Smith & Waugh Talk About Satire

Jo and Adam are joined by poet, author and academic Sam Riviere for a wide ranging conversation about satire, originality, plagiarism, the inherent challenges of existing in a world where performance and genuine participation have become indistinguishable and, well, just about all of the problems with everything really... In addition to being a celebrated, award-winning author, Sam is also often d...

As Russia invades Ukraine, Jo and Adam ponder the most pressing question: what does the first European conflict in decades will mean for satire? They also reflect on the unlikely backstory of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in the ultimate case of satire imitating life, fronted a satirical sitcom in which he played a man who surprisingly became the Ukrainian President in the years imm...

Happy Anniversary to SAWTAS! It’s been three years to the day since Adam and Jo first took to the airwaves. In this episode, they reflect on their tremendous and unlooked-for success, and take a moment to consider whether it’s possible to talk about satire without being pretentious (spoiler: yes). Once that’s established, they talk to special guest Dr Andrew Bricker from Ghent University about sat...

As the fabric of the social contract in Britain further disintegrates in the wake of increasingly outrageous revelations about behaviour behind closed doors at 10 Downing Street during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jo and Adam talk about the one divisive topic that's really gotten everyone really raging in this cold, miserable month of January: Adam McKay's Netflix original movie Don't Look...

Christmas isn’t Christmas until everyone is dead of a new mutant variant! Only kidding. Christmas isn’t really Christmas until Jo and Adam have dropped their self-indulgent Christmas episode, and this year they’ve pulled out all of the stops and thrown a big illegal party in 10 Downing Street during a national lockdown and the police are refusing to investigate. Only kidding. It isn’t a party, it’...

In a special bonus episode Adam and Jo are joined once again by novelist and culture writer Kat Rosenfield for a deep dive into one of the strangest literary scandals of recent years, and that is the scandal of the Bad Art Friend Scandal. If you haven’t heard about this yet, fear not, because Jo, Adam and Kat explain all before returning to the short story at the heart of this scandal, Sonya Larso...

Jo and Adam are joined by culture writer, podcaster and novelist Kat Rosenfield to discuss the challenges faced by the satirist in 2021, the state of satire in young adult fiction and Kat’s brand new novel No One Will Miss Her , which The Washington Post has described as “amusingly satirical and darkly bloody.” Kat has reported for MTV News and her work has appeared in such outlets as Wired , Vult...

In this momentous episode, Jo and Adam finally return to their trusty recording booth for the first episode to be recorded in-person and on-location since March 2020. Once back in the booth Adam and Jo mark the anniversary of Chris Morris's Brass Eye Special, "Paedogeddon!", which remains one of the twenty-first-century's most polarizing and controversial works of satire twenty years later. They'r...

In the second half of Adam and Jo's wide-ranging conversation with poet/novelist/journalist/satirist Leigh Stein, they turn their attention to the target's of satire in Leigh's latest collection: What To Miss When? (Penguin, 2021). Did the "cancel culture" phenomenon intensify during the pandemic because a lot of people were locked down with nothing to do but manufacture outrage and demand moral p...

Jo and Adam are joined by returning guest, poet/novelist/journalist/satirist Leigh Stein for a discussion of her new collection of satire-inflected pandemic poetry, What To Miss When (Penguin, 2021). In a wide-range discussion, Adam and Jo also talk about: the power and purpose of poetry and its potential as an effective medium for satire; the challenges that confront anyone hoping to represent th...

Popular Edgelords Jo Waugh and Adam Smithare joined by Nicole Graham to talk about the popular card game 'Cards Against Humanity.' The game's own promotional materials claim that is it intended as a work of satire, but is it really? Nicole discusses her recent book chapter 'Laughing with Horrible People: Reaffirming Ethical Boundaries Through Laughter' in which she applies an eighteenth-century fr...

As the temperature finally rises, but so too do infection rates, Adam and Jo take an episode to reflect on satire released during the between times: that is, the time between lockdown and the often-promised full easing of restrictions. These include: the second season of This Time with Alan Partridge , Borat’s American Lockdown and Borat Debunked and a recent exhibition of juvenile satire on displ...

Do you ever wonder... what's the point? Liars and cheats prosper and gain power, the hypocritical, the criminal, the venal, the self-interested, the arrogant and the cruel seem to get away with whatever they want. Statistics and figures are cynically manipulated for cynical ends. The average person has no voice and no power, no real chance to change anything or be heard. Everything gets worse and...

Is satire fundamentally left wing or right wing? Does the BBC now have a right wing agenda? Can right wing comedy actually be funny? And was all this really the reason The Mash Report got cancelled? Jo and Adam talk about all of this and more (including their own shocking Political Compass Results!!!) in this all new episode, also featuring a chat with recovering stand-up comic and scholar of come...

Jo and Adam #ChooseToChallenge this International Women’s Day by seeking out and celebrating some of their favourite female satirists from literary history: Mary Leopor and Stella Gibbons. Especially devoted listeners may also choose to stick around after the closing music for an extra treat. Read the full show-notes.

Stop talking about Valentine’s Day and start talking about Smith & Waugh Talk About Satire Day! That’s right, this episode marks exactly two years since the first episode dropped on 14 February 2019. For this very special anniversary episode Jo and Adam are joined by author Oli Grant to discuss his book  How To Live Well The North Korean Way , a satire on the nature of self-help books and...

In the second part of this wide-ranging interview with satirist, comedian and cultural commentator Andrew Doyle , conversation turns to touch on cancel culture and the culture wars as Andrew explains what is at stake in his satirical project. Jo and Adam also take time to reflect on Charlie Brooker’s latest production, the Netflix mocumentary Death to 2020 , and Jo reveals her clever idea for a ne...

18 months after he first appeared on the podcast ( Episode 8. Satire: Woke Politics and Political Tribalism ), Jo and Adam welcome satirist, comedian, writer and cultural commentator Andrew Doyle to discuss life as the man behind Titania McGrath during 2020, and to discuss Titania’s latest book: My First Little Book Of Intersectional Activism . Access the full show-notes here.  

Sometimes, a phrase pops into your head that seems too good not to use, even though sometimes it was plenty weak enough to leave alone. So it is in this episode of the 9th best satire podcast with ‘Karen and Gammon Talk About Salmon’, Adam and Jo find out as they labour the joke to be sure it won’t work. They then talk about satirical books at Christmas time, Christmas itself, and some of the adve...

Poor Unfortunate Adam is trapped in his flat with only his memories for company, having been outed as the Saboteur in CBBC’s Trapped – or possibly just been near too many phones.  Jo has decorated her study with subversive prints and a Jane Area, but has now run out of things to do as lockdown looms: what to do? The only way out of  their own Infernos is to chat about some recent satire,...

Jo and Adam are joined once again by novelist Leigh Stein for the second half of an interview about Self-Care , Leigh’s new satire on the wellness industry. This time, they talk about offence, cancel culture, privilege, the presentation of victimhood on social media, and Leigh’s approach to navigating (and skewering) all of these factors and more. Adam and Jo also talk about ‘Lockdown Sceptics’ an...

Jo and Adam are joined by Leigh Stein, author of the new satirical novel Self Care , to talk about the wellness industry, women, forms of feminism (or things that look like feminism), social media, soundbites, and the relationships between wellness, wokeness, and capitalism. So, give yourself permission to listen to our intuition. Read the full shownotes here . 

In this long awaited and highly anticipated episode, Adam and Jo discuss comedy, humour, offence, a fence, and much more, with very special guest Dr Sharon Lockyer. Is social justice a legitimate target for satire, or can comedy promote its causes? When it comes to crossing the line, how far is too far? Should Fawlty Towers be cancelled? Was Little Britain ever funny? Is it satire to imply Sir Kei...

After pestering listeners to give them a yell for the past 18 months, Jo and Adam finally take a minute (or rather 63) to respond to all of the comments, questions and queries that have either landed in their satirical inbox (satirenomore@gmail.com) or hit them up in socials. Some are real, some are fictional, but each inspires a compelling, controversial or comedic discussion of the form, functio...

As unprecedented times become the new normal, Jo and Adam return for another unprecedented episode which follows the precedent set by the last unprecedented episode they released in May. That's right, it's time for another Satire in Lockdown Round-Up! With the government's new and confusing message proving almost as viral as the virus, the PM's chief advisor flagrantly breaking the rules he helped...