list.co.uk/festival Podcasts | FESTIVAL COMEDY
POD ALMIGHTY Confi ne thousands of comedians anywhere for a month and they’re liable to podcast. And if you can’t stop them, why not join them? Jay Richardson picks some of the best at this year’s Fringe
T wo experienced podcasters, the thoughtful Carl Donnelly and the more dubiously informed Seann Walsh are pairing to launch Who The F#ck is Barbara?, in which they snoop through a guest’s phone and project its contents onto a screen. Other seasoned podders experimenting this year are Soi e Hagen and Alison Spittle, with the i rst week of Soi e Hagen Tries Something given over to the duo just chatting. Hagen does psychiatric-style inquiry while Spittle’s interviews are more easy-going but they’re i rm friends and it ought to be an intriguing meeting of minds. Sure to be rather frothier is Happy Mondays in which two old school friends, the camp Brennan Reece and even camper Stephen Bailey, are appalled by the state of the world and try to lighten the mood with blether.
Bringing the same relaxed, cynicism-free curiosity to his interviews on Off The Grid With Russell Hicks as he does to his freewheeling stand-up, the open-minded American hasn’t revealed who his comedian guest is yet, but it’s sure to be a notable one for his birthday on 13 August. More wide-ranging and concerned with great reads, Book Shambles features comedians, writers and others revealing the authors who inspire them, with Robin Ince hosting solo while Josie Long is away on maternity leave. Similarly, Aidan Goatley’s 10 Films With . . . i nds the amiable Goatley teasing some passionate opinions from those he invites on to talk about the movies they love and hate.
Politics and current affairs junkies are particularly well-served, with both Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd: Reasons to Be Cheerful and Sarah Millican’s In Conversation With Standard Issue trading on their big- name creators to secure impressive guest lineups. Matt Forde’s Political Party Podcast has already scored on this front, with Deputy First Minister John Swinney and another high-proi le Scottish political i gure already coni rmed as interviewees. Gráinne Maguire: What Has the News Ever Done for Me? is a light- hearted panel show that tends to live or die depending on how depressing the news is, with chairperson Maguire managing the tricky balance of being both perky and knowledgeable. Meanwhile, Deborah Frances-White recently landed a late-night satirical pilot with Channel 4 off the back of The Guilty Feminist which seamlessly slots in a revolving cast of co-hosts and makes the audience almost as big a part of the show as the comics.
Regular listeners appreciate what a consistent outlet for Andy Zaltzman’s satirical silliness The Bugle Live has become, and he’s joined by one of his regular co-hosts, Alice Fraser, for its two dates. The under-appreciated, coolly intelligent Australian has also chosen this festival to record her last three shows for antipodean broadcaster ABC, with Trilogy a chance to catch some increasingly assured hours of stand-up. Further debating the issues of the day but with lots more going on besides, the high-concept institution of Sunday Service With Ola is taking place outside London for the i rst time, with ‘hymns’, confessionals and Ola himself unseen on the ‘God mic’, plus all the live stand-up they cut from the edit. Even more niche perhaps, and all the more popular for it, All Killa No Filla features Rachel Fairburn and Kiri Pritchard-McLean combining whatever’s on their minds with in-depth discussion of a particular serial killer. So successful is this format that post-Fringe, the pair are off to America – spiritual home of the homicide spree – for a mini-tour.
For full details of all recordings, see list.co.uk/festival
From top: Andy Zaltzman (The Bugle Live), All Killa No Filla, Sunday Service With Ola 1–8 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 47