Which Dumped Tory Will Do 'Strictly'?

22:54Just so if a conversation comes up, you've heard of them, you know roughly who they are. Should we start with music? Go ahead. Who's your music pick? Listen, you've heard of Taylor Swift. You learned about Olivia Rodrigo, the new massive superstar in music in the US and the UK, Sabrina Carpenter. Okay, if you need a moment to write that down, you can do Sabrina Carpenter. She's had the number one and number two single in the UK for the last three weeks, Sabrina Carpenter. She's an actress and writer. She's been around a genuinely long time. She's another one of those people who came from the sort of Disney factory.

23:26So she's been in all sorts of movies, made all sorts of music, but she opened on Taylor's Eras tour. And it's the thing that's absolutely catapulted her now into absolute megastardom all around the world. As I say, she's got the biggest songs in the UK at the moment, Espresso. That song also, something can come along that people are so aware nowadays of just all this stuff happening on bits of TikTok they don't necessarily go on or whatever it is. And then something has, the word breakthrough means so much more than it used to in the old days. You know, your breakthrough hit, if you have a breakthrough hit, quite atomized and fragmented celebrity culture, you can suddenly be surfaced.

24:03So everyone's like, oh yeah, no, I heard that song, which also contains one of my favorite lines. It keeps making me laugh. I'm working late because I'm a singer. I really enjoy that line. and there's something about it, I can't quite put my finger on it, but it just... She is also, by the way, very good. Espresso is a great song, Please, Please, Please, which is number two this week as well, is also a great song. She is not going anywhere. Her new album is coming out in August and it's going to be absolutely massive everywhere in the world. So I would say get used to Sabrina Carpenter. And she dates Barry Keoghan, who is another of the great new global superstars.

24:33Now, people do know him, particularly because he was in Saltburn. The dance of him at the end, many... This obviously was the big viral moment, but that got people actually to go and watch the film. And that's the fascinating thing about when you turn from someone who's big and has done lots of work into someone who is a global superstar. Usually it's a thing. Usually it's one thing that does it. So Barry Keoghan has been acting brilliantly for many, many years. He's unbelievable in the banshees of Inisharim. So he's absolutely, everyone goes, oh yeah, I know that guy, I know that guy. Saltburn with the dance.

25:03There's a lightning rod and everyone in the world at the same time goes, that's that guy. It's the guy from the GIF. Exactly. It's the guy from The Gift. And Sabrina Carpenter is the same in that she came up with a song and then she became famous. She's been working for years and years and years. Suddenly, she does the Taylor tour and she releases Espresso. At the same time, absolutely everything goes off and you've got a global megastar. And that sort of happened for both of them. That's a real power couple. I'm going to now talk to you about Glenn Powell. Yes, again, I mean, who? Okay, Glenn Powell is in some of the biggest movies.

25:35He is a movie star, I should say. But is he a movie star? Because lots of people don't know who he is. he was first in Top Gun Maverick where he played the sort of Iceman analogue you know it was almost everyone was almost identical including Goose's son who looked just like Goose he was the sort of Iceman 2.0 in that movie I mean he was quite honest about this he has said in interviews that he could be talking to someone who was wearing a Top Gun Maverick t-shirt and they just wouldn't recognise him which is sort of like you've been in a movie that grosses one and a half maybe more billion dollars biggest movie of that summer and no one knows who you are This couldn't have happened in the old days.

26:09Can I just say this? Just couldn't happen. Everyone knew who Val Kilmer was. Yeah, everyone knew who Val Kilmer was. It couldn't happen. But as I say, it's all much more fragmented, the celebrity culture. He then was in a Sydney Sweeney rom-com called Anyone But You, in a genre that people think is on life support. It was actually R-rated. So it's, you know, it's sort of A-team. But people who thought that genre was on life support, it became a big thing. Sydney Sweeney is very, very hot because of Euphoria. and she is very hot as a physical being. And she's White Lotus. Yeah, yeah. Yes, and for some reason when they put her in Madame Webb, of course they made her unhot.

26:45That was the sort of joke. She was a nerd. Like, wow, Madame Webb, you really did get every single thing wrong. Anyway, sorry, back to another drive by Madame Webb. But that was very TikTok-driven, the support for anyone but you, and lots of people went and watched it. He then, Glenn Powell, was in Hitman, which was this Richard Linklater film that people thought, oh, this is actually quite good and had a bit of theatrical release. And then he's about to be in a big movie for Universal called Twisters, which is... Is it about the ice cream? Because if it is, I'm interested. It's the backstory.

27:15It's like air, isn't it? No, it's actually the backstory. How do they make them? Because you've got the raspberry bit in the middle and then you've got lime and vanilla around the outside. So it's about how they made the machine to make them. Yeah, Strogg is an act three. It's about hurricanes, whatever. We know this. But Glenn Powell is an example of like everyone... I saw him give an interview when he said the real benefit of getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood. You know, he's one of those actors who's got a ranch in some place in Texas that he wants to go back to because Hollywood's a fake town.

27:43But it's like, you've got to the point in Hollywood, but also lots of people don't know who you are in Hollywood, but equally you're maybe one of the young, hot movie stars. It's very, very unclear where exactly you fit Glenn Powell in. He is aware of this himself because I think one of his sort of breakthrough, as we say, maybe I'm misusing breakthrough given how I defined it earlier on in this chat. One of his roles was in Expendables 3. Again, nobody knows Glenn Powell was in Expendables 3. With him were like Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford and Schwarzenegger. And they all said to him, oh, they told him all about fun stories about being immense movie stars in the 80s and 90s.

28:16And said, oh man, you're really doing this at the wrong time. And so Glenn Powell knows that movie stars are not the same as they were and they're never going to be again. And so he understands that. And he exists in the time of knowing, you know, Glenn Powell is never going to be Harrison Ford. We speak about them because if you're in Hollywood today and you want to know who the stars are who can open a movie, everyone is looking for a movie for Glenn Powell or Sidney Sweeney. Those are the two names. Given that we can't get Chalamet, Chalamet's already gone, right? He's already in the ether.

28:47Chalamet's already doing it with Warners, so he's done a deal with them. So Glenn Powell and Sidney Sweeney are the names now that everyone is trying to get in every single movie. Sidney Sweeney's really fascinating there, but I think there's something very interesting about her type of star. but Sydney Sweeney is someone who it's okay for red state people to love. Now, we've talked a lot about Hollywood elites and people always feel like, oh, she will not nail her colours to any mast. People think she's hot. People think she makes jokes about herself. Grew up in what people think might be. They're not quite sure, but they think her family might have voted Republican.

29:19They're not at all sure. She exists in quite a weird space where it's sort of okay to like Sydney Sweeney. I don't want to make it sound like it's like Michael Jordan, you know, Republicans buy sneakers too. but she's a little bit Republicans find me hot too and so I'm interested in seeing what she does to that but she seems great fun I kind of like her as an actress I like both of those people I like Glenn Powell I like his presence I like Sidney Sweeney one interesting thing just as a side note on Glenn Powell that thing of you see it in sports a lot now there was the generation of your Sylvester Stallones and Tom Cruise's and what have you they made an awful lot of money but then that drive to just keep making more and more money have bigger and bigger franchises and just keep that kind of star power going and the glen powells of this world and again as i say you do sit in sport people who just go do you know what i might just leave it i've made an app you know if you were in any sort of big movies for you know five or six big movies you've got enough money to set you up for life you don't need to work what the earth is harrison ford doing an expendable three i mean please someone explain that to me how much money is enough this generation are very very smart at just going i might just i've got it you know i just bought a ranch yeah i'm quite quitting yeah the reason i bought a ranch is it's really fun to spend some time on a ranch i might i might just do that.

30:28I like the fact that this generation are quite good at saying that. I don't believe it for one minute. Do you not think? Glenn Powell wants it more than anyone wants it. Glenn Powell's going to be in Expendables 40 when he's 70. He wants it a lot. And of course, from the very, very last generation of non - AI actors. So these are your last human beings who are going to be stars, which is an interesting one. Books. Now, I've spoken before about books. People say, oh, it's hard, you know, about books. It's a hard industry to get into and i've said look all of the biggest names of the last 10 years pretty much around the world have come from self-publishing so colleen hoover is the who's the biggest selling author in the world absolutely came through self-publishing rebecca yarrow sarah j mass all these people who are selling billions upon billions around the world and not people who are sort of plucked from somewhere and sort of given huge star billing they just wrote books that people really really liked online and then traditional publishing bought them in in-house and they sold even more and that's happened again this year is a huge huge new name the biggest selling writer in the world this year it's called freedom mcfadden mcfadden uh it's been a long time since we had a big mcfadden news steve mcfadden and joe mcfadden existed at the same time we've now got what about brian mcfadden don't leave out the west life there's a lot of mcfadden's around yeah pat mcfadden who who masterminded the labor election victory and now we've got freedom mcfadden now freedom mcfadden is a they're all related by the way they're all part of the same shape as family yeah the mcfadden's now she is a doctor in Boston and she writes under a pen name so Freedom of Haddon is not her real name started writing about 10 12 years ago she said I just I just quite like to write a book about what my life is like as a doctor so she's a neurology is a speciality she said she wrote a book about um the devil wears scrubs it was called she just wanted to write something quite autobiographical about her world she thought a few people would be interested um sold like 2 ,000 copies of this on all online and she went oh people seem to quite like it so she did a few more medical thrillers again self-published she's working as a doctor this entire time and then wrote a book called the housemaid this is only a few years ago a book called the housemaid about a woman who's sleeping in her car gets a job with a rich family and there's lots of secrets and a psychological thriller essentially now the housemaid is the biggest selling book in the world this year there's two follow-ups uh there's the housemaid secret the housemaid is watching So, Frieda McFadden, now she's a traditional publisher, has bought every single one of her back titles and is now releasing them every three months a new Frieda McFadden comes out.

32:51Have they scrubbed them off the internet? It's a very good question. I assume that they have, yeah. I assume as part of the deal, you must do. Three of the top five books on the New York Times bestseller list this week are Frieda McFadden books. She's got three in the UK top ten as well. So, that's a name that you may well have picked up one of her books recently. If you haven't, that's the name that's going to be the biggest author in the world for the next couple of years. And again, it's somebody who just sat down and said, I'm just going to try this and I'll show it to a few people. And if people like it and people read it, showed other people, those people showed other people.

33:24And the story of publishing in the last 10 years is that and that alone. And while publishers sort of keep chasing big names or, you know, offering deals to people, the biggest star, the biggest star in the world in literature at the moment will be someone who's writing a blog and who's just writing chapters of something and sending them to a few people. And if you can do it and you're good at it, the whole of the book world is word of mouth. The whole thing is people like it and show it to other people who like it, who show it to other people and like it. It's like pop songs. And Freedom of Fadden is just the latest.

33:53We can't keep being taught this example and still throw money at people who are not selling books. You know, time after time after time, it's somebody sitting at home writing something that people love. And that's where all of the money is in publishing. If you'd found Colleen Hoover 10 years ago when she was still selling things online, you'd be a billionaire now. And the same with whoever picked up on Frieda McFadden. So that's the place where publishing should be looking. But Frieda McFadden goes alongside Sabrina Carpenter, Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney as superstars you haven't heard of yet, but who are going to be the biggest names in the world.

34:27Lots of people, we should say, by the way, have heard of these people. And we're speaking slightly tongue-a-jew at this point. But also, can you still get a neurology appointment with her? or is she just she's not she's still working she's working full time the reason she's got a pen name she said because I don't want my patients to be freaked out oh my god really it might have gone beyond that Frida to be honest that's fantastic you read interviews with her she just sounds great god I'm ashamed of what I've achieved she's doing all that right okay she doesn't really like doing your big author interviews she doesn't do live interviews just the occasional zoom thing because she wants to stay here she wants to stay private and she wants to write her books and she wants to you know cure people i think oh my god she sounds great wow so listen hopefully that's a little bluffers guide so if any of those names come up at least at least hopefully we've given you something a little morsel of uh of who these people are moving to people who i wish we no longer knew who some of these people were please place the producer's hat on your head yes and tell me which deposed tory grandees slash conservative cabinet ministers will now have a media career in some form or other post their election defenestration.

35:34Yeah, it's been that truism of, you know, anyone who gets kicked out, oh, they're going to be on Strictly. And so I thought I hate it when people say that. I know. So I'm going to go through and tell you who definitely isn't going to be on Strictly. By the way, can we start with the fact that the ratings for the elections were quite seriously down on previous years, which is... And can I say that readership in newspapers of all the election coverage, certainly people I've talked to across all titles, people did not want to read the election coverage. This was very much, I think, something... I know you had to believe that people...

36:06As the parties had you believe, people were deciding up to the very last minute. I don't think people were really deciding until the very last minute. Readership was really down on all that stuff. You have to still do it. You could see the numbers were not great. Again, it may well be because it was a fait accompli and everyone knew the result. And actually, people were changing their mind, but the one thing they had made their mind up was, I'm not going to vote for the Conservatives. And so, actually, the last few days, quite a big movement. am I going to vote Labour, Green, Lib Dem or Reform and lots and lots of people were moving so who's going to be Portello essentially is what people want to know, who's going to go on straight wear a pink blazer and present a train show I mean it's a genre that is one of the greatest things to be in British life is the person who gets to wear a blazer and go on trains, I mean who else do you want to be?

36:49Fine, do we have to film it? I'm happy to put them in a blazer and on a train I'll buy them the ticket but who have I got to watch tell me who I've got to watch because I can already see by the way that Rhys Mogg has that he's got a documentary crew following him for Discovery Plus. Yeah, we'll start with the bad news. Reece Mogg is going to be a big name. Why do we have... He's got a documentary crew following Discovery Plus, which is obviously like a very fourth tier channel. I also feel like, Reece Mogg, come on. It's like, you know, tell me again what happened to Batman's parents. I already know this story.

37:18I know it all. I don't think he's ever going to be able to go on Strictly or I'm a Slave or any of the big ones. He will find a way to be rehabilitated as a character on British television because he has various different sides to him which have not come out. And so he's got a couple of years in play for him. But yeah, I think that is the reason why he is not going to be on Strictly. He is not going to be on I'm a Celebrity. Which Tories are going to be on Strictly? None of them, I would say. It's not one of those fun things where it's, oh, you know, someone lost an election and a new party got in.

37:49There's such a visceral dislike for what the Conservative Party have done in the last few years and how they've run the country and the culture wars and all that kind of stuff. we could see what was happening everyone even in a show that as we discussed on this um with that great more in common research does skew more tory than any other show even then they were put it's an absolutely busted brand the only person who might have any chance at all is gove because he got out early and because he slightly stood aside from it so maybe he's got a chance but i think gove wants to do something slightly more intellectual so i think he might be a man on a train uh in a blazer or whatever the version of that is but i don't think there will be any tories on strictly I doubt that very much.

38:26You might get Harriet Harman, maybe Theresa May if she wanted to do it. Some of the ones that weren't quite in the toxicity of the last few years. We know she likes dancing. Exactly. We know she's a mover. So I'm a Celebrity. So I'm a Celebrity, who will they go for? I think they're quite nervy about political workings. The Farage thing, it didn't make the show better, but it was something. Gove as well, they might try and book for I'm a Celebrity. The person they will get for I'm a Celebrity and who will do it, I think, is Johnny Mercer. ex-army i don't i don't think he likes to talk about it um but you know and he's done reality shows before we did reality he did celebrity hunted with uh with k burley so i think that oh my god that was chaos i mean yeah you're right he has the potential to be chaos yeah he really i remember being in the control room of hunted when that when that was on and when k burley and johnny mercer was sort of uh they took it quite seriously by the way can i just say that these people want to get back they want to be reselected for another seat when it becomes available and part of the way of keeping them in the public eye is doing things like this and i'm sure there's one particular that i'm sure you'll get along to oh who's that i was thinking you might talk about penny mordaunt now see morden is very very interesting so morden of course she's done reality shows before she did splash yeah now she as you say definitively want to get back into parliament so she is something she's not going to do strictly i wouldn't have thought she'd love to that would be a great way back in.

39:49I don't think so. But she won't get it. But here's what happens with Strictly because it's what happened to Ed Balls. So Ed Balls lost his seat. Again, a very similar election. Ed Balls would have wanted to get back in. He does Strictly and he thinks, wait a minute, more people are listening to me, more people are interested in me. I'm getting paid more money just by being on television than I ever had in Parliament. Why on earth would I go back into Parliament? So I think Strictly actually makes you think, I'm never going to go back into Parliament. I don't think it's a route back in i would say but i think she really does want to get back into parliament and she by the way has spent such a long time visiting people what used to be called the rubber chicken circuit all the other that she she's almost ready please select me in any of the many constituencies i've visited over the past year so mordaunt yeah podcast because it's hard to work so we know the thing about political podcasts is you have to have people from different sides of the aisle okay you have to have a tory and a labor and that's very very very hard to do now because none of the Labour people have lost their jobs.

40:44You know, unless you, like Thangan Debonair and Jonathan Ashworth, and that's it, and they're not moving the podcast out, I don't think. So Penny Morden has got to find, again, Morden and Harmon. Is that a thing? Is that a thing? Is this anything? The biggest celebrity show of next year is a new show. So forget Strictly, and forget I'm a celebrity. The biggest, biggest event celebrity show of next year is going to be Celebrity Traitors. There really is some business to be done if you're an ex-Tory MP. Because one of the great things about traitors, especially a celebrity one, is you need people who are archetypes.

41:15You need people who we automatically distrust. Conservative MPs, actors, you know the type. And so there will be spaces up for grabs there. And if I was celeb traitors, if I was running celeb traitors and I'm not, Kwarteng is interesting for celeb traitors. I mean, I'd love to see it. I don't think he wouldn't do it. He won't have watched the show. And also, he would just think he would be brilliant at it. Although you're leaving a week one. but that's why they'll book him yeah right but he won't do it people with lack of self-knowledge absolutely nailed on guaranteed i think we'll probably do it because what else is he going to do probably not quite as toxic as some of the others would be a perfect fit for it grant shaps oh my god he would be very good i'll tell you what gove would be brilliant i mean he's never there's no he's never met anyone who hasn't wanted to betray so that would be good actually having said that what this is going to be one of my recommendations but let me just chuck it in right now because I want to talk about US Traitors which has John Berko on it.

42:14One of the things I'm enjoying about the show, the US Traitors which you can now see on iPlayer. It's really good. It's really good partly because the faithful have become slightly sentient, worked out certain things they can do. Game playing is advancing as we always said once people get to know the game more they can think of strategies that we won't have seen on the show before. What I like about it is that John Berko, our former Speaker of the House of Commons is in it and he's an absolute nobody in it. Like he should have been in our politics. He's finally met some people who were bigger bullies than him notably the housewives contingent i also like the way they're talking about which i hadn't realized all the different real housewives because everyone by the way on this on the u.s edition of this show is a celebrity well they're all sort of reality stars and people have been in shows that involve some tactics as a game show people so it's quite it's quite an interesting yes it is it is the real housewives um franchise which has obviously got them in many many different u.s cities what i kind of like is that people have already decided that they vote as a sort of sectarian block which i find the way they're talking about them is like yeah don't betray my housewives or you're just acting with your housewives so yes we're seeing the sectarian voting in uh traitors and other formats uh but yeah but it is genuinely as you say because i like let's let us never ever speak the name again of australian traitor series two traitor series ever where the franchise killer yeah you've got people who are used to being in shows and who understand the tactics behind it so it's really properly interesting it's not one of those ones where it's just a landside every week for the person goes oh it must be that person because they just accidentally said they were a traitor but yeah i would have thought celebrities would be a great home for uh for one of the less toxic of the tories so absolutely shaps is so i've got i've got mercer in i'm a celebrity i've got shaps and celebrity traitors i've got no one is strictly and then the big question is the ultimate at Celebrity Trader, just book him.

43:59I just, I mean, but would he do it? I think he's, I think he is going to want to be... Catch him at the right time of day, you might. Then you have, of course, GB News. Weirdly, a channel like GB News should work much better in opposition. Yes. But they have set themselves up as an opposition already, but when they were in power. And so it's quite hard to know what their next chess move is. There are lots of people... They've got a short-term move, which is that they can be the future of the party. Is disgust. Is disgust. And they can, you know, give Suella a show, which is obviously going to happen.

44:29But apart from that... Well, certainly if she'd lost, yeah, I think she would have been on it. I think she'd do one now anyway. Why wouldn't you? Do you think, well, why wouldn't she have done it before? Because she was waiting to see. There's no need to do it before. Now she'll do it. So those are my recommendations. I'd have chaps on Celebrity Traitors, Johnny Mercer on I'm a Celeb, no one on Strictly. The breakout star of the election, someone who could be on any television show he wants to, any career he wants to from here on in, is Ed Davey. Connected with the public in such an interesting way.

45:02And the way you really connect with the public is everybody individually by themselves thinks, oh, I like that person. Or they've spotted, everyone thinks they've spotted like a personality trait in someone. A large proportion of the British public all at the same time have gone, oh, I quite like that Ed Davey guy. And again, whatever has happened in politics, people tend to forget and don't care about but if they have been exposed to somebody like the cut of their jib then that person can essentially write a check for the rest of the life so ed balls can be on tv for the rest of his life now because there's something about him that people like portillo again whatever his political past is there's something about him that people go i'm happy to watch you on tv and ed davey i know he's now got a lot on his hands he's got an awful lot of uh mps as and when ed decides to hang up his political spurs.

45:50The first name on Strictly's list if he ever gave up. And that's what you need, just someone that the public connects with. Shall we do some recommendations? We've already recommended US traitors. Yes, both of us have recommended that, although neither of us have finished it, I don't think. Yes, no, I haven't finished it. I would really like to recommend the Barbie exhibition that opened on Friday, which is at the Design Museum in Kensington in London. It's really well done. I thought it was absolutely brilliantly done. If you had Barbies when you were younger, then you will love to see some of the dolls.

46:19But it's really brilliant. It's much more clever than that. It's done as a sort of design story. And there's so much sort of old footage of how the doll was advertised, all the many different heads and how they get the different, the x-rays of the doll. There's so many interesting things. And just about the iconography and how she's fitted into the culture. It's really fascinating. And they have lots and lots of stuff and many dream houses. Me and my sisters ask for dream houses every year and never got them. But which my mother quite rightly worked out that us building our own houses took much longer to do and therefore each time and therefore the game lasted longer and probably kept us out of our hair for longer.

46:54I think it goes through till next February but it's really worth going to see. It's very interesting as a design story and as a sort of product story which I know makes it sound more boring than it is but it isn't. It's fascinating. And it's a perfect summer holiday thing for the kids as well. The other thing is, again, it's not a recommendation especially but I think next week we both want to talk about Beverly Hills Cop 4 which we haven't watched yet. So I think we're both going to watch it. So if you want to watch it as well, and we'll have a chat, because that's a big iconic thing. It's on Netflix.

47:20It's on Netflix. It did not get theatrical release. Right now. Do you want the final, final, final bits of Thursday and Murder Club casting news? I'm literally heading down there after this. As you know, heading down to Shepparton to the filming. The wonderful Sarah Niles from Ted Lasso and I May Destroy You is in it. She's Patrice. Richerly Grant has just been cast in it as a baddie. and my lovely lady wife Ingrid is also in it as Joyce's daughter. Oh, that's brilliant. Not my idea, I have to say, but Chris Columbus's idea, not mine. You did everything to stand in her way. I did everything to stand in her way.

47:55I said, are you sure? Are you sure? We've pretty much got the whole cast. There's other people, but it's filming right now and I'm going to go down now and take some shots as well, which I'll put on the old socials. I think that's us done, is it? That is us done. Yeah, what fun. Will you please join us again on Thursday for the questions edition. Questions and answers, yeah. The address is therestisentertainment at gmail.com and we would love to hear from you. We'll see you then. Take care, bye-bye.

48:36The Limo Emu

48:51fascinating it's accompanied by his natural ally doug uh limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us cut the camera they see us only pay for what you need at liberty mutual.com liberty liberty liberty liberty savings vary underwritten by liberty mutual insurance company affiliates excludes massachusetts your sausage mcbuffin with egg didn't change your receipt the sausage mcbuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Prices and participation may vary.