Does Mark think BACKROOMS is a-maze-ing?

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Our guest this week is James Graham, one of Britain’s most prolific and successful writers, including of the brand new BBC series Dear England. Adapted from a play which Graham also wrote, it charts the journey of Gareth Southgate’s England men’s team from the disappointment of the ‘golden generation’ to the success we all cheered on in recent years—except for Mark, of course. No chance of him following the football. James talks to Simon about the highs and lows, moving from stage tp screen, and why Gareth Southgate has a redemption narrative straight outta Shakespeare.

Mark reviews it too, plus three more of the week’s big releases—a packed show again. We’ve got Power Ballad, a dark musical comedy of unfulfilled potential and stolen success starring Paul Rudd and Nick Jonas, Backrooms a new A24 horror that started life as a viral YouTube video, and Tuner, the crime thriller starring Dustin Hoffman and last week’s Take guest Leo Woodall.

All that plus the usual lovely nonsense. Enjoy!

Timecodes:

00:00 Introduction

10:04 Power Ballad review

16:38 Box Office 10

30:29 James Graham interview

47:00 Dear England review

53:33 Laughter Lift

01:00:31 Backrooms Review

01:08:22 Tuner review

The fundraising page for Dave Mitchell, director of Alien On Stage can be found here:

goodhub.com/go/helpdave

You can contact the show by emailing correspondence@kermodeandmayo.com or you can find us on social media, @KermodeandMayo.

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