138. Big Mandy Returns!

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That's www.beer52.com forward slash wtaf. Don't be a cockwimble.com forward slash wtaf.com forward slash wtaf. The man who's just come back from book club where he's written his own story called I Love my Brick and bottom colour case, available soon at all good bookstores and bad ones. It's Neil.

Hello, hello. Where did you get your inspiration for that? Well I wonder, they just come back and tell us a bit shortly within this interview. Maybe.

Now I'll return and guess this episode, needs no introduction, so I reached out and got some of my friends to say hi instead. So saying hi, we have Harry MacLairie from Donaldson's Dairy, Blitzson Maloney or skinny and Boney. Muffin McLair bundle of hay, bottom blue pots or companies pots, Hercules mores big as a horse, of course, not for Karen, for getting Harry MacLary, Donald's Dairy again. Of course, it's Big Mandy herself.

We welcome back Ashley McGuire. Yeah. Oh. Oh, I can't believe that it was, I think you were our third or fourth episode way back.

We're now on episode 137. Oh, do you've milked it till it's turned into cheese? I mean, we have smack the shit out of it. We really, really.

We're running, and if the American one goes, oh my god, we could carry on with the thousand episodes, it'll be amazing. Well, like Joe Rogan. So how are you doing Ashley in these weird times? All right, yeah.

I mean, yes, weird. There's no work. And the work that we had has gone or it's postponed. So it's hard.

But yeah, all right. I've been in France, mostly. What you got? Yeah, my girlfriend's got a, she bought a house over there.

So I was there when it all closed down. And it was much safer, actually. We were right in the middle of nowhere in the countryside. And then I came back recently, because I had an accident, a motorbike accident, broke my leg.

Oh no. A dog attack me. And you're joking. Fucking prick.

Yeah. Fucking prick attack me. Yeah, on the motorbike. So I crossed the brake my leg, broke my collar.

Oh my God. So I came back recently. And it's the first really that I've experienced the virus, actually, you know, where we were in France. So coming back to the central London has been quite eye-opening.

Oh my God. So yeah, but I'm all right. I'm all right. How are you two?

Yeah, it's Neil's a frontline worker. So he's been working, it's nothing's changed. If anything, he's got busy. Yeah, I've just got busier.

And yeah, nothing's changed from me. I've just carried on. Apart from coming home and not seeing anyone. Nothing's really painful.

You live alone. I do, yeah. Must be difficult. I'm a complete opposite.

I've been furloughed for 11 weeks now. And I've got a house full of people. So it's sort of like, yeah, so it's weird how we are both ends of the schedule. It's just crazy.

But then also doing it, doing the podcast this way has gotten a bit taken a bit of getting used to. But I think it's, it's, you can't keep saying it's nice because it's not nice because I would rather be able to do the way that we've done it before. But you know, you just have to make the best of it. It's weird when you say that like, I mean, how long were you in France then?

And not realizing exactly the extent of what was going on. I was there from February. Wow. I got back here five weeks ago.

Oh my God. Yeah, four weeks ago. So that must have been like walking straight into like a zombie apocalypse. Yeah, the airport.

Paul Kay, you know the actor Paul Kay. He picked me out from the airport. He picked me out from the airport. And that's what he said as I came through in a wheelchair.

He said, fuck it. I suck a fucking zombie apocalypse. The airport was deserted, absolutely deserted. And then, I mean, it's busy.

It's busy as fuck now. I was down Oxford Street yesterday. It's like there's no virus. I think it's like that everywhere.

We walk into Sarnes, Esther, where I live. And everybody's got masks on. Everybody's just walking around like normal. And you think, well, hang on, has anything actually changed or not?

It's worrying. It's worrying. I think for everybody. But I think it's the job of the young to not concern themselves with it.

You know, and to be honest, the virus doesn't really affect them. It's not the same. So, you know, I guess if I was kind of 19 years old, I don't know how precautious I would be. No, no, exactly.

I think unless it maybe affects your family directly, I don't think, as we've all been young, we all think we're going to live forever and nothing's going to affect us. And seven, have you realised that you get older? Everything creaks, everything hurts when you bend over. Anyway, we're going to get rid of all that horrible nonsense.

And we're going to talk about something wonderful, which was Big Mandy and Series 3. I don't even think we spoke to a bank series 2 that much, really, did we? No. So, when you got the scripts, I say for Series 2 or Series 3, how did you feel?

How did you like the fact that Mandy was obviously in it and expanding on her story a little bit more? Oh, you know, I love it. I feel so privileged to have been a part of it. And you can see after the first series, it was going to be a hit.

And there were certain characters that people liked. So I had an idea that we would get a bit more in Series 2 and Series 3. And they're just hilarious. I mean, when the scripts come through, you know, you just feel like fucking hell so lucky.

And then all the improvising that we do, it's just one of the best things I've ever worked on to be honest. Shame it's over, but it should be over. Oh, right. Okay, so you're happy with their decision for that?

I am. Yeah. Yeah. And you never know what will happen in the future, but they just did such a fucking great job.

And such brilliant writing. And it was such a joy on the set. You know, like old friends meeting up and we just tried to make each other laugh. That's all we can say ourselves with all day long.

And yeah, I think it's best not to to to to flog it until it's until it's had it. Like we've done with this podcast, you mean? No. It's ninks.

We've called last week actually again. And he said obviously on Series 3, he struggled with quarks in a lot. Did you find that on Series 3 as well? Well, it was the first time I worked with Gee if he plays the Vicula.

And we had to terrible time doing that scene, that term of club scene. It was it was impossible because, you know, it was myself and Celeste was there and Daisy. So one of us was always laughing. We were always just always laughing.

But I'm not I'm not a big company. Sadly, I'm not a big cop. So I won't end up in a lot of outtakes because I don't I don't laugh. And we did on that.

You know, I've lost control of it on that one. I'm usually quite good keeping it together. And you have it. It is useless.

He did admit that. You must have it here. So do you have a process in if you feel the giggles coming along then on? Yeah, do you know there's nothing you can do?

Do you remember being at school and you would stop laughing and you weren't allowed? And it would make it worse. And it's impossible to something doesn't matter if somebody's claiming at you. In the end, you know, it's exactly the same.

It's just the same. And you know, you can hear sometimes the director, you know, the little bit of frustration in the voice coming in or but you can't there's nothing to do about it. You can't you just have to do, you know, wait until it's exhausted. It can be really hard.

The one I thought would have been quite hard. No, it's laugh. It's when the driving lesson episode when you just lean into the window. It always makes me laugh.

It's your expression that you're looking at the way he days entirely out of Kerry and Kurt and I should say. You struggle on that one because that's the one I thought would have been hard. No, it's the deadpan way that Mandy said. He says, what have you got in your eyes?

Just this is the brick in a pillow case. I mean, we did laugh. We did laugh. But you try and get it out of the way in rehearsals.

Right. Right. And they tend to start on me as well. I think because they know I perhaps I don't laugh.

I don't laugh as much. If they start on me, then we've got it out of the way. Really? But it's one of my skills is being able to hold it together.

So what I had in the intro with Blitzen, Maloney or Skinny and Boney, that scene. I was kind of like, is that one continuous shot or was that? That was. Wow.

So how many times did it take you to get that right? Just the ones. Maybe two. What a professional.

I don't know. We probably did it a few times, but that was that was that was tutt enough. Right. I'm much older than Daisy and Charlie.

So that book, I didn't know that book. It didn't bring any bells for me, you know. And I had to just learn it. And for some reason, I found it really difficult to remember, you know, who was next.

You know, there's such weird names as well. You can't really because I use association. That's how I know. And it's difficult to do it with weird with the weirdness of that.

So that was a plainly asked. I can imagine. I can imagine. I mean, it.

So believe in series three, you're allowed to improvise a lot more than you were on the previous series. No, we always improvise. I thought there was more on the series. No.

Who said that Paul? I don't remember that. Maybe Paul was allowed to improvise. No, we always did.

We always shot it as it was written. And then shot around it and, you know, added things and it's always been like that with certainly when I put it. Right. And that's something you enjoy as it improvisation.

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because you can't believe what comes out of your own head.

I mean, there was a load of stuff about, you know, Mandy having been brought up by a pack of dogs that we did that we couldn't. I don't think we could use any of it because Daisy couldn't stop laughing so much sense. It just makes sense that Mandy would be. Yeah.

It's because, well, this series, they did bring out like a blooper reel, didn't they? But I noticed there wasn't that much of you in it, which I was really disappointed with. I didn't think I mean, it told them, like you are. And I think I feel like they're holding back and they should, you know, it should be like a good half hour of them.

They must be because I mean, even from series one and series two. Oh, there is. There is. Oh, there's plenty even just from book club.

It really was it did get to the stage in the end where Tom was like, come on, come on. You know, it took us all day to do that. So do you feel the room turns sometimes? So they get like the cameraman and the director and the producer and all of a sudden they're like, it isn't funny anymore.

We go. Yeah, but fuck them. Because when we did the tattoo scene, it was a crew that kept, you know, ruining the take. Right.

Right. You could just hit. I didn't know how they kept me move further and further away. But you could still hear the laughter just was getting further and further away every time another tattoo came out.

So they got a bit of payback. So if they said they're going to come back in 10 years time or whatever and do, let's go and see what's happening back at the village. What do you think Big Mandy will be up to in 10 years, just doing exactly the same or yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, she might be on a mobility street. A new dog probably. A new fan.

Fucked up. Yeah. You probably oversparked something. We're using stuff.

Yeah. New job. Yeah, I don't think Tyson would have made it in 10 years time. It was pretty ropey.

That dog to start with. Is there somebody pose nest you can eat in there? Yeah. Such a passive dog in real life.

Well, I do need to thank you as well, Ashley, because I hadn't watched Mandang when we first spoke to you. And then I was looking for your IMDB and thought, well, I like Greg Davis. I'm going to watch my obviously Rick Mail. So I started watching it and I couldn't believe that it slipped under my radar.

I just loved it. It did look a lot of people. Unbelievable. And so much so that when it came to the last series and we finally saw, I'm going to forget that.

Is it Dave? The character that was in the cafe that you never saw. Bob! And then you go and see Bob and it's fucking Mark Hamill.

Oh my God. I really surprised. Did you meet Mark Hamill? I was working.

Get in. No, I couldn't do it. I was working. I was gatiff.

I'm a huge star. I just couldn't believe that. But first of all, I think the sick anniversary of Rick Mail's death just passed us as we were recording. What was it like working with him?

I saw a picture of you and him on your Instagram or Twitter. I think it was. What was it like? Well, I grew up with the young ones.

I'm 48. That's absolutely my era. He's a huge hero. He was everything that I wanted him to be.

And I think he knew when he met people from my generation, he knew that it would be, you know, unless they'd been under a rock, that they would worship him. He gave us what we wanted. So the first thing he said to me, we sat next to one another at the Ritre, which I couldn't believe my luck because they put your places out at the Ritre around the table. So you don't choose normally.

It's decided. And I was next to Rick Mail. I couldn't believe it. And he just looked at me and he said to me, oh, we've got the same eyes.

We should have sex. And I was like, oh, there he is. And he stayed like that. I mean, he was gorgeous.

So, you know, became a friend. And when we did the scene together in the cafe, you know, before the first take, he went to me, take a prisoner's carate. And then they said, actually, I was just like, I can't believe this is happening to me. And he wanted us to do something together, you know, he was talking about, you know, we should write something, we should do something together.

And then sadly, you know, he passed away. We are. We're all lost. Absolutely lost.

We were just an icon of that, the whole style of comedy that was around at that time, that that as young adults, I mean, God, that's straight out of young ones, young adults, that idolized the worst sort of everything that he did, whether it was Kevin Turvey back before. Young ones, I remember watching him on that. And he was an icon of comedy. He is an icon of comedy.

You're Blackadder and all of the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So again, I've seen the outtakes from Mandain.

And there's a couple where you obviously lose it, where you're behind working with Greg Davis must have been a nightmare as well. Because he just seems like someone that laughs at the drop of a hat. He does terrible, terrible. All of them, all three of them actually.

Mike was the least. Mike was the least. He lost the least of the three of them. But they've all known each other for eons and, you know, being on the stand-up together, Roshi and Konneton, Mike was the second Greg Davis.

So all the scenes that we did was always, mostly always the three of them in the cafe. Terrible, corpse. Terrible, terrible, awful. Right.

But if you get bored of it, if other people are doing it, either you just enjoy it and you just go with the flow. That's my job. I mean, imagine. That's what I get paid for.

So no, I don't get bored of it. I'm very lucky. Yeah. Is that much of it when you're obviously, since we last spoke, you've now joined the cast to be senders.

Is there much of it? Join down there. That's important. Absolutely.

Is there much of it on the set of these senders as well? No. It's not the sort of place you can have a laugh. No time.

Oh, really? Lucky if you get two takes. They are. They work.

So I've nothing but respect for so-called actors. They work so fucking hard. They're shooting sometimes three storylines at the same time. They're doing three different units, dorm units.

You know, like I say, you're lucky if you get two takes, one of the actors just gave me a tip when I started to say to me, if you don't like the take, try and mess it up during the take because you won't get another chance. Oh, really? So, you know, they're amazing. Consulate professionals.

There's not a lot of, not a lot of long. I mean, I tried to, you know, obviously I'm a bit of a ham. So it was a bit of everything about, but no, not much. It's a different set of acting skills then for working on a soap than on anything else.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, their brains are amazing. That's practice to learn those lines.

You know, Jessie Wallace, she was the best at in place, catch later. She would just kind of pick up the script as she was walking to the set. And you'd be talking to her and she'd still be answering you, but looking at the lines, looking at the lines, looking at the lines, put it down and go. Wow.

It's just amazing. You know, that's practice and, you know, they work very hard. It's very hard. I couldn't do it.

They get, they are in every pedo in my opinion. Because if no life, you know, it's 18 hours a day, six days a week, they're all, they've all got lost their minds because they're in this kind of bubble. And it's really hard, really hard. And they're lovely.

All of them, you know, considering the pressure they're under, because it's immense pressure. Everybody's lovely. But not. Yeah.

I was going to say that you were just saying about that sort of pressure. Is that, is that like an industry sort of on its own? Yes, I think so. Yeah.

I think so because they have to shoot so fast. Everybody has to be so switched on. Everyone from the right up. I think it is, yeah, you can't relax.

There's not the same, there isn't the same freedom. Yeah. That's not to say there's no laughs on set, actually. No, but it's, but it's, it's like doing a movie in terms of, in terms of the pressure.

There's much less pressure when you feel on television than there is, if you're doing a feature film or a song. I mean, it's much better than it used to be when we were filming on actual film. And you couldn't just keep rolling and, you know, there was a finite amount of film that was the more pressure on the set. Or it's very hard to do it.

So it could be a, you're a, you're a deaf eater on Harry Potter as well, weren't you? So when you go to something like, no disrespect to the like, Mandain, which is quite a small production. If you like, you go to something which is millions and millions of dollars in Harry Potter. Is there a massive difference in the way that things are filmed and the way that everything is on set?

Yeah, a massive difference. A massive difference. And the massive difference is money. But, you know, I didn't speak in that, I was, I was on Harry Potter for a month, but I didn't speak and, you know, it wasn't rewarding except for financially.

It was amazing to be involved. But it wasn't, it wasn't an easy shoot by any means. We were freezing cold and it was hard. It was hard.

And my mum had done the first five or six. She'd been chaperoning on them and then she passed away. And then I started filming on it. A lot of the kids, it must have gone around the set that came up to me.

She'd obviously looked after them when they were young and now they were, you know, teenagers. And a lot of them would come up and say, you know, you're glorious daughter and we'd get upset. So it was, it was, it was pretty hard. I found that quite a hard job actually.

So when everyone brings out all I think about is that to be comfortable having any lines and sad that my mum wasn't there. Sorry, sorry. I think they did me a favor. I think they did me a favor.

No, no, no, no, it's fine. But, yeah, that, there is a huge difference, a huge difference in a major, major movie and, a little TV series. Give me the little TV series every time. Right, because it's weird, because we've done comic-ons before where obviously there are people that stood way in the back in the original Star Wars, that even now sat at a little store selling their autographs for 15 quid.

And it's things like that where you have been in such an iconic massive movie that there are always going to be fans that will know you even though you didn't have a speaking part from Harry Potter as opposed to anything else that you've done. But really? Absolutely. And things like comic-ons, you can make a fortune selling your photograph because there's absolutely, we've seen it with our own eyes.

We've seen it and there are people that were stormtroopers in the original Star Wars that you don't even know their face that go to comic-ons all over the world and sell their autograph. It is crazy. That kind of stuff. Really?

I think you are. I mean, obviously there is any comic-ons. I have to make part in solo, the Star Wars story. And they've modelled me for a toy and everything.

And we did some fantastic scene shooting with Phoebe Waller Bridge. And then they fired the two directors. And re-shot everything and run Howard Castle's brother in my pocket. No, no way.

So I was ready for comic-ons for the rest of my life. I was like, I'm set up now. You would have been sold. And then they cut me out, cut me out, utterly.

But I did Nick her prop. What did you get? Is this, should I say that? No, no, you borrowed it actually.

I borrowed it. I'm sure it's not a problem. I didn't really. I didn't really.

Of course you didn't. I didn't really. You just kidding. You'd have to prove it.

Absolutely. So that's the guy that has the argument with Phoebe Waller Bridges droids at that age. The droid trainer. Oh my God.

So that was me. Oh, wow. I would much rather see you than to see how it's... I think the version that they made would have been brilliant actually, that the original directors made.

It was so subversive and it was totally in the spirit of Han Solo. Right. But I don't think that it floated the about of the executives. I think they wanted a more original, not original, a more traditional kind of Star Wars.

Which was a show. I mean, obviously we're going by what we see in here on movie websites and rumors was that they were trying to go for more of an a-spentura kind of comedy sort of slapstick comedy, which is very improvised was the rumors that old Naren Reich had to go and get acting lessons because he wasn't quite there with his improvising. So I'm assuming you did you see the whole script for the original one then? No.

Right. No, they just offered me the part. I didn't, I didn't audition or anything. They offered me.

Didn't tell me what the part was and didn't really couldn't see a script. So I said yes just on the fact that it was so I was. But then I said to my agent, fucking out, could be playing like, Jabba the Hudson man. And I said yes.

But is it like you say you're a Star Wars fan? Who wouldn't? I wouldn't care. No, I didn't.

I just want to be on that set. Oh, it's one of the greatest. Getting that cool was one of the greatest days professionally, one of the greatest days of all. It ended up being a bit of disappointment, but I still was there.

I had C3PO's original glove tied to my costume. No. Right to me every day. I've got photos and everything.

It brought to me every day. You know, I've touched it and sat in my dressing room with it and. Oh my God. It's an amazing thing.

And you also said actually that you would measure that for a toy. How does that work? Oh, they, they, they film you like on this, this, this amazing sort of 3D machine. So that they can, I don't know, I know I don't know how it works, but it's like, it was a whole separate studio and like a big pod.

And then massive lights all the way around and, you know, you do various poses and whatever. Oh, gut it. When I think about it, gut it, gut it. Oh, sorry, we shouldn't forget it.

It's twice that we've pissed you off and didn't make you get it. You wouldn't piss me off. It must be the feelings must be very contradictory in the fact that you feel so great that you've been in a Star Wars film. Literally, but then nobody is ever going to see you in a Star Wars film.

Yeah. Yeah. Also, I'm a huge kind of fantasy fiction. I'm a real nerd.

So I'm a big fantasy fiction fan. And every time I've done anything to do with fantasy fiction, it's been a disappointment. So I think I just need to enjoy it and stay clear of it in a professional, in a professional basis. And then if they came back to you and said, look, actually, we're really sorry about your experience on the last Star Wars.

We're going to base the next trilogy on your character is going to be the main character. You're going to say yes. So that on you. They're not going to do that.

But yeah, I don't know because it's all up in the air now. Who knows what's going on? Ryan Johnson is supposed to be having a trilogy of movies. He's whittling away on his little bat saying actually requires the one.

She's the one. We're going to do it. Yeah. Absolutely.

I'll jump at the time. I think it'd be amazing. Especially in fact, then, to be able to talk to you just about Star Wars. I mean, as you can see, like my said, it's just full of Star Wars.

What do you think of the Mandalorian? Have you seen that? Yeah. Haven't seen it.

Haven't you? Haven't got Disney books. It's worth it. It's worth it.

It's worth it. It's worth it. It's worth it. 99 just for the Mandalorian.

I'll tell you. Oh, okay. Without that. It's old school Star Wars.

That's how I put it. It's old school Star Wars. Yeah. I just saw the rise of Skywalker recently, which I loved.

Did you? Did you? I'm turning around on it. I wasn't.

Yeah. I loved it. I was a little bit disappointed to start with, but you know. We're talking about these roles.

Is there a role you would absolutely love to do? Is there a part? Yeah. I'm not going to tell you why.

Because you never know. You know, it jinxed it. There is one part in particular that I would really like on TV or film. Yeah.

Even on stage. Is that a superstition of actors that they don't say what roles they'd really like to get in case it jinxes them or is that just you? No, I think most of them would put it out there and hope that somebody would go, oh, yeah, that'd be great. But you're not going to.

It worked for Samuel L Jackson. He put it out there that you wanted to be in a Star Wars movie and he got Mace Windu. Yeah, but he was a big star. Wasn't he?

You're a big star, actually. You don't realize this. You don't realize quite how loved and how people love you because of who you are and what you do. I should come up to one of your, your, your, your, what I think I said, I think I said to you on a message.

I said, if you came and you come out on that stage, people would lose their shit. They wouldn't. They would. No idea.

I mean, slugs blessing came to every, it was a guess on every one of our live shows. Got a stand in Ovation every time. And he was being to every one of our shows on stage. If you turned up, we said the same thing to Portia, he'd be as well.

They would go fucking nuts. I'm telling you now, I'll say it on the podcast. They would go absolutely nuts. Maybe I'll, maybe I'll speak to Paul and we'll, we'll see if we can come up.

Absolutely. We said, we said on one of our other shows that what we wanted to do with, with Paul was not to have him as a guest for the entire show. And at the end, he came out and sang the good guy's song. That was it.

That was all he did. So thank you very much at the end and then just walk off again. Just for those five minutes. He said that's a great idea.

I'd love to do that. But I think he was working at the time. So we couldn't do it. But we'll leave that.

We'll keep that for later. I mean, I don't do them because I don't think I'm very interesting. I'm not good at all of this sort of thing. So I try and avoid it.

You're amazing. You would go down an absolute storm. You really would. Just to let you know, you see, we quite often ask other guests on the podcast, apart from Kerry and Curtin, who's your favourite character in this country.

And big man, the very often comes up as they think. Yeah. We're not just blowing smoke up your ass. No, no, no.

I think it's weird because you're seeing it from you go on there and you spend, I don't know, a couple of days, maybe. Yeah, a week. You need to see it from the Dump Gang point of view, which is that first, that's the number one Facebook group. You need to join that one, actually, and come and join in the love because guaranteed you will see the love that you get.

If you ever have a dang day, just I'll tell you, join the dump gang, log in and you'll be your, because they're a lovely community as well. They're not just fans. They look after each other a lot. When people are having dang days, I've never known a fan community.

Like I've said loads of times here, the Star Wars fan community now has got very divisive over the last few years. The this country fan group, especially the Dump Gang on Facebook, are beautiful. They look after each other so nicely. It's a lovely lovely thing to see and to be part of that and you have all people.

You're one of the big cheese. You are. Don't shake your heads. You are.

You don't. You like it or not. Whether you believe it or not. That is the truth.

I'm just telling you. Please don't believe it. What you should do is you're a bit man who needs like Jack and Ori and post it on the top. You watch.

What happens if you look at that? Honestly. Crazy for you. I mean, actually there's t-shirts and everything.

I mean, what do you want? That's just you and me. I've got that t-shirt. People have bought them.

A few of them have bought them. It's not just us. After three series of this and a special, it's the only time that it started to go in now that other people are watching this show. Yeah, I mean, I know people.

People do come up to me and stuff, but I don't know. They are. The only humble there. The thing is, you've only got to look.

We've done three live shows now and they've instilled every one of them sold out in a theatre, like a 200-seat theatre. And the fans just love. And that's just us talking about this country on plain silly games. You know, we've had Paul Cooper.

We've had Trevor, Mark Kempner's come. Obviously Slugs, Blessings, Come as Well. So it's all about the show and they love the show. It's only love of people that are in the show.

So I can see you're still not convinced. Please come to it. Please come to it. We love it.

We'll keep the interaction. We'll sort it out. We'll sort it out. If we've got to give you a piggyback from London all the way back to Sire and then we'll see you.

And then all the way back to Sire and Neil will gladly do it. I don't mind actually. No, no, no. I don't mind actually.

No, no. I'll be still there. Yeah. No, Rick's also.

No. Well, yeah, that's a good idea. Maybe we'll just do that. Yeah.

Maybe we'll just do that. So like you say, at the moment, things have sort of slowed down and stopped. If you've got things in the future, once everything's back to normal that you'll be working on. Yeah, I hope so.

I'm going to go to the second series of Mallory Towers. We were supposed to be in Canada, obviously July and August to film that. So that's probably going to be, well, we're hopefully September. I don't know.

I don't know how they're going to do it. I know they're very keen to do it at the BBC, but hell of an undertaking. I think they're going to have to maybe test us all quarantine us all together. And then they could start.

You know, it's not for me to speculate, but when they're ready, I'm ready. Yeah. It's just nobody knows the end of it. Yeah.

Either do they have the thing and second spikes and all of that sort of stuff. Or if there'll ever be a vaccine or anything, we just don't know anything. Yeah. So hopefully Mallory will go soon enough.

I'm going to actually have it after this. I'm going to have a zoom with the producers of that. So we might have a bit more of an idea. Yeah.

I'm looking forward to doing the second series. It's great. Awesome. I need to catch up on that.

I haven't seen that yet. So apologies for that. It's going to be your thing. I don't know anything with you in it, Ashley.

It's my thing. Yeah. Is that all right? Yeah.

So how are you at the moment with your broken leg and stuff? Oh, yeah. All right. Just start walking again now.

It's fine. Yeah. That's good. Yeah.

It was quite bad accident actually. And that was over in France. That's what happened. Yeah.

The house is like up a dirt track. And it's a bit difficult to negotiate on a bike anyway. And then this door came and attacked me out of nowhere. So my instinct was just to accelerate and accelerate it in crash.

But when you crash, did you go fucking prick? Really? I just was more kind of like hell. Oh my God.

I strapped under the bike. But the dog ran away and Paul catered to me. When did the dog? I said, oh, it ran away and went.

It's fucking lucky. It's fucking lucky. It's never taught you throw out with it. That would have been a lot worse then.

It could have been a lot worse. Do you ever use your well, especially now in this sort of downtime and when you were sort of recuperating, do you go creative and try and write or anything like that? Yeah, maybe. Yeah.

I mean, I, I don't know. I think everybody's pitching at the moment. The world and his wife is writing and pitching at the moment. And I think it's harder than it looks.

So, you know, yeah, I have, I think about it and people ask and whatever, but it's much harder than it looks. You know, if they've made it onto television or whatever, they've done an amazing thing. An amazing thing. Right.

So I'm talking of television and watching your go-to program at the moment. Everybody's been binging something. I like Schitt's Creek. Okay.

That's what I'm watching at the moment. I tend to watch documentaries. Yeah. Right.

So Paul, no, no. But I say, I, it's hard to watch dramas because a friend walks in. You're into it and then somebody will turn up and you're like, oh, you know, this club. And it takes you out of it a little bit.

Yeah. So, yeah, I liked and Josh Schitt's Creek and I liked normal people as well. I thought that was beautiful. What documentaries have you been watching?

I'll take it. You've tried the king. I haven't seen Tiger King because I was worried that there might be a bit of animal cruelty in it and I can't really watch that sort of thing. But anything else, and I like kind of football documentaries and, yeah, anything really.