Olly Mann: Stretched to the limits

Are you acquainted with Stretch Armstrong? He’s a gel-filled doll made by Hasbro, whose extremities can be squeezed and pulled in any direction, only to reliably return to their starting position. He wears black underpants, and nowt else. This is considered reasonable, as he has a turbo-charged set of abs, and probably lives in California.

Despite decades of sales, Stretch’s brand recognition is not quite at the interstellar level of Action Man or Mr Potato Head. Unlike Barbie, there is no billion-dollar film adaptation; presumably because his sexy but slapstick "Mr Universe meets Mr Tickle" schtick is a near-impossible casting brief (though Dwayne Johnson could have pulled it off in the Noughties).

Anyway, I wanted to ensure you and I were on the same page when it came to visualising Stretch Armstrong—because now I need you to imagine what our Stretch Armstrong looks like. Namely: the same, but with no head. Because our dog ate his head. 

Our Stretch has a white plastic stub where a steely-eyed blond bonce should be. Slowly leaking from this area, in glistening, sticky globules, are lumps of corn syrup, congealing around the slit in his back where the dog initially sunk his teeth, before delivering the killer blow.

Given this, it will not surprise you to learn that my children no longer wish to play with Stretch Armstrong. Lest this was merely due to their initial shock at the mauling, for a few weeks I stored his mutilated body in a box, occasionally producing him with a flourish to see if my boys would be delighted to see him again. Each time, they screamed and screamed.

So, Stretch has come to live in my "studio". I don’t think I’ve ever told you about my studio before—I certainly never mention it in my podcasts, because I don’t want my listening audience to know the sordid reality of where I’m broadcasting from. But the truth is, I make my shows in a rented room in a decommissioned veterinary surgery.

That’s right: while my contemporaries interview celebs from their trendy loft apartments, or film TikTok videos from artfully decorated West End "break out spaces", my episodes are all recorded in a former canine X-Ray suite in rural Hertfordshire.

I kitted it out during lockdown—after my wife ejected me and my microphones from her dressing room. It has thick, absorbent material all around, a decent iMac, a superfast internet connection, and it sounds superb. I’ve done Radio 4 links from there; commercial voiceovers…the audio is as good as if I were beaming in from a top-class studio in any leading city.

But it’s hardly glamorous. The walls are clad with stained carpet I rescued from a skip. The silver velvet curtains were donated by a neighbour who was chucking them out for being "a bit bordello-ish". The floor covering is a second-hand synthetic rug from Argos, under which lies a concrete slab with a drain in it, intended for washing out dogs.

The "kitchenette" in the corridor still bears the hallmarks of having once been the preparation area for the Operating Theatre. Fetching teaspoons from a drawer marked "biopsy punches" and mugs from a shelf marked "swabs" does rather put you off tea and biscuits.

So, over time, I’ve migrated over a few decorative bits and bobs. Stuff that would mostly have gone to the charity shop otherwise: an old lamp, a paint-stained DAB radio, a slightly broken Charlie Chaplin figurine I inherited from my Dad, my tuck box from boarding school, a massage chair, Grandma’s doormat, a wicker basket that was once a Christmas hamper. An eclectic selection, to be sure, but each addition has made the place feel slightly more homely.

What I didn’t have, until Stretch came to join this motley crew, was a fidget. A stress reliever. An executive toy. A thing to play with while my hands are free.  

And, head or no head, Stretch Armstrongs make fantastic fidgets. Also, they don’t make any noise when you push and pull them, so I can fiddle away while recording a show! If I’m finding an interview long-winded, or a panel conversation particularly challenging, I just reach for Stretch—who I keep slightly to the left of my mixing desk—and give him a strong, five-fingered squeeze. And, instantly, I feel better. 

But this terrifying creature—reminiscent as he is of one of Sid’s mutant toys in Toy Story—must never become viewable on webcam. If I were accidentally to reveal him—while asking serious questions of serious people about serious matters—I would be signalling to my guests the exact visual shorthand Hollywood employs to signify serial killers. I’d forgive them if they never, ever wanted to talk to me again.

So, I keep Stretch out of sight. Yet, somehow, that makes my surreptitious squeezing all the more satisfying. True, there’s no scientific evidence documenting the positive relationship between Stretch Armstrongs and relaxed podcasting (as there is, for example, between stroking a cat and anxiety alleviation). But it’s only a matter of time!