From what I'd learned from Do The Right thing is you know put something in front of an audience
is quite hard.
You have to market it.
Anything with a script is quite hard.
Anything that needs a lot of research and so I was thinking what's the antithesis of
research?
And also I genuinely thought that there was a gap in the market for I'm--
I want to be able to know about subjects I want to be able to ask someone cleverer
than me about something and as a comedian I am given license to act the fool
So I'm allowed to-- like I'm not a journalist I don't have to pretend that I know everything
all the time And so the idea of having an expert who could
explain things like Brexit, or Northern Ireland, or sectarianism - I'm really want to do Scottish
sectarianism in the next series.
Or transport or school systems or - all these sorts of things you have a handle on and I
know a bit about it because I work in you know I write the news quiz and things like
that but I don't know - there's definite gaps in my knowledge
I thought if I get comedians to ask these questions we are allowed to ask stupid things.
But still get to something interesting I think it's a brilliant format.
I think it's a really good idea I think it's exactly the sort of thing that
BBC three should be making but I know that if I took it to them a they'd do something
weird where everyone's got to stand up and put an egg up theirarse or something
You know we've got to have people moving like League of their Own on sky!
When it's just meant to be people talking And also they'd make someone else host it
and I knew if I did that as a podcast I was allowed to host in myself - 'cos it's my
idea So this podcast is called Any Stupid Questions.
Any Stupid Questions.
Do you have a regular co-host No that's just me that one yeah it's got producer
it's produced by Ed Moorish who again is someone I've worked on Radio 4 quite a lot.
R ather than having guests because it is more about the expert so is about who we've invited
in with their with their knowledge it doesn't rely on any sort of comedy dynamic between
me and someone else and if it was in front of a live audience maybe I'd want someone
else there to kind of be sparking off but I sort of feel that I don't think it needs
it.
I mean I know saying earlier about like the chemistry between people because this is about
an actual thing this isn't just us trying to be funny it's about - it's genuinely about
trying to inform people It does have this element of I think people
should know stuff.
The one on the British Empire is the most fascinating because I knew so little about
it and especially with all the Brexit stuff going on and people saying oh it can be Empire
2.0 and then you talk to someone who's an expert on the British Empire and you realize
what an awful awful thing that is because we're not taught about it in schools
And so that that was a real eye-opener for me
You managed in that one in particular you managed to get into the subject in the way
that a dead-eyed factual programme - because all the contributors feel they need to be
on the game and catching people out - yeah - you get nothing said yeah whereas if you
come in with these innocent questions if I really don't get how why is it that the railways
always are held up as a good thing - yeah - and to have an expert say the British didn't
even build the railways - you actually get the deeper truths than a so-called factual
show would Absolutely and it's I think that the fact
that it's not combative is why it's so good.
I think it was our the very first one we did actually which we did in front of an audience
because it was at the London podcast festival but we had an expert on the NHS come in and
he was saying like that I wanted it to be -- so you know that when people on question
time and the audience member asks a question and they already have their agenda and they
know what they want to hear and basically it's framed as a question but it's "you
are a terrible person why are you doing these terrible things!" and everybody's got their
agenda and the party line whether they're a politician whether the audience member with
an axe to grind...
No one says anything, you learn nothing watching question time - absolutely nothing because
no one gives anything away and also one of the other things that we say is if there's
anything that you say and you want to edit it out will edit out like there's never any...
we're not trying to trick you into saying something that you don't want to say...
I think the one on the on Parliament there are a couple of edit points just because the
guest that we had in...
I think she's like oh you know I shouldn't really have said that all you know I don't
anyone be naming politicians... and we're like totally fine we'll cut it out it's not
- we're not here to trick you We really want to know...
I haven't got a clue how the parliamentary system works please help me.
There's something you said a few minutes ago which was "I want people to know stuff"
because I wanted to ask you "why do you podcast?"
- yeah - I suspect that might be just the reason right there?
Well yeah I mean like both of both those podcasts and even the film one in fact and I guess
this is why I'm a writer and a stand-up - it's about sharing your perspective of the world
with other people.
And so with Do The Right Thing - even though it's ridiculous there is some information
in there.
You do learn how to spot an antique or how to cross shark-infested waters or how to land
a plane if the pilot's died.
You learn in a ridiculously frivolous way but there is genuine information being imparted
and Any Stupid Questions takes that even further.
It is about you know in an era where we sneer at experts and wanting opinion rather than
fact - it's about asking people their expertise.
One of the things that we looked at doing with Any Stupid Questions was having both
sides of the political spectrum represented - and we're like "no" - that isn't what
it's meant to be it's you-- we have chosen you as an expert.
You tell us what you know and if someone decides to disagree with you and we're not in the
BBC - we can put out what we want.
If someone disagrees with you then maybe we'll get them on as an expert
And most of the time people are really balanced.
I was talking to our Brexit expert, and I was trying to get him to say that Brexit was
a stupid idea and even he was like actually if you look at why it happened, it's because
people felt marginalized and it was the only bit of change they ever felt they could enact.
Are you gonna keep going on it?
We are going to do another Brexit episode yeah - so we're planning to start up again
in the new year and I would like to get Brexti done really quickly because you know there's
loads of stuff about the deal I don't understand - there's loads of stuff about I don't get
why what is what is Canada plus plus plus what is Norway plus what do these things mean?
Because everybody now talks about it if we already know what that means.
I haven't got a clue.
This is going to sound so wanky I just I am learning stuff and that's why I love doing
it I can go in and I can say because it's my show - I can a) decide what subjects we're
doing and then I can go - I've always wanted to know why are houses so expensive?
What is going on with the housing system?
Why aren't people building more council houses?
All of that I'm allowed to ask that to an expert
That's great.
I really -- if I wasn't interested I probably wouldn't even do the podcast But I get to,
I get to learn things and the amount of effort I have to put in is just turn up really
I mean I don't even -- I can go in with no research and go I haven't got a clue what
this is can you tell me about it?
Danielle, where can we find you and where can we find your stuff?
I have a website that's hideously out-of-date feel free to go and explore that
I have a SoundCloud account "DanielleWard" so if you search Danielle
Ward on SoundCloud - on that is some weird things that I've never done as podcast because
it's not a continuation of anything - because you know you also have to update things for
them to be podcast.
It's me playing with different audio so I've got both my musicals are on there - recorded
just live, wild in a room There's little short stories set to music
There's some weird sketches set to music - that's all on soundcloud there is a also
do the right thing and Any Stupid Questions and film Fandango all of which are available
through your normal podcast providers So the best thing for us to do would be to
subscribe to do the right thing and any stupid question
yes subscribe listen review do all that sort of stuff and and in all honesty if you want
to follow me in a day-to-day way then it's @captainward on Twitter
brilliant that's probably the best way of doing it
High five, thanks so much Thanks for having me.
thanks for listening that's the podcast producers podcast there's a link to all the episodes
in the description and if you've reached this far in the episode why not leave me a comment
be lovely to hear from you or even maybe a thumbs up and if you subscribe you will be
really helping me to keep this thing going so I really appreciate it and I'll see you
on the next episode of the podcast producers podcast can you please help my daddy get 1000
subscribers just click on his face bye [Music]
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