The Rest Is Entertainment - The Return Of Phillip Schofield

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

After his sacking from This Morning and public fall from grace, Phillip Schofield has returned to our screens on Channel 5's Cast Away. Marina gives her take on his on grasp at redemption. Bridgerton, Netflix's biggest show, has spawn many official immersive experiences but an unofficial experience hit the headlines this week after failing to fulfil it's promise of an evening of "sophistication, grace, and historical charm". What is the history and future of the immersive experience market including the soon to launch Taskmaster? And Strictly Come Dancing is back on our screens. How are the stars booked and how do you identify those who are going to become audience favourites? Recommendations: Richard: Designing The Hebrides (iPlayer) Newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport As always we appreciate your feedback on The Rest Is Entertainment to help make the podcast better: https://forms.gle/hsG8XXMc4QyGNBHN8 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello. I'm sorry, I'm rather croaky this week, but I'm otherwise well.

From hard living. Sadly not from hard virusing. But you have been on your book tour in America. I've been in America, yeah, which is again, not heard of it. Going there after this podcast. You are, aren't you? Yeah, we're literally, I came in from America. You're about to go out to America. Yes.

It sounds like that's how we live all the time, which we don't. But no, I just want to be on our sofas watching television at home. Oh my God. No, I had the loveliest time, lots of book events and yeah, it was very, very cool. I'm a tiny bit jet lagged, you're a tiny bit croaky,

but what a packed show we have today. What a packed show we have today. And some good stuff on today's show. Yes. Especially the first bit, which I'm very, very excited about because you have an advantage over me in the first bit. Have I? So often. I don't know whether I have an advantage. I have watched some of Philip Schofield's cast away on Channel 5. And you were going to just keep your powder dry for a second because I want to hear all about it, but you are going to be taking us through your views on it. I will be taking you through my views on it very much.

I imagine your views are balanced, I imagine they are sort of fair and... I've got a number of very, very balanced views on this show. Anyhow. We're also going to be talking about the world of immersive experiences. There was a nightmare with a Bridgerton one and the Taskmaster one is launching this week, so we're gonna talk about immersive experiences. How to cast Strictly, how to? How to be a breakout star of Strictly.

Who has been a breakout star, how and why, in the UK and in America. And I think there are two breakout stars on this year, Strictly, who are gonna do very, very, very well out of it. Right then. Cast Away, produced by Clive Tullow, who's done millions of these things, does loads of brilliant travelogues, Clive, so he really, really knows what he's doing as well. So it's, you know, five, as we know, commissioned very, very well.

So it's got smart people around it, but it's still, it has a, it has a faint whiff, doesn't it? Don, your hazmat suits, because we're about to go away to an island off the coast of Madagascar. Channel 5 have performed, can I say it, have performed the dubious coup of signing Philip Schofield latterly of this morning for their format Cast Away, which is when a celebrity has to go and live on an uninhabited island for 10 days. Filming themselves. Filming themselves. Filming themselves.

There's not even camera operators, it's literally just one person by themselves. Now it's being stripped across Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night of this current week. I have seen the first episode, I had to go through a huge number of loops to do that. Really? What sort of loops do you have to watch something? When programs come out they have something, I noticed that the rules were completely different for people who wish to write news stories about it, but anyway, you have something called an embargo, which means you're not allowed to write about it or talk about it for review purposes until a certain time, in this case apparently two hours after the episode has finished airing.

So anyway, I've signed a number of documents and it aired on Monday night episode one. So some people would have seen last night's episode, which is the one you're going to talk about. I have not. So you've signed lots of documents. I have not, but you're allowed to talk now. I'm now allowed to talk about it. Now allowed to in a tabloid parlance break my silence.

Excellent. Marina Hyde, ungagged. On this. Anyway, he says it took him 30 hours to get to Madagascar. I don't know which airports he passed through on the way, but had he cared to look out of the window in any of those, he might have had a realisation that what he was about to embark on was some real fast wild problem stuff. As we know, Philip Schofield was let go, fired, resigned from, there seem to be a number of conflicting narratives from this morning because he had a relationship with a much, much younger

member of very, very junior staff, which he consistently lied about. And the relationship with his co-host Holly Willoughby had broken down, partly for that reason, but for other reasons as well, some of which can't be discussed. He asks quite early on, and the format of the show is, we see him at home talking about the things that have befallen him, and we see him with his family, and we see him in a studio before he goes. And he says, you know, will this be my opportunity for reflection? No, on the basis of what I've seen. I would call this a voyage to the limits of self-pity. I think there was almost zero contrition at all in the

episode I saw. He said, I screwed up, I made a mistake, but otherwise it's a sort of picnic of narcissism. There's some funny sort of quotes that you have to laugh at. He says, I'm four to one to do the other Jungle show. And he's asked, you know, will you do it? By the way, you haven't been asked. Anyway, so he says, I'm a celebrity. Well, my best friends host it. But there are just some channels you won't work for some people you won't work for. I'm sure Kevin Ligo over at ITV, director of programs is crying into his coffee about

that one. I can't imagine Kevin Ligo at ITV ever crying. He's like a sort of terminator for people who don't know. I think his tears won't liquefy if he watches this episode. Let's put it that way. He talks a lot about, Schofield talks a lot about three shits who have done him over. I don't know who they are, but you can assume they're executives. I suspect that one is Holly, because, by the way, has gone through some

horrific stuff in the last year. I mean, genuinely that legal case of the person who was plotting to rape and kill her, I mean, the most horrible thing. Anyhow, you see the stuff with Schofield and his wife and daughters that start that having sort of family barbecue and he sort of hammerly deadpans to them all, are you okay? Which is something that Holly said when she came back to this morning after he had departed. So I think that was a sort of little drive-by on her. There's a significant loathing of the media, a medium via which he of course had a great 40-year career. He

says, I think for balance if I was Schofield I would have a significant loathing of the media as well at the moment But he says let me get on with a quiet life. You've all given me you're on a reality TV show on Channel 5 But okay, what don't you miss about TV? You learn a lot about people you really learn a lot and I don't miss that There is a sense when you're watching this that he doesn't remotely understand what has happened he says I will not be defeated by it. And there's a bit when he's eating a mango, which I really thought could serve as a review of the entire episode, he says, the bitterness sucks the inside of your cheeks in. Well, yes. And that show business. Yeah, and yes, and his attempts at fishing, he says, this must be so

embarrassing to watch. Well, yes, I did find it. I can see why Channel 5, you can see why Channel 5 done this. Yeah, yeah, I get it. And it's, it seems, you know, no harm, no foul. It's literally just him on an island. You know, you're going to get huge publicity. We're talking about it. Other people are going to watch it for sure. It's going to be very big business for Channel 5. And again, there's been no court case. So it's not a Hugh Edwards situation. There's nothing stopping anybody putting, um, Philip Schofield on the television, it's just a matter of time before he came on TV. He's still pushing that line, by the way, unwise but not illegal, which is crisis PR

gave to him. And I have to say, oh my God, the crisis PR needed a crisis PR. That was not, yeah, I think he's dropped the illegal, so he now says it was unwise. Unwise yet illegal. Yeah, you know what, unwise and illegal. Yeah, you know what, I should not have set fire to that warehouse. When I think about it, it was unwise also against the law. Now I think about it. So yeah, I absolutely understand why they did it.

Would I have done it? Probably not. Maybe leave it another six months or something. If I was, for the scofford, would I have done it? Absolutely. Oh, you can see why I did it, would I have done it? Probably not. Maybe leave it another six months or something. If I was Philip Schofield, would I have done it? Absolutely. Oh, you can see why I did it. No one's got a right of reply. He controls the narrative. Absolutely. He films himself. He hasn't got Amol Rajan interviewing him. No, absolutely not. Which is a lovely place to be for anybody at any given time. Honestly, any day you go

where Amol Rajan is not interviewing you, you just think, do you know what, I will tuck that day in my back pocket and keep it with me. So yeah, I get it. And also, you know, Philip Schofield's view of Philip Schofield and his family's view of Philip Schofield is obviously very, very different to most other people. So, you know, he's coming from a completely different angle, which is he wants his stuff out there. So it's sort of perfect for all sides, I would say. But what you really want, of course, is to be on this show and for everybody to go, actually, you are forgiven. And actually, we do now understand your side of the story. We do understand your perspective. Welcome back into the fold.

But you don't think that's what's happening here. I will come to whether he can parlay this into a return to television in a bit. But what I would say is, I'll be really interested to see what you think when you watch it, because for me, I found it such a sort of manned portrait of a man who knows how television works. So there's a bit at the start where he sort of gives himself,

he gives himself a potential arc. He says, I want to see if the ultimate isolation can finally set me free. That's clever. There's a bit at the start where he's, they have an interview with him before he's got to the island. He says, I'm going to say this now and then we'll cut to, and then he says, I'm really good at fire.

And then they duly do cut to him not actually being able to get the fire going. And there's a load of mugging at the camera, like he's doing one of those silly demos on this morning. Yeah. And I just felt incredibly managed throughout it all. Like, yeah, I can see what you're trying to do. You've also said to us what you're trying to do. And I found it just for that reason, a sort of double layer of cynicism, because you're sort of being shown how he's going to manipulate you into saying I've actually done nothing wrong.

As I say, ITV didn't have a right of reply. I would watch a show where they put Kevin Ligo now on a desert island for a week genuinely I'd watch that for people we talk about Kevin sometimes and obviously people don't know who he is. We always need to talk about him. Yeah we do he is an incredible character and if you put Kevin Ligo on an island for a week he's indiscreet enough if you ever have lunch with him if you left him on a desert island by himself for a week and then just handed him prompt cards like Schofield, Ant and Dec, Daytime TV, I would honestly, that's a ratings winner.

It would be truly epic but I have to say it's less so with Schofield. Also the sort of sense of self-importance is titanic. He talks about, he says, the three shits, they've taken pretty much everything reputation dignity Legacy legacy. I mean your legacy is whatever inherited audience You can leave over for loose women when you wind up at the end of the program, right? That's that's your legacy Okay, you the self-importance is extraordinary and it does slightly remind you of the personality We were dealing with him which spoiler in my view had some part in his downfall. There's a little thing of a tarantula running away from him. Everyone's a critic. I mean maybe he thinks he's being winsome but honestly I kept watching it

thinking there will be palm trees on this island on the phone to their agent saying get me off this job. I do not want to work with this guy. I'm no, I've had enough. I'm not saying you meet them all on the way back down but there wasn't that much support for Phillips go for because a lot of people not all people but a lot of people found him Very difficult to work with so often the the case when people do do something that is Unwise but not illegal if people do illegal things by and large. That's it for them in television and rightly, so if you do something that is on that razor's edge where you kind of, where there is a group of people could without full knowledge of the facts go, oh, seems fair enough. What he did, I kind of get it. In those situations, tax avoidance, things like that,

the way that you have treated people over the years becomes very very important, the relationships that you've grown and the way that you've dealt with people actually means you can be protected and looked after and there is an easier route back. And you're right, and I don't know his relationship particularly with people at ITV, but he didn't seem to have very many defenders. He didn't seem to have many people who would go out to bat for him.

And often things interesting when agents dump clients as well when they haven't done anything illegal. Like if your, Hugh Edge was agent, of course you'd dump your client, there's no way around it. But if your agents are dumping you as well, then that's interesting, his agents were YMU. The only reason if you're YMU that you would dump that client is

you had absolutely no previous knowledge of how they might behave in any way whatsoever, and this has all come as a shock to you, which of course is not true. So if you're YMU, think reputationally it's difficult for them to reconcile what they've done with what they'd known about him previously so I understand why there's some beef there I kind of get that you know you can't support someone support someone support someone and then the second you know

publicly things come out you don't support somebody so that's a that's a tricky one. His daughter became his, who used to work for YMU, left YMU to become his publicist but actually YMU did go in with his daughter many months later to ITV saying is there a blacklist at ITV? Is Philip on it? Why is he not getting, you know, well I don't know if you remember something from 10 minutes ago but this is why he's not currently working at ITV but I don't know whether there's some sort of residual relationship there. I don't know if you remember something from 10 minutes ago, but this is why he's not currently working at ITV But I don't know whether there's some sort of residual relationship there I don't quite understand why someone who dumped him then went in and said you've been treated you treated him very badly My absolute favorite bit by the way of that

thing we did the World Television Society Conference a couple of weeks ago was a mole Rajan interviewing Tim Davey at the BBC and saying Will Hugh Edwards ever work for the BBC again and Tim Davey going no and a mole Rajan interviewing Tim Davey at the BBC and saying, will Hugh Edwards ever work for the BBC again? And Tim Davey going, no. And Amol Rajan going, why? It's like, have you opened the newspapers this morning? Do you have access to the internet? Take a guess. One of the things Phillips Gofield says in this is that it was to do with homophobia. Maybe there was some of that in the coverage, but he said, if it had been a young woman, if that had been the case with me and it had been a woman, pat on the back, well done mate. Well, I think that if you're in an almost 40-year age gap relationship, you're the most senior person on that show

and this person is the most junior person on that show. You first met them when they were 15, you say nothing happened till they were 20. And that person, if say it was a woman and that woman had lost her dream job and was now jobbing around the pub trade and really have her entire adult life having to be discussing this thing, then no, you would not have been getting a pat on the back for me. And I just think that's complete nonsense. And it might be a nice story he likes to tell himself when there's nobody to challenge him over his little beach bonfire, But that's a ridiculous point of view.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, maybe in the 1980s before, you know, any of us were in the workplace, but that absolutely it would be held over you for the rest of your career if you did do that, if you had that reputation. I mean, listen, talk to Jermaine Genis if you want to know whether it's pure homophobia or whether actually inappropriate relations in the workplace with colleagues are, you know, Jermaine Genisuses in a relationship, blah, blah, blah. So there's all sorts of, as always with these things, they're always complicated. But the basic truth of it is, what he did was inappropriate. And I've never worked in a workplace, I've never worked in a television production where it would have been acceptable, or whether, even if there was nothing

you could do about it, whether people would have patted him on the back Yeah, and anybody by the way in his life He would have passed him on the back of people that you would want to drum out with a business Anyway, I agree and I think saying oh in the gay world This is totally normal is a form of homophobia in itself So I think we don't need to have him on his high horse One thing I would love to talk about with you because I do think it's fun The island format I just it's fun. The island

format, I just, it's really interesting. Islands and reality TV, when they first started doing reality TV, lots of shows quickly became on islands. And I sort of love what islands, they wanted something or subconsciously they wanted something, this is reflexively part of the choice, where kind of like, normal rules don't apply. The culture has done all this work heavy lifting for ever since Robin St. Crusoe. You just think, oh, okay, people are just having to do things that they wouldn't normally do to survive. Normal rules don't apply. It might turn really nasty, but that's only to be expected. We're on an island, all of those kinds of

things. So I find the island format, it's a place where you're going to either, you know, fuck, fight or find yourself. And I find that a sort of hilarious. Although if you're by yourself, like Phillip Schofield, you can't, there's a couple of those you can't do. Um, I would say, I think he could have a fight there. Really back in for that. Uh, yeah, it's funny enough. It's, it's, it's exactly like, um, crime fiction in a funny kind of way,

uh, modern crime fiction, which is you need somewhere where people cannot escape from and don't have mobile coverage. And if you've got that, suddenly you've got yourself a plot. Yeah, islands have always been the thing. And this weirdly harks back to one of the very first castaway years and years ago, late eighties, Joanna Lumley was abandoned on a desert island. And that's where Survivor came from. Charlie Parson said to me, Oh, Joanna Lumley's been the silent. Can we do something on an island? And I said, won't you send a load of different people over there and you vote one out each week, I mean, that's, you know, voting out and that's all that kind

of stuff and that survivor. And ever since, as you say, there's lots and lots of versions of this, you know, and Bear Grylls did his thing, the island web almost went very, very badly wrong. But you know, that had a crew and by the way, working as a crew on those shows is an insane job because you are also you're doing exactly what these people are doing and it's sort of miserable but any no crew on this one but islands yeah are a real trope and it is just that thing of you can't go anywhere I mean you know even in the jungle you know there's doctors around you know the crew are nearby on an island you're sort of there's just something about it which which means the

fripperies of television, you know there's not a green room. Do you remember on 30 Rock, they had a fake pitch for one called Milf Island, which was going to be like 25 super hot moms, 58th grade boys, no rules. And then of course TLC actually did commission Milf Manor, is a manor an island? Can't all the semi-cancelled men be put on an island and the prize is that they can return to their career exactly as they left it. And it's everyone, it's like Scofield, Scott Rubin, anyway, if they haven't gone to prison. Redemption Island?

Yeah, well, I think it would be Murder Island because they would tread over each other's warm corpses to get back to exactly how it was before they were cancelled. But it would be a whole series of men sort of saying, no, but I'm really reflected. Like who was reflected the most? I wonder if it would. I think, yes. Reflection Island. Well, Schofield's not reflecting.

It would be a child. But he is reflecting, isn't he? In this... He's deflecting, yeah. I would call it like Edge Lord of the Flies and they would all have to, and they would all end up killing each other. But how long do you think, okay, let's get to this final question then if he's not sort of, how long do you think a wilderness thing should last?

For me, this is about 15 minutes after he departed. We've seen that lots of these people are being released back into the wild slowly. People like the producer Scott Rudin in the States who people think is, yeah, Scott Rudin's back, he's coming back through theatre, okay? All of these people, yeah, it's like a beautiful story, they're being released from captivity, prison of their own making. Louis C.K. came back very quickly. He got a Grammy, as he's been, so lots of these people are sort of coming back, you know, coming back at, you know,

coming back into the wild. But how long should a wildernessing last? In politics, it's about five minutes nowadays. See, here's the interesting thing, isn't it? Because for us, it doesn't feel like Phillips Schofield's wildernessing has lasted very long because we don't think about Phillips Schofield very often. So since, you know, he was well on this indispensable to the culture, exactly, we've thought about him 14 times. Whereas for this, go for this, for this, go for it all day, every day. And for this, go for his family, all his family, all day, every day.

So they're very, it's very, very present to them, the wilderness thing. And so 18 months to him, he's lived every single minute of every single day. So he would obviously be fast forwarding the de-wilderness thing. We call it de-wilderness thing, right? Yeah. That's the word. We do now. Yeah. Whereas foring, right? Yeah, that's what we do now. Whereas for us, we're just thinking, oh no, I need to have thought of you maybe 40 times before you're allowed back. And in your terms, that would be four years or something like

that. So people will always try and come back out of the wilderness quicker than we would like them to. What will he get out of this? A travelogue? That's the question is, what does he get out of this? So where does he want to get back to? What is it that he wants to do? And I'm aware in this show that, you know, he said this might be the last thing I ever do.

I just wanted my right to reply. And as you rightly point out, the way he deals with this TV producer, a TV brain, that's how he's, that's where he's comfortable. That's where he's happy. And he's done it very, very well a number of times in lots of different places. So if you are Philip Schofield, then of course you want to come

back onto television. There's no, you know, that's absolutely fine. And of course, by the way, you've done this program, of course you're going to do all of these things. If he feels he has not done anything wrong, if he feels he'd been over-punished and he feels like the job that he used to do, which he was good at, is something that he's not allowed to do. Of course, his job is to step by step come back to where he was. But in terms of an industry, it's hard to work out where the next step is for him. So the question is, yeah, where do you go next? Now, do you go on? I'm a celebrity. We're going to talk a little bit about...

Yeah, he's not going to get booked by ITV. Can I just put that out here? He's not going to get booked by ITV. Can I just put that out here? He's not going to get booked by ITV. But then you always get to the stage where channels become desperate or format starts losing some of its luster or some of its viewers. He's not Tom Cruise though, he's not box office. I just fundamentally, there's a lot about this that's disproportionate. The way that people talk about this morning, who hosts it, no offence, you know, it's a great show for the time of day. But it's, we talk about this more than like British foreign policy.

Yes. And it's like a show with, well, now I actually think that's quite important. Yeah, I do too. Yeah, I don't want to do a podcast about it, but I do. I would say that we talk about this show that has, a million viewers, a significant thing for significantly under a million viewers, in a sort of feverish way that is disproportionate to its surely actual influence within the culture. And this is why he thinks that he is an indispensable,

you know, broadcaster who can talk about something like legacy. It's like when Piers Morgan left GMB and he was saying, well, good luck without me. And of course the ratings are Identical these occasionally he'll quote that they've gone down, but they went down from the one episode where he walked out Which weirdly got more viewers and so he takes that as his benchmark and actually listen if he's listening he'll he knows the truth Of this it's exactly the same as it was if not slightly more And they've got loads of great new hosts on that show. They run it in a very interesting way.

So Morgan was able to do that. And it's not just that thing of saying, I want a legacy. Morgan was then able to parlay that into like a 50 million pound deal with News International, which is insane for nothing. Yeah. They literally got nothing. The channel they put them on is gone,

but anybody who works for News International, anybody like Murdoch, anyone like that, if you are thinking of spending 50 million pound on somebody, talk to just any television producer, anyone, any single person say to, what do you think we're getting for this money? What is it that he brought to your program? You know, what extra return on investment did you get

on GMB for him being there? they will everything want to tell you zero Which is not to say wasn't a good percent on that because he was not to say it wasn't an entertaining watch because it was But he bought no extra money into that they didn't have any experience of television So the question is where does go field go next? What can he do and we live now in a world in a culture, actually, those gatekeepers are much, much, much less important. You know, the Russell Brands of this world can go on their own platforms and produce their own content and find their own audience. Scofield, I think, is of a generation where that is alien to him. He's absolutely a beast of television, a beast of terrestrial television. So his instinct is always, how

do I make my comeback? I make my comeback by going on Channel 5, rather than I make my comeback like Russell Brand by starting to baptize people in a river, isn't it? And so, you know, in a way that's, it's Scofield's way of coming back is just the way he understands, which is I'm going to go on television, which people can click on their remote control

and they can find me. But actually the way of coming back now is very different, but Ellen DeGeneres has done the same thing. She's done a big new stand-up, especially in America, after all the kind of bullying allegations. And she said, yeah, they accused me of this. They accused me of that. Well, I'm a strong woman.

And you think, oh, I don't know. Again, that's been widely received as a sorry, not sorry. Yeah. And people don't like that. Yeah. I feel like we have not seen the last of either Ellen DeGeneres or Philip Schofield or unfortunately Russell Brand. I think they're going to be part of our culture for some time to come. Well, if it wasn't George Brand,

we definitely haven't seen the last of. But yes, they'll never be what they were again. That couldn't be more clear. But we'll have to see in what way they managed to inveigle their way back into sections of the public affection. Would you, just to people listening, would you recommend they watch the Schofield thing or leave it unwatched? I think it's, well, I mean, it's totally up to you. It will give them ratings and then he'll take something from that. But I think it's quite interesting for the reasons I've said a sort of television native telling you what he's doing and then doing it and trying

to redeem himself in a really sort of very obvious and in my view quite sort of you couldn't call it gossamer touched way. And I think it would be quite it's quite interesting to watch from that point of view. But yes as an exercise in not giving people rights to reply, not telling the whole story again, it's interesting. All of these things are interesting. They're in the culture. I i watched them all i didn't have sort of things that i refused to watch really on that note so whatever that note was and i think it's a like a tight rope that we're going to be walking on for many years to come in our culture i wonder what advertised in philips gofield's breaks because i haven't seen that bit oh yeah that's interesting yeah sorry i'm doing that as a really

quite poor segue into our own commercial break. I wonder what's advertising and us talking about what's advertising in Philip Schofield's show. Let's find out. Welcome back everybody. Now, immersive experiences, two sides of that coin. I'm going to talk a little bit about the Taskmaster one, which is all being announced this week. But there was recently a Bridgerton immersive experience which didn't go quite as well as it might have done. Yes, the cultural mania for immersive experiences which we're also going to discuss. The Bridgerton one I've got to say right off the bat because a lot of people won't have got that far down

the news reports. It was not an official Netflix or Shondaland experience. By the way, there are a load of Bridgerton experiences, which we'll come to in a minute. These immersive experiences where you turn up somewhere and you're in the middle of a ball and there's wonderful kind of... It can be all sorts of things. You can do Monopoly Live, you can do... There's a sort of dopamine one in London. There are so many of these things, which we'll talk about in a bit, but the Bridgerton one, this was an off-brand one, I'm going to stress that, in Detroit, and I think it cost $200 to attend. People spent hundreds of dollars on their outfits, they look great

in the pictures. They were invited to step into the enchanting world of the Regency era with sophistication, grace and historical charm. Now, what they actually stepped into was a world of one violin, I think sort of strip lighting, no chairs. There was for some reason that no one, none of the reports has adequately explained a stripper's pole with an exotic dancer in the center of this. Again not necessarily typically Regency but I don't want to comment on too much, I'll leave that to the rest of history. And they had soggy noodles and chicken wings. Wow.

And all the organizers have said, as I say, not Netflix or Shondaland, I've said there's that there were organizational challenges, which is like, yeah, I've seen the pictures. And so it's been one of those things a bit like the Wonka one or whatever, but there are many, many bridges and experiences. It's been spun off into, it's obviously the biggest show on Netflix. So they've had the Queen's ball, which is in cities across the world and you pay a lot of money and you go and you there's somebody who's as Queen Charlotte and she chooses the diamond of the ball and

all of this and that's the real deal yeah there's Bridgerton by candlelight which is concerts of all the sort of orchestral concerts. Oh that sounds nice. I know. Is there a stripper's poll there? There's a thing that says you will smell flowers and you will not be imagining things. By the way, what you are in fact smelling is a synthetic wisteria scent that is being pumped through the venue. You will smell flowers sounds like a really minor thing. You are kidding me, we can smell flowers. $200, yes please, just smell some flowers. This is in fact you're experiencing a synthetic version of flowers.

Honestly, for me, I prefer that. Because you don't have to go outside. Well, I'm going to come to immersive experiences in a bit because there are so many, the ones in London at the moment, I mean this, you know, Van Gogh live, there's sort of ways of looking at art. Is it art? We'll come along to that. There's been a Dali one. Finally, is it art? Dopamine, Dopamine Land, the faulty Taz dining experience, Alcatraz, prison cocktail bar, theatrical

experience. No. Fundamentally different understanding of the rock than I'd ever, anyway, whatever. Mamma Mia the party, which I believe Ingrid has attended. She had, yes, a couple of her friends took her along to that. And you'd go a long way to find a bigger fan of Abba than Ingrid. I have to say the first half hour she was dubious. The last few hours she had a wonderful time. She really, really enjoyed herself. Her and a couple of friends and a series of Americans, all of whom were Trump supporters, sit, but I think all dancing on tables by the end of it. It sounds like a thing.

Why can't we just come together by the music of AB thing. Why can't we just come together rather music? Yeah. Why can't we just? Exactly that. Now tell me about the taskmaster, because the signs have gone up for the taskmaster experience. And my daughter was seeing them all around the tube and was asking all about it. So can you please tell me about that? I believe you've got some insight on that. Yes, I've been talking to as a taskmaster alumnus, I've been talking to them all about it. So it is interesting,

because some of those things, when they get advertised, you just think, could this be awful? I went to one of those immersive plays years ago, which everyone loved, and it literally might have been the worst evening of my life. Punch Drunk are the most famous immersive theater company, and they've done lots of these immersive experiences.

They do wear masks, walk between different rooms, and stuff like that. I was just honestly put on a play. You would absolutely hate those. There were no Maltesers, nothing. But this world where you go along like the Crystal Maze experience, which Ingrid's also done with the family and loved it. So you know, when people put a bit of money and love behind these things and when the

show is involved, they can be great. So Dars Master experience. Now everything Taskmaster does tends to be good. And it tends to be good because Alex Horner's the talent, loves that show and puts his all into things. And the production team behind it, Andy Devonshire and his team, also love it. It's one of those shows where they live it. And Andy Devonshire's been making this for 10 years, nonstop, and adores it. Talking to everybody behind it, it sounds like it's going to be amazing. So, it is sort of an immersive theatre experience it sounds like it's going to be amazing. So it is

sort of an immersive theatre experience. I think it's got 72 members of cast on this thing. And you turn up with your friends and you genuinely play Taskmaster. All the tasks have been created by Alex. The one thing about it is you're not judged. There are all things where there is actually somebody wins by getting more or doing more or something like that. So it sounds like a genuinely great experience, but also, you know, the love and something like that. So it sounds like a genuinely great experience, but also, you know, the love and care behind the scenes, it sounds like over the years, they got so many props from that show.

And the Taskmaster house itself, which is very, very tiny, which they constantly trying to pretend isn't where it is. And someone keeps putting it on Google Maps where it is. But you know- It is iconic. It is iconic. It is iconic. But even the house itself is too small even to film the show really and would certainly be too small to do the immersive experience.

So they've recreated lots of the environments within that. They've got loads of paintings from people who've been on the show. The cocktails are all themed around awful cocktails people have had to make on the show over the years and stuff like that. And yeah, the production design is going to look like Taskmaster, it will be filled with things from Taskmaster, the events and you know, all the challenges that you do with your friends have been created by the team behind Taskmaster, uh, and you know,

makes all the difference. Yeah. Someone's just like said, like license the idea and said, you get on with it. Exactly. Then that, and lots of the board games of popular shows are bad. Oh God, don't. For this reason. Oh my God, some of the board games of shows I've done.

Okay. Like the pointless board game. I mean, absolutely inexplicable. I always say, if anyone has a go at me, I don't have nothing to do with me, but I say just use the cards and ask your own questions. Come up with your own format. I really liked it at our house when you did use the cards

and asked my children all the questions. I see that's the- They were in true heaven. He did the entire show and they were on it. That's an immersive experience. Yeah, that was so immersive. Yeah. Not scalable really.

Not really, I was thinking about that. How do you do a house of games experience? So it's run by one of these immersive production companies, but Andy, the producer and Alex, he just said, look, we all can't help but to get involved. They love it. And also they love the legacy of that show. And so they are constantly suggesting things and constantly, you know, outside of their work hours and you know what they're being paid for constantly,

you know, suggesting things and recommending things and improving things. And so it's launching this week or the press night. I'm actually going to get this week. I think it's going to be great. I think it is. I mean, listen, look for the reviews and stuff like that, but I tell you what it isn't and it is not the Detroit Bridgerton.

Uh, I suspect there won't be a, a, a stripper pole there. I guess, although you never know. No. Uh, so yeah, I think it's going to be the sort of thing that if you are a fan of that show that you will love and it's Loads of it is already sold out. It might be one of those things is enormously profitable I think Which takes us to another point really which is if you are a producer or you're a taskmaster this world

We talk about a lot where it's much harder to make money out of television than it used to be if you do have a brand Then these this is the way that you make money out of it now. They think it's going to be worth over eight trillion, the experience economy as they call it, by 2020. Not just the Taskmaster one. Not just the Taskmaster one, which would be nice, by 2028. And it's exploded since the pandemic and there's lots of interesting reasons for that.

Even ABBA Voyage, that's an immersive experience, really. You know, it's not the band playing, it's something that's been created by producers in a venue, which you can just go to forever. And Taskmaster is at Canada Water, I think. And the economics of it are, as I say, there's 72 members of staff on this thing, and lots of stuff has to be done. But the economics are such that if it is a hit,

it's a hit, like we were talking about recently, is a hit like a West End show is a hit. And if it runs and runs and runs, it's making the money of a West End show, which is a huge amount of money. And given a hit. And if it runs and runs and runs, it's making the money of a West End show, which is a huge amount of money. And given there is not a huge amount of money left in television, if you have one of these legacy brands, which Taskmaster is, then it's the way to go.

And if you do it properly and it runs and runs and runs, then that's the way to do these things. And that's the way you can start monetizing your brands because the world of television, you're not able, you know, traders, quite hard to monetize the format of traders, but a traders immersive experience, which you would imagine would be coming down the tracks, then that would be a way of making a huge amount of money out of that format. But also on a sort of, sorry to bring a minor key into this, but I do think that, not with

a Taskmaster theme, which is obviously a different experience, but so many of these things like these art experiences, Van Gogh or whatever, which is like so many millions of people around the world. And is that stuff where you walk in and you're sort of inside the paintings and stuff, so I haven't been to one? Yes, you are, but rather like all these things, you don't walk in at the start of the film, so you're sort of like, you walk in and then you think, I better wait and see the first half that I didn't see. And you're in it. But to me, that isn't, you know, the Van Gogh show that is at the National Gallery,

that's actually a Van Gogh picture. You're having some different form of experience if you're standing in a sort of 360 kind of virtual worlds of it and And saying you can appreciate every brush, it's not really meant to be appreciated in those particular ways, but the technology has become so much simpler. Like anyone can do, lots of people can do that now, which they couldn't before. And I do think slightly that the tech firms and

the internet are making museums like them. They're making theatre like them. They are all of these things. When you go to even a restaurant now and someone's put a sort of love seat outside it and lots of silk flowers it's because they want you to put it on Instagram. And I slightly feel like people used to say about the lighthouse family that it was soul music for people who don't like soul music and I slightly feel this is art for people who don't

like art. That sounds perfect for me. Yeah, well, exactly. But also, there's a sort of sense of escape, isn't there, but in a risk-averse world. Like, if you really wanted to take a risk and do something new and exciting and immersive, get on a plane and go somewhere. Yes. In fact, what people want is to go to the Caledonian Road and be sort of locked into a room where they must solve a number of clues and be out in an hour. And it's a sort of managed form of chaos, isn't it? And a managed form.

As consumers, certainly us growing up, we are passive. So it's absolutely, it's passivity. You go to the cinema, you're not on your phone, you just watch the thing. You sit at home, you're watching television, it is scheduled. So, you know, you can go to the loo during the outbreaks, but that's about as interactive as it's gonna get. So we absolutely consume these things passively. And this generation do not consume anything passively. Or if they do, that's a deliberate choice and it is an experience in and of itself. They go, oh no, we're gonna,

it's an amazing thing where you go along, you have to sit still and you have to be quiet for two hours and that's the experience. So they're very, very used to watching things actively and to interacting. And so all of these experiences are places you can go along, but you don't just look at a painting, you can walk around, you can choose your own route through, you know, you can be inside something, you're experiencing something rather than looking at something.

But you've got a VR headset on, I feel like you're always mediated by their machines. It's a place where you can be alone together. You are always mediated by their machines. Yes, you are. You're mediated by them and you can be alone together. You are always mediated by them machines. Yes, you are. You're mediated by them machines and you can be alone together. I'm not convinced. But you know, also it must say something about the kind of crap sack world that people are constantly wishing to escape from it. And reality is something from which you wish to sort of immerse yourself away from. See, I have some sympathy with that. Because of course, an imagined reality, you can do anything, which of course,

that's gonna be better than actual reality. Well, I know, I went to Thorpe Park recently and the Angry Birds interactive cinema has been repurposed as the, without irony apparently, as the Ready Player One thing. And it's like Ready Player One is specifically about, like the world has gone to shit, no one bothers solving it's like ready player one is specifically about like the world has gone to shit no one bothers solving it any longer and people just retreat into a place called

the oasis which is sort of like Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the metaverse and you know again all mediated by their machines and you can be what you like but you're alone together and and I slightly felt like wow I can't believe the Angry Birds land has become this without irony. Like you get that this is about a really, really, that this is really ready to stay P&A, but it's the ride. But also I think that culture is very, you know, has lots of ways of enduring. And it's interesting being over in the States, it's exactly the same as in the UK. Bookstores are thriving, right? So bookstores are huge in a way that 10, 15 years ago, you wouldn't have thought possible,

because with a book that is passive, you have to sit down and read it. And by the way, e-books haven't taken off in the way they thought they might, but having an actual book in your hand is a huge cultural phenomenon, a huge cultural phenomenon with younger people. The audiences at all the book events

were much, much younger than you would think. And however we sort of drive that part of our culture, the immersive thing and the interactive thing, and I'm all for it because the better technology you can throw at it, the more interesting and exciting that is, everyone is still seeking out passive experiences and still seeking out experiences where you need some concentration and still seeking out experiences

that are long form. So I tell you, can I just say this is just a, you know, inside baseball thing, the thing I found hardest about Taskmaster, because I love Alex, but you would turn up to do your task and Alex was in character. You say, hi Alex, and you go, hello Richard. I go, no, that's normally if I say hi Alex, you say hi and talk about your day. And you go, hi Richard, open the task. That to me was like going to one of those experiences and feeling. The Daniel Day Lewis of those experiences just will not break character for the task. That to me was like going to one of those experiences and feeling... The Daniel Day-Lewis of those experiences just will not break character for the shoot. Yeah, he refused to break character. It absolutely infuriated me.

On that note, can we talk about Strictly? Yes. Let's talk about Strictly. So I know the report came out, the very first phase of the bullying report has just come out, which we will talk about at another time when we've got more details of that but I wanted to talk about something else to do with Strictly again every single year when it comes out the cast gets announced and people go oh I haven't heard of any of them oh it's a pretty weak cast this year and oh who's this guy oh my god they got like the opera singer from the go compare ads and they they're saying that's a celebrity and every year every single year

those people have proved wrong because every single year the bookers on these shows are proved right so just to talk about this year a little bit often people sometimes say oh reality shows it's it's for you know people it's for people washed up and it's that has just not been the case on British television over the years almost a large proportion of the bigger stars on British tv come from reality shows. Strictly has been the absolute making, the wonderful late Caroline Flack absolutely went from minor TV presenter to presenting the X Factor on Love Island because she won Strictly. AJ Adu Du, who had been doing a few bits and bobs on television went on Strictly. Everyone saw her and and you know now she'll present everything in the world. If you have a client who is on the cusp of becoming

huge and they have a personality that people like watching on television then doing something like strictly almost impossible to think of a better show. It's the biggest show on TV. For people to do exactly that and obviously you, it can go wrong for you, but it's equally if it goes right, it goes really, really, really right. And usually it's women who do better at it strictly, but this year, I think there's two guys who are going to do well. How do you capture the public's imagination, Richard? So capturing the imagination is an interesting question. What you really want to do is capture a series of tick boxes for a commissioner, right? So it would have been, well, who can present this big new show and you have to have a series

of tick boxes and it, you know, so if you were AJ or Do Do before Strictly, it would have been, well, I've seen you on House of Games, I've seen you on Big Brothers, Little Brother, I see what it is that you do. People seem to like you, but do people know you? Do you know what I mean? Are you, you're sort of too unknown and then you do Strictly and you do very well on Strictly and that final tick box is there, which is, oh, people know you? Do you know what I mean? You're sort of too unknown and then you do Strictly and you do very well on Strictly and that final tick box is there, which is, oh, people know you now as well. So a commissioner knows already that this person

can present a big primetime show, but will the public accept it? Because do they know you? And you get that little tick and suddenly, you are accepted and you can do it. Same with Caroline as well. So here's how you become famous. And this year Strictly, I think, is a very interesting version of it. So take the Go Compare man, Wyn Evans. Can you be a big star?

Can you be booked for a big show? If you are, if you have a regional Welsh radio show, no you cannot. That's what Wyn has, right? Can you be a big star if you're an opera singer? No, that's what Wynn has. Can you be a big star if you're on the Go Compare adverts? No, you can't. Well, that's what Wynn has. So he's got all three of those things. Then he goes on Celebrity MasterChef, because actually Celebrity MasterChef

with those three things, you think, oh, actually that's someone, you know, you stick them in the mix. You go on Celebrity MasterChef, and you're going, oh oh this guy's actually got a personality, that's interesting. He's got charm. And he's, you know, he's more than you think he's going to be if you just heard the CV. So you go, okay, let's put him on Celebrity MasterChef, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. You know, he's one of 16 on that and that's fine. And he goes on there and he wins that. And so you kind of go, okay, that's interesting. So he's done that show. So

people have seen him on that. So that's another, he's got, so he's an opera singer. He's got this radio show. He's a go compare man. And oh, he once said up to MasterChef as well. I mean, yeah, I don't know about Strictly. Well, let's get him in. Let's get him in and talk to him about Strictly at the very, very least.

And this is where Booker's come in is someone like Winnemans will come into that. They'll put him through his dancing paces and go, oh, he dances better than you would think. So that's interesting. And also they'll chat to him and they'll just go, oh, I think people will like this guy. If I put together all the things he's got,

is he famous enough to be on Strictly? He's probably just under the threshold. I meet him and you go, oh, people are gonna love him. Let's book him on this. You stick him on strictly and he's brilliant, you know, which is what the book is new all along. I think it might be the funniest strictly ever by the way, this series, because he is genuinely a very, very funny man.

Um, so he, I think he's going to go a long way in the competition. So he's better dancer than you think. He's very, very funny and he will then be able to write whatever check he wants. He'll be able to present show. He will be on everything and anything and book him on anything. And if you do the wheel, if you do house of games, anything, you go, Oh, yeah, he was on strictly so you can have him now, but people will give him shows. I think he's a very interesting test case of how you build up to become famous.

And he just block by block, Lego brick by Lego. But he just built enough to do this, was built enough to do that and built enough to do that. But every single step of the way people liked him and that's the absolute key. Yeah, part of it on that show, I do think your personality, it's a bit like almost being in an ensemble cast in a comedy or a drama, your personality must be easily understood. In reality television in general, even if it's like I mean or I'm you know it's easy and he is so charming he's so nice but and he's very funny yeah but it's easy to understand where he fits in and there's a sort of

readability that really helps I think. Exactly that and the beauty of Strictly as well is if you stay in long enough which he which he will you also get the other side of the journey which is I am vulnerable and it's difficult being me sometimes and you know here's my family of the journey, which is I am vulnerable and it's difficult being me sometimes and you know, here's my family and this is who this is who I actually am as a human being by which point people have fallen in love with him already and so, you know, they are absolutely ready to accept all of that stuff. The guy who's gonna be super massive off the back of this show is Chris McCausland. And I first came across Chris on Would I Lie to You a Few Years A. And Chris, listen, no secret, he's blind.

Okay. But the key thing about Chris is he's funnier than everybody else. Right. He's just brilliant. And you know, he jokes about being blind, he jokes about vision impairment. But he also just does jokes. He just does brilliant jokes. And every single time we've put him on a show, and he came on House of Games, he is just brilliant. But Chris is one of an example of somebody who again, sees a comedian, there was a route through for comedians to be on television programs because you can be booked on things. But lots of people get booked on something for the first time. And it's like, Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was good. She was funny. But you know, they don't get booked again. Every single time Chris has done something

before he gets in, he does the work absolutely does. So he's naturally very, very funny anyway, but he will do the work. He will turn up understanding the job you want him to do. The first time he's on what I like to you, first couple of things he did were gangsters clearly done before in his standup about visual impairment, which I mean, brilliantly funny as you would expect because you know, they're honed over the years. So you think, oh, that okay, that's interesting. But then Lee will say something and Chris will come back with something that completely extemporize. You think, oh, oh, you got that as well. Have you got that in your locker? And then you just think, well, this guy has got everything because he's got

a relatability. He's got a shtick. But also he's brilliantly funny off the cuff and you see him on strictly and genuine both dances he's done sitting there with Ingrid, both in tears. There's something about it. There's something about the fact he can't see and he's doing these dances and the bravery it takes. So before the thing, he can do proper jokes. He does this thing, which you just think this is extraordinary. And then he's back to doing jokes again and doing jokes in such a way that he makes the show stronger. So he will do jokes about Craig that make the format stronger, that makes strictly stronger. He absolutely understands that. So he looks good. He will do jokes about his fellow contestants that make the show stronger. And you know,

that's how you become a star and that's how you become a deserved star is and 20 years ago would a blind comedian have been booked for the first time and would I lie to you? Possibly not, I would say. And the fact that he was and the fact that he immediately showed who he was and the fact that he's had this incredible trajectory all down to him, by the way, every single bit of it. A door was opened and he is my God, he has made every single, progress has been his progress. And it's so amazing to see, but it's an example of him and Wynne, as I say, it's usually women on these shows that really go from strength to strength. But this year, I think it's the two of them. And it comes from being incredibly good at what they do, being incredibly likeable, and just turning up, putting the work in and making the show the most important

thing. And so I think both of those two are a testament to the bookers art as well, which, you know, if you hadn't heard of them before, you've certainly heard of them now. I'm talking of stars, so Dancing with the Stars in America, they had a very different booking policy, I would say, this year. So I think this year, strictly, has gone, we're going to have people that you absolutely love. People are really, really good at what they do. People are going to go on a journey and people who we're going to relate to. But in America, they've done

slightly more the stunt casting route that we've had, you know, the Farage in the Jungle type thing. They've cast Anna Delvey. I can't remember what her real name is, but it's not that. The one from Inventing Anna, the scamming error, the fake errors. Who just came out of prison. She actually has an electronic tag, they have they have seen interviews with the costume designer saying that they don't worry we can work around the tag we're gonna put a lot of sparkle on it so she had a sort of Swarovski crystal

sparkly tag she's she danced with the electronic tag and I hate and actually she drew attention to I mean I hate to talk like a male online article, but she was flaunting it and didn't care who saw. Right. Anyhow, but she was voted off in week one in a double elimination with Tory spelling. What she did do, I mean, obviously she's a terrible person. They had to, by the way, you're right, they had to negotiate because she's supposed

to be under house arrest waiting to be deported. So they had to negotiate with the immigration department. You can imagine as the BBC tried to do this. I know they want our television, people who hate the BBC want our television to be more like America. Well, here you are, this is what happens. They did say to her at the end, and what do you take from this experience? And she just said nothing. Now, I always reflexively slightly love people who say the wrong thing in any given situation. And the fact that it wasn't a journey for her and it wasn't any of that, you know, I

did find quite funny, although normally, of course, she does take things. She likes to have a few things in her bag. But you know, that's the interesting thing. That's what you know, if you want famous people, then she was famous because she went to prison. But you know, that's not how you book a read. That's not how you know strictly you book strictly. You meet people go, are people going to fall in love with this person? And they do. You don't have a convicted felon because it sounds good. And

again, she comes out and just goes, oh, I was edited badly, which is the last recourse of every scandal has ever been on these shows. People didn't really see the real me. They didn't see the great stuff I was doing. They gave me the wrong dances. They gave me the wrong partner. They didn't. People just don't like you. I've paid my debt to society, I believe, was in that mix. Wow. Yeah, I've served my time, sorry. There's been a lot of that on this episode, hasn't there?

Yeah, and people who haven't quite still have some to clear of that debt, I believe. Yeah, exactly that. So anyway, I think that this year strictly is going to be a cracker, and I think it's good that they avoid the the Anadelvies of this world. Yes. Recommendation, Richard? Yes. Can I recommend a show? It's only half hours. It's lovely.

It's on the second series now. It's on iPlayer. It's called Designing the Hebrides. Um, and it's a guy called Banjo Beale. He was on interior design masters, Alan Carr's a wonderful show. And he lives in the Hebrides lives on Mull, I think. And it's a show just where he goes around and redesigns various spaces like apothecaries and bars and stuff like that, but all on these small communities.

And really it's sort of a love letter to the Hebrides. So it's nice. It's like, it's got some interior design in it and he's incredibly good banjo. But also you just go to these beautiful islands. He's always got his dog grandpa with him. He's a kid and they're always on little boats, little ferries. And so it's just one of those lovely shows. I say they're half hours.

You start with the first series because that's great as well but just every time you look at it you think I want to go to that island and he's got his little gang of helpers so it's you know you've seen the format before but it's done in a very interesting unusual way and he's very very likeable Banjo. All right on that note please join us again on Thursday for the questions and answers edition. Look forward to it so much we covered covered a lot of ground, didn't we? We certainly did. Yeah, a lot going on. Yeah, a lot going on. And I'm sure there will be on Thursday. So do join us. The address

for questions is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com. We'll see you on Thursday. See you on Thursday. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"]