Could ITV Poach The Traitors?

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Speaker 2 Hello and welcome to this episode of the Wrestlers Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

Speaker 1 And I'm Richard Osman. Hello Marina.

Speaker 2 Hello Richard. How are you?

Speaker 1 I'm all right. I was right on Tuesday's episode.
I've yet to watch another episode of All's Fair, fucking Kardashian. There's still time.
There's still time. I just, I don't have the itch.

Speaker 2 Don't have the itch. Not drunk enough.
I just, yeah, there's a there's a world in which you've had three cocktails in which you could

Speaker 1 do.

Speaker 2 Where you might just dive in for a moment.

Speaker 1 I wonder if I could ask you a question. Please do.
Well, not me, but Bedware Gullage has a question for you. That's a good name.

Speaker 1 Bedware asks, I would be interested to hear your takes on the furore which has surrounded the release of Mary Earp's autobiography.

Speaker 1 When a book is sold for serialisation in a newspaper, how much influence does the author have over what excerpts are published in the paper?

Speaker 2 Mary Epps, so former England number one goalkeeper, then England number two goalkeeper, and now internationally retired but still plays for PSG, there's been a huge backlash against her book, All In, which was serialised in The Guardian.

Speaker 2 And in the serialisation, there was a lot of airing of dirty linen, endless beefs, feuds, sort of drive-by on Hannah Hampton, England number one goalkeeper on Serena Wiegman. Then Sonia Bompasta, the

Speaker 2 Chelsea women's manager, chimed in to protect Hannah Hampton.

Speaker 2 And Mary Epps herself has done a number of interviews and online posts in which she said she's tried to sort of do cleanup on this backlash and shift the blame to the way that the extracts have been done, which is why you're asking this question, Bedwit.

Speaker 2 And I understand it. And in some cases, she's made it even worse.

Speaker 2 So anyway, in order to answer this question, I've spoken to various people, like ghostwriters, agents, and people who do the extracts for these books.

Speaker 2 So how a book like this would work, the women's game is very different to the men's game.

Speaker 2 Your management are going to think there's a moment for you to cash in and whereas you can be quite long past retirement if you're

Speaker 2 in the, you play men's football and think, actually, I will now do my book. For women, there's this perception that it's kind of a trolley dash, you've got to do it while anyone knows who you are.

Speaker 2 And so what happens is that they find a ghostwriter and they talk a lot. The person said Mary Upps will have, and I think her ghostwriter was Deborah Linton.
And I think they talk, they talk a lot.

Speaker 1 And by the way, in sports, biographies are often completely above board. They are traditionally written written by ghost writers.
They're credited.

Speaker 2 You don't have to be good at writing books when you are literally an international entertainer. Exactly.

Speaker 1 So we team you up with someone who's amazingly good at writing books.

Speaker 2 Many of Atherton can do it, but not everyone else seems to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 And also,

Speaker 1 a lot of non-fiction writers love to tell the stories of sports people because there's so much incredible emotion, so much jeopardy, so much.

Speaker 1 They are interesting stories to tell. More interesting.
than saying, you know, the autobiography of a light entertainment presenter.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's interesting that Prince Harry's biography, there was a lot of interesting stuff to be told in that one, but you know, was primarily known for doing like that amazing Andre Agassi book.

Speaker 2 Anyway, what that ghostwriter will then do is shape the book into a narrative, some kind of an arc, rather than just sort of formless tide of experience.

Speaker 2 And then we get move on to serialization. Now, serialization, when you write a book, if you get it serialized, it's great for two things.

Speaker 2 It's great for publicity because it gets your book out there in places that so that people know it's happening.

Speaker 2 And you also get money, you're paid for that, so that comes back against your advance or whatever it is so you'll be you'll be pleased with that now the guardian was a good place for mary aups's book to be serialized because there's a lot of women's football cover

Speaker 2 coverage there's no paywall so it's it's a really great place for your book to be out there okay now in the old days uh what happened and still really to this day you when you're doing a contract to serialize a book you you buy a certain number of words but you've bought the book and you can basically take what you like and you've bought lockstock and barrel and you can, you'll, but you'll say, okay, we're doing a 6,000 word serialization or whatever it is, but you're allowed to take pretty much

Speaker 1 the 6,000 serials. I mean,

Speaker 1 you can't just take individual words and then put them together.

Speaker 2 No, in a different order. That, I believe, would be transgression.
You can't do it, yeah.

Speaker 2 And of course, the way this has always worked is that they pick the most sensational or the funny or the dramatic bits. But that's not just what they do.
And we'll come back.

Speaker 1 And the most newsworthy bits, presumably, the bits that are

Speaker 2 going to

Speaker 2 that other people are going to think, I've got to mention that. When you're doing the ghost writing, the book, it goes without saying that Mary Ups signed off

Speaker 2 on every single thing.

Speaker 1 She told those stories.

Speaker 2 She told those stories and she would have been shown the manuscript with the answer. Is there anything here you don't like?

Speaker 1 Okay. I bet some people don't read it.
Yeah. I bet some people are going, it's fine.
I said it all, so I'm sure it's, yeah. And anything I said is okay, but I do have time to read my own book.

Speaker 2 Like some of the forms I sign, yes.

Speaker 1 I can't even remember when was the last time you ever like read a form. Yeah.
I mean, long time ago, right?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Anyway, nowadays, because they'll always try that lot, agents do try and push back on some bits and say, well, if you take that, that's obviously just going to be the only story that comes out of the book and we don't really want that.

Speaker 2 And sometimes they'll get a fair hearing or sometimes the people who are contextualizing it will say, okay, we'll take it, but we're going to put in what leads up to it and whatever happens.

Speaker 2 So I've talked to the people who buy and extract and run these serializations. And they will say to you, we're not running a trailer for your book.

Speaker 2 So a lot of people just think, can you just basically run a trailer for my book? No, the extract for the readers needs to work as a complete story.

Speaker 2 It needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end and not just be some sort of giant teaser that I'm sure you'd love it if you were the author of the book or the subject of the book.

Speaker 2 You want to get a microcosm of the narrative within that. And I think the Mary Upps book, I think, does contain that.

Speaker 2 And so someone like Rob Fern at The Guardian, who didn't extract this book, but he extracted, for example, the Virginia Dufray memoir that The Guardian ran a few weeks ago, talked quite interestingly about that and thinking, well, we knew we wanted the Prince Andrew stuff because obviously that's the most newsworthy and that's going to be the bit.

Speaker 2 But we also wanted that moment where she first walks into sort of Mar-a-Lago and she's scouted basically by Jelene Maxwell, Virginia, because you wanted the absolute very start of all this and then the bit that everyone's.

Speaker 2 So to find a way of doing that is kind of quite difficult and it's sensitive and you have to sort of trust a publication with your sensitive material. So what went wrong with Mary Urbs's book?

Speaker 2 I would say that that process has to be, you've got to be pastorally cared for by a manager who's going to say at the ghost writing stage, they will extract, if you're going to, or the sit, well, suddenly the selling of the rights, right?

Speaker 2 You're going to say they're going to pick out all these bits. And her pretending, or genuinely perhaps, thinking, I don't understand why they've done this, it's kind of not acceptable.

Speaker 2 It's a failing of the kind of agent or management care there, really, if she really didn't understand. And if she did, then you can't really blame the extractors.

Speaker 1 What were the, I love the way you say the extractors as if they're like the SAS or something.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't claim the people who've chosen those things.
She obviously added a lot of her dirty linen.

Speaker 1 What were the specific things that she's been in? Oh my gosh,

Speaker 2 there's so many. There were particular drive-bys on Hannah Hampton, on Serena Wiegman.

Speaker 2 And if you're going to attack teammates and people who are still playing and people who are going to play in a game that Saturday, which is why Sonia Bompasta got involved from Chelsea, I mean, yes, it's difficult.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 no one has stood up for her. And I think that's because they think that what she's done is unacceptable and the way she's done it is unacceptable, her teammates.

Speaker 2 And I've noticed that they've been sort of conspicuous in their silence.

Speaker 2 But what I think is interesting about and why there should be particular care taking this and I actually think to some degree it's a failure of management because they're supposed to look after you.

Speaker 2 Women's football has become like a really odd entertainment space.

Speaker 2 It's a very different form of fandom than the men's foot game in lots of ways. And I've seen people say, oh, it's like being a K-pop star or something.

Speaker 2 You know, you get completely picked apart for people's amusement. It's idiosyncratic.
It can be toxic in a different way to the men's.

Speaker 2 And I think that not understanding all of that or her not having been made aware of it and then to say to her, you maybe ought to stop trying it, making it worse by all of just going on saying, oh, this is to do with the way my book's been extracted.

Speaker 2 I don't think that's fair in this case. And I think the extract, you know, the extract was done fairly.

Speaker 2 But maybe she didn't understand what serialization rights mean, which is that they pick off these bits and everyone will cover them. It's interesting.

Speaker 1 So it's good for the Guardian to have these extracts for sure. It is good for the publisher to have these extracts for sure.

Speaker 1 Because as you say, it's one of the key drivers of early sales, certainly, is if you can get it serialized, even even these days, because there was a period where serialization was not important because newspapers had had really declined and the internet hadn't quite caught up.

Speaker 1 But now it sort of doesn't matter where it's been serialized because that story is everywhere. It's literally everywhere.

Speaker 2 Because everybody scrapes it and puts it on their own site.

Speaker 1 Exactly. So if you, if you, and as you say, putting it not behind the paywall is amazing because suddenly, you know, everyone's reading it, everyone's seeing it.
So it's incredible publicity for that.

Speaker 1 But it's not great publicity for Mary Earps. And as you say,

Speaker 1 badly advised,

Speaker 1 I guess. But I wonder if that is a lifetime of...

Speaker 1 being in a sport that where she felt underrepresented and she was trying to get her voice heard and it wasn't being heard and maybe underestimating quite what a big star she had become and underestimating what a big story women's football had become and how it is now right in the heart of our culture in a way that's incredibly warming but someone is going to be the first victim of yeah you live in a world of this is my truth but actually sometimes your truth is not very palatable to others and I think thinking that this is my story and I can tell it how I like is a naivety that you you just can't enjoy any longer.

Speaker 1 But I do think there is something peculiar about the fandom around women's football that i think is interesting um and that it's much more like other forms of entertainment fandom where people i just think it's quite odd in some ways and it's it's definitely different to the men's game although as we see here can be just as toxic well if it was the men's game you'd immediately be signed up for talk spot breakfast yeah as a as a as a guest host you think oh this is amazing this person isn't it it's hard it's hard with footballers and you can see when they've immediately retired they're quite uncomfortable having a go at colleagues it takes them a couple of years before they can really start taking the gloves off oh taking the the gloves off.

Speaker 1 That's what I would have called it. That's what she should have called it, Mary Earps, taking the gloves off.

Speaker 2 Oh, I thought you were talking about the Kardashian show because they all wear their gloves so much. That could have been called gloves off.

Speaker 1 Gloves Off is an

Speaker 1 oh my god. Gloves Off is an unbelievably great title for this autumn.
What's it called?

Speaker 2 It's called All In.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it should have been called All In. All In.

Speaker 1 That's like I've just let them all in.

Speaker 1 That's a terrible name for a goalkeeper.

Speaker 1 Gloves off. Is there time, can we pulp it?

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I'm sure you'd delight many of her teammates and former teammates.

Speaker 1 Do you think there are any boxing autobiographies called Gloves Off?

Speaker 2 There must be. Come on.

Speaker 1 I'm going to look it up. Yeah, you know, looking at Tyson Fury, gloves off.
I knew it was good. I knew it was good, so I guess Mary Epps couldn't have had gloves off.
Gloves on.

Speaker 1 One glove on, one glove off. That's what I call it, the Mary Epps story.
The kind of subtitle of her book is Learning to be Unapologetically Me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, maybe, and now you're having to learn to be apologetically you.

Speaker 2 I have to warn you that the My Truth genre is on borrowed time.

Speaker 1 One glove on, one glove off.

Speaker 2 Richard, for you, a question from Chris Atkinson says, Previously, mega-popular BBC shows such as Bake Off and The Voice have switched to rivals after becoming a success.

Speaker 2 As The Traitors is not a direct BBC production, is there a chance a commercial rival could steal the rights?

Speaker 1 Yes, there absolutely is a chance. And people always get annoyed like when Bake Off went to Channel 4, and people had a go at Love Productions for doing it.

Speaker 1 And I think it's cheeky of the channel to take it, but you know, I understand why. But if you're Love Productions, this is you came up with it.
It's your show. You know, you've created it.

Speaker 1 And if someone's going to pay you more money for it, there's not a business in the world where you wouldn't then just sell it to some somebody else.

Speaker 2 But yeah, the Traders. Well, you might be happy with its impact.
I mean, you know,

Speaker 2 by the way, sell if the Traitors went to Channel 4, it would still get amazing ratings, but it wouldn't get what it gets on BBC One, and that's just that.

Speaker 1 It would be a a cash-in job.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, Love Productions had this huge hit, which they weren't really able to cash in that much because you can't do big commercial deals when you're on the BBC and they're on quite a few series with the BBC and I think they took the view I wonder now if after a long career in television if we're allowed to cash in which is what they did and continue to do so and it's worked for them and it's worked for channel 4 very very nicely so traitors

Speaker 1 with studio lambert is they make it for the bbc bbc have got definite one year left on the deal if studio lambert then decide to take it elsewhere the thing that kicks in which would almost always kick in which is there is usually a one year sometimes a two year window i suspect a two year window on the traders where you are not allowed to show it anywhere else so if they did want to take it to channel four if they wanted to take it to itv and if you're either those companies why would you not want it they could do it but we'd have to wait a long time for the next one it would cost itv or channel four a fortune to buy it that's for sure you know there's been studio lambda have got you know lots of big hits gogglebox and all sorts of things and people are always trying to poach them and you know there's ways and means of keeping things on channels and making sure that

Speaker 1 you're still being paid. But yeah, they could take it.
I doubt that they would, as you say,

Speaker 1 the idea that it's so massive. But in like five series' time, if we had moved on to something.

Speaker 2 Right now, we're all, yeah. I mean, right now, how could they be unhappy with the reaction it's had on BBC One? It's also the director of programmes at BBC, Kate Phillips, commissioned this show.

Speaker 2 So you can't say, oh, then the regime changed and the boss has changed at the moment.

Speaker 2 She's she's absolutely at the heart of it and just by the way can i just say we're having we're very pleased to say we're having kate phillips to do a q a next week we are she's the head of all bbc content so any questions you have for i don't know if there's anything about the bbc in the news that's piqued your interest at the moment if you'd love to ask a question about it we've got kate next week and she's terrific and do please dig deep for your questions.

Speaker 1 And she's behind, she sort of comes from an entertainment background, so it's behind all of that stuff. But you can ask her anything about any of those shows.
So yes,

Speaker 1 there's absolutely no reason why you would take it from the bbc at the moment claudia is there claudia is happy studio lambert are not a company that is looking to cash out because they've already cashed out a number of times they're not then it's not a situation like love where we thought you know what we're waiting for the one big payday quite rightly and they did it studio lambert have have had their paydays a number of times they make race across the world for the bbc so you know they they make stuff for um everybody i would think it's safe and up until the point where it's down to lower ratings and it would still do a pretty good job for an ITV or a Channel 4, but it's less interesting to the BBC.

Speaker 1 At that point, Studio Lambert might say, well, take it elsewhere. And Claudia will probably step back and someone else would do it.
But that would be in a long time, I think.

Speaker 1 I think it's safe and sound. I think talking to that amazing gang at Studio Lambert, I think they knew, even a couple of months ago, they were all going, you know what, this celebritis is pretty good.

Speaker 1 Everyone was like, it's, gosh, this is better than we...

Speaker 1 thought it was going to be even you know it's you know they're very talented but they were kind of going this yeah I think this is quite something I think they have been taken by surprise about quite how well it's landed and quite what a huge thing it has been and what's coming next I'm so excited that it's acted as a gateway drug into Tratodom for people who had not watched the original version and now will be able to in January yeah it's like all the people watching the curling at the Olympics who then watch the world curling championships to the next

Speaker 1 year for the but but these I think these people will be back in January they are sticking around but you know I think that the relationship between the the BBC and Studio Lambett is very, very strong.

Speaker 1 Exactly. You know,

Speaker 1 everyone's rowing the same boat in the same direction, and they're very happy to be doing so. So

Speaker 1 this is not immediately at risk for anybody. So I wouldn't worry about that.
I think it's staying on the BBC and I think it has a... a very healthy future there too.

Speaker 2 Questions about that format and anything else to Kate Phillips, please? Addresses the rest is entertainment at gallhanger.com and we're going to be talking to her next week, which will be lots of fun.

Speaker 1 We are indeed. Should we we do some adverts? Let's do that.

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Speaker 1 Welcome back, everybody. Question to you, Marina, from Al Jones, or possibly AI Jones.
Let's take a look at how he phrases it and we'll make our mind up. You have asked a question about Fortnite IP.

Speaker 1 Is this correct? I think it's AI Jones.

Speaker 1 No, Al says, I'm curious about how collaborations with major IPs work in games like Fortnite. When a popular franchise, e.g.

Speaker 1 Simpsons, appears in the game, does Fortnite typically pay for the rights to use the IP or do the IP owners pay to have their brand featured on such a high visibility platform?

Speaker 2 That's a good question. The answer is that it can work in either of those ways and actually sometimes also both at once in the form of sort of mutual partnerships.

Speaker 2 But Epic, Fortnite's made by Epic, and for people who don't play it or haven't seen it it's a game but there are for limited time periods other IP intellectual property appears in the form of skins this is like a way you can look as your your avatar can look themed weapons maps like little mini games that come off the main game new bosses to fight it's kind of like a metaverse where everything gets chucked in so you can have it's very it's quite hard to explain it

Speaker 2 I mean 15 years ago it'd be like I'm sorry I don't know what we're talking about but and you probably still feel like that way now now.

Speaker 2 But it's, as I say, it's a bit like a metaverse where everything gets chucked in, and you can have memes, pop stars, and movie characters, and fashion brands. You could blows Mary Urbs.

Speaker 2 Yeah, you could pose Mary Herbs.

Speaker 1 One glove on, one glove off.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. That's one.
That's the skin.

Speaker 2 And like a sweet little anime character who's now given a machine gun because they're in Fortnite, and so that's what can happen in Fortnite, even though it wouldn't happen in the game that you clicked came from.

Speaker 2 So if it's somebody else's IP,

Speaker 2 Epic would usually pay a licensing fee to them. So like Disney, like Star Wars does various things with them.
You get characters, props and the kind of music cues.

Speaker 2 And then sometimes, but what they can do then within the game is charge for those skins. And so, you know, consumers will pay.

Speaker 2 And so they make money, you know, anime things like My Hero Academia or whatever.

Speaker 1 If you've got Simpson skins, for example, there is money to be raised from that, and that money is going somewhere.

Speaker 2 If someone is promoting something, so they that then they will usually pay epic. So say

Speaker 2 Nike Nike have marketed Jordan's via the game, which is quite a simple one to explain. But there's lots of different kinds of marketing and advertising.

Speaker 2 And then sometimes you have a revenue share model where like lots of people have done concerts like Ariana Grande, Travis Scott, like Metallica, they've done these virtual concerts.

Speaker 2 The NFL have had some very, very successful kind of mutual partnership.

Speaker 2 And sometimes even other games publishers or games themselves like Halo will do a a crossover. And again, that's a marketing thing.
It's interesting that you said in your question

Speaker 2 that other games like Fortnite, it's really, there aren't really very many other games who do this, or certainly not to the scale.

Speaker 2 It's almost like Fortnite have eaten everybody's lunch on this because it's so massive. And they went really early into this.

Speaker 2 Because at the start, when this started happening, people thought, oh, I don't want to degrade my IP by putting it. But they were able to persuade a number of people.

Speaker 2 And then people saw how well it worked. Because it brings people in.
So I think I mentioned that like Metallica have done a concert. Okay, most Metallica fans might be middle-aged.

Speaker 2 I'm not categorizing all of them, but they might be middle-aged and they might not play Fortnite. If they say to you, Metallica are doing two virtual concerts, then Metallica don't do a lot.

Speaker 2 So you're hearing they're doing two virtual concerts in Fortnite. That's bringing those people into Fortnite.
Even if it's only temporary, they might get into it. So

Speaker 2 it's the absolute prime game for any of these crossovers.

Speaker 2 And there are certain ones that I remember when the summer we were talking about grower garden and like someone like Travis Kelsey had done a sort of collaboration and there are collaborations on Roblox but they're they are fewer all they grow a garden has fallen away I don't know if I oh no has it it's withered it well I told you that what was stealing up on the inside was steel a brain rot which it was steel a brain rot for absolutely Mars and Mars and that's been really yeah but he jandled the creator Grower Garden slightly ruined that game do you remember I told you about

Speaker 2 the Weimar inflation that happened in Grower Garden so then it was steeler brain rot but I think steel brain Brain Rott itself has now been surpassed by 99 Nights in the Forest, which is currently the number one game on Roblox.

Speaker 2 And you've got to survive.

Speaker 1 99 Nights in the Forest, which is, of course, Ant Poster Coglu's autobiography.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. And actually, they've made it wonderful for children.
Really involving. So, yes, that's the answer to that.
But it's interesting.

Speaker 2 Fortnite is such a behemoth, and no one else really does it to the same degree. They're kind of like you would go there first.

Speaker 1 With a lot of these collaborations, whether it could be fast food, food, it can be video games, it can be anything, there is,

Speaker 1 it's a status trade-off, essentially, which is Fortnite want to constantly be updating their game, which they do all the time themselves, all sorts of different mods, all sorts of different ways to play it.

Speaker 1 So, for them, you think, oh, we could have a Simpsons version of this. I mean, that's, they go, yes.
We would like that. That's a fun thing for us.

Speaker 1 If you're the Simpsons, you go, what, go into Fortnite? Yes, I see the status of that. So on that, who's paying who?

Speaker 1 Absolutely wouldn't know because they're both getting a lot out of that because if you're Fortnite Simpsons is like such a great legacy brand that it makes you feel good that you know gives it gives you an extra bit of luster everyone's winning on that as you say if you're if you're Nike and you've got a new product you are going to have to pay but if you look at the status of who is involved like Travis Kelsey when he's doing grow a garden that would have been one of 50 things in a meeting with his manager and he said we've got this in grow a garden and he'd go god no i'm not of course i'm not going to do that and then he'd say let me just take you through the demographics of this Let me take you through your demographics, which are here and very healthy.

Speaker 1 Let me take you through the demographics of Grow a Garden, which are very healthy, but also very different to your demographics. So this is like, this is free money.
for you.

Speaker 1 And with Grow a Garden, they're going, who can we have? Who could do it? Like Travis Kelsey, oh, he's never going to say yes.

Speaker 1 And so again, with that, no one's having to pay anyone because everyone's making money. So there's some things which are pure advertising.

Speaker 1 So if it was, for example, a very specific Simpsons movie thing, then there might be money changing hands.

Speaker 1 But if there's two bits of media that have their own fandom and have quite a substantial fandom, then the joining together is very, very clearly understood these days that brands tend to multiply each other rather than divide each other.

Speaker 1 And so people are very, very happy to be in different fields and for everyone to, you know, the collaborations you see between the wildest companies these days because they recognize that it works for everyone.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 2 But Fortnite is head, shoulders, and I think full torso above all the others in terms of this.

Speaker 2 Now, a question for you, Richard, from Emma Withell, who says, Having recently become slightly obsessed with the new musical production of Paddington, Paddington the Musical, I can't stop thinking about Paddington's costume and how all the elements come together to work so convincingly.

Speaker 2 Can you explain what goes into making Paddington move, speak, and sing so expressively when there are so many components at work?

Speaker 1 Yes, particularly if you're doing a stage show, because there is no CGI or anything like that. So it's a real thing on the stage.

Speaker 1 So this is a, I think it's in previews at the moment at the Savoy Theatre. I'm very happy to answer this question because I'll answer anything, which is McFly adjacent.
And the songs in this have

Speaker 1 been written by Tom Fletcher from McFly. So, it's got Paddington, it's got Tom Fletcher from McFly.
What could possibly go wrong?

Speaker 1 So, Tara Zafar is the person who designed Paddington Bear for the stage. She's been working on this since about 2019.

Speaker 1 She was the head of makeup at the 2012 Olympic ceremony, and she made the PG Tips Monkey. So, come on.
I mean, has anyone had a better career than that?

Speaker 2 That's incredible. I would like to know.

Speaker 1 Well, okay. Well done.
Well done, Tara. Carry on.
So Neil Scanlon approached her. He was one of the chief creature makers on Star Wars and said, look, we've got to do Paddington.

Speaker 1 It's going to be live. How do we put this together? So she's been working on it a long time.
She said, the first thing we thought is we started off thinking what we didn't want.

Speaker 1 Most importantly, we didn't want him to be surrounded by loads of puppeteers. Yeah.
Okay, so not like, you know, like War Horse or something like that. Which is amazing, but

Speaker 2 it's a different vibe. It's very different vibe.

Speaker 1 We wanted audience to see the little bear all by himself, vulnerable in the middle of the stage.

Speaker 1 So what they've ended up with there is an actor uh artie shah and artie is she's only she's four feet tall artie she's in the uh a bear costume she's in a bear suit for the on-stage bear presence so while backstage there's a an actor uh it's currently james hamid who's controlling the bear's facial expressions provides the voice and controls the robotic you know how that all works remotely so you've got someone who can do all of the movements actually in the suit and you've got someone who can do the expressiveness and the acting who is backstage at the same time so you've got Artie in the costume, you've got James doing the thing.

Speaker 1 The face. The face.
Tara says that there is an awful lot more to it, which she won't give away because she does want it to be magical.

Speaker 1 And quite rightly, because what's more magical than going to see Pennington, the musical, and seeing Pennington for real? And like, what she does say is that Artie, who's in this bear costume, she

Speaker 1 trained for it by sitting in a sauna fully clothed for a week. It's a very physical performance.
She's super professional. The bear suit is quite hot.

Speaker 1 It's made out of sustainable wool, but that's still wool, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she also assures us that no bears were harmed in any of this process.

Speaker 2 That's a training montage, isn't it? Just sitting in this window.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get ready to just get more and more clothes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 2 Okay, that's incredible. I really need to see this.
I want to go and see this. Well,

Speaker 1 it's gone. The question is being asked is that, you know, I'll say this at the beginning.
And thank you for the question. This bear has gone viral.
You can see all sorts of clips of this bear.

Speaker 1 And it does look amazing, but how is it done? Yeah, so that's in previews at the moment at the Savoy Theatre. But if you watch it, then hats off to Artie and to James.
Gloves off to them both.

Speaker 2 I think that about winds us up for today.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 We will, of course, be back tomorrow with a bonus episode,

Speaker 2 part two of the outrageous MTV story.

Speaker 1 And if you want to sign up, it's therestersenttertainment.com. Add for your listening, all that sort of thing.
Don't forget.

Speaker 2 We'd also love your Kate Phillips questions.

Speaker 1 Yes, please send questions about anything to do with TV, anything on the BBC for Kate Phillips, and we will put them to her.

Speaker 2 That's the rest is entertainment at goalhanger.com. And otherwise, we will see you next Tuesday.

Speaker 1 See you next Tuesday.

Speaker 2 This episode was brought to you by our good friends at Sky.

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