Adolescence Conquers the World

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

And me, Richard Osman.

Hello, Marina.

Hello, Richard.

How are you?

I'm not bad.

how's your week been it's gone on it's it's past it's been seven days long it's been seven days long

and that's the best that can be said of it no like many many many many people i watched adolescence i know well listen it's quite something isn't it we're going to talk about it today we've got exciting news about our q a on thursday as well but yes we will be talking about it as a piece of creative art and what happens when the one of those shows makes the jump between being massively high rating or whatever but becomes a sort of national conversation i think that's very interesting and why that might happen the particular ecosystem it comes out of.

I've been messaging people about it all week and messaging you about it.

We're going to talk about it.

How impossible it is to spell the word adolescence.

I'm still absolutely nowhere near it.

What's it giving you?

Just all sorts of other suggestions.

No, I just, you know, I mean, there's, you know, the S's, the C's.

I know it's not the biggest part of the jigsaw, but come on.

But it is your exclusive part.

You haven't heard that take on the show anywhere else.

That's true.

I haven't seen that in any of the reviews, but listen, it's going to chime with people, I think.

I think it will.

Yeah.

We're shifting tones slightly.

Will Smith's combat.

Yeah, exactly.

Richard.

Yeah.

Will Smith.

Yeah.

He's touring.

He's releasing an album.

We'll be chatting about that.

We'll be chatting about some of the unusual venues he's playing in the UK as well.

Whether the combat will be bigger than the setback.

Right, well, let us begin then with adolescence.

Goodness me.

I hope there won't be any spoilers in this, but there'll be sort of zero spoilers

of the concept of the show.

But written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, they developed it together.

Directed by Philip Barantini in this incredible one-shot, genuine one-shot rather than a synthesized one-take.

Amazing performances.

Ashie Waters, Erin Doherty.

Every episode, someone walks in, you go, Oh, I liked it when the when Ashie Walters was on, and you go, Oh, no, I really like you.

Yeah, yeah.

Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller.

I honestly, it's such an incredible performance.

I can tell you that I'm immediately retiring my theory that British kids can't act.

I know, you were absolutely adamant, weren't you?

And then this show across every episode gives a number of examples of kids who really, really, really can act.

It's almost like, actually, the theory is British directors are not very good at directing kids.

And Philip Berentini is unbelievably good at directing kids.

Yeah, I mean, that theory of mine is being...

boxed up in the crate going into the old Raiders of the Lost Art warehouse of all my other terrible theories.

Yeah, the bookshelves.

And we're not going to see.

Don't let start that one now.

But anyway, this show has, it's amazing.

It's because it's topped the charts around the world.

It's on Netflix, which is an interesting thing in itself.

It's topped the charts around the world.

You know, they always want those local stories that appeal globally.

I'm not sure that until, I don't know whether it's this show, but until pretty recently, we thought that social realism could work on Netflix in some ways.

You wouldn't necessarily associate the platform with it.

Yes, there was always the charge that it's all very well and good, Netflix releasing all these shows, but you know, they wouldn't do a show like the BBC or ITV, they wouldn't do a Mr.

Bates versus the Post Office, and now they've just done Toxic Town and Adolescents in a row.

Both written by Jack Thorne.

Both written by Jack Thorne.

Number one and two in the world of Netflix.

Exactly.

And it just goes to show that, you know, Netflix are smarter than you think they are because whatever criticism you got.

you know, 18 months, two years ago when these things were being developed, they had already worked out that actually there were different things that they wanted to do and there's different bits of entertainment they wanted to show people.

So if you are one of the other broadcasters, it's hard, man.

When they're giving you, you know, Black Doves and the Gentleman and then they follow it up with Toxic Town and Adolescence, you think, crikey, I mean,

how do you compete against that?

It's like the glory days of Man City when they just kept buying new midfielders every year

well the answer is is that they can't compete with that but i think we should get on to that in a minute because i do think let's talk about the show itself first the show is incredibly interesting the way they did it i can see that some people think it might not be very expensive because they they only have to press play once it looks so expensive yeah it actually takes the same amount of time really to film one episode of that in fact maybe i would think more yeah maybe more well certainly what you'd be given on a psb which is the public service broadcasters every time i use that annoying abbreviation not the pet Pet Shop Boys.

Not the Pet Shop Boys.

I suppose they had two weeks of rehearsal, and it's so like a sort of ballet, really, to make everything work and the dialogue last till you get through the door and round the corner and in the car.

I think the amazing thing is, because listen,

you can all think of sort of clever little conceits when you're sitting down trying to sell something.

And you go, oh, what if we did this?

And it was like all in one shot.

It's an idea we've heard before.

And of course, for a viewer, you're like, oh, that's interesting.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see something that's all done in one shot.

And then you go, oh, and Stephen Graham's in it.

I really love Stephen Graham.

Okay, yeah, I'll give that a watch but to have that conceit and then produce a drama of that quality at the same time you think oh well that's it that's christmas for everybody isn't it because it is technically it's incredible which we'll we'll get on to but the writing the performing the direction is so unbelievably great i mean listen it's harrowing almost throughout but to see such an almost perfectly formed and fully realized piece of drama on television, it just, you know, it gladdens the heart and it reminds you of what talent we have in this country and what can happen when everyone pulls together.

And yeah, it's just a very beautiful thing to watch, a very beautiful piece of television.

Those sort of creative relationships that have been built up over years and other projects are so important to this, particularly.

Obviously, Philip Barantini and Stephen Graham had worked together on Boiling Point, which is also a one-time, which is a super intense drama about a chef in a kitchen, Stephen Graham.

And started, by the way,

as a short, and then was a feature and then was a series.

And so it's poor Philip Berentini going, if I was just going to think I'm the guy in a single one shot.

And you can see from this that he's got a lot more on his locker as a director.

As we talked about, you know, it's almost impossible to get uniformly brilliant performances like that.

And whenever every actor is good in something, that's not just the actors, that's the...

director.

So yeah, they had worked together.

Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne had worked together.

And Stephen Graham came to Jack Thorne with this idea.

This is the thing that

he wanted to do.

And, you know, he's through it like a stick of rock.

But then, because he's such a generous actor, he just fills the whole thing with his incredible performances by other people as well.

And then the last episode, we get a little bit more Stephen Graham.

I mean, I watched it with, by the way, if you ever have a teenager and you want to watch it with a woman who just sits there the whole time saying, you're not involved in anything like this, are you?

Are you?

To the point where I was eventually going, can you shut up so we can watch the show, please?

Please tell me if you're involved in anything like this.

I think it's really interesting that, and it it happened obviously with Mr.

Bates, which was on a public service broadcaster, but that moment where a show sort of fills a gap in lots of ways where institutional failure, maybe political failure, it's extraordinary.

It makes that jump to national conversation.

I think that is really absolutely fascinating.

Yeah, and if people haven't seen it, at the heart of it is a tale about teen masculinity and what is up with teen boys and toxic masculinity.

And Andrew Tate gets a name check.

And, you know, so

is, as well as being technically brilliant and emotionally brilliant, it is also about something.

And I think that combination has meant that everybody has watched it because it's one of those shows.

Now you have to have an opinion on it.

I agree with that.

I do think it's interesting that Keir Starmer has said, or last week said,

I'm watching this and I think

everyone should watch this.

People, I'm sympathetic to the idea of it being shown in schools.

There is a group of Labour MPs who want to talk about it.

There are all sorts of people.

You know that it's hit in a completely different way because normally, when it just on a sort of boring level, normally, and you know all this, when a show is coming out, people do pre-interviews for it.

And there's a promotional push so that you buy the, ideally, someone in the country, you'll have heard this show.

Oh, yeah, that's that thing.

Maybe I heard someone talking about it on the radio.

Yeah, Stephen Graham was on Greg North.

Yeah, he was in Talk Sport.

So, whatever it is, and you think, all right, I'll have a look at that.

But the interviews have all been done in advance.

And then the promotional advice, and ideally, it goes out the ratings and people watch it.

And so now everyone is scrambling to get all these people on they're coming to them after the event for all the interviews which is very which happened with mr bates as well where everyone was sort of saying oh i want to talk to the producers how long you know is this real how long has this been going on suddenly you were seeing all these people giving interviews after after it's come out which is very very unusual but i think it's interesting when you look back at the shows that have actually made a difference in terms of either changing policy or bringing an issue to the forefront that it can't sort of be ignored in a way that perhaps it's been has been able to You'd have something like, I don't know, something about, you know, the Birmingham Six, but you wouldn't have anything for another few years.

I mean, last year we had Mr.

Bates.

This year already, we've had this.

I honestly feel that we're living in a time that is amazing for drama and amazing that it can bring these stories to the forefront and make people care about it in a way that I think, or become engaged with the subjects in a way that I think...

I don't know, politics or as I say, other institutions have simply failed to do.

People are sort of crying out to be able to have the tools to talk about lots of these things.

And we've talked before about the rise of long form podcasts, especially on the right and how it's...

People are desperately searching for

being informed and intelligence and something long form and smart and something that

explains something to them.

It's really interesting.

I read an interview only the other day about

young people saying how they reacted to it and all of them were saying, oh, it's really like that.

To get it right from their point of view and then to get it right, obviously we all, you know, if you're a parent, you're thinking, oh my God, you you know, to get it right from that point of view, it's extraordinary to have succeeded on every level.

The way that these conversations, these dramas are latched onto, and it just becomes something so much bigger.

Why is that happening more frequently

in the era we're now in?

And I think it's because it's not being dealt with properly elsewhere, which is, by the way, terrific for drama because anyone involved in this truly believes in the transformative power of drama.

And by the way, it is being dealt with elsewhere.

You know, politics is the same as it's always been.

You know, there are incredibly hardworking people doing incredible incredible things, just not reported in any way.

You know,

the dance between politicians and the media has got so bogged down and so toxic over the years that it's not fit for purpose anymore.

It hasn't been for a long time.

So whatever it is that politicians are doing, there's absolutely no way we would know about it because they're using the communication forms of the 20th century.

And so

there's a whole generation who do not understand what the even what politics is, what politicians do other than they're the people who you know in charge of us who are making our decisions and telling us what to do.

And we've absolutely lost that connection between politicians, their passion for anything they care about, the stuff that they do to make the world a better place, and an electorate.

It's completely gone.

But the passion from the electorate is still there because they absolutely, immediately, this sort of thing comes along, they're obsessed with it.

The politicians are the same as they've ever been.

So there needs to be a translation somewhere in the middle, a little bridge.

Because, you know, the writer worked out what that bridge is and how to have that conversation.

It's interesting there.

It speaks to the vacuum of how people are allowed to witness politics.

Can we talk a little bit about the British TV ecosystem from which this drama sprung?

Because it feels, by the way,

on the surface, you think, oh my god, things have never been healthier.

This is amazing.

Homegrown show, someone like Jack Thorne, Philip Bantini, Stephen Gramie, these incredible actors, you think, wow, drama has never been healthier.

Netflix hit after hit after hit with quality stuff, but I do think it hides something.

First of all, every single person involved this show,

from you know, Jack Thorne, Stephen Graham, that Toby Bentley, who script-edited lots of Jack's things on broadcasters and is now, he's the UK, the series manager at Netflix UK, and Mensa, who runs Netflix UK.

I mean, all of these people, they're extraordinary.

They would be the first to admit that they stand, they came from public service broadcasters, and what they do now stands on the shoulders of those particular giants.

But the fact is, this couldn't really be made on it's too expensive for the BBC to to make.

In so many ways, it's a perfect BBC show.

It's very sort of specific.

It feels very specific to the UK, although it has these amazing universal themes, clearly, which is why it's number one in America.

These things can't be made anymore.

They are struggling so badly.

And I mean, I slightly feel that there are all sorts of different suggestions for how to help the public service broadcasters.

And people are sit.

And I think you need some of all sorts of different ones, but you do need big joined-up thinking and someone who really cares about it and understands that British TV dramas and public service broadcasting has been the most amazing tool of soft power that you can possibly imagine for the past few decades.

It's an extraordinary product, makes things that people talk about and love around the world, to say nothing of our own country.

I think that, you know, there are various different suggestions.

Someone like Peter Kosmitsky, who's the director of Wolf Hortal, said, oh, I think we should, you know, we need a levy for the streamers.

I mean, Netflix made 39 billion.

revenue last year and they paid something like 14 million million UK tax.

Now, you have to, the profits of all of this stuff are being siphoned off somewhere else.

As I say, this is nothing to do with the creatives, but it is the reality of the business.

And I don't, unfortunately, you know, I'm sorry to have to go back to her, but, you know, she is the culture secretary.

Lisa Nandy has emerged with incredible rarity.

She said one, she made one sort of thing about diversity on TV, which was completely misjudged and just didn't seem to understand the TV business at all.

And then I saw her, you know, she's done an interview about Gino DiCampo.

Well, I mean, this is not a matter for a Secretary of State, however unpleasant he may be, or may not, I'm sure, you know, just to run the denial.

But,

you know, where is she?

Why is she not talking about tax breaks or streamer, you know, where is the big thinking or a streamer levy or whatever it is or getting people together?

We're not having this conversation in public and the money has...

completely made it impossible for the public to be able to get a lot of people.

And if I can give people a concrete example of what we mean when we talk about money, first of all, listen to this production bellies, and you could see the sort of crew they had on that show and how it looked.

But the fees paid to actors and writers are far beyond what you could ever get on the BBC and ITV.

So

the level of fees that are being paid for television work in the UK are something we've never ever seen before.

And what that means is a large part of the talent pool automatically will go to Netflix because, firstly, they've shown they'll commission very, very interesting things and they can be fairly hands-off and can deliver an audience.

So they have all those things, but then they'll pay you 10 times more.

And

as a creator, you think, well, what's the downside here?

Because there isn't a downside.

You're not having to compromise quality and you're getting paid 10 times as much.

But what it actually means, of course, is if you're ITV or if you're the BBC, the rate for talent has just gone through the roof and the availability of talent is much less than it used to be at the same time when your income is getting much, much, much lower.

So, you know, they've done all sorts of things with sticking classes of

co-production on everything.

You can't do any drama now on a PSB without a co-production with another country.

But the co-production money's gone now.

That's the trouble.

The BBC have got so many things half-agreed from their side, basically, but they can't find the co-pro money anymore.

And it's really, really difficult.

I mean, I was in a development meeting for something I'm doing this week, and we were talking about it.

And I kept saying, you know, I like, I'd love it to be on a PP, you know, I was talking about it so much.

I'm saying, what if we did this?

The trouble is, it just, it makes it incredibly difficult to get something

in that particular space without going going into what it was.

It's just too expensive.

And there's no, you know, I'm saying we could do it this way.

This is the thing that people don't know about yet, that you're doing your version of the Megan show.

Yeah, this is my version.

It's Marina's Kitchen.

I would have loved that to have come out with some more fanfare, but yeah.

There it is.

Listen, people.

The thing is, my ingredients are too expensive.

And

they're just too expensive.

And I can, of course, you know, like the saint I am, take a pay cart.

To land that analogy for a second, that is sort of what we're talking about.

You can say all along, like as people did on Wolf Hall, say, oh, you know, directors and actors were all going to work for much, much less and made a really big thing about it, but saying this is not really sustainable or scalable.

You know, they're extremely successful.

They can do that, but other people can't.

And an absolute sidebar.

I see that

they've...

Absolutely.

I'd love to do a podcast called that.

Announced a

just a series of diversions from the main point.

I see they've announced the second season of The Megan Show.

And it absolutely goes to the thing that

I've had a number of times in my career, that if a channel has taken a huge financial risk on you, then it looks terrible for them if they don't commission the second series.

So quite often they go, oh, let's just do another series because then it looks like we have to do it.

By the way, they've already shot it.

They shot them back to back.

So they already knew that they were going to.

I agree with you.

So they have to do, so they have to say, and you know what?

We're doing another.

As I say, it didn't meaningfully trouble the top 10.

But that's, you know, this, Jack Thorne, it is extraordinary to have the number one and number two show.

Yeah, so yeah, Jack Jack Thorne did Toxic Town and then this, and he might be a new name for some people.

Anyone with a big interest in TV drama will know who Jack Thorne is.

And he's such a stage drama or I think that's a stage drama.

It's unbelievable.

I was trying to think of all the Jack Thorne things that I'd seen in like the last 18 months.

And I thought I'd got them.

And I suddenly thought, oh, no, hang on, because it was one of the children's turn to go to Chuck Cast Child, so we did that.

And then, oh, no, hang on.

We saw that the Don Mar when Winston went to war with the Wireless.

There were so many things.

I mean, he is the most extraordinary person.

I idolise him.

Well, he's he's prolific and incredibly talented, and his heart is in the right place.

He wants to write things about things.

He wants to make the world a better place via his work.

I think the one thing that, you know, me, I'm a bluff old, you know, commercialist.

And the fact that he wrote The Cursed Child, the Harry Potter Musical,

I know he's okay for money forever.

Okay, so I know, listen, I know he's been beautifully paid.

Thank goodness.

Thank goodness.

Which means he can literally go, I'm just going to do exactly what I want.

Funny enough, he came out this week and talked about the ecosystem of British TV.

And, you know, despite the fact he's just had two huge hits on Netflix, you did say we have an issue with our public service broadcasters.

You know, he's saying that again, which you can do if you've got Harry Potter money.

Yes.

Yeah, of course you will.

Exactly.

And he will, and so will Stephen Gray, and we understand all that.

It's interesting, actually, they developed this with Amazon.

And then I've wonderful.

Oh, is that right?

Yeah.

And then they just took it in the end to Netflix.

Someone that I

speaking of which, we're doing actually a bonus episode on the great rejection.

Rejection letters of big hits this Friday for our members, but that's just

a sidebar on the sidebar.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Absolute sidebar.

But yeah, the absolute sidebar, the person at Amazon who said, yeah, no, I think, or whatever, maybe it just wasn't working out.

Maybe they felt, oh, they didn't love this enough here.

As there often is in drama, a huge amount of emphasis on the actors.

And people are saying, this is incredible.

And by the way, it is, the performances are extraordinary.

Every actor I talk to goes, yeah, but I mean, because people are going, you know, they don't forget anything.

They hit their cues, the lines.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's theatre.

Actors are really, really, really used to that.

It feels like witchcraft.

And it is slightly different because there's a lot more technical things in this.

And you've got to be in the exact right light and you've got to be exactly where you need to be all the time.

So it is much more technical.

But it's a skill.

that they have.

You know, the question that actors get asked most is, how do you remember those lines?

And

that's the easy bit of acting.

You know, everything else is the tough bit.

If you watch like Stephen Graham kind of collapsing, you know, in a pool of tears at the end of like a long episode where he's absolutely got to get it bang on.

And the camera is right in his face in a way that it isn't in theatre.

So anyway, listen, the acting is incredible.

Can I just say one thing about theatre while we're on it then?

As another, a person who was brilliant in the pandemic, particularly talking about this, but is ongoing brilliant talking about this, is another of our most amazing and prolific writers, James Graham.

Yes.

It's so intent on saying, you know, you have to understand that so many of these people came up via theatre.

You have, to all the streamers and all the big broadcasters, you have these people because theatre, you know, nurtured them.

Yeah, and James Graham did Sherwood, by the way, on BBC, which is another example of something that is about something and stars an awful lot of theatre actors and stuff.

But I think the key to it is it's an incredible technical achievement.

I was talking to...

Pat Nanu's one of the great sound guys, and he did the East Enders Live thing.

And I was just talking to him about it.

20 minutes of chatting to him, and you understand what an unbelievable technical accomplishment the half-hour EastEnders live thing was for the sound department and what they have to do.

And when you're watching adolescents and

everybody is clear, you're hearing everything.

That's not easy and the sound mix is exactly where it needs to be.

None of that is easy.

There are microphones everywhere that

cannot be seen, that have to be picking up certain things, that have to be not picking up other things.

The lights have to be exactly in the, you know, it's not, they're not in a real police station that's just lit with the, you know, light from the police station.

It is a film set.

Every single place they go, every corridor they go down, every single room they walk into is lit.

And it's lit by people who know that they can't get this wrong in any way whatsoever.

And my experience with people on that side of TV is it's just a joy to work with them.

If you give them a problem and you give them just enough money to sort that problem out, they will go away and they will come back with something extraordinary.

And the joy of television, whether it's drama or entertainment, is you've got the great show ponies, the actors, the presenters, stuff like that.

And then you've got people behind the scenes doing the best version of what they could possibly do.

And it's just that team effort and adolescence, every second of it, you're thinking, oh my God, the amount of people who are terrified every time there's a transition between one scene and another, the amount of people whose jobs are at risk and who've made three decisions, which are about to be either proved right or wrong every single time something changes.

I just, I thought it was a testament to the sound department, to camera department, to lighting, to, I mean, just the whole shebang.

It is extraordinary.

The phrase tour de force is used, but not in this case.

We just break the glass on it.

There was a really nice thing that Jack Thorne was asked once about his best advice that anyone had ever given him.

And he said, the stuff I, what I go back to again and again is an executive producer who said to me that everyone working on the project was as passionate as me.

And if I stopped behaving like a stuck-up fool, then I'd be able to see that.

It's advice I keep forgetting.

It's so easy to get precious.

I think I fall into that hole all the time.

I think Jack Thorne is pretty sensationally generous in every interview he's ever given.

Everything I've ever seen, you know, it is true that it is this phenomenal sort of con, it's very musical.

Talking about it was so when you hear all the people involved with it, it is really like they're sort of plotting a ballet or something.

It's a form of

very, very intricate choreography.

It's the sort of, in some ways, the best way of understanding how you can simply just, you know, get in a car, then walk through a door, then do all of those things.

It's sort of extraordinary and have enough dialogue to get you there.

all those things that we've been talking about yeah every you know like you know when the when the shot on the bonnet of the car turns into a drone normally when i'm watching a tv program i'm listening to the script i'm like and and in this in this you sort of you can't even listen to the script because jack is so good it doesn't even feel scripted there's so few there's almost like not a single kind of wrong note anywhere that takes you into the script you're you're always watching the action yeah i i when i um you know 1917 sam menders' um first world war um sort of epic yeah um roger Deakins is a cinematographer on that, and he worked many times, but he's got this grip that he was working with, a guy called Gary Hens, who I spoke to once a lot about how on a, and a grip, grips are in charge of.

Because 1917 is also a one shot.

It appears to be one of the shots.

It appears to be a one-shot shot.

I think the longest...

shot, I don't want to get this wrong, I think theirs was about eight or nine minutes, their long shot.

It appears to be in real time.

Anyway, Gary Hens was talking to me about it, and you know, they were, again, it was exhausting technically.

Listening to the sort of mind meld that is needed between the grips and and the director of photography and the director is really amazing.

I think we should say, because we could talk about this forever.

Can I raise one other point which is fascinating?

Philip Barrentini has spoken about it is why have they done it in one shot?

And it's that idea of tension and ramping it up and the idea that kind of things run away with you.

And he has spoken about you not being able to take your eyes off the screen, which...

My experience of watching it was absolutely right because you're constantly, you're aware you're in a real space at a real time and something real is happening in front of you and

you're just aware you know you're constantly aware of supporting artists walking along in the background and you're constantly aware of traffic and thinking are they all that must they must all be production cars all of that must be production and so you're constantly looking for something and it is very rare to watch an hour-long TV program anymore and actually watch it.

I thought that the thing that they thought would happen did happen, which is you can't take your eyes off the screen.

Yeah, I think either Jack or Stephen said the camera doesn't blink, and it's extraordinary.

I mean,

the final episode, which I won't give any spoiler for, but it's amazing how much can happen and over such a large distance in one hour.

I was thinking that, my god, look, what's you know, why haven't I learned Mandarin in an hour?

This is unbelievable.

There's a show, let's ring Anne Mensa and say, Marina wants to learn Mandarin in an hour.

Did you want to film it?

We're having a special adolescence QA, and all the questions are going to be answered by Philip Barantini and Matt Lewis, who's his DOP, Director of Photography.

So all the questions you sent in, we've got loads as well.

I've got one about

that technical thing.

I really worry about everyone's battery packs because there's so many mics there and there's so much stuff that's not plugged in.

And the one thing that every single show always gets stopped for is changing your batteries.

And there's hundreds.

There's hundreds.

Anyway, that's going to be my question.

But I know our listeners have got much better questions than that.

So this Thursday, we're going to be asking Philip and Matt just questions about adolescence, how it's made, the process, all of that stuff, which I hope will be a lot of fun.

So if you want to listen to it, you can become a AAA member.

The restisentertainment.com.

If you want to listen to it early, otherwise it will...

Otherwise, it's coming out on Thursday.

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By the way, can I just say what a pleasure that was to talk about.

Thank you to everybody who made it.

You made the world a better place, and it's much appreciated.

This episode is brought to you by Sky, where you can watch unmissable shows such as the new season of Gangs of London, the BAFTA-winning Emmy-nominated series, starring Joe Cole, Michelle Fairley, and Shopei DeRisu.

Now, Richard, in season three, chaos erupts after a spike drugs shipment floods the streets, killing hundreds of civilians.

But here is the twist.

I mean, it sounds like a big enough twist already, but you know I love a twist.

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The spiked shipment, it wasn't an accident.

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Watch season three of the BAFTA winning Sky Original Gangs of London on Sky right now.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called it truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

Welcome back, everybody.

Now, Will Smith, very good friend of mine from the Graham Norton Show.

What's going on?

What's the news?

Well, by way of a brief catch-up, he, as you know, he slapped Chris Rock in the face.

Yeah.

Last I saw of him, he was rapping with Chris and Rosie Ramsey in the seat next to me.

After then, I've not followed his career.

He won the Oscar that night for a flop, but unfortunately, things have been a little on the down ever since.

Bad Boy's Ride or Die did very well, sort of of made back three times its money, and it did very well.

But clearly what Will Smith wants to do is make a comeback, and he's been trying this over.

Well, he wants to be the biggest star in the world again.

And arguably, there was a point where he bestrode the world like a colossus, and he was super enormous.

Yeah.

So there are developments in the attempt at a comeback.

He's announced his first new album, first in 20 years.

based on a true story it's called and he is going to tour it it's interesting the places he's going i always love a local news angle on a headline.

And there was one in the Newcastle Chronicle that I felt really captured where Will Smith is at this precise moment in time.

It said, Will Smith announces unexpected outdoor gig in seaside town two hours from Newcastle.

Wow.

Which, yeah.

Help me in.

Yeah.

Scarborough.

Yeah, he's playing the Scarborough Open Air Theatre.

I see.

Although, you know, it's actually a good venue.

Yeah.

Shed 7 are playing there.

I had a look whilst they were on it, and there's lots of things.

Gary Bardo's playing there.

Yes.

However, it's quite a different thing what he's doing.

And by the way, it's not just the Scarborough Open Air Theatre.

It is TK Max presents the Scarborough Open Air Theatre.

Yes.

There are various other sort of venues all around the UK and a couple in Europe.

He's in this difficult sort of personal growth situation where he knows he has to mention what has happened.

So the song Beautiful Scars has some sort of vague reference to it.

I hate it when I lose it, but I face the music.

Oh, why did he do it?

See, I'm only human.

Yeah, I mean, we all are.

No one ever thought you weren't.

That's the big issue there.

It is that thing of, oh, God, I'm going to have to talk about it.

He would rather, as would most of us, to be honest, just go, shall we just all pretend that didn't happen and get back to where you all loved me?

Well, I agree.

I don't think sublimating it into sort of crappy, generic hip-hop is the answer.

But he can't quite get himself to that space, which I sort of love, which is why I'm not sure if he can do the other thing that people are saying he should do and might do, which is a surer route back to something.

Netflix have done that big roast of Tom Brady, the sort of dream quarterback, and that was very, very successful for them ratings-wise.

And everyone, you know, took the piss out of him and it was funny.

The roasts are a peculiarly American thing where celebrities, where genuinely American TV's jokes, by the way, are usually not as rude as our jokes, apart from when they do roasts where they are much, much, much ruder.

He could do that.

And by the way, that would be not to be rude about the Scarborough Oven Air Theatre, but that would get a bigger draw on the public imagination to do a Netflix roast.

Do you think?

I mean, I know a sort of joke is what kind of got him in the mess in the first place, but he would have to deal with a lot of jokes about that.

Yeah.

You know, the wife.

Yeah.

Scary.

The Nepo kids.

Has Will Smith got it in him?

I don't know.

I was reading an interview with him about beautiful scars because I was thinking, is he able to have a roast done to him?

Yeah.

And he said, I hate admitting that I'm only human.

My ego wants to be Superman.

The word I was thinking about when I thought about the last couple of years of my life was brutal.

Brutal and beautiful.

Brutal and beautiful.

I love that.

They even mess up better than you in the same way that, like, Gwyneth Pouch, you could never get as divorced as well as her.

You can have a bunch of young couple.

Everything they do is better than you, even when it's really

obviously really bad.

Oh, you hit someone.

Listen, let me tell you how I hit somebody.

And what were I brutal?

That should have been the Bernard Matthews catchphrase way back when.

It should have been Bernard Matthews.

That's one for the younger viewers.

Guys, he had a turkey company.

I'm so sorry.

Oh, I'm so old.

Listen, Google him.

But I'm always interested in the ways in which big stars deal with these open and shut cases of having basically been a total idiot.

And I'm sort of surprised he hasn't clinicalized it, which I do think is the third route available to him.

Make it seem like it's something you have to go to sort of Slap Pad for or something like that.

I'm a Slap addict.

Well, yeah.

One of my favorite interviews of all time, which I strongly urge you to seek out on YouTube, is John Mayer, the sort of singer and guitarist.

He did an interview with Ronan Farrow, who you'll know as a sort of

Me Too midwife.

And I find him a cultural lyricant, but that's really?

That's interesting.

But he takes himself very, very seriously.

I loved the hinterland you occasionally hint at just in

your absolute sidebars.

Anyway, he does an interview with Rona Farrow, and he talks about his ego addiction, which I love.

Wow.

Oh my god, that's great.

John Mayer famously did this appalling Playboy interview.

Like, it was so bad.

It was a sort of real kind of career ender.

What did did he say?

The good things were like his stupidity, where he'd say, because he thinks he's incredibly intellectual, things where he was saying, I can think about stuff and I can do it on Twitter.

For instance, I will can say something like, wouldn't it be cool if you could download food?

And so there was that element of him.

And then there was a lot of stuff about porn and masturbation and famous celebrity women.

Anyway, he comes to describe this as a thinking man's fiasco,

which is very like, you're so close, John, but you're not quite there.

Anyway, and he said, my high-speed crash was an intellectual one.

And he, anyway, he talks about having

an ego addict in the way that Will Smith could definitely clinicalize.

I think Will Smith is a little bit more likely.

And that's just narcissist.

Yeah.

No, it's not actually, because

it's a real disease.

It talks to the mental and everything.

Oh, is it?

That's a line from Blades of Glory you may recognise.

I'm not passing that one off as my own.

One of the great movies.

I love it.

Anyway, so he says, I go to the Grammys, but I go home because if I'd say it, I'd get high again.

He's not talking about drugs, he's talking about attention.

So he refers to mirrors as the original Twitter.

I mean, if if it's any consolation to if it's any consolation to John Mayer, in Britain, pretty much no one knows who you are, mate.

Yeah, you can come and live here and do anything you like.

Honestly, you walk down the street.

It'd be cold turkey.

Have a watch of this interview because I don't know.

It's probably in about 15 minutes.

It is a celebrity just...

not really dealing with the problem in the first place, which I think is very well smith.

He says, if I save a baby from a burning building, and Kanye saves a baby from a burning building, there's more Google hits on Kanye and I'm fine with it.

And the way he says fine with it.

You said that, John, yeah.

The way he says fine with it, he's never been less fine about absolutely anything.

And also, by the way, he hasn't saved a baby from a burning building.

No.

I mean, if he had, then we would have started with that question.

M.O.R.

guitar riffs.

John.

He can do that.

Before we talk about your ego addiction, the baby and the burning building thing.

Talk us through it.

So to summarise, I would say that Will Smith, I mean, I would clinicalize at this point, but the best thing he could do is be the roast.

Whether he's able to take the roast psychiatrically, I don't know.

And in failing that, I should clinicalise.

I'm not sure that the route back is through touring UK venues.

Well, that's the interesting thing.

So he's turned back to music because, you know, the world of movies has slightly closed itself off to him after the slap.

Understandably, he did it at the Oscars.

But what's that?

Why do people used to love me?

Oh, they did the music as well.

People used to love the music.

So, you know, he's gone back into the studio.

He's done, he's done all of this stuff.

He says, And again, listen, I'm not suggesting he's an ego addict, but he said, I am a master actor.

No question.

I am a master actor, but I've never given myself the opportunity to elevate my poetry, my concepts to the level of mastery that I've attained as an actor.

So essentially, he's like, I completed acting, done that.

I'll do the odd ride or die if you want me to.

I think probably now the time for me to become the greatest genius in the history of music.

Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him.

I'll put it so far past him.

I wouldn't put it in the same galaxy as him, but carry on.

I also looked up who's playing at the Wolverhampton Civic Halls.

And I looked at who else is playing there and it's more fun than the scarborough one because actually scarborough it's everyone doing it is really good as long as it's like snow patrol and people

think but the um wolverhampton civic hall matt goss is playing there jeremy kyle is doing a live convention's convention jeremy kyle tells it like it is live

wow it's a shame that they're not going on it's all not one night and you can write a play set in the green room of hell kyle smith and goss

i mean that is my my favourite.

Let's bring John Paul Sartre back from the dead for that one because, dearie, me.

My favourite ever quote from a Jeremy Carle show episode was: there was this woman who thought that her boyfriend was cheating on her, so he had done a lie detector test.

And Jeremy Carl said, How sure are you that he's been cheating?

And she went, Well, Jeremy, I'm 80-30.

That's my favourite ever, Jeremy Carl quote.

But also, do you know this tour that's going on at the moment?

Which is Bradley Walsh, Shane Ritchie, Joe Pasquale, and Brian Conley are touring together.

Do they play golf in the day and do that at night?

Oh god, I hope so.

I've worked with all four of them and I like all four of them very, very much.

But they're called the Pratt Pack and they're doing a tour of Britain's theatres.

I bet that's a great night out.

Well they've done it for the laugh of the road show, I think.

Walsh, Ritchie, Joe Pesqually, Conley.

Shane Ritchie, I think said the funniest thing, I can't quote it, but he said the funniest thing anyone's ever said to him, I think.

When we were on the set of Sunday brunch, we were watching someone else being interviewed and he just whispered something in my ear.

It was so funny.

It's unrepeatable.

Well, on that tantalizing note, Rachel.

I'm so sorry.

Can I say one other thing?

This really is absolute sidebar because I worry about Jazzy Jeff because Will Smith has done so much.

And Jazzy Jeff actually seems to have lived his life in quite a fun way and is still in Philly and still enjoys himself.

But his youngest child, I think second youngest child, his name is Jeffrey Towns.

And his second youngest child is called Pleasant Towns.

And if you Google Pleasant Towns, which I did, it literally just comes up with here are a series of places in the Cotswolds.

It sounds like one of those confected Disney towns like Seaside and Celebration, you know, that where everything's sort of picket fence and dream and show-like.

Pleasant towns for the death, yeah.

Pleasant towns.

Jazzy Jeff's on the new Will Smith record, anyway.

Yeah.

Any recommendations, Marina?

I enjoyed a somewhat weird, but ultimately very satisfying takedown on YouTube of Joe Rogan by The Elephant Graveyard, which is an interesting video.

Joe Rogan's sort of podcasting some advertising in general.

It's quite bracing in a number of ways, but I'd recommend that.

And I somehow missed last week the death of one of my favorite ever sports writers, John Feinstein.

And if you've not read his books, I got into his books via his series of golf books in the 90s and the 2000s.

So Good Walk Spoiled.

It's just him like behind the ropes on the PGA tour inside the qualifying school.

He's just, he was sort of the first guy to do that.

I'm going to go into sport absolutely via the personalities and have absolute access to everybody.

He was apparently

one of the more irascible people you'd ever meet, but an awful lot of fun.

But his absolute classic book, they say it's the best-selling sports book of all time.

I can't quite stand that up, but it's possible.

Called A Season on the Brink, which is him with the Indiana House College basketball team.

And that's from the mid-80s.

And he's just a brilliant writer.

If you like...

proper great sports writing that's funny that has absolute access to everything john feinstein is your man so season on the brink is brilliant but if you especially if you like golf, there's an amazing ones and essentially anything he does.

If you love NFL, he's got some great NFL books, but he absolutely specialises in access all areas to everybody and then just writing like a dream.

So ROP, John Feinstein.

Okay, well, I think that's about us for today, isn't it?

That was fun.

We have got a special Q ⁇ A on Thursday with Philip Barantini and Matt Lewis from

Adolescence, the director and the director of photography.

And then on Friday, we've got a special bonus episode for our club members about the sort of greatest rejections in artistic history across our country.

Publishers who turn down big books.

Yeah, movie studios who turn down big movies.

Just the worst.

Technical companies that turn down big bands.

The worst decisions you could possibly make.

And if you want to become a member of our club, you'll get access to that Adolescents QA immediately as well.

It is theressesentertainment.com.

I always get it wrong.

Yes.

Is it?

Yes, it does.

You got it right.

There you go.

Otherwise, we will see you on Thursday.

See you Thursday, everyone.

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