hello and welcome. this week, can you teach creativity? we've got the advertising exec who thinks you can and now runs a course in it. and we'll look at how to create tv formats that are successful around the world. we'll talk to the creatives behind two entertainment formats that are entertaining millions. but first, the secrets of the celebrity interviewer, with one of the finest in the business. decca aitkenhead is the chief interviewer of the sunday times and has interviewed hillary clinton, madonna, jk rowling and countless other big names and she's just won broadsheet interviewer of the year at the press awards in the uk. decca, it's great to have you here. i know it's your second press award, so you're getting used to this! actually, fifth! oh, sorry!

i got my facts wrong! well, ok, so you're really getting used to it. how do you go about setting up an interview? i mean, do people come to you? do you approach them? how does it work? it's... i mean, it's an endlessly changing field. 50 sometimes there is a certain circuit of interviews coming in which follows the book publishing circuit. so publishers will have their big titles that they want to present. there are certain kind of political cycles, big films. again, there is a kind of, there is a movie production cycle, but lots of it is a mixture of people who might be about to do something interesting that they want to talk about. there's no particular rhyme nor reason to it, really. do you prefer the ones... i'm saying this slightly with my culture editor hat on at bbc news, that my heart slightly sinks when it's a junket, which we call them, you know, in terms of, you know, somebody�*s got something to promote and you're going to meet them. does your heart slightly sink at that point? and what are you

setting out to do always? are you always setting out to get people to reveal more than they've revealed before? always. i mean, that's literally the definition of the job! i don't do junkets at all. junkets, for listeners who aren't aware, is when you will have a movie star who's starring in a new film, and the film company will arrange for literally 20 or 30 journalists to come and sit in little round tables with the star in kind of groups of three or four, and they have a couple of minutes each. and luckily, i don't go anywhere near that. i mean, ijust think that's the kiss of death. i don't know anyone who's ever said anything interesting in those circumstances! with us, we ask for at least an hour, and very often it can be two or three, sometimes even four, if i can keep them talking. how long was pamela anderson? because you got amazing things out of her. 0h, a whole day! that was amazing, yeah. because she'd already written a book at that point, right? she'd written a book... but she said more to you than she'd said in the book. which is myjob. but quite impressive. that's literally it, you know. i mean, if i had to describe in one sentence what i do for a living, it's, "i try and get an interviewee to say something they haven't." this might be a multiple clause

sentence, that they haven't said before and that they weren't intending to say, and possibly, that they might regret saying. that's, that... i think you would have to include that sort of sub clause in the sentence, yeah. and how do you do it? because i know when you won this latest of the five awards, the judges praised your meticulous research and psychologically astute questioning. how do you prepare? i mean, katie, it's such a mixture. the simple thing to answer is the preparation question, which isjust, you just prepare... you prepare forensically and exhaustively, and you read everything you can that they've ever written. you try and watch everything or listen to everything they've said. you read all previous interviews. so, how many weeks of work would go into one interview? it will depend upon the person. some people, it's fairly light. with some people, it could be a whole week of reading, watching, listening and, crucially, thinking. so, when you feel as if you've just, you've got this encyclopaedic knowledge of this person, it's almost like

sort of sitting your finals on a different person for each exam. once you feel like you know absolutely everything, of course, 99% of what you've read or learned about them, you won't actually... it won't come up in the interview. it may not even come up in the piece when you write it. but here it gets slightly mysterious, katie, which is what i've found, is that somehow, if you walk into an interview armed with this enormous sort of body of research, even though you never explicitly identify that you've done it, some weird, by some strange alchemy, it's communicated to the person that you're interviewing that you've really done your homework. and what i've found is that if you haven't done your homework, that also communicates itself, and that is the kiss of death. so, the very simple way to explain how you get people to open up is to show that you've done the work before you get there, and they definitely need to feel that you've shown them the respect and the courtesy of learning everything. and sometimes, you'll say something and they'll laugh and they'll go, "my god, you know more "about my life than i do!" that's a tick in my head, you know? that's good. and how much of it is then what happens in the room? i mean, obviously you've prepared, but then, i mean, ithink

you've got, for example, quite a good theory about body language — fascinating. well, this, i didn't know about at all, katie, until the pandemic came along. because i had always assumed that the art is all about the words that i say, to get them to say words, that it's all words, right? that's myjob. and then the pandemic happened, and i had to interview people on zoom, and that's when i discovered that, actually, i'd invested all this significance in words and i'd also thought that myjob is all about getting them to open up to talk, and i discovered very quickly, doing this job on zoom, that i was wrong about both of those things. and the first one is that so much of the job is getting people to stop talking because they've obviously... i mean, i might be doing it right now as i'm speaking to you, katie. the person being interviewed doesn't really know what the interviewer wants or, and so it's very easy, unwittingly, to kind of go off around the houses and bore the interviewer to tears and they're sitting there... i'm often sitting there in myjob

thinking, "0h, geez, "the clock is ticking. "i've only got 90 minutes with you. "let's not waste ten on an anecdote i've heard you tell ten times before," and at that point you have to get them to stop. that's the critical thing. how do you do that? that's the interesting thing. it turns out that you do it with your body. my body, if i was interviewing you and you were waffling on about something... often happens! not the interviewing, you interviewing me, but the waffling definitely on my part. i'd think, "oh, god, katie, please, you've got to be quiet." and almost unconsciously, my body would adjust in really subtle ways that will tell your body to stop talking. and crucially, your head wouldn't even realise that i've told you to stop talking. and then, through that mechanism, this sort of sense of trust and collaboration is maintained. but when you're on screens, you literally have to just interrupt people. and i learnt very quickly from experience. you do that two times, certainly three, the interviewer's toast. they're never going to say anything they hadn't planned to somebody who'sjust interrupted. i find myself nodding a lot in interviews, and then i look back at the camera and i think, "0h, youjust look "like a nodding donkey." it's terrible! i don't know what you do, ros. i'm sure i do plenty of nodding.

i'm just listening to you, decca, and i'm wondering, in the moment, can you tell if an interview will translate into a great written piece? because of course, you're writing these interviews up. does one automatically follow the other? absolutely. oh, you can. there's like a bell in your head. and every time the interviewee says something quote—worthy, interesting, new, it can be partly just a turn of phrase... part of myjob is to get people to speak in the most colloquial of terms possible, because the difference between an interview and a written piece is that you're speaking off the cuff, that you're sounding like a human being, and we express who we are so much through how we say as what we say, and so i'm listening out. excuse me for flicking! i'm listening out the whole time for turns of phrase that tell us who they are, and also things that they haven't said before. and it's literally like a bell going off my head — ting, ting, ting, ting, ting! and the worst place to be in my life is 45 minutes into an interview and the bell has not tinged. that's when i start to panic and that's when you go wildly off piste. decca, thank you very much

indeed for being with us. we appreciate it. you're going to stay because we're going to carry on talking about creativity in a moment. i want to talk first about creativity in terms of tv formats, because we've got the creatives behind two of the most popular tv formats of the moment with us. dean nabarro, co—creator of the 1% club, is here in the studio. the 1% club is a hit quiz show that's itv�*s second biggest entertainment series of the year. it's been sold...in i2 territories including the us. and we've heard today ukraine and hungary. so, well done. thank you. and matt bennett also joins us. he's shine�*s senior executive producer and one of the creators of channel 4's series hunted, the reality show that sees i2 ordinary people go on the run from a team of expert hunters. let's hear a clip of hunted. right, team. listen in. we've got 12 fugitives at large - on the london underground network.

great, that... that is a little bit of the series hunted. matt, you're with us. it's, by any measure, been successful. the seventh series finale aired on channel 4 on sunday. you've sold this format all around the world. i wonder if you go right back to the beginning, what was your original pitch for what the series would be? yeah, we're chuffed to bits, i as you can imagine, with how it's been received this year. really, really good. and it started for me ten years ago when i was approached _ by the creative director, - tim whitwell, who, incidentally, made that prison series - with gordon ramsay that decca was talking about. synchronicity! yeah, there you go! and so, yeah, he approached me and i was filming a series. - i'd obviously upset him - because he put me on an island with 12 other hairy blokes for a month to starve - and film for a series calledl the island with bear grylls. and when we got off that island, he had this other idea, - which turns into hunted, - which really is trying to answer that question about whether

we can go on the run- in 21st—century britain with i all the technology around us. and this was back in sort of 2014. and you may or may not remember, . but britain had been revealed as l one of the most surveilled countries in the world — you know, we were _ up there and still are, i think, with china and russia, and edward snowden,| that fella who was american, or still is american, - but now in exile in russia, had revealed how much i information was being shared between our governments. . and so that was really prompting in the papers discussion - about national security and individual privacy. | so we were, we thought... you know, we didn't want to make a dryl documentary about the powers of the state _ i so, we wanted to tackle this sorti of overwhelmingly important issue of our time in a sort of modern, |entertaining piece of television. so you're making an entertainment format, but you're also trying to make some big points. once you got it on air, was that what the audience was interested in, or were they just interested in seeing if the contestants got caught?

ultimately, they were just interested in whether- the contestants got i caught, and we had... . mean. it-s— an incredibly, incredibly complex mechanic to make hunted. and when we're making it, we need a staff- of 300 people to get it on the screen. - and the key person behind that is a fella called kevin o'leary. - and if anyone follows twitter| during the hunted broadcast, you'll find kevin on therel because he's our referee. but he was also - formerly a very senior metropolitan police officer. he oversaw the security for— the 2012 olympics and was once head of the undercover unit for the met. and he helped us, he agreed to come on board, really, . to help us create the mechanic that allowed us to replicate - the powers of the state, - so long as we only revealed — and it's important i say this — so long as we only revealed i methods that are _ out there in the public domain.

so there are obviously still policing methodsl that i don't know about, i but obviously kevin does, that we just don't show in hunted for sort of, l you know, proper, - grown—up reasons, really. but it took us nine months. it took us nine months to _ design that and test that mechanic. and, you know, we even sent out... so, for example, just to find where cctv cameras were, i we sent out 800 freedom of information requests . to map where all the state i cctv cameras are in britain. we designed a method - of reporting anpr cameras. we even had anpr cameras- in our cars, in the hunters' cars. we worked out how to listen to phone calls. i we employed ncc, an amazing cyber security company, - to lend us their key people. so an awful lot of planning is what i'm picking up. yeah. a lot of planning. matt, i'd like to bring dean nabarro in because, dean, you're the co—founder

of magnum media and the co—creator of the 1% club on itv, as i said, alongside andy auerbach. ijust think everyone should hear a clip of that, too, just for fairness. anyone has a chance - to win because this show is the ultimate leveller. it's the quiz that tests - how your brain really works, as our questions are all about logic and common sense. _ so who will make it to the end and answer a question only 1% of the country can get right and win up to £100,000?| well, that was lee mack, the host of the 1% club. and just explain for people who haven't seen it, although many people have, as i said, you know, what's the idea behind the show? well, the idea is that there's 100 people and that we have taken a whole lot of questions, which are all brain teasers. so, they're not things that are, "what's the capital of france?" they don't have an actual kind of general knowledge answer. and we've essentially taken them off to one of those places you might get a regular survey, like, "who are you going to vote for?" "what do you think of this washing machine?" whatever. a yougov, kantar, whatever, poll. and we've asked them across these questions, we've sent these questions

off, brain teasers, to a cross—section of the country. and we are able, with that, to know that 90% of the country can answer this question or 80% this question, all the way down to the 1% question that only 1% of people can answer. which makes you feel really good! and of course, with 100 people, there's a natural whittle which goes down... you know, the assumption is that if those percentages are correct, you'd get a whittle down to the 1%. and that's really it. and you can ask yourself... matt, you know, used the idea about, you know, a question. a lot of things he's been doing as a question, then turning it into entertainment, and i think that's probably the similar thing to the 1% club. there's a question at the heart of it, which is, you know, how clever are you? but in the kind of the real world of thinking, you know. it doesn't really matter whether you're eight or 80. it doesn't matter what school you went to, doesn't really matter kind of what level of education or your memory — i've got a great memory, but doesn't mean that i'm particularly clever. there's all those sorts of things. and where do you fit in? are you in the top 50, as lee just said, or are you

the top ten or are you in that 1%? and it's bragging rights! and as we're talking about creativity, and we'll come back to it much, much more later... yeah. ..how did you come up with the idea? i mean, i know your production company is much smaller than shine, the one that matt works for. yeah, we're tiny. i think it's just two of you. it's a miracle it's even on tv! well, hold on, you've got six million people watching it every week, so something went right. something went right. it's those 10,000—hour things, isn't it, that people talk about? you finally get that way. andy and i, andy auerbach, probably one of the cleverest people i've ever met in my life — also one of the nicest, by the way — we worked together, we worked together for years. we'd always share an office together. we'd sit together and get our lunch together, come back. and i would always go through the daily mail, the mail online or the mirror or whatever. and one of my great sort of pleasures at lunchtime, and every now and again, i would see one of those kind of click bait kind of titles, which is, you know, "you have to have an iq of over 150," "only people with an iq of 150 will be able to answer this question," or "only 5% of people in the country can see it."

it was always one of those sort of, "can you spot the bear in the woods?" or whatever, it would be, or how many, you know, those sort of things, and i was always really good at them. and i would go over, like i said, to andy, who is one of the cleverest people i've met and i'm not, and i would go, "i've got it, i've got it. "have you? " and he would never get it. never. and it would be like my best bit of the day. i'd love it. and i would get these and every now, you know, i'd see them over months. and then, one time, i can't remember exactly when it was, i saw a question. and it was a kind of essentially an equation, like, numbers in a sequence. and there was a car covering it, and ijust couldn't work it out. i took it home to my son, who was 11 or maybe 12. he's 18 next week, by the way. that's how long development takes in tv. and he got it in ten seconds, under ten seconds. and that was the thing, which is, if an 11 or 12—year—old could get something, perhaps that shows you that it doesn't really matter how old you are, there was something in it. and then we wrote some questions. we sent them off. we thought, you know, actually, no disrespect

to the mail online or whatever it is, but, you know, is it true that only 5% of people could do that or 10%? so, we want to know the truth. we sent it off, we came back. and then that became a fascinating thing to us, which was, "what percentage were we?" and just briefly, it's sold in 12 territories, including america. yes. did you set out to create a format that would work across the world? no, not at all. we... did it come as a nice surprise? yes, it was a lovely surprise! we didn't set out to do anything, really. we were just... apart from make a great quiz show. we were just amusing ourselves with an idea, and it very, very quickly became clear to us that there was something there. i genuinely wanted to know where i was, because i was quite good at it, and i wanted to know where he was, right? and it turned out the commissioners who commissioned it also wanted to know where they were. that's exactly right. and we sat and we wrote ten questions. we got the percentages made, and we sent them off to itv. and we wanted to know, you know, "where are you?" "what do you think?" and they were kind of gripped by that. so that was really what it was. and then i think once you sort of take it from there, it grows. to a certain extent,

none of us really know why these things take off. i always say to itv, it's not as if we tried harder on this one than we did in any other show. it's just that there is something, i think, that engages people. and people always talk about, you know, where television now, the sort of death of television, all those sorts of things. and actually, there is a lot of shared viewing still. there's that sort of event viewing. and i think, or i hope, that happens with the 1% club on itv on a saturday night is that people are watching it together, and that doesn't mean, by the way, they're in a room together, but they're wanting to share that they've got a question, or what the question is and how they've done. and that means, we know people are watching it in the living room together, but they might be with their family. one of them is in derby, one of them is in hull, one of them is in london, but they're on a whatsapp group... competing with each other. to be the cleverest. yeah, or it's on x or twitter or whatever you want to call it. and they're talking about it. and we love that engagement and that's the thing that's kind of mapped out across the world. they're doing the same thing. and you're describing formats you develop for itv and others. and of course within those

formats are advertising. and that's something that sirjohn hegarty knows an awful lot about. you founded the advertising agency bartle bogle hegarty a good while back now. and in fact, the last time you were on the media show, you were telling us about the famous levi's ad with nick kamen and how you wanted to put him in briefs in the laundrette, the regulator wouldn't let you, so you had to put him in boxer shorts, and the rest is history. and the rest is history. we managed to sell- boxer shorts to the world, and we have to thank the regulator. and, as i always say, - calvin klein never thanked us. never... not one thank you! i didn't even get a free pair of boxer shorts. . outrageous. shocking! and now you are the co—founder of a consultancy called the garage soho. and you also teach an eight—week course called the business of creativity. and this was particularly why we wanted to get you in, to find out what you would get on an eight—week course on creativity. well, the first thing is- we've called it the business of creativity because, ultimately, with all the technology, - everything that you can do out . there and ai appearing like that, the differentiator is - going to be your application of creativity, your ability - to imagine something better. and what we try and get businesses to understand is, first of all, -

to realise they are all creative. we're all creative. i've already said that. and that the very foundation i of a business is a creative act. starting a business - is a creative act, you know. what are you going to do? you have to have an idea. what are you going i to call your product? what's it going to look like? what's it going to sound like? all these things are creative acts, and the danger in our economy. is that people see, - lots of businesspeople see creativity as something that you occasionally engage in, | where it's driving everything. innovation. nobody would say, "well, - we don't need innovation, do we?" well, innovation is driven by creative thinking, - understanding it, defining it. two types of creativity. what's at the core of creativity? all of these things - make you better at it. i'm quite interested how everyone, in their different ways, has highlighted how questions helps drive their creativity. whether it's decca, you're thinking about, well, what questions do i want to ask as a priority? or the two guys from the tv world saying, look, we're trying to answer questions. and i guess when you were creating adverts for brands, sirjohn, you would also have been thinking, what are the questions

i need to answer on behalf of the audience for this brand? well, there's actually- something more fundamental, and you may laugh at this, but it's absolutely... - the greatest advertising, - the greatest communication, the greatest interviews seeks the truth. - and it's the truth. that is motivating. it is the truth that drives people. because ultimately, - what we all want is power. power to persuade. power to inform. power to get more out of life, all of those things. _ and it is that fundamental thing . of the truth which gives us power. and that is at the core of creativity. - decca, i can see you listening intently here and you look like you're ready to ask a question. well, i wanted to ask dean what percentage he was, obviously, quite curious to know that! surely 1%! i noted you referred to it many times but didn't identify the percentage? do you know what? i'm putting myself. down as a 20% guy. and i'm really happy with that. how are you feeling with that? does it sit ok with you?

that's pretty good, actually. what do you reckon you'd be, sirjohn? sorry? what do you reckon you'd be? i think i'd be appalling, actually, at it, because i kind _ of spend my life in my head, thinking of... l ijust can't stop thinking of ideas. so, i don't engage with other things, which is i terrible in some ways. but when you're teaching creativity, do you believe in the importance of systems, of processes? i always remember the story of lennon and mccartney being kind of locking themselves in a room and saying, kind of don't come out until you've got a hit? do you think that can bring about moments? yes, processes can be . very informative and can be very productive. i mean, there are two wonderful... if you want to understand creativity, there are two i wonderful things to watch. one is peterjackson's the beatles series, i where they're very formalised. they come in at ten o'clock, have a cup of tea, _ sit down, start playing. then watch... ..a documentary on - the rolling stones making exile on main street. chaos. i mean, you know, vast amounts of illegal substances. _ no process. both of them created _

genius products, genius albums. so, you've got to be... processes are good, - but you mustn't let processes override your creativity. they must be the servant of creativity. _ can ijust ask a question? because i've been very inspired by a documentary i saw this weekend called eno, with brian eno in it. it's a generative documentary. it's actually quite something, but one of the things he said was he banishes "but", it's a "no but" zone when they're creating, whether that's heroes for david bowie or, you know, all the other incredible music that he's created. no buts in the room. he says all creative ideas can be killed by you saying "but" immediately at the beginning. is that right? absolutely. and, you know, when you're, you know, i don't... - brainstorm sessions are usually a complete waste of time. - there's evidence to say, brainstorm sessions... i you're going to be quoted across the country tomorrow in offices. it is, it's true. no great idea has come out of a brainstorm session. . none. even really bad ideas seldom

come out of a brainstorm session. yes, even bad ones. it'sjust a desert of ideas. i can talk about a thousand ideas that came out of, - you know, one person said, - or two people working together. of course, that's it. so, you know, the idea that you can sort of get people together and - make them do these things isjust, l you know, itjust isn't the case. l it doesn't work. and where does technology come into tech? because, i mean, i mentioned that eno documentary, it's generative. that's a new way of making a documentary. but in terms of creativity, where does technology come in? well, creativity and technologyl have always gone hand in hand. i mean, you know, ialways say, "if we didn't have technology, . "all we'd be able to do is tell each other a story and sing a song." . you know, the invention- of the guitar was a phenomenal piece of technology. the piano — incredible. the microphone, you know,| allowed a singer to stand up in front of a thousand people l and sing a song to one person. is generative al on that list as well? well, of course it's going to be. it's going to help. in all kinds of ways. but you've got to remember, generative ai is sucking up. everything that's around it.

so, it's sucking up the rubbish, the misinformation, _ as well as all the other stuff. so it's going to be a major concern. we don't yet really know how it's going to work, i but we've got to engage with it to find out how it works. - well, we have a thing, in terms of the tech, and this is going to sound crass because i'm talking about the show and something that we do on it, but we have an app on it which is about playing live. and what's great about that is that people at home are playing on an app, live, answering the questions, and they're going through a very, very similar experience to the people in the studio. and that's a genuine enhancement of audience engagement. of course it is, yeah. and, you know, so those sorts of things are, you know, to be encouraged. we're going to leave it there, but thank you very much indeed to all of you for that conversation on creativity. thanks tojohn hegarty in particularfor coming in. that's it for today. thank you to all our guests. we'll be back same time next week. so it's goodbye from me, katie razzall. and from me, ros atkins. we'll see you soon. bye— bye.

and if you'd like to hear a longer version of today's show, search "bbc the media show" wherever you get your bbc podcasts. hello there. we're seeing some changes to the weather this weekend. part two of the weekend promises to be quite wet across some eastern areas, another chilly but bright day further west that you are, but it marks a changed all weather because as we move into the new week, we'll start to draw up some warmer air from the near continent. many areas will actually turn a lot warmer than what we've had over the past week. this area of low pressure will continue to bring some rain to central, southern and eastern parts of england through the night. so early sunday, this is the position the rain will be in. less cold for england and wales, 5—8 degrees, but another cold night for scotland and northern ireland, a touch of frost. but it's here you'll have the best of the sunshine from the word go for sunday morning. further east, it will be a cloudy, wet picture, with that rain slowly pulling away from eastern england, becoming confined to north—east

scotland, the northern isles. elsewhere, plenty of sunshine around, a few scattered showers developing into the afternoon, and a windy day to come, particularly close to the north sea, close near to that area of rain. temperature—wise, the low teens for many, but distinctly chilly again across this north—east corner. that rain continues to clear northwards into the northern isles during sunday night. it turns a lot drier for many with clear spells. we'll start to see thicker cloud and some showery bursts of rain pushing into western areas, though, by the end of the night, though many areas will stay dry. temperature—wise, well, actually milder for many, particularly scotland and northern ireland, than we've had of late. still a few chilly spots there for north—east scotland. this is the picture for monday, certainly the pressure picture. we've got low pressure out toward the west. this will be bringing south or south—westerly winds across the country. and actually for large parts of england and wales, particularly towards the south and east, it's going to stay dry all day with some good spells of sunshine. but rain will be splashing into western areas and moving across the irish sea as we move through the course today.

some of this will be quite heavy. we've got the low teens celsius in the north and the west. could be up to 16 or 17 celsius in the south—east with that sunshine and the warm wind coming off the continent. for the rest of the week, we hold on to lower pressure towards the west of the uk. that will continue to bring our air source from the south—east or the east at times, and there will be weather fronts close by. so it's an unsettled theme, i think, but it's going to feel warmer throughout this week than what we've had over the past week. it could be up to 20 degrees in the warmest spots across the south—east. but with low pressure nearby, it will tend to remain on the unsettled side. take care.

live from washington. this is bbc news

israel's foreign minister says his country's military could suspend its planned incursion into rafah — if there is a deal where hamas releases its remaining hostages. police arrest anti—war protesters at a university in boston, amid nationwide demonstrations at college campuses. we speak to the editor of a student—run newspaper in california. after more russian attacks on ukraine, president zelensky renews his appeal for western allies to provide more air defences. hello, i'm helena humphrey. glad you could join us. we start in the middle east — where israel's foreign minister has said a planned military incursion into rafah in gaza could be suspended. that's if a deal is made to free the remaining hostages held by hamas. ceasefire negotiations between israel and hamas have been stalled for weeks. but local media are reporting "notable progress" this weekend.

us secretary of state antony blinken is expected