Adolescence Conquers the World

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1:19Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment with me, Marina Hyde. And me, Richard Osman. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm not bad. How's your week been? It's gone on. It's passed. It's been seven days long. It's been seven days long. And that's the best that can be said of it. No. Like many, many, many, many people, I watched adolescence. I know. Well, listen, it's quite something, isn't it? We're going to talk about it today. We've got exciting news about our Q &A on Thursday as well. But yes, we will be talking about it as a piece of creative art. And what happens when one of those shows makes the jump between being massively high rating or whatever, but becomes a sort of national conversation?

1:53I think that's very interesting. And why that might happen. the particular ecosystem it comes out of. I've been messaging people about it all week. I'm messaging you about it. We're going to talk about it. How impossible it is to spell the word adolescence. I'm still absolutely nowhere near it. What's it giving you? Just all sorts of other suggestions? No, I just, you know, I mean, there's, you know, the S's, the C's. I know it's not the biggest part of the jigsaw, but come on. But it is your exclusive part. You haven't heard that take on the show anywhere else. That's true. I haven't seen that in any of the reviews, but listen, it's going to chime with people, I think.

2:25I think it will. Yeah. Shifting tone slightly, Will Smith's comeback. Yeah, exactly. Richard, Will Smith. Yeah, he's touring, he's releasing an album, we'll be chatting about that. We'll be chatting about some of the unusual venues he's playing in the UK as well. Whether the comeback will be bigger than the setback. Right, well, let us begin then with adolescence. Goodness me. I hope there won't be any spoilers in this, but there will be sort of... Zero spoilers, yes. ...of the concept of the show. But written by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, they developed it together. directed by Philip Barantini in this incredible one shot, genuine one shot, rather than a synthesized one take.

3:01Amazing performances, Ashley Waters, Aaron Doherty. Every episode, someone walks in, you go, oh, I liked it when Ashley Waters was on. And they go, oh no, I really like you. Yeah, yeah. Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller. Honestly, it's such an incredible performance. I can tell you that I'm immediately retiring my theory that British kids can't act. I know, you were absolutely adamant, weren't you? And then this show, across every episode, gives a number of examples of kids who really, really, really can act. It's almost like, actually, the theory is British directors are not very good at directing kids.

3:34And Philip Berentini is unbelievably good at directing kids. Yeah, I mean, that theory of mine is being boxed up in the crate, going into the old Raiders of the Lost Ark warehouse of all my other terrible theories. Yeah, the bookshelves. And we're not going to see... Don't let's start that one now. But anyway, this show, it's amazing because it's top the charts around the world. It's on Netflix, which is an interesting thing in itself. It's top the charts around the world. You know, they always want those local stories that appeal globally. I'm not sure that until, I don't know whether it was this show, but until pretty recently, we thought that social realism could work on Netflix in some ways.

4:10You wouldn't necessarily associate the platform with it. Yes, there was always the charge that it's all very well and good, Netflix releasing all these shows, but, you know, they wouldn't do a show like the BBC or ITV. they wouldn't do a Mr. Bates versus the Post Office. And now they've just done Toxic Town and Adolescence in a row. Both written by Jack Thorne. Both written by Jack Thorne. The number one and two in the old Netflix class. Yeah, exactly. And it just goes to show that, you know, Netflix are smarter than you think they are because whatever criticism you've got, you know, 18 months, two years ago when these things were being developed, they had already worked out that actually there were different things that they wanted to do and there's different bits of entertainment they wanted to show people.

4:44So if you are one of the other broadcasters, it's hard, man. When they're giving you, you know, Black Doves and the Gentleman and then they follow it up with Toxic Town and Adolescents. You think, crikey. I mean, how do you compete against that? It's like the glory days of Man City when they just kept buying new midfielders every year. Well, the answer is that they can't compete with that. But I think we should get on to that in a minute. Let's talk about the show itself first. The show is incredibly interesting, the way they did it. I can see that some people think it might not be very expensive because they only have to press play once.

5:15It looks so expensive. Yeah, it actually takes the same amount of time, really, to film one episode of that. In fact, maybe more. I would think more, yeah. Maybe more. Certainly what you'd be given on a PSB, which is the public service broadcasters, every time I use that annoying abbreviation. Not the Pet Shop Boys. Not the Pet Shop Boys. I suppose they had two weeks of rehearsal. And it's so like a sort of ballet, really, to make everything work and the dialogue last till you get through the door and round the corner and in the car. I think the amazing thing is, because, listen, you can all think of sort of clever little conceits when you're sitting down trying to sell something.

5:45and you go, oh, what if we did this? And it was like all in one shot. It's an idea we've heard before. And of course, for a viewer, you're like, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I'd be interested to see something that's all done in one shot. And then you go, oh, and Stephen Graham's in it. I really love Stephen Graham. Okay, yeah, I'll give that a watch. But to have that conceit and then produce a drama of that quality at the same time, you think, oh, well, that's Christmas for everybody, isn't it? Because it is technically, it's incredible, which we'll get onto. but the writing, the performing, the direction is so unbelievably great.

6:16I mean, listen, it's harrowing almost throughout, but to see such an almost perfectly formed and fully realised piece of drama on television, it just, you know, it gladdens the hearts and it reminds you of what talent we have in this country and what can happen when everyone pulls together. And yeah, it's just a very beautiful thing to watch, a very beautiful piece of television. Those sort of creative relationships that have been built up over years and other projects are so important to this, particularly. Obviously, Philip Barantini and Stephen Graham had worked together on Boiling Point, which is also a one-shot, which is a super intense drama about a chef in a kitchen, Stephen Graham.

6:55And started, by the way, as a short and then was a feature and then was a series. And so it's poor Philip Berentini going, if I was just going to think I'm the guy in a single one shot. And you can see from this that he's got a lot more in his locker as a director. As we talked about, it's almost impossible to get uniformly brilliant performances like that. And whenever every actor is good in something, that's not just actors, that's the director. So yeah, they had worked together. Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne had worked together. And Stephen Graham came to Jack Thorne with this idea. This was the thing that he wanted to do.

7:28and you know he's through it like a stick of rock but then because he's such a generous actor he just he fills the whole thing with these incredible performances by other people as well and then the last episode we get a little bit more Stephen Graham I mean I watched it with by the way if you ever have teenagers and you want to watch it with a woman who just sits there the whole time saying you're not involved in anything like this are you? Are you? To the point where I was a veggie dog can you shut up so we can watch the show please? Please tell me if you're involved in anything like this I think it's really interesting and it happened obviously with Mr Bates which was on a public service broadcast but that moment where a show sort of fills a gap in lots of ways where institutional failure maybe political failure it's extraordinary it makes that jump to national conversation I think that is really absolutely fascinating Yeah, if people haven't seen it at the heart of it is a tale about teen masculinity and what is up with teen boys and toxic masculinity and Andrew Tate gets a name check and you know so it is as well as being technically brilliant and emotionally brilliant it is also about something and I think that combination has meant that everybody has watched it because it's one of those shows now you you have to have an opinion on.

8:39I agree with that I do think it's interesting that Keir Starmer has said or last week said I'm I'm watching this and I think everyone should you know everyone should watch this people I'm sympathetic to the idea of it being shown in schools there is a group of labour mps who wanted to talk about it and there are all sorts of people what you know that it's hit in a completely different way because normally when it just on a sort of boring level normally and you know all this when when a show is coming out people do pre-interviews for it and there's a promotional push so that you buy the ideally someone in the country you'll have heard this show oh yeah that's that thing maybe i heard someone talking about it on the radio steven graham was on yeah he was on talk sport so whatever it is and you think all right, I'll have a look at that.

9:21But the interviews have all been done in advance. And then the promotional, and ideally it goes up the ratings and people watch it. And so now everyone is scrambling to get all these people on. They're coming to them after the event for all the interviews, which is very, which happened with Mr. Bates as well, where everyone was sort of saying, oh, I want to talk to the producers. How long, you know, is this real? How long has this been going on? Suddenly you were seeing all these people giving interviews after it's come out, which is very, very unusual. But I think it's interesting when you look back at the shows that have actually made a difference in terms of either changing policy or bringing an issue to the forefront that it can't sort of be ignored in a way that perhaps it has been able to.

9:58You'd have something like, I don't know, something about, you know, the Birmingham Six, but you wouldn't have anything for another few years. Last year we had Mr Bates. This year already we've had this. I honestly feel that we're living in a time that is amazing for drama and amazing that it can bring these stories to the forefront and make people care about it in a way that I think, or become engaged with the subjects in a way that I think, I don't know, politics or as I say other institutions have simply failed to do people are sort of crying out to be able to have the tools to talk about lots of these things and we've talked before about you know the rise of long-form podcasts especially on the right and how it's it's people are desperately searching for like being informed and intelligence and something long-form and smart and something that you know explains something to them it's really interesting I read an interview only the other day about young people saying how they reacted to it and all of them were saying, oh, it's really like that.

10:51To get it right from their point of view and then to get it right, obviously, if you're a parent, you're thinking, oh, my God, to get it right from that point of view. It's extraordinary to have succeeded on every level. The way that these conversations, these dramas are latched onto and it just becomes something so much bigger. Why is that happening more frequently in the era we're now in? And I think it's because it's not being dealt with properly elsewhere, which is, by the way, terrific for drama, because anyone involved in this truly believes in the transformative power of drama. And by the way, it is being dealt with elsewhere.

11:24You know, politics is the same as it's always been. You know, there are incredibly hardworking people doing incredible things, just not reported in any way. You know, the dance between politicians and the media has got so bogged down and so toxic over the years that it's not fit for purpose anymore. It hasn't been for a long time. So whatever it is that politicians are doing, there's absolutely no way we would know about it because they're using the communication forms of the 20th century. And so there's a whole generation who do not understand even what politics is, what politicians do other than they're the people in charge of us who are making our decisions and telling us what to do.

11:59And we've absolutely lost that connection between politicians, their passion for anything they care about, the stuff that they do to make the world a better place, and an electorate. It's completely gone. But the passion from the electorate is still there because they absolutely, immediately, this sort of thing comes along. They're obsessed with it. The politicians are the same as they've ever been. So there needs to be a translation somewhere in the middle, a little bridge. Because, you know, the writer worked out what that bridge is and how to have that conversation. It's interesting there. It speaks to the vacuum of how people are allowed to witness politics.

12:32Can we talk a little bit about the British TV ecosystem from which this drama sprung? Because it feels, by the way, on the surface you think, oh my God, things have never been healthier. This is amazing. Homegrown show, someone like Jack Thorne, Philip Bantini, Stephen Graham, these incredible actors, you think, wow, drama has never been healthier. Netflix hit after hit after hit with quality stuff. but I do think it hides something. First of all, every single person involved with this show, from Jack Thorne, Stephen Graham, Toby Bentley, who script edited lots of Jack's things on broadcasters, and is now he's the series manager at Netflix UK, and Mensah who runs Netflix UK.

13:15I mean, all of these people, they're extraordinary. They would be the first to admit that they came from public service broadcasters, and what they do now stands on the shoulders of those particular giants. But the fact is, this couldn't really be made. It's too expensive for the BBC to make. In so many ways, it's a perfect BBC show. It's very sort of specific. It feels very specific to the UK, although it has these amazing universal themes, clearly, which is why it's number one in America. These things can't be made anymore. They are struggling so badly. And I mean, I slightly feel that there are all sorts of different suggestions for how to help the public service broadcasters.

13:45And people are saying, and I think you need some of all sorts of different ones, but you do need big joined up thinking and someone who really cares about it and understands that British TV dramas and public service broadcasting has been the most amazing tool of soft power that you can possibly imagine for the past few decades. It's an extraordinary product, makes things that people talk about and love around the world, to say nothing of our own country. I think that, you know, there are various different suggestions. Someone like Peter Kosminski, who's the director of Wolf Hall, said, oh, I think we should, you know, we need a levy for the streamers.

14:18I mean, Netflix made 39 billion revenue last year and they paid something like 14 million UK tax. Now, the profits of all of this stuff are being siphoned off somewhere else. As I said, this has nothing to do with the creatives, but it is the reality of the business. And I don't, unfortunately, you know, I'm sorry to have to go back to her, but, you know, she is the culture secretary. Lisa Nandy has emerged with incredible rarity. She made one sort of thing about diversity on TV, which was completely misjudged and just didn't seem to understand the TV business at all. And then I saw, you know, she's done an interview about Gino De Campo.

14:55Well, I mean, this is not a matter for a Secretary of State, however unpleasant he may be, or may not, I'm sure, you know, just to run the denial. But, you know, where is she? Why is she not talking about tax breaks or streamer, you know, where is the big thinking or a streamer levy or whatever it is, or getting people together? We're not having this conversation in public, and the money has completely made it impossible for the public service. And if I can give people a concrete example of what we mean when we talk about money. First, listen, there's production values and you could see the sort of crew they had on that show and how it looked.

15:27But the fees paid to actors and writers are far beyond what you could ever get on the BBC and ITV. So the level of fees that are being paid for television work in the UK are something we've never, ever seen before. And what that means is a large part of the talent pool automatically will go to Netflix. because firstly, they've shown they'll commission very, very interesting things and they can be fairly hands-off and can deliver an audience. So they have all those things, but then they'll pay you 10 times more. And as a creator, you think, well, what's the downside here? Because there isn't a downside.

16:03You're not having to compromise quality and you're getting paid 10 times as much. But what it actually means, of course, is if you're ITV or if you're the BBC, the rate for talent has just gone through the roof and the availability of talent is much less than it used to be. at the same time when your income is getting much, much, much lower. So, you know, they've done all sorts of things with sticking plasters of co-production on everything. You can't do any drama now on a PSB without a co-production with another country. But the co-production money's gone now. That's the trouble. The BBC have got so many things half agreed from their side, basically, but they can't find the co-pro money anymore.

16:36And it's really, really difficult. I mean, I was in a development meeting for something I'm doing this week, and we were talking about it, and I kept saying, you know, I'd love it to be on a... We're talking about it so much. We're saying, what if we did this? The trouble is, it's incredibly difficult to get something in that particular space without going into what it was. It's just too expensive. And there's no... I was saying, we could do it this way. This is the thing people don't know about yet, that you're doing your version of the Meghan show. Yeah, this is my... It's Marina's Kitchen. I would have loved that to have come out with some more fanfare.

17:13But yeah, the thing is, my ingredients are too expensive and they're just too expensive. And I can, of course, you know, like the saint I am, take a pay cut to land that analogy for a second. That is sort of what we're talking about. You can say all along, like as people did on Wolf Hall, say, oh, you know, directors and actors were all going to work for much, much less and made a really big thing about it. But saying this is not really sustainable or scalable. You know, they're extremely successful. They can do that. But other people can't. An absolute sidebar. I see that they've announced a series of diversions from the main point.

17:51I see they've announced the second season of The Megan Show. And it absolutely goes to the thing that I've had a number of times in my career, that if a channel has taken a huge financial risk on you, then it looks terrible for them if they don't commission the second series. So quite often they go, oh, let's just do another series. because then it looks like we had a hit. By the way, they've already shot it. They shot them back to back. So they already knew that they were good. I agree with you. So they have to say, and you know what? We're doing another. As I say, it didn't meaningfully trouble the top 10.

18:22But that's, you know, this... Jack Thorne, it is extraordinary to have the number one and number two show. Yeah, so Jack Thorne did Toxic Town and then this. And he might be a new name for some people. Anyone with a big interest in TV drama will know who Jack Thorne is. Or stage drama. It's unbelievable. I was trying to think of all the Jack Thorne things that I'd seen in like the last 18 months. And I thought I'd got them. And I suddenly thought, oh, no, hang on, because it was one of the children's turn to go to the cast child. So we did that. And then, oh, no, hang on. We saw that. The Don Marlman Winston went to war with the wireless.

18:52There were so many things. I mean, he is the most extraordinary person. I idolise him. Well, he's prolific and incredibly talented. And his heart is in the right place. He wants to write things about things. He wants to make the world a better place via his work. I think the one thing that, you know me, I'm a bluff old commercialist. And the fact that he wrote The Cursed Child, the Harry Potter musical, I know he's okay for money forever. Okay, so listen, I know he's been beautifully paid. Thank goodness. Thank goodness, which means he can literally go, I'm just going to do exactly what I want.

19:26A bit funny enough, he came out this week and talked about the ecosystem of British TV. and you know despite the fact he's just had two huge hits on Netflix you did say we have an issue with our public service broadcasters you know he's saying that again which you can do if you've got Harry Potter working for public yeah of course you will exactly and he will and so will Stephen Gray and we understand all that it's interesting actually they developed this with Amazon and then I wonder oh is that right yeah and then they just took it in the end to Netflix someone that Amazon speaking of which we're doing actually a bonus episode on the great rejection rejection letters of big hits this Friday for our members but that's just a sidebar on the sidebar yeah sorry absolute sidebar but yeah the absolute sidebar the person at Amazon who said yeah no I think or whatever maybe it just wasn't working out maybe they felt oh they don't love this enough here as there often is in drama a huge amount of emphasis on the actors and people saying this is incredible and there's by the way it is the performances are extraordinary every actor I talk to goes yeah but I mean because people are going you know they don't forget anything they hit their cues their lines yeah that's I mean, that's theatre.

20:29Actors are really, really, really used to that. It feels like witchcraft. And it is slightly different because there's a lot more technical things in this. And you've got to be in the exact right light. And you've got to be exactly where you need to be all the time. So it is much more technical. But it's a skill that they have. You know, the question that actors get asked most is, how do you remember those lines? And that's the easy bit of acting. You know, everything else is the tough bit. But he watched Stephen Graham kind of collapsing, you know, in a pool of tears at the end of a long episode where he's absolutely got to get it bang on.

21:03And the camera is right in his face in a way that it isn't in theatre. So anyway, listen, the acting is incredible. Can I just say one thing about theatre while we're on it then? As another person who was brilliant in the pandemic, particularly talking about this, but is ongoing brilliant talking about this, is another of our most amazing and prolific writers, James Graham. Yes. it's so intent on saying you know you have to understand that so many of these people came up via theatre you have, to all the streamers and all the big broadcasters, you have these people because theatre nurtured them.

21:33Yeah and James Graham did Sherwood by the way on BBC which is another example of something that is about something and stars an awful lot of theatre actors and stuff but I think the key to it is it's an incredible technical achievement I was talking to Pat Nunn who's one of the great sound guys, and he did the EastEnders Live thing, and I just talked to him about it. 20 minutes of chatting to him, and you understand what an unbelievable technical accomplishment the half-hour EastEnders Live thing was for the sound department and what they have to do. And when you're watching adolescents and everybody's clear, you're hearing everything, that's not easy, and the sound mix is exactly where it needs to be.

22:13None of that is easy. There are microphones everywhere that cannot be seen, that have to be picking up certain things, after we're not picking up other things. The lights have to be exactly in the, you know, it's not, they're not in a real police station that's just lit with the, you know, light from the police station. It is a film set. Every single place they go, every corridor they go down, every single room they walk into is lit and is lit by people who know that they can't get this wrong in any way whatsoever. And my experience with people on that side of TV is it's just a joy to work with them.

22:43If you give them a problem and you give them just enough money to sort that problem out, they will go away and they will come back with something extraordinary. And the joy of television, whether it's drama or entertainment, is you've got the great show ponies, the actors, the presenters, stuff like that. And then you've got people behind the scenes doing the best version of what they could possibly do. And it's just that team effort and adolescence. Every second of it, you're thinking, oh, my God, the amount of people who are terrified. Every time there's a transition between one scene and another, the amount of people whose jobs are at risk and who have made three decisions which are about to be either proved right or wrong every single time something changes I thought it was a testament to the sound department to camera department, to lighting I mean just the whole shebang is extraordinary The phrase tour de force is going to be used but not in this case we must break the glass on it There was a really nice thing that Jack Thorn was asked once about his best advice that anyone had ever given him and he said the stuff I go back to again and again is an executive producer who said to me that everyone working on the project was as passionate as me and if I stopped behaving like a stuck-up fool then I'd be able to see that it's advice I keep forgetting it's so easy to get precious I think I fall into that hole all the time I think Jack Thorne is pretty sensationally generous in every interview he's ever given everything I've ever seen you know it is true that it is this phenomenal sort of it's very musical talking about it was so when you hear all the people involved with it it is really like they're sort of plotting a ballet or something.

24:14It's a form of, you know, very, very intricate choreography. It's the sort of, in some ways, the best way of understanding how you can simply just, you know, get in the car, then walk through a door, then do all of those things. It's sort of extraordinary. And have enough dialogue to get you there. All those things that we've been talking about. Yeah, you know, like, you know, when the shot on the bonnet of the car turns into a drone. Normally when I'm watching a TV programme, I'm listening to the script. And in this, you sort of can't even listen to the script because Jack is so good. it doesn't even feel scripted there's almost like not a single kind of wrong note anywhere that takes you into the script, you're always watching the action You know 1917 Sam Mendes' first World War sort of epic Roger Deakins is a cinematographer on that and he worked many times but he's got this grip that he always worked with a guy called Gary Hems who I spoke to once a lot about how and grips are in charge of Because 1917 17 is also...