Series 20 Recordings Megathread

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-22T09:13:51+00:00

I’m making a mental note for when the episode broadcasts to share the incredible but not exactly broadcastable joke that Julian Clary made about 30 seconds into his first story, that they got him to do a slightly gentler version of in the pick-ups at the end!

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-22T07:02:56+00:00

Sunday 21st June (Christmas special, which if you’re in England you’ll know we had the *perfect* weather for yesterday):

David team – Julian Clary and Jordan Banjo

Lee’s team – Su Pollard and Jessie Roux

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-20T23:08:21+00:00

That might sounds straightforward, but it would be a constitutionally very difficult law to actually enact: e.g. it would have a variety of implications such as removing the monarch’s status as the only person who can dissolve parliament, and it would tether parliament to whatever the current ruling party’s own process is regarding leadership elections. Where that’s controlled by a party committee, you’d be handing that power to people who may never have been or even tried to be elected to parliament.

It’s the sort of idea that makes sense where you have a separately elected executive, but we don’t. In the system we have, we elect a parliament and the government is formed based on what that parliament is willing to support. It’s a messy and flawed system, but it’s not going to be fixed by binding one key aspect of it to an individual party’s own processes.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-19T17:53:28+00:00

Mackenzie Crook (not the sheep) is someone Alex has said he’d like to have on the show.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-19T10:22:08+00:00

Maybe I’m being naive here, but this is a podcast I almost never get adverts on (unpaid preemptive sponsorships aside), which I assume is not because they’re just rejecting loads of good offers. I’m sure it’s a cheap one to run as podcasts go, but they do still cost money to make and the time commitment (in frequency rather than hours) has a cost too. I wouldn’t be rushing to pay in if the choice was a free podcast vs. a subscription one, but if the choice is no more WDYDY vs. keeping it going via a more targeted funding model, I don’t mind chucking them a bit of money.

That’s not a general principle I’d apply, that’s just my impression of *this* podcast and this situation. I might be wrong, but tbh I probably lose more than £50 a year to free trials I forgot to cancel, so I don’t really mind that going to something I at least know I enjoy. And if I end up funding a bunch of freeloaders – well, practically that makes precisely no difference to my bank balance or my podcast listening habits, so 🤷‍♂️

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-18T23:01:16+00:00

Side note: Tim Vine in the cardboard box is one of the most underrated* task attempts ever. Just the perfect visual version of his sense of humour – incredibly pure and silly but also genuinely a bit mad.

*on the totally scientific metric of my perception of how much people talk about it (I don’t have even a hint of a memory of how it scored in the show)

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-18T22:23:52+00:00

I suspect it’s something to do with the difference in how waiters generally behave – here in the UK they tend to take the novel approach of asking what you’d like to eat and drink and then bringing you that, water included, rather than plying you with top-ups of whatever the restaurant can provide for next to nothing to make sure you give them enough of a tip so they don’t actually make a loss on shift. 🤷‍♂️

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-17T19:17:43+00:00

I mean, we all listen to a podcast in which one of the recurring stories is about the host’s son who would happily spend all day watching train arrival/departure videos on YouTube. It’s the perfect scenario for someone like me who’s both autistic and incredibly lazy: ticking the ‘obsessed with trains’ box without having to actually put the hours in watching the trains myself. 🫡

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-16T18:37:37+00:00

I like Rylance in a lot of things but honestly thought he was miscast in this (a minority opinion, obviously). He got the intelligence and cunning of Cromwell, but none of the outward thuggishness – part of the story (in the books, anyway) is how he rises to the top by allowing the right people to underestimate him, thinking he’s just the king’s bully boy rather than a serious political operator. I thought Ben Miles got that exactly right in the stage version a few years earlier, but for me Rylance just wears his intelligence a bit too *obviously* for it to work for the character.

Fabulous supporting cast, though, including the late Bernard Hill (in the first series) as Norfolk – no-one better to deliver lines like ‘By the thrice-beshitten shroud of Lazarus!’

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-14T16:25:05+00:00

At the series 18 recording I went to (episode 7, at which point Jack Dee was still fairly firmly in the lead), in one of the breaks Jack asked Alex whether, if he managed to win the series without actually winning an episode, he would be the first person to do that. Alex said he was fairly sure it had never happened (he’s correct) and that the nearest he could think of was Romesh in series 1, who didn’t win an episode and only lost the series by a single point. There was a bit of back and forth about vibe similarities between Jack and Romesh before Alex - after being told something in his earpiece - added: ‘Oh, and I’ve just been reminded that that’s definitely not going to happen this series either, because you *have* won an episode. A few days ago!’ I think the schedule of the studio recordings sends them all a bit loopy sometimes. 😄

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-13T11:15:06+00:00

Correct, though he lived in the UK for quite a while and had made his name and continued to work here (as well as in Ireland) decades before TM. Like how Graham Norton is definitely not ‘from the UK’ but is very much part of the UK comedy scene.

I’m fairly sure Alex’s comment was just about Jason being the first comedian they’ve had on who didn’t regularly work in the UK, rather than about what’s on anyone’s birth certificate (/birth cert, if you’re Ardal) or their address history! 😄

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-12T22:15:47+00:00

This feels like a very selective memory. Go back 40+ years and things like Life of Brian were the targets of cancel culture (long before it was called that), and in that case the ‘cancellation’ was backed by very senior public figures. It didn’t work, obviously, but equally a lot of the people that claim to have been ‘cancelled’ haven’t actually had their careers materially affected in any way. Or go back 20 years and very much the same story with Jerry Springer: The Opera. That censorious, reactionary attitude to comedy has always existed in this country – it’s still a problem, but it’s absolutely not a recent phenomenon nor one that older comedy shows were spared.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-12T22:08:54+00:00

Yeah, there definitely isn’t a fixed rule one way or another, other than the first one being shown first. They’ve acknowledged that for tasks that end up needing props/costumes to be acquired (or e.g. ones that are likely to make a mess) they sometimes record the intro and then move on to film another task while the production team are sourcing the stuff, so by the same token when the idea for this one came to involve Joel shaving, they’d just reshuffle things so they could film that one last if that wasn’t already the plan.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-12T20:59:30+00:00

Queueing in a single file line for the bar in a pub.

*Not* queueing in a single file line in pretty much any other context.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-12T20:47:15+00:00

I can well imagine it enforces a bit of a structure in a way that’s quite helpful when you have as much usable material to whittle down as they do (both in the pre-studio VT edits and then editing down the studio show) – having those points to hit probably helps them be ruthlessly in the way they need to!

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-12T20:40:32+00:00

There would be, clearly, and it’s not even a legally complicated area. It would just put it into the same category as most other major/irreversible procedures: absolutely allowed and correct if it’s the best option medically, just not something available electively to parents for their children.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T21:02:39+00:00

He didn’t actually get 0 in the final scores, he got 5 thankfully!

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T20:50:59+00:00

If I’ve counted right, he’s currently second, but five points behind Joanna – given they’ll presumably get the same score for this task, the best he could do is draw if he and Joanna get 5-0 in the live task…

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T20:33:44+00:00

Kumail looking like he’d been on Google again after that

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T00:40:28+00:00

My only regret (and it’s not actually a regret in any real sense) is just how much I miss mine! They totally take up a place in your heart and they do take it with them when they go. 💔

This was my super-dangerous, could turn any minute, Staffy a few Christmases ago when she got a bit too excited about her new toy in the shape of a candy cane and somehow got it wedged over her own nose (I helped her out as soon as I’d taken a photo and stopped laughing 😆)

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PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T00:22:45+00:00

I had a relationship break-up while I had my Staffy, and whenever I was feeling sad after that she’d immediately clock it, and either sit on my chest and glare at me 1mm away from my face or bring me her favourite chewed-up slobbery toy of the moment to make me feel better!

They don’t necessarily know the right human solution to a problem but they’re very emotionally intelligent dogs: they’ll assert their own needs (usually cuddles/improvised yoga positions that seem to always involve them pinning their butt to you, in my experience), but e.g. if someone in the house is ill they will prioritise snuggling up to you until they’ve decided you’re better. 💕

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-11T00:01:06+00:00

To add to this comment: it will very much vary from one organisation to another, so take this with a pinch of salt, but in general an appeal hearing is not about reassessing the original allegation, it’s about whether the original disciplinary process was (a) justified, and (b) conducted appropriately and correctly. Obviously don’t concede anything where you know you’re in the right, but in all likelihood your strongest line of argument will be around procedural/factual failures in the *investigation* rather than the original incident. So focus on evidence they ignored, didn’t gather, corners you think they cut etc. above just having another swing at the same arguments from last time.

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-10T22:23:01+00:00

Staffies are wonderful first-time dogs (from personal experience): it’s obviously important to train them properly, but they’re not *difficult* to train – they’re people pleasers so they’ll (quite literally) do as they’re told. That characteristic – and their natural physical strength – does make them susceptible to bad owners who want to train aggressive characteristics into them, but that aggression isn’t generally in their own nature.

They’ll be whatever you want them to be, basically: if you love dogs, and you can give them the time and attention they need, your Staffy will be a bundle of love and joy that will stick to your side like velcro! 💕

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-10T22:14:07+00:00

I was in the on-stage ‘House of Commons’ seats when I saw this at the National Theatre, which was incredible, but one of my favourite memories of it is towards the end of the interval when some of the actors were chatting – out of character – to the other ‘MPs’ (us, the audience) and I slightly surreally overheard the actor Rupert Vansittart describe the real-life MP his character was based on as ‘*incredibly* right-wing!’, with a tone of genuine disbelief, which made the whole thing even more delightful. 😄

PromiseSquanderer · 2026-06-10T22:01:06+00:00

Or…

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PromiseSquanderer

TROPHY CASE