Russell T Davies enjoys a taste of home with our smoky seafood paella

A new culinary adventure for Angela, with no regeneration required. Screenwriter, producer and television creator Russell T Davies joins us following the release of his latest work, The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television, a memoir that looks back on a career spent creating some of British television’s most recognisable shows. Russell’s love of food traces back to his childhood in Swansea, where his mum’s cooking and the local ice cream shop left a lasting impression. From hearty home-cooked favourites like osso buco and Sunday roasts to a good paella, there’s plenty of inspiration to draw on. Angela's answer? A smoky seafood paella with prawns & clams, a first time appearance for the Spanish classic on the show. It’s paired with a bottle of Waitrose Blueprint Verdejo, selected by the Waitrose wine experts. And because Russell is never one to turn down an ice cream, we finish with a few scoops of No.1 Vanilla & British Blackcurrant Ripple Ice Cream. While Russell might not have inherited his mum’s love of cooking, he certainly has some strong opinions on the perfect cup of tea, sharing his very particular recipe and preferred mug with us. Over a brew, we revisit some of the stories from his new memoir, including how his childhood love of Doctor Who took him from devoted fan to show runner and eventually writer on the show, to the legacy of Queer as Folk and It’s a Sin, two series that helped bring LGBTQ+ stories to the forefront of British television. It’s no surprise that Russell’s work has earned him many fans along the way, even Kate Bush. While we can’t quite arrange a visit from her today, we may have the next best thing: a potential new Doctor Who in the studio… You can watch full episodes of Dish on YouTube and on Spotify. All recipes from this podcast can be found at waitrose.com/dishrecipes A transcript for this episode can be found at waitrose.com/dish If you want to get in touch with us about anything at all, contact [email protected] Dish from Waitrose is made by Cold Glass Productions 00:00 - Coming up on Dish… 00:45 - Welcome! 02:00 - Not long until Dish Live! 03:22 - Russell is here! 05:04 - A tea to start 06:28 - The T in Russell T! 07:31 - The key to the perfect cuppa 08:25 - Tea with Kate Bush 11:02 - A love for ice cream 13:08 - Childhood surrounded by food 15:32 - Russell’s dislikes 16:48 - From cutlery to eight vegetables 19:54 - Final paella preparation 20:39 - Paella is served! 22:16 - Wine pairing 23:29 - From his new memoir to writing and Queer as Folk 33:19 - Doctor Who! 35:20 - Ice cream is served 35:26 - A garden Dalek! 37:15 - Fast food quiz 38:53 - End of the show question Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  After Faye Fruits Yogurt, I'm never going back. So fruity, so thick, so gorgeous from the packet. Called Faye Fruits Yogurt. It's a smooth and fruity snack. Gimme, gimme that Faye. Passion fruit or strawberry flavour, my way. And taste the coconut, gimme that Faye. Go down the shops for this fruity snack after Faye Fruits Yogurt. There's no going back.

• 0:51Nick Grimshaw?

  Coming up on Dish with Russell T Davies.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  Call me the Masher.

• 0:55Nick Grimshaw?

  The Masher.

• 0:57Speaker 03

  Or don't.

• 1:01Speaker 03

  That would be a crime. I'd report you. I'd like go to Jay Rayner and report you to them.

• 1:04Nick Grimshaw?

  Jay Rayner?

• 1:05Speaker 03

  Food Police. He must be the Food Police. Jay Rayner.

• 1:09Angela Hartnett?

  That's a threat if ever there was one.

• 1:11Nick Grimshaw?

  And then when you went to other people's houses when you were a kid? I was like, what the hell? What is that? I was like, I was like little old Fodder, I was like, where's my coffee and sunshine?

• 1:23Nick Grimshaw?

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass production. This podcast may contain some strong language and adult themes.

• 1:35Nick Grimshaw?

  Hello, welcome to Dish from Waitrose. I'm Nick Grimshaw.

• 1:39Angela Hartnett?

  And I'm Angela Hartnett.

• 1:40Nick Grimshaw?

  Hello, Angela Hartnett.

• 1:42Angela Hartnett?

  Hello, Nicholas Grimshaw.

• 1:43Nick Grimshaw?

  How are you?

• 1:44Angela Hartnett?

  I'm good, thanks. How are you?

• 1:45Nick Grimshaw?

  Get in that microphone. You're microphone averse.

• 1:47Angela Hartnett?

  I know.

• 1:48Nick Grimshaw?

  You're very like, playing it cool with the mic.

• 1:51Angela Hartnett?

  I don't want to drop it.

• 1:52Nick Grimshaw?

  How are you? You all right?

• 1:53Angela Hartnett?

  I'm good, thank you. And you?

• 1:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, good, thank you. I'm excited about our guest today.

• 1:56Angela Hartnett?

  Have you met him before?

• 1:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Russell T Davies, never met.

• 1:59Angela Hartnett?

  That's quite incredible, really.

• 2:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Never met Russell T Davies, who'll be our guest, of course, on Dish in a second.

• 2:05Angela Hartnett?

  He's written everything and anything that's out there.

• 2:07Nick Grimshaw?

  He has, yeah. So we'll know him, of course, from Queer as Folk, It's a Sin, with Doctor Who, of course, which was his favourite TV show when he was a kid. And then he ended up running the show. But he'll be here as well to talk about his new memoir, which is called The Queerest of Folk: A Life in Television. So we'll be talking to Russell T Davies about that in a little while. You know, he also wrote for the, I believe, BAFTA-winning show Chuckle Vision.

• 2:31Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, did he?

• 2:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. I don't know if he won a BAFTA, yeah. Did you ever get into that?

• 2:35Angela Hartnett?

  No.

• 2:35Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, fantastic series.

• 2:37Angela Hartnett?

  Oh.

• 2:38Nick Grimshaw?

  Absolutely fantastic.

• 2:38Angela Hartnett?

  Love it.

• 2:39Nick Grimshaw?

  Chuckle Chuckle Vision. Chuckle Vision. I met the Chuckle Brothers.

• 2:43Angela Hartnett?

  Of course, no doubt.

• 2:44Nick Grimshaw?

  I had them on the radio once.

• 2:46Angela Hartnett?

  And fun.

• 2:46Nick Grimshaw?

  I got them to do a session with Tinchy Strider.

• 2:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Anyway. Hey, Dish Live is coming up.

• 2:54Angela Hartnett?

  Very soon.

• 2:55Nick Grimshaw?

  We're gonna be back at the Royal Opera House.

• 2:57Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 2:58Nick Grimshaw?

  When we announce the tickets.

• 2:59Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 3:00Nick Grimshaw?

  You know, they went crazy, like in like an hour and a half.

• 3:02Angela Hartnett?

  I thought it was 30 minutes or so.

• 3:04Nick Grimshaw?

  30 minutes?

• 3:05Angela Hartnett?

  Something crazy.

• 3:06Nick Grimshaw?

  I do want to know, though, who has tapped you up for guest list? Because did you get a lot of messages from people being like, I want to come to Dish Live?

• 3:14Angela Hartnett?

  My friends did, because apparently I said at one moment I'd get them tickets. So they're sorted.

• 3:19Nick Grimshaw?

  Yep.

• 3:20Angela Hartnett?

  Emma, Sears, Lorraine, Lara and Nicola.

• 3:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Okay.

• 3:25Angela Hartnett?

  And then I don't know if I've even got Neil a ticket, to be honest.

• 3:28Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, okay, great.

• 3:29Angela Hartnett?

  I'm not sure Neil's that fussed about that.

• 3:30Nick Grimshaw?

  No, I don't think Neil's heard it. Neil does not need this.

• 3:33Angela Hartnett?

  He doesn't need to come. And I think Anne and Salvatore are coming.

• 3:36Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I've got confirmed attending Eileen Grimshaw.

• 3:40Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, excellent.

• 3:41Nick Grimshaw?

  The two aunties.

• 3:42Angela Hartnett?

  Because Eileen didn't come last one, did she?

• 3:44Nick Grimshaw?

  She didn't come last time. She was away.

• 3:45Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, she's away.

• 3:46Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Angela Hartnett?

  She's got better things to do.

• 3:47Nick Grimshaw?

  She's got better things to do. She's on her holidays. Auntie Sheila, Auntie Angela.

• 3:50Angela Hartnett?

  Lovely.

• 3:51Nick Grimshaw?

  Locked in.

• 3:52Angela Hartnett?

  Love Auntie Angela.

• 3:52Nick Grimshaw?

  They'll be down there.

• 3:53Angela Hartnett?

  Excellent.

• 3:54Nick Grimshaw?

  The rest, TBC. We should try and get Eileen on the stage.

• 3:57Angela Hartnett?

  We should do.

• 3:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 3:58Angela Hartnett?

  She's got a fanbase.

• 3:59Nick Grimshaw?

  She's got some great recipes from my childhood. It was amazing. She'd like peel the lid off, put it in the oven. Oh, amazing.

• 4:05Angela Hartnett?

  She could show me. She could show me. Show me how to use a microwave.

• 4:09Nick Grimshaw?

  Right, shall we get Russell T Davies in?

• 4:10Angela Hartnett?

  Let's get him in.

• 4:11Nick Grimshaw?

  Let's get him in.

• 4:13Speaker 03

  Come on.

• 4:14Angela Hartnett?

  Hello.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Hi, Russell. Welcome.

• 4:16Angela Hartnett?

  Good to see you.

• 4:17Speaker 03

  How are you?

• 4:18Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, lovely. How are you?

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Hello, everyone. Very excited to be here.

• 4:21Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, thank you for coming.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  It was the first time we're meeting. How come we've never met?

• 4:24Angela Hartnett?

  I don't know. I'm amazed you two have never met. I've met everyone.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  I, what, you once cooked downstairs, I once did Jay Rayner's podcast at Murano.

• 4:31Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, right.

• 4:32Speaker 03

  So I had your food, but you weren't there.

• 4:34Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, that's right. Yeah, of course.

• 4:36Speaker 03

  Come on in.

• 4:36Nick Grimshaw?

  I'm gonna get you sat down.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 4:38Nick Grimshaw?

  And then we'll get you something to eat, something to drink.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  I can't believe how cool it is. I'm never gonna leave this chair. Like, get your next guest in, I'll just be sitting here.

• 4:45Angela Hartnett?

  Lovely.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Can you imagine?

• 4:49Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, Angela, I feel like we should welcome our guest to Dish. We have the pleasure of a TV writer, producer and show creator, who is always looking for fresh plots, a gripping storyline, central characters. This is our big audition. Please welcome the wonderful Russell T Davies.

• 5:05Angela Hartnett?

  Hi, you.

• 5:08Speaker 03

  Hello. Can I say, sitting here, the most beautiful pairs of eyelashes in the world, both of you.

• 5:15Angela Hartnett?

  No, you're fully eyelashed up. I expected it of Angela. You are sensational.

• 5:19Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 5:20Angela Hartnett?

  Fran is gonna be so pleased to hear it, mate. Because I'm always saying, too much, too much. I'm just going, no, babes.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  It's working. I don't know who to flirt with.

• 5:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Not enough. Keep on coming.

• 5:29Angela Hartnett?

  Flirt with this babe.

• 5:31Speaker 03

  I'm so pleased to be here.

• 5:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, my God. Thank you for coming to see us. And how are you? How is life at the moment?

• 5:35Speaker 03

  I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I'm here. I'm on the dish. Literally, you do these things, every single fan of mine is going, oh, my God, you're on the dish.

• 5:42Angela Hartnett?

  Really?

• 5:42Speaker 03

  I'm not saying that so that you cook nicely. It's like, honestly, you're big. You're big.

• 5:47Angela Hartnett?

  Thank you. Oh, that's really...

• 5:50Nick Grimshaw?

  Hooray. Yeah, this is a good one. Good booking, I feel, Ange. Good booking. We're starting with a cup of tea.

• 5:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 5:56Nick Grimshaw?

  That was your request.

• 5:57Speaker 03

  My tra- I know. Is that boring? No! Plain, old, tightly. Oh, you're very, very good. Always in this mug, a yellow Pantone mug.

• 6:03Angela Hartnett?

  Is that your favourite?

• 6:04Speaker 03

  It is, so much so that I've kind of bought up the supplies. I've got spares galore, because you dropped them over the years. And I'm so boring that I've planned ahead to those years when they break, and I will never run out.

• 6:15Angela Hartnett?

  What star sign are you?

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Oh, don't do that, bollocks.

• 6:17Angela Hartnett?

  No, no, I want to know. No, Russ, you need to tell me, because I've got a friend who's obsessive like you with things like that. We're the same star sign. And I said, you're a nutter. And I'm just wondering if you're a nutter as well.

• 6:27Speaker 03

  I am a Taurus.

• 6:28Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, no, it means nothing to me. It means nothing.

• 6:30Nick Grimshaw?

  Proof that it's like...

• 6:31Speaker 03

  Good start calling the guest a nutter.

• 6:34Angela Hartnett?

  She's so nay.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Why, what are you?

• 6:37Angela Hartnett?

  I'm Virgins. We're supposed to be like that, one in everything in its place. And that is not me at all, you see.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  You really? You mean, one 12th of the population doesn't share the same characteristics? I'm a Nays.

• 6:47Angela Hartnett?

  So wrong. So wrong.

• 6:49Nick Grimshaw?

  I'm very off-brand for you to go star sign as well.

• 6:51Angela Hartnett?

  I never, I don't believe in it. That's why I was curious.

• 6:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I'm alarmed. Russell wants to leave now.

• 6:55Speaker 03

  You are dodging the issue. Do you believe in them?

• 6:59Nick Grimshaw?

  Um...

• 6:59Speaker 03

  No, I don't. I don't.

• 7:01Nick Grimshaw?

  That's a yes. No, I don't read them.

• 7:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:05Nick Grimshaw?

  But if someone tells me something about my star sign that's complimentary, I'm like, right, yeah. That's very yours. Very yours, actually. Yeah.

• 7:12Angela Hartnett?

  We're like that.

• 7:13Speaker 03

  Does that happen?

• 7:14Nick Grimshaw?

  Uh, not really. I'm a Leo, so no, not really. People tend not to like us. Um, hey, the tea, because the tea in Russell T Davies, I never knew this until very recently. It is...

• 7:25Speaker 03

  It's made up?

• 7:26Nick Grimshaw?

  It's a made up tea.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  Do you know that other Russell Davies, he does things on Radio 4?

• 7:30Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 7:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once, I got £250 for a play he'd written. And I never gave back. I kept that. So, um, so you had, like actors, you, I kind of had to put another in.

• 7:40Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, right.

• 7:41Speaker 03

  And then, and then I remember my first ever credit, I was sitting in the office going, Russell S Davies or Russell B Davies. And I went, Russell T Davies, that'll do. And the next day, someone said to me, oh, like James T Kirk. I was like, oh, wrong. As a Doctor Who fan, that hurts. It's like a Star Trek reference.

• 7:56Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, Russell T Davies, it does work. The tea's great.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  Do you know, I can't, no, I can't bear it. It's like, it's so, and I get really snotty about it. There's never a dot afterwards, because I sit there going, it's not short for anything. It's just a tea. Like that. And I got mad if someone puts a dot in.

• 8:10Nick Grimshaw?

  No dot in the episode, please. No dot in the notes, please. Okay, no dot, thank you.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  It's weird. It's kind of a bit false to me. It's like...

• 8:17Nick Grimshaw?

  I quite like it.

• 8:18Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 8:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I quite like it.

• 8:19Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, but you've been honest about it. You've told everyone why you've done it.

• 8:21Nick Grimshaw?

  Um, how do you take your tea, Russell T Davies?

• 8:24Speaker 03

  I'll tell you how I take my tea. You put it in seven minutes, but you don't stir it. You don't mash it. You put milk in first, obviously.

• 8:31Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  And you don't stir it, you don't mash it. You leave it for seven minutes.

• 8:34Angela Hartnett?

  All those murmurings there.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  No, it's an ordinary, old, tightly teabag, and then you lift it up. No mashing, no stirring. Perfect.

• 8:40Angela Hartnett?

  Okay.

• 8:41Nick Grimshaw?

  I agree. Don't smush it.

• 8:43Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, but why milk it first? Because there's murmurings here.

• 8:46Speaker 03

  Because, I'll tell you what, it tastes better. And my boyfriend never did that. I've got a lovely boyfriend, Oliver, who used to say I was mad. I've started teaching him and indoctrinating him, and he's finally turned around and go, that's better. That's a scientific test.

• 8:59Nick Grimshaw?

  Scientific test. Prove that. How do you do your tea, Ange?

• 9:03Angela Hartnett?

  Well, I do green tea, so I don't even do any of that nonsense.

• 9:06Speaker 03

  Green tea? Horoscopes?

• 9:07Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 9:08Speaker 03

  You must have done... Who is this? It's a name person. She's made of hemp.

• 9:15Nick Grimshaw?

  Now, we're gonna talk about your book today.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Hooray.

• 9:18Nick Grimshaw?

  And the reason we're gonna, we're starting talking about tea is, well, we're tea fans.

• 9:21Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 9:22Nick Grimshaw?

  But also, there's a great story about you and a cup of tea and Kate Bush.

• 9:26Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 9:27Nick Grimshaw?

  Could you fill us in on this story?

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Well, it's mortifying, because Kate Bush's son, she probably hated the fact I'm making an industry out of her name. But here I am, telling the story, was a big Doctor Who fan. And we used to send them gifts and things like that. So one day she wrote to me personally, handwritten, on a card, saying, "Thank you so much, and please come for tea." With Kate Bush, and I was so scared. What, like, what, how, she's a recluse, you've been invited round? And I was so scared, I kind of left it for six months. And then with every passing month, it got worse, or it'd be rude if I replied now. And then one day I got home, and my friend Tracy was there, used to be a friend. And she said, "Oh, have a good tidy up, I've cleared away all that stuff." Kate Bush's telephone number been swept away into the rubbish. It's that like, I mean, you just don't do, she's royalty.

• 10:13Speaker 03

  It's beyond royalty, she's godlike. It's like, you don't do that to Kate Bush. So my, I once told that story, and then she got in touch, saying, "I'd still like to be, have a cup of tea with you." Leave me alone, woman, for god's sake. She's obsessed. And then Covid came along.

• 10:29Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  So that vanished, and I'm not sure that number works anymore.

• 10:32Nick Grimshaw?

  But it sounds like she's got, you know, still keeping, because you know, you never hear of.

• 10:35Angela Hartnett?

  She's listening to stuff you do.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  Leave me alone, Kate, leave me alone.

• 10:38Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, you're a lovely.

• 10:38Nick Grimshaw?

  Would you go round, would you do it?

• 10:40Speaker 03

  I, now I would, now. It's like, literally, when she gave those concerts, those recent concerts, I booked a ticket, I thought then that my husband was ill that day. So I just, I like to think there was an empty seat sitting there, with a spotlight on it, where I should have been.

• 10:54Nick Grimshaw?

  And we've got to talk about the food connection with you and dish, because a trilogy of food shows, of course.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, I did, of course.

• 11:01Nick Grimshaw?

  Cucumber, banana and tofu.

• 11:03Speaker 03

  And tofu.

• 11:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Yes. Um, talk to us about those food groups.

• 11:08Speaker 03

  Well, those food groups are scientifically a measurement gauge for erections. I didn't know which one of you to look in the eye.

• 11:15Nick Grimshaw?

  Scientifically?

• 11:17Speaker 03

  Scientifically.

• 11:18Nick Grimshaw?

  What, a scientist is saying banana?

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Well, a scientist in Switzerland, it's kind of cheesy.

• 11:23Speaker 03

  We could all say we're scientists in Switzerland, really. But no, genuinely, the hardest cucumber, in the middle banana, soft tofu.

• 11:31Nick Grimshaw?

  Soft tofu.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Yes, apparently, I don't know.

• 11:34Nick Grimshaw?

  Wow, wow. Wow, okay.

• 11:36Speaker 03

  I've never known tofu, obviously. And no, that's like, no, genuinely, in research, that was like a gauge of measuring men and erectile problems they may have. Or erectile triumphs they may have. Yes, so I thought, that's a good title for a television show.

• 11:53Nick Grimshaw?

  Now, not a huge surprise, we always ask our guests to give us their food likes and dislikes.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:58Nick Grimshaw?

  Yours is written beautifully.

• 11:59Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you, my job.

• 12:01Nick Grimshaw?

  It's what you'd expect, your job, yeah. And your great love that we took from this list is ice cream.

• 12:06Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 12:07Nick Grimshaw?

  We heard you never will refuse an ice cream.

• 12:08Speaker 03

  Never, never, you know, you go for a meal, and you go to a restaurant, and you don't really want a dessert, and everyone's like, "Oh, no thanks." Like that, and I'm thinking, and I order the ice cream, I just won't ever turn down an opportunity. And you never, you never really have a bad ice cream, do you? There's no such thing. Even if you buy like a tub of the cheapest, tackiest vanilla, it's tasty.

• 12:27Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 12:27Speaker 03

  It's cold and tasty.

• 12:28Angela Hartnett?

  No, no, we have a theory, my friend Luke and I, so every dessert is trying to be ice cream, because it is the best dessert.

• 12:33Speaker 03

  You see, absolutely, and I was like, in Swansea, we have old fashioned ice cream parlors.

• 12:38Angela Hartnett?

  Of course, you've got all the Italians.

• 12:39Speaker 03

  And there's a place called Joe's, which, which kind of runs from my family. Many, many of, in the twenties, my grandmother was engaged to Joe Cascarini. I could have been an ice cream empire.

• 12:47Angela Hartnett?

  You could have been, yes.

• 12:48Speaker 03

  Why did she finish with him? Why? It's like, I would have that, I wouldn't be writing at all, I'd be running the ice cream shop. But it's still there, and they only really do vanilla.

• 12:56Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  And it's gorgeous. You see, the other day, The Guardian did like their best ice cream makers. And I sat there thinking, shall I buy myself an ice cream maker? I'd just disappear.

• 13:04Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  I'd never go out again.

• 13:06Nick Grimshaw?

  Never write anything ever again.

• 13:08Speaker 03

  Why would I ever do anything about me?

• 13:09Nick Grimshaw?

  Just writing an ice cream recipe.

• 13:10Speaker 03

  Just getting more, maybe like Mr. Queerso. So it's like, it's, I'm fighting it off.

• 13:15Nick Grimshaw?

  My neighbour, Joe next door, he got an ice cream machine one Christmas, and he made ice cream for us. And he made us and dropped it round, we had like a party, he may well have been there.

• 13:26Angela Hartnett?

  May well have been.

• 13:26Nick Grimshaw?

  And then he came around the next day with a thank you, and it was, he made a kilo of panettone ice cream.

• 13:32Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, that would have been good.

• 13:33Nick Grimshaw?

  And I ate it.

• 13:34Angela Hartnett?

  A kilo?

• 13:35Nick Grimshaw?

  I ate a kilo of it.

• 13:36Angela Hartnett?

  You must have been hanging the next night.

• 13:37Nick Grimshaw?

  I was, I ate it all, and it was so good.

• 13:41Angela Hartnett?

  Excuse me a moment while I go to the food, need to do something.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, please, no, I'm glad, thank you.

• 13:46Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, okay, bye. Bye, yeah. Well, how do you feel about frozen yogurt? Because I know it's sort of ice cream.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  I've never really been there, because if that's there, there's probably ice cream next to it, so I just go for the ice cream.

• 13:55Nick Grimshaw?

  You just go for that, yeah, yeah.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  I'd try it.

• 13:57Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, I'm a big fan, big fan. And now you come from a great family of food lovers.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  Well, I do, yes, yes, yes.

• 14:03Nick Grimshaw?

  And your mum was a great cook, right?

• 14:05Speaker 03

  She was astonishing, it's like, it, I mean, she was from ordinary Swansea stock, they were poor as church mice, and they lived out in the Gower. When she was young, her, her father used to hang her over the cliff tops of, of, of Gower by her legs to get plover's eggs from the nest. And she'd come up with them, but then they moved, so, so somehow out of that, she grew up to being a huge food lover. And she became a teacher, but like, in the sixties and seventies, in a completely ordinary little Swansea house, she cooked us osso buco.

• 14:36Angela Hartnett?

  Wow.

• 14:36Speaker 03

  She cooked like coquille Saint Jacques. She cooked, and actually, she cooks spaghetti bolognese, which then was not cooked everywhere by everyone. When it did come along, I was like, oh yeah, that whole thing like that. So she was just amazing, and I absolutely swear to god, this is true, on the day she died, the day of her funeral, the oven broke.

• 14:52Nick Grimshaw?

  Wow.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Which is really weird and symbolic and strange.

• 14:55Nick Grimshaw?

  So did you look forward to her cooking, was it something you enjoyed?

• 14:58Speaker 03

  Yes, it was fantastic, and give her a roast to make, fantastic, everything. She was making lasagna before people made lasagnas. It's like she had this incredible, she lived in that kitchen, she was just there full time. And as I said, she had a, she was a job, she was a teacher, but whenever she was home, you just wouldn't see her, she'd just be cooking, cooking, cooking. So she loved it, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:17Nick Grimshaw?

  And then when you went to other people's houses when you were a kid?

• 15:20Speaker 03

  Very well, I had fish fingers, I was like, what the hell?

• 15:22Nick Grimshaw?

  What is that?

• 15:23Speaker 03

  Okay, I was like little old Fongler, I go, where's my coquille Saint Jacques?

• 15:28Speaker 03

  Imagine.

• 15:30Nick Grimshaw?

  As a kid, like, I don't want this.

• 15:32Speaker 03

  I was, I was Lord Sood.

• 15:34Nick Grimshaw?

  And then did that sort of inspire you to, to cook yourself?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  No, because I was like that, stupid little, once mother done it all, I didn't bother. So, and then in the rest of my life, regret it, my sister's a great cook, so they picked it up. I was that boy, was that, was that boy, go thank your mum, had the kitchen, off I went. So I'm kind, I'm not a terrible cook, but I'm not great.

• 15:53Nick Grimshaw?

  What was the one thing that you think was the dish that your mum did that takes you back to childhood?

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Oh, to cha, actually, it would be the Sunday roast, because that was always, I mean, everyone must say that, but it was, and we'd all sit around in those days. There were no, no one was on their phones in those days, no one was watching the telly, and a Christmas dinner, oh my god, she did the most spectacular Christmas dinner, which my sisters have continued, the tradition of pork and turkey.

• 16:16Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, wow.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Or just one, it's like, you can't have one meat, you know, amazing, really amazing, gorgeous.

• 16:21Angela Hartnett?

  Fantastic.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 16:22Nick Grimshaw?

  Delish.

• 16:23Angela Hartnett?

  I love that.

• 16:23Nick Grimshaw?

  The dislikes was, was a shortlist.

• 16:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:26Nick Grimshaw?

  And one item really, liver.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  Liver, and the only other thing really is spices. So now that, what's happened to the world, there's chili [BLEEP] flaking everything. I mean, gee, have a cup of tea with chili flakes on it.

• 16:39Angela Hartnett?

  I was going mad, yeah.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  And it just depliterates all flavour, doesn't it?

• 16:45Angela Hartnett?

  You can't taste anything when you over spice it.

• 16:47Speaker 03

  Why don't you come and burn your mouth in front of me? Why?

• 16:50Nick Grimshaw?

  But certain things, there, there's sort of waves of stuff happen where everything's like chili flavoured, and then everything was like truffle flavoured.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  I think chili's permanent, I've lodged in, it's like salt, pepper and chili now, it's part of the whole.

• 17:01Angela Hartnett?

  It's like hot honey now, you have this spicy hot honey.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  Don't even start.

• 17:06Speaker 03

  What a load of rubbish, honestly. The amount of times you have to something, and people always then think you're allergic, they go, oh, I'm sorry about your allergy, I don't believe in them either.

• 17:13Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm with you there, you've got a gleam in it.

• 17:17Speaker 03

  All in trouble now. But people then think you're allergic, and there's a big, oh, get all the chilies out of the room, no, I just hate them, that's all.

• 17:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Is that chilies today?

• 17:25Angela Hartnett?

  No, no chilies.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  And by Ella, that would be a crime, I'd report you to, to, I'd like go to Jay Rayner and report you to them.

• 17:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Jay Rayner?

• 17:33Speaker 03

  Food police, he must be the food police.

• 17:35Nick Grimshaw?

  Jay Rayner.

• 17:36Angela Hartnett?

  God, that's a threat if ever there was Swansea.

• 17:39Nick Grimshaw?

  I want to talk to you as well about your cutlery and crockery situation.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  This is interesting.

• 17:44Nick Grimshaw?

  This is interesting.

• 17:45Speaker 03

  You've made me sound really attractive.

• 17:47Nick Grimshaw?

  It actually is, because you have, you have a house in Swansea.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  I do.

• 17:50Nick Grimshaw?

  And you have a house in Manchester.

• 17:51Speaker 03

  I'm very lucky.

• 17:52Nick Grimshaw?

  And you have the, the same cutlery.

• 17:54Speaker 03

  It's kind of first world problems, because not many people have two houses, and I'm very lucky, but I have exactly the same crockery and cutlery and, and the pan tone, much, in both houses. Because that's what, then you know, then you feel at home.

• 18:06Nick Grimshaw?

  You're at home, okay.

• 18:07Speaker 03

  You eat the pork, it just, you're not like a whistler plate. It's like, every meal feels the same.

• 18:12Nick Grimshaw?

  So do you have a specific fork, either of you actually, is there one? Like, because me, me, well, like, ours is all like random. Like, all different forks, and he's was like, not that one.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  I can't, I think mine were just from Debenhams, but they're very un, unpluttered, they're not fancy.

• 18:27Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 03

  They're simpler than that, actually, that's a good one.

• 18:29Nick Grimshaw?

  Do you have one?

• 18:30Angela Hartnett?

  No, mine are simple, like, you know, just something that feels good in your hand, isn't it? Nothing, yeah, no, simple, easy, not.

• 18:36Speaker 03

  No curls, no handles.

• 18:37Angela Hartnett?

  No, exactly, yeah.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, these are good.

• 18:40Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, thank you, yeah, I made those myself, yeah, I made those myself. So if we were to come round.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  Is that the most fascinating fact you could dig up about me?

• 18:47Nick Grimshaw?

  I actually did like it.

• 18:48Speaker 03

  Not good to say, you know, that's great, all over the world.

• 18:51Nick Grimshaw?

  I like a specific thing, I like that you have the same ones, I do like that. If we were to come round for tea, I heard you do a thing of cooking eight vegetables a night.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  I, I'm not a good cook, because what I really do is heat things up.

• 19:04Angela Hartnett?

  Right, that's cooking.

• 19:05Speaker 03

  But I think that magic, I think cooking happens when something goes with something and then it tastes of something else.

• 19:09Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:10Speaker 03

  It's like a third thing, I think that's what cooking is to me, and that's why I love restaurants, I love going to restaurants. But I really didn't ever cook, I managed, I was fine, then my hu, my husband fell ill, so I kind of thought, oh, I better take over the cooking, because he used to cook really. And so he had brain cancer, and do you know what, so he didn't have long to live, bless him, he was given about 18 months to live, he actually ended up living for eight years. But when he was ill, I kind of said, well, I take over the cooking, and also, you know what it's like? Friends were queuing up to say, go on a macro diet, go on a micro diet, eat flax seeds for the rest of your life. And I sat there going, do you know what, you're dying, and I'm not gonna make you sit and eat flax seeds, you're gonna have a really nice time.

• 19:48Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  But I said, what we can do is be as healthy as you possibly can.

• 19:53Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, sure.

• 19:54Speaker 03

  Which we kind of loved, and so I do. No sauces, no, I tried doing gravies for a minute and I went, that's it. You are, that is definitely the cure to cancer is no gravy. I told him that, he believed me.

• 20:05Speaker 03

  He swallowed that. And so you might have a bit of fish, or you might have a bit of chicken, or you might have a pork steak or something. But I would do eight or nine vegetables. It kind of grew. I started with five vegetables, then that was kind of fun. And I got into the cooking, I got into the timing of it. And I loved all that. And now it got up to about nine and, well, I'm kind of proof that fruit and vegetables aren't healthy. Because look at me, I should be the healthiest person in the world. Nine vegetables every night.

• 20:31Angela Hartnett?

  Wow. Well, I'm gonna get you some rice and, you know, fish and meat, not vegetables. Maybe no vegetables.

• 20:37Speaker 03

  I know, the dish I've chosen has no veg.

• 20:39Nick Grimshaw?

  No, no veg whatsoever.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  It's an escape for me.

• 20:41Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, so ta- take the day off, you've had enough, you've had enough this week. Well, we're gonna have a paella in a second.

• 20:46Speaker 03

  Which I love.

• 20:47Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, so this is something that you.

• 20:48Speaker 03

  I do cook this, although I do it with like a paella mix.

• 20:52Nick Grimshaw?

  Right.

• 20:52Speaker 03

  Sorry, there's no actual saffron in my hand.

• 20:54Nick Grimshaw?

  I've never made a paella, but I always feel like maybe I could, Ange, don't you think?

• 20:58Speaker 03

  Oh, it's kind of simple.

• 20:59Nick Grimshaw?

  I love a paella.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Actually, it isn't even breaking a sweat, let's be honest.

• 21:01Nick Grimshaw?

  No, exactly, come on, she's doing this. She's doing this whilst interviewing.

• 21:05Angela Hartnett?

  It's my first paella I have, you know.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  Oh, really?

• 21:08Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, I've no idea.

• 21:08Speaker 03

  Oh my god, it might be awful.

• 21:10Angela Hartnett?

  It might be, yeah. I mean, it really could be awful.

• 21:13Nick Grimshaw?

  That's quite rare on a dish that we have a first.

• 21:16Speaker 03

  Why have you never done this before?

• 21:17Angela Hartnett?

  No, we do risotto, I do all the Italian things, so.

• 21:20Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 21:20Angela Hartnett?

  So it's really hard not to stir it, because that's what you naturally do. So I think I can understand why you like it, you just leave it and it does its thing. You just leave it, yeah, it does it all.

• 21:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh my god. Right, Angela.

• 21:35Speaker 03

  This is very nice.

• 21:35Nick Grimshaw?

  The first paella on a dish.

• 21:38Angela Hartnett?

  Wow.

• 21:39Speaker 03

  That's gorgeous.

• 21:40Nick Grimshaw?

  I love paella.

• 21:41Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 21:41Nick Grimshaw?

  I was really happy that you wanted to have this, Russell.

• 21:43Angela Hartnett?

  Hmm.

• 21:44Nick Grimshaw?

  Um, Ange, tell us how this, uh, smoky seafood paella began.

• 21:49Angela Hartnett?

  So you start on a pan, a little bit of olive oil.

• 21:51Nick Grimshaw?

  Mm-hmm.

• 21:52Angela Hartnett?

  Then add your sliced chorizo, and you basically sort of that off for a tiny amount.

• 21:56Nick Grimshaw?

  Mm, good.

• 21:56Angela Hartnett?

  Then you add your onion and garlic, sweat that down for about two to three minutes. Then add your roasted peppers that you've cut into big slices. And then add your smoked paprika and tomato puree, just roast that for a minute or two. Then add your rice. And then once you add your rice, you add your stock in and you basically cook it for about 10 minutes. You don't do anything.

• 22:16Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, it's paella rice.

• 22:16Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, paella rice, so you just leave it to stand. Then after about 10 minutes, I added the seafood. So we've got mussels here, we've got some clams here, some prawns. And then I've also added a little bit of chicken in there as well, which I cooked beforehand. So I added that in and then cook it for about another five minutes and then you let it rest. And then, you know, the idea apparently when you rest it, then you can either turn it up. I mean, you know how to get that crispy bit underneath, you have to turn it up. But that I haven't quite mastered without, I mean, Russell says it's fine, but I think I'm burning it at the bottom. I need to speak to.

• 22:47Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, but I like those bits.

• 22:48Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, that's all right, got to.

• 22:49Nick Grimshaw?

  Mm.

• 22:50Angela Hartnett?

  And then finish it with a touch of lemon and parsley and there you go.

• 22:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Mm, that's really good.

• 22:55Angela Hartnett?

  Well, I'm glad you both like it, because you're paella fans, fantastic.

• 22:58Speaker 03

  And I haven't had a paella in ages, so.

• 22:59Nick Grimshaw?

  Me neither.

• 23:01Angela Hartnett?

  Lovely. Cheers, Russell.

• 23:02Nick Grimshaw?

  Cheers, Russell, thank you so much for coming. Cheers, cheers, cheers. And we're having it with a, a white wine pairing. What is the pairing, Ange?

• 23:11Angela Hartnett?

  We've got a lovely Spanish Dry White. It's the Waitrose Blueprint Vadaio.

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:16Angela Hartnett?

  There we go, beautiful.

• 23:17Nick Grimshaw?

  We were talking about this before. Do you normally do like a meat paella and a fish paella?

• 23:22Angela Hartnett?

  Apparently, well, no, normally, isn't it, you have rabbit or chicken in with fish. But you don't, you're right, you don't have chorizo in it, that's a real Spanish known, eh?

• 23:32Speaker 03

  You put chorizo in every meal, wouldn't you?

• 23:33Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 23:33Nick Grimshaw?

  Why not?

• 23:34Speaker 03

  Lovely.

• 23:35Angela Hartnett?

  But I think it's probably something that every mother or grandmother has their own way of doing it. And then everyone follows that way, I imagine.

• 23:40Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 23:41Nick Grimshaw?

  It's really tasty and it sounds like quite a simple thing to make, yeah?

• 23:44Angela Hartnett?

  I think you can do it, yeah.

• 23:46Speaker 03

  That's why I make it.

• 23:46Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 23:47Speaker 03

  It's actually quite simple.

• 23:48Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 23:48Nick Grimshaw?

  Quite simple and actually really tasty. I also feel like if you went to someone's house on a Friday night for tea and they'd made paella.

• 23:53Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 23:54Nick Grimshaw?

  I'd be like, oh, they might be doing it.

• 23:55Angela Hartnett?

  I know, they'd be, you'd be quite impressed by that, yeah, there you go, you see.

• 23:58Nick Grimshaw?

  Really good, thank you, Ange.

• 24:00Angela Hartnett?

  Pleasure, glad you've enjoyed it.

• 24:01Speaker 03

  Thank you so much.

• 24:02Angela Hartnett?

  No, thank you.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  I can't believe it, you're first paella, that's like.

• 24:05Angela Hartnett?

  To you, I was worried.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  Historic.

• 24:07Nick Grimshaw?

  I know.

• 24:08Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 24:08Nick Grimshaw?

  It is.

• 24:09Angela Hartnett?

  I love all the people to make the one, very privileged, Russell.

• 24:11Nick Grimshaw?

  If you want to try this recipe or any of the recipes we do, waitrose.com forward slash dish recipes. All the ingredients, the how-to are on there.

• 24:20Nick Grimshaw?

  Should we talk about Russell's book?

• 24:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:22Nick Grimshaw?

  Please, yes.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  No, she'd be a little fan, but he does that when you open it.

• 24:26Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, it comes with a free fanfare. Uh, the Queer as the Folk, A Life in Television.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  A Life in Television.

• 24:31Nick Grimshaw?

  A Life in Television. We shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I will.

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Oh, but there I am.

• 24:37Nick Grimshaw?

  It's good. It's good, it's good. Talk to us about writing this, because obviously you, you, you write for a living, but it's not necessarily about yourself. How was it to sit down and reflect on your life and, and to create this?

• 24:48Speaker 03

  The funny thing is, you set out to write about the television programme and it does become about myself. Because you can't, you know, your work, your life is kind of indivisible, really. Especially when you're enjoying yourself and having a good time. And, um, so I set out to write about all the shows I'd ever done. Um, but then that becomes the story of who I am and where I'm living. I came to live in LA and my husband, if I mentioned, I mean, it very much, and it's an honour to write about it. It very much follows the course of how we met. We met just before Queer as Folk came out, so he kind of met me in normal days.

• 25:18Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 03

  And then my life went mad and he was there and he was a civil servant and he paid all that television stuff. No attention whatsoever.

• 25:24Nick Grimshaw?

  Where did your like first sort of fascination with TV begin? What were the shows that you were loving?

• 25:31Speaker 03

  It's my first memory when I was about three years old, genuinely, I remember that. I remember episodes that are missing from the archives, they are there in my head. So it's strange, I ended up writing it out, I find that so lucky. I've been very, very lucky in life, really, to do that.

• 25:45Nick Grimshaw?

  And then was telly sort of encouraged in your house? Because you often find a lot of.

• 25:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 25:49Nick Grimshaw?

  People that, you know, make shows or great directors as well, they watched so much TV.

• 25:53Speaker 03

  Everything, and the amazing thing about mum and dad was, who were quite bookish people, they're both teachers, so. We had a house full of books, but it's like they thought you couldn't turn off the telly. It's like they had an enormous respect for it, and even if people called around, they'd leave it on.

• 26:07Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  And, and also I was allowed to stay up and what, in the seventies, when I was about 10 years old, I was allowed to stay up and watch nine o'clock dramas.

• 26:14Angela Hartnett?

  Did you watch The Sweeney and things like that?

• 26:16Speaker 03

  But I was watching these like, I Claudius, which was, I mean, I was about 13 then, that. Orgies in it and sex and violence and, and no one ever said, oh, turn that off because Russell's young or anything. They just kind of, it, it was as respected as a book. You'd never take a book out of your hand and they never took television out of my hands either, which I'm immensely grateful for. So it turns out that that was the best education I could have, so I just loved it, I soaked it all up. Loved it.

• 26:40Angela Hartnett?

  But you're exactly right, because I think obviously our parents' generation and in your mum and dad, you know, TV was the thing for them, you know. They either were the kids of the war generation, you know, it was a huge thing to have a television, so it was respected. And also I think back then they got all their information. Unlike now where there's so many channels, when you watch the news, that's where you got all your information. Because you've gone from the radio, now it was there.

• 27:02Speaker 03

  And everyone would sit down and watch the Generation game on a Sunday.

• 27:05Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  It was literally a shared memory, imagine.

• 27:08Angela Hartnett?

  That's it, no, I loved it.

• 27:09Nick Grimshaw?

  I love those shows that do, I mean, there's, there's maybe less and less of them now, but people all sit and watch the same thing at the same time.

• 27:15Speaker 03

  It's just the Celebrity Traitors now. The only one we've got left.

• 27:21Speaker 03

  But I love that we all, and we all love talking about it.

• 27:23Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 27:23Speaker 03

  The next day, it's funny how that's gone.

• 27:25Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah. When was the first time you saw your name on screen? Like when you first saw like a By Russell T Davies?

• 27:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a thing, I recall Dark Seasons, which is a children's thriller, 1991, starring Kate Winslet, which was, yeah.

• 27:37Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, yes.

• 27:38Nick Grimshaw?

  And you were Kate Winslet?

• 27:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and that was the first time I saw By Russell T Davies on screen.

• 27:43Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  And I had it just, and up till that point, I'd been working in production, I'd done some directing, I'd done some producing. I'd been a researcher in all those jobs and I'd been a storyline on the soaps, which I loved. So I was doing all sorts of things. I presented an episode of Play School, I was a presenter at one point. And I was working out what I liked doing and when I saw Written by Russell T Davies, literally, it was like, it was like something closed inside me, like a lock.

• 28:06Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 28:07Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 28:08Angela Hartnett?

  That's what you're gonna do.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  Stop letting everything else in, that's it, I just knew, absolutely, yeah.

• 28:13Angela Hartnett?

  Because when you were in Wales and you were, was it stage theatre you were at, was it?

• 28:16Speaker 03

  Uh, no, I, I worked in the theatre in, there's a Sherman Theatre in Cardiff.

• 28:19Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, but was that when you started writing or you just thought you were gonna go into the arts in a way?

• 28:24Speaker 03

  I said, but I was writing in my spare time, electric typewriter.

• 28:27Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Remember such a thing, an electric typewriter? Oh, that was fancy. That was so modern.

• 28:32Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  And before the word processor, this is, all that, I mean, and, um, so I had that, so I was writing in my spare time, but I never thought it was possible. Because the whole industry felt closed and to be a writer, and, and I mean, they, these days, what I like about these days is a tremendous amount of behind the scenes stuff. You can see what it means to be a writer, you can see producers and directors on set. There was none of that in those days, so it was just completely unknown, so I never imagined it was possible. And then the first thing I ever did was the producer of Crossroads.

• 29:02Angela Hartnett?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 03

  Before your timing, but you might, it's like an old soap opera.

• 29:06Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:06Speaker 03

  He did an interview in The Guardian, he said, we're looking for writers because everything's rubbish.

• 29:10Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  So no one wants to write for us, and I thought, I can do that. Bashed down a script, sent it off to, got invited up. And now they said, oh, we like this, come and see us, and I went and saw them. And they commissioned the script of me and I went home and I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna be working in the love of this soap opera. And then about three days later, I walked into the newsagents and every single newspaper said, Crossroads axed, Crossroads.

• 29:29Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, no.

• 29:31Speaker 03

  And it was axed before they even got to my episode, so. But I, but I'd had a glimpse, impossible. It was the first time I went, oh, I can actually do this, and they, they listened to a complete stranger. I didn't have an agent or anything, but I thought, oh, they'll listen to a complete stranger.

• 29:43Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 03

  Take a chance on me, so bless that team, hooray.

• 29:46Angela Hartnett?

  I love in the book about how you roast about the Very English scandal and that note you got from the producer.

• 29:52Speaker 03

  Yes, the script was all finished and all done.

• 29:55Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  And I thought it was absolutely perfect. And then this executive at Netflix, uh, Amazon, they were.

• 30:01Angela Hartnett?

  Amazon, right, yeah.

• 30:02Speaker 03

  Um, who did, who invested in it, gave like the most cynical note in the world. She said, there's no point in this in which Ben Whishaw wins a BAFTA. And I thought, oh, that's so cynical and monstrous and terrible and brilliant. Because she was right. She was literally, I went, god, there isn't, there's no moment where that character has that grandstanding moment. So I went home.

• 30:26Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  And wrote that, put it into the script and he won the BAFTA and the Golden Globe.

• 30:30Angela Hartnett?

  It's brilliant, isn't it?

• 30:31Speaker 03

  He won everything. I mean, not just because of that scene, except that scene is the one they always play in clips.

• 30:36Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  He stands up in court and he does all this, so you should even listen to the cynical notes, they've got something in them.

• 30:42Nick Grimshaw?

  Something in them, yeah. And can you, could you always take a note when you're getting feedback? Because it must be quite hard where you do.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  You need to work out the note is rubbish or not, and sometimes they're rubbish. Sometimes they, I remember recently there was like, why is this woman being so sad? We thought she was a strong, we thought she was super strong, we thought she was a good woman, thought she was, and it's like, her lover's just been shot.

• 31:03Speaker 03

  And died in her arms? And you're saying why she's so sad?

• 31:07Angela Hartnett?

  She's a writer, she's sad.

• 31:08Speaker 03

  You're like that, you're jingling, you're going, you do get notes like that sometimes. But what I would say to writers is that normally, if the note might be badly expressed, but I bet there's something wrong there. Because they don't know, they don't know as well as you, they don't know what you're trying to say, they don't know where it's heading, they don't know the mood you were in when you did it, or your intent is. So literally, if there's a note on page 11, go to page 11.

• 31:29Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  The solution might be on page one.

• 31:31Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 31:32Speaker 03

  But there's something there. If someone's paused and made a little note and said, Russell, I think there's, listen to that.

• 31:38Angela Hartnett?

  The thing about when you look at your work and, you know, you become invested in it, you know, when you watch Queer as Folk or It's a Sin, you invest in characters because they absolutely seem real, which I know it sounds stupid, but it's because they are absolutely those people. You've met them yourself, you recognise traits in them.

• 31:57Speaker 03

  I think that's a great compliment, you can possibly forgive me.

• 31:59Angela Hartnett?

  No, but, and also it's why you're invested in it and you're crying at the end or you're laughing at the end. And, you know, and I think when you wrote about the scene of the end of It's a Sin, how you managed that, I thought was just, you know, the death of him, you know, it was, you know, even now I'm well up, you know, you're thinking about it. It was, it was brilliant. No, but you had a cast, but because you say yourself in the book that you don't pretend to be, not a politician, but you're not there to write about what's going on in the world. You're just about those characters, their relationship, yeah, which comes across and that's why they're brilliant, I think.

• 32:28Speaker 03

  Gorgeous, thank you. Were you a young lad watching Queer as Folk or were you?

• 32:31Nick Grimshaw?

  I was, yeah. I was.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  1999.

• 32:36Nick Grimshaw?

  1999, sorry, I was like 14.

• 32:39Speaker 03

  Oh, right.

• 32:39Nick Grimshaw?

  14, 15, 15.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:42Nick Grimshaw?

  And, yeah, I remember it coming out, because I'm from Manchester.

• 32:46Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Nick Grimshaw?

  So I always knew of like the gay village and then the posters everywhere of Queer as Folk. And Gay Village was always somewhere, which was really sort of loved and celebrated in Manchester. So like my mum might go for like drinks with people from work there one night, or like my brother would go, like, you know, my brother and sister would go to afters there.

• 33:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:06Nick Grimshaw?

  They'd always be open a lot later. So they'd always go there like raving afters. There was always like a fondness of the gay village.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, there was.

• 33:13Nick Grimshaw?

  From Manchester. And there still is, of course, yeah. But then there was not really gay stuff on TV at all, really. And obviously I came from, I mean, there might have been the internet then, but we didn't have it.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:25Nick Grimshaw?

  So I remember like, yeah, like that being sort of like a real landmark piece of TV for you. And like staying up late to watch it and being like shocked to my poor.

• 33:36Angela Hartnett?

  But it must have been so influential, so many young.

• 33:38Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh my god, yeah.

• 33:38Angela Hartnett?

  Men to suddenly actually say, God, there is a life out there. I've got these feelings.

• 33:43Speaker 03

  It's quite saying almost every week in Manchester, someone would go up to me and say, I moved to Manchester because of that. And he'll say, I've now got a husband, that we've got kids, every week.

• 33:50Angela Hartnett?

  It gave people a licence in a way, yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a great, in fact, I was saying to my lovely man, my lovely friend Jay died. He was only 41 and he was gorgeous. And at his funeral, his brother stood up and made us, gave the eulogy, as that he moved to Manchester because of Queer as Folk. I never knew that. He'd never even said that to me. And it was like, wow, what an honour that is, it's amazing.

• 34:10Nick Grimshaw?

  We've got to talk about Doctor Who.

• 34:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:12Nick Grimshaw?

  Obviously. Ever watched it? No. And you were saying, ever heard of it? And you were saying it was like the first thing that you watched. And that is so mad. And I love hearing those stories when people have like, you know, fulfilled their destiny.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  How lucky, exactly. I loved it. I remember as a child, I loved it all my life. And I think I crucially loved it when I was like 11 and 12, which is when all the other boys go off to start liking girls and football and cigarettes and things like that. And I just, and I think, I do think as you're gay, you don't join in with that. So you stick with the telly. And that's what I did and loved it. Yeah.

• 34:46Nick Grimshaw?

  And then when, when did you start thinking about maybe, this is what I want to do? Maybe this, this is where I could go. I could be making this.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Yes, I'd started writing. Well, it's funny because I put it into Queer as Folk. There's Vince in Queer as Folk, who's a Doctor Who fan.

• 34:59Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh.

• 35:00Speaker 03

  Do you remember? And you even get K9, the robot dog appears in one episode of Queer as Folk. Because I was kind of, and I was just doing that because I wanted to show that Doctor Who fans could be cool and sexy, as we are. And rather than just, you know, geeky old nerds as we're mistakenly assumed to be. But that kind of.

• 35:19Nick Grimshaw?

  Thank you, Anne.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  Thank you. That kind of accidentally, or was it on purpose, associated my name with Doctor Who in the industry.

• 35:27Nick Grimshaw?

  So you were sort of planting the seeds even back then?

• 35:29Speaker 03

  So, um, so it did link the programme to my name. And so it wasn't me that decided to bring it back. It was the BBC, this woman called Jane Chant, who decided to bring it back. And then she automatically went, oh, well, what about Russell's?

• 35:41Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh my god.

• 35:42Speaker 03

  So I was so lucky.

• 35:43Angela Hartnett?

  Did you feel like a grave sort of responsibility?

• 35:46Speaker 03

  You do, except that would weigh you down.

• 35:49Angela Hartnett?

  Yes, you had to go in and be that, yeah.

• 35:51Speaker 03

  You know, I, you know, I knew there's a great big fandom sitting out there.

• 35:55Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, you're not going to do.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  But equally, I was that fan.

• 35:57Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, of course.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  So their thinking wasn't a mystery to me. It was like, yeah, I get it. I know what to worry about. And also they'll never be happy. So, it's part of the internet. So why not?

• 36:07Nick Grimshaw?

  And then that's who you want to make something, isn't it?

• 36:09Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Nick Grimshaw?

  That's a fan of it.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  No, what is this? This is Rouseby Ripple?

• 36:12Angela Hartnett?

  We have blackcurrant ripple and vanilla ice cream.

• 36:14Speaker 03

  Oh, that's gorgeous.

• 36:16Nick Grimshaw?

  One thing I wanted to ask you about was the Dalek in your garden.

• 36:19Angela Hartnett?

  Yes.

• 36:20Nick Grimshaw?

  I love that you have a Dalek in your garden. There's one in the BBC reception that I see every morning. Yeah, I always see that one.

• 36:25Speaker 03

  That was like, the only time in the whole show I had to really dig in because it's 2005, it's an old show. And so everyone's queuing up saying, well, how are you going to redesign the Daleks?

• 36:36Angela Hartnett?

  Right.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  And I had artists, comic book artists, famous comic book artists coming with their sketches where they were frying droids and they had attachments and stuff like that. And I had to take a really, really big breath and say, that's just not a Dalek. It has to look like it looked in the 60s.

• 36:52Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, otherwise you wouldn't recognise it.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Exactly. But everyone's like, no, they've got to just, I was like, it's the one time, it's the one thing I'm most proud of. In the whole thing, I just sat there and I just dunked my heels and said, no, it's got to look like.

• 37:02Angela Hartnett?

  Good.

• 37:02Speaker 03

  And then the producer was coming to me saying, the mould from the 1960s is no longer owned by the BBC. It's owned by a private family. He's charging us money to use it. We haven't got the money. I said, you've got to get the money.

• 37:12Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Speaker 03

  You've got to, can't fake this. It's got to be the old 60s mould. So they did. And frankly, I was right. And then I had the great satisfaction, like it must have been the next, or was it that Christmas? But it was toy, number one toy of the year.

• 37:25Angela Hartnett?

  Right.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Number one, it was on Christmas TV adverts, little Daleks, trundling across the screen. That was a great moment.

• 37:30Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did your instinct.

• 37:32Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, you wanted to look like that. I feel like if you'd have really mixed it, people would have gone crazy.

• 37:37Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 37:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:37Nick Grimshaw?

  People would have been like, what is this?

• 37:39Angela Hartnett?

  But as you say, you know, huge fan, why would you? If you'd watched someone else do it, you're going, why have you changed it? So don't do it.

• 37:44Nick Grimshaw?

  So it's just in your garden? Love that.

• 37:47Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, it is. Yes, I thought then, yes.

• 37:49Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah, you're like, what?

• 37:51Speaker 03

  It's really kind of rotting. I kind of like the fact that it's like, I'm putting moss and misty all over it. It's kind of like, like a work of art.

• 37:57Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, fabulous.

• 37:59Speaker 03

  It's like an old Roman ruins, like a relic of a dead boy. I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:03Nick Grimshaw?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Nick Grimshaw?

  Russell T Davies, it is time for your fast food quiz. Are you ready?

• 38:10Speaker 03

  I am.

• 38:10Nick Grimshaw?

  Tell us your favourite way to eat eggs.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  A cold, soft boiled egg.

• 38:16Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, nice.

• 38:17Speaker 03

  In one mouthful.

• 38:18Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah, very good, very good.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  That is like a little pocket of silk.

• 38:22Angela Hartnett?

  Yes, I can understand that.

• 38:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 38:25Angela Hartnett?

  What's your favourite sandwich filling?

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Um, uh, just, do you know what? Ham and tomato.

• 38:31Nick Grimshaw?

  What is your favourite form of potato?

• 38:32Speaker 03

  Mash.

• 38:34Angela Hartnett?

  Mash, mash.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  I'd make a good mash.

• 38:36Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah. What's your favourite herb?

• 38:38Speaker 03

  Uh, tarragon.

• 38:39Angela Hartnett?

  Tarragon, oh, nice choice.

• 38:40Nick Grimshaw?

  What is the best crisp on the market?

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Don't really, because I'd just go for salted, yeah.

• 38:45Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  I look like I eat a lot of crisps.

• 38:48Angela Hartnett?

  I like it. Favourite fruit?

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Banana.

• 38:51Angela Hartnett?

  Banana.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  No, cherry, I'm lying. Cherry. Love cherry.

• 38:55Nick Grimshaw?

  And personal question, but do you have a favourite kitchen utensil?

• 38:58Speaker 03

  The masher. When I'm doing my mash.

• 39:00Nick Grimshaw?

  Use of the mash.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Loving the mash. Call me the masher.

• 39:03Angela Hartnett?

  The masher.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Or don't.

• 39:09Angela Hartnett?

  What's your favourite Sunday roast?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  Chicken or pork, both.

• 39:13Angela Hartnett?

  Both?

• 39:13Speaker 03

  My family has both.

• 39:14Angela Hartnett?

  You're allowed both?

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:15Nick Grimshaw?

  You're allowed both. Yeah, it's not very strict, is it? What is the best ice cream flavour?

• 39:22Speaker 03

  Vanilla.

• 39:23Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, very nice. And go on, a dish from your childhood, your mum made.

• 39:27Speaker 03

  Oh, um, that could actually be your mum, Paella.

• 39:30Angela Hartnett?

  Really?

• 39:30Speaker 03

  That's why we have that today. Yeah, yeah. It's also a memory. I love her.

• 39:33Angela Hartnett?

  Isn't that lovely?

• 39:34Nick Grimshaw?

  Well, you passed.

• 39:35Angela Hartnett?

  Yeah.

• 39:35Nick Grimshaw?

  Well done.

• 39:36Speaker 03

  Great. What would happen if I fail?

• 39:38Angela Hartnett?

  You'd never fail.

• 39:39Speaker 03

  I have to pay for dinner.

• 39:40Nick Grimshaw?

  Evicted. Wait, actually, yes.

• 39:45Nick Grimshaw?

  Russell T Davies, we come to the end of the show question for your chance to win the Waitrose goodie bag. All you've got to do is answer this question. Should you answer, the goodie bag is yours.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  Thank you for coming on Dish. To win the Waitrose goodie bag, please tell us who out of Nick and Angela would make the best Doctor Who.

• 40:05Nick Grimshaw?

  Oh, so it's a serious one.

• 40:11Speaker 03

  I just, I just don't trust you to turn up every day.

• 40:13Nick Grimshaw?

  No, Angela is the role of Doctor Who. I would watch that.

• 40:19Speaker 03

  I think she's got a.

• 40:20Angela Hartnett?

  Doctor Who?

• 40:23Nick Grimshaw?

  And love it. I would love it.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  You've got a chef's discipline, you do that.

• 40:27Nick Grimshaw?

  That's real fabulous.

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would like that.

• 40:30Angela Hartnett?

  Where's them Daleks?

• 40:32Speaker 03

  One more line. Who would shoot the TARDIS best and handle the Daleks with ease? Thanks, you team Dish. There we go.

• 40:37Angela Hartnett?

  Oh, thank you, Russell. Thank you.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  You could be K9.

• 40:41Nick Grimshaw?

  I could be K9, the dog. I would be your K9 Andy.

• 40:45Angela Hartnett?

  You could write the script for us.

• 40:46Nick Grimshaw?

  I would. I want to read that, please, please. Well, the new Doctor Who, Angela Hartnett.

• 40:52Speaker 03

  Brilliant.

• 40:53Angela Hartnett?

  And me.

• 40:54Nick Grimshaw?

  Russell T Davies, everybody.

• 41:01Nick Grimshaw?

  If that episode has left you wanting more, find us on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Just search Dish.

• 41:08Angela Hartnett?

  If you want to make any of the meals I cook on Dish, head to waitrose.com/dishrecipes for all the ingredients and the recipes.

• 41:17Nick Grimshaw?

  Email your questions, thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].

• 41:23Angela Hartnett?

  Dish from Waitrose is a Cold Glass Production.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Waitrose, the home of food lovers.