Could Kathy Burke Be Bond?

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0:09Richard Osman:Exactly. You get to a certain level in the business where you don't want anyone to talk to you at all. And there are some people who are notoriously difficult to get hold of. Christopher Nolan, for example, is famously almost completely, doesn't even have a mobile phone. I mean, you literally cannot get hold of Christopher Nolan. He said, of course he does. He's got a sneaky little mobile, has he? Yeah. He's on WhatsApp groups, but he doesn't want you to know that. Should I tell you who's easy to get hold of? Who? Octopus Energy. Yes. So Octopus Energy, if you know the score when one of your service providers writes to you, you've got a question for them or you're disputing something, you reply and it immediately says you cannot reply to this email.

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2:13Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

2:19Richard Osman:And I am Richard Osmond. We have lots of your questions. Thank you so much for sending them in. Are you ready? Yeah, hit me. Should we kick straight off? Hit me. Okay, we're going to start with Madonna. You must. Yeah. Nathan Stucker has a question. Madonna has said that she and Universal have parted ways over her biopic, apparently starring Julia Garner. It seems like a fortune had been put into pre-production, including something called a Madonna boot camp. How often do films fall at the final hurdle? Is there a point where productions have to happen because of sunk costs? Ha ha, yeah, parted ways is one of those real newspaper words, isn't it?

2:53Newspaper phrases. They've parted ways. you know like when you have to say a manager you can't say a manager is going to be sacked because he could get sued so you have to say that on the brink okay yeah they have 100 % parted ways let's put it that way uh Nathan this is a film about her co-written by her and directed by her so no way yeah I've got to question the wisdom of Universal's investment in that what we do know is that the script for this the Madonna biopic was and remember there are a lot of these kind of music biopics they're very successful and there's a kind of big trend for them the script was I know it was three hours plus I've talked to various people who were sort of connected or at least know some of the stories there's a lot of fallout stories from this there was a Madonna boot camp yes she wanted candidates who for the role to be able to sing

3:39Richard Osman:for the role as her yeah okay and they needed to be able to sing but they you know okay debatable but to be able to do the dancing and to be choreographed by her choreographer. But Julia Garner is a big actor. She's from Ozark. Inventing Anna and that sort of stuff. Yeah, but various people went through this boot camp. Florence Pugh, Odessa Young. Florence Pugh went through a boot camp. I know. Beverly Rexha, Sky Ferreira, Alexa Demi, and Julia Garner. And Julia Garner wins. But then in 2023, Madonna's... In 2023? Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. You can imagine. I understand. Then she... It's the celebration tour, and that was a big, big thing.

4:21So they sort of shelve it. That would have been the moment, I think. But then it sort of becomes resurrected. It is now definitely dead. Madonna has given an interview about it in which she said, oh, we had a falling out me in Universal regarding budget because I've had an extraordinary life. I've had a huge life, so I needed a big budget.

4:41Richard Osman:All right, guy in a pub. Yeah, I know. You wouldn't believe. Some of the things I've done, you wouldn't believe them. Yeah, yeah. Honestly, Hollywood, they couldn't make it up. They couldn't make it up. They need CGI to create this. She said she wanted to meet, so then she tried to come up with some kind of financial compromise, and she said she was going to move it to Serbia, and Universal said to her, well, we don't even believe you'd stay in Serbia for four days, sorry. And she says, did you read the script? My entire life has been survival. I'm not going there for a holiday, so massive drive-by on Serbia there.

5:14Richard Osman:Yeah, come on, guys. Thank you. meanwhile Serbia's going for you I mean I okay as I say lots of we have lots of these relationships in cinema at the moment because there are lots of these biopics and there are some people who are great someone like Bob Dylan who just says do whatever you want he doesn't regard that you know a complete unknown necessarily as him or not as him it's just do what you want yeah he does he does his music that's him the Beatles have been are more protective and I know have been more protective over the surviving Beatles over the four Beatles films that are coming out, the Sam Mendes ones.

5:50This is such a tight involvement with the performance. You know, she's writing her own story. She is, it's about her, she's directing it and also she's Madonna and we, you know, she's control free, you know, that's what's made her great. I would not say she's a great, she has directed a film before. I've seen, she's directed two, I think, but I've only seen one of them. W.E., which is about, yeah, Walter Simpson. There's a hilarious line in that where she says, there's some newsreel happening and it says, King George III has died. And it's like, yeah, I mean, did no one... That was in 1820. Maybe you mean somebody else?

6:25Anyway, never mind, never mind. She is a very, very difficult performer to get into that type of relationship with. It's hard at the best of times. It probably was slightly hard even with Bob Dylan, even though we think that he's got this philosophical thing. In terms of your question, Nathan, is there a point where productions have to happen because of sunk cost? there are definitely points where productions go ahead and do happen because people sort of slightly feel they've been in for a penny and in for a pound

6:49Richard Osman:yeah sunk sunk costs if people don't know that that's that's the money you've already spent is it worth spending a bit more money just to protect the money you've already spent you've got to market it you've got no and by the way they hadn't made this film so you say sunk costs i mean i don't know how much madonna boot camp costs it's probably quite expensive but it's nothing like having to get the cameras rolling and her not feeling it for the first three days and also maybe that maybe they were filming that and they can yeah maybe it could be documentary well we know she's great in behind the scenes documentary so that would probably be a good use of the money but um i have to say that there's i don't think there's ever a time in films where there you know that we have got to the point recently where there are certain things like there was the batgirl film and there was acme versus coyote although that is going to come out now where people just thought it's so expensive to market this thing that we're just going to keep it on the shelf and do nothing with it and use it as a tax write-off um i don't know whether they can tax write-off any of this i don't understand the accounting but there is there is always a point at which you can pull out and i would say before principal photography begins was quite a good moment to choose for this one i just think it's too difficult that i just think that there's a level of relationship with a performer that is too tight and in this case knowing what we know about her and it is honestly the reason why she is brilliant and amazing and still out there she's phenomenal she's phenomenal I'm not trying to I just don't think those that that's the right person to you are not the right person to tell your own story yes it is certainly cheaper to do it now than after four days in Serbia just even four minutes I would say yeah question for you Richard from Faye Williams who says I recently took my daughter to see the Tom and Jerry movie it was the strangest cinematic experience of my life I did not know that this was made by a Chinese company and I have so many questions is Tom and Jerry a big deal in China Was it a commercial success there?

8:34Richard Osman:Tom and Jerry is a huge deal in China. It used to be shown on state television. We've spoken before about China and the very strict rules they have on what can and can't be shown. And, you know, they would have looked through Tom and Jerry and seen that there was nothing that could actively harm the party. And so, yeah, it used to be on every night on CCTV, I think starting in like 1991. And people loved it. In fact, they loved it so much that the Chinese, as is often their way culturally, they thought, sorry, why are we watching this program about an American cat, an American mouse? So the Chinese made their own version of Tom and Jerry.

9:16And this is genuinely the title of their version of Tom and Jerry.

9:20Richard Osman:Their version of Tom and Jerry was called, this was from the mid-90s onwards, it was called The Blue Mouse and the Big-Faced Cat, launched as a rival to Tom and Jerry. you know what wasn't really a rival because Tom and Jerry is timeless Tom and Jerry has endured yeah in China because that's really sort of uh you know got to cause them any trouble there's now like a big online game of Tom and Jerry who's got a hundred million users which always sounds a lot but in the context of China that's um yeah it's not that many so it's hugely all over Asia there's um Tom and Jerry Singapore movies so all sorts of things but the interest the really interesting cartoon character in China is Winnie the Pooh.

10:00Richard Osman:Oh, yeah. Because, you know, in the same way that China has absolutely embraced Tom and Jerry, and it's a huge deal, Winnie the Pooh is completely banned in China. I mean, completely banned in China. You can't get an image of Winnie the Pooh. You certainly can't watch like the Christopher Robin movie or anything like that. You'll be aware of why this is, I think. But if people don't know, it's because when Xi Jinping met Barack Obama, which is 2013, in the States, a meme started going around with Barack Obama as Tigger and Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh. There was a suggestion that they had a similarity of look, of build.

10:38Richard Osman:And Xi took this very, very badly. And therefore, when someone takes something badly, more and more and more and more memes started coming up. And lots and lots of satirical things about China, but using Winnie the Pooh so things that looked basically harmless but um Xi and and the rest of the CCP sort of understood what was going on so Winnie the Pooh is absolutely you couldn't be more banned in China than Winnie the Pooh is so Tom and Jerry they they continue their ascent but Winnie the Pooh is it's essentially just about the most banned thing that's possible to be banned in China which is some achievement I would say yeah yeah oh this is a question I want to know the answer to as well.

11:22Richard Osman:Paul Cronin says, I have a question regarding the World Cup coverage on the BBC. Usually, as the second half starts, they have a QR code for a link to get a TV licence. They're not quite about it either, Paul. I'm intrigued to know if you have any data on how many people have used this service during the World Cup. Okay, this is an answer that I don't even need to have any data on because I am possessed of sound mind, okay? I would not think that that could be meaningfully charted, the level of that sign up, because it is as close to zero I would have thought as you could possibly get. I have no idea whose bright idea that one was.

11:56But just in terms of the psychology of it, what the second half of the football starting, hang on a second, let me just get let me just okay, I don't know whose idea this was, but I believe it will be something that can't be charted in terms of sign up.

12:10Richard Osman:Is it though, at least airing culturally, the idea that more people should pay their license for you? Is that what I mean, no one's using it clearly i mean that that's not um like a sort of nudge unit thing okay maybe like a nudge unit maybe that's it but no one's actually doing it but um yeah i mean i thought it's a short sort of one word answer that one i would have thought yeah get ian beal to show the qr code halfway through the episode of eastenders okay make it a plot line he has to sign up for a license exactly and he just he keeps holding and he's got a double-sided bit of paper with the qr code on so while he's looking at it you are also looking at it as well so you can hold your plot line so boring that you can actually think actually i'll tell you what i don't mind missing that this bit i'll just uh yeah that's the possibility i have some sympathy i suppose these are enormous audiences and and you know there there is a this sort of 10 of the population who are watching the bbc and not paying their license fee and that needs to be that gap needs to be bridged but yes it i don't think this is the way to do it it feels like that uh gap is not being bridged it feels like uh yeah Yeah, quite the opposite.

13:17Shall we go to a break now?

13:18Richard Osman:Yes, shall we?

13:23Richard Osman:This episode is brought to you by the Lloyds 5K house deposit. Lloyds are offering a 5K house deposit which was last seen in 1996. What are your entertainment memories of the 1990s? I feel guilty talking about the 1990s because you look back and it was such a golden era. We'd never had it so good and we didn't even realise because we were young and we just thought we were entitled to it all. We absolutely took it for granted. Yeah, Britpop was absolutely in its pomp. Oasis playing to a quarter of a million people. You had Blur and Suede and Pop. Spice Girls and Girl, I'm so sorry. Spice Girls, amazing movies at the cinema, Trainspotting.

13:56Richard Osman:I mean, it felt a time of absolute optimism. But at the time, you just assumed that was the way that the world was going. A very British type of optimism. Yeah. But part of the optimism, of course, is that mortgages were more affordable. And that is what Lloyds is dealing with right now. Yeah. Last seen in 1996, Lloyds are now offering 5k deposit mortgages to first-time buyers. Search 5k first-time buyer. 1996 average first-time buyer deposits based on ONS data. Subject to status, your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments. Conditions apply. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers.

14:28The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by WISE. It's only when you start moving money between currencies that you really think about the exchange rate, the fee and what might be hidden away in the small print. Whether you're living abroad, paying someone overseas or just trying to manage your money across borders, you want a fair exchange rate, an easy transfer and no surprises along the way. WISE keeps things simple. WISE is a smart way to move the currencies you need around the globe. It works in more than 160 countries and with over 40 currencies, most transfers arrive instantly.

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15:44Okay, welcome back everybody. Now this is a very good question.

15:48Richard Osman:That was an interesting, you started with okay. Okay, I don't know why I did. I don't know why I did, Richard. I'm so sorry. I'll tell you what, because I've seen Dylan Stone's question and it slightly set me off on. oh so you're trying to think of an answer yeah the uk is currently searching for a new doctor who a new james bond and a new prime minister who could do them all who could do them all that's um i can think of someone who there's a lot that can do too yes there are a lot that can do and there's and there's certainly plenty who who would say they could do all three oh yeah who's the triple threat i'm thinking tom hiddleston would go i honestly i could take all of those on when's that show coming out i need to get i need to get back onto that the time detective thing yes okay so i think i think it probably has to be an actor who could turn their thoughts to politics right rather than a yeah rather than a politician you know rather than you know although andy burnham might go i i actually think i probably could do it i actually think if you look at what i've done to manchester if you look at honestly if you look at what i've done with the buses i don't think a tardis is that much different i yeah tardis fares cap therefore i can run the galaxy yeah i think however politicians would not be inside i think it's got to be actors so it's essentially which actor could play both those parts and would you trust to run the country as well?

17:00Richard Osman:Get Callum Turner in. Almost no one. I mean, God bless actors. But yeah, it's difficult. Kathy Burke, maybe, who I would sort of trust to run the country. I would trust as a Doctor Who, as a Bond. As a Bond, I'm stuck. Again, you see, it's just very, very difficult to get the triple threat. It is. Ross Kemp. I knew you were going to say him, obviously. He's your go-to. He sort of is. I could see him as who, for sure. I could see him as an older Bond, possibly. And he's dipped his toe into politics a number of times. I think he's politically engaged. It's a possibility. Is this a time for toe dippers?

17:40I sort of slightly feel like we really need...

17:44Richard Osman:Yeah, I mean, listen, none of these... I'm not suggesting any of these... I'm simply answering a question. I'm not suggesting any of these people would do any of these jobs well. Yeah, I'm just answering a question. Someone who could be in the middle of the Venn diagram. I've been set a challenge and I'm attempting to meet the challenge. I think the name that we can all agree on probably, certainly the one where you go, OK, due to the advantages of leaving the EU, we are now being allowed to have a prime minister who's also Doctor Who and James Bond. This is just something that's been brought in.

18:13Let's start making the benefits work for us.

18:15Richard Osman:I think the name that would keep the country on an even keel for the transitional months, which I think would be really, really difficult of having this prime minister who is also Bond and who, I think the answer, as so often, Danny Dyer. Don't you think? You know, I didn't know where you were going with it. I thought there's nothing that he could say that I won't find massively offensive. And yet you've plucked it out of the bag. Okay, fine. I'm sold. Yeah. All right. Even as I said it, actually, I was thinking Tennant. Yeah. Because he's already been who? Yeah, well, we know he can do that. He can do Bond.

18:48Yes.

18:48Richard Osman:It was a different Bond. Yeah. But I think it would bring a lot to it. And yeah, I guess he'd be Prime Minister. Could they not do a job share like when there were two leaders of the Liberal Party, the two Davids? Could they not each do the job share of all of them? So two guys filling three roles? Oh, I'll tell you what. Why don't you have three people? Why don't you have Andy Burnham as Prime Minister? Why don't you have Callum Turner as James Bond? and why don't you have George Fouracres as Doctor Who? That's actually a much easier idea. Why don't you have three different people? I think they'll probably go with that in the end.

19:16I think not necessarily those personnel choices, but at least a couple of them.

19:20Richard Osman:But what if this brings, like a Doctor Who episode, what if this discussion brings this into actually happening and that one of the crypto billionaires is like, no, I actually do want that to happen now. I'd love to think that things that we say in this podcast actually manifest themselves in real world outcomes. And I'll try and say something that I want to happen before the end of this show. I wonder what that would be I'd love to know what's right at the front of your brain at the moment things you'd like to happen right I have a question for you that was a good one though a current question here for you from Rosie Norton, thank you Rosie Rosie says I'm intrigued by social media vetting and how it actually works, I noticed the BBC dropped a documentary recently because of the host who I have to confess I hadn't heard of that's Ashley Cain because of his past social media comments The BBC said in their statement that the vetting process had failed and that it's the production company's responsibility to carry this out.