Now that is Fighting Talk!

It is a mild and slightly damp Saturday morning at the beginning of October, 2003. I’m in my car negotiating the tramlines that run along the streets of Amsterdam while touring neighbourhoods in the search for somewhere permanent to live following my return from a two-year sojourn in California. Being the typical Brit abroad, I’m listening to the BBC on the radio, but given the trams’ overhead power lines interfering with reception, the best I can hear is a very crackly 5 Live on AM. 

Through the signal that fades in and out, I realise that I’m listening to the rat-a-tat-tat schtick of Johnny Vaughan, the former Big Breakfast co-host, who appears to be presenting some sort of sports quiz. The panelists are footballer Stan Collymore, the now ubiquitous comedian/actor/game show host Bradley Walsh (who is also an ex-professional footballer), sports writer Will Buckley, and Canadian DJ and sports nut Greg Brady, dialing in from Toronto. From what I can tell through the electrical interference, it’s a high-bantz experience.

It transpires that I’m listening to a brand new show called Fighting Talk, which zips along breathlessly under Vaughan as I try to remember the protocols of Amsterdam driving (basically, don’t, but if you do, give cyclists priority, then pedestrians, and then, if you’re lucky, you). The show ends with a win for Collymore before Vaughan hands over to 5 Live’s afternoon sports anchor and I go about my business of apartment hunting. 

20 years and four permanent hosts on, FT remains a weekend fixture (or, in my case, the Monday morning commute as I catch up with the podcast version) for the duration of any football season when it is on. Its premise is punditry, but not the monotone of Match Of The Day analysis. Instead it is a combination of knowledge and more subjective, often provocative and invariably damn funny opinion, triggered by left-field questions that sometimes only have a passing connection to sport (sample: “Sports people as biscuits”.

Points are awarded - somewhat arbitrarily it seems - for answers and it doesn’t make any difference whether the recipient is a Sport Billy with a Panini sticker book’s worth of trivia in their head, or a professional comedian possessing the sharpness of wit that comes from surviving the comedy club bearpits. And unlike, say, the occasionally po-faced A Question Of Sport, whose sports personalities are invariably anything but, FT works around the absurdities of competitive endeavour. Sport is merely a vessel for the ever-changing panel drawn mostly from sport, broadcasting and the comedy circuit to be quizzed on.

Greg Brady

“So much of sports talk is not interesting,” says Greg Brady, a regular on every FT season since 2003. “With Fighting Talk, though, you get pinned down into actually having an opinion.” Two US radio shows, Pardon The Interruption and Round The Horn provided something of the show’s template when producer Simon Crosse - who’d known Greg for a few years - invited him to be on the very first show. “In 2003, living in Detroit, I sort of knew the format, but radio hadn’t really done the arguing-in-a-pub thing, where you’re rewarded with points. Simon thought there had never been anything like it on UK radio – punditry then wasn’t very pointed.” 

“Everyone on it takes it very seriously,” Greg adds. “No one shows up unprepared. We do know the questions in advance, but not the answers, and it’s not scripted. We’re often surprised with what the other panelists have to say, and that makes for a more entertaining and unpredictable show. Knowing everyone’s answers in advance wouldn’t be the right thing to do. The show should get a lot of credit for the way it has evolved as topics in society have evolved. There are things from 20 years ago we wouldn’t cover now.”

What has kept FT fresh for the last 20 years has been the combinations of panelists, some of whom can be considered regulars (Brady says he’ll do five or six shows in any season) while others have come and gone as other work commitments have permitted. One early fixture was Tom Watt, better known as Lofty in EastEnders, who regularly demonstrated a propensity for being a proper football Statto. The Fast Show’s Simon Day has been another, along with sports journalists like Steve Bunce, Des Kelly and Martin Kelner, athletes Kath Merry and Gail Emms, and comedians like Tom Davis, Neil Delamere, Elis James, Eddie Kadi, Mark Watson and Henning Wehn. 

FT has created a legend out of football manager Phil Brown, coined a catchphrase in Bob Mills’ “I didn’t come here for a lesson on communism!”, and made the final round of ‘Defend The Indefensible’ (DTI as FTers know it) a source of controversy every bit as sour as any VAR decision. It has championed women with all-female panels, and has its own self-styled First Lady, sports presenter Eleanor Oldroyd. It’s topical, but doesn’t try to be Mock The Week/Have I Got News For You topical, even with the wild card of the ‘AOB’ round. And you don't have to be a Top Trumps-collecting obsessive to get the sporting references.

“You won’t hear the same four people every week,” points out Greg. “At the beginning it would have taken a little time to establish its rhythm – ‘Have we got the right mix?’ ‘Have we got people who know their stuff, can talk about their sport, about other sports, and if they’re not from the sporting world, contribute as entertainingly as possible?’” Over time, he says, the panels have broadened out, but there remains a cadre of panelists who’ve returned regularly, simply because they enjoy it. “The only reason panelists give up FT is when they have other things in their career to take up their time,” Greg adds.

That sort of longevity - and the support of a hardcore fanbase (who are also members of an enthusiastically-engaged Facebook group), is down to the chemistry woven by producers Crosse, Mike Holt and Charlie Copsey. “The balance of guests is usually really good,” says another FT veteran, comedian, author and hotelier Ian Moore, now in his 14th year on the show. “That’s down to the three of them - Simon, Mike and Charlie,” he adds, pointing out that they get the best out of the competitive mix of comedy and sporting professionals, each with their own knowledge, preparation and style of banter.

Former Fighting Talk host Colin Murray with producers Simon Crosse and Charlie Copsey
Picture: BBC/Facebook

For Greg Brady, interacting with the panel presents an interesting challenge: with a few exceptions of when he is London, for most editions of FT he dials at six in the morning from Toronto, where he presents the breakfast show on the city’s Global News Radio 640 station. “A Fighting Talk for me will start at 6am Eastern Time, which being a Saturday means it will have been the sixth day in a row of being up at that time.” But that’s not the greatest hurdle - when he dials in, he’s up against a host and three other panelists he can’t see. “It’s the ultimate blind date, sparring over who is the most promising golfer on the Ryder Cup Team, or a Robbie Williams song as a car – a typical Fighting Talk curve.” He wouldn’t have it any other way, however. “Over here [in North America], talk shows are like arranged marriages, but with Fighting Talk there is so much freedom to go with the flow of the fun or opinion. The mix of the people you get with FT is what makes it.”

Colin Murray in the FT driving seat
Picture: BBC/Facebook

Johnny Vaughan cast the dye in his single season as FT’s inaugural presenter, bringing the gently laddish charm that made The Big Breakfast required viewing in the 1990s. He was followed by Christian O’Connell, then Colin Murray in his first stint, Josh Widdicombe and Georgie Thompson alternating, and then Murray again for a second run between 2016 and this summer, and the end of the 22-23 football season. Guest presenters over the last 20 years have included Sir Terry Wogan, World Of Sport legend Dickie Davies, Jimmy Tarbuck, football commentator Jonathan Pearce and comedian Justin Moorhouse (who won the 2014 season as a panelist). 

For the start of its 21st year tomorrow, the show has a new host: 5 Live breakfast presenter Rick Edwards who, he says, has been a huge fan of FT since that first season with Vaughan at the helm, a fact, he says, “does age me.” Having begun his career as a stand-up, Edwards should be a snappy host, though as a former panelist, he knows the pitfalls. “Over the years my performance as a guest has been patchy, and I am really looking forward to bringing that inconsistency to the host’s chair. I can already feel the power going to my head. The bosses will regret giving me the keys to that sound effects box.”

Although he won't be on the first show of the new season, Greg Brady is looking forward to an early opportunity to be on FT with Edwards. “It might take a couple of episodes to get in tune with the ad-libs, the mockery and the opinion, but he’ll get there. It’s a little like the Rolling Stones saying that it’s only rock and roll – you’re born to be wrong a lot of the time in sport, so Rick will have to balance the possession time, who is the funniest – even if they’re not obviously funny people – who has the best knowledge, what would make good radio, what will draw out the punditry.”

Rick Edwards
Picture: BBC

Johnny Vaughan, whose production company World’s End makes the show for 5 Live, said: “The Fighting Talk team are thrilled to have Rick at the helm for the next part of the journey. Over the years we have been so lucky that each host has brought with them their own unique style, passion and humour and that is what has helped make Fighting Talk Britain’s longest running, favourite sporting entertainment show. We are delighted that Rick is now part of a glorious Saturday tradition!”

Fighting Talk returns to BBC 5 Live at 11am on Saturday 2 September. An extended podcast version will be available via BBC Sounds

Pace yourself - this thing's not over yet

Picture: Twitter/BetterCaulSaul/AMC

There have been two stark reminders this week that we're in it for the long run with this pandemic. Firstly, I finally received a letter from my GP warning me to "stay at home at all times and avoid all face-to-face contact for at least 12 weeks" owing to rather foolishly having an underlying health condition. This, I thought, was somewhat curious as we are now in Week 4 of the lockdown, and I'd received a text message from the NHS three weeks ago today warning me, then, to stay at home for “at least” 12 weeks. So, am I now confined to barracks for 12 or is it 15 weeks? And then, if I heard Chris Whitty, the government's chief medical adviser, correctly this week, I might be here for even longer, like The Count of Monte Cristo or Rapunzel, after he alarmingly stated that no one's getting out until they find a cure, or a vaccine, or the economy collapses and it's the Zombie Apocalypse for real. Something like that.

A staple of the media over the last few weeks has been reporting on how people are (or not) coping with the lockdown. I'm not going to be flippant, and pretend that there aren't families in appalling conditions, children sharing bedrooms in cramped flats, and a serge in domestic violence; I'm also not going to believe that everyone in the UK can simply ride this thing out over the summer by setting up permanent station in their gardens, as it's a myth to believe that we all have one in this green and pleasant land. We do, however, all have access to television, which has become a universal panacea. It's no surprise, then, that box sets and streaming services are being chewed through at a rate of knots. Even I have started watching Masterchef and Bake Off, the kind of thing I'd ordinarily swerve, for want of something feelgood. Travel shows, too, have provided the escapism we've been denied by the lockdown (Sir Tony Robinson taking a train from Seattle to Alaska the other night was strangely liberating, despite being largely about the actor sitting inside a metal tube for hundreds of miles at a time). And there was Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness, the batshit-mad story of the batshit-mad Joe Exotic, his big cat zoo in Oklahoma and his allegedly murderous obsession with conservationist Carole Baskin. What could have been easily condensed into a single hour (as Louis Theroux had done previously) was brilliantly strung out into seven, somewhat individually themed episodes. These could also have been rationed but, in most people's cases, were binge-viewed in three, two or even single sittings. Given the bizarre story that played out, with equally bizarre players, it was hardly family lockdown material, but there we were - all of us - craving another episode after each dose, even when it was clearly getting late.

Since it’s premiere on 20th March Tiger King has been watched by more than 64 million households (Netflix’s metric) and has become a classic example of word of mouth cultural encroachment. We watched it because “everyone” was talking about it. We weren’t disappointed. Every day there's another recommendation on Facebook, be it Stranger Things, Ozark or Love Is Blind, or from these shores, the BBC’s Killing Eve (an episode of which was filmed not 100 yards from the kitchen table at which I write this). No wonder Netflix has added almost 16 million new accounts in the first three months of the year (almost double the number of new sign-ups for the final months of 2019). Even with new productions on hiatus, Netflix promises that it won't be running out of content any time yet.

One of its jewels, and one it was smart to bet on from the outset, is Better Call Saul, the Breaking Bad prequel which, it is frequently debated, has been even better than the show from which it spawned. This week its ten-episode fifth season drew to a stunning conclusion, brilliantly setting itself up for a sixth and final run, though no one quite knows when that will appear. Showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould were aiming for a season a year, but the lockdown in California has meant that production is on hiatus, although it has provided time to work on the new scripts. If you’ve not watched the final episode of Season 5, I won’t spoil it here, but like the previous seasons, 5 has been a delicious arc, continuing the metamorphosis of Jimmy McGill into Saul Goodman, the shyster lawyer of Breaking Bad (“It’s all good, man”), laying a few seeds that flower in the original series and even dropping a few plot lines that have left devotees of both shows wondering where and when the link will be made.

Picture: AMC television

But, unlike the much-binged Tiger King, Saul has been drip-fed to us, week-by-week, an old-fashioned approach, perhaps, but equally as effective as cliffhangers from old when the following week’s episode couldn’t come soon enough. This weekly progression has helped build not just a story curve but the season’s character curve, too. There have been standout performances from Bob Odenkirk as McGill/Goodman, as he finds himself deeper and deeper into the murky world of Albuquerque’s criminal underworld. Goodman was only ever meant to be a minor character in Breaking Bad, but with each new season of Saul, Gilligan and Gould have mined an even richer seam of ambition - and paranoia - providing obvious and not so obvious links and bridges to what we know of his future; Rhea Seehorn as his romantic partner and career-minded lawyer who, herself, starts to display a more nefarious side towards the end of the season, just as Walter White’s wife Skyler became more embroiled in the affairs of his alter-ego, ‘Heisenberg’; and the enigmatic Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut, the gnarled ex-cop (and, possibly, ex-special forces operative) doing the dirty work for nefarious drug emperor Gus Fring; and the season’s standout character, Lalo Salamanca, played with glorious, moustache-twirling, vintage villainy by Tony Dalton.

“Just IMAGINE when Better Call Saul was announced...the notion of suggesting it’d be half as remarkable as Breaking Bad was. You’d have been immediately ripped on & discredited. It’s all I see now - that it equals it, if not surpasses it. Astronomical odds of that happening.” So wrote the very excellent Canadian radio presenter Greg Brady in a tweet on Tuesday. I mention this as A) I follow Greg (and occasionally you can hear him on BBC 5 Live’s always entertaining Fighting Talk) and he follows me, and B) I couldn’t have summed up Better Call Saul better myself. That’s almost all there is to be said. With each new season, the bar has crept ever higher. Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have rightfully joined the ranks of the great entries in the so-called 'golden age of television', that period over the last couple of decades when The Sopranos, The Wire, Band Of Brothers, 24 and Homeland managed to transcend formulaic series television and become what became known as “appointment TV”, epic, cinematic television. America hasn’t had the monopoly on this, of course, as the likes of Line Of Duty, Killing Eve and, most recently, The Nest have demonstrated. But many of these examples are of shows which conform to a conventional linearity.

Picture: AMC

Better Call Saul - even more than Breaking Bad - has frequently demonstrated none of it. Moreover, Gilligan, in particular, has presided over two series with an identical love of quirky cinematography. If you thought some of the camera angles in the original Batman TV series in the 1960s were askew, some of the shot framing and scene-teeing in Saul, in particular, has been exquisite. The precedent was set in Breaking Bad, of course, with the opening episode commencing with Walt White, wearing white underpants and a gas mask, speeding off-road in the New Mexico desert in his cookshop 'RV'. All this before we had any clue as to who he was, what he was or why he was out there. Speed forward (or back), to the premiere episode of Better Call Saul, and the opening sequence begins with a individual who looks a lot like Saul living in stark anonymity in Nebraska, running a shopping mall Cinnabon kiosk, and spending his evenings replaying video cassettes of Saul Goodman TV commercials. All in black and white with hardly a word uttered. Here's Gilligan’s trademark: quirksome and often irony-laden, using idiosyncratic tracking shots or even something as simple as the reflection of an SUV in a puddle to build menace, curiosity and fear in equal measure, rather than simply resort to ‘establishing shots’ of landscapes which, while pretty, give little for the narrative to follow.

The Sopranos did similar things, with music frequently applied to underline Tony Soprano’s baby boomer, middle-aged dadness, an important reminder that he wasn’t just a ruthless capo. Both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul have traded off the fact that New Mexico is not like anywhere else in the American south, and that Albuquerque is not like any other southern desert city. Even if the criminality theme fits into any reflection of modern America, and urban America in particular, the fact that Gilligan’s shows are not set in the usual locations, like Los Angeles or New York, merely adds to the fact that we’re simply watching something else entirely. It’ll be truly interesting to see where Saul - now he has more or less become Vader to Jimmy McGill’s Annakin - takes us in the final season. Whenever that materialises...