Please Keep Me Anonymous with Mathew Baynton

On this week's podcast Chris and Rosie are joined by actor, comedian, Taskmaster Champ and all round national treasure, Mathew Baynton! Mathew Baynton joins Chris and Rosie to discuss the Ghosts movie which The Ramsey's are are new converts of! They also chat about British comedy and what influenced the team behind Horrible Histories, Yonderland and Ghosts! Plus they talk Clown School, the North South divide and Mathew reveals that Take That performed at his school in the 90's... All this and a brilliant story from one of you lovely lot! The upcoming feature-length film Ghosts: The Possession of Button House is released in UK and Irish cinemas on 23 October 2026 If you want to get involved and have your stories and voice notes included on the podcast, then get in touch! 📧: [email protected] 📱: 07874 406650 You can watch the podcast on the Shagged Married Annoyed YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠youtube.com/@shagged.married.annoyed Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Hello and welcome to Shag Marinoi, please keep me anonymous.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  Coming up this week, we are joined by the very, very lovely Matthew Baynton. We're chatting about his new film, and Chris is going to tell you about it. Took a really big breath in, and I don't want him to waste it.

• 0:46Speaker 02

  Go on.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  Well, I was also going to say the incredibly talented and wonderfully well-spoken Matthew Baynton. Obviously, Ghosts: The Possession of Button House will be in cinemas, cinemas, not just on your telly, cinemas, from the 23rd of October. And yeah, all the fantastic cast, the original cast from the TV series Ghost, which we have just started watching with our 10-year-old. Going to try and binge it before we get to watch this at the cinema as well.

• 1:14Speaker 02

  Enjoy.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  Liz's daughter's a really big fan, so Liz said, "When I'm doing the makeup, can you please take a picture of me?" For B.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Liz.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  Actually, smart, you're like fucking Wallace and Gromit.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  Liz, you do the one show. How many pictures are you not getting on there?

• 1:56Speaker 03

  No, I don't ask anyone at the one show.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  It's always that thing, isn't it? It's always that thing. It's whatever's relevant, like whoever's relevant to you and whoever you're a fan of, and that's the thing. It's like, you know.

• 2:07Speaker 02

  Scott from Five.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  Scott from Five, that's the beauty of it.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  He literally messaged me and was like, "Love the podcast." And I was just like, "Oh my God, Scott from..." It's like, they were like my Take That, you know, people who are obsessed with Take That and stuff. They were my Take That.

• 2:20Speaker 04

  Take That played at my primary school.

• 2:23Speaker 01

  What the hell?

• 2:24Speaker 02

  This is a sort of a big joke.

• 2:26Speaker 04

  I sometimes encounter huge Take That fans, sort of middle-aged women.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:32Speaker 04

  And when I tell them that, their jaw hits the floor. It was Essex Radio ran a competition to find Essex's best teacher. And evidently, like, one teacher in our school got all of her class to write in.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  And won it. And the prize was that Essex Radio came and did a school disco at your school. And none of us knew this was going to happen, but we were all told to sit down, like it was an assembly. We all sat down cross-legged, and then Take That, who hadn't released anything, there were just like five...

• 3:10Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  Very homoerotic men.

• 3:12Speaker 02

  It was when they started, they went around the school. Yeah.

• 3:14Speaker 04

  Just like ran to the front of our school hall and mimed and danced to Only Takes a Minute.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Well, it was village people who wanted it.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally. That first single.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 04

  And just a bunch of 11-year-olds sat like this.

• 3:30Speaker 01

  What's going on?

• 3:32Speaker 04

  And then I was on the front row, and we all like high-fived them as they ran out. And we were like, "What was that?"

• 3:37Speaker 02

  It would have been in the paper.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  It was in the paper.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  It's got local paper written all over it.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  In the Evening Echo.

• 3:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Did you get picked for the paper a lot?

• 3:44Speaker 01

  We're on, by the way.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Are we on?

• 3:46Speaker 01

  We're on, Matt. This whole thing's on, all of that was on.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  Right, now I'm going to freeze.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, you're not. You're not.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Now he's nervous.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  You'll be fine.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  If you freeze, I'll say it.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Did I get picked for the paper?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  I got picked for the paper all the time.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  If you freeze, I'll say it.

• 4:02Speaker 04

  Is that...

• 4:03Speaker 01

  I'll say it. If we ask you a question and you freeze, I'll have to say it.

• 4:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 4:07Speaker 01

  Do you know what I'm going to say?

• 4:08Speaker 04

  What?

• 4:08Speaker 02

  He's been desperate to say this.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  Answer the question, damn your eyes!

• 4:12Speaker 04

  Okay, don't mind that.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  He's got it up, you got it up your system?

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Don't mind that.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  Right, I'm off.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  Okay, I'll find a way to keep you that moment.

• 4:21Speaker 02

  I told you to be cool.

• 4:23Speaker 04

  He was saying he was always picked for the paper. Is picked for the paper a thing?

• 4:28Speaker 02

  I just think I was just a loud kid and cheesy. And also, I went to a Catholic school, and I served on the altar, right, in church on a Sunday with all of this stuff. Honestly think I was the favourite teacher because I was just close out of God, favourite child even.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  Okay, because I was close out of God.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, Catholic schools, man.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  What did serving on the altar, what did that entail?

• 4:48Speaker 02

  I wore the robes.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  And this was reported in the press?

• 4:53Speaker 02

  No, then I just got picked to be in the paper all the time.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  What do you mean picked to be in the paper?

• 4:57Speaker 02

  So if somebody came to school, because we had Hunter from Gladiators came to our school.

• 5:02Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  And you just get your favourite kids out of the school. You get a kid out of every year group to be in the picture. So my mum has got cuttings of me, and I just always wangled my way into the paper picture.

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  I didn't think that was a hard question.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  For example, things like, you know, if a lightning had struck and knocked the tree down, the kid in the photo...

• 5:22Speaker 02

  You'd have 10 kids to run through.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  The kid in the photo pointing at the tree would have been hurt, yes.

• 5:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  I see.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  What were you going to say about Hunter? What were you going to ask?

• 5:28Speaker 04

  Well, was Hunter one of the lady gladiators or the men one?

• 5:32Speaker 02

  Male gladiator, and he was going out with Oregga Johnson for a while. Hunter, you remember Hunter?

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:37Speaker 01

  Big one, blonde hair.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  All I remember is Wolf. I very strongly remember Wolf.

• 5:41Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 5:41Speaker 04

  Because he was the bad guy, right?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 02

  I don't, was he?

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was the man. He was afraid of the big, but yeah. Is that a wax London jacket, by the way?

• 5:50Speaker 04

  It is.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  It's really nice.

• 5:52Speaker 04

  Well spotted.

• 5:53Speaker 01

  Oh man, I'm a big fan of my wax London.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  Could have been a Marxies, because Marxies have also taken on a lot of the wax...

• 5:59Speaker 01

  They've done a bit of that, yeah. Marxies, Marks and Spencer's.

• 6:03Speaker 04

  Is that what you call Marks and Spencer's?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  You are joking.

• 6:05Speaker 04

  Marxies.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Matthew, have you ever left London? There's a whole of that...

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Obviously.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  There's just a whole of that place.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  Have you not read your notes? He left London when he went to France to study clowning at a French clown college.

• 6:18Speaker 04

  They don't call it Marxies in Paris.

• 6:27Speaker 02

  They call Philip Goulet.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  This whole podcast is going to be an all-south divide and us mocking you for your nice life.

• 6:34Speaker 02

  Marks and Sparks.

• 6:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, Marks and Sparks.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Marks and Sparks, M&S.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  What do you call Asda?

• 6:41Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  You've got to stick an S on the end, Matthew. It's Asda's. Oh, what's that?

• 6:49Speaker 04

  Is that like a Waitrose thing or...

• 6:52Speaker 01

  Asda's, Wait Roses. Do you not call it Wait Roses?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  What do you do to Sainsbury's?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Sainsbury's?

• 7:00Speaker 02

  That is a northern thing. We just put S's on the end of supermarkets. It's actually awful, isn't it?

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Tesco's Asda's. Yeah, yeah. Like it's a person's house and the person's called Asda. I'm going to Asda's.

• 7:12Speaker 04

  Well, that's nice. And I presume people are friendlier who work in there, aren't they?

• 7:18Speaker 02

  It's a very lovely place to live.

• 7:19Speaker 04

  So as a kid, did you sort of think that that was, that people serving you were Mr. Mark and Mrs. Spencer?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  I would imagine so, yeah. I'm playing along with this, fuck him. He's not going to embarrass me on your podcast.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  When we were kids, we didn't go to Marks and Spencer's.

• 7:34Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah, yeah.

• 7:35Speaker 02

  Although, actually, no, we did, because South Shields Town Centre, and if there's anybody from the council listening to this, why the fuck did you take our Marxies? They took our Marxies away.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Council didn't have anything to do with taking the Marxies.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Well, who took them away?

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Marks and Spencer's.

• 7:51Speaker 02

  Well, there was a Marks and Spencer's on King Street, and it was brilliant. And my mum's friend, Maureen, worked there for years. And then, at the end of the day, you could buy stuff for 20 pence, the food, 20 pence.

• 8:06Speaker 04

  She does kill comedy, doesn't she?

• 8:09Speaker 01

  There was a look in his eyes when he went, "My mum's friend, Maureen." And there was a little look in his eyes where he just thought, "What the fuck..."

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Why am I coming here?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  "What am I doing here? I'm writing, I've written a movie, and I'm here."

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Sad day in South Shields when, honestly, people still talk about it now.

• 8:28Speaker 04

  Really?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're like, "Why did they take the Marxies?"

• 8:31Speaker 01

  And the Woolwatts went, and there was a shop called T&J Allen, that was really nice. That went, "Mate, our high street..."

• 8:36Speaker 04

  The high streets are dead.

• 8:37Speaker 02

  There was a top shop?

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 02

  Anyway, we're not here to talk about that.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm obsessed with this clown college thing.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  Oh, God.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Sure. How long were you there?

• 8:46Speaker 04

  I was there for about nine months.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Is that a semester or did you leave?

• 8:53Speaker 04

  I'd love to play into the fun of the idea of clown college, but clown was one thing that he did.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  And he was like famous, he was particularly famous for that.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  He's no longer with us. He was a very eccentric, very brilliant sort of theatre teacher, who, his speciality really was clown. And when I say clown, it wasn't like circus clown, it was just exploring how much of an idiot you can be and what exact flavour of an idiot you are.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Okay. Like Pando Falls.

• 9:35Speaker 04

  No, it wasn't like, it wasn't like that at all. It was literally, it was just, it was, every day was basically a variation of go behind that curtain and then come out and be funny.

• 9:49Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 9:50Speaker 04

  And it was sort of a baptism of fire in a way, like it was hell in a way. Like it's the worst, it's like performer's worst nightmare in many ways, like, "I have no material." And if you, I remember, the whole point in a way was to kind of stop you from arming yourself with ideas.

• 10:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 04

  And to just be genuinely like open to failing.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  That's really good, though.

• 10:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you'd sort of go through this like process of deep humiliation.

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  But everyone is going through it together. And then you kind of, I guess you, well, the way, the way he put it was you make friends with Mr. Flop, as in when you try to do something funny and it's not funny, and there is that horrible orc, a bit like now, there's this horrible orc that's silenced in the rain.

• 10:47Speaker 02

  This is really interesting.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  This is amazing.

• 10:49Speaker 02

  Matthew, these are our interested faces.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  I see, I see.

• 10:52Speaker 02

  Sorry, and all we love is stupid, but this is genuinely kind of like...

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Matthew, I know that Rosie's interested face and that I can't believe Marxies' shuck face are very similar, but there is a slight difference, and this is the interested face.

• 11:03Speaker 04

  Okay, cool. I've never seen an interested face like this before.

• 11:15Speaker 00

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• 11:46Speaker 01

  Have you ever done stand-up?

• 11:47Speaker 04

  No.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  So as a stand-up, it is, I didn't believe it until it happened the first time and I remember people saying it, dying on your hole, having an absolute stinker, is an important part of getting good at stand-up comedy. There is no good stand-up comedian out there who hasn't had a death. We all die and it's exactly the same as that. It's, yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 04

  And it's sort of realising that sometimes the gold is in that precise area. Like, it's not arming yourself with more and more and more to avoid that place. It's like, if you dare to sail really close to it and kind of, you kind of acknowledge with the audience that this, that this has the danger and the capacity for you to just humiliate yourself, then it gets really electric. And like, you can find, you can find laughs that are kind of more delicious, I think, for that level of like danger.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  And you see it audience, so you see you wore one behind the curtain, you see it audience, how many people were there?

• 12:51Speaker 04

  It was just the class, yeah.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Oh my god.

• 12:54Speaker 02

  Were they all French or?

• 12:56Speaker 04

  No, like, but there was one French student there when I did it and they were from all over the world. So he would teach in English and, but sometimes insult you in French. And, yeah, he would just, you would do, you'd be trying to do stuff and you would feel how, this is what I loved about it, it's like, English drama schools, if you do something shit, what everyone does is go, hmm, that's really, hmm, that's really, wasn't that really interesting?

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  That was really interesting, wasn't it, guys? And then everyone sort of nods politely and you just have, you know it was shit.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  And you just have it sitting in your belly and it doesn't go away.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:39Speaker 04

  With Philippe, you would be doing some, you'd be midway doing some, through doing something, knowing that you're dying on your arse. And then he would like, he'd sit there, I remember one time, he just got his keys out of his pocket and started just looking through his keys. And gradually, everyone's looking at him and laughing at him. And eventually, he just sort of stopped and he goes, well, they are more interested in my keys than what shit that you are doing.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  You know what the French call it? C'est incomparable.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  And he would like,

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I think he was at a film my early years.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. But everyone would laugh, like, and he'd turn to like your friend and go, well, was he shit? Was it boring or was he excellent or, you know, and they would go, yeah, he was shit.

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Beautiful.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  It was one, like, it's by the time you sit down, it's just like, there's nothing in the air, it's just all,

• 14:41Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 14:42Speaker 01

  I absolutely love that.

• 14:44Speaker 02

  What people don't know as well is like in TV with comedy sitcoms, that I think one of the worst things, the camera, nobody's allowed to laugh.

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Hmm, right.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  Well, they can't laugh, can they? When you're, when you're doing a sketch or something or delivering funny lines, nobody laughs, it's soul destroying.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  It takes a while to get used to.

• 15:03Speaker 02

  It takes a long time to get used to that.

• 15:05Speaker 04

  I really remember that feeling, the first bits of telly I did.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 15:10Speaker 04

  And, and like realising that I was getting heavier and heavier in my performances because I was trying to get the boom guy to go or whatever.

• 15:20Speaker 02

  A giggle.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  And then having to like, having to realise that I was getting worse with like, with that instinct.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  The best advice I've got, I was doing Jason Manfred's Comedy Rocks on ITV, it was a TV show years ago, and I was doing a stand-up set on it and Lee Mack was doing Graham Norton in the next studio and he came in to say hi because I'd recently supported him at a gig. And he came in and I was just about to go on stage, no one in the crowd, just to do me run-through so the cameras knew everything about my routine and stuff. And he went, what are you doing? I went, I've got to run me stuff. He went, don't run it. He went, do not run it in this room. I went, why? He went, if you run it on stage now in front of silent cameramen, silent producers and everyone, the last time you'll have done it, you'll have, in your head, been dying on your hole and it's in this room that you're about to go and do it on telly.

• 16:06Speaker 04

  Such good advice.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  He went, give them the bullet points, if there's a part where you lie down or you do a frigging cartwheel or something, let them know so they can follow the camera. Do not run it word for word or it'll be the only thing in your head when you go on. And I was like, it's the best advice I've had, best advice I've had from TV recording company. Yeah, yeah. But I had to be a bit of a diva and go, no, I'm not doing it.

• 16:24Speaker 04

  I always hoped I would get to do, there was so much audience studio sitcom when I was growing up. Like, that was all the stuff I was loving, like Bottom, Ab Fab, all of these shows. And that's what you, I kind of thought the career would have in store for me if it went well.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  And, but by then, studio sitcom had kind of gone out of fashion.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like single cam now, isn't it?

• 16:49Speaker 04

  And it is such a shame because that, that actual laughter in a room, there's nothing like it.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Not going out, does it, don't it?

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Might be one of the last ones not going out.

• 16:58Speaker 04

  That basically is, it's them and Mrs Brown's Boys, like, are the only ones now.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  I think it should come back, I think it'd be great.

• 17:05Speaker 04

  I did a pilot that Harry Hill, Harry Hill piloted a sitcom and they didn't pick it up.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 17:10Speaker 04

  And it was so funny.

• 17:12Speaker 02

  Really?

• 17:13Speaker 04

  It was him and Jennifer Saunders was playing his mum. And I was his, I was his uncle weirdly that he kept locked in a cupboard.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  God, I mean, yeah.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  I was like, I was like, I had long white hair and a long white beard and I think I was meant to be naked. I think it was like, you never really saw.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  Never saw the bottom part of you.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. It was so funny, but they didn't pick it up.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Sounds to me that you need a particularly brave commissioner to go with that one.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  I guess so, but Harry Hill was so like, you know, after TV burp, it was, it was like,

• 17:48Speaker 01

  It's huge.

• 17:48Speaker 04

  Come on, people would lap up anything he does.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  TV burp was great, wasn't it?

• 17:53Speaker 04

  So good.

• 17:54Speaker 02

  So good. Like, what, like,

• 17:55Speaker 04

  It was such an amazing trick to like, because I'd been obsessed with Harry Hill when I was a teenager because I, I don't know how I was introduced to it, but I had a VHS of one of his stand-up shows. And it was just the most amazing, like, I sort of couldn't believe what he'd done with the art form. I know that sounds really wanky, but like, there were no jokes, it was just things.

• 18:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  But like, everything he would, he would like seed a hundred different jokes and then keep calling them back. And it would just be, he would pick up his pocket and go, hmm, you like the lining, you like the lining to one guy. And then, and then he'd send someone off to find out who puts the holes in biscuits. And every now and again, he'd go, what news of biscuits? And it was just like building up this like incredible web of like callbacks.

• 18:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's one that always sticks in my head is he said, when he says he gets back to his car, he gets, it's just this routine, he goes, I was coming up to my car and there's a traffic warden standing next to my car and he's mimicking them writing their tickets. And he goes, whoa, whoa, no, come on, haven't been that long, come on, leave it out, leave it out. No, you leave it out, it's me day off. And he handed me a beautiful charcoal drawing of my car. Fucking unbelievable, unbelievable. The idea that the traffic warden on the day off stands and draws cars.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Beautiful.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  It's just amazing. And he's like, hmm, bit more, isn't it?

• 19:16Speaker 04

  He's so great. Yeah. And TV burp was just this like amazing, it was like, oh, he's found a way to like be as weird as he's always been, but utterly mainstream at the same time. Like, that's the most extraordinary trick, I think.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  I know. And it was back when we all watched the same programmes, wasn't it? So we'd all, everyone had seen everything that he's talking about because it's only the five channels that went back then, wasn't it?

• 19:43Speaker 04

  And you'd be watching, you'd start watching soaps in a different way.

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Yes. We used to, I remember I was watching one of my parents and you'd be like, what's Harry Hill gonna do about this?

• 19:53Speaker 01

  That'll be on TV burp, yeah, yeah. When we did, when we did Mo Gilligan's chat show with him, I'll tell him my favourite line from TV burp, he obviously didn't remember it because he was doing thousands of them a week. But it was when Bear Grylls did a survival thing in the snow and he gets in the water and he gets out and he takes all his clothes off and he's getting the snow and he's putting the snow on him to get the water off him. And Harry Hill just goes, ah, snow, nature's towel.

• 20:20Speaker 02

  He did not remember that at all.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  He actually looked at us quite badly. When I said it, but I'll fucking tell you, you said it, I remembered it.

• 20:27Speaker 04

  You sure I said that?

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Now, listen, speaking of incredible TV, we have a confession to make. We are sorry.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Oh, I'm mortified.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  We are mortified. We are sorry. Ghosts passed us by. And we have just made.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Can you believe I went through all of Tassman's and I never, I literally nodded along. No, it was when we were.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  We have just started watching with our 10 year old.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  Two nights ago.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Oh, great.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  We watched it. We watched two episodes, bang, bang. And then it was Sunday night and we're like, oh my God, I'll let him stay till half nine because I wanted to watch the second one. And then we came down to London Monday night and I had, last night, I want, I said to her, I said, let's just watch some more Ghosts. And she went, we can't have to watch it with Robin. We'll have to watch, so we can't watch it. I can't watch it again. It's Tuesday now. I can't watch it again till Saturday night. And I'm really angry. It's sensational.

• 21:15Speaker 02

  I know. We, when it came out, because I Googled, I was like, why did this? We were very heavily into Marvel because I hadn't seen any of Marvel. And Chris made me watch it in chronological order. So that's where we were.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  I've not seen any Marvel.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 21:30Speaker 02

  So, well, just you won't.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  There are some, which is why I admire the fact you've started Ghosts because sometimes when you know that it's accrued.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  I think it was on the third or fourth series.

• 21:40Speaker 04

  You just go, I'm just never, that's too much.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 21:44Speaker 04

  And if I start, I'll have to finish. So I'm just not going to go there. And that's sort of how I feel about Marvel.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Although it's lucrative. So if anyone is watching who casts.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  I was going to say, you can be in it.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Hundred percent.

• 21:55Speaker 04

  I actually love it. I love all of it.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  You don't have to have seen it. You don't have to have seen it. Oh, it was sensitive. It was great though. Now we're hooked.

• 22:02Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you. And also I love, like, it's one of my favourite things is hearing that families watching it together.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  Because it was such a big part of my childhood was watching comedy.

• 22:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  Like with the family.

• 22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 22:15Speaker 04

  And I feel like there's sort of less stuff.

• 22:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:20Speaker 04

  That does that for people. And it is my great hope for the film is like the idea that people might go to the cinema.

• 22:28Speaker 02

  As a full family.

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Together as a family.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. Well, the opening scene came up and Robin went, this is Horrible Histories.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  You can see what we, you can see what we were doing.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, what you did was you found a group of people you enjoyed working with and you kept working with them. And I commend you. Do you know my wife's sitting next to us here? The only person I do work with. What I love about it, with a very simple re-edit, it could be a horror.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Yes, yeah, yeah.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  With a very, a little couple of bits out here and there, and it's a horror.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:59Speaker 01

  That, but it, but there's a bit with the little, um.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  I'm just going to rein you in because I'm just embarrassed that there'll be people listening to this who have watched all of this.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  And you're just fresh to it.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  No, I love it.

• 23:10Speaker 02

  Okay, good.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  So, for instance.

• 23:11Speaker 04

  Sell it to the people at home who don't know it.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  And this is what being amazing with the movie which is coming out.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  You can do my job for me.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  For instance, you know, where they go, you used to be here, I think your character says, you used to be here, a little girl singing.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  And then she pops up and she's just like, ring around. If you come out of that a moment earlier, because I looked at Robin and I was like, is he going to be frightened here? And then it's ring around. And then the, then the comedy comes in and then when the, the Sergeant Major, whatever, looks at him and goes, huh. Like, and it's just the, it's honestly me, I could enthuse about it all day. So here's my question. Is the movie following on or is the movie recapping and carrying on?

• 23:48Speaker 04

  The movie follows on.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  From the end.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  But it is written so you don't have to have seen it.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Verbal.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Amazing.

• 23:54Speaker 04

  Um, it's, I mean, it is full of Easter eggs for people who do know the show. But it is a completely like self-contained story. So it kind of re-establishes all of the characters at the beginning as if it's, as if you haven't seen it.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  Fantastic.

• 24:12Speaker 02

  Because I read something, spoiler alert, they have a baby.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Really?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  That's going to come up. We're excited for that.

• 24:18Speaker 01

  And Matthew, Marvel, Marvel does that as well, by the way. Marvel, they begin with every Marvel, begin with every, no, they don't have babies, they're not allowed. Um, they outlaw them. They don't. Beginning of every Marvel movie, you will, you know, you can just, you could go and watch Avengers Doomsday, you'd still know.

• 24:32Speaker 04

  Right, it would still stand.

• 24:33Speaker 01

  You'd be gone. Okay, okay.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  But we, but now we're actually, that's what we're doing currently, squeezing everything in. They're going to please come, don't go to the cinema without us. I was so upset. That you and Robin went to see Spider-Man without us.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Listen, it just is what it is. We're going to say, we're going to say Ghosts together as well.

• 24:46Speaker 02

  Ghosts, yeah, go together.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  No, it's because.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  This, I'm going to go twice, just for you, Matthew, I'm going to go twice.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  I'm sneaking in the second time.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  Thank you. And if everyone could go twice.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Is it, is it a PG or a 12?

• 24:58Speaker 04

  It's a PG. But it's funny you say that about the horror stuff because the first series went out post watershed.

• 25:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:06Speaker 04

  And it was because there were two things that I remember the compliance came back and said, ah. One was my character in the, I think it's in the first episode says, I'm going to drown myself in the lake.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  And so that, that gets marked down as a suicide reference. And you go, he's, he's dead. That's the joke.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:28Speaker 04

  So, and the other is the, the stump of the headless ghost, right? Which is considered quite graphic, sort of. A quite, you know, macabre horror thing. But it was that thing where like the audience was so clearly families, even though it was on at like nine 30. That I think the kind of, that compliance department or whatever department is, were like, oh, it is, it's fine.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:58Speaker 04

  And so I think the second series went out pre watershed and, and it's sort of stayed there.

• 26:03Speaker 01

  It's like, we'll let you stay up, you stay up and watch Ghosts on.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  That's the thing. I was like, there was a bit of me was like, keep it, we always want to keep it on that edge.

• 26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 04

  I think the moment you're making some, I think it's why Horrible Histories worked because they cast a bunch of like young fringe comics like me who weren't. Like, it wasn't cool to be doing kids TV. So like, we, none of us were kind of interested in making, I have enormous respect for kids TV. So I'm, there's no disrespect to me saying this, but like. We just wanted to be funny and we wanted careers doing sitcoms and stuff. And so we weren't like. Necessarily cock a hoop about the idea of being kids TV people.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 04

  So we pushed against the edges of like what was allowed to be done. And we tried to kind of make it as adult as, as it was allowed to be.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Brilliant.

• 26:56Speaker 04

  And same for Ghosts. And I think it means that kids feel like it's a naughty thing that they're just about.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was a bit scary.

• 27:02Speaker 04

  You know, they're lucky their parents let them watch it. And that was it for me. Like, I remember watching Python, like my dad letting me watch Python and, you know, there being all sorts of stuff like. Life of Brian, there's like full nudity and being like.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  It's great though, isn't it?

• 27:18Speaker 04

  So brilliant.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Well, Bottom was a bit like that. Bottom, Bottom was, I watched that I was 40, we're going to watch Bottom. But I, but my dad had it on and I watched it.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  You know, brilliant.

• 27:29Speaker 04

  It's just the best. I mean, Bottom was a massive influence on Ghosts.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, really?

• 27:34Speaker 04

  Because when we, when we came up with the idea, so Ghosts, we've done, we've done Horrible Histories and then we went and did this like fantasy comedy on Sky. And then that was coming to an end and we were talking about like, what should we do next? And we literally like hired a room. And sat in this room and brainstormed ideas. And one of the first things was Haunted House. And we all got really excited. We had all these like. All these ideas which is still in the show of like, well, maybe ghosts stay exactly how they died. So like, what would be a fun, if, if you have an arrow through, through your neck, it stays there.

• 28:11Speaker 04

  Like, if you die, if you, if you were sort of a Tory MP who died in a, in a kind of sex act, you are stuck that way. So like the first iteration of Julian, he had like a ball gag in his.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  So we made ourselves laugh with all these like ideas. And then we're like, okay, right. So what would the stories be? Like, what would the episodes be?

• 28:39Speaker 04

  And then we were just like, ah, they're dead. Okay. So they don't need jobs. So can't, they can't eat. They can't, like, what can they, what can they be after that's going to create any stories? So we just shelved it. And started working on like a sci-fi idea for a while. And we kept kind of coming back and going, oh, but the haunted house thing feels really fun. Like if we, if only we could crack it. And the answer was like, the problem was the answer, right? Which is so often is like when you're writing stuff, where we're like, oh, the, the stories have to be.

• 29:17Speaker 04

  Super, super petty. Like instead of looking for stakes, which is where you normally go for like anything narrative. It was like, well, what if they're just arguing over who gets the dead lady's bed? You know, that's the whole of the first episode is like, who gets to sleep in that room? And it was like, oh, now we've got, and we talked about Bottom. It was like, Bottom is a really similar kind of.

• 29:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, nothing happens.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Completely any kind of existential sitcom where it's just like, how do we pass the time?

• 29:49Speaker 01

  The two, the only two episodes I can imagine, sorry, the only two episodes I imagine Bottom where anything actually ridiculous happens outside the flat, Ferris wheel, camping.

• 29:57Speaker 04

  Yes. Yeah, yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  I can't really think of another one. There's one where they own a shop, I think.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  They, they, they watch the shop for someone.

• 30:04Speaker 01

  They watch a shop for someone, yeah.

• 30:05Speaker 04

  And Richie puts his shirt on backwards so that it feels like a, and he's like getting Eddie to pretend to be a shoplifter. Or no, he's just imagining catching a shoplifter.

• 30:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 02

  It's just ridiculous.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Oh, God, so funny. But that was the thing. It was like, oh, Bottom, Bottom made that work. Like Bottom did this completely kind of existential thing where. I mean, the thing that they're absolutely like peak of it that sticks in my mind is when they're trying to pass the time and they're thinking of games to play. And Richie's going, let's play Pin the Tail on the Donkey. And Eddie's going, well, we haven't got a donkey. We haven't, you know, we haven't got a tail. And he's like, well, we've got, I don't know. A fridge? Right, well, we haven't got a tail. I don't know, sellotape? Let's play pin this, put some sellotape on the fridge.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:57Speaker 05

  I'd love to remember that, it's amazing, yeah.

• 30:59Speaker 02

  Madness, absolute madness.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  So good.

• 31:01Speaker 02

  But like you say, watching it with your parents, like, that is some, that's some, like, core memories right there. So thank you in advance, because I feel like it passed us by, but now it's come at the perfect time.

• 31:11Speaker 01

  I think it's from the perfect time. I think we found it when we needed it. I think we're watching it with my son and it's gonna be amazing.

• 31:16Speaker 04

  Ten is a great age, I'd say.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  It's great. We're kind of, we're Marvel with him and American Office.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  Do you remember a sitcom called Chalk? Did you ever watch that? Like, it was short-lived.

• 31:27Speaker 02

  What happened?

• 31:28Speaker 04

  The reason I just thought of it is because it led to me asking, asking my parents what the word fellatio meant.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Fantastic.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Oh god, yeah. I don't remember chalk.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  But...

• 31:38Speaker 04

  It was really funny. It was Nicola Walker.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  A young Nicola Walker was the lead.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  I remember Charlie Chalk.

• 31:44Speaker 04

  And David Bamber. Do you know David Bamber?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  He was missed, he was, do you remember the Pride, the Jennifer Ely Pride and Prejudice?

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Which I would say is our generation's Pride and Prejudice.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  We had, we chatted with, um, who wrote, Rachel Paris, we were chatting about this though.

• 31:59Speaker 04

  We're talking the Colin Firth.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Yes, that's our generation, isn't it?

• 32:02Speaker 04

  So, uh, what's the vicar called? Or the, the one that, who, who the sister is forced to marry? Anyway, David Bamber is, he's like the greasy vicar in that.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Okay, okay. Do you know if I saw, if I...

• 32:18Speaker 04

  It was a good sitcom, but brief.

• 32:19Speaker 02

  I've probably seen, my mum and dad were banging to, like, comedy sitcoms.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  So you went and asked your parents what fellatio meant?

• 32:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, we were sat watching it together and if, I mean, god knows if you can even watch it anymore, but I think it was a thing where a teacher writes, like, pretends that their name is fellatio. I can't remember what the, what the sitcom device was that it led to the word fellatio being written on a chalkboard.

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  And my mum and dad laughed and I was like, well, what does fellatio mean then? He just refused to tell me.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  You did that with motherfucker.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I was allowed to watch, I was allowed to watch Terminator 1.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Self-explanatory as a phrase, though, to be fair.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Terminator.

• 33:00Speaker 04

  There's no explanation.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  I remember going into the kitchen and going, man, what's motherfucking, was I done that again?

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Well, how old were you that they let you watch Terminator?

• 33:07Speaker 01

  Like five, like five, Terminator 1.

• 33:08Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  But Matthew, it's done me no fucking bother at all, you [BLEEP].

• 33:14Speaker 02

  Right, um...

• 33:16Speaker 01

  I'm completely fucking normal, you bastard.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  This much is clear.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  You've got a story for us.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  Oh, how do people do this? Do I sort of storytime it?

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Do it like the French, the French teacher in this clown school.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  Adam, where's my keys?

• 34:03Speaker 02

  A double dog day.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  I think that's gonna, that's gonna take away from the content, I think.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  We don't know what this is about, so apologies.

• 34:11Speaker 01

  This is just sent in by someone.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  And it is, of course, anonymous. Hi Rosie and Chris, please keep me anonymous. My dad recently had a long-awaited hip operation.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  I'm not sure if this happens to everyone, but my dad received a before and after x-ray image of his hip.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Okay, nice.

• 34:30Speaker 04

  What my dad clearly didn't realise when he sent me this is that also included in this image was his x-rayed 60-year-old flaccid penis and balls.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Well, on an x-ray?

• 34:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, you can see them, yeah. It's this gauzy image, but you can see them.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Because it's, so it's, it's...

• 34:50Speaker 04

  I like that they specify flaccid, as if anyone would assume...

• 34:55Speaker 01

  He fucking loves x-rays, man. He loves getting his x-rayed.

• 35:00Speaker 02

  They've banned him, actually.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, they don't go out the room because of the, uh, because of the, the radiation. They go out the room because he's swinging a rock-hard penis around.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  Um, so they, they go on to say, "To try and save his embarrassment, I decided not to mention the genitalia in the image, and instead opted for, wow, what a great job they did, and no wonder you were in so much pain. I kept quiet until one day during a family meal at a restaurant we have been going to for years." It's a nice detail, isn't it?

• 35:37Speaker 02

  That's nice.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  Is it necessary?

• 35:40Speaker 04

  I don't think it's relevant, but it's necessary.

• 35:42Speaker 02

  All right.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  "I came back from a trip to the loo to see my dad talking to a waitress and taking out his phone. My heart sank. Somehow I just knew what he was going to show her."

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  I, I think that is relevant that they've been going for years, because you wouldn't...

• 35:58Speaker 01

  I told you it was relevant, it's relevant.

• 36:00Speaker 02

  He's not, he's gonna knock out it, isn't he?

• 36:02Speaker 04

  "I ran back to the table, but it was too late. The waitress was politely nodding and clearly uncomfortable as my dad was pointing out his new prosthetic hip. I was mortified."

• 36:13Speaker 02

  Oh god.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  "When the bill was paid, I broke the news, to which he responded, 'Yes, you can. You can really see it all, can't you?'

• 36:25Speaker 04

  I had no idea. Turns out, he has shown this image to just about everyone: his mates at tennis, the people that work in the post office, colleagues, his elderly neighbour, and even his grandchildren."

• 36:39Speaker 02

  No, oh no, oh, that is lush. Oh god.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  That is gorgeous.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  Is it possible that he's, that he's basically wanted to be a flasher all his life and he's found a safe way of doing it? Oh, I had no idea.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, we, yeah, yeah, he's just, actually, yeah, he's a wrong'un.

• 37:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  I don't like him at all.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  Which hasn't mentioned is that he's got a Prince Albert either, so it shines brightly.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  You would know, unless he's got bad eyes.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  To be fair, it's, it's a shadow of

• 37:14Speaker 01

  It is, yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 04

  stuff, isn't it?

• 37:15Speaker 02

  You might not have seen it, you might not have picked it up.

• 37:17Speaker 04

  The bones of the bright bits, and if he's focused on the hip.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's try and believe that he's not...

• 37:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Maybe everyone's not a pervert, like, maybe.

• 37:25Speaker 02

  No, most people are perverts, come here, just, come on.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  But also, there's no shame in the, in the human body.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the people at the post office don't wanna see you, did.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Unfortunately. Uh, thank you.

• 37:40Speaker 04

  My pleasure.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  We've all got one.

• 37:46Speaker 01

  Rosie's got a massive one. Um, yes, thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming. It's been a pleasure.

• 37:52Speaker 04

  My pleasure, thank you.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Best looking movie, man, and we're gonna crack through the entire back up.

• 37:55Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you so much.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  We're gonna have to, maybe get cracking.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, brilliant. Cheers, man.

• 38:02Speaker 04

  Cheers.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.