TALKING TO JAMES HASKELL & ALEX PAYNE: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE RUGBY
James Haskell, Alex Payne, and Mike Tindall will be heading to Guildford’s G Live at the start of November with The Good, The Bad & The Rugby: Lock-In Live. We caught up with the ‘Good’ Alex Payne and the ‘Bad’ James Haskell to talk tour.
You head out on tour this autumn, taking to stages across the country – for those who don’t know what we’re talking about, what’s your podcast all about?
AP: We’re trying to work that out. James?
JH: We were doing a show, and it was quite heavily produced. We focused on the chemistry and what rugby was all about, but also personality-wise, what was behind the curtain, what was driving the players and the personalities, and shedding light on that side of the sport.
There are lots of podcasts that do the mechanics and dissections of the game very well. What we were bringing was interviews with people, but also the ability to be funny one week, emotional the next week, and go other places people haven’t gone before, and thrive on our chemistry.
We’re made up of three very unique, very different people on paper, but we come together. You’ve got Alex Payne, the face of rugby for twenty years as a presenter, one of the most refined and polished in the game. You’ve got Mike Tindall, who won a World Cup in 2003 and married a princess, the epitome of a Wakefield-to-Windsor-esque story. And then me, a player that either instilled hatred or love in equal measures. I was quite derisive, not intentionally; I was as popular as I was hated. I was the first player to go around the world and still remain playing for England. I lived in the papers as much as I lived on the field.
The show is mainly about looking behind the curtain into what makes players tick, their stories, and what actually goes on in rugby, no nonsense, and we just want to share the stories with people.
How does your live show differ from the podcast?
AP: To be honest with you, I don’t think there’s a huge amount of difference. For us, everything we do with GBR is always good fun. It’s not overthought, it’s not overscripted, and there isn’t ever really a running order.
We tend to work out quite quickly what the audience wants from us and give them as much of that as we can. Obviously if there’s a massive story that’s broken in the past 48 hours, we’ll talk about it. If we’re in Wales, we’ll talk about the guys’ experience of playing with Welsh players they’ve played with, etc.
It’s never overly thought out, it’s very fluid; it’s three guys having a chit chat. More often than not it does stray into the unbelievably funny anecdotes from their careers. They’ve been to places and played against players who we’ve all adored over the years.
Interestingly, James makes this point regularly; the people that come to live shows are not always the people that listen to the podcast. It’s always quite an interesting experience when you get some of the blue-rinse brigade who run up because Mike is a minor royal and they’re hoping to hear wonderful things about life at Buckingham Palace. They get an hour and a half of James Haskell, and they walk out with their bifocals steamed up.
You don’t always necessarily get what you think you’re going to get, but hopefully the people that do buy a ticket and take a seat will leave thinking, “Actually, that was good fun.”
Your show is obviously all about the good, the bad, and the rugby, a pun on the popular cowboy flick – but what’s the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to hosting a podcast together?
JH: Fist of all, Alex is the Good, I’m the Bad, and Mike is the Rugby
AP: And the ugly!
JH: You get a princess; it doesn’t really matter, does it?
For me, where it becomes an issue is the more successful the show becomes, the more you want to keep the DNA of what made you, but the more sponsors you have, the more responsibility you have. It’s a balancing act.
The pressure of constantly delivering is an issue, making sure that you are still genuine to yourself, and the more successful you become, the more responsibility you have for each other. You don’t want to let your friends down.
THE GOOD THE BAD THE RUGBY: LOCK-IN LIVE | NOVEMBER 9 | G LIVE, GUILDFORD
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TICKETS, VISIT TRAFALGARTICKETS.COM/G-LIVE-GUILDFORD
