My favourite podcasts - International Podcasting Day

30^th September is International Podcasting day! I've always who gets to declare a day an international day of something . Surely the UN should be involved at a minimum?

Well no. Turns out anyone can if they can get enough traction going. Although it does help if you have a link to the field in question.  In this case Steve Lee (founder of the Modern Life Network) decided in 2013 that Podcasts needed celebrating more and thus International Podcasting day was born.

In celebration I thought I'd give a quick run down of some of my current favourite podcasts. If you're looking for something new why not check out an episode or two of these.

Spoiler Podcast 

A pop culture panel review show. Each episode covers a specific  film, book or TV show/episode  with a big old Spoiler warning in the very title of the show. They WILL discuss the plot twists so this is one to dip into episodes when they cover things you have already seen. But there is a fantastic selection from episodes reviewing stuff that was released decades ago to more recent releases of the last few years.  As well as the funny and insightful round-table discussion on the subject in hand  every episode also has a more built feature element covering a subject linked to the main topic. Like the Dumbo episode's feature on Walt Disney films most scary moments. One of my favourite episodes is the one covering the 80s classic "The Breakfast Club". Although that may have something to do with the fact that listening to it helped me to win a quiz night a few weeks later.

The Alusionist

Queen of British Podcasting, Helen Zaltzman, hosts this delightful delving into quirky aspects of language. A topic that in other hands could be dry is here thoroughly engrossing due to the choice of fascinating subjects (such as - why Americans and British can often think each other is rude due to the way they use "please"), Zaltzman's almost perfect presenting skills and the bite size nature of the podcast (most episodes are sub 20 mins)

Plumbing the death star 

A comedy one for the geeks, a free-form discussion between the two hosts about a question  posed about a geeky property. Some of the topics they delve into "Is the Empire Racist?" "How would you survive Groundhog day" and "Which Super Mario Bro would make the best Step-Dad"

It's quirky, Its fun but FYI it can get rude and sweary. But hey, choosing a Mario Bro for a step dad is passionate stuff, things are bound to get a little tense.

Welcome to Nightvale 

The First audio drama on my list and it is surreal genius. It takes the form of a community radio broadcast from the fictional town of Nightvale. A town where some very strange things go on.

Think 'Twin Peaks', or  'Eerie, Indianna'  and you'll get a feel for the weirdness level.  For the most part the only voice you hear is Cecil, the presenter of this fictional small town radio show. But other people do come in occasionally, being "interviewed" on the station or as a station intern (the equivalent of Star Treks Red-shirts). One guest recurring guest star has been Will Wheaton (Wesley from Star Trek TNG, or more recently playing himself on Big Bang Theory)

At first the episode seem quite self-contained but there are continuing plot points and arcs (such as the town mayoral election race) so it's well worth  starting from the beginning and working your way through.

British History podcast 

If you love history and want an in-depth guide through British history this is the podcast for you.  And I do mean in-depth. It starts at "pre-history" (before written records) and takes a very long route through every aspect of history you can think of. There are whole episodes dedicated to the food of a particular era, ones exploring aspects of the culture of average people, and when it deals with kings even that is subdivided into many episodes  to cover every possible angle the producer can think of.

To give you an idea of how in-depth this podcast goes, it has been going for over 5 years now and it's not even up to 1066 in the time-line.

But it's a fascinating and very well researched podcast that you will certainly learn things from.

Wooden Overcoats

The second radio drama on my list this one is a sit-com. Episodes follows the obstinate Rudyard Funn who runs a funeral home on island of Piffling. In the first episode a rival funeral home is opened by island newcomer Eric Chapman – a man who is more competent, more attractive and better liked than Rudyard. The rest of the series follows Rudyard's multiple attempts to sabotage Eric's business.

It is both brilliantly performed with great comic  timing and slickly produced, sounding  as smooth as anything  from the much more resourced BBC's radio production studios.

The Why Factor

A BBC podcast from the World Service and another one for people that like surprising fact they weren't necessarily expecting. Think of any question starting "why…." And it could be the topic for one of their episodes. Some recent episodes include "Why do crazes take off" and "Why do we find some voices so irritating".

Reply All

One in the American documentary/storytelling genre of podcasts made famous by This American Life, Reply All is a podcast about the internet.

Each episode they find a different real-life story or stories  that have some link to the internet and tell us that tale through narration and interviews. Sometimes its stories of internet dating at 60, Sometimes of those online messages you wish you could take back. The theme of the internet is only a starting point that sometimes leads to some gripping and personal stories.

Also check out

In the also-ran category for this this, worth checking out if you have the time

Answer me this  - Another Helen Zaltzman podcast (this time along with co-host Olly Mann). They answer listener's random questions

Home front – The BBCs World War one serial Drama, each episode originally released exactly 100 years after it is set.

This American Life – The grand-daddy of the US storytelling/documentary podcasts

Serial – The sensation that brought podcasting to the attention of the mainstream. 2 seasons available and a third apparently on the way.

Let me know any great podcasts I've missed out in the comments below.

For more information on International Podcasting day visit https://internationalpodcastday.com/ 

My week at drama school.

This time last year I was preparing to take part in a week long acting summer-school at the Guildford school of acting. 

Acting has been a hobby most of my life. Inspired by my mum and step-dads involvement I've been acting in amateur theatre almost constantly since was 8 years old. I even briefly considered applying to drama school before the cost put me off (£10k a Year was just too much and while may be norm for uni now, back then it was only £1.5k per year for a regular BA - so I went and did Media Production instead) 

But my dreams of attending a drama school were able to be (at least slightly) fulfilled when, many years later, I found out they did short summer courses. In the years leading up to a big birthday I floated the idea that paying for the course might be a good present idea for said big birthday to my significant other and a few family members and come my 30th... err, I mean undisclosed big birthday... I had the course booked for early August. 

Prep work included choosing and learning a monologue. so I scoured the various monologue books I could find to come up with something suitable. 

This is not easy. Nothing in these books seemed right. The ones I liked were for characters wildly differing in age from myself and one thing I did know was that it should be believable that you would be playing that role. Eventually I did find a comedy piece I quite liked but I had the nagging worry that it didn't have enough serious emotion in it to stand muster. But I was running out of time and I had to get learning, so I stuck with it. 

The next month's worth of commutes to work were made up of learning this monologue. That's pretty much when I learn lines for any acting I do. If I didn't have 2 hours of commuting on a train a day I honestly don't know when I would learn lines. 

Finally the week arrived and I made my way to Guildford for the first day. The strikingly obvious thing I noticed while waiting for registration was that the average age of attendees on these summer course were more than a decade younger than me. not that I was the oldest student there mind you. There were a couple of guys who looked in their 40s who were there for the singing course and one person I got chatting to in a coffee queue who was a year older than me and there for dance. And once I was registered in my acting class I found out that a couple of the people were only a few years younger than me. It's no doubt that these courses are primarily taken up by a-level students looking to a) try out different drama schools before applying for a full 3 year course (many were going on 2 or three courses at different schools over the summer) and b) to develop skills and learn techniques that would help them in the auditions to those drama school.

But whatever your age don't let that put you off if you're a non-teenage acting enthusiast. It's a worthwhile experience for anyone interested in acting regardless of if you aspire to make it a career or just a hobby, and you will learn a lot. 

Be prepared to be put through your paces though. Every day started with a vigorous effort half an hour warm up. Basically a full on arobics session complete with catchy rhythmic music. At the start of the week it almost killed me, but by the end I was coping much better and I could see that doing this everyday I could actually get quite fit. 

We had a lesson schedule for the week. Days were divided into different sessions covering different acting techniques. We had lessons on Laben movement technique (analysing ways the body moves that can be used in everything from interpretive dance to how your character in a play flicks a piece of lint of his jacket), lessons on Shakespeare performance (damn that iambic pentameter is tricky) , lessons on voice,  (How to use it, how to carry it).

All of these were useful in some way or another but I think the class I gained most from was the 'Actioning' sessions. 

Actioning is a rehearsal technique that aids in interpreting the text and deciding on a performance of it. I'm sure I won't do the technique justice here but, in an effort to sum it up, it's essentially the giving of each of your lines... Well actually each of your characters thoughts (which basically translates to each of your characters sentences) an 'action verb'. Something that could fill the blank in "I ........ you" 

So, "I scold you" or "I caress you" could be examples. These should be the desired effect your characters wants  to have on the person they are speaking to and they should be chosen to achieve your characters 'objective in that scene' 

You can see quite quickly that playing a line in a play with the action 'Scold' would produce a very different reading to 'caress'.

and remember these aren't (necessarily) physical actions. They are the intent behind the word. You can play a line with 'caress' as the action without actually physically caressing the other person. 

That's a very quick summery that doesn't do justice to the full scale of the technique so I'd recommend anyone to read up more on it. It's a very time consuming and often difficult process but you may well find your performances transformed by it. 

Or go take a short course. You may find there are still some slots on this year's summer courses but if not there is alway next year... And that will at least give you some time to hunt out that perfect monologue.