The Pop Culture Moment That Broke Our Hearts

0:00The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now they've looked at admin and decided it should behave much more like a game show.

0:06Richard Osman:When you provide your meter readings, they will give you a spin of a wheel, which allows you to win prizes, allows you to win octopoints, which you can spend in the shoptopus. Yeah, it's the gamifying of the boring bits of your admin. Now listen, you know how much I love Octopus Energy. The prizes, I'm going to say, are not quite up to the standard of the Wheel of Fortune. the biggest ever prize on the Wheel of Fortune. So over$1 million. What feels more similar is some of the random prizes they'll get on the Wheel of Fortune. They've had ceramic Dalmatians. I saw one where you could win a Gucci calculator.

0:41Richard Osman:You think, okay, that's two of my favourite things. There was an Onyx bin. Yeah, again, I'm not dissing the prizes, but I would have probably gone for the Dalmatian. None of these things you have to worry about with Octopus Energy. It is simply octopoints to spend in the shop. Well, you have to submit your meter reading to earn a spin. And then you get prizes you don't actually have to persuade yourself you want, like money off your next bill. You can get£1 ,000 off your bill. If you get the top prize, which is 800 ,000 octopoints,£1 ,000 off your bill, just on the spin of a wheel. Right now at the Home Depot, shop Spring Black Friday savings and get up to 40 % off, plus up to$500 off select appliances from top brands like Samsung.

1:19Richard Osman:Get a fridge with zero clearance hinges so the doors open fully, even in tighter spaces in your kitchen. And laundry that saves you time, like an all-in-one washer-dryer that can run a full load in just 68 minutes. Shop Spring Black Friday savings, plus get free delivery on appliance purchases of$998 or more at The Home Depot. Offer valid April 9th through April 29th, U.S. only C-Store online for details.

1:44Hello and welcome to this episode of the Restless Entertainment Questions and Answers Edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

1:50Richard Osman:And I am Richard Osman. Hello, everyone. Hey, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm really, really well. And we've got a lovely, I'd say a broad sweep of questions here. We've gone behind the scenes with people who've given us answers about shows that we love. But we're going to start with a topical one. Let's get the pain out of the way early. And something that I want to know the answer to, and I know you have some thoughts on it. It is about Kanye West. And the question is from Kat. and Kat asks I was reading this week that Pepsi and Diageo have dropped their sponsorship of Wireless Festival after they announced Kanye as the headline act how does this work what clauses would be included in contracts that allow sponsors to drop out and how would this affect the funding of the festival you think Wireless might have consulted with their sponsors before signing a headline act to avoid such mess or maybe this is the publicity they wanted yeah I mean you'd think wouldn't you Kat when you wrote your question that was you were correct but we now know that the Wireless Festival is no longer happening Was that the publicity they wanted?

2:47So I think we can answer that bit fairly. I think they didn't want to sort of self-immolate, but they have. But yes, if your lawyer has done their job, then the contract should have something called a morals clause or a reputational brand safety clause, which allows you as a sponsor to withdraw funding or to take your branding off it and distance yourself publicly.

3:07Richard Osman:Which just makes absolute sense, doesn't it? Because there has to be a synergy between the brand and what's happening. and you have to have some control over it that suddenly if the event does something crazy that you can just go to be quite clear you're giving them money there is some suggestion that lots of this deal was done over text message i i don't even know as i say the festival is no longer happening so um well done guys but if they bring you into disrepute by association or they cause public scandal or outrage or they conflict with your brand values in a sort of meaningful way then you can there's an off-ramp for you to exit without so for example one of the headline access released a song called harl hitler yeah i mean for example as an extreme example if they'd done that yeah or sold t-shirts with swastikas on i've done like one stupid apology in a trade mag or wherever it was i mean no and sometimes actually festivals and big live events will have effectively content approval will happen via the sponsors and that's just i'm afraid the way of doing business but by the way almost always it's sort of meaningless if you're going to have a festival it's just people playing music there's going to be very very little that's going to upset the pepsi coders of this world yes in you know coldplay but if you book you know anti-semitism's leading prerogator i don't know then but they should have realized because it happened at coachella in 2022 and i think they I think Coachella pivoted quickly enough and said, oh, OK, we won't have anything to do with this and we'll get rid of him.

4:39Adidas obviously ended the Yeezy deal and they had, I mean, I think millions of unsold sneakers. Gap and Balenciaga cut ties. People have been doing this with him for a long time.

4:50Richard Osman:It seems an absurd misstep from Wireless to think that, you know, even if this man had been going through an episode and he was deeply ashamed and he understood what he did, you don't come back yet. Yeah, sorry. You really have to do an awful lot more work than that in order to be, you know, headlining a massive festival in the middle of London. He was the headliner every single night. Yeah. But as I say, yeah, if your lawyer has done the job, you should be able to walk away and not be in breach of the contract. The contract should contain effectively an escape hatch. And most modern contracts, because I'm speaking to a contract law about this, but actually because of the nature of like viral scandal and things can just blow up out of nowhere, which they just didn't in the old days.

5:38They just didn't. And because of how social media has turbocharged everything, modern contract law basically anticipates kind of known, unknown, you know, a controversy that could happen. And they're much more flexible than they ever were in the past. There's something called a material adverse change clause. So if it becomes less commercially viable, the event, you just get out of it. But the one thing that this person said to me is that it very rarely goes to court because once this has happened, you don't want to make it even worse. So they tend to settle quietly because the reputational harm is even bigger.

6:11This is why going for sponsors is a big tactic these days and it is effective.

6:17Richard Osman:By which you mean activists? Yeah, people who are angry about this. Instead of complaining to wireless, you complain to Pepsi. Pepsi and Diageo. And if you don't think their phone was ringing off the hook and people were saying, why would you want to be associated? That is always roots up now and people do it all the time. So that has become a very, very big part of sort of activism, really. And getting things stopped is by targeting the companies that sponsor. So if you're a lawyer. We've seen it before with book festivals and things like that, where people have, you know, big companies pulled out of book festivals because of, you know, being targeted by activists.

6:50Richard Osman:this feels to me like a situation where it's i mean of course this was the right thing to do it's but of course this was going to happen so i can't understand how they couldn't possibly have foreseen this but if i was someone who was working at the wireless festival if i'm a rigger or if i do you know i've got a concession stand or something like that i'd be i'd be suing the wireless people because this is this is so it's such a dumb decision to book him yeah that you've put everyone out of work that they were expecting that might be a big part of their income stream Just again, another we've talked a couple of times recently about imagining a meeting.

7:23Richard Osman:And, you know, there's a wireless meeting at some point where a group of people all sat around and say, what do we think? Has he served his time? He does seem contrite. And I don't think he was well. And it is Kanye. And that nobody at that meeting just said, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do you know what? Let's for a couple of years just book somebody else. You deserve not to be having your festival. But I'm sorry for all the people who worked there and derived income from it. because whoever made that decision is an idiot. I mean, it seems absolutely insane. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Now, Richard, we had a question last week from Susie based on the Scott Mills story about Depping, about replacing presenters at the last minute.

8:01And I believe you wanted to do a follow-up on that.

8:04Richard Osman:I did because I'd been thinking about it, Susie, because we talked about that everyone is replaceable was essentially what we were saying. And I was trying to think, was that the case? And I was thinking about Graham Norton, but even I think of Graham Norton, Mr. Weak, Claudia came in. And funnily enough, Graham started his whole career by replacing Jack Doherty on his Channel 5 show again with Jonathan Ross. What I was trying to think of is those shows which are weekly and as live and are built entirely around the personality of the presenter. And I couldn't think of one. And then I did think of one, which is the Martin Lewis Money Show, which is one of those shows which has very, very quietly become an enormous hit.

8:44Richard Osman:It's live. It's Martin Lewis. You know, he's so well respected by everybody. So I thought, well, I wonder how would they deal with Martin Lewis not being well? I wondered if he was the exception to prove the rule. So I asked Martin Lewis. Martin Lewis said, do you know what? He said, I was listening to the podcast and I thought exactly the same thing. I thought - I am indispensable. He didn't say that to be fair, but he said, I wonder if they do have a plan. So he very, very kindly asked his producer, he said, I've never thought about this, but what happens if I'm ill and so can I this is the Susie you've gone to do a health show as well if he's never worried about being ill but I should also do a health show I never missed an episode of pointless in 2000 episodes I mean a lot of the time you don't miss stuff you're a professional because of doctor theater because of doctor theater do you mean cocaine because I always call it doctor showbiz and now I always think that sounds like a code word but it's not no it's not cocaine it's the thing that the adrenaline the whatever that just seems to carry people through including if they have a sort of norovirus during a live theater performance they're somehow able to get through we've talked about it before in previous episodes so uh you know martin lewis said yes i wondered if my show is an exception we've we've long discussed what would happen if i suddenly wasn't well enough and we've never really found a solution let me check with my exec which he did and she says this is this is it's almost like you know when the queen mother died there is a detailed business continuity plan for the martin lewis money show live one if martin had an accident we would go to a contingency show network has a contingency program at all times ready to go for a long time it was dinner dates two if it were a case of transport broken leg or quarantine and martin's up for doing it as he almost certainly would be he's worked through illness a number of times we would do it from wherever he is e.g hospital bed with janette running the studio much like we did it with him from home during the pandemic three if martin were ill and we had a day or so notice i'd look at an episode that was still editorially valid could be rerun i.e.

10:40Richard Osman:council tax cost cutting and strap it that it was a repeat and edit accordingly now to a new time slot so there you go even martin lewis is not irreplaceable although he may have to be replaced by dinner dates but yeah there's not a sort of you know deputy martin lewis anywhere out there couldn't be right no apart from jeanette of course and claire ends that message with hope that's useful claire it certainly is more than useful it is more than useful and i like knowing just like i did with the plan for the death of the queen yeah i like knowing what would happen should he be unable to go on in any format including hospital bed nothing stops lewis nothing marina a question for you from sarah we've really slipped into the thing of not having surnames again it's i is lax okay we've got to be you'll allow this one or i I guess so.

11:33Because I've thought about this one, and this is one I might genuinely cry in. So I'm holding it together. Oh, really? Ask the question, because I know what it is.

11:41Richard Osman:Sarah, your question is, which pop culture moment broke your heart the most? I still have memories of that fateful day when Jerry left the Spice Girls. Well, I thought about this in advance, and some of these I could really actually cry in. But the cancellation of Twin Peaks in 1991 was a heartbreaker for me. That's sort of like, because I've talked about it on the show before, just how it completely opened my mind to a different sort of world. And it felt like something so strange and wonderful on television. And I absolutely loved it. I thought a lot about, when I was thinking about this, I thought a lot about deaths.

12:12And I'm definitely not ranking any of these things because I'm not exactly going to rank people's deaths. But the death of River Phoenix, the death of Kurt Cobain, the death of Amy Winehouse, and the death of George Michael. But those really, I found those, I mean, there were so many that kind of get you, but obviously all of those were untimely. And I just thought those really kind of grabbed me. But in fictional things, I thought almost felt I found more affecting in some ways or just have stayed with me. And it's often the endings of things. And I'm not going to do any spoilers. So I'm just, I think I can do it without spoilers.

12:47The end of Blackadder goes forth.

12:49Richard Osman:Yeah, I think that will be the vote of a lot of people at home. Yeah. the end of the sopranos funnily enough there's a lot from doctor who that i in i cried whilst watching the end of maybe david tennant and matt smith as doctors i found really emotional but there's an episode where katherine tate it's sort of the end of her particular arc and she says don't make me go back and there's sometimes where there's a line yeah where that distills a whole show and you had that in something like succession with i love you but you're not serious people that's the whole show in one line and don't make me go back for me is on on doctor who the sort of wonder and companionship but also the tragedy and loneliness that are involved so it's just you know it's five words and it's sort of the whole show and funnily enough again no spoilers but john pointing and big boys as well there's a there's a line in that which uh which has a similar effect the death thing i think yeah i i felt only only i think because of my particular upbringing and the things that I grew up loving.

13:48Richard Osman:I felt, you know, when Terry Wogan passed away, that was a big one for me. It's fascinating, isn't it? The thing is always and this will sound even more ridiculous, but when John Virgo died recently, that was like, that took like a big chunk out of me. And he got an Apple News alert. And I knew you. We exchanged on that because I knew. But that's, you know, that's the joy of entertainment. That's the joy of film and television and the things that we grow up with is, you know, people you know we talk about the ridiculousness of parasocial relationships but those are also important can i say my actually the one that i think gets me the most every time and it's a it's not a forgotten television series at all but lots of our much younger audience will not know about it there was a tv series called our friends in the north which was written by peter flannery it is an absolute masterpiece an absolute masterpiece i think it's nine one hours the end of that like even talking about this, I could actually cry on this.

14:43It's over the final credits, Don't Look Back in Anger plays and it's a contemporary song and it's taken us from the 60s, this show. The time that it aired was when I was like the age of the characters in the very first episode and by the time in three decades on. And I just remember thinking it's all about loss and like, oh my God, you sort of reckoning with youthful idealism and that song. And I was like, oh my God, is this how it's all going to end? because I was like the age of the characters when I watched that show in the first episode. The end of that show just is an absolute gut punch. And just that music over the credits.

15:19They had a different song over the credits, as I remember this, each one. But suddenly that song has never made more perfect sense than played over the end credits of Our Friends in the North.

15:30Richard Osman:And if people haven't watched Our Friends in the North, first you really, really recommend it. But we spoke on our Tuesday episode about Euphoria and about skins which are shows that made people much more famous than they were and that show you had a future James Bond Daniel Craig you had a future Doctor Who Christopher Eccleston you had the incredible Gina McKee you had Mark Strong who people didn't know particularly who's in everything and that was just like a TV ensemble cast that's the quartet that we follow through those decades they are our friends in the north yeah what a gut punch anyway what a lovely question and Sarah mentions Gerry with the Spice Girls which is what we're doing our bonus episodes on at the moment.

16:07Richard Osman:And we've got a new one coming out this week. Jerry's departure is, I believe, pending. It is pending. So Sarah, listen, that's a trigger warning for you. Shall we go to some adverts? Let's.

16:22Richard Osman:This episode is brought to you by Bumble. Now, there's a modern phenomenon when someone says they're on the apps. But what they actually mean is they downloaded them, opened them once and then immediately felt tired. So technically on the apps, but nowhere near them. Making and updating a dating profile can be weirdly exhausting. Too many decisions, too much pressure to come across as the best version of yourself. Well, that's where Bumble comes in. Instead of asking people to produce a personality from scratch, they give you personalised guidance on how to help show the authentic you. And not in a bossy way.

16:52Richard Osman:More in a, you're already interesting, but let's point the camera in the right direction. And the prompts are better too. Less I like travel, more I once missed the train because I was petting a dog. something someone else can respond to and spark conversations from. Because when a profile actually reflects someone's personality conversations don't feel like small talk they flow and they feel like they're going somewhere. So download Bumble today show more of the real you and see why it tends to be the app people hear about from friends. I like the idea of someone missing a train because they were petting a dog.

17:21Well it's involving isn't it? Isn't it just? I'm engrossed. Good sleep is everything.

17:27Richard Osman:That's why Ali's Science Bag Support is made with a blend of melatonin and L-theanine for both kiddos and grown-ups. So when your mind won't switch off, you've got something that can help. Erasing thoughts and restless nights won't stand a chance. Find Oli Sleep Solutions for the whole family at Oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. There's no one like you, and there never will be. From the producer of Bohemian Rhapsody, there are many legends, but there is only one michael rated pg 13 in theaters april 24

18:07welcome back everybody now richard after your very moving him to sort your life out last week we have a sort your life out related question from denise tomlinson surname thank you thank you for the surname as well denise she says how many people work on sort your life out behind the scenes i simply don't believe all of that can be achieved in a single week is it by an army of

18:25Richard Osman:runners thank you denise um so if if people don't know that show and i really really do recommend it there is a house which is overcrowded cluttered what have you everything in the house is moved out in boxes everything every single item every single item that house is then put in a warehouse all the cds will be in one pile all the books will be in one part all the clothes will be in one pile like everything is sort of laid out in an enormous warehouse um there's then a few days where the householders go through everything and work out what they need to keep. In the meantime, work has been done on the house and then the stuff gets moved back in.

18:58Richard Osman:That's the basic format. So there is a lot going on in that. And I think Denise is quite right. It doesn't feel like that the four people on screen would be able to do all of it. So I spoke to Charlotte Brooks, who's the exec producer of Sort Your Life Out. I might have to read some of this off the paper because she's given a very, very good detailed reply. And if you like Sort Your Life Out, you will love this charlotte says so this show is over seven days essentially they've got a week to do this whole thing the seven-day turnaround is genuine before the process begins the team conducts interviews and films that before shots but the house is left exactly as it is families are explicitly told not to tidy up that's always the question you have they go is this been made worse this has been made better charlotte says it's not been made worse it's not been made better it definitely hasn't been made worse either they don't go in and deliberately mess things up as well so the packing is done by the family alongside the on-screen talent that's dilly rob ewan and stacy with with comma with around 15 runners and and the removals company handling the heavy lifting because i think it's fair to say they have a lot of stuff oh there is a lot of stuff it's kind of and the point of the show and these four are also making a tv show as well and having to do pieces to camera so it's it's yeah you need a lot of if anyone has moved house um you need a lot of people right unlike a normal house move everything is packed by item type rather than by room so all the books together all the charges together all the toothbrushes together this makes the warehouse layout possible that's good imagine if you had to move house by item rather than by room that would be insane i put all of our cables in one i want to say box but of course it was like about five boxes and i said to kieran i i want you to sit down with me because this is so abnormal and he was like but i need all these cables i was like you just don't need nine scart leads what even is one anymore you don't need any of these it was so i tried to do just on cables a sort your life out and you know what we rationalized it down to about 100 cables i would say one of which we'll ever touch again but at least we got rid of some of the emotional baggage hanging him down maybe and by the way if you haven't seen sort your life out that is a pricey of it in about 10 seconds it's it's exactly that why do we keep what we keep what does it mean charlotte then says unpacking and laying out the warehouse takes a team of roughly 20 people five or six producers plus the runners about a day and a half so there's an amazing shot or one of the really great shots in in sort your life is when you see everything in their house just laid out takes a day and a half to do that for us on the cables trust me so but you know the feeling cables is the worst thing you can put together because they just they tie they like even like one cable ties itself up that's a crazy thing for a nice present to try and make it go better i bought some nice cable ties that we could wrap the ones that we kept with i think though if you grew up without technology now there is a lot the temptation is never to throw a cable away because it's you never really know which is which so i'm with kieran on this one all right yeah i always say that you're saving this for presidential archive as on so much else yes kieran's library the current record on sort your life out is 400 boxes of clutter across seven lorries wow uh the production tries to find a warehouse within 15 minutes of the family's home though the furthest they've managed is about 90 minutes away that's a so you've got to get like an empty warehouse yeah that's a good call to get if you're a warehouse owner yeah suddenly sort your life out coming in for a week producers aren't just unpacking they're identifying meaningful story items and logging where they sit in the warehouse so the team that talks to the families extensively beforehand about specific objects teddy bear say they can then be tracked from the initial snoop the initial snoop yeah through the warehouse to the final renovation this can't be right but charlotte says it's right and everything else she says is right with up to around 400 000 items in an average home without that work it would be seem completely random to the viewer there can't be 400 000 items in a home god i mean presumably there can be they would know it's 40 000 i Listen, I'm going to go back for clarification.

22:57Richard Osman:Just defer to these people. The show is amazing. Listen, it is amazing. Families are asked to remove anything super valuable before the process starts. Anything private or confidential found during packing, including adult accessories, which they find a lot of, are placed discreetly in a sealed box and returned off camera. That's the other question people always ask. Yeah. Do they ever find? And the answer is, yes, they do. They should have an after-hours version. They should do. After filming, discarded items are stored for about six days as a grace period. that's interesting so when they've agreed to get rid of stuff they get stored for six days families often need a week to adjust to the reorganized home and the producers give them a tour and they remain available by phone to help them find anything firstly anything that they've kept that they've lost but also anything they just agree to throw away they can bring back within that six-day grace period selling everything is the family's responsibility the show may help set up say a vintage account or suggest a car boot sale but it's not their job to shift the stuff we also asked charlotte about stacy she's such a brilliant presenter on that show and she says her stacy's dna is all over the show her total empathy zero judgment and genuine obsession with crafting an organization her tap to tidy instagram videos made her a natural fit her life experience as a mother of five and a blended family means she walks into every home believing it could be hers you can't produce that thank you charlotte and i mean listen as a testament to the producer's craft you can see how much is produced on that show and the incredible work that goes into it to give us those wonderful moments but uh the best producers in the world also will always end with and you can't produce that because there is there's also the mat you have to leave room for the magic as well i love that what a master class i have a question for you now from alex mcdonald surname thank you alex alex says you've recently discussed mcguffins and chekhov's gun i wonder if you can discuss red shirt characters in films what are the origins of the term and what are some of your favourite red shirt characters.

24:49Richard Osman:We're really going through all the MacGuffins, Chekhov's Guns and other red shirts. Red shirts comes from the original Star Trek series and what it means is expendable characters who end up dying to sort of show you how dangerous the situation is. And the red shirt came from whenever they would beamed down to another planet, there'd be Kirk, there'd be Spock, but there'd also always just be some junior kind of crew member in a red shirt. Red shirts, security personnel rank wore red shirts within Starfleet. And so those people would often die. Actually, yeah. Someone did an audit, I think, and it actually found there's fewer red shirts died than you think.

25:30Gold shirts, that's command line, quite a few of them died. And blue, which was famously science and medical, wrapped up quite a lot of casualties as well. As I said, what they're doing is they're showing, the purpose of them in a narrative is to show you how dangerous the situation could be. What are the big bads that you're facing? What's their method of dispatch? And so you're supposed to think, oh my God, but that could happen to our leading characters too.

25:52Richard Osman:Exactly. But without it having to happen to your leading character. And it might happen to bank security guards or it might happen to whatever. Sorry, I keep mentioning Kieran in this, but Kieran who grew up with his father watching films and who would always say, oh my God, end of act one at a certain moment. So he had that sort of structural sense of it. Kieran always does this when watching TV, or watching a movie. He'll be like, oh my God, it's tickets for him if someone comes in and it's like really sweet and it's got a kid brother they just want to get back home to but he's not one of the main characters yeah within two seconds kieran will have said to our children it's tickets for him that's i think it's quite an australian expression as far as australian you know punching your ticket getting whatever meaning you know this person's gonna die in a minute and he's like thank you we know anyway i think slightly the ones i'm gonna i i it's sort of if they just do just get shot the minute they get off the landing craft then they're such a sort of low-level henchmen that we can't even remember them so for me when you slightly care you care about them so that's not a red shirt character someone just in the background getting shot it is they sometimes were in the star trek thing just to show you but but it's usually somebody's had a couple of lines or or the beginnings of a character something that's kind of hints of the character arc you think oh maybe this person's gonna stick around i'll do three i'm glad you haven't asked me them in order although i think i do have a favorite but uh Will you do your favourite last?