Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster · Plosive

Elle Fanning

November 5, 2025·1 hr 22 min·7 clips

Elle Fanning reveals what happened when she thought she was eating fake chicken hearts on a period drama set.

The cold open is pure admin. Ed Gamble starts with a Fresh Hell tour plug and points listeners to his site for UK and Ireland dates, then the feed tips straight into ads. Spring gets taken very literally. Mark Bittman talks up seasonal Whole Foods ingredients: new potatoes, spring onions, artichokes, favas, snap peas, radishes, spinach, and greens. Then Grainger walks in wearing steel toes, and the mood shifts from fresh food to hospital supplies, fast delivery, stocked facilities, and suppliers behaving themselves. The actual chat turns up late. Someone spots ginger, someone recognizes it right away, and for a minute the room warms around the small pleasure of reading a recipe properly. No telly required. The joke is tiny but easy to place: a household detail gets nudged until it turns silly, fond, and weirdly specific. Good Housekeeping joins the scrapbook. The cut out recipes sound old fashioned, practical, and quietly funny, especially when the reply treats them like treasure that will obviously come in handy. A sweet family note hangs there too. One speaker suggests the recipe clipping habit connects to something on their own list, but the excerpt moves on before that thread gets anywhere. Then the ads rush back in. Verizon brings transport nonsense with pogo sticks, teleporting, and a rollerblading yak, which somehow fits the general disorder. Lowe's follows with outdoor gear. Rippling brings the office machine, selling automated HR updates across payroll, app permissions, and manager training. CoverGirl closes things out with a bedtime read for its jammy lip mask: pajamas, lavender scent, softer lips by morning. The episode itself is barely visible here. What survives is one small food memory buried in a hallway of plugs, with the show's quick silly spark flickering through the recipe book exchange.

As heard by us

A funny conversation with a sluggish opening, then enough sharp chatter to make the wait worth it.

The episode takes its time getting out of the gate, and the ad-heavy opening is the part most likely to test patience. Once that clears, the conversation settles into a lighter, quicker rhythm, with small food details and recipe-book logic giving it some real charm.

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Why you'd press play

For a breezy, chatty listen with a lot of ad-break detours and a light, unruly edge.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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