Have We Passed Peak Kardashian?

23:10She does like artefacts as well. I know, but she's writing it for a publisher. There's no way the publisher hasn't asked to see any of it. You know, she's got an advance, Catherine Solomon. Please, let's not get into another commissioning process round. But I'm just saying, if you're a noetic scientist, and you've written a book someone's given you some money you've had to provide them with some materials I can't just start saying if you're a noetic scientist but if you say one were an noetic scientist yeah now I know anyway I don't know how the manuscript's disappearing Dan would have dealt with it there'll be something where she won't have shown the publishers because what she's writing is too dangerous or whatever although she would not have been paid that's what I like to say to people when I'm late on a deadline I can't do this it's too dangerous it's too dangerous she disappears Langdon then himself is hunted by a chilling assailant sprung from Prague's most ancient mythology Oh, I thought you were going to say jail.

23:54No, you're from most ancient jail. How's he done that then? How's he come out the pages of that mythology? Sprung from mythology? Well, we will find out. See, that's the thing about it. The Da Vinci Code sold 80 million copies. This is a guy, by the way, who started off as a musician and he came to Hollywood and he wanted to be a singer-songwriter and he did an album about synthesizer versions of animals and, you know, he would write songs and this, that or the other. Another frustrated artist. Another frustrated artist. He's got to do some really bad stuff. I'm joking, of course. His father was a maths professor and his mother was a student of sacred music.

24:26So you can see how those two things might combine in where he ended up. And so he's on holiday in Tahiti and reads Sidney Sheldon's The Doomsday Conspiracy. And he thinks, oh, I could write a book. Now, I don't, by the way... Sidney Sheldon, by the way, was a sort of like a massively popular author. 60s, like big blockbuster. Yeah, exactly. And bonkbusters. There was some sex in there. It was all like, yeah, but it was a huge popular... Super popular, twisty, turny, lots of big ideas and big thoughts. Funny you have to say who Sidney Sheldon is now, but suddenly it just completely passes. I know one day we'll have to say it for Dan Brown.

25:00Sorry, I've talked about something else passing. Well, I keep doing this today, sorry. So, you know, he goes, well, I should write a thriller. And by the way, you see that a lot with people, you know, where they just go, oh, actually, they read something, they go, oh, I could do that. And it never really works. But I think given what he'd been doing before and he had, you know, he'd always been interested in cryptography and, you know, ambigrams and all of this kind of stuff he sets his mind to writing a book so he writes digital fortresses his first book he then follows that up with deception points and angels and demons which is the first robert langton book none of them sell none of them they sell under 10 000 copies each so yeah absolutely nothing it's just not so he continued he's teaching clearly written books and people want the second one and the third one but nothing is sold and then the da vinci code came out where everything seemed to coalesce and everything came together and people discovered Robert Langton and people loved this kind of breakneck thing so all his books essentially follow the same pattern of all the Robert Langton books which is a sort of 24-hour chase around the world where science and religion meet and secrets and you know incredible locations and codes and yeah all that kind of malarkey some of which I have to say I do as well that's what he did and that's you know that was the the huge success of that book I say 80 million copies sold 250 million copies of all his books now because of course those first three books which had sold none suddenly they're all selling tens of millions as well and it's fair to say yeah the most successful author of the 21st century probably the most polarizing author of the 21st century as well because a lot of people do not have a lot of time for his prose style no but i would say that i've read the da vinci code just because it's not the sort of book i would normally read at all but i just thought i must read this for not if there's anything's a phenomenon i think that's when books really really go when you have to read it because everyone else has an opinion yeah but something i would say about him which is that i think he is a bad writer but i think he is a brilliant storyteller and you can't it can be you can have that complete sort of divergence and interesting to me anyway that you can you can have one without the other and i you know okay when i say he's a bad writer obviously you can get sentences out and do all of that but as i say you know often i remember going through paragraphs thinking he's honestly used this adjective three times in this one paragraph but it doesn't sort of matter because the story is really really good i even think that like tell me who the character of robert langdon is he doesn't have a character but it reminded me of something else which again i absolutely love line of duty line of duty is amazing it's so propulsive you i you know you're addicted you can't win each episode episode but you tell me please tell me what this character of steve arnott is okay well he doesn't really have a character he is i don't I know he's trying to get the job done.

27:37He's got a waistcoat. Maybe he's addicted to New York then, right? What's her character? What's Vicky McClure's character? No nonsense gets the job done. I mean, maybe Adrian Dunbar, he's got more of a character, but it doesn't matter. And I think it is a brilliant, brilliant show. And it is so, you get completely involved in it and the stories and whatever, no matter how outlandish. So it's interesting to me that not, you know, the thing is always like to create characters and everything else will follow. I don't think Robert Langdon, I mean, Robert Langdon, he's got a Mickey Mouse watch, he's claustrophobic.

28:03All of these things are just sort of things. He likes fit women. Yeah. He likes saving fit women. Yeah. That's his favourite. And anagrams. But Dan Brown does actually something that you do quite a lot, but also, no, no, lots of other people do it, is labels or brand names or things like that go all the way through the text, and you always have seen them. And I think he understands to some extent, and sometimes people will take the piss out of it. I think it really, it does bring something. When you do it, I find it absolutely hilarious because I know what all of them mean, and I find it hysterical, the idea of the notes for the footnotes for the Chinese translation.

28:33explaining what a love a bonus is and what a twix might be or even waitresses what's diet? yeah but I love all of that and I think that actually I tell you what other sort of great storytellers Judith Krantz did it a lot E.L. James does it a lot all those sort of it instantly brings people in and it is a popular way of writing so to me it's really fascinating that that central character I don't really believe he even has a character and I don't think you can give people a Mickey Mouse watch and say that's it but it doesn't matter because the stories are so completely compelling. It's one of the few books I've ever bought three times, The Da Vinci Code, because I bought it many, many years ago.

29:10And then I was on a train journey down to the South Coast and realized I hadn't bought it with me. But I was really, really enjoying it so much. I bought it again at W.H. Smith's at Victoria Station so I could read it. And then I read it again a couple of years ago because I wanted to see what it is that he did. What he'd done, yeah. Yeah, I just wanted to take a look. I do short chapters. He has quite short chapters. I just wanted to take a look at the thing. And yeah, listen, he's not a prose stylist, but just everything, everything is going in the same direction all the time. And it's incredibly, the momentum is incredible.

29:41And it's going there fast. Yeah, exactly. Lots of people write books like him. Lots of people write books like him, but no one sells like him. So he is doing something different to the other people who write like him. Something in what he does is sticking to people in a way that... And what is it? Did you work it out when you were looking at it? No, I think it is... And if you did, you wouldn't tell us. No, of course I would. I think it's sort of obvious, which is there's never any let up. You know, these things are in 24 hours. In the Da Vinci Code, he has to invent a plane that didn't exist yet in order to get his character from America to Rome in enough time that he could still fit this thing within 24 hours.

30:15Everything has to be as quick as it possibly can be. So you're just not ever given a second. There's no sort of meditations on character. That might be the odd thing about, you know, the heroine's father died or something like that. But there's no sort of long languid looks. It's like an action film, you know. what do we really think about Keanu Reeves' character in Speed? We don't necessarily know about it. We just know that he's the guy who's maybe going to save the day. So the question is, how well is this going to sell? And it's a very similar question to the Kardashians, really, which is, you know, he's the master of all he surveys.

30:42And certainly, you know, when he came along, you know, he absolutely bestrode the world of publishing like a colossus. And, you know, all the bets that Penguin are making worldwide is that he's going to do it again. My suspicion would be that he is going to do it again. My suspicion would be that that brand is still big enough and strong enough. and the Da Vinci Code brand is still big enough and strong enough that this will be absolutely huge. Certainly every single... I've talked before a little bit about when a book is this big that actually the bookshops and the book industry becomes complicit in making it a big hit as well because the bookshops want to have a great Christmas.

31:14And if they can get this book selling half a million hardbacks in the UK and five million hardbacks in America, then it's very, very good news for everybody. I wonder whether it feels also that it is even more suited to its times because hasn't the idea of conspiracism become a bigger thing? Even since we all live in a world of conspiracism and the need to think that everything is being managed and puppeteered and that all these different organisations are kind of conspiring. That's far more than when the Da Vinci Code came out, has become like part of the daily warp and weft of politics. It's interesting that I wonder if that might actually work against him a tiny bit in that when he was writing it, it all felt very sort of mystic and exciting.

31:55And all this is different. And this hidden arcane knowledge. And now our entire life is about people telling us about hidden arcane knowledge. I mean, we do their own research on YouTube. We know the nonsense of most of it and whether it works against him, whether he's able somehow to weave the modern version of conspiracy theories and what people believe in and how they believe, whether he's able to weave that into it. you know the good news for Dan Brown is because these books take place over a very short period of time there's there is not a lot of room for reflecting on the world you know Robert Langdon does not have a lot of time to think you know it's interesting how the online right are being radicalized isn't it and how the online left have missed that boat I don't think there'll be a lot of that because I think essentially he'll be clinging to the top of a train getting out of Prague and he'd be more worried about bridges he must be knocking on a bit mustn't he now you'd have thought so I assume like George Smiley he's not being aged no particularly and like my my characters they are saying for obvious reasons so they are i'm not i'm not aging them too quickly either it's a fascinating thing and some people can't bear dan brown's writing i absolutely get it but i just think you know there's a reason why you sell that many books you know there's a reason why you sell that many books and he's you know jk rowling just about outsells him as an author but not by much but but but for adult authors he is the the biggest of the biggest of the biggest and it's I think I'm excited to be going up against it as well that'll be quite fun in England to have my book up against Dan Brown's book that's quite cool and I wouldn't have thought of that a few years ago so I'm excited about that I mean will I read it?

33:19I will I now will but have you read all the Da Vinci books? No I haven't I'll catch up it will be fine it will probably all be dealt with in a couple of repetitive paragraphs at the start Did you draw my attention to Michael Deacon's review of Dan Brown? It's one of my it's one of my favourite I love Michael Deacon He is my friend and it's one of the great pieces of hilarious criticism. Can I read a couple of bits of it? Michael Deacon won't mind, will he? So this is Michael Deacon. He wrote it in the Telegraph. Is that right? Renowned author Dan Brown woke up in his luxurious four-poster bed in his expensive£10 million house and immediately he felt angry.

33:53Most people would have thought that the 48-year-old man had no reason to be angry. After all, the famous writer had a new book coming out. But that was the problem. A new book meant inevitable attack on the rich novelist by the wealthy wordsmith's fiercest foes, the critics. Renowned author Dan Brown hated the critics Ever since he had become one of the world's top renowned authors They had made fun of him They had mocked best-selling book The Da Vinci Code Successful novel Digital Fortress Popular tome Deception Point Money-spinning volume Angels and Demons And chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol And it goes on The critics say his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive They said it was full of unnecessary tautology They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors For some reason they found something funny in sentences such as His eyes went white like a shark about to attack They even say my books are packed with banal and superfluous description, thought the five foot nine man.

34:37He particularly hated it when they said his imagery was nonsensical. It made his insect eyes flash like a rocket. It's so brilliant, by the way. He does write like that, Dan Brown. Yeah. It's a very particular way of writing. But, you know, I mean, just watch someone read it. They're turning the pages. I want to read the phenomenon on if it becomes hugely successful in September, which I think you'll quite write it probably well. The Secret of Secrets. The Secret of Secrets. Secret is so brilliant. I love it. I don't mind it. Listen, I don't mind it. The Secret Secrets. Yeah, so that is out on September the 9th this year.

35:09Everywhere in the world at the same time. And I'm out two weeks later. So may the Lord have mercy on my soul. Moving on from that and ahead of the Oscars, which are coming up in very early March, we're going to ask now, what is an Oscars campaign? You might sometimes read about this, that they're running a really, really intense campaign. Well, that's it. We're at the stage now where you can see the runners and riders. and there's about three or four films that are going to be up for everything. But it seems like people coalesce around particular films, but that's not an organic process. That's something that a lot of money and time is spent on.

35:43I mean, we are committed on this podcast to bringing you the horror behind the smiles. And this story is no exception. It's very interesting. The fires, obviously, that have ravaged LA. It's very interesting because all of the studios have donated money to the recovery effort. Each studio of the major big studios have donated about 10 or 15 million each, and some have donated less than that. And somebody pointed out it adds up to the marketing budget of one tentpole movie. But actually, I cannot explain to you how much more will be spent on just campaigning for this year's slate of movies for the Oscars, probably up to half a billion.

36:23Really? Yeah. It's a lovely town, isn't it? Because it adds such a lot to the back end of those movies, should they win Oscars? Actually, it doesn't do. The whole thing is, we'll get to that in the end, but let's talk about Oscar campaigning. Who you're trying to reach, you're trying to reach 10 ,000 Academy voters and you can't contact them directly. And they are people who work in the industry, mainly in Hollywood? Mainly in Hollywood. There are various rules about what you can and can't do. In phase one, which is pre-nominations, you are selected by your peers. So actors will nominate actors, directors will nominate directors and so on.

36:58So for a big long list of movies. Yeah, but members of the acting branch will nominate their top five choices for Best Actor, you know, whatever it is. But you don't need the whole Academy to like you. And in fact, you can actually do it with only a small fraction of people. So it's interesting. The modern way of Oscar campaigning was invented, regrettably, but factually by Harvey Weinstein. Because he couldn't really compete. Miramax actually became an indie giant, but had all these sort of great films. but they couldn't compete with the big studio movies because they simply didn't have that same money.

37:30So he started this thing of sending out screeners to everybody, saying that actors had to be completely available. It's a really long period. So last year, Jeffrey Wright, who won for American Fiction, said it was absolutely brutal because you are expected to be available for effectively months to do this. And to do what? For interviews? For appearances? Well, we shall get to this. I mean, Daniel Day-Lewis, Harvey Weinstein, made him go and appear before Congress for My Left Foot and talk to Americans about disabilities. Okay. Which he doesn't actually have. You have to do... Okay, so what do they spend this money on?

38:05Hospitality is a big part of it. Wining and dining voters, all that sort of stuff. Community influences, lunches. You can't just give them food. So the stars will have to do a panel at the lunch. Okay, so it can't just be like an open bribe which says, come along to this dinner and we'll feed you. Would you like to come along to an event where Jeffrey Wright is talking to Percival Everett. Yeah, exactly. Fancy literature, and I'm talking, they might even produce a coffee table book about their movie and mail it to thousands of people. Indirectly, always indirectly. Art exhibitions, costume exhibits.

38:39If you ever see any of these things, it's not like, oh, that's so nice, they just want to share their costumes from the favourites. No, they want the favourite to win Best Picture, or they want, you know, whatever it is. The favourite, Olivia Colman won Best Actress that year, they sent actors in powdered wigs to personally deliver cakes to awards bloggers so you can you can counteract as many awards bloggers and people like that as you like and there is a sort of financial bonus system this is we're going down all the things that cost money this is how they're going to spend half a billion on this there's a bonus system for nominations and that everyone from you know the publicist to the awards consultant so now we get on to awards consultants which is a big part of the spend they right from the development phase by the way of the movie they are thinking okay especially with a sort of determinedly prestige project they're thinking the awards consultant will say well which festival should you have your you know you might be able to open Venice or you might be able to open Can or you know you should definitely be in competition at this film festival and to give it a certain prestige because that's the key thing with an Oscar film a lot of films come out and sometimes you'll see amazing films and they don't get anywhere near the nominations you see other films which seem mediocre-ish and they do but it's getting that thing of prestige a buzz and it's word of mouth and it's making something feel organic and from the ground up.

39:53It's faking that. But also like pre-prestige, like, oh, I see it was in competition at Cannes or it was in whatever like that. And you might have up to, you know, a lot of people, more than a dozen people in a war room working on just one film. And the talent themselves, even at the stage of signing on, will say, what are you going to do to support my movie? Which basically means, how much money are you going to throw at getting me my first or third or whatever Oscar? and then okay you've got to pay for the talent so you've got all the fashion all the um obviously there's so many businesses by the way that depend upon the award season campaigning fashion is completely symbiotically entwined in it and labels can be made during award season like someone like um last year um loeve became absolutely huge and everyone was talking about it it was most interesting red carpet looks etc etc so it can be a really big thing for them it's interesting that thing that there was a trope a few years ago why do they ask women what they're wearing on the red carpet and this is sexist they don't ask men and but a lot of it was well they've contractually they had to because they've been given this incredible thing and a huge amount of money and they had to say what they were wearing because that's what they have been asked to do that's an industry yes oh it's a massive that's a massive industry but and the funnily enough the more wide open an oscar race is and i think in lots of ways this year's is wide open there's there's no sort of obvious not everyone's coalescing around one thing i'm gonna tell you i'm gonna tell you who's gonna win every single oscar okay that's exciting i'm looking forward you telling me this okay but the more money is spent because they think they're in with it and there are as i say these whole there are whole awards focused industries and netflix they're such rubes when they had their first movie roma that alfonso cuarón that they thought was going to maybe get an oscar they just was like okay well let's just buy uh an awards consultancy so they bought an entire agency phase one the individual categories can nominate but then in phase two which we're in now the whole the entire academy can vote on the shortlist so so the the specialists have put the shortlist together and now the whole academy votes on those shortlists yeah but all of these processes completely open to various forms of corruption and have been quite obviously in the past excellent let's talk about negative campaigning negative campaign which you can i'm gonna shuck you harvey weinstein was a big fan of negative campaigning um but smear campaigning just saying there was the time when the producer of the hurt locker just sent out an email saying oh you know please bet on our little movie or something over over a 500 million dollar movie which was taken as obviously a reference to avatar which was of course directed by the ex-husband of the director of the hurt locker yeah luckily he didn't get into that so negative campaigning is big and we can talk about who i think is being negatively campaigned against in a minute.

42:34Rogue campaigns, this can also happen. Melissa Leo for The Fighter a few years ago, she thought, I'm not getting any coverage for this. So she took out all of her own adverts to push her performance in the room and she did actually get Best Supporting Actress. Now, the most controversial recent one was Andrea Risborough in 2023. She was in this movie called For Leslie, which is about a sort of alcoholic mother. It took $27 ,000 at the box office, which is not good. listeners to this podcast will know. However, screenings for this movie, once it came around to awards time, were hosted by Charlize Theron, Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow, who else?

43:13Sarah Paulson. There were all these social media posts by lots and lots of actors, Edward Norton, Susan Sarandon, blah, blah. There were so many of them, even Cate Blanchett. The publicists were like, this is just like a grassroots effort. Unfortunately, some of them did use the same wording. It's a little bit like that Victor Anacebi tweet. Do you remember? Yeah, the football one where he, this is a Sunderland striker who once, just his agent had obviously sent this in. And the thing he tweeted was, can you tweet something like unbelievable support? Yes, he just tweeted the whole thing. So they unfortunately didn't sort of reword whatever they were told.

43:47And that caused quite a big scandal. What was behind that? Money or friendship or? She's a fantastic actress. Obviously for someone to be included, someone else doesn't make it. And there was a lot of hassle that Danielle Deadwiler and Viola Davis would therefore didn't make the nomination. Not therefore, we don't know. We can't quantify it, but didn't make the nominations. And everyone was like, oh, look at all these white people campaigning for another white actress. It was a really tricky one. First of all, it drew attention to that someone was saying, oh, look, she only needs 218 actors to put her forward because there are 1302 actors in the acting branch.

44:23And then she can be nominated. And so there was all this sort of open stuff about how you were voting. Christina Ricci put an Instagram post up saying that it was ridiculous that surprise nomination means that actually tons of money wasn't spent on her because it's so, you know, the fact is. You get so few surprise nominations now because. Because they buy. The machines are so obvious. The machines are successful and they work. And it's very, very difficult. I mean, the amount of money spent getting some of the other people on that list, a Best Actress nomination, is way more than the movie that Andrea Risborough was in.

44:59So they were furious that Andrea Risborough did it for no money. Yes, but it was. People thought she was a good actress. I mean, it's difficult. To what end all of this happens, I don't know. I mean, the popular thing was, oh, my God, it adds so much to the box office. It doesn't really, they don't think. The most recent really in-depth studies about it are thinking it doesn't really add a lot. I'll tell you what it does do is it boosts actor pay enormously. So, yeah. And directors. Yes, and directors. So in terms of who's doing a campaign right now, okay, please can everyone just watch Timothee Chalamet for A Complete Unknown.

45:33Every single thing that he is doing currently, including maybe dating Kylie Jenner, I'm joking, of course, they're in love, is a major campaign. Maybe you saw it the other week when he came to the London premiere and he got the line bike up, the red carpet, and then left it there. And he was really annoyed that he was being charged for the time that he was, because he didn't return it to wherever he was supposed to. Anyway, he's also going all out as a sort of meme. He's quite a digital native. And so he's gone on college football shows and been really, really knowledgeable about it. He went on Theo Vaughan's podcast, one of the podcasts that Trump went on in the campaign.

46:08So he's appealing to every single base here. in terms of who's a victim right now I definitely think the Brutalist is a victim of this currently the Brutalist is getting a real backlash against it which considering that it was it's made by this guy who took absolutely years to make it really struggle to sort of get anyone to A24 bought it in the end but after it was shot they're sort of under fire for using AI there's something called Respeacher which you know makes people speaking in I don't know in Hungarian sound more Hungarian also there's something called Mid Journey that creates kind of visuals and some of the architectural drawings were done by Mid Journey which is a sort of form of AI and that is a real takedown I think that is someone else working against those movies for definite I think are you now going to tell me who's going to win the Oscars Richard?

46:56Sure of course I will but yeah I do think the weirdest thing is there are very few surprises and you'll see movies in the cinema that will never ever get anywhere near the Oscars because they just don't have the money spent on them and it becomes in the kind of month or two before the shortlist comes out, it becomes apparent what that shortlist is going to be. So for the best picture, there's only four films in with any chance. The Brutalist, Emilia Perez and Nora, which I'd love to win, and Conclave as well as an outsider. I think The Brutalist is going to walk away with it. I think that has enough momentum.

47:28I think that's going to... So do other people. That's why it's under fire because honestly, if you have a story of how much of a labour of love it was to get this to the screen and now everyone's going, or AI, which, by the way, if you said AI in the old days, everyone would be like, oh, that's interesting. And now you just have to say it, and it's like you're trying to kill the industry. Exactly. I think that will win. Brady Corbett, who should probably win for Best Director as well, whether it might scupper him, I don't know, but I would still say that Brady Corbett might win that. The Best Actress is probably between Demi Moore for The Substance and Mikey Madison.

47:58I would think Demi Moore is going to win that because I think it's one of those ones where people want to... It's finally your turn. Oh, yes. Life's work. She was campaigning in her Golden Globe speech when she said, oh, my goodness, this is the first time I've won anything in 40 years. That, by the way, is an Oscar campaigning moment. Yeah, 100%. I agree. The best male actor is Adrian Brody against Timothee Chalamet. I think Adrian Brody will win it. I think there's something about Timothee Chalamet's campaign, which is extraordinary and is amazing. And, you know, he's nonstop on everything. I think maybe he's made it a tiny bit obvious.

48:34and I think but you know what I mean yeah I think so I think wait he wants to win an Oscar yeah who'd have thunk it listen he's going to get one isn't he eventually but I think Adrian Brady will win that the absolute locks where you can really make your money best supporting actor best supporting actress because Zoe Saldana is definitely going to win best supporting actress and best supporting actor and you wouldn't have predicted this 10 years ago but for definite Kieran Culkin for a real pain he's absolutely going to walk away with that can I just say one thing where there might be there might be some good money to be made.

49:05But this is only if the Academy is feeling particularly cheeky and I don't think it will. But you can get very good odds on Sebastian Stan to win Best Actor as Donald Trump in The Apprentice. He's really good in it. And that would be a very, very funny bit of trolling. I never know if it's trolling or trolling. Trolling. Trolling. It's not a troll. It's like J.K. Rowling or J.K. Rowling. Yeah. I think that would be an amazing piece of trolling from Academy members. They're not going to do that. I mean, you can get good money. They've got a lot of M &A business and consolidation happening and they don't need to make him angry.

49:37So I would think The Brutalists, I would think Demi Moore, Adrian Brody, and then I would think Zoe Saldana and Kieran Culkin. One lovely one would be the Conclave screenplay written by Peter Straughan, who's been nominated before for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, did the Wolf Hall adaptation like a proper British win. I think he might win that and that would be a lovely one. But those are my predictions and we can play them back in a few months' time. Please bet responsibly on entertainment awards ceremonies. Oh, you don't have to bet. it's just for fun just a bit of fun Recommendations Richard?

50:06Oh I'm going to recommend and it's the third series of this but it's an absolute delight Amanda and Alan's Spanish job on BBC One you can watch it on iPlayer it's Amanda Holden and Alan Carr doing up an old house in a Spanish village turning it into a bed and breakfast this time it's just one of those lovely shows I mean I quite like a home renovation show I quite like a show that's set up Quite a loved one foreign countries I quite love one but their friendship is such a delight to see and Alan is so genuinely funny and Amanda is so genuinely kind of unaffected and there are moments of real closeness there's moments of gentleness there's a lot of moments of humour and you get to see you know a little bit behind the masks of both of them so it's lovely it's like a home improvement show travelogue lovely little kind of celebrity loving and they genuinely seem like really really good friends and you genuinely you're just smiling all the way through and there was even a little tear last night so that's a lovely show and if you haven't watched the previous episodes as well the previous series they're well worth it well that's about us I think yeah we will see you again on Thursday for our Q &A edition and if you're a member of our AAA membership club and you want to listen ad free and so on join us on Friday because it's 20 years since Tom Cruise jumped all over Oprah's couch and we will be discussing the impact of that moment you're going to be telling me all about it I'm really looking forward to it and on that note I will see you on Thursday see you on Thursday Thank you.