The Trawl

The Trawl ladies begin by paying tribute to Hollywood legend, Gene Hackman who has passed away. Morgan Freeman spoke powerfully about him at The Oscar's and then Jemma and Marina select their other highlight from The Academy Awards which was the emotional moment when No Other Land won Best Documentary Feature. The film which you can see on Channel 4 is about life under occupation in the West Bank...

What a time to be alive. The news cycle is insane. Even people who normally don't talk about politics, are talking about politics - cue Susannah Constantine. In this episode Jemma and Marina revisit the various scenes from The Oval Office starting, of course, with Starmer's audience with the giant human wotsit that is Trump. Marina and Jemma both agreed that whilst it was faintly nauseating to wat...

Jemma and Marina have both followed Ashley on Instagram (where she has a gigantic following) for a while now so were delighted to discover that she listens to The Trawl regularly. Ashley is the political commentator on This Morning, a vocal feminist and passionate about sharing just as much 'reality' on Insta as she does glamour. With all that in mind, Marina and Jemma were fascinated to talk abou...

The pod opens by addressing the dilemma many of us face as we try to not raise politics in every conversation, despite it impacting almost every facet of our lives, and the ladies reveal a new word that we can all begin using more often to express how we feel. And no, it doesn't begin with c... Then it's onto Starmer's defense spending announcement which was so significant that the Reform poster b...

Jemma and Marina are concerned for any Trawlers who may have been left unsettled after their recent chat about Stormzy's controversial McDonald's deal so they are delighted to read a statement on the matter. Though it is written by Michael Spicer so tongues should be placed firmly in cheeks.  There is an over view of some terrible behaviour from various MP's and then we're off to CPAC (Conser...

The Trawl ladies are dismayed to learn that worldwide Joe Rogan has three billion listeners. His is the most popular podcast in the world which is why it's rather disturbing to hear him saying that Musk isn't doing anything for the money.....  Fortunately, plenty of other people, aren't as impressed and a clip of former governor Michael Steele, who was also chair of the Republican  ...

Just occasionally, social media can deliver something really heart warming and Jemma and Marina were moved by the fact that Jamie Theakston's listeners at Heart FM cared enough to make him see a doctor when they noticed his voice had changed. As a result he received a cancer diagnosis and fortunately now has been given the all clear. His words are really worth listening to.  And the BAFTA for...

The sun came out in Britain for about five minutes so Marina and Jemma thought they'd better begin this episode with that incredible news. Maybe blue sky (not the social media platform) will take the edge of the new world order?  But first, seeing as the news is borderline dystopian and jaw-droppingly surreal, it's only natural that the BBC should be focusing on Rachel Reeves' LinkedIn and wh...

Love, positivity, drama, scandal, horror, and chaos, it's  all  in the air during this episode of The Trawl. Marina has a theory. She suspects that Jemma had a lot of stuff bookmarked that wasn't appropriate for normal Trawls so has decided to do a Valentine's ep so she can sandwich it in. She might be right... The Trawl ladies kick off with some reasons to be cheerful and reminders that...

Marina has been feeling particularly overwhelmed by the news cycle lately so Jemma insists on joining in the UK conversation about identifying as llamas. Labour MP, Andrew Gwynne, has been fired for writing dodgy WhatsApps and his replacement tweeted (years ago) something about not caring if people want to identify as llamas. Cue right wing meltdowns from the usual suspects. Still, thankfully Lee...

Marina and Jemma open with a flicker of good news, before putting on their waders to get stuck into the latest political developments stateside... They revisit the ugly fallout from the two fatal air disasters, Trump's inane ramblings and the insanity of blaming diversity, equity and inclusion before turning their attention to the latest monstrosity to fall out of Trump's mouth when discussing his...

Jemma and Marina open with a nod to the five year Brexit anniversary, sharing details from all the wonderful celebratory street parties and endless Brexit benefits... Except they didn't, as they were and are none, as even GB News found out.    There's some chat around Starmer's trip to the EU and what it means before moving swiftly on to another country that is stupid enough to wage tari...

It’s the podcast that trawls social media so you don’t have to. Join political commentator Marina Purkiss and broadcaster Jemma Forte to find the most interesting, hilarious and sometimes ridiculous takes of the week’s trending news. Here’s a segment from some of their recent episodes on Trump ‘saving’ TikTok (and why we should be very worried) and whether Labour have just become Tories 2.0? Liste...

Marina and Jemma begin this episode talking about their various coping strategies for living through a political binfire and... January. They have classical music in common but a clip from comedian Michael Spicer causes them to wonder, is The Trawl the equivalent to Classic FM?  Then, they can't put if off any longer, it's time to find out what the newly inaugurated President has been up to a...

Jemma opens with some imaginings of a world far different from the one we inhabit now, where Trump is deposed, Putin is departed and David Attenborough leads the way, before swiftly moving on to the stark reality of our times... And yes, the world has indeed gone mad, so the first clip of this episode is a pure dose of sense and humanity, which just so happens to come from a 14 year old named...

He's back... Like a bad stench that won't go away, except now it's gone from foul, to putrid and dangerous. Jemma and Marina wade through the inauguration fall out, including an interesting case of f*ck around and find out.  They discuss The Village People anthem performed during Trump's big day, which feels like an interesting choice for the MAGA bigots, then it's onto Melania's hat choice (...

Marina and Jemma are finding January 'interesting.' Certainly 'Dry Janning' is beyond them. Trump's been inaugurated for goodness sake and there's a lot of batshittery to Trawl through before they can even begin on that!  In this one the Trawl ladies kick off by discussing the 'temporary' ceasefire in Gaza. There's a clip of actor, Guy Pearce, whose response encapsulates the underwhelm they'r...

Jemma and Marina were thrilled when two of the original members of UB40 agreed to come on The Trawl Meets. After all, the group are one of the most commercially successful bands of all time, having sold more records than Oasis, over 100 million to be precise. Of course they are almost as known for their political leanings as they are for their wonderful music so it's a match made in Trawl hea...

Everyone's favourite economy crasher is back on the scene... And she doesn't much like it when you call her that. Yes, Liz Truss is back and this time she's had a cease and desist letter issued to Keir Starmer over the 'defamatory' claim that she 'crashed the economy''. Ok hun. But litigious letters are likely the least of Starmer's worries after what was a monstrous week for Labour. Jemma and Mar...

Climate change reminded us it doesn't care one jot where you live or how much money you have last week. Marina and Jemma discuss the apocalyptic scenes from LA as fires tore through the region, with some personal experiences that Jemma has permission to share from her friends caught up in the catastrophe.  They discuss the perfect storm that led to this and how the fires were not unexpected -...

Over the Christmas period, Marina went down a rabbit hole she found completely fascinating. She was vaguely worried Jemma wouldn’t feel the same but she need not have worried.  This ep begins with a bit of ‘January’ comedy and ends with potential WW3. Cool!  But the meat in this strange sandwich, centres around US H-1B Visas which sounds horrifically dull. Only, when you look into what t...

The Trawl is back! Jemma and Marina are thrilled to be back behind their mics but could not have predicted the kind of fallout and controversy they'd be back with.  A certain tech bro, out of control billionaire, has been firing off tweets suggesting, amongst other things, that the US should exert economic pressure on the UK to get far-right agitator Tommy Robinson out of prison and that King...

The Trawl ladies are getting ready to get back to business. Their thumbs and brains have had a good rest from scrolling and the internet is getting ready for more politics based content. So this is the last 'special' episode before it's back to regular Trawling and Jemma and Marina are enormously grateful to everyone who sent in questions for them to answer and/or put in 'requests.' Find out how M...

On the first day of the New Year, Marina and Jemma aren't quite ready to look forwards. So instead they return to the Trawl archives to relive some of the weirdest and most wonderful parts from vintage episodes. Lots of laughs, some wonderful clips and a very healthy smattering of bell-ends. We hope you enjoy! Happy New Year! Thank you for sharing and do tweet us @MarinaPurkiss @jemmaforte @TheTra...

Jemma and Marina are in a nostalgic mood so have trawled through the Trawl archives to find some of their favourite bits from old episodes. A theme soon emerges. It transpires that the Trawl ladies are most prone to losing it whenever the Royals feature. Relive some of the Coronation chaos, some Paddington Pathos and a very special Order of the Bush.  But it's not all regal, there are weird p...