Behind the Bastards - Introducing: Away Days Podcast

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Hi, Behind the Bastards Fans! We want to share a new show, Away Days: Reporting from the Underbelly.  About the show: Away Days Podcast is an episodic documentary series focused on unreported stories from the fringes of society.  We’re compassionately documenting the underground without watering it down or editorially obscuring it. This is independent journalism with no filter. Real, raw, and ugly. Journalist Jake Hanrahan, the host and creator of Away Days has spent the last 10 years embedded in places he’s not meant to be. With unique access and a straightforward style of on-the-ground reporting, the listener will be taken deep into the places they didn’t know existed. Listen here and subscribe to Away Days on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the late 1950s a cultural and artistic movement known as kitchen sink realism formed in Britain. For many it was the first time seeing the harsh realities of the downtrodden represented in creative media. Kitchen sink realism first took form in the shape of theatre productions such as Look Back in Anger, which is set entirely in an overcrowded council flat in the East Midlands, which happens to be where I'm from. Kitchen sink realism dramatised the underbelly of Britain, bearing it warts and all to the nation. At that time, artificial, feel-good plays about happy families were generally the norm. Meanwhile, the country was a rough, harsh and broken place to live for the vast majority of the underprivileged.

Whilst the old plays offered soft escapism for the viewer, kitchen sink realism did the opposite. It kicked the door in and aired out the dirty laundry. This is a concept close to my heart and has always been at the back of my mind when producing all of my own independent projects. Problem is there's less and less of this in today's modern media. As a response to all of this I've created Away Days, a new project that you could say is kitchen sink journalism, a reportage from the fringes of society that doesn't seek to caricature it or soften the blow at all. I'm presenting to you real life countercultures without frills and judgement. At its base, Away Days is an independent video documentary series that you can watch over

the next few months at youtube.com slash at Away Days TV. Subscribe there ASAP. We've also teamed up with Cool Zone Media and iHeartRadio to bring you this podcast version that goes deeper with all the nerves left raw. Waydays is a pushback against the climate of fakery. We're not phoning in once. We're actually outside making something real and at times unapologetically ugly. This is reporting from the underbelly. We'll show you parts of the world you never knew existed. Underground

no rules fight clubs in Europe, illegal street racing in Japan, football hooliganism in Kazakhstan, gang governments in the favelas of Brazil and much much more. We've been there and now we'll show you it all. Listen to the Away Days podcast reporting from the underbelly on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. you