The last TV show you loved
Allan Mustafa: At the moment mine is Midnight Diner on Netflix. We spent six weeks last year filming the People Just Do Nothing Movie out in Japan and I fell in love with the place. This show gives me nostalgic memories. I love food as well and every episode is about a different dish the chef cooks and the story goes off the back of that. It’s comfort viewing for me. I really love it.
Your TV guilty pleasure
AM: I only call this a guilty pleasure because it’s a dating show. It’s Love on the Spectrum, which is also on Netflix. It’s people on the autistic spectrum dating each other and I just really enjoy the sweetness and the comedy of their honesty when they’re together.
Hugo Chegwin: I love guilty pleasure TV. I’ve been watching Bargain Brits Abroad on Channel 5 – can’t go wrong with that – 90 Day Fiancé and A Place in the Sun. The holy trinity right there. I do try other shows like Below Deck, but I didn’t get into that one much. I also love anything to do with UFOs or Area 51. My dad is obsessed with this stuff and he exposed me to it far too young – I was terrified of UFOs and aliens from the age of, like, six and I’m still fascinated with them now.
Your favourite show when you were 10
HC: For me it was The Bill. As a young kid I thought it was really edgy and dark with characters, like a teenager who got done for smoking weed.
AM: Keeping Up Appearances or Blind Date. They’re both things I’d watch fresh out of the shower, pyjamas on, on a Saturday night – it was the perfect, slightly more adult, but still entertaining viewing.
The TV show you wish you could guest star on
AM: I have a vest on right now so it would have to be The Sopranos. I’d want to be someone that goes up against Tony and does it pretty well but obviously would be taken down and die in a massive blaze of glory, a big shoot out. My role is just in and out, so I don’t have to wait around in the trailer a lot.
HC: Curb Your Enthusiasm. I’d want to be Larry’s new neighbour and I would base it on my own neighbour. He’s nice but he’s quite nosy and he likes to stop and chat and he’s very security conscious. It would definitely annoy Larry.
The show you wish was never cancelled
AM: Even though there’s so many episodes, one of my favourite shows ever is Parts Unknown with Anthony Bourdain. It’s so sad that he took his own life, and it’s one of those shows that would have just gone forever and you would have seen him get older. He was the anti-presenter, he was so honest and he would essentially show you behind the scenes of what these places were really like and no one else has managed to do that since.
HC: Mine isn’t that deep, it didn’t change the landscape of TV. It’s Five Guys a Week. It was this amazing dating show on Channel 4 where a single woman would invite five guys to live with her for a week and then decide who she wanted to date but it only went on for like six episodes. It is perfect TV for me, it was just so funny and awkward – I remember a guy getting worked up because he found the timing of a fry-up stressful.
The last show that made you cry
AM: I cry pretty easily when it comes to “art”. One that really got me was an amazing show called I Know This Much Is True where Mark Ruffalo plays identical twins. It’s just amazingly written and it’s a dark, sad story. It was really honest, there’s no happy ending there.
The Chattin’ Shit podcast with Allan Mustafa and Hugo Chegwin is available now
