What We Talk About

Callum Devlin is a good friend of What We Talk About. He made our new logo and our theme music ( which you can buy at https://thegreatdanger.bandcamp.com/album/the-dance-of-not-death) and is a cool, interesting, passionate person. We are really happy to have him as our first guest speaker of Season 2 of What We Talk About, recorded during the 2016 New Zealand Fringe Festival talking about his secret obsession with vlogs.

In February Michael Boyes, one of What We Talk About's guest speakers passed away. It was sudden and hard to comprehend and was a significant loss to the communities he was part of. Michael was an ideal guest speaker for What We Talk About; he had an abundance of passion, enthusiasm, charisma and was incredibly funny, everything we look for in performers. We have left the intro on the night which is how Michael asked to be introduced (apart from the blue suit part, that was us). When we gave the speakers the opportunity to plug something Michael recommended the 1970s television series Upstairs, Downstairs, so you should all go out and watch that.

Our hearts go out to Michaels family and friends and we'll always miss him.

When Jean approached us last year to host a fundraiser for her Shakespeare's Globe Scholarship we were excited, her What We Talk About on Fan Fiction was one of our absolute favourites and we were really excited to have her back as our first return guest speaker. 

Hear Jean talk about how Nancy Mitford wrote about women's sexual agency and desires years before the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

The long running Sweet Valley High series ran for twenty years, and features 143 books (not including Sweet Valley Senior Year, Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley University, Sweet Valley Junior High or The Unicorn Club) set in the Junior year of high school.

Sasha Tilly lets us into some of the highlights, the scandals, love interests, and deaths in the world of Sweet Valley High.

Remember that eHarmony video with the crying women talking about how she wants to love every cat? Savanna Calton is the human personification of that video, she loves animals that much.

Savanna Calton is a Wellington comedian, you can follow her on twitter @dizquy. In 2015 she won the National Raw Comedy Competition and will perform in the 2016 New Zealand International Comedy Competition in the show "These Two Women Open Their Mouths... What Happens Next Will Shock You" in Wellington, May 11-14 at Cavern Club.

We would not be here without the help of Oliver Devlin, he recorded our first season and has always been happy to help with any recording or audio editing problems. So when the fundraiser show for Jean Sergent came along he was the first person on our list to ask. 

Hear Oliver Devlin talk about his love of the seminal New Zealand band The Mint Chicks, one of the first bands he ever saw live and who have left a long lasting impression.

The last episode of the first season of What We Talk About features comedian Jarrod Baker. Gradually Jarrod has realised more and more of his favourite songs are covers. Hear his criteria for what makes a good cover song and cover of his own at the end.

It is very easy to be led astray by celebrities, and Jessie Hennen knows this. Lucky for Jessie, the celebrities who she has been obsessed with were not Adolf Hitler unlike Unity Mitford.

There are many confusing things about American culture, and the NFL is one of them. Hear Aidan Weekes talk us through his obsession with the huge theatrical nature of American Football

James Nokise should have been a jock, he had the physique and the skills. But  Underneath all the charisma and the charm secretly James Nokise is a nerd. James love for fantasy worlds and video games has cost him relationships but has gained him much much more.