The Art of Sex on TV

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1:25Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restless Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. Happy Halloween, everybody. Happy Halloween to all who celebrate. All who celebrate. Should we start just straight away with a Halloween question? A spooky question, although we should remind people that thank you to all of those who have signed up to the Restless Entertainment Club. There's absolutely no need to if you don't want to because we'll carry on doing the podcast. but if you have signed up, our first bonus episode will drop tomorrow. It's slightly terrifying in some ways because it's about Steven Seagal, so maybe it is thematically linked to the week of Halloween.

2:01I always think with Strictly, they've done Halloween episodes now for 20-odd series, and there's literally only two Halloween songs, which are Monster Mash and Thriller. And every year they trot something out. I always think it's very impressive. Anyway, that's a little production aside. So let's do a question, shall we? Stuart Hunter has a question for you. Stuart Hunter also the name of a Halloween movie about a Tudor assassin. Listen, Stuart Hunter says, how do they film cemetery and graveyard scenes? Is this location difficult to obtain a permit for due to its sensitive nature? Thank you, Stuart Hunter.

2:35Stuart Hunter. Thank you, Stuart Hunter. Those damn stewards. Okay, Stuart. Yes, you do have to ask the local authority. You're quite right. and you have to have, it is quite hard to get these agreements because they are sensitive places. If you do show headstones, they can't be real people's headstones. You can't just say, hey, well, this woman just happened to be there. You can use silhouettes only so no names can be readable and, you know, all these instructions, as always, will be on the call sheet saying, you know, you can't have your catering tent pitched up in the graveyard. So having said that, people do break these rules.

3:10You surprised me. There are certain scenes with graveyard, like the scene in Saltburn, okay, that's not actually in a graveyard. because I think he's buried in the grounds of the house. So that scene, they get away with what happens in that scene. I still haven't seen Saltburn. Okay, well... Because I've heard too much about it now, I know that I will never see it now. Well, you can find out online what happens in the scene with the grave. But actually, not a million miles away from it, there's a Mexican porn star called Janeth Rubio. Now, she posted some clips and said, where do you think I filmed it?

3:41The answer was, by the way, that's in the graveyard in Guadalajara or my mum's buried. People were sort of like, and were really angry about it. The mayor got involved. There was a similar case rather closer to home in Edinburgh, not that long ago, where a couple were doing it for OnlyFans, having sex in Graveyard. Okay. That's niche, isn't it? Yeah, but actually in, you know, the Greyfriars Bobby Graveyard, and they're putting it out and people were complaining about it. Really? And they gave a quote saying, we didn't see it as disrespectful. It happens all the time in the graveyard. It's just that most people don't film it.

4:13Oh, and listen, they've got a point. if it's happening anyway. Does it happen all the time in the graveyard? Okay, fine. It's natural to have sex, including to the people in that graveyard. Okay, now you're maybe crossing a number of lines now. Because they don't have consent to say that. Because I imagine a couple of them might go, yeah, fine. Honestly, very little happening around here. But some of them would object. I am too dead to sign this release form, but I have got issues with it. And then they said, you only have one life. Okay, you're making a real thing about everyone here is dead.

4:41Let's just get on with it. So you might as well live it. they got in quite a lot of trouble for doing that. I'm sorry, very quickly the tone was lowered in that answer, but in general you have to have a lot of permissions and people are very, very sensitive in a reputable production. In a disreputable OnlyFans production, do what you like. In the Thursday Murder Club movie, there's quite a big plot point in a cemetery in that, and so there's scenes in a cemetery, and they built the whole cemetery. So they built the whole thing, it's all fake, all the graves are fake. And then you can do what you like.

5:08Yeah, and I just put the names of my enemies on the gravestone. Like always. No, I didn't. You can also just build your own graveyard in eight easy parts. OnlyFans is mental. Yeah. But insanely lucrative. Very, very lucrative. And they're not all having sex in graveyards, are they? There's all sorts going on. That's just merely one strand in a many, many, many stranded thread. Okay. Here's one from Donna Cam about actor or actress. She says, I've noticed a change in women slash females being referred to as an actor rather than an actress. Why has this change come about? it's interesting that because you know that thing of putting s on the end of jobs is it doesn't exist sort of anywhere anymore used to be you know people were poetesses and comedians and sculptress and things like that and i think actress has probably lasted a bit longer because of the oscars because they do have to kind of the best actor and best actress i can't think of any female actors i know who still call themselves an actress because i guess why would you i also can't think of any female actors who would be offended if he did say actress.

6:08No one minds at all. It's just they're doing exactly the same job as other people. So of course you would call it the same thing. It's interesting to think that very few professions where the S still exists. Steward and stewardess maybe might be the only one. We still occasionally say male nurse to turn it the other way around. Host and hostess. I mean, these are a pile. But yeah, it's one of those things, if you actually think about it, it's sort of absurd to give it different names. You can just, you know, they're actors. If you think there's some difference between the job they're doing then you know there isn't but yeah so i think it's one of those ones that has endured longer because of the awards categories because of the awards categories but as so often with language i've never met anyone who would be offended if you did say actress no one might people know exactly what you mean and people also understand why it's endured perhaps slightly longer than in other professions but yeah i think just actors are called actors you know on a call sheet you wouldn't have a list of actors and then a list of actresses you just have a list of actors and that's that's an easier word to use than actress and uh you know language changes doesn't it but yeah so i don't worry if you've ever described someone as an actress no one's going to mind but by and i so we do it on pointless all the time i used to say actor and you know it did confuse people for a while but not for a good 10 years or so everyone knows what you're talking about when you say actor these days comedian was still going to about 10 years ago yeah it's amazing isn't it When they used to say, oh, we've got a women's comedy.

7:28Yeah, exactly. So yeah, if people are doing the same job, then you just have the same name for it, I guess. But yes, don't worry. You're not going to offend anyone if you do say actress. But yeah, most people just say the job they're doing, which is actor. I curated a sort of series of older game shows for BBC iPlayer, which you can still see. And there's a wonderful What's My Line, which is the one where we have to guess what people's jobs are. And this woman appears on screen. And for the audience at home and for the studio audience, they show what her job is. and it says, woman police officer.

7:57And the audience honestly are in hysterics. They think it's the funniest thing they've ever heard, that there's a woman police officer. It's so good. And even when she's revealed and they're all going, I'm so sorry. That would have been, I guess, mid-60s, I would have thought. That's another thing. We used to call people WPCs. Just think, what are you saying if you're calling them something? I think they're doing the same job. It's one of those things, the joys of our language. that's really funny marina a question for you cameron russell says uh i have a question for my favorite podcaster s marina hyde now cameron says when a recurring tv show or franchise film decides to kill off one of their characters assuming this isn't for reasons such as the act of quitting what is the procedure for informing the artist playing the role okay well cameron you should obviously i mean it seems like it goes without saying that you should tell them before they find out another way but quite often that hasn't happened of course you should say to them and say you know and in some cases people are so integral to the life of the show for many years that they get some sort of say in their death and they might and writers would even take that into account i mean things like in game of thrones they actually filmed one of the table reads and this guy connath hill who plays lord varus he finds out clearly at the table read throws his script sort of and that clip got released and he said I don't think anybody who hasn't been through it can identify with what happened to me you take it personally you can't help it you think what have I done that's quite intense I would say that those oh my god those Game of Thrones someone was telling me recently about those Game of Thrones showrunners Benioff and Weiss and they were so completely exhausted as they got to the later seasons someone had seen them at an awards ceremony and their wives were basically sort of talking for them saying yeah no he's very you know you can't actually and they were actually answering people were sort of trying to say hello and stuff and they were sort of answering the questions for them because they were so utterly exhausted because it was just such a kind of actual monster commitment doing this show and it was so big and it was so enormous so i think you know possibly some things fell through the cracks there i'm not saying that definitely happened in other cases you might have an actor who is shall we say not that discreet and you don't really want to tell them because they're just going to do a spoiler and then people are going, you know, some people just can't get their mouth shut.

10:16I don't know whether this happened in The Sopranos, but Joe Pantoliano, who played Ralph Soffretto in The Sopranos, he found out at the table read about his death and he stormed out calling his agent while he was still in the room as he was heading to the door. And Tony Srico, who played Paulie Warnock, was like, yeah, don't let the door hit you on the way out. I don't know how popular he was with the rest of the cast. However, I can only speculate, but sometimes much more often than you think people do find out at the table read or they find out the wrong way and it's often because people are trying to keep things secret about spoilers when the show's become very very big you have to be so careful because so many different things you know and you can't necessarily trust people not to say something or to just kind of put it out there or to anonymously put it out there so they try to keep it very secret but obviously it's not great to find it out at the table read yeah because i mean you slightly want to get ahead of the story if you if it is absolutely inexcusable not to tell the actor but if the actor as you say were less than trustworthy you know they'd be out the next day talking to you know everyone saying oh look i'm not on the show anymore so you know what's the new gig and stuff like that so there's a bit of you to protect the show has to throw the actor under a bus especially if that's how he dies um and it i sort of get it but you know by and large especially on a long-running show as you say people are fairly respectful and they'll discuss the fact that you know you're going to die or you know lots of people will leave EastEnders those are always the interesting conversations when people leave EastEnders the debate about whether they actually die or not.

11:47Sometimes if they really not just EastEnders other things if they really don't like you they will make sure you die in a way that even by the standards of like stretching all fictional tropes you can never come back. Yeah and 100 % that occasionally just think well there's I know that you might at some point, you know, if you're Ross Kemper and you're leaving EastEnders, EastEnders and Ross Kemper, you know, let's leave this open. Because, you know, it'd be lovely, Ross, if at some point you want to come back. If you're certain other people, you go, there is no way you're ever coming back on the show because I refuse to work with you.

12:17So I'm afraid it's the steamroller for you. Yeah. If there's anything approaching a steamroller type death, you know that the writers don't like that character. The producers don't like that character. They don't had enough and there's quite a number of stories where as time has gone by people have said yeah you'll notice how we killed him or her off yeah you'll notice that we showed the body under the steamroller there's a completely flattened body okay so that's not coming back and a doctor saying yes i can confirm it's definitely him and he is definitely dead even allowing for advances in medical science in 20 years there's no way we will be able to reanimate this pancake yeah it's Absolutely.

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14:36Welcome back, everyone. I have very sad news about Marina. She was, there was an electrical storm. It hit the microphone. She is, no, look. I'm going to haunt this podcast forever, by the way. Forever. Well, it's spooky, isn't it? Halloween. Yes, it's very spooky. So, welcome back. I'm Richard Osman. I'm joined by the ghost of Marina Hyde. You'd be an amazing ghost. Yeah, I'm committed. I very rarely sleep anyway, so I would be around all the hours of day and night. Why do you think ghosts keep very different hours to everybody else? But do you know what I mean? They're always at night. You just think, I mean, either they're not sleeping...

15:10It's a night shift job. It's a night shift job, I'm sorry. So what are they doing? Are they sleeping during the day? I think they probably have to. That's the only reason I don't believe in ghosts, is there will be so many of them, and they will just turn up at some point. Say, you know, if you're a ghost, you know, there's been six billion people have died. So there'd be a lot of ghosts around. Some of them would be real egotists. You know, some of them would be real show offs. One of them at some point, if, say, we know you can move through walls or something, you would just go and turn up on this morning, you know, and everyone would see you and you'd be like, it's me, Sharon.

15:39Hi. I love the idea that you think that that would just be even in the afterlife when you have eternal possibilities that you just think, well, the apex of that would be going on this morning. So if they, why haven't they done it yet? You know what? It's possible that there are other options. And that actually Paradise is not trying to get a booking on a mid-morning ITV show. I know you might think differently, but it's possible that not all of the ghosts do. I'm not talking about the nature of heaven. I'm talking about the nature of being a ghost. And so if ghosts are turning up in the bedrooms of young children and walking through walls, they're doing something.

16:12So that's quite show-offy. There's kind of knocking and making a noise and moving glasses. I'm just saying if that's your personality type, if you're quite an extrovert as a ghost, you might think, there's Alison Hammond, there's Dermot O 'Leary, I'm going to go and join in the cooking. 1120 ID. But anyway, that's why. Maybe they are. Maybe they're like actual, like the TV show ghosts. Maybe if you actually, the people who can see them, they're clustered around in those cooking. There's about 40 of them clustered around, behind, watching and saying, oh no, they've put too many onions in there.

16:40Maybe that's what they're doing. They're clustered around that little fake kitchen. What TV show set would you go to if you were a ghost? Oh, that's a great question. I can't believe none of the listeners asked that question. No, what? I don't know which one would you go to. Would it be this morning? What would I go to? Gosh, you know, I shouldn't have asked the question without me thinking about it. No, because we don't know the answer to it. Below deck. That might be fun. I don't know if Ghosts and Swim... Yeah, it's the only way you could afford it. I mean, it genuinely is very expensive otherwise.

17:08Apart from being a crew member, which I don't think any of us want to be. Listen, we should probably get on with actual listening questions. One from Emma Robinson, Richard, who says, I was wondering what happens with the dresses used on Strictly Come Dancing after each week. They have so many outfits used by the couples and the dancers for the group dancers. Are they reused somehow or just scrapped? I mean, essentially anything that's on the BBC, the answer to the question, are they just scrapped? The answer these days is absolutely not. They're always sort of reused in some way. And that's absolutely the case with Strictly.

17:36So, yeah, they'll be sort of stripped apart for parts. Essentially, some of them will be reused for the tour because people want to watch the exact version of the dance that they've already seen on the TV. So some of them are used for that. But yeah, then they will be sort of taken apart and re-sewn into other things. And anything that gets sort of beyond the kind of realms of being able to be used will be passed on to other productions. Claudia Winkleman, in fact, was saying that she occasionally sees dresses she's worn on Strictly on EastEnders. And so, yeah, it's... The circle of life. The circle of life.

18:04So it's absolutely one of those things with anything on TV, you know, leftover food, you know, absolutely everything is done to recycle as much as one possibly can. And also, if you are making those costumes, you know, Strictly, although it looks like it's huge budget it's not the biggest budget show you're ever going to see and if you are one of the wardrobe people on strictly who do an amazing job then you know you want your kit of parts you know you want as much stuff you've already used you know you want as much kind of uh you want your budget to go as far as it possibly can so yeah everything you see i mean have a look through previous series and see if you can spot the same sequence on on different you know you're always going to need a matador aren't you and they'll just sort of change it up a little bit.

18:42But yeah, it's all recycled and reused and, you know, as and when it can be. Katie Best has a question for you, Marina. She says, if you were a ghost, which TV show would it? No, you should have done that, Katie. Everyone else should have done. Katie is absolutely, she's nailed it because she's on the show. She's on the pod. Katie says, on lots of TV shows, and I've noticed particularly on Industry and Ludwig recently, characters regularly just hang up the phone without saying goodbye. It is so rude. I know it's probably for reasons like keeping the dialogue snappy and editing time but how do you film it so it doesn't just seem hostile rude to the tv audience and are there any other rules of normal interaction that writers consciously break in order to keep things moving okay katie that is they don't say hello or goodbye it's always because of time it's just a wasted piece of interaction actually whilst there's a whole sort of community out there of people who say it takes me out of the action because it's so fake that they haven't said hello goodbye most people don't notice it because it's not relevant to the action.

19:40I guess one of the rules of, you know, the most basic rules of scene writing, which you've probably heard, is that you go in at the last possible moment and you leave as soon as possible. And if you could go in any later or leave any earlier, then you should do because it's always about economy of timing. By the way, not everyone does say hello and goodbye on the phone. I have to say that my grandfather used to regard, said the telephone is for passing information. Wow. So he neither said hello nor goodbye, would say things like, I will be at the station at two. was he was he an emotional man in other ways not necessarily not necessarily but funny enough this weekend i spoke to my former stepfather-in-law i guess your former stepfather stepfather-in-law who i hadn't spoken to for years and he wanted to speak and we i talked to him for quite a long time and anyway as the time was getting on i had to go off and do things i was with my children and i said okay jose i've got to go now and he just he put the phone down but again he is one of those people who just clicks the phone down that's the end you don't have to go through this whole long you know like goodbye no I love you more I love you you know that sort of thing that was very cool yeah it was just quite funny I mean I'm one of the few people who still likes talking on the phone if I could be one of those people who was in a sort of pink bed jacket in the morning and just sit on the phone and gossip all morning no if my phone goes I look at it in horror yeah absolute horror like I don't have an answering machine either which is the absolute so people can't leave me a message so if people want to yeah not just my husband it's so aggressive Do you think?

21:07Yeah. No, but because who leaves you messages? It's always like estate agents from eight years ago. Yeah. You know, and anyone else, if they got your number, just you can send a message, you know, but just not. Come on. You have to text first. Well, anyway, this is a sort of thing. I still like talking on the phone. There's another sort of funny things about phones that, you know, they always used to have to have, in American things, they had to have the area code 555, which didn't exist as an area code. So whenever you see in those old American things, they say, I'll be on 555, because people will dial any number they see on television.

21:36that when you're making a TV show, you have to be so careful that that number doesn't exist or that that number couldn't exist because I promise you, a huge number of people, if they see any, especially now where they're sitting watching with their phone in their head, will literally ring the number they see on the screen when they see it. You can't put any piece of information on a television screen without everyone Googling it. If you even have a street name, like people are walking down the street and it'll say the name of the road, everyone is Googling that road and seeing the thing. They go, oh, look, Google Maps, look.

22:02I think this is where they are. And then they'll look up how much that house cost. I always think, you know, when you watch like old episodes of Mind or a Prime Suspect, that some people must recognise their house. Yeah. Some people must just go, oh my God, that's our house. Yeah. That's absolutely crazy. Sorry, what was the question? The question was about Ludwig and the industry and things like that. But yes, I really loved Ludwig, by the way, and I'm glad that's coming back again. And I love industry, which is brilliant. But yes, you never will waste time on that. And it also, I actually think it sounds weird here, because I'm so used to the kind of rhythms of normal television.

22:35Yeah. In life, it may seem weird to some people if, like, my former stepfather and all, you just put the phone down. But on television, to me, it looks weird. Unless there's a whole plot point about people who can't say goodbye to each other, then there's no reason to have it. In terms of other things that keep moving, I always think my absolute favourite plot device that never, ever happens in the real world is one character has some really important information and the other character is too busy to hear it. So they go, no, but I've got to tell you, it's like a really big thing, like an assassin's coming around to your house.

23:04and go, yeah, John, I've just got to go to the station. No, but it's really important that, John, I'm going to the station. Closed door. Like, in real life. And then die. In real life, yeah. Exactly. In real life, you actually say, I'm not kidding you, this is incredible. You have to, just before you shut the door, there is an assassin going to kill you. But in television... And if you put the phone down, just text them. By the way, there is an assassin going to kill you. Yes, going to kill you. Yeah. Yeah. The only time it would be ever acceptable for you to ring me would be if an assassin is coming around to kill me.

23:31If ever I pick up my phone and it's ringing and it says, Marina Hyde on it, I will know. Well, do you know what? I won't even have to pick up because I know that there's only one reason that she'll be ringing me. I may have information to pass to you, like where they are, which window they're coming in, something like that. Do you know what? I just get my escape pack and I run. I don't care. Your bug out bag. Yeah. I'm not going to be going, oh, yeah, oh, interesting. Are they? Oh, they're on the way, are they? Oh, they're just around the corner. I bet, boom, I'm out. I want Reach to write an article about you this week saying that you've got a bug out bag and you're a prepper.

24:01Osborne revealed as doomsday prepper. Do you have like if you're a spy like an escape route from the back of your house? If like the spies are coming in through the front door slow horses style. Yeah. Yes. I mean I guess I would do but I haven't thought about it too much because it's a rental and we've only been in it six months. What have I been doing? I think about a little else. That's when you really need to be friends with your neighbours to help you if the Russians come to get you. Sue and Henry honestly would be great. Okay. I love this. I need to really give much more thought to this. in fact the minute we ring off I will.

24:31One for you Richard, Nicole Brooks is asking about sex on TV, do you believe that we've outgrown the sex scene? As a population are we now able to access explicit content in seconds from any device at any time so do you think that sex scenes are still necessary on screen or is an implied romance enough? I think it's a really good time to ask that question because I think without really noticing the sex scene has almost completely disappeared so if you know if you watch you know 80s 90s television there's a lot of female nudity in it. And it was really sort of taken for granted. And actually, bit by bit, it's gone away.

25:04Because unless it's actually adding to the story, which usually it is not, you know, you can do things implied, you can do things with camera angles, then it's not necessary. And, you know, actors have got slightly smarter at saying, I'm not entirely sure, A, my character would do this, and B, that they would, you know, it needs to be shown. So I think it's one of those things that has sort of disappeared a bit. But I think it's really come back in a big way. And the reason I sort of think that is when you watch Rivals, which is absolutely unapologetically full of nudity. You go, oh, of course.

25:32This is how television used to be. You used to be like this all the time. And rivals do it to sort of show you that it's a period piece. It's literally the job of rivals is to say, oh, no, this is like the 80s, where there used to be this sort of thing on television all the time. And I do think it's disappeared from television. It is unmissed, I would say, unlamented. As Nicole said, if you genuinely want to see people having sex, then OnlyFans hashtag graveyard is the place for you. But yeah, when you watch Rivals, you go, oh yeah, TV used to be like this all the time. Although there are very equal opportunities in it and eventually that is the difference is that there's a sort of knowingness to all that and also you could hardly do that but without.

26:13Yeah, exactly that. But yeah, it's fascinating how that's disappeared and people don't really seem to mind very much. It turns out it wasn't doing an awful lot apart from embarrassing teenage kids in front of their parents when they're watching an episode of The Sweeney. But I do think it's very odd in movies that that level of romance has disappeared for, you know, and I spoke about it when it's like, again, why haven't I mentioned Glenn Powell for a few weeks on this podcast? But it is a bit odd in something like Twisters where at the very end, you know, he's sort of basically saying, you know, can I call you when I come to New York or something?