Amazingly, it'll be his very first trip to Australia.

Well, Aussies are in for a treat because Noel Cowher's Private Lives, a brilliant play, a very funny play, isn't it? It is a copper-bottomed, absolute rock-solid genius play.

I've seen it so many times over the years with amazing cast and you know Maggie Smith did it legendarily.

I love plays about like relationships and marriage because all our

I've never been to

Australia so I am over the moon that work is taking me to your beautiful shores.

Why have you not been to Australia before? I know, it feels weird.

I've had so many opportunities and then things have got in the way and so I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to have a little bit of an explore.

Yeah

... weird parents' eyes.

Um, but, uh, I did, I did, I did audition, and I did get in.

In fact, I got into a show which Nick Hancock and Steve Punt were producing, uh, I think.

Uh, but then I couldn't do it for some reason, and I ended up writing one sketch, uh, for their summer show.

Uh, and the entire joke of the sketch, it was a Call My Bluff sketch, and the ent- and it was the, it was the, the spelling, the letters that came up on the board were P-E-N-I-S, and the entire joke was that it was never pronounced.

So you, you know, there were all sorts of variations, but you never said the, you know, the joke was you never actually said it as it is usually pronounced.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, um, so these characters take their roles very, very seriously.

And Ian Fletcher, who is placed in the, in the, in the first iteration in, in, in the, against the backdrop of the Olympic Games, organizing the Olympic Games, and he is in the level just below the senior management.

And in Britain it was led by, uh, uh, Lord Coe, Sebastian Coe.

Um, and so my character is just the level just below him, uh, who basically has to absorb all the flak and when things go wrong, and has to put the public spin on things.

And the great coup was that Sebastian Coe himself agreed to be in the show, so that the joke was never about we are having a go at the Olympics, um, and, um, you know, it's all gonna be a disaster.

Uh, if it was, Seb was in on the joke.

Mm.

And I always thought there was a limit on the number of F words you could have in a show on the BBC, but clearly not because there's loads of them.

I know.

It's quite a departure for John.

I was quite surprised when I saw that.

And Paolo, who plays Nick as this sort of punchy New York lawyer, who's a corporate lawyer, who's there to protect not only the legal interests, but mainly the American interests, is quite expletive heavy, which I think takes the slightly more gentle world of Ian Fletcher by surprise.

um and he has to suffer this barrage of um everything is a sort of combative issue with uh nick's character with that character nick um who's standing up for you know god bless america really um and then you know it's it's great because there's there's we've got stephen kunkin uh playing the canadian um member of the team who's characteristically sort of self-deprecating and polite and um basically apologizing for canada and um And then you've got Yumena who plays, what's her character called? Gabriela, who basically thinks everything should take place in Guadalajara.

And so he's defending the Mexican interests.

Do you think that wouldn't look right in this setting in Miami?

As Ian would, would have it, this is the kind of thing he would say, "Take us, uh, on the journey that we're experiencing together on this series."

[laughs] Well, once, uh, once Ian had risen to the heights of head of values at the BBC, which unfortunately were eventually outsourced, um, so that he had to, uh, depart, um, he did, he did have a, um, he did have a patch, um, with the, uh, National Obesity, uh, Institution, but that didn't really go anywhere.

So he's now, he's now been, um, after the very sudden departure of the director of integrity at, uh, FIFA, um, uh, he's been parachuted in, um, almost as, as the, his predecessor tried to parachute out.

And, um, uh, so, so he's come into really a dead man's shoes, so to speak, and, and has got, you know, big shoes to fill, uh, to try and steer the team, the oversight team to, towards the opening ceremony of the 2026 World, Football World Cup.

Uh, sorry, I should say Soccer World Cup because, um, that could get confusing.

Bearing in mind that the three host nations are Mexico, Canada, and the USA-

So tell me about what it was like doing this show, uh, written of course by John Morton, uh, who's done all, um, uh, and has written and produced all of these, but now working with American actors and Mexican actors because it feels a very British show which has now gone international.

Absolutely.