More Rosebud - Ghosts Special with Jim Howick and Kiell Smith-Bynoe

At this spooky time of year we are celebrating the new film "Ghosts: The Possession of Button House", and our guests are Jim Howick, who plays Pat Butcher, and Kiell Smith-Bynoe, who plays Mike. If you love the brilliant BBC series, Ghosts, then you'll enjoy this episode, and you'll enjoy the film, which is in cinemas now. In this fun conversation, Gyles talks to Jim and Kiell about their childhoods and how they both got into performing after early success in their school nativity plays. Gyles talks to them about the making of Ghosts, about what they've learnt about each other from working together so closely, and about whether they've ever been to a seance. Our thanks to Jim and Kiell for this entertaining and insightful chat. Ghosts: the Possession of Button House is in cinemas throughout the UK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:52Speaker 02

  This is More Rosebud. I hope it's going to be a spooktacular episode. I'm saying that for a reason, two reasons, actually. I'm recovering from Halloween. How was Halloween for you, Harriet Jane?

• 2:04Speaker 03

  I absolutely love Halloween. Yeah, I love people knocking on my door and I love giving them

• 2:11Speaker 02

  Trick or treat.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  Things and seeing what costumes they're wearing. Yeah. Yeah, no, I enjoy it.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  And you live in North London. And is it a thing in North London, in your street? Did you have treats prepared?

• 2:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's, I don't know, it's, it all happens quite early because the kids are quite little. So you get all prepared, you know, you've got to make sure you've got some sort of bucket full of Haribo's or whatever. And then they all come in there and you see their parents kind of hovering at the end of the path. It's all quite, it's all quite organized and quite restrained.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  With the trick or treat element, I've never quite understood. We have the treats ready.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:49Speaker 02

  But what are the tricks? Who is performing the trick?

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Well, I think the idea is, but it really doesn't happen round our way, thank goodness, is if you don't give a treat, then they can give you a trick, which is something not very nice. Like they might, I don't know, throw an egg at your front door or scare you or, but that doesn't happen round our way because it's all these sweet little primary school children with their mums.

• 3:14Speaker 02

  Because I was quite confused years ago, years ago, I was quite confused. And I thought the trick or treat was you could offer, when the doorbell rang, you could open the door and give them a trick or a treat.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Oh, that might be true as well.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  So I would open the door and go, boo!

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  To see them jumping out of their skin. I don't think I ever did that, but in my head.

• 3:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, and some people's houses that you'd go to, because I did it with my kids, you know, the house inside would be spooky and the person answering the door would be spooky.

• 3:40Speaker 02

  I think it's fun if you do that. Years ago, Michelle, my wife and I, we went to Mexico at the time of Halloween.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Oh, the day of the dead.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  And there they take the day of the dead very seriously. And everybody goes

• 3:52Speaker 03

  How lovely, I'd love to do that.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  It is lovely. And what I like about it is that they go to the graveyard, genuinely, the family goes with a picnic, and they sit at the grave of a loved one, you know, granny's grave. And they sit there, they get out their picnic, and there's sandwiches and their wine, and they, you know, celebrate the late lamented.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  Oh, I think that's absolutely brilliant. And is that on Halloween or on All Souls' Day?

• 4:15Speaker 02

  I think it's probably All Souls' Day the next day, I think. I haven't really got into it in a big way.

• 4:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  I mean, one of the reasons I have slight reservations, having been brought up in London in the 1950s, for us at this time of year, what we were looking forward to was bonfire night, Guy Fawkes Day. Now, that's fallen into rather abeyance now. When I was a child, every street corner, you would see a Guy Fawkes, which was like a stuffed

• 4:45Speaker 03

  A guy?

• 4:46Speaker 02

  A guy.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's fallen into abeyance for a few reasons, I think.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Oh, well, because we don't like the idea of burning people.

• 4:53Speaker 03

  I think we don't have many bonfires because of health and safety and air pollution and all that sort of thing. So in London, you can't have a big old bonfire going. And then I think people are a bit squeamish about the idea of burning and effigy, aren't they?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  But it was a big, big thing, wasn't it?

• 5:10Speaker 03

  Yeah, but then they saw the Wicker Man and they probably thought, oh, let's not do that. Or, you know, it's, it's a bit spooky, isn't it? But they still have fireworks displays.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  And you used to raise the money for your fireworks by going out with your guy, and you would say penny for the guy.

• 5:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, penny for the guy, I remember that.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  And the idea was you got a penny, and then when you had enough, you could buy some sparklers. Do you have a favorite firework? Do you like a Catherine wheel? In fact, a Catherine wheel is rather a grim thing to think of because it's Catherine, it's called a Catherine wheel because it's St. Catherine, who was put on

• 5:39Speaker 03

  Marted on a wheel.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Spinning round and round and round.

• 5:42Speaker 03

  Isn't that awful? I like, what do I like? I like a big, you know, in a big fireworks display, you never have this in your back garden because it's enormous, you know, but I've got my favorite color. I like the ones that are blue and gold. You know, I like the classy ones, like, you know, they have at the end of Disney films or, yeah. But I like a sparkler.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  I love a sparkler.

• 6:06Speaker 03

  You can write your name.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  I like writing my name before the sparklers come to an end. And also, lighting a sparkler from somebody else's sparkler, there was always this little

• 6:14Speaker 03

  I love them.

• 6:15Speaker 02

  All of that was good.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Well, you mentioned the film Wicker Man.

• 6:19Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:20Speaker 02

  We can talk about a film now.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  We are.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  Because the current film for Halloween is this film based on the TV series, which I enjoyed watching, called Ghosts.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 6:33Speaker 02

  Which came, it's kind of in the tradition of Horrible Histories.

• 6:36Speaker 03

  Yes, it's done by the Horrible Histories team, in fact. So it's a brilliant TV show, which I'm sure lots of you watch because it is funny, it's moving, it is entertaining, and it's also one of those shows which there aren't enough of these days, which is genuinely good for family viewing. So you can watch it with your children and it's, but adults find it funny, too.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  By the way, do you believe in ghosts? I don't not believe in them. I think it's my view.

• 7:10Speaker 03

  I don't think I've ever had a ghost experience, but I do believe in, I just believe the world isn't quite as matter of fact as we like to think.

• 7:21Speaker 02

  Exactly. I mean, I always feel that whenever I see a dead body, which is occasionally, I wonder where the energy went.

• 7:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  And could it have gone somewhere else? I have had, I think in the past, but I'm sure it's just a mental aberration, I think I've seen one or two of our cats after they've died.

• 7:39Speaker 03

  Oh, that's an actual thing. I mean, when I lost my cat, I saw him all the time. Yeah, because you're so used to them and, and you miss them, yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  So that's in your mind's eye.

• 7:52Speaker 03

  I think so. And I think maybe ghosts is a bit of that, but then, does that mean they're not real? No, I think something in your mind's eye is real.

• 8:01Speaker 02

  You know, that comes from Hamlet, My Mind's Eye, that phrase, not used before then. Shakespeare was rather good, wasn't he? Lots of ghosts in Shakespeare's plays.

• 8:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  People, I think, felt ghosts were more real once upon a time than they do now.

• 8:14Speaker 03

  I think death felt more present to people then. I mean, I think everyone would have lost children. People would have been around death. Very often, you know, dead bodies in their homes. I mean, in that film Hamlet, you know, I think one of the most moving bits, or in the book certainly, is when she has to make a shroud for her son, you know, out of cloth. And people would have done all this stuff, preparing their own dead and, yeah.

• 8:48Speaker 02

  Well, I read somewhere that 150 years ago, there was not one family in the British Isles that had not been affected by death, in the sense of a member of that family when young.

• 9:00Speaker 03

  Oh, I see.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Not one family.

• 9:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 9:02Speaker 02

  Well, that's extraordinary, isn't it?

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, people would lose multiple children. I mean, we are very, very distanced and from death, and it's very sanitized for us, isn't it?

• 9:13Speaker 02

  And I think ghosts have become comical figures, probably dating back, I know there are many amusing ghosts much before Oscar Wilde and the Cantorville ghost.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 9:23Speaker 02

  Which is one of his stories. Anyway, we are going to meet a couple of ghosts. Or are we meeting, who are we meeting today? You've arranged these guests.

• 9:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Tell us all about these special guests for Rosebud.

• 9:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  This is, these are ghostly Halloween guests.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the, we've got two of the stars of Ghosts, both the TV show and the film. So the TV show was on for many years on the BBC, and I'm sure lots and lots and lots of you have watched and loved it. And as you know, if you watch it, it's about a couple played by Charlotte Ritchie and Kyle Smith-Bynoe, and Kyle is one of our

• 9:57Speaker 02

  Oh, I like him.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  Today. And they play a human couple called Alison and Mike, who move into a kind of dilapidated big sort of manor house. I think they rent it. And it is full of ghosts. And Alison, Charlotte Ritchie, can see the ghosts, but Mike, Kyle, can't.

• 10:24Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  And the ghosts

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Is there a reason for this? Maybe there is, maybe you don't need to tell me.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, it creates a fun dynamic.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  I can see that.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Because she's terrified and he's wondering, what's wrong with you?

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Very funny.

• 10:38Speaker 03

  And it creates some really good

• 10:40Speaker 02

  So he's walking across the room, probably walking through the ghosts.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, and he talks about this in this, in this interview. And then the ghosts themselves are all from different times in history, because it is the Horrible Histories creators that made it. And as they, I think, again, they explain in this interview, at one point, they thought of having many more ghosts. They thought of having, you know, roundheads and cavaliers and, you know, they were going to have a whole range of historical, they actually pared it down. So I think there's maybe, I can't remember how many there are, let's say there are seven or eight. There is, and one of them is played by Jim Howick, who is another our guest today. He plays a retired scout master called Pat.

• 11:23Speaker 02

  And is he not also the co?

• 11:25Speaker 03

  He's got an arrow.

• 11:25Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Through his neck.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  That's amusing.

• 11:27Speaker 03

  The whole time and a scout uniform.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  And that's great fun.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, they're all look very funny.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Co writer. Anyway, so we've got somebody who isn't a ghost and somebody who is a ghost. But they are two interesting actors.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  And I thought I should begin the conversation not by, I mean, so you don't need to know anything about ghosts. Or indeed to have seen the film or to see the TV series to find these two contrasting people, slightly different generations, different backgrounds, telling us their story.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  So this is Rosebud with a ghost and a non ghost, a teacher and a scout master, a live teacher and a dead scout master with a, an arrow through his neck.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  Yes, and the film is called Ghosts, The Possession of Button House. And it's out now and I reckon it's a really good thing to go and see.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  With the family.

• 12:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, or on your own.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  On your own.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  Or with a ghost. You could keep a chair, you could, you know, book a seat for your, um.

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  One of your dear departed friends or relations.

• 12:29Speaker 02

  I, well, I've known people, indeed I've known some well known people who after, I'm thinking of two of them, who after their wives died for some years, went on laying the table as though the person was still there. So that does happen.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  But getting an extra seat, as you know, we were told when I think it was Nicholas Holmes, talking about his grandfather, how his grandfather Winston Churchill, when he went to the theatre, always bought three seats. One for himself, one for his daughter, who used to come with him, and the third seat for his hat and gloves.

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Lovely.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Um, but it could have been for the ghost.

• 13:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I, I might take my mum to see this film.

• 13:10Speaker 02

  Lovely idea, actually, she would enjoy that.

• 13:12Speaker 03

  I think she'd really, really enjoy it. Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 02

  I'm now thinking, actually, ghosts have played a big part in our literature, haven't they?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 13:17Speaker 02

  Um, I'm talking about the Cannavale ghost, but of course, A Christmas Carol is a ghost story. I mean, the ultimate Victorian ghost story. And as we were saying, Shakespeare's full of ghosts. Well, we are going to be full of ghostly fun and two very interesting individuals on Rosebud today. So enjoy our ghostly post Halloween treat with Jim Howick and Kyle Smith-Bynoe. Cue the music.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Ooh.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  Ooh.

• 14:01Speaker 02

  When you get to my age, you will find you think a lot about death. Every night I go to bed and through my head comes the line from Hamlet, "All that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity." So I'm very pleased to have two young people with me today, at least younger. And they are professionally in the death game because they know all about ghosts. There are two of them, the older one, though you couldn't tell from looking at them, but the older one is Jim Howick. Born, am I right, on the fourteenth of May, nineteen seventy nine?

• 14:37Speaker 04

  That's correct, yes, yes.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  The younger one is Kyle Smith-Bynoe, born on the fifth of March, nineteen eighty nine. There's ten years between you, but you are allies and colleagues. Can you remember when you first met, how you first met?

• 14:55Speaker 05

  I, yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  In the audition, right?

• 14:57Speaker 05

  In the audition.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:58Speaker 05

  Um, I had an, I had a chemistry test with Charlotte Ritchie.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  This was before that. This was your very first.

• 15:06Speaker 05

  Oh, the first?

• 15:06Speaker 04

  Very first.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  Oh, yes.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  I wasn't in the chemistry test. I wasn't there.

• 15:10Speaker 05

  I do remember now because it was in that long room.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 05

  And there were about seven people on laptops.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:16Speaker 05

  At the back.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like a shipping container.

• 15:18Speaker 05

  And I was like, is this a co working space? Um.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  And what was going on? What was the audition? What was the chemistry test?

• 15:25Speaker 04

  The audition was a, a, like a classic sort of mic goof around. I can't remember exactly what the scene was, but it was, uh, yeah, we, we'd, I'd seen Kyle in like a few things and certainly in staff, which we're all big fans of.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 15:40Speaker 04

  Um, and, and I wasn't at the chemistry read because I was too embarrassed because we've got actors of your caliber and Charlotte's caliber.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  Right.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  And the other actors who were involved in the chemistry read. And I, uh, was embarrassed that they had to go through all of that.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Let me start with you, Jim.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  You are here because you are the co creator of Ghosts.

• 16:01Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:01Speaker 02

  Which I, with my children and grandchildren, watched five series of, and you've now made this big movie. Okay?

• 16:08Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  You are the co creator of it.

• 16:10Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:11Speaker 02

  And what part do you play?

• 16:12Speaker 04

  I play Pat Butcher, uh, who is a scout leader who, uh, was murdered by, accidentally murdered by one of his, uh, patrol, um, in nineteen eighty four with a bow and arrow.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Death is central to this.

• 16:28Speaker 04

  Very.

• 16:28Speaker 02

  I mean, in the new film, we are reminded, we're all going to die. This is what this is about. This is about death.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 16:35Speaker 02

  And what happens after death, we become ghosts. So you are Pat Butcher, the ghost. And Kyle, just describe the part you play in Ghosts, if anyone who isn't familiar with it.

• 16:44Speaker 05

  Uh, I play Mike Cooper, who was, uh, an owner of the house in the series.

• 16:52Speaker 02

  Indeed, I remember that's the whole basis.

• 16:54Speaker 05

  All season, if you're in America.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 16:56Speaker 05

  And, um, now we, uh, since the series, we have moved out. And we are no longer the owners of the house, but we have a fondness and a love for it.

• 17:09Speaker 02

  How does one play being alive as opposed to being a ghost? What is the, the subtle difference in the playing style?

• 17:16Speaker 05

  Can't eat.

• 17:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, you can't eat. The great thing about being a ghost is you don't get to, you don't get to handle any props.

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 17:22Speaker 04

  You don't get to change your costume.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Do you like that you don't get to change your costume?

• 17:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:27Speaker 05

  Really?

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  Oh, that's not for me, that.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  Did you do any research into actually ghosts?

• 17:32Speaker 04

  No, I don't think so. No, no.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  No, see, I, I imagined that you were going to sales and finding out how this really works.

• 17:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  Chatting to a few ghosts who of the past, getting, you know, the ghost of Joan of Arc and Winston Churchill to advise you.

• 17:46Speaker 04

  It's an interesting, uh, point, actually. It's, we, we did originally in the pilot, we had a load of ghosts in the house. So we had sort of a drunk, a monk who was perpetually drunk. We had sort of cavaliers and versus round heads and this thing going on. And it was kind of like a Muppet show. In every room, there was a ghost that would have been in that room. We had a chef in the kitchen and that. So, but apart from the sort of impracticalities of that and the expense, we realised quite quickly that we had to just sort of strip it down and make these ghosts the only ghosts in the house. We wanted to avoid as many sort of supernatural elements as possible, actually, apart from passing through walls and stuff.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  But things have gone supernatural now in the movie.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  In the movie, they have, yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, we're going, we've gone to a new dimension.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Well, we'll, we'll come back to the movie.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 18:31Speaker 02

  I want to start with you two as phenomena, uh, and I want to begin with you, Jim.

• 18:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Jim, what is your very first memory?

• 18:39Speaker 04

  Um, I believe it is, uh, I had gastroenteritis when I was, I think I was about four or something. I was in hospital with it and I remember watching the Pink Panther cartoon in, I had a room, which is kind of weird. It wasn't like a private hospital. It was St. Richardson, Chichester. But, but I had a, I had a, uh, a TV in the corner and the Pink Panther cartoon was on and it was him sort of dancing in the spotlight. Yeah. And I thought to myself, I'm going to do that one day. No, I didn't think that. I, I thought, nurse, help me. Um, I needed Lucozade Sport. Um, no, I was ill.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  You were ill.

• 19:18Speaker 04

  It was, yeah, it's one of trauma.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Pink Panther is quite significant that that is your first recollection.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Why were you in Chichester? Who were your parents?

• 19:26Speaker 04

  My parents are Marilyn O'Neill Howick. Uh, my mother was an NHS receptionist. My father was an electrician. I was born in Chichester and I was brought up just outside Bognerages in Aldwick.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  And how would you characterise your childhood? What kind of childhood is it? If we were making a movie about your childhood, what would it be? Would it be like a?

• 19:48Speaker 04

  It was fairly ordinary. It was working class. There was a, um, a lot of sort of strong, loud women in the family, um, which was really fun, actually, and really.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  A lot of strong, loud women.

• 20:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was lots of aunties and sisters and, and.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  You had sisters.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  My grandpa was very matriarchal. I have a sister, one sister.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  And she's older than you?

• 20:07Speaker 04

  She's older than me, six years older than me.

• 20:09Speaker 02

  Oh, so she was one of the strong women?

• 20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, and she was kind of like a mum. So by the time I was sort of ten, she, we never really played with each other because the gauge gap was too great, but we were very close and, um.

• 20:22Speaker 02

  When you say she was like a mum, give me an example of her being mum like, because you had an actual mum.

• 20:26Speaker 04

  Well, she used to tell me when to go to bed. She used to, like mum never told me to go to bed, she did. And it was sort of one word, bed. It was, it was that really. And, and yeah, so, and there was that. And she used to kind of, she was, I suppose, fell into sort of a natural babysitter age and, like she would take me on dates when she didn't particularly like the boy she was going on the date with. So she used to sort of pretend to have to sort of chaperone me and really I was just a kind of, uh, a patsy for her, sort of getting out of the, of the date and not wanting to be on it. And so we, it was a, it was a sort of, a very sort of, um, strong matriarchal sort of family.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  And from your earliest years, give me the sweetest moment that you can recollect from your early childhood before you're ten.

• 21:15Speaker 04

  Well, my mum and my mum and my sister and my aunt, actually, they were all into amateur dramatics. And so that was the theatre I was introduced to and seeing them perform was a regular thing. But the first time I saw my mum perform was her, she played Nancy in Oliver. Yeah. And she was murdered by the guy who took me for football training. Who played Bill Sykes. That was traumatic, but it was just incredible.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Was it traumatic seeing your mum being murdered on stage?

• 21:49Speaker 04

  Not really, no, because I knew what was coming up. I'd seen the film, I loved the film. But seeing her kind of do her thing, shining bright, singing and dancing, and this is before I knew what I wanted to do, but I just found.

• 22:01Speaker 02

  And what was the darkest memory of your early childhood? A bleak moment?

• 22:06Speaker 04

  I was bitten by a dog when I was six. It was a relative's dog, actually. It was a distant cousin. And I was messing around in this, their car. I was in the front seat and the dog, I think, maybe thought that I was stealing the car and bit me on my leg. Yeah. And I was quite a small kid. Now, that was kind of, it was just very incredibly painful and shocking. But I don't think there's, I don't think I suffered any kind of existential, sort of mortal darkness until I was beyond the age of ten.

• 22:46Speaker 02

  Well, come on to those.

• 22:47Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 22:48Speaker 02

  We ought to hear about those.

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  But what is there in you now that is the product of being brought up in this matriarchal household? The very fact, the first thing you say is I was surrounded by strong women.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  From my sister to my mother to my aunties. That's the first thing comes into your head.

• 23:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  So what in you today reflects that, in your character today?

• 23:09Speaker 04

  I think a sense of empathy, a certain sort of patience and respect, I think.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  For people in general or women in particular?

• 23:20Speaker 04

  Women in particular, but just, it wasn't an angry household. It was a, it was a chatty household. I think, I, I think my family are probably better talkers than they are listeners. So I think effective communication from one perspective.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  How did they get on together, your parents? Okay?

• 23:41Speaker 04

  They're great, yeah, they're still together. They've been together for.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  But talking at each other rather than listening to one another.

• 23:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, my dad's deaf now, so it's kind of, that's the way.

• 23:48Speaker 02

  So that's the way he's got on with it?

• 23:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I had a really kind of, I had a really a great childhood. I can't sort of fault it. My dad was really hands-on. You know, he'd come home from work and we used to pretend to be in a band. I remember we used to, when he first bought Graceland, the album Graceland by Paul Simon, he would put that on and we'd pretend, like, he'd have a tennis racket and I'd have chopsticks and set up all the kitchen stalls and pretend, we'd play the whole album, pretend to play it. Which is kind of mad when I think about it, because he was a busy, sort of, hands-on spark. He was sort of up in lofts most of the time and rewiring. Yeah, he was, he was great. And we're still very close and we go to football together and, yeah.

• 24:28Speaker 02

  What team?

• 24:29Speaker 04

  I count myself very lucky. Tottenham Hotspur.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  There we are. I think it's time to move on quite quickly.

• 24:33Speaker 04

  So we bond through the difficulties of this deeply frustrating football team is a bond, yeah.

• 24:40Speaker 02

  Kyle, what is your very first memory? Not something for a photograph, but what comes into your head as the first thing you can actually remember?

• 24:48Speaker 05

  I remember being in a shopping centre with my mum and my nan and having a balloon and after about forty seconds I let go of it. And I remember watching it rise to the top of the shopping centre ceiling. And I think I was probably about, I would have had to have been younger than four.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Often, these are quite symbolic, these early memories, and I can see you with the big panther dancing away, but you letting go of the balloon and your whole life, the joy of your life disappearing up into the sky. So who were your nan and your mum? And where were you? What was this happening?

• 25:22Speaker 05

  I, I imagine it was Stratford because.

• 25:25Speaker 02

  Stratford, East London?

• 25:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I grew up in Eastham and Forest Gate and the only big shopping centres around was Stratford Centre. This was before they had the Westfield, long before Westfield, the old Stratford Shopping Centre. So I imagine it was there because I can't think of where else we would have been that had a shopping centre. And, yeah, my nan, Farretta Spencer, she came from Barbados in the early, mid-fifties. And then her and my grandad lived in Ladbroke Grove in like a tiny flat with like four people and they'd all come, moved over from Barbados to go out. Then she worked in a sweet factory.

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. There was a sweet factory in Forest Gate called Bard's and she worked there. Then they moved to Forest Gate and then my mum came over, my oldest uncle came over and then my nan and grandad had two more kids.

• 26:21Speaker 02

  So your mother was born in Barbados?

• 26:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:24Speaker 02

  And then came over to join her parents?

• 26:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 26:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  And who is your mum?

• 26:29Speaker 05

  Jenny Bynoe, Jennifer Bynoe.

• 26:31Speaker 02

  And what did she do? What sort of person?

• 26:33Speaker 05

  She was, she danced first. She was a dancer, she used to dance all around the world. And then she worked in, for the NHS, she worked at London Ambulance Service, at the headquarters in Waterloo in payroll. And she did that for thirty-three years.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  And who was your dad?

• 26:52Speaker 05

  Fitzburn, Fitzburn Isaiah Smith, yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 02

  Great, now say it again.

• 26:57Speaker 05

  Fitzburn Isaiah Smith.

• 26:58Speaker 02

  Lovely.

• 26:59Speaker 05

  Known to many people as many different names.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:03Speaker 05

  I didn't know his name was Fitzburn until I was about fourteen.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  Oh, how did you discover this? Tell us about him, he sounds intriguing.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  How did I discover it? I don't actually know. I know that, like, because my mum called him Frank. So I always thought my dad's name was Frank until I was about fourteen. I think I saw like a, a letter or like some sort of official, official document and Frank wasn't on there at all. And, yeah, I knew his, I knew his middle name was Isaiah because his family called him Zaya.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:29Speaker 05

  But then people that he played cricket with called him John and people at work would call him John as well.

• 27:36Speaker 02

  Because he was a fine cricketer, wasn't he?

• 27:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 27:40Speaker 02

  I mean, he played for some big team?

• 27:41Speaker 05

  He played, I, I mean, I don't know how big the teams are, but he played for Trafalgar.

• 27:47Speaker 02

  That sounds okay.

• 27:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 27:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  But he was a lively person?

• 27:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. He was a driver and a cricketer.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  When I say he was a lively person, I didn't mean he was a driver and a cricketer.

• 27:57Speaker 05

  Oh, you mean.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  I meant he had a multiplicity. He had twelve children?

• 28:01Speaker 05

  Twelve, minimum.

• 28:02Speaker 02

  Twelve, minimum?

• 28:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 02

  By a dozen different?

• 28:05Speaker 05

  No, eight.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 28:08Speaker 05

  Only eight.

• 28:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 28:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  You spread it out, I mean, that's kind of on average.

• 28:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  So you have quite a few siblings, you have a dozen siblings?

• 28:17Speaker 05

  I've got eleven.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  And when did you meet them?

• 28:19Speaker 05

  I met Patrick when I was five. I met my brother. I was five and my dad took me to his workplace, but I didn't know I was meeting my brother. I only found out when Patrick said, who's that, to my dad. And my dad said, this is your brother. So we both found out at the same time.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  And was that, were you quite relaxed about that? You just took it in your stride?

• 28:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I guess.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  I mean, at home, there was your mum and did your dad live at home?

• 28:45Speaker 05

  No, but he was around all the time.

• 28:47Speaker 02

  But he popped in, he was there and you felt very much he was at home. Did you have any siblings at home? Did you have a brother or sister at home?

• 28:54Speaker 05

  No, no, no. So I met Patrick when I was five and I didn't meet my other, the next sibling until I was fourteen.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  Oh, my.

• 29:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 02

  And have you now met them all?

• 29:02Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, all, all of those twelve, but apparently there's more.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  There may have been more.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  That's a word on the road.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  What do you feel about this? What's it like to have eleven brothers and sisters? I mean, did you actually get on quite well with them, all of them?

• 29:17Speaker 05

  Most.

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Christmas is difficult.

• 29:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Christmas is crowded.

• 29:23Speaker 05

  There's a lot, there's a lot of presents to get, there's a lot of kids. Yeah, I mean, a lot, some of them have got grandchildren.

• 29:28Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  To be serious for a second, how was it for your mum, this setup when you were a little boy?

• 29:36Speaker 05

  Well, I didn't really know. I just sort of knew that, like, I lived with my mum and my dad was around sometimes and everything worked and I'd ask for things and not get them. But that was just, that was more because my mum thought I didn't need all the things I was asking for.

• 29:50Speaker 02

  Give us a flavour of her personality. What's she like?

• 29:54Speaker 05

  She was very strict. She's the only person that I know that's grounded someone else's kids.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 30:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  My God.

• 30:08Speaker 05

  Um, she was really strict. Um, but as I grew, as I grew up, I learned, not even as I grew up. I, I think in the last sort of five years.

• 30:16Speaker 04

  How do you enforce that? Sorry, like grounding someone else's kids? Do you sort of have to go around and make sure?

• 30:23Speaker 05

  I think, I think like phone calls, regular check-ins.

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:27Speaker 02

  But I think she had, by the sound of it, she had national authority.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:30Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  She said, you are going home and you are going home now.

• 30:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  And I will phone your mum to make sure you arrive and you're not going out again tonight. She said that.

• 30:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was a lot of that.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  They left. She then phoned and said, you won't believe what they've been up to. That's what I've said.

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  And it happened.

• 30:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. And some of my friends' mums were scared of my mum. They were like, I don't want to get on the wrong side of Jim, so.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  Were, were you scared of her?

• 30:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  In a good way, or were you actually a little frightened of her sometimes?

• 30:55Speaker 05

  Um, a bit of both. I think like, but I learnt as I got older, why she was so strict. Um, and she had, cause she'd raised her three brothers. Um, cause my nan and grandad were out working. She raised her brothers. Her brothers rebelled against her because you're not my mum, you're my sister. And they, because there were three of them, that like she was outnumbered. So they rebelled. They were naughty boys. They got in trouble quite a lot with the, the authorities and the neighbours and the stuff like that. So when she had me, she was obviously like, that's not happening with my, my son. And doubled down on the strictness rather than like sort of easing off.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  And as a consequence, did you behave well? Were you a well behaved boy?

• 31:38Speaker 05

  I was, yeah. But I still, I still had a, I still had a cheeky bit. I was a, I had a naughty glint, I'd say.

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Describe where you lived.

• 31:50Speaker 05

  I lived in East Ham.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  In a flat, in a house?

• 31:53Speaker 05

  In a, in a house, yeah. Um.

• 31:56Speaker 02

  What was your bedroom like?

• 31:57Speaker 05

  My bedroom was quite big. I had a, a bunk bed. I wasn't allowed to sleep on the top.

• 32:03Speaker 02

  Oh, in case you fell off?

• 32:07Speaker 02

  I, I want you to thank it. The whole joy of a bunk bed is climbing the ladder and sleeping on top, surely.

• 32:12Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't allowed to. It was sort of saved for.

• 32:14Speaker 02

  In case your dad came home by surprise and you didn't want him in the bedroom, you can sleep with Kyle.

• 32:23Speaker 05

  I guess, I think it was maybe saved for like guests if we're, of course, we'd quite often have like cousins and family and stuff, but um, yeah, I was, I was on the bottom.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  And posters on the wall?

• 32:36Speaker 05

  Posters on the wall, yeah.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  And what was the duvet? What was the pattern on the covering of your duvet?

• 32:42Speaker 05

  I had, uh, well, I guess around ninety, it would have been around ninety six, I had the England, um, duvet.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  Um.

• 32:53Speaker 04

  Three lions.

• 32:54Speaker 05

  Three lions, yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Three lions.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  Three.

• 32:58Speaker 04

  There you go.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. If we get, yeah, if we get one more on the bunk bed, me and my dad, someone else, that's three lions.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 33:06Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, what else did I, I had like, uh, Hot Wheels, um, duvet cover. And I had, I remember that was my, my favourite Christmas present. My Hot Wheels, um, like multi-story car park.

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• 34:29Speaker 06

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• 35:10Speaker 02

  What's your sweetest memory of your childhood before your ten?

• 35:13Speaker 05

  Sweetest?

• 35:15Speaker 02

  The nicest moment that just comes floating into your head?

• 35:17Speaker 05

  I remember, and this is something that me and Jim share, I remember playing the innkeeper in my nativity play.

• 35:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, good memory.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  I remember all of my family coming, like, like some of my nan's friends, like, just so many people. I think they had too many people and they'd sit like, they said to my mum, like, we can't have this many people. And she was like, well, they're here now, so. You'd need to find somewhere for them. Um, but I, I, I would say I, I had, I had more family come to that show than I've had across. Across my whole tour this year.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Can you remember your line as the?

• 35:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, cause I only had one.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  What was it?

• 35:58Speaker 05

  Round the back.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  Oh, very good.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 02

  So Mary and Joseph turned up saying, what, what are we going to say? And you say round the back?

• 36:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  I did, are you quite pleased the way you did it?

• 36:09Speaker 05

  Uh, I screamed my head off, if that's what you're asking.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  You did it loudly?

• 36:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 02

  And how did it work?

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Um, really well. I think that, so that's the moment I realised I wanted to act from.

• 36:20Speaker 02

  So the truth is, you would not be here today if you had not been in that nativity play.

• 36:25Speaker 05

  If I'd been Angel Gabriel, you could forget this.

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 05

  I'd have been in tech.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  Indeed.

• 36:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  Making even more money.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:33Speaker 02

  But never mind, you were the innkeeper.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  Round the back.

• 36:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 05

  Did you have a line as an keeper?

• 36:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was.

• 36:39Speaker 02

  Oh, you did play the innkeeper as well?

• 36:41Speaker 04

  I played the good innkeeper, yes, yes. So.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  I love the way you say the good innkeeper.

• 36:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:45Speaker 02

  Well, that's what it was, right? There was, there's only one.

• 36:47Speaker 05

  I'm so sorry.

• 36:48Speaker 04

  But, but.

• 36:48Speaker 02

  In his script, it was just the innkeeper.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  There was no, there was no judgement.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  I think there was a couple of innkeepers prior to me because they were like, no, sorry, I've got no room. So it was kind of like a, like a road trip, sort of, like, sorry, no room at the inn, no room at the inn. And then I, my line was, um, any card, any card will do. We won't take payment. It's just for the minibar and stuff. Um.

• 37:09Speaker 02

  Did you write this yourself?

• 37:13Speaker 04

  No, I can't, I think I had a, I think I had sung a song or, yeah, I can't remember the, the song, so I won't be singing that.

• 37:19Speaker 05

  You've got a song?

• 37:20Speaker 04

  I've got a song.

• 37:21Speaker 05

  I didn't get a song.

• 37:22Speaker 02

  I've never heard of the innkeeper having a song before in any nativity play.

• 37:25Speaker 04

  My, my inn is full, but you can have my cattle store.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  You said that like we were going to China.

• 37:34Speaker 04

  Everyone.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  We're not surprised it didn't become a hit single.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  What is then your darkest memory, your worst memory before your ten?

• 37:43Speaker 05

  Nothing really happened before I was ten. I was, uh.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 37:48Speaker 05

  No, I'd ask for something and my mum would say, no. I can't like, I really can't think. When you asked Jim, I was trying to think and like.

• 37:58Speaker 05

  I, I really can't think of anything. I didn't get bitten by a dog. I didn't get like, I didn't injure myself. I didn't break anything.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  Well done.

• 38:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:07Speaker 04

  Um. Too busy being grounded.

• 38:09Speaker 02

  And were you a happy boy? Were you a happy boy?

• 38:12Speaker 05

  I was, but I really wanted, uh, I wanted a sibling.

• 38:17Speaker 05

  Because at that age, I didn't know that I had siblings. I knew that I'd met Patrick, but I was sort of like, I was five and my dad was like, that's your brother. But I didn't, and by then he was working. He was like selling cars.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  You got into performing thanks to playing the innkeeper. You obviously were also a successful innkeeper. When did you get into performing? When did you realise this is going to be my life, Jim?

• 38:40Speaker 04

  Uh, there was a company that was auditioning for a production of Bugsy Malone in Bognor Regis at the sort of the, the main theatre there. And I, it was the sort of first time I'd auditioned for anything and I loved the film and I thought, well, I was an overnourished child. So I thought I could go and play Fat Sam. I was, uh, thirteen. And after that, people sort of said, oh, you should really pursue this. You should take this seriously. But of course, then in them days at school, you know, if you told the careers, careers officer that you wanted to be an actor, they would just hand you a leaflet for sort of teacher training college or.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  So how did you pursue it and make it happen?

• 39:18Speaker 04

  I studied, um, I went to, uh, to this sort of technical college around the sort of time of my A levels and, um. I did this course called an intensive acting course with a, a tutor called John Dryden, who had, who was a professional actor himself for many years. And he sort of, kind of, sort of, sort of drummed it into me and sort of made me sort of take it seriously. So, yeah, I, I want, decided that I wanted to go to drama school and audition for sort of a number of drama schools in London. And I got into Mount View Academy. And yeah, some of my friends from the course got in there as well, so.

• 39:53Speaker 02

  So you've been content really from the age of eleven or twelve, knowing this is my destiny and being able to pursue it?

• 39:59Speaker 04

  I mean, I think so. I don't know. There was a time sort of around my sort of GCSE age, I suppose, when you start thinking, what, what, what should I do? What could I do?

• 40:09Speaker 04

  I never thought that I would end up sort of making a living doing something I've, which I would consider to be a hobby. Um, but yeah, that's the way it's turned out, but yeah.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  And did you have friends you shared this with? Did you have a girlfriend when you were at school?

• 40:27Speaker 04

  I did. I had a couple, not many.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  A couple is two, that's good. Who was the first one?

• 40:33Speaker 04

  Oh my goodness me.

• 40:34Speaker 02

  We don't need to know her name, but describe her to us.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  Well, she was actually, yeah, she was part of the sort of drama group. And she ended up going to college as well. And, and, and actually, when I was graduating from my drama school, uh, I was doing a showcase on the stage and she was in the audience. And I thought, wow, I was like, I've got another girlfriend now. What are you doing here? What are you doing here? Turns out she was going to the school the year after me. So she was sort of following me and going to the same school.

• 41:04Speaker 02

  When you're sixteen, seventeen, are you sharing anything with anyone or are you just bumbling along?

• 41:08Speaker 04

  I kind of, I suppose I was bumbling along to a certain extent. I wasn't really, it wasn't really until I sort of started taking, sort of pursuing acting as a, as a career seriously, that I sort of found my people. Um, and then I could sort of share my sort of hopes and dreams, I suppose.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Can you remember the first time you told anyone a secret?

• 41:30Speaker 04

  Whoa. I mean, no, I don't think I can remember the first time I told anyone a secret.

• 41:38Speaker 02

  I'm going to give you a moment to think about it while I talk to Kyle.

• 41:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 41:41Speaker 02

  I'm just wanting to see if you can remember when you shared your first secret.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 41:46Speaker 02

  Kyle, you knew you wanted to be a performer from the moment they laughed at your line.

• 41:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:51Speaker 02

  Uh, and what happened? How did you become a performer?

• 41:53Speaker 05

  Well, that's all I ever asked to do. Um, I remember when the term was coming to an end, the year was coming to an end, they would hand out leaflets for summer schools. And in the brochure, you could flick through and find whatever it was that you wanted to. It could be sports, it could be music. Um, and then I saw acting and I said to my mom that I wanted to do that.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  And you were right by the Stratford East Theatre.

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Founded by Joan Littlewood.

• 42:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:21Speaker 02

  Uh, and did you join them?

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Uh, no, because you couldn't join until you were eleven.

• 42:25Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 42:26Speaker 05

  So I joined a, um, like a summer school, summer drama school, um, that was run by Derek Brown. And that was, uh, at a school in West Ham. And so I would do that for the whole summer and then we'd put on a show at the end. And then I'd go back to school and then think about like the next summer, that I could do that all half term, where I could go back. And so I did that until I was eleven. Then I applied for youth theatre and got in, then did youth theatre from eleven to eighteen.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  That's at Stratford East?

• 42:57Speaker 05

  At Stratford East, yeah.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Fantastic. So that's been your life, all nice and settled. Great. How did you find a girlfriend?

• 43:04Speaker 05

  Um, there was, there were girls that I liked in school, but I, I mean, I didn't really have a girlfriend until I was maybe sixteen. Uh, I think, no, probably even, yeah, sixteen, when I was in my, uh, first year of sixth form was when I had my first actual girlfriend.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  And did you tell her all your secrets?

• 43:24Speaker 05

  No. Uh, none, actually.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Oh. You sure?

• 43:31Speaker 05

  I'm positive, yeah.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Oh, you really kept yourself to yourself?

• 43:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did, yeah.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  And when then did you tell a secret to somebody?

• 43:38Speaker 05

  When did I tell a secret to somebody? Um, I think I'm really, really good at keeping secrets. So I don't think I really shared many at all. I think I had them, but I didn't share them.

• 43:52Speaker 02

  I mean, how have you been in terms of relationships, given the example of your father?

• 43:56Speaker 05

  Um, well, I don't have any kids. But yeah, I mean, I, I think my dad started when he was like nineteen.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  I'm not, I mean, I'm very much not being judgmental at all. Um, but you've obviously chosen.

• 44:07Speaker 05

  It is extraordinary.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  But you've chosen to live a life that is quite different from your father.

• 44:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. I was never any good at cricket, so.

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Uh, but do you admire, did you admire your dad?

• 44:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Because he was clearly, he was, interestingly from reading the material, he was a great dad.

• 44:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  In the sense that he really did manage to know all his children, spent time as much as he could with each of the mothers.

• 44:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:30Speaker 02

  And was, within his limitations, he was a responsible and engaged father.

• 44:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, definitely was. The only thing that's sort of slightly odd in that is the way that he didn't do the introductions himself.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 44:46Speaker 05

  He sort of left it to each, to the others. So when I was fourteen, he said to me, tomorrow we're going to Birmingham to see your sister. And I was like, what's Birmingham? And who's my sister? And we got on a coach and we went, I mean, met my sister Elaine. Um, and she met us at the coach station, picked us up. We drove to her house and I met her kids who were just a little bit younger than me. And, um, that evening when my dad went to bed, she said to me, how many of us have you met? And I was like, what do you mean? And then she explained to me how many of us, and she's like brought out a photo album and showed me like, that's your sister, that's your sister, that's your brother, that's your sister. And I just didn't know, but he'd obviously brought, she realised

• 45:29Speaker 05

  he'd brought, he brought me there for her to do it. But it doesn't, it's not really, it doesn't fit the sort of guy that he was in terms of like, always being there and making, he was at every like big event throughout my life, even though he didn't live there. All the big things that happened, my graduation, my, um, end, end of, uh, my levers after school, my shows, all of that. He was at all of them.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 45:55Speaker 05

  Um, and he is very family orientated, but he never went, right, you need to learn that this is your, this is your sister. He just sort of left it to the others to do it. Um, what was the question?

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Well, it's, it's all about relationships.

• 46:06Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  You being, obviously saying you don't have, you haven't shared secrets.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I'm intrigued because your father had a secret, had a range of secrets that gradually were revealed.

• 46:17Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  That he clearly wanted you ultimately to know.

• 46:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 02

  But he wasn't open about it.

• 46:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  And you've just been telling us that if you have secrets, you've kept them basically to yourself over the years.

• 46:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:29Speaker 02

  And I'm, I'm, I'm intrigued by, by that as a phenomenon.

• 46:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 46:33Speaker 02

  Um, partly because I'm, I, are you an open person?

• 46:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so, yeah.

• 46:38Speaker 02

  You share, I mean, you have shared secrets.

• 46:39Speaker 04

  That's why I think I'm finding this question so hard. Because my family, sort of, they're, they sort of, they're, they could all be town criers if they wanted to be. Like, that's their perfect job. Like, I don't think any of them are good at keeping secrets. Like, I can't, and so, because I was the youngest in the family for so long, until my aunt had her child when I was like fourteen. So fourteen years I was the youngest member of the family. So I don't think anyone really divulged any kind of secrets, secrets to me. Because, um, if they couldn't keep a secret themselves, how could I keep a secret? And I probably was quite loud and a bit of a show off. I mean, I think the earliest kind of secrets I would have maybe told is if some, if someone had, you know how when

• 47:22Speaker 04

  you're a teenager and you'd ask a friend to ask someone out?

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:26Speaker 04

  Like, you'd, you always use like a kind of broker.

• 47:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:29Speaker 04

  Could you go and ask someone out for it? I think I probably, uh, that was always like kind of a secret sort of deal. Um, and I probably told a few friends that I had this knowledge. It was about power, wasn't it? Telling secrets when you're a teenager. It's about making yourself more important than you probably are because you have this information. Um, and so I think I probably used that as currency in my teenage years.

• 47:55Speaker 02

  How interesting, because I think the secrets I was thinking about were things personal to oneself. Admitting who you are to another human being, admitting your own vulnerabilities.

• 48:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's tricky. I've, I've always sort of been quite an open person. I've never really guarded anything about myself. There were times growing up, actually when I was a scout, in fact, um, which is apt. But where I was, or when I used to play sport, my father was a, a football coach. And so I used to belong to the local football team. And there were times when I couldn't sort of do it. I wasn't very good at football and, um, and that used to hurt quite a bit. And then when I was a scout, we would do things like kind of, uh, I've realised I had a fear of heights when I was in the scouts and I would sort of crumble physically and emotionally. And wasn't necessarily bullied

• 48:50Speaker 04

  at all, because I was quite popular, because I was funny, but I felt like I was being backed into a corner of this kind of extreme situation. And I didn't want to sort of go down the zip line or go down the, the, the abseiling wall. So I think that's kind of where I opened up and perhaps discovered something about myself. You know, some might consider it a weakness, but I don't think it is really. I don't, why would you want to hang off a building?

• 49:15Speaker 02

  Hmm. It's not a weakness, but it is a vulnerability.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that's probably it. And it was kind of an alpha situation.

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Do you, Kyle, have a vulnerability in those days? Did you have something that?

• 49:25Speaker 05

  I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't, I also wasn't very good at sports, but, but I was an MC, so.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Uh, how did you become an MC? This means, what does MC mean?

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Uh, well, then, uh, it meant mic controller.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 49:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Mic controller?

• 49:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:45Speaker 02

  And where did you do the mic controlling?

• 49:46Speaker 05

  Um, well, in school, it sort of started out in school. Um, I went to all boys school in Forest Gate, which was, uh, full of like footballers and MCs and rappers and basketballers. And it was a lot of that. Um, and a lot of like great people have come out of the school, um, because of the talents and the way that they sort of hone the people's talents. Um, but it was like everyone was doing it. So I was like, I want to do it and I also want to be the best at it. So I, so I just did.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  And you were?

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was for a bit. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, it definitely in my, in my year, I was like, top two. But yeah, that was sort of what you needed to be.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  Is that why you're holding your mic?

• 50:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that's, that's why we gave it to him.

• 50:35Speaker 05

  That's what they gave me.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  Be careful, it might bleed, it might stop bleeding.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  He's natural. Also to show the age difference. You know, you are ten years older.

• 50:42Speaker 04

  I couldn't possibly hold the mic.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  Exactly, your hand might be shaking, you know all that. He's more cool.

• 50:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:55Speaker 07

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• 51:25Speaker 00

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• 51:56Speaker 04

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• 52:41Speaker 04

  That's T-O-A-S-T-T-A-B, toasttab.com. Toast. Built for busy.

• 52:53Speaker 02

  Now, ghosts. Are either of you into the supernatural? When you were children, did you ever have ghostly experiences?

• 53:00Speaker 04

  No, but I really wanted to. I never did a Ouija board or anything like that. That was too much. My sister did, you see. So I was exposed to kind of horror films and sort of monster stories and everything else quite early in life because my sister was so much older than me. And so I saw sort of Jaws far too early and sort of different horror films. But it did sort of turn me on to the world of supernatural. I used to like the Osborn Book of Ghosts. I used to love that.

• 53:28Speaker 02

  But did you believe in it? Did you want to believe it?

• 53:30Speaker 04

  I wanted to believe in it. I wanted it to be real. But it's even then, when there wasn't sort of... Nowadays, you have a camera. Everyone's holding a camera in their pocket. But in them days, there just wasn't enough evidence. Like, I used to pour over a book of the unexplained. And it used to fascinate me, like Bigfoot and internal sort of combustion. You know, like, just all that stuff.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  And Carl, were you into ghosts? Did you believe in them? Did you have any ghostly experiences?

• 54:05Speaker 05

  I can't say I did.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Was Halloween a thing in your part of town?

• 54:08Speaker 05

  No, not really.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  I think Halloween's a sort of modern, American thing.

• 54:12Speaker 04

  Well, we used to do Halloween, like, in our street. There was a community of sort of a gang, I should say. And we used to go up and down the houses. But in them days, you sort of dressed like kind of classic, universal monsters. So one of you was a werewolf, one of you was Dracula.

• 54:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Nowadays, you can just go as like Mr. Bean.

• 54:32Speaker 04

  You're Mr. Blobby. Well, you've got to just put some vampire teeth and you've got to make it sort of Gothic in some way. So, yeah, I'm all for the sort of old-school horror.

• 54:41Speaker 02

  What about you, Carl? Do you ever try a Ouija board?

• 54:44Speaker 05

  Absolutely not.

• 54:44Speaker 02

  Because is that in the film? There's a Ouija board?

• 54:46Speaker 04

  It is, yes.

• 54:46Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  And what happens with the Ouija board? You can... It spells out letters.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, so you will put your hands, fingers on the glass. And then, and then, yes, there's a sort of...

• 54:55Speaker 02

  And it moves around. Oh, I loved all that.

• 54:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I did.

• 54:58Speaker 02

  And I used to like to make the table move discreetly, you know?

• 55:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  No, I never, I never really had it.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Did you come from a family that believed in God? Your mum went to church?

• 55:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, my nan went to church. My mum went to church. I actually, my nan took me to church from when I was young. And then my mum didn't start going to church until I started going by myself. And then I guess she was like, what's all this about? And then, yeah, then she started going. And then I stopped going and she carried on. And then she started volunteering at the church. And then she was really involved in the church.

• 55:32Speaker 02

  So your career takes off because you're an emcee. That seems to be working. And did you make a record? Is that a song?

• 55:38Speaker 05

  We had a couple of tracks, yeah.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Oh, no, you say a couple of tracks. Who's "we"?

• 55:42Speaker 05

  So we was in a group called Red Hot.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Red, that's a good name.

• 55:44Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then from Red Hot came to...

• 55:47Speaker 02

  I can't believe there wasn't another group called Red Hot. Such a good name.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, some people talk about the Chili Peppers. But we were Red Hot Entertainment. And we had a track called Junior Special, which was huge in 2007.

• 56:06Speaker 04

  Male on the Left.

• 56:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, we had that went viral for 2007. It was viral. We had a million views in 2008. So it was like, that was sort of unheard of then.

• 56:20Speaker 02

  Amazing. And you've been busy all your life? I mean, you've had employment all your life and you was...

• 56:26Speaker 05

  Oh, not like in entertainment, always. But like, I've definitely been busy. I haven't always been employed. When I came out of drama school in 2010, I thought like, oh, this is it. I'm gonna... Because my first job was in Whitechapel. I had like an ITV crime drama as well. And I played a boy whose brother had been framed by a murderer.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  And, yeah, so I thought like, this is it. I'm just going to be doing this now. Because when I was in drama school, I didn't think I was going to be on TV. I thought I was going to come out and do plays. And because everything in drama school was theatre-based. We had maybe six weeks of TV acting training. And then, yeah, I didn't expect to be doing any TV at all. But then when I got that TV job, I thought, oh, this is it now. I'm going to be like, from one to the next and to the next. And then I've got to change my number because everyone's going to try and get hold of me. I didn't work for like three years. I was in a call center and I was doing like, I was doing stuff on YouTube. I was doing sketches and I was making things. So I was busy in that sense, but I wasn't employed.

• 57:35Speaker 05

  I was employed by a call center where I was getting minimum wage.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  And what does acting involve for you? What is acting?

• 57:44Speaker 05

  Nobody's ever asked me that.

• 57:46Speaker 02

  No.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  What is acting?

• 57:48Speaker 02

  What is acting? How do you go on to a set? Because stage acting obviously has to be different because of the scale of it. You're filling a large space. So you've got to project more. It's got to be more visual. But, I mean, I mean, I remember a conversation with two actors who had a row. And one of them said, one of the older actors said, what are you going to be doing in this scene? I'm going to be doing nothing. He said, you can't be doing nothing. I'm the one doing nothing in this scene.

• 58:15Speaker 02

  That often the best acting is doing nothing.

• 58:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:17Speaker 02

  It's just being there, but in the moment. So what does it involve?

• 58:23Speaker 05

  Convincingly portraying a character.

• 58:26Speaker 02

  And how do you do that? In your head, do you think it?

• 58:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. I think I think it and then I try and make my body do what I'm thinking.

• 58:36Speaker 05

  Try and make my face do the thing that I'm thinking of.

• 58:39Speaker 02

  And you find it relatively easy?

• 58:42Speaker 05

  Most of the time.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  And when's it been difficult for you and why?

• 58:47Speaker 05

  It's been difficult when you don't get something. When you don't get why a character's saying something or why they've made that decision. Or a writer has forgotten about a character in a scene. One thing that these guys do really well is have so many people in a scene. Sometimes we have 10 people in a scene.

• 59:07Speaker 05

  That's actually like the minimum if everyone's in. If all of the main cast are in, there's 10 of us. And everyone's got something that they can be thinking about or something that like, I'm never reading the script going, well, what am I doing there? Because I don't speak for a page. There's something to do, there's something. And that's something that I really had to alter. Because when you're on other previous sets, you can be getting on with something or you can be interacting with other people in the room. But for Mike, from my point of view, there's only two people in the room. Whereas for Alison, there's 10. There's, yeah, there's 10 in total. And for the ghosts, there's 10.

• 59:48Speaker 05

  But for Mike, it's just me and Alison, until I'm instructed that there are other people there.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  And do you try to make them disappear in your head?

• 59:56Speaker 05

  Yes, until I'm told that they're there.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Because you're physically with them, aren't you? They are there, but you are ignoring them. So you're moving your head around as though you can't see them.

• 1:00:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  So you're looking through them to the whatever's on the table.

• 1:00:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. When we'd get the scenes, I'd look for what, at what stage does Mike become aware that there are ghosts in the room?

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  And are you happy with this way of life? Are you happy being, doing what you're doing now?

• 1:00:19Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  Given the variety, given the variety of what you've been doing. Working in a call center, making albums, being an emcee, now being an actor, having a movie that's being launched in this country and in the United States of America, and in Australia, when I know you're huge. Is this good? Is this where you want to be?

• 1:00:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, it's exactly what I wanted to be doing. I'd like to do more of my own stuff as well.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  And your own stuff is what, improv?

• 1:00:44Speaker 05

  More of like my own comedy, like stuff that I've written. And I had a blap, like a pilot of a sketch show called Red Flag. And that was like four years ago. I'd like to do stuff like that. I'd like to make my own stuff. But also being in great shows and...

• 1:01:00Speaker 02

  And is your work more important to you than your home?

• 1:01:04Speaker 02

  What is your home life now?

• 1:01:06Speaker 05

  Is my work more important to me than my home right now? No.

• 1:01:12Speaker 02

  Is the right answer if they're watching, but I, I, I, we, we know you keep secrets. Um, and we know you're a very good actor. I'm asking you in the twenty four hours, the seven days of the week, what you're thinking about, mostly about work. Well, you're young, why not?

• 1:01:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Speaker 02

  What is your home situation at the moment?

• 1:01:31Speaker 05

  Um, I'm, I'm home by myself.

• 1:01:33Speaker 02

  Alone? You live at home alone?

• 1:01:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I live at home alone.

• 1:01:36Speaker 02

  Is that easy?

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  No, but it's been a tough year. I lost my mom earlier this year in January, so.

• 1:01:42Speaker 02

  How old was she?

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Seventy four.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  That's very young.

• 1:01:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:46Speaker 02

  I'm so sorry about that.

• 1:01:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 02

  Were you with her? Were you able to?

• 1:01:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was, yeah.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  Cause you were her only boy?

• 1:01:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:01:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  Um, that is very disconcerting for you. It's been a very tough year.

• 1:01:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So it's new. It's new, like, I, I went back home to look after her from, like, twenty twenty two. And so I'd been in the house with her for the last four years. So it's a new scenario. It's a new experience.

• 1:02:11Speaker 02

  It's a totally different experience. You are for the first time in your life alone.

• 1:02:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:16Speaker 02

  Because she and your nan were the mainstay of your childhood with, despite the delightful father who came and went. And that's come to an end. Is she buried anywhere?

• 1:02:30Speaker 05

  No, she wanted, she didn't like worms, so she wanted to be cremated.

• 1:02:33Speaker 02

  Right. But would she have gone to heaven?

• 1:02:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:02:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. And would you like?

• 1:02:37Speaker 05

  She'll be bossing people about her.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Would you like to see a ghost of her? Would it be quite fun? Do you think she'd be quite a good ghost?

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  I can, I could hear, I could hear her telling me, don't do so. There's certain, there was one day.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  She's got, she had a very dry wit. I had the pleasure of meeting her on a couple of occasions and she had a very sort of dry sense of humour. Um, so she would have fit right in.

• 1:02:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. There was one day, maybe, yeah, exactly, yeah. There was one day, I think, like, maybe it was around March. And something happened in the house. I think I spilt something or something like that. And I swore quite loudly. And then something fell down in the house.

• 1:03:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:03:11Speaker 05

  And I was like, all right, sorry, mum.

• 1:03:13Speaker 02

  Very good.

• 1:03:14Speaker 05

  So I feel like.

• 1:03:15Speaker 02

  She's still in touch.

• 1:03:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, well done. You looked after her then for four, four years in your flat, your old house?

• 1:03:22Speaker 05

  In our, like, my childhood, my childhood home, yeah.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  Gosh.

• 1:03:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:26Speaker 02

  And you're still living there?

• 1:03:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Speaker 02

  That is very strange and interesting. And have you stayed on the straight and narrow? Have you, have you behaved as your mum would have wanted all these years, broadly speaking?

• 1:03:37Speaker 05

  Mostly, yeah. There were the, there were, um, you know, I'm a tired napper, but.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  The occasional falling off, yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what do you see your future as?

• 1:03:50Speaker 05

  Um, much of the same, I hope. I'd like to keep, just keep acting, keep doing TV, film, also keep doing my live show. I'm hoping that, like, if the TV and film takes me around the world and I can do my live shows around the world too, that would be the dream. And then a family, I hope.

• 1:04:09Speaker 02

  I think your dream is going to come true.

• 1:04:12Speaker 05

  I'd love that.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  Um, there's no question. And you're going to have a family with more than one child and you're all going to live in the same building, I suspect.

• 1:04:18Speaker 05

  I hope so, yeah.

• 1:04:19Speaker 02

  You might even marry the person.

• 1:04:20Speaker 05

  It might not be the same house, but it would be the same building.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's lovely. And what about you? Cause your life has been more, well, it's been varied as well, cause as well as being an actor. Um, you are, you're one of the co-creators of Horrible Histories as well?

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  No, I didn't create Horrible Histories.

• 1:04:35Speaker 02

  But you were part of the team?

• 1:04:35Speaker 04

  I was part of the cast. I, I, I wasn't.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  You didn't do any of the writing of it?

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  No, no. Um, Horrible Histories was a huge brand before I was part of it.

• 1:04:42Speaker 02

  But you are the co-creator of, of Ghosts.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  And you write that?

• 1:04:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:04:47Speaker 02

  You write it? Yeah.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  So your life is very varied and good.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  It is, yeah. I, so I live with my wife, um, in North London. We have two dogs. We don't have any children. Um, and, uh, yeah, so I, you know, I, I.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  You say, you say you don't have any children, as it were, actively. Uh, is that a conscious decision?

• 1:05:07Speaker 04

  No, it was, uh, it was, we struggled for a long time and then, uh, sort of decided that actually our lives are fine. And my wife's, uh, works in the industry as well. She's a costume supervisor for TV and film. And so we're both sort of very busy and very active and enjoy our lives and, um, as they are. And we were like, well, let's just, you know, hang up on that and, uh, and get on with it, get on with our lives.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  Well, I think you're brilliant. And obviously the film, I'm, I'm, I've seen the trailer and I've seen the first twenty minutes.

• 1:05:37Speaker 04

  That's the best bit.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Oh, don't tell me that.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  It's not the best bit.

• 1:05:40Speaker 02

  I'm sure there are going to be twists, but it, it's quite, it's different from the TV series.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  Very much.

• 1:05:45Speaker 02

  Um, because it goes clearly, right from the beginning, it's clear it goes into different realms.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right.

• 1:05:50Speaker 02

  But it's still very much on the nose, you know, it's reminding that you are dead.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:05:55Speaker 02

  You've got to accept that. We are in the world of ghosts.

• 1:05:57Speaker 04

  That's right, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  I mean, is it, uh, it's entertaining. Does it have, is it for you two, is it something beyond a glorious entertainment?

• 1:06:07Speaker 04

  Well, it's a family now. I think that's, it's, it's like, when we get together, there's a, we sort of exist on a kind of, um, uh, uh, an exclusive wavelength. And it, we actually have the most fun, uh, is away from the set and actually in the green room. We, we kind of, we've become almost ghosts ourselves in that we're sort of captive in this house for twelve plus hours a day. And so we come up with little games and kind of parlour games. And we're like Victorian ghosts. Uh, but, but we, yeah, I've, I've, honestly, I, I, it's such a great job. I, I, I don't think, I, and I'm not sure if I'll ever do a job like it again in that respect.

• 1:06:43Speaker 02

  Jim, what have you learnt about Kyle now, working closely with him, spending time in, in the green room with him, getting to know him? That, that he hasn't revealed to us today. What can you tell us about him that he may not even recognise in himself?

• 1:06:58Speaker 04

  Um, we haven't talked about his love of salad cream.

• 1:07:03Speaker 04

  Enough.

• 1:07:05Speaker 02

  Tell us more.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  He has, he has a place salad cream on essentially everything. I think salad cream on rice is probably his favourite meal.

• 1:07:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. I don't like to, I don't like to have rice or anything.

• 1:07:14Speaker 04

  We talked about so much, but I feel like with Kyle, like, what I, you know, and this is from someone who has been lucky enough to be part of a company that has created this show that has done so well. But with Kyle, he puts us all to shame in terms of his, uh,

• 1:07:34Speaker 04

  his ge- uh, generating, uh,

• 1:07:39Speaker 04

  material for himself, generating work for himself. Um, he's, I mean, you, you, you're busy, you're a busy man. And it's, and it's your own doing.

• 1:07:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  It's not just the phone ringing necessarily, although the phone is ringing. It's, you, you, you, you've got a really great work ethic. I love you, man.

• 1:07:57Speaker 05

  Thanks, man.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  And now you, Kyle, have got to say what you've learnt, spending time with Jim, about him, that he may not have revealed to us.

• 1:08:07Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  I love how Jim talks about home. And I think quite a few of us, let me try and say this without getting anyone in trouble. I think quite a few of us will enjoy staying away from home.

• 1:08:26Speaker 05

  Um, big, for various reasons. Um, but some, for some people, it's just the convenience and it's just easier and those sort of things. Um, Jim, I'd say out of the whole cast stays away from home the least. And the way he talks about home, just like, before I was in, before I was in a relationship, I was like, and I'd listen to Jim talk about home. I'd be like, I, I want that. I want to be excited to go home and see my wife and just like, hang out and chill. And I always, I really admired that.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Okay, we're going to finish now. Very quickly, three quick questions for each of you. The, a moment of joy, a moment of joy from your whole life, particularly your younger years, Jim. A moment of joy. What comes into your head? Don't think about it, just give it.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  Okay, so, um, I have a picture, uh, of myself and my two oldest friends, Michael and John, who were brothers. And we, um, The Three Musketeers with Oliver Reed and that, that, yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 02

  That crowd.

• 1:09:28Speaker 04

  That was, that crowd. That was, um, uh, that was on television one night and we all, it was back when television was just like an event. And you wouldn't see something coming up and you'd sit and watch it like theatre. You'd have to watch it like theatre. And I watched this film, was completely blown away. I think I was about nine. And, uh, the next day, we got sort of, we found sort of, sort of various kind of costumes and we made bin liners with like French crosses on them. And we were musketeers all day. And, um, the, John and Mike's mum took a picture of us, the three of us. And for my fortieth birthday, I was given this picture.

• 1:10:08Speaker 04

  And whenever I'm filming and the costume is uncomfortable or the, uh, the, it's a particularly hot day or I am.

• 1:10:19Speaker 05

  The food's bad.

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  The food's really bad. Or there's something in the call sheet that you've been looking, you've been dreading. So either sort of a partial nudity or being, you know, it's, uh, up a mountain. I think about this picture and think about the play and think about this. This is what I love from, in this job. And that is being something else, pretending to be someone else.

• 1:10:42Speaker 02

  One of the Three Musketeers.

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  And one of the Three Musketeers and playing. So I still have that picture. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:46Speaker 05

  Did you see that picture between getting it gifted and taking it?

• 1:10:49Speaker 04

  No, I remember it being taken. I remember it's a core memory of being taken.

• 1:10:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 04

  Uh, and I hadn't seen it until my fortieth birthday.

• 1:10:56Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  In fact, um, Michael, one of the brothers, bought me a copy of Three Musketeers and it was slotted into the, the book. So I've, since then, um, it's been actually a really lovely thing to have.

• 1:11:12Speaker 02

  Kyle, your moment of joy. What comes immediately into your head?

• 1:11:15Speaker 05

  I'm going to watch Gladiators, uh, the Berman and E C.

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  Wolf, right?

• 1:11:22Speaker 05

  Wolf, yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  Booing wolf. They go in the big fog.

• 1:11:27Speaker 02

  That'll do.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  That is a moment of joy. Okay. And your moment of sadness, I would imagine, is your mum's passing, but maybe not.

• 1:11:36Speaker 05

  But I mean.

• 1:11:36Speaker 02

  A moment of sadness.

• 1:11:37Speaker 05

  There were a few moments of sadness before that.

• 1:11:40Speaker 02

  Give me one.

• 1:11:40Speaker 05

  That sort of prepared me for that.

• 1:11:42Speaker 02

  Give me, give me your first.

• 1:11:43Speaker 05

  When my, when my nan passed in twenty thirteen, that was a big moment of sadness. That was my first, like, great loss.

• 1:11:51Speaker 02

  And how did you respond?

• 1:11:53Speaker 05

  Um.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  Cause you were grown up by then.

• 1:11:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wa- yeah, I was in my early twenties. Um.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't, I don't really know how I responded, if I'm honest. I sort of like, thought, oh, you just don't talk about it. You just, and then I guess like later out throughout, throughout the years I did. Cause I talk about my nan quite a lot.

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:12:13Speaker 05

  Um. Yeah, but that would have been my first sort of great moment of sadness.

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  What about you, Jim?

• 1:12:21Speaker 04

  Um, yeah, my grandmother's passing, my um, my mother's mum was such a huge influence. Well, because my parents were working a lot of the time, I spent an awful lot of time around with my nan. And uh, yeah, I mean, she essentially, uh, I was there loads, brought her up, brought me up really. Um, to a certain extent, and you know, every Sunday we would have a roast there. It was just, she was just the sort of head of the family and uh, yeah, when she passed, it was a huge hole. Um, uh, yeah, yeah, it was a, it was a tough, it was a tough thing.

• 1:12:55Speaker 02

  Let's in our heads toast nams everywhere.

• 1:12:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Last question, what has life taught each of you? Your youngest, you have had less long to learn about life, Kyle. What's life taught you so far?

• 1:13:10Speaker 05

  Um, I think it's taught me to

• 1:13:17Speaker 05

  really save the moments of, of happiness. Cause they're not everywhere. Some people say there's happiness everywhere you look, and I'm not sure about that. But um, I think really enjoy those moments and like, even with things like this, you know, like you're promoting a film and it's like, try and take out the work element of like, well, I've got to do this, got to be there this time, but just enjoy that like, I've got this thing coming out and celebrate that.

• 1:13:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what about you? What's life taught you, Jim?

• 1:13:45Speaker 04

  Well, you know what, even though I was bitten by a dog when I was six, I actually have two dogs now. Um, and I'm a dog lover. Uh, one of the dogs is my first dog. Um, and they actually teach you, I think, to be present. Because they're not on, they're not around for very long. And uh, I think they're a very useful um, hack into remaining sort of present and positive.

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Well, I feel very grateful to have been present with you two here. And I think I've found happiness with you two in the last hour.

• 1:14:17Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 1:14:18Speaker 02

  So I'm not going to go and see the rest of Ghosts. It's going to be glorious. I am going to enjoy.

• 1:14:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  It's going to be hit all over the world. Congratulations to you two. You're both brilliant.

• 1:14:27Speaker 04

  Thank you so much.

• 1:14:28Speaker 02

  Thank you for being part of Rosebud.

• 1:14:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Speaker 02

  That's this week's Rosebud, recorded at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London's Park Lane. Produced by Harriet Jane, who of course also appears every Tuesday with me, Gyles Brandreth. Thanks for being with us. See you next time.

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