Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Do we know if the Bible references the Cavapoo? (with Joanna Scanlan)

Episode Date: April 15, 2026

We kick off today’s episode with some broadcast history - you lucky things. Once they’ve exited memory lane, Jane and Fi cover concrete school desserts, Nevil Shute Road, no-good chocolate Cavapoos, and the abnormal temperature of Jane’s cellar. Plus, actress Joanna Scanlan discusses voicing the audiobook 'Mercy' and her new Channel 5 thriller 'Missed Call'. You can check out our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@OffAirWithJaneAndFiOur new playlist 'Coiled Spring' is up and running: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4tmoCpbp42ae7R1UY8ofzaOur most asked about book is called 'The Later Years' by Peter Thornton.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @janeandfiPodcast Producers: Eve SalusburyExecutive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'll go again. Are we recording now? Eve is a stunning producer. We're all laughing because I just said that, but Eve said I'm not recording yet, so I said it again because we are recording. Eve is a stunning producer because she remembered Jane

that we did leave hanging the team building day's email from Jackie because we just got completely carried away, I think, talking about Tom Bradby, our guest at the end of yesterday's podcast. Easily done. so let's have it now. So here we go, Jackie.

I'm just catching up on the podcast and heard the chat about team building days. It took me right back to the 1980s when as a young woman of 24, I was working in admin for a social services department in East Sussex. I'd only been there for a few months and had to endure the dreaded day.

It was just weird. The first exercise involved about 20 people sitting in a circle, including management, and under each chair was a piece of paper that contained your task. I'm not sure, but I think. think where you sat was by choice, so I don't think the tasks were meant for specific people. Imagine my horror when I read mine. I had to go around the room and say what I thought was the

most attractive physical feature of each person. What year was this? So this is in the 1980s and Jackie was 24. Oh dear. I know. To this day, I have no idea what that task was meant to achieve. To make matters worse, there were several team leaders, mostly older males, who definitely had no attractive physical attributes whatsoever. I stumbled my way through it, mortified and bright red in the face. My defaults were lovely smile or kind eyes. What does that even mean? I honestly can't remember any of the tasks the others had, but I don't think they were as excruciating as mine. The rest of the day was a blur, but I know I hated every minute of it. I now live in Perth, Australia and work in a pediatric department of a hospital. I'm pleased to say our team building day has held once a year.

It involves guest speakers, are you booking Megan, imparting wisdom during the afternoon with dinner and a party in the evening, all paid for just to say thank you to staff for another year of hard work. I know which I prefer. Catching up on episodes of the podcast, managing to catch the live show occasionally while my husband is back in Liverpool. Oh, the claxon's gone off early. You woke up then, helping to look after his dad, who recently became unwell. You're keeping me company for which I'm grateful. we're grateful that you're listening, Jackie. We wish your father-in-law well. I hope he's going to be okay. And poor you, 24 years old.

And just imagine if we, with senior management involved in this huge empire, if we had to go round a room and say what the best physical actually was about them. I don't know why I'm so surprised because that's when I went into radio, 1987, in a commercial radio station. And actually, yeah, that would have happened. That would have happened in that environment with all the jocks. Because they really were jocks.

We had a lot of people at my first radio station, Radio Wyven, beloved by many, no longer in existence, who'd come off the pirate ships to work in a land-based radio station. Or can I just posit this here, or said that they'd come off the pirates. Because it's not like there was a whole thing, of them, Jane. And there's a certain...

They all did claim that. Yeah, but there's a certain band of men of a certain age in our business who do all claim to have been on board the pirate ships for, you know, years and years and years. I just don't think there were that many of them. Are you saying they can't all have been

Captain Pugwash? I think you might be right. I am saying that. But I can still see one guy who he couldn't sit still. When he was broadcasting, he had to, he rocked backwards and forwards to he claimed mimic the motion of the waves. Well, there you go. Did he just, do you fool me?

I mean, but also that's just, that is taking a hey look at Meadam to the pinnacle of Mount Kilimanjaro, isn't it? I can still recall his name. I won't use it here. But suffice to say, in those days, the joccurry largely consist of kind of just telling everybody

in almost every link what day of the week it was. You know, that kind of Monday morning, Wyven time, 10.15. A time check is not a link. That's what we were taught at radio school. It's a public service announcement, but very many people now wear a watch. It's 10 bars five years total.

Oh God. You're being paid to say that. Yeah, well, bring on ARIA speedwagon as the sun beat down over Droitwich. That was what we were doing. Oh, dear, I do miss it, though. Those were the times. They were fun times.

We did have some chuckles. Do you still have any tape recordings of your early work from 40 years ago? Mercifully, no. Oh, okay. That's a shame. Because I'm quite interested by how people's voices change throughout their lives. And I think you and I probably both had much higher voices when we were younger. Oh, definitely higher.

I can still remember my first ever live broadcast when... I bet you can. Yes, indeed. Do you want to hear all about... No, I had to read the sports news at very short notice. And we didn't have a sports department or anything. So it was just ripped off the, what was it called? The Rip and Read, they called it that, didn't they?

Was it a teleprinter? Yes, it would have been. Yeah, I mean, that's it. And so I absolutely, I stumbled my way through it. Well, I can't believe that, Jane. No, I did, I did. And, yeah, I remember getting something wrong about the 3A's athletic championships.

I think I called it the AAA, because I hadn't seen it before already. I mean, honestly, the stakes were high because the listeners would have been well up in numbers, into the late teens, I would have thought, in the middle of a summer's afternoon across Bucolic, Heraldshire and Worcestershire, they'd all have been thinking,

what's the latest sports news? Tell me about it. But I was very nervous, and my voice was very dry, but I was still, I felt afterwards, you've got it. And I still think, No, I don't. When was your first live forecast?

Well, on a proper... It's a hospital radio. Proper radio station. Yeah, I don't think you'd... Did you work in hospital radio? I did, in Bromley. Oh my God, of course. How could I have forgotten?

Yeah. So maybe I died and came back to life in Bromley Hospital. Something's happened. I just didn't realize. My first proper live live, though, would have been on our sort of radio in Northampton. and I had to read a bulletin after I've been there a couple of months. Weeks? No, probably just weeks.

And I remember the nerves are just astonishing. You know, you really do think I'm not going to be able to speak, I'm not going to be able to breathe. And because back in our day, and this is so boring, I'm going to keep it very brief. Not at all.

I've just sat very patiently through yours. Exactly. I want to hear more. Now I was just going to say, I know we've got a couple of radio fissionados listening who will have appreciate us mentioning the cart stack. Nobody else will. But you went into a bulletin.

You usually had three carts, which were big, big, kind of magnetic tape contraptions. We need to make clear. We're not talking about a wheelbarrow. No. So they were, I mean, it's short for cartridges, but they had magnetic tape in them, and you could re-record over them.

And they were called carts, and you'd have a cart stack on the right-hand side of the microphone. And it was up to you to get the carts in the right order, and then you would fire them off during the bulletin. when you were reading them out. So it wasn't as simple as actually just going into a booth with a script. There was technology involved. Let's just bring in our young colleague.

Are you learning something from this? Massively. Thank you, Eve. So it was a bit daunting because there were two things that you were trying to achieve, neither of which you'd ever done in public before. And I remember thinking that's the bit that's going to cock up. Well, tell me about it, because you know how lacking in dexterity I am. Yeah.

So I would be firing off all the wrong carts. And you had to pre-fade them to make sure that they had lined up in the right place because there was a possibility that people had recorded three or four voices on them. So it was, it was a bit trepidious. Oh, it absolutely was, yeah. But woe betide you if you introduced an item about an award-winning piglet only to play audio of the Mayor of Ledbury. Exactly, the local MP saying something very, very important.

I mean, it was just, you know, it just didn't work. So there's a little bit of broadcasting history there. is still awake, we welcome you to Wednesday's edition of Off Air. No, do you know what? I did love, when I actually mastered it after a fashion, I love that combination of using

my hands to operate the mixing desk and using my gob to talk bullocks. I know exactly what you mean. It was a rather lovely way to fill your time. So I think you and I, weirdly, we both quite like driving, don't we? I like the mechanism of driving a car and driving a desk

is exactly the same thing. And also you really care about sound, if you're constantly thinking, especially because you and I've both done music shows, so if you're thinking, I've got to say something that's going to go into the beginning of this track and I've got 17 seconds to talk up to the lyrics or whatever it is and you might want to have a different eye dent on first. It's actually a hugely engaging way to use your brain. You are making kind of multi-layered sound and hopefully the person who's listening at the other end just hears this seamless

mix of vaguely entertaining words and tunes but it is definitely a thing to be able to do it but I'm with you I really loved all of the faders and stuff like that but you do have to learn on the job that's the terrible and the listeners have to bear with you yeah

but honestly I've heard that sex is good but it can't possibly be as good as I don't know introducing a steely down track and knowing that you've got 21 and a half seconds to promote a jumble sale in Bishop's Room in the village hall. Well, you and I, we're very, very similar in many ways, but we're not similar on that. I'm just going to put that out there.

There we are. So get yourself to a music radio station towards the end of your career, Jane. Just back on board the desk. I would love to. I'd love to as well. Absolutely love to. We think we've made very clear. We're available.

We are very much available. And I think for me as well, late night. There's just something about late night. radio that's just so fantastic. You've got people in a completely different headspace to daytime drunk radio. Well, no, usually just one-on-one. You know, but people aren't doing anything else. Well, they shouldn't be. Yes. No, they certainly shouldn't. So, right, should we concentrate on the job that we've got at the moment. Oh, I didn't realize we were working. I did want to mention this from Joe, because I wonder whether other people have had similar experiences. Thank you for this, Joe.

Oh, I should say, we've got a good guest today. It's one of my three. favourite members of the acting profession. We have many favourites. But one of my favourites is our guest today, Joanna Scanlan. You like her too. Oh, absolutely love her. What's the funny police show she was in? The comedy police show. That was the one thing we didn't ask her about.

I don't know, Fee. I'll get Eve on to it. Oh, I do know what you mean. But I can't bring it to my time. Really funny. No offence. It might be no offence. There are a couple of series of it. She was just bloody brilliant.

internet. Carry on. I write to you on Easter Monday, says Joe. Quite a few people emailed us on Easter Monday. We had a guest yesterday, a contributor who'd been at Waterstones on Easter Monday, and I did think that was a very good use of her time. But this is a different conversation with Joe. I write to you on Easter Monday from my empty co-working space. I've had it all to myself for the past four days, and I've had a revelation. I'm a writer, and I've known long. I've known long. I've long known, that's what she put, I just got it wrong, that momentum is 50% of finishing a book. But like most women, I never get momentum. Even as somebody without kids, I still have a house and a garden to look after and a partner who lives in a different city who I want to spend time with. Plus, you know,

the gym, food to shop for, friends to hang out with. I've spent the last 11 days straight at my desk and my output has been turbocharged. I've cancelled almost every social engagement, and and just worked. In at 8.30 in the morning, home at six, with every evening to do as I please. Nice food, good telly. It helps enormously that my partner is on the other side of the world at the moment visiting family. What I've realised is that I'm currently working like a man. Now, Deborah Orr once said something about living in the same house as Will's self. Joe puts here, insert your own snide comment, I know you have one. Well, actually, we don't want to revisit our experience with Will Self, or do we?

I don't think he wants to revisit his experience with us. Fair enough. Deborah Orr once said something about living in the same house with Will Self when he was writing. He wouldn't appear for dinner. He wouldn't help with the children. He just wrote. Dear God, this is what it feels like to be Will Self and by gum, it's fantastic, electric. I'm starting to imagine what my output might be like if I always wrote like this.

The level of concentration I've been able to achieve means what I'm writing. is actually whisper it quite good, though obviously I do realize that ultimately that will be up to editor and readers to judge. I've now got 10 more days of setting my own schedule before my partner lands at Heathrow. Until then, I can get up when I want, go to bed when I choose,

exercise when I need to, eat when it's convenient, and I'll have finished this draft by the time I see her next. Right. So there we go, Joe. Congratulations on a period of your life in which, as you say,

you believe you have worked like a man or work like a man is sometimes allowed to work by virtue of what exactly what was it Virginia Woolf said about the pram in the hall oh that you can't get your artistic talent past the pram in the hall that's right something like that yeah yeah but Joe doesn't have children but what she does have

is commitments commitments to other people and those commitments departed her life. Her partner was somewhere else. I mean, I don't, what do you think about that? Well, I don't want to continue into future generations the handicaps of the past, Jane. So, I mean, I completely get it.

It definitely has been easier in the past for men to devote themselves to their work. in a way that women haven't been able to, but I just don't want to keep saying that that's the norm and that's what happens. Because I do know quite a few women whose partners are so fantastically supportive of what they do, Jane.

I mean, really properly supportive. They're creative women. I think the first couple of years, they have children. I mean, not everybody has that commitment. But the first couple of years of childcare were incredibly difficult for them when they were trying to carry on pursuing their art. because, you know, you can't book in your creative self

to your childcare routine in the same way that you and I could book in our work hours. You can't just say right from 9 to 3pm on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I'll write a novel. Yes, you know, I'll go. That'll be fine. Or I'll go and paint or, you know, whatever it is that you're doing. So they definitely had a hard time in the first couple of years.

But do you know what? Their partners have just been amazing and enabled them to go back. to their creative selves. So I'm not having a digger at our correspondent at all, but I suppose I just don't want to keep on saying that that's the norm because I just hope it changes. And sometimes when you say, you know, men are allowed to do this,

you're actually allowing men to do something. I don't want to do it anymore. It does sometimes seem to be the case that men's working lives are facilitated by their partners to one degree or another. But it might be a choice. Yeah, but as long as you made that choice, it's fine. Yeah. I mean, I think sometimes men's work is taken very, very seriously,

often by the wider family, perhaps more seriously, than women's work by the wider family, depending on circumstances. But aren't we in a position to change, though? Well, we should be, we should be. Can we ask Eve a little question there? Do you mind being the spokesperson for a whole new generation, Eve? I do not. Okay.

She so thoroughly enjoyed hearing about broadcasting in the early days. She was in absolutely no way looking into the middle distance around. Thinking about what she was having to see. Just imagining it all. Yes, thank you, Eve. Flickering candles. Amongst your contemporaries and you're all in your mid-20s, do you think that you have already started to see a pattern

where the blokes are having their careers taken more seriously than the women? I don't know if that is the case, but I feel that the women that I know in my friendship group have pursued maybe slightly more vocational or creative jobs, and most of the men we know are in suits in the city. FinTech. Doing that kind of job.

And I don't know if then that will put us on a path that the men earn more because of those industries and our industries will not provide us with those equivalent salaries. So maybe that is where it ultimately heads. So feminism and reality are often in quite a tight jam jarred together. Yes. Further down the road. But I suppose what I'm trying to be hopeful about,

and you can dash my hopes, of course you can, is just whether or not those creative women would feel that they could be enabled by their partners at some point to carry on doing what they're good at doing. I'd like to think that of the people that I know and the men that I know that they would be those type of people to facilitate that. But reality might get in the way. Yeah, but I think there's also an argument that nowadays

you will need a dual income to support a family, so both careers will have to be respected. Yep. Gosh, that's true. Yeah, certainly if you want somewhere to live as well, throw that into the mix. But back to our original emailer, I'm so glad that you have experienced the freedom to completely let rip with your creative self. I mean, it sounds like it's been a terrifically fruitful fortnight, and I hope that, you know, you'll be able to do it again. And the proof of pudding will, proof of what?

Proof of the pudding will be in the eating. it'll be in what you're able to do further down the line, went it? They've banned puddings now for kiddies at school's disgusting. They have to have 50% fruit. They all gone and all those lovely sponges we used to have. I mean, who can't recall Eve won't be able to? The chocolate sponge with the pink custard. What was that?

I don't know, because it didn't taste of chocolate. No. But it just told you it was going to be chocolate. So you thought you had had chocolate. You were lulled. It wasn't chocolate. God knows what it was. It was concrete, probably.

I don't know. Anyway, we all ate it. Anyway, it's banned. There's no joy in this country anymore. Everything's gone. Everything's gone. There's a teacher who wrote into the programme when we were talking about that, wasn't the saying,

it will just mean that more food is thrown away. You know, the teachers don't have the time or the energy to be sitting down at a table saying you can't get up until you've finished. So actually, certainly in the transition period, where you're hoping to re-educate pallets. you're going to have quite a full compost bin, aren't you? I think you are. Yes.

And has anybody, by the way, I mean, I know that we've got, my food caddy is already starting to smell again because the temperature's gone up above about 10 Celsius in Britain. It just stinks. I know people say put it in the freezer. I just can't feel. I don't want to put it in the freezer.

Okay, why don't you just put it in your cellar? Somehow that's even worse. But it would be colder in the cellar? No, it's quite warm, my cellar. Is it? What's down there? Well, I've got a dehumidifier, which is, hello, turn me off when I'm talking about my dehumidifier. How dare you?

I always look forward. I get an annual newsletter from the dehumidifier. It comes via email and it's always a good read. Next time it comes, can you print it out and read it to us? Bring it in for you. She still turned herself off. She's still turned herself off. Oh, I'm sorry.

that again. Thank you to Alex, who's sent two photos. She's in the Portsmouth area, where they have, did you know this, Neville Shoot Road? I've read this. Alex reports, it's on a crap industrial estate, not sure what that says about him. Also, my phone will keep auto-correcting him to Neville Shite. Right. I mean, I think that, by the way, I think that's unfair. Never read any of your book club books, but have read yours. Obviously that says something about me. Right, thank you very much indeed, Alex, for that. Alex describes herself as 46, 5 foot 2, and shoe size 5.

A shoe size 5 is my favourite shoe size. You were a little bit smaller than that, aren't you? I'm a three. He's tiny. Absolutely tiny. Absolutely tiny. I'm going to go into an email now called Disappointing Chocolate Cabapoo's and Being Single in Your 30s.

I'm going to go to the end before the beginning. and our anonymous correspondent says Jane, you're right. Ralph, the chocolate cavapoo, was not at the high standards expected of that retailer. Please keep me anonymous because I was given the chocolate cavapoo as a gift by a kind friend as I have a real life cavapoo, and I wouldn't want them to be as disappointed as I was. Now, that's always the bizarre thing, isn't it? I don't want somebody to give me a chocolate rendition of Nancy for me to then break it open and start ravaging with saliva,

her head. Yes, I do see a point. I think I have a friend who's an extraordinarily gifted novelty cake maker. She can just do anything in cake. And she did recreate my friend's dog in, late dog, since passed away, in cake form. And it was difficult. To know which bit to cut. Well, to know where to start. It was all too lifelike. So I see your point with the Kavapoo. But I'm so glad. It's so wonderful sometimes to have your prejudices reinforce. by our anonymous correspondent, that chocolate cavapoo was no good. And it's... It's...

What's the point in having a chocolate cavapur Easter? I mean, do we know whether or not the cavapoo was alive in biblical times? No, I mean, I think... It's the reference to that in the bike... They're really stretching the whole Easter thing, aren't they? They are. I mean, it's like, I know it's a common complaint, but hot cross buns are now available all year round.

Didn't used to be the way, and it's plain wrong. And yeah, I mean, baby Jesus... the later life Jesus as far as we know had no interaction with the cabapoo whatsoever in fact I don't think cabapoos

I don't think they were around No I don't think they were because they're quite a recent cross-breeding effort aren't they Well presumably with the poodle and a spaniel Yes

Cavalier Spaniel Yeah and the Cavaliers were way past They're way into AD aren't they Here I find That unlike my knowledge of radio in the early days. I am a little poor on content here, but I don't think that anything of that nature appeared in the Holy Bible. I tell you who we should consult, ecclesiastical expert,

Donald Trump. He'll know the answer to that. He's very godly. Won't he just? I'm going to go straight back then into the beginning of our anonymous correspondence email about being single in your 30s. I've been single throughout my 30s. I'm about to turn 40. I definitely felt the weight of a comparison in 20s when it felt like my friends had their ducks much more in a row than I did. However, now my friends and I are almost all 40. I would possibly say I'm the most grounded and content out of all of us. My advice to your listener is to not settle into a relationship that isn't right out of fear of being alone. I've seen many of my peers do this to only have to go through divorce or continue living in a depressing situation in which they aren't cherished or supported

by their partners. Nobody can predict the future and maybe you'll meet the love of of your life at 34 or 74, but the main thing is to enjoy the life situation you'll found yourself in and fill it with friends and family. I don't have children because I don't want them, but if I had wanted them, I'd always thought I would adopt, but I do have God children who I cherish. I also decided to work a four-day week, boom. That's great. That's great. So I could see my married with children friends on a weekdays, as rightly their weekends became full of family time. I also have single and or child-free friends and we'd all say we have fulfilled

lives. Of course it would be nice to meet somebody special to spend the rest of my life with but my motto very much is I may live alone but I am definitely not lonely. You sound to me like you're in a good place. You know the expression ducks in a row? I hear that a lot. My children say it

but it wasn't ever an expression I said has it made a comeback? Getting your ducks in a row and where does it come from? I mean is it Again, we're mystified. Belonged to the landed gentry because literally they had so many ducks they could line them up in a row

and then blow their heads off. Faye! Where have you gone with that? But that's the expression. That's what you're referring to, isn't it? I don't know. Get your ducks in a row and bobobov that's what I've always thought it meant. What does it mean? Where does it come from?

Eve is consulting the AI. Most likely originated in the late 19th century, most probably from carnival shooting gallery games. Oh, okay. Yes, that would make more sense. Because don't try it with real ducks. I mean, they won't cooperate at all. Oi, come over here.

I'd like to get you lot in a row. It just wouldn't work, would it? You're still looking really puzzled. I've never seen it look so engaged in a topic. There's quite a few theories. Let's just have one more. Another theory is based on the imagery of a mother duck lining up her ducklings in a row.

Oh, that's more pleasing. Something to do with pool and billiards. A duck is a term for a ball sitting directly in front of a pocket. therefore having your ducks in a row meaning your shot lined up. Okay. So, that's open-ended, I think. You can't you've got, absolutely.

You can't choose from everything there, can't you? You really can. What a world of exploration this podcast sometimes turns into. Zoe is in Rural Somerset. Now, can we just say that sometimes spring in Britain really takes your breath away and it's been gorgeous, hasn't it?

At last. Everything is springing out. My daughter yesterday sent me an image of the tulips on the embankment. absolutely glorious display. Even I, in what passes from my back garden, have a number of slightly reluctant-looking tulips, but they are out and they're bouncing about, sort of.

And I planted some sunflowers the other day, just to see what happened. Okay. Nothing so far. Switch yourself off again. Nothing so far, but perhaps it's only day. Anyway, Zoe says, listening to you talking about the subject

of taking things to charity shops, I've had mixed responses over the years. My local Oxfam bookshop wouldn't take any books the other day, let alone wait while I took my 50P bag for life back. They wouldn't even look at what books I was offering. It does depend, says Zoe who's on duty. As one of you said last week, some are incredibly grumpy. They said the books are sorted off-site

and no one was able to collect any that week. Also, I found another local charity shop, I won't name them, will usually take what is offered. I have recommended them to friends and family as being a fail-safe, but not anymore. As I walked up to the counter with two tote bags of donations, I was unceremoniously shown a handwritten sign on the counter saying no donations until further notice.

I honestly felt a bit foolish. Books I now take to supermarket book swaps, that's a good idea, or give them to friends. Clothing goes to a clothing bank. I think charity shops have been inundated in recent years. I wonder if that's just the... case Zoe and in fact they simply cannot take anymore. I didn't realize that they didn't sort them on site and they move the usually move the donations to another place. I didn't realize that.

Anyway, maybe people are just chucking out, maybe people are following the whole decluttering craze and they're just getting rid of stuff that frankly isn't really resellable and isn't much use, I don't know. But I'm glad that Zoe is backing up my experience, shall we say, of the occasionally somewhat grumpy assistant in a charity. shop. Yeah, but I'm going to just back the assistance because they're all volunteers. And I'm sure there are some days when they wake up in the morning and they think, actually, do you know what, I just, I rather regret volunteering my time. I've got 75,000 other things to do, but on my conscience cannot lie, not turning up for work, therefore I'm going to. So that's, I'm just going to put that in there.

You've got a heart of gold. Perhaps you and I, should we volunteer in a charity shop? No, because it would be absolutely terrible. Yeah, we would. Absolutely terrible. Well, we'd just be out the back. I'd just be in me. I just have lots and lots of tea breaks. Yes, I'm definitely not taking a shift with you. No. That'd be very unwise.

Can we say hello to Sarah? And just to warn people, I'm going to read a little bit of Sarah's email, and if you have lost a baby, now is the time to just skip forward for a minute. And Sarah, I hope you don't mind me giving people that warning. But you've been through an absolutely terrible, terrible time, and your son died at 39 weeks.

And Sarah says, the only way I can navigate through the unbearable pain is to stay as busy as possible. Looking after our three-year-old daughter has certainly helped with this. But on the days when she's at nursery, the only thing I can think to do with myself is to get back to work.

This does mean, however, that I'm once again alone in my workshop, desperately trying to occupy myself until I've made it through another day. We named our son Theo, and I feel the need to shout his name from the rooftop so everybody knows that he did exist and I didn't just imagine those precious nine months.

He will always be our son and I will always have to face each new day without being able to hold him struggling through in the best way that I know. Sarah, we send you loads and loads of love and it must be incredibly difficult and I suppose this is relevant to our earlier conversation about working in the creative businesses

if your work is actually on your own because now is a time in your life where you could definitely, definitely benefit from the distraction of really, really annoying co-workers and all of their bans and stuff like that. So I'm glad that we're keeping you company in your workshop. And of course you want to shout out the name of your son, Theo. So we're shouting it out for you.

We've got a really beautiful community of people and they all know Theo now as well. So I'm so sorry that you've been through such a bad time and I know Jane you'd feel exactly the same way. Sarah I mean sometimes emails that we are fortunate enough to be sent and I do mean fortunate are an absolute punch in the gut but and that yours really was but only because um everyone just feels huge compassion for you and your son Theo he did exist I mean he was he was real he was your son and and he always will be and he always will be and you know we are I'm so, so sorry for you.

I mean, what I would say is you must be very gifted at what you do. I imagine you are very gifted. And I would say, I think, I could be wrong, that it must be a great comfort to you that you can perhaps work. I mean, this is physical work that she's doing, isn't it? She's a creator. Is it okay to say what she does, do you think? Well, wood carvings.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's a physical skill and something you can pour everything you're going through into. I would imagine. I mean, I haven't got a creative bone in my body. but I hugely admire what you do and how wonderful that you're able to write so movingly about Theo and about what you've been through.

And we just send lots and lots of love and thank you for telling us about him because it's important that you get that opportunity. It really is. Very much so. And all of our community would send you lots and lots of love and that is just one of the points of the podcast, isn't it? We've got a hive out there and their like-minded souls.

Yes, absolutely. And we do get emails that we don't read out, but we do read from people who are going through a really, really tough time. I mean, I know a lot of you are entering into or have just recently come out of periods of ill health or you're caring for other people who are really ill. We do read what you tell us. We can't always read everything out, but we absolutely do read it. And we are very, very grateful that you feel able to be a part of this community.

And we couldn't do it without you. Very much so. We are Jane and Feet at Times.com. Radio, if you'd like to bung us an email and Yeah, we take emails on every aspect of human life. Our guest this afternoon is Joanna Scanlon, who's graced many a brilliant TV show at the thick of it, no offence. And most recently, Sally Wainwright's big hit about a midlife menopausal band, Riot Women.

She was also one of the writers of getting on the brilliantly bleak sitcom about an NHS geriatric ward. And this week, she is starring in Channel 5's thriller Missed Call playing Sarah, a woman determined to find out what's happened to her teenage daughter who's gone AWOL on a French exchange trip. Somehow, Joanna's also found time to narrate Mercy. This is an audible original story written by the journalist Peter Bradshaw.

And Joanna is back in the world here of the NHS. Joanna, fantastic to see you. And Yuffy. And Jane. Jane. Right, keep that in. I've already, I've already, just for my own purposes, I've already called Jane, Jane several times. I know you have, I know.

But we will have to keep that in. Yeah, please do. Let's start with a laugh. Yeah, because there won't be any others. Right. Joanna, you've got a lot to talk about, actually, and we will move on to your Channel 5 drama, which started this week.

It's on Channel 5, but you can see all the episodes on the... Is it the 5 player or just 5, I think it's called very daring? I think it has changed its name to just 5. Five. I mean, that's very 21st century, isn't it? I think it's the F, the I, the V and the E as well, isn't it? It's not the number. Goodness.

What a world. Anyway, that's available. So too is an audiobook that I did enjoy called Mercy. And now you are a very terrifyingly convincing retired NHS operative. And tell us a little bit about it because it's written by the great Peter Bradshaw, a very renowned journalist. It really draws you in. So tell us about mercy. Mercy is, it's a sort of monologue.

I mean, the audible version does have some other, some of the male characters do make their appearance. But essentially it's a monologue. It's a woman who is retiring from her profession as a nurse. She's been in the job for 40 years or whatever. And it starts off very benignly. I think people think of nurses as benign figures. I mean, I know there are obviously exceptions and well-known exceptions,

both fictional and in reality. But that sense of the benign is there at the beginning. And then as we slowly unpack, we realise that underneath this perfectly ordinary nurse, there is a raging fury about the way in which she's been treated, both within the hierarchies of the medical system, but also by men, parents, and those kind of girls. guys who are around you when you're a teenager, you know, friends of, friends of. And I think, and it all bubbles up. And yes, there's an element of mystery about it, but it's also, I think,

very relatable. I think as you listen, or at least as I was unpacking it as a performer, I started to get that sense where you go, oh, do you know what, actually, when that happened, blah, blah, blah, you know, the Me Too element of it all. Yeah, well, when you get a job like that, it's quite unusual, isn't it? A monologue. There's something curiously old-fashioned about it, but it must be a blissful thing to do as an actor. Well, Peter had written it, I think, almost for his own delight. He's a wonderful, you know, we know he's, as you say, a wonderful journalist,

but he's also a great writer of fiction. He's written novels and short stories and so on. And I think he wrote it initially as a sort of, it almost poured out of him. And then he came to me and said, well, what should we, you know, would you be interested in doing something with it? So we did a little theatre performance of it a couple of years ago for a festival called Croydonites which is a kind of avant-garde theatre festival in Croydon area

and they really supported it and we kind of thought there's something in this, there's something there and he took it to Audible and Audible have become quite interesting in terms of what they want to do the way they describe themselves is cinematic audio and I think as opposed to what we think of as old-fashioned radio drama, it's got a sense of scale to it on an audio level.

It's incredibly glossy. And I've got to say, if someone had told me 10 years ago, you'll spend quite a lot of your leisure time listening to books. I'd have said, you must be bloody joking. But actually, I love listening to books, whether I'm on the tube or the bus or whatever it is, or just pottering at home. Absolutely, so do I.

I'm addicted. I'm addicted. So am I. It is just really, really extraordinary. In a world of so much high-octane entertainment, we need to enjoy the fact that so many of us just love the spoken word and the written word. And it's books, but it's also these audible originals. Yeah.

So they're kind of commissioning and getting quite interesting writers or adaptations into dramas. And I don't want to suggest that the BBC wasn't able to exploit that to the same extent. but they are able to put more money in. And I think you can, you know, hear it in your ears that it's got support behind it and the quality of what they do in order to terms. A couple of coconut shells pretending to be a horse.

And as you, you know, in this case too, the mercy is it is quite an unusual... I don't think we would have got that through anywhere else. But it's quite an unusual angle, you know? It's quite dark, but also very funny. And I love... I've done a bit of work in the NHS... over the years. And it has nailed NHS jargon and hierarchy because they are hugely significant.

And there's a management, HR figure who pops up in the life of the nurse. All of that is absolutely spot on. Yeah, well, I did, we wrote with Joe Brand and Vicky Pepperdine wrote Getting On. Which is how long ago now, a long, long time. I've got it written down here some of it. That was one of my favourite programmes of all time, genuinely. Thank you. Because it again, it was about, well, for anyone who hasn't seen getting on, it's set on a geriatric ward of an NHS hospital. Now, you are, I can't remember the name of your character, what were you called? Den Flickster.

Yes, Den Flickster. It weren't very good, were you? Oh, do you know what? I think you're casting aspersions, because she was, she just did, she was what you might call good enough. Just about enough, good enough. She knew exactly where the point was, where, She wouldn't get fired, but doing no more than that. Right. Well, that's not a bad way to move. If you can get away with it.

There's an argument for that, yeah. And Vicky Pepperdide's character was obsessed with the Bristol store chart. Yeah, well, she was an authoritarian, old-fashioned consultant who really thought everyone was there just to do her bidding. And so, you know, I think within a hierarchy, people are responding to each other. So I'm not, I was, den character. is doing just enough, partly because she dislikes so much the consultant's leadership style.

You know, it's changing. The NHS is not, we wrote that a long time ago. It is really not like that anymore. I've had recent experience of brilliant, brilliant care for my parents in the NHS, so I don't want to knock it at all. I really don't. My best friend is, he's in the trauma ward at King's College Hospital. Right.

And he is a nurse. And so I know the differences between what was going on in 2010 when we wrote that and what's going on now. And I actually did some work recently for the medical school at Bangor University, partly about communications. And that's because they are developing systems and ways to make sure that multidisciplinary teams are working in a more kind of, you know, horizontal instead of vertical fashion. That's interesting. And was that because of what you've done in getting on that you were asked to do that?

Well, that arose. You know, tell me to stop here because we could get into the weeds of this. But I did a film called Joy a few years ago, which was about the development of IVF. And it was the store. Oh, yes, I saw it. Yeah, do you remember it. Yes, so it's Patrick Stepto and Robert Edwards were the two physicians, doctors, medics. And there was a nurse involved, Gene Purdy.

And Gene died young. Stepto had died also by the point that Robert Edwards was awarded a Nobel Prize and that is just at the end of the film I mean it's a wonderful film actually about how necessary it was to have a woman as part of a very important team but also a nurse rather than a doctor because the nurse needed to basically have the human communication abilities

that would get women's interest or potential mother's interest in being part of the research programme. Robert Edwards was at Bangor University, himself, as a student. And so the university is very keen to honour that memory. And I went to give a Q&A to the new medical school there about him and his work, and we showed the film at the same time. And Netflix very, very kindly allowed us to show a film because they normally won't.

Yeah, they don't, yeah. But they did on this occasion for educational purposes. Oh, well, that's fantastic. That's not in the weeds at all. That's really, that's riveting. because that was a really good film. And again, women do sometimes get lost in the mix of these incredible stories and discoveries, don't they? Yeah, and Robert Edwards, he spent his life making sure that her name was still retained on the building and in the programme.

I mean, you can't get a posthumous Nobel Prize. But had she not died so sadly at 39, she would be a Nobel Prize winner. Right. Gosh, that's really significant. Did you do science at university? Are you a scientist? No. Not at all. I did history. Right. What's your favourite period? 19th century, social history. Yeah, I did mainly the period between sort of Victoria's reign starting 1813, whatever, through to her death. And why did that appeal to you? Well, we had some very good programmes of study. I mean, this is so long.

long ago now. It's all, you know, it's been superseded. It's history itself. Yes, exactly. But we had a lot of courses that were around, well, firstly, we did a course on Victoria's Diaries, which Daisy Goodwin was also on the same course as me at the same time. And she has very sensibly gone back to that. Tell you what, she made a few quid. And getting out of the trunk and has certainly made some use of it. So we did. Her diaries, which of course are fascinating. I think Daisy's talking at the moment about having written some more around Victoria's diaries, which are anybody who wants a good read, go back to them because they're amazing.

But we also looked a lot on a different course to do with deviancy in society in the 19th century and how that was defined and how it became something that was part of the Victorian values that was mentioned in the 80s. about what is right and what is wrong, what is moral and what is not, and the place of women in that. Although the course wasn't about the place of women, but inevitably you're looking at the position of women in society. And I've just read The Five, where I'm a bit late to the party. Oh, by Hallie Rubenhold.

It is absolutely the most gripping book I have read in a long time. And that is about the victims of the so-called... I hate those stupid nicknames for serial killers, but... Yes. The Whitehall murders, let's call them. Yeah, Jack the Ripper, as is sensationalised at the time and still today. But the book there is the life of women writ large, and you really see how the economic structures, social structures,

patriarchal structures, made it extremely difficult for women to escape out of a downward spiral. I mean, she's done extraordinary research. through, it must be from workhouse documents to find out literally what a woman, these women who were seen to be nobodies at the time and still actually similarly, not thought of as a significant, but she's traced their day-to-day lives, their marriages, their deaths and everything in between. It's just the most riveting book. So my history course, I got very interested in that sort of in underworlds and did a,

few other books that we did, which were more sort of oral histories that had been written into a book. There was a guy called Raphael Samuel, who was doing a lot of that, a Ruskin College at the time. I started to sort of turn those into plays and ended up doing quite a lot of theatre out of that work. But you didn't initially leave university and go into acting. Did you? It didn't happen that quickly for you. No, no. Well, I was planning to. And then I was heartbroken, actually, just after I left university, got into a,

terrible depression. I mean, sort of, I think a lot of people, I think the years between sort of graduation, if you've gone to university, and even possibly if you haven't, that sort of aged about 20, 21 through to 30. Oh, it's tough. Really tough. And you're supposed to know it all and know what you're doing. And you don't, and most people don't. And I, it's the end of education. It's the end of when people have told you what to do and where to go next. And so I had a massive, massive collapse. Ended up working in my local community theatre because I was always going to be, you know, acting

or doing something to do with theatre. Ended up working in my local community theatre in Rotherhithe. And then living on a councillor state, working in all sorts of interesting projects. And that took me into teaching because I could not get a job as an actor. I couldn't work it all out. I couldn't, I didn't have an equity card, and in those days you needed one, I could not work out how to get started.

And all my friends, because I was, you know, at Cambridge University where there is a massive leg up, that is true, that is a, it is a privileged starting point, sort of be, they were all running ahead. And I was sort of thinking, I really don't know what to do here. I don't know how to start, how to, how did that happen? So I got into teaching. I ended up at Montford University as a lecturer for five years, teaching drama, and working actually some of those texts, we were just talking about those old history documents, turned them into productions and adaptations. And I loved all that, and it was wonderful.

But I suddenly had quite a dramatic breakdown. I call it a breakdown. At the time it was diagnosed as chronic fatigues. I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't walk. I couldn't do anything. And I was off work for a year. And in that year, I went to see a consultant at the hospital who was a physician. He was a diagnostician. He wasn't a back to hospitals. He wasn't a psychological guy at all. And he said, ask me a couple of questions, having done all the tests. One of them was what do you dream about. And the other was, was there ever a job that you wanted to do that you're not?

not doing. I was 29. And I said, yes, I wanted to be an actress. And he said, okay, well, if you don't go back to that, if you don't go back to being an actor, I think you'll be ill for the rest of your life. Wow. Oh, how did you react to that? I felt like somebody had punched me in the middle of my chest. Because you knew they were right? Yes, exactly. I knew he was right. And it was so embarrassing, Jane. It was so embarrassing. To then at 29, say, actually, you know, wait, don't wait for me, I'd like to join the party. I mean, I'm actually like feeling tingles at the memory of the humiliation. Okay, well, I mean, people will be, I think, I hope, it's funny enough,

this subject has been something we've been talking about on the podcast the last couple of days about people who sometimes feel left behind, particularly in their 30s, when it feels like everybody else is racing ahead and achieving all those things you're meant to achieve. So I hope people are heartened by it, not least because you've had such a, success, I'm going to say it, relatively late in, like, I mean, you know what I mean? Yeah, I too, yeah. I mean, Riot Women was a show that just meant such a lot to so many people, and you

learned the piano for that, didn't you? And why is it that shows like that? Just, I don't know, it was like another punch in the gut for the female audience, I think, because so many of us watched it and recognized at least a part of ourselves in it. Yeah, I think the show was sort of written by and intended to be for what I will call our age group, yes. I hate the expression of a certain age, don't you?

I loat that. But, you know, that's what it was intended for. And what's been really interesting to me is that gradually, as it sat there on eye player, I've had younger and younger and younger people coming up to me. And now a lot of men coming, young men coming up to me and saying, I'm a massive riot woman fan. And I think that's interesting. I think people see, not only do my age group relate to it as an experience, but I think you see

what's happened to your mum, your relatives, and what could happen to you as well. I think it's hugely relatable on a much wider social level than it was originally thought. Yeah, I think that's right. Actually, oddly enough, it makes me think of mercy a bit because that's all just about the idea that women was sort of put on this earth to facilitate the lives of others and that we don't mind at all wiping bottoms and things like that because hey, you know, that's what we're here for. But actually that's a profession in itself, which most people are not remotely suited to.

No, absolutely. I mean, it's a whole, it's something that should be taken seriously and certainly paid properly. That's for sure. There is a new school, what, to me, a new school of thought, which is that actually our job as women is not to enable men's crises to end up in a good place. That's not what we have to do. And I think in my head, I think that somewhere I believe that is my job to make sure that it doesn't all go wrong

for everybody else. And I don't know whether that's nature, nurture or what. But I've, I've heard it expressed recently quite a few places, like, it's not your job to sort that out. And I go, isn't it? That's what it was. Which brings us to Channel 5. And to your drama, which is on all week. You're here all week. It's called missed call.

Now, I have to say, it's every parent's nightmare. The phone call that you get in the middle of night from a member of the family, offspring. And you call back because you don't initially grab the phone and they don't reply when you call back. and this is at the root of this. I mean, I watched the first episode and, yeah, it's,

I do, I want to know that the conclusion is not too disturbing. I know you can't tell us. I can't tell you. I can't promise that. And that's partly because I think it is very well plotted, very, very well plotted. Yeah.

And almost anything I said now would lead people in all sorts of false directions. Well, you play the mum who, I have to say, You get very quickly from your home in England to the setting in a beautiful part of France. I mean, quite a bit of expenses spared in showing us your journey. Yes, exactly. You pack your case and suddenly you're getting off a bus in France. But hey, paces everything in drama.

It does look a beautiful place. It really does. Oh, it was absolutely gorgeous. Southwest France near Montpellier. The villages, medieval villages, beautiful seaside resorts. I mean, lovely. Just very, very hot. and with a lot of mosquitoes.

Can I just say it does look hot? Was it genuinely filmed in the summer? Yeah, I'm afraid to tell you that our director collapsed. I mean, it was 40 degrees. I mean, it was really, really hot. Right, because sometimes, it's not just Channel 5, but I do watch dramas that are meant to be set in the summer where everyone's, you know, you can see them shivering.

They're by a pool, but it's clearly about eight degrees. Yes, no, we had the real deal, but too much of it, you know. One of the actors also struggled with it. I mean, I struggled with it. I mean, I'm not. a sweater. Well, I'll always remember that about you. Lovely.

I don't even perspire. I know. I mean, it takes a hell of a lot to get a bead of sweat on my forehead. But I was standing there. Just like, having to take it, my costume changed over and again because you're standing as if you're in a, you know, a river. It was really, really hot.

Okay, so that's missed call. It's on Channel 5. And I've got to say, if you watch episode one, as I have, you will want to know what happens. Your boyfriend in this is played by Rupert Graves, and I simply don't trust him. Oh, you should. Oh, well, I don't.

Well, if it's Rupert Graves, you should definitely trust him. If it's the man Jason, the character, then perhaps not. But Rupert is just absolutely gold, and I loved working with him. I've admired him forever, so it was an absolute delight for me. Okay, now I understand that you're in, there's going to be a version of the party, Elizabeth Day's novel, and there's been a sequel to the party as well which came out which I loved.

I absolutely loved both those books. Which characters do you play? The mum. The mum. Okay, right. Martin, I think the main character is called and I play his mother. I play, well, I don't know if this is a spoiler, but I would say I'm one of the few characters

with any moral compass. Yes, well Martin's led astray by a posho, isn't he? He is very much so. I mean, you've got to be wary of that in life. And his own ambition. And that too. Yeah. Yeah.

And when is that coming out? I think that's the autumn schedules. Okay, wow. You're everywhere. Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, thank you. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah, but you'd have taken this.

When you think back to that encounter with that doctor, the one who wasn't a psychologist, but said something very powerful, you'd take all this, wouldn't you? Yeah, I would. I mean, I love working. I love acting. And I used to, when I first started out and I started as an actress

and going to job interviews and so on auditions, I thought, any day I act, including an audition, it's a plus. It's a good day. So when you are, I just love doing it. Sweating your cobbler's off in the south of France, you're thinking, I could be lecturing in Leicester. Yeah, it could be lecturing in Leicester.

I mean, I'm very happy to do that as well, but I think I have to accept that I am the most happy and the most contented in life between action and country. cut. That is just like who I am. The great actor, Joanna Scanlan, you can hear her, honourable in that, it's not really, what is it? It's not a series, it's not a, it is a monologue. It's called Mercy and it's very chilling and predictably.

She's absolutely brilliant at reading it out. But also she's on Channel 5, stripped across this week in the thriller, missed call. And I hope all those of you who perhaps in your 20s and 30s feel that everything is passing you by, heart from what Joanna said about what happened to her when she was in her late 20s and she really did feel adrift and then she pursued what she really wanted to do and look what's happened. What an achievement. So Joanna, thank you very much for being on the podcast today. Can I just say in case it wasn't clear earlier that the fantastically comedic, dark police procedural that Joanna Scanlon was in is called no offence. I think there were a couple of seasons of it and it was written by

Paul Abbott and she played Detective Inspector Vith Deering and it's it's cracking absolutely she's just very very funny she is very funny we are Jane and Fee at times dot radio congratulations you've staggered somehow to the end of another off air with Jane and Fee thank you if you'd like to hear us do this live and we do it live every day Monday to Thursday two till four on Times radio the jeopardy is off the scale. And if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Offair is produced by Eve Salisbury, and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.