Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview edition and everybody. I
Speaker 1: just had such a fun conversation with my new pal
Speaker 1: Bobby seagull Um. Bobby is from England and he sort
Speaker 1: of made his name as a contestant on the show
Speaker 1: University Challenge, which if you are from the UK you
Speaker 1: absolutely know what University Challenges if you are not, it
Speaker 1: is a quiz competition between college students that is a legendary.
Speaker 1: It's been around since the d's and Bobby was a
Speaker 1: very popular contestant on that show. It would be the
Speaker 1: equivalent like UM someone on Jeopardy here in the States,
Speaker 1: like Kim Jennings maybe UM becoming really really popular in
Speaker 1: the cultural zeitgeist. And that's what Bobby did and he
Speaker 1: has since pivoted from that to doing to writing books. Uh.
Speaker 1: He is a teacher and a mathematician. He wrote a
Speaker 1: book called The Life Changing Magic of Numbers. We talked
Speaker 1: to him about math and numbers in this which is
Speaker 1: very interesting and he has done a couple of shows
Speaker 1: for the BBC with his former University Challenge rival and
Speaker 1: now friend UM Eric Monkman, and the shows are called
Speaker 1: Monkman and Seagulls Genius Guide to Britain and Monkman and
Speaker 1: Seagulls Genius Adventures, and I think, um yeah, those are
Speaker 1: in order twenty in order of release. And Poppy is
Speaker 1: just a good guy. He interviewed Josh and I for
Speaker 1: the Stuff You Should Know, a book event that we
Speaker 1: did in the UK virtually, of course, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure who lined it up. I guess someone with the
Speaker 1: publisher over there, and it was just a great fit
Speaker 1: because we're birds of a feather. I feel a lot
Speaker 1: of kinship with him and what he does as far
Speaker 1: as a spreader of knowledge and curiosity and a um
Speaker 1: and an academic and a champion of that stuff. And
Speaker 1: he's just a good guy. He's so cool and nice
Speaker 1: and enthusiastic and you just can't help but smile when
Speaker 1: you talk to him. And um, so I asked Bobby
Speaker 1: back then when he interviewed Josh and I to come
Speaker 1: on movie Crush in a bit, and here we are
Speaker 1: about six weeks later he was able to come on
Speaker 1: and talk about his pick a movie called Starter for ten,
Speaker 1: a movie which covers UH University challenge a young James McAboy,
Speaker 1: a great young cast all the way around as a
Speaker 1: student who goes away to college joins the university quiz team. Um,
Speaker 1: it's got a young Rebecca Hall, a young Vennerdict, Benedict Cumberbatch,
Speaker 1: Alice Eve, Dominic Cooper, a lot of names before they
Speaker 1: were famous. And it's a come ring of age stories
Speaker 1: set in the eighties and a and a rom common
Speaker 1: a romance movie. And it's really really good and I
Speaker 1: hope you watch it. It is on HBO X if
Speaker 1: you want to check it out before you listen. But
Speaker 1: we had a great, great talk. Bobby is an awesome dude,
Speaker 1: And here we go with Bobby Seagull on Starter for ten.
Speaker 1: How you doing? Yeah, just I've been doing started doing
Speaker 1: something really fun with them. So in the UK got
Speaker 1: something called strictly Come dancings like Dancing with the Stars
Speaker 1: in the US. So the champion from Seen, she's really
Speaker 1: trying to get into education, so he's starting Instagram lives right,
Speaker 1: maths and dance. Um. So it's very surreal because university
Speaker 1: challenges what I'm from, as it were, and she's some
Speaker 1: strictly come dancing to ever collide. But it is cliding
Speaker 1: in the most bizarre way, which is great for kids
Speaker 1: and young people because it's like a yeah, it just
Speaker 1: brings together two things you wouldn't expect. Well, how are
Speaker 1: you bringing them together? Like what's the actual thing? Oh?
Speaker 1: So what we're doing is so we do two sessions
Speaker 1: a week. One is on a Saturday. We talk about
Speaker 1: our I Essentially I talked to her about experiences with
Speaker 1: maths and numeracy, how she's in daily life. Then I
Speaker 1: teach her some some math tricks, like clever ways of
Speaker 1: let's say, multiplying by nine or multiplying by leaven or
Speaker 1: dividing by age. I give a little tips and tricks,
Speaker 1: and then she teaches me like an interpretive dance of
Speaker 1: that trick. She comes up with this, Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: even do. She's a dancer. She tries to teach school. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then on the Wednesdays we make it a bit
Speaker 1: more simpler. We set people the task of learning a
Speaker 1: particular times table and it's just like the speed tests
Speaker 1: that people come on the Instagram live, and then we
Speaker 1: have a leaderboard. Um, she lost for the first time,
Speaker 1: so she's a bit upset. So she's catia. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people take part and then we're going almost
Speaker 1: like in the UK top gear people do race plap.
Speaker 1: She came second this time, which is that's funny man. Well,
Speaker 1: you know you're a you're a multi hyphen it sort
Speaker 1: of renaissance man. You know, you've you're a teacher, you're
Speaker 1: an author, you're on television. What is it about doing
Speaker 1: all these different things that appeals to you rather than
Speaker 1: just sort of staying in one lane. I think it's
Speaker 1: my hyperactive mind. How by that I find it hard
Speaker 1: to focus on one thing. Thing is I do work hard,
Speaker 1: and I'm very diligent, but I find if I'm doing
Speaker 1: one task for a long period of time, I get distracted.
Speaker 1: And I think the stems from my childhood of going
Speaker 1: to the local library. So my dad used to take
Speaker 1: myself and my younger brothers and one elder brother to
Speaker 1: the library and he set us there for three or
Speaker 1: four hours, saying, explore, read anything, and I get a
Speaker 1: book from on the Aztecs civilization, on Victorian engineering, the
Speaker 1: fiction of Tolkien. But I would I would find it
Speaker 1: hard to stay on one book from one and like
Speaker 1: half and forty five minutes, I'd be like two thirds
Speaker 1: do I know what's gonna happen next book, and I
Speaker 1: think from then my my mind's always dotted things. It's
Speaker 1: great for dinner parties, annoying for things that PhD the
Speaker 1: season you're meant to be focusing on. Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, you and I record these intros separately,
Speaker 1: so people will have a little background on on who
Speaker 1: you are and how we met. But uh, you, uh,
Speaker 1: you were kind enough to sit with Josh and I
Speaker 1: when we did our our book of it for the
Speaker 1: for the store there in England, and I think I
Speaker 1: just felt a real kinship we both did, because yeah,
Speaker 1: there it is. There's the book. Because you that's sort
Speaker 1: of the nature of our show too, to jump around
Speaker 1: and cover all these different topics. And I started diving
Speaker 1: into your life a little more and what you've done
Speaker 1: with your former university Challenge rival Eric Monkman, and saw
Speaker 1: some of the like TV things that you did and
Speaker 1: like the Good Morning Britain, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I just I've been there before, Like when Josh and
Speaker 1: I have done these TV opportunities is kind of the
Speaker 1: smart guys, and you have these two kind of goofy
Speaker 1: TV people that aren't really taking you seriously and it's
Speaker 1: you just you guys do a great job at doing
Speaker 1: that stuff. But I really could identify, yes, because I
Speaker 1: often find um less so when I'm by myself, but
Speaker 1: when we're with the pairing the Monk Went and Seagull,
Speaker 1: the Genius Guide branding as it were with the BBC.
Speaker 1: Often on TV shows, they're trying to almost shows up like, okay,
Speaker 1: you might know eso technoledge about you know the top
Speaker 1: albums of the year, or um the longest Shakespeare play,
Speaker 1: but do you know the price of milk? Right? And
Speaker 1: and the things it annoys them because often I I
Speaker 1: think I like my high brow knowledge, which is what
Speaker 1: high school college trivia is all about, learning about your classics,
Speaker 1: your mythology, science, your literature. But I also like my trash,
Speaker 1: like I love watching Terrible Things and Netflix from coms,
Speaker 1: really bad cheesy eight pop music. So it means I'm
Speaker 1: actually like I am an academic, I'm very serious academic,
Speaker 1: but I'm also a silly academic too as well, if
Speaker 1: I can. Yeah, they do the same thing to us
Speaker 1: me and what is it we we go on these
Speaker 1: shows sometimes and they're just like, okay, smart guys, like
Speaker 1: they want to knock us down a peg almost, and
Speaker 1: it's all the spirit of fun, but it's annoying and
Speaker 1: I just have to buy but sort of bite my
Speaker 1: lips and be polite because I wanted to be invited back,
Speaker 1: so I can't say what you're trying to. I thought,
Speaker 1: you you don't like dumb people, you don't like smart people.
Speaker 1: Who do you like? Yeah, exactly so, And we'll get
Speaker 1: to the film. You know, this first part is about
Speaker 1: your life for a bit. But um, you did pick
Speaker 1: a movie that had to do with University Challenge, which
Speaker 1: is I mean, how long has that show been around?
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of a cultural phenomenon in the UK, right,
Speaker 1: absolutely so, it's I did a bit of Wiki Peter
Speaker 1: or googling on this, and it's not I thought it was.
Speaker 1: I used to always say before this conversation, it's the
Speaker 1: oldest running quiz show in the world. It's not. It's
Speaker 1: actually second. There's something in America called It's Academic. It's
Speaker 1: a high school show, and that was nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: I think, and this is two. But it's it's the
Speaker 1: oldest in the UK, definitely the oldest one beyond high school.
Speaker 1: For Chris Shows UM and I I think it's one
Speaker 1: of the unique things. It's already had two presenters in
Speaker 1: its entire history, one guy called bamber Gas going for
Speaker 1: twenty five years and he's like school masterly quite supportive
Speaker 1: for twenty five years. Weirdly enough, the show had seven
Speaker 1: years where it went off screens and it got and
Speaker 1: it got brought back up and itually I actually interviewed
Speaker 1: Stephen Fried the poly Math for another show and he
Speaker 1: was asked to be the host of the new the
Speaker 1: new version of it, but he turned it down and
Speaker 1: it took on a really tough interview called Jeremy Patsman
Speaker 1: and he's been the hosts ninety four and he's he's
Speaker 1: regarded as I a really mean pantomime villain. He's Mellard
Speaker 1: a bit in his elder years. But yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: two years, two different hosts UM and like in the
Speaker 1: UK when other people like I've got cousins who live
Speaker 1: in America, in India, the Middle East, and when they
Speaker 1: come to the UK as well, let's look at you know,
Speaker 1: the Queen Wimbledon, UM, the Beatles University Challenge and eventually
Speaker 1: beyond their list of things are quintessentially, it's really cool.
Speaker 1: I watched Actually You're one of your episodes. I did
Speaker 1: quite a bit of youtubing today and I watched UM Jeez,
Speaker 1: I think it was episode thirty five. It was one
Speaker 1: where it was you versus the team Monkman and you
Speaker 1: guys end up losing in the end, and but I
Speaker 1: watched the whole episode and it was It's pretty riveting
Speaker 1: stuff to watch one of those. It's like, it's because
Speaker 1: I get well in sport, isn't it? And it's just
Speaker 1: it draws the audience and people and the way it
Speaker 1: works in the UK, they start broadcasting from about July
Speaker 1: and it goes all the way every Monday eight thirty
Speaker 1: on BBC all the way through to April. So people
Speaker 1: start following these teams and these individuals, and people start
Speaker 1: for following the personalities. Like in my series UM, people
Speaker 1: started following Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Seagull the Captain and
Speaker 1: Monkman and Will set out the following and people said
Speaker 1: could they face off? Could what if they face off?
Speaker 1: And then by the time our game came around, we
Speaker 1: had personalities like Louis through Stephen fry or saying are
Speaker 1: you monk, when are you Seagull? And then the media
Speaker 1: hyped it up um and actually was the most watch
Speaker 1: match of Universe Challenge this century not your last century. Again.
Speaker 1: I guess television had bigger audiences in the seventies and
Speaker 1: eighties audiences like outrageous, like billions, but for modern TV
Speaker 1: was huge audience. Um. I think it's the funny thing
Speaker 1: is that that match I had, they recorded the semifinal
Speaker 1: and final, and the same morning I was just thinking
Speaker 1: about the final and I got my outfit ready and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, how am I going to lift the
Speaker 1: trophy if I get there? And I slightly lost focus
Speaker 1: on what you're meant to do. Win the match now
Speaker 1: and then deal with the final. But Erica was like focus.
Speaker 1: He was like, I got to win this match, then
Speaker 1: deal with the final later. But I was just thinking
Speaker 1: about the trophy too early on. Well, I mean, did
Speaker 1: I see the final match then? Oh no. This is
Speaker 1: the thing is even to this day people often introduced
Speaker 1: me on teley shows in the UK. They'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: buts Egal, he must he must have won the show
Speaker 1: because he's made a career out of it. And I
Speaker 1: know I didn't win. Oh so you're the finalist. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: no semifinal. Okay, I think that's what I saw. I
Speaker 1: think my teammate he ended up losing in the final,
Speaker 1: but not the winners were very worthy and actually they
Speaker 1: got some formidable quizzes. But people seem to remember that
Speaker 1: match as the sort of It wasn't the final, It
Speaker 1: was a semifinal, but it was like the memorable match
Speaker 1: of the series. It was a lot of fun to watch,
Speaker 1: um now do now? You and Eric became sort of
Speaker 1: friends after that and partners and ended up doing a
Speaker 1: couple of cool docuseries for the BBC. Do most University
Speaker 1: Challenge contestants go on to be celebrities or did you
Speaker 1: guys just work it? This is okay, this is unexpected.
Speaker 1: So since sixty two the show has been on, there
Speaker 1: have been personalities that have been former contestants, like Stephen Fry.
Speaker 1: He was a finalist for Queen's College, Cambridge. Oh he
Speaker 1: was an actual contestant. Yes, he was an actually contestant.
Speaker 1: Um so he did very our top quizzer, but he
Speaker 1: built his media career like ten fifteen years after it.
Speaker 1: It was like an incidental part. Whereas for Eric and I,
Speaker 1: I think it's a combination of many things. Um, social
Speaker 1: media had become really powerful by then. I think Twitter
Speaker 1: was it two thousand and six SyncE theory. Twitter had
Speaker 1: been there for ten seasons before, but by our season
Speaker 1: had built up sort of like a critical massive interest
Speaker 1: of followers, and the media would pick up on what
Speaker 1: would go on Twitter and then in our series. Normally
Speaker 1: every series is like a standout contestant and the realities
Speaker 1: they get ten fifteen minutes of fame on the day
Speaker 1: of the final and they're not a couple of nice local,
Speaker 1: local interviews and that's it. But I think what made
Speaker 1: our series different was Eric. One is, Eric was probably
Speaker 1: the single most meaned contestant ever on the series, but
Speaker 1: a long country ViOS so he by himself. He you know,
Speaker 1: he's transformed the way people think of the series. But
Speaker 1: in my series, we all said again, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: blow on trumpet, but I offered a different sort of
Speaker 1: personality and I went I think I went viral as
Speaker 1: well on my second match, and it was remember I
Speaker 1: was teaching part time and doing my master's part time.
Speaker 1: I turned the next day at school and my kids
Speaker 1: all saying this, you're trending number one and UK Twitter
Speaker 1: your Instagram. So I went viol as well, and over
Speaker 1: the course of the months that the matches played out,
Speaker 1: both of us kept on violing, and then when we
Speaker 1: played each other, it's like Twitter and meldown go like
Speaker 1: doing like he's like rumbling the jungle with Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean you're It's it's sort of the classic uh
Speaker 1: and the same. It's true for TV and movies, like
Speaker 1: the classic odd couple. In a way, Um, he's this Canadian,
Speaker 1: which I didn't expect when I first started watching the show.
Speaker 1: I kind of just thought everyone would be British or whatever.
Speaker 1: But um, you know the way just the physical appearance
Speaker 1: of you two guys together, it's kind of a fun juxtaposition.
Speaker 1: And I can see how it became you became this
Speaker 1: sort of media duo afterwards, you know, it makes sense. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: and I think one thing people don't realize that Eric
Speaker 1: and I actually were friends before recording, really, because what
Speaker 1: happens is in the sort of UK trivia college university scene,
Speaker 1: teams or get selected so back in the sixties, seventies, eighties,
Speaker 1: even nineties, even early naughties, quizziness sort of regardless an
Speaker 1: amateur gentleman, you sort of turn up no revision, you
Speaker 1: just like effinently sort of woff through the questions, like
Speaker 1: I'm sure Stephen Friday. But nowadays, partly because of in America,
Speaker 1: quizin is very competitive. They've got scholarships to the top
Speaker 1: ivy league universities. UK is not UK still regardless a
Speaker 1: bit like an amateur gentleman, but it's become more professionalized
Speaker 1: in the sense of teams practice prepare um. And again
Speaker 1: we would have weekly practice sessions at Cambridge. You know,
Speaker 1: Monkman's team, my team playing in mini tournaments, so by
Speaker 1: the time you went to actually face off on TV,
Speaker 1: we knew each other really well. And actually Monk and
Speaker 1: I we had multiple facetoffs in Cambridge. There are times
Speaker 1: he would win, times my team would win. Times his
Speaker 1: team would storm away, all the times my team would
Speaker 1: run away, So we knew it would be like it
Speaker 1: could go on either sort of almost a flip with
Speaker 1: the coin in that particular day. But we knew each
Speaker 1: other very before the series, which is why I think
Speaker 1: our partnership sort of developed on social media as well. Well.
Speaker 1: And you were both team captains, which I know is
Speaker 1: good for drama and press and everything too, because uh,
Speaker 1: and I guess traditionally you sit in that that third
Speaker 1: spot is that where the captain sits. Yes, always, um,
Speaker 1: they have a captain there, and interestingly the way they
Speaker 1: pick teammates around the captain is strategic as well. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you put the solo loan thinker on the far left
Speaker 1: hand side. In fact, we've had some of the best
Speaker 1: ever contestants on the far left because you will leave
Speaker 1: them as like a lone wolf buzzing in. But then
Speaker 1: they don't really get involved the discussions, but they just buzzing.
Speaker 1: And then often you get the science person on the
Speaker 1: right hand side on the far corner, next to the
Speaker 1: captain because science knowledge is quite niche she he doesn't
Speaker 1: need to he or she doesn't need to be involved
Speaker 1: with the rest of the team, and you get the
Speaker 1: sort of buzz bubbly person in the middle maybe, or
Speaker 1: sometimes you get someone who might be the opposite gender
Speaker 1: in the middle to the captain to make the team
Speaker 1: more diverse or like a four me like, you try
Speaker 1: and work out what's the OPTI seeding for your team. Well,
Speaker 1: it seemed like the guy for this from you, he
Speaker 1: was kind of what was his name, So is this
Speaker 1: there's two it was this the guy with glasses. Al
Speaker 1: there two guys, but blonde hair or dark hair. Blond hair. Yes,
Speaker 1: so he was like our killer. You could tell that
Speaker 1: he Yeah, Hill, he was in his own sort of zone.
Speaker 1: He know this is phenomenal. He I don't think in
Speaker 1: the entire series buzzed in incorrectly once once and it
Speaker 1: rab is normally. The thing is in the game, you
Speaker 1: occasionally you've got to gamble and take risks um and
Speaker 1: then you've got the team question the bonuses where the
Speaker 1: team bonuses a lot depends on the captain trying to
Speaker 1: steer the discussion, which I really enjoyed. But Thomas Hill,
Speaker 1: on the far right, he would just sit there quietly
Speaker 1: buzz away and yeah, he he was a it was
Speaker 1: an artist story. Historians had that breadth of knowledge. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that it's almost like a trope, the different
Speaker 1: um sort of personality types that go into being regarded
Speaker 1: as like a really smart person and someone who seeks knowledge.
Speaker 1: And I think that, I mean, I think that's one
Speaker 1: one real reason why you really broke out is because
Speaker 1: your personality is so infectious and you're so excited and
Speaker 1: enthusiastic about everything and you kind of break the mold
Speaker 1: and not to stereotype too much, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of like sort of quiet, bookish types that you
Speaker 1: can tell are petrified to be on television. And you're
Speaker 1: in there with your suit and you look cool and
Speaker 1: like you've got a great smile, and I can see
Speaker 1: why people like latched on. It's pretty cool. Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I think I'd like to sort of think that inadvertently
Speaker 1: I was sort of bringing geek back into Chic and
Speaker 1: some parts of England, because you know, it's all pre recorded.
Speaker 1: It's the recorded between February April over over academic year,
Speaker 1: and it's broadcast in July. So people often think that
Speaker 1: you sort of put on a personality based on how
Speaker 1: Twitter responds to you. You have no idea because all
Speaker 1: prerecorded and then it's broadcast. But again, now I always
Speaker 1: think now, since Monkman and myself, contestants almost go on
Speaker 1: the show now, so almost a bit unfairmly because now
Speaker 1: there's expectation who's going to be the new Monk Wan,
Speaker 1: Who's going to be the new c Gun. But when
Speaker 1: I went down on monk foint event and we went
Speaker 1: on with the objective we'd love to do well, we'd
Speaker 1: love to win. And again, because I'm a part time
Speaker 1: high school teacher, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to
Speaker 1: bring the trophy back to school? But beyond that, I
Speaker 1: didn't think. I thought, maybe fifteen minutes of my local paper,
Speaker 1: that's it. I didn't quite expect any of that. Again,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't speaking to you today if it weren't for
Speaker 1: the sort of snowball effect of that series. Well, and
Speaker 1: you know you've I think you're you really kind of
Speaker 1: went in uh sensible directions with it. As far as
Speaker 1: the BBC series looks really cool and I look forward
Speaker 1: to watching it. Can we watch that here in the States?
Speaker 1: Is that available? So it's a BBC I player thing
Speaker 1: and they haven't. Surprisingly, they have not put it out
Speaker 1: to any of the other like Netflix. There is a
Speaker 1: there is a Canadian I will find a Canadian link,
Speaker 1: which is like a free thirty day trial and things.
Speaker 1: People do put it on YouTube. BBC often like they'll
Speaker 1: find it. I'll make sure you get a link so
Speaker 1: you can see. I'll make sure so Chuck Bryant gets
Speaker 1: a special link that's in America. Get on emails that
Speaker 1: Director General BBC in England and say why is not
Speaker 1: released in the US on Netflix or whatever. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean the nature just for the listeners, the nature of
Speaker 1: the show. The two series are you and You're, like
Speaker 1: I said, former rival in our friend Eric Monkman, sort
Speaker 1: of road tripping around the UK UM just kind of
Speaker 1: seeking out cool historical places and and like being fun
Speaker 1: and also talking about smart stuff. And it seemed to
Speaker 1: have been very well received. Yes, we've had two series
Speaker 1: so far. So we filmed the first one UM straight
Speaker 1: after the summer of University Challenge. We filmed Universe Challenge seventeen.
Speaker 1: We did a pilot that summer and the voice of
Speaker 1: the pilot was Stephen Fry. This is actually the first
Speaker 1: time it was in public. But I think we couldn't
Speaker 1: afford him for the real one. You know, maybe they could,
Speaker 1: but he didn't work out. We had what's his name
Speaker 1: o God Heroic Boy, Simon Simon Callo. Simon Simon Callo Callo. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You'd be like, these guys are dreadful.
Speaker 1: Simon Callo is weird because he narrates sing Bobby and
Speaker 1: Derek get out of the car and off to the
Speaker 1: Science Museum, and it's just like my life being narrated
Speaker 1: heroic fashion, and I had for a few weeks after
Speaker 1: the show came out, I had friends mocking me, there
Speaker 1: is Bobby now going to be a couple of tea.
Speaker 1: He put the milk in before the hot water. Who knows?
Speaker 1: That's great, That's so funny. That'd be like if like
Speaker 1: James Earl Jones was walking around narrating my life over here.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. So let's switch gears to talk about
Speaker 1: your teaching career. What great do you teach? And what
Speaker 1: does teaching mean to you? My my parents were both teachers.
Speaker 1: My father was my elementary school principle, my mom was
Speaker 1: an elementary school teacher, and I my sister has an
Speaker 1: education degree. I always kind of thought I was going
Speaker 1: to be a teacher, and in a weird way, I
Speaker 1: kind of ended up being a sort of teacher. But, um,
Speaker 1: what does teaching mean to you? So the way I
Speaker 1: got into teaching is a slightly roundabout way. Um, even
Speaker 1: though I don't think there's such thing as a born educator,
Speaker 1: but I've always been someone that's enjoyed sharing ideas with people.
Speaker 1: If I learned something, I want to teach it to
Speaker 1: someone else parties because being with the family of I'm
Speaker 1: one of four boys, so we always encouraged to discuss things.
Speaker 1: But actually, after university, my first career was an investment banking. Again.
Speaker 1: I'm a NUM. I'm a mass graduate, mass and econg graduate.
Speaker 1: I went to Lehman Brothers, which in the UK now
Speaker 1: people are not quite Lehman Lehman, but America everyone knows
Speaker 1: Lehman Brothers. I was a trader there, not a good
Speaker 1: choice of bank as it turned out, but I joined
Speaker 1: Leman share president down. But I did the same job
Speaker 1: at a Japanese bank called Nomura. Then I moved to
Speaker 1: p w C Price Wae House Coopers Um. In the
Speaker 1: UK they call it charted the account that see in
Speaker 1: America they might call the c p A the guys
Speaker 1: that do the public accounts for all the big corporates.
Speaker 1: And I thought, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be a
Speaker 1: corporate guy. This seems like, you know, I quite enjoy it.
Speaker 1: You make you know, you you earn a good salary.
Speaker 1: But when I was at p WC, and this is
Speaker 1: all like a pinch point in my life, I took
Speaker 1: a mini sabbatical to teach new graduates. So these were
Speaker 1: children one three year old, Um, not kids, but kids
Speaker 1: just left college and I taught them for about two
Speaker 1: a couple of months to three months, and I absolutely
Speaker 1: loved it. Chuck Wants. I enjoyed my corporate job. A
Speaker 1: couple of my siblings work in the corporate sector. But
Speaker 1: I found like I came to life and I thought,
Speaker 1: this is what I've got to do. And then I
Speaker 1: went to university, back to university again, did my teacher training,
Speaker 1: my masters at Cambridge, and that's when I did my
Speaker 1: uh experience, the university challenge and life to return but
Speaker 1: interesting my when I joined teaching, when I changed careers,
Speaker 1: my plan was to be a career, full time teacher
Speaker 1: because I loved educating. I love teaching because I think,
Speaker 1: you know, there's an add about master Card. There are
Speaker 1: many things master Card can buy for other things. What
Speaker 1: does the end what does they say, their priceless moment
Speaker 1: for everything else there's master Card. Yeah, yeah, so mineus
Speaker 1: that the prices moments that master Card can't buy. As
Speaker 1: a teacher, when you're teaching a child, the concept usually
Speaker 1: a mask, but I sort of teach other subjects as
Speaker 1: well if I can, UM, and you see there's sort
Speaker 1: of the lightbulb switch on. You're like, they finally get it,
Speaker 1: and they finally understand in Pythagoras there and you went
Speaker 1: the square roote at the end, They're like ah, and
Speaker 1: You're like, yes, you feel that great sense of satisfaction
Speaker 1: and teaching offered that to me. UM And again, I
Speaker 1: when I go back into full time teaching at some stage, possibly,
Speaker 1: but I think now my public from the UK is
Speaker 1: better served as some of that teaches every week in
Speaker 1: the school but spends a lot of time in the
Speaker 1: public doing work promoting library usage, numerousy campaigning again I
Speaker 1: do I don't know the campaign recently around the digital
Speaker 1: dividing kids that don't have access to laptops or broadband.
Speaker 1: So I sort of used my platform UM in a
Speaker 1: way which being a teacher, I've got the access because
Speaker 1: if I was a full time teacher, I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: time to do the campaigning all the extra work. But
Speaker 1: if I was just a full time media personality as
Speaker 1: it were, I would lose the sort of authority I
Speaker 1: have of being a classroom presence. Uh and what grade
Speaker 1: are you teaching? Oh? Grade? I teach all the way
Speaker 1: from seventh to twelve. That's pretty great. Yeah, so pretty
Speaker 1: kids have just left um in the UK in the
Speaker 1: middle school you guys would call it in Yeah, elementary
Speaker 1: school or middle school into high school. Yeah, and kids
Speaker 1: all the way to the ones who apply to before
Speaker 1: university or college. And I think that I love the
Speaker 1: breath because of the young kids who are eleven twelve.
Speaker 1: They've got this sort of blue Skies optimism night. So
Speaker 1: you can just tell them children, we're gonna learn about
Speaker 1: what the sky is bloom. But yeah, this seagull about
Speaker 1: the number zero. Yeah, this is the seagull. They love it.
Speaker 1: The kids in how they get a bit cynical on
Speaker 1: this daye that I looking at about irrational lumbos and
Speaker 1: the silence Stone did reaction, try and bring my personal
Speaker 1: de Stone did reaction. When they get a bit older, sixteen,
Speaker 1: at that stage they're thinking about college and then they
Speaker 1: stopped becoming these young adults. They can challenge you, they
Speaker 1: can they can overrule you that they they're bright young adults. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's a variety that I love. That's really cool. It's
Speaker 1: I have a daughter who's going on six and it's
Speaker 1: hard as a parent to to try and not ram
Speaker 1: too much down their throat. She's a curious kid, but
Speaker 1: it's hard and they are sponges. They can they can
Speaker 1: handle a lot of input, but I have to regulate
Speaker 1: myself to not overdo it. And we were in the
Speaker 1: car the other day and I was she saw a
Speaker 1: hearse and uh, these new modern hearses just look really
Speaker 1: cool and interesting of it here and she said, what
Speaker 1: is that? What kind of car is that said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a hearse And they take care of
Speaker 1: the very important job they take care of when people die.
Speaker 1: They transport the body to the funeral, and it's a
Speaker 1: very important job because people are upset. And I told
Speaker 1: her about funeral homes and then that led somehow to
Speaker 1: talk about uh mountain that she pointed to a hill,
Speaker 1: and I started talking about elevations and then cartography and
Speaker 1: I said, boy, I'm really kind of said, let me
Speaker 1: know if I should slow down, kid though, if I'm
Speaker 1: teaching you too much, And she said, Daddy, what would
Speaker 1: I do without you? And I was like, man, that
Speaker 1: that's just like that's all I need to hear. And
Speaker 1: then but that was also her cue, her queue to
Speaker 1: move on to to like sing a silly song or
Speaker 1: something like that. That's that's I think. Um, parents are
Speaker 1: I always telling us a teacher. Obviously, as teachers we
Speaker 1: also have a huge role Monday to Friday in this class.
Speaker 1: But parents there, I think they're still the biggest influence
Speaker 1: because they're the ones that kids learned sublimeantly home, over dinner,
Speaker 1: over watching movies, the little conversations, the holidays. So parents
Speaker 1: are so crucially parents I engaged with their children's learning.
Speaker 1: As a teacher, it makes my life so much easier.
Speaker 1: And the ones that, well, you have to be and
Speaker 1: I think there's more of that now than ever. I
Speaker 1: feel like when I was growing up, I'm a bit
Speaker 1: older than you ensure that. I mean, there were certainly
Speaker 1: parents back then that we're super engaged, but I think
Speaker 1: a lot of parents just sort of drew that line
Speaker 1: and they were like, no, you go to school and
Speaker 1: that's where you learn the stuff, and then come home
Speaker 1: and then you know, stay in your room and play
Speaker 1: or whatever. Parents are way more involved now, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think technology also plays a part now. There are
Speaker 1: lots of people posting on Instagram or on TikTok how
Speaker 1: they educated children's and those are like a social media
Speaker 1: pressure to be good educator. Yeah, yeah, Well, before we
Speaker 1: move on to the movie, I also want to talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about math and numbers and um this
Speaker 1: is something that on stuff you should know has always
Speaker 1: been a a thing with Josh and I because neither
Speaker 1: one of us are very good at math. Josh really tries. Um,
Speaker 1: I never had much of an interest in math. My
Speaker 1: brother did, was an aerospace major for a little while
Speaker 1: at Georgia Tech and then got out of that, but
Speaker 1: was always really gifted in math, but I was not,
Speaker 1: And I just it just never clicked with me. But
Speaker 1: you love numbers and maths so much that you wrote
Speaker 1: a book about the magic of numbers and just talk
Speaker 1: about that. What what? What are people missing out on?
Speaker 1: Why do you love it? So actually, for me to
Speaker 1: tell you how I got into maths a fascinating little story.
Speaker 1: So in the UK, um in the sort of mid nineties. Um,
Speaker 1: it's still popular now, but a lot of boys and
Speaker 1: girls collected soccer sticker books for sticker books. So these
Speaker 1: are weat things that you peel off and stick in
Speaker 1: and often in the playgrounds and schools you try and
Speaker 1: swap ones that you need and you might go got got,
Speaker 1: got need, and you get really exciting. You do it
Speaker 1: in trade and it's also popular nowadays, but it's still there.
Speaker 1: They still do the stick as Panini. I think it's
Speaker 1: a brand that does it globally. Um, but often boys
Speaker 1: and girls that have conversations about which players are better
Speaker 1: the other. And what I found is often would just
Speaker 1: be they would shout loudly, go uh, he asked them,
Speaker 1: why do you think that plays better? Because I said so,
Speaker 1: and because I'm like, I'm five five, I'm sure, And
Speaker 1: then there would be taller than me. I'd like, okay,
Speaker 1: you're right, and I'll just go. What I found is
Speaker 1: these sticker books were treasure trolls of information contained the names, ages, heights,
Speaker 1: goal scored, left foot penalties, substitute appearances, all the sort
Speaker 1: of micro level detail about these players. When bear in
Speaker 1: minds is a sort of early mid nineties, I took
Speaker 1: all the data from all the twenty four teams in
Speaker 1: the in the English Premier League input into an early
Speaker 1: version of Excel, and my one of my friends made
Speaker 1: this is this is crazy? I think, I was, yeah, again,
Speaker 1: this is my I get obsessed by things from time
Speaker 1: to time. This is my obsession football stickers and data.
Speaker 1: But my friend had this conversation saying, there's a player
Speaker 1: called Ian Right, it's actually quite prominently the UK. Now
Speaker 1: he's actually a game show host. Now Ian write a
Speaker 1: footballer for Arsenal Football Club. And one of my friends
Speaker 1: said a player called Southampton's Matthew Lutzia we also is
Speaker 1: a television host. Is a He said, Matthew Lutzier Southampton
Speaker 1: is a better striker than Ian Wright. And I said
Speaker 1: why is that? And he said, because it is because
Speaker 1: I say so. And then I went I did a
Speaker 1: little simple interrogation on my my database spreadsheet, and I
Speaker 1: went back the next day and I told my friend,
Speaker 1: actually I did a little investigation and he s took
Speaker 1: out the number of goals for penalties this season. Even
Speaker 1: Wright's actually more effective player in the field. My friends
Speaker 1: like m probably, actually that's a good point. And you
Speaker 1: know what, it didn't make me popular, but but showing me,
Speaker 1: Chuck and my friends the power of numbers, because the
Speaker 1: world is very subjective, is often about vehetoric and who's
Speaker 1: got the best argument, who can flavor it with lovely
Speaker 1: sort of stylistic flourishes but numbers, we can look at it. Okay,
Speaker 1: now I know we've COVID people can some of dressed
Speaker 1: up numbers, but we could look at the same number
Speaker 1: and agree what we're looking at. And that opened up
Speaker 1: for me a world where I didn't need to be tall,
Speaker 1: I didn't need to be stronger. I could just understand
Speaker 1: look at the numbers and make the arguments come to
Speaker 1: life that way. And what was the name? Was it?
Speaker 1: The Magic of Numbers? Was that the title of the
Speaker 1: book the like the life changing Magic of Numbers, Because
Speaker 1: for me, it's about how numbers are magical, but actually
Speaker 1: how it can help change your life. Because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of kids out there who maybe I feel
Speaker 1: a bit withdrawn ice stage and their peers, but they
Speaker 1: find with nothing numbers, they really get excited. And they
Speaker 1: should all know that there are loads of other kids
Speaker 1: around there, across high schools and all the states in
Speaker 1: the US, across the world, that have the same passion
Speaker 1: for them. Because in sometimes in elementary school and in
Speaker 1: high school, kids can feel, oh, I don't think there's
Speaker 1: anyone else like me. I feel like I'm I'm one
Speaker 1: of the kind. But actually, in the real world there's
Speaker 1: so many people who've got passions for esoteric hobbies and
Speaker 1: and fascinations. That's amazing, man, you're quite an individual. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like you've become sort of an ambassador for
Speaker 1: for knowledge and curiosity. And it's really a cool lane
Speaker 1: that you found yourself in. I think, thank you chucking.
Speaker 1: I sort of like to think in twenty years, who
Speaker 1: would I like to be? Um, I'm actually getting I
Speaker 1: was gonna say gray, I'm actually getting a few gray us.
Speaker 1: But again here's another top secret admission. I actually do
Speaker 1: pluck out the odd white hair. I pluck it out
Speaker 1: because for now, in a few years I won't be
Speaker 1: able to, but for now so just to keep my
Speaker 1: my black beard and hair look. But the person I'd
Speaker 1: love to be is in about five years. It's almost
Speaker 1: like a version of Stephen Friday. Because UK he's regarded
Speaker 1: as the sort of polymathic ambassador for knowledge. You know,
Speaker 1: he talks about Greek culture, you can talk about science,
Speaker 1: you can talk about education, you can talk about politics,
Speaker 1: and he's got this really beloved role in the UK.
Speaker 1: People see him as a voice of authority and a
Speaker 1: voice of reason. In fact, one of the things that
Speaker 1: he's done I'm actually following in his footsteps quite almost
Speaker 1: quite literally is he's been the champion for UK libraries,
Speaker 1: so promoting the role of libraries and importance of making
Speaker 1: in the UK libraries have an often has sort of
Speaker 1: budgets cut and the asome too communities the main Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a real tragedy because I think more than just
Speaker 1: the books, these are community centers. But Stephen Fry has
Speaker 1: been campaigning for them. And then the Libraries Organization heard
Speaker 1: about the way that I became knowledgeable through libraries and
Speaker 1: my weekends they're visiting reading all sorts of books, and
Speaker 1: they asked me to take on the role from Stephen Fry.
Speaker 1: So I can quite literally see myself on the sort
Speaker 1: of role like in my job now is liked a
Speaker 1: lot of work lobbying Parliament, the House of Lords in
Speaker 1: the UK, organizing petitions events, trying to get people to
Speaker 1: use libraries. Um. So yeah, I would love to be
Speaker 1: someone where people need like an educational campaign or supporting
Speaker 1: something from knowledge they're like in twenty years or not
Speaker 1: even twenty years, less than that. Bobby Seagulls a guy,
Speaker 1: That's why I love That's amazing. Do you have a
Speaker 1: podcast yet? I have. I have one called Maths Appeal,
Speaker 1: which with a fellow maths teacher called Susan okarik Is.
Speaker 1: She's her parents and Nigerian. She's if actually's raised in
Speaker 1: East London, like I am, so my parents Indian, but
Speaker 1: I'm born and raised in East London. So it's called
Speaker 1: Maths Appeal and we're trying to show maths is quite
Speaker 1: fun and engaging. So it's always like a mathematical female
Speaker 1: version of me as a high school each sort of.
Speaker 1: That's funny. When we write our scripts for the podcast,
Speaker 1: we we've got a rough idea, but we've got this
Speaker 1: thing called vibing where we go off script and they're
Speaker 1: the best bits. Yeah yeah, I know about that. Well,
Speaker 1: we came on tangents where we just start talking about
Speaker 1: our life or whatever. Yeah, I should use that word
Speaker 1: because we call it vibing, but as mathempetitions, I should
Speaker 1: call it tangents. That makes sense. Time I make that.
Speaker 1: Next time, I'm gonna make it. Say so, Susan and
Speaker 1: I we're going off from now, We're not vibing. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go from a tangent like yeah, well, and our
Speaker 1: listeners like the people I think love the tangents. But
Speaker 1: we'll hear from people You're like, just stick to the fact, man,
Speaker 1: we don't want to hear about your life and what
Speaker 1: you have for breakfast. I love those bits, by the way.
Speaker 1: I love the middle Honestly, when I listened to you,
Speaker 1: I often listen to it when I'm parttling around doing
Speaker 1: the laundry, making breakfast, I feel like I'm in your
Speaker 1: with the I'm in the room with you. It's like
Speaker 1: just yeah, and I feel and sometimes it feels to
Speaker 1: real because I might be like brushing my teeth and
Speaker 1: why is Chuck talking to you? Not chuckle for seconds?
Speaker 1: But your podcast goes around with me. Everyone cool man, Um,
Speaker 1: before we jump in real quick, I did want to ask,
Speaker 1: since I know you're a football fan, west Ham fan,
Speaker 1: that's how we first, um sort of bonded. I saw
Speaker 1: your west Ham jersey and my best friend grew up
Speaker 1: in Chiswick and as a west Ham guy from from
Speaker 1: way back in the seventies and eighties. Have you seen
Speaker 1: Ted Lasso the TV show? Do you know about it?
Speaker 1: Why haven't this? Can Can I google this right now? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It's uh, it's on it's an Apple plus, uh, like
Speaker 1: an original Apple TV production, and it's a Jason Sadakis
Speaker 1: is he was he was on Saturday Night Live here,
Speaker 1: and he plays an American football coach who goes to
Speaker 1: England to coach in the Premier League because the wife
Speaker 1: of the former owner is getting a divorce and she
Speaker 1: wants and he loves the football team and he she
Speaker 1: wants to wreck the football team. So she hires an
Speaker 1: American football coach to come in there and you know,
Speaker 1: ostensibly do a really poor job, but it turns out
Speaker 1: he's a really great coach. He doesn't know soccer, but
Speaker 1: he's a good motivator. And it's just it's one of
Speaker 1: the most heartwarming fun shows. And it's it was shot
Speaker 1: in London, it's shot in some of the real stadiums.
Speaker 1: It's about the Premier League, it's about darts, it's about
Speaker 1: you know, Ted Lasso T. E. D. L A. S. S. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's his name. How have I never heard? You should
Speaker 1: check it out. It's a really fun show. It's good.
Speaker 1: My first article Ted Lasso is the perfect Apple TV
Speaker 1: Plus show. Yeah, it's it's a lot of fun, especially
Speaker 1: if you're a Premier League fan. Oh my god. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, like um one reason why I'd love to
Speaker 1: work in the States. At some stages, I love soccer,
Speaker 1: men's soccer, men's football, so I got again as a
Speaker 1: child if out their boys on my elementary and secondary
Speaker 1: school to end up being professionals. I've got some a
Speaker 1: very strange story where I'm someone that's played against Prince
Speaker 1: Harry and English for England international footballers. I was in
Speaker 1: the state school in East London, like a public school,
Speaker 1: and I got a scholarship to Eaton College for my
Speaker 1: A levels and even we call it public school, so
Speaker 1: your public schools are private school. So I played against
Speaker 1: both but um in So obviously men's football is by
Speaker 1: initially followed, but the last few months I started getting
Speaker 1: into women's football big time. And actually I'm sort of
Speaker 1: jealous because I've watched games in England that it's called
Speaker 1: the Women's Super League. It's like Premier League equivalent, but
Speaker 1: I watched equivalent games in the US. The stadiums are
Speaker 1: packed out for women's games, and here I think the
Speaker 1: UK will follow. I think we'll follow that in the
Speaker 1: next ten twenty years. Women's games will get packed out
Speaker 1: because it's a sport that's professional. Only the last couple
Speaker 1: of years has become a professional top league. So when
Speaker 1: you will see and one day we'll beat the US.
Speaker 1: We lost to the US and the Women's Soccer World
Speaker 1: Cup semifinal to one. We had a penalty to bring
Speaker 1: it back. So maybe the next time England will be
Speaker 1: the Americans. Well that is interesting here because the women's U.
Speaker 1: S national team has been good for a while now
Speaker 1: and the men's team has always been crap. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's I think the following is probably uh, it feels
Speaker 1: like it's bigger and this is just anecdotal. It feels
Speaker 1: like the women's national team is bigger here. But you know,
Speaker 1: soccer's it's a big deal here now, Like uh, it's
Speaker 1: really like most of my friends are all their kids
Speaker 1: play soccer and it's um, you know, uh during like
Speaker 1: the the euro Cup, in the Premier League finals and
Speaker 1: certainly the World Cup. They are local bars here that
Speaker 1: are just packed out, you know, people on the you know,
Speaker 1: standing room only, people on the street watching the big
Speaker 1: screens and it's it's it's a lot of fun. I
Speaker 1: mean that's what I watch is Generally I don't follow
Speaker 1: Premier League much, but I do follow the World Cup
Speaker 1: and uh, and the f A Cup and stuff like
Speaker 1: that a little bit. So when you're in the UK,
Speaker 1: I'll take you to your first Premier League. Dude, I'm
Speaker 1: all over it. I want my buddy Justin. Heill have
Speaker 1: to come if we go see west Ham. That is
Speaker 1: all right. So you picked the movie starter for ten,
Speaker 1: a movie I had not heard of that is from
Speaker 1: two thousand six. It's kind of a coming of age
Speaker 1: UM comedy drama slash. It's almost like a sports film
Speaker 1: in some ways too. It's got a little rocky karate
Speaker 1: kid element to it. UM. And it is a movie
Speaker 1: that had I mean, I think it's kind of known
Speaker 1: now as being the small indie film who had a
Speaker 1: huge cast of future stars in it, UM, who were
Speaker 1: all sort of getting started at the time. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's crazy because when it came out in two thousands
Speaker 1: and six and I saw it, a couple of names
Speaker 1: up I I recognize, UM like Mark Gatis was somewhere
Speaker 1: there there about Um, Charles Dance was around. But the
Speaker 1: people like um, uh, James McAvoy been come about, James Cordon,
Speaker 1: you know who. They weren't named at the time I was,
Speaker 1: And then some of them have gone on to James Gordon.
Speaker 1: I was huge in the US. Um I didn't even
Speaker 1: recognize him in this movie. Actually, my god, it's great
Speaker 1: because he came from something called Gavin and Stacy was
Speaker 1: larger than life character, quite literally larger than life. And
Speaker 1: watching if people want to see James Cordon before he
Speaker 1: became James Gordon, this is the film to see. Because
Speaker 1: I watched again recently the film and I was thinking
Speaker 1: of my cousin that is not James Gordon. Well, I
Speaker 1: knew he was in it, and about halfway through I
Speaker 1: was like, when it is James Cordon going to show up?
Speaker 1: And then in the scene where he goes back to
Speaker 1: his hometown, I was like, oh my god, that's him.
Speaker 1: He's the sort of metal longer metal head. Oh god
Speaker 1: it was. But even in this film, like other like
Speaker 1: I always think the directors of the casting directors were
Speaker 1: playing a bit of games because um, they're like a
Speaker 1: Sherlock connection because Bendic Comberbatch ends up becoming Sherlock. And
Speaker 1: then Mark Gatis, who's the character that plays the quiz master,
Speaker 1: he's microft in the Sherlock Holmes and as the mother,
Speaker 1: the mother of the posh girl, Alice. She's a character
Speaker 1: in Sherlock, a lady small Wood. So they've got three
Speaker 1: people unite later in Sherlock. So so so I don't know
Speaker 1: whether it's a Sherlock host having watched the show thinking
Speaker 1: here's some characters I could cost, or his total coincidence. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it was great casting. Also has Alice Eve,
Speaker 1: who went on to do a lot of things. Rebecca Hall,
Speaker 1: who is great. I've always had the biggest crush on
Speaker 1: Rebecca Hall same year. Can I admit that publicly? I
Speaker 1: think we all can that she's very Yeah, she's very crushable. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Dominic Cooper um, all these young faces been in
Speaker 1: a cumber Batches has a sort of a small part.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's certainly not the lead at all, but
Speaker 1: he's very funny in this movie, which is something you
Speaker 1: don't see a lot out of him. I guess he's
Speaker 1: kind of funny. Is doctor strange with his one liners?
Speaker 1: But uh, there are a couple of like physical comedy
Speaker 1: bits in this with him that are really funny. When
Speaker 1: I first when I first sort of saw Bennedy come
Speaker 1: back in this film again with the name nowadays, it's
Speaker 1: hard to know because in my mind. I'm sort of
Speaker 1: applying my going all of course Bene did to come back.
Speaker 1: He's going to be this great actor. But in that film,
Speaker 1: he's like this upper class itmost like a twit, very pretentious,
Speaker 1: very snobby, looks down on people. But again he's got
Speaker 1: this weird it's got this weird sort of vulnerability to
Speaker 1: him as well, because he loves knowledge and he want
Speaker 1: he wants to be praised, he wants people to love
Speaker 1: him for his knowledge. Um. And I think he played
Speaker 1: it really well because he combines a sort of brashness
Speaker 1: of a public school actually you'd call it private school
Speaker 1: in England. We got a public public school boy, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, he's got this vulnerability of someone
Speaker 1: that's maybe been bullied throughout his life. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: also a story too, which is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: kind of um themes in the movie is a good
Speaker 1: will Hunting had this a little bit where you have
Speaker 1: the really smart guy from kind of the working class
Speaker 1: um section of England and he's, uh, he's got these
Speaker 1: friends that that he can either let sort of drag
Speaker 1: him back and hold him back with them, or he
Speaker 1: can break away and do the hard thing. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's sort of sad, but sometimes you need to sort
Speaker 1: of sort of lop it off and had that separation
Speaker 1: if you really want to go on and achieve something
Speaker 1: in life and leave that those guys behind, kind of
Speaker 1: like in good Will Hunting and you really, you really
Speaker 1: root for for Brian in this movie to do that,
Speaker 1: like you know, those guys aren't gonna lead him anywhere
Speaker 1: good you know. Yeah, because again at the start of
Speaker 1: the film, before he heads off to university, we see
Speaker 1: Brian James mcvoice character hanging out with Dominic Cooper Spencer
Speaker 1: and James Cordon. You can see that the other ja
Speaker 1: again it is James Corden. Trust me, any scene it's Cordon.
Speaker 1: They're lying, they're lying, know it is James Gordon. But
Speaker 1: you see them and you think, okay, Um, James mc
Speaker 1: voice character Brian, you can sense it's like a knowledge
Speaker 1: and there's a passion for learning, just don't have Actually,
Speaker 1: it's interesting that this film is set in the eighties
Speaker 1: and in the UK when we started. It's sort of
Speaker 1: been forgotten a bit now, but the eighties was a
Speaker 1: very challenge time for the UK. The Margaret Thatcher, polarizing,
Speaker 1: um opinionated, prime ministers, the people's perception of her. Some
Speaker 1: people love her, some people hate her. So this film
Speaker 1: is almost like a commonly on social change in the
Speaker 1: UK because we're seeing these mingling of classes. University is
Speaker 1: the Brian Jackson's very working class in fact in the
Speaker 1: film is from a place called South End, which is
Speaker 1: in Essex, which is like proper like east of east
Speaker 1: landon in it like Mary Poppins, you know that Dick
Speaker 1: van Dyke a bit like that, more exaggerated and he
Speaker 1: got the yeah, his one of his romantic interests as
Speaker 1: he's like, oh, hello, how do you do? And the captain.
Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, we see this class of cultures
Speaker 1: in this film. Yeah. And it was also a time
Speaker 1: where um, and I think they portray it pretty well
Speaker 1: is in the eighties when um sort of the student
Speaker 1: activists were really starting to get much more involved. I
Speaker 1: think that happened that in the sixties and it seemed
Speaker 1: to kind of go away a bit in the seventies
Speaker 1: and then in the eighties with nuclear disarmament and green
Speaker 1: peace and all these like great new causes. Uh. And
Speaker 1: Rebecca Hall is obviously the character that's you know, socialist
Speaker 1: Jewish student activist and it's it just it really reminded me. Um.
Speaker 1: I started college in nine, so it was a little
Speaker 1: bit after this, but that time when you go off
Speaker 1: to school and you're on your own for your first time,
Speaker 1: and you're and especially I was a little sheltered, I
Speaker 1: guess from the suburbs of Atlanta. But to see all
Speaker 1: these people involved in doing these things that I had
Speaker 1: never heard of, and your mind is just exploding with
Speaker 1: not only stuff you're learning in class, but just socially
Speaker 1: being aware of everything, and it's just such a rich,
Speaker 1: sort of exuberant time. And I think he really captures
Speaker 1: that well in this film. Yeah, because again, if you
Speaker 1: look at many reviews of this film, they often talk
Speaker 1: Clubbing a coming of age film. It is. It is
Speaker 1: ultimately a film about a boy that's leaving is sort
Speaker 1: of working class roots and trying to find his way
Speaker 1: in the world, and he's experiencing all the sort of
Speaker 1: turbulent emotions are teenager that's moving from being a adlescent
Speaker 1: to a young man, his first maybe his love, his kiss,
Speaker 1: and first relationship, all these things coming together in a
Speaker 1: new environment. Um, and you're kind of rooting for this guy,
Speaker 1: like come on you you really you really want him
Speaker 1: to do well? Yeah, and you know he's going to
Speaker 1: mess up, and he does mess up kind of constantly
Speaker 1: throughout the movie. Uh. And I think it's just identifiable
Speaker 1: as a character. I think so many of us have
Speaker 1: been there to where you're, you know, eighteen, nineteen, twenty
Speaker 1: years old, and I mean you're just figuring out life
Speaker 1: and and who you are at that point. That's really
Speaker 1: where I think people begin that journey of self discovery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again I would like to think of how would
Speaker 1: this film have been if they made it in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenties, because when Brian is going to university, even
Speaker 1: the way he finds out about the trials for the
Speaker 1: Universe Challenge Team is little poster on the Warters. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: kids kids, college kids might find it on on Instagram
Speaker 1: story TikTok story that the students union post. So how
Speaker 1: I wasn't intriguing to think how would the Brian Jackson
Speaker 1: be now in one rather than in the nineties, because
Speaker 1: the same kind of working class how will they interact
Speaker 1: with this environment? Yeah, I mean cell phones kind of
Speaker 1: screwed it all up. Smartphones. You know, it's fine to
Speaker 1: go back and see these movies from the era where
Speaker 1: everyone was engaged with one another and uh no, one's
Speaker 1: just you know, it's disappointing to see crowds of kids
Speaker 1: today sitting around staring at phones. You know, it's tough.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it's a teacher, you boat all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's things. There are times when we tell kids to
Speaker 1: use their cell phones to activities, like if they're doing
Speaker 1: an interactive task. But then there are times their kids
Speaker 1: on their lap and you can see their face slightly
Speaker 1: lit up and like I got you, I got you,
Speaker 1: and you walk around them, you stand behind the shoulders,
Speaker 1: stand behind like a pantomime villain, you and I. Everyone's
Speaker 1: like this as he goes there, right, I got you.
Speaker 1: Get your book out attention tonight. Yeah. Yeah, because they're
Speaker 1: so absorbed in the phone they don't even know you're
Speaker 1: behind him. No, they don't care because um. It is
Speaker 1: also a love story, like you said, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of the classic movie love story where you have these
Speaker 1: two people um to choose from and he's you know,
Speaker 1: one is sort of like I guess, the more traditionally
Speaker 1: beautiful um Alice Eve that's on his quiz team. And
Speaker 1: then you have Rebecca Hall, like I said, this socially
Speaker 1: conscious admit she's never had many boyfriends, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of focused on her her social activism and schoolwork. But
Speaker 1: you sort of know. I mean, it's how these movies go,
Speaker 1: and that's what we love about movies, like you know
Speaker 1: who he's gonna end up with. But I think that
Speaker 1: stuff doesn't matter when it's well done, Like it's the
Speaker 1: journey that is so enjoyable. Yeah, And I think these
Speaker 1: two characters they played so well because you've got they
Speaker 1: do seem like polar opposites. Um and Brian when he
Speaker 1: first enters and he sees interesting I've read the book.
Speaker 1: The book is slightly different. Um. They they he meets
Speaker 1: the characters earlier on. But in the film, there's like
Speaker 1: this clastic scene where Alice enters the examination room and
Speaker 1: Brian just suddenly stops dead and sees her like flashing
Speaker 1: a move, sort of part brushing her hair, walking through
Speaker 1: the room, like you know he's going to fall in
Speaker 1: love with this girl. Of course, but we're still again.
Speaker 1: I was rooting for Rebecca, thinking, Okay, Alice is there,
Speaker 1: but I felt I thinks Alice did have this while
Speaker 1: she was the sort of posh, blonde, um upper middle
Speaker 1: class character. She didn't still have likability about her. She
Speaker 1: wasn't like a mean, mean girls type character. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that was That's what you see a lot
Speaker 1: in movies, is that sort of trophy character where she
Speaker 1: is uh, just beautiful, but but kind of snobby and snobbish.
Speaker 1: And she really kind of stays in the running as
Speaker 1: it were. I think as a as a viewer, Um,
Speaker 1: they don't tip the hat too early until you know it.
Speaker 1: Shill she betrays him at the end, and even then
Speaker 1: she's not seen as a super villainous type of character.
Speaker 1: More like her true colors just kind of came out
Speaker 1: and she's really not right for him when she when
Speaker 1: she sleeps with Spencer. Yeah, I think it's quite It's
Speaker 1: more it gives us more nuanced rather than black and
Speaker 1: white approach to life, which is reality of how many
Speaker 1: people's college experience will be. You know, you might like
Speaker 1: a girl she turns you down, but then she's not
Speaker 1: gonna be some evil mastermind planning Ah, I'm going to
Speaker 1: dump you in front of the whole campus and put
Speaker 1: a poster of you crying at the break up. No,
Speaker 1: that that's you know, that's that's exactly it was. In
Speaker 1: real life. It's more like, ah, it didn't quite work out,
Speaker 1: there's someone else more suited to him. Um So I
Speaker 1: think I think it's a fan depiction of maybe real
Speaker 1: life rather than Yeah, I could have seen it going
Speaker 1: a little more in the other direction. I think if
Speaker 1: it were a Hollywood film, it probably would have been
Speaker 1: studio interference would have gotten involved and made it a
Speaker 1: bit more I don't know, just extreme with all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But I thought the you played it out in a
Speaker 1: pretty nice subtle way, uh in this movie. Very definitely
Speaker 1: well done. I think the soundtrack we should talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit. I love the soundtrack. Oh it's so good.
Speaker 1: I mean that's my era. Man. I grew up in
Speaker 1: high school listening to The Cure and the Smiths and
Speaker 1: U Joy Division and just sort of everything echo when
Speaker 1: the Bunny Man, And there's a lot of Cure in
Speaker 1: this Yeah, if you don't like The Cure, can you
Speaker 1: watch this film? Who doesn't like The Cure? Though? My god,
Speaker 1: the thing is this film actually got me into eighties
Speaker 1: music things. My elder brother, we live things like Michael Jackson,
Speaker 1: BROSSSS Bros. Is British thing is bross. For a while
Speaker 1: We're huge. They were like second to Marche Jackson for
Speaker 1: like a week in the world, and but they were
Speaker 1: a big, big deal in the UK. So we had
Speaker 1: a few bands in the eighties, eighties, nineties, but I
Speaker 1: only got into eighties music. I think to watching this
Speaker 1: film because I heard the soundtrack The Cure the Smith's Undertones,
Speaker 1: and I thought, hey, Bush, I thought, wow, this is
Speaker 1: a great music. And when it kicks off the opening
Speaker 1: the song is um Casus Spade And when it kicks
Speaker 1: off with that, you're like, that sets the tone. You're
Speaker 1: you're you get the nostalgic feel, even if you're not
Speaker 1: from the eighties. Yeah, where the eighties is going to
Speaker 1: be set. There Actually one thing about the soundtrack. I
Speaker 1: think they used it in a spoof called have You
Speaker 1: Are the Young Ones? Before Oh I Love the Young Ones? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So the Young Ones have a spoof of University Challenge
Speaker 1: and it's called Bambi Yeah, and it's like it's probably
Speaker 1: one of the honest I think that scene from the
Speaker 1: spoof Young Ones actually more famous than the show itself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they have like Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie from House
Speaker 1: Emma Thompson. So people are going to become mega styles
Speaker 1: and the um in that and I think that scene
Speaker 1: that episode actually starts off with the Motorhead song as well,
Speaker 1: so it's like, yeah, that probably was no accident. Um,
Speaker 1: the scene where I wanted to talk about where he's
Speaker 1: he finally is hanging out, I guess on New Year's
Speaker 1: Eve with Rebecca. And by the way, I thought, you
Speaker 1: know their real names of Rebecca and Alice as their
Speaker 1: character names, and I thought, sometimes you do that, but
Speaker 1: I found out in the book that was their name,
Speaker 1: so it was just coincidence of casting. I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But um, he's goes and spends sort of a um,
Speaker 1: disastrous New Year's Eve with Alice at his her parents
Speaker 1: cottage in Suffolk, and um, he comes back. He ends
Speaker 1: up spending New Year's Eve with Rebecca and they're drinking
Speaker 1: a little bit and you can see where it's headed
Speaker 1: and they finally have that first kiss and you're like,
Speaker 1: this is it, this is it, and he calls her
Speaker 1: Alice and it's just like I didn't see it coming,
Speaker 1: and it was just I felt sick to my stomach
Speaker 1: after after I saw that so did I because I
Speaker 1: generally thought, okay, so now Alice is out of the picture.
Speaker 1: He's from Rebecca. Rebecca, that's that's the truth. That's a
Speaker 1: real deepnection. It's all working New Year's Eve. And then
Speaker 1: when he does that, like and then you feel so
Speaker 1: sorry because you know that his mind is with Rebecca.
Speaker 1: But it's just literally a slip of the tongue, maybe
Speaker 1: a bit drunk. He didn't need it, and you can't
Speaker 1: come back from that though. But yeah, I was like, Rebecca, like,
Speaker 1: he didn't mean it. Why do you know he wants
Speaker 1: to like you made for each other, don't even know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so funny, how wrapped up you get in it too,
Speaker 1: because I was like, no, no no, no, don't stop. That
Speaker 1: was just a mistake. Um. And you know, he sees
Speaker 1: Alice and he goes and tells her he loves her,
Speaker 1: and this is after Spencer comes to visit, when he's
Speaker 1: hiding in the closet. But you don't even believe that
Speaker 1: he means it. You know, he doesn't even know what
Speaker 1: he wants. He's just sort of that kid that's just
Speaker 1: sort of trying to be in love with anybody. It
Speaker 1: seems like, yeah, I think he's just he's just going
Speaker 1: with the sort of the waves. He feels like, oh,
Speaker 1: Rebecca's tell me down. I need to go to the
Speaker 1: person that I think loves me. Yeah, and maybe at
Speaker 1: this stage he doesn't even know what love is. Is
Speaker 1: lust for this character Alice. Um. And I'm sort of
Speaker 1: glad that Spencer was there doing the dirty behind his
Speaker 1: bat because yeah, it was he gave his clean break.
Speaker 1: You know, Alice is not into him. It was good
Speaker 1: move on, he can move on. Yeah, and that that
Speaker 1: visit by Spencer is just um, it's a disaster too.
Speaker 1: And you know when he shows up, it's like, great,
Speaker 1: my old friend from back home is here. But it's
Speaker 1: that whole thing with a social class and the university
Speaker 1: student versus the guy that's you know, just from the
Speaker 1: working class, and you know it's not going to go well,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't, but it doesn't happen. One of the
Speaker 1: funniest fights in movie history, I think with he invented
Speaker 1: at Cumberbatch at the party, one of the funniest fight scenes.
Speaker 1: It's like Bennedy coming Batch does this sort of like
Speaker 1: like a cartoon, like goes like a cartoon correct, Like
Speaker 1: it's very funny and then he gets cold. Cockton does
Speaker 1: that kind of slapsticky turned to camera when he gets
Speaker 1: knocked out. Yeah, and then yeah, it's a it was
Speaker 1: a mismatch mismatch there, and you know it sets up
Speaker 1: that third act so well. I think when you know
Speaker 1: culminates in that, you know it could be the big
Speaker 1: soccer match or the big fight boxing match or whatever,
Speaker 1: and in this case, this university challenge. And I'm curious
Speaker 1: for someone who's been on the show, like, first of all,
Speaker 1: when did you watch this movie? Did you watch it
Speaker 1: back then? Not as early as two dozen six, I
Speaker 1: think a few years later, but well before I went
Speaker 1: on really, so yeah, well before Okay, so you saw
Speaker 1: this before you went on watching it. Now after you've
Speaker 1: been on, what is it conjure up for you? I mean,
Speaker 1: how real is it? Oh? It thinks it's actually a
Speaker 1: very good depiction. So the author David Nichols, So, I
Speaker 1: had a little moment last week a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago where I had our starstruck because I did a
Speaker 1: tweet about saying, oh, I'm gonna watch Startup for ten
Speaker 1: again because I'm going to have a podcast chat with
Speaker 1: you about it and David Nichols replied back to me, saying,
Speaker 1: oh you're not. You're an icon of the show. What
Speaker 1: an honor for him. So I feel I feel, I
Speaker 1: feel like our starstruck at that moment. You'll have to
Speaker 1: tweet this out. Yeah, he'll be, he'll be, He'll be through. So,
Speaker 1: David Nichols, thank you for writing a book that probably
Speaker 1: inspired many people to get into quizzing the game show
Speaker 1: because it's sort of immortalizes the show. It's part of
Speaker 1: the it's part of the folklore in the UK. And
Speaker 1: when I saw the film again, I've watched it before
Speaker 1: once it once, I've seen it since. It's a brilliant
Speaker 1: depiction of the modes, the sort of the teams are.
Speaker 1: You know, teams can isn't. The production crew is wonderful,
Speaker 1: but teams can get a bit like competitive with each other,
Speaker 1: wanting to outdo each other. The tensions between the teams
Speaker 1: individually even between teams does exist. But I'll tell you what,
Speaker 1: the questions on the the book and the film were brilliant.
Speaker 1: And there's one thing that got edited out from my
Speaker 1: actual episode, which I feel sad. In one of my
Speaker 1: earlier matches, possibly a quarterfinal, second round, we had a
Speaker 1: question that asked us about Eastles and I was like,
Speaker 1: I know this this on television. I said, this is
Speaker 1: from the or State, and I got I know this
Speaker 1: because I saw this on Start Off a ten. So
Speaker 1: I got a question by on the actual TV show
Speaker 1: because the start of A ten and I referenced Start
Speaker 1: Off a ten on the show itself. But the people
Speaker 1: who edited the show they edited out because they thought
Speaker 1: it's too much of a cross reference. But tragedy. So
Speaker 1: I learned something which in the game show well was
Speaker 1: he was the author on the University Challenge or not Know,
Speaker 1: so he was at Bristol University, so which is why
Speaker 1: he set the characters. He may have even been at
Speaker 1: Bristol at the time University Challenge was off air, so
Speaker 1: it was off there from eighty seven to ninety four.
Speaker 1: And in the UK they called this the Lost Generation
Speaker 1: of Quizzes. Oh the ratings so sixty two back when
Speaker 1: there's only literally BBC one and BBC two. The audiences
Speaker 1: are like huge, literally like everyone in the country would
Speaker 1: watch it. Over time, slowly the audience dipped went to
Speaker 1: like fifteen eighteen million, picked up again in the early
Speaker 1: eighties and in fact in the early eighties, and they
Speaker 1: even tried experimenting where they're a method called past the Batton,
Speaker 1: where you'd answer one question, then your teammate answers one,
Speaker 1: then your next team mate, and it was they're trying
Speaker 1: to bring a bit of pizzazz and gland out. Audiences
Speaker 1: dropped off in seven got cut quite quite sadly, and
Speaker 1: then and it disappeared, and then seven years later people
Speaker 1: said we should bring it back and again. One of
Speaker 1: the beautiful things of the show is that even if
Speaker 1: you watched again the game show on a Monday night
Speaker 1: and he watched the old version of sixty two, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much the same four ten points for a startup question,
Speaker 1: five points for bonuses, five points negative if you interrupt
Speaker 1: this music picture starter, twenty eight minute game show, much
Speaker 1: the same four. They're not tinkered with it, which is
Speaker 1: why I think people love it in particular. You know,
Speaker 1: when the world changes so much, uvers challenges that sort
Speaker 1: of constant presence and actually, like I sort of put
Speaker 1: it out there before a few times, I'll put it
Speaker 1: out there again. So Bamber has been hosting the show
Speaker 1: since eight two, eight seven, twenty five years. Then Pactsman
Speaker 1: took over ninety four two to two thousand seven years,
Speaker 1: so he's now got the record. He's not looking tired,
Speaker 1: but he's like I think he's had enough when he does,
Speaker 1: when he does retire. I've been publicly saying some social
Speaker 1: media a lot, but I'm putting my name in there
Speaker 1: but things. A lot of people think I'm too I'm
Speaker 1: not mean enough to be the whole, which is true.
Speaker 1: I couldn't be like Patsman bamber Gas going like the
Speaker 1: guy on the film. Mark Gatter's character was a bit
Speaker 1: more gentle, more supportive. He's like a schoolmaster, and I
Speaker 1: think I would bring back that vibe of supporting rather
Speaker 1: than Paxman's role has been like a it was like
Speaker 1: a pantomime villain, like no, terrible yoyo. That's a stupid answer.
Speaker 1: I think that they think going in your direction would
Speaker 1: be a brilliant move, and I think that would be
Speaker 1: kind of a fun thing. I would love to see
Speaker 1: that happen. Good luck. I'll put in a word for you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. I'm sending this podcast to the producers,
Speaker 1: like look, it's yeah, it's there, it's there an audio now, well,
Speaker 1: I mean here in the States. You know, Jeopardy is
Speaker 1: such a big thing as far as this kind of
Speaker 1: thing goes, and you know, Alex Trebek passed away and
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of speculation about who is going
Speaker 1: to take over. And Ken Jennings, former like most successful
Speaker 1: contestant of all time, is doing one of the temporary
Speaker 1: guest hosting duties right now. And I think the choices
Speaker 1: like do you go with someone like Ken or do
Speaker 1: you go with someone who's not affiliated with the show
Speaker 1: that's just a TV personality that's interesting. I think having
Speaker 1: someone a former contestant would be the way to go
Speaker 1: who understands loves the show that the audience is familiar with.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of backing myself here, but it's going to
Speaker 1: be either myself or Mr Monkman, one of us two. Well,
Speaker 1: when is he Is he finished? Is he retiring? For
Speaker 1: I thinks he slowly retired his sort of media portfolio
Speaker 1: duties because in the UK most people obviously know if
Speaker 1: the University Challenge, But in the nineties and naughties he
Speaker 1: used to be the host of Newsnight on BBC and
Speaker 1: this is and he was renowned as the toughest political
Speaker 1: interviewer so politicians wanted to show that they could handle
Speaker 1: sort of the funnesce of political debate. They're going to
Speaker 1: show and he there's a famous incident where a man
Speaker 1: called Michael Howard, who at one stage as the leader
Speaker 1: of the opposition party, and Patsman asked him the same
Speaker 1: question at twenty times and he asked, can you can
Speaker 1: you repeat that? Can you repeat that? The guy didn't
Speaker 1: the guy just in the end. It's like one of
Speaker 1: Patsman's most fierce moments. So Patsman eventually stepped down from that,
Speaker 1: So he's slowly reducing his He used to represent lots
Speaker 1: of documentaries. This is the last thing, to be honest.
Speaker 1: The reason why I think he wouldn't want to give
Speaker 1: it up is this is like it keeps him on
Speaker 1: Teddy for thirty eight weeks, keeping he pays the pays
Speaker 1: the bills. It's a great job. But I think you down,
Speaker 1: I would look after so I would, Yeah, you would
Speaker 1: do a great job. So in the film, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: in the final match, there is that moment that um
Speaker 1: where he finds the questions uh as an audience. Remember,
Speaker 1: I was mad that they weren't taking better care. I
Speaker 1: was mad that he was in that position to where
Speaker 1: he would just stumble upon the questions for the show, like, no, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta have that stuff locked away. You can't even
Speaker 1: leave it out like that. And he looks at the
Speaker 1: one question as all, and he messes up so bad
Speaker 1: by well by looking at it. He shouldn't have looked um,
Speaker 1: but he only looked at one question. He's not a cheater,
Speaker 1: and I feel like he was labeled a cheater unfairly.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh no, this is this is a hot
Speaker 1: Like I was trying to think the heartbreaking moments this
Speaker 1: film does have a little bit of a roller Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like one of the one of them was when h
Speaker 1: the Rebecca moment. We talked about a New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: and this is the one where I thought, like, yes,
Speaker 1: he's gonna win, he's gonna he's gonna it's gonna be
Speaker 1: the the film's gonna end on a positive note. And
Speaker 1: you know that's what you think is coming. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then the question comes out astronomy. Then he buzzes in
Speaker 1: before the questions come out and says, what was it?
Speaker 1: A big dipper person mage and reads the whole answer. Man.
Speaker 1: He's known this his whole life because he loves astronomy,
Speaker 1: and you just you feel terrible for him. And I
Speaker 1: do blame the production crew in the totally why do
Speaker 1: you leave this? Like again, I've been on the real
Speaker 1: show with their life there it's rubber banded up and
Speaker 1: he left it there was it? Yes, it was the
Speaker 1: walk of the runnerut with the host. I blame him,
Speaker 1: don't blame James McAvoy, Yeah, because he and he didn't
Speaker 1: even look at any of all the answers and he
Speaker 1: knew the answer to this one too. It was just heartbreaking, man,
Speaker 1: because you're so, like you said, you're so set up
Speaker 1: for this heroic finish and Rebecca Hall is gonna run
Speaker 1: up on stage and they're gonna get married and lift
Speaker 1: the trophy and man, it's just it's really a gut
Speaker 1: punch at the end when he gets um sort of
Speaker 1: and I hate to say found out as a cheater,
Speaker 1: but I think unfairly tagged as a cheater. Um. But
Speaker 1: it does lead to one of the funniest moments if
Speaker 1: he is when they lead him out of the studio
Speaker 1: into the street and he has to get into the
Speaker 1: ice cream truck. Oh God dares yes, the man that
Speaker 1: his mother Katain takes also a quite a huge sort
Speaker 1: of comics figure in the UK, and mother's married to
Speaker 1: this character, and you see like Rebecca wanting to sort
Speaker 1: of wave by the ice cream Man and they're like,
Speaker 1: oh dam yeah, he just that's he's that's that's the
Speaker 1: absolute low. Actually, that would have been the final. So
Speaker 1: in the UK, one thing that didn't show the game
Speaker 1: show because he didn't get to the stage of the trophy.
Speaker 1: But they normally get a eminent academic or personality toward
Speaker 1: the trophy. So my season again there's another reason why
Speaker 1: I'm got it. I didn't get to the final. They
Speaker 1: had the probably probably one of the most iconic moments
Speaker 1: ever of University Challenge. In my year, the trophy was
Speaker 1: awarded by Stephen Hawking. Way they did it, In fact,
Speaker 1: they did it three months later in Cambridge in his
Speaker 1: like academics lounges. It were Stephen Hawking and Twitter melted down.
Speaker 1: It was it was the most iconic series of a
Speaker 1: Universe Challenge, just like crying. And then I was like
Speaker 1: and then Stephen Fry Stephen Hawking and you know he
Speaker 1: passed me a couple of years later, so it's like
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking actually giving a trophy and I was like,
Speaker 1: that could have been me, Like, and Eric suns skype him.
Speaker 1: I see the back of his room. Um, And he
Speaker 1: didn't win it, but he still got like award, like
Speaker 1: a runners up equivalent, got a picture with Stephen Hawking
Speaker 1: with the Universe Challenge, and I'm like, no, that should
Speaker 1: have been me. I'm looking at that blank all behind
Speaker 1: you and I love Eric, but I really should have
Speaker 1: been in that final Oh man, that's terrible. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, they don't show much of the fall out.
Speaker 1: I think it was interesting. It was a tight movie
Speaker 1: at about I D minutes. Um, yeah, it could have
Speaker 1: been longer, I feel like and not. I think it
Speaker 1: would have been okay to have a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was a lean movie, Like they
Speaker 1: didn't show any of the fallout from this little scandal.
Speaker 1: They didn't show him arguing his case or them even
Speaker 1: accusing him. It. Really they kind of just I don't
Speaker 1: know if they shot that stuff and cut it out,
Speaker 1: but they really just go from him being found out
Speaker 1: to him leaving in that truck. And it was a
Speaker 1: really smart move, I think, as far as a filmmaking
Speaker 1: move goes, because you're left to sort of piece it together,
Speaker 1: although as a as an audience member, you want to
Speaker 1: sort of have him fight for himself and say I
Speaker 1: knew the answer anyway, and I just saw it and
Speaker 1: it's your fault. You shouldn't let it out. But it
Speaker 1: leaves the audience to sort of do that themselves, which
Speaker 1: has a lot of impact. I think, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it means that well, when you finish watching it, either
Speaker 1: on your streaming or in the cinema or wherever it is,
Speaker 1: you can have that discussion with the person you've been watching, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, how are you going to happen? Jack, and
Speaker 1: that you went to confessed you I can they they
Speaker 1: sort of resolved, and do they find out who messed
Speaker 1: up with the studio? You have the discussion at home.
Speaker 1: So actually it is a very smart move by the
Speaker 1: by the production and the direction of that. Think so yeah, uh,
Speaker 1: And then you know you've got the two things sort
Speaker 1: of lingering out there that you have to tie up
Speaker 1: those loose ends with Spencer and whoever he's going to
Speaker 1: go back, and you know professors love to and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, you know where it's going. But that's why
Speaker 1: we love movies. Because of these moments where everything's okay
Speaker 1: with Spencer. You want him to be okay. You want
Speaker 1: him to meet Brian up here rather than him dragging
Speaker 1: Brian down, and you get the without it being too sugarcoated,
Speaker 1: you get the sense that there's some hope there that
Speaker 1: that might happen. Yeah, and I think again that maybe
Speaker 1: with a commentary on the eighties how in the UK
Speaker 1: there's a lot of unemployment there, people like Spencer, people
Speaker 1: that left school of sixteen without any qualifications. Things tough.
Speaker 1: But then it shows in because like Spence, he's sort
Speaker 1: of turned around. He's trying to get back in the
Speaker 1: path it was he did. You have a magistrate session
Speaker 1: where he's been released and he's been I think he
Speaker 1: got probation only and it's not like, you know, it
Speaker 1: would have been too much if he was like and
Speaker 1: now I've signed up for uh for college and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this. It just sort of gives you a
Speaker 1: hint that he's gonna like branch off from his path
Speaker 1: of of badness. Yeah, he is. It not not nice
Speaker 1: tile off and you can see, yuh, I liked his
Speaker 1: character he had. It is sort of he brought the
Speaker 1: South m the Essex Guy to Bristol University where you
Speaker 1: know we saw the Bendict com about uh and then
Speaker 1: you know at the end he eats. It's it's that
Speaker 1: movie thing where he's running after his love and there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of misdirection there when he sees Alice
Speaker 1: in the hall and um, you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: she's not a villain, so you don't want her to
Speaker 1: get to faced, but he does. You know, there is
Speaker 1: a nice little moment where she's sort of put in
Speaker 1: her place a little bit and that's all you need.
Speaker 1: And again sometimes like the little guy can who you know,
Speaker 1: people who have been slighted in love can watch and
Speaker 1: go to Alice. You know he doesn't want, you know,
Speaker 1: but you know the person we want to speak to.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's it is like because this film is
Speaker 1: also a rom com, and in rom com the guy's
Speaker 1: got to get the girl or the girl's got to
Speaker 1: get the guy. In fact, I've watched an interview with
Speaker 1: James McAvoy and he said one of the reasons he
Speaker 1: accepted this role was he always wanted to do a
Speaker 1: rom com. Oh really, yeah, and he got it. He
Speaker 1: got his rom com. Yeah, this little small movie. It's
Speaker 1: a little bit of magic. I think I wish it
Speaker 1: was better known. Hopefully this will put it on some
Speaker 1: more people's radar. I think it was released in the
Speaker 1: US under a different title because no one here knew
Speaker 1: that starter for Chen was a reference to the University Challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it did really pulling the box of less than
Speaker 1: a couple of million dollars and even the UK to
Speaker 1: become like one of those sleeper cult hits over the years.
Speaker 1: It builds up the audience and builds it up. But yes,
Speaker 1: I think it's because perhaps the cast, while they're Stella now,
Speaker 1: weren't so Stella first came out. Yeah, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of fun to go back and see little baby James
Speaker 1: McAboy and all these kind of young actors, little puggy
Speaker 1: James Corton. James Corner needs to tweet about this is
Speaker 1: involved because he's kint quiet. He's just like, let it
Speaker 1: be like I didn't James. He needs to James Gordon
Speaker 1: if you thinks he's a west Ham fan, and Russell
Speaker 1: Brands as well, So James Corner, Russell Brand. We're gonna
Speaker 1: get James Gordon to tweet about this film. Okay, because
Speaker 1: he could get a whole new audience for University Challenge. Totally, totally.
Speaker 1: All right, man, well this is a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: great movie. I'm glad you. I'm glad you told me
Speaker 1: about it and have me watch it. It was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun and uh, I look forward to talking again. Cheers.
Speaker 1: Jack is always a pleasure. I'm that serendiperous. Moment. I
Speaker 1: got a message saying, do you want to interview those
Speaker 1: stuff you should Know podcast guys? I said yes immediately.
Speaker 1: I'm so so thank you for pleasure. All Right, thanks Bud.
Speaker 1: All Right, everyone, I hope you enjoyed that as much
Speaker 1: as I did. And I always say that, but these
Speaker 1: conversations are a lot of fun, especially now when we're
Speaker 1: locked down in the pandemic. To be able to spend
Speaker 1: some time with with my buddy Bobby over there in
Speaker 1: the UK. He's a good guy. We're gonna meet in
Speaker 1: person one day. I'm gonna take him up on that
Speaker 1: soccer game. We're gonna hit the pub and have a
Speaker 1: point and talk about math. He's gonna teach me some stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's a good dude, and I'm glad you you checked
Speaker 1: out this episode and like I said, hopefully you watch
Speaker 1: Starter for ten. If not, you can watch it on
Speaker 1: HBO Max. Very very good, lean ninety minute independent film
Speaker 1: coming of age rom com Love Story. Had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun talking about it, and Bobby is just a
Speaker 1: good guy, so big thanks to him. Check out Bobby's book,
Speaker 1: The Life Changing Magic of Numbers, and you can also
Speaker 1: follow him on Twitter at Bobby Underscore Seagull And that
Speaker 1: is as it sounds, s E A g U double L.
Speaker 1: Not Steven Seagal, but Bobby Seagull, Everyone, the real deal.
Speaker 1: The big thanks to Bobby, and thanks to you for listening,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week. Movie Crash is produced
Speaker 1: and written by Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and
Speaker 1: engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown
Speaker 1: here in our home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.