Which Celebrities NEED Media Training?

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1:45Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde. I'm Richard Osmond. Hello, Marina. Hello, Richard. How are you? I'm really, really well. Now, on the last questions and answers one, we somehow got ourselves into a cul-de-sac. which was the question of which is better, Citizen Kane or Interior Design Masters. Cul-des-Aid. I don't think that's what it was at all. I think it was potentially a looming Third World War, but carry on. If people haven't listened to that, you will be shocked to learn that Marina and I came down on different sides of that debate.

2:15You'll also be shocked to learn that Marina came down on the side of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles' classic movie, and I came down on the side of Interior Design Masters, Alan Carr's classic elimination TV series on BBC One. So we asked our listeners, of course, because it's the way to deal with these things, what they thought was better, Citizen Kane or Interior Design Masters. You must be fairly confident about winning that. I think people make a huge number of mistakes. And it's quite possible they've made a big one today. I have no idea. I'd like to think that people realise that the fact that people are still talking about Citizen Kane and it's still an influence on many filmmakers today, and it was made in 1941.

2:55Which filmmakers? If you think, which filmmakers? Yeah. Martin Scorsese. Have you heard of him? Hmm? Yeah. How's he influenced by Citizen Kane other than by thinking, well, I better not make Citizen Kane? That's not what he thinks about Citizen Kane. All of those people, all of those new Hollywood filmmakers were influenced by Citizen Kane. Yeah. Okay, if you think that people are still going to be talking about this series of interior design masters in like 80 years, do you? Marina, I've got three. Yeah, I do. I've got three words for you. Banjo's Hebridean Rescue. Okay, which is Banjo Beal, who won a previous series of Interior Design Masters, essentially goes around the Hebrides and does up people's properties.

3:32And it's a really terrific show. I don't know what Scorsese has done that you think is better than Banjo's Hebridean rescues. But certainly, I think both of these projects have a legacy. Let's just say that. I am so going to come back and haunt the world in the year 2100 and find out whether people are still talking about Interior Design Masters. But please carry on. I believe there's a results of a poll in an envelope in front of you. There is. The envelope says Citizen Kane versus Interior Design Masters. No expense spared there. It's exciting, isn't it? By the way, I don't know why I'm being negative.

4:04If I've won, I'm going to be so happy. Let's see. Okay. We polled 5 ,000 The Restless Entertainment mega fans as to whether they preferred the 13-time Academy-nominated Orson Welles' Epic Citizen Kane or BBC Two, BBC One, competition Interior Design Masters. I can't deal with suspense, just say it. Citizen Kane, 31.7%. Interior Design Masters, 68.3%. I mean, that's... Come on. Have a word with yourself, listeners. I'm sorry. These are incorrect opinions. They're wrong. It will not stand the test of time in the same way. And I... No. Interior Design Masters, of course it will. I can assure you that in 80 years, people will not be talking about Interior Design Masters.

4:49Should I tell you who's talking about Citizen Kane? I'm talking about it right now. Me and you, that's it. we're not the only people talking about it I'll tell you what else we're talking about Interior Design Masters and so are 68.3 % of our listeners listen you have to follow you have to follow the audience Interior Design Masters won it fair and square in a non-scientific poll how is that non-scientific can we get one of the larger polling companies no you're right I'm going to lose a lot harder on that one our good friends are more in common I'm going to ask them please don't because I'm going to lose a lot harder I'm sorry of course as always when people are wrong I'm very sorry that they're wrong I'm going to put a series of things to more in common, XVY.

5:26And let's have a series of playoffs. In fact, let's do a World Cup of what's the best. A World Cup of stupid opinions. Wow. Well, those are our listeners you're talking about, Marina. And you. That's true. Mainly me. It's the truth. I'm going to come up with a little format, a little World Cup format that more in common can help us with. And we'll just see exactly what the most important culturally relevant entertainment franchise of all time is. And we'll see where Citizen Kane comes on that list. I am going to get sedated and then I can't wait to play. Shall we get on with some questions? Please.

6:05I have a question for you. Connor Burns wants to ask about media training. He says, we hear lots of examples, usually when interviews have gone badly, that the person needs some media training. Or on the flip side, you can tell they've had media training. But what is it exactly? People talk about media training all the time. And it's quite a sort of savvy, because everyone's become so media literate now, they use phrases like media training. Normal people in comment sections say, why didn't they have media training? Media training teaches subjects how to engage with the media and teaches you the tricks and the pitfalls and how to get your message across.

6:39And if your role suddenly or even momentarily becomes kind of front-facing and you're going to be asked questions by news outlets of any kind, you probably need it. And actually, interestingly, people who are very, very senior in the media really need media training when suddenly they have to talk to the public because it's very, very different. They might need to be trained not to say certain things just to get their point across or, in some cases, to make themselves very boring because they can't, you know, they might be sparkling and terribly gossipy conversationalists backstage, but they have to become a very boring version of themselves.

7:11Yes, I would say media training has two very different versions of it, which is how do I make a boring person interesting and how do I make an interesting person boring? I agree. And it's amazing who, I mean, a friend of mine was saying to me recently that she's spoken to a filmmaker, they were going to a film festival and they were doing a sort of dry run and saying, you know, why did you make this movie? And he said, oh my God, I can't remember now. She's like, okay, you're not going to say that. Because by this point, you're so many millions in the hole for this thing. But also, you know, people like sports stars need it because they're amazing at sport, but they're not necessarily amazing at seeing the pitfalls of what someone's asking you.

7:48And just even for the post-match, you need to have a way of doing it. And again, it can matter because a franchise in sports can be worth millions and millions and millions. And you say the slightly wrong thing, even tell the truth about something that happened in the dressing room. Suddenly it's a huge story and suddenly... Yeah, and it destabilises you, it can destabilise the team because it will be written about. And that is really what we're talking about. It's become much more important media training in an era of viral moments where everything's instantly shareable, you know, in an era of cancellation, all of these sorts of things.

8:17If you think of stories we've covered, I'm just thinking of things like that, the business of Rachel Zegler in the Snow White thing. I mean, the things that she said, if she was someone who people said, why didn't they give her media training and tell her not to do these things? Because in the end, it ended up derailing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment. And again, there are two prongs to this, which is media training can be to help someone go viral. Yeah. Or media training more often than not is to help someone not go viral. That's the key. Most media is get out of that room without there being any headlines at all.

8:48And some media thing is get out of that room with as many headlines as possible. Yes, I agree. But it is the thing, and I know you've said this to me before. I remember a couple of years ago at the Adam Red TV Festival, I interviewed Jesse Armstrong. and I said to him beforehand, is there anything particular that you'd like to talk about? And he just said, yeah, you know, I'd kind of love it if we didn't make news. And I fully understand that. And so many creatives feel the same way. And I'll tell you what that means is, in the old days, you used to interview people and there was an interview.

9:18Now what happens in newsrooms every single time you interview someone is that the news desk say, is there a news line? And they want to say, they want to have a news story running saying, you know, Richard Osman says X, Y, Z. And then they'll have the interview as well. I saw an amazing one the other day, which is the Daily Express or something that said Richard Osman left floundering on holiday. I was like, I have no idea what that is. I literally, I could not pick that out of a lineup as to what I said and when. And I think it was I was saying when we're in Italy, because Ingrid speaks Italian, she does all of that.

9:49And I'm just sitting floundering at the table, just in admiration that someone's speaking the language. A hardcore news line comes out of this podcast every week. And that was absolutely one of them. I wonder why that knocked off the front pages. Floundering. I mean... Honestly, that holiday, I did nothing but flounder. It's interesting. There are some people who don't care about newslines and there are people like Elton John or J.K. Rowling who don't care and have passed through some sort of either baptism of fire or just do not care at all over an age and a level of celebrity that they don't care and they don't care that they make newslines every time they say anything.

10:25In fact, maybe they quite like it and they want to and they're strong enough to deal with it. But for a creative thinking, okay, say you do an interview and you make news and you say something that has become a news line, it's a real hassle. Then people are ringing for follow-ups for the next two days. Those are two days you can't properly concentrate on writing or being in the edit or whatever it is that you do. There are always follow-ups. If there's something even like a non-story like that, there will be like three emails the next day saying, oh, any comment on X, Y, or Z. Do you linger? Would like you to give her a free password to learn Italian?

10:57Would you like to say, I can't answer these questions. and yes, that's what happened. So in a way, what I find quite depressing about all of that is that it has led to a much sort of flattened discourse where people don't want to make headlines. If you go back and read interviews with film stars in the 90s even, they're wild. People say absolutely incredible things, and it just wasn't the convention to try and pull a news line out, make a news story out of that, and also just the ease of which you can share it nowadays has made it very, very difficult. But again, it's two-pronged, which is mostly it's, how do I get out of this without a news line?

11:30Or it's here is a very specific news line we want this journalist to take from this interview. How do you do that? How does everything you say be bland, except then just drop this at the end? Yeah, but it's made everything very managed and curated and far less authentic, which is supposedly the thing we prize. And yet at the same time, liberals have become the kind of great polices of things. And everyone became the people who made, you know, all of us probably have highlighted some stupid thing that somebody said in an interview and put it at some point on social media. I don't do that anymore because I just think it's a complete waste of time.

12:03And also you think it feeds into a really kind of boring and flattened culture. Practically how it happens, media training. So say you're in a football team, often the press office of that football team or the communications director will do sessions with players. So you'll do sessions with younger players who are, for the first time, going to be interviewed on Match of the Day. And you say, look, this is how it will happen. You literally go through it like 20 times. This is how it will happen. This is what will happen if you lose. this is a question you will ask give me a natural answer and they'll give you a series of answers you go I think probably the best one of those answers to give if you've lost is this we go again you know thanks to the fans for coming out they really supported us the gaffer knows what he's doing you know how do you feel about being left on the bench I understand it's the gaffer's decision and you know I respect that so they're taught to say those things and often you'll also get at the end of players careers the same communications directors or pr people will be asked to go into a tv studio with those people say how can i be a pundit what would happen if i were a pundit which is a very very different skill because that skill is now i've literally spent the last 16 years teaching you not to say what you think now i'm going to teach you to say what you think and be honest about things and be honest about other players and be be honest about the game and so you have those skill sets equally in a political organization there will be in-house staff who are communications experts who will take you through any single debate you're about to have or any single interview you're about to have they'll talk you through how that might work but you also get lots of outside companies who do this this is like like a business and they will go into organizations or they will go and talk to if you're Keir Starmer for example he knows how to speak to the media because he's done it forever and ever but he's speaking to the media in a different ways so someone will come in and say these are the different new angles that will come these are the different places you will be reported these are some of the things you might like to think about i absolutely get it in sport and all those things because it's sport my view in politics is and you will get new media trainers who are reflecting this the authenticity is the thing as you say where this media training this flattening of people's answers and people's responses to questions has done everyone a disservice is everyone's lost interest no one believes anything they're hearing because they know they're not hearing the actual truth.

14:19It's like background music now. You just immediately switch off when you hear it because it's such a sort of time-worn performance. And you absolutely lose respect for what is being said. And so you get people, you know, you meet politicians in real life, you think, oh, my God, you're genuinely passionate, funny, you genuinely care, there's stuff you want to do, but nobody knows that. And you talk like a human. Yeah. So if I've got a TV presenter who I know has a certain personality, you do everything you can to make your format fit that personality so they can show people who they are that's the point you don't put them in a straitjacket and say no just do this script you try and get the format so that that person's personality shines through the authenticity shines through so they serve the format the film that serves them but with politicians we're still in that kind of paxman thing of oh no but if they ask you the same question 12 times this is how you respond this is how you shut down a question and actually the thing to do always always always like improv instead of your response to a question being no your question your response should always be yes and always always just and then say the thing that you want to but it's hard because as you say every single thing you say is is so scrutinized it's very difficult if you're a politician i think to kind of go do you know what i'm gonna actually ride the waves of this and enjoy the chaos and the scrutiny but we can see that the people who are surging in politics are people who don't play by these rules, who don't sound media trained.

15:44A long time ago. Yeah, and have decided to, you know, just, as you say, to ride the wave and just to try and feed off the chaos. Yeah, to not manage the thing you said yesterday, just say something new that then would have to be managed. But then you say something new and that would have to be managed. And, you know, and then you're yourself, aren't you? And that feels to me the only media training you should have. But, and again, look at Cole Palmer. Cole Palmer is sort of a cult hero. He's reinvented the fork. Yeah, because he's himself. You know, he's not saying the things he's supposed to say.

16:13He's sort of incapable of playing the game, and so he does his own game. He's created a persona for the post-match. And listen, that's what we need in this business. Yeah, exactly. But media training is a fascinating industry. But media training has also worked all this stuff out as well. There are some very old-school media trainers who will just teach you how to avoid stuff, but there are a new generation of media trainers who have said, actually, you need to give more of yourself in a way that you're comfortable with. Thomas Middleditch, who was the lead in Silicon Valley, the HBO show, he did an interview in 2019 with Playboy in which he said, I have an open marriage, we've gone to swingers clubs.

16:52And talking to people who were on that set, it gives you an example. As the interview dropped, you could sort of physically see it being read and that was just a tiny microcosm of it happening across the world. It spread across the set in real time, almost like a wave. And it just created, I mean, huge drama. Him and his wife were split within six months. That's unusual for an open marriage. I know. Normally rock solid, aren't they? It just went completely nuts. And no one had said to him, yeah, yeah, they really want you to be yourself, but don't be too much yourself. And it's extraordinary that someone actually, the lead on a show that big, was able to do that and to not see around the corners of where it would go.

17:39I heard the most unbelievable story, I can't tell it, of somebody who put something in their autobiography that was so jaw-dropping. I know what this is. I don't think, and they were saying, but there'd be a good news line. And they'd go, oh, I think this would probably... It would be the only news line we'd be reading forever. Yeah, exactly. Even if World War erupted, I'd be reading that story. God, that's one for, yeah, the obituaries. Yeah. Yeah. but the dead can't see Richard it's much harder to get cancelled these it's so funny with them because X used to be the place where where you would get cancelled you had to be very careful there but now it seems like you can sort of say I mean people are constantly you'll see something and people say oh well done you've absolutely ruined your legacy that's it for you and then the next day everyone's like oh sorry what what happened nothing happened it's like that the engagement on on that particular platform seems to have almost completely disappeared so at least that makes things a bit easier.

18:36I know we've only had one question, but let's go to a break and then we can try and fit as many questions as we can into the second bit, starting with one about TV burp. Oh, very good. Let's do that.

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21:11Welcome back, everybody. Now, that question about TV burp comes from Elliot Hart, who says, I've recently been sucked into a rabbit hole of old episodes of Harry Hill's TV burp on YouTube. What a wonderful rabbit hole to be down. Yes, that's a nice rabbit hole. And it's made me wonder a number of things about how they originally produced the shows. How quickly did they turn an episode round, given that they were reacting to TV that was live that week? It is a very good question, because it was a very tough show to make, TV burp. And I've spoken to a few people. I've spoken to Dan Mayer, who was one of the writers.

21:38He's an absolute genius. But first, we talked to the man himself, Harry Hill, to give us his insights. Hello, Richard. Hello, Marina. Welcome to TV Berth Explained. So the way we did it, as far as I remember, and it's a long time ago, I mean, you take your time asking me. We would get preview tapes of the shows from the channels. BBC wouldn't give us any preview tapes because they didn't like us taking the mickey out of their shows. So we used to get those from Ali Ross of The Sun and other journalists. they would watch and copy them and then send us to her. The five of us would watch these tapes at home, in our various homes.

22:18You'd have two VHS players. If you liked something, you saw something, you'd rewind the tape, press play, and press record on the other VHS recording. So at the end, you had a, at the end of the week, you'd have like a, maybe 20 minutes of clips. We'd have two meetings a week. And I would write this, We'd record the show on the Thursday. On the Friday, I would go to the edit in the morning. I'd go to the meeting for the next show in the afternoon. And on the Saturday, I would write the script for that show. Any live shows, we would watch live, and we'd add those clips in at the last minute. But the truth is, I never really rewrote it.

23:09I would do one draft and then the producer, Spencer Millman, who was a brilliant producer, he was always very tough on me. He'd say, cut that, cut this. I would cut stuff or sometimes I'd fight for it. And on the day, on the Thursday when we recorded it, we would run it. And if, you know, often the memory of what you'd seen in the clip wasn't actually what happened. So that would get cut. And we'd record about 35 minutes, edit it down to 22 minutes, an ITV half hour. And sometimes there'd be stuff left over which you could put into the next week. I mean, that was a joy for me because it meant made the writing job easier.

23:52And that's it. And we would do that week in, week out for the nation's entertainment. But thank you for your inquiry. I hope that's answered your question. Oh, he's very good. I literally love him. When that was running, that was without any question my favourite TV programme. My kids were young when that happened, so it was the first thing we watched together where everyone was laughing at the same time. Unbelievable. It's just so... But you knew watching that just how much work because you have to watch an unbelievable amount of stuff to just get one joke. I remember once they had the end of the show, they'd done a bit earlier in the show about um i think it was a reality show set in a motorway service station and they had this guy who who was like um a karaoke singer and sung this song on the on the reality show and at the end of harry hill's tv burp that guy came on and sang a song and i remember my son who was very young at the time he was just going is that the guy from the motorway service station reality show okay yeah they they've got him on to sing how did they do that And you go, listen, I don't know, the miracles of booking, isn't it?

25:00But just lovely little things like that. I spoke to Dan Mayer as well, who I say is one of the writers on this show, some brilliant writers on that, Paul Hawksby and lots of great people. And I was asking him what the most difficult things were. And he was saying that the absolute key with a clip is the clip itself cannot be funny. If the programme makers already have tried to be funny, then that's their joke. Yeah, you can't put a joke on a joke. You can't put a joke on a joke. So he would say it would be things like, he gives an example here, He said you would have to watch Corrie, EastEnders and stuff.

25:29You have to absolutely decontextualise what you were seeing to try and spot it there as a joke. It was getting their eye in because the things that would happen in the back of scenes, you'd think, sorry, how could you notice that while someone was having a meltdown in the front of the scene? But he gives a couple of examples. So one example, he says, episode of Corrie, Ken Barlow picks up a kettle, goes to the sink and fills it up. Okay. Obviously, when you're watching Corrie, you're supposed to be following the narrative. But he says, I have to watch it differently. and he said, I note that, of course, you can't see the kettle.

25:57We just see him pick him up so we know what's happening. But my TV Bert brain sees Ken at the sink, he's running water and interprets it as Ken having a wee in the sink. Right? So it's that sort of thing. And his favourite one, he sent me a clip of it. I don't know if we can get a screen grab of it. But there's an episode of The Bill and I'll tell you what the joke is and you can imagine what the clip is. You have to constantly look where you weren't meant to be looking, narratively, to see funny stuff like extras or props that look like people. or pathetically probably my favourite of my very own TV burp jokes, which is, have you ever noticed when your shadow looks like an elephant carrying a shopping bag?