How Did We Get Here? | Somethin’ Else
The Coffin Club (BBC World Service) | BBC Sounds
Podcasts, with intimacy at their heart, lend themselves well to therapy-like conversations. No surprise, then, that there are many podcasts based on mental health: one-on-one interviews with people who have been depressed, or gone through bad times. There are also podcasts of actual therapy sessions, professional talks between therapist and client, the most successful and famous being the real-life couples’ therapy conducted by Esther Perel. And now we have How Did We Get Here? Produced by indie powerhouse Somethin’ Else, this is a therapy-esque podcast hosted by TV presenter Claudia Winkleman and child and adolescent clinical psychologist Dr Tanya Byron. Winkleman and Byron are friends who met and last worked together on the fantastic BBC3 series House of Tiny Tearaways.
How Did We Get Here? is nominally about parent-child relationships, though, as with most therapy, the subject matter often widens and changes focus. How it works is this. The client comes in with a problem, chats to Winkleman generally about it, and then goes into a one-time, unscripted therapy-style session with Byron. (She has said it’s not a proper therapy session, though it does sound like it.) Winkleman listens in, has a round-up chat with Byron halfway through, then the client goes back in. At the end, Winkleman talks to the client, and then Byron. So, in terms of conversations, we get Winkleman-subject, Byron-subject, Winkleman-Byron, Byron-subject, Winkleman-subject, Winkleman-Byron. It’s a lot of to-and-fro chat.
The first episode, which came out last week, concerned Jack, a twentysomething who had problems with his father; the second was about Lara, who has bipolar disorder and is worried that her oldest son might have it too. And in both, Byron definitely worked her therapeutic magic. Jack was helped to understand that his dad might be suffering, too; Lara realised, despite decades of struggle with her mental health, that her life wasn’t a disaster but a success.
This is an excellent podcast: interesting, human, revealing. But I am unsure about the Winkleman bits: not because she isn’t an excellent, warm presenter, but because they seem a distraction from what is actually going on. Clearly, Winkleman is there to represent the listener: to put the points that an ordinary, non-qualified person might make. But it means that the sections when the subject talks to Byron are quite brief. You don’t get quite so much therapy in the 45 minutes, and that’s the bit I like. Despite this, I recommend How Did We Get Here? All such podcasts are helpful, and Byron and Winkleman are so likable and clever, you’re bound to get something out of this.
More women talking to each other in The Coffin Club, a World Service documentary made by the brilliant producer-presenter Cathy FitzGerald. In 2010, New Zealander Katie Williams decided she wanted to make her own coffin. Now, a group of about 30 to 40 older people get together every week in Williams’s house in Rotorua for the Coffin Club. They assemble, sand and decorate coffins for themselves. The charismatic Williams, 80, was the first to finish hers: “We had to have a prototype. I’m a big lady and so I had an oblong one.” She’s happy that several “handsome strong young men” attend; she’s hoping they might want to be her pallbearers when she actually goes.
Gossip is exchanged, cake is eaten. Most of those we meet are women in their 70s and 80s. FitzGerald gets them to describe their coffins. There’s a green, Irish-themed one, for Joyce, 81, who keeps her coffin propped up in the corner of her front room; Faye, 82, wants her children’s paintings, plus those of her 18 grandchildren and 26 great-grandchildren, to go with her. Everyone we meet likes to chat. The gentle rumble of to-and-fro conversation is what the Coffin Club is about. It makes me think I might be wrong about the Winkleman-Byron banter in How Did We Get Here? Maybe it’s the friendly female chatting that’s the important part. Maybe that’s the bit that saves you from despair.
Three lovely voices to listen to
Stephen Fry’s Seven Deadly Sins
BBC Radio 4
Stephen Fry can seem a bit smug – he’s so clever, I suppose it goes with the territory – but his voice is second to none. And by his voice, I mean both his speaking voice (he’s a wonderful reader of audiobooks), and his essay voice. He clearly enjoys the format of writing some thoughts down and then delivering those thoughts into a microphone: he’s had a few Radio 4 shows along these lines, along with a podcast, Great Leap Years. And now we have Seven Deadly Sins. A simple idea, but Fry’s voice makes this a must-listen.
The Leisure Society With Gemma Cairney
BBC Radio 6 Music
I include this not for presenter Gemma Cairney’s voice – though it’s lovely – but for Kathy Burke’s. I could listen to Burke’s sharp London patter all day, every day. In this show, on the radio at 1pm today, Cairney goes round to Burke’s home to chat with her about what she likes to do in her spare time, which is: watch TV and listen to music. Kathy Burke on The Wire, what more could you want? Well: last week’s episode featured another lovely voice, when Cairney went to the British Museum with the gorgeously toned Bonnie Greer. Catch up on BBC Sounds.
Cillian Murphy
BBC Radio 6 Music
Straight after Kathy Burke on 6 Music today is another actor, Cillian Murphy, who’s been given a two-hour show for three Sundays in a row. I’ve interviewed the Peaky Blinders star a couple of times, and can testify that his Cork voice is a lovely thing; more than that, he’s a music obsessive, as his radio show demonstrates. He once told me that walking around and thinking about which tracks he could play on a previous 6 Music show saved him from going mad when he was working on a very draining part. It seems only right that we give him a listen.
