Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss – 1/4 of The League of Gentlemen, Bafta-winner, co-creator and star of ‘Sherlock’ – has a booking at the Dream Restaurant this week. And he makes James his chip b*tch. Mark Gatiss created and stars in ‘Bookish’ and series 2 starts on U&alibi on Wed 26 Aug, and stream on U https://u.co.uk/. Follow Mark on Instagram @themarkgatiss themarkgatiss Watch the video version of this episode on the Off Menu YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast. Off Menu is now on YouTube: @offmenupodcast https://www.youtube.com/@offmenupodcast Follow Off Menu on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/offmenuofficial and TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@offmenuofficial: @offmenuofficial. And go to our website www.offmenupodcast.co.uk https://www.offmenupodcast.co.uk/ for a list of restaurants recommended on the show. Ed Gamble is on tour in 2027 with ‘Fresh Hell’. For dates and tickets go to edgamble.co.uk https://edgamble.co.uk/ Off Menu is a comedy podcast hosted by Ed Gamble and James Acaster. Produced, recorded and edited by Ben Williams for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Video production by Ben Williams and Megan McCarthy for Plosive https://www.plosive.co.uk/. Artwork by Paul Gilbey https://www.instagram.com/pushgilbey/ (photography and design). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hello, it's Ed here from the Off Menu podcast that you are listening to right now. You'll know that I'm doing a brand new stand-up comedy show on tour next year, Fresh Hell. And we are delighted to announce that we are doing two more shows at the London Palladium, Friday the 19th of March, Saturday the 20th of March. You've got to come to these shows, they're going to be great, they're on sale now. Edgamble.co.uk for ticket details.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Off Menu podcast, taking a fistful of the free peanuts at Five Guys, cracking those little bastards open and gobbling on the podcast insides.

• 0:46James Acaster?

  There's four guys on this podcast though.

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 0:49James Acaster?

  We have a guest.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, we have a guest and Benito's here too.

• 0:52James Acaster?

  That is Ed Gamble, my name is James Acaster, together we own a dream restaurant. Every single week we're inviting a guest, asking their favourite ever start, main course, dessert, side dish and drink, not in that order. And this week our guest is Mark Gatiss.

• 1:03Speaker 00

  The fourth guy. National treasure.

• 1:05James Acaster?

  Fourth guy in this podcast.

• 1:07Speaker 00

  Fourth guy in this podcast.

• 1:08James Acaster?

  Has been a part of a group of four guys, of course.

• 1:11Speaker 00

  James, Ed, Benito, Mark Gatiss. National treasure, a part of four guys.

• 1:18James Acaster?

  League of Gentlemen.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19James Acaster?

  Co-wrote and created Sherlock, absolute classic.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  I mean, the man has achieved so much, James. A huge part of our comedy upbringing, you've got to say.

• 1:29James Acaster?

  Massive part.

• 1:30Speaker 00

  With the league.

• 1:31James Acaster?

  I mean, League of Gentlemen, me and my friends basically learnt there, Live at Drury Lane, DVD Off by Heart, we're quoting it all the time, pretty much just spoke exclusively in quotes from that show.

• 1:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:41James Acaster?

  Went to see them on their next tour as well, really formative experience. We watched the film at the Catrinodium, which has now been bulldozed. It's, we were huge League of Gentlemen fans and this is the second League of Gentlemen alum.

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:55James Acaster?

  We've had on.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  We've got to get, we've got to get Pembers on as well, we've got to complete that.

• 2:00James Acaster?

  What's Dyson, Chop Liver?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  No, the performing trio, I'm saying.

• 2:03James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're never getting Dyson on. Dyson, we love you, but he's not going to want to come on this.

• 2:08Speaker 00

  Dyson didn't even play himself in the film.

• 2:10James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, so there's no way we're going to get Dyson.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  No. You know, my.

• 2:15James Acaster?

  Reverse psychology if he's listening.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:18James Acaster?

  And of course, Mark is still knocking it out the park with Bookish.

• 2:22Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:23James Acaster?

  His second series is out on the 26th of August.

• 2:25Speaker 00

  On You and Alibi.

• 2:26James Acaster?

  Fantastic show, we're going to talk to Mark more about that.

• 2:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:29James Acaster?

  Rave reviews, Mark wrote and stars in it. We're going to hear more about that from Mark and maybe that'll be all we hear from Mark, because if Mark picks the secret ingredient, we will have to kick Mark out and it, this week.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Doesn't feel like he's going to pick this one.

• 2:44James Acaster?

  It could, if he does though, it's the first thing he's going to say and he'll be out. So it might be that we have time to talk about Bookish and that's it.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:51James Acaster?

  This week, the secret ingredient is.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  Fluoride in water. As mentioned by Brian Cox, brackets actor, he made some claims about, this is, this is our retraction of claims made on that episode about fluoride in water causing medical problems. We, we didn't know about the research, we just, you've got to nod along with Brian Cox.

• 3:15James Acaster?

  We weren't, we weren't cosigning it.

• 3:16Speaker 00

  No, we weren't cosigning it, but we just sort of.

• 3:18James Acaster?

  We didn't cosign anything that man said in that episode.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Fuck off.

• 3:21James Acaster?

  Fuck off, we cosigned that.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it's on there, but that's not true. But if Mark picks fluoride in water, boy, oh, boy, there will be a medical reaction to it then.

• 3:33James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Reaction will be, you're at the dream restaurant and you die.

• 3:38James Acaster?

  Oh, hold on a second.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  That's what happens when we kick people out.

• 3:40James Acaster?

  I didn't know they died, Jade Adams dead.

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Well, it's because the dream restaurant hovers in space.

• 3:45James Acaster?

  Oh my god.

• 3:46Speaker 00

  So we actually, when we kick people out, they're.

• 3:49James Acaster?

  This is way much of a bigger deal than I didn't know they'd die.

• 3:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, they die.

• 3:52James Acaster?

  So if you get kicked out, you die.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, Jade is dead. Jade is dead.

• 3:55James Acaster?

  Jade's dead.

• 3:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:56James Acaster?

  I guess we never really reflected on that when it happened, but rest in peace to Jade Adams.

• 4:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:01James Acaster?

  Didn't know that we killed her when we chucked her out the dream restaurant.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  She picked hundreds of thousands and now she's in hundreds of thousands of pieces.

• 4:08James Acaster?

  Oh my god.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:09James Acaster?

  Jade.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:11James Acaster?

  Well.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  She blew up in space.

• 4:12James Acaster?

  The people's princess. We lost her too soon. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  To Mark Gatiss.

• 4:18James Acaster?

  With Mark Gatiss as well. I guess I don't even want to start this episode now in case we end up killing a national treasure.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Look, if he picks fluoride in water, it's his own fault.

• 4:24James Acaster?

  Okay.

• 4:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:25James Acaster?

  Agreed.

• 4:26Speaker 00

  I'm on tour.

• 4:27James Acaster?

  Ex on tour.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  Fresh Hell, January 2027.

• 4:31James Acaster?

  Brilliant.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 4:32James Acaster?

  Can't wait to see it.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  Edgamble.co.uk for tickets. It's a laugh riot.

• 4:37James Acaster?

  I guess, you know, I'm, my tour's finished, I imagine, to be listening to this.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  This is the Off Menu menu of Mark Gatiss.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Welcome, Mark, to the dream restaurant.

• 4:58Speaker 02

  Hey, thanks.

• 5:00James Acaster?

  Welcome, Mark Gatiss, to the dream restaurant. We've been expecting you for some time.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  That's more like it. I know you've asked before, I've never been free.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  First things first, I don't eat food.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  I've got a condition. All I can have is a sort of brown paste.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, that's, we can talk about your dream brown paste.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  There's loads of different types.

• 5:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, different shades and stuff, all the different, you know, level of paste, I think, you know, we can get, we can do it.

• 5:24James Acaster?

  Is there a flavour to the brown?

• 5:26Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 5:26James Acaster?

  No.

• 5:27Speaker 02

  Horrible.

• 5:28James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  Flavourless, bland, bland, I don't, go on.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  To me, I think zero flavour is almost worse than bad flavour. Do you know what I mean? If there was something that tasted of nothing.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  One of the, I can give you an example, because it happens almost all the time. One of the worst meals in the world is bad fish and chips.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  You should never have fish and chips when you're not near the sea, that's true.

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Except in London.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Occasionally. But there is an extra, amount of times you go, I wish I had known this.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  You think it's a good idea and then the fish and the chips taste the same, i.e. of the rape.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Or the, just the oil is just, yeah, yeah.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  But nothing, it's a terrible.

• 6:09James Acaster?

  It's heartbreaking.

• 6:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:10James Acaster?

  Because the, having the idea to have fish and chips feels, feels absolutely brilliant.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:16James Acaster?

  You're, you're, you're bopping down to the fish and chip shop.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:20James Acaster?

  Can't wait to have your, Ben's pulled a face because I said bopping down to the fish and chip shop. He's like, well, would you bop down? Yeah, I'll bop down.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, you would.

• 6:27James Acaster?

  Spring in my step.

• 6:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 02

  Of course you would for fish and chips.

• 6:29James Acaster?

  Looking forward to it.

• 6:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:30James Acaster?

  Last time I went and got fish and chips, I was queuing up, it's a very hot day, it's very popular, the fish and chip shop that day, loads of people going. And I was queuing up and then a guy showed up out of nowhere, who had not been queuing up and just stood alongside me. And there was the queue behind me and people in front of me and I was there going, I cannot believe this.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Nope.

• 6:50James Acaster?

  And then they, he kind of just walked straight to the counter.

• 6:55Speaker 02

  America.

• 6:56James Acaster?

  Yeah. Oh, but before he'd even done that, actually, he stood alongside me and I looked, because I don't like letting this kind of stuff go anymore. So I did look at him, I went, you all right?

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:04James Acaster?

  And he went, and he was tougher than me.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 7:08James Acaster?

  And he went, believe it or not, and he went.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  I can't imagine someone being tougher than me.

• 7:12James Acaster?

  He was tough.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:13James Acaster?

  He was, he was. And I went, you all right? And he went, yeah, you all right? And I was like, yeah.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Caved.

• 7:23James Acaster?

  Left it.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  Please, sir, go ahead.

• 7:26James Acaster?

  And then they called out his name and then he went to the counter and I realised he'd already ordered something. He was there. So then he sits, he sits down, he doesn't sit down, he goes, goes away with his food, I get mine, I sit down, he comes and sits next to me, on the table, me and him in the corner, little tiny table.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Did you give him another you all right?

• 7:44James Acaster?

  I didn't even look at him, I couldn't, I was so scared. And he was on his phone and he kept on laughing and stuff. And then he started saying to me like, look at that, showed me stuff on his phone.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Horror story.

• 7:55James Acaster?

  Yeah. But it was kind of fine, it was like, he started warming, he started being quite nice to me.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:00James Acaster?

  And we just started like looking at funny videos on his phone.

• 8:02Speaker 00

  Well, he knew that he'd won, that's why.

• 8:04James Acaster?

  He, he knew he got me.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  You were his little bitch then.

• 8:06James Acaster?

  Yeah. Do you think that, you're his little bitch?

• 8:09Speaker 02

  You're a chip bitch.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:11Speaker 02

  It's a common thing.

• 8:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  It's a common thing.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  You're his chip bitch.

• 8:15James Acaster?

  I didn't know I was a chip bitch.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, you're a chip bitch, yeah.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Everyone's done it somewhere.

• 8:18Speaker 00

  Which is actually one rung lower than fish bitch.

• 8:23James Acaster?

  Oh, well, hey, if you're listening, what was that made him to me?

• 8:27Speaker 02

  Chip daddy.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, chip daddy, yeah, yeah.

• 8:29James Acaster?

  My chip daddy's listening.

• 8:32James Acaster?

  Big time sauce.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  I've got a story about fish and chips.

• 8:36James Acaster?

  Yes, please.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  It's just made me think. I moved to London from the North East in the late 30s and I lived to live opposite Arsenal Stadium, the real one.

• 8:47James Acaster?

  Wow, yeah, yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  Gillespie Road. And my friends, friends and I, we got this really amazing flat, considering the rent. It was brilliant. And the first night, we're all from the north and we decided to have fish and chips. We had no furniture or anything, but we had fish and chips. And there was a fish shop at the end of Gillespie Road. And when we got there, they did scraps.

• 9:09James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  And it turned out that the owner was from the North East.

• 9:13James Acaster?

  Perfect.

• 9:13Speaker 02

  And it was like heaven sent.

• 9:15James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  You know, scraps, that is fish and chips.

• 9:17James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  You can't get them anywhere else, really.

• 9:19James Acaster?

  No, you're not getting that in London, are you?

• 9:21Speaker 02

  But we did.

• 9:22James Acaster?

  It must have been so nice.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  It was like a sort of miracle.

• 9:25James Acaster?

  Yeah. So no one's a chip bitch in that situation.

• 9:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:28James Acaster?

  You're all chip daddies.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. That's great. Something's developing here. I know what it is, but I like it.

• 9:36James Acaster?

  New series of Bookish is out.

• 9:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 9:38James Acaster?

  Got to be excited about that.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  Yes, very.

• 9:40James Acaster?

  Write it in it.

• 9:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:42James Acaster?

  Directed?

• 9:43Speaker 02

  No.

• 9:43James Acaster?

  No.

• 9:44Speaker 02

  To enough.

• 9:44James Acaster?

  No, that's enough, isn't it?

• 9:46Speaker 02

  But it's one of the brilliant things, honestly, is that it was recommissioned before the first series went out.

• 9:50James Acaster?

  Perfect.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  So we've made the second series in short order, which is really good. So there's not a massive gap between. So, yeah, I'm delighted and it's gone down so well. Um, but the reach has been amazing and I, a childhood ambition achieved. I was on the cover of the Radio and TV Times in the same week.

• 10:06James Acaster?

  Amazing.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Got on the wall.

• 10:08James Acaster?

  That's brilliant.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:09James Acaster?

  Cause you must have done them on separate weeks before, right? Been on the cover.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  Yes, never the TV Times, really, never. Uh, Radio Times had got a couple and for Sherlock and things, but, uh, no, it was a really, it was like, whoa, it's happened. I can't believe it.

• 10:24James Acaster?

  Do you love it in Pemberton and Shearsmith's faces? Do you ever do that with each other?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  We had this game.

• 10:31James Acaster?

  Chipped bitch. Yeah, yeah, who's the, who's the chip daddy now?

• 10:34Speaker 02

  Chip paper bitch.

• 10:35James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  We use the radio types, I don't know why.

• 10:37James Acaster?

  Yeah. Is there a little bit of competition between the four of you ever?

• 10:40Speaker 02

  No.

• 10:41James Acaster?

  You're supportive?

• 10:42Speaker 02

  We're very supportive, we are today.

• 10:44James Acaster?

  Reece seems like he'd be competitive.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  He's an angry man.

• 10:47James Acaster?

  He's angry.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  He always is. I was very chuffed with him on Taskmaster because he kept it in really well.

• 10:54James Acaster?

  Did he? Well, he kept, but he kept saying that as well.

• 10:56Speaker 02

  That's him keeping it in.

• 10:56James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Speaker 02

  But I, I loved his frustration and also the kind of, when he's going, he's like, this place is stupid. And I, he really meant that.

• 11:06James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  But yes.

• 11:08James Acaster?

  But he kept saying that he wasn't being angry as well.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:11James Acaster?

  Which I think, I think that.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  I think Greg found that difficult to believe.

• 11:14James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 11:14Speaker 02

  But that's definitely true.

• 11:15James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  You wait, he's like the Hulk. You want to see him when he's angry and he does go green.

• 11:20James Acaster?

  Yeah. Um, great that you're acting in this as well. We share the same agent, uh, I believe. She said that after seeing you, your performance in, um, is it The Father?

• 11:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:34James Acaster?

  You were so convincing in it as a man who bullied another man who has dementia, that she told you off.

• 11:41James Acaster?

  She said she told you off because she was so angry with you after seeing it. She said the way that you treated Anthony Hopkins.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 11:48James Acaster?

  Was so, she was so convinced that you were a bad person.

• 11:50Speaker 02

  Well, he's a chip bitch.

• 11:53James Acaster?

  We all remember that scene in The Father.

• 11:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. When they go out of the chip shop.

• 11:57James Acaster?

  Well, you call Anthony Hopkins a chip bitch.

• 12:00Speaker 02

  Amazingly, and I, I rarely do this, drop names, but we've become friends, me and Anthony Hopkins.

• 12:07James Acaster?

  That's cool, isn't it?

• 12:08Speaker 02

  It's, it's beyond anything. It's unbelievable. We've kept in touch ever since that film and it's just the most incredible thing to me. I can't, I still can't quite believe it.

• 12:18James Acaster?

  Is he like, is he a texter? Are you texting Hopkins?

• 12:20Speaker 02

  He texts, he texts me, emails me and then, and then I've, he's been back to London a couple of times from LA and I'm going to see him, went to his birthday party and it's just, it's extraordinary.

• 12:33James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 02

  It is extraordinary.

• 12:35James Acaster?

  Do you get over that? Are you relaxed enough within the friendship to not constantly be thinking that's Anthony Hopkins and he's my friend?

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Never. But actually, when we were doing the film, I've always thought this, you know, there's a famous story about Michael Palin. Michael Palin's hero is Peter Sellers and when he finally met him, which is on the set of a bizarre 60s film called The Magic Christian, with Ringo Starr, he was just standing, Michael Palin was standing in the studio and Peter Sellers just walking across. And he got closer and closer and as he, as he, as he walked past, he just went, hello, Peter. That was his only contribution. And I've always thought, if you're lucky enough to work with your heroes.

• 13:13James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  Working with them is the crucial thing.

• 13:15James Acaster?

  Yes.

• 13:15Speaker 02

  Cause then you're just doing stuff.

• 13:17James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  And then slowly you can, you can sort of dribble in the fact.

• 13:22James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  And he, Tony Hopkins said to me, Jesus Christ, you've seen everything I've done. And I sort of have.

• 13:27James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 02

  But I think it would have frightened him if I'd opened with that, you know? But oh, it's amazing. He got me, uh, he did, Reece is obsessed with the film Magic where he had, Anthony Hopkins plays the ventriloquist.

• 13:40James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  And I just say, you wouldn't do a message for it. He did the whole thing, the whole routine as, as, um, as Corky, the ventriloquist dummy. It's weird mystery of life, of life, I found, well, it's just the whole shtick. It was absolutely amazing.

• 13:57James Acaster?

  Well, you must have been in the good books with shit sniff after getting that video for it.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  I'd like to think so.

• 14:01James Acaster?

  What, what did he do for you in return? Did he get you a, a nice video? What would be your dream video from an actor?

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Dream video?

• 14:09James Acaster?

  Yeah, from, from an actor doing. Said you want his papal auto. Yeah.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  They're all dead. So that.

• 14:15James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Imagine that, a video from beyond the grave. Oh, we're good, aren't we?

• 14:19James Acaster?

  She has to forget that.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  That is a podcast.

• 14:24James Acaster?

  Let's start your dream meal. We'll start with still sparkling water. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Sparkling.

• 14:29James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 14:30Speaker 02

  Is that Poncy?

• 14:31James Acaster?

  No.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  It's a, it's a bit like pop, isn't it? I think, uh, somehow or other, the plainness of a glass of water. Like everybody, I don't drink enough water.

• 14:40James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 14:41Speaker 02

  I drink a lot of tea, which counts, doesn't it?

• 14:43James Acaster?

  I think it counts. People say coffee doesn't count, but it must.

• 14:46Speaker 02

  It must, it's wet.

• 14:47James Acaster?

  Is Minecraft always drinking tea?

• 14:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:49James Acaster?

  Yeah. He loved it, right?

• 14:50Speaker 02

  Buck drinks a lot of tea, it's a big thing. I say it, without tea, I am merely unreconstituted dust. And that's true.

• 14:57James Acaster?

  Love that.

• 14:58Speaker 02

  But, um, more, I should, I often find, if you're in a hotel room, as sometimes we are.

• 15:03James Acaster?

  Hmm.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  If, I'll drink all the water in the, in the hotel room and I think, I should probably drink this much every day, shouldn't I? Why don't I do that?

• 15:09James Acaster?

  When they leave bottles in the room, I'm straight in before I put my bag down, neck it. Out the, out the bottle.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  Out.

• 15:14James Acaster?

  Yeah, straight out the big. Pouring it out the big bottle.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  But so fizzy weirdly still feels a bit exotic and a bit like pop. So I always favour it. I don't know if it's, is it good for you?

• 15:24James Acaster?

  There's, there's a lot of people who are like, it's not, it's not good. It doesn't hydrate you, it's bad for your teeth, it's bad for.

• 15:29Speaker 02

  Cause of the bubbles.

• 15:30James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  They're not sugar bubbles.

• 15:31James Acaster?

  No, they're not sugar bubbles. They're not, as far as I know, they're not sugar bubbles. No, sugar bubbles is a.

• 15:36Speaker 02

  Lemonade.

• 15:37James Acaster?

  A, a man who hangs out with the, with the chip daddy.

• 15:41James Acaster?

  James, James has changed the way I think about sparkling water in hotels because of this podcast. He said very early on in this podcast that he likes to drink sparkling water in hotel rooms first thing in the morning and it feels like it's cleaning his mouth out. When you wake up in a hotel and the aircon's been on blast all night and you're all like.

• 15:57Speaker 02

  You could clean your teeth.

• 15:57James Acaster?

  So, but, well, no, before you clean your teeth.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:00James Acaster?

  Try this, Mark. Just have a big swig of the sparkling water in the hotel room and it, it feels like a Calgon tablet.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  Or like, or like Andrews. I used to drink Andrews as a kid for fun.

• 16:12James Acaster?

  What's Andrews?

• 16:13Speaker 02

  Andrews Liver Soul.

• 16:13James Acaster?

  It's like the Liver Souls and stuff.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Ah. And it's, it's just obviously getting older, that it doesn't have the same impact. But when I was a kid, it was like, it was like LSD. It was insane, it was like, wow, blew your head off.

• 16:27James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  I still, I still like it occasionally.

• 16:29James Acaster?

  The glasses for the water in hotel rooms, I'm finding, I'm on tour at the minute and it's always too small. I want a glass of water.

• 16:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:36James Acaster?

  From the tap, I've drunk, I've drunk all the bottles.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:39James Acaster?

  I go and get a tap when it's just too small, so.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Use a cup, I use a cup.

• 16:43James Acaster?

  Well, here's a great hack. Order a whiskey from the bar and then you get a big glass in your room, once you finish the whiskey.

• 16:50Speaker 02

  And keep it.

• 16:50James Acaster?

  Yeah, keep it. You just make sure they don't ever come in and clean your room.

• 16:54Speaker 02

  Interesting. Friend of mine, uh, Elliot Levy, in fact, plays Inspector Bliss in Bookish. He did an episode of Silent Witness once and they filmed in an actual, like a Travelodge or something.

• 17:05James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  And because it was Silent Witness, they had a black light. They went around the room and he said, the headboard of the bed was like a plaster as wireless.

• 17:17Speaker 02

  But he said the worst thing of all was the phone.

• 17:20James Acaster?

  Oh my god.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  Just remember that in your hotel, never touch the phone.

• 17:23James Acaster?

  People jacking it directly onto the phone?

• 17:25Speaker 02

  I don't know what it means.

• 17:26James Acaster?

  Obviously like, like this stuff on their hands and then they're going straight for the phone.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  They're going out with a glass of whiskey.

• 17:31James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  In order to have, uh, some sparkling water.

• 17:33James Acaster?

  Yeah, exactly. They're going for, they're ordering a post-coital Caesar salad or something.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  Or a chip bitch.

• 17:38James Acaster?

  Yeah. Can you get them sent to your room?

• 17:43James Acaster?

  Knock at the door and I'm there. Someone ordered a chip bitch? In Vegas. If you get, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you've got to specify what type of chip bitch in Vegas.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Popolos of bread, Mark, dangerous popolos of bread.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  Bread. I love poppadoms.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  I mean, I really love them because I do that thing, like filling up on bread. When they bring poppadoms, never enough.

• 18:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:08Speaker 02

  And all that onion stuff and mango chutney, in the end, I would just eat that.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 02

  And I'm like that with bread. If I'm not careful, I will just eat so much bread and I have no appetite whatsoever for anything else. I, you know, man could not live by bread alone. I could.

• 18:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's always been a weird phrase.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  It's good bread.

• 18:30James Acaster?

  Why you can't be religious.

• 18:32Speaker 00

  It wouldn't be a good quality of life, though.

• 18:35Speaker 02

  No.

• 18:35Speaker 00

  But you could live on bread alone, but it would, I'd say after maybe six months, you'd be like, I feel awful.

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:41Speaker 02

  Feel a bit bloated.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  But it'd still be exciting when you wake up in the morning and you like time for bread.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  But I love poppadoms. I do love them. Big crisps.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  But they are, and that unexpected flavour combination of raw onion, something you wouldn't eat in real life. I tell you who did, though. Fred West.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 19:00James Acaster?

  Now we know who we're talking to.

• 19:02Speaker 00

  Now we know.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  He used to eat onions as if they were apples.

• 19:05Speaker 00

  Raw onions?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:06James Acaster?

  Maybe Margulies does that.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  What?

• 19:10James Acaster?

  Margulies eats onions like they're more, like they're apples.

• 19:12Speaker 02

  I think we should investigate Miriam's past.

• 19:14James Acaster?

  Yes, I do. I've been saying that for a while.

• 19:17Speaker 00

  My favourite clip ever, I don't know how much Fred West stuff Benita's gonna put in the edit. One of my favourite clips ever is what the, the police interview with Fred West where he's, he's admitted to maybe three and then he goes, yeah. He goes, I thought, I thought, oh no, that's four now. Three.

• 19:32Speaker 02

  Yep. Yep. It's all there, isn't it? I've got that documentary.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:37James Acaster?

  When we had Reece on the podcast, he said that when you guys all met each other, what was really great was that you all had the same frames of reference. For things you'd watched and like things that if he said it to anyone else, we wouldn't know what he was on about, but you'd all seen the same stuff, knew the same, like, which. I've got to send that with you and Ed then.

• 19:56Speaker 02

  Amazingly, we, amazingly, we all, we have a, a shared memory of bonfire night. I think nineteen seventy six, we, we have checked now. Bonfire night nineteen seventy six, Carry On Screaming was on BBC One. And all of us, this was a biopic, split screen, all of us declined to go to the bonfire in order to watch Carry On Screaming the same night.

• 20:20Speaker 00

  Amazing.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:22James Acaster?

  That's lovely.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  And that's gone. Here's the thing. Bonfire night is gone. It has been totally absorbed by Halloween, hasn't it?

• 20:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's interesting.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  You never see Penny for the guy, and there are bonfires, but it's not a November the fifth, it's not bonfire night anymore, is it? It's the, it's the general Halloween-ness.

• 20:40Speaker 00

  It's the hangover of Halloween. Yeah.

• 20:42James Acaster?

  Americans have got us.

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:44Speaker 00

  And I love, I love Halloween, obviously.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:46James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 02

  I like the fact that there used to be two, though. There were two different, separate things.

• 20:51James Acaster?

  Yeah, we got, we got to double dip and now.

• 20:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:54James Acaster?

  They've ruined it for us.

• 20:55Speaker 02

  Yeah. Like a lot of things.

• 20:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:58James Acaster?

  Do you want a specific bread before we move on?

• 21:00Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a pro.

• 21:03James Acaster?

  What?

• 21:03Speaker 02

  I'm a proletarian.

• 21:05James Acaster?

  Yeah, proletarian.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  So I genuinely, I love a white, a crusty bloomer.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:11Speaker 02

  And I really love terrible processed white breads for toast.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, you can't, I mean, you can't beat it sometimes.

• 21:17James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:17Speaker 02

  Uh, but there's a lot of good ones. I did, I mean, years ago, I was in Vancouver, thirty years ago, and I discovered balsamic vinegar. I remember.

• 21:26Speaker 00

  That was you. You found, you discovered that, yeah. What an exclusive.

• 21:29Speaker 02

  It was like an oil well. It was a balsamic vinegar. But I remember going for lunch and there was this, this pile of lovely bread and then this mysterious substance. And that was a, like, big day for me because I genuinely just, I soaked up so much of it.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  To this day, I get cross when they pour in loads of oil and you actually can't get at the balsamic vinegar because it hovers in a globule.

• 21:52James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  And you can't break this.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  Is it just like as in amber?

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  And there's a Jurassic Park, I'd like to see.

• 22:02James Acaster?

  Your dream starter.

• 22:04Speaker 02

  Okay, so two things. I'm a pro. I am.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Proletarian.

• 22:11Speaker 02

  I'm constantly drawn and it's always these days back on the menu to a prawn cocktail. I love prawn cocktail. I love the crisps, officially the sluttiest of crisps. But I love, I love prawn cocktail. And sometimes, you know, when they make like a big iceberg lettuce thing.

• 22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:30Speaker 02

  There need to be loads of Mary Rose sauce.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:33Speaker 02

  But I'm very fond of that. Slightly posher, I'm very fond of pear walnut and gorgonzola.

• 22:41Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 22:41Speaker 02

  With an ondive. That's a, I love that combination. It's unexpected and it tastes really nice.

• 22:48Speaker 00

  Love the sneaking in blue cheese early to a meal. To me, it seems like a hack, you know, it's brilliant.

• 22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 00

  And with the, with the pear and the walnut, absolutely delicious. I do want to briefly go back to the prawn cocktail crisps.

• 22:58Speaker 02

  Okay, sure.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Do you find the flavour bears any relevance to the prawn cocktail itself?

• 23:03Speaker 02

  Not at all.

• 23:03Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:04Speaker 02

  And that's the magic.

• 23:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  It's like, and I, I, I don't think anyone's ever done enough research on this. Why is Nescafe allowed to be called coffee? No, like, why is instant coffee?

• 23:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  It's not coffee.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Nor does it smell or taste like coffee. It's another drink.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  Which in certain circumstances is quite nice, but it's not coffee.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  No.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  So why are prawn cocktails crisps allowed to be called that?

• 23:27Speaker 00

  It feels like there should be some trace descriptions thing where, where they're like, we can no longer call these prawn cocktail crisps because they've got absolutely.

• 23:34Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:34James Acaster?

  Yeah. For a short amount of time, walkers did like a limited run when I was in primary school of tomato ketchup flavour crisps. It's very exciting. And they tasted exactly the same as prawn cocktail crisps in my memory. I was like, I think that's all you did.

• 23:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  I think they were old prawn cocktails.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 02

  Packaged.

• 23:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because I don't think I'd actually like prawn cocktail crisps that tasted like prawn cocktail.

• 23:55Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  I don't think they'd be very nice. They're their own thing, the crisps.

• 23:57Speaker 02

  Crisps are a big thing. I love crisps.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm a huge crisps guy as well. I can't really have them in the house because I'm, I'm going through the big bags. Yeah. But the.

• 24:08Speaker 02

  Crisp bitch.

• 24:08Speaker 00

  I'm a crisp bitch. Yeah. I'm my own crisp bitch. Yeah.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Do you know the posh Torres crisps? Do you know those ones? They do black truffle ones, which are, which are really good. But they also do a fried egg flavour, which tastes and smells far too much like fried egg to be nice.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  You open the bag and it's like, fucking hell, that's fried egg.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  Like a hyper.

• 24:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Slabs, it's like, it's like space food.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. It's just dehydrated fried egg in a bag. But it's, it's exactly like a fried egg.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  I know, I don't want it.

• 24:38James Acaster?

  I don't know, man. Like, uh, slabs, slabs are my favourite crisps. They're really, really thick, really big. That's called slabs.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Hello.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Big manly crisp, yeah.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:48James Acaster?

  Big manly crisp makeup from what happened to be at the chip shop. And, uh, they do, they do an egg one. And you open it and it just smells like guffs, but I love it. I'm putting them away. I really love eating all the farts.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 24:59James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah. It's delicious. Every, every flavour of slabs, I'm a big fan of, actually.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  During lockdown, we got an email from Sainsbury's telling us that we were the top consumer of cream cheese and chive. Pringles in the whole of our borough.

• 25:15James Acaster?

  What?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  We did. We were top, we bought so many, got us through lockdown, but incredibly.

• 25:21James Acaster?

  A big name product as well. That's not like slabs. That's not like being told.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:27James Acaster?

  You've eaten the most amount of slabs or probably not. A lot of people know about it. Everyone knows that flavour of Pringles. It's a big one.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  And they're delicious.

• 25:33James Acaster?

  You must have been housing them.

• 25:34Speaker 02

  You know, they're not, they're not allowed to be called crisp because they're not crisp. They're like smash. They're like. De- rehydrated potato.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  And there's no, there's so little potato content. They're practically toys.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 00

  So how, how many tubes were you eating during lockdown?

• 25:53Speaker 02

  We lost track of a lot of things during lockdown, didn't we? I was a bit surprised, but you know, we clearly got to a lot. You had to do something. Nothing to do.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Did they send you any free ones because of that or was it just letting you know?

• 26:04James Acaster?

  So it's purely academic, the email, which is like letting you know.

• 26:07Speaker 02

  It was like a congratulations.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  But that's crazy to me because I think most people get that email and go. I think if I got that email, I'd be like, I'm gonna have to cut back on the amount I'm eating of these. So if anything, it's reducing their sales moving forward.

• 26:20Speaker 02

  True.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, they should send you free, they should send you free.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  The other one I absolutely, and I think really there must be something bad in it, I mean, I know there is, is chili heatwave Doritos.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:34Speaker 02

  They are utterly addictive. I love them.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  I'm a cool original guy when it comes to Doritos. Yeah, really like all original.

• 26:41James Acaster?

  Can I shock you? I've never been into Doritos.

• 26:43Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 26:44James Acaster?

  I've never, I, I, I never really see the fuss. Yeah, Pringles, absolutely get it. Um, Doritos.

• 26:52Speaker 02

  Have you tried chili heatwave?

• 26:53James Acaster?

  Yeah, I've tried cool original chili heatwave. Any limited stuff that they bring out, it's, it's never, I mean. All I think of is just how dry and dusty Doritos are. And I know, I know you can dip them in stuff, but.

• 27:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:08James Acaster?

  I'd rather have all the crisps we've mentioned so far over Doritos. Like, and I know that's probably the hottest take I've done on this podcast.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  It's big. Yeah, yeah.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Big stuff.

• 27:17James Acaster?

  That might come back and haunt me.

• 27:18Speaker 00

  James does hot takes on podcasts.

• 27:20Speaker 02

  I'm a hard brick.

• 27:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:22James Acaster?

  I do do hot takes on podcasts. Now, do you wanna hear a hot take?

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, go on.

• 27:25Speaker 00

  It made me, it made me angry with him.

• 27:27James Acaster?

  He texted me, we got really angry about it. I went on Brett Goldstein's podcast and had to talk about television shows. And he's, Brett said, name a TV show that doesn't hold up. Sopranos.

• 27:40James Acaster?

  Doesn't hold up.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  That's crazy.

• 27:42James Acaster?

  It doesn't hold up. It's rubbish now.

• 27:44Speaker 02

  Wow, how?

• 27:45James Acaster?

  When you watch it, I just, I just, I just say it's so, it's so boring, man. It was like.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Boring.

• 27:49James Acaster?

  Every episode just resets. He didn't carry on to the next one when I was, like, all, all about his family. I care about his family.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 27:57James Acaster?

  Like.

• 27:58Speaker 00

  It's called The Sopranos. You can't watch it. Go, I don't care about this family. It's called The Fucking Sopranos.

• 28:03Speaker 02

  It's not that long ago for, for a kind of big re-watch. I, I stumbled across something the other day, which, and I thought, hmm, this is not aged well.

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  And it was, um, the six million dollar man before your time.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  And it was such a big deal when I was a kid. We all had a Steve Austin toy and that sort of stuff. And it, the trouble with American TV, even to this day, a lot of it, like CSI, is it's so formulaic. It's almost insane.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  The same. But I hadn't realised until I accidentally looked at Steve Austin, how piss poor it was. And we, you know, we, every week, my sister would cry because we were, she, we wouldn't let her watch Top of the Pops, which of course is what we should have been watching.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  And for this uttered bilge, it's rubbish. And I thought, God, it's so generic and so ordinary and poor. I thought, wow, all that fuss we used to make about it.

• 28:58Speaker 00

  But it's so, it's, even the title doesn't hold up.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  No, obviously.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  Six million dollars.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  Nothing.

• 29:03Speaker 00

  That's not going to build you a bloke.

• 29:04James Acaster?

  Get a chip bitch for that. Maybe, yeah. So, push you on a decision now with the prawn cocktail or the salad?

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Oh, well.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  And is it like an old school prawn cocktail? Cause obviously you said it's not fancy. So, cause obviously they do fancy ones now with like huge prawns.

• 29:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, it's true. I'm a bit scared of those. I don't think you should be able to see its face. And sometimes you can.

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, they leave the face on sometimes, yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  And the, and the little black eggs set me.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. And they should be taking those out, really. This is a good restaurant you're eating at now. So, we're taking out the poop shoots.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  I would, I would probably go for the prawn cocktail over the par and ondies.

• 29:41Speaker 00

  Today's episode of the Off Menu Podcast is sponsored by Cozy, the home of possibilities, James.

• 29:48James Acaster?

  Ah, man, Ed, Cozy has everything you need to make your home feel like it has a plan. Do you know what I mean?

• 29:53Speaker 00

  I know what you mean. Cozy is a wonderful furniture company. It makes furnishing your whole home easy. Sofas, dining, storage, rugs, bedroom, even outdoor, all designed to make your space feel put together without the usual furniture stress. And James, we talk about dream meals on this podcast, but you know what? We very rarely talk about where we want to eat this dream meal.

• 30:13James Acaster?

  Sure, yeah. I like it when it does come up. It is very important. It changes the whole meal, the set in, the vibe. And Cozy's modular, customisable furniture for the whole home does just that.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  And the meal, James, doesn't necessarily end at dessert. We've often talked about wanting to take our maybe final course through to a comfy room. And I think this is where Cozy can really come in handy. Go and relax on the sofa, maybe even eat your meal at a lovely, beautiful Cozy table, linger a little bit, move through with coffees and dessert to a lovely couch. But I know what you're like, James. You're a mucky pup.

• 30:45James Acaster?

  I'm gonna spill stuff everywhere. Is that gonna ruin the Cozy furniture?

• 30:48Speaker 00

  No, don't worry about that, James, because it's highly washable, James. It's sauce, wine, sparkling water, dessert crumbs. You telling one of your big stories and sloshing a coffee everywhere. Don't worry, you can pop it in the wash.

• 31:00James Acaster?

  Oh, so you're saying Cozy makes every day at home feel like my best day?

• 31:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely. That's exactly what I'm saying. And with Cozy, your home can grow with you, adapting to new spaces, new styles and every era of your life, James. I think it's so hard, especially when you move somewhere new, to immediately make that place feel like yours, that it's been put together well. And that's where Cozy comes in.

• 31:20James Acaster?

  And because it's Cozy, the furniture isn't just good looking, but actually practical. Modular pieces, easy assembly, washable and interchangeable covers and free design consultations, if you want help making the whole room work.

• 31:32Speaker 00

  And it's easy to order, ship and assemble and maintain, James. The only way is the Cozy way.

• 31:38James Acaster?

  Visit Cozy today, that's C O Z E Y dot com and make yourself at home.

• 31:52James Acaster?

  Your dream main course. Sorry, you wanna make those noises?

• 31:57Speaker 02

  This is called, apparently called mlepping. Dogs do it. It's got an official name. It means they're very content.

• 32:04Speaker 00

  That's nice.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  No, that's blep.

• 32:05Speaker 00

  Um, Ben's got a dog called Toast. Ben does toast mlepp.

• 32:09James Acaster?

  Sometimes.

• 32:10Speaker 00

  Not happy, not happy.

• 32:11Speaker 02

  It's a very unhappy house.

• 32:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Main course. Um, well, I'm really into shakshuka.

• 32:20Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  And this, yeah, I'm not, I'm not gonna make any bones about this because I'm not a foodie. I love food, but I'm, I'm a bit like, with food, I'm a bit like, uh, wine in that, you have, you go, God, that's a good one. Wow. I must remember that. Never remember it.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  Just straight out the other side, yeah.

• 32:35Speaker 02

  Never remember it. And so I go to restaurants, I've taken to restaurants and go, this is, this is a taste sensation. Never go again. Uh, so I generally, I, I sort of start sort of defaulting to stuff I've always liked.

• 32:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  And shakshuka is so lovely. I'm very fond of Turkish food, Lebanese food, anything in that area. Uh, fettuccine, I absolutely love, pomegranate seeds and, but the amazing thing about a shakshuka is what it tastes like. Is when you used to have bacon and egg with tinned tomato on the side. It's true. And when the tomato juice and the egg yolk merged, it tastes like shakshuka.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  So for all this ponting about, in the end, it tastes like something I had when I was eight. And that's why I like it.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  So I often have it at a restaurant around the corner for lunch from us. Uh, and, and it was like toasted sourdough.

• 33:33Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:34Speaker 02

  And, and, but dipping, you know, dipping it in, absolutely gorgeous.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  The key with the shakshuka, I feel, when do you, when do you break the yolk? Are you immediately doing it? Or are you eating some tomato first? Are you eating a bit of the white first? Are you eating a round? And are you delaying that gratification of first?

• 33:49Speaker 02

  I try, I try to delay.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:52Speaker 02

  It's a lot like a Fiorentina pizza.

• 33:54Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  I, I quite like the weird novelty of the egg and then, and being able to cut into the white.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  And of course you can still play a little game with it of sort of squaring it off.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:05Speaker 02

  Until you've got almost a square yolk.

• 34:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Idea. So I would do that, yeah. And then the other one I'm really fond of is chicken milanesi. And that flat chicken with rosemary potatoes and a green salad. And I, I've just finished, uh, the RSC in Stratford. And I would eat that every matinee day. It's still, it's very difficult to know how to eat when you're doing a play. If you have too much, you get, it sits in you. If you have too little, you get lightheaded. But on a matinee day with two shows, that is the perfect meal for me. And, and I went to the same place every, twice a week until they, they knew what I wanted. It works for me because it was enough protein.

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:51Speaker 02

  I would have a nap afterwards during the show.

• 34:54Speaker 00

  So is this, is this in between, is this in between the shows?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you're straight off stage, straight to this place.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:00Speaker 00

  For the milanesi.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  And then a nap and then on again. And I've always liked that. And I, I love Italian food too. And, uh, there's an also a thing that some places do, um, which is so old fashioned, but it's just that with a great big lump of spaghetti on it.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Hmm. Is milanesi the breaded?

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:21Speaker 00

  One, yeah, yeah.

• 35:22Speaker 02

  But they, they do it, they do it breaded and then just great big lump of spaghetti. And it's, I've forgotten actually what, what to order. But they do it. A lot of old fashioned Italians do.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's quite American Italian as well. Yeah, like the red sauce places. Yeah.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's sort of hybrid, isn't it? Must be. They just. I remember going to Naples years ago, which is where pizza were invented, only to discover that they've got like a hundred different types of margarita.

• 35:50Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  And you kind of wanna say, but you can have Hawaiian. But they're all like really subtle variations. They take it very seriously.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 02

  It's quite an ordinary pizza.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. I, I don't think I've ever ordered a margarita.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  Oh, I love margarita.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  No, I wouldn't go near it.

• 36:05James Acaster?

  No, I wouldn't go near it.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Think of all the possibilities you're missing out on, mate.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  No, I do. I mean, I go.

• 36:10James Acaster?

  I don't order margaritas. I don't order the vanilla ice cream. No.

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Do you have things against margaritas?

• 36:17James Acaster?

  If, if, if she's listening, she knows why.

• 36:20James Acaster?

  When Sherlock jumped off the building.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. James went quiet for a bit and I thought he's brewing a question.

• 36:26Speaker 02

  Something, I bet it was an egg crisp.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:29James Acaster?

  I, I, I had a go at, uh, Martin Freeman about it and I don't think that's fair. Cause he didn't, he didn't write it. What happened? Did he really jump off and all, all, all the people went under him with a crash man?

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Well, that's for you to decide.

• 36:43James Acaster?

  Don't say that, Mark.

• 36:44Speaker 02

  There's no difference.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Obviously Mark's been asked this question so many times before, he's not gonna suddenly say what it is.

• 36:49James Acaster?

  I'm gonna break it on this podcast, I'm gonna go do it now to be an exclusive. Well, don't, don't you want?

• 36:54Speaker 02

  In the end, the mystery remains, not the question.

• 36:56James Acaster?

  Oh, you.

• 36:57Speaker 00

  It's not Jonathan Creek, man, they're not gonna tell you how it's done.

• 36:59James Acaster?

  Yeah. You're a piece of work, Gators. Do you wanna just make a quick decision between like those two mains, the shakshuka or the, or the flat chicken?

• 37:06Speaker 02

  I'll go for chicken.

• 37:07James Acaster?

  Lovely.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  Flat chicken.

• 37:08James Acaster?

  That means you're doing a matinee.

• 37:09Speaker 00

  Flat chicken.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  In my head, I'm doing a matinee.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, matinee chicken.

• 37:14James Acaster?

  What's the play?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  The Resistible Rise of Arturo Uy. By Bertolt Brecht.

• 37:19James Acaster?

  And you're playing?

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Arturo Uy.

• 37:21James Acaster?

  Of course.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  It's a, it's satire on the rise of Hitler. As if he were a Chicago gangster in the thirties. And we're hopefully transferring.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Nice.

• 37:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. Somebody said to me, we're trying to work out a way of finding a slot to do it. I said, well, it's not gonna go away. He said, what, you being busy? I said, no fashionism.

• 37:41Speaker 00

  But also if finding a place for it's transferred to, you're gonna have to check out the local restaurant scene. To make sure you get the Milanese for the matinee days, yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  I tell you, it's, it is a nice restaurant story. Three or four, four years ago, I was doing Mission Impossible. And we had.

• 37:57James Acaster?

  That scene is fucking bananas, by the way, but carry on.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  We, um.

• 38:01James Acaster?

  What a bananas scene.

• 38:02Speaker 02

  We had the builders in, so we, we were out of a house and like most, like half, like five months, we were sort of house sitting and moving around Hastings and Gloucestershire and all kinds of things. But when I was doing the film, they put us up in a hotel for a month, which is ideal.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  With the dog. And, but it was that weird thing I'd always wanted to do. It was like being on holiday in your own city. And I, it was what I call the butt plug hotel, which is the treehouse one next to, um, the top of Regent Street by Broadcasting House.

• 38:36Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, the treehouse one, yeah, I know, yeah.

• 38:38James Acaster?

  But it looks like a butt plug.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:40Speaker 02

  Um, and, uh, they'll thank me for that. And, uh, but you know, it's the weirdest thing to be on Oxford Street.

• 38:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Midnight.

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:49Speaker 02

  And it was really interesting to see it from a totally different perspective. And one thing I did do on, one afternoon, finished filming or something and I came back, I was a bit loose ended, also hadn't eaten. And I just walked down Regent Street and I found this incredibly old fashioned Italian. One of those ones, my favorite ones, vanishingly rare, with photos of actors on the wall.

• 39:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, love that.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  And it was like, I would never have gone there.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  If I hadn't been staying in this hotel. And it was really great, proper old fashioned thing. And I love that, I love that when you make those discoveries.

• 39:22Speaker 00

  Did they take a photo of you to put on the wall?

• 39:24Speaker 02

  No, I hate that. When we were doing Sherlock in Cardiff, basically, you know, for ten years, and there was an Italian there. And it had every one of Tom Jones's regenerations. Cause he'd been there so many times over the years. There was like a wall of Toms from nineteen sixty-three to the present day.

• 39:49James Acaster?

  Your dream side dish, Mark?

• 39:52Speaker 02

  Well, um, this is tricky, isn't it? Because.

• 39:55Speaker 00

  You've already got the potatoes, haven't you?

• 39:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:57Speaker 00

  With the, with the.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  And I'm, I'm already full of.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  I would like a fettuccine, I, I would, I would love that.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, nice.

• 40:04Speaker 02

  I, I think there's something about that. It's a, I think all Lebanese cuisine is kind of perfect for me. I just, I love the freshness of it. When you have those little bits of toasted pitta.

• 40:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:16Speaker 02

  With lemon juice and, and, and pomegranate. Again, it's like, who thought of this? This is a good one.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  And it's like flat leaf parsley in there as well, right?

• 40:24Speaker 02

  I mean, I could eat tons of that.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  So I'd probably be filling up on that as well, but that's a good one, isn't it?

• 40:30Speaker 00

  Well, you found another way to get bread in.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 40:32James Acaster?

  Well done, you're doing pretty well with that.

• 40:34Speaker 00

  We're starting off with bread, obviously.

• 40:35Speaker 02

  Breaded chicken.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  But yeah, breaded chicken and we've got bread in the, in the side dish.

• 40:38Speaker 02

  And you, I mean, you need to dip bread into your marly rose sauce.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, yeah, we'll give you a bit of bread with the prom cocktail as well, yeah, for sure.

• 40:45James Acaster?

  Fettuccine, one of the onomatopoeic foods.

• 40:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:48James Acaster?

  Fettuccine.

• 40:49Speaker 02

  It sounds.

• 40:49James Acaster?

  Sounds like.

• 40:50Speaker 02

  You know.

• 40:51James Acaster?

  Sounds like.

• 40:52Speaker 02

  It sounds like an explosion in a comic.

• 40:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is, and it's, I think it's what everyone should shout when they eat fettuccine.

• 40:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:00James Acaster?

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:01James Acaster?

  It's impossible not to want to say fettuccine when you're getting.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:04James Acaster?

  The fettuccine.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  I'll have, uh, the fettuccine. Could you shout chip bitch?

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Chip bitch?

• 41:10James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Chip bitch?

• 41:13James Acaster?

  Who's in that scene? You.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  This was always gonna happen, Mark, by the way.

• 41:16James Acaster?

  Rob Delaney's knocking around there.

• 41:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:18James Acaster?

  Obviously Cruz shows up.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  He has to. That's part of it, isn't it?

• 41:23James Acaster?

  What's it, Robin Hood Men in Tights is in it?

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Carrie O'Wes, yeah.

• 41:26James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Saw.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Indra Varma.

• 41:28James Acaster?

  Saw.

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:29James Acaster?

  Of course, yeah, yeah, Saw.

• 41:31Speaker 00

  So.

• 41:31James Acaster?

  Uh, Princess Bride.

• 41:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 41:33James Acaster?

  Legend.

• 41:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:34James Acaster?

  He's in there. Who else is in that scene? I'm trying to wrap my head around it, cause it, it's, it's hilarious. Every time the camera changes shot, cause you know, I didn't get it at all on the establishing shot that you were all there. So I think you've all got your back to the camera and.

• 41:48Speaker 02

  What do you think we were?

• 41:50James Acaster?

  You got, you got your back to camera, I didn't know it was you guys. I was like, oh, you know.

• 41:54Speaker 02

  Ends in green gas like that, man.

• 41:56James Acaster?

  He's talking to all you lot. So then it just goes bam, but every time it like goes to one of you, I'm like, I can't believe this.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Have you seen, I mean, the next one, more, have you seen that?

• 42:04James Acaster?

  I haven't seen that one.

• 42:05Speaker 02

  With more table work, there's even more of us around a table.

• 42:09James Acaster?

  Who else is in that scene?

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Henry C and E.

• 42:12James Acaster?

  Legend.

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Charles Parnell, American actors.

• 42:14James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 42:15Speaker 02

  Uh, and, uh, Tom in disguise, he pulls his mask off.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:18James Acaster?

  Yes, of course.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:19James Acaster?

  You gotta be happy that you're in a mask pulling off scene in Mission Impossible.

• 42:23Speaker 02

  And, and green gas. I mean, these are the things, aren't they? It's an amazing experience. And then that, I was on that for about a week and the second one for about a month. So it was, it was incredible. You kind of, you can't underestimate it. We were shitting ourselves. I mean, I saw, I didn't know Indra was in it and we saw each other across the room and she went.

• 42:45Speaker 02

  And we sort of held on to each other. And then there were all these, like Henry and Charles, these sort of blue steel Americans. And then within a minute, you think, oh my God, they're shitting.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:57Speaker 02

  Everyone's, what's going on? And then, cause it's just so, it's so huge.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 02

  And literally the first thing after an introduction was Tom Cruise. He said, show Mark the, the fjord video. And this image comes up on a TV screen of him doing the stunt seven times. And for which he trained for a year. And the, the script was very dense techno babble stuff, which we'd like got the night before. And it was really hard to learn, but you think, maybe I could learn.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  But they were so delightful and welcoming and funny. I remember he got, he totally got us. Um, for some reason, we ended up talking about workplace bullying or something. And he said, I tell you who's the worst for that? Ron Howard. You know, Happy Days, howdy doody. I'm going, yeah? I mean, I did a movie with him, I mean, the, the hookers, the coke. He went on for about five minutes and then he just went. Totally real, he was brilliant.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  That's so fun.

• 44:00James Acaster?

  He got you with Ron Howard.

• 44:01Speaker 02

  He got us.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  I love that he's showing people the videos of the stunts. Don't need to see them because of course.

• 44:06Speaker 02

  Why not?

• 44:07Speaker 00

  That's actually like, of course I would, yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  And I said to.

• 44:10Speaker 00

  Have a look at this, what I did.

• 44:11James Acaster?

  I would be very tempted if I was in your position to be, to go on to the set and go, um, I'm gonna inhale the gas for real. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna do it proper, I'm gonna do my own stunt and we can release the video of it to promote the film.

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:24James Acaster?

  And tell, tell when Mark Gatiss actually inhaled the gas.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Wasn't even there, it's all done in post, isn't it?

• 44:29James Acaster?

  I'd imagine the gas. I'd be like, I'm doing it like Tom. I'm doing it like Tom. I'm gonna do all of this for real and you can't stop me.

• 44:41James Acaster?

  You have a dream drink?

• 44:42Speaker 02

  Well, I like wine, but I'm not a connoisseur, as you say.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  You can't remember the, can you remember? Can you remember an occasion when you had?

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 44:53Speaker 00

  A dream wine?

• 44:53Speaker 02

  I can tell you, I, I can tell you this because it's so evocatively fabulous.

• 44:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  It's a wine that, a grape that grows on the slopes of Vesuvius. It is served in Pompeii, the modern town, and it is called Ilacrumo de Christi, the Tears of Christ. That was a good one.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  And it was a beautiful day. And by amazing coincidence, my friend was making a documentary about Pompeii. And we met up with him, had lunch, had the tears of Christ. And then we were, we were given a private tour of things that are not normally open to the public.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 45:29Speaker 02

  So it was just, it was one of those days. It was beautiful sunshine, very crisp white wine, Christ.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, Christ tears.

• 45:38James Acaster?

  Christ tears of white wine?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:41James Acaster?

  What the hell? No, no.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  Why would you, why would you expect it to be red wine?

• 45:44Speaker 02

  Well, cause he, in the paintings, he's, but that's, he's bleeding from the side.

• 45:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:49James Acaster?

  That guy, that guy loves to bleed.

• 45:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, but if it was Christ's blood, you're obviously expecting red wine, cause that's what.

• 45:55James Acaster?

  You made a big deal about that.

• 45:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, they reckon that anyway, right?

• 45:58Speaker 02

  Where do you stand on Jesus? Have you found Jesus?

• 46:02Speaker 00

  I've not found Jesus, I've had a look.

• 46:03Speaker 02

  He's over there.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  I've had a little look.

• 46:06James Acaster?

  So that means he's got the market cornered with wine now. If it's like, the red's his blood and now the white's his tears.

• 46:11Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 46:11James Acaster?

  What's rosé?

• 46:12Speaker 00

  It's well, when they stab, when they stab, when they stab.

• 46:14Speaker 02

  Barry Rose sauce.

• 46:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. Didn't they stab him in the side to check if it ran?

• 46:19Speaker 02

  With the spear of destiny.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  When it, if it was blood and then it ran clear, they knew he was dead, right?

• 46:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 46:23James Acaster?

  Oh, really?

• 46:24Speaker 00

  So maybe that, the bit in between is the rosé.

• 46:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:27James Acaster?

  For hip blood.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  It's gonna be complaints.

• 46:31Speaker 00

  No.

• 46:31James Acaster?

  No way.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  No way.

• 46:33James Acaster?

  No, no, we're, we're, we're pro.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Also, we're talking about it in the sense that it was real and it happened.

• 46:39Speaker 02

  Yes, yes.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  So Catholics actually love that. That's why they love The Exorcist, right?

• 46:43Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 46:43James Acaster?

  They're making a Passion of the Christ too, aren't they?

• 46:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's underway. And I, actually, a guy using Bookish was about to leave to play, I think Bartholomew or something. And I said, um, so is it like the, is it the three days after? And he went, no. Well, it is, but it's, it's a two parter. It starts in the Garden of Eden. Mel's insane. It starts, it's the whole work. I mean, not the whole Bible.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 02

  But it starts in the Garden of Eden and goes right through to the resurrection. It's thrilling.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  So it's a prequel?

• 47:14Speaker 02

  It's a prequel and a sequel.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:16Speaker 02

  It's like Star Wars.

• 47:17James Acaster?

  Yeah, got it too.

• 47:18Speaker 02

  They're doing an opening crawl.

• 47:19James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  About Jesus.

• 47:22James Acaster?

  There's a lot of.

• 47:22Speaker 00

  Just the Bible, yeah.

• 47:23James Acaster?

  I am your farmer's daughter.

• 47:25Speaker 02

  In the beginning was the word.

• 47:26Speaker 00

  Fucking hell.

• 47:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  It's gonna be a long opening sequence.

• 47:29Speaker 02

  Hmm, that is gonna be.

• 47:30Speaker 00

  That's bonkers. I didn't, I, I've not seen Passion of the Christ. I didn't know where.

• 47:33Speaker 02

  Honestly.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Where did it go up to? Where did it leave us?

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Uh, I, I only see it once, but I think it is, it ends, you know, the usual place.

• 47:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Where, and the gruesome picture, but also the bit of the aftermath, bit of the, the storm and.

• 47:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 47:46Speaker 02

  Going, oh god.

• 47:47James Acaster?

  I think it ends with like, the stone.

• 47:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:51James Acaster?

  Being rolled back from the tomb and then just ends.

• 47:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Also, there's a perfect sequel to that.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. It's like Empire Strikes Back.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  See, whatever you think of him, Mel Gibson is a very brilliant.

• 48:01James Acaster?

  Oh, Jesus, yeah.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  He's a brilliant filmmaker. Have you seen Apocalypto?

• 48:06Speaker 00

  No, I've actually not.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  That's a, it's an amazing film. I don't know, it's a great film.

• 48:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  Believe it or not, I love, I'm weirdly, this is very off topic, except for the bread being the flesh.

• 48:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  Of Christ. Um.

• 48:18Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 48:18Speaker 02

  I, I love.

• 48:19Speaker 00

  You're having a lot of Jesus in this.

• 48:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love Jesus films.

• 48:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  I'm not, I'm an atheist, but I love Jesus films. I love them to distraction. I watch lots every Easter.

• 48:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 02

  I love them. It's a great, it's an amazing story. It's a great story.

• 48:30James Acaster?

  You got like, top three Jesus films?

• 48:32Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Uh, obviously King of Kings, great story ever told. And, um, the Pasolini's, um, uh, passion. That's a, that's an extraordinary film. Extraordinary, beautiful. There you are.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:45James Acaster?

  Uh, have you ever written Jesus into anything?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  No, I'd like, I'd like, honestly, I would love to do the story of Christ, because I think it's an incredible story. I'm going to see Jesus Christ Superstar next, next week, which I adore.

• 48:55Speaker 00

  Sam Ryder's in it.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  Sam Ryder. He's the, he's the Christ.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Um, and Reese is doing Herod.

• 49:01James Acaster?

  Is he?

• 49:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, doing one of the Herods.

• 49:03James Acaster?

  Yeah, top cast.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  But the Passion of the Christ is a really good film.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  It's brutal.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  In a way they often aren't.

• 49:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  But also the devil in it is absolutely amazing. The devil takes different forms. There's an incredible sequence where I think Judas looks round after he's betrayed Christ. And there's this woman suckling a baby, and then the baby turns around and it's got the face of an old man.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  It's absolutely horrible.

• 49:31Speaker 00

  I'd like that then.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:32James Acaster?

  Yeah, you'd like those bits.

• 49:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 49:33James Acaster?

  But you might like the whole film.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:35James Acaster?

  It's a very long ass whooping essentially.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 49:39James Acaster?

  It's just doesn't.

• 49:40Speaker 02

  That's how Jesus felt about it.

• 49:41James Acaster?

  Doesn't let up.

• 49:44James Acaster?

  Your dream dessert.

• 49:46Speaker 02

  This is easy.

• 49:47James Acaster?

  Easy peasy.

• 49:48Speaker 02

  Now, um, when I was a kid, we never, we very rarely had pudding, as we used to call it.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:54Speaker 02

  We used to have, um, like tinned rice, uh, tapioca, semolina.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  I'll come back to those. Uh, but we read, my mum didn't make much, many puddings. And I sort of didn't grow up with it as a thing. And of course, we never ate out, never. It just didn't happen, except fish and chips.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  So I didn't grow up with it, but I've got more used to them over the years. My partner is big on puddings. He'll, he'll usually just have a pudding. But, um, my absolute favourite is, is pavlova.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:26James Acaster?

  Nice.

• 50:26Speaker 02

  And I, I love meringue. I always loved meringues. We used to have a man who came round in a baker's van. And I used to get a, a meringue as a treat when I was little.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Meringue man?

• 50:36Speaker 02

  Meringue man? It's like a chip bitch, but.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  Meringue tang?

• 50:40Speaker 02

  It's the meringue, the meringue tang, as we used to call him. But it was, I love that. I love the hard crispiness and then the cream, maybe with something fruity in the middle, but often not.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:51Speaker 02

  And I used to, when I first became a grown up, next week, I used to buy the shells because you could.

• 50:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, do what you like.

• 50:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, Christ, yeah, make myself sick.

• 51:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  But a pav, a really good pavlova, and therefore by extension, an eating mess.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  A smashed up one full of cream and raspberries, particularly raspberries. Uh, that's, I love it.

• 51:13Speaker 00

  I think I, yeah, I think I prefer it in the eating mess format, so the pavlova format, because you're just doing it anyway, aren't you?

• 51:20James Acaster?

  Sure.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:22James Acaster?

  Not possible.

• 51:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. The eating boys, got to shout out to the eating boys.

• 51:25James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:26Speaker 02

  That's it. And no, and the other one, which is, I don't even know if they do it. And it's a brand, can I say this? You can.

• 51:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  Uh, if they don't do it, it's a scandal. But Wagamama.

• 51:37Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 51:38Speaker 02

  Used to do a, a ginger and white chocolate cheesecake with chili on it. And it was genuinely irresistibly beautiful. And, and like, again, it all goes back to childhood. It tasted exactly like, when my mum used to make cakes. She, she used to make cakes, not puddings, in a big, one of those big sorts of fawn coloured porcelain bowls. And she used to let it scrape up the last bit. It tasted exactly like that. And therefore I loved it.

• 52:11Speaker 00

  I love that so many of your dishes are like.

• 52:13Speaker 02

  It's true.

• 52:14Speaker 00

  Sounds like very sort of, you know, highfalutin', but it's all just, it tastes exactly like something from the past.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  Yes, and it's also, it's sort of Proustian.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:24Speaker 02

  They trigger so many things. I remember having that and Wagamama going, I know this taste.

• 52:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  And then again, in a grown up way, it's like, I used to think, when I'm grown up, I will have a, a bowl of cake mixture.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  I don't have to scrape it off the spoon.

• 52:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:40Speaker 02

  What about the whole lot?

• 52:41James Acaster?

  Yeah, it's what my girlfriend does on her birthday. Just literally makes a cake in the bowl and then just eats that.

• 52:47Speaker 02

  Oh my god.

• 52:47James Acaster?

  Just eats the cake mix. Always makes herself feel sick.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course, she must feel sick the day.

• 52:51James Acaster?

  Shout out, baby, I love you. But like, uh, always makes herself feel sick, but always does it. Um, I think I did it for her in lockdown when it was her birthday, made, made of the cake mix. There you go.

• 53:02Speaker 02

  Do you have a little bit of it or?

• 53:03James Acaster?

  Oh, of course I have a little bit of it.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  But that's enough, isn't it?

• 53:05James Acaster?

  Delicious.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  It's like.

• 53:06Speaker 00

  Chef's treat.

• 53:07Speaker 02

  It's like, it's like a moral lesson, isn't it?

• 53:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Be careful what you wish for.

• 53:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. Freedom, freedom isn't everything. Freedom should not be used in that way.

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:15James Acaster?

  She does that. Every Christmas, she gets a, a jar of like mince pie filling and some, uh, raw rolled out, uh, pastry.

• 53:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 53:24James Acaster?

  And just gets the raw pastry and just picks up the mince pie filling with it and eats that.

• 53:30Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 53:31James Acaster?

  Just, this, this woman doesn't cook anything. It's all raw, just going in.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  It's scary.

• 53:37James Acaster?

  Yeah, she's got cookie dough in the fridge as we speak, but that's more acceptable.

• 53:41Speaker 00

  Are you sure she's not turning into like a cannibal? Are you sure she's not, this is not like the film, the film role?

• 53:46James Acaster?

  I meant, uh, I said girlfriend, I meant oven. My oven.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Just a, a big opener.

• 53:54James Acaster?

  I've got an oven that I kiss.

• 53:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:56James Acaster?

  I don't, I don't know what his birthday is. Happy birthday, baby.

• 53:59Speaker 02

  That's a thing, isn't it?

• 54:02Speaker 00

  People in love with ovens or inanimate objects. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  We've, we've still got a documentary somewhere.

• 54:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:08James Acaster?

  Yeah, got it.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  I used to tape these things, but there was a brilliant one.

• 54:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:11Speaker 02

  About a woman who was married to the Eiffel Tower.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:14Speaker 02

  And she left it for the Berlin Wall. But the best one was this, this, this girl who had an obsession with, with the Monopoly board. And she called it Monop. It was his pet name, Monop.

• 54:25Speaker 00

  Surely Polly. Surely, it's right there.

• 54:28Speaker 02

  No, no, no. It's a polyamorous rate.

• 54:32James Acaster?

  Oh, brilliant.

• 54:33Speaker 02

  Amazing thing, isn't it? There's no excuse here.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  My wife went to art school with someone who was married to a seesaw.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Is what?

• 54:38Speaker 00

  Yes, ma, were they married to a seesaw?

• 54:40Speaker 02

  In what sense? Officially?

• 54:42James Acaster?

  Bit of an up and down relationship.

• 54:43Speaker 00

  Hey!

• 54:45James Acaster?

  Aye!

• 54:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, just, I, maybe not married, but you know, they were, they were seeing each other. Yeah, yeah.

• 54:50James Acaster?

  Sawing each other.

• 54:51Speaker 02

  Well, I love. Wow. Woo. Where did they meet?

• 54:57Speaker 00

  She had to go to the seesaw quite a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  It's always a bit one sided.

• 55:04James Acaster?

  If you could, um, obviously you're very in love with your partner, but if you could.

• 55:08Speaker 02

  Marry a seesaw.

• 55:09James Acaster?

  Marry a.

• 55:09Speaker 00

  An inanimate object.

• 55:11James Acaster?

  Well, what, let's say you have to.

• 55:14Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 55:15James Acaster?

  Let's say it's the new law and you have to, what, what would you pick?

• 55:18Speaker 02

  A Dalek. But it moves, isn't it?

• 55:22James Acaster?

  Moves and talks. Unless you just get one of the ones, that one that's in the foyer of the BBC, just shag that.

• 55:27Speaker 02

  Shag it, you just.

• 55:29James Acaster?

  Don't they shag you things?

• 55:30Speaker 00

  No.

• 55:31Speaker 02

  I think they do. I'm afraid the monopoly board was a bit worn.

• 55:34James Acaster?

  Yeah. They cheap ass go a few times.

• 55:39Speaker 02

  Didn't collect lately.

• 55:43Speaker 02

  We've got off.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  Do you think, is that your, your first thought with the Dalek is the one in the BBC foyer? Cause mine is the Museum of the Moving Image Dalek that you could get inside. That's what I think of the Dalek. I'm thinking.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  I was in the B F of the other day and I, I was, I found myself in the corner where the giant robot used to be.

• 56:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  And with the TV screen showing all the regenerations. I thought, gosh, it's like a relic in itself.

• 56:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  Corner now.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  I love the Superman thing in, in Museum of the Moving Image.

• 56:10James Acaster?

  Mm hmm.

• 56:11Speaker 00

  Where you could lie, you used to lie on a thing and then it would, it would show you like flying through the sky. It was amazing, man.

• 56:20James Acaster?

  You did it.

• 56:20Speaker 00

  It's all gum.

• 56:21James Acaster?

  You flew through the sky?

• 56:22Speaker 00

  I did it all the time. You could roll onto your back so you could see yourself flying backwards through the sky.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Where do you stand on the new Superman?

• 56:29Speaker 00

  I've not seen much of the new Superman at all.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  Superman?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  The Superman and now Supergirl as of recent, the recent release. Yeah.

• 56:36James Acaster?

  I, I, I saw the Superman film and I, I, I, it wasn't for me, didn't enjoy it, but, uh, there weren't many people in the cinema. There was like a family in, and then me and my girlfriend, that might've been it. Film finished. We'd kind of been looking at each other all the way through going, oh God, this is a bad film. Finished, the family applauded.

• 56:56James Acaster?

  We're looking at them like they'd lost their minds. And they were looking around at us smiling, applauded. They were like, are you crazy?

• 57:02Speaker 02

  She, they were applauding her stuffing her face full of cookie dough.

• 57:05James Acaster?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:07Speaker 02

  She brought it with her, yeah.

• 57:08James Acaster?

  She was eating raw calories of popcorn. Just like breaking her teeth.

• 57:14James Acaster?

  I'm gonna read your menu back to you now, see how you feel about it. Did you do the crossword by the way?

• 57:19Speaker 00

  Yesterday.

• 57:20James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  No, I didn't do it in the end.

• 57:22James Acaster?

  Very excited, very excited for Ed. We, we do the New York Times puzzles and.

• 57:27Speaker 02

  Cryptic?

• 57:28Speaker 00

  No, I've started doing Minute Cryptic though. You do MinuteCryptic.com. They have a new, a new cryptic thing every day and they give you clues. I'd need the clues so often. I'm, I'm, I'm just getting into cryptic.

• 57:38James Acaster?

  Well, Ed does the Wordle every day and I was very excited. I texted him, very excited about the puzzles today. Let me know when you've done them, cause it's very, it's something very exciting in there for you. And he, and, uh, I think he gave up on it. It was, I don't know what you're talking about. Didn't do it. But it's really exciting, Ed. Ed's starting Word, in Wordle every day is pious. He always starts with pious. Get this, Mark. It was one of the answers in the crossword clue.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Oh, Jesus Christ.

• 58:01James Acaster?

  It was, his, his started, oh, wrong puzzle, right word, wrong puzzle, Ed.

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Wow. Didn't work. Wordle yesterday was puppy. I didn't get it.

• 58:08James Acaster?

  Yeah, really.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Cause I got P U blank, blank Y and then.

• 58:11James Acaster?

  Yeah.

• 58:11Speaker 00

  You know, I'm, I'm putty, I'm puffy. I'm going through every single possible iteration apart from puppy.

• 58:16Speaker 02

  Incredible.

• 58:16Speaker 00

  Sorry, James, carry on.

• 58:17James Acaster?

  I got a few on that.

• 58:18Speaker 02

  Do you do pogram?

• 58:20Speaker 00

  Strands, that one.

• 58:22Speaker 02

  I don't know, I don't know.

• 58:23Speaker 00

  Do, do strands?

• 58:24James Acaster?

  You can get pogram on strands, get pogram on the, on the spelling bee of course.

• 58:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:29James Acaster?

  We're geniuses.

• 58:30Speaker 00

  Our WhatsApp, uh, group is nothing about the podcast. We just send each other our results on the New York Times puzzles.

• 58:35James Acaster?

  I deny geniuses on the spelling bee. Benito is not.

• 58:40James Acaster?

  You would like sparkling water. You would like crusty white bloomer with balsamic vinegar.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:44James Acaster?

  You would like a prawn cocktail, main course chicken Milanese with, uh, matin, well, brackets, matinee chicken as well. What do you have to put here? Side douche, side douche.

• 58:53Speaker 02

  Side douche.

• 58:54Speaker 00

  Side dish.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  It's been a long meal.

• 59:00James Acaster?

  Toush, drink. Oh, I got, can't really, lacrima.

• 59:04Speaker 02

  Lacrima de Christie.

• 59:05James Acaster?

  White wine, the tears of Christ.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:08James Acaster?

  And dessert, pavlova. And cause you were so good at choosing between things all the way through, we're also gonna let you have the macamama ginger and white chocolate cheesecake. I'm gonna give you both, cause you were such a good boy.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  That's lovely.

• 59:20Speaker 02

  You'd like that, wouldn't you?

• 59:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:21James Acaster?

  I'd like that, yeah.

• 59:22Speaker 02

  I'm pleased, cause I'm, I was worried, cause I'm not a foodie, as I say. And I, I do, I remember doing Saturday Kitchen first time years ago and I genuinely thought. I, I'm slightly embarrassed to say what I eat because it, because it is just so working class. But the one I've left out, which is crucial and I should have, which is my, like my last meal is beans on toast.

• 59:43Speaker 00

  Really?

• 59:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  See, I hate beans, so that could have gone really badly, that chat. Yeah.

• 59:49Speaker 02

  Well, I'll just drop that in. But I'll tell you something, um, I accidentally last year bought a tin of sugar free beans. And discovered, you know what they taste like? Beans. Not, not lovely sugar.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  And it was such a shock.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  You know, like, like white.

• 1:00:06Speaker 00

  They actually taste like beans.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  And you go, oh my God.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  This is the wrong meal. That's absolutely my final meal.

• 1:00:13James Acaster?

  Beans on toast.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Beans on toast.

• 1:00:14James Acaster?

  Do you put cheese and beans on toast?

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Very occasionally, but I sort of regret it. It's a bit like the fish and chips thing. I think this looks, it's, it's fine, but I'm, I'm, I'm, it's a Sunday, it's a Sunday tea thing.

• 1:00:25Speaker 00

  Classic white bread toasted, butter.

• 1:00:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:29James Acaster?

  I feel like Martin Freeman chose beans on toast.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  No, I don't think he did.

• 1:00:33James Acaster?

  He didn't, he didn't talk about beans on toast.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  He might've talked about.

• 1:00:36James Acaster?

  I swear to God.

• 1:00:37Speaker 00

  It was about five years ago.

• 1:00:38James Acaster?

  I swear to God Freeman bought a beans on toast as well, or at least bought them up at the end and said about them, cause he said about food waste. I think you and Freeman, uh, you know, peas in a pod, man.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  Simpatico.

• 1:00:49James Acaster?

  Beans in a tin.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Beans in a tin.

• 1:00:52James Acaster?

  Yeah. Well.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Sugared.

• 1:00:54James Acaster?

  Listen, thank you so much for coming on.

• 1:00:55Speaker 02

  Pleasure.

• 1:00:56Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:00:56James Acaster?

  Pleasure.

• 1:00:57Speaker 00

  Fantastic.

• 1:00:58James Acaster?

  A bit annoyed that you don't tell me about the Sherlock thing.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  All right, I'm gonna tell you. He jumps into a giant vat of beans. It was red nosed day.

• 1:01:06James Acaster?

  You heard it here first.

• 1:01:07Speaker 02

  The distraction. It's good, isn't it?

• 1:01:10James Acaster?

  But have you, have you found it? Yeah, you both talked about beans on toast. There you go.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14James Acaster?

  So this is a thing for Sherlock people now.

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16James Acaster?

  Whenever we get Sherlock people on.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:01:18James Acaster?

  We see if they talk about beans on toast.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  How many other Sherlock people?

• 1:01:20James Acaster?

  Comba batch, haven't had him on yet. Russell Tovey not on yet. We need to get him on, cause he was on my episode of, uh, Bake Off.

• 1:01:27Speaker 02

  When you did Taskmaster, you wouldn't say hello to Alex.

• 1:01:31James Acaster?

  Refused.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  Was that a thing?

• 1:01:33James Acaster?

  Uh, it was.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  It was very funny.

• 1:01:35James Acaster?

  It, it, it accidentally became a thing.

• 1:01:37Speaker 02

  Yes, I saw it.

• 1:01:38James Acaster?

  Like fir- first, first task, just, just, he said hello, didn't, uh, on the spot, didn't do it.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:01:45James Acaster?

  So then just carried on doing it. And then a lot of people while watching the show were like, I bet that's a secret task that James has been given. It's gonna be a reveal at the end.

• 1:01:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53James Acaster?

  And then when it wasn't, a lot of people have come up to me and gone, I think that was really rude of you, that you didn't say hello to Alex. There's some people who take Taskmaster very seriously. Don't find it to be a funny show, but it's a very serious show. And then they get very annoyed that I didn't say hello to Alex. Um, but there was one time when I do say hello, he catches me off guard and that, it did make the edit. So, you know, I'm not all bad.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Not all bad. Mark, thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant.

• 1:02:17James Acaster?

  Ta. Thank you, man.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  There we are, James. Wonderful, wonderful to meet Mark, to chat to Mark. What a guy.

• 1:02:28James Acaster?

  Such an honour, such a privilege. He didn't say fluoride in water, which means we didn't kill him apparently.

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:34James Acaster?

  Something new I've learned about our own podcast.

• 1:02:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. We talked more about Jesus than I thought we would.

• 1:02:39James Acaster?

  Yeah, Jesus got a lot of airtime. I don't know how it's gonna shake out in the edit.

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:43James Acaster?

  But just know if you're listening, we talked about Jesus for a long time.

• 1:02:46Speaker 00

  It was all nice stuff. I don't think anyone said anything bad about Jesus.

• 1:02:48James Acaster?

  No, never disparaging about Jesus. Like I grew up a little Christian boy. I don't believe it now, but I still think Jesus, what a lovely man.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  Famously a good bloke.

• 1:02:57James Acaster?

  Yeah, lovely man.

• 1:02:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:59James Acaster?

  You're on tour with Fresh Hell.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, sorry, Jesus.

• 1:03:01James Acaster?

  Everyone should watch, yeah, sorry. Jesus. Everyone should watch Bookish. It's out on the 26th of August, so make sure you watch, uh, series two of Bookish. And watch series one if you, if you haven't.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  On You and Alibi. Series one is available to stream on Sky, Virgin Media and Now, Now.

• 1:03:20James Acaster?

  Yes, lovely stuff. Look, what more is there to say? Mark has gone. He's still alive.

• 1:03:27Speaker 00

  He's still alive. The Dream Restaurant landed back safely on earth for the end.

• 1:03:31James Acaster?

  This episode is dedicated to the memory of Jade Adam.

• 1:03:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:35James Acaster?

  And, uh.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  She's merely dust in the atmosphere now.

• 1:03:38James Acaster?

  Yeah. Brian Cox was wrong.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41James Acaster?

  Oh, that's the actor Brian Cox. Not, I know you said dust in the atmosphere, so it makes out like we're talking about the other Brian Cox.

• 1:03:46Speaker 00

  But the other Brian Cox was wrong as well, cause he said, he did said that dark matter wasn't evil.

• 1:03:49James Acaster?

  Yeah, he was wrong when he came on the podcast. We should have done a official, like, retraction about that.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:55James Acaster?

  Cause he said a lot of wrong headed stuff.

• 1:03:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:57James Acaster?

  And he embarrassed himself.

• 1:03:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:59James Acaster?

  That's a shame.

• 1:04:01Speaker 00

  And if you're watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe button. It's glowing. It's right down there. It's, it's doing a little lighting thing where it lights up probably. If Ben can work out how to do that. We know that 90% of you who watch aren't subscribed. What's going on there? Hit that button and sign up to our Patreon.

• 1:04:18James Acaster?

  We don't have one.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  I do.

• 1:04:21James Acaster?

  Congratulations.

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Ed Gamble. Ed Gamble's off menu, it's called.

• 1:04:25James Acaster?

  Oh, you're making a little bit of extra cheese on the side, just for yourself?

• 1:04:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's just for cheese though.

• 1:04:31James Acaster?

  This makes me even angrier, you know that. That's the law of this podcast.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  Subscribe, bitches.

• 1:04:38James Acaster?

  What? No need to call them bitches.

• 1:04:39Speaker 00

  Why, they are all bitches. That's what we call our listeners.

• 1:04:42James Acaster?

  Chip bitch.

• 1:04:42Speaker 00

  Chip bitch. That was good. I enjoyed all the chip bitch stuff.

• 1:04:46James Acaster?

  Yeah, looking forward to being called that.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:48James Acaster?

  By people I don't even know.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  In every fish and chip restaurant you go into for the rest of your life.

• 1:04:52James Acaster?

  Yeah, usually that's how long it lasts.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:54James Acaster?

  And if it comes up with this podcast, the rest of my life. So, yeah.

• 1:04:58Speaker 00

  Thank you for watching slash listening. Goodbye.

• 1:05:01James Acaster?

  Goodbye.