The Adolescence Director Answers Your Questions

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Hello and welcome to this special questions and answers edition of the Rest is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde.

And me, Richard Osman, it is special, isn't it?

It is.

We spoke on Tuesday a little bit about adolescence.

I don't think there's ever been a show that came out where you've had more questions from listeners who wanted to know lots of the technical aspects.

I mean, so much stuff they wanted to know.

So we thought we would do a special all-about adolescents.

And I would just say, I do think that that's amazing.

That apart from being this thing that everyone is talking about, the issues raised and what a sort of national conversation that is starting, people who don't normally comment on how television is made, how the sausage is made at all, are really fascinated by, because of the one-shot technique, how it's done, how it was achieved.

I think it's like absolutely mainstream people going, now, how on earth did they do that?

Which, by the way, listeners to this podcast already do about a lot of things.

It's fascinating stuff.

We put your questions to Philip Barrentini, who is the director, and to Matt Lewis who's the director of photography.

Put those questions to them.

We've got lots of their answers coming up.

The whole episode is just about adolescence.

The spoilers, I mean a few probably.

So I would say maybe watch it if

you want to watch it.

But I really, really hope you enjoy it.

The first question we put to them was from Charlotte Greene.

How on earth did you find Owen Cooper, who was the star of this thing, the young kid who's extraordinary?

How did you find him?

What was that process?

And also, how did he learn all of those lines?

How did he get everything done, given the whole thing is shot in one take?

Yeah, well, I'd received, you know, hundreds and hundreds of tapes through Shaheen Beg, our wonderful casting director.

One of the first things I asked for was just an improvised moment of two sort of ideas.

One of them was

you've been brought into your head teacher's office and you're guilty of something.

And then the other scenario was that you were innocent of this thing, right?

And I just wanted to see what, you know, how they played it.

Owen was someone who just was so real and so natural.

And, you know, it's quite rare to see that in an actor, especially in auditions.

And I think he just didn't really have any preconceptions about what acting was.

He'd done some acting classes and, you know, he was doing it for fun, really.

We got him in and we put him through his paces, really.

He had like five auditions, and a couple of those were with Stephen towards the end of

the process.

And it just, every time he came in, he just absolutely nailed it.

And I sort of, you know,

I would give him more and more things to do.

And, you know, Matt even came in on

one of the screen tests with Stephen and filmed it.

And

we were all just like, as he left, we were just like, oh, yeah, this kid is like different level, different level, you know.

So it was really special.

Yeah.

He didn't know the full scope of what

he would have to learn.

You know, along along the way i was saying to them you know this is this is a this is going to be all shot in one take and and i don't think he understood he didn't quite grasp what that meant because he'd never worked before you know and when he finally got the script uh you know we we sort of worked with him quite a lot and you know we we sort of we got a um a wonderful uh uh sort of acting coach in to come and help him to sort of learn his lines not to not to to to coach him in the acting side of it but but to help him to sort of get these lines in his head and, you know, just to be able to get off the page.

But you know what?

He was an absolute natural.

The first day we came on to set, we shot episode three first

due to Stephen's schedule.

The first day he came on set, we all sat around a table

and we sort of just were going to go through the script and read the get get the script off the page, read it.

We all had our scripts in our hand.

Aaron had a script in our hand.

All the other actors had their scripts in our hand.

And Owen just came in and he had a script.

He put it on the table and he just went, he just did it.

it was mind-blowing he does what most actors train for most of their lives which is to be real be natural be be you know in the moment and just and listen it's so important to just listen as an actor and and listen and respond naturally in the moment and he just does that instinctively like you know to to the to the point where you know I give him notes and I wouldn't think that he was taking these notes in.

I was like, I don't know whether he's actually taking all that in.

And then he'd go and smash out a take, and you'd be like, Whoa, what did I do?

I'm just like, Yeah, it was, it was mind-blowing, mind-blowing.

It was so exciting to watch.

You know, I've never been so excited about watching an actor.

You know, some I'm not watching, like, with

certainly with episode three, I'm watching.

I forget sometimes that I'm supposed to be like making notes and checking on it because I'm so engrossed in it.

And I'm in it.

I was like, you know, so we have to watch it back again straight away.

Yeah,

amazing, amazing.

I think that, I mean, he's so unbelievably phenomenal.

It's really interesting.

So many skills in actually the arts or whatever do actually involve when you achieve peak level of it, it is unlearning all the sort of bad habits and you know, the artifice really of it all.

And it's so interesting that he hadn't worked as they described it, hadn't worked very much beforehand, so that you don't have all that, you haven't accrued all those kind of bad habits and

the fakery of it, really.

Yeah, the idea of saying we're doing it in one take.

And you're going, yeah, sorry, is that not how

you might tell you?

What's the take?

Philip Berentini would never say this.

You've got to be a great director to get that sort of performance from someone as well.

It takes an awful lot of sensitivity from a director to understand who you're talking to, how to speak to that person, what it is you want from the script, how to get that across to somebody.

Any actor will tell you working with a great director makes you a better actor.

And how many directors are going to want to work with him?

It's such a, you know, it is, it's a, it's a risk of the proverb of working with children and animals.

That guy can carry your movie.

He's going to, he's going to to win every award going, isn't he?

I hope so.

James Morgan and about 970 others said, everyone's talking about the drone shot and going over to the murder site.

This is the end of episode two.

How did they do it?

And was it one of the first things they decided and based everything else off it?

It seems very smooth, but I imagine technically it was really difficult.

Yeah, we also wanted to get a bit more into the background of how that shot even came about as a possibility.

It was my idea because it was a suggestion in order to replace an existing beat, which was essentially that the camera move down a street at eye level.

And I was a little concerned that that would read as a person moving.

And obviously we're talking about, yes, the camera is a character, but it needs to only be motivated by people.

If you're going to detach from the characters, it sort of feels like it has to be at the end of the piece because it signifies an ending, it signifies a change.

I didn't know we could do it, to be honest.

I thought it'd be amazing if we could take off and fly away and, you know, use the motivation of someone crossing the road to fly us away

over the crime scene.

Each episode would have its own three-week block.

So we'd do two weeks' rehearsal, uh, and then we'd do the shoot week.

So the shoot week would be five days.

We'd shoot it twice every day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, right?

Um, so we were doing the take-offs, happy with some of them, you know what I mean?

We didn't have the take that we were fully happy with.

We were like, okay, we've still got a few days.

It was Wednesday, right?

Wednesday of the shoot week.

We still weren't happy.

Then Toby Bentley, who's our exec at Netflix, spoke to Mark Mark Herbert, one of the other producers from Warp, and was like,

I think we should have Stephen in this episode somewhere.

Would it be possible that we could like, Stephen could be at the murder site and we can like maybe, I don't know, could we potentially land the drone?

And this is probably a stupid idea, but I don't know, maybe not.

And then Mark came to me and was like, Toby was asked if we could, what about this idea?

And me being my brains, instead of saying, no, we're not doing that, it's ridiculous.

I was like, oh my god matt matt we need to land the drone we need to land the drone we need to try it at least i think matt probably did he cry i mean i think he probably get ptsd from it i mean i get i totally understand the suggestion um it was just at the time obviously we were i knew we didn't have an episode we were mid really mid shoot

we were on the shoot week of a of a very sort of like a very planned piece there's not a lot of room for changes so yeah part of me wanted to absolutely freak out but um but

obviously we knew there was a possibility that we could so we explored it and we spent a a little bit of time where we essentially replaced one of our takes, I think, what was it?

No, it must have been Wednesday.

It was Wednesday morning's take.

We replaced with a rehearsal of the landing.

So we all sort of like went over to that crime scene and we tried to suss out how we would approach this, make sure it's smooth.

The coming down was really tricky because a drone, when it's moving really fast, can kind of cut through the wind.

And apparently, Pont of Raptor is a really windy place.

So when it moves fast, it's fine.

But then when it slows down and it has to descend, you sort of, you start to feel that sort of almost like a leaf falling from a tree, that sort of zigzag it can, it can create.

So, and we got the issue of the, that the drone had to be controlled on it then on a moving vehicle because the range wasn't long enough from the school.

It was always going to cut out.

So, so all of the, so the

wheels for the gimbal were on the tracking vehicle and the controls for the drone was our pilot was also on the tracking vehicle as well.

So, um, and that came that just stayed sort of underneath the drone the whole time coming in.

And then, and then me and the camera team, um, yeah, me, the focus puller my loader who was controlling uh the exposure and two grips would uh would came hopped into a van and we'd drive down the road and park in the car park and then get out and catch the drone so it was just it was rehearsing that and we we got to a point where it was working it was a little tricky and i phil knows i was terrified because i was like this is obviously it's a gamble if it pays off it's amazing if it doesn't I was a bit scared that the episode would, we wouldn't get it because it's so critical.

And obviously, all of this is happening at the end of

a 50-minute one-a already.

And we've done all of the other stuff.

We've done stunts.

We've done kids having a fight.

We've gone down all of these corridors and done all of these things.

So it was, it was, you know, it was nerve-wracking.

It came down to the Friday because basically the Thursday was super windy.

We couldn't really take off even, I think.

I think it was

a no-go go take off.

So we made like a little ending at the end where Stephen was near the school and all that.

And it worked enough, but it wasn't the ending that everyone wanted.

So then it was, so then it came down to Friday.

It came down to the last day.

And so with the morning take, I sort of slightly, I don't know if I threw my toys out of the pram or I put my foot down, but I was just like, I think we need to get a safety here, like one where we just take off the drone, but we don't come into land, just so that we've got one in the bag.

Because I was just worried that the wind was still on the cusp of it being, you know, too much.

Uh, and they said, Yeah, let's do it.

So, we got that, and so there is a take where that happens, and it works.

Uh, that was when I cried, Phil, because I knew we got the episode at least, you know, we got it, we got something in, um, and it was obviously still really good, but then we managed to get that then with the second take of that day, the very last one we did, was the landing of the drone um and uh and we got it in that one as well and therefore it was the winner but uh yeah quite quite the experience okay well now i am 100 having an anxiety dream that to me two technical achievements of the year are space x catching that you know space rocket in the chopsticks yeah and that and that and that without any

there's not a lot to choose between them in terms of the achievements of humankind but how love you know it's fascinating that they've they've got about four separate endings there because they've they've, they took off once, they've done a shop with Stephen Graham nearer the school, and then they finally get the thing that they want, which is, you know, just desserts for all the work that they put in.

But that again,

imagine they do that and then Stephen Graham sneezes.

You're like, oh, no, it's fine, Stephen.

Listen, let's still, we'll go again.

That's incredible.

The craft, the art and the craft at the same time.

Now, I had a question I was fascinated with.

I spoke on Tuesday's show about Pat Nunn, who did the sound on the EastEnders Live special, and just just talking to him and understanding what an unbelievable undertaking that was.

So essentially I asked the question, how much did the crew obsess over making sure every battery pack on every actor was fully charged?

That's my way into saying, oh my God, this must have been a technical nightmare for everyone behind the scenes.

I mean, I'm sure they did.

The sound, yeah, I bet.

Because there were so many, wasn't there?

Like, I mean,

so many.

Especially on episode two, everyone was live.

I mean,

that setup for the sound team and the camera team, you know, to be able to move through that school

was immense.

Like,

I'm pretty sure they, like, I can't remember the type of cable in that they brought in, but it was like, I don't know, military-grade cable and something like that.

I don't know.

Is that for the video transmission or the no, yeah, video and the sound?

Um, the sound team.

Oh, yeah.

It was, it was

mega.

Yeah, it was good.

With video, we had to, because obviously we're moving between all these classrooms and we're in sort of loads of concrete walls everywhere, like, you know, basically just an absolute end game for most kind of like receivers.

We had to place receivers all over the school and hardwire them all back to one room, the room that Phil was in, where Video Village was.

So, that was that in itself took about two weeks.

That was the entire rehearsal of the video team were rigging that just to make sure it was that it would work.

And then they would like, you know, switch between all of the channels and find the strongest signal.

Yeah, episode one,

basically, the convoy that goes up to the house before they arrest Jamie.

The convoy of police, there's a police van in there.

We dressed our Video Village van as a police van so we could be in shot and also be in range as well.

And so that was episode one.

Episode two uh i was in one of the classrooms in the school um just sat there watching it on on the monitors episode three we should be shot in a studio we built that set in a studio so that was i was just in the studio there and then episode four again we were in that same van but we just took all the police stickers off it and turned it into our video village van and we were just following the uh eddie's van and Yeah, it was, you know, at times you would be, it was like we'd in the during rehearsals and stuff like that, we would lose signal a little bit.

So we had to like find the positions where the van could be so we could get the best signal.

And then sometimes when we were in the house, they'd have to hardwire the van in and then they'd have to unplug the wire before we take off.

And but all of these things are going going on.

Like the honestly, the amount of people and the amount of like hard work that everyone put in and

effort and skill, you know, to create this mind-blowing to me, you know, because I'm watching the monitor and I'm, you know, across everything, but I can't be across everything.

I don't know everyone's job.

I don't ever claim to know everyone's job.

I'm so interested in, you know, like, for example, I just say, you know, this is where I want to watch it from.

And then suddenly I'm able to watch it.

You know what I mean?

And

hundreds of people are doing their jobs, like, effortlessly to make this work.

And that was the beauty of this show.

was, you know, when we were talking and interviewing people about to give them jobs or whatnot, it was so important that we explained to them what we were doing.

And if there was any seed of doubt, which there was on a few people, and I don't think it was doubt in terms of like, you're never going to be able to do it.

It was more a case of like, ooh, not sure whether that's possible, or you know, you know, but maybe we have to, you know, then it's not the job for them.

We, we, we, and then someone else would come in and you'd be like, this is what we want to do, and they'd be like, oh my god, you could try this, or this is how you should, you know, and it was, that was the sort of family that we, that we created, and it really was a family, you know.

I think that's so interesting.

When you often people think that the director, of course, has sort of worked their way up and knows what absolutely every single person there does.

They don't, actually.

It works because it's like a sort of, it's sort of almost like a highly regimented society.

It's a fully functional society in which all the little cogs are spinning in the right way when it's something flawless like this.

And it is extraordinary how everyone functions together.

They are highly functional environments.

I wish they'd remake the British state.

You rely on your heads of department a great deal.

And so the director, everything the director wants goes through those heads of department.

As I say, for setting up the video village, you know, there's someone who's in charge of that.

You know, so so Philip will talk to the sound people.

The head of sound will then have a team of 30, 40, 50 people.

And that is their director.

That is the person they listen to.

And when Philip changes his mind, they have to go back.

But that's the director for all of the sound stuff.

And they do what they're told.

And everyone, you know, is offering up solutions.

It's such an incredible ecosystem.

As you say, the director has...

got this overall vision, but absolutely has to rely on these incredible heads of department who, and I loved when he said this, the people who offered up solutions.

People who got excited by it because excitement and nerves are very similar things in this in this uh context I think those were the people who are like oh come on listen we might as well should we take a quick advert break I can listen to Philip and Matt all day but we'll do a quick adverb we're cutting here for a moment oh that's clever

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Come back.

Now Isaac King and many others ask.

While the show is amazingly done in one take, I imagine there were parts that had to be cleaned up in post-production using some subtle tricks.

At the end of the first episode, the laptop's important to the story was the video it plays edited in after to make sure it played on cue.

What would happen if it was in sleep mode and needed a passport code?

I mean, we've all been there.

The laptop's real.

The laptop's real.

We actually shot the

stuff, the stuff on the laptop.

We shot that two weeks before we started the shoot.

So we did like a pre-shoot.

That and also the fight that Jamie has

when Erin is looking at the monitor when he's been having a fight and he's punching that kid on the floor.

That was all shot on the same day.

So I think we shot like a night shoot, wasn't it?

And we just went out to the car park.

That's all real.

Because one of my things is, and Matt's the same as well, is like, I want the actors to be able to, I don't want the actors to have to look at a green screen, especially in a one-take.

They need to be real.

Everything needs to be real and functional and working, you know.

You almost need to forget that they're in a set or, you know, because we built the police station,

we built the secure training center.

But when you're in it,

the tiny, tiny details,

you know, attention to detail was key.

There's so many factors that could have gone wrong.

And a couple of things did, you know, there was a couple of moments.

Go on, Matt, you want to say something?

No, I was going to say, every time that laptop came out, in that at the end of that episode, I was like, please hit the space bar and it play.

Imagine.

I don't think it never, it never didn't.

Like, they were all over it, props and all that.

But, but it was just like, because imagine you do all of that and then it just doesn't play.

It would have been awful.

But, and you're right, there is so many, there were so many things, like little details.

The lift doors not opening.

It's not a real lift, obviously.

We just go in and then we walk through it.

That happened.

That happened on one take.

Oh, it did.

That's why it's in my head.

Yeah, they got stuck.

They got stuck.

Yeah, just what it got stuck.

But like, obviously, and no one would think, oh, that would be an issue, but but there's two people pulling the doors open because, you know, it's not real.

So, um, I had a question as well, which we spoke on Tuesday about actors with theatre experience.

And I just wondered how many of the cast of this had theatre experience and how useful that was to the director and the DOP.

Yeah, it was, I mean, it's important because, you know, the two disciplines are very different.

You know, in a way, you've got with theatre, it's about, you know, projecting and being bigger and sort of, you know, I mean, a lot of theatre nowadays

is like film acting, um, but it was important to find people who could have that discipline and also have the stamina to do this, you know, in one take.

It's it's nerve-wracking, it's incredibly nerve-wracking.

Um, so you don't, you obviously don't want to be the one who messes up.

But one of the things I did say to all the actors when we were auditioning them, you know, I actually like it when actors fluff their lines, they style it out and make it feel like it was meant to happen.

Or, or, you know, even if it wasn't meant to happen they just style it out they're not like oh no sorry can we go again I've messed up you know what I mean give them give them the give them the the sort of confidence to be like okay it's okay to mess up and the other actors got my back and they're gonna pick it up for me and you know it's it's it's important that that you give actors that that sort of confidence and and and you know to be able to

play a little bit as well and have fun with it and and not feel like they're restricted to to exactly what's said in the script you know we we'd go through you know the script and talk about

how would you say that?

Like, for example, with Owen, there's certain things in there that, you know, you

that were in the script, and I'd say, would me and Steve would be like, would you say that?

And he's like, no, I wouldn't say it like that.

Well, how would you say it then?

And he'd say how he would say it.

And he'd be like, well,

that's how Jamie's going to say it then.

Matt is also a character because he has to be there with them.

And what is amazing about Matt is, and I'm going to blow smoke up his backside because I think he's cover your ears.

We worked together since day one.

and what Matt is, he is so empathetic and so you know, he will feel the emotion and he will really instinctively find the right moment.

So, but but if something was to change, if an actor did something differently, Matt wasn't again, he wasn't fluffing his lines, he was in it and just so, you know, instinctive.

And you could tell it a few times and it adds some a good actor can add to the naturalness of their performance.

A couple of times you can see, especially in that episode three, moments where they started saying the wrong thing and stopped and said the right thing, or the response to what they said was using different words to the thing that they had just said.

There's just a few moments, and I'd be fascinated at some point to take Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne's script and put it up against what's actually on screen and see what percentage made it.

I'd imagine a very, very large percentage, but there's always the odd.

bit and bob again that comes from being a theatre actor you know you know that you have a little bit of leeway if you get the wrong word or two words in the wrong order and you've got a good actor working alongside you that the two of you can find can find your way through it and find your way back I did read Ashley Walter saying he messed up one tape and I that would be my watching yeah I was just thinking the fear I'm probably gonna have an anxiety dream about messing up one of these takes when you just see how many are involved in every scene the idea that you know you're messing up and say you're messing up that half day with this yeah you're spending millions of pounds on each episode and like the whole crew are there and it's like kind of 5 p.m.

and everyone's thinking oh maybe we get to go home after this and you're kind of 47 minutes through the episode and you're not going to be able to do that.

Yeah, that's my anxiety dream.

But that's the beauty of the whole thing, because we sense that all the way through.

And the fact that they took those pains makes this a proper work of art.

This episode is brought to you by our friends at Sky.

Now, Marina, regular listeners will know that one of our favorite parts of Skyglass or Skystream is the voice control.

It saves us a ton of time scrolling through lists of shows or moving between apps.

I love this.

Well, because of that, and because we loved it last year with Sky, it's the return of

say it to play it.

You have missed that reverb, haven't you?

Now, Sky's voice control really is as simple as it sounds.

If you love an actor, but maybe you can't remember what else they've been in, you can simply say their name into your remote and everything they're in will appear before you.

For you then, Marina, you could say, for example, I'm trying to think of an actor that Glenn Powell, you could say, I don't know why I'm in the case of the name.

Pluck a name.

To pluck a name?

Suddenly everything he's in will appear across Sky, Netflix, Disney Plus, iPlayer, everything.

I'd want the Hitman again.

If you haven't seen it, it's Richard Lilknater.

Okay, Glenn Powell is a fake hitman.

What is not to love?

He's in a caper.

It's funny.

That's what I'd call for.

Although any of his huge body of work would be fantastic to watch.

I prefer a fake hitman to a real hitman.

You could also say, for example, Fulham FC.

Headlines, highlights, YouTube clips, all sorts.

We can watch one of the many, many, many goals we've scored this season in our quest to finish ninth.

And if you're really stuck for something to watch, simply say, what should I watch?

And Sky will bring you top picks just for you based on your viewing habits.

Now, I actually did this and I was very pleased.

No, it showed me season one of The Last of Us, which of course I've watched, but season two is coming up.

And therefore, I thought, huh, I will rewatch the last episode.

But this is the burden of the modern TV view, that you want to be right on top of it when it restarts.

And a burden.

that Skystream and Skyglass take from you.

And it brings together everything you might watch across all the Sky channels, the movie collections, Sky Sports, all that stuff.

The technology genuinely feels like magic if you fancy watching all this great stuff you can add all of your favorite movies and suggestions to your own personal playlist on sky tv head to sky.com to find out more Ah, Samuel Bennett's got a question about the sort of technical kit.

Do shows like, when they're trying something different like this, need special kit, new lenses, new cameras, whatever, to make that to make it all work?

Yeah, we did loads of testing, absolutely loads of testing.

And the camera that came on top was the Ronin 4D, which is the sort of the chicken camera, as it were.

It's got a little Z-axis and a smaller gimbal and you hold it by two grips on either side, effectively because it's small enough to hold in front of you.

You can pass it to another operator, which was huge because all the other systems were so large that you could barely fit for a doorway or you have to be strapped to someone because it's too heavy.

It limits you physically, whereas something that's small, you can sort of move it between people and it does so much for the movement.

And that was the priority.

Obviously, there's small like image limitations with it.

The lens choice was weird because obviously once you're in it, this is your one perspective.

And ideally,

I felt like maybe we could have changed lens between episodes and been on something slightly different.

But the second we shot the first episode, it was like, or rather the third one, because we did that one first.

I was like, this is the point of view.

If we change it, it's strange.

Like, there's an audience expectation of what the world looks like.

I think if we changed it per episode, it would have felt entirely different.

And it really, it was a 32-mil Cook SP3.

And we came to that decision because any wider and we saw too much ceiling.

So we started to see booms, lights, you name it.

It was probably there.

You also get like, I mean, you had a nice sense of movement from it, but it was, it was, you know, your close-ups don't look quite so nice because everyone's faces have got a little bit more sort of fisheye effect to them.

And then, and then we could have gone tighter.

The next one in was a 50 mil, but then imagine how nauseating that could have been in some sections when you're cropping the image into this sort of smaller area and you're whizzing around.

It would have been super dizzying.

So the 32 and it was always like a 35 was sort of what I was thinking.

And that was what was on that set.

So,

yeah,

that was how we settled on it.

Just trial and error running around an empty warehouse before they built the set,

sort of playing with it and filming Phil, sat on a chair in the middle of a warehouse and getting a sense of movement with it, really.

When you try something new, actually the technology really sort of catches up with you.

That's one of the beauties on these things.

That's why some people love working on them because they get to try something.

they haven't tried before and you see the glee sometimes on people's faces because they just invented something that people are going to use for the next 10, 20 years.

Alex Brown says, at first I thought my my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw Brad Pitt was listed as an executive producer.

Was this a vanity credit, or did he play some sort of bigger behind-the-scene role that hasn't been spoken about?

He was going to come to the shoot, but I think he was busy on F1 because he was in town.

But no, I mean, Brad, Brad, listen to me.

I mean,

like,

it's

Besi May Brad,

Baz Dog,

Baz Dog.

No, I am.

Yeah.

We basically,

when we sort of pitched the idea, me and Stephen pitched the idea to Plan B,

it was a weird one because

we were waiting for ages to sort of get this meeting in and

they were like, oh, we're just waiting for Brad, you know, his schedule.

And I was like, oh,

it can't be.

It can't be Brad Pitt.

I mean, there must be another Brad in the company.

And oh, yeah, sure enough, Brad was on the Zoom and he loved the idea.

And then we had a bunch of other Zooms when we were pitching it out and stuff with Brad on the Zooms as well.

He's such a

lovely human being, and

he's also

really quite a hands-on producer.

You know what I mean?

He would feed back notes and stuff.

And amazing, like amazing to have him, you know, to have him on board.

And, you know, yeah, I mean, I just, I'd love to work with him again, you know what I mean?

Maybe get him in

another one.

Well, I mean, that's great great to hear, isn't it?

You know, because you sometimes do see that he sometimes see like the Will Ferrell in succession titles, and

I don't think he had a huge amount to do with the show.

No, it's lovely.

It's like, you know, you often hear great stories about Danny DeVito, who often gets like producer and accept producer credits on things.

And you talk to people, and they go, oh, no, he's really, really gets his hands dirty and he actually does the work and he shows up.

If you're Brad Pitt as well, how lovely that this group of Brits have done this extraordinary thing and you were able to be in there at the beginning of it.

It just, you know, must give you a warm glow.

I'm now only going to be able to think of him as Baz Dog.

I have a question from Lily Watson, who says, you've mentioned on the show before the WhatsApp group chats that Carson crew have during recordings and how they kind of die off once it's finished.

When a show goes big, like adolescents, does the chat fire up again?

Are they all saying, let's do it again?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think they, I think, you know, it's, it's, I think we need a bit of a bit of time to process.

I mean, honestly, and I'll speak for Matt as well, I guess.

Like, we've spoken because we're currently working together on something else else at the minute.

We're out in Malta.

But we feel like we've made something special.

But, you know,

it probably resonated in the UK because of the sort of the knife crime and the subject matter and all of that.

But

did we expect what it's actually doing?

Absolutely not.

So we're out here with all the crew.

Like, most of the crew are with us on this new job.

Every five minutes, we're like, this has happened.

Oh, my God, this person's message.

This person's watched it.

You know, this person's put it on the, like, it was in parliament today.

They were talking about it in parliament today It's like the prime minister's talking about it in you know prime minister's questions.

It's like wow

It's it's exceeded anything that I ever imagined, you know, when we said we wanted to make this this this show incredibly grateful, you know, incredibly grateful for the whole team and everyone that worked on it as well and everyone who's watching it and you know liking it.

Oh, that's so great that they are actually together, IRL.

A lot of people don't realize that, that, you know, cruise people have people they love working with and that that they get great results with, and so they can sort of migrate from project to project.

So, it's amazing that they're together in real life while this is happening.

That's so amazing.

The great writer, Roy Clark, who wrote Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours and things like that, when he got like a fellowship at the British Comedy Awards, he said, I wish you all hits, you know, because that's the thing.

It doesn't happen often, and when it does, you've absolutely got to luxuriate in it, especially a hit like this that you've

really, really, really earned.

And that suggestion that they could do it all again.

I remember talking to this grip who worked with Roger Deacons on Sam Mendes's 1917, and apparently Sam did a speech on the last night saying, Oh, I feel like I could do it all over again.

And they just looked at each other at the rat party, like so traumatized, still having to sort of process the technical challenge of having to do it.

So, yeah, they probably need a little bit of space.

It's like having a child, isn't it?

You just think, listen, I guess one day I'll be ready to have another one, but

don't ask me now.

Well, as I said,

it's so amazing that it's got people talking in two completely different ways about

the issues, but also just as a technical masterpiece.

We already know people are really interested in this kind of behind-the-scenes stuff.

But how amazing to have that insight.

Thank you guys so much.

That was amazing.

I mean, I hope that was fun to listen to as well.

We've never done a QA like this before, but

I hope you can understand why we did.

Greatly appreciated that Philip and Matt gave up their time.

I know you guys are all over there in Malta, and I know you don't want to do it again right now, but everyone in Britain would like you to to do another one if that's okay you take a couple of weeks off guys but but after that well thank you very much and we will see you next Tuesday

everyone

Martha listens to her favorite band all the time in the car

gym

even sleeping

So when they finally went on tour, Martha bundled her flight and hotel on Expedia to see them live.

She saved so much, she got a seat close enough to actually see and hear them.

Sort of.

You were made to scream from the front row.

We were made to quietly save you more.

Expedia, made to travel.

Savings vary and subject to availability, flight inclusive packages are at all protected.

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