THE JONATHAN ROSS SHOW: FULL RUNDOWN FOR THIS WEEK'S EPISODE, GUESTS AND PERFORMER REVEALED

On this week’s episode of The Jonathan Ross Show Jonathan is joined by Slow Horses star Dame Kristin Scott Thomas, comedians and actors Alan Davies, Katherine Ryan and Mawaan Rizwan. Music comes courtesy of singer-songwriter Sienna Spiro.

Dame Kristin Scott Thomas discusses playing the lead in a film with Prince. She explains: “I had been doing a play in a field in Burgundy and got a call from a casting agent. They said: ‘Prince is making a film in France and he wants local actresses to play the bit parts.’ When I was doing the audition there was a kerfuffle behind the camera and they said, ‘Would you like to audition for the lead?’ You just can’t believe that question when that happens. The lead in a film with Prince… I did it and I got the job and it was just incredible.” She adds: “He wasn’t directing in the beginning and then he took over.”

Kristin admits it was a “horrible flop”. She goes on to describe how years later Prince saw her being interviewed on TV and invited her to dinner: “The thing I liked most about that… is Prince, the king of cool, watching morning television in his hotel room.” 

He went on to rent a whole row at one of her plays and then wrote a song about her. Kristin explains: “The next day he said, ‘I’ve written a song for you.’ It’s lovely and it makes my heart swell. Sometimes I've had to think, ‘Gosh did this really happen?’ But it did.” 

Discussing her varied career Kristin says she was able to tell that Four Weddings would be a hit, explaining: “Four Weddings I did predict would be a huge success… everything fell into place. [We were] in this state of grace, really extraordinary.” 

Now directing as well as co-writing and acting in My Mother’s Wedding, Kristin says it is new territory: “It’s absolutely a first. I decided to make a film because I was getting a little bit bored with the fact that every time I read a profile piece on me, there was always a paragraph about my tragic childhood. It’s my story, and so the idea of writing a film about what happened to me as a child came up.”

This includes her father dying when she was 5 and her mother’s second husband dying when she was 11 in the same way. Kristin explains: “Both in the navy, pilots in the navy, in peace time. Both killed in exercise.”

Kristin says of reuniting with James Fleet from Four Weddings: “He’s been my brother, my husband on stage and back to being my husband in this film.” 

And of working alongside Scarlett Johansson she says: “I’ve known her since she was 11 as we did The Horse Whisperer together and then we did another film called The Other Boleyn Girl.” 

Kristin notes: “My mother is very different from the one on the screen. She knew and she’d read the script and she was actually quite moved by the fact that, as she put it, [I had] taken something so sad and difficult and turned it into something happy and positive. That was a really nice feeling to get that stamp of approval from your own mum.”

Elsewhere on the show Kristin also confesses to a red carpet mishap: “I did once go to an award show wearing two different shoes. I realised as I was going down the red carpet. [They were] completely different. I couldn’t choose which ones [so had been trying both]… it was a disaster.”

Performing on stage, Kristin admits, has its challenges in the modern age: “Getting people to put away their phones is really, really hard. They’re very very vocal. Make lots of comments. 

“There was one [interruption] that was a little alarming. I had a very long monologue and I was only halfway through it when suddenly this man shouted out ‘call a doctor’ and I didn't know whether it was real or not. I just carried on. Eventually I saw this woman in the wings waving at me… I didn’t know whether that was to ignore the voice, until I felt this arm pull me off stage. So I was literally dragged off stage. He was fine [afterwards].”

Comedian Alan Davies talks about a recent health scare, explaining: “2024 I had bladder cancer. Luckily, little bit of blood in the toilet bowl and I saw it… to get that tumour out, they have to go... up the… so my advice is, if you’re going to have a flexible cystoscopy… it’s not very nice and it’s not as bad as you think. That’s accurate. They got it out, so phew.” 

He adds: “I’m all clear now.” 

Alan is back on tour and says: “I didn’t know if anyone would come. It’s a bit like having a party. But people did come, and a lot of them had grey hair and hadn’t been out for ages.” 

He continues: “I’m going everywhere with the show. It’s called ‘Think Ahead’, I have to now. I spend more time in the pharmacy than the gym.”

Alan notes: “I lost my mum, there’s an abuse story with my father, which I didn’t really confront until I was really in my 50s… this is the first stand up show where I’ve been able to talk about these difficult subjects… let’s not have shame, let’s all talk, talk, talk.” 

He continues: “You have to make it funny; very funny before it and really funny after it… weaving it into the thread of the show. If the show was a cake, this has got all the ingredients in. It’s a richer and better experience.” 

Comedian Katherine Ryan discusses welcoming a fourth baby, joking: “You don’t know you’ve had enough until you’ve had that one too many. I’ve maxed myself out… it’s over.” She adds: “It is a miracle and I feel very blessed… it’s really exciting to be done though.”

Katherine’s ‘What’s My Age Again?’ podcast sees celebrities test their blood to get their biological age. Discussing her own, she admits: “Brace yourself, it was hurtful. I’m 42, my biological age is 77. It’s almost over for me… there are a lot of really cool takeaways on the podcast. Cold plunges are really effective… I am taking magnesium now. I eat 30 plants a week…”

Katherine is also writing a book with her 16-year-old daughter called First Born Daughter: “I discovered on tour, a lot of people who like me, happen to be first born daughters. [The book is] about womanhood and the messiness passed on… it’s interesting to include my daughter. She’s 16 and to get some of her perspective. It’s just a lot of me oversharing as usual… I’m writing most of it and she does 10%, which is a big ask of a 16-year-old.”

BAFTA-nominated Mawaan Rizwan admits award recognition has helped with his parents, joking of his mum: “First time she really went, ‘Ok, maybe it’s alright you didn’t go to university.’” 

Discussing his turn in The Resistible Rise of Arturo UI, Mawaan says: “I’m playing a psychopathic, murderous Nazi… what’s mad about the play, there’s all these parallels with what’s happening now. It’s insane. Doing a lot of research that is quite depressing.”

He adds: “You see a lot about how the Nazi movement could have been stopped, but wasn’t.” 

Working alongside Mark Gatiss he says: “He put me in his Ghost Stories a few years ago. I put him in Juice… we’ve had this beautiful working relationship.” 

Describing his joy at also being in The Rocky Horror Show he says: “You’re facilitating a space where people can be a bit freer. It’s crazy that the world we live in is not like that. If the whole world was like that, everyone would be much more relaxed.”

Mawaan also discusses going to a clown school in France: “It was brutal, he broke us. He was a tough teacher. You know the film Whiplash? He teaches like that.”

Kristin, who lived in France, concurs: “Weirdly our clown teacher was incredibly blunt and cruel. I’ve certainly had my share of blunt criticism. It does make you think, but it hurts like hell.”

At the end of the show Sienna Spiro performs. Speaking in advance to Jonathan she confesses her dream is performing a Bond theme: “Yes, immediately yes. That’s my biggest dream. I feel like I just keep writing songs that’s like an audition. Just hoping they might hear it and think I could do it.”

The Jonathan Ross Show airs Saturday nights on ITV1 and ITVX.