Do you work from a script when you are podcasting?
I don't have a script. I don't think podcasts, by and large, have scripts. They tend to be people talking about subjects in which they're passionate about, and that works best if people are improvising, arguing, and discussing. We go for a feel of not just three blokes and a woman, in a pub. That's too easy. It's too generic. You want to get the feel that these people know something about it, but are sitting around a pub, or in a wine bar, actually having a proper go at these subjects. The only thing that I have is a running order, to jump from thing to thing to thing. Even that is almost not necessary, because these things are pre-recorded, so you could almost do it chunk by chunk by chunk. It's best to know the order in which these chunks are going to go, because often you can refer back and forward to things. On some occasions, because interviews often come in unexpectedly early or late, somebody rings up, particularly trying to get hold of celebrities or sports stars. You're lucky to get them into the right slots, you will have to pretend, due to the running order of the show, that we've already talked about something previously, and that's quite a skill to learn as well. You're sometimes recording things out of order, and you need to remember that when you're referring back to something or referring forward to something, where you are in time. It's a bit like Doctor Who. You become a time traveller on a podcast. You're always not in the present tense, but you always try to make sure that it sounds fresh, and absolutely in the moment for the listener.
