The EscapeGoat Podcast

On this episode of And Ninthly... David and John tackle the third episode of Series 7, 'Nine Lives Kat', aired on 11 May 2022.

If you want to hear previous chats of David and John about IN9, it's been the subject of a few The EscapeGoat Podcast episodes - here are the links!

Series 1-5: discussion and highlights

Series 6 (pt 1)

Series 6 (pt 2)

As mentioned on the show, Pemberton and Shearsmith record their own podcast for BBC Sounds, Inside Inside No 9, which usually features interesting material about the shows' productions and creative decisions. Well worth a listen!

You can Tweet us at @EGoat_pod and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

The intro music was recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

Our latest episode - and our longest ever - in which I welcome back Kit, and we go deep on the 1985 Stephen King horror short story collection Skeleton Crew. And get pretty dark. After 20 mins at the start about Die Hard 2, naturally. Enjoy!

0.00 Introduction/chat about Die Hard 2

0.19 Our backgrounds with short fiction and Stephen King

1.03 The Mist

1.48 Here There Be Tygers

2.01 Milkman (#1 and #2)

2.11 Gramma

2.35 Word Processor of the Gods

3.06 The Jaunt

3.31 Survivor Type

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! We are also now on Patreon. Do share and enjoy.

Kit Power lives in Milton Keynes and writes horror and dark crime fiction, with occasional forays into dystopian science fiction. His fiction work includes a novel, 'GodBomb!', and a novella collection 'Breaking Point', two short story collections ('A Warning About Your Future Enslavement That You Will Dismiss As A Collection Of Short Fiction And Essays By Kit Power' and 'Voices') and novellas 'The Finite' and 'A Song For The End'. He also writes non-fiction (https://www.gingernutsofhorror.com/my-life-in-horror.html with Volume 1 also available in book format) and has a limited hardback available on the subject of Ken Russell's movie Tommy. In his increasingly inaccurately labelled spare time, he podcasts - on his own show, Watching Robocop With Kit Power, What The Hell Is Wrong With Us? with George Lea, and a Patreon exclusive show on the Sherlock Holmes canon with Jack Graham. For weekly early access to his fiction, non-fiction, and podcasting work, visit www.patreon.com/kitpower. He has also been on three episodes of The EscapeGoat Podcast, discussing each part of the original UK House of Cards Trilogy.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

Kit has put out a fair bit in both written and recorded form about King and his works. A few highlights and perhaps the ones most relevant to this podcast include these two pieces (here and here) about The Mist (2007), and these two chats (1 and 2) about It (book and film) with George Daniel Lea. Talking of other people who have featured on this podcast, back in 2016 (just before the US Presidential Election) Kit and Jack Graham got together on The Shabcast to chat about the two Stephen King adaptations The Dead Zone and The Running Man. A few years later, they got together again to talk about Kit's novella The Finite , which comes up in our episode here. All very worth a listen, in my view.

On this episode of And Ninthly... David and John dissect the second episode of Series 7, 'Mr King', aired on 27 April 2022.

If you want to hear previous chats of David and John about IN9, it's been the subject of a few The EscapeGoat Podcast episodes - here are the links!

Series 1-5: discussion and highlights

Series 6 (pt 1)

Series 6 (pt 2)

As mentioned on the show, Pemberton and Shearsmith record their own podcast for BBC Sounds, Inside Inside No 9, which usually features interesting material about the shows' productions and creative decisions. Well worth a listen!

You can Tweet us at @EGoat_pod and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

The intro music was recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

Welcome to a new strand of show, And Ninthly... where David, John and occasional guests chat about new episodes of the dark comedy drama BBC anthology show Inside No 9, written by and starring Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton.

In this installment we discuss the first episode of Series 7, 'Merrily, Merrily', aired on 20 April 2022.

If you want to hear previous chunks of David and John chatting about IN9, it's been the subject of a few EscapeGoat Podcast episodes - here are the links!

Series 1-5: discussion and highlights

Series 6 (pt 1)

Series 6 (pt 2)

As mentioned on the show, Pemberton and Shearsmith record their own podcast for BBC Sounds, Inside Inside No 9, which usually features interesting material about the shows' productions and creative decisions. Well worth a listen!

You can Tweet us at @EGoat_pod and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

The intro music was recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

In this episode, Rich is my guest to talk about the classic Beatles double-album from 1968 The Beatles (almost always known as The White Album.)

After a general chat about our respective Beatles fandoms and histories, we discuss the album in general, and opine what it means to each of us. We then move on to a track-by-track discussion of The White Album, simultaneously presenting our individual picks for a re-versioning of the collection down from 30 tracks to 15! Which was good fun! Hope it's fun to listen to, as well.

0.00 Intro

0.08 The Beatles and The White Album in general

0.58 The White Album - Side 1

1.25 The White Album - Side 2

1.42 The White Album - Side 3

1.52 The White Album - Side 4

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

For more Rich, you have your pick of several episodes, but here's the Hail To The Thief episode we reference from 2021.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert (the very same).

NOTES

Aw, heck, it's not on The White Album, but here's that Muppet Show version of 'With a Little Help From My Friends' that I mention.

You're very welcome.

For this episode, John joins me to discuss the respective finale episodes of the UK sitcoms Men Behaving Badly (1992-98, ITV/BBC) and One Foot in the Grave (1990-2000, BBC). WARNING: spoilers for all content in the two finales.

In the first half, we talk about the three-part (!) Men Behaving Badly ending, and touch on 90s masculinity, baffling filler karaoke scenes, VideoPlus codes and the bleakness of forced maturity.

In the second, we deal with the last installment of One Foot in the Grave, and accidental death, ambiguous murder, fragile optimism and Paul Merton cameos. We hope you enjoy the chat!

0.00 Intro/Men Behaving Badly

1.08 One Foot in the Grave

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts. Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

John has been watching and talking about television comedy since people repeatedly started singing the theme tune to 1980s sitcom Dear John at him. He has also been on quite a few episodes of the show now - including a great chat about Spaced.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

Men Behaving Badly and One Foot in the Grave are both currently available to stream on BritBox.

You can read Elizabeth Sandifer's piece about Amy's Choice (the Doctor Who episode written by Simon Nye) on her blog here.

There is a good piece online about One Foot as a whole, and particularly its use of weird horror content - Horror in the Britcom: Victor Meldrew's New Nightmare - very recommended. As mentioned in the episode, Victor Meldrew did return one more time, in the 2001 Comic Relief special. It can be watched on YouTube here.

Our latest episode is a take on the latest caped crusader flick The Batman (Matt Reeves, 2022) - a very hot take: when this was recorded, we'd all seen it just once, 24 hours previously.

Joining me once again is Matt - and, for the first time on this show, his regular podcasting partner Mike Dunn! Between us, we chat a bit about our various histories with the Batman movie series, and after half an hour, we move onto a spoiler-free review (if you haven't seen the movie yet, you might want to switch us off at the 54 minute mark, because, at that point, after a break, we move onto SPOILERS).

So here it is, a sketchy first draft of history. Hope you enjoy, folks!

(a version of this episode is also available on Matt and Mike's YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/RI3XzdGz3Y0)

0.00 Intro/basic chat about the Batman franchise

0.34 The Batman - a review (spoiler-free)

0.55 The Batman - further discussion (with spoilers)

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts. Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

Matt and Mike can be found on YouTube with their regular co-hosted movie analysis show 'Matt and Mike Pull Focus' - in fact, a version of this recording will be posted there before too long! Matt has previously appeared on several episodes of this show - most recently, our episode on Time Bandits.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

As mentioned in the episode, Matt and Mike recorded an episode about Batman (Tim Burton, 1989) a few years ago, as the first episode of their show - you can listen to it here. Before The EscapeGoat Podcast even launched, they were also kind enough to have me on the show, talking about yuletide Muppets - a fond memory!

Near the beginning of the podcast, I make reference to this YouTube chat, between Jack Graham, George Daniel Lean and Kit Power - all previous guests on this show. It might be the definitive critical podcast take on the Nolan Batman trilogy - definitely check it out. Also want to give a shout out to Jack's essay from years back (I've referenced this before) which was prompted by an earlier Matt Reeves movie, and probably has relevance to The Riddler in The Batman, too. Equally, give it a look.

This week, I'm joined by George Daniel Lea and James S. Murphy to wax lyrical about the 90s young adult series by the late great Terry Pratchett, The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy (1992-1996).

We chat about Only You Can Save Mankind, Johnny and the Dead and Johnny and the Bomb, and the surreal, often bitter messaging of all three, as well as their positionality and mood rooted in the mid nineties of the UK. We also tie them in to aspects of Pratchett's work with his Discworld series, and talk about how the Johnny books resonate with us now, in 2022, and what they have to say about war, history and visionary headspaces. Hope it's a blast!

0.00 Preamble

0.06 The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, pt 1

0.57 The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy, pt 2

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! Do share and enjoy. We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

George is a prolific YouTube creator, mostly on videogames, pop culture and literature, whose channel can be found here. His horror fiction and reviews can be discovered on his website Strange Playgrounds. He can be reached on Twitter on @EnigmaticElegy. He has previously featured on this podcast talking about Gormenghast and The Flight of Dragons, and I had the honour of featuring on his channel talking about the Amiga500 era of gaming!

James podcasts regularly at Pex Lives, about Doctor Who, Bob Dylan and whatever else he pleases. He can be got on Twitter via @JimCrop1916.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

Andrew Blair (who featured on our Doctor Who: Flux episode) wrote a piece back in 2015 about the Johnny Maxwell books - here it is! Also, the 2006 BBC TV series of Johnny and the Bomb can be found on YouTube (starring the now-famous George Mackay!) The 1995 ITV version of Johnny and the Dead seems to be a bit more elusive online, currently.

We're back, with the first episode of series 3 of the show! In which my guest Chris Doughty joins me to discuss the long-running improvised comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO, 1999-).

We chat about Larry the character and Larry the real-life creator of the show, talk about the supporting characters and actors that make the show great (from Cheryl to Leon) and we pick our favourite seasons of Curb (and a few specific episodes!) and assess where we think it is now, in quality terms, after 20+ years. Hope you enjoy it - it's good to be back! Pretty, pretty, prettyyyyy good.

0.00 Intro/podcast chat preamble

0.19 Curb Your Enthusiasm (pt 1) - Larry the character/changes as the show has developed

1.09 Curb Your Enthusiasm (pt. 2) - the Gervais/David interview/favourite other characters in Curb/favourite seasons and episodes/is the show still 'good'?

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

Chris is one of the two regular hosts of The Wasting Time Podcast, a discussion and interview show focusing on the pop-punk music scene. You can find it on all the usual podcasting platforms. You can reach the show on Twitter via @TheWastingTimeP.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

The 2006 Channel 4 interview that Ricky Gervais did with Larry David (which we discuss in pt. 2 of the show) is available on YouTube - and so, amusingly, is the infamous Garry Shandling one.

The final episode of our second series, in which David and Colleen (with a monologue assist from new guest Andrew Blair) tackle the recently-concluded season of Doctor Who (known as 'Flux'), and the 13th Doctor era more generally!

Happy early Xmas! We'll be back with new episodes in early 2022.

0.00 Intro/What We Do In The Shadows

0.10 Doctor Who: Flux

0.52 The Andrew Interjection

1.13 The 13th Doctor era more generally/thoughts for the future

You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on [email protected]. All our episodes are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! Do spread the word! We also have a Patreon - any amount of money will get you early access to episodes, and help support the show!

Colleen Cheetham-Gerrard, despite the name, is not a Daily Telegraph columnist. Instead, she's a stand-up comedian and public speaker who can mostly be found on the London circuit (or on Zoom). Colleen is also a co-host for Strong Female Leads, a Standard Issue podcast focusing on nerd culture from a feminist perspective. You can find Colleen via @thecolleencg on Twitter and Instagram and Strong Female Leads via @strfemaleleads, as well as in all the usual podcast locations.

Andrew Blair is a writer and poet based in Edinburgh, and a frequent contributor to Den of Geek. He can be found on Twitter via @freelance_liar.

All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.

NOTES

As of December 2021, the internet is obviously awash with takes on Doctor Who: Flux. One of my favourites that I read after the recording was this tweet thread by Andrew Ellard (@ellardent) And here's Darren Mooney's review, thorough and excellent as always.