Standard Issue Podcast

You’ll no doubt recognise award-winning actor Rakie Ayola from her wide-ranging stuff on the telly – from Black Mirror to EastEnders to Doctor Who to Noughts + Crosses to Holby City – or you may have seen her at the theatre in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime or as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter And The Cursed Child or, most recently, in her award-winning turn as Noni in On Bear...

Lots of returning BBC comedy series this month, but we still had time to take a look at the finale of Line of Duty, Viewpoint and its ensuing shitshow, Kate Winslet in Mare of Easttown and Ian Wright's Home Truths. We tackle one of those newly-returned series, This Time With Alan Partridge, and Hannah's also been laughing at Leonardo, although not sure that's what they were hoping when they made i...

The old world slowly returns, so Hannah's been on the blower to Standard Issue fave and new comedian Vix Leyton to chat about how she's salvaged a good year from a very bad one and our gradual reset to "normal". With Covid vaccine take-up still low among black and ethnic minority communities, Jen's been chatting to the Runnymede Trust's Halima Begum to find out why, as well as what the proposed Co...

For millennia, men have written the narrative around women's bodies and sexuality, and this applies to visual representations too, says Dr Catherine McCormack, art historian, independent curator, and author of the new book Women In The Picture: Women, Art And The Power Of Looking. Jen caught up with Catherine to talk about just that, as well as the debate around censorship and whitewashing history...

Masturbation, owed orgasms, shame, grief and the word 'moist': all of them get a look-in during Mick's wide-ranging chat with excellent poet Hollie McNish, whose brilliant new book, Slug is a bona-fide gem. Hannah catches up with Julie Gearey, writer and creator of new SkyOne sci-fi series Intergalactic, to chat the joys of a feminist Con Air in particular, and women in sci-fi in general. In Jenny...

Leone Ross’s incredible third novel, This One Sky Day (published as Popisho in the US), is a joyous magic realism adventure into self-acceptance and the power of people.  It led to Leone and our Mick having a wide-roaming natter, which covers self-discovery, self-acceptance, the joy of sauce, the food we need, workaday magical powers, the power of pum-pums (vulvas, if you’re wondering), transforma...

This month Mick takes us on a nostalgic voyage as the team revisits one of her childhood favourites, 1980's Leslie Nielson comedy vehicle, Airplane! Daft as you like and full to the brim with gags, but just how recently has Mick watched it and how will her Millennial co-pilots, Yosra and Jen, feel about it? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See ac...

How do you feel about being sad? It might be hard to feel good about it, but journalist Helen Russell has some excellent reasons to stop fearing it, as she chats to our Jen about her new book, How To Be Sad: Everything I've Learned About Getting Happier, By Being Sad, Better.  Mick’s been on the Zoom with Lara Parmiani, artistic director of Legal Aliens Theatre Company, to chat about Things I Am N...

Personal testimony is a powerful part of the national debate about sexual abuse and in this week's Chops, Hannah gets on the Zoom with Journalist Lizzy Dening to find out more about her website Survivor Stories. They chat about how lockdown has impacted survivors of sexual abuse, how "telling your story" can help you to move on and why the words "what was she doing out at that hour?" should get in...

The world is opening up again, but do all of us feel ready for it? Mick's been on the phone with Standard Issue's favourite psychotherapist, Jane Watson, to find out how to ease ourselves back into the old normal and what to do if we like the new normal too much for that. Jen catches up with Faye Bell, founder of Strong and Bendy fitness studio to chat about post-Covid gymming. In Rated or Dated,...

Eating disorders have, unusually, made the news a fair bit during the course of the pandemic, which – perhaps unsurprisingly – has seen a rise in eating disorders. And while the official stats aren’t available as yet, professionals are also reporting a surge in self-harming behaviour, not just in adults, but also among children, some as young as eight. Mickey and journalist Kelly Welles chat about...

Mother of God, Line of Duty is back and we've thoughts, loads of them. There's also a whole lot to say about the end of an era for Unforgotten, and three-part ITV series Too Close. Mick's got a lot of good things to say about the Tina Turner documentary, TINA, and Hannah's been watching a documentary about the Great Famine in Ireland. Never let it be said that we lack breadth. Support this show ht...

Narratives around race and ethnicity continue to be reductive and damaging, says journalist Natalie Morris, who chatted to Jen about her new book Mixed/Other, as well as identity, entitlement, and the limitations of the census. Hannah’s found out some juicy gossip about her family, so she’s caught up with Professor Rebecca Probert about the history of divorce and – SPOILER ALERT – bigamy. In Jenny...

Women are often missing from history, their roles downplayed, their achievements diminished. In this week's Chops, Hannah chats to three women on a mission to correct this: Ailsa Holland, Tania Hershman and Jo Bell. After the success of the @OnThisDayShe Twitter account, they've released a weighty book, also entitled On This Day She, which as they tell Hannah, is filled with tales of brilliant, pi...

This weekend is the British Library's HistoryFest, so Hannah's been on the Zoom with one of this year's speakers, Dr Peggy Brunache, to find out more about the trans-Atlantic slave trade and what myth should be thrown in the bin forever. Mickey catches up with Katherine Kotz, multi-hyphenate in the arts, and curator of an excellent new online short-film festival called The Motherhood Project at th...

Covid 19 has given the handshake a bad rap, reckons explorer and paleoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi, who set out to explore the origins and significance of the greeting in her book The Handshake: A Gripping History. She chatted to Jen about why she is a massive advocate for the handshake, why it's probably not gone for good, and why some of us have really missed physical contact in our lives, ove...

Brace yourself for Hannah's naming of the genre of film that British filmmakers have absolutely mastered and of which 2014's Pride – the (based on a true) story of the 1980s alliance between London gay-rights activists and striking Welsh miners – might just be the pinnacle. Yosra's onboard, but will Mick's po-faced feminism ruin everything?  Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardiss...

We're not always singing from the same hymn sheet as other women's magazines, but that doesn't mean we don't find the whole industry fascinating. So this week, Mickey got on the phone to Nina-Sophia Miralles to chat about the history of one its biggest beasts, Vogue, which Nina charts in her new book Glossy. Jen's chatting hormones, training and women's sport with The Well HQ's Baz Moffat and Dr E...

American poet and essayist Molly McCully Brown’s latest book, Places I’ve Taken My Body, is a collection of personal essays that travel the physical, emotional and mental journeys of a life in all its frustration, pain, limitations, joy, humour and colour, told through Molly’s lens of living with cerebral palsy.  Molly chats to Mickey about disability and desire, treating a body with kindness (and...

At just 20 years old, Ameena Hamid is Britain’s youngest theatre producer and a champion of those whose stories don't get told. She chats to Hannah about supporting young graduates, putting underrepresented voices centre stage, and why it’s key that theatre pays attention to who its audience is and – crucially – who its audience can be. Grooming and exploitation of children has risen during lockdo...

When Delphine Minoui, journalist and Middle East correspondent for Le Figaro, discovered a photo of an underground library amid the rubble and battleground of the besieged Syrian city of Daraya, she had to find out more. And so started the incredible story of The Book Collectors of Daraya, an incredible tale of rebels, bravery and books. Mickey chats with Delphine about Daraya, the rebels she befr...

We're sooo close to being allowed to do anything else other than watch TV, but with a few weeks still to go, here's what we've been enjoying and not enjoying over the last month. We give a big cheer about the return of Unforgotten and an even bigger cheer that The Terror is finally on the proper telly. Hannah would like it to be known that she told you so. Mick's been watching Your Honour and Pret...

Working from home has been the bane of many people’s lives over the last 12 months, but Harriet Minter, journalist, broadcast and author of new book Working From Home, reckons there are some pretty serious pros, as well. She tells Hannah all about finding out how, where and when you work best to optimise performance. Meanwhile, we’ve been rummaging in our family trees with this week’s podcast spon...

Is there a place for seminal second-wave feminist Betty Friedan in modern feminist thinking? On what would have been the 100th anniversary of her birth, Thread has published Friedan’s classic text, The Feminine Mystique (originally published in 1963), as an e-book. Journalist Gaby Hinsliff has written the intro and she joins our Mickey in the sixth and final interview in our International Women’s...

Ideas around feminism might change over time, but the battles feminists face have alarming continuity. Dr Hannah Dawson, historian of ideas at King's College London, has charted feminist thought from 1405 through to the present day in The Penguin Book of Feminist Writing. In the fifth episode of our International Women's Day 2021 series, she chats to Jen about just that, the writers that shaped he...