The Rest Is Entertainment - Who Has Had A Hair Transplant?

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Do celebrities have preemptive hair transplants? What TV tricks are there to give a fuller head of hair? Bake Off is a British institution but who really makes the professional cakes? And, prop secrets of fake pregnancy tests. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club for ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to tickets for future live events at www.therestisentertainment.com Newsletter: www.therestisentertainment.com Twitter: @‌restisents Instagram: @‌restisentertainment YouTube: @‌therestisentertainment Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn + Joey McCarthy Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the kitchen to the laundry room, your home deserves the best. Give it the upgrade it deserves at Best Buy's Ultimate Appliance Event. Save up to $1,000 on two or more major appliances. Shop now in-store or online at bestbuy.ca. Exclusions apply. Hello and welcome to this episode of the Rest is Entertainment Questions and Answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I am Richard Osmond.

Hey Richard. Hey Marina, how are you doing? I'm doing very well, thank you. Can I start with a couple of bits of AOB? Please. Who would have thought, everybody, that when we talked about the countdown clock that might be the thing that filled our mailbag more than anything in history? Of course.

How many cans of worms have been opened? Countdown clock could theoretically go to 60 seconds? About whether it can go the full 60 seconds or whether it turns back. So many comments. Rich Weber gets in touch to say, in order to solve the question of whether the Countdown clock could theoretically go to 60 seconds, surely the next question is, which way does it go at the end of a round in order to reset? If it continues to move clockwise, that suggests the mechanism is available for it to continue to count. If, however, it turns anti-clockwise to reset, it would suggest that the mechanism may only be capable of moving the hand through that half of the clock. I feel like I'm in one of those big conspiracy theory movies.

Well, Rich and all the other many people who said that, we have found a piece of footage that might answer that question for you. Do you remember when Noel Edmonds, who we always threaten to talk about on this show, we will do at some point. Threaten you with a good time. Yeah. When he did a gotcha on Richard Whiteley, we have a little bit of footage from that, which might answer Rich and lots of other people's questions.

So that will be in the- And pose a whole lot of other ones. And pose a whole lot of other ones. Mainly about Noel Edmonds. Listen, Rich Weber and everyone else who got in touch, take a little look at that clip of Countdown. So many people have asked us about having an ad-free tier. Now is your chance to join us as we welcome the first ever members of our The Rest is

Entertainment Club. And the benefits of membership are really rather lovely, aren't they, Richard? Well, you would expect so. For starters, you will get all the shows ad-free. So we know the ads which support the show are not for everyone. So if you'd rather not hear them, we're going to have a membership level just for you, which we call our VIP club. And our VIPs will also get early access to our questions and answers episode, which will be available the same time as the main episode on a Tuesday. And here is something

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which mean you'll be able to check out all our recommendations for TV, movies and books. So that is our VIP level and hopefully that will work out nicely for many of you. I know lots of people have asked. However that is not all. Told you. Yeah. If you would enjoy bonus content including episodes dedicated to single subjects, really deep dives, by two obsessives, there is another tier of this club just for you. Don't tell me VIP Plus. It is. Oh my god. It includes everything you get from VIP membership and much more. It is called

Access All Areas and we'll be providing regular extra shows. Marina will start us off on a deep dive in to say the life and work of Steven Seagal. Yeah, I'm going to talk about Steven Seagal at some length. Exactly. Then you know I'll do something on what would I do? Richard, you might do a special on your favourite Spielberg movie, Jorts. Or I might do something, actually what I'm more likely to do is a series of specials on the movies of Guy Ritchie. I'll be right here for it. We might team up and do, we talked ages ago about doing an episode on It's a Royal Knockout, but what we're saying is we will be doing extra podcasts on areas that we love, like deep dive into stuff that we care about.

Listen, they might be niche. Some people might find them esoteric, but we will really sell them to you. To reiterate, VIP, you get ad free, you get access to tickets should we do a live show, you get the question and answers episode early as well. And for that access to all areas, there will be extra bonus content as well. They're both good deals. And for details of them please go to therestisentertainment.com that is therestisentertainment.com to join our Members Club. It's going to be a huge amount of fun. It is going to be a huge amount of fun and by the way you do not have to sign up you really don't. We will

continue doing everything we always do and the advertisers will pay for it and you can enjoy it exactly where you want. This is just, if this is something you would like to do, if it's something that you'd like extra stuff or you'd like no ads, anything like that, do it. But you do not have to. We will still be doing the podcast exactly as normal. Can you please hit me with a question? Just hit me with a question.

Of course. I have a question for you from Kate Fitzgerald. Thank you, Kate. Kate wants to know about hair transplants. Are all the male TV presenters getting preemptive hair transplants in their late 20s? Or do they wear toupees until they start to thin and then get hair plugs? Where are all my balding screen kings at? You're so right Kate.

The answer is hair transplants are massive and everyone's doing them. Also who are the balding short kings? I'm thinking of screen kings you're talking about. The Rock, Jason Statham, maybe Jude Law. I mean that's it, Okay. And those guys have cornered that bit of the market, right? And they're big stars and whatever. In the pandemic, loads of A-list stars got their hair. And I'm not going to, I can't be that specific about them, but so did some people say they've had it done. And if you're looking at Jimmy

Carl will say he's had it done. James Nesbitt will say he's had it done. Does, Louis Walsh. Does Elon Musk say he's had it done? He's had it done for definite, okay. There are these other drugs that people take, what are those ones called? Propecia and finasteride maybe? Anyway, but all actors and lots of them are having and sports stars all the time and I mean it is completely widespread to the point that you don't see anybody balding or is completely bald apart from those ones I've mentioned. Honestly, they're just, you know, character actors I'm not counting. In terms of leading men there aren't any and everyone's doing it. There was a certain generation of those people who maybe missed the boat because there is a

point of which so yeah everyone in British television has had one. Every TV presenter, there are no bald TV presenters left because they all had it. Maybe people in their sort of later 40s and 50s who missed the boat and went too, who went too bald too quick. The spray on hair era. Couldn't get it done. That was a thing. That can thing was a thing.

Well, that's the thing. So why don't we notice and do people have it done preemptively? I don't think anyone has it done preemptively. The one thing on TV you will notice very, very quickly if you are going bald because you have incredibly bright lights shone at you and cameras looking at you from every single angle. So any man who was ever worried about losing his hair, you put him in a TV studio for five minutes, he's really going to worry about losing his hair. They have an amazing thing on TV, all makeup artists have it, which is a thing called Nanogen,

which is, it's almost like salt and pepper and you put it in your hair and it's got like 50 different colours, so they match it exactly to your hair. What is it spray on her? It's, it's a powder essentially. And essentially, and then you hairspray on it. It just fills in any possible gap that you might have. Nanogen, I'm great by this by the way. And whoever you are, however thick your hair is, if you put you on TV, you will look like you've got gaps.

So nanogen is this thing, and any contestant who ever comes on a quiz show, literally it changes their lives. They go, oh my God, this stuff is incredible. Tap it in, spray it on, and you absolutely wouldn't notice, and it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't sort of drip you don't have kind of stuff. Giuliani. Yes. Giuliani with the black turrets down at the corner. You are not going to go Rudy Giuliani so anyone who's even slightly vaguely losing

their hair would use that and then they get to the point where any single male TV presenter who even vaguely needs it done will go and get it done just filling in the little gaps and Turkey, I think, is the place that influences Go. Most TV presenters go to Dublin. Yeah. We're not advising you to go to Turkey because a lot of bad things happen in Turkey as far as I can work out from these clinics that are half the price. But also not advising anyone to get this done because if you're not sitting your entire life under incredibly bright lights, you don't need to have it done. And there's a guy called Dr. Maurice Collins over in Dublin. I think Jimmy Nesbitt, who's been absolutely open about having his done, I think he went

there, Louis Walsh, they get it done as soon as it even vaguely starts. TV hairdressers are so good at artfully making it look like you're not bored by kind of, you know, combing your hair in various different directions and styling it in certain ways. But they'll be the first people to say, oh, maybe you could have that done. And every hairstylist in television knows 10 clients who've gone and had a hair transplant It's people's own hair So they take it from the back of the head and they put it in any places that there might be gaps Grows back and no one seems to notice but certainly there are big stars big sports stars

Big TV stars and you can look at photos of them from 10 years ago. You look at photos now you go Okay, but their TV hair always looks immaculate because they got good hair stylists There'll come a point where a hairstylist says if you want to continue having this sort of haircut You might need to do something artificial so that's why we don't really ever see any transitional bit because Someone's done the work for you and then at the point where they can't do anymore people fly off to Dublin and have it done in Hollywood to answer that other little bit of Kate's question, which is the hair pieces bit So I'm you know say there are actors, someone like Chris Evans, Captain America, I mean, I personally think he's had it done.

He would have been wearing a hairpiece in every single scene anyway. In order for the hair to look immaculate all the time and to make it much easier, almost every man is wearing a hairpiece so that it kind of looks sculpted and perfect all the time. That happens, including people who've got lots of hair. It's just kind of too unruly and they can't- And most women as well, right? And most women as well. It's just easier for everybody to make a wig

that looks like your hair. Some people have just like phenomenal hair and that's what their hair is like and they can get away with it. But in general, in order to keep it so that you're not having really long break between takes while they have to come and fix it all over again, it's so much easier to use hair pieces for everybody.

That's what happens because it just saves so much time of the day. And they stay exactly the same length throughout a shoot and all that kind of stuff. It's easier for everyone, which is weird because sometimes people wear a wig that looks exactly like their real hair. Completely. Yeah.

Oh, here's one for you about Bake Off from Maeve McCauley. She says, I was watching the newest Bake Off and I was thinking that, you know, when it's the technical and Paul and Prue try the perfect cake in the tent, who makes the cake? Is it Waitrose's sponsors or who? I love your tone Maeve. Thank you Maeve. On all of these shows, whether it's Saturday Kitchen or Bake Off or whatever or Nigella, all of these shows, they all have home economists and that is people who will kind of make the thing that's, oh, I put this in the oven six hours ago

and I've made this already. Or as you say, with Pru and Poole, this is like the perfect croquembouche. And so you will have home economists who work on those shows and not only are baking to make something taste nice, that's sort of not the most important, they're baking it to make it look perfect,

like the perfect version of what you want. I spoke to the people on Bake Off, their lead home economist who makes all those things look incredible, it's called Hattie Baker. She says, you get sent all the briefs about six weeks before filming, so then you send back your recipe so the crew can buy all the ingredients that you might need. Occasionally you'll change the recipe at the last minute and then a poor runner has to go to the shops and cost- Like when I'm making a cake. Exactly. Oh, why did I forget that? But Bake the shops and cost like when I'm making a cake.

Yeah. Why did I forget that? But Bake Off's always in like some country house. I know. Where's the nearest shop? I mean there might be a farm shop kind of four miles away but you know they don't have an Aldi just around the corner. Do you have any Cardamom pods?

But yeah they have on all of those shows they have incredible home economists who do that because Paul and Prue it's not that they are lazy and don't want to bake it's they are they are doing other things. You're calling Paul Hollywood lazy? No I definitely am not. No. You know they're a make-up they're shooting kind of you know the pre-titles they're doing all sorts of stuff but yeah the incredible team of home economists. Can I tell you one thing I learned from Hattie Baker as well which I loved you you cannot have dishwashers in the tent because they're so noisy that it affects the shooting. And so every single thing, every single bit of equipment has to be washed by hand by a team of...

In a sort of field tent out the back. Yeah, exactly. Like war. Like a match tent. It is a form of war. It is absolutely a form of war. War by other means. And each series requires 1,000 dishcloths.

What happens to them? They're dishcloths. They don't wear through. Can't they dry them out? They're in the garden. Yeah, but there comes a point where a dishcloth gets too soiled. You know, you gotta be careful with a dishcloth. Marina Isabel Lyons has a question for you. I have a question about pregnancy tests in soaps and TV dramas. When a close-up of a positive pregnancy test is shown on screen, has a pregnant woman had to pee on said stick or is there a way of faking this prop? There must be a way of faking it, surely.

Yeah, well first of all, okay, you can actually just buy fake pregnancy tests as a sort of prank thing. So they either use one of those. Hilarious. Yeah. Oh my God, there's a whole, by the way, if you go on the internet about something like this, there is a whole section of people just saying, this is one of the worst things you can do. This is sort of like men anxious not to be caught by a woman like I'm in a novel from a very different time if you want to actually show it happening apparently so turning from yeah heat or lemon juice can work but also sometimes in order to just do

it they just take the test apart and do a fine red line if that's what that test requires because they're all different of course that that would go on my list of I'm absolutely sure if you were making a TV program and someone had to do that you wouldn't get to the stage where you said can we find a pregnant woman again no pee on this please yeah we just it would really hold up shooting and also no one is pregnant okay well we're gonna have to get someone pregnant we are then gonna have to get it to pee on a stick. Guys, take ten everybody. Can we cut this scene? Can we just say I'm pregnant? Can someone just say I'm pregnant

and then we don't have to do this? But anyway, they're always around it. And on that note, I think we should proceed to a break. Welcome back everybody and I'm going to go straight in with a question from David Brockelsbury about whose line is it anyway? Brockelsbury? Brockelsbury? Brockelsbury. Yes please. I love people's surnames for books but that's a village. The train on platform 4 will stop at Brockelsbury, Hassex, Preston Park and Brighton. I feel like Brockelsbury was one of those ones that was used to be a station, but in the Beeching Review back in the 60s now isn't one anymore.

And now some local entrepreneurs converted the station house into his home. Yeah. Or a really annoying cafe and deli. Oh, I love that. If there's a cafe or a deli in an old station house. You'd visit. Listen, I'd rather it was to the station. Yeah.

But if not, yeah, make it into a deli. Oh Oh my god I can't believe we haven't got the question yet. Yeah and like a wildflower meadow on the tracks. Oh yeah that's a whole mood isn't it. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you get the old steam train that you can spend 400 quid for a large job. Yeah. Anyway David thank you for your question. David says I've been revisiting the UK and best version of Whose Line Is It Anyway. Was it all really done on the spot, even the songs? Ah, thank you, David. Well, that was one of my first ever jobs on TV was working on Whose Line Is It Anyway.

Very short answer is yes, every single thing is made up on the spot. Yeah, the best thing about working on that show is the prize was always for someone to read out the credits. And so when you get a credit on TV, your first ever credit on TV is fun. And that was one of my first but they actually read it out as well you know you get like Colin Mochrie the nicest man in the whole world and Ryan Starrs who by the way is not not the nicest man in the whole world I just said always said that Colin was and they would like read out

your name so that was super cool every single thing is made up every single thing is made up the contestants don't know what's happening at all the thing I used to love about doing that show is in the afternoon you do a rehearsal and that rehearsal is just so you know roughly what games you're playing and the cameras can they know what they're shooting. But you would play the games but with completely different suggestions and but the improvisers because it's what they do. They were just doing their own show.

They just did a completely different show. So you would I would watch two episodes in a day. Um, and no, so my job was program associate, which makes it sound like it's written and it wasn't, but the job of programs associate is just, Oh, if you've got a game like party where, um, you know, Ryan's holding a party and three people come in, they ring on the doorbell and he has to guess what particular quirk they have. The job of the program associate is let's think of 30 different quirks. They could be. You know, the sort of things that audience members would shout out. But no, every single thing was made up. The songs are made up. The songs is always the thing on that.

I would always think, how on earth are you doing this? You'd have things like Hoedown, which like Stephen Fry and Colin were just like, oh, please don't make me do this. Or I think, I think hilariously, they used to do rap briefly. Josie Lawrence or Mike Machane doing songs and they would like produce these incredible sort of numbers from a musical which kind of had internal logic and rhyme and rhythm and jokes. It's absolutely phenomenal. It's like it's like magic. It's a form of. Witchcraft. Yeah. Yeah. But and so the temptation is to think that they've been shown this stuff before that no one had seen a single thing.

It's interesting because we don't have such a big, our comics are improvs, but we don't have such a big tradition here as the States, which has a huge improv tradition. So many of the American actors are unbelievable, which isn't to say that British actors can't do it, but so many of the American actors have come up via improv things, still often have improv nights that they do with another actor, and they still do kind of shows because they still like the live thing, even though they've mainly moved into screen acting. And then like The Office, so Steve Carell was Second City, wasn't he? Chicago, he came out through that. You know, you watch Veep and people like Matt Walsh.

Julie Louis-Grafus. You know, they're just, it's absolutely in their bones, that sort of thing. So, you know, give them the script and then let them improv. But yeah, it feels like Witchcraft when you're watching it for sure, but it is absolutely 100% on the level. A question for you Marina from Kieran Murphy. You often hear in news reports various versions of has been asked for comment, XYZ has been contacted but no one has been put forward, was asked for comments and refused. Are they just various levels of platitude depending on the

particular reporter's view on the people asked or are they meaningful based on a timeline of ask, answer and legal concern? That's right to reply, right of reply. It's a bit of all of those things that you've mentioned, Kieran. Just to dispense with one of them quite quickly, if you've said no one has been put forward, I always think that means you're trying to make a point about the fact that the government is not allowing itself to be, that's not got any, you know, someone's been asked for comment they haven't been put forward. What you want to say is, yeah, we're doing our jobs, but why aren't they allowing themselves

to be scrutinised? It's quite petty. It's not really petty because I suppose you're talking about something like Covid contracts and you know, really Matt Hancock should be there to front up and explain why he did what he did. Well, listen, we know what he was doing instead. Has been asked for comment. That's under the, by the way, there is a fairness obligation under the Ofcom code. Ofcom is what regulates the media in this country. And so if you're saying,

if you're, if the allegation is like quite small, like, I don't know, something very, nothing too big, then you can probably just put in a news story has been asked for comment and you might update when they get back to you. If it's serious, and this is the trouble, you know, if you've got, it's really difficult to know when to, done an investigation and you've got lots of serious allegations, you really have to think about when you go to the person. You ask them on a Friday and you're a Sunday newspaper, then they will really try and, you might find that they try and injunct you before Sundays. So you have have to think what's the shortest amount of time that is still an okay amount of time and then they don't try and spoil your story by saying okay, I'm gonna send my if it's about an actor say that's this is

quite an anodyne version of it. Yeah. Then you'll say okay if this Sunday newspaper is trying to expose to you would you like an interview with my client saying I'm so sorry I've done X Y and Z and I remember a story about an actor saying, you know, I'm addicted to Neurofen. Right, okay, that was not what that was to do. But you've done some sort of plea bargaining of what you will actually say I'm addicted to. In lots of investigations, they're really complex and there are all sorts of things you have to say, they have to have been given a right to reply, but they will often people will try and then just tie you up in lawyers and is this completely movable feast in how long that time takes. If you've given someone three weeks and they haven't got back to you and it's some of the most serious allegations, it's possible you can go ahead.

However, and that will be taken as mitigation, but if it's a very serious, you're still subject to the same libel laws, and if they decide to sue afterwards and say, yeah, well, you can say, well, we came to you for comment and you never said anything, but it doesn't matter because what you're dealing with at that point is the fact of the allegations. You could say, yeah, but we did try and it will be a sort of mitigating circumstances, but it won't get you off the hook. And it is a huge part of any form of journalism, documentary journalism, news journalism, documentary journalism, news journalism, print journalism, anything is giving this right to reply. Yeah, I know people who have been off in sort of war zones and have shot incredible footage

and this out of the other and they're cutting everything and they put together these incredible documentaries and then, you know, there's a month at the end where you say, oh no, you have to ask the Taliban their view and then you have to wait to hear what they've got to say because legally we can't put it out. Because you sort of accused someone of a war crime as an example, not that I'm suggesting that that was... You know, you often see at the end of documentaries there will be like a right to reply, you'll see, you know, or Watchdog or something, and you know, will say this company, you know,

say that they didn't do this and that they followed due procedure and that essentially that right to reply, you cannot put out the the proceeding stuff without that bit at the end. Where it comes, it doesn't have to be at the end. If it's really serious, you'll see that sometimes at Big Sunday Times investigation will have the fifth paragraph will say they've denied all this and then you'll get right on into it for the rest of it. There's a whole thing about where it comes and how much prominence it's given the denial that you can't just sort of tack it on at the end of 40 paragraphs for some things. But if you see something that is tapped on after 40 paragraphs, you know that the newspaper or the television company are fairly confident in what they're saying.

If it's very early on, you know they're kind of going, oh, this is listen, we wouldn't be publishing this if we weren't fairly certain, but we're very aware that this might be challenged by somebody. Yes. And sometimes if it's something to do with about say it's a political story you might have to go to a press officer in lots of cases you might have to go to a press officer and some press officers are great and really understand your deadlines and you say I am going to have to you know when's your deadline I don't obviously ring them four minutes before your deadline unless you know you're very confident about whatever it is you're saying

but if you say you know my deadline's at the end of the day and you wing them in the morning and they haven't got back to you, then I would say that press officer is either hiding something or is not very good. And the best press officers are the ones who understand your deadlines, will give you something by that so that you don't want to develop these antagonistic relationships. Many publicists do have very antagonistic relationships with journalists because it's war. Well also it depends on who their client is. Yeah.

There are certain clients where you can have a lovely relationship with the media and certain clients where you're always going to have a slightly more troublesome one. Richard, Nina Hammond would like to ask something about first dates. I would love to know, she says, whether the couples in the first dates restaurant who aren't featured the programme also on date or whether they're just actors or members of the public who are just there to fill the room. The background dates on First Dates. Thank you Nina for that question. But do you know what? I didn't even need to talk to the First Dates people because I remember my back at

Endermol, my PA Kelly, who's the greatest PA in the history of the world and a hilarious human being. She went on a background date on first dates. She knew someone on the production and you know, they, as you know, they've got to fill like sort of 15 tables. So they said to Kelly, who was single at the time, she now has an absolutely lovely partner, and they said, well, will you come on a date? And Kelly's like, oh yeah, I'll come on a date. That's exactly how she talks. So she went on the date. So yeah, she said, listen, it's weird that you're on it. And obviously everyone's filming the kind of big dates around you. You're in the back of shots, so you have to look fabulous at all times.

She said, but yeah, you're sort of being stopped every now and again. People are being moved around and you have to slightly move your table slightly to the left for a camera. So she said it was an unusual date. And I said, how did your date go? And she said, well, put it this way. They give you 50 pound each towards the bill. And then they say, you can split the bill or one of you can pay. She said, let's put it this way. We split the bill. So I don't think it went great. Yeah. So every single one of those background dates are real dates. Having a bad date in the background where you're like a non-playing character.

Yeah. You're an NPC and basically main character energy is happening over there and you've just sort of to get you can't leave you can't create the whatever the emergency is. Yeah you can't just nip to the leaf because you're sort of like an extra. It's a form it's really quite purgatorial in some ways. But you could find love. You could you know and no one would ever know because you're just an NPC., but it's a great story though It's a great meet cute. Yeah You know if you could because you could find a little footage of you in the background

Great for the speech at the wedding amazing for the speech exactly just a little kind of tiny thumbnail of you I don't know if anyone ever has enhance enhance But yeah, so yeah, it's it's it's for real but yeah I don't know if it's the best way you're ever going to find love. But next time you watch First Dates, I love First Dates by the way, just know that every single person you're seeing in the background is on a very unusual date. I think that's all we've got time for. But please keep your questions coming. The address

is therestisentertainmentatgmail.com. Yeah, that was a load of fun, thanks everybody and see you next Tuesday. See you next Tuesday.