SWP9: Isy Suttie turns her exes into radio gold

Sound Women

It's February, the shortest but arguably most interminable month of the year; but at least a few laughs hasten its progress a little. So in this month's edition of the Sound Women podcast, I find out how the radio comedy sausage is made from:

1. Isy Suttie, winner of the 2013 Sony Radio Academy Award for comedy for her Radio 4 show Pearl and Dave. As she gears up for the imminent second series of Isy Suttie's Love Letters, she tells me about song-writing, skiing, stealing, and harvesting material from her own love life as well as those of the inhabitants of her home town of Matlock in Derbyshire. Pearl and Dave is available to buy here, and series 1 of Love Letters here; Isy herself is available on Twitter here.

2. Caroline Raphael, BBC Radio 4 comedy commissioner. She describes how ballet and theatre led her into radio comedy, bathing babies in BBC basins (try saying that phrase ten times in quick succession) and making the radio industry more welcoming to women, particularly once they've had children. Find her on Twitter here.

For you paid-up Sound Women members, there's a bumper bit of bonus audio on the members' only enclosure of the website: Ruth Barnes talks to comedy producer Julia McKenzie about offending people, creative boundaries, and learning from Danny Baker. Non-paid-up Sound Women members should rush off to soundwomen.co.uk/joinus to amend that state.

If you'd like to contribute to the Sound Women podcast, get in touch: tweet @soundwomen or email [e-mail].

Thanks to SoundCloud for hosting, Martin Austwick and Kevin MacLeod for the music, and to you for listening! Please listen again on 1st March, when the next Sound Women podcast will arrive.

Helen Zaltzman

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