Books are a bit like buses for author Abigail Johnson, who signed a two-book deal after taking a punt on a creative writing course during the pandemic. Fast forward a few years, and Abigail's debut novel The Secret Collector is out now. Jen catches up with Abigail to talk about loneliness, learning from our elders (and indeed youngers), and the best bug that never happened.

The Secret Collector is available now.

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There's a long weekend ahead and if you want to spend it watching telly, then you do you. Have some help choosing in the form of our monthly chat about TV, in which we're talking about The White Lotus, The Last of Us, After the Party, Dying for Sex, Black Mirror, Black Snow and Black Doves. Yeah, we saw the pattern there too.

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Things are looking very worrying over in America, so of course we're talking about that. But we manage to get in a lot of other stuff too, including workers' rights, good news about bad games, rich women in space, mean girls in tennis and some more dreadful French pronunciations.

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Comedy? Horror? Satire? A full-length Huey Lewis and the News music video? There’s a lot going on in Mary Harron’s big screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s controversial 1991 bestseller. Will Christian Bale’s much-lauded turn as Patrick Bateman blow Mick, Hannah and Jen away or turn their stomachs? What does a female director’s perspective bring to the exaggerated misogyny? Is any of it actually real? Do you like Phil Collins? 

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Alice Vincent was a music journalist for many years, which had already started to shift how she listened, but then pregnancy and a deep trauma when her baby was very small led to her relationship with sound fracturing. In her new book, Hark: How Women Listen, she explores how she rebuilt that relationship, and also talks to other women about their experiences with sound and listening.  

Our Mick got on the Zoom to talk about the different way sounds land in female bodies, and how we could all be listening more mindfully.

Hark: How Women Listen is available for pre-order now and out on May 1.

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Elsa James’s new exhibition, It Should Not Be Forgotten, explores themes of chattel enslavement and its impact on contemporary Black British life. Confronting Britain’s national amnesia around its role in the transatlantic slave trade, Elsa’s work seeks to bring an alternative perspective on how we engage with the past. Jen chats to Elsa about the exhibition’s themes, sharing history, and facing its discomfort.

It Should Not Be Forgotten is at Firstsite Colchester until July 6.

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Actor Honeysuckle Weeks has been onstage and screen for more than 30 years and can currently be found touring as Marmee in a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott classic, Little Women. Jen chats to Honeysuckle about how relatable the 1868 novel remains to young women, the tragedy of Jo, and loving Leslie Manville.

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There’s a whole lot of manosphere in this week’s Bush Telegraph, helmed by Hannah and Mick, but maybe, just maybe, there’s a side of justice to boot. Thank Christ? Turns out a lot more Gen Z-ers have turned to God than we thought, so perhaps. Thank dire wolves? Well, now you’re just being silly.

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John Waters’ follow-up to smash hit Hairspray saw the so-called “Pope of Trash” enjoy the first-ever bidding war for his work. But does 1990’s cult classic Cry-Baby live up to the hype? Is it the lol-a-thon Jen remembers? And can Mick and Hannah still bear to look at Johnny Depp’s face? 

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Writer, actor and top woman Brona C Titley was keener than mustard when she was asked to adapt Brian Helgeland’s 2001 medieval action comedy for the stage. A Knight’s Tale the Musical opens at Manchester Opera House this Friday, so Mick got Brona on the Zoom to chat the whys, the hows, and the horses.

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