My Dad Wrote a Porno is number one on the UK iTunes podcast comedy charts.
Here are the hosts, reenacting something (how to use a riding crop perhaps?) in front of a sold-out live audience last week in London.
The backstory of the podcast is this: A man retires from his job in sales and decides to write a novel. He presents the novel to his son, Jamie, a thirty year old media type living in London. Jamie quickly realizes that his father, under the pen name Rocky Flintstone, has written an erotic novella. Jamie is too embarrassed to read it, so he asks his two oldest, dearest friends, Alice and James, to listen as he reads. They decide to turn the exercise into a podcast. Every week the three get together, drink a little wine, read, listen, laugh, cringe and critique. The novella is called Belinda Blinked. Belinda is the International Sales Director at Steele’s Pots and Pans, where she’s determined to sleep her way to the top.
Rocky’s female anatomy is horribly misguided: ‘her breasts hung like pomegranates’, or even better: ‘he grabbed her cervix’.
The podcast is ridiculous and fabulous, in equal measure.
What does this have to do with food? Everything.
Last spring I started following Alice Levine on Instagram. She’s a Londoner who hosts a show on BBC radio 1. Alice also hosts supperclubs with her friend Laura Jackson, a London Television host. Together they call themselves Jackson&Levine.
Jackson&Levine host their supperclubs in an East London warehouse that sits on the edge of Regent’s Canal. The East Riviera. I used to live in East London, just before it was cool. Before Jackson & Levine met at a jumble sale. Before they discovered their mutual love of food. Before they turned 20, in fact.
Anyway. As I followed along, dreaming of East London meals in an old warehouse, I couldn’t help but notice that Alice was also plugging a podcast she was co-hosting with two friends. Now, every Monday, I listen to the latest chapter of Belinda Blinked, through the privacy of my earbuds. I wonder what I look like, crying with laughter as I walk down the aisles of the grocery store, oblivious in my own embarrassingly private world.
Naturally food is woven into Alice’s vernacular. As Jamie is reading she often stops to him clarify with thoughts like – ‘Alright, now Rocky says this man’s fingers are small – as small as radishes? Or small heirloom carrots?’. Or, ‘why does Rocky go on about a lady’s thighs? My thighs look like the meat on a kabob stick.’ Or my latest, personal favourite: ‘Rocky seems to think a woman’s anatomy is just set of saloon swinging doors, and once inside, it’s basically just a minestrone soup.’
Food also plays a role in the novella itself. Some might say that sex drives a story like this, but really, it’s food. It adds flavour. It reveals Rocky’s social status, his personality, his low-brow desires. It’s fodder for the three friends to laugh, and laugh. ‘Why on earth did she order a turkey sandwich from room service, post coital? Is that what you’d want?’.
Go and listen.
And while you’re at it, send Alice a message, perhaps mentioning The Food Podcast. I’m desperate to get her on the show to talk about supperclubs, side hustles, fingers the size of radishes and minestrone.
*Photo courtesy of the My Dad Wrote a Porno Instagram Feed. The word ‘porno’ is not allowed on IG. Such a cliff hanger.