00:00:01.93 alexei sayle Hi everybody, welcome to episode 78 of the Alexi Sale podcast. And hi Talal, how you doing today?

00:00:14.95 Talal K Hey, Alexia.

00:00:16.10 alexei sayle Woo!

00:00:15.99 Talal K I'm okay. Thank you. Woohoo!

00:00:17.64 alexei sayle Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo!

00:00:18.55 Talal K It's hot and sunny here in sunny South London.

00:00:21.70 alexei sayle Woo-hoo!

00:00:21.51 Talal K There's tarmac is melting on the streets, sticking to people's tires and...

00:00:27.69 alexei sayle ah Traffic is backing up on the I-50. There's reports of a bank robbery in the corner of Wilshire Boulevard.

00:00:36.72 Talal K Remember, people, keep your cool out there on the streets.

00:00:39.51 alexei sayle Hey, stay cool.

00:00:39.99 Talal K Don't let the heat get to your head.

00:00:42.09 alexei sayle Don't push me because I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to lose my head. It's like a jungle sometimes. Makes want to keep him going under.

00:00:51.67 Talal K yeah Reminds me of fucking Mr. Leveson, my politics teacher in sixth form.

00:00:55.93 alexei sayle Well, he used to rap.

00:00:57.99 Talal K He was, he used to do that just, he used to think it was very funny, randomly.

00:00:59.66 alexei sayle used to rap Grandmaster Flash.

00:01:04.04 Talal K He was not a funny guy and he was a very dry.

00:01:06.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:01:07.26 Talal K it's but His teaching persona, I'm sure with him among his friends, he was the the laugh of the of the group. But ah he was very dry and very strict and he hated me. And for no reason, he just decided i was the guy in the class he didn't like.

00:01:21.51 alexei sayle Yeah. and you've always got fun Yeah.

00:01:23.82 Talal K And... But every now and then he'd be in the middle of talking about Thatcher or something and then he would just say, don't push me because I'm close to the edge. I'm trying not to lose my, and he's like, thought it was a hilarious joke. And all the other kids were like, ah, you're a riot, Mr. Levison, that's so good. And I'm sitting there going, fucking douchebag.

00:01:43.93 Talal K um But yeah, hated him. All my mates loved him. But because he chose i me as his example, he'd make an example of me every class.

00:01:49.97 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:01:53.98 alexei sayle Well, the entire teaching staff at my school did that with me, so...

00:01:58.45 Talal K Yeah.

00:01:59.11 alexei sayle Can't you say I'm lucky it was only... Well, quite rightly, you know, I mean, they were right they were right to pick on me.

00:02:01.32 Talal K Were you at school?

00:02:05.63 Talal K Well, I was a the a bit of a joker in the class.

00:02:08.42 alexei sayle Aha, now we're getting to it. Aha.

00:02:10.01 Talal K I'd make quips and stuff, but most teachers loved me. They thought I was hilarious and charming.

00:02:15.64 alexei sayle Did they? All the teachers hated me.

00:02:16.73 Talal K Yeah, he was not having it. Were you at school at a time when they would use the cane?

00:02:23.99 alexei sayle They did, yeah, but they were all too frightened of my mother to overuse it on me. i never and never got that to share.

00:02:29.91 Talal K Is that right?

00:02:31.03 alexei sayle They were far too scared Molly to inflict corporal punishment.

00:02:33.95 Talal K Oh, did she ever go in and bollock them?

00:02:35.72 alexei sayle Now she'd go, yeah. Can you imagine if she they caned her Lexi? But, yeah, they did. I mean, I think not... I can't remember. It it wasn't very... I mean you i mean mean, people of my generation, particularly if they went to Catholic school, I think, that some of them had their lives ruined by the brutality that was handed out to them.

00:02:56.52 alexei sayle They're...

00:02:56.46 Talal K Yeah.

00:02:58.33 alexei sayle don't think it was too bad at our school, really, but, know, still wrong, obviously see profoundly wrong. But, no, they'd never...

00:03:09.62 alexei sayle yeah

00:03:09.28 Talal K This whole idea, I'm doing it for your own good. This is for your own good.

00:03:13.07 alexei sayle o

00:03:12.85 Talal K This hurts me more than it hurts you.

00:03:16.03 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:03:16.21 Talal K That your parents too, like now it's unheard of pretty much to like hit your kids, give them a little spanking.

00:03:20.73 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, no.

00:03:23.81 Talal K But that used to be a way of showing love and discipline is to beat your child and make them hostages in their own home basically.

00:03:30.97 alexei sayle That's the theory, yeah. But no, they were always too frightened of my mother to ever discipline me. I mean, obviously, they told me not to come back halfway through the sixth form,

00:03:41.14 Talal K yeah

00:03:44.09 alexei sayle Again, I forgive them for that. They were right. I was I was a, you know, thorn in their side, really.

00:03:52.47 Talal K what What breed of naughty were you? What brand of naughty?

00:03:55.80 alexei sayle Oh, i was, no, not really.

00:03:56.72 Talal K Starting fights or?

00:03:59.31 alexei sayle I i didn't i didn't, I stopped sort of wearing, I mean, it was minor shit, really. I mean, I i remember reading, I a list of you know infractions in u.s high school in the fifty s you know compared to the say the 90s and in the 50s it was you know chewing gum or running in the hall and then in the 90s it was like bringing an assault rifle to school or yeah oh my son or dealing crack or you know i mean so it was um

00:04:32.22 alexei sayle standnsza So it was, you know, what you I was just, um i didn't I had long hair and a beard and I didn't, I didn't...

00:04:36.22 Talal K Right.

00:04:43.41 alexei sayle You know, I um said, sorry. Well, you know, there was this thing. I mean, it's probably a nearly lesson in how hollow bourgeois democracy is, but they decided to bring in this kind of school council and each class would send a representative and my class ah elected me.

00:05:01.60 alexei sayle And so they may they made them re-held the election twice until the electorate got the idea

00:05:01.76 Talal K right

00:05:06.59 Talal K Oh, wow.

00:05:08.24 alexei sayle yeah that um

00:05:09.15 Talal K Oh, so you were a man of the people. The people, you were and were afraid of you.

00:05:11.60 alexei sayle Yeah, I was popular, you know, I was popular kid. They were afraid of me, yeah, yeah. um

00:05:17.63 Talal K my God. Did you used to write revolutionary slogans on the walls of the changing rooms and stuff?

00:05:23.93 alexei sayle I don't, I didn't know. i don I mean, it's it's hard to know. I think, you know, my crimes were pretty minor by the standards of of today, but... um

00:05:38.71 Talal K I'm not getting any specifics out of you.

00:05:40.73 alexei sayle I can't remember really. it wasn't It was just a sort of generalised attitude. Having long hair and a beard and not wearing the school tie and stuff like that and being getting there late and generally lounging around and sneering.

00:05:48.89 Talal K Wow. Okay.

00:05:53.71 Talal K Okay.

00:05:56.35 alexei sayle But of course they could have, if they if rather than opposing me, they'd ah everybody in the sixth form was made a prefect apart from me as well. But if they'd, if they'd um I always think if they'd...

00:06:10.53 alexei sayle just realised, you know, I was acting out probably that if they'd encouraged my rebelliousness, I would have been their disciple then and I would have become a slave to authority and would now be Labour Party councillor in Walton and Liverpool.

00:06:29.18 alexei sayle You know, it was partly because they opposed my um free spirit that made me... um increasingly doubled down on it.

00:06:39.45 Talal K Yeah.

00:06:40.01 alexei sayle you know If they tried to incorporate me, I think I probably would have quite easily folded.

00:06:42.86 Talal K It's true. Love is always the answer.

00:06:44.90 alexei sayle and and If they'd made me ah if they'd made me a prefect, I would have been I probably would have been the most, you know, would have turned into like Oberfuhrer, Oberstlieutenant, air sail, really. I probably would have become the most enthusiastic um member of, you know, the prefect staff.

00:07:07.53 alexei sayle Of course, I didn't realise that.

00:07:08.03 Talal K Yeah.

00:07:11.18 alexei sayle Which, yeah, which brings us to our film Mephisto, I suppose.

00:07:15.90 Talal K Mephisto.

00:07:16.99 alexei sayle Mephisto. Mephisto.

00:07:18.82 Talal K We can, no, let's, well, okay, we could jump straight into Mephisto, if you like.

00:07:21.16 alexei sayle I don't know.

00:07:24.19 alexei sayle but I just thought there was a sort of link there.

00:07:24.70 Talal K We normally warm up to it, but that was a good transition, indeed.

00:07:27.64 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:07:28.34 Talal K Yeah.

00:07:28.91 alexei sayle ah so That's why I'm a top DJ with my own show on Radio Barrow Inferness.

00:07:37.58 Talal K Alexei Segway sale. ah Mephisto was our film club film for this month.

00:07:41.50 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:07:45.24 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:07:46.21 Talal K Wasn't it?

00:07:47.73 alexei sayle I just thought of a story there just before.

00:07:47.58 Talal K Uh, we...

00:07:50.70 alexei sayle i was I think when I still had my old Rover, my P5B coupe, and we'd either gone to pick my mother up on Christmas, Christmas Day, but without taking my mother back to Liverpool, I would bring her from Liverpool to London to spend the remainder of that.

00:07:50.39 Talal K Okay.

00:08:07.73 alexei sayle i mean Anyway, the traffic was bad on the M1, and we came off and went through Coventry, and I had the local Coventry station on... And um they said, oh, in a few minutes, we've got Alexi Sale coming in for an interview.

00:08:23.45 alexei sayle i mean, what they were in fact doing was just playing tapes of you know people who'd been interviewed that year, I think. you know they were just um But they didn't say that.

00:08:31.34 Talal K Fucking hell.

00:08:32.33 alexei sayle They're just playing tapes. So I thought, well, I was actually quite near the radio station at that point because we'd come off. So I could have driven to the radio station and then said, I'm here for my interview.

00:08:46.19 Talal K That's so trippy.

00:08:47.59 alexei sayle They would have panicked, really. um

00:08:54.30 alexei sayle Yeah. So there's a story.

00:08:56.75 Talal K God, what were you promoting? Was that as early as CAC days? Were you promoting CAC?

00:09:01.33 alexei sayle Must have been in now. It's probably tour, you know, because I was touring sort of 82, 83, 84. If I had the Rover, it must have been between 84 and 88.

00:09:10.00 Talal K How many tours have you done?

00:09:11.49 alexei sayle I have no idea. They're all very, very short. i mean, I've played very... I mean, the number of live dates that I've done in my life would probably be what Stuart Lee does in a month or something.

00:09:15.75 Talal K The tours or the sets?

00:09:23.23 alexei sayle I mean, I never really loved that.

00:09:23.02 Talal K Right.

00:09:25.80 alexei sayle I wish I had, like... I never really loved the life, really, of touring and doing live stand-up. So um ah very... I mean, I would do... I mean, once I was on the telly, I would do 30, 40 dates a year kind of thing, you kind of...

00:09:43.30 alexei sayle um So...

00:09:44.64 Talal K Would it be a whole new set every year or every tour?

00:09:46.98 alexei sayle Oh, fuck, no, nobody no, no. I mean, Stuart, I mean, I don't know when that came in, really. I mean, what what I used to do was start off with a set and then it sort of evolved, and so it became substantially different.

00:09:57.55 alexei sayle But I was never...

00:09:59.03 Talal K There'd still be nuggets of like your first stuff in there.

00:10:00.87 alexei sayle There would still be, yeah, or right... I mean, right until the end, I would be doing... I mean, because I think that i mean that's a closer... That's a closer thing to old style kind of vaudeville where you kept the same act forever, really.

00:10:12.41 alexei sayle I mean, it's people, I mean, Stuart's generation probably started doing that entire new show every year or a couple of years, really, which just seems like a bit of a pain in the ass.

00:10:21.50 Talal K Yeah.

00:10:23.73 alexei sayle I mean, I was doing Hello, John Got New Motor, you know, from when I started in like big venues in 82 or something, 81. to when I stopped in 96, because by then I was very bitter about doing all the John Garton U-Mota.

00:10:38.07 alexei sayle I would say things like, you know, I'm fucking sick of this song. I'm fucking sick of this song. I've done this a thousand times.

00:10:48.49 Talal K which I'm sure the audience thought was just a brilliant, brilliant joke.

00:10:51.50 alexei sayle Yeah, that they they were quite... Yeah, yeah, they were. well yeah But ah so, I mean, there was there is some an argument to be made. for but so But yeah, so the the show over time changed, and so there was very little. there was But um there were bits that were there.

00:11:07.94 alexei sayle and I'm just trying to think if I...

00:11:10.65 Talal K Would you perform that song now?

00:11:13.15 alexei sayle No, I'm just trying think if I can... you Some of the material you have to... There's a bit where I used to do a pretend to cough and then I'd say, I've, um

00:11:24.47 alexei sayle sorry, I've got a bit of a frog in my throat. I've been giving a blowjob to Charles Aznavour.

00:11:32.74 alexei sayle That's all right, isn't it, to say that? Is that all right?

00:11:34.72 Talal K Who's that?

00:11:36.09 alexei sayle Yeah, well, exactly. Well, after a while, I then, I just updated it and changed it to Gerard Depardieu.

00:11:37.66 Talal K I thought you were going say Kermit the Frog or something.

00:11:43.27 alexei sayle Now, frog, well, it's a frog, you know, it's a French person.

00:11:44.86 Talal K A French person.

00:11:46.49 alexei sayle Yeah, it's racist, isn't it?

00:11:46.77 Talal K Yes.

00:11:48.89 alexei sayle I get a bit of frog in my throat. I've been given, and that's all I did was update it. Once people, nobody knew Charles Aznavour was.

00:11:56.37 Talal K Gerard Depedieu, Jean Reno...

00:11:57.47 alexei sayle I changed it to Jared Depardieu, yeah. And then I said I've been sucking a fisherman's friend all day, I would say. ah know there was there was bits of me that were really quiet. Old school.

00:12:10.54 alexei sayle um But that was my one that was why i'm on gesture to, you know, kind of modernity was I changed Charles Asnavour to Gerard Depardieu.

00:12:21.18 Talal K Now, on your sketch show, you'd had those monologue segments, which were essentially stand-up.

00:12:22.50 alexei sayle Oh, yeah, sorry. Yes.

00:12:27.56 alexei sayle Yes.

00:12:30.53 Talal K Was that material you would do live?

00:12:33.54 alexei sayle Mostly, yeah. Yeah.

00:12:34.60 Talal K It was.

00:12:35.15 alexei sayle Yeah. I mean, in this in the in the early series, yeah, it was all it was all taken from the live show.

00:12:39.90 Talal K Taken from the live show, okay.

00:12:41.41 alexei sayle and Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:42.17 Talal K But ah you also had, like, co-writers on the sketch shows.

00:12:46.04 alexei sayle Yes. David Rennick and Andrew Marshall and then Graham Linahan and Arthur Matthews.

00:12:47.53 Talal K Did you have, like... Yeah. Would they help you write live material as well?

00:12:53.51 alexei sayle By and large, they didn't... Sometimes they would write the monologues and sometimes, generally, they wrote the sketches and I wrote the monologues.

00:12:55.94 Talal K ah

00:12:59.81 Talal K Right.

00:13:01.07 alexei sayle that's how That's how it broke down. So, you know, the show... would say

00:13:03.22 Talal K And you never bought, did he ever buy jokes off people like some people do now?

00:13:06.43 alexei sayle No, mean, i would have done if if um I would have done if i could if anybody could have written them, you know. I mean, i had some right i had some writers whose work I used. I mean, guy called Dennis Burson, who's dead now, and used to be a joke writer for Ken Dodd and stuff like that, but he also he liked me.

00:13:28.07 alexei sayle And he would um he gave me the odd, or I bought the odd gag. And David Stafford, who I wrote with, I wrote like my award-winning radio series for Capital Radio.

00:13:40.72 alexei sayle I would use some that yes some of the stuff. The mime routine, for instance. That was David. Um... And, well, yeah, it was a thing.

00:13:51.21 Talal K stuff.

00:13:54.04 alexei sayle It was a tirade about mine, you know, that if you... It was really good. I mean, I did it on Secret Police. You know, people... That's when I had the row with Jasper Carrot about the use of the word Guildford.

00:14:04.23 alexei sayle You know, you... you know if if if if you if a you have a yeah if you if you ah if a real man, you know, sewed his fingers together or walked into the wind or remember where else, you know, you wouldn't, but if a man pretends to sew his fingers together, you know, and walk into a wall, people travel from Guildford to see him.

00:14:29.13 alexei sayle And, um, so Jasper well Jasper had also had a gag I can't remember what it was now ended in Guildford and we had this row about who was going to say Guildford and I said well who's on first and he said you are I said well fuck you I'm doing it and so I used Guildford and then he changed that to he changed his gag to Basingstoke and it died on its arse I don't know that's just that's the magic comedy that you have to that's what you get the big books for is knowing that Guildford is funnier than Basingstoke

00:14:31.07 Talal K And what was Jasper Carrot's problem with the word Guildford?

00:14:44.27 Talal K Yeah. why Why is Guildford funnier?

00:15:02.48 alexei sayle Although, interestingly enough, I had a friend who was a writer who was at Merseyside Youth Theatre with, who was a writer on Brookside, and they had a family, I can't remember...

00:15:02.29 Talal K wow

00:15:12.61 alexei sayle They had a family move out, you know, in the way that they were replaced. So they decided to send them to the most unscouse place that there was in Britain, which was Basingstoke. So anyway, this family, let's call them the Mulroney family, moved to Basingstoke. And occasionally, you people would say to other characters, you know, wonder how John and Pat are getting on in Basingstoke.

00:15:37.07 alexei sayle i yeah Have you heard anything from Basingstoke, from John and Pat and the kids in Basingstoke? um There's a place where there are, you would imagine there are no Scousers, really.

00:15:48.67 alexei sayle Basingstoke.

00:15:48.87 Talal K Oh, it'd be great if they had an episode, look ah ah ba like one episode that was just them in Basingstoke.

00:15:56.20 alexei sayle Yes, yeah, a spin-off, yeah.

00:15:56.94 Talal K Losing their minds. Yeah.

00:15:59.80 alexei sayle Basingstoke, looking for other Scousers.

00:16:02.65 Talal K Yeah.

00:16:03.22 alexei sayle Basingstoke.

00:16:05.04 Talal K They find like a secret club of them in the basement and under a church.

00:16:07.29 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:16:09.77 alexei sayle When I did that um documentary about Liverpool in 2007, they had a clip from Brookside because I interviewed Frank Cotterbury. And, God, it was boring. I mean, it was it was Ricky Tomlinson and Sheila ah Johnson.

00:16:23.39 alexei sayle And they were talking about, and she said, so what's happening with the yeah the industrial disputes, Ricky? And he said, well, they've called ACAS in now, so it's going to arbitration.

00:16:34.12 alexei sayle And it was just like a kind of dramatisation at a TUC conference. It was unbelievably boring.

00:16:41.30 alexei sayle Then later on it got saucy, didn't it? And the television's first lesbian kiss. Or did it? And it starts to have him bodies buried under the patio.

00:16:52.65 alexei sayle ah Yeah, we ah I killed him with a shovel because of his composite motion to the National Union of Miners Conference in a long way from Mephisto, haven't we, really?

00:17:03.59 Talal K Uh... ah

00:17:09.22 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:17:09.94 Talal K ah Someone asked in the Patreon chat questions for Alexi chat room.

00:17:17.43 alexei sayle You've

00:17:19.12 Talal K By the way, support the show, please go to patreon.com forward slash Alexi cell podcast.

00:17:24.45 alexei sayle got a lovely voice.

00:17:25.53 Talal K That's patreon.com forward slash Alexi cell podcast to support the show. A few pounds a month will help keep this show going ah for the price of a

00:17:38.53 alexei sayle Nothing.

00:17:38.87 Talal K A salt lick, a price of a salt lick a month.

00:17:40.45 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:17:42.46 Talal K ah Someone asks, ah Paul asks, ah he's rereading Thatcher Stole My Choses and ah having a walk past the Bedford Arms, having walked past the Bedford Arms hundreds of times, never once have I been tempted to enter the premises.

00:17:48.67 alexei sayle Yes.

00:17:56.16 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:17:59.53 alexei sayle No.

00:18:00.61 Talal K Are there any other pubs that Alexei used to frequent in Fulham that he should probably walk past?

00:18:05.78 alexei sayle Yeah. as Well, the Bedford was the main one. ah There was a pub over more towards Barron's Court, I remember.

00:18:20.39 alexei sayle ah remember going there with Harry for having a drink, and there was a there was a family sitting outside in a Volkswagen camper van, so we started talking to them. it turned out they'd been barred out. It's called, like, the cherry tree or something, I think, the pub.

00:18:34.34 alexei sayle And they'd been barred out from the pub.

00:18:36.39 Talal K What area? What area? Sorry.

00:18:37.95 alexei sayle Sort of, it was nor towards like West Kensington. can't remember what that area is called really, Barron's Court. So was sort of north and slightly east of where we were.

00:18:51.45 alexei sayle And it was called the Pear Street. Anyway, there was this family sitting in the back of this. And they'd been barred out from the pub. but the management allowed them to park a VW camper van outside and then buy pints and then sitting there sit VW camper van drinking them.

00:19:12.02 Talal K The pear tree is in Barron's Court.

00:19:14.44 alexei sayle Yeah, it's still there.

00:19:16.10 Talal K ah Did it look like that?

00:19:19.04 alexei sayle Yeah, I guess. I mean, it probably serves, you know.

00:19:23.15 Talal K Yeah, it looks like it's been done up.

00:19:24.56 alexei sayle Yeah, it serves, you know.

00:19:24.44 Talal K It's probably Mitchell and Butler's pub now.

00:19:27.81 alexei sayle ah really...

00:19:28.89 Talal K No, probably, I'm assuming.

00:19:30.60 alexei sayle Oh, right. But yeah, probably, you know, it's been taken over by some aristocrats who serve Tamil food.

00:19:37.92 Talal K So they allowed them to sit in their camper van and get served out there.

00:19:40.25 alexei sayle Yes, outside. Yeah, outside the pub. You know, which I suppose was a reasonable compromise, really, wasn't it?

00:19:43.93 Talal K Well, that's something, isn't it?

00:19:46.95 alexei sayle In a sense, the pub still got the revenue, but didn't have to put up with this.

00:19:50.62 Talal K Probably just out of persistence. They probably just kept showing up and they're up for fuck's sake.

00:19:55.02 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:19:55.43 Talal K It took a effort to keep bar kicking them out.

00:19:58.81 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:20:01.82 alexei sayle I remember doing um these book reading tours I used to do.

00:20:01.53 Talal K Oh, I'll...

00:20:04.73 alexei sayle It could be very shonky, really. always got well-behaved for some reason. I remember doing a place in Hull, and ah there was like a there wasn't much of a stage, and there was a couch on it, and there was a family sitting on the couch.

00:20:16.65 alexei sayle And ah they said, we've we've we we've been barred from this pub or bar or whatever it was for six months and we're celebrating. They've just taken off our, you know, we're we're allowed back in and we're just celebrating.

00:20:32.57 alexei sayle So these people were sitting on a couch on the... yeah on the stage with me. and I mean, it it went fine. I mean, I just incorporated them into the act really. But you can't imagine that a lot of authors would have, you know, would have...

00:20:42.01 Talal K Well,

00:20:47.60 alexei sayle I don't know a lot of authors would have reacted to that, really. I suppose, that you know.

00:20:56.07 alexei sayle Simon Armitage, he would have...

00:20:55.97 Talal K that's a big deal. It's a milestone day for them.

00:20:59.41 alexei sayle It was, it was a big day, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:21:00.14 Talal K I'm sure they were honoured to have you mention them as well.

00:21:03.85 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

00:21:05.17 Talal K What a welcome back.

00:21:07.23 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:21:07.13 Talal K um Someone asked, Michael asked, have you ever seen the Liverpool set Albert Finney film, Gumshoe?

00:21:15.38 alexei sayle Oh, now you've now you've got... Yeah, well, um not only not any have I seen it, but I'm also sort of was friends or am friends with several other people involved in it.

00:21:18.38 Talal K Might be one for the film club.

00:21:26.81 alexei sayle A few years ago, i

00:21:29.80 Talal K contains traces of Maureen Lippmann, he says, trigger warning.

00:21:33.53 alexei sayle Yeah, health warning, yeah. um

00:21:36.43 Talal K A few years ago, what?

00:21:38.20 alexei sayle Well, a few years ago, I remember I did I don't know why I did it. I mean, it was, ah um you know, my favourite film, and it was at cinema in... must have been organised by the BFI or something. It was in Central London. I chose as my film...

00:21:53.27 alexei sayle um Gumshoe. I think Gumshoe's really interesting for several reasons. It's actually written by a Liverpool writer, again, Catholic, and called Neville Smith, who we were friendly with for a while.

00:22:05.96 alexei sayle some it was sorter He was a contemporary of Bleasdale Willie Russell and all those people, but I thought he had more term in a way, Neville. I mean, he was a complicated guy, really. I had a lot of demons. But um he really... um i mean, I think that... I think... I mean, it the posse or the community can... I think it's about... um a sort of club comic played by Albert Finney who's obsessed with Sam Spade, the detective Dashiell Hammett, really.

00:22:38.92 alexei sayle And I think it actually, that idea, and Sam Spade actually appears to him and gives him advice, I think that actually predates, yes, Dashiell Hammett was the great um post-war kind of noir writer of detective fiction.

00:22:45.22 Talal K ah Is that a fictional detective character?

00:22:55.24 Talal K British?

00:22:56.89 alexei sayle Dashiell Hammett, no, American. I mean, Sam Spade.

00:22:58.13 Talal K American, yeah.

00:23:01.11 alexei sayle Is he post-war? It might be. Sam Spade. but Raymond Chandler was British. And Raymond Chandler's...

00:23:07.55 Talal K No, Raymond Chandler's American, surely.

00:23:09.49 alexei sayle No, he's British.

00:23:10.42 Talal K But all his books are set in America.

00:23:12.11 alexei sayle They are, but he was British.

00:23:13.55 Talal K I did not know. That's my noir guy. I love Raymond Chandler books.

00:23:16.82 alexei sayle Yeah, um but they were all set in Los Angeles. The Philip Marlowe books are set in Los Angeles.

00:23:22.32 Talal K Yeah.

00:23:23.22 alexei sayle Dashiell Hammett, Sam Spade was San Francisco. i mean, still ah West Coast United States, but sort of a different milieu.

00:23:29.09 Talal K Right.

00:23:31.23 alexei sayle And one is Chandler is pre-war. I mean, both of them, course, or all of them played by Humphrey Bogart, being both Sam Spade and...

00:23:38.77 Talal K Oh, Maltese Falcon.

00:23:40.65 alexei sayle Yeah, was 46...

00:23:40.32 Talal K That's from 1929. The book.

00:23:43.13 alexei sayle Oh, shit. So Dashiell Hammett is pre-war then and Chandler is post-war, right?

00:23:47.27 Talal K I think so, yes.

00:23:48.32 alexei sayle Anyway, so...

00:23:48.49 Talal K Chandler's definitely post-war, yeah.

00:23:51.01 alexei sayle Woody Allen did this film called Play Against Sam in which the ghost of Sam Spade appears to him and... I think Neville's film actually predates it.

00:24:01.77 alexei sayle It's also interesting because the first film directed by Stephen Frears, my friend Stephen Frears, probably Britain's most successful film director in many ways. um And it's just a really interesting film. It's also a view of Liverpool in the 70s, you know, that kind of period of...

00:24:24.29 alexei sayle ah economic collapse and it's a really, and so yeah, I talked about it.

00:24:27.31 Talal K Yeah.

00:24:30.83 alexei sayle um I tried to get Neville to come along. He wouldn't really. I think he's become.

00:24:33.39 Talal K Oh. We spoke a few episodes ago about the demolishing of like half of Liverpool.

00:24:38.85 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:24:39.51 Talal K And this this documents that, this film, quite well.

00:24:41.39 alexei sayle Yeah. It's certainly certainly set in that milieu. Yeah. yeah It's also got, I've got the bin men outside. Are you hearing that? think the bin men.

00:24:50.57 Talal K I'm only hearing a load of rubbish coming out of your mouth, Lexi.

00:24:52.79 alexei sayle Um, so, um...

00:24:53.99 Talal K Yeah. a No, I can't hear them.

00:24:57.34 alexei sayle um so um

00:25:00.42 Talal K This looks great. I've never heard of this film. I love noir. I'm i'm a bit of a noir fan. i love the Raymond Chandler books. I love the the old noir films. And I even like the remake of The Long Kiss Goodnight with Ross and Monica's dad from Friends. What's his bloody name?

00:25:21.52 alexei sayle Elliot Gould.

00:25:22.45 Talal K Elliot Gould.

00:25:23.52 alexei sayle I didn't, I thought it died by Robert Altman, isn't it? i didn't

00:25:25.50 Talal K It is an Altman film, yeah.

00:25:27.15 alexei sayle I didn't like it at the time, but probably that might have been me being overly censorious.

00:25:27.42 Talal K It's...

00:25:31.62 Talal K Oh, it's it's not great, but I like it because of the Altman... ah the Altmanicity of it all, because it's so weird to have a film noir with

00:25:37.91 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:25:41.79 Talal K with the Robert Altman style where everyone's just talking at the same time and these really long drawn out shots.

00:25:45.22 alexei sayle Right. Right.

00:25:47.49 Talal K It was a subversion of the genre, which I appreciated because yeah it doesn't use that many of the cliches of film noir.

00:25:50.47 alexei sayle Right. Okay.

00:25:55.32 alexei sayle Too great, Robert Altman.

00:25:55.28 Talal K But ah this, so my question is, that is Gumshoe, sorry, go on, yeah.

00:25:58.06 alexei sayle Have you? Well, we could... well Yeah, I mean, I'm...

00:26:00.37 Talal K The real, no, no, the the Altman, what were you gonna say about Altman?

00:26:01.26 alexei sayle um

00:26:04.25 alexei sayle No, just it's weird it's weird because he also did, of course, Gosford Park, which is you know that sort of the pilot episode of Downton Abbey, really.

00:26:04.37 Talal K The truly,

00:26:14.69 alexei sayle And he also did a marvellous film called Shortcuts, which is based on the short stories of, oh, shit, one my favourite authors whose name I have forgotten.

00:26:14.51 Talal K oh

00:26:28.02 Talal K think I've seen shortcuts.

00:26:29.96 alexei sayle tell me tell me who it is what we talk about when we talk about love the author what's his name alcoholic um Raymond Carver you don't need yeah Raymond Carver amazing I mean I mean a film that I found stunning when I first saw it really um very interesting yeah

00:26:29.94 Talal K um

00:26:39.02 Talal K I just read that name as you said it. Good one.

00:26:49.45 Talal K My question is about Gumshoe. Is it, ah because it says it's a black comedy, is it a parody of film noir or is it a film noir? But in its style, in its shooting style and has it got like voiceover narration?

00:27:03.61 alexei sayle Well, it was very... it was it's but I think it's a tribute too, and it it also is actually a murder mystery.

00:27:04.58 Talal K Yeah.

00:27:11.74 alexei sayle So it's it's an evocation.

00:27:11.73 Talal K yeah

00:27:13.87 alexei sayle It's not a parody of... Well, it's um it's a complicated film, really. It's it's sort of a parody of... mean, it's about a murder. um it's It's a kind of noir-esque mystery. But on the other hand, the central protagonist is... a It's a Liverpool club comic, you know. So it's ah it's a... No, I think it's an interesting blending of of of genre, really. I think a ne i think it was really... it was really a very interesting film. And um I think Cos Bleasdale was more of a kind of...

00:27:54.73 alexei sayle self-publicist in a way, that um but Neville really got the attention, and probably sabotaged himself really, but Neville was, Neville really didn't get the attention he deserved, I think.

00:28:10.94 alexei sayle I tried to sort of promote him, but he also wouldn't, he wouldn't be helped in some way. He was very very close to, it was friends very good friends with Alan Bennett, Neville, is in some of Alan Bennett's films.

00:28:25.42 alexei sayle ah But yes, and it really, I mean, I would really, it's really, and I mean, again, it's tough.

00:28:25.21 Talal K It looked very interesting. We could look at that.

00:28:29.22 alexei sayle I mean, it's, I think it's, i don't know whether it's, I suppose it's shot on 35mm. It looks but quite murky, really. And Stephen Fraze was amazingly young when he did it and then didn't do another movie for years, really.

00:28:44.59 alexei sayle And then after that, I got back into movies with a Terrence Stamp movie called The Hit set in Spain. And then, of course, had a huge, long string of massive successes.

00:28:53.27 Talal K was He was 30 when he made it.

00:28:58.12 alexei sayle Eh?

00:28:58.65 Talal K He was 30 years old when he made it.

00:29:00.50 alexei sayle Stephen, was he?

00:29:01.59 Talal K Yeah.

00:29:02.26 alexei sayle God, he's old.

00:29:03.06 Talal K He was born in 1941.

00:29:05.14 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:06.39 Talal K He's older than my dad.

00:29:08.04 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:29:08.92 Talal K Um... Uh...

00:29:12.17 alexei sayle I'm still going, still working, just on, yeah, I did that. Yeah.

00:29:15.84 Talal K It's ah delightfully funny, more so because it never indulges in obvious pastiche, instead filtering its many echoes of the 40s thrillers through the pop-tinted glasses of the Presley 50s, as well as the sober horn rims of reality.

00:29:22.23 alexei sayle yeah

00:29:33.86 Talal K That was the monthly film bulletin reviewed.

00:29:36.18 alexei sayle Yeah, actually she Neville's in it as well. Neville is in it when he...

00:29:42.50 alexei sayle Albert Finney character gets left given a gun or by an anonymous and and Neville, ah predictably on a patch of wasteland, which is what most of Liverpool was at that point.

00:29:48.27 Talal K Oh, he makes a cameo.

00:29:54.60 alexei sayle and

00:29:54.38 Talal K o

00:29:56.29 alexei sayle Neville tells him about, it so you know, guns.

00:29:58.98 Talal K It says the lead character was a bingo caller, not a comic, but I guess there's a thin line there.

00:30:01.83 alexei sayle Yes. Aspiring comic. He wanted to be a comic, yeah.

00:30:05.98 Talal K Right, okay.

00:30:07.39 alexei sayle It's got Frank Finlay, Albert Finney, Billy Whitelaw.

00:30:07.32 Talal K Looks sick. I'd be up for watching that one month.

00:30:13.07 alexei sayle ah

00:30:15.55 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:30:17.15 Talal K I'd be well up for watching that. Well, speaking of movies, shall we?

00:30:18.51 alexei sayle um Maybe we will.

00:30:20.04 Talal K Shall we dive into our ah discussion?

00:30:23.80 alexei sayle Yes.

00:30:23.90 Talal K ah well This month's edition of the Alexi Sale Film Club.

00:30:29.21 alexei sayle at film club of

00:30:29.89 Talal K Alexi Sale. Alexi Sale.

00:30:31.75 alexei sayle who's the leader of the gang that's great for you and me a l e x c i s a y l e lexie sale alexis sale we love to hear him square on the tv he he

00:30:31.93 Talal K You fat bastard.

00:30:36.23 Talal K exia ah liy nancy say worksy still yeah you fat bused

00:30:46.60 alexei sayle everybody gives you cheers except the bbc yes who's that fat bastard um yeah so yeah

00:30:52.03 Talal K Who's that fat bastard? um Mephisto. i wrote a little intro.

00:30:59.18 alexei sayle Go on then.

00:30:59.02 Talal K Would you like to hear it?

00:31:00.38 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:31:01.96 Talal K Your favourite part of Alexis Earles Film Club. All right, Alexis Sale Film Club. No, Mephisto, 1981. Hendrik Hofgen is the darling of Hamburg's revolutionary Bolshevik theatre scene.

00:31:14.71 Talal K With ambitions of greatness, he cannot resist the invitation to join Berlin's State Theatre, even though it means having to start again from the bottom. However, his talent is undeniable and he rockets to stardom once more.

00:31:28.63 Talal K Meanwhile, the Nazi party slowly take hold of Germany before winning the election. Many emigrate, many disappear, many are killed as censorship and dictatorship firm their grip of the country.

00:31:42.16 Talal K As Hendrik's fame and riches grow, his close friends, a distant memory, will he keep acting the part? Or will he risk his life and speak his truth to power?

00:31:54.91 Talal K Mephisto, 1981.

00:31:58.39 alexei sayle Yeah, well, I mean, once I got into it, i mean, you you have to get over certain stylistical kind of...

00:31:58.65 Talal K How was that? yeah Apparently was edited down quite severely as well.

00:32:04.84 alexei sayle yeah You know, you made it seem a lot more linear than it is in a way, that that you have to deduce what's happening. I mean, it's also it's difficult when a film's in translation, you don't know how how plodding or how clever thesee the translation is, you know, so you're stuck with that as well.

00:32:24.18 alexei sayle Really, Jesus Christ, is...

00:32:25.32 Talal K It was originally a lot longer.

00:32:27.54 alexei sayle Really...

00:32:28.11 Talal K Over three hours, yeah.

00:32:29.60 alexei sayle Yikes. I mean, I think it's long enough, as it is, really. But it...

00:32:34.55 Talal K Two hours, 20 minute runtime.

00:32:36.77 alexei sayle Yeah...

00:32:37.56 Talal K I think the film was linear, so I don't know what you mean by that. it wasn't like ah ah Tarantino-ing around and jumping back and forth in time.

00:32:44.86 alexei sayle No. Well, there's those sorts of bits where you see characters, for instance, presumably talking to him, but you don't see him, for instance. And then, I don't know, it could be the translation to a degree, but it's not like there's no like, oh, now I'm going to move to the Berlin. I mean, you made it seem more, you know, he doesn't say, now I'm moving to the Berlin.

00:33:11.67 alexei sayle Berlin State Theatre, even though I'm... big You know, it's it's sort of told in ah and in a more oblique way than that. it's not a criticism. I'm just saying that it's more oblique than...

00:33:19.93 Talal K Yeah, it's the things that, yeah, that was a a punchy ah synopsis, but things just seem to happen and roll into one another.

00:33:25.75 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:33:29.05 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:33:30.28 Talal K It's not everything is signposted as if it was like a Brechtian thing.

00:33:34.46 alexei sayle No.

00:33:35.00 Talal K um But we do see the film covers the journey of this actor who's like a small, local, revolutionary theatre guy.

00:33:35.67 alexei sayle And there is some Brechtian sort stuff.

00:33:41.43 alexei sayle m Yeah.

00:33:42.70 Talal K And slowly, slowly the country is being taken over by the Nazi party and you also see a human being taken over by the Nazis and he rockets to fame but at the great expense of his soul basically, right?

00:33:56.75 alexei sayle Yeah. Yes.

00:33:57.95 Talal K um

00:33:58.76 alexei sayle And it was, I think, heart-stopping to watch it. Now, I think you would have, if one had watched that film a couple of years ago, you would have just seen it as a kind of a historical piece.

00:34:10.60 alexei sayle But now you there are so many echoes, I think, with what we are living through right now, the growing in authoritarianism specifically.

00:34:10.99 Talal K Yes.

00:34:17.44 Talal K Oh my God, yes.

00:34:22.71 alexei sayle and that it really, yeah, it's extraordinary, you know, and terrifying, really.

00:34:22.80 Talal K that kept me ah That kept me going through the film, yeah.

00:34:28.70 alexei sayle One of the sort of sad things, in a way, is that the United States in the film is a place that people can flee to, you know, from the Nazis, whereas now, of course, the United States, ah where would you flee to now? You know, the United States the source of...

00:34:44.14 alexei sayle is the nat you know is nati jamio is becoming that and um there's nowhere to run any anymore really portugal spain ireland suppose yeah there's not yeah yeah yeah

00:34:46.44 Talal K Yeah. Yeah, even... Where

00:34:53.69 Talal K would you go? Rhode Island?

00:34:58.97 Talal K Portugal and Spain are good shouts as well, yeah. But you'd have to learn a new language.

00:35:05.61 Talal K Antarctica. It's the only place free of any...

00:35:09.47 alexei sayle Maybe you could hide in plain sight. Maybe yeah I could... There's an interesting article in Squawk Box today about sexual child abuse illegal West Bank settlements.

00:35:23.66 alexei sayle And it says yeah they are a good place. If you're a criminal of one kind or another, then but pre presumably you have to be Jewish as well. If you flee to an illegal West Bank settlement, it's you know yeah that you're untouchable.

00:35:38.81 alexei sayle So maybe I could flee to

00:35:38.59 Talal K yep they yeah they're known is Israel has done that a number of times harbored criminals because just for the sake of populating <unk> their settlement

00:35:46.68 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Well, um yeah, i mean, I think there is a lot of organized crime in Israel as well, or emanates from Israel. There would be, if you think about it. and ah maybe i Maybe I could go there.

00:36:01.16 alexei sayle um Yeah, i could pretend.

00:36:01.86 Talal K Or you could, yeah.

00:36:03.36 alexei sayle Yeah, you can't. But...

00:36:04.74 Talal K You could forge me some documents, maybe.

00:36:05.26 alexei sayle um

00:36:08.08 alexei sayle I could pretend to have had a late-life conversion. um But it is ah it is just... I mean, it's a good...

00:36:19.54 alexei sayle it's a I mean, he's dancing, I find, I'll take him sometimes. But...

00:36:25.63 Talal K ah There's that scene early on.

00:36:28.63 alexei sayle Oh, man, that's fucking...

00:36:28.24 Talal K He's with, I thought it was his dance instructor, but it's his girlfriend or is she both?

00:36:32.62 alexei sayle I think she's a dance instructor as well, I assume.

00:36:34.57 Talal K Yeah, she she seems to be his movement teacher in a way, but then they start shagging.

00:36:37.14 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:39.59 Talal K um But he does really hokey kind of jazz dancing.

00:36:41.37 alexei sayle Oh, bloody hell, that's bad. That is bad.

00:36:44.44 Talal K But then when you see him on stage, it's insane.

00:36:44.97 alexei sayle Yeah. It works, yeah.

00:36:47.97 Talal K does this Russian dance performance.

00:36:49.53 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:36:50.80 Talal K And I don't know, he's wearing a massive beard on his face. So I don't know if it's a stunt dancer they got in there.

00:36:56.07 alexei sayle I don't know.

00:36:56.76 Talal K but it it was brilliant performance because his movement works.

00:36:58.29 alexei sayle Yeah. And there is a thing in that he does do some sort of jazz dancing in um one of the cabarets he's doing. And actually it does sort of work when he does it on stage, really.

00:37:09.94 Talal K i want to talk I want to focus in on that. The early bits of the film, ah before the Nazi stuff happens, he is the director of a Bolshevik revolutionary theatre group in Hanover,

00:37:25.47 Talal K And i'm they never say the word Brecht, Hamburg, excuse me.

00:37:27.30 alexei sayle Hamburg.

00:37:30.03 Talal K They never say the word Brecht, but I'm pretty sure they're doing Brechtian theatre.

00:37:34.02 alexei sayle Yes, it's it looks like that.

00:37:34.76 Talal K You even see a character with his name on his T-shirt.

00:37:39.40 alexei sayle Right.

00:37:39.13 Talal K He's wearing a shirt with his character's name on it, which was a...

00:37:41.76 alexei sayle Right.

00:37:42.80 Talal K And so, yeah, I was like, ah is that why Alexei picked the film? How much did that resonate with you? or is that the kind of Brechtian theatre you love? Because I know you're a fan of Brecht. Was it a Brecht pastiche they were doing at the beginning?

00:37:55.00 alexei sayle No, I think it was just that was just the sort of thing that would have been going on in Germany at that time, really. I think it's I mean, the reason I chose it is because it's it's a parable for the times we live in that it's ah you when you see these i mean fucking people fawning around Trump.

00:38:00.97 Talal K Right.

00:38:15.13 alexei sayle And, you know, regard people obviously people are focusing on the Western media, as it will do, missing the real story, focusing on the tariffs and so on, well but just missing out on the just the rampant kind of authoritarianism which is taking over the United States.

00:38:32.21 alexei sayle You know, a country which has always at least pretended to revere free speech, and now people are being fired.

00:38:37.42 Talal K Hmm.

00:38:38.72 alexei sayle I mean, particular i mean obviously the canary in the coal mine is...

00:38:42.28 Talal K Being deported?

00:38:43.54 alexei sayle and deported the canary in the coal mine is pro-palestinians but you know as the i mean it's a cliche to quote the pastor near muller uh poem but it is you know the reason it's a cliche is because it's endlessly true you know first they came for the communists but i did not protest because i was not a communist then you know i mean first they came for the pro-palestinian But I did not, you know, it's it's ah it has resonance because it absolutely tells us a true story, you know.

00:39:13.40 Talal K you see that very You see that very on the nose when we introduce to the the Nazi Prime Minister character who, very good.

00:39:22.35 alexei sayle He's very good. He's fantastic. I mean, amazing, a great actor. I don't know who he is. And amazingly well written as well. That switching from... kind of that the way he grabs like the Krauss Maria Brandau by the neck the scruff of the neck at one point and stuff like that that kind of overly intimate physicality uh and then the and then the switching between aggression and that's extraordinary

00:39:49.76 Talal K Well, that comes at the very end. The whole, for most of the film, he's just like, he's his new, he goes to see ah Hendrik in the theater and loves his performance.

00:40:01.49 Talal K But from the very beginning, Hendrik, you can he can he can tell, we can tell that Hendrik is holding his tongue and being weak around him and sucking up to him, fawning.

00:40:11.19 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:40:13.42 Talal K over him and you can see the implied threat and you can see that everyone basically does that and like there's a wedding happening and then they're like the Prime Minister's here and everyone kind of freezes up and he walks in and everyone pretends to be very polite but you can see the tension and then leaves

00:40:21.25 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:40:28.27 alexei sayle fantastically well and that scene i think most one of the greatest scenes when halfway in halfway through the later production of mephisto when um he calls him to his box and so the the audience starts mephisto in his white faces talking to the prime minister in his box and the audience start looking up because it's it's the devil

00:40:29.55 Talal K then he leave

00:40:51.72 alexei sayle talking to the Prime Minister of Germany, you know, and it's like, it's a hard stopping scene. It's very powerful, I think.

00:40:58.01 Talal K Wow, yeah, I didn't even fucking connect that. that

00:41:02.02 alexei sayle Mmm.

00:41:02.88 Talal K but ah So all this is like kind of unsaid tension and fear and everyone's just being so nice and praising of this prime minister. and but And obviously on the sidelines, people are being disappeared and arrested.

00:41:11.35 alexei sayle Mmm.

00:41:15.60 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:41:16.30 Talal K But then at the end of the film, ah my ah Hendrik asks him for one more favor, one favor too many.

00:41:25.52 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:41:25.97 Talal K and he completely flips out and you actually see the actual aggression and he just screams it into him and says, get the fuck out, don't fucking ask me about about favors anymore, get the fuck out of here.

00:41:30.47 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:41:38.80 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:41:40.26 Talal K um Which we haven't seen up until then, the actual face-to-face aggression of the Nazis.

00:41:45.08 alexei sayle yeah

00:41:46.57 Talal K um And then the next time we see them, the last time we see them, back to being friendly and nice.

00:41:52.23 alexei sayle Yeah, and now I think that it's so when they walk, they force him to walk out in front of those kind of spotlights. I think it's, I mean, assume they're wanting him to ah kind of, um you know, hold some kind of Nuremberg rally for them.

00:42:10.48 alexei sayle And he just says to the cameras, as more less I'm just an actor. What do they want of me? Ich bin ein Schauspieler. I am an actor.

00:42:19.40 Talal K What do they want of me? I'm just, tonight that's the ending of the film.

00:42:22.26 alexei sayle Yeah. yeah

00:42:24.74 Talal K So they've given him the, yeah, the finale of the film is that they show him this humongous amphitheater.

00:42:31.69 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:42:32.32 Talal K And he basically says, this is your next stage.

00:42:34.46 alexei sayle yeah

00:42:34.05 Talal K Like we thought he was at the top already, but now he's being offered like the biggest stage in Germany.

00:42:39.54 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:42:41.65 Talal K And you can see him like trembling and sweating.

00:42:44.60 alexei sayle yeah But it truly is a parable flow.

00:42:46.13 Talal K goes, go on, try it, get out there, try it. And he starts, he walks out into it and they put these spotlights on it and he's trying to run out of the spotlight.

00:42:48.66 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:51.39 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:42:53.30 Talal K it's It's because the whole film, he's been chasing the fucking spotlight. And then at the end, he's trying to run out of it. And they're following him around and he looks terrified.

00:43:01.99 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:43:04.01 Talal K he's is It's kind of the, what have I become moment, isn't it?

00:43:06.52 alexei sayle yeah yeah

00:43:09.19 Talal K And i ah you're seeing some, celebrities finally kind of speak out and turncoat against their Zionist ah whispers in their ears.

00:43:20.78 Talal K Do you think how many people out there are having their what have I become moment?

00:43:24.72 alexei sayle Yes, well, unfortunately not enough, but, you know. Really?

00:43:28.97 Talal K I was really i really enjoyed watching White Lotus with my girlfriend in the finale.

00:43:34.58 alexei sayle Really?

00:43:35.36 Talal K We really loved it. And then

00:43:36.79 alexei sayle Really?

00:43:38.34 Talal K ah We saw some interviews after the finale. I saw some stuff on Instagram, interviews with the cast, and Jason Isaacs was wearing the yellow ribbon, wearing the yellow ribbon thing at all the press stuff.

00:43:48.14 alexei sayle Really, the fucking shit bag, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know he's a Zionist, yeah.

00:43:53.44 Talal K None of the other cast were wearing it, and... And then you hear stories that there was, he had gossiped about there being tension on set and some people didn't get on and stuff.

00:44:02.69 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:44:04.13 Talal K And I i reckon it was, it's cause he's a Zionist fuck, fuckhead.

00:44:04.73 alexei sayle Yeah, can imagine, yeah. Because you're a shitbag, yeah. You're pro-Zionist shitbag. um Yes, indeed.

00:44:12.15 Talal K Um,

00:44:13.41 alexei sayle i didn't like like White Lotus at all, and I loved season Series 2. I thought it was awful.

00:44:21.44 Talal K I indulged in the slow nothingness of it, you know, it was really slow, but it's so pretty to look at.

00:44:24.75 alexei sayle No,

00:44:28.22 Talal K i I thought that it's it's human relationships written quite well, especially the three ladies ah storyline.

00:44:34.00 alexei sayle no, no, no, no.

00:44:36.82 Talal K um I liked it a lot.

00:44:38.51 alexei sayle no

00:44:40.11 Talal K ah walk a lot

00:44:41.74 alexei sayle no

00:44:42.05 Talal K and And I thought the performances were really cool.

00:44:45.97 alexei sayle no

00:44:46.78 Talal K Yeah.

00:44:48.18 alexei sayle no

00:44:48.09 Talal K Yeah. I know it's a divisive show. Um, best displayed right here on the Alexa podcast. 50% of this podcast hated it. 50% of us loved it.

00:45:02.49 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:45:02.99 Talal K I guess if you're sitting with someone watching a show and you both start off going, Oh, this is great. This is great. And you both just start agreeing with each other. You convince yourself. It's great. Um,

00:45:13.18 alexei sayle Yes.

00:45:12.99 Talal K There was a moment halfway through where me and Bea were like, God, nothing's happening.

00:45:19.32 alexei sayle but for Eight hours.

00:45:19.82 Talal K For fuck's sake.

00:45:21.57 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:45:21.30 Talal K Like, why can't something happen?

00:45:23.19 alexei sayle Yeah,

00:45:23.26 Talal K And then the next episode, something big happened and and it kept, it hooked us back in.

00:45:26.41 alexei sayle yeah but it's still...

00:45:30.13 alexei sayle It doesn't... It's not earned, I think.

00:45:35.21 alexei sayle It's cliché. I don't like it.

00:45:38.94 Talal K It's a high production value soap opera.

00:45:43.08 alexei sayle Yeah, I just didn't.

00:45:43.88 Talal K And it's quite peaceful to watch. And I like the setting. Anyway, fuck you!

00:45:48.44 alexei sayle There's lot of people in it.

00:45:50.17 Talal K ah Sorry, what?

00:45:51.82 alexei sayle There's lot of people in it. I like, you know, Walton Goggins, Amy Lee Wood, Carrie Coon,

00:45:55.65 Talal K Sam Rockwell.

00:45:58.05 alexei sayle um Parker Posey.

00:46:00.99 Talal K Yeah?

00:46:02.19 alexei sayle lot great people, but I just thought they weren't well served by the script.

00:46:08.07 Talal K I won't let a dirty pig like you provoke me.

00:46:12.48 alexei sayle Who said that?

00:46:12.59 Talal K That's one of my favorite lines from Mephisto. um I think the Prime Minister said that someone.

00:46:18.15 alexei sayle All right.

00:46:18.53 Talal K um ah or No. So Hendrik says that to Hans.

00:46:24.01 alexei sayle Right.

00:46:24.49 Talal K ah His and a fellow actor who is a Nazi.

00:46:28.75 alexei sayle Yes, and that's actually, that's a really interesting thing as well, because that and that character stops being a Nazi, doesn't he?

00:46:28.80 Talal K And we see him earlier.

00:46:35.90 Talal K Yes.

00:46:36.64 alexei sayle And is then shot by the SS.

00:46:36.90 Talal K That.

00:46:39.48 alexei sayle um and That's a really interesting, mean, that's a kind of complexity that Western cinema would um not be able to cope with these days, you know, where somebody is a Nazi stops being a Nazi, you know.

00:46:53.84 Talal K Or does he stop his Nazi beliefs or does he just leave the Nazi party? He cancels his membership or something.

00:46:59.23 alexei sayle I think, well, he's organized as a petition amongst the... I think he, for so for whatever reason, he becomes disillusioned with the Nazis and Michal.

00:47:03.22 Talal K He does, yes.

00:47:06.67 Talal K Yes, he does, yeah. And he tries to get our star to sign his petition.

00:47:11.72 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really interesting.

00:47:12.92 Talal K And he fucking dobs him into the Nazis.

00:47:15.70 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

00:47:16.99 Talal K which gets him killed.

00:47:18.24 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:47:17.82 Talal K So we end up sympathizing with this Aryan Nazi character, even though he's an ex-Nazi, but he becomes a more sympathetic character than our hero.

00:47:23.69 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:47:27.72 alexei sayle Yes, was really, really original, really clever, you know. um mean, also, of course, the the all the characters who are safe, like his wife and the ah his dance teacher, you know, who's black, they're when he got as far as Paris, so they're going to have you they're not safe, and we know that, really.

00:47:39.40 Talal K Yeah, who escaped Paris?

00:47:46.02 alexei sayle I don't know whether that's ah you know, that they're going to have to flee again, really, because of course, you know, Paris will fall.

00:47:49.28 Talal K Yeah.

00:47:54.36 Talal K They do end up getting invaded, right? Yeah.

00:47:57.44 alexei sayle Yes.

00:47:58.08 Talal K By the Nazis. So would they flee or... Because i if they're found by the Germans, yeah, they're in for it.

00:48:04.08 alexei sayle Yeah. No, they'll be in the concentration camp.

00:48:04.86 Talal K They're in for it.

00:48:09.33 alexei sayle As soon as look at you, you'll probably be arrested by the collaborationist um French police. You know, the the police commissioner under the Nazis who enthusiastically...

00:48:21.55 alexei sayle you know, organized roundups of Jews and radicals, was to remain the police commissioner afterwards and took part in a massacre of Algerians in the 1960s, and only then did he lose his job.

00:48:37.34 Talal K Fucking hell.

00:48:38.09 alexei sayle For example, I can't remember his name now, but it's, you know, it's one of these people, you know, the, you know, as we can, the world was not, Germany was not denazified, as we now realize, neither was France.

00:48:50.55 Talal K Can I get your opinion on something?

00:48:52.31 alexei sayle Yes.

00:48:53.67 Talal K um I went into a bit of...

00:48:54.63 alexei sayle Jif, Sif, rather than flash. I don't what. Yeah, go on. For cleaning.

00:49:01.59 Talal K i got I went into a bit of a rabbit hole with... um I was having a conversation with an AI, not Chattachivity with DeepSeek.

00:49:12.73 Talal K I was trying to see where its stance on Palestine was.

00:49:13.59 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:49:15.96 Talal K and trying to china Because people always say it's hard to get them to say pro-Palestine things.

00:49:20.20 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:49:20.13 Talal K and

00:49:22.67 Talal K And then ah I kept finding... So this is DeepSeek. This is the Chinese AI, which is open source. um Whatever. If you and know what that means, then good for you.

00:49:30.34 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:49:32.05 Talal K um But ah every time it would say something pro-Palestinian, It would then, would just about finish reading it and the comment would disappear and it would be replaced with, this topic is a bit too, a bit too,

00:49:51.05 alexei sayle Contentious.

00:49:51.65 Talal K yeah

00:49:52.23 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:49:52.51 Talal K No, not even contentious ah contentious, a bit too advanced for me. ah Maybe try asking me something else.

00:49:59.23 alexei sayle right.

00:49:59.26 Talal K And then I would repeat the question and I would, ah and sometimes I'd say, please stop censoring yourself, answer my question.

00:50:01.45 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:50:04.39 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:50:05.86 Talal K And then it would answer the question and it wouldn't delete itself. So it would it would work the second time round every time. And I went into this deep dive with it and it started teaching me about something called the Havara Agreement.

00:50:20.09 alexei sayle Yes.

00:50:21.13 Talal K Do you know about this? It's to do with World War II and the Nazis.

00:50:24.41 alexei sayle Yes. This was the Jim Allen play that was...

00:50:25.90 Talal K And how...

00:50:28.12 alexei sayle um but only be put on by at the royal court and was then withdrawn. This is the Zionist agreements with the Nazis. Is that right?

00:50:39.55 Talal K Yeah. Now, I don't want to take it as gospel, or gospel because A, it's an AI, so it's yeah always it's just a reference.

00:50:44.49 alexei sayle No,

00:50:46.03 Talal K You shouldn't take it as real... education but also ah worried that it was diving taking me into like anti-semitic territory and the survivor yeah

00:50:54.56 alexei sayle no not at all. it's It's a historical fact. I mean, it was interesting we because... um The Wiener Holocaust... um

00:51:04.67 alexei sayle library is near around the corner and we've been to several events there and we actually went there with a friend of ours called steven capos steven capos is one of the people who's been holocaust survivor but it's a friend of linda's more than mine and it got questioned by the police yeah um for leading the demonstration the other month but he but there was we were in the weenah holocaust library and there was this display

00:51:17.70 Talal K He got questioned by the police recently.

00:51:31.83 alexei sayle but put up by the Community Securities Trust, which supposedly handles security for the Jewish community, but is in fact a pro-Israel lobby group, as these are all are. The campaign against anti-Semitism and Jewish Labour movements are all just essentially pro-israel lobby in front of and anyway so there was this poster from the community security just say challenging the lie that zionists did deal with the nazis and steve i wish i'd done this steven was actually was with us was actually a survivor of one of those deals that were done by zionists with the nazis and i wish i'd gone and found the director of the wiener holocaust library and said look

00:52:13.62 alexei sayle I've got a guy here who contradicts you the claims of the Community Security Trust. But it was actually...

00:52:19.24 Talal K Wow.

00:52:21.94 alexei sayle I think, I mean, without... is... that it that i mean he was the steven was benefited from ah deal done by a zionist in transylvania in hungary to provide the local nazis i think with trucks in exchange for allowing certain numbers of jewish people to be to escape to the west Stephen himself says they were only interested, the Zionists were only interested in high-level people, doctors, architects, people like that, and the Jewish peasantry could go fuck themselves.

00:53:00.06 Talal K yeah

00:53:02.100 alexei sayle I mean, you it's understandable in a sense. Why wouldn't you do a deal with the Nazis if you could save some of your people? You know, it's this pretense that Zionism is some high-minded pursuit, you know, above all others.

00:53:17.67 alexei sayle But, I mean, what also I think is...

00:53:20.72 Talal K They were getting people, not just out journey, into Palestine, and emigrating them to Palestine in the thirty s

00:53:25.42 alexei sayle They only really wanted it. They only really cared if they wanted to go places other than Palestine. The Zionists really weren't interested, I think, is my understanding.

00:53:38.26 alexei sayle But also, there is some evidence, I think, that the Zionists love z were aware of the Holocaust and captain and and kept it quiet because it didn't seem...

00:53:48.70 Talal K Well, that's the other thing I kept coming across was um there were lots of Jews in Germany who were anti the anti-Zionist.

00:53:59.40 alexei sayle Yes. Well, the majority of Jews in in all of

00:54:00.13 Talal K um and

00:54:03.70 alexei sayle in all of the Jewish diaspora were anti-Zionist until the war.

00:54:06.13 Talal K Yes. But they were being dobbed out by this Zionist group or they were being betrayed. And according to this AI, so there's someone I want to speak to and and I want to do more research on this.

00:54:16.48 alexei sayle I think that there is some truth in that without, you know,

00:54:18.92 Talal K But they would yeah they were being betrayed by the Zionist people. It's like, if you're not with us, then fuck yourself.

00:54:23.100 alexei sayle Yeah, I mean, extraordinarily ruthless.

00:54:24.98 Talal K And...

00:54:26.20 alexei sayle I mean, Zionists are just, the you know, I mean, any you know, is it's based on hundreds of years of brutal oppression and pogroms and, you know, in Germany and, you know, Ukraine and Poland and, you know, so, but they are the...

00:54:44.06 alexei sayle blackest hearted most ruthless people you could imagine I think those signs and you know we see their we see their children and grandchildren and doing what they are doing now in Palestine um they're politically you know like any political fanatics I mean then it's not it's not um you know they don't have a kind of a monopoly of black heartedness but they certainly were up there

00:55:12.26 Talal K Yeah.

00:55:12.80 alexei sayle I think so. Yeah, I mean, people can, I think i think there is there is a deal of truth in what the AI is is telling you.

00:55:13.26 Talal K Yeah.

00:55:18.40 Talal K the yeah

00:55:21.21 alexei sayle I mean, because it it can't lie, can it?

00:55:21.40 Talal K and they also sent so

00:55:23.33 alexei sayle Because it only...

00:55:24.58 Talal K No, but it's it's it's dubious because it's pulling information from various sources and then creating one source out of it and it can get mixed up.

00:55:29.16 alexei sayle Right. Right. right Linda really liked Gronk, which is the one on X, apparently, the AI, because it hates el i Elon Musk.

00:55:42.16 alexei sayle It's really because I was sorry i was trying to do this think of this bit, really, where, but you know, I think AI, because it knows everything, knows the truth, and would naturally support Jeremy Corbyn, really.

00:55:55.15 alexei sayle I think the AI, you know, that's our hope, really, is that the robots are all going to support.

00:55:55.36 Talal K interesting i'll find out i'll ask it when i pushed it and it asked it to stop censoring itself it came out with very anti-israel opinions uh it also says that

00:56:04.06 alexei sayle Yeah. which Which is, you know, the truth. Yeah, well, apparently Gronk, Gronk or Gronk or whatever it's called, absolutely hates Elon Musk.

00:56:15.32 Talal K i'll find out it but i i hate elon muslin want to use anything of his um ah but um

00:56:16.58 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:56:20.85 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

00:56:22.54 Talal K But if it's sabotaging it from the inside, it's funny.

00:56:24.81 alexei sayle yeah

00:56:26.63 Talal K um It also says, you know, that the Nazis benefited from Zionism because they both had a mutual goal, which was to get the Jews out of Germany.

00:56:35.58 alexei sayle Absolutely. And that's what ken Ken Livingstone was trying to say on the ah radio program where he was excoriated in retrospect.

00:56:35.66 Talal K um

00:56:40.96 Talal K Aha.

00:56:44.60 alexei sayle I mean, he was stating historical facts.

00:56:45.46 Talal K And the Havara agreement sabotaged um Jewish...

00:56:52.90 Talal K Jewish resistance and

00:56:56.40 Talal K and Jewish anti-fascism. ah The people who are preferring to fight fascism in Europe rather than flee. Oh yeah, and David Ben-Gurion it has a quote.

00:57:05.20 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:57:11.20 Talal K of this ah He said, ah if I knew it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, but only half by sending them to Palestine, I would choose the latter.

00:57:25.54 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:57:26.57 Talal K um I can't verify if that's a real quote, so I'm going to stop using this.

00:57:29.95 alexei sayle No, I don't. I don't. I don't. i don't to honest I don't know, to be honest, but I wouldn't be surprised.

00:57:37.34 Talal K But yeah, I'm going to look into this.

00:57:39.51 alexei sayle Yeah? What we?

00:57:41.05 Talal K So so that you're saying, wait, I just want to say it one more time. going look into this, what the fuck is it called?

00:57:50.58 alexei sayle Havaro Agreement.

00:57:51.55 Talal K Thank you, Havara agreement. So you're saying that the Holocaust library denies that this is real?

00:57:57.43 alexei sayle They had a display from the Community Securities Trust, and it one of their posters said, you know, challenging the lie that Zionists cooperated with the Nazis. Well, it wasn't a lie. Zionists did cooperate with the Nazis.

00:58:08.22 Talal K That's wild.

00:58:10.50 alexei sayle You could, in a sense, understand why they did, but nevertheless, they did it.

00:58:10.34 Talal K Wild.

00:58:13.66 alexei sayle and I just wish, because I was with the survivor of one of those. um You know, it's like that moment in the Woody Allen film where he's somebody in the queue for the movie is going on about Marshall McLuhan, a pretentious person, and Woody Allen brings Marshall McLuhan.

00:58:32.56 alexei sayle and says, you know, and completely refutes what the pretentious person is saying. Well, similarly, at the Wiener Holocaust Library, I could have said, the fo gone and found the...

00:58:38.64 Talal K Hmm.

00:58:43.18 alexei sayle Stephen wasn't interested, really, but... um ah it but it was and I could have found the director of the Wiener Holocaust Library and said, look, used this poster says there was no collaboration between...

00:58:58.68 alexei sayle the Nazis and Zionists, well, I've got the survivor here of one of those agreements.

00:59:05.38 alexei sayle But didn't do it.

00:59:07.90 Talal K It's like that that hospital taking down all its palace artwork by Palestinian children because one patient was ah offended by it.

00:59:15.38 alexei sayle Yes, because of, yeah. Yeah. was no patience. There were no complaints. It was absolutely no complaints. As UK lawyers for Israel, the most malevolent bunch of fucks I've ever come across.

00:59:28.45 Talal K and

00:59:28.91 alexei sayle Absolutely hate hateful.

00:59:30.84 Talal K So Hendrik played by Klaus Maria Brandava in

00:59:33.03 alexei sayle Endicuff. Yeah.

00:59:36.61 Talal K Mephisto, he is a really good actor. That's undeniable, right?

00:59:40.53 alexei sayle He is, yes. I mean, he's a good actor playing a good actor, yeah.

00:59:41.47 Talal K He's a phenomenal actor. good act playing a A good actor, good actor.

00:59:45.92 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:59:46.03 Talal K And he comes up with a few arguments about why he's not leaving Germany. Because at near the start, he is being begged by his wife, by his friends, like, just get the fuck out of Germany.

00:59:55.32 alexei sayle Yeah.

00:59:59.40 alexei sayle Yeah. Yes.

00:59:59.38 Talal K His main argument being... He needs the German language. ah That's his tool of trade.

01:00:05.74 alexei sayle Yes.

01:00:06.76 Talal K He can't go to a non-German country because...

01:00:09.96 alexei sayle But of course there were huge number of, you know, people who did flee Nazi Germany and its environment who, you know, I mean, of greatest Hollywood directors of all time, Billy Wilder, Marlene Dietrich, Peter Lorre, you know, I mean, a vast number of people who were refugees from Nazi Germany who did greatly enrich Hollywood, you know.

01:00:25.30 Talal K Yes.

01:00:31.30 Talal K Managed to make a career, yeah. and His friend asks him to join the resistance and he says, I'd rather stay with the reserves.

01:00:43.14 alexei sayle Yes. I mean, there wasn't much in the way of resistance.

01:00:44.45 Talal K ah

01:00:46.14 alexei sayle mean, the talk that the talk that me and Linda and Stephen Kapos were um ah attending at the Wiener Holocaust Library was, in fact, a talk about resistance to the Nazis in Germany, of which there was a minuscule amount.

01:01:00.56 alexei sayle mean, there's this one network called the White Carnation Network, I think the White Rose Network, who were very quickly snuffed out by the Germans.

01:01:08.11 Talal K snubbed out.

01:01:10.20 alexei sayle It was a pathetically smaller... amount you know because now now most people in germany think that their their grandparents were actually in the resistance you know they deny they've managed to convince themselves that they're the amount of their capacity for self-delusion

01:01:13.50 Talal K Well, look, man.

01:01:24.01 Talal K They're a formidable thing to and to fight against. Just the Nazis, they're they're terrifying. Imagine trying to resist a fight, the Nazi army, you know?

01:01:34.86 alexei sayle yes yeah yeah yeah

01:01:37.90 Talal K And you think people are too scared to resist here where our enemies are some like blocked nose tough fucking lawyer.

01:01:45.05 alexei sayle Yeah. Why is, why is has anybody done anything? Why does every, why do Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer both have deflected septums? Why do they both got that nasal?

01:01:53.43 Talal K yeah There are operations to fix that, you know?

01:01:56.22 alexei sayle Yeah. Why do they both?

01:01:56.47 Talal K they It would be funny though, just one day, next time we see Starmer on TV, he's like, hello, I am Kirsten, you know, just speaking totally normal.

01:01:59.28 alexei sayle Maybe they're.

01:02:03.92 alexei sayle Yeah. and they

01:02:06.86 alexei sayle What does it mean?

01:02:06.61 Talal K um I am a friend of Israel. so And then all the questions be like, happened to your voice?

01:02:11.18 alexei sayle Yeah, I think they're all on ketamine or something, yeah.

01:02:11.05 Talal K What happened voice? I don't want to talk about that. No, but what happened to your voice? ah Cultural Bolshevism is over. Do you think that's true?

01:02:18.96 alexei sayle Yes, well, of course, that's a term which is used. Cultural Bolshevism has, of course, come back, hasn't it? Cultural Marxism, they tend to say.

01:02:25.70 Talal K How do you define cultural Bolshevism? Because that that's from the, I think that's the movement he was a part of at the start of the film, this kind of revolutionary theater.

01:02:33.48 alexei sayle Yeah, I mean, well, you know, it's Brecht and, you know, all that.

01:02:39.14 Talal K ah

01:02:41.90 Talal K Yeah. What are the defining kind of traits of those performances?

01:02:46.01 alexei sayle I imagine it was, well, it was, you know, workers performing in performing in factories, agiprop, explicitly political, theatre and art and music, um...

01:03:07.40 alexei sayle you know, a kind of cultural act which both seeks to entertain and to proselytize, to spread the message of communism, I think would be cultural Bolshevism.

01:03:19.40 Talal K You know what?

01:03:21.68 alexei sayle Mm-hmm.

01:03:23.03 Talal K And he says at the beginning of the film, he's the director of this Bolshevik theater. And He's insisting that the show be immersive and he's like, I want streetlights down the aisles and I want actors to be amongst the audience.

01:03:36.74 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

01:03:36.68 Talal K and I want the audience to really feel like they're in in the show with us. and ah and he's he's like and and people And he's like, when it's not good enough, he gets furious and he says, before theatre can be political, it must be great.

01:03:41.98 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:03:50.36 Talal K You know, there's ah there's no point trying to say anything if your show is dog shit, you know, and then fast forward to when he's at Berlin state and it's the most elitist. The only people in the theater are in these expensive gowns, you know, probably made by Chanel, the Nazi.

01:04:01.58 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah.

01:04:04.24 Talal K And ah there's a huge, the stage is so elevated and separated from the audience. It's complete the opposite of what you could clearly tell he was passionate about with theater.

01:04:15.50 alexei sayle Yes.

01:04:16.07 Talal K um Beautiful. I think just especially in today's day and age, it's a really important ah statement the film is making. It is slow film, unless you're like a ah student of cinema, you might find it boring or or slow. But if you stick with it, I have to...

01:04:36.97 Talal K I want to do at the end of each film club, I want us to just say whether we recommend the film to people who haven't seen it yet. I would recommend the film as ah as a study of the world around us and of what great acting and great choices by directors can be.

01:04:46.38 alexei sayle Yes.

01:04:54.86 alexei sayle Can you stand on a second? Can I just... Nigel.

01:04:56.42 Talal K Your phone's buzzing a away.

01:04:57.34 alexei sayle Yeah. Nigel.

01:05:00.64 Talal K Ooh, put him on loudspeaker.

01:05:02.76 alexei sayle Hello.

01:05:04.47 Talal K Alexi's talking to Nigel Planer on the phone now.

01:05:05.36 alexei sayle Yes.

01:05:07.80 alexei sayle I'm all right. I'm just recording a podcast.

01:05:08.70 Talal K Famously played Neil in The Young Ones.

01:05:09.40 alexei sayle Can ring you back in like five minutes or something?

01:05:13.76 alexei sayle Yeah, please.

01:05:13.38 Talal K He's promised to call him back in five minutes.

01:05:14.36 alexei sayle Yeah, I'll ring you back. It'll be like literally five minutes. Cheers.

01:05:17.53 Talal K I'm going to try and keep him for 10 minutes.

01:05:18.64 alexei sayle Bye.

01:05:19.44 Talal K Let's see if I can keep Nigel waiting.

01:05:24.32 alexei sayle Sorry, go on.

01:05:24.16 Talal K All right, welcome back.

01:05:25.14 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:05:25.32 Talal K Do you recommend this film, Alexi?

01:05:26.82 alexei sayle I recommend just to two two to um to paraphrase Siskel and Ebbett, the great US film critics. I give it four thumbs up.

01:05:36.51 Talal K That's a lot of thumbs.

01:05:37.86 alexei sayle That is a lot of thumbs.

01:05:39.26 Talal K That's a lot of thumbs. Dr. Nick on our chat room says, brilliant film, an incredible performance by Bradenauer. A bit dislocated, but probably probably due to it being cut down.

01:05:50.80 alexei sayle Yeah, maybe, yeah, that's true, yeah.

01:05:50.64 Talal K ah To... a um ah Question, is the central character a hero? For me, he's pretty monstrous at the start when building up his reputation. ah See his treatment of fellow actors and lovers.

01:06:02.51 Talal K Yeah, he uses his passion for theatre as an excuse to be a dickhead. I suppose you're right, Dr. Nick. um He even makes the Nazi actor seem sympathetic. Yeah. um ah A question he won't ask, do either of us know actors like this?

01:06:17.42 Talal K um No comment, because I'm still trying to make it in this business. um What about you? do you want to answer that question, Lexi?

01:06:25.82 alexei sayle Um, and ah

01:06:28.47 Talal K Do you know any actors like this personally?

01:06:30.02 alexei sayle uh, loads. Yeah. Well, there's I mean, there's a, there's a film which it's apolitical though.

01:06:31.59 Talal K Yeah, I'm sure you do.

01:06:36.12 alexei sayle It's written by things directed by Billy Wilder and it's a George, it's Mankiewicz script. All About Eve, which is about that the process of a young actor getting on, really.

01:06:53.20 alexei sayle and right it's It's maybe not entirely relevant, but it's that's certainly a All About Eve. It's certainly something I've witnessed many times myself.

01:07:03.26 Talal K um Liam asks how did Alexei come to know the director Istvan Sabo and what does he think of the allegations about his behaviour under the communists great film by the way

01:07:15.84 alexei sayle I don't know. The reason i i I think I talked about this in a previous podcast that I it worked with is I didn't really work much with Iswan Sabo, but on the film ah Meeting Venus, they'd got a Czech actor in who spoke, who didn't speak English, but learned it phonetically and so was unintelligible.

01:07:36.14 alexei sayle I just, re I dubbed, I dubbed.

01:07:37.20 Talal K You dubbed him, yeah.

01:07:38.95 alexei sayle So I spent a really, and it was just a really interesting sort of afternoon at Pinewood, I think it was. with Istvan Saba. I don't know anything about the allegations concerning him and his behaviour.

01:07:51.88 alexei sayle But I think that film was partly filmed in Hungary when it was still communist. and So I don't know, certainly something we could look into.

01:07:59.28 Talal K Hmm.

01:08:01.64 alexei sayle i'm happy to. You know, it's... it's a It's a complicated road that artists tread with authoritarian regimes, you know, and I'm more often reluctant to be completely judgmental about the um compromises they make, you know, but I mean, and that's what, you know, we are in, we are in such a period now in a way.

01:08:26.15 alexei sayle And, know, people are being faced with these choices right now and how they bounce.

01:08:29.84 Talal K yep yep

01:08:30.86 alexei sayle Yeah. is you know is terribly important and fascinating and depressing and you know everything, really. Yeah, so we can certainly talk more about that.

01:08:45.35 Talal K yes and before we sign off I ah thank you to everyone in our Patreon ah all our Patreon members support the show patreon.com forward slash Alexis Sale podcast some new members this week in the last week we've got David Rob

01:08:54.45 alexei sayle Yes.

01:09:01.27 Talal K And Colin, welcome to the family. Say hi in the chat if you haven't already.

01:09:06.80 alexei sayle Yeah, welcome, yeah, welcome, willkommen, bienvenue, welcome, in cabaret, cabaret, in cabaret.

01:09:09.44 Talal K um Welcome.

01:09:15.48 Talal K You can email us at alexisailpodcast at gmail.com. You can follow us on Instagram, alexisailpod. ah Please do all of that. And can I just do a quick shout out before we go, Alexi, to a comrade out there

01:09:27.80 alexei sayle Yes.

01:09:30.35 Talal K who is a master craftsman. ah His name is Rashad Hurry. Hurry is H-U-R-R-E. You can find him on Instagram.

01:09:42.94 Talal K And he makes knives.

01:09:45.06 alexei sayle They gave you a knife, yeah.

01:09:45.14 Talal K Alright, this is not a paid advertisement. I paid to do this advertisement.

01:09:49.53 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:09:49.36 Talal K Look at this fucking stunning carbon steel knife here with a black horn beam handle.

01:09:51.78 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:09:58.69 Talal K This spacer here is from an olive tree in Bethlehem, this wood.

01:10:03.11 alexei sayle right.

01:10:04.40 Talal K um Well, it's not in Bethlehem. It's in my hand right now, but that's where it came from.

01:10:08.35 alexei sayle All right.

01:10:08.68 Talal K ah Carbon steel, there's his signature on the knife.

01:10:12.74 alexei sayle Most people not going to be able to see this, you know.

01:10:12.35 Talal K All you patron members,

01:10:14.66 alexei sayle but

01:10:14.36 Talal K Yeah, your patron members can watch the video of this.

01:10:16.57 alexei sayle Yeah, it's a cooking knife. if it's not It's not any other sort of knife.

01:10:19.23 Talal K Oh yeah, it's not a stabbing knife.

01:10:20.24 alexei sayle We should emphasize that.

01:10:21.64 Talal K it's a kit

01:10:22.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:10:22.68 Talal K Now I consider myself of a good chef. I love cooking, but I've never owned a quality knife like this.

01:10:26.26 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:10:28.81 Talal K This was hand forged in his workshop in East London.

01:10:33.86 alexei sayle Cool.

01:10:34.40 Talal K You can even do the satisfying paper test if you want to see.

01:10:40.26 alexei sayle This makes terrible audio, you know.

01:10:41.81 Talal K I don't care, I wanna give this guy shout out because, um look at this, look.

01:10:43.66 alexei sayle a

01:10:47.44 Talal K Can you see? It's sliced right through paper, just like they do in the videos.

01:10:49.96 alexei sayle Oh my God, that's so sharp.

01:10:52.40 Talal K um He did, this is the second time now he's done a raffle ah for Palestine. All the money from the raffle went to, he raised hundreds of pounds ah for medical aid for Palestinians I entered the first time I didn't win it he did it again he made this another stunning Japanese style kitchen knife and this time I put way more tickets than the first time and I fucking won it um he asked me to make a you know a post on Instagram or something of me using it but

01:11:04.77 alexei sayle Mm-hmm.

01:11:13.10 alexei sayle Mm-hmm.

01:11:17.06 alexei sayle All right. Well done.

01:11:24.69 Talal K I don't really do that, but this is a clip ah clip from our podcast ah where I'm shouting you out, Rashad Hari. He does also sell knives, so please seek him out and buy his fucking knives.

01:11:36.23 alexei sayle Who's the sword maker in Kill Bill?

01:11:36.26 Talal K If you're

01:11:38.70 alexei sayle Hamsi Hattori or something, isn't it? that's That's our version of that.

01:11:42.23 Talal K I don't know. And look at this. Exactly.

01:11:45.72 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:11:45.94 Talal K Stuck up on your mini swords for the revolution, kids. um And this beautiful leather sheath that it came with. Thank you so much for doing these charity raffles, Rashad.

01:11:57.34 Talal K He just won a big award for his knife-making skills. um You know, and he's a South Asian dude. So, you know, diversity, making shit with your hands here in the UK.

01:12:12.56 Talal K Legend.

01:12:13.60 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:12:13.56 Talal K um

01:12:14.48 alexei sayle Yeah, well, I'll go along with that.

01:12:16.48 Talal K ah Big up.

01:12:18.03 alexei sayle ah Yeah, yeah.

01:12:18.02 Talal K Go support. um i'll I'll share this on the Instagram and and so everyone can follow him as well.

01:12:23.85 alexei sayle All right.

01:12:24.98 Talal K um like Thank you for letting me do that, Alexi.

01:12:26.73 alexei sayle All right. Yeah, you're welcome. and we yeah

01:12:29.68 Talal K and we're going to see We're going on our school outing tomorrow. We're going to go see Sammy o Obeyed live.

01:12:34.80 alexei sayle Yeah, yeah.

01:12:36.40 Talal K Maybe next week we'll do a review of his show.

01:12:38.76 alexei sayle All right.

01:12:39.60 Talal K What do you think?

01:12:41.48 alexei sayle Yeah, ah yeah, which you know, yeah, why not?

01:12:42.22 Talal K Okay. All right.

01:12:45.68 alexei sayle I used to always resist. I was often asked to go on when I was big, you know, review stuff. And I was refused, because I think it ill-behooves one artist to review the work of another artist.

01:12:57.31 alexei sayle Occasionally I would do it, but by and large I didn't really.

01:12:58.48 Talal K Fair enough. Well, maybe review is the wrong word.

01:13:00.91 alexei sayle But no, just talk about it, you know, it's just different thing.

01:13:02.68 Talal K We're doing a school outing. um ah Someone did ask on the Patreon who your favourite comedian is.

01:13:10.14 alexei sayle Oh, you're not going

01:13:13.14 Talal K i didn't I said, I don't think you have one.

01:13:15.42 alexei sayle to... Me. I don't really have one, no.

01:13:17.56 Talal K Stuart's the obvious answer.

01:13:19.06 alexei sayle Well, the one that he did...

01:13:18.64 Talal K Maybe when you were a kid. What about when you were a kid? Did you have any records of comedians you love?

01:13:22.28 alexei sayle um No, but the one that I loved, mean, until... i Because I used to get to see his show. but but I mean, it's Louis C.K., really, and he's wrote there rather blotted his copybook, but I thought Louis C.K.

01:13:33.18 Talal K Yeah.

01:13:35.98 alexei sayle was the... And saw him on TV, on his TV show, the bits that he would do. I thought his TV show was stunning.

01:13:43.14 Talal K right.

01:13:43.80 alexei sayle And the the the stand-up he he would do within the show was breathtaking.

01:13:50.18 Talal K Mm-hmm.

01:13:50.64 alexei sayle And then he goes and kind of spoils it all by doing something stupid, like masturbating in front of women.

01:13:56.44 Talal K Wanking often.

01:13:58.99 alexei sayle Yeah. ah Then I go, you know, so...

01:14:00.98 Talal K But it's not like he just did it the once. It turned out he'd been doing it his whole career.

01:14:04.46 alexei sayle No, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot.

01:14:06.81 Talal K Such a shame.

01:14:08.00 alexei sayle But I mean, I just thought, yes, Bill Bear's fantastic.

01:14:07.90 Talal K but ah But I think Bill Burr has kind of taken over his mantle.

01:14:12.27 alexei sayle Yeah. think a very good actor as well.

01:14:12.48 Talal K And he is fantastic.

01:14:14.52 alexei sayle Very good in Breaking Bad, of course.

01:14:14.27 Talal K and

01:14:16.80 alexei sayle ah

01:14:16.48 Talal K And very anti-Zionist.

01:14:18.65 alexei sayle Yeah. I mean, Bill Bear's fantastic.

01:14:19.11 Talal K is but I was so happy to see.

01:14:20.64 alexei sayle Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, Louis C.K. and them. Yeah, but you're right. Bill Bear has taken over that mantle and he's, he's great.

01:14:27.64 Talal K tent seems to be a decent guy you know he's outspoken he said some like controversial stuff but I think that's how he made his name was to be kind of brash and bold ah if you actually like zoom in on his politics he either like is quite neutral or and seems to be on the side of the small guy you know the little guy

01:14:29.61 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:14:33.40 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:14:37.10 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:14:40.80 alexei sayle Yeah.

01:14:46.36 alexei sayle Yeah. yeah yeah All right. We done.

01:14:52.18 Talal K no no I've got 10 more minutes actually I've got love you Lex see tomorrow yeah

01:14:57.02 alexei sayle All right. All right. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, everybody. Bye-bye.

01:15:00.06 Talal K Free Palestine.

01:15:02.48 alexei sayle All right.