Josh Widdicombe and Nish Kumar are diving back into the weirdest and most wonderful stories across the UK and beyond as their comedy series Hold The Front Page season 2 continues on Sky Max.
Once again, the pair are working as reporters in local newsrooms, this time in the Isle of Wight, Cumbria, Bradford, Devon, South Wales and Benidorm. And they cover everything from a poo museum and nudists to daredevil Hillbillies and puppet rabbits as they go in search of front-page exclusives.
“You’d think we’d have got better after series one but somehow it seems like all of the acumen we built up over the first series had dissipated in the intervening year,” laughs Nish.
Here’s everything you need to know about Hold the Front Page season 2...
Hold the Front Page season 2 release date
The six-part series started on Sky Max on Wednesday, April 24 at 9pm.
Episodes will then air weekly in the same slot and the next episode, which is episode 6 airs on Wednesday, May 29.
In the final episode Nish and Josh work for the South Wales Argus, teaming up with Charlotte Church for a guerrilla gig and rapping in Welsh. They also seek justice for a pebble-based crime, audition for Cinderella and make a bread-based portrait of Ryan Reynolds.
Hold the Front Page season 2 – the premise
As with the first series, season 2 sees Josh and Nish work as reporters on some local newspapers in the UK and beyond. They will hit their beat, tirelessly looking for fun and quirky stories in the endless quest to bag the front page.
You can also expect cameos from stars such as Charlotte Church, Anneka Rice and East 17.
Hold the Front Page season 2 – is there a trailer?
Yes, the trailer shows Josh and Nish preparing to cover various crazy news stories and getting short shrift from some of the papers’ editors.
You can watch below...
Hold the Front Page season 2 – interview with Nish and Josh
Was it good to be back in the newsroom?
Josh: "Yes. It was brilliant. I really loved meeting all the different people who were so passionate about so many different things. The weird thing that unites the series, and this comes through in local coverage, is people find little things that make them tick and that’s the most important thing in their lives, whether that is racing old cars in muddy fields or whether that is opening a poo museum or starting a campaign to clean up Bradford or doing YouTube videos about car washes. All these quirky people, I loved that."
What can you tell us about the first episode, on the Isle of Wight?
Josh: "Two words. Anneka Rice."
Nish: "Can you talk about the place a little bit before you start gassing on about Anneka Rice. At least a cursory mention of the landscape."
J: "Ok, four words Anneka Rice, Princess Anne."
N: "And poo museum."
J: "I loved the Isle of Wight. I didn’t really know very much about it. I’ve done one gig there. I didn’t really realise how much different stuff is going on in one small place but I guess that’s kind of the point of the whole show. All of these places we go to, you can walk a mile from a man with his bits out to Princess Anne."
N: "Oh my god, the nudists. I’d forgotten about that."
How is this series different to the last one?
N: "I think we approach it with more confidence which obviously means it blows up in our face even worse. I think there’s a level of complacency we are punished for that wasn’t present in the first series. All of which makes good television. The higher the ego, the funnier the fall."
What are the highlights of the series?
J: "I liked going to Devon and relaunching the career of Britain’s greatest celebrity, who no one has ever heard of, (puppet rabbit) Gus Honeybun."
N: "It’s a weird-looking rabbit. If you grew up in Devon you’re like ‘oh this is a magical part of my childhood’. If you grew up anywhere else in the entire world, you look at it and go ‘that looks like the diseased corpse of a cartoon rabbit. Why are we allowing children to see it?’"
J: "Children love it. You can’t dictate to children what works for them."
N: "Yeah, you’re right. That’s parenting 101."
J: "So, yeah Anneka Rice and Gus Honeybun. I also loved going to Benidorm because it was an incredible culture shock to put us into a place that probably is most distant from all of the work we’ve done in our career so far."
N: "Bradford was genuinely heart-warming. It was also warming to a different part of my anatomy because I ate one of the hottest curries I’ve ever had in my life. It was absolute chaos. The Bradford clean-up (where volunteers organise litter picks) was amazing. It felt good to be part of, or bear witness to, genuine community action and people trying to improve the place they live in. I found that very heart-warming. There’s also a cameo in the Welsh episode from Charlotte Church and her appearance is brilliant. It’s a real highlight for me."
J: "Yeah, she’s great."
Do you think you could do the job for real?
J: No
N: "No. That’s the one thing we’ve learned over the course of two series. Part of the purpose of the show is to celebrate local journalists and local newspapers and it is very stupid and very fun and very goofy but if there is sort of a serious message to it, it is that local journalists are very skilled at what they do and we should probably all be a bit more respectful of local journalists. When Liz Truss did that thing where she did five calls with local radio journalists and got absolutely flame-grilled, Josh and I were not surprised in the slightest, having worked with some very, very talented local journalists."
What were the funniest moments?
J: "I think in Devon, that day we spent with the Hillbillies was insane."
N: "That was bananas. That was very strange. They are such an interesting subculture. They were very nice, but their great passion is driving around in muddy fields and launching boats off the top of cars into lakes."
Was the poo museum the most surreal moment?
N: "Poo is poo, we all see it. We all look at it every day."
J: "I don’t look at it every day."
N: "You should, you should check your poos. I don’t think I’d be opening a poozeum though."
Which one of you do you think would be the better reporter?
N: "Well Josh has actually got some training."
J: "I think I would get away with it at a very low level. I don’t think I’d be any good. I think that’s the thing. We’ve both got glaring weaknesses we can’t overcome. I don’t think Nish is able to step back and offer an unbiased view of a news story and I don’t think I’m very good at walking into a room and talking to a stranger."
Josh, you put your neck on the line volunteering for a stunt at the circus…
J: "Yes, but I can’t tell you how desperate we were. We’d missed out on a story."
N: "The nice thing about the show is it is happening for real. Those stories have to go in the newspaper. Sometimes, you’re expected to write about a regatta and it just rains. And you end up having to imperil Josh’s privates as part of a BMX stunt in a circus so you have something to put on Facebook live."
Was it terrifying?
J: "Yes, but not as scary as talking to the nudists. It was just knowing where to look. Full power to them but it’s just difficult to play ping pong with a man and never look down."
N: "It’s difficult to play ping pong with someone with their paddle and balls out, put it that way. It was a group of people, and I think this should be celebrated, who have found themselves unburdened by shame who encountered two men who are excessively burdened by shame, every minute of their waking lives."
Did you get genuinely excited when you did make the front page?
N: "Yes. You go in and work with these people and you are painfully aware that this is their real job and this is going to be a real newspaper at the end of the day or week. If we do something successful, it’s more about feeling we haven’t messed up their week."
Were there times when you felt you did mess up?
N: "So many times. There were so many times when it felt like we really made a hash of it. We made an absolute hash of the Facebook lives on the Isle of Wight. Hash is a very polite word for what happened."
J: "I don’t think there was any one episode where we haven’t messed up badly at some point."
N: "I remember Benidorm as a huge tick in the L column. The loss column. Benidorm we really pooched it. That’s possibly why that’s a very funny episode. We got lost in a town."
J: "We wrote some good stories that everyone on the paper deemed to be complete dog poo. Benidorm is the biggest example of us thinking we were doing well. I was quite aware when we had done well or badly but we were worse in Benidorm than in the UK, I don’t know if it’s a Brexit thing or whether our standards have dropped."
Did you enjoy working on the stories together?
J: "I’d say it’s much more fun. I think when you go to visit a group of nudists it’s good to have one other person in clothes."
N: "Just to be clear the crew were also fully clothed."
J: "Apart from one of them but that’s another story."
Which stories did you get really into?
J: "I loved looking for the big cats in Cumbria. I got very into that. I thought we were genuinely going to break an exclusive. The story I got most into was Gus Honeybun."
N: "If you hadn’t said that I’d have been absolutely baffled. That was you reconnecting with your childhood."
J: "The worst part was being so close to being able to watch a Plymouth Argyll game and not being able to. That was absolutely heartbreaking."
Hold The Front Page season 2 – about the stars
Josh Widdicombe
Stand-up comedian Josh is a co-host on the Friday night panel show The Last Leg. He hosts the series Hypothetical, with James Acaster, and has been a guest on shows such as House of Games, 8 Out of 10 Cats, A League of their Own and QI. He also had his own sitcom, Josh.
Nish Kumar
Fellow comedian Nish starred in the 2022 TV movie Christmas Carole, playing the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. He hosted The Mash Report from 2018 to 2020 and Late Night Mash in 2021 and made Joel and Nish vs the World, with Joel Dommett. He’s also a regular on panel shows such as Mock the Week, House of Games, QI and Pointless.
