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, Broken Water is now playing at the Arcola Theatre. Our Jen caught up with Michele and director Nicola Samer to talk about the highs and lows of being a mum, the losses we incur along the way, and, when it comes to representations of motherhood, how much (or little) has changed in the last ten years.
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SIM Ep 939 Chops 286: Broken Water, broken nights, and the highs and lows of mumming

By women. For women. About everything. Standard Issue is a podcast championing women's voices, and packed with interviews, news, film, opinion and humour.

Society & Culture

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When journalist Yuan Yang’s activist friend Sam joked about Yuan writing the news story if Sam was ever detained… and then disappeared, Yuan knew there was a bigger story to tell about modern China. Her new book, Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China, looks at modern China through the lives of four women in their 30s. 
She’s chatting to Mick about China’s communist lie, the fear of falling off ladders, pigs, parenting, and how the stories of these four brave idealist women in China’s new social order led to Yuan standing for Parliament here in the UK. 
Find out about China’s left-behind children, what happened to a magic pig, and more, by becoming a Standard Issue Patreon Champ or Legend at patreon.com/StandardIssue
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Yuan Yang explores the new China

We interrupt your normal Standard Issue broadcast this week to tell you about the *new* normal Standard Issue broadcast, starting on Monday 6 May. But don’t worry, it’s not a cryptocurrency podcast. Or a Star Trek podcast, for that matter.
That’s right, we’ve been teasing it for a while now, and finally Mick, Hannah and Jen are here to explain to you, dear listeners, how the new podcast format will work.
To subscribe to our new Patreon tiers to enjoy ad-free podcasts, as well as exclusive content, competitions and treats, visit: https://www.patreon.com/StandardIssue
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Standard Issue: A new frontier

Stranger Things: a bonafide telly phenomenon. The Duffer Brothers’ Netflix series has won an army of diehard fans across all demographics with its big budget mix of horror, fantasy and 80s nostalgia that makes sure never to skimp on character or storytelling. Kate Trefry’s been a writer on the series since season two and is currently wrapping up the fifth and final season, expected to be released next year.
She’s also written its stage production and prequel, Stranger Things: The First Shadow, working with the Duffer Brothers, Jack Thorne and Stephen Daldry to bring Hawkins to the Phoenix Theatre in London. As well as a slew of five-star reviews, Stranger Things: The First Shadow recently picked up the best new entertainment or comedy play at the Oliviers. 
Our Mick has also seen and been blown away by it, so was chuffed to bits to catch up with Kate a couple of days after the awards. They’re chatting Stranger Things (obviously), the play and the series, being an outsider, winning hearts and minds, new motherhood, and the birth of evil.
Visit phoenixtheatre.co.uk for tickets.
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SIM Ep 966 Chops 297: Stranger Things (and even stranger things) with Kate Trefry

The BBC's Belfast-set police drama Blue Lights is back on our tellies, so Hannah grabbed the chance to talk to one of its stars: former comedian, now novelist and actor, Andi Osho. They chat about understanding history, running down alleyways and going grey in an industry where many women aren't. Jen's talking to writer Kate Atwell and director Diane Page about bringing women's cricket to the stage in Testmatch, and in Jenny Off The Blocks, there are some new Invincibles in town. There's Cher and a drunk dog in BT, and the "what I did on my day in Cambridge" that nobody asked for in SOTW. Meanwhile, in Rated or Dated, Mickey's trying to make fetch a thing, as we watch 2004's Mean Girls.
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SIM 965 Pod 302: Blue Lights, cricket whites and on Wednesdays we wear pink

Most of us would be able to name our energy provider and probably a list of reasons we’re annoyed with them, but when it comes to the hows and whos that get it to, say, our plug sockets, details can be a bit sketchy. 
Mick’s been on the Zoom with Yasmin Ali, a chemical engineer dedicated to developing renewable energy projects and author of the book Power Up: An Engineer's Adventures into Sustainable Energy. All credit to Yasmin, who has taken a potentially dry and technical subject and made it a fascinating read. Although – spoiler alert – there are no easy answers to the looming energy crisis.
And so, in this week’s Chops, Mick and Yasmin are talking about the complicated answers, about how Yasmin’s grounding in fossil fuels led her to hydrogen, her passion for (and optimism about) clean energy, why being born in Iraq made her love Norway, and why she’s not watching Oppenheimer.
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SIM Ep 939 Chops 286: Broken Water, broken nights, and the highs and lows of mumming

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