We’ve all heard of the glass ceiling, right? But what about the phenomenon befalling the high-flying women who have dared to smash through it? It’s known as the glass cliff, and Sophie Williams has written a book about it. Sophie joins Mick this week, to talk about how and why it happens – and why the issue matters to all women. Meanwhile, Jen is on the Zoom with theatre company Dirty Hare, to talk witches, history and their play Gunter, which is showing at The Royal Court Theatre until April 25...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 19 min
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, hospital admissions for eating disorders have increased by 84% over the past five years. And yet, for so many of us, anorexia remains very hard to understand. Hannah chats to author, journalist and recovered anorexic Hadley Freeman about her memoir Good Girls: A Story and Study of Anorexia, about her experiences, as a teenager and now a mother, and about why so many women have a complicated relationship with food. Learn more about your ad choices....
Apr 06, 2024•34 min
Experts - we should listen to them, right? RIGHT? Well, maybe not all of them. That's what Hannah learned while talking to Dr Julia Shaw, a criminal psychologist and the host of new Radio 4 show Experts on Trial. Jen's been on the Zoom with Heather McCalden to talk about her genre-bending debut book, The Observable Universe, which is about losing both her parents to AIDS in the early '90s, and grief in the internet age. And in Rated or Dated, having not seen it as kids, what will Mickey and Hann...
Apr 02, 2024•55 min
If you've not read the Atlantic article The Coddling of the American Mind, or the book that followed it, you've likely heard us recommend it. And now, it's a documentary, so Hannah got straight on the Zoom to California to talk to its producer Courtney Moorehead Balaker about the current mental health crisis among young people and how, rather than helping, the culture on US university campuses is making young people more vulnerable. And how tribalism, helicopter parenting and the “one strike and...
Mar 31, 2024•38 min
Playwright Stef Smith is best known for her, well, plays. But her award-winning BBC Scotland drama, Float – a tender tangle of love, life and identity in small-town Scotland – is also well worth your time. Season one is already bingeable on the iPlayer and, ahead of season two hitting screens at the end of the month, our Mick chatted to Stef about water, women in love, representation, and the joys of being a soppy sausage. Talking of soppy sausages, Jen’s quite rightly feeling emotional about wh...
Mar 28, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 955
Playwright Suzie Miller is best known for her award-sweeping masterpiece, Prima Facie, a searing critique of the criminal justice system and, specifically, how it deals with survivors of sexual assault and rape. She’s now adapted the play into a novel, and so Jen was chuffed to bits to talk to her about the process of adaptation, as well as why she wrote it, the impact the play has had, and the sheer lunacy of a system that simply isn’t fit for purpose. Also, Jodie Comer, who blew minds in the p...
Mar 24, 2024•33 min
They don’t come much bigger than Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan’s three-hour Oscar-nabbing historical drama, and Hannah’s pick for this month’s Flicking. It’s quite rightly made Cillian Murphy the man of the moment, but how’s Yosra feeling about Robert Downey Jnr’s gongs? And will it have enough bang for its buck as far as Mick’s concerned? Find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 23, 2024•29 min
Hollie McNish - Standard Issue fave, award-winning poet, and all-round smasher - is back with Lobster, a brand-new collection of poems and prose. Naturally, Mick was delighted to jump on the Zoom to talk to her about it, as well as joy, not-joy, vulvas, knickers and RP. Over IRL, as the kids say, Jen was chuffed to bits to be reunited with writer Anoushka Warden, to talk to her about her debut novel, I’m F*cking Amazing. They also chat sweary titles, female pleasure, and navigating the NHS. Ther...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 21 min
Journalist, broadcaster, documentary-maker, author and Mickey mind-blower is back on the podcast to chat about her incredible new book, The Price of Life: In Search of What We’re Worth and Who Decides. It’s a fascinating and brutal investigation into who puts a price on our heads – because we all have not just one, but several, depending on the situation. Jenny’s met with a hitman, people who’ve faked their own death, modern-day slaves, the makers of F-35 fighter jets, scientists, effective altr...
Mar 17, 2024•40 min•Ep. 951
If you find watching sport in public a bit intimidating, Set Piece Social will be for you. This week, Jen chats to Naomi Fitzgibbons and Kate Hetherington about their pioneering new project to get women watching women's sport. Hannah's talking to writer Farine Clark about her new play London Zoo, and what inspired her career changes from medicine through journalism and into the arts. In Rated or Dated, Mickey (*screeches to a stop in a 1974 Gran Torino*) has had us watching 2004's Starksy & ...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Liz Jensen is better known for her fiction writing, but the author and activist has just published a memoir, Your Wild and Precious Life: On Grief, Hope and Rebellion. Her new book documents her grief after the death of her son Raphael, a zoologist and ecological activist, in 2020, aged just 25, and her fight for the future of our planet, in his name. In this week’s Chops, she talks to Jen about the cathartic experience of writing the book, the parallels between grieving the loss of a child and ...
Mar 10, 2024•32 min
This month's Outside The Box is here and this time we're talking about True Detective: Night Country, Masters of the Air, Mr & Mrs Smith, Trigger Point and Breathtaking, plus a load of stuff Hannah didn't even make it through the first episode of. Tuck in! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 08, 2024•32 min•Ep. 948
Imagine having an idea so engaging that you make Anjelica Huston want to talk about Tupperware. Well, hello journalist Annabelle Hirsch, whose book, A History of Women in 101 Objects, is a fascinating walk through female history via, well, 101 objects. The book came out last October and is well worth your eyes, but if you like to get your ears involved and the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, Leila Slimani, Olivia Colman, Margaret Atwood and Meera Syal, to name but a few, tickle your pickle, then...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 947
Critical thinking isn't exactly everyone's strong point and in her upcoming memoir Learning to Think, Tracy King explains how she went from born-again Christianity to pseudoscience to teaching herself to think critically. And when she applied that thinking to the violent death of her father, she uncovered a whole other story from the one she'd been told. In this week's Chops, Tracy and Hannah chat about all that, plus poverty, school refusal and alcoholism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Mar 03, 2024•45 min
Writer and Standard Issue fave Kerry Hudson is back with brand-new memoir, Newborn, the follow-up to her previous work, Lowborn. In this week’s podzine, Hannah jumps on the Zoom to talk with Kerry about class, social mobility, money and why you can't air fry your way out of poverty. A self-professed Mary Shelley “obsessive”, our Jen was delighted when news of Lesley McDowell’s new novel Clairmont, landed in her inbox. She and Lesley chat about why its namesake Clair Clairmont remains little know...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Comedian, podcast mogul, writer, broadcaster and professional oversharer, the glorious Catherine Bohart is this week’s Sunday Chops. She and Mick are chatting about the joy and freedom of podcasts, being a professional oversharer, living with OCD, the giving and receiving of advice and, of course, her new show, Again, With Feelings, which is on tour in various venues around this country, in Ireland and in Australia, from March 4. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 25, 2024•33 min•Ep. 944
Lindsay Duncan - you heard us! - is on stage at the National Theatre in a revival of Dodie Smith's Dear Octopus, so of course Jen jumped at the chance to chat to her. They were joined by the play's director, Emily Burns, to discuss family dynamics, age and a whole lot more. Hannah's also talking theatre this week, with Hannah Walker, creator of Gamble, a new show on tour around the country, which deals with her partner's struggle with gambling, how it's affected their relationship and what's hel...
Feb 21, 2024•1 hr 24 min
Performance poet Len Pennie is a big deal on the social media, particularly TikTok, where her Scots Word of the Day videos, forthright, urgent poetry and wicked sense of humour have made her a bona fide star. Published by Canongate on February 22, her debut poetry collection, Poyums, she covers a lot of ground, from depression and mental health to misogyny and abusive relationships. If that all sounds bleak, well, the topics are, but Len’s honesty, rawness, humour and playfulness of language mak...
Feb 18, 2024•24 min•Ep. 942
Greta Lee and Teo Yoo star in Celine Song’s debut feature, which follows deeply connected childhood friends Nora (Lee) and Hae Sung (Yoo) over the course of 24 years and an ocean of separation. It’s a gentle, poignant, philosophical, maybe romance, chosen by Yosra for this month’s Flicking. But will it have enough wallop for Mickey and not too much of the soppy stuff for Hannah? Find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 17, 2024•29 min•Ep. 942
Imagine making a film set in a town where dancing is illegal. Imagine that bit being the true story element of said film. Imagine that not one of the team had ever seen 1984’s Footloose in full before this very week. SCENES, such very eighties scenes, in this week’s Rated or Dated, chosen by Offord, montaged by Bacon. Before that, Mick’s been on the Zoom with comedian Olga Koch to chat about her latest show, Prawn Cocktail, the masters she did in lockdown, which looks at parasocial relationships...
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 941
Why won't copy show up? Comedian, writer, podcaster, friend of Standard Issue, and glorious human being Jess Fostekew is back on tour with her new show Mettle, and so Mick jumped at the chance to talk to her about it. They also chat buses, bulking, and the tiny birds of Geoff Capes. Hannah’s been on the Zoom to talk to journalist and award-winning podcast host Catherine Carr about her podcast Where Are You Going?, why people are so keen to tell her the answer to this question and why listeners c...
Feb 07, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 940
Being a mum is great, but it can also be relentlessly challenging and impossibly difficult. Not to mention that from the day they're born, you know you'll eventually lose your children to adulthood. In her late 30s, writer and actress Michele Winstanley gave birth to a much-wanted child, and quickly realised that mumming wasn't the sugar-coated dream she'd been sold. And so she wrote a play about her own experiences and those of others at different stages of their motherhood journey. A decade on...
Feb 04, 2024•37 min
Sort of. This week, Jen's been on the satellite phone to bone fide polar adventurer Harpreet ‘Preet’ Chandi. Preet recently broke a third World Record, becoming the world’s fastest woman to complete a solo unsupported ski expedition to the South Pole. She chats to Jen about the how and why, accepting failure when it comes, becoming a role model and looking after your mental health. Speaking of which, Mickey's been on the Zoom with our resident psychotherapist Jane Watson to talk about "the overw...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Are we addicted to our phones? Are they bad for our mental health? Are they changing the way we behave? Hannah gets the answers to these and many more questions from neuroscientist Dr Faye Begeti, otherwise known as the Brain Doctor, whose new book The Phone Fix: The Brain-Focused Guide to Building Healthy Digital Habits and Breaking Bad Ones is out on February 1. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Lear...
Jan 28, 2024•34 min
Stand up Laura Smyth came to comedy later in life and with a whole load of experiences, including cancer, under her belt. People are lapping it up, and tickets to her debut tour show, Living My Best Life, are selling like hot cakes. Mmm, hot cakes. Laura chats to our Hannah about wide-ranging appeal, the big C and maintaining a sense of self. Mick’s been on the Zoom to America, chatting to author Kiley Reid, whose debut novel, Such a Fun Age, which had race relations as its focal point, was a mu...
Jan 24, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 936
If ever a subject demanded a bit more of our time, it’s what’s happening to women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Zahra Nader, editor-in-chief of Zan Times, a brilliant, women-led investigative newsroom, covering the human rights crisis in Afghanistan with a focus on women, is well-placed to tell our Mick what’s really happening on the ground in Afghanistan. Despite the risk to the safety of those involved, since its genesis in August 2022, Zan Times has reported on the rise of child...
Jan 21, 2024•34 min•Ep. 935
It's cold out, although inexplicably sunny in Hannah's lounge, so let's all stay in and watch some telly. This month, we're talking about Julia, Mr Bates vs The Post Office, Slow Horses, Fool Me Once, True Detective: Night Country, Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster, and the final ever episode of Ghosts. Tuck in! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...
Jan 19, 2024•41 min
Just how bad is fast fashion for the earth and and how can we help curb its impact? Just a couple of the questions Mick’s asking Harriet Saywood-Bellisario, designer and founder of sustainable womenswear label Saywood, as they chat about how fashion and sustainability don’t have to be at odds. Jen’s chatting to Eurosport presenter Rachel Stringer about The Cube, early mornings and the runners and riders in this year's Australian Open. We’re asking "has it dated?" (we hadn’t noticed) and Hannah’s...
Jan 17, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Frida Kahlo and Jean-Michel Basquiat are huge names from the world of art, but what must it have been like to hang out and grow up in their worlds? Author and poet Jennifer Clement knows all about it and has written about her fascinating life in new book, Promised Party: Kahlo, Basquiat & Me. In the memoir, Jennifer writes about her upbringing in a bohemian community in 1960s and 70s Mexico City, before moving to New York City as a dancer in the late 70s, and living through the countercultur...
Jan 14, 2024•33 min
Mama’s got a brand new bag! And by “Mama”, we mean Flicking. This year, instead of watching firm favourites from their pasts, Hannah, Yosra and Mickey are giving their thoughts on films released in 2023. And what an absolute classic to start with: Cocaine Bear. Elizabeth Banks’ 1980s-set creature feature, in which a massive black bear eats a whole load of cocaine and goes full carnage. It’s the magnificent Ray Liotta’s Swansong and he’s joined by a cast of dreams – and an apex predator off her f...
Jan 13, 2024•26 min•Ep. 931
