Last Friday evening saw a momentous moment in the history of the podcast as significant figures came out in force to commemorate a decade of Beyond The Title. Writers, politicians, musicians and journalists were all in attendance to mark this special occasion and even Storm Austen couldn’t dampen our spirits. Unfortunately, the storm did however prevent guests from the mainland from being able to attend but hopefully this special episode makes up for it. Presented by the acclaimed singer songwriter and Beyond The Title favourite Paul Armfield, the show celebrated the many themes that the podcast has featured throughout its history. From the sad demise of theatrical variety to the emergence of Britpop in the mid nineties, we charted over seven decades of pop culture in just eighty minutes.
I found the process of putting the show together particularly interesting, especially reliving some of my favourite moments and attempting to put them in context. One of my earliest episodes featured drummer Mathew Priest of the soft rock band Dodgy who played Medina Theatre in early 2017. Since then, Math has made several appearances on the podcast and it‘s been great to chart his and the band’s journey through the fickle world of live music. His contributions to the evening meant a lot to me personally and even though he sadly couldn’t be there in person, by having his words on the big screen made it very special.
Part of the show featured a sneak preview of my new book You Have Been Watching: The Golden Age of Television Centre which should hopefully be released very soon and my friend Calum did a fantastic job of delivering an exclusive excerpt. If you want to order your copy please drop me a line via the email address below. This was the first time I had heard a passage from the book being read to a live audience and believed the reaction to be an altogether positive one. Of all the books within my repertoire, this ironically felt the most emotional to write as a result of my soaring passion for the subject matter and to hear a passage being delivered just reinforced this.
Two lots of forty minutes isn’t that long for a show and for the months of planning and hours of graft that went into it, I was sad that it was over in the blink of an eye. I just hope that everyone enjoyed the evening and I’m forever in debt to those who have helped me along the way. Here’s to the next chapter of Beyond The Title!
Beyond The Title