I have listened to Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review show for a while now, exclusively via their podcast. As we have become increasingly bewildered by Covid-19 restrictions, and separated from our social circles, there is something comforting about checking in with your regular podcast listens. The freewheeling nature of the chat means you feel a far more intimate connection with the hosts than in any other medium, aided by the fact that they are unconstrained by the formatted nature and tight editing of TV and radio. It is not uncommon to be listening to a podcast about soul in which the hosts digress for 10 minutes about the best way to make an omelette.
The reviews on Kermode and Mayo are great, but what is also lovely is their gently bickering rapport, something I enjoy as much as the actual content. Recently, however, my relationship with the podcast has stepped up to the level of a child who can’t let go of his comfort blanket.
A couple of weeks ago, I was headed out to perform at my first actual gig for a long time, an outdoor affair that involved me shouting at people in a field. I long ago stopped being nervous at gigs, but because it had been the longest time I had ever gone without doing any sort of live performance, I have to confess to feeling slightly anxious. (I have heard nothing but stories of audiences being extra lovely right now, because they are so happy about being entertained, and how you are almost guaranteed to have a nice gig. While this is supposed to be reassuring, it actually means I worry more: if I have a bad gig in these circumstances, I must have been really shit.)
On the way, I decided to pop on an episode of Film Review, only to find that there were no new episodes. Instead, I put on one from a while ago and found, to my surprise, two things: 1) My anxiety and worry about the gig disappeared; and 2) I completely agree with Mark Kermode’s views about the live action Lion King. And so it was that I realised I can treat the Film Review podcast as a kind of adult lullaby: if I am feeling worried or nervous, or just need to relax, I only have to listen to Kermode and Mayo discussing the quirky lyrics of an old rock record that I have never heard nor ever will, and I will feel pacified.
I have also started leaning on podcasts as sleep aids. There is a podcast called Sleep With Me, where Drew Ackerman, in a kind of parody of late-night talk radio, tells long, meandering stories that seem to take for ever to get to any kind of point. I used to listen to it when I was away on tour but now, much to my wife’s delight, I put it on at home. We will say goodnight to each other, before I pop in a set of earphones, drift off to sleep, and then wake her in the morning panicked that I swallowed one of the earphones in my sleep, before discovering it’s just under my pillow. It’s really working for both of us.
The one time I had a bad night-time experience was down to Film Review. I fell asleep listening to an episode where they were doing a horror film rundown, and woke to the sounds of some sort of attack by a demon. It felt as if it was actually happening, and I spent the next half an hour looking for evidence that I wasn’t living on an ancient Native American burial ground. I think listening in the car is enough for me now.
