes viral,

it it's a hit if there's one thing that suddenly is getting millions upon millions upon millions of views if there's one character who really comes off if there's one sketch that kind of captures the times that's the biggest deal and it's not going to be oh look they've got someone playing Keir Starmer doing a joke about I mean that's forget all that that's that's sort of meaningless what it is is a new generation of young talent this might be the final opportunity i wouldn't be surprised if it is it might be the final opportunity for television traditional television to dip its hand into its pocket and give a huge amount of money to the next generation of comic talent.

I think it might be the last time that happens.

And it happens because of A Man in His 80s, Lorne Michaels, and a show which people widely deride Saturday Night Live.

But I think that it is beholden on anyone who works in the industry, certainly anyone who works in the comedy industry, which has been decimated, to kind of go, do you know what?

Maybe we'll just, why not give them a serious?

It's a little bit like what we were saying last week when we were talking about Cinemacon and saying that actually

people

used to wish their rivals to fail, but now you see the studios actually wanting their rivals to have hits.

We should want people to have hits in comedy.

Yeah, Last One Laughing has been a huge hit for Amazon.

That's great because that's bringing Amazon money into the British comedy infrastructure and entertainment infrastructure.

If Sky were to have a hit with Saturday Night Live or something that counts as a hit for them, their return on investment really is marketing, and this could work very well as marketing.

if suddenly you've got sky money and amazon money comfortable being in british comedy and comfortable being in british comedy television then that is good news for every single editor every single production assistant every single camera operator every single sound person i mean it's it's it's just good news let that like rising tide lift all boats richard let that rising tide lift all boats and to amuse all boats as well and you know i've i've i've talked to people on all sides of it and everyone knows everyone knows what they're doing.

Everyone knows that

it's a swing.

Everyone absolutely gets it.

I think the facts on sky is quite useful because you won't have the big overnights, the big, oh my God, it did this, it did that.

It can actually sort of allow itself to progress a little bit.

But yeah, if they can get two or three stars out of the first series, two or three sketches that really, really, really work.

That's interesting.

Do you just think people are helped by not being in that overnight

kind of treadmill of people just being able to look straight away?

Yeah, and obviously Amazon, where we have no idea.

Yeah.

Well, we talked last week about Black Mirror, and one of the key things about Annabelle and Charlie going to Netflix is they understood that there weren't overnight ratings.

And so actually they could build a tyranny.

Yeah,

but it is a tyranny.

It's slightly disappeared now because of the way that TV works.

But for years, it's absolutely the tyranny.

For Sky,

Sky's TV really, and Sky's spend is marketing spend.

You know, Sky want you to subscribe to things.

That's their business.

And if you can make a noise on that channel, then that's good enough for Sky.

And I mean that in a cynical way at all.

That's just that's their business.

And as a producer, great.

If you've got marketing money to give me, I will gladly take it.

But yeah, it puts much less pressure.

Whereas on the PSBs, they've got to basically make the top tens.

I mean, if you look at it all the time, you're trying to make the top 10.

If you look at A League of Their Own, if you actually look at the viewing numbers for A League of Their Own,

you wouldn't even...

It's not nothing, but it doesn't compare to terrestrial comedy.

However, it's got big names on it.

Every time it's on, you'll sort of watch a few minutes it has viral moments it's really well made and that for sky is what they want they want something that says there is quality stuff on sky there's people you know on sky doing interesting funny things so it's it's an entirely different metric and the success or failure of snl on sky will be entirely uh a different matter than the success or failure of it on i tv or channel 4 or the bbc i've never wanted anything to succeed more now oh that's good i've never wanted anything

let's do this and of course because it's sky and because it's lawn you know the you can have all this new talent because you'll have huge stars in the middle of it hosting it.

You'll have big music acts, you'll have big names from Hollywood or from wherever it is.

So you will have that noisiness.

And the cameos in the sketches.

The cameos in the sketches, but the engine room is new talent doing new things to a new audience with money they've never seen before.

Please capture everything for the oral history and potentially even a backstage documentary.

You don't have to shoot, you know, you just retain the footage because I will want to read about it at some point.

Should we go to a break and then talk about

another success story for British comedy and British theatre?

We'll talk about Mischief Theatre and we'll also talk about Universal Studios, Bedfordshire.

Yes, please.

That's not what they're going to brand it as, I don't think.

It's not like, you know, the Universal Tour in Hollywood.

Universal Studios, Bedfordshire.

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Welcome back everyone.

Now, Marina, I am absolutely going to hand this bit over to you, the Mischief Theatre Company.

I really want to talk about this because, first of all, their new play, The Comedy About Spies, opens at the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End.

I think it started with previews last night, and it sort of opens very soon.

It's a sort of 1960s spy caper, and it's the latest production by Mischief Theatre.

Now, they are an amazing British entertainment story, and how they've, I just find how they've built it and how quickly really incredible.

They're famous for the play that goes wrong.

It is sort of a country house murder played as farce, but it plays about with, I mean, there's lots of prat fools and just funny physical comedy.

Yeah, and it's a sort of meta thing because you, you know, you see the technicians accidentally on stage, there's elements of noises off, all of those sort of things.

Backstage, frontstage stuff.

Yeah, it's a riot.

Which has been huge.

It's been huge around the world, right?

Played that close around.

Absolutely.

Now, we'll come to that, but their origin story is they basically start as a group of students at Lambda, the London drama school, when they're still students, and it's a sort of improv company.

Some of them left afterwards, and a few others joined.

Three of that company, company, Henry Shields, Jonathan Sayre, and Henry Lewis, write their first version of the play that goes wrong.

Then they put it on above a pub, which is the old red line in Islington, in 2012.

Okay.

Obviously, they don't have any necessarily great expectations, and it's short, you know, they, but it does very well above the pub.

Around the whole country, there's people doing that sort of thing all the time.

Yeah.

You know, people getting together saying, we're going to do our first thing.

We're going to, you know, we're going to put this together.

And most of them, we don't hear from again.

It was just, it was just a load of fun.

And, you know, we'll go on and work for Goldman Sachs.

Yeah, they do not go on to work for Goldman Sachs.

Anyway, it's a sort of success word of mouth, and they get the smaller space at Trafalgar Studios where it can go on for a sort of limited run.

Then they go to the Edinburgh Festival with it, which we know is a sort of great proving ground, and Discovery Ground.

And Kenny Wax, who's a really big British theatre producer.

Kenny Wax, who is a good player.

Kenny Wax.

Kenny Wax is a brilliant name.

I love him.

Kenny Wax.

He sounds like a Detroit DJ from the early 90s.

100%.

But anyway.

And so those kind of injections of interest and cash, they are able to get a second act together and they do a six-month tour of it in 2014.

So this is basically barely a decade ago.

Because the tour is successful, you know, around the regions,

can I say, everyone I know who's been to see the play that goes wrong by themselves with family, whatever, comes out and just goes, that was unbelievable.

That was so funny.

It's so, I'm going to get on to that because then Nymax Theatres come and it goes on at the Duchess in the West End and they're supposed to be a 12-week run.

They don't think they're going to make it, but anyway, they're very excited to be there.

10 years later, it is still on in the West End.

There are replica productions of this all over the world.

There's one on right now, even in Ukraine.

Five million people have bought tickets for mischief shows.

But as I say, this didn't really sort of meaningfully exist, not much more than a year ago.

A show that goes right, more likely.

Yeah, they go to Broadway with it and they kind of just work for the whole of their six months visas.

And then it runs for another 18 months on Broadway.

Wow.

And then it moves to off-Broadway, where it is still going.

No way.

Yes.

Then they have all these other spin-off shows that growing-ups are other types of goes wrong, magic goes wrong, Peter Pan goes wrong.

They have a TV show on the BBC that was a hit for two seasons.

First of all, it is, as I say, that is an extraordinary success.

It's really amazing that, kind of basically, from being very young, some people just built that up from nowhere.

It is a sort of celebration of silliness and farce and lots of that type of comedy, which I'm going to come on to in a bit.

I do think that they do ask a question, which I know you have spent your life asking, but not that many people, fewer than you would think, people in the creative industry to ask this question, which is, what would people actually like

sorry I mean you know I know it's

not to oversimplify but and it's something that you definitely definitely always ask and this is a question that they definitely ask they're now in the position where they're able to do these I was talking to Henry Shields who is the sort of lead but he also wrote um comedy without spies co-wrote it with henry lewis they're able now because of the massive success of the goes wrong brand to do other things and the comedy

if they make good money all of them yeah i mean yes because it's been so successful if you're not about that they're very sort of democratic and it's weird they're like writer performers in the west end which is also quite weird let's face it right down at the next door was um almost next door was inside number nine and so those are two we obviously know that rishio smith and steve pemberton are writer performers in the west end but they're not that many operation mincemeat would be operation mincemeat would be another one although this one is selling amazingly a little bit like a royal albert horseshoe richard yeah funetize not monetized so their set apparently for this one is just a joke it's like it's so expensive this guy david farley's done it and they really want to sort of entertain themselves with this one.

It's really kind of complicated.

It's directed by a guy called Matthew DiCarlo, who directed them on Broadway, and they really got on with him, so they brought him back.

But he understands the way they work because it is sort of democratic.

There are those three members I mentioned, but there's also the kind of the core members of Mischief.

You know, it's interesting dealing with writer performance.

You have to understand how they work as a group.

And they really care about like keeping, you know, there's 150 tickets for 25 pounds or less at every single performance.

They do care about all this sort of stuff.

One of the things I think is interesting is that this type of comedy.

I feel like the mood has swung a bit back towards that, you know, a lot of Last One Laughing was just a stupidity.

A kind of a stupidity.

Unpredictability.

A kind of a silliness.

Just an escape.

Again, it's the Cats Does Countdown cinematic universe.

Yeah, it's based entirely on clever stupidity.

Someone like Bob Mortimer, who, by the way, has never been out of fashion, there's something about how absolutely massive he is at the moment and that something in the sort of culture has swung back towards that surreal escapist kind of just silly fun that really definitely definitely lasts one laughing court and I do I just think that there's something about mischief's performances that are like that you can't leave without thinking you know I was just a duke it was really fun can I do two Rich Dosmo's absolute sidebars yeah

I really want you to one of which is we talk a lot about how tough it is to get a break and it absolutely is but it's fascinating to see this starts above a pub six the musical starts in a tiny room operation mince meet the musical starts in a tiny room three groups of people who had had never done anything before, had never had a hit before, and three absolute worldwide smashes.

You know, lots of people spending lots of money trying to get worldwide smashes.

And these were just three groups of friends who thought, oh, this would be a fun thing to do.

Why don't we give this a go?

And through sheer talent, have made their way to worldwide.

stardom.

In incredibly short spaces of time, really.

I mean, to build something that big in that length of time, and there must have been times when they felt like, oh my God, this is taking a long time, but it's not.

I do think it's also sort of emblematic of the roaring success of the West End at the moment.

You know, as we've said before on this, there's no dark theaters, it's doing so much better than Broadway.

Everything is so much better.

Things have become, for various reasons, everything from sort of union stuff to trouble with different audiences and getting people back off the pandemic.

Everything is so expensive in Broadway.

And this is why so many American shows are starting over here all the time.

We've talked about that before, but also why are you doing that?

So it's just so expensive to make.

Oh my gosh.

It's so expensive to make any money on Broadway.

And you see these kind of headlines, and they do publish their box offices.

So you see the headline stuff and you see, like, oh my, you know, Good Night and Good Luck took something like, I can't remember what it was, $3 million in a week, or whatever it was.

It's very, very hard to make money.

And the West End is one part of our culture that is in such unbelievable health at the moment.

Yeah, and people are trying to bring down prices.

The Jamie Lloyd Much Do About Nothing has got lots of cheaper tickets.

And as you say, the mischief people doing cheaper tickets because you have to do it because it is insanely expensive the theater and I understand why it is but you know it's because almost all theatre loses money I get it so you know it'd be nice if it was cheaper well done to everyone trying to get that it'd be nice if there was more legroom I'll say that that's my big that's my big theatre great own listen that's more important to me than it is to some people just create the Richard Osman memorial seat in every theater and make people say that actual hype whilst booking I'm not sure I like the sound of memorial seats.

Okay, not memorial.

You're right.

It's not a bench.

Celebration.

It's not a bench.

Just put a bench there.

He loved loved to sit here.

And look at the future.

He loved this view.

And it's facing away from the stage.

This was a man who hated theatre.

My other sidebar was going to be Henry Lewis.

If anybody watches the ITV daytime quiz, Ridiculous, which is all riddles and things like that, he is the...

the sidekick, the Richard Osman figure on that and seems to enjoy himself a great deal doing it too.

I love both those Henries and I love all of them.

I think they're really,

it's a brilliant success story.

And, you know, as I say, the comedy about spies opens at the Noel Cad but it's in preview right now on the basis of everything of theirs I've seen you will not leave the theatre sad

okay from a celebration of British comedy in two different ways there a celebration of Bedfordshire Bedfordshire well yes by the way I am celebrating and we'll get to that there's Universal Studios are going to open their first European theme park that's officially just a universal

studios one they're saying it's going to be open in 2031 it's going to be big it's 476 acres

000 jobs yeah 20 000 in construction and then 8 000 40 billion dollars to the the british economy they they i've read 50 billion by uh by 2055 yeah anyway it's supposed to open first of all can i just say

i can't believe it's not been blocked because we you we block everything oh yeah we block everything this is a former former brickworks site which has been sort of defunct for a couple of decades um and

they have not been nimbies NIMBY's in Bedfordshire.

They have been Yimbies.

I'm 100% here for it.

This is, without any question, my favourite thing to be built in Bedfordshire since the Captain Tom Memorial Spa Complex, which, as you know, is no longer with us.

Okay, so what?

You're going to build a theme park, but you're going to tear down a spa complex.

Okay, mid-bed county council.

I mean, I would pay to go and see that.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, absolutely.

They should actually build the Captain Tom Spa Complex on the corner of the park.

It's got 476 acres.

There must be room.

Yeah.

Every single thing, all of it, the whole thing just, you know, lovingly recreated.

Hannah Ingramore has to live there.

Yeah.

So you can have it.

Hannah.

Well, she has to be a character.

She has to be a sort of slightly latex character.

If she won't do it, you get someone, a student, to put the costume on.

But make it like Black Mirror.

So if you want a spa complex, you can have it, but you can only live in the spa complex.

And be seen by tourists, many, many tourists today.

But it'd be lovely.

Listen, I'm very happy that we can build something in the United Kingdom.

By the way, Buckinghamshire blocked a film studio.

James Cameron wanted to move Lightstorm, Lightstorm 3D, which is his company, to Buckinghamshire.

It's going to be called Marlowe's Film Studios, and it was blocked.

Great joy and celebration by the local MP.

I think Joy Morris is like, well done, I've blocked it.

You know, well done.

Okay.

Sorry, do you know what the site was?

Okay, it was not a gravel pit, but a former gravel pit next to a dual carriageway.

Amazing.

Well done, Buckinghamshire.

Okay, there's like this green belt.

Sorry, it's a disused quarry.

It's not green.

Anyway.

I digress.

No, I digress.

Yeah, but it is very hard to get these things done.

And there's a very interesting group, actually.

I don't know if the politics guys have done this.

This is a genuine side, but

they're called Looking for Growth.

And they're a group of people, like some real campaigners.

And you may not agree with all of their politics, but they are really trying to sort of ungum

the idea, just the systems in Britain.

And they're trying to bring sort of data and strategy to it to try and unblock things so that Britain can grow once more.

And that people don't think the best days are behind it.

They're all, they're young, they're kind of meeting above puffs.

It's really interesting.

Look into them.

And as I say, you don't have to agree with everything, but surely we can all agree it's better if Britain grows.

Anyway, somehow, Universal Studios, with or without looking for growth, managed to get planning for this thing, which, hooray.

It'll obviously use a lot of British steel, Richard, which I don't need to tell you.

You know, it's great not to have to sell that.

tariff into anywhere else or indeed you know so but remember parks are huge money spinners absolutely huge money spinners also they're awesome.

I mean, I don't like them.

I would

gladly go through the rest of my life and never go to a theme park.

It has bazaar.

And as soon as I see a cue, I'm not, no thanks.

It is not for me.

I think you could get a special wristband.

Yeah, like when John Cleese was in the Bond movies, I'm not interested in cues.

God, that was a.

That was one of your absolute best.

That was a long walk for a small biscuit, wasn't it?

So I'm not a huge fan of theme parks.

I was looking at the site where this is, and currently it's got huge distribution centres for Sainsbury's, Argos, and Asda.

And genuinely,

I would be more interested to go around a huge distribution centre for Argos than I would to go around a universal theme park.

There's an interesting book about Amazon and their, you know, because they, what I always find such a sort of amazing word,

they're called fulfillment centers.

I mean, it really is sort of like some severance style, you know, anyway.

But there's a book about their culture called Fulfillment, which I but it's going to be, I think, unbelievably exciting.

There's a, you know, you can't go to LA without going to the Universal tour.

You can't go to you know, Florida without going to see Disney.

I mean, it's just these things are extraordinary, and also they are about the world of entertainment, which is, you know,

yes, let's do that.

There'll be a lot of minions, I can tell you that for free.

There'll be a lot of minions,

Jurassic, Paddington.

You can license other studios.

It doesn't have to all be Universal, but they're obviously not going to have any Harry Potter.

Because Harry Potter, you know, the studio tour is not far away, I would say, about 30 or 40 miles.

But anyway, I think, I genuinely think that when the TV series starts,

and having, you know, I've spent a lot of my time out at Leedsdon in general, and every time you go, by the way, they've doubled the size of it.

It's just a former aerodrome and they complete, can constantly build.

I think they will build a Harry Potter theme park there that will tie in with the studio tour for definite.

Because once this TV, you know, if you're spending all this money and you've got this, why wouldn't you?

You can put it all together.

It's absolutely their

lead title.

So they don't have any Harry Potter stuff at this year because they won't do that.

Because in Hollywood they do, the Hollywood Universal Studios has got a huge

wizarding world.

But I think they won't do that here.

Fast and Furious, oh my god, take me to any form of Finn Diesel ride.

I will cry with laughter.

I'll enjoy it.

So, I mean, I will love this.

Bond, I think they've got

even Lord of the Rings, even though those are both Amazon.

Bezos has yet to get into the theme theme park business, but you know, don't rule nothing out for the Everything Corporation.

So it's going to be,

I think it will be extraordinary.

I just want to tell the story, if you don't know the story, just in a brief, of what happened.

Obviously, one of the most famous ventures into Europe to do one of these parks is the birth of Euro Disney.

Michael Eisen is the chief executive of Disney at the time, and he's obviously the mega money person.

He's in charge of the whole thing, but he does also really, really care about the sort of chorus in, I don't know, aladdin yeah in the second or the bridge of the second one of the songs that you know so he's he really minds about all these sort of details but anyway they agree to do euro disney and um the french of course think they're very very classy and they don't they don't love it so on when it it's on the he does some appearance at the paris bourse the stock exchange and he gets pelted with eggs Uncle Scrooge go home.

Such a sort of, yeah, sorry,

he's like, okay, it's not really Scrooge's, I mean, I know there is Uncle Scrooge, but it's not really a Disney property.

Anyway, you slightly got it wrong, France, but doesn't matter.

Disney become very paranoid because they feel like you can't build fiberglass.

All of the castles and all our other parks have been built of fiberglass because they're just like out in the sort of weeds of America.

But here they're like, oh my God, they're surrounded by real castles.

So we have to find actual pink stone to build Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

We can't just do some sort of kitsch rendition of it.

It goes so massively over budget.

Eisener is freaking out the whole time.

It really, but anyway, eventually the park, after masses and masses of problems, does open needless to say French farmers barricade the roads all around it

president the president who was meter on at the time wouldn't wouldn't attend he just says oh it's not really my cup of tea I mean you have to love the French to be

Eisner was so angry okay let me tell you that so I was supposed to bring it back whoever is prime minister of the United Kingdom in 2031 will be attending the opening of this.

This thing was taught right.

I mean, you know, Starmer, Lisa and Andy, they're all going around saying almost as though they were building it themselves.

Yeah, but it's the first one in Europe, and Universal have tried it a few times before.

So this is the first one.

So

it is a big deal.

It's a huge thing.

Richard, something is being built in our country.

I mean, I can't even, I'm going to have to have a lie down after this podcast.

And it's IP-based.

Yeah.

Which is our favorite sort of thing

to be built.

The original one in Hollywood, which, funnily enough, I've been to Euro Disney as well, years ago.

Many times.

And can I give my one,

I rather enjoyed it, but if I had a one-word review, windswept, I would say.

It was so bleak.

It was like Coney Island in the off-season and yet like somewhere outside Parrots.

And also, they had attempted to sort of, you know, zhuzh it up sort of intellectually.

So there was like an H.G.

Wells kind of right.

It's like, okay, I mean, I, you know,

H.G.

Wells,

that great 90s IP, you know,

1890s.

It's the only place I've ever been without a Renee Dicka roller coaster.

The Universal One in Hollywood.

So I tell you something interesting about that.

Well, firstly, so.

I've never been to that one.

It's really fun.

I would love it.

That's where they're opening the Fast and Furious roller coaster.

Next year, they're having a Fast and Furious.

Okay, well, that's the perfect time for me to visit.

But there's loads of things there, and you can tell what IP is working.

Yes, there was a Battle Star Galactica, and then that got replaced by Back to the Future, and then Back to the Future is replaced by The Simpsons.

The Terminator zone became despicable meme minion Mayhem.

And then never leaving, let me tell you.

Spider-Man got replaced by Fear Factor.

Oh, dear.

We used to make Fear Factor in the UK, and I remember watching the American host and thinking, oh, you're quite good.

And it was Joe Rogan.

Oh, I see.

I thought I was famous, famous.

Yeah,

I sort of see that.

No, but the American one, the original consultant

when they really massively built it up was Spielberg.

Yeah.

So they talked to Spielberg, you know, because of his creative imagination and also because of a lot of his IP.

If, by the way you ever go on the tram ride through the Universal Studios and there's a Jaws exhibit, is it still there, Jaws exhibit?

And so everyone's watching that.

And if instead of watching that you look at the other side of the tram, that's Spielberg's studio.

That's Spielberg's offices in a really, really cool building there.

And he says it's literally, couldn't be more in the center of the park.

But he said, no one ever, ever looks at my offices because they're all looking at the building.

They put a bloody great shot coming out of

clever, isn't it?

Just, wow, he just understands drawing the eye.

Yeah, doesn't he, Just?

But when he did the deal to be that consultant, he is still on 2%

of all theme park revenue in Florida, Singapore, and Japan.

Does that include Churros?

Because if it is.

That includes concessions, yeah, which are the food places and things like that.

So he is on that.

It's worth about 50 million a year to him.

And so they recently tried to buy him out and give him a lifetime deal.

And they think that the deal that he would have to do to sell them that right would be $1 billion

for his stake in the Universal theme parks.

That's not bad going, is it?

Can I just say well done, Bedfordshire, one more time?

Yeah.

Well done.

But also, because Spielbo's movies have to go to Universal, it means we could get a Thursday Murder Club ride at Bedfordshire.

It'd be perfect, wouldn't it?

Oh my god, I would love a Thursday Murder Club ride.

Which is

quite sedate.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I like the slow ones.

Yeah, it's essentially the teacups ride, but it's just teacups filled with tea.

What's the opposite of fast and furious?

Slow and agreeable.

But

I do genuinely like, like you said at the start, it's pretty impressive.

And I'm sure people who live nearby would have a different view on this.

No, no, it's impressive.

But it's impressive.

They've consulted with residents and local businesses all the way through.

That's why they've been absolutely meticulous about trying to do this for a long time, and that's why it's been approved.

And lots and lots of people are very, very happy about what it will bring to an area that

needs this.

We are full of good news this week.

I am.

Which is rather lovely, isn't it?

So, yeah, that's opening 2031, they reckon.

Well, currently.

Have you got any recommendations?

Yes, I'm absolutely talking of the Universal Studios tour, the studio

on Apple, which is the Seth Rogan show where he placed the head of a studio.

The first four episodes, I think, have dropped.

If you like movies, genuinely, I think it's magnificent.

It is

so good.

When we talk about

cinema being in

disrepair and it being difficult, you think, but of course, because every week there's an extraordinary piece of television coming out.

Every week we've got the thing, you know,

we used to have films.

Now, if you can watch something like the studio every week, I mean, it's no wonder people don't go to the cinema unless you put TV in the cinema.

It's really funny.

It's sort of quite stressful in some ways.

And it's cute because

he's a studio boss who and his...

Seth Rogan and his boss is Brian Cranston, who is all about the bottom line.

But Seth Rogan really came into movies because he's a sinny ass and he loves films.

And what he really wants to do is

turn the studio into something that makes proper old-fashioned films.

And he is...

And as he says, now I ruin them.

Yes, exactly.

Without any spoilers, he is thwarted in that ambition every turn.

I think it's really, really, really great, especially, you know, I know lots of people who listen to this are movie fans.

If you're a movie fan,

you will love this, I think.

Speaking of movie fans, we have got a very special, I think, double episode of our members' bonus episodes coming up, which is about the island of Dr.

Morrow, one of the most troubled productions of all time, and the whole story behind that.

Which is absolutely crazy.

It's unbelievable.

The first part of that will come out on Friday.

So, if you want to sign up, it's therestersenttertainment.com.

Otherwise, we have our questions and answers edition on Thursday.

Theresttersentertainment at goalhanger.com.

Please send us your great questions.

And I think that is about us for

that was loads of fun.

That was so much fun.

See you on Thursday.

See you on Thursday.

Well, that wraps up another episode of The Wrestlers Entertainment, brought to you by our friends at Sky.

Now, what have you got on your must-watch list at the moment, Ray?

At the moment, White Lotus enjoying the latest season.

Oh, it's such a treat.

Oh, my God, it's incredible.

It's so good.

A dark treat.

A dark treat.

The visuals are really great, and with your Skyglass TV, you'll be able to enjoy it all in its 4K glory.

And also, the built-in sound bar means you can also listen to it in its full, whatever the sound version of 4K Glory is.

But it sounds immense, I'll say that.

It is indeed.

It brings everything to life and it really gives that cinema experience at home.

It feels like Jason Isaacs is in your house.

Like sometimes I go downstairs, I'm like, Jason Isaacs, come on, man.

Cup of tea, please.

But he's not there.

No.

But for our listeners who want to experience this with Skyglass 2, visit sky.com to find out more.