Hyped!

Michaela Coel's comedy drama about a woman trying to process a sexual assault offers TV unlike any most of us have ever seen before. Race, sex, consent, London, youth, social media, identity: it's all there, rendered with formal and intellectual iconoclasm. Zoe and Tom unpick its curious magic, and the fascination this unlikely piece of work has cast over the nation. 

A best-seller following publication in 2017, Eddo-Lodge's polemic lit up a whole conversation about race in Britain, prompting millions to think for the first time about the concepts of systemic racism and white privilege in relation to the UK. The conversation, if that's the word for what often feels like a perilous obstacle course at best and an antagonistic Manichean battle to the death at worst, continues with renewed intensity following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Eddo-Lodge's book has been as controversial and it has been influential. Join Zoe and Tom as they roll up their sleeves and wade into the debate of our times.

Stormzy is a British phenomenon. He is the man who made grime global, the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury and was dubbed 'poet laureate' in Parliament for his response to Grenfell. Stormzy is a chart-topper with political clout. We take a critical look at his 2019 platinum album Heavy is the Hype and dig below the hype to assess the content and appeal of this album, putting it in context of a wider cultural moment.

To listen to full album:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3y4AaloFccKNLQcZNS9L8c?si=-BkQkrUuQAWLDkN8Y5D91g

Time Out called 2019's The Souvenir 'the only film that matters' - this was enough to entice Zoe along to see it, while Tom has long been a fan of its director Joanna Hogg. In a departure from form, Tom and Zoe find the reasons reasons for its instant cult status justified, and discuss Hogg's special touch when it comes to class, art and all things visual. The mother-daughter acting from Tilda Swinton and her daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, who play mother and daughter in the film, adds an unusual touch.

Zoe and Tom consider the mania around Rooney's 2018 best-seller and 2020 TV adaptation, tempering their slight (in Zoe's case substantial) bewilderment with plenty of analysis of what Normal People seems to be saying about sex, class, family and youth. 

Zoe, a former dating columnist just like Dolly, and an author of books concerning dating, just like Dolly, certainly found herself faced with the work of a much more popular and successful - and younger - version of herself. But was it just sour grapes that made her gawp at this book's fantastic success? She likes to think it wasn't. Together with historian of France Tom, they unpack the book's themes and oddities,  discuss what they didn't like (and a few things they did) and think about what made it such a hit.

Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the hype around Sir Tom Stoppard's most recent play, a chronicle of the tragedy of European Jews in the 20th century through the fate of one sprawling family. Zoe was very very unimpressed, and Tom just unimpressed. Why did critics go wild for it? What appetite among British audience goers did it serve? What was it trying to do and where did it go wrong - and in some places, right?  

Based on Deborah Feldman's best-selling memoir about leaving the Satmar ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, Unorthodox became a global phenomenon after it dropped on Netflix in March 2020 - just in time for lockdown. Zoe and Tom puzzle over themes of gender, female self-discovery, Yiddish, Judaism and place - setting the miniseries in the context of a new, broadening interest by entertainment honchos in Jewish life and casting the usual critical eye over the whole. Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the hype.

1917, released in the UK in January 2020, was one of the most successful war movies of all time. Unlike its smash hit stablemates, though, it focussed on World War One instead of Two. We discuss the appetite for World War One narratives, how perceptions of the war have changed, and why.