It’s Not You, It’s Them… But It Might Be You with LalalaLetMeExplain (Sony Music Entertainment) | Apple Podcasts
Bunk Bed (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Where Are You Going? | Loftus Media
Gordon Smart (BBC Radio 5 Live) | BBC Sounds
Anyone familiar with the hugely successful Instagram account @lalalaletmeexplain will be simultaneously surprised and not surprised that Lala has brought out a podcast. Not surprised, because she’s articulate and popular, with an online community of more than 230,000 followers (mostly young women) and a bestselling book (Block, Delete, Move On). Surprised because her internet account is anonymous. She doesn’t use her real name, or put up photos of herself. This is because Lala’s speciality subject – what she talks about graphically, clearly, almost confrontationally – is sex.
She’s OK! magazine’s agony aunt, has been a social worker and worked in sex education, and she is happy to discuss all sexual matters, no matter how seemingly shocking. And, though she’s clear about welcoming questions from queer people, the sex Lala talks about most is the app-accessed, slide-into-your-DMs type that horny young women are having with horny young men. She has a great ability to spot “fuck boys” – meaning men who are after sex but nothing more; she practically invented “the ick”, where you find yourself going off someone sexually for a stupid reason; and she’s happy to point out when a “friend with benefits” isn’t actually a friend at all.
And now Sony Music Entertainment, which has a good track record at spotting potential podcast stars (it swept up Florence Given from Instagram), has given Lala a new show, It’s Not You, It’s Them… But It Might Be You. Actually, three new shows. The first, out every Monday, is Lala diving into – well, monologuing about – a hot topic, meaning something that’s blowing up on social media or in the press. Wednesday’s podcast is her answering listeners’ sex and relationship problems. And on Fridays she’ll offer an upbeat show that mirrors her Instagram feed, with chat about dating dilemmas, red flag alerts and “weekend reminders” – essentially her reminding her fans that they can just stay in and watch telly, and don’t have to be at anyone’s sexual beck and call.
I’ve heard Monday’s and Wednesday’s first shows and – surprise! – these are not podcasts to be listened to on speaker while making the kids’ tea, or blasted in the car when you’re giving your mum a lift to aqua aerobics. On Monday, Lala talked about sex education in schools. She has a lovely London accent and is a natural broadcaster, speaking for 20 minutes without repetition, hesitation, deviation or obvious editing points. There were some questions I’d have liked discussed around who provides the schools’ sex ed – it’s not always teachers – but this was a matter-of-fact explainer that should reassure parents that providing children with facts about sex is a good thing to do.
Be warned: Wednesday’s show was a lot more graphic, covering squirting (female ejaculation), a listener embarrassed about the shape of her labia, and whether a woman is OK to sleep with the third of three brothers when she’s already had sex with the other two. Again, Lala was clear but, obviously, considerably more explicit with her answers.
She was also refreshingly human, speaking not as a jargon-stilted social worker, but more like an experienced sister (in all senses of that word). “I just don’t think that anyone is going to take you seriously when you’ve had sex with their relatives,” she said about the sleeping-with-brothers question. “How would Christmas Day look?… They’re gonna say: ‘I fucked your missus!’” Oddly, Lala reminds me of Kathy Burke. Not as funny, but definitely as honest and impatient with nonsense.
And, hooray, Burke was the guest on the opening episode of the 10th series of Bunk Bed, Radio 4’s late-night delight that features Peter Curran and Patrick Marber talking with a guest while they’re all lying down in the dark (on bunk beds, supposedly). Burke, as ever, was a brilliant guest – she’s so good, this was the second time she’s been on – and the conversation meandered hilariously from dribbling during a massage to fancying Miriam Margolyes. The episode ended with Burke casually annihilating Marber with a drive-by quip that made me howl.
Bunk Bed is a small, warm show, not an award-hunter but a lovingly made offering for your listening enjoyment. Here’s another one: Where Are You Going? Originally a World Service programme, this independently made podcast features reporter Catherine Carr hanging around outside, asking random people the title question. Recent episodes have included Windsor, where Carr talked to a rabbi on his way to an interfaith convention; a cyclist practising for a London-to-Paris event; and two excellent ladies on their once-a-week charity shop and cup of coffee outing. “We look forward to it, don’t we? We miss it if we don’t go.” Carr is such a lovely presence that people quickly open up to her, and this is a delightfully cockle-warming show – a humane antidote to life’s darker times.
Last Sunday, after the near five-hour-long epic Wimbledon men’s final, Gordon Smart started his new job. Smart has been brought off the subs’ bench for a few BBC 5 Live programmes recently, standing in for the likes of Tony Livesey and Nihal Arthanayake, and he has been rewarded with his own two-hour programme in the station’s tricky Sunday evening slot that has, over the years, been host to Gabby Logan’s All About Property, Tim Samuels’s Men’s Hour and, more recently, various reruns of 5 Live podcasts.
Smart’s show comes from Glasgow, which ticks a few BBC boxes, and the first programme was stuffed enjoyably full of Scottish talent, including an old friend of his, Stuart Duguid, who manages big tennis stars such as Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios and Ons Jabeur, the last of whom had lost the women’s Wimbledon final the day before. How to comfort her? “You just have to try and get her to think about anything other than the match,” said Duguid. Smart’s interview with him was interesting and funny; an easy Sunday night listen and a great start to the new series.
