The Spirit of the Stairwell

Today, I’d like to bring everyone’s attention to the numerous advantages of the humble podcast.

These are as follows:

1. They’re free.
2. They feature a wide range of the world’s best comedians, thinkers and assorted artistic types.
3. They’re free.

I can’t for the life of me work out why they’re not more popular. There are podcasts out there that dance all over the faces of the vast majority of mainstream comedy shows. Being independently produced they are also blissfully unconcerned with the sort of stuff that habitually leads to creative stagnation – money, demographics, marketing, pandering to the lowest common denominator … right through to coherence and sanity. Of course it’s a continuum like any other sort of broadcast media but generally speaking you can find more genuinely original, challenging content on a podcast than can be found anywhere in the TV schedules .

Want some recommendations? Thought you’d never ask. These can all be found on iTunes as I guess it’s the most well know podcatcher but if you get the podcasting-bug don’t be afraid to check out some of the independent sites.

Okay so …

Daniel Kitson – This guy is awesome. He’s one of those stand-ups that never quite got the national acclaim of middle of the road comedians like Michael McIntyre and Peter Kay but he’s incredibly sharp and really funny. He reminds me of Jim.

Only funny, like I said.

Carpool – The guy who played Kryten, Robert Llewellyn, in Red Dwarf gives celebrities lifts in his car and then has a chat with them on the way. Surreal but brilliant.

Mark Kermode – Best film critic ever.

Adam & Joe – This is probably the most consistently funny podcast I’ve ever listened to and regularly makes me laugh out loud. They are both hugely talented. Song Wars – where they challenge each other to make up songs around different themes each week is particularly awesome.

As It Occurs To Me – Richard Herring wrote and recorded these, one a week, for 10 weeks and then released them unedited. He used no pre-written material, finding things during the week to generate content. By the end it’s more like a fever dream than a comedy show. But the person having the dream is very funny so it’s also incredibly compulsive to listen to.

Penny Arcade: Dungeons & Dragons Podcast – This is a real oddity. The guys who run Penny Arcade  sit down to play a new version of Dungeons & Dragons. One of them has never played a role playing game before. They then proceed to rip the piss out of their earnest Dungeon master for the next few hours. “I am Jim Darkmagic. Of the New Hampshire Darkmagics.” It’s really, really funny.

The Odd Cast – “Listening to this podcast is like being down the pub with your best friends – the conversations are not always coherent but you can be sure of some witty banter with some film, tv, life, love and comedy put-downs all thrown in.” Not my words, the words of an anonymous iTunes reviewer (which might possibly have been us).

Also – Leisure Wear – like pyjamas but warmer. I love my new trousers. I’m telling you, Leisure Wear is the way forwards.