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Podcast Summary
The Rest Is Entertainment - Episode: Noel Clarke Loses To The Guardian
Podcast Overview Hosts: Richard Osman & Marina Hyde Description: The podcast focuses on insider knowledge about TV, movies, and pop culture, providing listeners with insights into current entertainment trends and controversies.
Episode Summary Key Topics Discussed
- Noel Clarke's Libel Case: Discussion on actor Noel Clarke's defeat in his libel case against The Guardian, which published a series of articles detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against him.
- Investigative Journalism: Exploration of the challenges faced by journalists in the UK due to stringent libel laws and the implications for reporting on powerful figures in the media.
- The Economics of Adaptation: Insight into the film adaptation of Richard's book, *The Thursday Murder Club*, including its release strategy on Netflix versus traditional cinema.
- Modern Celebrity Culture: Examination of the "always on" culture in entertainment, where modern stars are expected to produce constant content across various platforms.
Detailed Discussion Points
Noel Clarke's Libel Case
- Background: Clarke, known for his role in *Doctor Who*, faced allegations from 22 women regarding sexual misconduct. The Guardian’s investigation led to a successful defense of the stories based on their truth and public interest.
- Judgment Outcome: The judge found Clarke to be an unreliable witness, emphasizing the importance of the case for the victims and investigative journalism.
- Challenges to Journalism: The hosts discuss how UK libel laws hinder thorough investigative reporting and the personal toll on journalists involved in such cases.
Key Quotes
- "This judgment is very, very helpful... it leads you in absolutely no doubt that if he had won the injustice would have been mind-boggling."
- "Investigative journalism is so expensive... it may well never be published."
The Economics of Adaptation
- Film Premiere Insights: Richard shares details about the premiere of *The Thursday Murder Club* film, the transition from a theatrical release to Netflix, and the implications for the film industry.
- Financial Considerations: The film reportedly cost around $60 million, highlighting the challenges of funding in a declining cinema market.
Modern Celebrity Culture
"Always On"
- Definition: The cultural expectation that celebrities and content creators must continuously produce and share content across platforms.
- Impact on Artists: Artists feel pressured to release more frequently, leading to a dilution of the traditional album format and a focus on singles.
- Celebrity Examples: The discussion includes Taylor Swift and her constant engagement with fans, contrasting it with past industry norms where artists would take breaks between releases.
Key Quotes
- "The whole idea of the album has been sort of degraded... you can't do more than a book."
- "Every single creative endeavor now is the grind."
Broader Cultural Implications
- Industry Burnout: The hosts discuss the mental toll of the "always on" culture on both artists and consumers, noting the potential for burnout in a system that demands constant output.
- Changing Landscapes: The evolution of media, including the rise of podcasts as a continuous engagement tool, reflects the shift towards a 24/7 content cycle.
Conclusion The episode provides a comprehensive look at the complexities of modern entertainment, from the challenges of investigative journalism to the pressures of maintaining celebrity status in an era demanding constant engagement. Richard and Marina effectively highlight the significance of these cultural shifts and their implications for the future of media and entertainment.
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Key Takeaways
- Investigative journalism faces significant hurdles in the UK, particularly with libel laws that inhibit exposure of powerful figures.
- The film industry is shifting towards streaming platforms as traditional cinema struggles.
- The "always on" culture pressures artists to continuously produce content, often leading to burnout.
- The evolving landscape of media consumption necessitates adaptations in how stories and content are created and shared.
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Additional Notes
- For more content and episodes, visit [therestisentertainment.com](https://therestisentertainment.com).
- For exclusive content and benefits, consider joining The Rest Is Entertainment Club.
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Hello everyone, this episode is brought to you by our good friends at Sky. Now, whether you're dancing through life in the Emerald City for the first time or flying back for a magical encore, Wicked is now on Sky Cinema. And with a Skyglass TV, Oz feels closer than ever. Bring the gravity defying ballads home with a Dolby Atmos soundbar built in for a truly cinematic experience. The high notes and the harmonies have never sounded better. Skyglass automatically adapts the picture and sound to whatever you're watching. Brumsticks whoosh faster, ballads hit harder, emeralds gleam brighter. and with voice control, the real magic is doing it all without lifting a finger.
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1:07Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment with me Marina Hyde. And me Richard Osman. A good day to you Marina. Good day, a very good day to you Richard. Good bank holiday to you. Yes, we're recording on a bank holiday aren't we? We are, we are. I quite like working on a bank holiday so long as I get a day off in lieu. Yeah. But don't you think because I would rather have a day off when no one else has a day off. having a day off when everyone's got a day off you go well we're going to go go to Legoland like everyone whereas if you go to Legoland on a Tuesday and no one's there that's a proper treat I can't wait to attend with you on an upcoming Tuesday were I Prime Minister which looks increasingly unlikely to happen it's one of the very few things you haven't done despite my best efforts that and a grime album how many bank holidays do we have a year?
1:48like six something I think it's a little more is it but I'm wrong probably if you include like Boxing Day and stuff which I don't but I would say that people can take them whatever days they want. I would let people take their own bank holidays so they don't have to all have them at the same time. I love that. Don't you think? Yes. Now, what are we talking about? We are talking about the Noel Clarke, the actor and producer, has lost his libel case against The Guardian. I have a lot of things to say about that, as you can imagine. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing a little about it. I've had some inside knowledge of it.
2:19And yeah, I was thrilled. I'd be very interested to hear the inside thing. We're also going to talk about always on culture, This idea now that, you know, podcasts, television programs and musicians, that you have to be permanently churning out content, which is something that didn't used to happen. You know, you could go five years between albums or five years between books or five years between all sorts of things. And now our culture is permanently on. And that seems to be in every endeavour and the way that things are going. And we're also going to talk about an event I was devastated to miss, as you know, the Thursday Murder Club premiere last week.
2:53And we want to talk about that. We'll talk about the film on Netflix. Yeah, talk about A Week in the Life of Thursday Murder Club, and it's out on Netflix on Thursday, and also why it's not in the cinemas, why it's on Netflix, all of those different things. So try and get some lessons for the industry via the medium of plugging the film, I suppose. Okay, well, let's start with Noel Clarke. Now, Noel Clarke is an actor. He was most prominently, perhaps, in Doctor Who, but he's also a very successful film producer in his own right. He did the Kid Alk Hood trilogy of films. He won in 2021, he won BAFTA's outstanding contribution to cinema.
3:27Also in 2021, an investigation began in which by The Guardian. And this resulted in the publication of a series of articles by Sharon Carley and Lucy Osborne. He was accused of all kinds of sexual misconduct, professional misconduct, taking advantage of people in workplace situations. by the time they first published they had managed to get 22 women to come forward um remember these sort of numbers because they are actually quite significant this was an investigation overseen by the guardians investigations editor paul lewis who's absolutely brilliant noah clark ended up suing the guy he launched the case in 2022 he ended up suing the guardian um saying that for libel saying that it was he's not perfect he doesn't recognize the man in this these articles You know, some of this was just, it was just sort of banter.
4:16We think differently about these things now because of historical revisionism, but they were acceptable at the time. By the way, I should say... Yeah, arguments we see in our broader culture all the time. All the time. Arguments that, you know, people who jump to the defence of people will always use all the time as well. And those were the arguments that he was using in his defence. To clarify, a lot of the complaints related to bullying, taking and sharing explicit videos and photos without people's consent, unwanted sexual contacts in some forms quite extreme. And anyway, so the Guardian had to defend this and they regarded it as very important to defend it.
4:49And there's two ways you can defend these things. You can say the stories are true or you can say there's a public interest case in running them anyway. And the Guardian defended on both of those and they won on both of those points. Now, on Friday, the judgment came down and these judgments are very, very long and they're 200 pages plus always. and kind of what you fear is that it will be one of those ones that, as Paul Lewis would say, you know, sort of through gritted teeth judgment, where it's a bit of this and a bit of that and, you know, you get awarded it in the end. And the other party can come out and say, well, I know I lost, but, you know, you can see from the judgment that what I was saying was substantively true, typical of the press.
5:32Typically, yeah. In this case, they won emphatically, which is sort of fantastic. that the judge Mrs Justice Stein found that he was not a credible witness or a reliable witness Noel Clark I think the case is so interesting it's so interesting we'll talk about it in two ways I guess I'm imagining and we'll talk about it in terms of what it's like to be involved in one of these investigations to run it and then to have to go through something like this and I'm talking always always first about the victims in that but also about the people who then have to defend it and the journalism also I suppose what it means for wider TV culture and some of those other things there's there was a really memorable day new york daily news cover um cover when bill cosby's accusers um came out and they did uh he said she said she said she said she said she's and they did 51 of you know 51 accusers now there were 22 accusers here 20 and the guardian had 26 witnesses people say oh you can maybe the inside word on these kind of cases that you can maybe you get them over the line if you have four or five incredible witnesses or two or three like absolutely extraordinary witnesses who you know will go go go go all the way for you but uh here they had 26 a lot of noel clark's ones didn't turn up which i think is quite significant because a lot a lot of the the witnesses for his defense five or six of his didn't didn't turn up perhaps not wanting when it came down to it that works both ways it's very very hard and actually when you're running investigations like this because of the nature of our libel laws which believe me I'm going to come to in a proper sidebar in a minute you need to say to people and you have to say to people when you're writing these stories would you be willing to testify you're not held to it of course lots of women say yes a lot of women think it's hard enough to even say anything about this to anybody it's hard enough to talk to a journalist even under the cover of anonymity so a lot of people say okay I would testify but when it comes to it and you realize how much it involves And also, you know, we're all human beings and we read the news and we do see that people get away with it sometimes.
7:36And somebody gets away with it suddenly has more power than they had before. And this is someone who had a power over you in the first place. So that's a very, very scary, very brave thing to do. It's incredibly brave. Actually, Michaela Cole at the time said, speaking about these incidents takes a lot of strength because some call them grey areas. They are, however, far from grey. These behaviours are unprofessional, violent and can destroy a person's perception of themselves. their places in the world and their career irreparably and some of the stories totally agree yeah and also that's great coming from Michaela Cole because she is someone who has more power than Noel Clark so if you are worried about coming forward do you think well someone's someone's got my back as with so many people there were many many many stories about him and yet nonetheless it took a huge amount to get it over the line and you spend your time talking to these to people and to try and trying to build the case and as I say that first story that came out there they'd had 22 women.
8:30That's very much a she said, she said, she said. And another thing that people don't know, which is that even a few weeks ago, Noah Clarke was shopping a big kind of poor me interview to all the, you know, to major titles where he would say, we sort of put his side of the case. And it's quite extraordinary. I mean, you know, that is someone who hadn't had the judgment passed down at that point. To say he remains non-reflective is, I saw his statement, Only the BBC ran his statement afterwards, which did not admit any form of guilt at all. And in fact, misrepresented the judgment completely. Investigative journalism is so expensive.
9:09People will always say, why don't newspapers do more investigations? Well, I'll tell you, it is incredibly expensive to run an investigation like this. You have to have a long commitment to something that may well never be published. I mean, you know, I've been talking, there's various investigative journalists I've talked to in the course of sort of preparing this item. And I can tell you that many of them are working on things which will never see the light of day. A lot of that is to do with our libel laws. The huge difficulty is that you have to investigate in such a way that every single thing is so watertight that if it ends up in court, which it often does, you are in a strong position.
9:47Yes. I mean, he was suing for 70 million pounds. I mean, it's just, it's enormous. To achieve the standard for publication has to be very, very significant. And there may be, I'm not saying it's this case, but other cases, some of the allegations actually you'd think would meet the threshold for a criminal charge. But unless you can fully get those over the line, they may not even be included because you're either going to write a story in a way that's dealing with libel laws or you're dealing with criminal behaviour. This will have cost the Guardian money, which they will not fully get back. but it's fantastic I should say that you know to be found for in on both points is it's great but the uh the the judgment if there's anyone still listening to this thinking yeah but you know sometimes when you start go digging and people come up with stories read that judgment I mean it leads you in absolutely no doubt that if if if he had won the injustice would have been mind-boggling I mean he said it was all a conspiracy and that his nine-year-old childhood drawn a map of how all the accusers related to each other i was like that's some interesting parenting but oh i mean that's our culture isn't it's nine-year-old children drawing charts of how things connect to each other do you know what do gcc sociology though all that stuff you get that stuff out of the way immediately but sometimes there are conspiracies but i tell you there's not one against no clark the amount of time it then takes to defend one of these um libel actions is extraordinary i spoke to paul about it the investigations editor the guardian and he's, as I say, he's a fantastic, amazing journalist.
11:16This was his full-time job working on this from August last year to April this year. If you think of what that means, he's the investigations editor, so all the investigations come through him. So it's the kind of opportunity, the opportunity cost, basically, of what's lost, all the other things you could be doing when you're gummed up on this. There are other journalists who are also involved in various types of these kind of defences and there are certain, I guess there have been some big exposures of alleged sexual predators. So you've got the Financial Times are currently fighting a huge and really expensive libel claim from Chris Vinoday, their hedge fund manager who was accused of indecent assault.
11:55The big story that has now involves criminal charges, so we can't talk a huge amount about it, is Russell Brand, which was a Sunday Times story run by the brilliant Ros Irwin, who's fantastic. Talking to her a bit earlier this year about another very high profile man in television. and we were discussing some things about him and she was saying, you know, it's difficult at the moment, the Noel Clarke judgment hadn't come out and you're sort of thinking it's been such a legal nightmare. All sorts of different investigations editors across all different titles feel they can't risk the investment unless maybe sometimes people say, oh, is criminality the bar?
12:31If criminality is alleged, then maybe we should follow those stories. Equally, there is a counter view. The one thing you don't really want the police to do, first of all, you're doing, you're thinking, oh, we want justice, we want this person to be brought. If the police immediately bring it forward and this person is immediately interviewed under caution and charged, in some ways you've lost control of the story because there's so much more to come out. And what happens is you now can't write about it at all because of contempt of court laws. Would it be fair to say that sometimes people listening will be on different sides of this fence, that sometimes journalists believe that maybe a story is safer with them than it is with the modern police force?
13:07I would definitely say that is the case. And once there are charges, you cannot write about it at all because of our contempt of court laws. Therefore, you no longer have control of the story. All sorts of other things may be coming into you. We'll obviously pass them on to the police, but you have to trust that they will hunt them down in the same way that you would have done. And in some ways, it's better for it to play out for much longer before something happens. And then the newspaper is going to have to decide when does contempt kick in. And in the case of Russell Brand, I think you could see from their reporting, the second he was interviewed under police caution, they decided that contempt of court would kick in there.
13:39And some people, you might say, well, when someone's formally charged, but you've got to be very, very careful, and you can't do anything that will jeopardise the case. So that's why that story has gone a little quieter more recently. So if during the course of the investigation, you discover that an actual crime has been committed, are you duty-bound to tell the police? Are you allowed to continue investigating? I would have thought you would write, you will run the story, and then, of course, you will turn as much as possible or speak to as much as possible to the police about the evidence you have.
14:07However, you don't, you still protect your sources. Your sources may not wish to speak to the police for one reason or another. So if you know a crime's been committed, but it depends on that source going to the police and making a complaint and they're not going to, you just keep investigating yourself. Yes, you keep investigating, but the police will often open an investigation in tandem and they may come to you and say, we'd like to talk, you know, and you will have to make judgments accordingly, but you won't give up your sources and say, oh, well, the person I was speaking to is anonymous in my story.
14:33is this person you'll never do that talking you know about the libel laws a huge amount of the problem of this is our libel laws is that we have the worst libel laws in the world basically you can in america you can do far far more obviously they have the first amendment and that means that you can say almost anything if you claim that you've got a couple of sources telling you it in the uk it is so expensive it's well over 100 times more expensive to fight a libel action here than in most other places in Europe. Why is that out of interest? It's the system and it's the way it comes to court and the way, I mean, it's just incredibly expensive.
15:09It's just tradition. Yeah, it's tradition. You know, when I see a lot of, you know, you see the politicians and you're talking about these cases and men in television and all this sort of stuff. And I see Lisa Nandy saying, I won't be watching the new MasterChef or I will be watching the new MasterChef or whatever it is, a much better way in many ways to put a little daylight on lots of this stuff would be to change the libel laws. Politicians are much more able to change laws than they are to deal what may or may not be happening on individual sets and talking about specific hotlines or whatever.
15:41It would be much better. I mean, the trouble is if we had more relaxed libel laws, because there is so much of this stuff out there. And, you know, I talk to investigative journalists all the time and they are looking into so many different things. And the volume of stuff, you never have heard any of these stories, even though there's a huge volume. There's a lot of people who can, who will only talk anonymously. There's all sorts of reasons. There's a huge volume and these people really care about it. Investigative journalists really care about this stuff. They will work anytime, you know, Paul's on his holiday, spoke to me this morning.
16:09They will work anytime. And also, by the way, these are not people being paid millions of pounds and, you know, having big Instagram accounts and, you know, selling energy drinks. And a lot of their work, as I say, ends up being completely fruitless and it can never meet the bar for publication. And it would be much more helpful for politicians to do something about the libel laws than And it would be to start going on TV sofas and saying soundbites about, you know, something about culture and television. Of course, the other thing is that if politicians relax the libel laws, then perhaps more would be written about politicians.
16:39Here's a good example of it. Charlie Elphick, who was a Tory MP, who in the end was sentenced to two years for multiple sexual assaults proven, was suing the Sunday Times from inside prison. So that's our libel laws are incredible. I mean, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. What was his case? Do you know, I'm actually not even going to be bothered to look it up. As I say, it's almost like a form of lawfare. People talk about oligarchs using lawfare, which is kind of the use of endless lawsuits to gun reporters and reporting up in this kind of stuff. And you get, as I say, you almost have to come off all your other work.
17:14There are huge bottlenecks if you're an editor like Paul Lewis is. Other stories, which he's very, you know, he's overseeing them. Yeah, and big business does it all the time. And Trump does it and Maxwell did it. You know, they will just throw lawsuits in the way of things and it just becomes incredibly expensive and very messy to make any progress. Yes, it does. And people, so all of these things, there are many, many stories about lots of different, there are men in television and to some extent film, that people are trying to write and they have a lot of different people and they have a lot of different sources.
17:45Even now, our libel laws are preventing those stories and that people are waiting to see what happens in different judgments, wait to see what happened in Noel Clarke, that came out well. We'll see what happens with Crispin O'Day. And, you know, obviously we will watch in a different, not a civil court, a criminal court with Russell Brand, what happens there. But the other thing is that most of these cases are civil because they're libel cases. And what people don't realize is they think that we have a US system where you can get any witness to appear. You have to persuade the witnesses to appear.
18:13We can't subpoena people in the way that they can in the States. Quite understandably, and any good investigative journalist will tell you this, particularly for the women involved in something like this, it's really traumatic and the idea of having to go and sit on a stage and be told you're a liar I mean it's really unpleasant. Yeah especially with the culture in the world as it is in the moment and the fact that anything that seems to sort of smack of wokeness in any way suddenly becomes ammunition for the other side and I would say to anybody who is on the right of the culture wars really really really think very hard when you start defending people just because it's good for your side you know it's like it's like being a football fan and you know we know that someone you know is a is a shithouser but we cheer him anyway be very careful who you choose to side with you know you can disagree with people but still be on the side of right and of justice so just any single time where something like this happens just look into it properly i couldn't agree more i do think that this in the u.s where the me too pendulum has just swung so completely back the other way that almost reflexively anyone is anyone is defended i don't think that the same thing is happening here which is good but again it still can be very very difficult and take a long time if we're talking about the wider tv industry and what this means yeah it's well it's another difficult week for men in television richard it's amazing he really didn't get it no clark i you know he's one of a class of men who don't think that sex pests are men like them um and i think that we've had some we've had lots of those stories recently he's a charmer of some sort yes or that this is i just don't recognize this person and just completely unable to see particularly in things like some of the really harrowing stories are like auditions or filming things scenes on set the same thing remains true and also often it's not reported so they're never pulled up on it and the reason that people don't report it as we we know is because it's such a precarious industry you don't have a proper contract you the case of some of his productions maybe you didn't have some you know kind of really complicated contract that you would have had if you were employed by a BBC production but it doesn't matter what the story is is that you're working temporary jobs yeah it's a form of gig and you may not get another one if you say something and also you do at the end of a month move on and you're not working with that person anymore and there's a bit of you that goes do you know what maybe I just chalk that yeah up to experience but then other people come up you go do you know what I'm not going to chalk it up to experience because that's going to happen to the next person who's on a temporary contract with him and the next person and the next person.
20:48That's the bravery of these women. It's much easier to do nothing. It's much, much, much easier for their career, for their bank balance, for their sleep. Because as I say, it's years of it. You know, the advice, you know, I always say, never litigate anything unless you really can't do anything else because it will be the first thing you think about in the morning and the last thing you think about before you go to bed. And he, as I say, it's been three years of these people's lives. knowing that this case was just working on it. It's great that they're doing more, but I do think it is still incredibly, I do think it's still widespread.
21:23First of all, because it doesn't get reported and I think people are reporting more. Second of all, because you can see that if it does get reported, it could end up like this, which is, that takes up a lot of your time. I think people are just still very bad at asking and trying to work out whether it's happening to people below them. I think it's very easy for senior people. I mean, I have known of certain cases of sort of abuse on set. And I was really surprised that people immediately senior to people involved didn't know anything about it at all. And it was a complete sort of open secret amongst the level below.
21:54And it's amazingly stratified. Those walls could be broken down a bit more. Yeah, I do think sometimes giving something a name is the useful thing. So something like this judgment is very, very helpful. Because if someone, you know, reports upwards in the chain about something that's happening, it's easy, you know, to be dismissive of it. But if it's like, it's this thing that happened, And it's like what Noel Clarke did. So you kind of go, oh, so because not everyone has an amazing moral compass. No. Okay. And that's okay. You know, not everyone, we're not all born the same. And if you report something to someone who doesn't have an amazing moral compass and they're kind of going, I don't know, is that, I don't know.
22:26I mean, it sounds sort of, that sounds like banter to me. And then you go, oh, look at this court judgment and look at what happens here. Then you kind of go, oh, I understand now that that's not okay. So if you've got someone with a good moral compass, great. If you have someone without a good moral compass, it's very useful to say to them, you know you might end up in court here. I completely agree. I remember once talking to a producer who said something along the lines of, you know, this person's really lucky because if it had gone any further, you know, an American company would have become involved and then they've got really different procedures.
22:54And I remember thinking, why are you saying this? You should know that this is a really serious thing that has happened. And the idea that, oh, it's lucky it didn't go any further is not always the position to hold. Yeah. And, you know, it's for those, It's institutionally to put that inside companies to understand that sometimes there's a pattern of behaviour and this is not the way to employ people. Yeah, there is a body that has been set up, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority, which they're trying to sort of amalgamate this and get people to contribute to it, you know, to take their guidelines, to helping people in the reporting of all of this.
23:31I still think we're in the relatively early stages of lots of this. but as I say I do honestly find politicians banging on about it when their house is such a mess not particularly helpful but I do think that they could do something about the libel laws because that would enable much freer reporting in this country and it's amazing the stuff and the investigations that I know about that are happening right now that may never even get to print and there is so much on certain individuals and very high profile people in television and you know about them and they still may never be published because it's just so hard and these people are really rich and successful and they have all the resources to fight.
24:08Entertainment allows for specific, and I don't want Michaela Cole to be rude about me, grey areas. It allows for the, there are so many weird scenarios. I mean, you know. But isn't that the case in a hedge fund? Isn't anywhere where you've got star performers or, you know, the salesman who brings the most money into the office? Sure, but you don't have staged sex scenes in hedge funds. That is true. Things like that. That is true. So things like that, the stuff that happens on stage or the stuff that happens sort of backstage in some sort of liminal area between is it real? Are we improvising here or what even is this?
24:45Those sort of things allow in the same way that certain abusers, types of abusers are drawn to working with children for very obvious reasons. I think there's an element here where it allows a sort of a sense of license to be taken. And also, I do think that there's something about the nature of stardom and of success that makes people think I can do anything. I'm cavalier and whatever. And we and Noel Clarke thought he could behave in this way is very much that sort of sense of complete cavalier entitlement. And underpins the libel case, surely that you're OK. Well, I'm just going to get it. I'm going to I'm going to sue these people.
25:27And I'm just going to say it's all a massive conspiracy that my nine year old's connected. his is genuine shock that this behavior was seen as anything other than i'm just a jack the lad and i'm the producer and you know so i've got a lot of charisma i'm gorgeous i'm baftis rising star actually you're just a sex pest um and other people really hated it and they hated what you did and you are one of those men they're not just like old people from night entertainment in the 70s people really didn't like what you did i think it's interesting as far as um as far as it goes for the industry but of most help would be a reform of the libel laws for me.
26:01And can you name the two investigative reporters who ran this case again? Sharon Carley and Lucy Osborne and the editor is Paul Lewis at The Guardian and they have gone through years of very difficult defence of this and I can only offer my heartfelt happiness that they managed to see it all the way through. And we owe them a great debt. But most particularly we owe them... As we owe a debt to all the women who came forward. And anyone who's still, who's sitting on the fence, please, I beg of you, look at this judgment. And if you haven't looked at this judgment, shut up about it. Following the break, we've got sweetness and light in the form of the Thursday Mother Club, but also always on culture.
26:40Should we go to a break? Yeah.
26:45This episode is brought to you by Sky, home of Atomic, the new Sky original series. Max, a free-spirited drug smuggler, is forced into an unlikely partnership with JJ, an enigmatic fugitive, seemingly allergic to eye contact. They're involuntarily trafficking life-threatening uranium. If it ends up in the wrong hands, the fallout will be nuclear. They're being tracked by covert operatives led by Cassie, a highly skilled scientist and undercover CIA officer who will do everything in her power to stop a potential Armageddon. Thanks, Cassie. Conspiracies, car chases and morally grey zones. Atomic stars Alf Yallin, Shahzad Latif and Samira Wiley.
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27:21It's high stakes, offbeat and somehow still full of heart like Thelma and Louise if they were carrying uranium and everyone has sand in their eyes. Watch Atomic. Brand new episodes every Thursday on Sky. Requires Sky TV subscription. John Ares has arrived. I would like you to meet Ares, the ultimate AI soldier. He is biblically strong and supremely intelligent. You think you're in control of this? You're not. On October 10th. What are you? My world is coming to destroy yours. But I can help you. The war for our world begins in IMAX. Tron Aries, rated PG-13. May be inappropriate for children under 13.
28:01Only in theatres October 10th. Get tickets now.
28:09Welcome back, everybody. Now, I was devastated to miss the Thursday Murder Club premiere last week. Can you tell me all about it? How's it going? Yeah, good. So the movie's out on Thursday on Netflix. We had the premiere last week because it opened in cinemas last week. And lots of people have said that it's interesting that thing about, because originally it wasn't going to be on in cinemas at all. And, you know, the reason for that is just if this is interesting to people. So I sold the rights to Amblin many, many years ago, 2020, before the book came out. And because, you know, I wanted it to be a movie, I thought that would be fun.
28:46And everything was sort of Sunday night TV shows at that time. And I thought a movie would be more fun. and when Spielberg came in is what I thought, well, that's definitely more fun. And in the five years since the cinema industry, which wasn't in the best of shape, collapsed even further. So even halfway through the process, you know, Amlin are saying, there might come a point where we have to take this to a streamer rather than to a theatrical release. How would that be with you? And the point is, it doesn't matter what I say because they got the rights, but they're always very polite and they say, and I say, look, I, you know, I get it.
29:14You know, I've got Netflix. Now, when it comes to the film actually being made and Chris Columbus comes on board and Helen Mirren says she wants to do it and Ben Kingsley wants to do it. That suddenly becomes an expensive movie. So this movie is probably, don't quote me, 60 million, something like that. Yeah. Which seems insane to me, but there it is. That's the price of it. There was not a single theatrical studio who would fund that. Yeah. They could maybe do half of that. Netflix funded it. Okay, Netflix funded it because they've been incredibly successful in content over the years. and so when Netflix fund it that's it it's the next Netflix show and their business model is stuff stays on Netflix so it's not going to be in the cinemas at all then there was a huge outcry in the UK anyway saying how is this not in cinemas so they said alright we'll release it for a week and so we said we're going to release it for a week and then everyone's like why is this on so few cinemas and I think the truth is because you don't go to the cinema yeah the short answer is because you don't go to the cinema because if you went to the cinema cinema would be able to pay this budget which is would have been a completely normal budget for a cinema movie 10 years ago but now it seems to be um beyond the reach of the traditional movie industry but yeah so it opened in cinemas last week it's not in a huge amount but it's it's like god bless them they've taken advantage of the fact there's not many cinemas the one i looked at the other day it's got 11 screenings a day yeah you can see like places like every man picture house all those great independent yeah exactly which is lovely and which you know you're a fan of all of that.
30:49But I would say thank you to Netflix because they didn't need to do that at all. That is not in their interest financially or otherwise to have the opening in any cinemas at all. Well, this is another about 12 items in general about what they're doing in terms of theatrical release because when they first started pre-pandemic, let's say, as you say, before the collapse and they were working with people like Alfonso Cuaron or with Scorsese, so The Irishman, Roma. These films were so expensive. They really needed to make it back at the box office in the theatres where they put them, and they didn't.
31:21And so Netflix are no longer in the business of making those kind of movies. And they do do smaller little art house things, stuff like Emilia Perez or whatever, stuff like that. But those are not expensive to make. They get a lot of buzz at awards season, so it's kind of worth it. But in terms of big, expensive things and then putting them in the theatres, there are very few. And the main one they're doing that's coming up, which everyone's saying, well, if she has it, why can't I? is Greta Gerwig's Narnia movie. If she's doing it, and they are putting that in cinemas, and then there'll be a lot of IMAX and it will make money back on those sorts of things.
31:54But I think it's so interesting what this last week, I mean, it's funny that your movie is out this week when I'm looking at the box office and number one at the box office is the K-pop Demon Hunters two-day event sing-along version. Okay? So that is number one. And that was a Netflix movie which was never going to go anywhere near a cinema. It was just a punch from Netflix. I don't think they had enormously high hopes for it. They just thought it was a fun bit of content. It has gone so nuts. They are now putting on the sing-along version onto Netflix as well. They're going to do that. It's already, I think it must have even by now.
32:31Last time I looked, it hadn't overtaken their biggest, which is Red Notice, but I think it will now have overtaken Red Notice. But also, what is very significant is that is Netflix's first ever number one at the box office. they don't release their box office figures Netflix so lots of this is on guest work but simply on what people know about their theatre receipts and it's not even on lots of theatres it's not on the biggest release it's bigger than like Beyonce's concert film so sort of like weird properties but it's yeah we live in a very unusual world where cinema releases come about and Thursday Metal Cup has been very very confusing for an awful lot of people I think but the base level is it is Netflix exclusive but they let us play it for it in fact and all those everymans have now extended it as well so it's going to be so it's going to be playing for a while in those cinemas but no the um my dream you see richard is that it has its life as this movie franchise but then the rights return to you and each novel becomes a sunday evening bbc show that's paid where it's played out very slowly and that is my dream richard spend a bit more time over it yeah listen a movie is uh is much shorter the premiere i have to say was wonderful they put those things together um so brilliantly and the whole cast has been here for the whole week doing you know when you sign a contract that you sign this thing that says i'll give you a week's worth of publicity or whatever so we did an amazing event for libraries around the country i saw that on tuesday which was such fun we did it at the british library but libraries all around the country were um we're phoning in so i didn't do a lot of publicity for the film because it's not my film i write the books but that one when they said look it's going to go free to libraries i thought well that's a lot of fun because you know and chris columbus was there and the rest of the cast.
34:07And then the premiere was amazing because they didn't invite any celebrities. It was just the cast and fans, which was really, really... Fortunately, there's so many celebrities, mega celebrities in the cast. There were quite a few celebs in there. But you sort of get taken in and then, you know, you do a huge loop of interviews and everyone's doing interviews with the same people and all your kind of friends and family are already in the cinema and they're watching the whole thing on a big screen. Do you know what? You know when people always say, I must be thrilled when you see your name on the credits of a TV show.
34:36or you see your name on the front cover of a book. And I've always tried to feel that thrill. I've never quite felt it. There's lots of thrills, but that I haven't. Weirdly sitting in that cinema and just watching the end thing, the film just saying, based on the book, bye. That was, I got, I got a kind of... But this is tangentially related to your thing where if someone happens to be watching Pointless on a TV drama, it's so much of a bigger deal than like you doing Pointless or whatever it was, you know, or something like that or House of Games or whatever it may be. it's so much bigger of a deal if you see someone doing that it's a funny week for me in lots of ways because when the books come out I'm very very nervous because I'm very very you know I'm proud of them they come from my head and from my heart and I throw everything behind it this because it's not my film I'm obviously involved but I was thinking the other day this film is like having a grandchild rather than a child that I'm just all I get is bonus and you can always give it back at the end of the day I mean I can even read the reviews I never read the reviews of anything but this because it's not mine I can just read them and go, oh, that's interesting.
35:35Because I know that with a film like this, they don't matter. But if it's my book, I still wouldn't be able to read them. But with the film, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is interesting and I can look at the numbers and what have you. It's a rare example of having something out there in the market and not having any nerves at all. It's just all it is is upside. All it is is having the whole family came along. My Nenningwis family all came along to the premiere. That was really, really lovely. They all got to hang out with Celia and Dame Helen and Pierce Brosnan afterwards. and you know that's an awful lot of fun the whole thing is just fun for me and I've never experienced that before because I get so nervous when a new show comes out or a new book comes out or anything like this whereas this is just like I sort of feel like I'm visiting someone else's circus but I've got a free ticket it looks so fun I was so sorry not to be there the pictures look brilliant poor David Tennant who um when Spielberg came down to set he was stuck you know he was shooting him driving a car so he couldn't come and meet Spielberg.
36:33And he's filming Rivals at the moment and they tried everything to get him up to the premiere and he couldn't make it. And Spielberg made another surprise appearance at the premiere. So Tennant missed him again. The third time will be a charm. Oh, won't it just? He'll just be the lead in the new Spielberg movie. A few people I want to say hello to. Tom Ellis, who is weird. So Tom Ellis over here, we still sort of know from Miranda. Yeah. And in the States, he's like one of the biggest stars in the world because he's in Lucifer and he's in a new Dick Wolf thing. He's the only person in the world has ever come up to me and said, you know when you talked about Onora and the Oscars and how the Oscars loved Onora and you said the world had gone Onora Batty?
37:07He said, I just have to give you so much respect for that pun. I think I even said at the time, there'll be three people in the world who like that pun. I'm very glad that Tom Ellis is wrong. I have to say hello to Henry Lloyd Hughes, who plays Bogdan, because last time I talked about him, I called him Henry Hughes Hallett because I was reading a book by Lucy Hughes Hallett at the time. And he said, that's okay. But off the back of this film, Spielberg was sat in the edit saw him in this film and has just cast him in his next big movie as well so that's nice but really I've had a really lovely week I'm looking forward to seeing how the film does but it's like a grandchild rather than a child and it's lovely lots of people getting in touch saying they've seen it in the cinema already but yeah it starts on Netflix on Thursday who knows how it will do but as I say it's the next book is the thing I'm always concentrating on but I did just seeing you know based on the book by that was that was a nice a very very nice moment but i listen i hope people in enjoy the movie but uh it's so much icing yeah and of course this thursday's q a is a special with chris columbus it is yes yeah chris came in last week and um all of our listeners had sent questions in and i asked those questions of course it was really really good fun you sadly were were not with us but that's okay i can't believe i was away um but yeah we talk about home alone we talk about potter we talk about mrs doubtfire a little bit about um thursday murder club as well but he's such a charming funny interesting man so i hope people will really enjoy that by the way i know i said there were no celebrities at the premiere but there was one because uh there was a celebrity was invited by sir ben kingsley so all the kind of friends and family go into the cinema first and they're there for like an hour and a half there's a thousand seats of cinema they're all sitting there so my family are here and in the row in front of them john major no way yeah Sitting there very happily, eating his popcorn, chatting away to people.
38:55God, you buried the lead in this item. I didn't, didn't I? What? Yeah. He was sat next to Sabine. Oh, I'm screaming. This is incredible. I love it. He's looking good. I'll say that. Hasn't aged at all. No. What's the secret? I think he's just been that age now since the Unblood. I think it's useful if you look old in your 40s. Yeah. Shall we move on to always-on culture? And that's one of those things that has happened very gradually and very slowly and perhaps people haven't noticed. but talk us through what that means. Well, I thought it was interesting last, you know, whenever it was that Taylor Swift introduced, she announced her new album, Life of a Showgirl, which first of all, in the old days, she had done it on like Good Morning America or one of those sorts of things or even on a sort of Instagram post, I suppose.
39:37But in fact, she did it on her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey's New Heights podcast, which she does with his brother, Jason, and always on Venture. And there was something about it, which is mega, mega successful, that podcast. that episode alone will probably become the most listened to podcast episode of all time until and if they're listening Shed 7 if you want to announce your new album on the rest of his entertainment you are very very welcome most welcome and I thought it was sort of interesting that she is such a sort of always on artist as it were always on this podcast if you're not familiar with the term it's called always on it's here every week we haven't missed I think this is episode 180 we haven't missed a week can you believe it yeah I can believe that I guess we can start talking about it in terms of music because modern musicians are, in large part, not all, and there are some exceptions, sort of always on.
40:29And obviously Taylor Swift is the sort of apogee of this, as she is the apogee of many things. By the way, the counter to this would be, you know, if you think about in the 80s or something, you know, Duran Duran would release an album, then they might have a year off, then they come back, you know, and they do three singles at the same time, then they might have another year off. And in between, the fans might get fan club things, but they're not constantly bombarding you with content or collaborations. Or here's a video we shot on our tour in Japan where we're, you know, trying Japanese sweets.
40:59That thing of you're constantly giving content to your fan base. And we can talk about why that is. For instance, she was on the Ears tour when she got the Grammy for Midnight. and in her acceptance speech for the Grammy for Midnight, she said she announced the Torture Poets Society, her next album, double album, as it turned out. And there was a lot of backlash for that where people just said, oh, you've overshadowed all the other winners by saying, she was just like, I just like making music and I'm going to keep doing it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's, you know, the whole of culture is your playground now in a way it didn't used to be.
41:32But release schedules have contracted absolutely massively, as you say, in the way that, you know, lots of artists put out two albums a year. there are also there's as you say there's like there's deluxe editions and like you know re-recordings or whatever it may be and the whole idea of the album is a as part of the reason why the the idea of an album has been sort of degraded because studio albums used to be the absolute jewel of the uh of the music industry they weren't when they started they were kind of invented by Columbia Records in the 40s and then in the 50s people would constantly put out lots and lots of album you know compilation and they were doing lots of covers and so so on but by the 70s it's become the idea of a succumb it's like the pinnacle of artistic expression and it really means so much and so they came out necessarily far less often and it was a big event but you could have big events and this is part of what it is now we have this atomized culture where there's lots of sort of subcultures and there's streaming and there's social media you have to stay visible on the on the streaming platforms so you have to keep putting new stuff out obviously i should say there are exceptions to this rule i mean part of the reason i thought about talking about this week was because everyone's like oh my god harry stars isn't going to put out a new album maybe till the year after next it's like okay well you know that used to be quite normal and and they're like oh but they've had to really push it even further than they'd like to because they want him to headline glastonbury that year and you know really yeah that's fun yeah which would be fun and obviously someone like adele who has famously not and suddenly it comes out and it's this huge event and whatever but these are Adele and Harry Styles if you're not Adele and Harry Styles and so few of us are neither of us for example neither of us are being two examples they feel like they have to constantly put stuff out and less established artists really rely on frequency so as a result albums are much less valued than frequent singles and they're almost trying to release singles like episodes of a hit TV show in days of not all that yore where you're trying to do one a week over a course of 10 weeks.
43:34And it's interesting in that way because in the old days, you know, an album every five years would make you a fortune because albums were how you made money and you would tour to support the album, but the tour would lose you money and the album would make you money. Now the thing is, the touring is what makes you money and so you want to be touring all the time. And if you want to be touring all the time, you need to be in the news all the time and that means you release records all the time. And, you know, it might not go anywhere near the charts, but, you know, the fan base know you're releasing records.
44:01the fan base is constantly engaged with what you're doing and then you can play 100 shows a year and that's how you make all of your money but you have to be permanently on can't be like the stone roses and you know five years between albums but you can't also be off at all in any format so you must be on in social media you must be on on all the different platforms this is you know chapel when she was stood up at the grammys said we talked about burnout and all of these sorts of things and there is a real sort of grind set culture which is not very artistic right i get it in the old days you know artists could only be persuaded into the studio when the muse has got whatever it is and now it's like you need to do this many things for socials a day whatever this always used to happen um with people who were in boy bands or girl bands where in some ways people thought the music wasn't classy or wasn't this kind of a pinnacle of artistic expression or whatever we're talking about by the way i love pop music so i don't mean that as a judgment but it was sort of regarded as that was graft you went out and you worked seven days a week and they pumped you with vitamins and other things even worse and after three years we move on to the next yeah and we move on to the next thing but it's interesting to widen it to other bits of culture i you know i've talked a bit about that podcast um jason travis kelsey's new heights podcast which is huge because amazon shuttered their um wandery section very recently just they bought that for four years ago for 300 million that was their podcast company right that was their narrative company and that's interesting because everyone's like the one thing i can tell you that there isn't is there's not a contraction in the podcast industry is but narrative podcasts which i suppose the first enormous and amazing one that everyone talked about was serial that sort of serial era is has passed and it's very interesting what the new podcast they are always on they are consumed primarily through not not exclusively but a lot through video even if people just listen to them but they're consuming them via youtube and their talk shows effectively they are talk shows this we are on a talk show now as it were but they must be always on and that's the interesting thing that those ideas of those kind of sees a season where you'll follow something this is the economics of that are not judged as being worth it enough to something like amazon which is obviously a huge company it is reflected everywhere that the kind of always onness of things because i thought in a way i don't want to say it happened first and it certainly happened to the news cycle the idea that there would be a much more leisurely one day news cycle as we've talked about on this podcast before that is completely gone things are happening all the time day night gaming i mean those live service games are i mean as someone who lived through Saturday's Grow a Garden update and I now have my children talking to me about effectively inflating the game has been ruined apparently ruined oh no that's a shame yeah fertilizer yeah mind you that doesn't ruin it that's one of the few yeah the garden is the only thing that fertilizer actually improves yeah well they're now talking to me about inflation because like everyone's been it's I think Grow a Garden might have entered its Feimar Germany phase but it's yeah it's all very complicated but those games like Fortnite everything has to be updated all the time Books is a fascinating one.
47:11So, you know, when I, you know, signed my first deal, I said, look, I want to do a book a year. And because I come from TV and I come from, you know, constantly, if people like something, they want to see the next episode, the next episode. Now, in my view, you can't do more than a book. A book a year is about as quick as I can go. But I was at Lee Child. What did they say? Oh, Lee Child a year. Lee Child always did a book a year. So I thought if Lee Child can do a book a year, I can do. The publisher was like, yeah, you know, that's nice. And my agent said 100 % because other people come along.
47:37So I thought I'd do one a year. But since then, one a year starts to look tardy. So the really massive thing that's happened in books recently, so the two biggest selling authors in the world, Colleen Hoover and Frieda McFadden. So to anyone who thinks you have to be a celebrity to write books, these people are both self-published, and Frieda McFadden, I suspect, made about$80 million last year. So that's the route through. But in the last five years, Frieda McFadden has bought out 19 books. No way. Yeah, some of which were books she had written previous to these few years in here because she'd self-published for a while.
48:14But she knocks out a book every kind of three months. New ones come out. So The Housemaid is a huge book, which they're making a movie of at the moment. The Ex was a big book as well. Her fans, who are called book fans, every three months they get a new book all the time. The plots have similarities to them, but all the time there are new things coming out. Colleen Hoover as well has had 23 books in the last 13 years. Now, this is a huge... God, you're right. I was about to say, how can you be a slouch? But it turns out... Yeah, I am a slouch. God, fuck up, Richard. Yeah, exactly. But you constantly need to be feeding the beast these days.
48:48As you say, we're so siloed. We all exist within fandoms. And the one thing a fandom wants is to constantly be fed. The parasocial relationship needs to be fed. Influencer culture is a daily pride-calling siege. So someone like James Patterson is interested, because James Patterson, the great thriller writer, Now, he doesn't write his own books, and he's very open about that. I mean, he does write some of them, but he'll write with collaborators. He's done the Bill Clinton collaborations, Dolly Parton and stuff like that. Now, this decade, which is what, five years old, 56 novels have been released with James Patterson's name on this decade, plus 17 for children.
49:26So that is what, 73 books he's released in the last five years. Was Enid Brighton always on? Because she did about 700. Agatha Christie often did two a year. The book industry is very, very interesting because economically you can't get paid to do one book every three years. Maybe if you're Donna Tartt or Sandy Rooney or someone like that, there are ways and means of doing it, but you just can't do that anymore. And the fact that the two best-selling authors in the world, Frieda McFadden and Colleen Hoover, are both bringing out multiple books every year and have online fandoms and all this kind of stuff.
50:06Every single creative endeavor now is the grind. If you are a brand in and of yourself, then your constant job from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep is to take care of that brand and to feed the furnace. And to cover new things. If you think of even things like fashion in the old days, there would be seasons and things would be in the shops a long time. And now, because of fast fashion, new things all the time, often related to the algorithmic fashion, as they're starting to call it. It seems that the whole of culture, which used to be episodic, has now become continuous. There's no sort of seasonal appointment-based viewing or consumption.
50:49It is now much more fragmented, and the subcultures are constantly evolving and must be constantly fed all the time. Certainly in the creator economy, which very soon will be all the creative economy is, it is always on and if you just take that phrase and just over the next couple of weeks just look at the content that you're consuming you see it literally everywhere the first time i really it really came home to me that always on thing because weirdly a very early version of always on our daily quiz shows yes so when we were doing pointless it was on every single day and that elevates you very very quickly into the public consciousness you know and gives people a loyalty very, very, very quickly.
51:28So I was very, very aware of how effective that was. You become part of a daily routine. That's the difference. That's the absolute key. And so we started at roughly the same time as The Chase and we were on at the same time of day, sort of five o 'clock-ish. And for the first, I want to say five years, Pointless would outrate The Chase. And The Chase was doing well, by the way, but Pointless had its nose in front for about five years. And then we got to the stage where Kevin Ligo at ITV said, I'm going to not show any repeats of The Chase. All I'm going to do is do new Chase all the time. So suddenly they were doing 250 new shows a year and we were doing 125 or something like that because the BBC couldn't afford to do 250.
52:08And within six months, The Chase got its nose in front and now it's the biggest franchise in television. And just because Kevin understood very early on, this thing of Always On, it doesn't really count if it's a repeat. You know, you've constantly got to be feeding the beast all the time, every single day. Kevin Ligo was a very early adopter and Bradley Walsh of Always On Culture. Yeah, the burnout is going to be crazy for people, I think, because it's a lot. You know, if you're Frieda McFadden, I mean, that's a lot of books coming out all the time. And fascinating to see what her schedule will be over the next few years, because they've run out of back catalogue things for Frieda McFadden.
52:47But, you know, the fans have not run out of wanting one book every three months. You know, in some ways, when you look at something like what Ryan Murphy has done in television, where he has so many different shows on at any one time. And he's a sort of presiding intelligence or he'll issue instructions, whether you just become almost a studio. Which is what James Patterson has done. Yeah, which is clearly what James Patterson's done. Yeah, I know. I absolutely get it. But I mean, Freedom at Fatten as well. She has got a job as well. She's a doctor treating brain disorders in the US. So she's got a day job.
53:20She does it less these days. Oh my God, you're so right. You are so lazy. I've never applied this work to you. I think her first book was called The Devil Wears Scrubs in 2013. She did it she said it's a hobbyist, maybe a thousand people to buy it and yeah, now she's the best-selling author in the world. I'm exhausted just talking about it. Always on. Always on. What we're always on. Should we go off? Shall we go off? But we'll be back on Thursday with amazing Chris Columbus. Although actually, just me. Yeah. So I'm always on. I'm sometimes off. Yeah, you're occasionally off. Come on, it's just...
53:51Yeah, no, I get it. It's a one-off to do with the schedule and I'm very, very sorry. And on Friday, we've got for our bonus episode, a deep dive into the history of charity singles, which is funny. There's some great stories there as well. All right, then. Great stories. If you want to join our club, you can join at therestlosentertainment.com. It'd be lovely to have you. But for everybody else, we'll keep churning out the always-on things because we love it. And this, you know, by the way, I was absolutely fascinated by everything you told us about the Noel Clark investigation. I thought that was incredible.
54:23So thank you for filling us all in on that. And I hope that there is some insight in my Chris Columbus interview on Thursday as well. There most certainly is. All right, everybody. See you on Thursday. See you on Thursday.
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From the publisher
Are the UK’s stringent libel laws preventing journalists from exposing predators in the UK media? Why are all pop stars seemingly non-stop? Why does Richard think of the Netflix adaptation of The Thursday Murder Club as his grandchild?
Actor Noel Clarke has lost his libel case against Guardian over their sexual misconduct investigation. Richard and Marina discuss the fragile nature of investigative journalism, the shortcomings of British libel laws and if being famous still renders you 'untouchable'.
At a star studded premiere in central London, the world finally got to see the film adaptation of Richard's book 'The Thursday Murder Club' - the pair chat about the economics behind getting a bestseller onto screens.
From TikTok to touring, podcasts to penning novels - why are modern stars seemingly 'always on'? We think we have the answer...
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