691 - RICHARD OSMAN - Exposing The Secrets Of British Television (Pointless, The Traitors, 8 Out Of 10 Cats & More!)

20:42Richard Osman:Huh, who's my hero? That's a good question, isn't it? My granddad, I think, probably. My granddad was a police officer down in Brighton and a bolshie one as well. And I always remember he never really got promoted, my granddad. If you knew him, you'd know why. But, yeah, the final straw for him was they tried to get him to police the miners' strike. They tried to get him to go up from Sussex up to Nottinghamshire, up to Yorkshire. And he said, no, I'm not going to do that. That's working men and they're allowed to strike. You know, that's what a union is for. So I'm not going to go up. And they didn't like that in the police force.

21:15Oh, what a legend. So he's my hero. Another thing we've got in common, isn't it? I'd say my granddad. Yeah, I'd probably love your granddad. Not the same person. No, no, no, no. Your granddad would be arresting my granddad, I think. Oh, really? No, he's good. My granddad's a tradesman, worksman. Yeah, I hear what you mean.

21:32Richard Osman:Yeah, you know what? Actually, my granddad, after he left, the police went into trading standards, so he probably would have done. Yeah, fair. Now, Richard, a bit about you and your early life, mate. You were born in Billericay. In Essex. Is that right? Essex, boy. we ask a lot of our guests this if Stevie and I went there for a day what would we do? what should we check out? in Bitteriki well I left when I was quite young oh okay but I went back there once I had a meeting with Barry Hearn oh okay every now and again every five years or so I think because I love dance and I love snooker and I love all that I always pitch something to Barry and I'm always like Barry have you thought about maybe doing this and he's always very nice and always invites me up so I went up to Brentwood to see Barry and nothing came of it as absolutely always uh and uh on my way back i went back to um bitter ricky and uh and went to the road that i was uh that i grew up in where i was born and uh i'd forgotten it's called the chase and the chase of course is the big rival to pointless yeah so i actually grow up on a road called which is where yeah i think i think it had already been petrol i think uh so yeah i don't i I don't know Billericay very very well but it looked like they had some nice pubs okay I'll say that okay we've both spent some time in Billericay did you?

22:46by chance we did a football 24 hour hashtag thing was in Billericay hashtag United 24 hour

22:51Richard Osman:because he owned Billericay Town right yeah that was a weird old what the guy Spencer Spencer hashtag guy I forget no it was someone different wasn't it someone different owned Billericay Town he kept bringing these like bought Jamie O 'Hara in oh yeah oh yeah yeah where we played that I think was owned by I want to say Anton Ferdinand yeah yeah yeah he owned the venue so it was a rogue little place 24 hour long football match that was yeah wasn't it what was a young Richard Osman like at school at school I was uh yeah I was kind of all right I've always I think people sort of think I'm clever or academic and I'm not really that I always found school sort of fairly I find exams fairly easy because I know what I'm being asked to do but I'm but I wasn't super academic I can't see at all so I my entire school and back then And, you know, no one gave you any kind of, no one helped you out in any way.

23:41Richard Osman:So my entire school, I couldn't read a book, couldn't see anything that was on the board. So I was always sort of quite quick with my wits. And, you know, I'd always listen and work out what I needed to do to get away with the least work possible. And so I managed to do that all the way through school. I kind of like school, though, because I like people. I like making people laugh and stuff like that. And I liked it when, you know, we got to do poems and things. But yeah, God, in terms of learning maths and science and stuff like that, I was a waste of everyone's time. Because you've got an eye condition.

24:11What's that called again? It's called nystagmus. Nystagmus. So is that something, does that get, can we talk about this? Yeah, absolutely. Is that something that got worse over time or you've always had?

24:20Richard Osman:No, I've always had it. And it is a sort of thing where the glasses do nothing to do with that. That's sort of a short sight as well. But absolute inability to focus. So my eyes are constantly doing this. So sometimes on TV, if I ever, only once ever, when I hosted Have I Got News For You once, and I had an autocue, and I said, I literally can't read this. They said, we'll make it absolutely massive. I said, I still won't be able to read it. They said, we'll make it as big as when Bruce Forsyth came out. So they did that. I said, it needs to be bigger than that. Anyway, so it's enormous. It got to a point where I learned it as well, and so I could sort of see that.

24:52Richard Osman:But when it went out, people said, oh, my God, he's drunk. Because there's something in my eyes. I never see it. They go, God, he's presenting, and he's drunk. And you're like, no, I just can't. I literally find it impossible to focus on this thing. So the world is always seen through a fog. Right. That's how I would describe it. That's the easiest way to describe it. But I've always had it. So I can see stuff. I can see, you know, I know what you look like already. Yeah, sorry about that. Yeah. But it's great for other people because they always look like they're kind of like through an amazing filter.

25:20Richard Osman:Like everyone looks like they're beautifully lit when I look at them. I like it. I like it. uh what's the naughtiest thing you ever did at school oh god the naughtiest thing well i never ever ever did any homework that is for sure like never but that that back in my day at comprehensive schools you didn't really have to do any homework anyway not really there were bits and bobs but it wasn't like it is now right um but yeah i think i think i went i would always say because my mum and dad are split up and i would always say my excuse and i have to use it one for each teacher i say oh um no i haven't got my homework so i left it at my dad's house i thought oh my god this is so good because they're not going to go oh um yes oh so your dad so your mom and dad because not everyone was divorced back then uh i just knew that they wouldn't do a follow-up question yeah so that's so that was my go-to excuse oh no um you know what so my dad sounds i'm really really sorry and they'd have to go oh okay because i don't want to you know and if they ever had done a follow-up question i i probably would have been able to burst into tears I'd have gone, it's really difficult for me.

26:23Yeah, you can't accuse the kid that's got broken up parents. Yeah, you know. Guys, I can't see anyway.

26:30Richard Osman:My parents are spit up, and you want me to write an essay on Ciders Marner? Not going to happen. You leave school, you go to Trinity College, right? Yeah. And you study sociology? Sociology and politics, yeah. So does that mean, because obviously we all know you from the world of television, you've done so much. Does that mean that a young Richard Osman didn't have a dream of growing up to work in TV? No, I really did. That's all I ever wanted to do, but I didn't understand it. It wasn't something I thought was open to me. Because, oh God, I grew up, I loved TV so much. Again, because of my eye condition, with TV I can sit right up next to it.

27:03Richard Osman:I can sit really close to it so I can see stuff. I've always loved TV. And I'd always look at the credits and see what jobs were. But weirdly, it never occurred to me that that should be my job. And when I left university, I had an interview. you i just saw a thing in a paper saying um researchers wanted for a computer games television program uh and you know i played games what have you so i thought well i'll i'll go for that and the woman interviewing me interestingly going back to bitter ricky she's a real absolute reverse snob because you know i went to a comprehensive school so cambridge is sort of that i mean that's just you know that i'm very proud i went there but you know it wasn't because of my school or anything So she said, oh, how can someone who went to Cambridge, you know, make a television program for someone who lives on a housing estate in Basildon?

27:48Richard Osman:And I said, well, I grew up on a housing estate in Bittericke. It's about five miles away. So I think I'll be all right. But she was one of the just one of the many very, very posh people who I met in who I met in TV. So, yeah, that's that absolutely got me through the door. But honestly, on the first day when I turned up in TV, I thought, well, of course, this is the job you should be doing. I just didn't know that people did it. I didn't know when I knew my family ever done a job like that. I just didn't know anyone. And the second I walked through the door, I thought, oh, we're making TV. Oh, but I know how to, I absolutely know how to do that.

28:20Richard Osman:And I was surrounded by people who didn't know how to do it because they just, they didn't watch TV. How did you know how to do it? Because I watched it my whole life. Right. I watched it. I loved it. And whenever I was watching it, I wasn't just watching it passively. I would watch it and think about how it's done and think about the ideas and think about the script and think about how that works. I always say now to parents when they say oh my god my kid plays just games all day and it's just terrible I go what there's two ways of doing it are they playing it like slack-jawed and you know or are they playing that and are they interested are they invested do they understand the different bits of gameplay do they understand the label behind this game do they understand how it's monetized so if they get all of that yeah then this is literally the best training this is better than sending them to piano lessons right because they are much more likely to get a job in video games than they are being a concert pianist right yeah that makes sense so I had that for tv what did that first job actually entail then because there's a research i was a i was i was a researcher on on nine thousand pound a year uh for a computer game show for sky and that was before sky was i mean that was sky in kind of 1992 and so it was it was almost non-existent uh and it was it was a five days a week show it was terrible it was awful it was so bad and i was really bad at it because if you give me any responsibility you know about it it just doesn't get done um but i very quickly got into the world of i would come up with the ideas rather than i'd be the person that you would trust to ring up contributors right and make sure their cars are booked uh because they soon realize you they shouldn't leave that to me so i very very quickly got got into the world of ideas really uh and then and moved on as soon as i could i was never a researcher from that moment i was i was a a content creator right back in the day where the only content you could create was tv formats right if somebody's wanting to get into television now yeah is it because obviously you went the traditional route, applying for a job.

30:07Would you say it's harder or easier to get into TV? Well, I would say don't try and get into TV

30:12Richard Osman:because just do what these guys do. You have to do what you guys do, right? I think it's much, much, much easier. It's incredibly difficult because it's very competitive and everyone wants to do it. But when I was starting out, every job was given to someone who was the kid of someone else who worked in television. You didn't have that though, did you? I didn't have that. But that's what I was surrounded by. That's why I was able to rise quite quickly because I actually loved the thing that I was doing. But these days, and back then as well, I couldn't create my own content. I can't, you know, because A, what's the cost?

30:44Richard Osman:B, where do I put it? I mean, there's just that world. There's no platforms. And now, if I think back, if I was 21 now, I'd be making content and I'd be putting it out there and trying to find an audience. And, you know, that seems to me like a much better system because if you can be in your bedroom and not have very much money and with quite low tech, you can put something out on a platform and if it's good, you can find an audience. And that I love. And that's what I'd be doing if I was starting it now. I wouldn't be applying for things, writing off to people. I'd just be creating my own stuff.

31:14What kind of content would a young Richard Osmond make? That's a good question.

31:19Richard Osman:Do you know what? In some ways, I'm glad I didn't grow up in that era because it would all still exist. It would be awful. But I mean, yeah, it would be comedy stuff. It would be, you know, music stuff. It would be sports stuff. It would be ranking things. you know it'll be like world cups of it'll be all that kind of stuff is what i do because that's what i've always done but um uh you know i just happened to i was very lucky when i started working tv because i had a good kind of 25 years of that being the best medium and the last 10 years when i you could see the writing on the wall 10 years ago and i you know i pivoted away uh but it's i'm I'm glad I got into it when I did, but if I was 20 now, my God, I'd just be making stuff, writing stuff, making stuff, putting it out there, failing, failing a bit better next time, working out what people like, what people didn't like, giving people what they wanted, but that I cared about.

32:11Richard Osman:And so, you know, that's, again, if you've got kids at home who are doing that stuff, I mean, that's the way to make an absolute fortune in the media these days, not go and get a job as a researcher on a computer games program. You've unlocked a memory for me there when you said that you would be ranking stuff. You did a book years ago called The World Cup of Everything, didn't you? That was the first present Fiona's mum ever got me when we got together. 11 years. Do you remember that? And you're still together. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It might have even been earlier than that, wasn't it? I can't quite remember.

32:44That book inspired one of our episodes. We brought it in and we were doing the categories. I'd say in one of our first, like we're on 670 plus episodes. Yeah. I'd say within the first 50 with a World Cup of Everything episode. It's fun, right? Yeah.

32:56Richard Osman:You just get to talk about stuff. Yeah. People just want to hear people talk about stuff. You know, great having political podcasts and all that, but people really are interested in what's the best chain restaurant. Yeah. It's just interesting. Yeah. Because that's actually the stuff of life. Most of life is, you know, thinking, shall we go to Zizzy's or shall we go to Nando's? Yeah. You know, rather than what's going to happen in the Clacton by-election. Well, that whole concept is exactly why we do the get-to-know questions at the start. because when we've had huge celebrities on, no one's ever asked them this silly question.

33:25We always used to ask people what their go-to meal deal was. But you'll get some super fans who are like, I just want to hear about them. It just normalises things. It's interesting to know the silly questions, I think. But of course it is. And now for a special part of today's show, The Weekend Escape, brought to you by Trainline. They're giving you£15 off your 16 to 25 rail card with the code GET15OFF if you buy your rail card through Trainline. Okay, so what we're going to do now, Stevie, is take our minds back many, many moons ago, probably about 15 years ago now, and we're going to imagine that we are students again.

34:02Imagine we're students again. You... Did you get into uni? No, but I came to visit you at uni. Doesn't count. No, okay, so you've got to use your imagination. Have some spice. Okay, I'm in. I'm back at uni. Can I be the cooler kid this time? Impossible. Impossible. A cool older student? Don't do that. That's weird. Okay, fine. I'm in your imaginary land. I'm back at uni. We're getting the train. We're going away for a weekend. Where are we going? Well, as we've spoken about a lot recently on the pod, Stevie, me and you, we love shaking a shoulder to a groovy bee in a random field somewhere across the UK.

34:38And I remember back in the day, I used to have to get the coach. We love the festival. We love the festival. It's a lot of stuff. You're carrying a lot of stuff. You need to make it as easy as possible and get as close as you can. And our podcast dad, Robbie Knox, has told us for years that the trains are the way to do it. And recently, I've been grabbing my tickets through Trainline and it's helped me out load. Do you remember that festival we went to up north recently? Yeah, very far away. Took the train and it made stuff so much easier. I don't care about what you're doing right now. Come back to Dreamland with me.

35:08You've got me in this imaginary world. Do it with me. OK, me and you, young, cool, hip students on the train, going through the British countryside. We're playing a little bit of Uno on the train, a little bit of Guess Who? Dare I say, a little bit of poker. Guess Who? We're uni students, not first school. Oi, you know I'm a fan of Guess Who, so less of that. Yeah, and to be fair with your driving, especially back then, the train probably is the better option. I have to drive all the time, so I like the thought of me and you being young again, not behind the wheel not stressing out chilling out on the train few cups of tea a little bit of guess who perfect i don't think anyone ever you've just given us an imaginary land we could take ourselves into be as cool as we want to be go to wherever we want to go you've taken us back to be the young cool kids who are playing guess who on a train with a cup of tea don't forget the cup of tea sorry oh and also another good thing about this imaginary world we can imagine we've got mates Okay, this is getting harder now.

36:08Friends. Not just two or three mates, like in the real world, we've got 15, 20 mates. Guess what? They all fit on a train. Imagine that, a carriage with all of our mates. Guess who? Come today, it's going to be magical. I'm there. I'm there in here, and I'll be there in the real world. Thank you. I knew you'd love that. A 16 to 25 rail card gets you up to a third off your train tickets, meaning more cash left over for fun stuff. Right now, you can save even more by using code GET15OFF for£15 off when you buy your rail card through Trainline. Whatever your priority, this is the way to train. Trainline.

36:43For new customers in the UK, limited to the first 10 ,000 codes, ends 30th of September, full terms at thetrainline.com. Yeah, so Richard, how did you work your way up to, what would you say was your quote-unquote top job behind the scenes on TV?

37:01Richard Osman:was it your work with endermal it was yeah i was a creative director of endermal right um uh and when i started there i think there was there was 40 people working there and when i when i finished i think there was 9 000 of us so it went through that you know through the era of big brother and deal or no deal and all those things and we built it to this this this uh massive thing so that was great and fun up until the point where it gets so big that it's not fun anymore because this you know there's the businessy people will start taking over rather than the creative people so it was fun when it was just a bunch of us sitting around a table coming up with ideas and then selling them and then people watching them so i absolutely loved that yeah that's that's the highest i went but again i've i've tried throughout my career to have as much fun as possible with as little responsibility as possible so i was creative director but really i wasn't really having to be in kind of you know meetings about photocopiers and things it was what your job could that literally just be thinking up ideas for shows that's exactly what it was um sitting around with other people as well and working out who would who else was good at that and then and then getting them together in a room and so yeah i you know the five years of just sitting in a room playing games with other people and then you know then working out okay how do we make that really really compelling for an audience and how do we make it so that you know every single rule works and all that kind of stuff but i like that stuff as well but yeah there's there's a lot of playing uh and yeah i was very lucky to be in it but again it's because that's what i grew up that's what i grew up loving i wasn't having to fake any of it i never i've never in any of my careers the writing the tv i've never had to fake any of it i've just done the stuff that i've loved and you've come up with um you you've invented some amazing tv shows that we know that pointless eight out of ten cats yeah is it these are literally your babies right this yeah sort of i'm pointless less though because that was a whole bunch of people eight out of ten cats uh yeah that was my first thing at um endermore the first show i ever came up with is literally the which is a show called survivor which is the biggest show in the whole world but i came up with when i was very briefly at planet 24 and charlie parsons who who ran that said oh we saw joan alumnae on a desert island can we do a show on a desert island and i went away and i thought and finally when i was working there and that thing i was just saying where there's lots of people there i thought i don't think you know much about tv uh and yet you're the you seem to be the boss and i was thinking i wonder in this room full of people where there's some really really really talented young people and there's some other people who i think i don't know if you know what you're doing I wonder if every week if you got around and decided to vote off the most useless person I wonder what would happen so I thought I would do that why don't you do that on a desert island so you've got a desert island you get the big mouse and the loud mouse and the people who sort of want to be in charge of all the meetings but I bet that the person who can make a raft is more useful to them than that person and if you were allowed ever in life to just go you know what we're going to vote off the most useless person in this office we're going to vote off the most useless person in this island I thought that well that what a power that would be and so that was that was um survivor it was called lord of the flies at the time right um uh so i came up with that i've never made a penny out of it so i left soon afterwards and all of that um so that that that that that's a sort of is i'm proud to see where that's gone and the idea of voting people off yeah it's gone because people haven't done that can i jump in that like not not to pry too much but how do you it's your idea so how do you not make a penny out well because i'm i've got a contract that says everything i do belongs to them and it's not often you come up with a show like that and you know so that's okay and i've written to them a couple of times and they've they've they don't really want to end i get it and i yeah and i've done all right for myself yeah so it's you know it's um it's so much better not to be bitter yeah so much better just to go let's fine right it's that beautiful house you have yeah uh that uh was was bought off the profits of survivor that's absolutely you go right ahead um sorry how do you pitch an idea like that like that idea's come to you do you go to this room of people and you're you're almost saying the idea to this group going yeah by the way i know some of you don't deserve to be here and that's how i came up with this idea well no because funny enough stevie i didn't mention that when i was i would no i was just saying you know think think of like a bloom debate where you're deciding you know who should be thrown out of the balloon you know and it's it's it's like that but um you know the uh the actual i've weirdly i went to see a play at the end of a festival it got early 90s again uh this is like so punsy but anyway that's okay uh by john paul sartre it's called we clow and the idea of we clow is these three people who are in hell and they they're just like two of them are exes and one of it's just three people who are going to be together for eternity and they're they're each other's nightmare and so the idea behind that thing is hell is other people right so i think i pitched it more as that in that room because that that audience is slightly more receptive to you know john paul sartre's play rather than me going you know how you're no good at your job uh how about this um but something like eight out of ten cats which was um uh that was um endemol no you just go into a channel uh and you know you say look here's the thinking here would be some of the rounds here would be the talent we'd attach to it back in those days they'd have enough money that they just pilot it and you just show them give them proof of concept and say look this is a show you'd like but that but eight out of ten cats really took up so much more when i remember them saying oh we're going to do a channel for mashup thing and we're going to mash up a couple of our shows um we want to do a mashup of eight out of ten cats and countdown how would that work and we're like no no i suppose okay let's let's have a go at it so we so we did it it was really good fun and uh and you know that was only meant to be like a temporary thing it's supposed to be a one-off it literally supposed to be a one-off uh and john beat sean and but it was fun you know it's funny we worked out we have fun with dictionary corner and you know it was we enjoyed it and then they said um and of all they did loads of mashups and it's the numbers and they said oh would you do another one and we're like another one we sort of done it haven't we haven't we done it and now we're like 200 episodes later wow yeah does that does does that almost get as many viewers as like the normal eight i think more i think it would do better yeah yeah i went crazy it's it's run by an amazing guy called rich cohen now he just he's just great because he ditched we corner they bring in amazing new young comics and it's just a really funny thing where you know because you've got these it's with with a format usually you know you talk about podcast you talk about something like bob mortimer or someone like that so bob mortimer can be like super surreal yeah right that but that doesn't mean anything unless you've got an anchor right in the middle that you can always go back to right being surreal is meaningless unless there's some reality at the heart of this thing so eight out of ten cats does countdown you can do anything because you can always go okay let's take a look at the next numbers okay let's take you're always coming back to reality and you can just go anywhere from that because you always have like the spaceship that's why joe wilkinson works so well as well exactly because you could say to joe you can do anything and on a normal show that didn't have like a format it would very soon get tiring yeah like it looks self-indulgent yeah but with that you're a me it's like you know bob on would i lie to you if it was on a chat show telling those stories it's funny but you're kind of oh okay but but on a show where you go okay now we've got to guess if you're telling the truth or not right it's just that's that you just come back to this anchor all the time and it allows these incredibly funny people to do anything they want and go anywhere they want and that's that's the thing i love about a comedy format i'm trying i'm trying to picture what i'm a bit thick richard so i'm trying to think although the cleverest of the whole gang so that's weird i'm trying to picture when you're when you're physically pitching these things yeah what you what have you brought in if you brought are you brought a clip or whatever you got a slide well we'll talk about something like pointless so yeah so so when when we pitched that we were like in a basement room at the bbc so you've got two or three BBC commissioners and you would have yeah you'd have like podiums pretend podiums very lo-fi ones with two people behind each of them you'd have someone sitting at the desk who happened to be me when we did the run-through and someone standing here so it essentially looks like a kind of um a tv show but in a village hall right you know local people are just bought in furniture to to have us podiums oh you're physically like acting it out physically act the whole thing out you play a whole thing you've got all the questions done you've got you You know, you've had them properly polled and all that stuff.

45:01Richard Osman:And you play a whole episode. There's no point explaining to someone how pointless works because, you know, even 2 ,000 episodes later, people still don't really understand it. So, yeah, you just play it through from start to finish so that, you know, the BBC can see exactly what it is they're getting, see exactly how the hosts work. And, you know, see how the dynamics of the show work. So that's what you'd always do with a quiz show. Right. How many times have you pitched something that's never got off the ground then? How many times? I mean, 4 ,000? I mean, yeah, I mean, nothing gets made. What's the percentage, would you say, that something is actually successful?

45:36Richard Osman:Well, the percentage of the things that get made, maybe one in 20 things you pitch, maybe. And of those one in 20 things, you've probably got a one in 10 chance of it being successful. Wow. So what's the maths on that? 0.5 %? Something like, wow. Jesus. Okay, maybe you're not the clever. You were gagging. I might have been wrong. Yeah, probably was. but you know what you said it in such a way i thought yeah that sounds good um so yeah almost everything is is um doesn't work and that's the that's the attitude you've got to take into everything got absolutely always do your best always do your best but if you have a a hit there is some luck behind it's only one show i ever did the first ever run through of and i thought i'm almost certain this is going to be a hit almost certain i've never ever felt it before or since and that was deal or no deal right we played it through the first few times yeah and I just thought I don't see a way that people are not going to love this yeah it's so different it's so unusual you think it's going to be idiotic you think it's one thing yeah and there's still people who go just opening some boxes you're going to go yeah if you're not interested in human psychology at all uh I suppose it just is and it's got that community feel as well isn't it because all the the other contestants want that yeah all of that stuff and the and just the I remember when Noel Evans came in to um play it for the first time so because Noel had been off tv yeah forever yeah right uh and we were looking for a uh a host for this thing and no i think funnily enough noel had said that he'd quite like to do countdown and so we knew that he'd said that so we thought okay maybe he's in the market so he came in to do this thing and you could see him thinking i don't know this i mean it doesn't feel like it's a good show uh and we sat down and said right no you play it okay so i think i host it but noel's playing uh and i go okay noel got 22 two identical boxes.

47:22Richard Osman:Here's the numbers in it. Which box are you going to go for? And he would just go, and you could see him immediately just go, oh, okay. All right, I see. I see what this is. And by the end of it, he was just like, oh yeah, I have to do this show. And the first time he ever hosted it, which was for Channel 4, and it was a game. Sometimes it doesn't work brilliantly, deal or no deal. It's quite boring, or the numbers don't come out in the right order. Right, yeah. And it happened to be one of those games when we first pitched it yeah and he handled it so brilliantly i mean so unbelievably brilliantly yeah just think i mean it's like even it's worse to that show if you've got a great host uh which which he was on it it's just uh that was a barnstormer right and it took off immediately all ages loved it didn't they all ages i remember being a kid and loving it yeah it just went absolutely it went absolutely yeah crazy and that great relationship with um uh with the banker on The whole thing was sort of...

48:20Richard Osman:But that never happens. Almost everything is a surprise hit. Well, you've heard this before. You probably know what I'm going to ask about The Banker, don't you, Richard? Okay, go on. Were you the banker? No, I wasn't. The banker... It's so funny. I literally named The Banker. The banker's a guy called Glenn Heavill, who is now a massive TV exec out in LA and still over here. Makes huge shows, Glenn, with lots of YouTubers as well now. okay he's really you know he's he's brilliant and he's always been brilliant uh and yeah so he he was the bank he was the producer of the show as well oh okay and so you're sort of producing via that so here's an example of how you know you can control that show via being the banker he's he's and i wasn't down there for this one he he told me because i used to sit in the banker's room it's one of my favorite jobs uh in tv it's just great uh and uh and sometimes funny if i sometimes i said to glenn oh you could say this to them or this could be and he would always do it and i'd be like oh maybe i'm good at this you know you're his boss so he's literally having to do but i was just getting excited yeah yeah but he was he said that they're um uh doing the first recording of a day used to be four a day on that show five i think in the end wow i know uh and um he said it's a really quiet audience he said that can actually quite the consort of killer tv shows funnily enough because people you know the host needs the energy of an audience the players need the energy could you not add just canned in well no but they need it in the need it live yeah right to in order to really give of their best yeah so he said god they were they were really quiet he said so they'd opened like two boxes he said i don't i wouldn't have normally run but i i ring in i ring the studio and no was about to do another box and i goes oh but oh the banker's ringing uh he goes should i pick up and i go yeah he goes so he picks up he goes hello mr banker Uh-huh.

50:06Okay.

50:09Richard Osman:Oh, okay. And you want me to tell them? Okay. Puts the phone down. And he says, okay, I don't really know how to say this. He turns to the audience. The banker's just rung me to say this is the ugliest audience he's ever seen. The whole place erupts immediately. The rest of the day, everyone is like, everyone. It was amazing. Oh, that's so good. Just that one little thing, which you could do on that show. They do things on that show like they had a power cut and they just carried on. Right. And they just sort of found a candle. There's one they're banging from a studio next door, which is one of the worst nightmares you can have in a TV show because it's holding you up.

50:47Richard Osman:Yeah. And trying to work out in the gallery, they said, oh, there's a workman next door, right? And Glenn said, Noel, there's a workman next door. So Noel just goes to his camera. He's on a Steadicam. Follow me. So Noel walks out of the studio, along the corridor, into the studio next door where there's these workmen. And Noel goes, we're trying to make Deal or No Deal. And the painter goes, oh, I love Deal or No Deal. So it brings the painter through to the studio and says, this is Andy, the painter. He's a big fan of Deal or No Deal. Andy, what should John do? And the painter's just going, what's the offer?

51:22Richard Osman:What's the offer? They would do stuff like that on that show. There's such a charm to that flexibility of being able to mould it like that. You need a great host like Noel to do. Right, right. What was the one that comes to mind for me was the one, I think it was the priest, and he opened his box and there was no number in there. Yeah, exactly. I'm surprised that aired. But again, you have to show everything. If you show everything, people trust you. And that's the thing with that game. That's why we'd have numbers just stuck on because you couldn't fake it. It wasn't like electronic or anything like that.

51:51Richard Osman:And so, yeah, it opens up and someone before the show, there's an independent adjudicator who checks every single box, puts them out there, makes sure that nobody knows where they are, make sure the production team doesn't know where they are anything and they had just forgotten with this one and i think it was the 250 it was yeah yeah it was 250 which had been left out and so a normal tv show that would never ever ever air in a million years because that's a real you know mess up yeah uh and glenn just goes let's keep going let's just keep going and you know they just they found it replaced it started again more fairly and showed the whole thing and that's what a lovely thing to be able to do and again because the format is so good yeah like with cats does countdown and that you can go anywhere right because you've always got this thing to go back to did the public um was that was there an outcry to that episode did they did they care did they i guess it was a net positive really wasn't it you show the truth of the thing yeah you know it actually brings you more trust it's like when you've got a company to give you bad service and you bring them up and they're incredibly nice right and they go oh do you know what you're absolutely right that's that's on us have this you go oh yeah i'm gonna use you again that's a good point how often can so with say like um a show like golden balls yes do you remember that the guy was that god i used to love it's a really good show yeah it's the split or steel element that's the most fun game to play right in terms of when we were coming when we were doing it yeah actually sitting and playing that game was such a bit a little steel bits been copied by loads yeah we didn't come up and we sort of nicked that as well right but it's yeah everything uses it it's kind of kind of a little bit like that at the end of the traitors really isn't it with the green and red in the fire but yeah but there was the guy um who basically did he kill the format by doing the i've got the steel or no he said i'm gonna steal yeah i'm gonna give you half the money you can either decide to lose the money or not and then he actually picked the split do you remember do you remember yeah i don't think he did kill i mean because it because it's definitely a tactic right but it's a tactic that a lot of people didn't you if you're on tv it's quite hard to do that because you know everyone's gonna see it so it's it's an interesting tactic but there there again there are ways around that tactic which are to go okay i'm gonna do exactly that as well then so we're all gonna leave with nothing right and the second you go that said look i because i get it but what you're saying to me is you know you're not a particularly nice person so i don't want you to have any money uh so you know i can scupper you right you know so there's there's always ways back with the the prisoner's dilemma they call it why did why did that show stop then because that seemed as an outside of that was super successful it was successful it was one of those things where it wasn't like deal or no deal successful but it did well and it wasn't made by itv so it was made for itv but by us by endemar yeah and itv at that point this is like a technical business stuff but they had itv studios which makes television programs and they would rather have one of their shows in that slot and so they replaced it with a show which went nowhere called the chase they did all right they did all right exactly have there been any ideas that you've dreamt up that never went anywhere but you're still sure it would if they did make it god i used to a bit i saw i'm sort of out of the game a little bit funnily enough because you know it's what it's what i did for so many years and now that there isn't really a home for that stuff and i always thought with with you know this this new era of youtube and podcasts that there'd be loads of formats and there aren't you know it is it's personality led stuff right that's that's that's what people really want whereas i always want to do a format i always want to impose something on it and i just see that there isn't a market for it right i which and i absolutely get it and you know there's there's great formats that are on tv now but if you're you know coming up with stuff it's yes it's it's um i'm so happily out of the game but you but you must have so many you you said you you've pitched thousands so then there must be like one little gem in there that you're confused that that didn't work you've got such a good hit rate but yeah there's always there's always no because it's you know like like like with anything it's at any given time they've got like eight slots and they know what they want you know and like you go for a job interview and you don't get it and it's not because you're an idiot it's because they knew exactly they knew a very specific thing that they wanted and you weren't quite at that time right so i never the key is never take it personally i always said to my teams always just fail well right because you're almost always going to fail you know nine times out of ten and most things that you do you're going to fail if you fail in an interview and people like you and you take it well and you know they will remember you for next time you know if you failed in a business in when you're pitching to someone but people go oh my god i really enjoyed that meeting you know and you understand why they can't do your show and you're not sort of sending them an email going oh you're idiots for not doing this and blah blah people remember that and next time you walk through the door you're more likely to succeed so so fail well is was was one of one of my uh mantras well we might be failing well now because Stevie and I were hoping we could pitch to you our TV show.

56:37I would absolutely love that. You can tell us if it works or not. Would you like to go first? Am I allowed to be brutally honest? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll go. I'll be brutally honest with you, Richard. We came up with these in the car on the way here.

56:47Richard Osman:Oh, that's where I came up with almost anything I've ever had. People always go, oh, my God, where do you get your ideas from? You have them immediately and then you develop them. But the ideas are almost always just... Like it. This is weird. My idea is get... So crime rate's quite high at the moment, yeah? Yes. And I think it's because these groups of people don't have a good outlet. So my concept is you get all of these... You're talking gangs. Gangs or scary men, road men. Sorry, are you to a team, by the way? I'm just trying to work out who does what he does. We're against each other. Yeah, he's on his own.

57:19Richard Osman:So this is my idea. So by the way, I already like this as a format.

57:25So you put all of these scary men on an island together. Like gangs? Yeah. and we call it Bruv Island. Yes, Bruv Island. And hopefully by spending this time together, they start to just get to know each other and think, you know what, we can all just be friends and get along. But there's no real format there, is there, Richard? No, no one goes to crime at the end. No one goes to crime. No one goes to prison because no one turns to crime. No, Phoebe, sorry, I'm just going to have to rewind a tiny bit.

57:50Richard Osman:The hook of this show is... No, I just have to make sure I'm getting what... I meant to say no one turns to crime. I really want to pick up what you're putting down here. No one turns to crime. And don't forget, at the end of the show, no one goes to crime. How do they not go to crime just out of interest? Because they've just realised, like, there's too much going on in the world. And on this island, it's just a nice time and we can all be friends. Do you think islands don't have gangs? We are an island. Yeah, there's been some bad islands. Think about it. You know what, Stevie? Think about it.

58:21Richard Osman:You know what? Do you know what you're describing? Great Britain. Yeah? I think of something new. And do people go to crime here? I think they do something new. I have a feeling I'm getting voted off Survivor here, aren't I? No, I think it's terrific. Who's presenting it? Oh, yes, that's important. Are you bringing someone to the table? Oh. Have you not thought of that? You didn't tell me to think of it. Bradley Walsh. Literally the first person you could... Yeah. Because I'd have said Danny Dyer. Yeah. Makes so much... And this is why you do that. Yeah. Or you did that and I'm doing this. My one's...

58:54But you do it very well. Well, clearly not. Well, my one's called Time's Up. Time's up, not crime's up. No, that's his wheelhouse. Prisoners. Prisoners?

59:04Richard Osman:Wow. I don't call them prisoners. I call them people who've gone to crime.

59:12Prisoners, real prisoners, are in prison where they should be and they get questions right in a kind of who wants to be a millionaire like increasingly harder. And the more they get right, the more time they get off their sentence. Interesting.

59:25Richard Osman:Yes, okay. Right. so let's talk about let's talk through the ethics of it because it's interesting for sure we can't have any murderers so you can't have any murderers oh that would make it interesting wouldn't it if a murderer got out you've just said the sentence prisoners are where they should be but you're offering I think that's the issue because one of the key things about a show is you need to have empathy with people you need to go oh my god I really hope he wins the money yeah right whereas if you've got like the Northampton arsonist and you go oh my god I really hope he's on the streets I really really hope he knows the capital of Burkina Faso and he is free to burn down another youth club.

1:00:01Is that not getting off the ground then?

1:00:03Richard Osman:I think it's a funny sketch. Oh, okay. Okay. I think you could definitely do it as a sketch. Yeah. Also, I just, yeah, it'd be an interesting, yeah, you have to have some empathy with people. That's why they always do the thing, which I don't like at the start of quiz shows, where they say, who are you and where are you from? And what do you do? And it's like, oh. Oh, is that to get us related to the... Supposedly. Right. Whereas I think you relate to people by seeing their character. but in this show it would be what's your name what's your sentence did you do it and they all say no they all say no yeah if it's people who are protesting their innocence at least there's something we got something going there I haven't you who's hosting yours um Danny Dyer no the daughter the daughter Danny Dyer Danny Dyer's daughter you know what he's done us both yeah actually guys yeah a woman is hosting it Danny Dyer this happens to have the same name it's interesting you both thought of the man first wow ross kemp kempy yeah he's a showroom for it yeah when when you were creating these shows and coming up with these ideas did you ever think that the audience at home would get so into it like like so deeply that they can be frustrated by certain elements and like love certain elements that's all i think about all i think about is the audience because that's because that's what i was you know that's i never think there's no ego there's no wouldn't it be clever if it's all would people enjoy this what would people enjoy about this what would they like about it what bits of them would seem unfair let's deal with that which bits of it would they would they be you know be able to play along with all all audience i always i always on all my shows look down the camera and go but well then if you got that at home or what do you think at home right it's not a kind of tick it's just that that's all they care about it's not there's people in the studio and there's a studio audience but there's three million people watching that's really there's a lot of people and it's and and it's people have sat down and they're giving you your attention and so always always always i do it with my books as well always always always it's the audience it's the reader is the viewer always and never in a kind of hmm what are those idiots like but just if i'm watching this at home on a sofa with some other generation of my family what do we are you know can we have an argument about an answer you know can we discuss it can we get one over on each other that's what makes tv so great isn't it yeah yeah and that's so yeah always always always what are the audience thinking now what what element of that worked for deal or no deal then where it's not a question like are the audience at home going why has he picked that box like no that definitely not but it is you know because the deal or no deal is always about greed versus safety yeah so it's always about and at different parts of your life you have a different relationship with that right which is risk versus you know i know actually i've got to you know i've got to feel safe so you're constantly asking that question you're You also have, because there's 22 people, again, you're not always sympathetic.

1:02:51Richard Osman:So there are people at home, I'm very aware, who want people to lose as well. But you're giving them about six or seven opportunities during that to... And make a real decision that you can get involved with at home. And equally, you've got 22 opportunities where, and that's why there's a little bit of, you know, kind of, we fetishize open the boxes a bit because you are genuinely thinking, I want this, if you don't like the person, I want this to be a big number. If you do like the person, I want this to be a small number. So you just got those moments of jeopardy all the way through. And so that's what you say.

1:03:20Richard Osman:So you can't play along. That's definitely true. Other than saying, this is when I would tap out. But you are definitely invested all the way through. yeah that makes sense we asked you if you had an idea that you were certain would work that never went anywhere let's flip it um you don't necessarily have to name the show if you don't want to but is there a show out there that's super popular that even rich osman thinks i have no fucking idea why people like this oh not really i usually i think there's very few things that are the accidental hits right i think you know you get things like mrs brown mrs brown's boys and people oh my god why are people watching that yeah because i'm aware it's something you don't like but of all the things you don't like it's the best made of those is it because i've never got it personally i don't yeah but it's lots of people try and do a show like mrs brown's boys and they almost all fail but mrs brown's boys was a huge hit because for the audience that is aimed at it's really really really brilliantly made right there's very very few things that are accidental hits that's almost impossible the one thing i always think is funny is traitors and i love traitors yeah but people people always go oh my god it's so it's what an original idea and you go that's literally a game that has been played it's murder mystery for so many years you know werewolf mafia yeah everyone we've all played it yeah every single tv company has pitched it i think the bbc even did a series of it you know 15 years ago it's just that when you put it in the hands of studio lambert who make it they make it unbelievably brilliantly but the actual format is it's a i mean it's a game that every single person has played a million times i i love it like yes i know you and marina do as well but what what's um what is it about the traitors that made it a global it's a global hit now as well isn't it yeah it's a huge i mean the american one is is uh is unbelievable um it's well there's a reason that everyone has pitched it forever which is it's it's a it's a guessing game it's a you stick a bunch of people in a in a uh house and wind them up and see them argue with each other but at heart it's a game where you want goodness to win out and it's a hard it's a game where actually if you join together you can you sort of can win it and the traitors aren't really mean because they've been randomly assigned yeah that job and sometimes people say i'd be better if we don't know the traitors and you think that the whole show is we know the traitors right all that show is it's just going i cannot believe you don't think you you can't see it i can't believe that you don't know it's john you know because it's so obvious in this edit that it is john yeah so it's just a beautiful it's it's the it's the best ever mix of um game show and reality show that anyone's ever created it's just it's kind of perfect and the ending is always different again at home you're constantly thinking i know how i'd play this oh i know who i'd be getting rid of i find it's one of those shows like um we were talking when we came in about the um the england match against mexico and there's five minutes i could not watch and traitors there are sometimes like five minutes i can't watch i know you know when a traitor turns on another traitor but doesn't get them yeah yeah and they're back in the turret you think i can't too uncomfortable i cannot watch the next five minutes of this i can't do it uh and god what an amazing thing to have in the middle of a light entertainment fee and i we we very rarely sit down and watch stuff together we're always just doing separate things but we we're addicted to it anytime it's on the celebrity one it's just as good if it's that style of show is really popular i think traitor is obviously the one that kind of blew it up but the mole million dollar secret i really like the mole was hosted by glenn hugel who was the banker on deal on their deal oh yeah i really like them all and i love million dollar secret i think it's so catty created by glenn hugel how about that glenn's a man isn't he he's the absolute man.

1:07:04Richard Osman:Do you know what? I love Glenn. He's going to be so happy. He's been mentioned three times. I love it. He'll be quite cool about it. He'll be like, yes. He'll be doing a little Tim Henman. See, the mole, I couldn't get on board with the mole because like you said, Richard, you don't know who the mole is, I don't think. Especially at least in the first series. You don't know who the mole is. And I just find that I'm frustrated. As a stupid man, I need to be told. But is that how they're feeling in the traitors when they're in there? Are they getting that for us so we don't get that as viewers? Yeah, when you talk to people who've done it, especially the celebrity one, I think it's really intense.

1:07:42Richard Osman:I think it's really intense. I think whenever people behave in unusual ways on that show and people go, oh, that's a bit odd, you talk to people and they say, it is mental. You are absolutely in this bubble and you are not yourself. You sort of lose your mind in there because everything is the game and they don't have their phones. They're sort of locked away every night. their doors are locked, they can't talk to anybody they can't really go for a walk everything is the game I think it does drive them completely insane that's why I could only do it as a traitor this is what I was going to ask you we've heard you speak about it on your pod before and I think you've said that you wouldn't do the show is that right?

1:08:19no I wouldn't do the show because I could only do it as a traitor and you can't insist why is that? tell us more about why you'd only do it as a traitor

1:08:25Richard Osman:because of exactly what Stevie is saying which is that frustration at not knowing you know at either a not knowing or b having an inkling that no one else agrees with c having an inkling that you think oh god i'm probably wrong and if i go into the diary room and say that it's definitely john and then everyone's gonna at home it's gonna go oh my he's such an idiot literally his best mate he doesn't even know uh so i think the boys if you are a traitor right from minute one of the game at least you have some control i mean it's still hard to win but at least you're in control but more importantly you get to be there for all of the filming you know most of the people there are not there because that turret filming that's a that's you know 90 minutes worth of filming every night and you know the crew and you know there's probably you know uh catering and you probably get a nice cup of tea and you're getting to see everything that happens on the show right see everything whereas as a faithful you don't and i as a with my producers head on i i would not want to be in the middle of a show that i knew there was something happening that i had no idea right okay it was just be like an itch you couldn't scratch yeah exactly so i have no desire to be evil i would just want to be i'd like to be really involved so so on that same same note as as a producer when you watch it can you still enjoy it or are you because i've heard you predict quite a lot of things right about the show you think oh they'll probably pick this person because of that so how can you watch it as a as a just a general viewer well it's it's like um because some shows are sort of sport by that because you watch some you know kind of formatted documentaries and you can see the buttons they're pressing and you can see the bits that they've asked the participants to say and this is bits and you can hear the voice everything oh come on right and so it spoils it for you but something like traitors because it's so brilliantly made yeah actually trying to guess from a production point of view what's going to happen is actually really really fun because you're not always right right there's a couple of really obvious bits in that format that if i was in that house i'd be like so like You know, if you know there's three people who are in the turret, we've heard three people are going to be up for murder.

1:10:27Richard Osman:And they don't tell you who it's going to be. And you discover the next morning who it is going to be as they walk through the door. So say Richard, Jack, and Stevie are up for, those are the three people we know are up. None of the three of us are the first through the door. We're the last three through the door. Because that's the most exciting thing for the viewer. Because you want them to always say, oh my God, who's not in the room? Okay, so Stevie's not here. Jack's not here. Rich is not here. And so often that means that those are the three people who are up for murder. And so you know for a fact that they're not traitors.

1:10:59Richard Osman:Oh, yeah. But it doesn't always, they don't always do it. Occasionally, because of that, because some people spot it. Yeah, I remember you saying this now. I remember you saying this on The Rest of Entertainment. I thought, I tried to work out, if I was the producer, how would I get around that? And I thought maybe they would film just the shot of them coming in the door and put that in a different order to what we see it for the people in the room? You wouldn't get the reaction. Would that not work? You wouldn't get the reaction, yeah. Wow. Yeah. That's super interesting. Do you know then what the casting directors are going to look for when they put someone on that show?

1:11:35Could you give any of our listeners out there that really want to go on the show an Osmond tip to get through that door?

1:11:40Richard Osman:Oh, God, absolutely. You have to, I think, on that show. I mean, they want a real mix of people. It's 22 people. It's a lot of people. you want to have something that's slightly peacocky about you you know like maybe you're a crime writer or maybe you're a you know a carer maybe you're you're something that we you know we can we either have sympathy with or we don't you know we can latch on or you're an estate agent and we're like oh god they've got an estate agent so you have something that suggests you have a relationship with lying or not lying you have a politician or something like that something where people go well he's an estate agent of course so he's naturally a liar it's like when people are actors they go well he's an actor so he could be lying yeah um yeah i mean literally anyone could be anyone could be lying but also it has nothing to do with being tapped on the shoulder by claudia three days ago she's not just tapping the actors i've got to go i don't think anyone else is going to be able to do apart from actors uh would you do this so you have to have a little bit of that you have to i would say be one of two things either a big personality but who isn't annoying and those are quite rare yeah a lot of big personalities your dominant personalities you tire up very very quickly right and in the traitors you you're going to be there for a long time so you've either got a so you've got to sort of imagine that you are going to like joe marlow i suggested for the last celebrity traitors and i suggested joe because he has he feels like he's combative so he's got that but you know he's kind yeah and and that's the kind of perfect combination so for on tv you're going to see someone combative but for in viewers hearts you know that when push comes to shove you're going to go oh no this is a this is a good guy um so yeah i think if you go to auditions or something for it don't worry about the noisiest people in the room they're just looking for people who are interesting say interesting things maybe have an interesting backstory understand how the game works and then of course you've got to have four or five people who are hopeless right and random so there's hope out there for all of us there is hope out there for everyone um the best ever series of the tracers i think the first ever Australian one which I think is still on iPlayer and the worst ever series of traitors the second series of Australian traitors the single most frustrating series of traitors without any spoilers can you give us a little hint because there is a traitor in there who is so obviously a traitor and a gang of faithfuls who are so easily led so easily swayed and the few bright people in there immediately just disappear and you're left with this one you know guy who you don't want to win yeah and just a series of people who he can just absolutely manipulate at will we need anything to get to watch me and fee so maybe maybe we'll do that the first one is good the first australian one i've heard you say before um you were giving the the rates of how many times traitors win how many times faithfuls win and you were doing like the gender splits and stuff like that and you mentioned that there was it was you or marina mentioned that there was one series that was a did not finish or something yes there is i think i'm probably not even allowed to talk about it but there was one series in one territory right where uh something was discussed at length in the castle which led to the show not being able to wow so the whole production just just lost the thing yeah wow i thought that sometimes like i think there was an occasion where as someone left they said something that just gave everyone the answer first series of the UK one.

1:15:02Yeah, that ruins it. Parting gifts. Yeah. That's what the guy said, didn't he? Yeah, you have to be so careful with the, yeah. Will that be in all the contracts now then for the contestants? You can't ruin the game. But then the normal version of the show, do they get paid to go on there?

1:15:16Richard Osman:I think you get per diems, but yeah, you're not getting there. Because I always think, I was thinking if they're not getting paid to go on there, what is stopping someone just from being an arsehole and just ruining the game when they feel? Yeah, again, I mean, but behind the scenes, if you sense someone's going in that direction, you can pull them aside and most people are fairly decent human beings yeah and they've all passed psych tests and they're all you know they're there so it's you just have to slightly kind of trust in the in the goodness of people's nature right it's like you know the audiences on big quiz shows you trust or on strictly yeah trust that they don't tell people who's won yeah that's yes do you ever find out who's won did you did you know personally who had won the celebrity traders no we i do everything in my power so i know a lot of people on this new one to not hear anything.

1:16:00Richard Osman:If I meet anyone who is on that show, I want to hear nothing. I want to hear absolutely nothing because I love that show so much. And also we like doing, on the rest of the entertainment, we do watch along and stuff and I love doing that. But you can't do it if you know what's going to happen. This is true. You want to be constantly taken by surprise. Now I watch that show as a fan. Is it possible to be edited badly, Richard? To get a bad edit, is that a thing that can happen? I mean, it's certainly, you can be edited in a way that you don't see yourself. Right. That's for sure. And usually when people complain about a bad edit, it's because perhaps they don't have the self-knowledge that they might have.

1:16:35Richard Osman:No, usually, a few examples of people say, no, I was really edited badly. And you talk to the team and they go, oh my God, if we really showed them as they were, it would have been an absolute car crash. I mean, they were awful. And so actually they're sort of trying to protect people. But people think they're different. People think that everyone's the hero of their own life story, right? Everyone thinks they're the kind of hero of a reality show. And when they come out and go, oh, people thought I was an idiot or people thought I was mean. And you go, well, I mean, you sort of were. You know, that's what it's hard to go on those shows sometimes.

1:17:06Richard Osman:But no, I mean, you definitely can do. And there definitely will have been people who've come off shows who, because certain things weren't put in or because certain things had to be put in as part of another storyline, you would have a slightly skewed version of their time there. But no, no one is sitting there trying to do a bit of an edit, except on someone who you know wants to have a bit of an edit. Yeah. I'll be honest. when I was a lot, lot younger, I'm 33 now, when I was 18, 19, I did a week in the Big Brother house as one of those guinea pigs. Did you? Yeah. Did you? Yeah, when I was younger, I really wanted to.

1:17:39Richard Osman:I like guinea pig house. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's the real house and everything, isn't it? And so sometimes I tell people this and they think I'm making it up because it was never broadcast. No, we definitely used to do it. Yeah. And I was the first one in. I got a secret mission. I got to do all that. And so as a producer, tell me, would you have hated this or liked this right okay i'm gonna say hated it but go on when i was younger my dad and i would watch the show we come up with this idea if i was ever in there i'd do this so when i was in there i did this i can't wait for this you you you i'm not teaching you how to suck eggs you know how it works but for the listeners like the where the voice of god and jack come to the diary room that doesn't always happen if you press the button to go in And sometimes it just opens and you go in.

1:18:26But I needed them to call me. So I pressed the button and I nicked one of the safety information guides that they have in there about the house. And I put it up my top. And I waited for them to say, can Jack come to the door and make it look like I'm getting called in randomly, even though I've gone in. So I've gone in with this sheet up there. I speak to the person. They're like, how are you? I'm like, just want a little chat. Everything's fine. I come out five minutes later and I pretend I'm reading like a secret mission. Oh, that's funny. And then there was one lady in there who was not very nice and no one liked her.

1:18:55So I went into the bathroom. I got a toilet roll and I said, big brother, number one. And I just wrapped this woman up in tissue. And then I had another tissue paper. I said, who wants this one to the housemates? To me, nothing. And no one wanted the tissue. And I kept it under my pillow for the week that I was in there. And everyone seemed like they were nicer to me for that moment. So I'm manipulating that I've got my own task in there. But I bet the producers were like, what are this dickhead doing? huh that's a lot to unpack yeah there's a lot to unpack uh i'll say two things about it firstly

1:19:28Richard Osman:you want some you want people to do stuff you haven't seen before yeah sure the second you did i think if you if you wanted it to to you'd either call you in and say jack that's not acceptable please tell people that this didn't happen and then we never see that in the edit oh okay or what i would probably do in that circumstance certainly if it was like week three or something i'd call you in and say jack could you explain what it is that you're doing right and then you say oh i just i'm gonna do this and i'm gonna do i want people to like me and so i thought they'd do that and then they would call you in for another secret mission which made your actual secret mission much which made your pretend secret mission much worse and much harder they would they would do a judo thing on you use your weight against you oh wow i think that's what i would do right yeah or give everyone else a secret mission to do something to you so it could backfire quite badly for sure because you are you know you've got a million things to do in that house the producers they're just thinking all the time what do we do next what do we do next how can we have a bit of fun here you can't help produce your head above the parapet there yeah absolutely and but you're allowed to do it but the fact you've done that means you're completely fair game right you know if you have done something sneaky so we are absolutely allowed to do something sneaky with you and you can't you have to take it yeah for sure it's good sure that's why i think i would be the first one out of traitors because i i like the sneaky element of it i don't yeah i think people would that's why the american one is good because all game players right they really vocalize what it is they want to do yeah and how i love all that love it uh richard i uh spoke to you yesterday about doing a blind ranking so you've you've done loads of incredible projects uh we touched on a few just a few of them during this pod um could we finish with uh i'm going to give you 10 of your projects that you've done okay could be anything yeah be one of your brilliant brilliant novels tv show you've created um could be your podcast yeah let's do it so um stevie shall we just pick these at a random order so richard can't work out what's coming next yeah we'll start with eight or ten cats since we've spoken about it already so what do you want me to do so one to ten yeah out of everything you've ever made where would you rank it in your favorite you don't know what's coming next and you can't move them okay so i have to remember which numbers i've used already yeah yeah we can we'll tell you as we go along we'll write it all out okay i gotcha um okay have you got um go to go to crime on the list just so because i keep the number one slot um so we're sorry eight hour ten cats I will say number five.

1:22:05Five, okay. Then we're going to say, let's go Survivor. Biggest show in the world. Well, biggest show in the world,

1:22:14Richard Osman:but I never made any money out of it. So let's say number nine. Okay. So you're writing these numbers on, yeah? You've lost internet, which is why it's not connecting. Let's go House of Games. House of Games. I will say I love House of Games so much. I don't know. I don't do it anymore. But I loved it so much. And that was very much my baby. So I will say number three. Number three. Let's go. Boys Unlimited. Now, this is a sitcom that you made, right? I did in the late 90s with James Corden as the main character in it. It was good. It was fun. That's why I gave up writing for so long, because I wrote it for two years and it just did nothing.

1:22:59Richard Osman:Right. And then you're like, oh, right, so you've got to start again. Whereas with formats, you can have a failure and then you can do another one. Yeah, yeah. Did it not go out there? It went out. Oh, it went out? Yeah, we did a series. It just didn't do well enough to count. Where could we see that if we wanted to see it? Or would you not?

1:23:15Richard Osman:So that's why it took me till I was late 40s before I properly started writing it, like really started writing again the books because that absolutely floored me. Yeah. It was fun, though. And I have to put that. I don't know what else is coming. because there might be stuff has to go underneath number 10 but i'll say number 10 well let's go to the writing then let's do thursday murder club number one but it's the thing i'm proudest of the thing i've done that's best the most successful thing i've ever done the thing that i'll do for the rest of my life it's just we i found the thing i thought oh everything led to that and i absolutely love it i've got a few final questions on that specifically so we'll leave that we'll pointless pointless uh let's say let's say number four because it really transformed you know it was a real transformation in my life because i you know i was producing producing producing and suddenly i accidentally became a tv presenter and it led to like such unusual weird things in my life and it was just a normal quiz show which again i assumed would fail uh so yeah i think i have to say i think i have to say number four quick side note on pointless did you see the clip recently oh my god for the world cup i love it so much yeah i love it god bless the british yeah so for anyone who's not familiar or not seeing it it was before the england mexico game was it yes yeah quarter to one in the morning there was showing pointless celebrities as as like the lead up show to yeah yeah yeah and the as it as the sort of tickers ticking down to zero everyone's going yeah that whole crowd again so good so we have two six seven and eight left we'll go the rest is entertainment um okay let's say number six i really love it i was amazed by podcasts i i was you know when everyone says oh god everyone's attention span is so tiny people come watching this generation it's ridiculous generation they've got 10 second attention spans you think well firstly if they do you're the ones who brought them up so that's entirely 100 on you anyone's tagging off the previous generation you think sorry you think they were like in the uterus that's that's who they were or do you think they were created literally by you like your generation is good because of your parents yeah next generation is bad because of you but of course the next generation is is awesome and they will very happily watch a one hour podcast if it's good yeah right if it's not good they won't yeah you know we sent some of our interns years ago to watch like 1970s and 80s game shows down at down at the um uh bfi and they came out they just go that's so slow oh my god really were you watching that and actually you're watching me go oh my god you're right that's so slow that's such a good point it's like a quiz show and they go it's been five minutes you haven't had a question i'll tell you what i watched richard last night on a run through and i i thought i loved the show yeah bullseye is quite slow it's so slow it's quite slow it's crazy you just think there's stuff entertainment yeah right it's good when it's quick right i mean books are good when they're slow entertainment is good when it's quick right you know yeah 100 % so yeah I've loved doing the podcast and I love that there's a generation and I also love that everyone over 40 says I love listening to the podcast and everyone under 40 says I love watching the podcast yeah well I listen I'm 33 yeah I listen on the treadmill yeah yeah yeah yeah love it I love Marina as well I think she's great she's very much the talent there she's very much the Stevie of the piece isn't she you know what it's on my mountaintop now what we got left so we've got two seven and eight two seven and eight we've got we solve murders uh that's number two so that's my other series of books the second one is out in september it's called we chase shadows uh and um so i wanted i love we solve murders but i wanted to do a book that had that went around the world a little bit more right because we sold murder with um thirsty murder cup they can't really sort of machine gun people out of helicopters and i thought i'd be fun to write a book that has all that british humor but there's like a big thriller so i did we solve murders uh and it's uh amy who's a close protection officer her father-in-law steve who was a um police officer and rosie d 'antonio who's the world's best-selling novelist like jackie collins but i thought but how do i make it because i always need to make things funny yeah i want to make it thrilling and there's loads of murders and stuff like that and so it's got a proper crime but how do i make it funny and i thought about me i said i don't really like going around the world so i thought if i do a book about sending people around the world who's it funny so i thought steve I have this guy he doesn't want to go around the world yeah he's in his little village and he wants to he wants to play with his cat he wants to go to the pub with his mate yeah and do the pub quiz and that's what he wants to do and he's like on a private jet he's like oh my god and he's like to buy like a sausage roll from Greg's on the way because all the food on the private jet it's not for him yeah so it's as I say the second one is just about to come out I love that when is that out did you say September the 15th I think it's going to be another massive hit like they always are.

1:28:04Richard Osman:And we're doing a Netflix version of that as well. Are you really? Is that going to be a series? Yes, that will be a series, yeah. That's cool. That's cool. That's really cool. Okay, two more of these. We've got seven and eight. Which ones have we not done now? Yeah, what have we not done? We haven't done Deal or No Deal. Oh, that should have been a bit higher. I mean, I can't put it completely high because I didn't invent the whole thing. I was just the first exec and we kind of turned it into what it was. So in terms of the credit I can take from it, but I loved making it so much. And it was a huge hit.

1:28:35Richard Osman:And a guy called Dick Derrick, a Dutch guy. It was weirdly, it was the end game of a Dutch lottery show, postcode lottery show. And they just had this little thing with boxes and then we sort of did our version of it. So let's put that number seven and hope that number eight isn't your children. I wish I'd thought of that. It's just as weird, I think. Not that your children are weird. Taskmaster. ah well so i've been on taskmaster i mean i have nothing to do with the making of that but it is um oh my god i get asked about it all the time and it's funny because the books take me like all around the world so you'll do book tours in you know america and china and just all of these places and at the end of it you always ask for questions and you always get you know these questions and like half of you someone will always go um uh what are you proud of are you uh it's the thing you're proud most proud of in your career the task with the yoga balls on the top of the hidden taskmaster and wherever you are in the world the whole audience is like because they watch it everywhere the big shows that people watch everywhere in the world are taskmaster and would i lie to you they can't they watch it on you they watch the clips on youtube and if you ask people about british tv those are the two shows that they endlessly talk about they're loved everywhere okay i'm always i've always messaged adix horn i'll be in like india and someone will go or someone will ask me about you know uh jerry wilkinson on taskmaster and i always say to to Alex I mean literally everywhere I go Alex yeah asked about this show so it was I found it quite stressful to do that show because I'm not a performer I'm not a stand-up my kids loved it so I went on it I'm so proud I've been on it yeah I'm glad to be part of that Taskmaster universe yeah but uh my god yeah that was uh and I did one of the early series where you didn't have to do that much right there was only six episodes or something it seems so fun though yeah like it's you know what it's really it's really really good yeah but there are some of them where you just turn up in a room and you're like oh god really and there's like a whole crew of people and you're they've just told you to do something you really don't want to do.

1:30:32Richard Osman:I went in one. We were out of the house and we were driven to Chesham, which I think is where Alex is from. It certainly is Chesham United as his football team. And led into this massive kind of oak panel chamber. And on the far wall, there's just this guy sitting in ceremonial robes. And you open up this task and it says, impress the mayor of Chesham, you have 20 minutes. What did you do? And you're like, oh, come on. What I did, I wrote a, I quickly Wikipedia'd Chesham, and the competitive, like, you know, every town has three towns nearby, and they all hate each other. So I wrote a poem about why Chesham was better than the three towns that were nearest to it, and recited it while juggling.

1:31:16Oh, you're good. Yeah, you are very good. I like how you thought juggling wouldn't have just been enough.

1:31:22Richard Osman:But that's impressive. Yeah, but I thought, what if I drop a ball, if you know what I mean. That's fair. So this is your confirmed list of official Richard Osmond projects. So number one, the Thursday Murder Club. Two, We Solve Murders. Three, Richard Osmond's House of Games. Four, Pointless. Five, eight out of ten, Cats. Six, the rest is Entertainment. Seven, Deal or No Deal. Eight, Taskmaster. Nine, Survivor. And ten, Boys Unlimited. Are you happy with that? I am happy other than just as a producing note, you go from ten to one. Fuck. You do normally. I do normally. As soon as you said one, I was like, that's how he's going to do it.

1:31:57That's because I've heard Marina do it the wrong way. I'm going to start at number seven. And I've heard how rattled you get by. Now, before we let you go, Richard, we need to talk about the Thursday Murder Club, obviously adapted for a film for Netflix. You've been in the industry so long. You've done so many incredible things, met so many incredible people. But even the cast that you got for that, that must have even been surreal for you, right? Yeah, it's insane.

1:32:23Richard Osman:It was right from the moment I first wrote the book funny. before it even sold, before we even had a UK publisher, it went out on submission to TV companies because you always do, the first time you write a book, you get to offer it for the film and TV rights. And a few people come back, and I was still at the stage where I didn't know if it was any good. I liked it, and I was proud of it, but it'd take me three years to write, and I was like, okay. Can I just ask, you know when you said that when you developed Deal or No Deal, you knew it'd be a hair, did you quite know how much of no you didn't no i was so proud i'd done it as a writer yeah i thought well done for finally doing the marathon of writing which is writing a novel as i was so proud of myself i thought i can always say that i've written a novel now and it's that you know i love crime fiction so i knew i felt like it was you know i i was proud of it but i had no idea if anyone would want to uh publish it and then if anyone would want to buy it or whatever uh and And then I get the call saying, Steven Spielberg wants to buy the rights.

1:33:24I thought, oh, wow, he knows about story

1:33:26Richard Osman:and he knows about character. And that's the moment I thought, oh, okay, it's okay now. I still didn't know if they were going to send any copies, but at least I thought, oh, okay, it's good. It's a good story. There's something, the thing that I see in it, which is the humanity of the thing, other people see in it. And so the poor everyone else who was bidding for the rights, I was like, I'm really sorry, but Steven Spielberg has it. and so and that was lovely around the world funnily enough it was you know for the first sort of three or four books when they were still working on the film they would always ask me about Spielberg so it gave me it gave me kudos everywhere in the world which was uh yeah absolutely amazing but it was it was honestly it's the first time that I thought oh okay maybe maybe this is for real right you know what I love about that is what you've just said there Richard as well is as as a just a lonely podcast that if if Spielberg called me I'd be my first thing would be it's Spielberg yeah he's got it but your first thought was well he knows about story and he knows about this so you're still going is he the right man oh no I was definitely thinking I'm gonna send it to you but I was thinking the fact that he wanted to buy it I was like okay that's really nice yeah so you know it's like it's like when comedians read the book and say I thought that was really funny right that you just go great yeah you know what I think that's it just it means a huge amount when somebody you know you know they can do it it's the ultimate pat on the back yeah sorry how much of a role does the author get to have in making the film i mean absolutely so well you can do if you want to but i absolutely i'm i've been around long enough to know that you either do it all or you do nothing and i didn't have i wanted to write the next books i'm not yeah i don't want to write the film i've done my version of the thursday murder club it's the book it's there it's the thing you know that's if you want to read it that's my story so i thought i would just absolutely leave them to it with we solve murders i'm getting a little bit more involved and i've certainly you know helped choose the writer and i you know go to meetings with it But with that, I absolutely just left it in the hands of Steven Spielberg.

1:35:17Richard Osman:Because I just thought, I mean, it'd be sort of stupid not to, isn't it? Yeah, you'd trust him. Yeah, yeah. You have no say in the cast or anything like that? No, no. How did you find out who was going to be in it then? Like, are you... It was bit by bit, really. I think that Helen Mirren had said to someone, oh, if anyone's making that book, I'd like to play Elizabeth. And once she had signed up, I think other, you know, it was people sort of fell in around her. um and then you know it's quite apart from the main four as well and then suddenly you know you know you got david tenet and danny mays and all they just just these amazing actors uh everywhere but yeah i i watched from the sidelines it's fascinating genuinely it's fascinating but i'm i've got one job and that's write the books i'll tell you who i love as well jeff bell yes yeah he's so he's so good isn't he such an amazing yeah it's so good yeah love him he's so believable I know we're pretty much at time here now, Richard, but I'd love to know just real quick about your process of writing a novel.

1:36:13So you get the idea. I'm going to ask this really in a stupid way, right? Because I need to understand it in my brain. When you're writing it, do you sometimes just write it not knowing where it's coming? I'm glad you did that.

1:36:29Richard Osman:Do I play keyboard as well? Yes, I do. Am I writing a razor hit as well? That you juggle whilst doing poems. Yeah, that's true. you know what actually do you sometimes write bits that you don't you where you don't know where it's going or have you got this i never really i usually i'm literally i'm starting the new thursday murder club novel now because it's we sold murders this year yeah uh and i had i've got one tiny little idea about a character yeah i thought oh i'd really be interested in writing about that character i have got and the idea of the character gave me idea of a crime like a background to a crime uh and i know someone is getting murdered i know the first person is going to get murdered but everything else i don't know at all so what i i just like to try and create characters have them talk to each other find out who they are and go oh my god i want to spend a bit of time with you throw my four thursday murder club people in and then i just i try and write short chapters one a day just try and think what's what's going to happen next what's going to happen next and have the characters tell the story to me i've always tried to do i can't do the thing of planning and plotting i've always got little things you know things ticking yeah and i've usually got like a couple little tent poles where i'm like oh my god it'd be fun at some point if this happened or there's a another book called the impossible fortune a thursday murder club one where i had two really good ideas of how to crack a code i had two really neat like ideas for a code i thought oh okay i'm gonna head towards there somewhere so i've got those little things but no i like to entertain myself i like to every day okay okay i'm gonna do this this is gonna be the um scene today something always has to happen every scene the movement you know the story has to be moved on but i try and do the whole thing through character if anyone's writing at home and it's it's so hard to write a novel and the one thing people always say where do you get your ideas from plot i find plot so hard i think plot you have to stop thinking about plot so much everything is characters yeah everything is it's never what happens in this book it's why do i care what happens in this book and plots are everywhere around you all the time look out your front window you'll see a plot something will happen what would happen if you know whereas characters we care about those are the most important things and so i throw my characters in and go oh what should i do to them next and it sets up lots of if you haven't planned it it sets up all sorts of problems so you're like oh my god i've hit a roadblock here this couldn't possibly happen because of x y or z so that feels like a scary thing but that is the thing that makes your book great because you get to overcome those problems and the way you overcome the problem that's your pot you know that's the and that's it and you have two weeks to overcome that problem whereas a reader is going to get to the end of a chapter and just go oh my god how are they going to get out of this is impossible and in the two weeks that you've had going oh god how do we get out of this they literally turn the page and they go oh wow yeah right you know and so that's that i always think you know the problems are always the best things and and characters that's absolutely the key but yeah i like to make it up as i go along i have more of an idea as i go on but i i changed the murderer at the last minute a lot a lot of the time that's fascinating to learn how how do you write the characters to be so likable and like appealing to the reader is it are you drawing from people you know and go i love this person for this i do i i i try and you know i have quite a good view of humanity you know i know we're told that everyone's at each other's throats all the time and they were awful but i don't believe it i believe in in in human goodness and so i try right that i like strong kind people uh and then you know i just it's like a it's a it's a it's a it's a comedian's thing of who would it be funny if we met if someone is a like in this in um we uh in we chase shadows they've got i need a couple of retirees to give us some information in malaga for various reasons right uh and uh so i'm like okay and so you just think oh great i'm just gonna have these two this couple who she's obviously was like some sort of insurance fraudster you know he was some sort of uh drug dealer but now you know they we meet them at the madaga bridge club because that you know they're 65 now and they don't do that so they just play bridge and so i get to write about them being criminals but you also see just a really a couple in love like having sangria on a beautiful sun terrace and it's just two and so you've got two different things happening at the same time right and that you sort of go okay i don't know those people but i would i think i would like them uh and so it's just it's just that it's always thinking could you take any of these characters these minor characters these small characters could you follow them home and write a novel all about them and so i try and think about that for every single character do they have a world where you go i'd like to i'd like to know more about that human being that's why people love them so much and you don't shy away from putting i might go do you put brands in don't you and stuff always yeah because i always think it's weird when people don't yeah i'm always you know joyce narrates it you know she's always she goes to a station as furious because they're not on a bonus there she was at blackfriars i was at blackfriars yeah yeah there's like a wx smith's at blackfriars right and it's so tiny i thought this must be the smallest wx smith in the world and so i immediately think right joyce can have that and so joyce goes to blackfriars she's going and i honestly i don't understand how this wx smith is so small but because when we get that's what people are interested in they're not interested in you know we're interested in our high street and we're interested in what's on telly and we're you know that's what we're interested that's that's the stuff people like so i feel my books absolutely full of that stuff i love it i love it and uh like i've said numerous times i love you so thanks for coming on the show richard um phenomenal guest one we've wanted to have on for a long time when's the new book again when is it 15th of september we chase shadows i look forward to it very much this has been jack mates happy hour podcast with me jack mate stevie white and the brilliant richard osman who loves his mint ice cream richard we always finish with the same question yes what's the meaning of life well the meaning of life is really that there isn't one and it's how you deal with that there we go perfect thank you so much mate thank you that was great thank you stevie thank you so much for coming in

1:42:25Jack makes happy hour. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT. Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at chatgpt.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans. I see you. Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet.

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