The Rest Is Entertainment - When Autobiographies Go Too Far

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

If a celebrity confesses to a crime in a book what is the legal fallout? How "real" is one of Richard's favourite shows, The Parisian Agency? And, what are the motivations for The Chasers and other quizzers? Isn't it a bit mean to potentially deprive people or charities of money? More of your questions answered on The Rest Is Entertainment. Newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie  It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash Business Platinum. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment questions and answers episode. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. Hello Richard, how are you? I'm very, very well. I'm very excited about answering questions. Yes, as always.

With Russell T Davies last week. He said, I don't think I've ever been more famous than I have been this week. Did he say that? Did you bump into him? He was absolutely thrilled. It was the most boring question we've ever had. And we have said that to you, Russell, but it is kept on giving. I thought it was interesting. I like things like that. I like fonts and colophons and all that jazz. Yeah, I'm not changing my opinion.

Yeah, okay. Right. It was an interesting question. Why did you hit me with another interesting question? and colophons and all that jazz. Yeah, I'm not changing my opinion. Yeah, okay. Right. It was an interesting question. Why did you hit me with another interesting question? With another interesting question. Go on then, go on. This is a question from Steven Moffat, who asks, no, who asks, the test card,

tell me why are there 14 different colors in it? No, Emma Craddock asks, well, she says firstly, love the podcast, that's a good way to get your question read out. Love the podcast. Thank you, Emma. I just wondered if you had any insight on what happens if someone admits to a crime on TV within a show. The main ones I can think of are where people have confessed to taking illegal substances, but is this a worry for the show lawyers and how much do the show lawyers remove from filmed content in general? Okay. The only things that show lawyers really remove,

just to answer the second part first, is stuff that's libelous, because that's where you could be vulnerable to illegal action. Admitting a crime on TV is not a crime in itself. So show isn't vulnerable to any sort of... So broadcasting someone admitting a crime is not a crime.

Saying I was intoxicated in the past is not a crime. Yes. And it's pretty hard to, I mean, you know, once in 1986. That's why you like fonts so much. It's hard to prove. Possession of drugs is a crime. Saying I took some drugs back in the past, but I don't now. You know, tell me how you're going to prove that in court. Books I think are more interesting on this in some ways, or the written word in lots of ways. The press that want Prince Harry to be banned from the US even though they hate him so why

they want him back here I don't know but they have said why is he being allowed to live in America when he's specifically admitted drug-taking. There's no real evidentiary value to half of this stuff so it doesn't matter that he might have said it in his book. Having said that it depends what you say in your book. Now CJ Damoui who was a guy on eggheads, oh my goodness, he did an autobiography, and I'm not gonna name the publishing house, but I would say that certain publishing houses,

the big ones, will be very careful about what you say in your book, and will tell you where you're exposing yourself. C.J. Demoui, one of the eggheads, and he said in the past, when he was living on the streets, he'd punched a drug addict who approached him with a knife in Amsterdam. He'd pushed him into the canal and he said I fully suspect I killed him. Now I think if you're admitting murder in a book or manslaughter you are in a whole

different world okay it's not the same as saying you know I smoke some weed. He was picked up on an European arrest warrant. It was an absolute nightmare and I think he lost, I mean he basically lost all his money trying to defend it. By the way they couldn't match any crime with this. They hadn't found a person in a canal, sorry to be brutal here, in a canal that they were able to match with this. They accused him of eventually stealing 18,000 shopping trolleys. Yeah. You can see sometimes why people do say these things in books, but should be persuaded out of them, is because what people are always thinking of when they've got a book coming

out is, what is going to be gusseted out of this book and become a news story, which will be free publicity for my book? And yeah, I mean, if you say you murdered someone in Amsterdam, that will probably be lifted. Although there wasn't even a bestseller in the end. No. So unfortunately, just the arrest and not the bestseller list, which is a bad combination. Although there wasn't even a bestseller in the end. No. So unfortunately just the arrest and not the bestseller list, which is a bad combination. You do everything you can.

If you're going to be arrested, at least be arrested like number four on the non-fiction hardbacks. So he was pulled up in court, he was arrested and the legal proceedings went on a long time, but he was never actually charged in the end because as I say, there wasn't any crime they felt they could link him with. Yeah they tried. Like many people in murder stories he'd weirdly confessed to something that he perhaps hadn't done. Now there's another interesting one Felix Dennis the kind of legendary magazine editor who published Oz and was involved in decency trials and all sorts

of things. I can't remember when this was it wasn't that long ago about 15 years ago maybe a bit less. He did an interview with Ginny Doughery for the Times. Ginny Doughery is a sort of doyen of Fleet Street interviewers. And let's just say she matched him drink for drink and I should think they'd had a few bottles, not glasses, right? And then Felix Dennis says, I once killed a man and I pushed him over a cliff because he was abusing his wife. And then he says, weren't odd. And she says, are you sure you want to be telling me this? He says, oh yes, yes, yes, I don't care. You know, people should know this about me that if you harm one of mine, then I'll do this to you. The next morning rings up and says, writes to her says,

you should forget one particular episode I recounted to you after the third or fourth bottle in the conservatory, which is the title of my autobiography. And so it's a load of hogwash, I was drunk, I withdraw unconditionally. It's a bit of a weird thing. I mean, as I say, I have been drunk on occasion myself, but I've never actually suggested... So where did this come out? Was it in the article? She then still thought, well, it did give you the chance while you can't retrospectively make quotes off the record. Now this is a whole area of ethics or whatever. I also slightly feel that if you've given the person the chance to sort of retract it in the moment, then of course Warwickshire police have

to say, yeah, we're trying to look into this. No one's got a body. They're saying there are no cliffs in Warwickshire. Yeah, they're like he lives in Warwickshire now. Yeah, there are no cliffs. He lives in Warwickshire now, but it says in the article he lives in LA. I said, this is one for the LA, you know, he lived in America. I think this is one for another one of their police forces. This is one for Colombo, not Morse. The agency or local law enforcement, I don't know, I've just got this off television, but it's not one for us. So if you admit to serious crimes like that, and by the way, some member of the public, the police will always say, yeah, we can't investigate unless we had a

complaint, meaning I'm not investigating something that someone told someone off to foil bottles of wine in a conservatory, right? But if there is a complaint, which there will always be a member of the public will make a complaint as a sort of do-gooder slash sticky beak. Yeah, can't push anyone off a cliff without someone sticking their nose in. Jesus Christ, well done. Entirely humorous British public, someone will make a complaint. So it depends on the nature, Emma, of the crime which is being admitted but as I say intoxication so what nobody cares and no one's going to investigate it. Yeah and if you have a situation if you're on the Jeremy Carr show or something like

that if someone does admit to something then you know it's you discuss it with them afterwards and do you put it on do you not put it on you can certainly get in trouble if you say something but by and large murder you would have an issue. Try not to admit murdering someone on a telly show or in an autobiography. It's just... Yeah, listen, I've been TV 15 years, never done it once. So... Ultimately, you are a professional.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Speaking of quizzes, this is definitely for you. The Chase. Dan Cordick says, watching The Chase... Cordick? We just had a Craddock. Yeah, yeah, it's almost anagram round.

It's like New York Times spelling bee. Watching The Chase, I always wonder, what is the incentive for the chasers? Do they get a bonus if they win and prevent people from winning money? It seems especially egregious when they go hard against celebrities for charity editions. Do you know what, it's a really good question.

There's something you think about a lot when you're putting a show together. So there's been all sorts of shows where, you know, you have to take on celebrities or things like that. And, and you say, well, no, I can't do that. I want someone to win. And so that would be the big issue with the chase and a kids as well. Echads has got a lot of publicity. Yeah. I mean, so you have this situation where you think, okay, I love the format. The format is you come up against the very best quizzes.

But me as a contestant, obviously, what I want to do is beat these quizzes. But yes, there is no incentive for those quizzes. Psychologically there's no incentive because either that person comes and wins some money or they don't or you do really well and they don't win any money so it's sort of what you're doing is sort of mean. But what the chase and the eggheads both do is they use quiz as a sport and in exactly the same way you would have with gladiators, we just say, look, you're a great quizzer, but you come along here and this is like

the ultimate challenge you can have in your quizzing. This is like, you know, going to the world cup or something like that. So you come along, if you're amazing, you're gonna win some money, but we have got a brick wall in front of you. So the chasers, all their incentive is, is to show that they are the very, very best.

And right from the beginning, you give them a slight sort of meanness like you might do with the gladiators as well. It's a really interesting, neat little just psychological ploy, which doesn't say here's some smart asses and they're going to stop you winning some money. It's saying here is your opportunity to test yourself against the very, very, very best. You're at top gun now for the quizzing. Almost certainly going to lose because they are the very, very best. But if you can win, oh my goodness. So that show, The Chase and the Gladiators, is you are probably going

to lose, but what if you won? And they're brilliant quizzes, genuinely. They're absolutely at the top of their game. And there's world quiz championships and people like Paul Sinner are always at the top of that game. I think there's a great website, a guy called Daniel Hurst who does all the House of Games stats for every single show that's ever been on every prize and there's this website that does exactly the same for the chase which is onequestionshootout.xyz and it's got stats for every single chaser, how well they've done, you know the money that's been won against them. The absolute top chaser of all with a 79.6% win record and Heggety, the governess.

Would you have predicted that? I would have predicted that but I would have been very unclear further down I must say. Well you know what they're all much of a muchness. Dara the new guy, Paul, Jenny and Anne, they're within 1% of each other. Sean Wallace at the bottom but he's still winning over 70% of his battles. I don't massively watch the Chase, I'll be honest, because it was up against Pointless for years and years and years. So I just chose not to watch it. So now occasionally I'll turn it on, but I went back 10 years without ever seeing an episode. And I had to play a version of it once on some panel show, I can't remember

what it was, and I absolutely didn't understand the rules and I couldn't admit that I didn't understand the rules. Because it's like what, you spent 10 years not watching The Chase? Come on, mate. Petty. Yeah, but I just hadn't. And so I had to really work out the rules to the chase as I went along. And that isn't, even for me, that was not particularly easy.

That's an anxiety dream. Yes, a little bit. But yeah, it's genuinely a good question. And there isn't really an incentive other than the incentive is, like the incentive for any footballer, whoever goes, any tennis player, is they have one job and that's to quiz as well as they possibly can. And the challenge of someone else is, can

I beat this brick wall? Yeah, but you don't want to watch people doing underarm serves and you don't want any of that. So you don't you don't tune in for that. 100% that and the celeb one is slightly different. I think it's slightly easier to wear. Like all the celeb things. Because on that it's like if you're a punter, you absolutely, this is the absolute top thing you could possibly do, whereas celebs sometimes it's just people, they ring around and say, who will come on?

And people are like, oh, I don't mind. And they go, yeah, I could win some money for charity. You go, why are these people trying to stop me winning money? This is ridiculous. So that's slightly different. I always find it tiny, tiny bit more awkward, but it's such a brilliantly run show that in a great format that they've got those characters so perfectly honed I kind of get it and that's the lovely thing they do on eggheads the way they really get over on eggheads

Which is very clever, which is they are stopping you winning the money Of course they are so if you come along as a team you play against the eggheads and you know You don't win your thousand pound But the thing is they are not stopping the money being won because on eggheads the money just goes on to the show and the Beauty of that show because you can't really give away very much money on BBC and you certainly can't give away much money on BBC Daytime, it's on five now, of course, is they're so good that they can win 35 shows in a row

and suddenly you've got a team playing for 36,000 pound, which is very, very exciting. But so they're not actually stopping anyone, they're stopping specific people winning money, but they are not keeping any money. The money is gonna go out, but to a team who've really earned it and really deserved it

A question for you Marina from Jack no surname. So it could be something could be related to credit and call it We don't know it might be Jack Canock Jack I'm gonna assume the surname is can I forgive me if it isn't right in but I'm guessing it is Jack Canock asks our TV programs getting harder to understand more and more my friends in our 20s By the way now watch TV with subtitles always on. It drives me mad because it's so distracting but is the dialogue getting more muffled? People are obsessed with this subject. The subtitles is like one of the key battlegrounds of the early 21st century. I think it's fair to say that including many territories disputed actual global territories in the world. They

recently did some research and I think four in five of 18 to 25 year olds always have the subtitles on. I remember the first time I heard people say to me that they were using the subtitles on an English language program, which is obviously the key thing, when people told me that they were watching The Wire with them. We are now talking about lots of fluent English speakers using it for shows that are being spoken in fluent English. Now it for shows that are being spoken in fluent English. Now in families, younger people want them on all the time. My children want them on all the time. I find it so, and I have to beg to get them turned off. I'm like one of the last holdouts. I really, really hate it.

Especially by the way in comedy when you're getting the line before the person says the line. So you lose gags all the time. Totally and it's people don't concentrate so much they're looking at other screens, whatever they call it, sit back. And so people said, oh, I don't like to miss things. And well, the irony is now you are reading television. So you are missing almost everything else because you're reading the things. So you're not appreciating the production design as you might have otherwise. You might have been.

It's changed lots of things. Like that whole bottom of the frame is now out for things to happen in. Because so many people... As a director. Yeah, as a director, because people have all got these things, you better not have something important happening down there, because it's going to have writing all on top of it. Having said that, in lots of ways, it's very popular, and I will come on to that conspiracy that you suggested, which is that Bong Joon-ho, who said when he won the Golden Globe for Parasites, if you've overcome the one inch tall barrier of subtitles, you'll be introduced to so many

more amazing films. Now then he went on to win the first foreign language best picture. Let's look what has just happened Shogun, that's 80% Japanese that could never ever possibly have won best drama. Everything changed, a lot changed in the pandemic because suddenly like people were saying I've completed Netflix you had people saying is that I've watched everything. I've run out of British television. Yeah people ran out quite quickly out of British American television and they went and watched all sorts of interesting things like call my agent or you know I mean there were so many different series and so people became used to watching things with subtitles and that has been

absolutely great if you're a company like Netflix that's got all this stuff from different territories, only after that could something like Squid Game have been such a mega mega hit. So all of these things can happen and it is great. You know my children will watch K-dramas and they don't think twice about subtitles. Whereas for me when I was growing up, I was like, oh it's got something, you know, not interested in, you know, it's like some Czech animation or something, you weren't interested. So now there are conspiracy theories, because in the old days, I spoke to a sound mixer about this. Did somebody push a subtitle into a canal? Yeah, well, yeah, basically someone pushed a subtitle into a canal.

Sound mixers are not happy about this, because to do the sound mix on anything with high production values, drama, comedy, whatever it is, is an incredibly skilled and difficult thing. They now feel that nobody's listening to their sound mix because people can have it, sometimes people just have it turned really quite low down and they're just reading television. Those people, by the way, would love books. Yeah, have you tried this other thing? Because then you can invent all the pictures yourself.

Yeah. They used to have to conform to an industry standard of loudness. And loudness was anchored to dialogue loudness, which is crucial. Now what they do when things like Game of Thrones came along, the whole of production loudness. So if there's a battle or a car crash or anything, some people think dialogue has got a lot quieter and this is why you're always like, I can't hear. I can't hear. You still have to do a lot in ADR, additional dialogue recording, when just

some lines have not been enunciated clearly enough when you're shooting it, and people will go back and they will do those more clearly. And you can always, always tell. Yes, you can. Well, if you're looking at the back of someone's head and they're talking, that's probably been done in ADR. And it sounds like, it sounds like they're in a slightly different room. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I like hearing all those sort of things as well. People think that the streamers have done all this and they have a vested interest in getting people to watch all their foreign language content and so they want to keep things quiet. So that's the conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is, but also lots of sound mixers are really annoyed because their beautiful work they think has just been put down

on a low volume. But some of them do have, I have never done this but I actually might try this after speaking to the sound mixers, some of them do have dialogue boost functions in your settings. So the dialogue, it's louder and it comes up louder in the mix. Literally every single person has just stopped listening to the podcast and have gone to their smart TV to go, have we got dialogue boost? Yeah, have we got dialogue boost? And I think it's done via individual streamer or TV thing. So you have to see if they've got them. But it has totally changed television and viewing. If you go to the movies, actually,

you'll see that a lot more cinemas are offering many more subtitle performances because people are simply so used to watching it like that that they're doing anything to get people as we know into cinemas. That's so funny, and is there anything in, because a lot of, you know, when videos come up, you know, TikTok and YouTube and stuff,

there's often auto-generated subtitles anyway, which means if you are somewhere and you don't have your phone on now, you can end it quickly and that I quite like that sort of thing. So do I and that is a huge part of it as well. People are so used to watching text overlay over dialogue, either as you say just putting the phone right down in terms of volume because they you know you're working you're not really supposed to be doing it. I was gonna say

it's very interesting that this younger generation who seem able to be able to read the dialogue on their screen are also the generation who will have their phones turned up loud on a train. Yeah or in a cinema. You can't have it both ways. Or actually in the cinema so yeah. It is interesting I do think for anyone who works on the more visual side of television it is quite frustrating because the dialogue's the only thing you don't miss now. Also, I don't want to bring everyone down, but if you're visually impaired like some of us are, you can't read them. So if I watch foreign language things I'd be very close to the TV. So if people do start relying on subtitles, then that is slightly more difficult if you don't have a pin sharp eyesight.

And sometimes they'll have like white subtitles and there'll be a white tablecloth. Yes. How's anybody seeing that? Yeah but as I say you just can't have anything down the bottom of the frame anymore. But it is, again it's visually impaired but for the hearing impaired it's amazing that suddenly everyone is happy to have subtitles, there's not everything all the time so it's, listen, take with one hand give away the other. There you go Jack that was a long answer and I think we have to consider the story developing because a lot of people have used about it within the production community. There's also something else as well of course is you know is it getting harder and harder to hear

dialogue. You think well every single one of us is older than we were when we're talking about the times when we found it easier to hear dialogue and maybe just our hearing isn't as good as it was. But I know I think your ear is in. It's because people are not quite concentrating that it's harder to hear. I think if you could hear it originally then you can hear it now. You just get out of it.

Listen, I don't like to boost our sponsors too much but you can get dialogue boosts on Skyglass Television. Oh. I know that for a fact. Yeah, with that semi-commercial I think we should go into a break, Richard. Let's hope it's nice and loud. Welcome back everybody. Now, airport editions of books, I feel this is 100% one for you, Richard. Rebecca Mace would like to know, why do publishers produce airport editions of books?

They're usually larger format, perhaps in bigger print. I don't understand why. One, they would produce a different format of a book. The usual format's fine! Exclamation mark, question mark. In Tarot bank. In Tarot bank. And two, it is bigger. Surely it's more practical to have a smaller lightweight edition when you're traveling. Good questions, good observations. And it's a red herring that they are in airports at all. They're not really airport editions. Every time you do a hardback, so we release books first in the hardback in the UK, but across the Commonwealth a lot of those territories do not have a culture of having hardbacks. In Ireland for example, you go and they won't have hardbacks, so they have what's called

trade paperbacks, which is before the smaller paperback comes out, a slightly bigger, chunkier, more impressive looking book comes out which has a soft cover. It's the size of a hardback, but it has a soft cover and it's called a trade paperback comes out, a slightly bigger, chunkier, more impressive looking book comes out which has a soft cover. It's the size of a hardback but it has a soft cover and it's called a trade paperback. And airports, because of the various rules on tax and all that kind of stuff, are able to stock those things and so they do. And they're great because of airport exclusives and you don't have a hardback. So you get a book that's just come out and you don't have to have the hardback. So I always feel quite excited when I go to an airport and they do the trade paperback. So it's simply the addition they get in lots of other Commonwealth countries, essentially, which you can buy at the airport

and you can't buy anywhere else. So my hardback is out in September, paperback out in May. But if you're an island, the trade paperback is out in September and then the paperback again is out maybe a little earlier than May. But it's an addition that they get in the rest of the world. So it's not like exclusively made for the airports, but they are the only people who can stock it in the UK. And so it is an exclusive. And I always think it feels like quite a treat. But if you go over to Iodine, for example, you go to any bookshop, you go to Eason's,

you go to Debray's, any of them, they will have these things that look like airport exclusive. It's just that's the trade paperback. And when you look at your sales figures, you can see trade paperback figures and all that stuff. So it's, that's a very technical. And the price point is higher than the standard paperback, but lower than a hardback. Exactly that. And I guess the, you know, so the reason they are bigger than a paperback would be to answer the question, Rebecca, is the paperback isn't out yet. question, Rebecca, is the paperback isn't out yet. But the reason they have them in airports is if you're going to have something that's the size of a hardback, might as well have it with a soft cover because that's easier to carry and easier to have around. So it's one of those weird things that it feels like

there's these weird additions that don't exist anywhere else, but it's actually not. It's just the airport is the only place you can get the non-uk Editions of these things so it's a boring answer, but it's a factual answer Question for you Marina from Christie John San Diego Comic-Con seems like a large event on the entertainment calendar every year But it also seems quite niche What kind of impact does an event like this have on the industry if any and why do some companies? Participate while others don't brackets Netflix right well if any, and why do some companies participate while others don't? Right, well Comic Con is one of those things that started in some tiny hotel

ballroom whenever it was in the 60s and then it has become this absolutely enormous production. It's in San Diego, they've got other ones, they've got New York ones, it sort of happens all over. But first of all I would say that even if it seems niche, comic books are a multi multi-billion dollar industry and they are a huge business and that's just the books, never mind all the fact that it's been, that the movies and the TV made of it has been our sort of, for better or for worse, our sort of premier cultural product for the last, however, decade and a half. So in San Diego, about, I think it's 170 million is spent over those few days in San Diego.

If you've ever been to one of these things, people are paying huge amounts. First of all, the stars that you get to go along for them, they might do six hours work and get paid 400,000 pounds to go. And there's various, you hear occasionally that the tax regimes on your image rights and things like that are advantageous. Yes. So it's a... Yes, they are. So it's worth- Yes, so it's worth going along,

which is why they also look so happy to be there. You know, someone like Marvel, they do always do a big thing in Hall H at Comic-Con in San Diego, and we'll come to that in a second, but it's an enormous event and they spend a lot of money using that. Obviously then lower down,

you are selling comic books to absolute fans because they're at the convention, and also your people are getting autographs and they're paying $50 an autograph or $100 an autograph so if you're sort of lower down you were in a kind of niche thing from 30 years ago nonetheless there will be a giant queue of people to see you. And another part of it is that the costume I always think that the thing that is the most amazing is the costumes the cosplay is absolutely amazing and people have laughed about this over the years and said, wow, the actual entertainment is the cosplay

and those people are paying to attend. You get the entertainment to pay to be there, right? So that's amazing. But I think the crucial thing about all of this is you get to market directly to your most crazy, not, you know, your most engaged fans. And every single person there who sees something, they have all these panel discussions. By the way, Netflix do go, they tend not to do it in the same way that

Marvel will announce things like years in advance, but Netflix tend to use it as a place where they can promote something that's going to coincide with around the convention that's coming up soon, a show like that. But the most dedicated fans are essentially there paying to advertise you. You put on these events and then they take it out into the world. They talk a huge amount about it on social media. It's an amazing sort of system really. So more industries, I am sure. This is what like sort of book festivals and things like that.

People would love to have these gatherings where your most dedicated fans, you speak to them and then they go out and disseminate it in the wider world and they kind of work on your behalf and they're doing pre-publicity for you on your behalf. Yeah, is anything with a fervent fandom is ripe for a convention because you know, any sort of big artist enterprise, from most people in the world, you're gonna get 30p, 40p,

something like that and if you can then from 10,000 people, you can get $250, it all adds up. So anything that has this huge fervent fandom, you get it with pop music, you get it with football, sport, all that kind of stuff. You know, you can, the people who absolutely love it, it's not ripping people off. It's just saying, here's some more stuff. Do you want it? And to Comic-Con, like 140,000 people go over those days, 140,000 potential mad fans of your next project. And also just the stuff they're getting out of it is there is, there's incredible launches

get it with, you know, video games conferences, like new launches, new stuff going on. I mean, it's like, it's incredible. I think the panels are always really interesting. There'll always be lots of sort of news lines that come out of those, maybe in the trade things, but people talk interestingly about what they're creating. Whereas something like film festivals can feel quite elitist. I mean, who do you know? You can definitely, lots of people can see themselves going to a fan convention for like something like Comic-Con, but a lot of people, normal civilian people would think, what is a film festival? How do I get to one? I don't know. It just seems like something that happens

in a very elitist capital cities and you might not be welcome. I mean, God, a friend of mine used to make me laugh so much. He has ended up becoming a huge sort of show runner in lots of these things, but he used to go to conventions really out in the sticks and there would always be like fire alarms. And I'd be like, Oh my God, did people just like the start? He was constantly at Star Trek conventions. Did people like divide along kind of their lines of rank? Were they all the Captain Kurtz trying to get everyone out? He was constantly at Star Trek conventions. Did people like divide along kind of their lines of rank? Were all the Captain Kirk's trying to get everyone out? He would say it would be sort of amazing, but those are often really disenfranchised people

who felt left out of things and they really found a community there. So as you say, it's a passionate fandom. It's super joyous. Ingrid Varrication would do one a year and she loves it because it's just full of people who genuinely love the thing that they do and are genuinely year and she loves it because it's just full of people who genuinely love the thing that they do and are genuinely excited and genuinely move to be there. There's

very few things in this business where you just go, oh, this is just unsynically great fun and just a lovely thing to do and these conventions seem to have that. Yeah. Now here's one for you, Richard, about something you've turned so many people on to about this podcast, The Parisian Agency. Oh, the best show on TV. Yeah, Katie Wellford would like to know. She says, I recently started watching The Parisian Agency. Thank you to Richard for the recommendation. And it got me thinking, how much of this sort of show will be staged? Seems to be fairly genuine and short documentary style, but it

does have moments that reminded me of things like Made in Chelsea, which I believe can be quite controlled by the producers. The introduction of Daniel Daggers cannot be coincidence, for example. Surely something set up and contrived by Netflix producers to set up the new London show. Impossible to say Daniel Daggers' name without saying it in a French accent. Daniel Derreuse. Well Parisian Agency, so it's interesting, there's lots of these property shows and an awful lot of these shows that are behind the scenes at companies and stuff like that. The reason I love Parisian Agency, it is probably the least contrived

of all of them. You're seeing great houses, I have a belief in the relationship of the brothers and there's always bits and bobs where they're deciding whether they want to go to New York or not and they go, I don't know whether to tell my brother or not. And you think you've had this, must have had this conversation come on man. But you know, it seems to have the least artifice of all of those. Cause if you watch, so Daniel Daggers is a British real estate agent. And towards the end of one of the seasons

of Parisian Agency, all the talk is, Daniel Daggers is coming out. And you know, if we can get in with Daniel Daggers, it helps us into the London market. And so he becomes like this big character. And of course these people are running a big real estate agency, they're selling big houses, they do have clients that they know and they're genuine friendships but every now and again big French star goes, you know I am looking for a house so maybe I could go and be on Parisian agency

so they get sent along or they're going well you know we've got this other bit of talent in England, Daniel Daggers, he wants to come out. He's got this incredible house to show you. Would you do that? And you go, yeah, of course I do. So some of that stuff absolutely is set up by the producers who say, I think it would be a good story if you sold this person's house, who would not have sold it with you if you hadn't been a TV program. There is much less of it on Parisian Agency than there is on, you know, if you watch Million Dollar Listing and stuff like that in the States, which is why I love Parisian Agency. But there's lots of it. And also the people, whenever I sometimes I'm watching the show and they'll have like a film star come along and say, Oh, I want you to sell

me a house. And you go, yeah, but do you and then they will actually buy the house. So you go, okay, it was even though it was set up, it wasn't fake. But then you watch the, so interesting, the Daniel Daggers one, which is set in London. And that is very much more made in Chelsea. Yeah, miles more. They're just in the first episode. I had to, I couldn't, and I love those shows. I couldn't watch it and I love watching the houses and they all seem lovely. They all seem perfectly nice, but they were setting people against each other and like two women... I didn't believe any of those women worked in the office. And just the way they were shooting, you think, how have you got that camera angle?

That's not making any sense, you're not picking up verite footage of somebody doing something. So on that as a producer I find unwatchable. If I had to call it I would say that that made you think much more of something like Made in Chelsea. Whereas in a way we'd slightly been softened up, particularly as people who If I had to call it, I would say that that made you think much more of something like Made in Chelsea. Yes. Whereas in a way we'd slightly been softened up, particularly as people who are not French, by Call My Agent. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're thinking more with a prison agency of something like that, even though, you know,

obviously it's a different type of agency, whatever, but you are thinking much more in that kind of paradigm, whereas this I felt like, oh yes, it was much more. Exactly. And listen, we're from a generation who is used to constructive reality shows. So we roughly know what we're seeing sometimes, and we know that some stuff is real and some stuff is not. And we understand when it's nearer to reality than not. Parisian Agency is absolutely on the side of reality that I'm comfortable with, which of course, occasionally something comes up or a house comes up that wouldn't come up. But when you start watching

something and you think, well, this is scripted. And so you've got these two women who work in the office, but do they really work for you? And you're setting them up against each other and they don't really hate each other. And this person doesn't really have a crush on this guy. So this, and you think, you know what? Show me an interesting house. You know, show me an interesting house and tell me about your actual life. Either that will tell me if those three French guys aren't actually brothers in which case, that would be the end of everything. I mean, what, what a, what a family. Amazing. Yeah. The brothers and the end of everything kill me I mean what what a what a family amazing yeah the brothers and the dad and yeah I mean there's always bits

and bobs with the mum and dad keep moving to brazil and then moving back you think come on guys make your mind up uh but you know you have to have like an end of series cliffhanger don't you but you know do one of the brothers moves to barcelona and one of them uh Vanatar, wants to move to New York and see he really wants to go to New York, God bless him. So they take the reality of the situation. But yeah, if you haven't watched A Parisian Agency, watch from the start. The houses are amazing. The family are so, I mean, they're delightful, aren't they? I mean, they're really, and they're so French and so handsome, but so lovely and loving to each other. Dare I say that if I told you you're watching a program

about a state agent, it's like me telling you there's a program about journalists and they're all just so charming and lovely. I can't imagine that. And yet, no, I mean we've yet to see that. Yeah. Maybe one day. Exactly, but yeah, that's so great.

I know, listen, I don't like to seg them things off and I'm sure that lots of people will like the London version of it, but it's just, it's as a TV producer, it is not for me because I can I can see all the moving parts. No it's a really different cattle of fish I must say. But yeah Parisian Agency and Million Dollar Listing LA is well and there's loads of them where you just think see Million Dollar Listing LA I find easier than Selling Sunset. Selling Sunset to me is more of a soap opera and it's

brilliant by the way it's a brilliant soap opera whereas Million Dollar Listing is a bit more of a state agent show. You know, I like my estate agent shows a bit more Homes Under the Hammer than Selling Sunset. Well with that I think that is about us done. Yeah, some good stuff there. There was. People being pushed into canals, French houses. And with that I think I will just say I'll see you next Tuesday.

See you next Tuesday everyone. Hi, it's Katie here from The Rest Is Politics US. Anthony Scaramucci and I want to tell you about this great new series we've done on how Donald Trump won the White House in 2016. We're going to take you right back in time and explain just how Donald Trump went from being that extraordinary apprentice reality TV star and real estate developer in New York City to being president of the United States in just 18 months. We're going to start right from the moment he descended the escalator to November the 8th. I was with him at 6 p.m. on November the 8th, election night, and we're going to regalia with

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