Saturday Live Radio 4
Richard Osman is a tall man of big surprises. At 6ft 7in, he’s so tall that people like to get a hug.
“It’s like being hugged when you’re a kid - they find it easy, head buried in chest.”
On top of his role in quiz show Pointless, he has written a crime thriller in secret.
It’s set in a retirement village and is about a group of retired people who form their own murder club and set out on a whodunnit.
It has sold very well and that includes countries where they don’t know who Richard Osman is and that pleases him because it’s the story on its own merits and nothing to do with his career in television.
Also a certain Steven Spielberg has bought up the film rights.
He’s genuinely thrilled and really ought to cash in more on the bragging rights but doesn’t – he’s a winning chat show guest.
Saturday Live deliver relaxed chat – a typical weekend in bed kind of a listen – and topics include how lockdown has brought out the accordion player, the gardener or the bird twitcher in all of us.
Writer Caitlin Moran has fallen in love with cold water swimming. She saw how her dog loved it and decided to try.
“The first 30 seconds you’re screaming, then you get this whoosh.”
Moran frequents Hampstead Ladies’ pond where you get a lot of older women and one, who looks like she’s a judge, “very dignified”.
Said woman gets into her big cap and suit and goes into the water stepping down, rung by rung.
On the first rung, she shouts: “Now I don’t care about my children” on the second, she shouts: “Now I don’t about my job;” and on the final one, she shouts: “Now, I don’t care about my husband,” then she swims off.
What style.
