Amelia Dimoldenberg: How Chicken Shop Date became a global phenomenon

0:02This is a global production. They gave me the worst grade in my class because my final project was a YouTube channel. I went and I did all the pitching and everyone said no. A few people wanted to own the copyright, so they wanted to take the IP from me. When did you start thinking, blummin' heck, this has all gone a bit bonkers. Yeah, never enough. You're big on prep. I'm big on prep, yeah. I've never been someone who can just wing it. take everything seriously because you're just fear of of being shown up could you ever imagine yourself following your dad into politics um that's not a no

0:43amelia de moldenburg welcome thank you for having me do you like being interviewed i don't mind being interviewed actually because you it's less prep goes into it it's all relative you're big on prep I'm big on prep yeah I'm not I've never been someone who can just wing it in any in anything in life but especially an interview and I've always been very impressed but also like wary of of people who don't have anything written down like you know it's all just top of top of the dome that's just never been my approach if anything it's like I kind of drive myself crazy trying to prep so much which is interesting isn't it because at chicken shop date gives the impression of being incredibly organic and random it's the magic yeah I feel like that that is the hope I mean I I think so so much of the stuff I just have to memorize and then um hope that I remember and then often I don't remember my questions and I up saying something completely random and people enjoy that you're 20 years younger than me and i'm really quite nervous about interviewing really yeah i can't quite work out why partly when i mentioned at home that you were coming on um the levels of excitement among my wife and my daughters was off the charts the charts so that puts me on wow tenterhooks that's good that's great well your family has great taste well clearly my family has great taste but i mean i can't remember the last time I was nervous about interviewing somebody who um is is is that much younger than me but here we are here we are let's get on with it don't I was gonna say don't be nervous afterwards will you give me notes afterwards depends yeah depends how well this goes see how we get on um you mentioned your attention to detail which was evident from quite an early age so was your belief that you were meant for higher things yeah gonna be a star yes yeah how early um honestly like from as early as i can remember remembering things i just have always wanted to be going above and beyond like be that person that was doing that every extracurricular activity that they possibly could like putting my name forward for every competition or or what honestly whatever it was i was i was doing it were you insanely jealous of children on telly yes yes of course and then i'd always be writing you know writing to blue peter writing to whoever trying to get on um and then eventually i actually was um on news round and i was a press pack reporter aged 10 gosh and i um went footage survives it's actually unfortunately it was a well not unfortunately it was a written piece was it only written it was only written um and so there were there are photos that exist on the internet of me and my massive ears because i really have grown into my ears as an adult but yeah um i always just i always just imagined myself um doing something or or yeah like honestly like reporting meeting people um doing something oh yeah i wanted to be the editor of vogue but but i also just i i spoke to my dad about this recently because i was talking about like with like why you get into the things that you do and i i think that like films and popular culture are so integral to that well for me anyway and i think that you know watching something like the devil wears prada um where set in a magazine um watching honestly mary kate and ashley these two two twins who would go all over the world and would have a different career like each each film and you you it made me think oh wow like the possibilities are like endless of like all of the different things that you could do and i think that really inspired me to want to get into um well specifically publishing at the time when i was up nearly every every female lead in a rom-com happened to work at a magazine and so I just think that was very much at the forefront of my mind what mum and dad encouraging of your dreams yeah definitely always they've always been important so important and also like so key when you think about like the barriers to entry of for for lots of young people I think one of them is the support of your parents and you know I think most people can relate to the idea of wanting to impress your parents and if they don't like what you're doing I can imagine that being a reason to to not be confident or to kind of pursue something else so you're very driven yeah I don't think and I don't think you were precocious you wouldn't have been an annoying child I don't think no I wasn't that annoying I don't think no I also like you weren't stage school no I wasn't stage school even though I did beg my parents to try and send me to um Sylvia Young but they they don't remember this i've brought this up recently and they don't remember this happening but no um and also i think my parents have always been very like um grounding or like that sarcastic in a way or humorous that they would always bring me i mean they're northern they'd bring me back down to earth and i've got a sister too who can do that as well okay so you grew up in marley bone yeah i think um you mentioned dad he was a labor counselor in westminster for a long time and worked in public relations yeah up until really recently he was um a labor counselor yeah and then he was the lord mayor of westminster last year i missed that yeah it was exciting it was very exciting it was amazing yeah it was amazing and mum was a librarian yes a librarian okay so what was home like i'm sensing that you'd have quite highfalutin conversations at the dinner table and stuff we actually never ate dinner as a family no because no we never ate me and my sister would eat dinner in front of the tv and my parents would eat like later than ours so i don't actually have any real memories of like eating together in that sense like sometimes on the weekend like when their friends were around we would like go to pizza express and but i still feel like me and my sister were like at the end of the table my parents had me and my sister later in life like in their 40s and so a lot of like i feel like we spent a lot of time with adults um and then also we spent so much time like at labor party functions um like being the kids there you and your sister are super tight yes really really close and we work together and did you rope her in to your projects and performances when you were young was she a completely willing participant oh i would rope her into everything um we were obsessed with cats the musical but we were also obsessed with Motown music so we met we did like an amalgamation of both of them and so we did we dressed up as cats and we did like a contemporary dance to Motown music which I remember my parents having to sit through and then I remember one time my mum would never like raise her voice at me but I remember one time she did which was when I dressed up as the cat tried to do the whole performance when their friends were around and I silked into the living room like on all fours like in my outfit and my mum went Amelia get the cat costume off and go into your room now so try to pin this down not to show off in the in the annoying sense of the word but what just desperate to perform that's what were you looking for approval attention attention approval oh yeah just like I think I probably was just sort of like wanting wanting to show that i was like good at something right i think that was really has always been really important to me like being being good at something and then yeah obviously like the attention of your parents like you know you know especially when they're very busy people and they do they have much silliness your parents yeah they've got a really good sense of humor yeah and also i think like if you to like support your child who like has a show where she goes on dates with celebrities in a chicken shop and to be like fully like that you're the biggest fan of that like I do think you have to have some kind of like silliness within your within your bones yeah so I love this it's a nice mix because presumably quite intellectual there must have been loads of books around yeah yeah especially like yeah because my they my my parents like are the most um vivacious readers and so is my sister and I was always the odd one out because I never really read growing up and I've only actually recently got into reading more but they would like they'll read like a book like a book a weekend and and always and they they watch university challenge and they get actually get questions right you know it's and i'm just sat there like scrolling or something so is it like a sort of unfocused ambition just to be on telly or to be in i mean the magazines are part of it that comes a tiny bit later but when you're going to auditions and when you're trying to be in things and when you're writing well i never really auditioned for anything it was honestly it came from this idea of wanting to be editor of vogue like I wanted to work within magazines like that was what I did wanted to do and then that is also why my teacher at school Mr Lau um told me about this magazine club that was run out of a youth club in northwest London because I would be so openly talking about how I was going to be editor of Vogue one day um and I and and that I ended up going to that from when I was 16 and that has kind of given me everything that's where it all begins that's the origin story I don't want to get ahead of ourselves what were you like at primary school primary school um I was really popular at primary school actually and I had lots of friends and again I was like um trying to be the best in class and yeah definitely one of the like the leaders in in the in the class and then then when it got to secondary school everything changed because I wanted to have an idea like change my identity and so I to do that I sort of sort of got just said goodbye to all of my friends like a lot of my friends from primary school went to my secondary school because it was like a feeder school and I just was like bye guys I'm I'm gonna do my own thing and that that for therefore mean I had no friends.

10:31Why did you do that? I don't know I just wanted to just like be someone new or something like that which is kind of hard to do when like there's loads of people still around that like know you since you were yeah since you were four so um so so yeah and then and then I did find it quite difficult to to make friends and I but I also just really committed to like doing all of the extracurricular things and I was on the school council I was the librarian's assistant like I did all of these different things um and then I did eventually make amazing friends that I'm still friends of now okay but but not actively unpopular you weren't like no I wasn't I wasn't picked on like i was like there were a few instances where like people were um mean to me like there was one girl in particular who would do things like um go around go around the group and give everyone an invitation to her birthday party and then purposefully miss me out and that kind of stuff does stay with you for stay with you for a long time um so there was like definitely mean mean spirited people that i came across but but yeah i was i was and i was pushed into a cupboard put a bin over my head at one point but but other than that it's all great and you were funny yeah it was funny as a way to make friends i think probably a lot of um comedians or people in in that world like probably that's their story isn't it they needed to make friends and and academically absolutely middle of the road yes yes almost uncannily it's so boring yeah it's not boring no but it's just a bit you know because if you're like really good at school you get you get things if you're really bad you get you get stuff in a different way and i think if you're middle of the road it's just sort of like are we talking about attention again yeah there we go maybe we are no attention is given to the middle of the road the middle of the road that's why you need to figure out another way to to make yourself known well i think you used to get awards for effort yeah yeah i would always get that a prize for effort which kind of makes which makes sense to if I think about myself um what were you good at um I was good at I guess I was kind of good at English although um I feel like in hindsight like the books make sure books and the text make so much more sense now than they did when you I was at school which I probably everyone thinks that um and I I don't really know like what else I was really good at so there's no I mean in In terms of having ambitions to go into publishing, to go into magazines, there's no sort of sense of you dedicating your school years to preparation for the future.

13:11You weren't sort of thinking, if I want to do this, I need to do that. Yeah, I was. I was always thinking about that. I've only ever thought about that. This is what I need to do. So that's why I was doing a lot of extracurricular things. Because I was like, okay, so I'm not going to get the best grades. so i need to figure out another way to succeed and uh i i even remember like at school i i took part in another magazine project where i ended up getting my sister to be like the model and and and then like um writing my own little articles and reviews of things and yeah i was always doing sounds exhausting yeah actually yeah it actually when i think about it it was but I've always I've never my brain has never been able to stop no I'm getting that impression already um yeah never enough the cut the thing that you did at 16 then yeah I mean it feels not only a bit well it feels simultaneously like a sort of life-changing experience but also an incredibly logical inevitable progression from what what you were aiming for anyway you'd have bitten their arm off when they came along and said there's this magazine in oh my goodness yeah but i was just so it's just so amazingly like the timing and so grateful for that teacher for like pushing me towards it did you ever get nervous i'm just i mean we'll move on to this with what you're known for now but in all of the things that you're talking about and i know that you didn't really audition for stuff i think you went out for the golden compass oh i did actually yeah but i never actually auditioned because the queue was too long okay yeah and you wanted to be an club juniors oh yeah i did wow you know stuff well i mean i'm just sort of thinking about the path not taken how your life might have turned out if any of these had been successful you never know what could happen in the future though no of course you don't it's early well aren't you doing acting next aren't you doing well i'm developing a movie yeah yeah okay that's very casually so well because who knows if it's actually gonna happen okay you hope so you hope so your point um so you turn up at this place in northwest london did you have anxiety and nerve because you're just giving the impression so far of of just loving everything and loving the opportunities and did you ever sort of i was definitely scared well i was definitely nervous when i started going um to um the car because it was i was in a room full of of people who were older than me and even when you're that age if someone's one year older than you it's like completely daunting and um it was also like there were everyone there for example was like really into uk rap and grime music and it It was, I was, my like introduction into rap was probably like more mainstream, like Eminem and 50 Cent.

15:50And so even with that, like the, like the sort of the cultural differences of like the touch points, like I was sat there and I think for, for like the majority of the time when I just started, I was probably not engaging. I was just like listening and not speaking because I was nervous to say something or get something wrong. And so, yeah, I was definitely nervous beginning in that environment. and then I became as I became more confident obviously got to know all the other young people there it became more and more obvious to me that like I would love to interview some of the musicians that that everyone was listening to because that was what was like everyone thought was cool like everyone everyone there I thought everyone there was like super interesting and like and great and like passionate about whatever it was they were wanting to write about or like photograph yeah um and I just thought oh wow like oh this is great like I want to be able to like um get in on the conversation and also like feeling inspired myself by their enthusiasm for um what they what everyone was passionate about but wanting to it's weird isn't it wanting to interview not to create but in a way and i mean you more than most people your interviews are creative i mean yeah definitely it's a weird hinterland that you occupy between interviewing out of curiosity but actually creating content that goes far beyond journalism that's exactly what I've always wanted to do like do both at the same time and I think maybe it comes from this I've always been interested in like more of like narrative storytelling or like all those things like wanting to have my own tv series or wanting to have my own movie and like and I've always had those ambitions of creating something or or being creative and this was present the way that things worked out was like this was the route that I went down did the because a bit like your work on newsround the original interviews were print yeah so did you could you do anything of that in print could you could you yeah I try to well I feel like it was like a very staccato energy like when I was writing them up like I would just have like you know I would I would have the dialogue of what the what the artist had said to me and then I would have like a one rad reply back from like me and like my inner monologue you know um and so they were I was attempting for them to be funny at the time and um i think um also like we had uh mentors at the magazine and um some of them were from vice um and i think you know vice media was um you know very of the of the moment it was like it it was a big deal then but it was also still kind of like in its earlier days it felt subversive exactly and i so i think that was very influential and i ended up um interning there and and working for Vice while I was at university as well.

18:40But yeah, Vice was really influential to like my tone of voice. I mean, this is incredible, really, that you had the consciousness and confidence to try to do something. I think when I was that age, I'd have just been delighted to have a byline and I'd have just been writing up relatively run-of-the-mill normal interviews and trying to perhaps insert a few clever words somewhere. But you were trying to do something quite deliberate. Yeah, well, that's also because it was encouraged at the magazine. Like, it was encouraged to be humorous, to be looking at things with, you know, a different angle, to be subverting the usual.

19:20Like, that was what was encouraged. And to be playful, all of those things. Like, to be tongue-in-cheek, like, that was the environment. It would have been weird to do something that wasn't, you know. To be straight. To be straight, yeah. and also I think that that is also my sensibilities but it was definitely encouraged at at the cut and at the youth group and I think obviously also when you're around young people when there's a magazine that is made by specifically people who are under 21 the likelihood of it being a bit silly and maybe like not being the most serious thing um in the world is is likely so where did the idea to conduct the interviews in a chicken shop that came from like us all talking in a group and being like where would be a place you would never go on a date you would never take anyone on a date and it was like a chicken shop and that's how it happened and the rest is history again to sort of add into the humor of it and i read that it took you quite a while to pitch it to build up the confidence to pitch it i find that hard to believe well at first i was doing it for the magazine and so i would i would have a few there was a few um interviews that went out in the magazine in the the time i it was like i wanted to pitch it and maybe for it to be on vice for it to be on channel four bbc um you know as a filmed um enterprise and so uh i went and i did all the pitching and everyone said no um and what did you show them the the articles just the articles uh the articles and then no and then i did another round of pitching where i had like a few episodes a few earlier episodes and were they edited as heavily as it is now yeah it was the same and then i think that actually i did get into quite far with the bbc and then they wanted a few people wanted to um to own the copyright so they wanted to take the ip from me and i knew luckily there was something in my gut saying from that from just from just something yeah instincts that that that isn't that wasn't what i wanted i think especially as i started it from all on my own and well with the help with the magazine but like it was something that i had done and i had done it on my own already why would i hand over to everybody yeah exactly still quite i mean you could have been forgiven for just being desperate to sign anything well i was a bit desperate as well because because um at first when i was filming them i was getting everyone to do as a favor yes because i was at uni and so i was like student project like getting people to to come in and do favors and then it got to a point after maybe filming like five or something i just felt like i can't keep asking people to work for free like it just doesn't feel right um and so i was like i'm gonna have to start um paying for these and i didn't have any enough enough money to um to do that and so that was also at the time when i had just got management and luckily um they were able to get me a contract with Vodafone and I was able to do to do a brand my first like big brand deal and this was also at the time when um influencing and you know going direct to the content creator the brand going direct the content creator was a thing so I was able to do a job that gave me enough money to um never have to worry about um funding the series again did you get that or did you feel because it was in the very early days and and traditionally you want to be on a an established platform or legacy media did you understand the way did you sense that things were changing profoundly or not not really like I wanted to be in legacy media like that was what I wanted to do and so I was frustrated like by the situation and I think that but I'm so grateful in a way that of how it worked out because because I've come at a time where things were really taking shape with new media and especially like um on youtube and it's just so much of my success is to do with timing like most people when you were writing up the interviews before before you started filming them how did you know whether they'd worked or not how did you gauge because i'd post them on facebook and my friends would like and comment and they would speak to me about it and they would say that was really funny and that was honestly even if it was just three people three of my friends who'd read it and thought it was funny that was that was all i needed or my sister thinking it was good and still to this day that is what i that is what i need and that's why i find it i've been finding it quite difficult um with like other projects i've been working on where it's like a lot of development so like with scripted projects for example that take years of development when you just have to go off the fact of whether you think it's good or your producers think it's good and you're not getting that audience feedback i find that challenging and i think that's probably something that a lot of people in my position probably are like really feed off the the feedback or the immediacy of it all yeah exactly exactly but even yeah exactly the immediate yeah but it doesn't it doesn't need to be that many many people no i understand a few people that I value their opinion that's what I kind of need to carry on pushing forward um so it's I mean it takes off nicely but not I mean you go to St.

24:49Martin's anyway you go up you go to St. Martin's simultaneously yeah I study fashion journalism at St. Martin's because I still want to work still editor of O on the horizon so at this point the chicken shop was just a sort of slightly weird sideline exactly it was like I did the first episode um in my first year at uni and i was just doing it on the side throughout my studies and then everyone uh everyone of my tutors weren't that uh understanding of of it they didn't really get it and like you know what maybe like fair enough i don't know however they are in like an institution ofst martin's where you are meant to be like punk yeah exactly so i don't know but but um they actually gave me an honorary fellowship um two years ago and um i because i finished um bottom in my class they gave me the worst grade in my class because my final project was a youtube channel right and i made like fashion um content um and they were just like sorry you what are you doing this is not this is what was everyone else doing everyone was making a magazine a printed magazine um and anyway so they gave me this honorary fellowship and in my speech i speak about um i spoke about you know um how you shouldn't listen to your tutors and if you have if you believe in something you should just do it regardless you've kind of been vindicated because that's why they gave you the fellowship they did or had they forgotten that they put you bottom of the cliff i think they they didn't i think they forgot about that because i i did i did get a few people coming up to me afterwards being like oh you really oh so what an interesting speech you did yeah well so there's two cars moving now there's the there's the career that you thought you'd always wanted and there's this career that you've kind of fallen into although you're taking it very seriously that's something that really shines through everything that i've read about you is that you work very very hard and you put in all of the prep and all of the hard work in order to appear all effortless yeah take it serious take everything seriously because you're just fear of of being shown up so when did that car overtake that car when did the chicken shop day overtake i'm going to be the next editor of vogue well probably when at my final year of university i spent way i was way more preoccupied by um doing like a little mini series of chicken shop day um with dave with um people just do nothing with maya jammer and i was like so happy with those three bookings because to me they just like they were just so of the moment so and just it was amazing and maya was the first woman i also interviewed on the show and i think the week after i graduated university and i hated the graduation because i was crying on my way in not wanting to go because of how they how badly the grades were and i didn't want to go over and get get get my diploma and i just hate just hated it and then the week after i had a screening that i organized for these three new episodes of chicken shop day and i was like this is my grad this is my actual graduation and i think after that i just thought um that is what i'm really going to focus on and then it tied with then soon after that getting this big branded deal and being able to then support myself and then from then on they just kept coming in um and i yeah and and and to go back to that legacy media thing you you're judging their success by views you're judging success by the number of people or what exactly what then i like was judging it through the caliber of guests i could also get because they would only come on it if they knew about it yeah or if they like respected it i think i had i've had a lot of people come on the show just because they genuinely think they genuinely are a fan of the show or they like watching them more they're interested in it i think that's that's why daniel kaluuya came on originally and he was one of the for me a really important guest to get because um it was my my first um like you know prestigious actor that i could get on the show um and i think maybe my first yeah my first actor i've had on the show oh actually no chibadi g i was going to say he counts as an actor as him chowdhury as chibadi g of course um and and yeah and so uh and and daniel was just was had seen episodes and was a fan of it and i think that kind of opened doors for like other actors to think that they could come on but it still took a long while to crack the actors did it yes um and now it's like that's my number one um in the in the inbox yes um i think with actors it's like was i think musicians were more likely to do something that was a bit tongue-in-cheek um i mean pop world was a big um inspiration for me simon amson and makita oliver and like their interviews with musicians like they really inspired me to to kind of in terms of like the tone of chicken shop day and i think the musicians have always been a bit more playful whereas actors i think have always taken themselves a bit more seriously because i think they kind of are um so yeah getting actors on the show has always been um was a big ambition of mine and getting jennifer for Lawrence was a big moment too, because that was difficult.

29:46Your character, it's hard to pin this down, isn't it? It's like a persona. It's like an exaggerated version of me. And was that in place from the very start? Yes. And did you know what you wanted to do? Well, I just thought it would be funnier. What would be funnier? Like me being a bit more prickly or me being a bit sarcastic or sardonic, me being deadpan. I thought that would be more interesting. And like now that I think about it and I've had the show for like 12 years starting the show when I was 17. I also think I was nervous to be myself. And I still think I often do get nervous to be like my full self when I'm when I'm doing these interviews.

30:28That's why they're also part of the reason why they're so short as well, because it goes back to the idea of of like, oh, well, you know, if I if I had like an hour long conversation with someone like that wouldn't be. that would be tiresome well we're doing our best yeah and it's funny because most every that is like the that is the that is the the style of now you know the the two hour long podcast or or whatever two's pushing yeah something i've got three hours um and people love it people and i love listening to that too but for me i just also like i like the idea of it being short because it adds to the humor and the edit is always my favorite part so tell me about that that's a world i know nothing about the edit is where the magic happens yes i i love the edit tell me what do you do what happens in um well i watch the full episode in full so i watch the 45 minutes and then i'll do a paper edit where i will um you know write down all of the moments that i want included and then i'll send it off to my editor and then i'll get a first pass and then we'll go back and forth back and forth how often i mean how much back and forth so like a lot like i am giving notes i'm like can you please take one second off wow off this it's really finely really finely tuned because it's like all about the rhythm of the comedy and um also like the intonation of of of the guest and i always want to show them in like a in a really positive light um where you end up like falling for the person just it's a date you know at the end of the day and I'm never I'm I'm never making someone look like different to how they actually were but um I'm I'm creating chemistry within the edit I think I think that in the full episode um maybe if it was just raw uh it would be like it would there would be obviously a vibe there but I I really am kind of like super super sizing it um in the edit and you know and you knew from the start exactly what you were doing yeah because we were very inspired like me and my my my previous editor marvin who i met um at the youth club like we were all very inspired by like um comedy comedy series like between two ferns um uh and um at pop world again and i think that there was always like well especially like between two ferns that is very highly edited and like semi-scripted and i I think, again, back to your point of blurring the lines between an interview, a performance, a comedy sketch, all of these different things.

33:02I've always been interested in the narrative of the show. It is about a girl who wants to find the love of their life. And I think through that story arc and the character, I'm able to do something that is different from your regular interview and connects with people a bit deeper. Best thing that's ever happened to you financially. Go. Easy. Sold my car on Carvana. Amazing offer. Really? I hit 200 on the scratcher. Did the scratcher come to your house and hand you a check? No. How many scratchers did you hit to get that? I hit a button on Carvana.com once. Okay, that's fair. It's like the lottery, except you always win.

33:44Not like the lottery at all, actually. Exactly. Inexplicably good. Offers worth bragging about. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply. In the very early days, did people know what they were signing up for? No, I don't think so. Not at all. But that's why it's great, because it works when you don't have any idea what it is. I interviewed Cher relatively recently, and she had never seen an episode before. Bless her. I don't know who told her it was a good idea, but thank you to them. And it works if you don't know what's going on or if you're a big fan. And you lose 35 minutes of material every episode.

34:25Yeah, I know. It's just on the cutting room floor. And it's probably people would find it really interesting. Yeah. And it's a lot of anecdotes about like... More traditional interview fodder. Oh, boring. Yeah, it's literally like people talking about, yeah, anecdotes of like inspiring moments, like sincere things. Bollocks. No thanks. It's just not... To me, it's not interesting. and it and i think that's best uh like you wouldn't have been a very good editor of vogue if you don't find all i mean no because that but i would i would have oh i'm sorry sorry of course because i could be able to think about things more broad you know for a broader audience and there'll be like such a different variety of different things in the magazine whereas with this it's so singular of like i'm very focused of what i know the show is when did you start thinking blummin' heck this has all gone a bit bonkers i think maybe when i got an audience in america like that was a really big um and was that organic yeah it was started watching yeah it was through like specific episodes they kind of reached over to the american audience um and then when i started doing my red carpet interviews um i think i also was able to get more of a i thought that was a consequence of it going bonkers rather than i mean when did you start thinking this is when did you start thinking this is a career was it just when you got the vodafone deal and yeah i think Or even then would you have been thinking, well, that's got us another year.

35:50I wonder what I'll do when this comes to an end. No, I always had faith that I would be able to figure something out, I think. And also I think it goes back to being the support of your parents and having that support network of them being like, we believe in you. They completely got it from the start. You can come back and live at home if you need to. That type of thing is really important, I think. to like give you that confidence but um but yeah so i don't know i always just believed that it would be okay and and some episodes obviously perform better than others some some i mean just in terms in numbers terms and some landed in america in a way that others wouldn't yeah definitely like my episode with jack harlow who's um a musician an american musician like that really like got me more of an audience in the states and then yeah as i said like my red carpet interviews as well I think got me uh so how did that come about um my uh publicist at the time was uh really wanting me to work with GQ magazine and obviously I wanted to as well and um they were looking for someone or maybe she pitched it I can't remember how it came about looking for someone to host the red carpet for their man of the year awards and this must be like five years ago now and this was kind of before non-traditional talent were um on the red carpet you know uh like more like influencers or creators were asking questions on the red carpet and i was i was there and i i had done previously a red carpet before um at the mobos like years ago and loved it because i just thought of it as an amazing opportunity to have like so many quick fire moments with celebrities and again back to the edit like oh the edit is so good i love doing the edit of a red carpet because you're able to splice all of these different moments together and create a narrative from it that feels like really comedic and so I did that with the GQ man of the year and that was where I was able to get some amazing interviews with you know Stormzy, Louis Theroux and then most famously Andrew Garfield and then through that interview it then kind of spiraled into then me being getting an email from Golden Globes and being like do you want to host the record for the golden globes and that was that to me was like oh that was a big big shift in my the andrew garfield one worked or became so huge because of chemistry but but also because you were so extraordinarily well prepared for that moment yes definitely i like prepare i really had it in my head i knew that that g i just knew that that gq man of the year event was going to be really important and I remember saying to my sister how did you know because I just knew that it would it would then it I would then be able to prove myself in this new arena like people knew that I was at that time they they knew that I was good at doing the chicken shop dates yeah and that that was becoming successful but then that was kind of all I had at the moment to show for myself and the way that things work is that like one thing is just not good enough you have to have like multiple things for people to then think that you're here to stay in some regard and so the the red carpet i thought okay this is something that is kind of adjacent and i know that i'm going to be good at it and i thought that if i do well at this i might be asked to do the met gala which i've never actually done um but that to me was like a real big ambition and so i i prepared loads i really prepared i i had multiple panic attacks before um well i have had proper panic attacks but no i think more um i was just like sleepless night yeah before um there's a lot riding on it and you really really want it to go well yeah but it's important to me to also like write questions for each person not just have generic questions that you ask everyone and i think that is one of the key things and then obviously having the chemistry and also even simple as like being in on camera with them a lot of recalb interviews you don't ever see the host you just see the microphone or you hear their voice and i think having me in frame um creates it to be like a more like entertainment focused thing rather than like a news bit when you say you were writing quite so you'd have a you knew who was coming you'd have access to the guest yeah with the red carpet i always know who i'm gonna i always know who's gonna be invited um but i don't know who i'm gonna be able to get but but you've got a a plan of what you will ask i prep for everyone if you get and how much so it just takes a long time person how much prep are we talking about um i guess i would write um maybe like five questions for each person and then i would have a set of general questions that i would like mix in and then i would end up probably reading a lot of profiles that um different journalists have obviously written because i think celebrity profiles are the best way to get an understanding of of someone so i do that and and the moments come along can you can you tell in the moment that something's yeah definitely magical you sort of i've got 100 yeah and i'm also like in when i'm when i'm interviewing someone i'm also like in the i'm i've got my editor hat on as well um and so i'm just thinking i'm just doing a lot of thinking and what's the difference between amelia on the red carpet and amelia in the chicken show i think i'm a bit more myself on the red carpet i'm i'm not bound to to the persona of being there on a date.

41:20So I'm able to be a bit more free and I'm standing up honestly like that. It's a little bit of a difference there. And I suppose if you were, if the gap was smaller, then you'd run the risk of people knowing, it's not, I don't want to say the joke, but you need people to forget they're performing when they're on the red carpet with you or to forget that they're on show. You want to try and create those moments of, it's intimacy that you provide. isn't it yeah exactly i think which is mad when you think the whole world's cameras are pointing at both of you at that moment but you manage but it sounds corny but i do i do sort of forget the cameras there um when when you're in in the in the moment yeah definitely i don't think it sounds corny at all i mean it wouldn't work would it because you're the opposite of the um the traditional red carpet reporter who is like you've said invisible either literally invisible or metaphorically invisible whereas you're very visible exactly yeah and i think it's i think that's what people um really were excited about um when i first started doing them yeah

42:25when did you start thinking about giving something back because um the the the the academy that you feel i think feel very strongly about the dims inc academy which i want to talk about properly um quite early on in your career to be thinking about helping other people get into the industry i don't know i don't know i i genuinely feel like um um it's something that that i don't know i honestly think most people should be doing should be having some kind of uh thought of like how how can i kind of give back and i i'm sure a lot lots of people do in their own way and everyone has something that they're specifically interested in and i think for me the way that I started the show um being part of a youth youth club um I've always wanted to be able to provide that for other people because of how beneficial it was for me um and as someone who didn't really need the services in the way that a lot of the other young people that did and so what do you mean by that you mean that you had a full home life and education exactly yeah or like I wasn't from a low-income family for example I'm not I wasn't on free school meals and I think that um and for me it's given me so much access so the idea of of like uh what I could do and use my platform to be able to open doors for other young people who don't have the access that they need to the creative industries has always been something that um I've always wanted to do just because of how beneficial it was for me um I've always seen the benefit in like um being able to create a community and a network of people like-minded people that you can like work together and you can collaborate with because no one does anything on their own and I haven't either and so the people and the connections that I made at when I was a teenager have served me really well and so I thought it wouldn't be amazing if I could I mean I always just wanted to like create the magazine again because it was funded by partly by Prince's Trust partly by the council and then all of the funding went during um oh no before that no it was austerity yeah um and also the youth club shut down too all roads lead to george osborne yeah it's yeah i mean exactly like it's terrible it is terrible so um so that's why i've always wanted to do something like that and then last year i partnered with spiral skills who are my charity partner on this and um i was able to provide a one week um program um for young people in london in the lambeth area because that's where they're based.

44:57And then this year it's going to grow to four weeks, which I'm really thrilled about because the longer that you have with young people, the better, the more likelihood it is that they'll learn more and also create those connections with other people. And so these are young people who are interested in digital media or going into a creative career but wouldn't be able to call in any favours or pick up the phone and sort out a little internship or replacement or anything like that exactly exactly and so like that's something that we kind of go through in the application process because um and also we use may we're using mainly a lot of spiral skills network as well themselves um uh because it's it's a small program you know it's 16 young people um and so it would kind of it would feel um unfair if i was to like um broadcast broadcast it far and wide um because of how small the the program is so you wouldn't have got on it then when you were no i wouldn't have got on it no i wouldn't have gone it and the plan the the plan for me you probably would have applied i would have applied i would have applied like damn it but the plan the plan is for for it to have different touch points so for able to have to have the summer school which is for a specific demographic of people and then be able to have other um we're also going to be doing like um an evening which is more of like a networking evening that it's like for for a broader amount type of young people so like different touch points for different groups of people so they can they can get support in in in ways that would be um beneficial for them because all young people across the board have all different types of needs and different um issues when it comes to the access that they need and how hands-on are you well very hands-on like from developing the program to being there um actually during the summer school um um to yeah it's like me and my team are the one the ones who are kind of shaping the program with um spiral um and making sure that we're using like our expertise and our knowledge and i'm using my network all of the professionals that we have come in and speak to the young people they're all my friends or people that i think would be great at speaking to young people um because for me the the academy is about not just being like a youtube creator pipeline it's about um giving young people the opportunity to understand um the breadth of creative careers that that are there within video production specifically like you know you can be a camera operator you can be a producer you can be you can you could direct um there are all different um jobs available to you um and that was important to me so it's permanent and it's growing yes exactly it's growing um and yeah i'd love to be doing it every summer that's the that's the aim for it and um and provide um mentorship to the young people like after the um the summer school ends and and have you seen the success from last year have you seen young people whose lives have changed well when we were at at the program like it was it was so um like it was it was so meaningful and you could like the young people who were able to like um speak to one another to kind of just feel like they had some kind of confidence um that had been you know these are a lot of these young people had been um applying for jobs left right and center and had had been rejected so many times and i think that the the summer school gave them this opportunity to create something to feel like the confidence that they were able to have an idea and actually make something that then could go towards a portfolio piece which was really important to me I want the I want the academy to be a place where you actually end up leaving with something tangible because I think we all know that like in especially in the creative industries like your CV really isn't enough it's like you have to have something else to show for yourself and a lot of the time it is like something physical like whether it's like a video that you've made or that you've been a part of to show that you um that that you are like not even well yeah worthy of the placement or whatever it is it's a there's a lot of hurdles um how do you choose people for are you involved in that as well or is that spiral skills are they do that yeah they do not vetting yeah yeah selecting and they're asked you know what it is about um digital media that excites them and what kind of um what what they would um like to be a part of in that in that respect um and then they'll also ask like um what if there is any there's like given a list of different roles and which role that they would think that they would like to be part of the most underrepresented backgrounds yeah that's a great word i've struggled to find the right word because you don't want to some of the words sound victorian i know underrepresented underrepresented yeah in that industry yeah because i think that it's um I think it's important for, I've always thought it important for me to do my part in levelling the playing field.

49:55And I think that that is something that I can do with my network. So all that time at Labour Party events has clearly had some sort of impact on me. But it's also like we're in a crisis right now of young people. I was coming to that. I mean, it is very much, it's very timely, isn't it? And you've spoken about this as well. the million young people who are currently not in education employment or training yeah one in eight young people it's really bad and it's like a crisis that's not just you know of unemployment it's of of um education of health um and there's yeah and there's there's a lot that needs to be done but like short schemes like the one that we're doing that is that is goes goes a long way to help a certain like a certain young people who are just needing that lift or a boost in confidence or a door to be open to them do you know we did it on the show today actually before i sat down with you and and i hadn't thought of it in these terms before but it's a bit like when you take the stabilizers off a bicycle and you just need someone to hold you for the first few pedals and if someone's holding you for the first few pedals you're fine you'll be off yeah you might not even realize they've let go of your taking but but you can't do that alone no you can't or some people can but most people most people can't and like in terms of like the neat young people like not in education training or employment like there's different levels to that to that one million you know some some are experiencing like real mental health issues they're carers um they need a lot of infrastructure behind them to be able to like um get out of their situation then there's a the majority of neat young people are people who do need maybe like a week's work experience or like they need a specific thing and they need to be taught how to apply for a certain thing to get on their way and then there are people there are young people who have everything within their grasp they but they're applying to jobs hundreds of jobs and they're getting rejection letters left right and center and they need to meet someone who can open a door like like actual like nepotism who can who can get them a job um and that so there's lots of different ways in which like you can help young people um get out of their of this predicament because it's not for want of wanting to be working like young people it's such a like misconception that these young people are lazy or like you know not wanting to um or not ambitious they are it's just they've been born in a time where they spent half of their schooling in in their bedroom through covid they've grown up like addicted to their phones um and and also there's a mental health crisis there's so many things that are at play especially like some young people the reason that they're not education training or or um employment is because like the bus the buses in their local area like don't get them to where they want to go so we'll see hopefully this the new government can do some stuff yes how do how do people find out more about dims inc academy um through our instagram dims inc instagram yeah there we go and if you're in a similar position in the northwest or in the liverpool city area then the charity i work with called the andy taylor foundation is doing something very similar in liverpool so that's worth looking up as well just speaking to both ends of the country oh 100 if you're not in london because that is an ambition that is a want of mine to be able to make it more regional but we're start starting off obviously in in my city.

53:28But yeah, that's amazing that if you know another tragedy, there's lots out there. And back to you, or at least back to the more normal career. I mean, Chicken Shop Day has no shelf life, does it? It could go on forever. Could go on forever. Well, I need to meet the love of my life and then it's going to end. What happens when you do? Then it'll end. Yeah, I mean, of course, you may already have done so, but it would be professionally injurious for you to reveal that. No, I have to meet the love of my life. on the show and otherwise. And then you've got all the red carpet work going on. And then, and this is where we'll end probably, then you've got the other potential projects that build upon what you've done so far.

54:09Yeah, and I think it goes back to, again, the like legacy media element of what we were talking about because I think that it's, that has not, that is not going away, you know. Yeah, there's so much conversation about like new media and social media and, you know, is this overtaking traditional media? I think it's overtaking in some aspects, but it's not like that, you know, people are going to, people are, Gen Z now are going to the movies more than ever. And I've always wanted to make a movie, like from when I was a child. So I think that it's just always something that I've wanted to do. And so to be able to make my very own rom-com, which is what I have in the works, would be a dream come true.

54:48And I really hope that that happens. And I'm also developing a TV series with the BBC. What's the TV series? um it's a drama okay yeah it's about i wouldn't be in it no but you would be in the film yeah i'd be in the film yeah but i directed a music video for maybe as well yeah because i would love to get do more stuff behind the camera like i'd love to i mean directing chicken shop date is amazing but it's it's specific and i would love to be directing more narrative work i made a short film in 2019 and i just i've always loved the beat as i said before like being in the edit like all the elements of my job like i think the ones the part i love the most is uh maybe the bit where i'm not performing really yeah i just think especially when i've been doing it for so long i i i'm really excited or intrigued more about the behind the scenes oh that's interesting so you'll be in an interview scenario and then you'll be thinking i can't wait to get into the edit with this yeah yeah pretty much oh that makes sense yeah because then you're shaping it like you're really crafting it that's why i think that that's why i've always loved like shaping the narrative of something and you know telling the story and there's so many ways in which you can do that i mean i'm really struck and i don't want to sound patronizing but but by the sort of idea of an iceberg you know that what we see on screen is tiny compared to all the work that you've done there's so much going on and as we said at the very outset the the illusion of things being spur of the moment and things being off the cuff is is part of the magic of what you do yeah but it is i mean i mean you'd be frightened of doing anything without feeling incredibly well prepared yes that's that's your superpower in a way is that it's armor that you carry into the i know but sometimes i do just think oh wouldn't it be so great if you could just wing it maybe and like I probably could.

56:39Yeah, I think you probably could. I probably could, but I just feel like, oh, I wonder what my team think of the fact that it takes me a while to, like, do certain things. They have to sort of plan, they have to, like, block that out for me. Right. Yeah, and if they work with other people where it's different. But I don't know, I just, it's just my process. But we'll see. Maybe in the future I'll be able to streamline things. Well, it's working out all right. Yeah, it's not too bad. As it stands. how do you i mean in terms of more measurable success so not just the approval or the enjoyment of the small circle of people that you really trust when you've got so many different things going on and you've got the clash of legacy media with new media and you've got you know so many different metrics what what what do you most value in terms of that's worked that's successful um i get i don't know if this is like i just if a cop-out answer but again it's just back to the idea of like can i make my friends laugh can i make my sister laugh like if i'm doing that with my work then to me that is successful however i obviously do care about the engagement of things and i i i it's true that you know sometimes if something doesn't get as many likes or if if something doesn't get as many views then i'm a bit like oh oh you know you feel a bit like actually like it's devastating um but i try and you know i've had loads of things where it's not been as successful as i wanted it to be in terms of numbers so you just have to think okay well that that's for a certain type of audience and maybe it will come back around and they'll find it later and they'll enjoy it final question um and and i don't think i was going to ask you this until i saw the passion with which you spoke about the academy is there any prospect of a complete change could you ever imagine yourself following your dad into politics I don't know I feel like it's that's not a no it's not a no it would be cool you know what it would be cool in my life to do something completely different like I feel like uh often like especially I'm in my early 30s now and I've been someone as we've spoken about been incredibly driven from a very young age since I can remember and I think it could be quite liberating or freeing to be like you could do something completely different because that has never been in my head i've always been so focused on this one thing so for me maybe it could be but i don't know whether it's politics or not like god i mean it's exhausting like being imagine being a politician or like you know you think i think what i do is exhausting now but like having to be interviewed constantly having to be in meetings all the time isn't that what they do kind of kind of yeah either way not just yet.

59:24And the actual politics involved. The politics of politics. The politics of politics. Makes showbiz look like a cakewalk. Yeah, well you know more than me. I don't know about that. Well yeah. But anyway. Amelia de Moldenburg, thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

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