Is Shakespeare Overrated?

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1:05It's your chance to catch your breath and savour a moment that's all about you. Always refreshing, still the same great taste. Diet Coke. Make time for you time. Hey everyone, it's Steph McGovern here from The Rest Is Money. I'm going to hand you back to Richard and Marina in a sec, but I just wanted to tell you about a thriller I've written. It's called Deadline and it's about a reporter who is live on air interviewing one of the most powerful people in the country and then she is told in her earpiece that her child and her wife have been kidnapped. She has to do everything the hijacker is telling her to do in this interview.

1:42But why? And who's doing this? This is all about power, corruption and lies. Deadline, out now. Right, you can go back to Richard and Marina now. Thank you very much. Bye-bye. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm all right. Can I start with any other business? Yeah, of course. The last couple of weeks, we've had the continuing saga of who recorded their Christmas show first. Catchphrase had recorded theirs in May. QI got in touch to say we recorded ours in March and no one could beat that.

2:18I then said about the time that on Deal or No Deal, we recorded a year in advance. We recorded two at the same time, so that was a year. But we hear from Kevin Shanahan now. Hello, Kevin, who has been on the 1 % Club, which record next to House of Games in Manchester. So I've been on the set. Anyone who's got questions about 1 % Club, send them in. I've got a couple. The lovely thing about doing this podcast is I get to ask anyone anything. Everyone tells me everything. But Kevin says, I can beat the record for the longest record between programme and air date. I was a contestant on the Christmas edition of the 1 % Club, We recorded on Wednesday the 18th of October 2023 to be aired on Thursday the 26th of December 2024, a wait of 14 months.

3:02And the person who won had to wait all that time to finally get their money. Lee Mack made a joke about all of us behaving for the year so the show did not get cancelled. So Kevin... Thank you, Kevin. I think you've QI'd QI. Well, I already QI'd QI, to be fair, with Deal on a Deal. Kevin has QI'd me. Yeah. I'm about to QI Kevin again because I got a call through the other day from someone who had been at a taping of a big ITV show, which recorded next year's Christmas show last week. So they did this year's Christmas show and next year's Christmas show, which is 18 months ahead of schedule. I can't say what the show is to protect my sources, but we've got an 18-month-er.

3:42I love how committed you are. Yeah, an 18-month-er. If anyone wants to QI that, very, very best of luck. We can't go further than 18 months, surely, for the earliest Christmas record. God, I mean, you are a slight hostage to a number of fortunes there, I think. Yes, we are, but no one's slipped up yet. I've never heard of one of these things that has had to be cancelled. Oh, I can't wait for one of your guests to get completely cancelled for something absolutely grotesque. Wow, you can't wait for that. Yeah. So you have to don your Christmas jumper for real, Richard, and do the show right here.

4:12Do a live episode of it. I'll tell you what. Have you ever done a live episode of it? If Mel Gedroy gets cancelled between now and Christmas, I will give you£20 ,000. That is not going to happen. Have we done a live House of Games? No. No. I mean, it's one of the few shows you could do live. Yes, I know. There's no recording breaks or this or the other. You could do it. It's all up there on the screen. It's all up there on the screen. Anyone at the BBC listening, listen, let's do it. But, you know, I mean, it only takes us 40 minutes anyway. Can I come on that one? Of course you can. I mean, listen, you have an open invitation onto House of Games.

4:41You know that. I'd be really bad at it. I was just thinking I could say something unsuitable and get myself cancelled in the live exit one. That's such a great idea. Then you can't come back and do the podcast. You can't do your column anymore. It's just something I thought was off my head, would you believe? And I might retract the offer. I can believe that. Right, should we do some questions? Yes, shall we. And even answers. Okay, I will ask you a question from Scott McKinnon. Scott says, my girlfriend and I have watched Love Island together for several years and both of us have felt like the quality of recent seasons has dipped dramatically year on year.

5:12A feeling that seems to be backed by falling ratings and discussion online. Your task, Marina, is to save Love Island. You have an unlimited budget. What do you do? Unlimited budget? Okay, say I have a limited budget. For the love of God, don't give Marina an unlimited budget. Just pay people to watch it is the best way to save Love Island. But no, it is a bit of a bore now, isn't it? I mean, look, sometimes formats just get tired and other things overtake them in the culture. And, you know, it has been superseded in lots of ways by all those Chris Cullen shows, things like Perfect Match and Love is Blind and all those sort of shows somehow seem sort of more outrageous and more kind of near the knuckle than this did.

5:48Okay, but you've given me a challenge and I quite like things like this. And so I just think what I would throw at it is I would try and go really high concept. I would bring in all the bullshit of the modern world. I would have like astrology on all the contestants. I would have all sorts of psychology. I would have friendship groups like that you could be joining a WhatsApp group and just watch their friends talking about what was happening on screen. I would like to have to have 360 things like that And anything to create more drama and to make it more of a sort of weird social experiment, but to make it kind of across all sorts of different platforms.

6:21And yeah, I like the idea of being added to a WhatsApp group and watching people's friends just talk about what they're doing. All the friends would be co-opted. Bear in mind, I've got a sort of semi-unlimited budget. Yes, I would have astrologers. Ridiculous stuff. I'm totally overblown because the thing about the shows that are those Chris Curlin shows that we're saying, they're so high concept. You know, you don't know the person you're marrying or you can't see them in the pods and whatever. watching people talking around in their bikinis and it's quite boring now so i think it just has to sort of bring in all the kind of weird woo-woo of the modern era that's what i would do with it i think what would you well i'd get firstly i'd give an enormous hat tip to love island for how they've kept it at the heart of the conversation for so many years which is very very difficult as you say they're in a very very crowded marketplace now and a lot of these new shows are sort of built on the back of love island you know married at first sight all of these things you know they have this big hook in the middle of them which which love island doesn't particularly happy because you didn't need big hooks in the olden days because just putting a lot of sort of fit young singles on an island seemed to be a hook big enough how naive we were it's a big brand for itv so i imagine that people behind the scenes are working on how they might revamp it in various different ways it is a revamp in itself let's not forget that originally it was that's why i dropped off my hat because it ran for a few seasons he has celebrity love island and actually they were like first dates funnily enough they turned it into something completely different and turned it from a slightly moribund franchise into this huge hit that was at the center of the conversation.

7:43So they've done an amazing job with it, and I wouldn't rule them out doing one again. A show we pitched years ago, and I've always thought there's something in it, because all these shows, there's some Married at First Sight, and all these things are great, but they're always about attracting a sexual partner. And we talked about that thing about how men find it difficult, very difficult to make friends. You know, there's certain groups of men who find it quite hard to form male friendships. So we had a sort of a dating show, but for platonic male friendship. That's so cool. It's cute, right? Which is men who sort of don't quite know where they can meet other men to go and sort of watch a sporting event with or to just talk about their day at work.

8:18They don't want to join a fight club. Yes, exactly. Like, please, not another fight club. Lovers, not fighters club. Yeah, and so it's friendship. But, you know, you get the same, you know, acceptance, rejection stuff that you would get in a love island but from men who are opening themselves out and being vulnerable about being lonely and needing friends and then other people kind of go, actually, I'm going to be his friend, not your friend. I think it might be the most melancholy. God, it really is, isn't it? I've literally just thought of a name for it, which is Bruv Island. Oh, please. Hi, you're just throwing your pearls before swine here.

8:50I get it. I would love to see that. Come on, Kevin. I'll go Bruv Island. As I say, I did like, what was that thing with Davine and my mum, your dad? Yes, cute. The thing I liked about that, the reason I was saying it would be good to see their friends talking about it because about what they're like. And my mum, your dad, when you saw the kids of people who are trying to sort of matchmake their parents. That felt quite unusual, and I enjoyed those bits the most of it. So all of those sort of things, bringing other people in, feels to me interesting. But yes, it's a revival to start with, and Love Island could be revived.

9:15But I think it sort of needs to be now, I agree. Yeah, but there's great people on it, so I suspect it will be. But don't forget that if you are setting up one of these big new shows, you steal people from those shows. So, you know, you do sort of take out some of the foundations of long-running shows sometimes. If someone's done five seasons of Love Island and gets an offer to show run a new flashy thing with a big budget. It's on a streamer, of course you go. And then the next generation of people who've worked on that show have to take it over. And the same with Big Brother has been through so many generations of people who started working on it, went somewhere else, came back.

9:45And those shows have a long tail, I would say. I suspect Love Island will be with us in various iterations for a long time to come. Speaking of very long time to come, Vince Patton has asked, what is the longest running show in entertainment history? Is it Desert Island Discs? It is not Desert Island Disc. It's a good question. There's lots of definitive answers and various different things. Like the longest running theatre show ever is The Mousetrap. I saw that last week. You saw it last week? I'd seen it before, but my daughter went for her birthday. She's obsessed with Agatha Christie. She was 11 and we went to see it.

10:16She absolutely loved it. It's fun, right? I saw it for the first time because we're doing a Thursday Murder Club play. Went to see it just because I wanted to see, you know, what was what and why it was quite so successful. You can see why it was successful. It's a great night out. I saw it with some Americans a couple of decades ago, and then it was very sort of tarred. They've really zhuzhed it up since I last saw it. And you see all the kind of big promotional posters for it around the West End, and there was the movie See How They Run, which was sort of… Yeah, like an homage. Yeah, like an homage to it, exactly.

10:44So anyway, sorry, that's Longest Theatre. Yeah, that started in 1952. So what's that, 73 years, 30 ,000 performances. God. There's a quote where they're sort of showing, God, no one knows anything, do they? Because they said to Agatha Christie, what do you think about this? And she goes, I'll give it eight months. You think eight months is a normal successful run. I was about to say, eight months is a great run in the West End, please. Yeah, she's not saying, oh God, I'll give it eight months. That's not someone being pessimistic. That's someone going, I reckon. It really sounds like a quote that the internet's come up with as well, because I don't imagine Agatha Christie saying things like, I'll give it eight months.

11:17I don't think she taught like that. Sorry, I'm calling bullshit on that quote, but anyway. Yeah, she'd say, I wonder, I'm hoping this will last. eight months and if it does i shall be absolutely like a pig in shit that'll be the money that's going to bring in the diamonds i'm going to buy with that yes i doubt that very much but in terms of radio shows so um desert island discs started in 1942 so that's what 80 83 years old you would think wouldn't you 83 years old that would be the longest running radio show of all time but no the longest running radio show of all time 160 years there was a radio show the front door what is this 160 years old, almost twice as old as Desert Island Discs.

11:58It first went out before radio, really. First went out via Telegraph, the longest-running show in the world. Still got the same title, still got the same name. Is it the Shipping Forecast? Shipping Forecast is exactly right. Shipping Forecast first went out in 1867. It's been running a minimum of twice a day ever since, every single day. First delivered via Telegraph, switched to radio in 1924. So it's been over 100 years actually on the radio, but 160 years in all. By far the longest running format in entertainment history. That's radio, television, anything that you want the shipping forecast.

12:32It was switched off during the Second World War. So in a way, they're cheating. That's when Desert Island Discs came in. On VE Day, it was immediately resumed along with the weather. Because both of those weren't on during the war, I think, to not give the enemy any sort of advantage, knowing atmospheric conditions. and only one day since then they failed to broadcast it. That was the 30th of May 2014. BBC Radio 4 failed to broadcast it because staff at Broadcasting House did read it out but someone forgot to hit the red button to transmit. And that's the only day apart from the only two things...

13:03People lost their minds about that. Yeah. The only two things that have ever stopped it in 160 years are Hitler and somebody forgetting to press a red button. And that's show business. 160 years there, eh? That's unbelievable. It's a bona fide hit, Richard, isn't it? But you know what? Let's just call it. I think it's a hit and it's still series one. It's amazing, isn't it? But also, all those catchphrases, Tyne, Dogger, all that stuff. A lot of characters' names come from the names of the different, what are they called? Lines? Shipping areas. Shipping areas. Lines. Lines. You know what I mean.

13:37German Bight. North at Sierra, South at Sierra. What's your favourite? I think North at Sierra is my favourite. It's gone out of my head now, even though I've listened to it one billion times. I can't think I just, It's so soothing. I think it puts me to sleep. You've just got Doggo going around your head. So thank you very much for that question. 160 years is the longest entertainment franchise of all time. Right. I think the time has come for us to go to a break.

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16:37Welcome back, everyone. Lovely to have you back. Here's a question for you, Marina. Now our producer, Neil, writes down these questions and he puts headings on each of them. And just so you know, this is under the heading, Hitler's head. Okay. Very promising. Exactly. We've done the shipping forecast. Yeah. Now we have to do Hitler's head. And Abigail Knowles has this question. Do games companies need to ask for permission to use the likeness of Hitler and Mussolini? And does anyone get paid for this? They don't get paid for this. First of all, can I really be talking about Hitler's image rights?

17:07But here we all are. We've talked about worse. Once it's over 80 years, you're out of copyright. Hitler's out of copyright. Hitler's out of copyright. So it does even say someone who isn't Hitler or Mussolini, someone who might have had some sort of rights to images. Let's say Emmeline Pankhurst. Emmeline Pankhurst, yeah. So she's now out of copyright. Emmeline Pankhurst is out of copyright. Having said that, there are cases which are more relevant to this case and we'll come to one of them. In German games, actually, you weren't allowed to depict senior Nazis. And there were certain versions of different games in the European Europe.

17:42It should be pointed out that lots of sort of war-type games that do have it. You'll see Hitler, you'll see Mussolini, you'll see kind of various other, Saddam Hussein, Noriega, all sorts of people. Yeah, Hitler's face was dark in certain games in order for it to be sold in Germany. It was just a few years ago and they've stopped saying that you can't use any likeness of Nazis. are going to consider it on an individual basis. You can now see Hitler because it's been judged to have sort of artistic merit and to be worth it. I mean, if you couldn't show Nazis these days, you couldn't show anyone, could you?

18:12No, no, you're quite right. There's a really funny case, actually, which relates specifically to games. In one of the Call of Duty games, which were made by Activision, in, I think it's Black Ops 2, they have General Noriega, Manuel Noriega, who was the Panamanian dictator, He was behind bars and still alive at this stage. He's now dead. And he tried to sue Activision. He said his right to publicity was violated because he was being depicted as a kidnapper, murderer, and enemy of the state. That's the line manual. But anyway, he said it was damaging to his reputation. It's sort of amazing. He was in a prison cell when he did this.

18:50Imagine, by the way, imagine getting that email. Yeah. Imagine the lawyer at Activision, and you have to just go into the CEO. And the CEO goes, OK, guys, I think we're done. Any other business, anyone? And the lawyer just going, do you know what? I did just get an email from General Manuel Noriega threatening to sue us. Well, he managed to get a lawyer to take his case. And do you know who the lawyer who took Activision's case was? Oh, who? Rudy Giuliani. Really? Yeah. Anyway, it was heard in an LA court and it was thrown out on grounds of free speech. But Giuliani, who obviously went on to slightly besmirch his own reputation, he fought this and said, first of all, it's ridiculous.

19:30he didn't say what I would have said, which if you see the footage of Noriega in this game, it's like, mate, you're way thinner and your skin looks great, which let's face it was not your selling point. Take the win. But anyway, he was fussy about it in Noriega. But Giuliani argued that just because you've been in history, if you've been in history, if you're such a significant figure that you're in history, you don't own history. All leaders essentially forfeit their right to sort of, to saying, oh, you know, I own my image. The examples he was giving at the time with George Bush or Obama. They can't own their rights because you're part of history and you don't own history.

20:05Anyway, and... They'll try. They'll try. I don't know what, I mean, you have no idea what side of what case Giuliani would argue now, but it might not be the winning one. But at the time, he was... He'd be in the game now. Yeah, yeah. I'm afraid he would be in the game. Probably looking great with a full head of black hair that doesn't drip down the side of his face at any point. Genuinely a dictator did try to sue over their image rights and it was thrown out of court. But we were saved by Rudy Giuliani. We were saved by Rudy Giuliani. Which means we are allowed to portray Hitler. Yeah. Thanks, Rudy.

20:35Richard, this is one for you. We may have differing views on this. Alexander Andrews asks, in an interview, Brett Goldstein said that he thinks Shakespeare is terrible and that the plots are ridiculous. Do you agree? Or does the continued influence of Shakespeare on contemporary media justify the fact that all kids still have to learn about his works? I haven't seen Brett's full interview. I imagine it was more nuanced than that. I can't imagine Brett going, yeah, Shakespeare's terrible. Listen, the thing we know about Shakespeare is it's no Ted Lasso, Brett. We know that. Okay, listen, we're going to get your take on it.

21:09I see that. Of course, a lot of the great plots of history are present in the works of Shakespeare. But a lot of the great plots in history were there before Shakespeare started. He's using them. The language is extraordinary. Is that a useful thing to be able to teach to kids? I think sometimes you do slightly more harm than good teaching Shakespeare, because I certainly didn't understand what it was that I was reading at that point. And it put me off delving into Shakespeare for many, many, many years, because I thought, well, yeah, I've seen this and it was boring. So I don't need to look at that again.

21:42I don't think my brain was at the place it needed to be when Shakespeare was introduced to me. Now I look at it and you can see Shakespeare in productions and you can just absolutely revel in the beauty of the language. But yeah, I think in terms of the continued influence of Shakespeare, I don't think there is one. I think that the great plots of history that Shakespeare absolutely used and did great versions of are in our culture anyway. And that's what actually informs our culture rather than Shakespeare himself. I'm amazed you don't think of it as the most successful entertainment format. I absolutely think that.

22:16And I think the fact that it's British, I think, is great. I think, you know, the greatest playwright in the world, probably if you were to take a fair poll across the whole world, Shakespeare might be the one that is remembered. It makes me feel incredibly happy. The idea that he might come back now and see how he is still looked at. In the Tardis. Yes, in the Tardis, exactly. Like the Van Gogh episode. You know, as so often, there have been many amazing playwrights, but our culture likes to channel everything into one place, one lightning rod. and to say, this is the thing, this is theatre, this is how you do it.

22:49Everyone else was terrible. Shakespeare's the leader. They don't say that. Shakespeare is a banger, and people will turn out and watch the plays, and they love them, and there's a reason they are hits, Richard. Yeah, he's got a great brand. Tell you what, William Shakespeare's got a great brand, and he's made a lot of hits, and that's why people will turn out. But people go and see all sorts of other things as well. From that era? No, they don't go and see lots of Christopher Marlowe No, but that's what I'm saying. He has subsumed every single thing that happened in the 200 years before him and probably in the 150 years after him.