“At their best and most powerful, podcasts are a celebration of community and togetherness, and no one sums that up better than Michael.” says James, who’ll be sitting down with Palin on Friday 4 July at 5pm in Sheffield City Hall.
“Michael grew up in Sheffield so to have him back there talking about his early years of school and amateur dramatics in the city will be a complete pleasure. Let’s just hope I can convince him to start a podcast full time!”
The Radio 1 breakfast show host reflects on the paradox of the intimate medium of podcasting being translated into a large public space: “Radio and podcasts are wonderfully intimate for the listener, but all the while, they’re quietly creating beautiful communities for like-minded people.
“It’s always lovely to meet someone who knows the same in-jokes and nuances of a podcast you listen to. To have somewhere for everyone to congregate in real life and celebrate togetherness is something we all crave.”
“Like all good major national events, the idea started over a curry and a walk in the Peak District – the three of us were after that feeling of getting people together in one place, with a shared language of in-jokes and references for people who’d been listening to their favourite podcast from the beginning. We couldn’t believe it hadn’t been done.”
She says: “There’s something special about podcasting in its original form – intimate, sometimes meditative – and then there’s this other thing, which is community and celebration, putting faces to those listeners who’ve contributed.”
“It was a less crowded market then for sure,” she remembers of its debut in 2015. Inspired by the erotic books written by the dad of her university friend Jamie Morton, the show was “recorded around the kitchen table and just put out there”.
“I remember the day (co-host) James Cooper came in and said he’d seen someone listening to us on the Tube. We had quite striking artwork so we could spot when people had us on their phone.”
Further demonstration of the mushrooming popularity of the medium is that, in just its second year, the Festival now has the BBC as a partner, with Frank Skinner, Russell Kane’s Evil Genius and Sara Cox among the Corporation’s free ticket offerings this weekend.
“I’ll be wherever Michael Palin is to make sure he’s happy as we’re so honoured to have him there,” adds James. “But when it’s all done, we’ll be getting very drunk with the Tailenders gang at Fagan’s.”
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