Earshot

Imagine facing death with no next of kin and no funds to pay for your funeral.  In Victoria you’ll end up in the care of Alan Barr at the Old Ballan Cemetery. He’s made a promise to people like this, who often become State Trustees, to provide a dignified end to their lives.

When Miyuki Jokiranta finally finds her friend, Monika, a State Trustee who died during the pandemic, she meets Alan, the keeper of the forgotten souls

Promise me you won’t walk out of our restaurant, quit on our kids, run from our poverty, ignore our autism, ADHD or alopecia, or be defeated by our pandemic-induced loss of home and income.

If author Naomi Hart had known the marriage vows that had tripped off her tongue so easily 14 years ago would come to mean all this, would she ever have said them in the first place?

You will laugh, cringe and cry as Naomi and her husband Gregory share the story of their marriage. 

Susan Lester inadvertently entered a world of political and corporate corruption when she was made the promise of a lifetime by one of Tasmania’s most powerful businessmen.

When she signed a contract with Edmund Rouse to paint 200 watercolours of birds she had no idea it would be a decision that would overwhelm her and her artistic career.

Jess made a promise to a woman she would never meet, the mother of her daughter Noelle.

Baby Noelle was found in the arms of her dead birth mother on the streets of Kinshasa in The Congo, she lived in an orphanage until she was four. Now, she’s 16 and living in Melbourne with Jess and her sisters, but she’s never known another Congolese person.

Will a trip to Shepparton to meet the Congolese community take away that emptiness that she feels inside? Will it fulfil the promise that Jess made all those years ago? 

Earshot is back doing what we do best – telling intimate, personal stories…and we're going seasonal. Our first season is called Promise Me.

How easy is it to make a promise? What happens when you don't deliver?

In Earshot's new eight-part series, promises are made, broken, kept and stretched. From a vow to love, honour and obey to a pledge to save the world, from the intimate to the highly public, from funny to devastating.

Join us for a rollercoaster of trust, hope, betrayal, love and loss. Promise me?

Podcast drop: Wednesday 5 October 2022

Take a stroll up Elizabeth Street from the colonial era docks, past the Empire Hotel with its notorious bullet holes to beyond “the flannelette curtain”.  Local artist Kate Kelly is our guide to the hidden histories of Hobart and tales of the original Palawa custodians, gentrification and the art that ate Hobart.

Our guide to Yirrkala is Siena Stubbs who grew up between the two worlds of her mother’s Yolngu culture and her father’s Balander or white world.  Siena explains how every person, creature or place belongs to one of two balancing moieties - Yirritja or Dhuwa.  She also explores the town’s history of missionaries and Yolngu resistance, along with her own connection to family and country.

Aunty Doreen has a soft satirical spot for her home town of Nambour. Join her on a tour back in time when sugar cane ash used to rain down on the town, Miss Sugartown reigned supreme and Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan were in short pants at Nambour High, dreaming of going to Canberra.

Out on the arid edge of Adelaide, ghosts of Holden cars and electric guitars haunt streets with names like Bogan Road.  Join Glenn Shorrock and other locals as they tell a tale of migrants who powered Australian manufacturing success and our music industry.

Earshot is working on something new! We're busy putting together a special season of shows: see you in your podcast feed again soon.