Reel Politik Podcast

Just in time for Halloween (minus the "just in time" part), Reel Politik present their definitive guide to horror cinema, featuring a bountiful quantity of clips from films that aren't really horror in any sense. Sadly Laura had to prepare to give a talk, but Jack, Tom and Yair are all there to drop pearls of wisdom: on how Tom looks like Bashar Al Assad, how Tom loves U2, how Tom edited a really...

A short preview of our first bit of exclusive Patreon content: a commentary on the auteur Sylvester Stallone's 1985 red-baiting magnum opus, featuring Jack, Tom F, Yair and MIKE. Produced by Tom F with additional production by Jack. Find the full 90-min commentary at https://www.patreon.com/reelpolitik

In the first instalment of a two-parter, Yair and Jack are joined by Joe Kennedy, author of the excellent Repeater Books title Authentocrats, and – at Joe’s request – his co-conspirator Trevor Bastard, CEO of powerful international conglomerate Grannymugger Media, close personal friend of the Hammer of Brexit, Oliver Laughdugry QC, long-time supporter of grassroots football legends Streatham Rover...

Recorded pre-conference, and featuring the return of RP producer tom disso (@nailheadparty) on the boards - with additional production by Jack and Tom F (a massive production job for one of our shortest ever episodes) - we present the latest in our Reel Politik reading series, this week covering a terrible article by terrible hack/Tory peer Danny Finkelstein in the terrible Times newspaper, called...

In the final part of our 2018 Labour conference trilogy, we join Jack & Tom one last time to look back with a few days' hindsight at this year's Liverpool-based event, which ran concurrently with the Labour left's festival of ideas, The World Transformed, which we actually attended, unlike conference itself. Discussed this time on RP are the return of the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, the threa...

NICE! It's our 69th episode and, to celebrate this momentous occasion, we bring you our exclusive report from The World Transformed, the Labour left's festival of ideas, which took place this year in Liverpool, concurrently with Labour's annual conference. Joining us to chew over the wide range of delicious leftist thought on offer, we have a star-studded line-up to share with our loyal listeners:...

In the second of a fresh batch of mind-bending Reel Politiks and first of a two-parter, the band celebrate the career of the Clash, as well as their piss-based threats against journalists. This episode focuses on the band's landmark triple-disc excursion into just about all the types of music from around the world that inspired them, with the next zoning in on Combat Rock and their breakup. The or...

In anticipation of their sojourn to Liverpool this weekend for this year's Labour Party conference and its left-wing fringe festival The World Transformed, Jack and Tom sit down to talk about what we can expect at Labour conference, the parlous state of party democracy, Neil Kinnock's banter-heavy 1981 and 1983 conferences, plus what's going on at this year's Tory and Lib Dem conferences. Recorded...

Writer and @Suite_212 presenter Juliet Jacques sits down to interview Tom and Jack about the making of a masterpiece (the Reel Politik Original Radio Play, Tim Peaks: Farron Walk With Me), and about the life and career of Tim Farron, Beveridge vs. Orange Book liberalism, gay frogs, milk, Madchester (plus Oasis), liberal Russia paranoia and much, much more. Functioning as an EPK (electronic press k...

Britpop wanker

TIM PEAKS: FARRON WALK WITH ME THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK ALBUM Produced by Jack Frayne-Reid. Featuring the original score by Jack Frayne-Reid & Tom Foster to their HIT RADIO PLAY Tim Peaks: Farron Walk With Me, with additional contributions from General Sherman, as well as songs (newly remastered by Jack Frayne-Reid) from some of the greatest bands of all time, such as Tim Farron & the Voyeurs, Tim...

New RP sees the Simon & Garfunkel of podcasting, Jack and Tom, back in the saddle to review light entertainment personality Ed Balls' new television event Travels in Trumpland with Ed Balls, read through the vintage blog posts of Labour First chair and Labour NEC candidate Luke "Russia" Akehurst, and do a Q&A, answering Twitter-sourced questions from RP's devoted fanbase. As it's a long episode, t...

In the wake of Britain's 2017 General Election, Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron resigned from his post, citing the pressures of reconciling his evangelical Christian faith with the commitments of political leadership, illustrated by the questions he faced throughout the campaign on his attitudes to homosexuality. Two years earlier, days after becoming leader, a tweet appeared on the @timfarron...

In an effort to keep ourselves interested in this shit thing called "politics", the saddest bois on the RP roster present a series of readings of the lyrics of veritable sadboi icon Mark Kozelek, the leader of the bands Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon and a prolific solo artist, as well as somebody who has evolved from - well - a sad boi to an extremely grumpy middle-aged man, who is still als...

American comrades Sam Sacks and Sam Knight were kind enough to invite Laura onto their excellent newscast, The District Sentinel, to talk about Donald Trump's visit to the UK and the current wave of protests, plus plug the Durham Miners' Gala and explain why her dearly departed @thisgeordielass account was suspended by Twitter. It was a premium episode on the DC guys' Patreon but, even kinder than...

Fake news media packed with CIA lies about Russia getting "knocked out of the World Cup". Embarrassing and sad. While our propaganda department work on setting the record straight with some exclusive video evidence, relive the triumphant opening ceremony with Tom & Laura's rip-roaring commentary. Our video commentary for the Russia-Saudi match is available to watch here: https://vimeo.com/27558542...

TWO WEEKS IN THE MAKING, at long last we can bring you another mammoth episode of "the slick Reel Politik" (Gaby Hinsliff, the Observer). Our topic was Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan and his sad descent from beloved comedy writer to transphobic Twitter crank, but we didn't get onto that for at least 45 minutes, as we felt obliged to make room for some of our favourite slug MPs (a clue...MIWK...

"rp" (stylised in lowercase letters), sometimes subtitled "Our First Episode In What Feels Like Forever", is the 61st episode of the British podcast Reel Politik, released on June 4, 2018, by Reel Politik. The episode features RP founders Tom Foster & Jack Frayne-Reid and uncredited appearances by Laura Jolyon Tidd as Margaret Thatcher and Anna Soubry. Frayne-Reid produced the episode in its entir...

The show to end all shows is BACK - for our first offering of season four, joined by RP regular Jude Wanga (@judeinlondon2 on Twitter) the gang (minus Yair, who nevertheless makes an appearance in the intro) discuss Jude's theory of how the Beatles were directly responsible for Oasis, who were directly responsible for Brexit, and look at the cultural and political legacies of the "Cool Britannia"...

A golden folk great from two distinguished parliamentarians' new close-harmony duo.

About 2000 people gave this episode on Michael Mann's classic 1981 crime drama 'Thief' a listen when we released it in October, before it was taken down for copyright violation. However, having pledged a grovelling apology to our hero Kanye West and removed the offending material, we can exclusively re-release what is objectively our most controversial episode yet. Tom hosts, with Jack as his trus...

In a stopgap episode to tide you over until we get our fourth season off the ground, the original Reel Politik trio (you know, the lads who got done by the Mail) offer their comprehensive critique of Ricky Gervais's entire body of work and explain why he is, at the end of the day, an artist in terminal decline. The all-encompassing review touches on his inconsistent television work, his cringewort...

In our longest episode ever, Laura and Jack are joined by the journalist Liam Young to talk about his new book Rise: How Jeremy Corbyn Inspired the Young to Create a New Socialism, which analyses the Corbyn movement by centring the newly engaged youth at its heart. Along the way, the gang touch on honey-horny Richard Dawkins, Amol Rajan's bizarre sycophancy towards Rupert Murdoch's evil empire, Ne...

Jack, Laura and Tom are joined by Alex Nunns (@alexnunns on Twitter), author of The Candidate: Jeremy Corbyn's Improbable Path to Power (OR Books), now out in its second edition, updated to cover the 2017 General Election that solidified Jeremy Corbyn's mandate to take the Labour Party in the leftward direction of his choosing. We talk about the pivotal moments in Corbyn's leadership, from the cam...

Writers Juliet Jacques and Huw Lemmey are back in the saddle to conclude our lengthy discussion of Juliet's time in the mainstream liberal press and the structural barriers that make it a difficult medium through which to convey left-wing ideas. We read from two superb pieces by Joe Kennedy (see bottom of description for links), discuss the dynamics and power relations between public figures and t...