No Such Thing As Going To Spoiler Prison

Dan Schreiber (0:01)

Hey, everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of Fish, where today, James Harkin is away, and we are joined by one of the juggernauts of British television. It is the writer-producer, Russell T Davies. You'll know his work if you've watched any British television over the last 20-plus years, starting with Queer as Folk. He did It's a Sin, Years and Years, an Amazing Futuristic Show. And of course, he was the head showrunner of the reboot of Doctor Who. Amazing character. We were so excited he was up for coming on the show and he has a new book out, which is his autobiography. So if you have any interest in the world of TV, what it's like making it, what it's like going into productions and doing all the scripts, this is the book for you. Because it's not just his time in Doctor Who and all the other shows I mentioned. There's other things like Casanova, which we talk about in this episode. And it's out now. In fact, I saw a copy of it in a bookshop just this morning on my way in here. So go get yourself a copy. I hope you enjoy the show. It's a bit raunchy, the first fact. Just a heads up, if you got kids with you listening, I should add as well, if you're a member of Club Fish, you're going to have an XL version of this episode. And there's a lot more anecdotes from his life in TV in there. So if you want to get the full version of this show, go to patreon.com/clubfish and you can find that there. Otherwise, please enjoy the show and on with the podcast.

Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Thing As A Fish, a weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoburn. My name is Dan Schreiber. I'm sitting here with Anna Ptaszynski, Andrew Hunter Murray and Russell T Davies. And once again, we have gathered around the microphones with our four favorite facts from the last seven days. And in no particular order, here we go.

Starting with fact number one, and that is Russell.

Russell T Davies (2:00)

Casanova wrote his, it's called a memoir, it's a massive, massive autobiography, some pages of which are on pages watermarked with love hearts. There's a thing.

Anna Ptaszynski (2:10)

Because he was such a romantic guy.

Russell T Davies (2:12)

Well, was he? I wrote a Casanova television series starring David Tennant, many years ago, 2003, 2004

Anna Ptaszynski (2:20)

2005

Russell T Davies (2:21)

I had to read all 12 volumes of that autobiography, which was long.

Anna Ptaszynski (2:27)

Wow.

Russell T Davies (2:28)

Obviously, it just came out in paperback and the paperback version has a portrait of a naked lady along the spine. So you need all 12 volumes to get the lady a bit like the Mr. Men.

Well, you do that with like the MCU or something.

Anna Ptaszynski (2:43)

Yeah.

Russell T Davies (2:43)

Spider-Man across all the spines.

Dan Schreiber (2:45)

So for prudish people, they can take the boob, take volume seven and three out.

Russell T Davies (2:50)

Basically, I couldn't look upon them, obviously. That's long. Let me say that's a long autobiography.

Anna Ptaszynski (2:56)

Is it?

Russell T Davies (2:57)

I think the thing is about Casanova is that he's not that remarkable. He's remarkable because he wrote it down.

Anna Ptaszynski (3:03)

Yes.

Russell T Davies (3:04)

Because he wrote his life down. It was quite a life, I've got to say. He never lived anyway, never settled. He just wandered all over Europe and so gave us great insights into so many different countries and places.

But all the sexual law of the time, everyone was at it. Yes. Everyone was at it. He's not the great lover. He's not. Everyone was having sex at the rate that Casanova was. The nuns, priests, everyone, and he just happened to write it down.

Anna Ptaszynski (3:29)

Because I read a review that was like, by some counts, his sex count was up to about 135 different women, somewhere between 120 and 135 And then this review said, which was a lot by standards of the day. And I was thinking, that's a fuck of a lot now, guys. But you're saying everyone else is doing it.

Russell T Davies (3:47)

I don't think it was a lot by the standards of the day. I think literally everyone's at it. It's incredibly sexualized. It'd be amazing to really try and really portray what that was really like, except that also there's no age of consent. It would kind of be untransmitted, but you'd have to show it on the dark side of the moon once. And that would be it to get the full story of what it was like.