Social media can be irritating and toxic, but it’s also an excellent way of discovering talent, particularly funny talent. Daft skits and witty reactions is what I’m here for, and that has led me to Alexandra Haddow and Alistair Green, two very different funny people who both have new audio offerings.
Haddow, a standup and alternative music queen who runs a club called Indie Amnesty, has joined forces with Adam Flood, her friend and fellow comic. Their new podcast, Adam & Alex’s Indie Supergroup, has a fun idea as its basis: essentially, they interview a member of an indie band of the 2000s and 2010s and decide whether he (it is almost always a he) can join their fictional indie supergroup. You can imagine this concept becoming hard to sustain (there are only so many such indie bands, only so many stars who want to chat), but Haddow and Flood have managed to gather quite the NME haul for their first 10 shows, including Preston from the Ordinary Boys and Abi from the Zutons. There are a few comedians in there, too, understandably.
Haddow and Flood are great hosts, as welcoming, witty and at ease as Greg James and Alice Levine of the Bad Chat podcast (yes, this is high praise, but they really are good). Rich Archer from Hard-Fi (pictured far right with the band) is their first guest – “This is a job interview, right?” he says. “So call me Richard” – and the conversation is interesting from the off, with Archer revealing that his 10-year-old son helped write a recent Hard-Fi song (not as twee as that sounds), and discussing how his teenage job at Treasure Island in Thorpe Park paid for first guitar.
Some of Flood’s questions are a little novelty – “Do you know what these modern gen Z words mean?” is never going to reveal very much – but Archer smoothly brings in contemporary politics and elements of real life. He’s a thoughtful interviewee and this first show is a delightfully easy listen. So many new podcasts take a while to settle in: Indie Supergroup is already there. (And, yes, it’s a visual show too; I did have a look, as that’s the modern podcasting way, but there’s nothing to drag you from the audio.)
Green is a talented satirical performer whose Instagram feed features his nailed-on impressions of a 6 Music dad, a half-arsed Reform voter or (my favourite) a nepo baby musician. His acting is so pin-perfect that many online commenters don’t realise it’s satire; he has an unerring ability to walk the line between hilarious and toe-curling.
His obvious gifts have secured him the muted honour of a 15-minute, late-night Radio 4 slot, The Big Idea with Alistair Green. This is a mickey-take of a business interview podcast, complete with terrible background music and opening pitch. First interviewee: Matt Matthews (also played by Green), owner of upstart craft beer company Punk Squirrel IPA . The comedy is a little soft; partly because the character voices Green chooses aren’t that different from each other, and partly because the satire is too broad.
The appalling Matthews is obviously based on people such as the BrewDog co-founder James Watt, but the character is too non-specific to hit home. We need odd little details. Still, there are moments, mostly provided by Green as podcast host: he is an Alan Partridge-in-waiting. And I’m happy Green is on Radio 4, but the format doesn’t make the most of his enormous talent. Even an audiophile such as me ends up missing his expressions, the way his face unwillingly betrays the truth as a horrible realisation slowly spreads across it.
The Runnymede Trust is the UK’s leading independent thinktank on racial justice and has been making podcasts for a while. Its latest series, Unpacked: Young People and Violence, looks at established British systems and how they affect youngsters according to race (and class). 1Xtra Talks host Richie Brave presents, and from the start we hear about micro and macro aggressions.
In the first show, teenager Ami describes being in the alley behind her house, dressed in her school uniform with a black coat, and being shoved up against the fence by three older white policemen. “They didn’t ask how old I was … if I even lived there,” she says. “They just told me I looked suspicious and now they’re gonna search me.” The rapper Koj notices how Ami described her clothes before she got to her story: “It shows how baked in the idea is that a black person wearing black clothes is a criminal.”
Dr Becky Clarke, a lecturer in sociology, points out that such situations are born not only from governmental policies but also “a collective memory” in the police that “this is where the problem is and this is where we will go and target activity”.
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The fourth episode discusses girls’ particular experiences and includes the fantastic poet Lady Unchained, a brilliant podcast presenter herself, along with the barrister Ife Thompson, who speaks about how black girls are treated in education. “If the way you show up in the world is seen as something to be excluded or something to be punished, then you’re going to have low levels of racial esteem,” she says. Your identity is shaped not only by how you see yourself, but by how you are seen by others, especially those in positions of authority.
These thoughtful shows will be useful for schools or for anyone who may want to start a discussion with teenagers. You’d hope that someone in government will listen as well, but let’s not hold our breath.
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Photograph by Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC Via Getty Images