Standard Issue Podcast

Loads of TV to chat about this month, but does any of it tickle our fancy? In this episode we talk about Trigger Point, Chloe, The Tinder Swindler, The Responder, Screw, Misha and The Wolves and more. Plus, Hannah explains why she's not watching Inventing Anna and is totally #TeamRachel. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for...

After finding herself stuck in a decade-long cycle of toxic and controlling relationships, comedian and writer Maddy Anholt embarked on a period of self-reflection, therapy, and research about the perpetrators of domestic abuse. She caught up with Jen to talk about her new book How To Leave Your Psychopath, patterns of abuse and being endorsed by Melanie Brown. Sobriety coach Veronica Valli is on...

Frayed, Sarah Kendall’s comedy drama set in 1980s Australia, is well worth your time and with Frayed 2 due to land on Sky One on Wednesday 23 February, our Mick got on the Zoom with the writer and comedian to find out more. They chat writers rooms, punchy storylines, Yellowjackets, T-shirts, toenails, and creating one of the most unlikeable leads on television. Support this show http://supporter.a...

Fanology, personal ads, two world wars, Aids, racism and homophobia: the path to satisfying dating never has run smooth. Mick discovers all this and more in her chat with journalist, broadcaster and dating expert Nichi Hodgson. It’s 80 years this week since the US signed what became known as the Japanese Internment Bill, so Hannah has a fascinating chat with author Andrea Warren about her latest h...

Currently making us laugh in Radio 4/BBC Sounds' The Train At Platform 4, Rosie Cavaliero is a familiar face to anyone who's watched almost any British comedy in recent years. She talks to Hannah about the highs and lows of train travel, radio acting, being "the female Kevin Eldon", being covered in pustules in front of Jon Hamm, and a terrifying flight through the Himalayas.  Support this show ht...

Mile-high wigs, sweets galore, sumptuous sets, a punk soundtrack and a laissez-faire regard for historical facts: all present and correct in Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst in the title role. It's one of our resident film buff Yosra Osman's favourites and a new watch for Hannah and Mick. What did they make of it? Find out. Maybe have some cake as you listen – it's what she...

Beatrix Potter was a woman of many talents and with Drawn To Nature, a new exhibition dedicated to her life and work, opening this weekend at the V&A, Hannah got on the Zoom with Helen Antrobus, one of its curators, to find out more. Jen's chatting to Hillary Jordan and Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, creators, editors and contributors to Anonymous Sex, a new collection of erotic fiction. In Jenny Off The Blo...

Sheffield Theatres is 50 and is opening its anniversary season with a big one: Anna Karenina. Often acclaimed as the best novel ever written, Leo Tolstoy’s epic narrative is an immense canvas of desire, duty and defiance, adultery, passion and suicide told over more than 800 pages. A piece of cake to bring to the stage, right?  Helen Edmundson’s much-celebrated adaptation does some of the heavy li...

On the bus home from her diagnosis of degenerative hearing condition otosclerosis, journalist and broadcaster Helena Merriman got thinking about the experiences of others on the receiving end of life-changing diagnoses. In this week’s podzine, she talks to Mick about Room 5, her latest series for Radio 4, a collection of stories about lives that change in a heartbeat and the process of diagnosis a...

Ever wondered where the weird and wonderful workouts of the women’s fitness industry originated? Danielle Friedman did, which is why the journalist and author decided to research and write a book about the history of women’s fitness. In this week’s Chops, the last of January so possibly at the point at which you’re thinking of ditching any new year’s fitness resolutions, Danielle chats to Jen abou...

Ann Dowd – sorry… ANN DOWD! – joins Hannah on this week’s podcast to talk about her new film Mass, the Oscar buzz surrounding her performance, Aunt Lydia, The Leftovers, feral nuns and making it over 35.  Jen chats to Sonita Gale, about her BAFTA long-listed new documentary, Hostile, the history of immigration to the UK, and the realities of the hostile environment for the very many people living...

“Random angry woman” Fiona Mackenzie was appalled when she saw the ‘rough sex’ defence being used in the horrific killing of Natalie Connolly in 2016 – a defence which, in December 2018, saw her killer sentenced to just three years and eight months in prison. And so Fiona did something about it, starting We Can’t Consent To This to highlight and then to campaign against men claiming ‘consensual ro...

It's the first Outside The Box of 2022 and we're talking about a whole load of telly, including Anne, Rules of The Game, Four Lives, The Girl Before, The Green Planet and Yellowjackets. We also find out if anyone is still watching And Just Like That.... Spoiler alert: Jen is - even if she's not entirely sure why.  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast....

Would you want to predict the future, if you could? This week, Hannah is chatting to actor writer and disability activist Athena Stevens, about her play The Diagnosis, in which another Cassandra is doomed not to be believed - again. Journalist Hazel Davis gets on the Zoom to author Jenn Ashworth to talk about unreliable narrators, listening to your own books and her latest novel, Ghosted. Jen's go...

Most people think they've got a grasp on history when it comes to the Tudors, but how much of that knowledge comes from pop culture or male historians? This week, Hannah chats to Dr Andrea Clarke, curator of The British Library's fantastic exhibition Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens. They talk about Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots, how they were similar and how they were...

Fauns and fascism ahoy, as Hannah gets Yosra and Mick to watch Guillermo Del Toro’s 2006 dark fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth, set in post-civil war Spain. It throws up a lot of questions: Just how good is Ivano Baquero? Would you trust a fairy-tale creature? Who in the 21st Century is buying little statues of Francisco Franco? And why does Mick Jagger get a mention?  Also contains – inevitably – some hi...

Some of us made plans to “better ourselves” to mark the advent of 2022, so Mick got on the Zoom with our resident psychotherapist Jane Watson, to talk about why we make new year’s resolutions, why we break them and how we can all be a bit kinder to ourselves.   In Jenny Off The Blocks, Jen has a natter with two-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick, about an amazing year in women's motorsports and...

Northern Ireland is so often absent from our media and from the arts in the UK, so Hannah has been on the Zoom with Kate Reid, the writer of new play The 4th Country, and one of its stars, Rachael Rooney. They chat about a time of great change in the province and why England's view of it is so often wrong, as well as the highs and lows of rehearsing under the ever-present threat of a new lockdown....

In the first podzine of 2022, Mickey asks ‘new year, new business?’ as she catches up with Karen Campbell: marketing consultant, small business enthusiast, owner of Hotsy Totsy – a supper club and community for brilliant women – and fierce champion of female entrepreneurs. They’re chatting about why you should start your own business, the pandemic’s silver lining for small business owners, the joy...

Since it’s Christmas and it’s been a while since we could all enjoy regular live shows, Hannah, Mick and Jen have each chosen a favourite gigcast from, dare we say, better times, and they’re all corkers. Yes, you did read the title correctly, and yes, we did, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2018, gather together on stage Luisa Omielan, Janeane Garofalo and SU POLLARD, alongside the boss, Sarah Millican...

Picture this: September 2017, Leicester Square Theatre, Sarah Millican, Kerry Godliman, Jenny Eclair and Olivia Colman onstage. And Mickey. Yeah, Mick could barely believe it either. So imagine her delight when it turns out she and Olivia Colman are equally disgusting. Hannah, Mick and Jen have each chosen a favourite gigcast from, dare we say, better times, and they’re all corkers. In this one, t...

Oh hello November 2016, nice to see you again. And, yes, we really mean it, because in a terrible month, in a terrible year, something great did happen. And that was that Hannah got to be onstage with the boss - Sarah Millican - and two titans of comedy, Jo Brand and Kathy Burke. Hannah, Mick and Jen have each chosen a favourite gigcast from, dare we say, better times, and they’re all corkers. In...

It's been a funny old year for, well, everything really, and sport is no exception. In this week's Sunday Chops, Jen and journalists Dr Carrie Dunn and Natasha Henry look back at women's sport in 2021. They talk about all the hot topics, including how big an impact the pandemic has had on women's sport, whether or not the success of Emma Raducanu is set to be a flash in the pan, and exactly what d...

Happy Last Podcast Before Christmas Day! This week, Jen's chatting to Philli Boyle, a founding member and director of partnerships for the charity Choose Love, about the migrant crisis, winning hearts and minds, and how we can all help by choosing love this Christmas. Hannah gets on the Zoom with our favourite cinema fan, Yosra Osman, to find out what top films of 2021 we can all tuck into over th...

She’s going to hate us for that title pun. And rightly so. Being a comedian called Elf at Christmas is just one of the things that our Mick is chatting to Elf Lyons about in this episode of the Sunday Chops. They also talk being a teacher in the pandemic, dealing with hecklers, the comedy industry’s #MeToo movement, her Soho Theatre show Elf Lyons Talks Dirty For An Hour, and guinea pigs. Obviousl...