Lights, Camera... Aggro?
Lights, Camera… Aggro? is a movie podcast where two film fans with completely different tastes review, debate, and discuss everything from Marvel movies and Hollywood blockbusters to independent cinema, character-driven dramas, and award-winning films.
Phil loves superhero movies, action films, blockbuster franchises, and as many car chases as possible. Nicky prefers thoughtful storytelling, nuanced scripts, character-led dramas, and films that capture the beauty of real life.
Each episode features honest movie reviews, lively film discussions, and entertaining debates as they search for common ground. Can Nicky find something to love in the latest superhero blockbuster? Will Phil survive a slow-burning drama where the biggest action is a conversation?
Whether you’re into Marvel, Oscar contenders, indie films, action movies, or simply love hearing passionate film fans talk movies, Lights, Camera… Aggro? delivers funny conversations, fresh perspectives, and plenty of disagreements along the way. Sometimes they agree. More often, they don’t—and that’s what makes it worth listening.
Contact: lightscameraconflict@gmail.
Lights, Camera... Aggro?
An Evening With Gary Lineker
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his week, Nicky has chosen to talk about AN EVENING WITH GARY LINEKER (1994).
Written by Arthur Smith and Chris England, and directed by Andy Wilson, AN EVENING WITH GARY LINEKER tells the story of Bill and Monica Despacos. As they try to fix their marriage during a holiday in Ibiza, the Italia ’90 World Cup tournament adds a heated backdrop onto which all their secrets can spill. Starring UK comedy legends from the era, (Caroline Quentin, Paul Merton, and Martin Clunes) as well as soon-to-be movie star, Clive Owen, this gem of a film is riddled with nostalgia for people of a certain age.
Nicky rewatches this TV movie before every international competition in which England Men compete. Phil? Well, if you want his opinions, you’ll have to listen to find out.
References mentioned, and wider reading…
Why Italia 90 Was Not Beautiful To Everyone, But Will Always Be Special, by Amy Lawrence -
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/15/italia-90-world-cup-special
The Letterboxd link -
https://letterboxd.com/film/an-evening-with-gary-lineker/
• Finally, you can find us on Bluesky at @lightscamereapod
• On Insta at @lightscameraaggro
• Or you can email us at lightscameraconflict@gmail.com
(Yes, we set up our email address before we’d finalised our name. What of it?!)
Hello and welcome to Lights Camera Aggro, the podcast with two friends, one film and very little agreement. I'm Nikki, and I think I might support Germany for a bit.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Phil, and he's got a degree in English literature, and right now he's filling out his World Cup wall chart. This week it's Nikki's turn to share the movie she loves, and today she's brought the 1994 film and evening with Gary Lineker. Drop us a like and subscribe on YouTube or follow us on your favourite podcast provider. It all helps the algorithm. Well that will come soon enough. But first, how's your week been? Oh, it's been fantastic this week. I've had a few TV series that have started back. Ted Lasso. I've started watching Ted Lasso. Yes. I've started watching the new Star Trek that's come back, which is really good.
SPEAKER_01Ted Lasso, I will put Don't tell me anything because I've not started it. But what I have done this week is watched the first two series again and I'll watch the third. And was there a fourth or is this the fourth? This is the fourth, right? Right, okay. So I'll watch the third and then I'll watch it. And I'm seeing lots of good things online because obviously I'm a women's football fan and I follow a lot of people who are.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So I'm happy that that's being given a spotlight.
SPEAKER_02So I I will give you my spoiler-free review. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I just don't think you're capable of that.
SPEAKER_02It's the first thing I'll see. So what happens in the first episode? Now I thought so. The first episode, I thought a couple of things a bit too silly, you know, even for Ted Lasso. And then second episode gets back into its dride. Yeah. And the woman who's out of sex education.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I know who you mean. She's a coach. She's brilliant in it. I've seen people rave about it. We need to give her a proper name. So she's called Tanya Reynolds. Let's give her her credit.
SPEAKER_02She she fantastic. I've seen lots of people rave. It's it's great to have that feeling back. You know, uh, you know, you know I love Ted Lasso when Ridge come out. Did I put you on to it or did you put me on it?
SPEAKER_01You did absolutely not put me onto it.
SPEAKER_02It came out, it came out during COVID, yeah, lockdowns. And it was just it was just the right vibe to get to it. It was brilliant. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I rewatching the first series the other day, I'd I mean I had seen that a few times during like you know, when it came out, I watched it a few times. But it was so nice to revisit it and remember how it was so funny. And it definitely did kind of lose a little bit of the humour as the series carried on. But what I think it did was just really develop that sort of we are gonna tackle toxic masculinity, we're gonna show how to be masculine without the toxicity in all the various forms, and show the downfalls of toxic masculinity with Nate. Yes. And I'm watching all that again now, and it is funny. Oh yeah, I've forgotten.
SPEAKER_02It's such good and the other thing through reading the few bits online. I didn't get that lots of people didn't like the third series. I thought the third series was perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_01It was fine, but yeah, I remember at the time there was a bit of as good as the first.
SPEAKER_02It ended in a nice way. Yeah, but this this it's it's it's nice what I've seen so far. I really enjoy it. And also, Reacher has come back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've not seen it.
SPEAKER_02So watch the first episode. That that's pretty good so far.
SPEAKER_01Because they're not dropping, they've done the three, haven't they? And they're gonna then release one a week until it's all done. So I'm gonna wait till they're all out so I can just binge it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I don't know what the book is that this one is based off.
SPEAKER_02Now is here's the thing talking about binge watching, right? Ted Lasso's coming out weekly. I am liking that I've got to wait a week rather than binge watching. And I think like I love binge watching at the time, but I think there's something said to me where you can appreciate what you've just watched rather than moving straight on to the next one, straight on to the next one. I'm liking that I'm thinking about the last episode and where the next one goes.
SPEAKER_01I agree with you on some things, so I think some series really lend itself well to having a week to stew on it. I always think Line of Duty, which was full of sort of suspense and full of like, oh my god, what's gonna happen with that little bit, and is that person good or bad? All that stuff. You know, you wonder about it all week and it's not reacher as well. Well, I don't know about Reacher because I know the books, so therefore I've probably seen I don't know what book this one is based off, this series, but I'll I will have probably read it. So then it's not a suspense thing.
SPEAKER_02You know there's a spin off series coming as well, Neagly. Oh, is there? Yeah, that's that as soon as Reacher finishes, that comes out. Okay, well that looks pretty good.
SPEAKER_01That's not the character in Reach that I would have given a spin-off series to. Well, luckily you're not in control of well, I think to be fair, they've made more of a role in the TV series, so yeah, maybe. Anyway, let's crack on.
SPEAKER_02So, before we start, remember this is going to be full of spoilers. If you haven't seen An Evening with Gary Lineker, and I'm guessing you probably haven't, now's the time to pour the pod and come back when you're done. We'll be waiting. So, Nikki, why on earth did you choose an evening with Gary Lineker when there's all these films out there?
SPEAKER_01This podcast is supposed to be a recognition of the fact that you and me have very different tastes. I agree. Which is the point of it. But what it also is is we bring films that made us, that got us, got into our beings, into our souls. I for me I see that as at a young age, but it doesn't always have to be. And some it's a film, we talk about films that have literally become part of us and part of our personalities. And for me, and I appreciate that this is a niche one, and even with Gary Lineke, is that this is the a genuine question now is this classed as a film? I think it's probably a TV movie.
SPEAKER_02It's a TV movie, it's a dramedy, I would call it. Would you? Yes, I would. Drama and probably.
SPEAKER_01I understood the quote month, I just didn't understand why you now this is a comedy, and it is and it's based it is a play. So it's a play that they've made a TV movie of, and you know, it's written about the 1990 World Cup. It is very specific to a person of a certain age who grew up in England. So it's exactly not not even the UK. Brigitte Virgita. We'll talk about Virgita Virgita. Lovely Virgita. We'll talk about her in a bit. This was a play, and it was a play that came out sometime after the 1990 World Cup, which was in Italy, and it happened to be a World Cup that England did better than expected at.
SPEAKER_02This is the f the World Cup for me where Gaza became the hero. He cried on the pitch. Never had a moment. Again, we've just touched upon toxic masculinity within football and stuff, and he showed emotions can happen. I always remember the Lineka point.
SPEAKER_01See, there's loads of stuff about this World Cup that stands out, and what I never know is is it because it was like the first one I paid attention to? I was 12, and that summer was particularly what's the word, memorable for various reasons, and not least because of the football. Or is it just because, you know, it just happened to be the World Cup, and we've there's loads of iconic moments in every World Cup. I'm appreciating the fact that as we beat now, this is August 2026. The 2026 World Cup finished a month ago, the Canadian USA Mexican one.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_01And so we really should have done this a few months ago.
SPEAKER_02This could have been a bonus. This this should have been a bonus episode, but this is but this is what it is. It is what it is, and we we do it as we do it.
SPEAKER_01So this is a play by Arthur Smith and Chris England. They made the TV film, the TV movie that came out in 1994. I think it was shown on TV in 94, I think it was shown on TV in 96 or 98. It's only been shown a few times. It's not like something that gets trotted out all the time. However, I think I had it on video, and I recorded video or bought. No, I think I had a bought video, it was a second-hand video from like a school girler or something, which I no longer have the means to play. But it is on YouTube. As I guess you watch. I know, I know, I know.
SPEAKER_02You know me and my high quality 4K surround sound, one.
SPEAKER_01You need to get over it. You need to so basically get all that of your system now, because that is not gonna be part of your critique. Isn't it?
SPEAKER_02No, no, it's not gonna be part of the critique at all. But it was just very fuzzy the copy that's on YouTube.
SPEAKER_01But I revisit this film, I watch this TV movie. I'm gonna call it a film all the way through, but I accept that it's not. I watch this TV movie film every single time there's a men's England tournament England men are in the tournament, so it's gonna be probably watched again in two years' time for the Euros. I watched it a couple of months ago before the World Cup, and I do that absolutely without you know, I don't miss a go. Because I love it. I love this this film, and it is very, very full of the nostalgia of 1990, which I appreciate for anyone listening who's not from England and is not old enough to remember the summer of 1990 and doesn't care about football, it's soccer. No, we're gonna say football, it's not gonna mean anything. So I appreciate that. This is not this is niche, it's not gonna mean anything to a lot of people.
SPEAKER_02This is not gonna be the podcast that's gonna set us alive in the world, this episode.
SPEAKER_01Well, it should be because it's a beautiful TV movie, but it's just pure nostalgia, and I that's why I love it. And I'm not the only one who does remember Italy 90 with nostalgia.
SPEAKER_02I know I it's a age group, our age group here. Yeah, yeah. It's also it was the time that we should have it.
SPEAKER_01We should have won it. Or we could we could have won it, maybe, but you know, whatever. I mean we say that, but but we didn't. And we came fourth, I think, in the end, didn't we? We lose the third, fourth playoff together to Italy. I remember that as well. But the summer of 1990, I'm just gonna give you a little bit of context. I was gonna say it was very hot, but I don't think it was hot compared to today's hot.
SPEAKER_02No, no, this week's been an absolute nightmare of heat.
SPEAKER_01It was hot for me at the time. It's felt like it was a summer of hot, you know, no rain. I was out on my bike all the time with mates down the road. It was the summer of my first kiss and my first period. So that was in memorable.
SPEAKER_02That's good to show the world on the podcast.
SPEAKER_01No, it's true though, isn't it? Because these are the reasons why it's that that summer stands out to me. It's not just the football, it was that I was of an age where exciting things were happening. This summer now that we've just had, I may remember some of the football in in years to come, but I'm not gonna remember anything specific about this summer. So nothing exciting happens when you're 48. You just like go with the flow. But go with the flow I did in the 1990s.
SPEAKER_02Many podcast listeners. So I just want to add to this. One of my colleagues listens to the podcast. Oh, nice! Hello. Uh he's a really nice guy. He's gonna enjoy hearing about my first period. Exactly. And when he comes in in a couple of weeks' time, after hearing this podcast, he's gonna go Phil.
SPEAKER_01I don't care because people bleed. So let's just crack on. Anyway, I found an article just to kind of basically sum up a bit about this World Cup because it's from The Guardian, and I think it was written in like, I don't know, 2015 or something. Where Italian 90 was not beautiful to everyone, but will always be special. So it was about this nostalgic look back we have, and it was by Amy Lawrence, and yeah, she wrote it in 2015. So she wrote she sort of talked about the iconic moments. You've already mentioned a couple of them. Gaza cried because he got a second yellow card, which meant if we which meant he was a ban from the next match, which would be the final, yeah. Had we got there. And then you you referenced it again. My favourite bit of that is Gary Lineker doing a sort of gesture to his face to sort of say to Bobby Robson, have a word. Yeah, have a word of it. It's my favourite bit. Uh Nessendoma. Oh yeah. Nessendoma.
SPEAKER_02That's one thing I was going to bring up. Of course. Where like one thing I'll take out of this whole experience of watching an evening of Gary Lineker, you just hear Nessendorma again.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful. Anyone who is not of the age or of the area that grew up in England at that time, Nessendorma was the Aria, I guess, from whatever opera it's from, that Pavarotti sang, but it was used by the BBC every night as their theme music to do the highlights of the football. So every you know you heard it every day. You heard it every day when you're listening to the highlights. So it's just icon, you hear it now, it takes you back immediately. Do you remember Roger Miller and Cameroon?
SPEAKER_02Yes, they're his little shaky dance. His little shaky dance, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And then I just don't know why.
SPEAKER_02Cameroon did way better than expected in that world.
SPEAKER_01They did, but then I've also read a bunch of stuff about this about how that's basically just racism. Because why why shouldn't we have expected Cameroon's?
SPEAKER_02No, because no, I it I would totally not say race. They're not known as a footballing country. That's why they were not.
SPEAKER_01I think again, it's that kind of Eurocentric view of like of soccer's played by Europe and anyone else who's not Europe is a bit site, or South America and Europe is sort of No, but this is not up for debate. This is this is what people have said that there's an element of racism about that now. So I'm just pointing that out. You don't have to agree with it, but this is not the debate. I'm reading about, I'm telling you what this woman has said in this thing.
SPEAKER_02And that's me, told.
SPEAKER_01No, I'm just saying, you don't get into a debate about whether somebody's racist or not. You can't say that because you're white. Anyway, but she talks about all these iconic moments, and I remember Toto Scalaci with fondness as well. He was the Italian player. Yep. I just remember him. Scalacci. But this is her quote that I'm going to bring out. Italian 90 took place in an era where attending a World Cup was not an outrageously extravagant idea for an adventurous football fan. There were no there was no notion of hotels or restaurants bumping up their prices by insane percentages to rip off visitors. Tickets floated about at face value if you looked hard enough in most cities, certainly in the group stage. We got round in the streets of the names of the shops and bars which were selling match tickets up to the eve of the game. And there is definitely, I think now, you think, would you want to go to the World Cup? Well, you'd want to, but you couldn't afford it in a million years.
SPEAKER_02Especially the final things were going for like over £2,000. Easy stuff. You know, and I just wanted to add, and don't edit this out, this was a time where you could sort of trust FIFA as well. Where FIFA now is just like questioned it, would you?
SPEAKER_01You just wouldn't have questioned it. So it's a different time, it's a simpler time. Yeah. But I say that as knowing full well that when you're 12, everything is simpler.
SPEAKER_02Of course.
SPEAKER_01I think, yeah. Anything at the time you look back to your child and you think it was simpler, it's because you didn't have anything complicated in your life. The adults did. But it still feels like this was simpler anyway, whatever. So, okay, have you heard of this? Had you heard of this before I told you to do that?
SPEAKER_02I'd only heard of this from what you told me about. We had the conversation years ago. I must have been, I think it was when the Women's World Cup was on, and I was cutting your hair in the salon, and you were like, Oh, I can't wait tonight. I'm gonna watch an evening with Gary Lineker.
SPEAKER_01And I was like, Right, okay.
SPEAKER_02Is this like a highlight show or something? I didn't know it was a TV dramedy movie.
SPEAKER_01I also don't know how famous Gary Lineker is, not in the UK.
SPEAKER_02I think he is fairly famous.
SPEAKER_01In America?
SPEAKER_02Well, big in Japan.
SPEAKER_01I genuinely don't. I think where he's played in other teams like Barcelona and he played in Japan, didn't he? Yeah, he's gonna be.
SPEAKER_02So we'll know that, but I think he's known, like, match of the day is watched by all sorts around the world, so he's big like that. Yeah, and I I'll give you an interesting little tip bit here. Okay. He played in the J League in Japan. Okay. Gary, his first name, as we know it, translates into Japan to diarrhea. Lovely.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so my point is anyone who doesn't know who Gary Lineker is, he was a footballer who played for England back in the day, 1990, he's one of those the highest goal scorers.
SPEAKER_0231 goals in 51 appearances. Right, okay.
SPEAKER_01So we had that he's one of those he's one of those people who has been very famous for being a footballer, but also he was famous as well for never getting a yellow card. Yeah, he never got booked, he never got booked. And then he's gone on after retirement from football to he's done TV stuff and he was a pundit and he's done TV presenting of match of the day for years.
SPEAKER_02He's only great at advertising crisps.
SPEAKER_01He's done crisp adverts. I think America did have the Walker's advert this year because he had Steve Carrell, or at least we saw it, whether they had it on there. Steve Carell and David Beckham.
SPEAKER_02Are the ladies in America or is that in Europe?
SPEAKER_01I don't know, but it was Walker's TV advert. We had it on the telly here in the World Cup recently, which had Steve Carell, Gary Lineker. Did it have Gary Lineker? Yeah, I'm sure it didn't. It had David Beckham and it had did it have Thierry Henry? Oh, I don't know, I might be making all that up. Definitely Steve Carell.
SPEAKER_02Steve Carell's in the advertis. It might even be.
SPEAKER_01It was Walker's because I remember thinking that's not even famous in America, surely, but Steve Carell must have been paid a watch to be able to do that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure Walkers are called Lays out there.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, right. Gary Lenico now, by the way, has a podcast and he's taken over the podcasting world and he's got a Netflix show that's linked to the podcast, so he's doing fine. He's a public figure everyone has heard of. But at this point, he wasn't a TV presenter.
SPEAKER_02He aligns really well politically as well. He's good, he's a good guy.
SPEAKER_01He's a good guy, he stands up for people who are being oppressed. But what is interesting is that even in 1990, or when this was made and it came out in 94, he hadn't done any of that stuff. But he was seen to be a really nice guy. Did they call him the Queen Mother of Football?
SPEAKER_02Ah, something like that.
SPEAKER_01It was like a really sweet guy, you know. He's just you know like it's the it's never getting the yellow card thing, I think, that made him seem like a very sweet boy. Okay, let's start. Oh, mean titles. It is unmistakably 1990 because it's one on one.
SPEAKER_02Express yourself!
SPEAKER_01It's one on one. Alright, I don't think we've got the rights for you to sing that. World in Motion by New Order is playing.
SPEAKER_02I had that song on 12 Inch. I had that song on standard single.
SPEAKER_01It's so good. And it's music is everything, isn't it? It takes you back. So this is 1990. There's no other time it can be. This is the England World Cup song by New Order. Yeah, it was a great song. It was a great song. John Barnes are up. I still know it.
SPEAKER_02I'm not gonna do it. I was just about to, so you said you've got to do it.
SPEAKER_01I don't think we should, because I don't think we I think we'd have to pay money to New Order if we did that. However, this is where we are 1990, suburban England. Monica and Bill are a married couple and they are getting ready for their holiday. She is packing, he is being very helpful and watching the football.
SPEAKER_02Watching the football.
SPEAKER_01She tells him she's leaving him. And he doesn't really hear.
SPEAKER_02He's just Can you wait till half time? Love, we can't really concentrate.
SPEAKER_01It's classic, isn't it? It's a stereotype of some marriages, but it's definitely, I think a lot of people have experienced that. Clive Owen and Caroline Quentin. Caroline Quentin, yeah. Owen, yeah. Now I don't know. This is the first time I ever saw Clive Owen do anything. Because I've had never seen him do anything, but I don't think he was the megastar that he is now.
SPEAKER_02No, I think like he he done a couple of little films here and there and TV dramas.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't I it was my first experience of him. Uh Caroline Quentin, though, it should be said, at this point was an absolute comedy god because she was in Men Behaving Badly. She was just huge.
SPEAKER_02So I do have a question relating to that. Okay. Was Paul Merton in Men Behaving Badly originally? He was never in Men Behaving Badly. Who was in Men Behaving Badly before Neil Morrissey? Yeah, because I'm looking at this as like this is basically Men Behaving Badly, but set around the World Cup. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01She's definitely playing that role.
SPEAKER_02She's the Dorothy role. So I've just looked up. It wasn't Paul Merton, it was Harry Enfield, who's in the first series of Men Behaving Badly. And he was somebody else. I knew it was someone of that era because he's he's kind of that era, isn't he? Harry Enfield, Paul Merton.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, this is Clive Owen and this is Caroline Quentin. Bill Carrey's on watching the football, but eventually he says, or he asks, is there anyone else? And she says, Yes. Gary Lineker.
SPEAKER_02Wow. Wow. You've done well.
SPEAKER_01I'm not even disappointed. No, he's chuffed a bit, because Gary Lineker is an icon for football fans at this point. Do you think they'll get married?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Monica Lineker. So you did enjoy this film. I didn't say I didn't. So this whole setup, this opening scene, it kind of sets the tone of the film because obviously she's not actually having a relationship with Gary Lineker.
SPEAKER_02But I didn't know that at first, because I was like, okay, is this how it's starting? Because I didn't know that. I've got into this blind. I've gone in this blind. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, she then goes back upstairs. And she it's this is it's very obviously based on a play because it breaks all these sort of norms that you would expect in the theatre. She breaks the fourth wall, there's all these flights of fancy, it's quite whimsical, which makes loads of sense in the theatre and a little less sense in a sort of standard play, uh standard TV movie or film. She breaks the fourth wall and just says basically, Well it'd be so easy to know what to do. If I was having an affair with Gary Lineker, I would know what to do, but I'm not, so it isn't. And she's obviously very unhappy but not sure what's gonna happen. She carries on packing for the holiday. Monica and Bill get on the plane. Now, this you've already quoted a little bit of it, I will say misquoted a little bit of it. My favourite bit, I can do this whole monologue, which I won't do, but I have learnt it because Monica on the plane makes me laugh so much. They're flying on a match day, Bill is furious, and he's filling in his World Cup.
SPEAKER_02And the delayed is delayed.
SPEAKER_01Yes, so they should, yeah, they should should have got in time got to Abitha in time to see the England match. They don't. And she does this brilliant thing, and it's like, this is my husband Bill. He's a mature man, a man respected in the world, a publisher. And she does this whole build-up about and he is filling in his World Cup World Chart. His second world. The second World Cup World Chart. That's the first one that actually burns. Annoyingly, he was pleased to have to fill it in again. Right, okay. It's just very funny. Their marriage is clearly he's a man child and she's the long suffering adult. And that's the that's the second one.
SPEAKER_02And he's so pissed off in this scene that he's gonna miss the beginning of the game. And she's like, Well, maybe it's just we'll get the Second half, and he's just like he's just caught it out. He's not even tuning into what she's saying.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, he's just he's obsessed with the fact that England are playing and he can't watch it. When they land in the airport, it was our third carousel human being getting on the carousel scene that we have talked about on this podcast. Which is the other two? Fishco Wonder, Ken gets uh yeah, and then in Peter's Friends, Kenneth Bryan goes and gets the cases for him and Rita Rudner.
SPEAKER_02Completely forgot about that one.
SPEAKER_01Well, all I'm saying is this is a trope that we see time and time again, but it's kinda is it funny? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Nah, not really.
SPEAKER_01But he basically, the cases aren't coming. Bill gets up on the carousel, walks through the swooshy barrier, and sees all of the baggage handlers watching the football, which is funny. I think it's quite funny when that's why the cases aren't there. So he finds his bags, walks out, and then they get the taxi. And it is a race against time to get to the hotel for the second half of the match. However, they are met at the airport by Ian, who is played by Paul Merton. Not a big one. What a haircut.
SPEAKER_02I love the concept. You can't get any more bowly bowls. A bowly bowl. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He is a friend of Ian's from school who also works in the publishing industry, as Ian does, and for some reason is there at the same time.
SPEAKER_02Is boring.
SPEAKER_01Monica's furious that they have to see him on holiday. Bill feels like, well, what could you do? He's known him for years, but he's also not that bothered.
SPEAKER_02See, I kind of got the feeling that Bill had set it up, that Ian would be there, so he'd have somebody to watch the football with. But Ian doesn't like the football. No, but it doesn't matter. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It's just one of those things that Monica's furious and Bill's not bothered. And it's just and but Ian is an absolute irritant.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Turning up at the airport and they just follow it, fob him off basically. With with a sign. With a sign. It makes me laugh. When we once picked up my mum and dad from wherever they've been for the weekend, me and my brother at Speak Airport. My brother had a sign in the back from when he was picking up one of his mates, and for some reason, you know, when you stick together a load of eight four papers, it unfurls. It was a big long sign that just said Wesley. But none of his mates are called Wesley. It was just a random name. What? So we held up this sign because my brother still had it in the car that said Wesley, just for my mum and dad. I don't think anyone found it funny except us. We were laughing our heads off.
SPEAKER_02You, even your mum and dad?
SPEAKER_01This just got confused, I think. Anyway, so Manica and Bill arrive at the hotel, they've got rid of Ian. The hotel is lovely, but Bill is not happy because there is no TV in the room. So he has to go and find a TV lounge. And it makes me laugh. He sort of barges in, switches on the football, and there's a couple having a quiet drink and a little chat, and they just have to slowly leave because this man is now focused. Yeah, this man is now there. And there's a funny sort of juxtaposition of scenes where Bill is watching the second half of the England Cameroon match, and Monica is having a bath with Nessandor playing in the background, and he's having this stressful, like, oh my god, this is awful. It's a different position, sitting up, standing down, upside down onto the tape, and she's just lying there, serene, and she's just kind of calming down.
SPEAKER_02And I just appreciated Ness and Dorma as it played. It's such a good song.
SPEAKER_01It just can't be disassociated from football now for a whole generation of people. It is it is that moment. It's that moment, it's 1990. It's madness, isn't it? Because presumably, if you go and watch whatever opera it's from, it just sort of turns up in the middle and you're like It's just a song, is it? Because it's a football song in the middle of this love story or whatever. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02But you you put you play that song, I immediately think guys are crying and Linica doing the gesture for me. As soon as I hear that song, that's what I think.
SPEAKER_01And it's Bobby Robson, because he was lovely, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, nice. Bobby Robson. England beat Cameroon, so Bill is happy and he's calm, and he's back to being presumably the guy that Monica was used to living with.
SPEAKER_02For the last eight years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. But now it's Monica's turn to be livid because Ian's pickled onions that she was told she had to bring in her suitcase of have opened. Who brings pickled onions on holiday? What breed of man is the phrase. Bill talks around because he wants a cigarette and he's sort of joking about that, and he says, I bet Garolinica doesn't smoke. And then he says, I bet Garolinika doesn't fart. And then he says, I bet Garolinika doesn't snore. And so Monica immediately is like, Oh, I can't help it, because clearly she snores. And she and Bill said, You used to say that you snore like a wildebeest with a drink problem. And she was like, Yeah, I did used to say that. And it's a little flashback to like their early courtship where there's tenderness and there's joking and there's affection, and they just have this little moment of kind of reconnection there. And so, yeah, they kind of she's calmer, he's calmer, and they stay calm until they have to meet Ian for food later that night.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and now we get introduced to another character. The lovely Birgita. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How'd you feel about Birgita?
SPEAKER_02Stereotype is the best word. Was it alright to do stereotypes back in 90s?
SPEAKER_01So in terms of stereotype, it's a very, very pronounced, probably not realistic accent.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Which is definitely played for laughs as opposed to authenticity. Yeah, and I think that's okay. I think you're alright. And I also think it works better on the stage than it would on a film that's last forever. Yeah. Okay, but I don't know in terms of stereotype if her behaviour or her personality is stereotypical.
SPEAKER_02Because I Well things she says like a bit later on, like, oh yeah, us Germans, we don't like to have a laugh. We don't like to be boring.
SPEAKER_01She's taking the piss out of herself because she does like to have a laugh. She's been funny. And she's taking the piss out of them. So but she knows the stereotype of German people that they will have had. I think I I think well get beyond the accent and the characters alright to me. Because I quite like her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's nothing to dislike, but But I know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01It's a bit kind of oh okay, here's some faulty towers type stereotype and the accent potentially, but not necessarily the personality.
SPEAKER_02No, different.
SPEAKER_01So anyway, Big Eaters there. And it's hard, it's you're never really sure whether she's with Ian. Brigita. It's Birgita.
SPEAKER_02Birgita.
SPEAKER_01Get a beer for Birgit. That's how you remember it.
SPEAKER_02The 11th time, and it's still not funny.
SPEAKER_01It's hard to know whether or not Ian is with her. So in the loo, Bill asks Ian if he's shagging Big Eater. Although he doesn't quite put it like that. He says something like, Have you made the two bat beast? But Ian doesn't understand what that is. And he's trying to get it. How does it work?
SPEAKER_02Does it have one heart? Does it have one liver? It's got two brains. No, it's got one brain. It's got one brain. Does it have sex? Because Ian doesn't have a brain.
SPEAKER_01And then the guy that comes out of the toilets and goes, It is sex, that's what it is. That is one of the writers of Chris England.
SPEAKER_02Right, okay.
SPEAKER_01And the other writer, Arthur Smith, was what the cab driver.
SPEAKER_02Ah.
SPEAKER_01So they've had a little cameo each of them. But yeah, so we don't really know whether Ian and Big Eat are together. Back at the table, Bill laughs and has a bit of a flirt with her. Um Monica's not bothered anyway, because you know, she's probably used to that. But Ian gets jealous. And so the whole thing, it's not much fun that meal, and it's not the holiday Monica was hoping for. Because this it's she's already implied this was kind of a let's get a way to fix the marriage. This is where they are, they're at a crunch point.
SPEAKER_02See, I think like I've and I'll hold my hands up here. I've done this on holiday where we've gone away on holiday, and all I've wanted to do is watch football because the job that I was in, I didn't get to watch football on Saturdays.
SPEAKER_01Okay, but did you also not get to see your kids on Saturdays and spend time as a family? Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so you're guilty. I'm probably guilty of this a little bit. Not quite as I completely believe it. Not quite as extreme as this, but but yeah, like, oh, can we go and watch this? Can we watch that? Oh, you're right there on the sunlight. I just go sit at the bar, watch the I am guilty of that, but not in this way.
SPEAKER_01Well, who's to say?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The next day, Monica and Bill go to set up on the beach, they're sunbathing. Monica's reading, and Bill very quickly finds a group of boys to play football with children.
SPEAKER_02Yes, they're very young children.
SPEAKER_01And she is clearly married to an absolute child, a mental child. Um, and it also, I am sure you've done this. He's playing against these kids or with these kids, and he's running and making a bit of a streak down the side of the beach pitch, and he hears John Motson's commentary in his head. Some of the crowd are on the pitch. It actually wasn't John Motson, it was Alistair McGowan doing John Motson. But yeah, I feel like I feel like that's something you do when you're a kid, but he is meant to be.
SPEAKER_02No, I think men still do that now. Oh god.
SPEAKER_01But that evening it's the World Cup semi-final. Now, all of the real sort of drama of this sort of story takes place during the semi-final match. Yeah, it's the semi-final, really. Because this was the kind of the big flashpoint of the whole tournament for England fans. Bill's stocked up on beer and snacks, he's set up camp in the TV room. Clearly, absolutely nobody else in the hotel could possibly be in that room at that point. He's commandeered it. And much to the annoyance of Monica Ian has turned up as well from his hotel, and Birgita's there as well. And they're settling in and they're lovely, lovely Burgita. A lovely Birgitta. They're settling in, they're getting drinks, and Bill is trying to show off really, decides to order champagne. He's showing off for Borgita, not for Monica. Um, and as the guy on reception, because he rings through, as the guy says his name, someone overhears at reception and grabs the phone, and it's a guy called Dan Hudson. And as soon as we hear that in the TV room, we see a close-up on Monica's face, and she looks shifty.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Shifty. Dan Hudson is played by Martin Clunes, and so Martin Clunes and Carolyn Quentin were men behaving badly, the couple.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's where I've got this from. But also a bit of the comedy in this feels very men behaving badly.
SPEAKER_01She's playing Dorothy, basically, which was the role she played. Yeah, it is very 90s, which makes sense because it's from the 90s. So Dan Hudson is a travel writer, and he happens to be in the same resort at the same time. He arrives in the TV room and he is a lot. His personality is a lot.
SPEAKER_02His one he is a writer, but Bill is his publisher.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So he arrives, he falls into the pool like on purpose, he's got an air horn, he shouts a load of football chants, and then he steps on the coffee table to get across the room as opposed to walking around the coffee table. He's full on.
SPEAKER_02He's basically Gaddy from the yeah.
SPEAKER_01And he also calls Monica Vanessa, as though he doesn't know her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But she is rattled.
SPEAKER_02Which we later find out.
SPEAKER_01We later find out. So the match is about to begin, and one of the things I really like about this, the nostalgia part of it, is you do see footage of the match. So at the beginning of the sort of the TV coverage, and it's the BBC, you see the little intro that they did. They had it back then, the intro of all the players, just like lining off.
SPEAKER_02Look, look, Gaza says Wanka, he doesn't say his name, he says Wanka. I never knew that. Is that what I don't know?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I've only ever seen it on this, so I don't know if he actually did that. I mean he did do what he did, but because that was the footage.
SPEAKER_02They pretended to mouth their name. Yeah. And apparently, instead of saying uh Paul Gascoy, he just said Wanker.
SPEAKER_01I know, it does make me laugh. It feels like something that he would do, as in the kept you know, his personality at the time, the way it was reported, he was sort of a bit of a lard, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_02And I also think something like that would have got through the filters at the time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know, they're not quite as sharp at picking up on things.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, but I just enjoy seeing the real footage of the stuff. So the anthems are playing on the TV as the conversation carries on in the TV room. Monica asked Dan, why is he in Ibiza? He says there's a train line down the valley that he's gonna write about. But this confuses Bill, because Dan is supposed to be writing about like the mandalay to rangoon, massive huge thing.
SPEAKER_02This race with red flags. Yeah. Okay. Why is he there?
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. Okay. Did you did you not guess that he was Shaggy Monica?
SPEAKER_02Not at this point. Ah, okay, okay. Fair play.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because basically he shouldn't be there, he should be somewhere else. Dan know Bill knows exactly where he's supposed to be. And as Dan says, What do you care as long as you know I'd get the book done and it makes money? So he's like, Yep, fair play. So they continue having banter, it's all very genial. But the match has started now. And Monica continues to be on orator. So she walks out onto the terrace and talks to us again. And as she's talking, you can hear the people in the background go, ooh!
SPEAKER_02Comedy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's proper it's a proper theatre thing, you see, it's just so lovely. And she talks to us again about how what Gary Linneker said the first time they met, and you know, she tells this very romanticised story about the two of them together, as if they've been having an affair. And then after she finishes saying that, she just looks at us down the camera and says, Dan, Dan Hudson.
SPEAKER_02Do you know what? When this actually happened, this made me feel incredibly sad. Okay. For Bill. I know Bill's I know Bill is not the greatest person in the world. He's a nightmare. Yeah, but this still made me feel incredibly sad for him.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. You see, I don't feel sad for Bill. I feel sad for Monica that she's put up with Bill for so long.
SPEAKER_02Bitch.
SPEAKER_00That's getting edited out.
SPEAKER_01I feel sorry. I feel sorry for Monica.
SPEAKER_02It's just a sad situation. It's just a sad situation they found themselves in.
SPEAKER_01They should split up, they're not, they don't like each other. No, but they do. They do a bit, but don't have to stay married. Not enough to shackle themselves together forever. They're still young enough to get out, honestly. It's just meh.
SPEAKER_02You can't edit that out with that. I'm gonna edit out.
SPEAKER_01You felt sad, so that was the end of it. So we have a flashback, and it's Monica at a book launch sometime before. She looks exactly the same, so it's not like decades before. And she bumps into Dan, who's at the bar listening to the footy, he's obsessed with Stoke City. And he's got a good patter, he's charming. And he calls her Vanessa.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And she's like, I just try and guess your name. I try and guess women's names.
SPEAKER_01And they basically do have a bit of a connection, even if it's just for like a bit of a one-off. And he asks if he wants to if she wants to spend an hour with him, and she agrees. And that's sort of implies that an affair was born. So back to the present day. Uh, we're back in the TV room. Ian is boring everyone to tears as they're trying to watch the match, and it does make me laugh when there's always someone who's not interested, but they're there because of the social side of it, and they just talk all the way through what's going on.
SPEAKER_02They haven't got a clue what's going on.
SPEAKER_01And it it's it's he's droning on, and then he's like, I don't know what women's seeing Garrett Nicker. He's very boring, isn't he? And everyone just stares at him because he's so boring.
SPEAKER_02See, there was there was the thing about Gary Licker being boring at one point.
SPEAKER_01There's no edge. Bizarre. But tensions are running high, bearing in mind as well, Big Eita is German, and this match is against Germany, and whoever wins will be through to the final, and whoever loses is going home. So it's sort of tense, and it's a close match, and we do see the real footage of the game as it plays. And after a there's a kind of a bit where I don't know, there's an exchange of England v Germany sentiment between Dan and Big Eater, and then they just have a snug, like for no reason, they just kiss. Yeah, because it's just it's they're young, who cares? It's not but Monica clocks it and is obviously a bit like put out.
SPEAKER_02Because she's planning her life.
SPEAKER_01Well, she is, this might be the guy she leaves a husband for, although it sounds it seems like he's also just like her husband, as in a child. And at this point, it feels like anything can happen. Anything could happen with the football, anything can happen with the fact there's a secret affair, there's an irritating friend, there's a marriage on the rocks, all of the tensions are going on in this TV room, and there's all sorts of underplaying currents that other people don't know about. It's quite exciting. So, Ian, at one point, because I think there's a lot of comedy by the fact that Ian is in this room, not bothered. So, like I quoted before, I think I'm gonna support Jeremy for a bit. Yeah, which is but this is like we quote that quite a lot in this house.
SPEAKER_02I I hate football fans who switch teams.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, oh yeah. Oh we say it all the time as a joke, but he also decides to ask about the off tide rule in the middle of the match, and it's really tense. It's all very funny. Um halftime arrives and it's nil-nil. And Bill asks to speak to Dan on the terrace. And it's you think, oh god, what's he what's he what does he know? But it turns out Dan hasn't signed his new contract, and Bill needs him to. He's worried he's been poached.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he said he spoke to another publisher.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and Dan just changed the subject, he doesn't kind of confirm or deny.
SPEAKER_02I didn't like the way he did that. Okay. You knew he was not a good person with the way this conversation sort of happened. He just like fobbed him off, and he's supposed to be a friend as well as his business partner.
SPEAKER_01So then Monica comes out to speak to Dan. Bill's gone at this point, and they're quite formal with each other at first, sort of pr for pretences, but then he fakes falling off a cliff, and she screams thinking he's fallen, and he jumps back up, and then they hug and they relax with each other. And Dan wonders if Monica has told Bill about the affair because she said she was going to, and he's not really keen on that, he doesn't really want anything more serious.
SPEAKER_02So, the question I'll ask you at this point do you think he's come there to stop her telling him? Absolutely, yeah, yeah. That's the vibe I got.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. All this while, though, while they're talking, Ian has been watching from a distance and he comes over when Dan's gone, and he basically blackmails Monica into getting Bill to do something to do with work, like to give him whatever I don't know what it is at that point, I don't think he says, but he blackmails Monica. Ian isn't just boring, he's actually a nasty piece of work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because the blackmailing is to get Dan.
SPEAKER_01We find that out later, we don't know at this point. Yeah. Horrible. Dan, yeah. So back inside, second half has started, and Germany score from a free kick. So the mood has dropped. Monica's happy because it's pissed off Bill and Dan. But then, in his anger at Shilton, who Dan is blaming for the goal, he says that Shilton, bearing in mind for anyone, Peter Shilton was the goalkeeper. Dan says Shilton is like a wildebeest with a drink problem, and Bill clocks it, because that's Monica's line.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So Bill sort of knows now. If there's if he'd had suspicions, now he knows. Okay, okay. Because that's the line she said in their early days about what it was like when she went to sleep.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So you don't say that to people who you're not slept with. The match continues. There are dozens of empty beer bottles and cans on the table. It's funny seeing how they stack up every sort of as the time goes on. Monica says, Well, there's nothing we can do about it, losing, but then Bill has an idea. He reminds her how she used to be a bit telepathic. If she wanted him to ring her when they were dating, she would think of him, and then he would. And Bill wants Monica to will England to school manifest it. Yes, that's it, yeah, exactly. And she's like obviously saying that's ridiculous, and there's lots of scepticism from everyone else. But Dan and Bill are both in on this, and they convince Monica to do it. So the three of them go outside on the terrace and hold hands, and she basically does like a guided meditation where she sort of says, We're floating over the pool, we're soaring over Europe, we're flying into Turin, swooping into the stadium, and then she says, like, we can spot Gary Linicker in his number 10 shirt, he's getting the ball, he's striking into the net, and just as she kind of builds all that up, England score.
SPEAKER_02England score, yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's one all. So everyone is delighted, except for Monica. She's had enough. She stays on the terrace and she kind of rehearses her lines of what she's gonna say to Dan or what she's gonna say to Bill.
SPEAKER_02She changes it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she changes it.
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm gonna leave you now, Dan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she chooses the different people. She she doesn't know what she wants, so she's outside doing that. And now we're into extra time. And this match, we know how long a match takes, and we know how long extra time takes. So it is like this constant clock counting down to when it's gonna happen, what time's gonna happen, yeah. Which I quite like that as a device. So Bill had made a bet with Big Eita that if England win, she has to shag an Englishman, and it looks like it'll be Dan Hudson now because they're kind of getting a bit kind of close, they keep snogging. Yeah, and he's telling the Bill is telling this to Monica, and it's clear he knows about her and Dan. He says, Whatever you want to say, can wait till the end of the game. Because football is far more important to him than his marriage.
SPEAKER_02Can you know? But he I don't I don't think he means that as it's sort of said, I think he knows Bill Apologists. No, I think he knows what's gone on, and he's like, just let me have my moment before you break me.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, but that's a child.
SPEAKER_02No, that's a child.
SPEAKER_01So Monica has a great speech, and I love this speech as well, although I've never learned this one, about how he wants to wait to the end of the game, and she's like, Well, it's never the end of the game, because then it's penalties, and then it's the coach tour through Luton, and then it's next season, and she's just saying it never ends. And I completely understand that football never ever ends. Because I know from a friend of mine who is married to somebody similar who is obsessed with Liverpool Football Club. There is just always some next match, there's always some next thing that he's saving up for another match abroad or another. There's always to stop. So I that I think that is a really there's an epic fan. You want it to stop. Yeah, it's something.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I love my club, I love my club.
SPEAKER_01But I thought that was a really good speech where she says that because it is just like this relentless. This will he will never change. It's not gonna be he's not gonna suddenly give her attention about something, you know, when this match finishes, because there'll be something else. So Monica goes, she's had enough, she leaves the TV room. Meanwhile, Big Eaters might grow him soonest at the bar.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Supposed to be an hard man.
SPEAKER_01Makes me laugh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Are we up to the bit where is it Dan? Is it Dan who bumps into him?
SPEAKER_01I think he's already said something about him, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but he's supposed to be hard, man.
SPEAKER_01He apologised to me for bumping because they're staying in the same hotel or something. But tempers are flaring in the TV room. We've got Ian, Dan, and Bill, and it all comes out at this point in extra time where it's already heated because of the match. That Ian has tried to poach down behind Bill's back, and the three of them are at each other's throats. Meanwhile, then Gaza gets his second yellow card and we get the iconic Gary gesture that happens there. Begita comes back in with Monica and she walks straight over to the TV and switches it off. Because she says Monica's upset and she's just on her side, which is quite nice. Monica needs to talk to Bill and Dan without the distraction of the match. Bill doesn't react. He just wants the tally back on. He's just staring at it, going, Monica, turn the tally back on. And then she turns to Dan who says the exact same thing. Turn the telly back on. And honestly, these two, I just think it's just I think it's well written because you're meant to. I think you're meant to think they're a pair of dickheads.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I feel like you're sort of on their side.
SPEAKER_02No, like I'm not on their side, but you've got to think. Bill's got eight years of history with her. Dan's just a bit of a dick. And Dan, Dan's an opportunist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Dan, I don't think Dan is the answer.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But I think maybe she should be on her own and have a nice time and meet someone. Meet a real Gary Lineker, a real life nice person.
SPEAKER_02Who actually plays football? I've just got to go to the next match love because you've got to get on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, not someone who plays football. Anyway, she doesn't put the television on. She refuses and says they need to talk to each other. And then she leaves them some space. She's back on the terrace. So Bill quotes Monica to Dan and he says, Monica says, Men, when they get together, they never talk about the things they really care about, about their emotions. They just talk about football. And both Dan and Bill say how crap that is before literally a minute, a second later, getting misty-eyed about Linica's goal. Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh, Linica's goal though.
SPEAKER_01And they show emotion, and it is very funny. But that is true about Ben, like you know, it's a stereotype, but it's it can be true, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I not all think of the Mickey Flanakin joke where he goes on about like his wife goes you know, asks about him going out. She said, Oh, did you ask how Jill is? Or how's Jill? That was it, how's Jill? And he goes, I don't know, she wasn't there. He said, Did you not ask Ian? He said, I didn't even ask Ian how Ian was. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I think it's a stereotype of men, and I do think there are definitely some men like that, but I also think we are no we're moving away from that. That feels like a stereotype of like a generation older than us.
SPEAKER_02Possibly, possibly, but still, you know, generational stereotypes do go downwards.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know. I think some people are like that, definitely, but not necessarily everyone. I'm just thinking of the the guys I know can't stand football and would be a pull that they're being lumped into this. So those are just people you know, not the people I know. Well, fair enough. We're still in the extra time, the TV is still off, they need to sort it quickly, they want the telly back on, so in the end they just get get cut to the chase. Dan tells Bill he's been sleeping with Monica and he's sorry. Billy's calm, he already knew. Because I know. So the telly goes back on.
SPEAKER_02I know no no, he goes, What we put it on without the volume on, she won't notice.
SPEAKER_01But they do put the telly back on, and it's penalties. So we all know, and well, maybe we don't all know, but anyone of our generation from England who supports England anyway knows what happens. Yeah, yeah. And I think you do need to know what happens to get the gist at the end, because it's quite funny. Dan can't watch, no one can watch. Monica, Bill, and Dan stand on the terrace while Ian narrates the action, and we get him reading out well he we get him narrating penalty by penalty. It makes me laugh how when he says Mateus, he says Matt House. Matt House. No clue at all about any of these people. So penalty by penalty. England have Lineker, then Beardley, then Platt, they all score, as do the Germans in between those ones. And then it's Pierce.
SPEAKER_02Who is one of the greatest penalty takers ever.
SPEAKER_01He's brilliant. But we don't. Yeah, he looks in it. Oh no. So as Ian begins to explain what's happening inside, on the terrace, Monica, Bill and Dan start their own commentary. They've stopped hearing Ian, they've just kind of gone, and he scores on it's amazing. And they start celebrating. And they just assume the final penalties have gone in and the England have won. And they're narrating it like they are John Motson and Bobby Robson, Sir Bobby now, which is kind of nice because it becomes so. Yeah, exactly. And we see players jumping over each other, we see Lineker and Platt and everybody, and it just it's this soaring, triumphant England have won, they're going to the final. The players are celebrating, and they've just Monica Dan and Bill have just created their own fiction, basically.
SPEAKER_02And I love the bit there where the incomes out. Yeah. It goes, We lost.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No one hears them. No, we lost. They are in a trance. And they're all the three of them are staring up at the sky because they're just believing this whole mirage that they've just created. And then, as they are in their trance, Gary Linneker flies in like an angelic comet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Gary Lineker before his acting ability.
SPEAKER_01I don't think he's I don't think he's an actor, but it doesn't matter because he did a little cameo, which is cool. And he kind of flies down, he doesn't speak, does he? But they kind of ask him questions and he nods or whatever. And Nesson Dorm is playing in the background, of course, as he's hovering in the sky, and they're sort of saying, Can't you take us to the final, Gary? Can we have a cigarette, Gary? It's all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_02And she gets to kiss him.
SPEAKER_01She does, he does a little kiss.
SPEAKER_02In this movie, she gets to kiss Clive Owen.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_02Martin Clunes. Yeah. Gary Lenica.
SPEAKER_01Do we see Monica and Dan kiss? I think you've just imagined that for your own pleasure. No, I she's she's romantically linked with them all, which I kind of like. And the last thing Gary does is to kick a ball into Ian's stomach, so he kind of falls off because we all know he's the baddie now. And then Dan and Bill and Monica fly off into the sky with Gary. So back in the TV room, it's all over. Beggita comes back. Ian tells her that England have won. Yeah. And the film ends with the assumption that Begita will now have to sleep with Ian because of the bet. World in Motion plays, and we see Monica and Bill as they come back from the beach with Dan catching up and the three of them holding hands, walking away as the titles roll.
SPEAKER_02So I didn't quite get what's gone on there.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so what, the ending?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's just a fantasy, nice, whimsical, silly thing. You don't need to take this literally. On the stage, it wouldn't have made any difference because fight flights of fancy are far more I I think audiences when they see live theatre keener or happier to suspend their disbelief to non-realistic logical things.
SPEAKER_02I'd love to see how they did the flying guy the other way.
SPEAKER_01I don't know actually. I don't Yeah, I don't know actually how they did that. But what did you think overall? What is it the first time you've seen it?
SPEAKER_02Do you know what? I thought it was enjoyable. Yeah. You know, I have an issue with classing this as a film. It's a TV movie. It's a TV movie. I don't think it's a film. It's more like a TV drama, comedy. I thought it was basically Men Behaving Badly set at a World Cup time. I do like Men Behaving Badly, I do like the World Cup, so it worked for me.
SPEAKER_01Ideal. Right up your street.
SPEAKER_02I thought it was funny and I thought it was incredibly sad as well.
SPEAKER_01Did you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I did. I think it's meant to be. I think it is. I think it is because you know it's sad for her, it's sad for Bill. It's sad for Bill that his friend has done this to him.
SPEAKER_01I mean friends, but they only know each other through work. No, I think they knew I think he doesn't know Dan before he became his publisher.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but once he became his publisher, it I felt like it implied they did stuff together. But yeah, I thought it was sad. I thought for what it was, it was cheap. It was cheap, it was cheap laughs. I thought Paul Maerton was very good in the part because Paul Mayton is quite an interesting guy. To play this boring guy the way he did, I thought he did really, really well. Yeah, that's funny. That haircut though.
SPEAKER_01I know. He just plays this absolute loser, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. You know, the the stereotypical German for that era with the accents. Well yeah, I thought I found it fun. It was it was short as well. It is short. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What I don't understand is on IMDB it says it's one hour 34 minutes, and yet on the YouTube video It's 120.
SPEAKER_02117.
SPEAKER_01So I don't know what's gone missing.
SPEAKER_02It's nearly as short as before sunrise. Before sunset. Before sunset.
SPEAKER_01I think this is the shortest one we've done. All that I will accept. You said it's cheap laughs. That seems like it's an insult. No, but I think it's a really well-written, well-crafted piece of comedy, right now.
SPEAKER_02No, I think the German accent is the cheap laughs.
SPEAKER_01The accent, yeah. But I don't think she's okay. If you were gonna write, particularly in the 90s, anything stereotypically German, oh god, it might have been actually awful. In the 90s, it might be like war-related or something awful. But I'm thinking more like the stereotype of sun lounges with towels on, that kind of shit.
SPEAKER_02Or shouty German.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it's none of that. What I like about Begita is she's speaking in a second language and she's learning English, but she knows far more better, she's better much better on the grammar than anyone else, you know, around that table. She's she's so hot on the English grammar of you know, using all the different phrases and whatever. I can't even remember what they are now.
SPEAKER_02I gotta remember.
SPEAKER_01Stuff I've never I've never had to study, you know. So yeah, I kind of like that about her that she's super smart. I like that she's nice to Monica when Monica's upset. I like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I thought that was that was good.
SPEAKER_01And she's just this kind of mechanism. I think it's good, I think it it plays well having someone who's German in the map, you know, being there while they're playing Germany.
SPEAKER_02Also, we didn't pick up on in the toilet of the story. She reveals she's getting married. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01This is her last summer as a single woman, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, last summer as a single woman just getting married next year. Yeah. I think I think it does pick up on the era really well. I like that. You know, that World Cup Italia 90. You know, like you say, I think there's only two songs in the entire movie. There's World in Motion, Nest and Dorma. And you can't help but just hit the feels when you hear those songs.
SPEAKER_01There's football crazy as well.
SPEAKER_02Football crazy.
SPEAKER_01I don't know who sang it, but it's played when Bill is watching the Cameroon match and he can't settle and he's upside down, he's up and forgot that. But yeah.
SPEAKER_02But it it does like as a football fan, it does hit some of the feels of the emotions where he is all over the place with it. And you know, when you are zoned in on a match and some of these talkings, yeah. I am terrible for if I'm watching a film and someone's so I don't hear them. I'm just so excited on what it is at that moment in time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I see. I'm not Bill. Well, I don't I don't know. I just think this hits a lot of nostalgia buttons for a very specific demographic of people. I can't say that more clearly. This won't necessarily mean anything to you if you are, I don't know, grew up in America and are 25. It just wouldn't because how but it doesn't mean you can't enjoy some of the comedy, sort of there is there, you know, it's a story about a couple having a spiralling marriage at the backdrop of a football match.
SPEAKER_02And he's hiding it hiding in football.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely, yeah, because he's not present for her at all. And her whole thing of it's never the end of the match, that I think is very yeah. I think a lot of people would relate to that.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01So that article I quoted before, the Guardian article, there's a bit more that it said, which I kind of left till now, and these the quote will the link will be on the show notes. So this quote said, and it's talking about specifically 1990, God knows English football needed a tournament to salve wounds, to mend a broken reputation overseas, with the tragedies of Heisel and Hillsborough, which didn't have the luxury then of the truth that is emerging at the current inquest all these years later, still close in our minds and hearts. Pete Davis, the author of the outstanding account All Played Out, summed up the ambiance of the time in a recent interview with Esquire Magazine. The way the game is now derived to a very great extent from the transformation that Italia 90 effected. Prior to Italia 90, football in England was perceived as a squalid, hooligan-ridden, embarrassing sump of gormless violence. Our team was crap, our supporters were worse, and you did not talk about it over dinner.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like back back then there was so much before just before then, hooliganism, we'd had the band from Europe where you know the the English teams couldn't play in Europe, and this kind of solidified it again.
SPEAKER_01I think it gave people something to be proud of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And like it was a nice team, it wasn't a team that were riddled with well, I was gonna say riddled with yellow cards, gals have got two, but you know, like riddled with sort of personalities that you saw in the papers for Bad State. Yeah, I think it was a bit of a turning point in that sense.
SPEAKER_02And I remember like around that era, the Terry Butcher thing. That this might be in the build-up to the World Cup to get to that World Cup. Yeah, when he he split his head open and he like he wearing the white English yet, it was red with blue. I mean that wouldn't happen now to the bottom. But he just carried on playing and we must have lost about six pints of blood to that game.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, I do I like how I it was just really interesting looking up the stuff about football back then because you forget, don't you?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I think this where football footballers became role models again for generations. I mean, like Gaza had a bit of personality about um and he had a hit single, Fog on the Times.
SPEAKER_01There's all my you know, this gave him his a real sort of a career not just in football for a while in sort of public consciousness.
SPEAKER_02And uh, you know, obviously a few of the footballers from this year went on to be celebrities within themselves. Gary Lineker himself. Gary Lineker, this is huge. No, he's he's huge.
SPEAKER_01He is huge, yeah. So I'm just gonna go back to the play now after we've talked about football. So much of my joy at this is the script and its specific lines. I mean, the fair the plot is fairly basic, but there's so much of the writing, it's written by and I don't actually know Chris England's other work, but Alpha Smith is a comedian, he just is. He's done stand-up, he's done writing. But so many quotes from this film I say on a daily basis, like one of them particularly gets used all the time in my house. So, for example, get a beer for Begita regularly, regularly just say that. There's a bit where bit when Ian turns up at the hotel for the first time and Bill says, Ian, give me an S and Ian goes, eh?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that was I did pick up on that. That was really, really funny.
SPEAKER_01Okay, this is the bit that gets quoted every day. Not the whole bit, just the last line. So they're talking about do they need more chairs? And Carol Caroline, and Monica says, There's a stool in our bathroom, and Bill says, Well, it's not one of mine. And she looks, she looks at him, she goes, No Bill. Now, no Bill is something that me and my partner say a hundred times a day when we just think the other person is being annoying. No Bill. Like, oh, you know, if one of us makes a joke or one of us being is silly, no Bill. And it just gets quoted all the time, and it's from this. Ian comes out of the bathroom and says, I'd give it a couple of minutes if I were you. Also hysterical.
SPEAKER_02Then Birgita goes straight in there, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_01I've already said it, I think I might support Jeremy for a bit. Love that. And then this is another little exchange which makes me laugh out loud every time. Ian is getting really shirty with Dan because he's just gone missing with Birgita and has come back. And Ian goes, Did you do it with Birgita? And Dan says, Was there time? And Ian says, Yes, you were gone for nearly five whole minutes. And Dan says, Well perhaps I bowled an egg as well. So these are the lines that just oh I just love it. There is some good lines, yeah. I'll give it that. I'll give it that. Comedically written, I think. The plot the play itself is a great kind of idea, this sort of heated backdrop of the stress of the match and amidst the stresses of relationships. And it's just all the comedy greats of the 90s, really. And Bill Owen, no. And Clive Owen.
SPEAKER_00Bill Owen used to be Brookside. Bill Owen was an actor in Brookside. Well, we're not going to start doing Brookside, are we?
SPEAKER_01No, no. Well, have you got anything else to say before we talk about other people's thoughts?
SPEAKER_02No. Okay. As you just touched upon, it is a very simple plot. This is the most simple plot we've ever had, I think.
SPEAKER_01Not before sunset, where two people walk around Paris and then don't go, don't separate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but they talk about other things.
SPEAKER_01This is quite simple.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01As for other people's thoughts, so this is the hardest, this is the hardest part of this job. For you. It's the hardest thing because I Googled an evening with Gary Lineker film, Discourse, and got very little. So then I just took off Discourse because that's not confuse the issue. There's very, very, very little on the internet.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can say this is the most niche thing you've ever brought, I think, to this.
SPEAKER_01So there's there's links to like the script, you can buy the script, and there's links to press releases about the synopsis and the cast, but not any analysis or any actual thoughts or opinions. What I noticed was there's a load of theatre groups that put this on. So you get a load of like local, I don't know if it's Amdram or small places who put this on. So I went, I don't know how they would be bringing Gary Lineker into the story. I don't know how plays do it, but there's a lot of people who've done it. So then I thought, right, I'll just go to the Wikipedia entry because they always have a list of references. Uh they have very little on the Wikipedia entry, just the basic synopsis and cast list. And the Wikipedia entry has one link and it's the IMDB page. So then you go to the IMDB page, and there is no trivia and there are no quotes.
SPEAKER_02So we don't get the Roger Ebert.
SPEAKER_01There's no Roger Ebert does not even know this exists. However, there's one bit I found, and so apologies to the people I'm about to read out when I say I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. I literally mean this is the only page I have found with anybody's opinions about it.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01So it's letterboxed, okay? So some people have commented, that's basically what it is. Now, to be fair to Mark Cunliffe, he did write a proper review of it, and I've just pulled out a couple of quotes from him. So he says, The play really belongs to Quentin, who is all too believable in the long-suffering girlfriend role she was becoming accustomed to, thanks to the growing success of men behaving badly at the time. Indeed, there's very little difference at all between her character here and that of Dorothy from the sitcom, which we kind of said and we agree with. The whole cast gives it their role with Owen, effective as the man-child Bill, and Martin Clunes at his roguish at his roguish, quick-witted best. McKinnony's role, that's the Lizzie McKinney who plays Big Eater, is a bit of a problem. The force thick accent is played in a manner which we're never entirely sure is a stylised effect or just plain stereotype, and I don't think it's the most deeply written of the group anyway. Meanwhile, Merton, maybe a comic legend, but he is sadly not really an actor, delivering a stilted flat reading. I would say that's a harsh take from Mark Cunliffe. However, you know, thank you for your comments, Mark, for the struggling otherwise. I think he's meant to be that way. He's meant to be flat. I think he does it really well. And then, so that was a review on Letterboxd, and then there are three comments. In fact, to be fair, one of them is from Mark Cunliffe again.
SPEAKER_00So thanks.
SPEAKER_01Alex has put nostalgic during the World Cup, a little bit out there in the fantasy elements, but watchable with a very good brick cast. Yeah, I agree with that. Mark Cunliffe comes back. Ask the players who were at the England v. Island game where Lineker shit himself on the pitch if his small if his smell of perfume, they'll tell you a different story, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_02So I think this is very biased. Okay. Because he's slagging Gary Linaker off there for no reason.
SPEAKER_01I think he's just trying to be funny. But the final comment, which I think sums up everything, is from Maya. Love Clive's slutty little glasses. That's that's all I could find. But I'm very happy to have done an even with Guy Lineker because I watch it every two years. Yes, it's annoying that it's on YouTube, it should be shown again. I presume it's a rights issue, but this always, always gets me in the mood to watch an international men's football competition. Next week it's your turn to choose the film. Have you decided what it's going to be?
SPEAKER_02Yes, next week you're gonna meet the Marines. We're heading into space. Oh god, again. Yes, again.
SPEAKER_01Why is it always space with you?
SPEAKER_02You are going to meet Ripley.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And you're gonna s meet a queen. Okay. Aliens.
SPEAKER_01I know Ripley is from Alien. Well, so aliens. Okay, so I know there's one called Alien and there's one called Aliens.
SPEAKER_02So this is the sequel.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so we're going straight. So I okay. Do I need to know anything beforehand or will it help? Will it just tell me? No. Okay, good, because I'm not watching. No, we'll tell you. Oh, I I'm not watching the first one first. So it'll tell me what I need to know as I.
SPEAKER_02You could watch this as a separate entity because when I first watched this, I hadn't seen the first one. But you do pick her up as the gist of the film goes.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's fine. And if people want more, where can they find you?
SPEAKER_02They can find me on YouTube, on Toffees R Us, or on TikTok, Phil Timon.
SPEAKER_01And I'm at Nikkibond.com, or you can look for the Lisa McAuliffe stories online.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for listening, and until next time, bye bye.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, see you later.
SPEAKER_02Do you think it's all over? It is now. For God's sake.
SPEAKER_00For God's sake. Why?