every little thing she does is cabbage

Stu Mather (producer of Hypothetical) retweeted one of my Hypothetical Twitter shitposts with a positive endorsement! <3

The retweet got absolutely no engagement XD but this is the closest thing I have ever had to a senpai actually noticing me and I can therefore retire from shitposting happy.

(He retweeted it nearly two weeks ago, but I had been stress-avoiding my Twitter notifications ever since attempting to shamefully self-promo it by replying to a Dave post - which is probably how he came to spot it - because I fully expected to get absolutely no engagement and didn't want to face the humiliation. I had genuinely forgotten WHY I'd been stress-avoiding said notifications so when I randomly clicked on them it was a delightful surprise!)

I do not understand Twitter, it scares me, it upsets me, I'm definitely doing it wrong, and I should probably just delete it, BUT. FINALLY. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED. someone involved in the making of a thing that I shitposted about ACTUALLY ENJOYED THE SHITPOST. \o/

This Hypothetical series 3 interview is quite a fun one!

"Harry Hill gave me this Stouffer," [Widdicombe] grins

Well, that's fantastic.

"I don't do sign-offs at the end of each segment anymore," notes Acaster [...] ["]it would always confuse the studio audience."

TCHAH, it confused YOU, more like! The only thing confusing about it for us was when you'd come in late when we'd already started clapping :P RIP sign-offs, I'm genuinely extremely sad they're gone :'(

"(The audience) was 60 people spaced out["]

Hmm, maybe it was. I had in my head Olver had said it was 80. One of us is wrong :P

"Actually, just relaxing and being with people that you want to be with and enjoying yourself isn't actually a bad way of spending your time. Life isn't about getting things done."

Aww, said with the fervour of someone who's only just started to figure that out and has to keep repeating it to convince themself it's true <3

But the main reason I'm bothering to make a post:

"I think the worst way to approach lockdown was this feeling that at the start that you had to be achieving [...] 'I need to learn how to play the saxophone in this or it's a waste of my life'."

Feeling extremely called out by this, because for highly coincidental reasons, I actually DID learn to play the saxophone during lockdown XD

> exclusively revealed at hypothetical s2 recordings: josh widdicombe puts off getting his hair cut until he's filming a tv show, when he asks the makeup person to do it as a favour

> planned first recording date of hypothetical s3: april 9th

> announcement of indefinite postponement of hypothetical s3 recordings: march 20th

> uk goes into lockdown: march 23rd

lads there is a REASON why josh hasn't contributed to matafeo's lockdown hair twitter thread XD he is so fucked :P

i still can't get over this

hypothetical s2e1 was one of the eps i saw recorded - there were a few notable bits that got cut that i'll tell you all about if they don't make it into some kind of outtake reel

but holy shit the editing on the hairy bikers bit

at the end? when james suddenly lifts his hands to his mouth and goes OMNOMNOMNOMNOM HAHAAA?

and it makes no fucking sense?

that's because they cut out a bit where sara gives him some butter

like... it still makes no sense whatsoever that he would just conclude the interaction by hoofing butter into his mouth

but at least that bit of context would have made him look like slightly less of an absolute freewheeling madman

they completely stitched him up in the edit and i am 100% here for it, i don't think i've ever laughed harder at anything that's happened in that show

absolutely worth the journey to pinewood for that little nugget XD

Hypothetical Series 2, first two audience recordings, Wednesday 31st July 2019, Pinewood Studios. The title is the only direct quote from an episode you're getting...

SO FOLKS this is how it's going to go down: I do not want to publish genuine spoilers, but I can't bear not being able to talk about some of this stuff for months! So, this set report will be non-spoilery w.r.t. the actual spoilable content of the episodes, but there will be some cryptic (and less-cryptic) clues in the latter part, and I absolutely invite guessing games in the comments, because, well, I reckon that'd be fun for everyone! The rules are:
- I will not confirm or deny anything...
- ...unless people start getting their hopes up massively about something wildly inaccurate o.O
- and if you really want to be spoiled, I'm happy to do so in a private message, but honestly, I think it'll be more fun to wait, and throw around crazy theories :D

And never fear, I'll do a full explicit write-up of everything that I remember being cut etc once the episodes finally air, so you won't miss anything... but that's fucking ages away XD

( The Pinewood Experience )

( Watching the Show )

( Cheeky Little Non-Spoilery Spoilers )

Anything else you want to know? Ask away! Or make guesses. Absolutely make guesses :D

oh my god acaster just couldn't deal with the lorraine kelly bit could he

i thoroughly enjoyed watching James Acaster: Agent of Chaos, having agent-of-chaosed his way through two of osman's panel games, getting out-agent-of-chaosed on his own panel game XD feels nicely karmic

additional observations:

1) the wig oddly suited him? especially when he was laughing. it softened his face shape

2) 'the hair of a hollywood star, the cheekbones of a catwalk model' - don't hold back, josh, tell us how you really feel

3) ohhhhh straightboy, you sure lost that game of matt forde gay chicken quickly

4) 'wingdings!' - the most melodious i've ever heard him. seriously! proof that he can actually give his voice a pleasant timbre if he tries. i was so bewildered when i read his Scrape about being phobic of singing/terrible at singing, and needing a singing teacher, and the teacher saying 'i can't teach you' etc etc. because not only can he absolutely carry a tune, he sings A LOT. ('music, lots of music playing in the car!') sure, his voice has a horrible timbre, but he always stays on-key for the entirety of kettering town fc, f'rex, which someone who wasn't good at singing Could Not Do, i guarantee you.

(i get nerdy about voice shit because a) i studied linguistics b) i'm a natural mimic, although only a mediocre one and c) i'm a natural singer, have a reasonable understanding of the principles of singing, and have been able to coax a couple of self-described 'tone deaf' people into singing slightly better. and our boy is a funny one because... a lot of this shit is about consciously controlling your voice, which isn't a very natural thing to do because using your voice is such an everyday unconscious thing. he can't seem to control the timbre of his voice when singing, but he CAN control the pitch of it, easily. and he is totally incapable of controlling his voice by way of putting on an accent (lol), BUT... so much of comedy is about delivery. and so much of his comedy leans on his offbeat delivery (a guardian article described it as 'eccentric inflections', which stuck in my mind). and there's a bit in comcompod where he's talking as his normal self and then he 'puts on' his 'persona voice' briefly, which is a joy and so obviously highlights the calculated differences, so... clearly he knows what he's doing! clearly he knows how to control his voice in some respects! just... not others?

so there's obviously something else going on when it comes to timbre and accents. maybe he CAN do it but it's funnier not to (like, obviously kettering town fc wouldn't be as funny if it was a rich smooth tenor :P or maybe it would be funnier? :P but it's not like he's done stars in their eyes or anything, we don't really have a base for comparison). maybe it's a confidence thing - if you try to sing with a pleasant timbre, which is basically putting on a voice that isn't really yours, and it doesn't quite come out right, it can be more embarrassing than just not even trying. ditto accents. it could be that he doesn't have an ear for accents? but he has an ear for music, for heaven's sake!

but... yeah... like, either his singing teacher was a god damn miracle worker, or i just don't buy that he was ever that bad at singing? because he! knows! what he's doing! with his voice!

...maybe his singing teacher was a miracle worker, and if it hadn't been for her, he'd never have learned to control his voice enough (in general) to deliver comedy well :) so let's all be grateful for that!)