Welcome to the next in the Podcast Showcase series, where we share podcasts with you in the words of the podcasters themselves. This time, we talk to Partly Political Broadcast.
Sum up your podcast in three sentences
It’s a comedy politics podcast that has gags about the previous week’s political news so you can laugh while despairing. Each week there is an interview with someone who actually knows things, as well as in-depth looks at current issues replete with terrible puns.
It is hosted by me, Tiernan Douieb, a political comedian who doesn’t understand politics all that much and makes this podcast for other people who need politics talked about in a clearer and sillier way.
Who is your ideal listener? Who loves your show?
Anyone who is interested in politics but is bored of the way its uncritically discussed on the news without context, or more importantly, much needed swearing or humour. Listeners are a real mix of ages, politics and even location despite it being largely about British politics.
My ideal listener would be any of the cabinet ministers so they might learn something, but I’ve got a feeling they just wouldn’t understand it.
What made you start this podcast?
I was writing a lot of political jokes for my stand-up shows and finding that with world events being as volatile as they have been, they’d go out of date within a week, or even a day. So, I thought putting them out as a podcast might be a better way to get them to a larger audience while they were still relevant and it might stop me shouting them at people in the park.
Also, I was fed up with most news shows ignoring what had gone before when talking about current politics, discussing it like they don’t want half the audience to understand it, and rarely pointing out hypocrisies.
And I just selfishly thought that if I do a podcast asking experts, campaigners and activists the questions I want to ask about ground level politics then I can learn from it too. Plus, I get to swear a lot about politics which is how it should always be discussed.
What have you learned about your subject thanks to this podcast?
Absolutely loads across all areas of politics from public ownership, immigration policy, economics, global politics, modern slavery and more. It’s been pretty enlightening being able to talk to such a wealth of guests over the past 5 years, but also have to learn about subjects myself in order to write jokes about it.
I’ve also learned that listeners have a high tolerance for terrible jingles and 90s pop culture references, which I appreciate.
What has your experience of podcasting been? What do you love / hate about the process?
It’s been a lot of learning how to do it all from scratch. The first 100 episodes of the podcast sounded terrible, and I probably lost a lot of listeners as I had no clue just how to produce it (despite the endless, far too long YouTube vids explaining all).
But I love that I can do exactly the content I want to do and get it out to listeners without delay, even if its rubbish. No one can stop me!
I wish I didn’t have to edit it though or promote it so that anyone notices it amongst the 7 billion other podcasts out there.
If someone wants to start listening to your podcast, which episode would you recommend they start with? Why?
Well, its topical, so probably the most recent episode! But of all recent guests, the chats with Dr Chris Roberts about the state of British media and Ramya Jaidev from Windrush Lives were particularly fascinating chats, and a lot of listeners got in touch about my interview with Musa Okwonga back in Feb about his new book about his experience of Eton and private schooling.
Which other podcasts do you love listening to?
Like everyone else on earth I love Adam Buxton’s one, and The Blind Boy podcast. Nikesh Shukla’s Brown Baby podcast is always interesting, Alexie Sayle’s podcast is a constant joy, TrashFuture is very funny and far too savvy and Dear Joan And Jericha makes me laugh and grimace at the same time. I also find the US podcast ‘Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes’ a really useful listen, and Love+Radio is a regular listen too.
If people want to find you online, where can they do so? Drop your links here (social media, podcast subscription, etc.)
I’m @TiernanDouieb on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook (even though I am rubbish at Facebook as I don’t want Zuckerberg stealing my brain thoughts). www.tiernandouieb.co.uk is my website. But @parpolbro is the podcast twitter, the Partly Political Broadcast group on Facebook and it has its very own website at partlypoliticalbroadcast.co.uk too.
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