Standard Issue Podcast

Could anything make the Edinburgh Fringe more stressful for a comedian? Well, American comedian Janine Harouni is doing it while nine months pregnant, so Mickey got on the Zoom with her to find out what her plan is, what it's like when your dad voted for Donald Trump, and family history. In Jenny Off The Blocks, Jen's talking to director Georgina Cammalleri about her new boxing documentary, Right...

Comedian, firm Standard Issue favourite and now author, the mighty Jo Caulfield has penned The Funny Thing About Death…, a truly lovely, funny and moving book about illness and grief but, mostly, about her big sister Annie and their relationship. In this Chops, Jo chats to our Mick about siblings in general, Annie in particular, getting – or indeed not getting – to grips with someone you love dyin...

Biological clocks, abortions rights, percussive speculum – it’s all happening in Larisa Faber’s brilliant play, stark bollock naked. Mick got on the Zoom with Larisa and her partner in collaboration, Shamira Turner, to chat whether that tick-tock is real, imagined or societal and to try to answer the evergreen question, ‘will women ever be fully human?’.  Samantha Lane, artistic director of Little...

What’s this, Smack The Pony’s Fiona Allen? Oh HELLO. Ahead of Fiona’s debut – debut! – standup show, Fiona Allen: On The Run, our Mick got on the Zoom to this one-woman whirlwind to chat Smack The Pony (obvs), women and comedy (obvs), and falling in love with a bull (erm).  Fiona Allen: On The Run, kicks off with an Edinburgh Fringe run at the Pleasance Courtyard from the 2nd to 20th of August, be...

K-Pop is known for its good-looking stars, catchy tunes, and teenage fanbase. However, as journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou investigates in her new Radio 4 series, Burning Sun, there is a darker and frankly horrifying side to this popular music phenomenon. She chats to Hannah about what life is like for women in South Korea, sexual abuse, and the digital culture enabling it.   Mick chats to Carole Fis...

When Victoria Belim set out to write a family history, she uncovered a mystery that told her a lot about her family and Ukraine's past. And now, as The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family History is published, all eyes are on Victoria's home country. She talks to Hannnah about uncles with bad opinions, cucumber whisperers, and how Ukraine is processing its past while struggling for its future. Suppo...

Cartoons and live action living together in total harmony? Movie fan Mickey Noonan has picked a cinematic game changer for this month’s Flicking. Robert Zemeckis’s boundary-bashing, genre-mixing, Oscar-nabbing 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a tightly structured classical noir script packed to the gills with gags and boasting a career-best performance from delightful furball Bob Hoskins. A jo...

If you've not heard of 17th Century artist Artemesia Gentileschi, you're not alone. The good news is that Mickey's been on Zoom with author Elizabeth Fremantle to find out about Gentileschi's incredible life, what her beautiful but brutal paintings reveal about her story, and Elizabeth's new book Disobedient. Jen's chatting to journalist and author Paula Cocozza about her new book Speak To Me, and...

The world of sex, relationships and dating is a minefield, growing increasingly difficult to navigate thanks to the use of online apps. Fortunately, educator and social worker-turned-anonymous relationships expert, LalalaLetMeExplain is here to talk us through it. Known for her hilarious, honest and relatable advice – which she’s already turned into a book, Block Delete, Move On, and a regular col...

Cora Bissett isn’t just a woman of a whole load of talents, she's also a total smasher, so Hannah was delighted to natter about her award-winning show, What Girls Are Made Of. Returning to the Edinburgh Fringe for a third-time, it charts Cora’s time in early 90s indie band Darlingheart, so she and Hannah talk about the music industry then, the music industry now and being a teenager in a band.  Mi...

Writer, broadcaster and activist Sue Anstiss has been working in the women’s sports and fitness industry for the last 30 years, and has her fingers in a lot of pies. As well as setting up her own company, Fearless Women, and the Game Changers podcast, she also co-founded the Women’s Sport Collective, and is a founding trustee of the Women’s Sport Trust.   Having written award-nominated book Game O...

We've been spoiling you on the podcast with a lot of great chats with female TV writers of late, but some stuff we watch is written by men, too. If you can believe it. This month we're talking about Best Interests, The Gallows Pole, Black Mirror, Shrinking, There She Goes, White House Plumbers and Idris on a Plane*. * Actually called Hijack, which we can all agree is a missed opportunity. You can...

Tattooist Tanya Buxton has seen first hand what a difference some ink can make to body confidence. And for women who have undergone breast cancer surgery, Tanya’s work on areola tattoos has been life-changing. Mick caught up with her to chat about the hugely positive response from the women who have them, the frustration that comes from social media platforms censoring her work, and why she founde...

When was the last time you heard a female character talk about the menopause? Or saw her take a break from her family? Thanks to comedian and writer Bridget Christie, the answer might now be "yesterday", rather than "I dunno, the mid '90s maybe?" She chats to Hannah about her new Channel 4 sitcom The Change, as well as the change, and change in general. You are welcome. Support this show http://su...

We all need to worry about laws impinging on our right to keep our data, and specifically our phones, private. That's according to Kate Stonehill, director of new feature documentary Phantom Parrot. Jen got on the Zoom with her to talk about draconian laws, data security and what the hell a parrot has to do with any of this. And for pudding/dessert/afters*, Mickey's chatting to Tat Effby, a woman...

In a career spanning more than 40 years, Jude Kelly – theatre director, and CEO and founder of the WOW Foundation – has done A LOT. As well as her previous role as artistic director of London’s Southbank Centre, she also set up the hugely successful global Women of the World festival, and is one of the 17 founding “primadonnas” behind the Primadonna Festival, which returns for its fifth year, this...

Ruth Kelly’s debut thriller, The Villa, is a sharp social commentary on the dark side of reality TV, as well as a total page turner. She tells our Mick about her time watching people in a glass box in Bristol, why the viewers of reality telly are as complicit and culpable as the stars and the TV execs, and what it’s like to be the Miss World of ghostwriting.  Our Hazel Davis has been on the Zoom w...

Amazon's new murder-mystery series Deadloch is the latest project from Australian comedy pairing Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney. So, it's got many jokes and zero naked dead women. Hannah got on the Zoom with them to find out why this shouldn't be a radical concept but seems is, as well as writing in a tent in a park, getting recognised on the Bruny Island ferry and Australia's relationship with...

STOP PRESS: Hannah Dunleavy – yes, *our* Hannah Dunleavy – has only gone and picked a rom-com for Flicking. In the face of such a shocker, will Mick and Yosra even be capable of speech in order to share their thoughts on 1940’s ‘comedy of remarriage’ The Philadelphia Story, starring powerhouse trio Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant? Well, of course. Not least because there are some d...

It’s British Summer Time (almost)! What better way to celebrate than with some new music on the beach? In this week’s podzine, Jen catches up with Jessie Maryon Davies, musical director and composer, and Hannah Jane Walker, librettist of new song cycle, Herring Girls: Greater Than We Are Alone, which kicks off the First Light Festival in Lowestoft this weekend. They talk about social history, the...

Shubbak Festival is the UK's largest biennial celebration of contemporary Arab culture, bringing new and unexpected voices together with established artists to London – and other parts of the UK. It returns for its seventh edition this summer, from June 23 to July 9, so Mickey got on the Zoom with its joint CEOs, Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso and Alia Alzougbi, to find out more.  They chat about what to...

We're back to the witch hunts this week, albeit of a different kind, as Hannah chats to Sophie Perrins, producer of new documentary Forced Out. They chat about the hard reality of what it meant to be a gay man or a lesbian in the British military at the end of the 20th century and about the brave people who stood up to this huge injustice and, eventually, forced a change. Jen's chatting to author,...

Suzy Madigan, senior humanitarian advisor on gender and protection at international humanitarian charity CARE International, is a human rights specialist who’s worked as an international humanitarian aid worker for 15 years within the UN and NGOs. So, when it comes to humanitarian crises and responses to them, she very much knows her shit. And her name probably rings a bell, because Mickey chatted...

All good things come to an end and in this Outside The Box we talk about a few of them. So brace yourself for some Succession and Barry finale chat, as well as Mickey's better late than never Better Call Saul thoughts. Or should that be Better (late than never) Call Saul? Dunno. Moving on, we're also talking about the latest Inside No 9, Perry Mason, Malpractice, Poker Face, The Steeltown Murders ...

Witchcraft, witch hunts, and which witches are witch: in this week’s podzine, Hannah has a fascinating, feminist (obviously) chat to journalist India Rakusen about all things witch-related and her new podcast, Witch.   Jen’s chatting to Peaky Blinders’ Amber Anderson, star of a new production of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things at London’s Park Theatre, about cruel relationships, societal pressur...