Phone-in review

Starting with Revolver in 2005 but beginning in earnest with Spider-Man 3 in 2007, the Film Review Show occasionally featured a segment when listeners would phone in and give their verdicts on the week's releases. The first ever was Barry in Peterborough's spirited defence ("I loved it") of Guy Ritchie's concepts movie, and Mark conceded that the milk of human kindness flowed from Barry and asked to go and see it again with him. Meanwhile the listener review, by a chap called Edward, for the Da Vinci Code - which had been on the wrong end of a table banging Kermodian rant the week before ("TURN THE LIGHTS ON") - very rapidly became a rant at the rant:

"I've got to say that I thought The Da Vinci Code was a brilliant film. I was on the edge of my seat from start to finish, as was my brother. It was out of this world. Maybe the Doctor thinks it's some kind of documentary, I don't know. But it was just a good film. I've just watched X-Men 3, and I preferred The Da Vinci Code. It was out of this world. And I'll tell you something else I don't understand - what's [the problem that people have] with the guy's hair? What is that? Is that what people do - they watch films and say, 'ooh, I don't like his hair'? It was a great film. And there was no love - so what? People are being shot, do you know what I mean? Do you expect to have romance in between murder?"

In mid-2007, there was then a concerted effort to make phone-in reviews a regular feature. A worried Mark asked if this meant he was being fired. The first was Spider-Man 3, followed by 28 Weeks Later - which featured a fine zombie impression. Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End was advertised as being the next one, but no listener reviews for that film were ever broadcast, as by that week the idea had been quietly dropped. (The extraordinarily long url that was required to submit the reviews may not have helped).

Mark and Simon's 2008 appearance on the Victoria Derbyshire programme (as a result of Racing from Chilcot) brought a phone-in discussion of Independence Day, though no actual phoned in reviews.

However, the phone-in review made an unplanned comeback when a Matthew Goode-shaped hole appeared in the programme when said actor declined to do his publicity interview for Leapy Ear, resulting in the People's Box Office Top 10.

Meanwhile the idea of asking members of the audience for their views on films in the Box Office Top 10 remains part of Wittertainment On Tour to this day.