Production Delays and Casting Chaos

Hello and welcome. I am Josh Whittdakamb. For today I am the curator of a place of incredible artifacts and exhibitions, a place that stores the greatest thing on Eth. This is my archive of pop culture. San Juma. But you cannot change your heart. ose one you hide it. Your heart knows when Susie. Josh. I want to start this episode by trying to convince you of something that I think you'll be resistant to. You tried to stit in a hotel room ten you? I definly I just wondered over a Zoom whether it would be more tempting. If we both took our tops off, would that be fine? I think actually this is a worse proposition. Oh go on. I think I'm gonna make you think that you two are actually an interesting band. against you two, I'm just not a fan. I totally understand. I find it a bit sayy. The post two thousand turnout is Not for me, but the storyiew too is interesting. and it is obviously important for this story, right? So in nineteen seventy six And this is a great way for four people to come together In nineteen seventy six, fourteen year old Larry Mullin Jr., drummer. He posts a musici's monitored notice on the notice board of his comprehensive school. In Dublin. Fine, I love it. I'm in. Seven teachers seeven teachers turn out' be a disaster. No And Bono is the teacher. Yeah. seeven teenagers turn up And this includes Bono, the Edge and Adam Clayton. They all turn up to that rehearsal. The original lineup is still there today. What a beautiful day. What a beautiful lovely Yeah But they still haven't found what they're looking for. so three of them are em. So four years later, when Larry Mullen Juni is eighteen, they sign for Island Records, which is a huge record label Do you know how Bono and at the Edge got their name? It is worth discussing. You can't get it So the Edge comes from he's called David Evans, which isn't as cool. No. Alough I'd say the Edge is a very uncool nickname. Yeah, but I can imagine in the mid eighties it felt quite cool. He got it because of the shape of his head. Oh Godd He says, My mum calls me Edge so I guess that's about as official as you can get 'causeuse he's got a sharp ed shaped head, I suppose. I don't know what that means really No neither do I.use He always wears that little hat. Yeah, is he just flat? Oh he flat on top, Is that way he wears the little hat Bonoos comes from a shop And it' a shop that sold hearing aids in Dublin Bonovox. So he took his name from Bonovox, which is Latin for good voice So it all kind of fit. Oh that's an arrogant. you know what? If you don't like arrogant people, You're signing up for the wrong story because you've got So many people in this story that think they're right about everything. You've got so many people that back themselves. It's like the comedy store, dressing room. Yeah F from Stan Lee to The Edge to Bono to Julie Taymor Paul McGuinness, Spider Man's the only person with a bit of bloody humbleness in this story. This is a good story from a year later nineteen eighty one, Paul McGinnness. this is how good he is as a manager The edge wanted to quit U two and disband it because he thought God had told him to stop being in U two They're Catholics, you too. They are Christians, you too. Bono decided that he wouldn't be in the band without the edge, so it's all over. And Bono says, we went to speak to Paul who heard us out. There was a pause. The room quieted and then Paul said, Am I to gather from this that you've been talking with God And we earnestly replied, We think it's God's will, to which Paul says, So you can just call God up And they say yes. And he says, Well, maybe next time you might ask God if it's okay for your representative on earth to break a legal contract And they go, what? And he goes, do you think God wouldould have you break a legal contract, a contract that I've signed on your behalf, a legal contract for you to go on tour. How could it be possible for this god of yours to want you to break the law and not fulfill the responsibilities of the Tour? What sort of god is this? On this the degrees argues that they were looking for a signifier to go on and this was the signifier for them to continue in you two. is bananas Do you think that's panonas Which bed Well it depends which be you mean bananas I think all of it its banas I think Paul's been very logical. He's going These people believe God's making them quit the band. How do I talkght them round? I think what Paul's done there is Paed an absolute blinder Yeah, I think the whole thing that b on the edge thought that God had told them to leave you too. you know, peopleeople can believe what they believe, and I think people don believe what they believe and I'm not religious person myself. although I am going to say. Yeah. If there is a go, he doesn't care whether the edge is in you too. He couldn't give a share. He could ouldn't give a shit he or she or they couldn't give a shit. Couldn't give a shit. I would say whether you're in a post punk band from Ireland Or not Doesn't have the s. Does it At least until you get to the Parly gates and then you go, o, let's have a look at the receipts here. Isn't it like be a good person? So you too become big, but their're big moments. The big turning point is live aid. Th and Queen are really the two Pople that like transform their careers in live aid. So Queen play live aid and they do a fifteen minutes best off set. It's the most successful set of the day and the next year they're back At the top of music and they're playing Weembley Stadium, you too's live aid performance is considered like the moment they reach global fame So they were performing a song called Bad to think off the unforgettable fire and Bono jumps into the crowd, right Basically missing for a long time and he's got this habit of what he'll do on Tour is he'll go into the audience and he'll pull a girl out the audience and dance with her, right? A bit like Bruce Springsteeen with Courtney Cox that video. Dancing in the dark And this woman who he pulls out of the audience Live aid, she thinks Bono saved her life because she's being crushed and she thinks Bono's come to save her. And they do this incredibly emotional kind of slow dance. He does do this every night on tour, so I think it's just a coincidence that he's come to say It takes him far longer because it's at Wembley stadium, they're not used to that takes him far longer to get down there, get to the audience. than he expected. So they have to extend the performance of this song by five minutes. The band can't see what's going on, right? So they're just playing the riff again and again going what the fuck is going on Where's Bono, right And so they cancel their final song Pride in the name of love because they've just riff for five minutes while Bono' climbed down to dance with this woman And they leave the stage and they're like, we fucked that. That was our big chance in front of the world. Ed says we were really depressed. How annoyed would you be with Bone? Fucking livid. fucking livid What were you doing So Bonno felt it had been kind of clumsy and generally the whole thing hadn't lifted up In the stadium, there's a feeling it's not gone well on TV where people have seen on the cameras Bono getting this woman out and dancing really emotionally with her It's an incredible moment And it just goes around the globe. And Joan Byers, the amazing American folk singer, like legendary folk singer from Bob Dylany and all that, she'd never heard of You two, right And she wrote in her journal. She wrote down This young man, she was just watching it on TV in her hotel room This young man His expressing himself with such tenderness is enough to break my heart He calls to the audience, they call back. He is directing a choir. They are the choir. I can't recall ever having seen anything like it in my life. Out of the hours of live aid that I saw by the end of the day, the high pointo was witnessing the magic of you two. They moved me like nothing else has moved me. Wow. But no one in the stadium feels it because they can't see what Bono's doing And so they're all totally gutted. Yeah, and they're like we've just stood there. Obviously Pride in the name of love is a huge fucking banger. Yeah. We're finishing on that And you've just gone and disappeared for five minutes in the middle of the set. And then I suppose they find out Yeah, it's just like their saales go through the roof and then their ps like you two and Queen stole live aid and all this kind of stuff. And then they become the biggest band on earth And then they do this tour In nineteen ninety one to nineteen ninety three called the Zoo TV tour, right, which is. ing baby which is I think they the best album, but most people say Josh Tree, which has got like one on it and who's gonna ride your wild horse and the real thing, even better than the real thing. L this's a big album And they do this insane stadium tour that just totally changes what you can do with a stadium tour They record the album in Berlin. Theyve become obsessed with Eastern West Berlin, and the set is built of TV screens on these trabunant cars, these cars that are only available in East Germany because obviously it was a communist state. And while they're recording the record, they're watching the Gulf War on CNN and flicking around German TV channels like soap operas and ads And they're like talking about how cable TV' like blurred the lines between news and entertainment all this thing we take for granted. Yeah, totally. And so they decide the tour is going be about. the reality of what you see in a televised world and all that kind of stuff and it's going to have video screens, right? Very ahead of its time. Yeah. So Bono plays a range of characters like The Fly, which is one of the songs, who's like a lounge singer from Hell, and Mirroran who's a televangelist He uses a giant remote to flick through TV stations that are actually broadcasting in the crowd cheer or not And then the fly performs next all these words like some are like Haste is the enemy of art religion is a club, ignorance is bliss, all these things, watch more TV. There's a bit of a controversy when it's reported in media outlets that one of the phrases is bomb Japan now, which isn't true, for some For some reason that leaks to the press that they're going around in one of the phrases they have to deny that They have everything. I've got a belly dancer on stage for mysterious ways. And so they have a confessional booth outside where fans go into the booth and they give their deepest confessions Because they know people will do this ' then they'll be played on the big screen. It's like, what will people do? It's like a precursor to Graham Norton's red chair, Susie. But that's so theatrical. Yeah, hugely, right? People must have been like, what the fuck is this? This is amazing. Yeah, it's nineteen ninety one. L No one's done this Yeah. He makes crank calls from the stage as well, Bono So he doesials a phone sex hotline, He requests a taxi, that' nots good. He orders ten thousand pizzas from the Detroit pizza Parl and they deliver a hundred pizzas during the show to the venue He regularly calls the White House and attempts to get through to President Bush sr. He never gets through, but President Bush does talk about this in a press conference as well. And it is the highest grossing tour of the year. Gross is one hundred fifty one million dollars I mean, that's so much more money now, right? Because the tickets would have been It's pittence now, Susie. Taylor Swift' making a billion Tayor Swift would laugh at one hundred fifty one million dollars, wouldn't she? You get what I mean? I get what you mean. I'm not saying that you're you've lost touch since you startedanging out with Taylor Swift. So they're kind of Fascinating and incredible in the eighties and early nineties By two thousand three I think if you would come up with an idea of where they've got to just before they do the Spider May musical, there's slightly more in their rock aristocracy phase shown in two thousand three when Bono's performing with Luciano Pavarotti And he discovers he's left his trillby in London. nightmare. He' performing in Italy Whats he do He pays a thousand pounds to have it flown out, especially. is not to be clear in a private jet. Okay, but it does have a first class seat. Wow. So the Tilby fllyies first class The flight crew become concerned that it's going to be squashed and move it into the cockpit so it can travel with the captain They're not concerned. they're just getting photos with the Trilly. let's be honest. Yeah, for sure. It arrives in time. it's delivered to Bono. And then he goes on stage for a concert to help Homess Sraakis. So it's good that he's really Keeping things in perspect. For sure. That is the two sides of Bono there, right there, I'd say. Yeah. So that's the you two that Julie then meets, right? Okay. So Julie begins the writing process in two thousand five. She's searching for co writer for this huge, huge show There's like established writers, Tom Stopard's considered and then rejected, right And then there's this guy called Glen Berger, right who's not much experience compared to her, his biggest achievement is a one man play called Underneath the Lintel. It premiered off Broadway in two thousand three. It's been staged more than two hundred times around the world But he's friends with the assistant and he says, Could I submit something and see whether I could get this job And Julie's seen underneath the lintel. and so she calls him in for the interview, right And the night before, he's asked to write a sample scene. And he chooses a scene in which the Green Gblin, whoses Spiderm Man's nemesis hoist the piano above the Chrys of the buildilding sings a loun style song and then gets involved in some puppet violence and then falls to his death after realizing that he was attached by Spider Man's webbing to the piano when he's pushed off the crys of the building Ch As Dawn approaches, he presses send That afternoon Julie has given him the job as co writer. Oh my gosh. Little pre wararning, that scene is ultimately the reason that Julie gets removed from the project herself and why there are so many lawsuits around the project. So that one sceny knocked up to get the job overnight in a flap becomes the defining kind of scene of the show. So three nights after getting the job, he meets Julie's lawyer Seth Gelblum at a function and says, We are going to be working together on along in the future Glen says, Julie's lawyer says couple of things. Spider Man is going to be heavy going And he says, there are a lot of big personalities involved in this So even Julie's lawyer is going you're in for a tough one,? Steady. Yeah. But they get on well. byy the end of july two thousand five, they put together a twenty page treatment. They send it to the head of Marvel Entertainment And then Tony, Adams who's the guy who runs the production company, Paul McGuinness, U two's manager. They bring the edge, the contract. Edge goes to get a pen And when he returns Paul is frantic Tony has had a stroke And Tony dies two days later Oh no. Ls like the Alan Partridge scene. You know, the Allan Partridge scene where he's going to sign the contract and then for the BBC and then the guy dies. it's literally He has gone to get a pen And then the head of the production companies died But then who takes over Wow They get in Martin McCallum, who has helped bring Le Misirabla and Miss Seigon to the stage, right? Okay, sure, he's got some credentials. Bono and the Edge come up with a title, which is Turn offff the dark Spiderman turn off the dark whichich is quite a good title, I think, is what a friend's daughter has said at bedtime. Okay Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? Yes, wait. Julie comes up with the idea, right? So there's this worry about script gaps and filling in the plot and stuff. Should she comes up with this thing The geek chorus, which is for kind of school geeks who will sing as like a chorus thing, right? They'll comment on the action and fill in any script gaps. They'll kind of narrate, I suppose, right Also, she's still really into the Greek theatre, isn't she having a chorus? Yes, she's really into that, yeah, yeah. And they'd speak in verse And they sound like teenagers today They all have a distinct personality, but they talk in unison, right? And it has to be funny, theseese are all the things. And her final thing is it simply can't be hip hop because she hates hip hop.ure. And it becomes clear at this stage that You two's knowledge of musicals is not good. Yeah. So someone burns them a four CD compilation of sixty songs of the last sixty years of musicals divided into categories. Oh my gosh, I would be fascinated to what's on that What would you like that would? I wouldn't like it. But if you were just going to go here's this is musicals. Rogers and Hammerstein. They should just say listen to Elane page on radio two, Bono That's a broadcher. A name page every Sunday. Three hours And so Bono then says, If I'm going to actually plop something Like that onto the fucking page, it better be something that people will sing at football finals in ten years and make everyone cry. It better be as good as you'll never walk alone, which is one of the greatest songs ever written It's from a musical, you know aaler lone It's from musical. Yeah, yeah yeah B Bolo knows that, right? Yeah, it' from Carisell. But David's like, but that wasn't on the CD Bonner is like, no, but obviously I know it from Liverpool FC. I don't know it from the CD, right During this meeting This is two sides to Bono. Bono has to excuse himself for thirty minutes And when he returns, it turns out he's been on the phone to Nancy Pelosi. getting assurance that the one point two billion dollar African Aids relief would be reinstated after it looked like it would be dropped. So he's just He's living these mad two lives. A busy guy. There's a story about Brian Ino working with you two and saying no one can contact them. And then the phone ringing and it's Barack Obama and Bono has to just go and deal with it. And it's like Bono's both this kind of global politician and also rock star at the same time That's pretty c Is it though? Yes, it is, yes. Things are all looking good at this stage, right? apart from one of them died, but then it starts to go wrong. So Shoting Clen send the casting agency The descriptions is guidance And they take these and they release them to every talent Representative in the land That then gets into the papers and the secret character of Aachne which they wanted to keep secret until previews now becomes common knowledge, right And initially they are planning twelve weeks of previews, which are due to start in Chicago. to allow any kind of technical difficulties to be teased out. Yeah. but they soon realize this is impossible as basically all of the programmed moves like the flying and stuff are specific to the theater space there. So it's too much work to do in Chicago. it is a Rachnneia female character Yes, she is because she's the first spider. Yes Yeah, I'm trying to pull at a thread of a plot. But I can't seem to thum on. Oh what in the show? Yeah. like what's the story? I'll be honest, the story changes week on week depending on what preview they're doing. But Aachne is the baddie, I think. Okay They can't do the previews in Chicago. so they then decide to do the previews in New York in the theater they're going to do it in, right? There's only three non Disney owned Broadway theaters that can stage a show as ambitious as T offff the Dark Two of them are booked for Wicked and Shrek. Yeah,. And so they've only got the Hilton as their choice That's currently showing a flop musical of Young Frankenstein and T off the Dark will be taking it over in the Hilton, right? So Julie at this point, iss focused on how to effectively explain the story of Arachnei and to correctly communicate Arachnei's abilities which are to create lifelike images in order to captivate her audience. So she's basically creating kind of images of herself in a different place or whatever, right? Jully takes the inspiration from the ghosts at Disney's haunted mansions. Have you done that, Bride? Yep, ye Have you? Yeah. What is it like? It's like a ghost train, I think. Do you remember it being specifically spectacular? Not particularly. If she didn't give her her of Terror, That's quite good I don't think she is think what happens on terror of Terror It's like you're in an elevator and you go up to the top and then it's freefall. but as you go through, you see into different rooms and there's like ghosts and things. Maybe Julie's even got the wrong ride. wrong ride? So she says it uses mirrors, glass and projectors giving the effect of sea creatures are swimming alongside the runway. Do you remember this? No, maybe I haven't been on it. Either way, they're not possible to pull off As an alternative in, she gets a three D expert in, Ge Goldoff, who's the guy who came up with the holographic images on credit cards That's clever. But then Julie realizes that's not going to work in the theatre. And so she gets Michael Curry, who's a puppetry pioneer to solve the issue This is a bit of a problem She's worked with him previously on the Lion King. She goes on his website and she sees that some of the puppets from the Lion King and the magic fllute omitted a credit to her for her aesthetic contribution People are very picky about their credits, aren't they? It's pathetic, isn't it? It's surprising you're down as a director. you're the woman that directed the Lion King. You've gone on a guy's website And you've said, I haven't got credit for aesthetic contribution. So she's apoplelectic for saying that that leopard's eyebrow should be higher. She's livid at him And she makes it clear to Michael. and soon, his diary becomes too busy to do Spider Man because he has made, let's be honest I can't say maybe the diary does just become too busy, but there we go. I think we've all said to flow. Can you hide behind the diary? Could you hide behind the diary yet I mean, the pettiness of these people is absolutely wild, isn't it? Yeah, I suppose everyone's really desperate to have like their name on the thing, but I imagine that's not how they're feeling by the end of it. Wellow, you'll see. you will see on that, right? because Julie's name is still a thing. Let me tell you about the kind of person Julie Tamor is, Susie. Thatound like That sounds like I've had a beef with her Let me tell you about the Kite. She cut me up on the A thirty eight yesterday actually. But I just want to create a picture of quite who she is because you've said she's an artist of deep proportions. An artist. So seven, she's staging backyard performances for the family in her hometown in Massachusetts Ken she's joined Boston' Ch childildren Theatre B her twenties, right? She's into folklore, mythology, mime, all those things that say. You know, Spider Man She travels to Sri Lanka Paris and Indonesia where for four years during our early twenties She lives on a dirt floor compound with no running water, electricity or telephone What to make art? Tell you could install those telephones, Stanley, to make theatre She created and directed a trilogy called Way of Snow which explore tensions between traditional Indonesian society and modern influences desespite the fact that there doesn't seem to be any modern influences in a compound. Well and also It's so interesting that an American woman's gone and I would be the person to tell this story. I've lived on a dirt floor for two years. Let me tell you about you. There's puppets and masks and she's carved the mask herself and wood from the trees outside her house. She's pretty creative. you've got to give her that Oh yeah, that's very creative. but I mean, it's funny, isn't it? because When someone does something like that and the thing that they create is a huge hit, you go, wow, what a creative process. Yeah. When someone does that doesn't, it sort of becomes, oh yeah, my aunt Julia sort of lost her way. Fucking inset. Yeah, she's nuts. And now she talks to these masks that she once made. It's Bono dancing with the woman. He just went and fucked off and danced and blew it. Or he did this amazing thing where he danced with the woman. It's that, isn't it Time decides what are the big hits. Exactly. Time decides whether you are The greatest artists of all time are fucking insane Yeah, and I think that the line between those two things can be paper thin which is perfect for this podcast This is a quote from her. In a way, artists are shamans facilitators who take what's there, channel it through themselves, and put it out there for people to appreciate. Is that how you feel about yourself? Well, it iss how I always felt about your routine about cocoa pubs I always thought good Is shaman or is he a stand up comedian? It's difficult to know, isn't it? Every time he says car car pop, I plucking that from the air from the spirits Opul says to her once, yourour experience as an artist is so broad, director, sculptor, design a creator. How do you define yourself? Great question for someone like that. Go on. She doesn't define herself? No, she does. I call myself a playmaker sometimes, but that's just a word. I don't feel like I have a title or job description So you're kind of right, you're kind of wrong. She's a playmaker. She's a playmaker. Any football fans would know that's a very important role the team. right I should say obviously things I don't think it's giving it away. Things go sour with Spider Man, yeah. Yeah. She doesn't even refer to it by name anymore She refers to it as the unmmentionable these days. If she's asked about it She says the unmmentionable has lived with me much longer than the over budgets and failures of many men who' been allowed to fail. She believes and I think there's a definite truth in this that she as the main woman involved in the production, has been hung out to drive far more than the men who've been involved in the production That would be totally believable. Quick fun story about Paul McGinnness, Suzie? Yes, please. It's from Louis Walsh. alwaysways a good source of a story. What did you ring him and say have you got anything on Paul McGinness? You're both Irish? She did you ring him. And he said, yeah, I ont said this in an interview. I'll send you the link. Handy. So this is a quote from Louis Walsh. This is about a place called Captain America's in Dublin, I presume. About thirty years ago, Captain America the accent, please No I can't do the accent, please no. Captain Americaas was kind of the place to be. It was a place to go. I used to go there about once a week. It was a great place. I'll be honest, Louis, we could chip into that quote a bit. Amazing they put the whole thing in. We know it's a good place, Louis. I've got it. And I'm in there one day and you two are on the next table. Nobody really knows them. They're just starting rehearsing but they are ambitious and Bono is there And they are talking out loud and I hear them saying that they want to get rid of their manager, Paul McGuinness I'm lening I'minking this can't be real. I know Paul iss a brilliant manager And I just went over to them and I said, G Are you really serious about getting rid of Paul McGinnness? He will make you. He is the greatest manager. and I was right So what a lovely way for Louis Walssh to insert himself into someone else's life. incredible way for Louis Walssh to somehow claim credit for you too Well, he's not claiming credit for one true voice, That's for sure. excit The Hilton Theatre, right where they are has got a bad rep. yeah.. So Mel Brooks, who's the producer of Young Frankenstein describes it as Barn like. We've all done gigs that are barn like, Susie. It's got the vibe of a corn exchange. It's got the vibe of corornick. I don't know whether Milbrooks knows what corn exchange is, but we for a corn exchange. We do only too well So he says it's a caverous barn like feel with poor acoustics that made it difficult for audiences to hear jokes. We've all been there Oh Well, that's what you say to yourself, don't you? I don't think they could hear. Yeah I'm sure they could hear my jokes. The good news is Mel. I'm gonna to guess that Julie Tamor's script isn't going to be gag heavy I think though, I think you're right in saying that the young Frankenstein did come to London not that long ago. It did, yeah, I think. I think did pretty well. It's had another moment, which sadly, I don't thinkpieder Man. It wasn't in a barn, Susie. Did they not do the Kings Lincorn exchange for them? They didn't do the Kings Lcorn exchange, which was Mel's original choice until he went there. Frederick Zolo, who produced Chitty, Chitty Bambang It says that there's also poor sightlines from sunseats. There's acoustic dead spots as well where people just can't hear anything. This Broadway Theatre? Well, C Ch Bambang did one thousand six hundred performances in London But it closed after eight months in New York. Wow, whether it's the fault of the theater or not two thousand seven, the pirate quQueen which was an epic romance with Irish dancing did just eighty five shows at the Hilton, but does that might be the show because it sounds awful. Mel Brooks spent fourteen million as we've discussed, didn't get it back. Hot Feet, which was a musical set to the songs of Earthwind and Fire. That only did three months there The one thing Melbrook said is the rows of seats are too far apart You know why I said that You can leave too easily if you don't like the show. That's what I said But you do sort of in theat, you sort of want the audience to be on top of each other It's how you get like a roll of laughter. It's a bad theatre they've chosen. On top of everything else, they've chosen a shit theatre. But it sounds like they didn't have much choice. They didn't have much choice, I suppose. Disney basically owns all of New York's theatres and there was P probleblem is also, right? It is this thing of like It's very difficult to get a successful show in a theatre. So if you get one, it just stays in the theatre for ages. So the other theaters that aren't getting lucky with a successful show just look like they're doing a string of unsuccessful shows. Yeah, but it's because they can't It's difficult to hit upon a successful show. Yeah, yeah, I think that's true. To defend it I know you're shooting your next special at the Hilton, so don't worry. I am shooting my next special But you know what? I just think one thousand eight hundred people in New York in a place that's barn like screams Josh Whirakam. Yeah, they want to hear your stuff on Greg Wallace. The good news is I won't be able to sell that manyoney tickets in New York. so we can leave the acoustic black spots as empty seats. So there's all these casting issues, right And we're talking about like, obviously you're casting Peter Parker Mary Jane Could I just have one aside, which is my favorite ever Spider Man story, which is Peter Parker and Mary Jane In Spider Man Rign in two thousand six seven It's like a dystopian future And he's alone, Peter Parker after Mary Jon has died. And it turns out They're radioactive Spiderm Man bikees. which gave Peter his powers. has corrupted his bodily fluids and made them poisonous So basically He spermed her to death. Ugh. It's start the sound. That's terrible. It's awful,. What was that noise? That was disgusted That was disgsed. Yeah. So you know, I'm just aside into my favorite Sider Man story by two thousand nine This schedule is going wrong on this play, right? Yeah's getting pushed back By eighteen weeks due to the set building delays, which is the first postponement No one can work out how to do this scene with a web, which is essentially a net that would work within the set, right Obviously a net is used to catch things on, right? Yeah The net, strangely, is a really difficult thing to do in a busy there because anything it touches it catches on, if that makes sense. Right Okay. Fred Gallow, the technical director, he comes up with a way of solving it, right? And it's gonna cost a million dollars, right He's pretty confident. so they go fuck it. It's only a million dollars, right? Okay, so at this point, they're just working out all the technical stuff. The actors aren't in yet or anything. They're just trying to They're eighteen weeks delayed They've had a problem with the net, they've spent a million pounds to solve it, million dollars to solve it. Then casting issues begin February, two thousand nine Opening night had been announced and the group tickets were already on sale, right On the Oscars's red carpet, Evan Rachel Wood Yes confirms that she will be playing MJ ig scoop. Yeah. She says the show is incredible. That's february two thousand nine March two thousand nine Evan Rachel Wood withdraws without Reason Two weeks later, one hour teaser of the show is due to be performed for ticket agents, right Jim Sturgis who had been in basically as Spider Man from the original read through is unable to get back from shooting on a think called the wayay backack. So a replacement Peter Parker has to be found as well. So they haven't got either their principed to cast, right? Okay. Patrick Page is originally going to be the Green Goblin. But it transpires that he is severely depressed. so he can't do it. And then Julie soon gets word that Allan Cumming wants to play the Green Gblin, right Allan's in Yeah, he's worked with Julie on the Titansan Tempest And then Reeve Carney is cast as Spider Man Just before his band released their single Love Chase Me The video for the single features Evean and Rachel Wood And soon after, she tells Julie Fuck it, I will play MJ after all Wow, okay. Yeah. I mean, yes, a lot of twists and turns. So it's cast. it's ready. But none of them are in the rehearsal room yet. None of them are in the rehearsal room yet. They've got to do the ticket thing in two weeks I don't have a long thing. And then money problems start and we will deal with the money problems in the next episode because the money goes absolutely out of control And then the tech rehearsals begin And then the injuries began That will be in the next episode, which is available now to fan Club members, or we'll see you in a few days. Susie, thank you very much. I'm gonna go and listen to you too Town you just found me I a sixty five million dollars circus tragedy I no rolling, baby rolling Baby. of the New Coney Island It free It ide an hair to evil dressers you just won't be denied. The crossro of the world by Mday li I afid ee.