Welcome to our very first royal special edition of the Fresh Air Recommends newsletter.
Back in mid July, Michaela – Director of Content and Head of Loud Nose Blows, Annie – Head of Snacks, Chat and Gambling, and Hannah – Head of Asking The King What He Had For Breakfast – had an extraordinary day at the office. Indeed, it wasn’t at the office at all. It was in the gardens of Windsor Castle where they had the honour of recording a podcast episode with His Majesty The King.
Why? Well for this special episode of ‘Unearthed: The Need for Seeds’ – the latest series of the Unearthed podcast we’re proud to make for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This week is the 25th birthday of the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst – the world’s largest wild seed bank and the most bio-diverse place on Earth. Since being opened by His Majesty, then the Prince of Wales, in 2000, the scientists at Wakehurst have been meticulously collecting seeds, sorting them and storing them for generations to come. And it’s not just an insurance policy for our collective future, it’s a bank from which withdrawals are already being made, already helping to restore habitats around the world. It’s an incredible place, and The King remains their patron as well as a hugely knowledgeable and passionate advocate.
The special episode of the show sees The King being interviewed by double Oscar winner Cate Blanchett – an actress whose major breakthrough was playing King Charles’ Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Great Grand Aunt. (Thanks ChatGPT). Cate is Kew’s ambassador for Wakehurst, lives nearby and so also has a genuine love of the place. It’s a warm and wonderful conversation.
As you can imagine, the whole recording was a) kept a total secret from pretty much everyone until the day of release and b) a pretty surreal and high-pressure day for Fresh Air’s heroic production trio. Annie’s Fitbit showed a peak heart rate of 142 while she ‘appeared to be inactive’, while Michaela’s watch declared ‘It looks like you had a stressful day and still found time to exercise’. She didn’t exercise.
Meanwhile, as hinted earlier, Producer Hannah set up the mics and tested the kit, which involved asking His Majesty the standard level-check question of what he had for breakfast. His answer, disappointingly, was that he hadn’t had any breakfast and hasn’t eaten breakfast for years. I say disappointing because I would have hoped for either ‘boiled eggs with soldiers in the shape of actual soldiers’, or ‘A little bit of butter on my bread’*.
The launch of the special episode got plenty of attention this week, including a feature package on BBC News where Michaela’s head was sadly cropped out, and lots of newspaper pieces about ‘The King and Cate’s secret recording’. Hilariously, The Daily Express, presumably driven by an unending pursuit of SEO, managed to get a reference to Meghan Markle in their headline – ‘King Charles joins Hollywood A-Lister as he follows in Meghan Markle’s footsteps’. I am fairly certain that The King was motivated by his love for Wakehurst’s Millennium Seed Bank and his dedication to supporting conservation rather than a desire to get a squillion dollars from Spotify for doing next to nothing, so it’s not that similar really.
The recording of the narrative script took place at Cate’s beautiful house, where Michaela and I were privileged to spend the day directing in her study, chatting to her husband and being served homemade soup by her lovely mum. I mean, this job has its perks.
So, as you can tell, it’s been quite a week. We’re very proud of the show, and of our long term partnership with Kew. We start every project with asking the question ‘What’s the podcast only you could make?’, and being able to answer that with ‘One hosted by Cate Blanchett, starting with an interview with His Majesty The King, and including a tour of the most bio-diverse place on planet Earth’ means it’s a truly unique piece of work. We hope you enjoy it.
*If you understand this reference, you and I can definitely be friends.
Beckie Bird has the perfect agony uncle…
This isn’t a podcast, it’s a prescription.
Self-described as an “invitation to squander time,” Bill Nighy answers listeners’ questions on everything from how to apply lipstick without a mirror to how to avoid going to parties with your wife. It’s made for the clumsy and the awkward, and it feels like a warm cup of tea on a rainy day I didn’t realise I needed.
Sure, Bill Nighy could read out a shopping list and I’d still listen, but the beauty of this podcast is in its simplicity: a few carefully chosen listener questions, Bill’s witty, self-deprecating answers, and then a book recommendation and “playlist of the week” to top it off. All packed into a tidy 30 minutes, a small but perfect dose of calm, charm, and quiet chaos.
In short: it’s warm, witty, and just the right amount of cheeky – the perfect antidote.
Izzie Clarke is an agent of chaos…
If you like unhinged comedy podcasts then Are We There Yet? is for you. In each episode, Harry Hill and his “nepo baby” son, Gary (who, yes, does sound like Hill in a funny voice), are joined by a famous friend. There are random songs, fake adverts and an AI bot called Sarah to boot. It is madness. And it’s brilliant to hear just how each guests navigates said madness.
Romesh Ranganathan rapped, Greyson Perry talked about kingfishers, and who knows what songs Adam Buxton will wheel out (that’s next on my listening list). There has clearly been a lot of careful planning of these episodes, but the show also leaves the door wide open to just plain silliness. Perfect listening for incoming grey weather in my opinion, or the long half-term drives when you hear “are we there yet?” from the backseat!
What we’ve been listening to this week
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH. Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh. Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I’ve just got off an eight hour flight, sat behind a two year old child who went through sustained periods of just making the above noise, only stopping to occasionally breathe in.
During these periods, I would have happily listened to absolutely anything else: a primary school violin recital, the rubbing of polystyrene against a balloon, Joe Rogan. Anything at all.
What we’ve been doing this week
I’ve been on a business trip around the Middle East, so back at Fresh Air Towers they could have been doing anything for all I know. It appears they’ve been pretty busy making podcasts, so that’s reassuring.
But in truth, they’ve largely been doing what everyone else in the country is doing: Talking about Celebrity Traitors. Thanks to the joy of Nord VPN – every podcast presenter’s favourite VPN service – I was able to watch iPlayer while away. But surprisingly Celebrity Traitors is not as big in the UAE and Saudi Arabia as you might expect, so I’ve missed out on a lot of the post-show chat that’s so key to the CT experience. I’m so glad to be home and properly share in the collective love for Celia Imrie and Alan Carr once again. Give me Celia’s wailing banshee noises over a two year old on a plane any day.
