Mike Reiss and Homer Simpson

NO, the writers of The Simpsons can’t predict the future.

Yes, they predicted President Trump in 2000, and Disney’s takeover of Fox all the way back in 1998. And the FIFA Scandal (the 2015 one, that is) a year before it broke.

But no, The Simpsons can’t predict the future.

That’s according to Mike Reiss, and he should know. He has written and produced episodes of the show since its first season, way back in 1989, and boasts a comedy career which has seen him take home no fewer than four Emmys.

He wasn’t supposed to be here in Highgate village tonight – a promoter had booked him for a tour of Africa with this show, but disappeared at the last minute. If only he’d seen that coming.

Everyone at the Upstairs At The Gatehouse theatre was lucky he was let down; it’s quite the evening.

In Secrets of The Simpsons, Mr Reiss lifts the lid on the most successful TV show of all time, one which has made $14bn and attracted a host of high-flying cameos.

He’s worked with celebrities from Elon Musk to Paul McCartney.

Musk was a terrible actor, and “took two weeks off everything” to do an intensive acting course and re-record his lines. He came back worse, according to the writer.

McCartney’s condition for taking on the role was that Lisa would become a vegetarian. He still checks in with the team to make sure she hasn’t eaten meat. They nearly convinced Bill Clinton to record an episode, but he didn’t want to do anything that could bring the White House into disrepute, apparently.

Mr Reiss knows how to tell a story, and it’s a gripping couple of hours.

The scale of The Simpsons’ reach is difficult to comprehend. It’s been adored and censored the world over.

These days, he gets to see a fair chunk of the globe, telling his stories on cruise ships.

“There’s bootleg Simpsons merch everywhere I go,” he tells us. “You can always tell – they’re nowhere near tacky enough.”

Those counterfeit keyrings and mugs wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for a rushed sketch outside a producer’s office.

“Matt Groening was being called in for a meeting, and the PA asked about his ‘new project’,” he told the audience. “There was no new project, so he scribbled down some characters inspired by the Flintstones and named them after family members. They became the Simpsons.”

Mr Reiss is most engaging when off-script, navigating a fairly spiky Q&A section. We’re told about the rifts which emerged between those formative Simpsons’ creators; the only episode for which Groening refused to be credited was a crossover with The Critic, a show created by Mr Reiss. Hurt clearly still lingers, and Mr Reiss is keen to stress that it was in fact Sam Simon, the show’s co-creator, who should be lauded as the secret to its early success.

In reality, none of those writers could have known that in 2026 the show would have three more seasons on the horizon. Bart would be touching 50 if not immortalised in yellow.

The second act sees Reiss deconstructing the very notion of a joke in a pseudo-lecture. He’s a Harvard graduate, after all.

“Every joke is its own little universe,” he concludes; “it can be a short mystery story, or predictive, or follow its own mathematical logic.”

But it’s those behind-the-scenes Simpsons nuggets which you’ll remember.

The joke about the dead celebrity which had to be re-edited at the very last minute. The $1m segment with a gag only a computer would understand. The character he’s most proud of creating.

I won’t ruin them for you – he tells them better.

Secrets of The Simpsons returns to Upstairs at the Gatehouse on Sunday [August 2] at 7.00pm and Monday [August 3] at 7.30pm.

It is also showing at Komedia, Brighton on Thursday August 6 at 7.30pm.