Straight Up – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The queen of podcasting herself, Elizabeth Day, is on the show today to talk all things pop culture and we could not be happier about it huns! We get stuck into her three top recent recs across TV, film and books, the media’s obsession with first person pieces about ‘bad friends’ and the toll of maintaining a personal brand. We also chat about the psychic reading that changed Elizabeth’s life, reality TV, her daily routine and top pieces of dating advice for our single huns. We promise anyone currently jaded by modern dating will feel uplifted hearing her talk about her first Hinge date with now-husband!

Check out Elizabeth's podcast How To Date here and pre oder her new book One of Us (out September 25) here

Please do leave us review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify - it really does help keep us going! DM us ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@straightuppod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or email at ⁠⁠hello@straightuppodcast.co.uk⁠

Huge thanks to our sponsor⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Yonder⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, the incredible lifestyle rewards credit card packed with rewards you’ll actually *want* to use. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠yonder.com/straightup⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Borrow responsibly. £15 a month. 18+ and UK only. Rep 66.3% APR var. T&Cs apply.

We are blown away by how Sisterly's amazing Elevator powder multivit sachet has improved our health, from skin and nails to sleep and energy. Get 15% off with code STRAIGHTUP at sisterlylab.co.uk

Get 20% off the adaptogenic coffee that changed our lives, London Nootropics, using our code straightup at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠londonnootropics.com⁠⁠⁠

Reccs/ reviews:

• How to Date podcast
• The Party, Elizabeth Day
• Babygirl isn't just a sexy thriller, Elizabeth’s Substack Daylight
• Love on the spectrum S3, Netflix 
• Bad Influence, Netflix 
• Show Don’t Tell, Curtis Sittenfield 
• Meghan Markle, Confessions of a Female Founder  
• Ed Sheeran, Call Her Daddy
• Adolescence, Netflix 
• Conclave, AppleTV
• Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams 
• Chloe, BBC iPlayer
• Erin Doherty, How to Fail
• Olivia Atwood, How To Fail
• On the Outside Substack 

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Another week, another divisive op-ed from The Cut! This time about the fraught nature of WhatsApp groups: is it wise to use them to discuss such personal things as money, politics and parenting? First though, another op-ed, this time on the 'Singlehood Stigma', tackling why women feel like they are simultaneously being told by society not to want a partner, while also shamed for their singledom. It seems like we can't have it all - and maybe that's OK. Also on the show, we have a look at the new charges against Russell Brand, why Romeo Beckham is feuding with brother Brooklyn, a quick film rec and reviews of this week's top TV: Black Mirror and Dying for Sex. Enjoy hunnies!

Please do leave us review on Apple Podcasts or a rating on Spotify - it really does help keep us going! DM us ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@straightuppod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or email at ⁠⁠hello@straightuppodcast.co.uk⁠

Huge thanks to our sponsor⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Yonder⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, the incredible lifestyle rewards credit card packed with rewards you’ll actually *want* to use. Find out more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠yonder.com/straightup⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Borrow responsibly. £15 a month. 18+ and UK only. Rep 66.3% APR var. T&Cs apply.

We are blown away by how Sisterly's amazing Elevator powder multivit sachet has improved our health, from skin and nails to sleep and energy. Get 15% off with code STRAIGHTUP at sisterlylab.co.uk

Get 20% off the adaptogenic coffee that changed our lives, London Nootropics, using our code straightup at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠londonnootropics.com⁠⁠⁠

Recs/ reviews

• The New Singlehood Stigma, The Atlantic 
• When Did Dating Become So Depressing? (our ep)
• Freya India, GIRLS, Substack 
• My Group Chat is Ruining My Life, The Cut 
• Thinking About Myself Too Much is Making Me Sick, Chloe Grace Laws’ Substack 
• Black Bag, in cinemas now 
• Russell Brand: Misogyny, manipulation and the mainstream media 'agenda' (our ep)
• The Deliriously Witty Spy Games of “Black Bag”, New Yorker 
• Is this the kinkiest show on TV? New York Mag
• Dying for Sex, Disney 
• Dying for Sex, Wondery Plus
• Michelle Andrews on Inherited podcast 
• Black Mirror, Netflix 
• Blue Jean, BBC IPlayer

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It’s Bridget Jones season, huns, and so obviously we had to review the latest and fourth film in the franchise, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy as a special bonus episode. We laughed, we cried, then dissected everything from Bridget's new boyfriends to Pandora Sykes' official podcast. Be warned, there are spoilers! And don't worry, we’ll be back here tomorrow with our usual pop culture debrief.

Let us know what you thought of the film by DMing us ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@straightuppod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or email us at ⁠hello@straightuppodcast.co.uk⁠ and as ever please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and a rating on Spotify, lysm!

Recs discussed:

• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy The Official Podcast with Pandora Sykes 
• Renée And Hugh Reunite For British Vogue’s February Issue
• Hugh Grant on Smartless
• If the original Bridget Jones was released today, people would still call her fat, Glamour

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This week hunnies we have musician, The X Factor semi-finalist and Strictly finalist Fleur East on the show for a chat all about what it’s like to go through the often brutal churn of reality TV, and come out very much on top! She shared stories about how she almost pulled out of her big The X Factor audition, dealing with managers who wanted to lie about her age, and the wildest A-List party she ever attended. She also shared the cutest story about how she got together with her now husband Marcel, her secrets to a long and happy relationship, and what she’d like to set the record straight on.

Plus we’ve got a fabulous bar review for you Londoners, having spent an excellent evening together at the city’s hottest new haunt, Stereo, the stunning cocktail bar, restaurant and live music venue from super chic the Experimental Group. It’s right in the heart of Covent Garden and for a night of killer cocktails, burgers and a little spin on the dance floor, this totally hits the spot. Stereo is at 35 The Piazza, London, WC2E 8BE, check out Stereo’s website at stereocoventgarden.com, or on IG @stereocoventgardenlondon. 

​​Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at ⁠huel.com/straightup

Leave us a little review, and rate us on Spotify, it helps boost us in the charts and then we can continue getting more fabulous guests and spending time curating juicy, informative content about all things celeb culture. And let us know what you think on Insta @straightuppod

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We’re back with a thrilling culture debrief for you today, angels, and as you can hear from our unhinged giggling, we are really very excited to be reuinited with you all, gossiping about everything from Sofia Richie’s wedding at the infamous, ridiculously luxurious Cap Du Eden Roc hotel in France, to the explosive sex scandal gripping the cast of Netflix’s latest hit, Beef. We also get stuck into Lewis Capaldi’s Netflix documentary, How I’m Feeling Now, which highlights his struggles with Tourette’s syndrome, as well as the streamer’s latest surprise success, The Night Agent, a brilliant, pacy political thriller recently became its third most-watched show of all time, as well as, erm, it’s epic new series about chimpanzees. Also, why you need to read Curtis Sittenfield’s new novel Romantic Comedy about a famous male pop star falling for a TV comedy writer, inspired by Kim K’s hook up with Pete Davidson, as well as a deep dive into how Reese Witherspoon became the most powerful woman in Hollywood. Finally, for anyone planning a Mexico trip in the near future, Kathleen gives a very brief overview of her recent travels, from swimming with wild dolphins to street food hotspots. If you’d like to know more, be that on the route, AirbnB reccos or restaurants to book, shoot us a DM and Kathleen shall share! 

Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at ⁠huel.com/straightup

Mexico recommendations discussed:

• Mexico City: Expendio de Maiz, Orinoco, Supra Roma, the Xocholmilco floating gardens. 
• Puerto Escondido: Stay in La Punta, swimming with dolphins boat trip, visit Fish Shack.
• Oaxaca: Mercado Benito Juárez and Mercado 20 de Noviembre, Tacos Roy.
• Bacalar: Stay in a lakeside cabin at Amacar Baclar, visit Los Rapidos.
• Holbox: We stayed at Mystique, do eat at Feugo Santos and Temco.

Leave us a little review, and rate us on Spotify, it helps boost us in the charts and then we can continue getting more fabulous guests and spending time curating juicy, informative content about all things celeb culture. And let us know what you think on Insta @straightuppod

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Hello darlings, have you missed us? Kathleen is back from Mexico so Straight Up is back to business and we have an excellent celebrity interview for you today: Ryan Hennessy, frontman of Picture This, the childhood friends turned Irish mega band who flew to the top of the Irish charts with their debut album in 2017. If you go weak for an Irish accent and swoon over gorgeous introspective songs about love, breakups and existentialism then you are going to absolutely love em. 

We met Ryan one sunny afternoon in Kings Cross and chatted all about why they're the most 'egoless band out there', why young female fans should not be patronised, and why he might be the only artist that never drinks before a show. And his anecdote about a mental house party in LA - which also inspired a song - might well be one of the craziest stories Straight Up has heard to date. 

Plus: why he wasn't offended by controversial Irish film Banshees of Inisherin, the song inspired by his big existential crisis and his thoughts on masculinity and fatherhood.

Leave us a little review, and rate us on Spotify, it helps boost us in the charts and then we can continue getting more fabulous guests and spending time curating juicy, informative content about all things celeb culture. And let us know what you think on Insta @straightuppod

Check out Song To Myself here: https://songtomyself.lnk.to/PictureThis

If you want to see Picture This live, they're headlining Koko on the 27th April, tickets here

Follow the band @picturethis on IG and Ryan @ryanhennessy_

Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at huel.com/straightup

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi gorgeous ones! Today we round up our mini celebrity journalism series with the fourth and final part (listen to parts one to three by scrolling back in our archive - they’re super juicy!). And it’s all about celebrity journalism’s uncertain future: in an era in which celebs increasingly hold all the power, and publications are losing their relevancy, who needs who?

After Ellie reveals a shock celebrity encounter that got her feeling all kinds of existential angst, we discuss why and how celebs are choosing to disrupt traditional media, from Dua Lipa's newsletter and podcast to the now ubiquitous A-List tell-all Netflix documentary. Whereas celebrity journalism used to be a highly calculated game paying dividends for both sides, today it seems to have become something a lot less strategic.

But it's not all doom and gloom for the media huns, as we make the case for why the traditional interview still holds an important place in our culture, and why celebrity journalism more broadly is important in holding the powerful to account.

Make sure you answer our themed question on Spotify! And let us know what you thin on Insta @straightuppod

Ps we're off for a two-week break after this episode but don't go anywhere, we'll be back on April 20 with a VERY fun interview. See ya then!

Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at huel.com/straightup

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Jordan Stephens is in the studio today angels and this is defo one of our favourite chats to date – you are going to absolutely love this one! Jordan shot to fame as a teenager as one half of Rizzle Kicks, they disbanded in 2016 and he went on to pursue a super successful, incredibly varied career, from actor and painter to children’s book author (as well as still releasing music ofc).

We sat down at Brixton Village studios to debrief on the rise of Rizzle Kicks and being thrown into fame overnight as a teenager, from the “delusion” that got him there in the first place, to the wild and ultimately unsustainable partying that came with such success.

Jordan gets into what his subsequent five years of sobriety have been like and his myriad talents, including  being an actor, and his views on everything from Penn Badgley's no intimacy rule for filming, to Andrew Tate and toxic misogyny.

Plus, why he absolutely loves how famous his partner, Jade Thirlwall from Little Mix, is, how they complement each other, their creative intimacy, and their plans when it comes to getting married and having children.

Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at huel.com/straightup

And thanks VERY much to Shure for gifting us our sexy new mics, the MV7s, which we can highly recommend to any new or current podcasters. Grab yours at Shure.com

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Welcome back angels! We’ve got a corker of a chat for you today, where first we quickly debrief on our favourite Oscar looks, before getting into The Whale, for which Brendan Fraser took home Best Actor, and Hollywood’s surrounding fat suit controversy. Is the portrayal of his character Charlie is ethical? And why are  weight and morality all too often confused? Plus Jonah Hill’s life-long struggle with his weight and self-image, as portrayed in his Netflix documentary Stutz.

Then, we pop the Paul Mescal hype after seeing his arthouse hit Aftersun, which we, unlike the rest of the world, unfortunately did not love. Also, the dreamy Austin Butler as Elvis in the new Baz Lurman film, Jennifer Lawrence’s comeback and Cara Delevingne’s recent renaissance post a much-documented ‘unravelling’. Plus, Kathleen’s favourite new bar discovery, a Mexican meets Japanese underground spot in Notting Hill, Viajante 87.

Recommendations:

• The Whale
• Stutz on Netflix by Jonah Hill
• Elvis (Baz Lurman film)
• Austin Butler on Mark Maron’s podcast
• Jennifer Lawrence BuzzFeed
  No Hard Feelings (JLaw film)
• Planet Sex on BBC iPlayer with Cara Delevingne
• Viajante 87 bar, 87 Notting Hill Gate
• Mae Stevens “If We Ever Broke Up”
• Miley Cyrus “Endless Summer”

Thank you to Huel for supporting this episode. In case you haven't heard, Huel is the game-changing, high protein nutritionally complete meal you can have in a shake that has got both of us into the best shape of our lives, and feeling our healthiest, too! Our fave is the Black Edition – get a free shaker and a T-shirt when you order at huel.com/straightup

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi darlings, we’re back today with a chat with the man who got us turning our kitchens into dancefloors over the pandemic, and has just released one of the most disco-tastic albums of 2023, AudioLust and HigherLove. SG Lewis (or Sam, to his friends) is, as Kathleen says, a pied piper of the party! Makes sense that he’s also super-producer to some of the world’s biggest stars, from Mabel to Dua Lipa, and has worked with icons such as Elton John.

Sam Zoomed us from LA to talk about what his career spent working with some of music’s biggest stars has taught him about fame, money and success, as well as entertaining us with some excellent red carpet stories and revealing what the mysterious ‘songwriter camps’ are really like.

Plus we have got all our cocktail loving Huns covered with a review of what might be our top new London bar: SOMA, in Soho. And Ellie gives us the lowdown on her favourite new female comedians for International Women’s Day, while we also both get stuck into the juiciest controversy of the moment, the explosive fallout from HBO’s upcoming show The Idol, which has been accused of ‘male torture porn’. How did a show satirising fame become the very thing it was meant to satire? And what does this mean for its very famous co-creator The Weeknd?

Recommendations discussed:

• SOMA
• Dans Le Noir?
• Guilty Feminist Podcast ( IWD episode not yet out!)
• Comedian Helen Bauer
• Comedian Michelle de Swarte 
• The Rolling Stone expose on The Idol

Enjoy!

Thank you to Huel for making this episode possible. Huel is a high protein, nutritionally complete meal that you can have in a shake in a load of amazing flavours, and which has totally changed the game for us since we started weight lifting, helping us to get back to the gym, build muscle and save money. huel.com/straightup

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