Mission Impossible weekends
Mark asked listeners to name the “Mission Impossible” job they had postponed until the bank-holiday weekend.
Tina Daheley admitted that her wardrobe had become a “big black hole” where clothes fell out whenever the doors opened. Another member of the team needed to clean and sell a set of car wheels.
Listeners added tasks involving garages, gardens, household sorting and trying not to spend too much money on arcade claw machines.
The Easiest Quiz: Abigail scores 16
Abigail had moved from Essex to south Wales with her partner Michael, their two-year-old daughter Layla and Jack Russell puppy Buddy.
Nicola’s 37 was the score to beat. Abigail answered questions about water, car brands, weddings, eyesight, her own name, Eurovision, rhymes, sleep, Wales, dogs, Italy, midnight, letters and bread.
The run ended when Mark asked what somebody might put in a toastie maker. Abigail answered “a toastie”.
She argued that the ingredients went in as a “pre-toastie” and came out as a toastie, but the quiz wanted “bread” or “a sandwich” and rejected the answer.
Abigail finished with 16. Listeners immediately challenged the ruling, arguing that people did put toasties back into the machine if they were not cooked enough and that cakes were still called cakes before entering an oven.
Nicola therefore remained Streak of the Week with 37 points and won the Radio 2 egg cup.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Julia Louis-Dreyfus joined Mark to discuss Marvel’s Thunderbolts and her role as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.
She explained that the job had begun with a meeting with Marvel executives Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito, who wanted to talk mainly about Seinfeld. There had been no conventional audition or screen test.
Julia described Val as complicated, enigmatic and equipped with a “quite questionable” moral compass. She enjoyed playing somebody whose motives could change depending on what best served her.
The conversation moved beyond explosions and action to the film’s themes of isolation, discomfort and belonging. Julia said the story explored what it meant to feel like an outsider and the value of community.
She praised Florence Pugh’s performance as Yelena and Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost, describing both British actors as delightful colleagues.
Julia also credited director Jake Schreier with giving the film a grounded quality despite its place inside the larger Marvel universe.
Hayley Atwell and Simon Pegg
Hayley Atwell and Simon Pegg joined Mark to discuss Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.
Neither actor had yet seen the completed film. They explained that director Christopher McQuarrie preferred to show the cast a finished version and was still making final changes before the international premieres.
Simon said the Mission: Impossible theme had become an earworm that played in his head whenever he went to work. Hayley said the same music had accompanied her through action sequences and rehearsals.
They described filming in the Arctic in temperatures that reached around minus 40. Crew members used hairdryers on their faces when skin began showing the first signs of frost nip.
Specialist teams monitored how long skin could safely remain exposed, supplied hot drinks and trained everybody in clothing layers and cold-weather safety.
Filming was also interrupted to allow polar bears to cross the set. Simon offered the rule: “If it’s black, attack; if it’s brown, lay down; if it’s white, good night.”
Simon reflected on joining the franchise in Mission: Impossible III, initially assuming his casting was a small piece of British novelty following Shaun of the Dead. He had not imagined the role would continue across six films.
Hayley described five years working with a crew that had to remain adaptable because sequences, dialogue and even the beginning of the story could change late in production.
Simon praised her ability to enter that flexible working method immediately, saying she had been “thrown in at the deep end and swam like a champ”.
The Wonder Years
Mark’s Wonder Years began in 1977 and moved through late-1970s and early-1980s songs, including The Whispers and Tina Turner’s Let’s Stay Together.
The sequence extended to 1984 with The Weather Girls’ It’s Raining Men, giving the bank-holiday weekend a final run of large singalong records.
2 May 2025: Vernon Kay
Mark handed over after his final morning sitting in for Scott. Vernon noted how much the music had changed since people bought physical singles, leading into Mark’s forthcoming programme about songs that had reached a billion streams.
Scott was due back after the bank holiday, with OJ Borg presenting on Monday.
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