The Rest Is Entertainment

January 5, 2024 6:35 PM

So, Richard Osman and Marina Hyde have a fairly new podcast, The Rest Is Entertainment, and for their FIFTH episode, they did a mailbag that is really quite good. How panel shows REALLY work and discussing if WWE 'is actually entertainment' [32m] is less incendiary than its title might suggest, and is full of really interesting information. Mostly UK centric, but the generalized bits apply everywhere.
posted by hippybear (20 comments total)

ok, calling Gwyneth Paltrow "Her Vagesty" hooked me at less than 3 minutes in, so we'll see how this goes...
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:12 PM on January 5 [7 favorites]

@23:30: ...coming to you live from the series finale of the UK

I've never heard of Marina Hyde, and I have no idea why because she's brilliant!
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:35 PM on January 5

From the same family of podcasts, I recently discovered The Rest Is Politics and The Rest Is History, both of which are really good.
posted by rjs at 9:41 PM on January 5 [2 favorites]

There's also The Rest is Football
posted by juv3nal at 9:49 PM on January 5 [1 favorite]

I've never heard of Marina Hyde, and I have no idea why because she's brilliant!
This would be a good starting place to read her articles.
posted by rongorongo at 12:19 AM on January 6 [4 favorites]

If WWE is fake then explain this

Also, I guess we know what matthowie's up to these days...
posted by chavenet at 2:43 AM on January 6 [3 favorites]

I've never heard of Marina Hyde

Perfect excuse to ask her if she remembers what she wrote about you.
posted by flabdablet at 3:24 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]

More Osmania? Osman chatting with Michael Rosen on the latter's podcast Word Of Mouth. Osman and Rosen have both had long, varied careers in British broadcasting: often on the edge of the actual British Broadcasting Corporation BBC. They both came from adverse backgrounds in SE England but were smart, committed and supported enough to make their own luck and get to Oxbridge. Working widely in media you meet a lot of people. Osman and Rosen's experience is that many people in the inner circles of the BBC "wouldn't have gotten there if they'd been at my school". Rosen and Osman rising to the top of their profession doesn't make it easier for their class [both senses] mates to do the same. Dullards with privilege and connexion otoh? they seem to sail up the corporate ladder.
posted by BobTheScientist at 4:30 AM on January 6 [4 favorites]

I really enjoy and envy Richard Osman's career. I simply don't understand how he has the time to do all off the stuff he does: writing, directing, and producing for TV, and by the way penning bestselling novels on the side. And he's now a podcaster, too.

Panel shows are so much fun—they're very much comfort viewing for me now. I like that there's this little community of witty people who all apparently get along and have made a life out of just sitting around cracking jokes with one another. I don't think it's a model that would work in North America, but I can't quite put my finger on why. I wonder if it's that North American comics are more concerned with their self-image, or that the culture of improv is different here. Or that a lot of comedy involves skepticism/take-downs of education and intelligence. Whose Line Is It Anyway seemed to work okay, though.
posted by synecdoche at 6:16 AM on January 6 [5 favorites]

Marina Hyde is a genius. I've been a fan of hers for years. Sharpest pen ever.

I was able to find the column, and the quote that first won me over:

And so to Brexit’s best-paid influencers. What an inevitability to learn that the former Brexit secretary David Davis has walked straight into a £60,000, 20-hour-a-year gig to advise the digger manufacturing firm JCB. That works out at £3,000 an hour, which feels like the sort of rate that might be expected if your workplace was a glass coffee table in Riyadh.

OMG. ♥

So yeah, I'll be checking that podcast out.
posted by Artful Codger at 6:59 AM on January 6 [2 favorites]

I don't think it's a model that would work in North America, but I can't quite put my finger on why. I wonder if it's that North American comics are more concerned with their self-image, or that the culture of improv is different here. Or that a lot of comedy involves skepticism/take-downs of education and intelligence. Whose Line Is It Anyway seemed to work okay, though.

I think it would work well in that extended group of comics that all seem to be friends and will pop in on a ton of podcasts like Comedy Bang Bang, How Did This Get Made, etc - Paul F Tompkins and Jason Mantzoukas and many of the others seem like they'd be right at home on a panel show. They're not mainstream network TV popular comics, but panel shows are also dirt cheap so you'd think every other small network and streamer would be trying it out. Seems right up Netflix's alley, cheap bingeable shows.

I guess @midnight was kind of the closest to an American panel show? It seemed to do pretty well for a few years! Really surprised nobody's trying to run with something like it.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:12 AM on January 6 [4 favorites]

Richard Osmond's brother, Mat, is the bassist in the Britpop band Suede. As noted above, they came from somewhat difficult backgrounds - and certainly not from the type of British family that produces a music star and TV legend.
posted by deeker at 10:53 AM on January 6

My journey to Osmania has been Season 2 of Taskmaster, where Richard Osman displayed some great lateral thinking skills (the classic example being the 'get these yoga balls to this yoga mat on top of a hill' task), and then years later reading Thursday Murder Club and its sequels not only for the mystery writing and humor, but the vast amount of love and heart at the center of the characters he writes.
posted by lizard music at 11:06 AM on January 6 [1 favorite]

Thursday Murder Club Richard Osman!
posted by bq at 1:24 PM on January 6

While we're sharing random Richard Osman facts, he's married to Osgood out of Dr Who.

I enjoy the podcast, even though most of what they're talking about is irrelevant to me (most normal person's TV looks like Ow! My Balls! to me these days), but they're nice company. Also, at least once an episode they (usually Richard) drop a reference to something obscure that speaks directly for me (a couple of weeks ago, for example, it was J.L. Carr, who I love).
posted by Grangousier at 1:32 PM on January 6 [2 favorites]

"Her Vagesty" is indeed very good. And "Wagnarok" will stay in my brain forever.

(WAG is an acronym for "Wives & Girlfriends", relating to the English men's soccer team's partners...the 1st time I heard it used was probably back in David / Victoria Beckham's younger days, I think).
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 4:38 PM on January 6

I guess @midnight was kind of the closest to an American panel show?
Gamechanger (as well as some other stuff) on dropout.tv is imo the closest thing. Some full Gamechanger episodes free here.
posted by juv3nal at 11:19 PM on January 6 [3 favorites]

WAG is an acronym for "Wives & Girlfriends", relating to the English men's soccer team's partners

Many, many people learned this term via the endlessly amusing "Wagatha Christie" incident... as discussed also in the Wagnarok link...
posted by chavenet at 10:23 AM on January 7

I really enjoy and envy Richard Osman's career. I simply don't understand how he has the time to do all off the stuff he does: writing, directing, and producing for TV, and by the way penning bestselling novels on the side. And he's now a podcaster, too.

I think it's essentially for the same reason that he went to an ordinary comprehensive, then Cambridge, then rose up the ranks in tv producing. He's very clever and he works very hard.

Interestingly Marina Hyde, who is an excellently acerbic writer, had a much more conventional background. Top boarding school, followed by Oxford, all backed up by comfortable family wealth.
posted by plonkee at 5:28 PM on January 7

Late to the thread, but as well as the new After Midnight, the folks at Droupout.tv (formerly College Humor) have a few shows that are pretty close to panel shows, though less the topical kind and more the quiz kind. Quite charming, particularly 'Game Changer' and 'Um, Actually'.
posted by Marticus at 1:30 PM on January 11