Author Esther Freud first shot to fame with her debut novel, Hideous Kinky, back in 1992. Her tenth novel, My Sister and Other Lovers, reunites readers with sisters Lucy and Bea, and astutely captures the realities of being a sister and having a sister. Spoiler: as much as pop culture would like us to think it, a sister is not a built-in BFF. Our Mick chats to Esther about sisters, siblings, parents, the slippery nature of memory, and love in its many forms. My Sister and Other Lovers is publish...
Jul 04, 2025•27 min
Rachel Talalay's 1995 take on the much-loved comic series Tank Girl had so much promise, but does it live up to its "truly feminist" hype? Who gets to decide? And how will a jazz-loving kangaroo-man help or hinder these efforts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 02, 2025•31 min
Hannah's joined by playwright Iman Qureshi and director Hannah Hauer-King to chat about their play about the members of a lesbian choir, The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs. They chat about disability on stage, the search for community, and joining a uniquely British genre. * The Ministry of Lesbian Affairs is on at the Kiln Theatre until July 12. You can find tickets here: https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-ministry-of-lesbian-affairs/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice...
Jul 01, 2025•24 min
Theatre maker Jess Andrews found herself exploring the murky world of dating apps after she and her husband decided to join the polyamorous community. The experience inspired her to create her one-woman show I Met All My Friends on Dating Apps, which is now touring. Jen chats to Jess about misconceptions around polyamory, why no one’s having a great time on dating apps and how we might fix some of the problems within it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 30, 2025•29 min
This animated sci-fi adventure, adapted from Peter Brown’s much-loved books and written and directed by Chris Sanders, got a fair few Oscar nods, even if it missed out on an actual statue. But how will the tale of futuristic, task-oriented robot Roz, thrust into mothering gosling Brightbill amid the natural world’s chaos, fare with Mick, Hannah and Yosra? And what’s Bullseye got to do with it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 27, 2025•27 min
Is there a conspiracy to stop us watching a feel-good film about pensioners? Who was younger than Hannah when it was filmed? Whose legs does Jen envy? How high are Mickey's socks? We answer all these questions and more as we watch Ron Howard's sci-fi comedy drama about old people fighting age with the help of aliens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 25, 2025•27 min
In this month's Outside The Box, Hannah and Jen are chatting about The Rehearsal, The Bombing of Pan Am 103, Beth, The Better Sister and The Last Anniversary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 23, 2025•43 min
Announced as the new associate artistic director of Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre back in November 2024, Tinuke Craig is keen to show just how broad the theatre's programming can be. A production of Noughts and Crosses, based on the Malorie Blackman young adult series, and directed by Tinuke kicks it all off. Jen chats to Tinuke about bringing Noughts and Crosses to the stage, giving young actors a break, and the wet panic of British Summertime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
Jun 20, 2025•24 min
Where John Hughes first dared to tread, many – so very many – teen movies have followed. Starring Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson as five VERY DIFFERENT American high school kids thrown together in Saturday detention for various misdemeanours, does the Gen X cult classic pass muster with Mick, Hannah and Jen? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 18, 2025•32 min
An emergency caesarean brought journalist Hannah Marsh's first child into the world. Afterwards, she struggled to make sense of the events that had led to his traumatic birth and her intense feeling of shame for not having the “perfect” birth she’d envisioned. Hannah set about looking into the origins of procedure, which in turn led to her new book, Thread: A Caesarean Story of Myth, Magic and Medicine. Jen chats with Hannah about the many misconceptions about the caesarean (including thinking o...
Jun 16, 2025•30 min
What makes a genius a genius? Do IQ tests teach us anything? Is a belief in genius right-wing coded? Hannah chats to journalist, author, broadcaster and Standard Issue fave Helen Lewis about her new book The Genius Myth, hero worship, eugenics, class and (braces) football. To hear the full interview or to listen ad-free you can: * You can become a Standard Issue member here: https://www.patreon.com/c/StandardIssue * Make a one-off payment here: https://www.patreon.com/c/StandardIssue Learn mor...
Jun 13, 2025•29 min
Adapted from his own novel, Inconceivable, Ben Elton’s 2000 directorial debut is hard to track down these days. Should Jen ever have unearthed it? Has Elton written a convincing female character in Joely Richardson’s baby-hungry Lucy? Is Hugh Laurie just dialling it in? What in the sweet fancy Moses is Emma Thompson doing? And can Hannah and Mick ever get over the trauma of watching it? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 11, 2025•30 min
Back in 2020, then-student Ella Lambert started The Pachamama Project, when she was just 20 herself. 500 million people worldwide experience period poverty, including 100 million girls who miss school every single month. The Pachamama Project creates and distributes reusable period products to vulnerable women, girls and people who have periods, including refugees, around the world. Our Mick tried not to think about what she was doing when she was 20, and got Ella on the Zoom to talk more about ...
Jun 10, 2025•25 min
Artist Kirstie McLeod founded the Red Dress project in 2009, as a platform for women in marginalised groups to share their stories. Sixteen years later, the collective embroidery project represents 380 embroiderers across 51 countries and is exhibited all over the world. Jen chats to Kirstie about the project, embroidery as a (perhaps) surprising medium through which to pioneer social justice, and the joy of putting needle to thread. The Red Dress is currently being exhibited at the Woven festiv...
Jun 09, 2025•26 min
Fresh from her run in The Almeida's Rhinoceros, singer, composer, writer and actor Anoushka Lucas is back on stage in a revival of her one-way play Elephant. She chats to Hannah about why going back to it is a bit like reading an old diary, having a spectacularly successful side hustle and living in Russia. Tickets to Elephant at London's Menier Chocolate Factory can be bought here: https://www.menierchocolatefactory.com/tickets/elephant/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...
Jun 06, 2025•26 min
Inclusion, exclusion, cervical wands, disallowed ads, sunk rescue deals, and three whole women: Jen and Mick cover the lot in this week’s look at the news. Sexism of the Week uncovers a not so brave new world in how young men view women, and in JOTB there’s a pride of Lionesses, and some excellent cycle team names. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 05, 2025•30 min
What happens to characters when writers lose interest? They get a terrible film. Which is what The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse is all about. Very meta. But does it avoid becoming a bad film itself? And since it's got Geoff Tipps, a surprisingly touching Herr Lipp plot, and Victoria Wood herself in it, do Mickey, Hannah and Jen even care? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 04, 2025•33 min
Kate Muir’s name might not ring any immediate bells, but her documentaries with Davina McCall about the perimenopause, menopause and HRT made quite the stir. And rightly so, given they busted myths around HRT that have been stopping women asking for it for decades. Mick got on the Zoom with the women’s health campaigner, documentary maker, journalist and author to talk about the menopause movement, healthcare’s reluctance to keep up, the ridiculous idea that middle age is boring, and Kate’s late...
Jun 03, 2025•27 min
Former model Jess Davies started campaigning around image-based sexual abuse after her own experience of it, and the realisation that so many other women she knew had been through the same. Off the back of this came a string of documentaries, including Deepfake Porn: Could You Be Next for BBC Three, and now a book, No One Wants to See Your Dick: A Handbook For Survival in the Digital World. Jen catches up with Jess to talk about how very common these problems are, the blurring of on and offline ...
Jun 02, 2025•30 min
The most terrifying dystopias are within touching distance of now. And so it is with Alex Garland's Civil War, in which he uses imagined journalists chasing a story in an imagined civil war in an imagined future America to explore topics that resonate very loudly in the real world today. It’s a bleak, brutal and occasionally beautiful watch. But is it an important one? What’s its point? How good is Kirsten Dunst?!? And is two times too many times to see it? Hannah, Yosra and Mick discuss. Learn ...
May 30, 2025•31 min
How many kids is too many kids? Well, Boris Johnson and the UK Government are pretty divided on the issue. As well as covering the news of possible changes to the current two-child benefit cap, Hannah and Jen are talking about the horrific treatment of Nicola Packer, sexism and misogyny in the New South Wales police, and finally some good news about 20mph speed limits. Plus, there's joy for Charlton Athletic supporters, but sorrow for Mary Earps fans, in this week's Jenny Off The Blocks. You can...
May 29, 2025•30 min
A kids’ film with genuine horror credentials? Don’t Look Now’s Nicolas Roeg directs Roald Dahl’s 1983 tale of one boy (mouse) and his grandma versus a whole coven (convention) of child-killing witches. And by witches, we mean middle-aged women who don’t meet society’s arbitrary beauty standards and wear sensible shoes. WHAT COULD IT MEAN? Mick, Hannah and Jen investigate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 28, 2025•31 min
Acclaimed biographer Judith Mackrell makes a second visit to Standard Issue to chat about the Johns, a pair of siblings who went from an unhappy home in Wales to become two of the greatest British painters of the Edwardian period. She chats to Hannah about the very different but intertwined lives of Gwen and Augustus and why their work isn't always easy to find. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 27, 2025•29 min
After leaving an abusive relationship, former GB Boxer turned entrepreneur Lesley Sackey found herself living in survival mode – until she realised some of the lessons she’d learned in the ring could prove useful in life. She went on to co-found Fight Forward, an initiative helping women to empower themselves after experiencing abuse, as well as the forthcoming AI-integrated platform Pillow, which aims to help women move forward after trauma. Jen catches up with Lesley to talk about her career i...
May 26, 2025•30 min
Which Standard Issue presenter would survive an apocalypse? Just one of the many important questions Hannah and Mickey are asking in this week's Bush Telegraph. See also: Is America deporting legals? What next for Gaza? Why do the courts treat women so poorly? And what does any of this have to do with a Romanian model? So good job we no longer have to ask "what about China?". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 22, 2025•25 min
Alan Parker’s musical-drama exploded the careers of Irene Cara, Gene Anthony Ray and others, and – thanks to the hit TV series that followed – earned a reputation as a fluffy tale of leg warmers and sweatbands. But underneath the choreographed routines, will this warts-and-all depiction of life at the New York School of Performing Arts prove TOO MUCH for Jen and Mick? And what is a hot lunch, anyway? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 21, 2025•27 min
In an era where misinformation is rife and spreads at light speed, the role of experts in research is more critical than ever. And yet, historical underrepresentation and systemic biases have led to a lack of trust in research among women and marginalised groups. So how do researchers regain our trust? Why is inclusivity so important? And how can we all better engage in research to ensure it’s more equitable and representative moving forward? Mick put these questions to the excellent Dr Suze Kun...
May 20, 2025•26 min
Cariad Lloyd is an actor, comedian and writer (and one of our faves), who has been talking about grief since the death of her father when she was 15. She’s turned her experiences into an award-winning podcast, Griefcast, and a bestselling book, You Are Not Alone. She’s now written a children’s book, Where Did She Go?, which aims to improve how we talk about death with children. Jen catches up with Cariad to chat about youngsters and grief, normalising those conversations, and fascinations with N...
May 19, 2025•29 min
The big news is that someone has finally finished Mad Men, but if you're looking for some more recent TV, we've got that too. We chat about Poker Face, The Last of Us, Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles De Menezes, Austin, The Four Seasons and Malpractice in our big round-up of the month's TV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 16, 2025•45 min
A film about racial tensions, police violence and disaffected youth? And this might be dated, you say? OK, probably not, but join us anyway as we talk about one of France's most well-respected films, why it's funnier than you'd imagine, and its breakout star Vincent Cassel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 14, 2025•27 min
