Letters to my Dead Dad

The bumper final episode of Series One starts with a clip of Olly giving Eddy’s eulogy at St Denys’s Church, Sleaford. Olly’s talking about why Eddy became so obsessed with his memories of doing National Service. After a clip of Eddy talking about National Service, we move to the letter Olly wrote to Eddy on 17 February 1984. Olly bangs on about students bands, student radio, an upcoming performan...

A letter Olly wrote to Eddy on 17 January 1984 leads him to ponder his long experience of seeing his own words in print, as the author of books and articles about stand-up comedy and similar subjects. This is sparked by having had a comic strip published in a student magazine called Rant . As luck would have it, Olly’s found the copy of Rant that he gave to Eddy in among the things he rescued from...

Writing to Eddy on 12 January 1984, Olly is excited about his new sandwich toaster and anticipating his debut performance at the upcoming Chaotic Cabaret. This leads him to dig out an old portfolio which contains the script he wrote for that, a piece of dubious comic quality called “Eric Tory, the Mad Monetarist” – and perform it for the microphone over forty years after writing it. Then it’s time...

Episode 5 begins with Olly reading a letter he wrote to his Dad on 30 November 1983. It’s a bulky missive, with updates about his ultra short lived college punk band Vile Style, seeing theatre from Spare Tyre and music from Killing Joke, learning African and Caribbean students from mature student Cyril, and researching Australian First Nation performance. This sets the pebbles of memory skimming a...

Episode 4 begins with another look in the Family History Box, where Olly finds a family photo from 1938 showing his Dad as a little boy standing slightly awkwardly next to his parents, Gladys and Harold. There’s a clip of Eddy talking about his Mum and Dad, and we get a glimpse of his upbringing in a working-class district of Ipswich. It’s a world away from the drama degree Olly did in the 1980s,...

In episode 3, Olly contemplates a recent big birthday as he looks in the Family History Box and finds a cartoon birthday card he painted for his Dad back in 1983. He can’t help feeling guilty at how savagely he’d mocked his poor old Dad’s ageing face on that card. But undeterred, he reads the letter he sent to Eddy on 29 October 1983 – in which he’s impressed by a comedy sketch in the first studen...

In episode 2, Olly looks in the Family History Box and finds a scrap of paper on which his Dad wrote down some words to remind him to look them up in a dictionary. Do YOU know what ‘deracination’, ‘ineffable’, ‘chapbook’, ‘mimetic’, ‘liminal man’ and ‘sacral’ mean? If not, you won’t want to miss Eddy’s Definitions Quiz! After that, there’s a short clip from Eddy’s eulogy at St Denys’s Church, Slea...

In the first episode of a brand new podcast, you’ll meet its creator and presenter Oliver Double – but you can call him Olly – and his late father Eddy. You’ll hear five facts about Olly, accompanied by Eddy on the washboard. You’ll also hear Olly read the letter her wrote to his Dad on 4 October 1983. It’s the first letter since leaving home to go to university, and already he’s asking for money!...

Oliver Double - Olly to you - explains what his brand new, super-cosy podcast is all about. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.