00:00:01.37 alexei sayle Hello everybody, welcome to episode 76 of the Alexi Cell podcast. I'm sorry I went away, but had a week off. Can't you people leave me alone? For God's sake, I give you everything, everything, all of my essence, and you won't even let me take a week off. Oh, for God's sake, help me. Why can't you help me?

00:00:23.04 alexei sayle Can't you leave me alone? Stop bothering me.

00:00:27.62 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You hear that, people?

00:00:28.23 alexei sayle just to Yeah, hear that, hear that.

00:00:30.13 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal was bombarded with pleas and of agony.

00:00:31.67 alexei sayle yeah yeah, I may seem, ah may seem superhuman, but I'm not. If you prick me, do I not bleed?

00:00:44.56 alexei sayle ah So anyway, I went to Spain for a week.

00:00:48.04 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal How was it?

00:00:48.28 alexei sayle and But thank you, somebody left a warning. The weather was fairly atrocious for the first few days, but then it brightened up towards the end of the week, so... And um'm I assume, and, you know, it was much needed, the rain, and I assume now we are, Spain is now probably set fair, presumably, for through the spring and summer.

00:01:09.77 alexei sayle So there you are.

00:01:10.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal A few days of rain and then you're on your own, Spain.

00:01:12.08 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:01:15.84 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Did it fall mainly in the...

00:01:17.49 alexei sayle Plain.

00:01:17.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal so Sorry.

00:01:18.60 alexei sayle the La Mancha. I don't know. It certainly fell quite a lot in the south.

00:01:25.09 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal When you go on holiday, do you like just sitting on the beach doing nothing? or does that I know that irks some people. They can't stand just lying on...

00:01:32.46 alexei sayle i've Yeah, I don't know. can't remember. god I've been on holiday so infrequently, really, that I can't think. I don't really have a consistent holiday for years.

00:01:44.06 alexei sayle and I think probably a beach holiday is a bit too boring, really. um ah I mean, because it's just, I mean, the life we have in Spain, ah you know, is is just a sort it's like London, but with a different set of people, really.

00:02:00.33 alexei sayle And night in some ways, very nice set people. So that's not, you know, when you have house, it's shopping and stuff to do. But and so that's not, I don't know. I mean, they're quite like them, the river cruisers.

00:02:15.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal oh yeah

00:02:15.14 alexei sayle ah But again, they're fairly you know ah fairly active, really, because you get off the boat and go around you know some European city where a man tells you kind of tedious nonsense.

00:02:31.99 alexei sayle this tower The Tower of St. Geoffrey is 2,000 metres, composed of seventeen thousand two hundred and thirty three bricks which were You know, that kind of stuff, really. and But ah so it's just such a long time since I've had a beach holiday. I don't know whether I'd like it or not, really. Maybe I'll maybe um do it and see.

00:02:56.52 alexei sayle think I would.

00:02:58.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal you do a You are like a quite a still, stoic person, on the surface, is it?

00:03:04.22 alexei sayle On the surface, yeah.

00:03:06.54 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Okay.

00:03:07.22 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

00:03:07.72 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal A bit like the ocean, really, underneath the surface.

00:03:10.46 alexei sayle Yes.

00:03:10.54 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal There's much going on.

00:03:12.94 alexei sayle Yeah, a luck dry that going on beneath the surface. Yeah. Oh, yeah. and I don't know why we've... We had a beach holiday in Montenegro for a week.

00:03:30.22 alexei sayle It's not long enough, really. I mean, we need to go on. I don't know what... We need to take like at least two or three weeks holiday. And I don't know why we haven't really.

00:03:41.65 alexei sayle Well,

00:03:42.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Because you've got a podcast to do stupid.

00:03:45.13 alexei sayle yeah, I could do that from abroad, couldn't night

00:03:48.80 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You could yeah.

00:03:50.13 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:03:50.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Let's figure that out.

00:03:52.01 alexei sayle Yeah. Anyway, I'm back now.

00:03:55.90 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Welcome back.

00:03:56.88 alexei sayle Thank you, Revitalise. So i'm I thought, well, I don't know, I thought we could start. there a lot One of the things we were talking about, well, one of the things one of my friends was talking about in Spain was that he got very into Gary Stevenson. You know Gary Stevenson is?

00:04:11.43 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Uh-huh. I've been trying to reach out to him because I really want him on the show.

00:04:13.46 alexei sayle Right. I mean, he's pretty, yeah, he's pretty busy though, isn't he? don't know. He'd like the, mean, we're such minnows in comparison them with him, really.

00:04:23.79 alexei sayle But he's, and I mean, he's interesting. I mean, I've followed him, I think, for a few years, mostly. I've not watched his podcast, but seen him clipped up on YouTube and his appearances on Piers Morgan and stuff like that.

00:04:32.84 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:04:37.12 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:04:37.29 alexei sayle Yeah, well, he is a very, ah you know, very well informed and articulate advocate for, and you know, more risk rest redistributive economic system, you know, because his analysis of, you that, you know, the kind of widening gap between the rich and the poor.

00:04:55.28 alexei sayle And, know, he's very articulate about that, really.

00:04:58.14 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mm-hmm.

00:04:59.10 alexei sayle And he's just got a book out and he's, I assume that's number one on Amazon and his podcast has now got millions of subscribers and Which is great. And he is, yeah, I mean, it would be amazing to have him on. He has a very rare working class voice. I actually did watch a podcast of his or part of a podcast of his the other night where he was saying that his aim is to... What he thinks he's going to do is to...

00:05:27.29 alexei sayle getting public support to his podcast, he is goingnna somehow per percent he's going to persuade the Labour Party to change direction, really, and to go back to yeah their former iteration, really, where they you know they they enacted progressive policies. i they They taxed the rich to fund the the the many, you know.

00:05:53.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal yeah

00:05:54.41 alexei sayle And I think I just kind of feel that that is naive, really. that that You can see that he spent his time, um you know, involved in economics and in as a trader for Citibank, and that he understands the world of economics perfectly. But I think, I mean, the analogy he used was... so of Rupert Murdoch, because Rupert Murdoch owned so many titles that he could use the power of those titles to proselytize for economic economic and social policies that are yeah

00:06:33.69 alexei sayle you know, he believed in, i.e. right-wing policies, and that he could do something with his podcast similar, but for left-wing politics. And I think that that just features a kind of naivety towards the way politics, because while I haven't spent my life steeped in um economics, I have spent my life steeped in politics, and I think that...

00:06:58.00 alexei sayle you know, how he thinks it works is not how it works. And you can't persuade the Labour Party to, you can't, you know, no amount of subscribers to your podcast is going to ah certainly persuade this iteration of the Labour Party to change course. As we're seeing today that they are, you know, they are, what did that thumbs up come from on the screen?

00:07:23.43 alexei sayle That's weird.

00:07:24.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, for God's sake, this is a phenomenon of online video calls.

00:07:27.15 alexei sayle It's a thought.

00:07:29.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal If you do certain symbols, I wonder if you can do it.

00:07:30.44 alexei sayle All right. Oh, yeah, it's got bubbles now.

00:07:34.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Throw up a peace sign. Well, see if balloons come up when you do it.

00:07:38.54 alexei sayle No, mine's not doing well. Anyway, and they're not real, those balloons. I don't think they're real. a Are they real?

00:07:49.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal What is that?

00:07:50.06 alexei sayle It's a moth.

00:07:50.99 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I want you to...

00:07:52.96 alexei sayle So I think that he misunderstands. And, i yeah, if you get him on the podcast, i could i could I could school him. I could, yeah, to give him my, yeah.

00:08:00.91 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um's great yeah Although I heard him, his I watched a clip of him talking about how his aim is to unite the left and the and the right or so-called left and right ah by teaching us that we actually have more in common and that our common enemy is the billionaire class and our common goal is to um redistribute wealth. and He says by educating and

00:08:31.00 alexei sayle Do you mean ordinary people when he talks about ordinary people left and the right?

00:08:32.89 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ordinary people, yeah.

00:08:35.66 alexei sayle well Well, maybe, you know.

00:08:36.30 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal He'll make us such a huge force that we all win in the long run, yeah.

00:08:42.84 alexei sayle Well, yeah, okay, well, fair enough. I mean, it'd interesting, one, if he becomes a threat, how they'll... that these things are not, you know, they because you are threatening people, I think as he articulates, you're threatening people who are essentially ah addicted to having him money.

00:09:03.65 alexei sayle if you and you know If you try and get between the junkie and their crack pipe, then you'll see a similar thing to what, if you try and stop the flow of money, increasing flow of money to the rich, you will see how they will react and it will be in a,

00:09:10.55 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I do.

00:09:16.59 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, that is worrying.

00:09:17.80 alexei sayle but It'll be interesting to see if he does get any power. It'll be a barometer in a way of if he is getting any power, I think, to change things, how they will react and how they will attempt to take him down. Yeah, yeah.

00:09:29.82 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal he does come up He does seem quite fearless, doesn't he? Because I guess, according to him, like he is the exception in terms of

00:09:32.45 alexei sayle yeah yeah

00:09:38.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal people who have made as much money as he had because he, like you said, is working class guy, made his fortune in trading and unlike all of his peers, he's actually come out and ah told the world how unfair the world of finance is and how economics doesn't trickle down, how blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:09:57.62 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:10:02.91 alexei sayle Yeah, all that. Well, you know, I mean, it be you know, maybe you'll... I mean, if you if he does...

00:10:06.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I do love...

00:10:08.07 alexei sayle If he does um if you just manage it, I'll be, you know, I'll be the first to congratulate him.

00:10:14.47 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I don't know if he wants power. He wants to just educate people. According to him, that he wants to educate people and cause some sort of, yeah, not necessarily, maybe a revolution of certain terms.

00:10:17.32 alexei sayle Yeah. Well, he wants to change the system, you know.

00:10:25.81 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:10:26.05 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But do love how every now and then he he he will go... look, I'm ridiculously rich. I'm like stupendously wealthy. It's is hideous how rich I am.

00:10:35.65 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:10:37.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And the only reason I got there and then he'll slide in that he's absolutely fucking vintage.

00:10:42.63 alexei sayle Yeah, true.

00:10:43.89 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But he is like, yeah, really smart. And again, it's like got he's got that Mick Lynch quality, hasn't he? Because the way talks,

00:10:50.12 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:10:51.96 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And I love that.

00:10:52.10 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:10:52.44 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And like our previous guest, Khaled Winter, the archaeologist, who's a working class guy from Manchester, you know, it's I love that when.

00:11:01.32 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:11:04.91 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal To me, that's that's the definition of shattering the glass ceiling or breaking boundaries, of because these rich people, posh people, upper class people, educated people don't need to monopolize knowledge.

00:11:17.51 alexei sayle No, but they do monopolize the media. What is it? 54% of journalists went to private school as opposed to 7% of the population.

00:11:23.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:11:25.04 alexei sayle That number is not shrinking.

00:11:29.41 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it's probably similar numbers in the world of finance, in the world of of science and history.

00:11:29.81 alexei sayle So...

00:11:34.00 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And ah so I just I guess Nick Lynch doesn't fit into that, but.

00:11:36.91 alexei sayle Yeah. Boxing.

00:11:39.63 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um

00:11:39.90 alexei sayle boxin

00:11:41.38 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It does ah boxing.

00:11:42.98 alexei sayle that so I always think that's the one area where you never, you know, the public schools are underrepresented because you get your fucking brains beaten out. So they tend not to go into, like, boxing.

00:11:54.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah suppose it used to be, what was it and

00:11:58.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Peelsbury Rules, what's that called?

00:12:00.50 alexei sayle Pillsbury, Queensbury rules.

00:12:01.66 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal What was it? Queensbury Rules. That used to be an upper class thing, yeah.

00:12:04.16 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, it's been, yeah, if you can, i mean, if you had any response at all,

00:12:09.78 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal If I have a, no, but if anyone out there has a connection to him, please let him know we're interested.

00:12:13.67 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:12:15.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal i'veve I've messaged him on the socials.

00:12:17.57 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:12:19.49 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I will try his media email address. ah But it's hard for like a small grassroots ah production like this to to get hold of busy people.

00:12:23.95 alexei sayle He's got, I'd say, is

00:12:27.57 alexei sayle yes, he's got, yeah, it's not Nene for him. You know, he's got bigger fish to fry, but it would be it will be interesting.

00:12:34.92 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But to to you, maybe we could take advantage of our connection once we get Ash Sarkar on, which we're looking forward to.

00:12:36.85 alexei sayle Yeah, I mean, not yet oh, yeah, you should...

00:12:42.91 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal She definitely has a connection to him. And...

00:12:45.38 alexei sayle Oh, well, all right. Well, we'll get Ash on and then we'll take it from there. and Yeah, I mean, i you know, I think I believe as a whatever kind of Marxist or whatever I am now that you can't... This system of... um Of, ah you know, this system of representative government, I think it's called.

00:13:08.23 alexei sayle Representative democracy doesn't work. you You have to change the system, really.

00:13:10.47 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It needs to be rebuilt.

00:13:11.75 alexei sayle Yeah, it's not...

00:13:12.62 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, it's a system.

00:13:13.30 alexei sayle And I don't know how you do that, really, without violent revolution. I was trying, I was sort of, went on a, I went on a kind of improvisation in the in the bar and in in in Spain about, you know, like, it used to be as a revolutionary that you could seize the telephone exchange. You know, you could, that's what you did, really. You know, you sent out armed forces and you seized the phone exchange and the,

00:13:35.82 alexei sayle the radio station and i don't know where you were what you would seize now really seize the how you would seize the internet um you know send send men with rifles to big podcasts what

00:13:46.54 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Facebook HQ in Warren Street.

00:13:52.06 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Facebook HQ in Warren Street.

00:13:55.01 alexei sayle Yeah, and yes, google well, Google's European headquarters is an area.

00:13:56.08 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal don't know where Google is.

00:14:01.00 alexei sayle They're on ah building, looks like the size size of Chayshaski's Palace, which is in King's Cross.

00:14:06.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But I don't think it has to be with weapons, man. Like, hackers might be the new AK-47s.

00:14:11.51 alexei sayle Oh, yes, that's true, yes.

00:14:13.44 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You know, and it doesn't have to have, it doesn't have to be bloody and violent.

00:14:13.61 alexei sayle We can see, the yeah.

00:14:16.95 alexei sayle No, it can be a digital army that seizes the

00:14:23.29 alexei sayle seizes everything and makes it work for us, yes. Yes, you're right there.

00:14:28.72 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I know, you're really old.

00:14:29.03 alexei sayle Actually, I'm thinking, oh I'm old, I'm thinking, oh you know, I'm really old. I'm thinking, you know, men in lorries with rifles and biplanes bombing the post office.

00:14:39.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, you're old and I'm Middle Eastern, so that would you'd think that would be how we would imagine a revolution, but I do see it a different way, I don't know. I think also they I've always, I've had that theorem.

00:14:50.78 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I was very, i still am ah naive, but I was very young when I came up with the theory that if we ah boycotted the vote, like the election, and if we have somehow managed to get like, you know, 5% turnout to an election,

00:15:01.86 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:15:07.94 alexei sayle Yeah,

00:15:09.21 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal The mandate would be with the people and we we could force the government out of control. some

00:15:15.81 alexei sayle that's not going to work. is

00:15:19.27 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Possibly...

00:15:19.85 alexei sayle But, you know, well, congratulations for thinking outside the box.

00:15:25.27 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, hackers have a lot of power when they are when they strike true and hard, but it needs to be organised and it needs to be intelligent

00:15:26.87 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, let's assemble a hacker army. Yeah. They're all playing fucking Call a Duty, aren't they?

00:15:39.35 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Unfortunately.

00:15:42.11 alexei sayle All right, so anyway, that's Gary Stevenson. like Tell me your thoughts on Gary Stevenson. He's well informed about economics.

00:15:56.50 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I love him and apparently he's ah he's a bit of a... um All the girls I know are absolutely enamoured by him. Absolutely head over heels for him.

00:16:06.73 alexei sayle Yeah, he's very attractive. Yeah. um

00:16:11.37 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal we We love a smart king.

00:16:11.38 alexei sayle That's it, really. That's all I've thought of. Can I go now? Eh? What?

00:16:14.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I said, we we love a smart king.

00:16:18.35 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

00:16:20.08 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal and To use the vernacular of the Gen Well, is that it?

00:16:20.39 alexei sayle So what?

00:16:23.82 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You're out of steam already. Tell us a story about From Beyond the Fringe.

00:16:24.91 alexei sayle Yeah, that's it. I'm going now.

00:16:27.30 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Come on, you promised us stories from Beyond the Fringe.

00:16:28.23 alexei sayle Oh, yeah, we never talked about that. Oh, well, that was... All right, that so that's... All right, that's... ah Yeah, I did... I'd forgotten I'd want to talk about that. Well, I think... And I did... There's a guy I know called Darren Coffield who's an artist who's very interested in um bohemian London and sort of 1950s Soho.

00:16:51.27 alexei sayle And he's recreated...

00:16:56.70 alexei sayle Haddon Street, in just off Regent Street, which is a pedestrianised street, where I used to go years ago when I was an office clerk. I used to go to drop off the post from the office when I was a very, very poor filing clerk.

00:17:09.50 alexei sayle Um... is now Because that was where David Bowie's photo was taken for Spiders from Mars. That has now become an almost entirely Bowie-themed street. There's a pub called the Starman and there's a bar called Ziggy's.

00:17:26.94 alexei sayle Anyway, underneath in the basement of Ziggy's, Darren has built Starman.

00:17:29.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal The Starmer?

00:17:32.59 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, right, okay.

00:17:33.67 alexei sayle Yeah, fucking Starman.

00:17:35.40 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal down to the starmer of a few fucking

00:17:37.13 alexei sayle Down the star. um So it's sort of, I mean, he's recreated the old Colony Rooms Club, which was a club in Soho, sort of I don't know when it started, 60s, which Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, various reprobates used to drink.

00:17:51.42 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal hmm

00:17:57.23 alexei sayle So he's recreated the basement of the Colony Rooms in this bar, Ziggy's in there. So I just went and gave a talk. just about because he's also interested in the minor strike and all grief particularly gave a talk about my involvement in the minor strike on monday uh but i was also talking he's he's got a new book coming out about the sort of the intersection of bohemia and soho and the art world and we were talking about We're particularly talking about Peter Cook. So to to to explain a bit further, for those that don't know, sort of in the in late 50s, early 60s, there was a theatre group, a sort of performing troupe that came together called Beyond the Fringe, which was...

00:18:48.28 alexei sayle about being beyond the Edinburgh Fringe. And there was two graduates from Cambridge and there two graduates from Oxford. So Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.

00:19:02.56 alexei sayle And they did a show called Beyond the Fringe, a live show, which which was a huge hit in Britain and then went to the States and was also a huge hit in the States. And ah they're really, really funny in a way. The last...

00:19:18.51 alexei sayle im I was saying to Darren Reed, the last time that, I mean, that that that kind of either Footlights or Oxford Theatre, but the review groups were, I mean, streets ahead of, I mean, the i mean it's sort of complicated because you have

00:19:41.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal What kind of show was it? What kind of show was it?

00:19:43.45 alexei sayle it was just it was a sort of It was a review, so it was sketches, but it was also...

00:19:43.94 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Sketch.

00:19:48.85 alexei sayle um i mean, they there's there's a sketch, a famous sketch, where between two army officers, um I think Miller and Cook, maybe, and they're sort of RAF officers joined the war, and he comes up, yes, sir, he says, ah we've decided it's time for a pointless gesture.

00:20:06.74 alexei sayle ah jenkins I want you to get in the old crate, fly about for a bit over Germany, don't come back. Righto. And so that i mean so that was, I mean, they were performing that to an audience, not 10, 15 years after the Second World War. And so they were the first ones to critique Germany.

00:20:27.27 alexei sayle attitudes to that kind of mindless heroism. and They also did stuff about politicians, which had never been done before. They mocked the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, particularly. It was very old school kind of aristocracy.

00:20:43.98 alexei sayle And so it was the first time. So is this show was a... um There's a Shakespearean... I mean, they they were doing these things for the first time, and so they had power simply because they were done for the first time. really There's a sketch about... um a kind of pastiche of Shakespearean, kind of cod Shakespearean language.

00:21:04.06 alexei sayle Get thee to Oxford saucy Worcester, things like that. but Funny shit, you know, at the time. and we do really um But also Jonathan Miller was, had also studied medicine and was, I think had been, I think had practiced as a doctor and also was interested in the brain.

00:21:22.04 alexei sayle Alan Bennett was obviously, you know, a great writer and, you know, what has gone off the ball now, but Dudley Moore was um you know had got to Oxford on a music scholarship was incredible.

00:21:35.08 alexei sayle And then Peter, incredible musical talent. And then Peter Cook was just, I mean, he's just an extraordinary creative force, really.

00:21:48.72 alexei sayle really terribly original and man rhythm with them um with kind of but we would i guess with complex kind of feelings really that i didn't know him well that i was telling darren that i i'd done i used to do some interviews with time out when time out was an immensely powerful magazine in the sort of 80s you know just you know it was the most yeah you know you there's a man if you wanted to you know because there's no internet if you wanted to know what was happening in london then you had to look at time out so that's ah potential of eight ten million uh readers that was immensely powerful it could make or break reputations timeout i used to interviews for him and i'd interviewed oberon war the son of evelyn war and being savage

00:22:10.11 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:22:36.57 alexei sayle to him and about him and they really liked that so they got me to interview Peter Cook I felt really sorry for Peter Cook he seemed like a sad man really remember he carried around we met in some restaurant they used to ah habituate in in and Hampstead and he carried a big pile of newspapers with him like he'd read the papers and then I don't know he just he just seemed at that point a kind of Ben out, really. i'm um You know, I'm by mostly by alcohol and drugs, I guess.

00:23:13.18 alexei sayle Anyway, so I wrote this quite sympathetic profile of him for Time Out, and they didn't want it. They wanted me to be on. I mean, it shows our reputations have changed because later on, even before he died, Peter Cook became a kind of...

00:23:26.59 alexei sayle one of those venerated kind of figures of, of you know, magazines like Tamar in the media in general. But at that point, he was very out of fashion. and They wanted me to be horrible about him, and I wouldn't really.

00:23:39.76 alexei sayle It was just a vague, I think, I haven't read, um no I think they probably printed it, but they never asked me to, sorry, they never asked me to write um profiles for them ever again.

00:23:42.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So they didn't print it.

00:23:55.24 alexei sayle um And so it was just, he seemed awful. I me a may i mean, there's the stuff, there's also a lot of stuff that people like, is the Derek and Clive stuff, which I don't know what the older listeners will know, the younger ones won't, but these were sort of improvised, that him and Dudley Moore would go into a studio and just improvise these kind of long monologues.

00:24:20.88 alexei sayle And they're actually pretty, I don't like them myself. seems to me to be a kind of record, really, of of two men just two men just kind of falling apart, really. They're not that funny, and they're just kind of bleak in a way, really. Yeah.

00:24:34.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, I don't know.

00:24:38.41 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I think Derek and Clive is probably more known to younger people than Beyond the Fringe.

00:24:46.34 alexei sayle but Yes, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure.

00:24:46.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal and

00:24:48.29 alexei sayle I remember rock bands used to listen to the tapes on the fucking tour bus and all that stuff.

00:24:52.84 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I haven't listened to it in a very long time, but um when I was a kid, my old brother used to play them to me, not a young kid, but when I was a teenager and we used to sit and love listening to these geezers, swearing, swearing at each other and stuff.

00:24:54.72 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:25:03.02 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Swear, yeah.

00:25:05.64 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But I think it had a lot of what we now love as from podcasts.

00:25:05.78 alexei sayle Really?

00:25:13.55 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It existed in that Derek and Clive.

00:25:13.73 alexei sayle Really?

00:25:15.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, just listening to two people chatting, improvising.

00:25:18.14 alexei sayle ah Right.

00:25:20.93 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Maybe, I mean, I haven't listened. I mean, at the time I found them, I didn't like them. Maybe I'd feel different about it now.

00:25:28.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal was quite mean-spirited, wasn't it?

00:25:28.72 alexei sayle But they were really interesting.

00:25:30.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal was quite mean-spirited, but that was the gag.

00:25:31.11 alexei sayle It was, yeah, kind of poisonous in a way.

00:25:32.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So you're either going to like that or not.

00:25:34.47 alexei sayle Yeah, I found that unsettling, really, myself. I know I can be kind of mean-spirited, but hopefully it is and my um nastiness is... is is um There's a redemption in it because it's also come partly coming from a profound disappointment with the world, but also a profound, you know, caring for humanity, really. And so, you know, there's not... Whereas Derek and Clive, I remember, it's just...

00:26:05.06 alexei sayle seemed nihilistic really yeah just nasty but anyway was you you know he had the image I mean he died too young cookie really from uh

00:26:05.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal nasty. Yeah.

00:26:14.01 alexei sayle from I wish I'd been, because he did actually he want, he like, you know, he wanted to be my mate a bit and I never really, ah should have left. So Stephen Fry filled that gap and he probably, that wouldn't have done him Peter Cook any good to be friends with Stephen Fry.

00:26:27.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, he was only 57.

00:26:28.52 alexei sayle So yeah, too young really. And you know, it was the drink that killed him really. Dudley Moore died of a, some kind of chronic disease. jonathan I was also in a production of The Tempest directed by Jonathan Miller in 1988 at the old Vic.

00:26:46.28 alexei sayle But they were really interesting beyond the fringe. I mean, i could ah i mean it's i so i think i mean yeah you have to say that um yeah the later generations of Oxford and Cambridge, while one has problems with them, they were...

00:27:04.53 alexei sayle yeah that generation of like Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, and then Griff Rhys-Jones, Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis, they did, you know, well, I've got tremendous problems with all of, I was at a party with loads of them on the other, that's just Saturday before that.

00:27:23.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, I wish I was there.

00:27:23.07 alexei sayle and ah But, ah yeah, well, I don't, you know, i mean it' sort of I mean, I inhabit that world as well, because it was, mean, it's good friend of mine who's one of those people, and It was fine, really, you know, and chatted to some of them.

00:27:39.67 alexei sayle You know, they were talented. You know, you you have to accept that it's varying degrees, you know, and popular, but they weren't as good as the Beyond the Fringe ones I thought were really

00:27:43.88 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So

00:27:53.17 alexei sayle Amazing. And then i sort of overlapped slightly with them with the secret policemen's other ball, and which was Peter Cook was involved with that and some of the other ones, and Alan Bennett.

00:28:08.80 alexei sayle But it's worth seeking.

00:28:09.95 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal but

00:28:10.16 alexei sayle I mean, they're they're really, they're an important... um well So the reason that Darren was interested was that that Peter Cook... founded a club called the Establishment Club in Soho in the early 60s. And it was the first time something like that had been attempted in Britain. Of course, he brilliantly said that he wanted the Establishment Club to replicate those characters those cabaret clubs in Weimar Republic that had done so much to stop the rise of Adolf Hitler.

00:28:36.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mm-hmm.

00:28:37.45 alexei sayle and um And so it was a club Lenny Bruce performed there. A lot of that sort of, there was jazz and I don't know, I don't know it she' much, i'd like I should read a history of this book.

00:28:50.06 alexei sayle I don't know how long it lasted, but the you know, that that kind of satirical club opened and then closed. And the the next time that that kind of club opened was the Comedy Store, which... had me as the original MC and you know so there's there was a kind of gap there between them and me but that they're worth I mean for anybody isn I mean you know again I've been interested in what people thought about Beyond the Fringe they are and the only one who survives obviously is Alan Bennett um and

00:29:22.66 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal The club lasted a little over three years.

00:29:26.30 alexei sayle I'm surprised it lasted that long

00:29:27.99 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um And for nearly half that time, Peter Cook wasn't even in the country.

00:29:35.60 alexei sayle Right.

00:29:36.03 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, it looks like there was

00:29:36.21 alexei sayle Yeah, I can't of imagine he was, yeah, the most organised boss.

00:29:40.24 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Looks like it also doubled as a strip club, like most places in Soho.

00:29:43.19 alexei sayle I really like the same as the comedy store, yeah.

00:29:46.91 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Or is that just satire because it says on the front all girls strip review. Maybe that's a joke. I don't not sure.

00:29:52.37 alexei sayle Might be.

00:29:55.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Okay, I'm just skimming through this very dense article. I'll send you this article if you want to have a read of it.

00:29:59.69 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, be interesting, yeah. But it was, you know... it a And then they had... um they had ah They broke through into television via... That was the week that was, a satirical show, which was hosted, of course, by David Frost. i think I think David Frost was the kind of Ben Elton of...

00:30:19.50 alexei sayle their day and Peter Cook said he once which well yeah well the that David Cook it I think with Cook it yeah that Peter Cook said the worst thing he'd ever done in his life was that he'd once saved David Frost from drowning when they'd been in Australia that was the much thing that he regretted most and i mean f for I mean again Frost is a a significant figure but he's somebody who was

00:30:21.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, what an awful shitbag.

00:30:48.02 alexei sayle You know, well, yes, I was always thought of him very much as being their Ben Elton, really. I mean, good for good or ill, really.

00:30:59.06 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um

00:30:59.10 alexei sayle Super ambitious and not, you know, doing it.

00:31:03.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal The establishment, just one more thing about it, is ah is located, was located on 18 Greek Street in Soho.

00:31:11.39 alexei sayle Right.

00:31:12.11 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it's still a bar, nightclub type place.

00:31:17.15 alexei sayle Yeah?

00:31:17.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah It could be Zebrano, could have been taken over from someone else, but it has a nice plaque. Over the Door, commemorating the establishment.

00:31:25.26 alexei sayle All right.

00:31:27.71 alexei sayle Should get a plug.

00:31:27.89 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal There's also a green plaque.

00:31:28.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:31:29.25 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It's also got a green plaque.

00:31:33.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It's also got a green plaque on the wall next to it.

00:31:34.87 alexei sayle Right. Should have a plaque for the Comedy Store, shouldn't we?

00:31:35.18 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Peter Cook.

00:31:39.12 alexei sayle 69. Comedy Store, course, was in the next street.

00:31:41.14 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, the original comedy store, yeah.

00:31:42.61 alexei sayle Yeah. Maid Street. sixty nine mid street

00:31:45.08 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Barry Humphries did his debut there.

00:31:47.83 alexei sayle Yes.

00:31:49.35 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Dame Edna.

00:31:49.38 alexei sayle He came from that sort of cloud generation that yeah, the kind of intersection of the Sydney university crowd that came over here by Humphries, Clyde James, uh, Jermaine Greer.

00:32:01.96 alexei sayle Yeah. Also an interesting group. it was ah I mean imagine it was an amazing period in some ways. mean, I, I haven't, know, I've been,

00:32:11.97 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So you were saying they kind of broke onto television with that was the week that was.

00:32:16.31 alexei sayle Yes, Ned Sherin produced, that was the week that was, which was, ah it was live, I think, and it was again, yeah, songs from Millicent Martin, um satirical sketches and and satirical monologues from Frost.

00:32:19.47 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So kind of a new satire sketch show.

00:32:28.90 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And then did they ever, did they ever go on to make kind of sitcom or more single cams sketches or movies?

00:32:36.76 alexei sayle I don't know that they really went, I mean, Frost went in frost went into heavier kind of interviewing, you know, kind of prototype people.

00:32:45.37 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Was that Frost from Frost Nixon?

00:32:47.48 alexei sayle Yes. Yeah, so you know, yeah, he, you know, mean, and again.

00:32:48.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Fucking hell. But as a group, I mean, not separately. Did they create anything else beyond that was the week that was?

00:32:54.21 alexei sayle In television, they, I mean, they that was, so I don't know how long that was the week that was lasted. They then, they did other satirical shows which had less time.

00:33:10.21 alexei sayle sketch shows that had less kind of

00:33:15.87 alexei sayle punch, breakthrough qualities really. I think that was the it that was was the one that really worked. I don't know what, I don't know. I mean, they all went their separate ways.

00:33:27.68 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mm-hmm.

00:33:27.96 alexei sayle John Beard and John Fortune

00:33:33.05 alexei sayle um had a lot of satirical shows and also incredibly racist tom bird used to do he's a rather fond of but he's had an incredibly racist impersonation of uh uh idy ameen he used to do um uh they i mean cook as they always sabotaged himself really so he he dudley moore went on had a big kick i mean he obviously had those yeah He was a star of some some movies, Hollywood movies. He kind of broke through in Hollywood movies. I remember going to... i had an agent once called Simon Astaire. He was very posh.

00:34:15.66 alexei sayle And he i remember going to Pinewood, and his friend was making... He was making a making-of film that... Dudley Moore was in this Hollywood movie playing one of Santa's elves, which is rocking.

00:34:32.30 alexei sayle I mean, because he's very short, so he you know i mean which is humiliating anyway.

00:34:32.42 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Fucking hell.

00:34:36.79 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:34:37.85 alexei sayle um And I'd never get to meet him, but I'd sort hung around the set a bit. But the guy that was making the making of film... who wants to be a director, there was a guy called Danny Houston, who was friends with my agent, Simon Stead.

00:34:50.46 alexei sayle Danny Houston, of course, the son of John Houston, the film director, but also has become since a fantastic actor, really. I mean, always, I mean, bit too prone to play the baddie in the the crooked CIA, um but Danny Houston is, Danny Houston, yeah, and he became an actor subsequently, and an amazing actor, really, I think, been one of the great,

00:35:06.11 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Which one was that? Danny Houston.

00:35:12.30 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh

00:35:13.80 alexei sayle We never, never a lead, but, um you know, always a ah great supporting, yeah, great supporting actor.

00:35:20.12 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal yeah, love this guy, yeah.

00:35:23.55 alexei sayle course, his father was an amazing, although last film his father made, of course, Johnny Houston, was Escape to Victory. Do you have a gen know Escape to Victory? I mean, i don't think we should watch.

00:35:32.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal No.

00:35:34.26 alexei sayle Oh, Escape to Victory is one of the great, terrible films of all time. So the storyline of Escape to Victory is that there's, It's made for the American market, but it's about soccer.

00:35:45.37 alexei sayle And it's there's a group of prisoners in a World War II prison camp who decide to form a football team. And in that team are Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine. mean, all much too old to be prisoners.

00:36:01.40 alexei sayle And Pele, you know, the british Brazilian star Pele.

00:36:04.27 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:36:05.08 alexei sayle They play a... So they form a football squad.

00:36:08.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Pele's acting in this film.

00:36:10.11 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's extraordinary. Especially terrible, terrible film. and and Particularly why John used, I think that was the last film he made before he died. Of shame, possibly.

00:36:20.99 alexei sayle So the prisoners, the prisoners organized this football match against the camp guards, I think, while simultaneously, obviously, tunneling. That's why it's called escape.

00:36:31.89 alexei sayle While using the football match as a kind of mask for

00:36:32.73 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mm-hmm.

00:36:36.81 alexei sayle for an escape attempt. And it's just, so so one, the film has to explain soccer to an American you know and audience in the United States.

00:36:53.25 alexei sayle But also has to, you know, has to usar show this football match with Sylvester Stallone lumbering around and Michael Caine. and It's a super special bad movie.

00:37:06.14 alexei sayle I mean, anyway, that's a, that's ah that's in a meandering.

00:37:07.90 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal looks brilliant.

00:37:10.02 alexei sayle ah So that's ah yeah, that's yeah.

00:37:13.42 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal This looks brilliant.

00:37:15.70 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:37:17.73 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It's like the Great Escape with football. Yeah.

00:37:20.23 alexei sayle Yeah, exactly.

00:37:21.14 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Fucking Stallone.

00:37:21.37 alexei sayle Yeah. It's super bad.

00:37:22.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal What a weird mixed up cast.

00:37:25.18 alexei sayle It's super bad.

00:37:30.17 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal my My dad got to spend a weekend with Pele.

00:37:34.81 alexei sayle Right.

00:37:35.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal We had quite, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago. years ago When my dad was working in Abu Dhabi, Pele came to visit and it was my dad's job to show him around for the weekend and make sure we had a good time.

00:37:47.14 alexei sayle All right. And how did how did he find him?

00:37:49.88 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal They really got on, man.

00:37:51.56 alexei sayle Oh, really?

00:37:51.67 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal They got on, yeah, they got on so well.

00:37:51.98 alexei sayle Is your dad into football?

00:37:56.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal As much as any other red-blooded human man. who and Yeah, my dad likes football, sure.

00:38:02.07 alexei sayle What would your team have been? QPR, suppose.

00:38:05.42 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal My local team, yeah. I played rugby on the QPR pitch because they shared a pitch with the Wasps.

00:38:06.92 alexei sayle Is that true?

00:38:11.32 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And my team as a teenager was there kind of you know their team.

00:38:16.64 alexei sayle Yeah, right.

00:38:17.52 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um But no, my dad was a Liverpool fan, I think because of you, mate.

00:38:21.59 alexei sayle All right. Oh, really?

00:38:23.69 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Ewan Wasin got him into Liverpool, I think, back in the day.

00:38:25.41 alexei sayle Right.

00:38:28.48 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um

00:38:28.72 alexei sayle I can, yeah.

00:38:30.75 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal My dad, yeah. And also, I guess... Maybe there's some kind of socialist reason why he liked Liverpool too.

00:38:36.34 alexei sayle I think a lot of I mean, Liverpool are pretty big in, like, the West Bank and stuff, aren't they? They are. The team of choice, I think, for the...

00:38:42.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Liverpool! Mohamed Salah! My mum is in love with Moh Salah.

00:38:47.86 alexei sayle he doesn't really speak out does he but he is ah he's a devout Muslim isn't he yeah was he

00:38:51.67 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, he doesn't. um Yeah, my dad was a Liverpool fan. And he was at 1966 World Cup final.

00:39:00.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal well cup final My dad loves telling that story. yeah He was there. And then the whole crowd marched out of the stadium and walked into, from Wembley all the way to central London, and partied all night in the streets and stuff.

00:39:15.67 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Imagine what a fucking raucous, amazing time that would have been.

00:39:15.97 alexei sayle wow

00:39:18.49 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:39:20.77 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah Yeah, sorry, just name-dropping Pele there. Fucking Danny Houston is Angelica Houston. ah Angelica Houston is his sister. Is that...

00:39:28.81 alexei sayle That's correct, yeah. haven't seen him for years, but, yeah, he was, put I mean, Simon Astaire was, ah wasn't my agent for very long. was so fond of him. a e Yeah, he was sort of,

00:39:44.78 alexei sayle part this kind of slightly dissolute, I think, Euro-trashy kind of crowd. Danny Houston was part of that as well.

00:39:51.12 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, he has done a fair bunch of ah kind of more trashy films, but um he does as does make a really good villain.

00:39:51.19 alexei sayle um here san

00:39:57.48 alexei sayle Yeah. He's a great actor.

00:40:00.51 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal He's got villain's eyebrows, I think is what does it for him.

00:40:00.90 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:04.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And he's also been in some great films. And Escape to Victory sounds incredible. And that's by John Huston, who was part of Beyond the Fringe, correct?

00:40:10.41 alexei sayle His father directed that, John Houston, yeah.

00:40:14.52 alexei sayle No, no, that I skipped it.

00:40:15.50 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal No, why did John Huston come into it then?

00:40:19.28 alexei sayle Because I went to Pinewood Studios to see Dudley Moore, who was in Beyond the Fringe, making this terrible film called...

00:40:27.36 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Right.

00:40:27.85 alexei sayle It couldn't be called Elf. I don't know. It was where Dudley Moore was playing one of Santa's elves. It's quite a protected story. You have to follow... closely and Danny Houston was making the making of film so I had lunch with Danny Houston I don't think I ever saw I never met Dudley Moore the only one I've met all of them apart from Dudley Moore obviously um Alan Bennett used to because he past our house he goes remember i was when I had a rover I had the black rover P5B cupane remember I was cleaning it and had this voice go oh I like your car and it was Alan Bennett

00:40:43.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal right

00:41:06.13 alexei sayle Before then, though, I always have this love this story, but the only one I was interested in meeting backstage, and not not ah the secret policemen or the ball, was Alan Bennett, really. And so I sought him out and started talking to him, and he just ran off.

00:41:21.11 alexei sayle He was so frightened of me that he ran away. and But later on, we became not friends.

00:41:27.12 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal and

00:41:27.46 alexei sayle Again, Stephen Fry got into his house as well.

00:41:30.11 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal fucking hell he's just sweeping up everyone's sloppy seconds isn't he Stephen Fry

00:41:33.19 alexei sayle Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I should have. I should have been more clubbable. I could have kept Stephen Fry's, my lion influence.

00:41:40.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal swat him away

00:41:41.74 alexei sayle Yeah. So Alan Bennett, we used to say hello.

00:41:42.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah

00:41:44.02 alexei sayle We used to chat when I saw him in the street. Jonathan Miller, I was in the productionist production of The Tempest starring Max von Sydow. ah which wasn't which was by then, Miller was kind of spinning his wheels a bit, really. he was It was ah a production that he'd done before with the same theme.

00:42:04.17 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Max von Sydow also in Escape to Victory.

00:42:04.35 alexei sayle and Max was sitting down. Oh, Max was in Escape to History. Oh, wow.

00:42:11.98 alexei sayle Poor man.

00:42:12.19 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And Dudley Moore played Patch in Santa Claus, the movie,

00:42:16.59 alexei sayle Santa Claus, the movie. He played Santa in there.

00:42:17.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um from 1985. ah And his his costume is quite embarrassing, but he's not got like a silly prosthetics on or anything.

00:42:24.31 alexei sayle i mean paul I mean, that's just humiliating, really. Yeah.

00:42:31.13 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal He does look like Dudley Moore.

00:42:33.07 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:42:33.61 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal doing his thing. Santa Claus, the movie um David Huddleston played Santa.

00:42:40.14 alexei sayle don't know who that is. Anybody else in it?

00:42:43.63 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal John Lithgow.

00:42:46.06 alexei sayle Great actor in Conclave.

00:42:46.22 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah love John Lithgow. I love him, yeah. ah Conclave, was that any good? Did you see that? It does look good, yeah.

00:42:52.75 alexei sayle Yeah, it's fantastic, yeah.

00:42:56.25 alexei sayle It's also by the producer. The producer is somebody I've got a major project with.

00:43:02.21 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, cool. ah Christian Fitzpatrick, Judy Cornwell, Burgess, Burgess Meredith is in it.

00:43:04.29 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:43:07.61 alexei sayle Oh, Christ. yeah

00:43:12.54 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal no Not a star-studded cast, especially not in this day and age.

00:43:14.10 alexei sayle now No, no. Just to recap, so Danny Houston was making the making of movie.

00:43:18.47 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Okay. Yes.

00:43:20.80 alexei sayle ah first Trying to get into being a director, which I assume he gave up and became an actor instead.

00:43:25.82 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Right. He was making a documentary about Santa Claus the movie for some fucking reason.

00:43:28.75 alexei sayle Yeah, exactly.

00:43:31.63 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:43:32.13 alexei sayle Yeah, exactly.

00:43:34.29 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Weird choice, okay.

00:43:36.21 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:43:37.38 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Right.

00:43:38.69 alexei sayle So that's, yeah.

00:43:38.88 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Beyond the Fringe. i've I've found on YouTube there's a very interesting looking...

00:43:49.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Whoa! Sorry, it's playing in my ears. It's about two hours long, a film about Beyond the Fringe. It's actually, no, it's a taping of one of their big review shows, if you're interested in that.

00:43:57.64 alexei sayle Of the show. Yeah.

00:44:00.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And I guess... ah That was a week that was it's probably quite readily available is there.

00:44:06.51 alexei sayle Yeah. i don't I mean, a documentary about um Beyond the Fringe would make interesting viewing, really, because it's ah yeah it's about the sort of... It's about post-war British comedy. I mean, I suppose it...

00:44:23.43 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah this.

00:44:23.55 alexei sayle They'd also, like I mean, of course, the group, the kind of group between them, and I just realised the group between them, Beyond the Fringe crowd, and the kind of Rowan Atkinson, Richard Curtis, Griffiths, James Mel Smith, there because the missing link really is the Pythons.

00:44:42.34 alexei sayle I mean, again, immensely, you know, immensely talented group of individuals.

00:44:46.67 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal This is what I've been waiting to ask you. the other obvious comparison. And I guess Beyond the Fringe precedes them by a few years.

00:44:52.15 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:44:55.06 alexei sayle Oh yeah. And, and, and, you know, obviously Monty Python was, I mean, was a, a political, I mean, it was much, it made it made it much more, um, much more majorly, I majored much more majorly.

00:44:56.81 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal This was in 1960.

00:45:11.18 alexei sayle It made it major to a greater extent on surrealism and, uh,

00:45:14.39 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal so Yeah, but there's a lot of class commentary in Monty Python in their works, of course.

00:45:18.04 alexei sayle yeah.

00:45:19.72 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, there's a lot of commentary on like on posh toffs and also like every sperm is sacred lower class breeders and stuff like that.

00:45:23.87 alexei sayle yeah

00:45:27.37 alexei sayle Yes, that's true. I mean, Terry Jones particularly was, yeah, and Eric, yeah, you're right.

00:45:28.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal There's lots of and obviously fucking ah Holy Grail is all about clark class and ruling classes and stuff.

00:45:35.72 alexei sayle Yeah, that's a you're right, it's profoundly, and religion, and yes, it's a, yeah, I mean, um i may i mean and they were, I do really when I think about it.

00:45:43.63 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Do you wish to retract your comment, Alexi?

00:45:47.94 alexei sayle have no problem with doing that.

00:45:48.16 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Compare and contrast. so No, it's interesting, but it's not tackling... Multiply that don't tackle politics you know in the same way as Beyond the Fringe, is it?

00:45:55.47 alexei sayle Party political way, no, but it's, so yeah.

00:45:58.21 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal They do it through surrealism, if you want to say

00:45:59.89 alexei sayle Yeah, and I've got great, i mean, I've got tremendous admiration for

00:46:06.89 alexei sayle Monty Python. And interestingly enough, to sort sort of circle around in a way, this guy Darren Coffield, the artist, he did 25 portraits of me, which he then caught up as a jigsaw um I went to an exhibition. I didn't know what to think, really, because it's just an exhibition which is 25 portraits of you. It's a kind of weird thing. Anyway, Terry Jones was there.

00:46:32.03 alexei sayle I was talking to Jerry Jones, and I thought, oh, God, there's something wrong with you. And it was just that he had this degenerative brain disease, which killed him a short while later. But you could see that there was something, because I was familiar with it a bit from my dad and stuff, you could see that there was...

00:46:48.29 alexei sayle He was having some cognitive problems. um and But yeah, i mean they were genes i mean I mean, they really are kind of... you know, a kind of example of a kind of gestalt, you know, a kind of, you know, where a thing becomes much greater than the sum of its parts.

00:47:05.63 alexei sayle I mean, Monty Python is, I mean, there's a lot of sketches now that you watch that are not, you think, what the fuck was that about? But nevertheless, the their work at their best was absolute genius, really.

00:47:12.27 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Of course, of course.

00:47:18.12 alexei sayle of god I didn't i didn't know didn didn't know any of them. what Graham Chapman wants to be my friend. Invited me to a few...

00:47:24.51 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And you scared him away?

00:47:25.45 alexei sayle And then he died. Well, then he died. um Please. and Yeah.

00:47:33.83 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Graham Chapman wanted to be my friend, then he died.

00:47:35.97 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Terry Jairns, I knew a bit, used to bump into him on these.

00:47:42.45 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Probably the most lovable Python.

00:47:44.84 alexei sayle Terry, yeah.

00:47:44.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Although him and... What's matey boy who does the trains and stuff? ah Palin, Palin.

00:47:53.58 alexei sayle Oh, Palin, yeah. Yeah, knew him a little bit, yeah.

00:47:58.20 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal love they Yeah, they are all really just top quality performers. Like Eric Idle, anything he lacked in in acting prowess, he brought with his musicality.

00:48:01.87 alexei sayle Yes.

00:48:07.54 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:48:08.05 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal He just made up for it.

00:48:08.72 alexei sayle I mean, people play that... People, you know, what's the song at the end of Life of Brian, you know?

00:48:15.30 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Always look on the bright side of life.

00:48:16.58 alexei sayle umlthough it's talkings about I mean, not realising that it is incredibly bleak song because it's sung by a group of people who being crucified.

00:48:25.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:48:26.41 alexei sayle And it's not about...

00:48:27.10 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Without that visual gag, it's just a cheery song, isn't it?

00:48:28.02 alexei sayle look it's yeah it's ah Yeah, it's a it's intensely ironic. you know it's It's meant as a kind of ah a critique of...

00:48:40.37 alexei sayle That kind of, you know, always look at that kind of mindless geniality. But of course, people have subsequently, as they often do, taken it out of context.

00:48:48.24 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It reminded me of of something. A slight quick diversion.

00:48:51.74 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:48:53.04 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You know that song, They Not Like Us by Kendrick Lamar?

00:48:57.16 alexei sayle I don't really, I'm afraid. so i don't know.

00:48:58.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal been been ban It they not like us, they not like us, they not like they not like us, they not like like like us.

00:49:02.70 alexei sayle don't know.

00:49:07.62 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Come on. He did that he's performed at the Super Bowl recently.

00:49:09.00 alexei sayle I don't know.

00:49:11.96 alexei sayle all right, okay.

00:49:12.77 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal pink pining ping They not like us. And it's like i got a catchy, that's the whole that's the chorus of the song.

00:49:18.80 alexei sayle Right.

00:49:19.49 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah But the the beat, the sample is. binging pe be be bey

00:49:24.52 alexei sayle Right. Right.

00:49:26.55 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal paint And people, it's just all over TikTok and Instagram. People are using this.

00:49:31.65 alexei sayle right

00:49:31.68 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal This is what happens when a song becomes memed or meme-ified or whatever, and becomes viral as fuck.

00:49:35.41 alexei sayle right

00:49:37.75 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Then you get corporations starting to use it, yeah?

00:49:40.56 alexei sayle Right.

00:49:40.81 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And so, like, I saw a video of Waitrose and it was Waitrose staff doing the Kendrick Lamar dance that he did at the Super Bowl. He's just doing a simple two-step thing.

00:49:48.73 alexei sayle Okay. Yeah.

00:49:50.00 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And they're holding Waitrose products and they're shuffling down the aisle to be be pey they not like us and then you'll see fucking whoever like Gales do it with a bun or you know whatever like any any fucking corporations just jumping on this trend but the song is about how Drake is a pedophile it's the topic of the song

00:50:05.05 alexei sayle Right. Right.

00:50:12.98 alexei sayle Really? Because I know about the the feud between Mr. Lamar and Mr.

00:50:16.97 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah, like and this is like this is why the song but the gate ah the video from Super Bowl became so viral.

00:50:17.34 alexei sayle Drake. Yeah.

00:50:24.08 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It's because like he's on like the biggest event of the of the world and he's calling out Drake as a pedo and that clip is being shown over and over, which made the song popular.

00:50:24.12 alexei sayle Right.

00:50:30.47 alexei sayle Which... Right.

00:50:32.82 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And now all these brands are using the song, like Lush holding soaps, walking down Lush to a song about a pedo.

00:50:40.19 alexei sayle Right.

00:50:40.64 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it's just so...

00:50:41.11 alexei sayle Oh, an alleged...

00:50:43.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Alleged, whatever. it ah it's a song It's a song that is calling someone a pedo.

00:50:44.13 alexei sayle Yeah, we don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:48.15 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And so you just have this kind of like, okay, you're using a catchy song to promote your fucking shit thing, but listen to what the fucking song is about before you consider this kind of blindness to...

00:50:48.35 alexei sayle A diss track.

00:50:54.68 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:50:57.75 alexei sayle all Right. Yeah.

00:51:02.20 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:51:02.55 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I just found that so...

00:51:04.18 alexei sayle Yeah, that is there.

00:51:04.26 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal like i I found it kind of infuriating because like,

00:51:07.51 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:51:08.49 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it similar to what you were saying with always look on the bright side life, it's like people don't fucking do their research and think about what they're...

00:51:11.54 alexei sayle yeah

00:51:14.99 alexei sayle No.

00:51:15.66 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And speaking of Lush, I was in Lush buying their deodorant, which I like, and they're pro-Palestine brand, so you know big ups to Lush. They don't pay us.

00:51:22.44 alexei sayle No good. right Yeah. Yeah.

00:51:24.04 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal They have this watermelon soap, ah which you know goes towards girls and orphans and shit. But they um I was in Lush queuing up. It's a lovely smelling soap, shop, you know, with shampoos and all this shit, yeah, and I'm standing in the queue and they're playing that song.

00:51:34.40 alexei sayle yeah

00:51:39.22 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Again, it sounds very cheery, but the song's about fucking, he says the word suicidal in it, like, a hundred times. It's like, that girl got me suicidal, Sue is beautiful girl.

00:51:52.76 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal He's like, this girl's so beautiful, I want to kill myself, yeah?

00:51:55.68 alexei sayle Right.

00:51:56.47 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So, like, the song, if you're not focusing on the lyrics, sounds really happy and cheery and

00:51:59.56 alexei sayle Yeah. This is a different song, is it?

00:52:02.18 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Different song.

00:52:03.11 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:52:03.38 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Very happy, toe-tapping, finger-clicking, beautiful song.

00:52:05.30 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:52:06.38 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But if you listen to the words, he's talking about killing himself.

00:52:09.26 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:52:09.45 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And I finally, I was in the queue and i finally got to the counter and I said, before we do this transaction, can you just listen to this, what this man's saying on the speaker?

00:52:18.00 alexei sayle Right.

00:52:18.06 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it was perfect timing. We both paused and listened and we hear the word suicidal three times being sung through the...

00:52:22.74 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:52:23.87 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal was like, maybe just tell your manager maybe to take this song off the playlist because I know people who fucking killed themselves. and I don't want to think about that while I'm buying deodorant.

00:52:31.00 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. But that's, it's what, the I mean, it's partly what the the situationist, you know, the Marxist surrealists from Paris in the 1960s said, ah you know, they call in this kind of phrase or concept recuperation, you know, whereby, you know, whereby things that have a revolutionary subversive meaning get recuperated and get used.

00:52:57.96 alexei sayle I use the example of,

00:52:58.11 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal hmm

00:53:00.32 alexei sayle Jamie reads that he used that hostage kind of lettering for the, never mind the bollocks, the sex pistols.

00:53:08.31 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal yeah yeah

00:53:11.01 alexei sayle And you know within a couple of years, you could see that lettering, that style of lettering being used for, you know, Vogue Carrads. You know, it was incorporated into the capitalist kind of and dialogue into the capitalist, you know, and that's what,

00:53:29.76 alexei sayle That's what happens, isn't it, really, with...

00:53:32.56 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, is there a positive way of doing that? A way that us revolutionaries can impose our message on the masses by making something very catchy and trendy, but the actual message behind it is revolutionary.

00:53:46.98 alexei sayle Well, let's leave that with the listeners. Yes, if somebody could come up with something which is catchy and you know ah you know ah propounds a kind of a le a revolutionary kind of anarcho- anarchist vision of of of governance, ah which also help you know which which also helps destroy the exploitative system of capitalism that we live under and neo-colonialism.

00:54:16.70 alexei sayle If somebody could come up with something like that, I would...

00:54:20.07 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Sure, but we could also do it. I'm a songwriter. you were right d Why don't you write me some lyrics, Lex?

00:54:22.85 alexei sayle Yeah, all right.

00:54:26.68 alexei sayle Okay, I think my time... Because I got, well, I got recuperated, but i was so I was also in, you know, I was complicit in that, really, that I, hello, my revolutionary, you know, well, kind of subversive song, hello, John Got A New Motor, became, late in later years, hello, Tosh Got A Tosh Yee, but ah I got paid. I mean, I accepted that that was happening, except and it was actually sung by

00:54:58.64 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah Fucking yeah.

00:54:58.66 alexei sayle Ian Dury, i didn't do that I didn't do the vocal for anybody. Baxter Dury, you know, Ian Dury's son told me that was the only time he went briefly to... He had a troubled school career, but the only time he went briefly to private school was when his dad was doing the Low Tosh Gata Tosh Eber and he could afford to send Baxter to her a fee paying school, but I mean, the enjoyers wealth didn't last and neither did Baxter's education, but, um, nice guy, but, um, I've got a Joshie, but so I've, I've been a, I've been a part of that.

00:55:30.12 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So fucked up.

00:55:34.11 alexei sayle Um, willingly, i willingly allowed my work to be prostituted. So don't, you know, don't admire me, man. I'm not, I'm not your saint.

00:55:44.20 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But let's... No.

00:55:47.89 alexei sayle Um,

00:55:48.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal But you have had ah number one hit. Or two number one hits.

00:55:51.87 alexei sayle Me, um but but if I'm honest, I would say no what number 12.

00:55:52.69 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah.

00:55:57.58 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Right, neither of them were number ones.

00:55:59.53 alexei sayle No, number 12, and that was only in the Pepsi chart, really. It was number 15. No, it wasn't. It got to number three in New Zealand and Australia. Yeah.

00:56:10.19 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh no, my respect for you has just taken a real blow there, Lexi.

00:56:12.09 alexei sayle Well, I've got to be honest, though. I'm, um you know...

00:56:16.06 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You are an honest man.

00:56:16.54 alexei sayle Well, plus everything can be checked these days, so you can't like any about stuff like that.

00:56:20.81 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Well, i don't know.

00:56:21.24 alexei sayle yeah Number 12 in the Pepsi shot.

00:56:22.07 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal If you write me a poem about a revolution or a free united people or a free Palestine or something, I can try and come up with a catchchy catchy melody for it.

00:56:25.72 alexei sayle All right, and we'll get that.

00:56:31.10 alexei sayle Put it to words and... Yeah.

00:56:35.20 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal That could be a fun project for us.

00:56:37.02 alexei sayle But, yeah, all right.

00:56:37.57 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Maybe we can get that number one. It'll be so catchy, it'll be undeniable.

00:56:40.78 alexei sayle I know what that means anymore, really. What's the number one?

00:56:43.74 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, yeah. It means it gets used on Instagram and then Waitrose staff do a dance down the aisle to it.

00:56:44.15 alexei sayle You don't still...

00:56:47.78 alexei sayle Yeah. Right.

00:56:50.33 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal That's my goal. I want the waitress staff to dance down the aisle holding pots of hummus ah to one of our songs, but the lyrics are actually about ah burning down parliament and overthrowing the government.

00:56:56.09 alexei sayle Right.

00:57:02.98 alexei sayle Right. And the the Marxist theory of surplus value.

00:57:07.01 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yes.

00:57:08.80 alexei sayle ah Well, you know, see we get along with that. And anybody, if anybody else has got, you know,

00:57:17.21 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal So we we said all that, just to recap it off, I guess we went off on a tangent after you brought up Monty Python's...

00:57:22.40 alexei sayle It's got broad range in this week. You've got to say it wasn't lacklustre like last week. I mean, it's been, you know, it's covered, you know, it's covered the ground like a kind of loping lynx.

00:57:31.34 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yeah. Yeah. To think 40 minutes ago, you said you'd run out of things to talk about.

00:57:37.47 alexei sayle Yeah, and now...

00:57:39.63 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal and

00:57:39.64 alexei sayle i mean and there's you know there's I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. I mean, you could go back over that conversation and fill in the gaps. Why was I at that party with Richard Curtis? Where was it? you know Why did Graham Chapman want to be my friend?

00:57:54.09 alexei sayle you know What happened at the first night of the Tempest at the Old Vic? There's all kinds of ancillary stuff. What happened the one time I went to the Colony Rooms Club

00:58:10.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Did you perform at the establishment?

00:58:13.42 alexei sayle No, I would have been fucking sick

00:58:16.96 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal You never know. Oh, did you, maybe you served to drinks then?

00:58:17.98 alexei sayle no

00:58:20.40 alexei sayle there

00:58:20.73 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah You stuffed people's pipes for them. um He's giggled in the back of the room. ah So um anything else on the comparison between Monty Python and fucking Beyond the Fringe?

00:58:35.42 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah they got Is there any overlap there?

00:58:35.45 alexei sayle No, I mean, you know, one one followed the other. They were both, you know, but they both have my admiration. I suppose the Pythons, in a sense, were the final truly great flowering of that Oxford.

00:58:50.91 alexei sayle And, you know, I acknowledge, you know, even though I have tremendous ideological problems with people from Oxford and Cambridge and their roles in the comedy business, I...

00:58:51.95 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Hmm.

00:59:04.37 alexei sayle yeah acknowledge their ability really

00:59:09.93 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah

00:59:10.84 alexei sayle also you know when i was like because it was early on well you know when we were doing alexis stuff know which written by graham by um david renek and andrew marshall and i'd go off with that fucking shit fry and lorry and they said no if you watch you know their stuff it's funny you have to acknowledge i mean neither of them shared my political beliefs and but And they were right, really. you know There was a lot of funny shit in that, in Friar Loddy.

00:59:36.90 alexei sayle I mean, I don't mind Hugh, really, but Steve and I obviously have problems with.

00:59:44.53 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, well, he was very nice to me, so I have a soft spot.

00:59:47.68 alexei sayle Was he? Yeah, he's all right. and he hum I mean, a complicated guy, really. And obviously, you know, when Dr. House, though, you know, fucking hell, that's a worker genius. and ah Yeah, but yeah.

00:59:59.61 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mm-hmm.

01:00:00.47 alexei sayle was Yeah. Nice to hear. Well, there you go. That's it. You know how people are in private to somebody. Somebody as insignificant as you.

01:00:14.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um

01:00:14.71 alexei sayle feel good.

01:00:16.14 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Okay, thank you. That was a wonderful, ah energetic, lively episode after after a week away.

01:00:20.67 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

01:00:22.77 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Sorry, thanks for your patience, everyone. we We took a week off there. I guess that's the risk now of of committing to a weekly schedule is that what happens if one of us needs to go away for a bit?

01:00:25.86 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:00:29.89 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:00:32.33 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal And it will happen again.

01:00:33.66 alexei sayle Yeah. Well, I was feeling lackluster, you know.

01:00:34.43 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal ah we

01:00:35.90 alexei sayle I mean, it did revitalize me to go away, really.

01:00:38.18 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal believe so, yeah. and But I want to remind our listeners...

01:00:40.04 alexei sayle I'm off in a minute. go on.

01:00:43.70 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal our readers, sorry. um Free Palestine Forever, obviously. And watch Mephisto.

01:00:51.37 alexei sayle Oh, yes. Are we doing that next week?

01:00:53.60 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal We've got to review it next week, okay?

01:00:56.67 alexei sayle All right.

01:00:57.58 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Mephisto, the movie from 1981.

01:00:58.72 alexei sayle Film for our times, yeah.

01:01:00.90 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Where can watch it?

01:01:04.28 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um where can we watch it

01:01:05.68 alexei sayle Directed by my old mate, Es Van Sabo.

01:01:10.41 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal That's right, directed by Istvan Szabo and starring some people. God, not much info readily available. Klaus Maria Brandauer stars in it.

01:01:22.98 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I can't see where we can watch it online, but I'm sure it's going quite easy to find.

01:01:26.46 alexei sayle Well, if we can't, we'll have to go to phase two. One, one, one.

01:01:31.80 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal um my God, it's two hours, 25 minutes long

01:01:34.98 alexei sayle Is it?

01:01:36.85 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yep.

01:01:38.13 alexei sayle Oh, really?

01:01:38.91 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal A simple Google. I found a free stream of it. Has it got subtitles?

01:01:47.80 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Yes, it has subtitles.

01:01:50.45 alexei sayle in Shaman.

01:01:53.21 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal I will put a link ah to this illegal. No, should not? I won't. Just Google it, guys. I'm sure you can.

01:02:00.39 alexei sayle All right,

01:02:00.99 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal It's on Mubi as well. M-U-B-I. Watch on Mubi. ah Watch Mephisto for next week.

01:02:06.73 alexei sayle right I'm off to do unspeakable with Phil Wang and Susie Dent.

01:02:11.09 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Oh, that's today.

01:02:12.73 alexei sayle Yeah. Don't know when it be out.

01:02:14.81 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal a Radio 4 program?

01:02:16.68 alexei sayle Yes.

01:02:17.71 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Good luck. Break a leg.

01:02:19.91 alexei sayle Muchas gracias. Adios todo el mundo.

01:02:23.52 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Break a wang.

01:02:23.98 alexei sayle a Yeah, yeah.

01:02:26.28 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Hasta luego.

01:02:26.61 alexei sayle Hasta la próxima. Hasta la próxima semana. Yeah. Bye bye.

01:02:33.29 Talaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalaltalal Free Palestine, bye.

01:02:33.56 alexei sayle Bye bye.