Hello and welcome to Viral History, today we're in sunny Chelmsford with Graham and
Ali of Rex Factor fame and we're going to chat to them all about Rex Factor.
So guys can you tell us what Rex Factor is? So what we
do in Rex Factor is that we review all the kings and queens initially of
England, now of Scotland, and we consider which one of them was the best. Right. So
we look at their life, their reign, and then we review them on a number of
different factors, so we've got Battleyness, scandal, yeah
subjectivity,would you want to be a subject, and then how long they ruled for,
how many legitimate surviving children they had, and then we decide whether or
not they've got that certain something that we call the Rex Factor. Okay and so
how did it start where did the idea come from? We were both working together and
used to meet up at lunch and conversation often just turned to
history we'd argue about which king was best and so we thought there's got to be
a way to sort this out, came up with these factors or ways of rating them, the
idea being that you could effectively play one against the other and just see
objectively which one was best and and we thought this is great, this really is
good it was a good structure so it was quite the early days of podcasting and
we were both that's how it started actually, we were talking about which
podcast was our favourite, yeah yeah and then decided we have a crack
at it, because it was quite early days of podcasts yeah. So when you're not doing rex factor what what do
you go to do job-wise? I work in still in local government
which is where we originally met, so absolutely nothing to do with history,
I'm the one on the podcast that sort of gives out the information and is the
expert, Ali's the one that actually got a job yeah at the British Museum which was
brilliant I don't work there anymore but it was fabulous. Yeah. And I run a coffee
shop at a train station so you know quality historian.
Do you hand that little rex-factor cards? You know I've started our coffee
Twitter account I've snuck in a few Rex Factor posts there. So um
you're currently on your second series right? So that's kings and queens of
Scotland? Yes, yes. And yeah we're at the end of that now so it currently did so
we've actually reviewed all of the monarchs now so we're now doing play-offs
to decide which of the monarchs that we gave the Rex factor is the overall Rex
Factor champion. Okay. So we're gonna find out who comes out on top of all Scots.
And have you either of you got any inklings as to who might win? There were 13
Rex Factor winners so they didn't all, it didn't divide into categories very easily. Right.
So we gave the overall winner on points Robert the Bruce are vying to the final
so it's likely that he's gonna do jolly well but yeah yeah the thing is you
don't know how the listeners are gonna react so Ali and I get to vote
in the group stages but the public get to vote as well so we don't know, someone
like Mary Queen of Scots that didn't actually score very well, but she's got
such an amazing life story and so many people are fascinated by her, you know we
don't know whether she might actually just storm through because so many
people are fascinated by her. Yeah. And challenge Mr. Bruce. Yeah and how do you
how do you how do the playoffs work exactly in terms of how do you pitch
them off against each other. So well so we have a podcast episode for each, so we've got
three groups of four in the first round, and we have a podcast episode for each
group, so we go through their life and reign in each of the factors, but
comparing them against each other rather than just individual episodes. And
then at the end we've got an electoral college system, so I'm one electoral
college, Ali is the second electoral college and then the rest of the world
it's the third electoral college. Very democratic. Yeah we're inclusive there by giving everybody that rest of the
world voice. Yes so we rank them from first to fourth and then the rest of the
world get to vote their favourite and then we combine all of those to see who
gets the most points. And have you had any thoughts as to what series three
might be? I don't know if it's bit early. We might just have thought about this. Yeah yeah go for it!
yeah we're.. is it an exclusive? This is an exclusive for Viral History!
We are planning to do the Queen and Prince consorts of England. Right okay. So going back in a way to
what we did in the first series going from the different perspectives, so
rather than all the kings and mainly the Queen's this time. There could be some quite
interesting characters to come out of that. Yeah yeah like so many times there's all these
incredibly powerful women that are behind the Monarch, they're the face. Yeah.
But actually you know that they're pulling a lot of the strings so it's
going to be fascinating to have a proper look at them. And so next you've got an
animated show coming out? Yes we again the rest of the world that they were so
so generous and and backed our Kickstarter to get enough money up and
so we get animation up and running and this is you can see us in animated form.
Amazing, good likeness. Yeah yeah so we're doing..Same jumper!
I have got a number of these. This is a complete coincidence, I do say that a lot though!
So our first animated episode is on
Richard the third and that's going well we're working with Tin Mouse animation
who are pulling it all together it looks great yes we've already recorded the
audio that's the actual animation yeah it's really good to do Richard again
because when we did the original podcast episode we actually said that nobody
knows where he's buried. Yeah I remember that. So there's new stuff to talk
about so yeah it's been really fun seeing how they've kind of done little
visual gags snd things onstage with some of the things we're saying would then become realized
so yeah it's really fun really looking forward to seeing what it looks like.
Yeah and and why Richard the third as the first?
Any particular reason? He was just in the news a lot wasn't he, jumping on the back of
that really and I think loads of people have some strong opinions of him, yeah
yeah but it's got a lot of interest so I think and basically Henry the 8th is too
difficult to tackle in 30 minutes! The only headline monarch to do. So is the plan that
there's so far that's just going to be one animated show or is it potentially
going to be a series? Yeah so we've got a pilot the Kickstarter has backed a pilot
which we've done as Richard the third but depending how well it goes
hopefully yeah a series and and all of them will get the treatment.