Feeling festive yet? I am, because my Christmas starts with the absolute mayhem that is Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball on the first weekend in December. For those unfamiliar with this seasonal treat, it’s a five-hour concert at London’s O2, packed full of stars, who each play a handful of their biggest hits. This year features artists as varied as Kylie (first hit 1988), Tinie Tempah (2010) and Alex Warren (the biggest single in the UK this year).
Capital’s breakfast show team of Jordan North, Chris Stark and Siân Welby are our hosts and both nights are a scream-tastic sugar rush. So spare a thought, not for me and my daughter who always enjoy ourselves, but for the huge team bringing everything “live” (a bit delayed and edited) to Capital Radio on Saturday and Sunday night and , as well as delivering a TV show next weekend. They’ll be thoroughly jingled out.
If that hasn’t encouraged you to get in the festive spirit, may I recommend Katherine Ryan’s Christmas Intervention. In it, the comedian works through all the potential hazards of this most wonderful time of year: family fallouts, awkward yuletide dinner choices, travelling. She does so in the company of her patient husband, Bobby, and her energetic teenage daughter, Violet, and also brings in various celebrity friends.
These are labelled the “ghosts of Christmas future” (the idea is that they can improve our festivities through their advice) and include comedians Josh Widdicombe and Tom Allen, actor Larry Lamb, plus the journalist Bryony Gordon, whose advice is the most useful. She suggests forgoing cooking for eating in a local restaurant, and also reminds us: “Christmas is a state-given holiday. For three days, you don’t have to do anything … it’s about relaxing!”
Ryan is, of course, a delightful broadcaster: fluent, self-aware, snarky without being nasty – and really funny. Her family stories are relatable (a full-on row with an aunt who was sniffy about her mother’s festive outfit; and her mum’s insistence on making bean tacos one year, resulting in everyone ordering a takeaway), as is her self-imposed commitment to ensuring that everything is perfect (“Father Christmas does fuck all … it’s Mother Christmas who does everything!” agrees Gordon).
Related articles:
“Father Christmas does fuck all … it’s Mother Christmas who does everything!”
Sadly, about 10 minutes into Joe Marler Will See You Now, I felt a strong desire to switch over to a seasonal playlist. Marler, a breakout star of The Celebrity Traitors – the only faithful in the show who had a clue what was going on – is lovely, charming and clever. I’ve also no doubt that, as a former rugby union player, he’s good with a ball. Generally, he’s fab – but he’s not a podcast host. His responses to his guests are too slow, his jokes drawn out.
Comedian Jake Bhardwaj is there to keep things bubbly, and Marler’s first interviewees, his Traitors co-stars Nick Mohammed and Lucy Beaumont, are witty and warm. But the pacing is off and the conceit – that Marler asks deep questions in a psychotherapist vein – doesn’t work. At one point, Mohammed does a card trick, which is fine if you’re watching the show on video, but is useless if you’re listening to the audio. Marler should broadcast more, but this isn’t the right vehicle. He needs to be out and about, chatting with others, doing things. The idea, lifted from Traitors, is that he’s good at reading people. Actually, he’s good at being with people – and that’s what a producer should get him to do.
While we’re talking Traitors, the hilarious hero of the series, Alan Carr, also has a new podcast, Bottoms Up! With Alan Carr and Lee Peart. A little surprisingly, it’s about wine (it’s sponsored by Laithwaites) and in it, friends Carr and Peart (inset) aim to learn from sommeliers and other experts. It’s a hoot, of course, with Peart more than a match for Carr.
Their wine interest apparently stemmed from a trip they took to Cape Town, where they had a chardonnay that they weren’t keen on until they drank it with melon. Then, says Carr, Peart came over “a little bit When Harry Met Sally”. Now they want to get more sophisticated, to understand the difference between grapes, or what a particular year might mean. There are a lot of camp jokes – “I’m getting wood!” shouts Carr during a tasting – but, among the hilarity, I found myself learning quite a bit too.
Spotify released its annual Wrapped feature last week – a chart of what’s performed best over the year, from songs to shows – and it informs us that The Diary of a CEO is the UK’s favourite podcast. What is wrong with you all? Steven Bartlett, who interviews the likes of Jason Fung, Gary Brecka, Neal Barnard and Natalie Dawson does so badly, often appearing to zone out as his guests speak, perhaps day-dreaming about how to make more money.
Still, I’m happy to see Louis Theroux among the US offerings. He’s there alongside four The Rest Is … shows, proving that Goalhanger really is the British podcast company of our time.
Photographs by Alamy/ Tom Harrison