Smith & Waugh Talk About Satire

Horatian, Juvenalian, Menippean? Jo and Adam examine some of the big satirical moments of the coronation of Charles III to work out what kind of satire they were, what they were targeting and, more importantly, whether or not they were funny. From "Poundland" Penny Mordant's big sword, to the spare Camillas and the King's revision cards, all the way through to the things that no other country can do, when it came to generating memes the British public very much rose to the occasion. Jo and Adam also consider the mainstream satire of Harry Enfield (The Windsors: Coronation Special), Frankie Boyle (Farewell to the Monarchy) and Stewart Lee ('God Save the King, but what about the Planet', The Guardian). Along the way they also pause to dwell on bigger questions: what is Menippean satire? What does it actually mean to swear allegiance? And is it a corrigible or incorrigible fault to have a big nasty face for genitals?

Jo and Adam prepare to celebrate the momentous, landmark, historic event everyone is talking about... that's right: their 50th episode! This time they're talking about satire and privilege, as seen in Otessa Moshfegh's stratospherically popular novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) and the recent films (now available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Disney Plus): The Menu (2022) and The Triangle of Sadness (2022). They also share their plans for the other (perhaps equally significant) occasion on the horizon - the coronation of King Charles III (who is here for a good time, not a long time) - and experiment with branching out into the weird world of ASMR.

In a very special episode, join Jo and Adam as they perform a set at the Farsely Constitutional in Leeds in late October 2022. And the question Adam and Jo decide to tackle, unscripted,  in front of a live, public audience is: What has satire ever done for us? Satire is great at calling things out, but has it ever actually - even once - ever made an actual difference? To answer the timeless quandary, Jo and Adam share a series of case-studies from the history satire and try to determine whether or not they changed anything. These include a ghoulish satirical hoax (18th century), a sustained campaign of satirical harassments (19th century) and the satirical saturation point of Boris Johnson (2021-22), among others. Special thanks to Dr Adam Booth for giving us this opportunity to talk about satire LIVE as part of his "Quantum Sauce" series.

Satirists ricochet, take their aim, and fire away, fire away at Harry, Prince Andrew, MFA students and horror writers. This month, Adam and Jo discuss Spare and M3GAN, and discover a surprising amount of parallels with two other satirical novels: Garth Marenghi's "Terrortome" and Mona Awad's "Bunny". Truth, todgers, AI, and the creative process feature throughout the show. Also, what would the podcast sound like if it were scripted by ChatGPT? Host One and Host Two find out.

Would you like to hear a (satirical) Christmas story? Then wrap yourselves up warm, settle down, and listen as Mama Satyre tells a heart-warming festive tale that has to be heard to be believed... That's right! It's that most magical time of year: time for the annual Smith & Waugh Christmas Special! Join us for the story of Snarky, the human boy inexplicably raised as a Satyre (a male nature spirit with ears and tail resembling those of a horse and a permanent, exaggerated erection), a thorough investigation into whether or not The Crown and I'm A Celebrity are in any way satirical and our host's recommendations of two books to buy that satirical person in your life this Christmas: Christopher Wilson's Hurdy Gurdy and Rutu Modan's Tunnels. Merry Christmas to all and to all: Sit Up, Shut Up and Eat Our Satire! Ho ho ho.

Forty-five episodes into the podcast, the focus finally turns to Jo’s specialist trivia subject: the life, work and legend of the Brontë sisters. Best known for their novels, poetry, their tragic and untimely deaths and for inspiring a song by Kate Bush, Jo reveals that the Brontës also have a fascinating (and entertaining!) relationship with satire. Charlotte, for instance, bitingly satirised her brother Branwell in her infamous juvenilia. The sisters and the biographical myths they inspired also been the targets, some of which are surveyed here. Adam and Jo also discuss the recent film Emily (not actually a satire, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it might) and Jo shares her vision for a new instalment in the Real Housewives franchise.

Jo and Adam take on the big questions: what is TikTok? What is irony? Is rain on your wedding day more ironic than ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife, or not as ironic as that? Once this is sorted, they chat to novelist, poet, and regular SAWTAS guest, Leigh Stein, about her recent adventures on TikTok and her observations about the way its users respond to irony and satire (or don't). We chat about Colleen Hoover, Flowers in the Attic, and Leigh's forthcoming novel. Then Adam and Jo finally deliver their long-awaited Big Summer Satirical Read Round-Up, where they evaluate Julia May Jonas's Vladimir, John Boyne's The Echo Chamber, and Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot. Isn't it satiric - don't you think?

From the moment Joe Lycett appeared on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg on 4 Sept and (ironically) offered the incoming Prime Minister a ringing endorsement, a veritable Tsunami of satire was unleashed across the UK. Wave after wave of satire swept through the internet. From the bin bag stuck on a the podium outside 10 Downing Street, to the This Morning Energy Bills themed Wheel of Fortune, to Chris Pine’s disassociating face — suddenly everything was a once in a generation meme making opportunity. Jo and Adam are here to pick through it all in what was very nearly their most topical episode ever. [This episode was recorded on 8 Sept 2022].

This was going to be the Smith & Waugh Satirical Summer Reading Challenge episode, but after the summer news cycle was flooded with comedy headlines – almost all in someway dealing with controversy or cancellation – Jo and Adam have put their satirical fun in the sun on hold to think about one of the biggest questions in contemporary comedy:  is it funny to say the unsayable? And, more to the point, is it satire? Together, Adam and Jo try to salvage some meaning from a series of fascinating events: Mock the Week is terminated, Jerry Sadowitz is cancelled [from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival], Frankie Boyle is triumphant [despite joking about sexual violence] and South Park celebrates 25 years on the air. Also featuring quick visits to Adam’s “18th-century Observation Corner” and Jo’s brand new “Gen Z Corner”.

After a thoroughly uneventful week in British politics Jo and Adam struggle to think of any topical satire that they can meaningfully talk about... NOT! In the immediate wake of the "Pincher Affair" and the revelation that he met - unaccompanied - with a former KGB agent during his time as Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson is hit with a world beating volume of government resignations: over 50 in less than 48 hours. What a lot of churn! Surrounded by speakers blasting the Benny Hill theme into 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson finally decides to call it a day... or does he? He appears at the podium and delivers a bombastic self congratulatory speech which sounds a little like a resignation, but then returns to duty, later revealing that he will remain in place for the time being as a "care-taker" PM. Seconds later, Rishi Sunak, who had been among the very first to resign mere days before, publishes his campaign video to be the next leader of the Conservative party. Suffice it to say, there was plenty to chew on for amateur and professional satirists alike, as an unprecedented wave of surreal, incredulous and downright farcical gifs, memes, tweets and sketches subsumed the internet. In this episode, Adam and Jo pick through and discuss some of the satirical highs and lows of this weird week in politics, before calling upon the expertise of Professor Robert Phiddian, author of Satire and the Public Emotions (CUP) to try to understand what all of this might tell us about satire's relationship to what neuroscience names the CAD Triad of Emotions: Contempt, Anger and Disgust. And finally, they also launch the Smith & Waugh Satirical Summer Reading Challenge. 

Did you have a good street party this weekend? Did you get tangled up in bunting? Did you wrestle with a gazebo? Did your neighbor try to start a conga? Did you encounter a Platinum Pudding Maker? No, neither did Adam and Jo. As the nation is strongly encouraged to partake in a frenzy of patriotic worship and monarchical affirmation, Jo and Adam consider the long tradition in British Royal Satire (dating back, of course, to the eighteenth century) before  picking out a couple of key satirical moments from the jubilee celebrations (and their immediate aftermath).

Jo and "Adam" bring listeners up to speed on some shocking backstage drama in the land of Smith & Waugh before taking a deep dive into the weird world of satirical hoaxing. On a quest to clarify the difference between a regular hoax and a satirical hoax, your intrepid hosts gloss the history of literary hoaxes before examining a series of mind-bending modern examples of the form. Did a stand-up comedian called Liam Evans really advocate for "problematic" comedians to be prosecuted using hate crime laws? Did Gwyneth Paltrow really try to sell a diamond-encrusted disposable "diaper" for $200? Are second grade teachers in Austin Texas really teaching young students about the "Furries" as part of a week celebrating sub-culture? Did an activist really believe he could bring peace to the Berkley Protests by giving away free cans of Pepsi Cola? And is there really a movement in America dedicated to proving that all birds have been replaced by deep state surveillance robots? Adam and Jo also welcome onto the show their new unpaid intern, Human Geographer and Music-Maker, Dr Benjamin Garlick.

Jo and Adam are joined by poet, author and academic Sam Riviere for a wide ranging conversation about satire, originality, plagiarism, the inherent challenges of existing in a world where performance and genuine participation have become indistinguishable and, well, just about all of the problems with everything really... In addition to being a celebrated, award-winning author, Sam is also often described as writing satire "fueled by genuine rage." Adam and Jo talk about the long-standing relationship between satire and rage (or at the very least, the performance of rage) before asking Sam if he feels like "genuine rage" is really the engine of his own satire, with particular reference to his recent debut novel Dead Souls. Dead Souls appears, on the surface, to satirize the contemporary poetry/small art publishing scene but, as the novel progresses its satirical impulses spiral outwards to skewer almost everything about life in later-stage capitalism including but not limited to: the culture sector, higher education and social media. Elsewhere in the episode Jo and Adam offer the internet's very last take on Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars (is it a useful analogy for how satire works???) and reflect on their recent experience of interviewing the viral internet comedian and animator Alistair Beckett King. 

As Russia invades Ukraine, Jo and Adam ponder the most pressing question: what does the first European conflict in decades will mean for satire? They also reflect on the unlikely backstory of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who, in the ultimate case of satire imitating life, fronted a satirical sitcom in which he played a man who surprisingly became the Ukrainian President in the years immediately before he surprisingly became Ukrainian President. Then they discuss a recent Guardian AMA with (close personal friend of the podcast?) Armando Iannucci. And then, at last, after talking about all those topical men, they finally mark IWD22 by forging visibility for women by celebrating the achievements of two satirical women: Eliza Haywood (and her periodical The Parrot) and Dorothy Parker.

Happy Anniversary to SAWTAS! It’s been three years to the day since Adam and Jo first took to the airwaves. In this episode, they reflect on their tremendous and unlooked-for success, and take a moment to consider whether it’s possible to talk about satire without being pretentious (spoiler: yes). Once that’s established, they talk to special guest Dr Andrew Bricker from Ghent University about satire, libel, and the law, and the ways that all of those things were connected in our very favourite century, the eighteenth one. We explore how the law responded to satirists, and how satirical work shaped libel laws in that period, and consider the legacies of that relationship today. Along the way, we hear about a fascinating addendum to the Jonathan Swift/Lady Mary Montagu dressing-room-based scrap, talk about cancellations, comedy, and a little bit of Brontë business too. From twenty-first century pseuds (not us, we’re talking about Private Eye) to eighteenth-century feuds - it’s our anniversary and we’ll talk about satire if we want to.

Andrew, author of Libel and Lampoon: Satire in the Courts 1670-1792 (Oxford University Press, 2022), will also be joining us at the York Literature Festival in March.

As the fabric of the social contract in Britain further disintegrates in the wake of increasingly outrageous revelations about behaviour behind closed doors at 10 Downing Street during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jo and Adam talk about the one divisive topic that's really gotten everyone really raging in this cold, miserable month of January: Adam McKay's Netflix original movie Don't Look Up! Is it too smug? Is it too simple? Is it too self-satisfied? Is it too satirical, or not satirical enough? These are the questions that polarised everyone over the holidays, and they're the questions Adam and Jo are wading into in this episode, which takes as its theme the end of the f*cking world. They also talk about Ben Elton's 1989 satirical novel Stark, which tackles very similar ground to McKay's film only with "total toxic overload" as the catastrophic and unstoppable threat to human civilisation rather than a huge flaming meteor that everyone can literally see coming. And, of course, they'll also reflect on satirical responses to Party-Gate. They just hope the PM can hang on long enough for this episode to come out and still be relevant...

Christmas isn’t Christmas until everyone is dead of a new mutant variant! Only kidding. Christmas isn’t really Christmas until Jo and Adam have dropped their self-indulgent Christmas episode, and this year they’ve pulled out all of the stops and thrown a big illegal party in 10 Downing Street during a national lockdown and the police are refusing to investigate. Only kidding. It isn’t a party, it’s a gathering. It’s cheese and wine. Ok, it’s not really any of those, it’s a podcast, but as you can imagine the question of whether a party quacks like a duck, and whether that duck can be satirised, is occupying a lot of Adam and Jo’s headspace this Christmas. But never mind that now. All you need to know is Jo and Adam are here with some Christmas consumer advice on what to get the satire fan in your satirical fam: Armando Iannucci’s mock-epic satire on COVID-times, Pandemonium, and Sam Riviere’s multi-layered satire on the creative arts, Dead Souls. Merry Satirical Christmas, one and all.

In a special bonus episode Adam and Jo are joined once again by novelist and culture writer Kat Rosenfield for a deep dive into one of the strangest literary scandals of recent years, and that is the scandal of the Bad Art Friend Scandal. If you haven’t heard about this yet, fear not, because Jo, Adam and Kat explain all before returning to the short story at the heart of this scandal, Sonya Larson’s The Kindest, and ask: could it be satire?

Jo and Adam are joined by culture writer, podcaster and novelist Kat Rosenfield to discuss the challenges faced by the satirist in 2021, the state of satire in young adult fiction and Kat’s brand new novel No One Will Miss Her, which The Washington Post has described as “amusingly satirical and darkly bloody.” Kat has reported for MTV News and her work has appeared in such outlets as Wired, Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, Unherd, Playboy, The Spectator (USA) and Reason. She’s the author of many novels, including Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone (2012) and Inland (2014), she collaborated with Stan Lee on The Alliances and she is co-host of the hit podcast Feminine Chaos.

In this momentous episode, Jo and Adam finally return to their trusty recording booth for the first episode to be recorded in-person and on-location since March 2020. Once back in the booth Adam and Jo mark the anniversary of Chris Morris's Brass Eye Special, "Paedogeddon!", which remains one of the twenty-first-century's most polarizing and controversial works of satire twenty years later. They're joined by Dr Robert Edgar, Senior Lecturer in Film and Media and fellow member of the York Research Unit for the Study of Satire (YRUSOS), who helps them determine whether or not Morris is a classic satirist in the Juvenallian tradition of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope or indeed, as he was branded by the tabloid press at the time, some kind of demented "media terrorist." Jo and Adam also revisit their discussion of Bo Burnham's Inside from the last episode and add a few further, qualifying reflections. This is satire, reboothed.

In the second half of Adam and Jo's wide-ranging conversation with poet/novelist/journalist/satirist Leigh Stein, they turn their attention to the target's of satire in Leigh's latest collection: What To Miss When? (Penguin, 2021). Did the "cancel culture" phenomenon intensify during the pandemic because a lot of people were locked down with nothing to do but manufacture outrage and demand moral purity? Is there a difference between a Karen and a B*tch? And was there more to our intense but fleeting obsession with Tiger King than met the eye? Jo and Adam also take a look at Bo Burnham's Netflix musical special, Inside, and wonder whether or not they've missed something crucial... Check out the episode show-notes.

In the second part of this wide-ranging interview with satirist, comedian and cultural commentator Andrew Doyle , conversation turns to touch on cancel culture and the culture wars as Andrew explains what is at stake in his satirical project. Jo and Adam also take time to reflect on Charlie Brooker’s latest production, the Netflix mocumentary Death to 2020, and Jo reveals her clever idea for a new kind of national service.

Many of our guests have talked about the need for satire to 'punch up', but do you already need to be quite far up to punch with satire? Why are so many figures associated with satire and its illustrious history not only men, but privately educated ones? Jo and Adam speak to comedian Janey Godley about her booming career as a female comedian from Glasgow and the role social media has played in her success.

In their very first Christmas episode, Jo and Adam take a break from asking whether satire is dead, and imagine what it might have been like if it had never been born at all. No expense has been spared on members of the cast, as they take a rollercoaster ride through a very partial history of satire. They then discuss the satirical possibilities of Christmas itself, and are joined by Matt Colbeck of the Stoke-based Math Rock Virtuoso Guiar trio Creepjoint to ponder this.

Listen to the full episode on Thursday 19 December 2020.

When people are deciding who is or isn't a satirist, how much of that decision do they base on the actual content being produced and how much on perceived political or intellectual bias? How do you satirise a target who believes themselves to be virtuous? And does Adam Smith really think everyone is a massive snowflake? 

Find out on the 14 November, when Adam and Jo will be joined by comedian and satirist, Andrew Doyle (close friend of Titania McGrath). 

In the first episode of their second season, Smith and Waugh talk to the anonymous author of long-running Twitter parody @DMReporter. 

In this episode Adam and Jo (and @DMReporter) talk about:

Adam and Jo talk about their plans for season 2, who their guests will be and why it will be slightly different talking to practitioners than to scholars. 

This episode may or may not have been sponsored by Shropshire Farm Foods.*

*It wasn't. 

The new season drops on 24th October, featuring interviews with Andrew Doyle (Spiked journalist, comedian and creator of Titania McGrath), Janey Godley (comedian and person who approached Donald Trump with a sign saying "Trump is a C**t"), the anonymous host of popular satirical Twitter account @DMReporter and many more... 

With Season 1 wrapped, Jo wants to ask a question: Was this secretly a podcast about the eighteenth century all along? And if not, why are so many of our guests all of to the International Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies International Congress on the Enlightenment...?