This article previously featured in The Tribune Weekend section of April 21.
ALEC Baldwin has taken centre stage
lately thanks to his performances as Donald Trump on Saturday Night
Live – but did you know he also has his own podcast? He kicks us
off this week.
Alec Baldwin, photograph by By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50323029
Here’s The Thing
If I ask you to tell me your first
impressions of Alec Baldwin, it might be a world away from how you’ll
find him on this podcast. Celebrity, actor, comedian... he’s all of
these, but in this podcast you’ll also find him shining the
spotlight rather than standing under it.
He hosts this show which features him
interviewing all manner of guests – from actors to musicians, from
celebrities to politicians, seemingly whoever takes his fancy in any
given week.
The latest show sees him chatting to
Mark Farner, former frontman of the rock band Great Funk Railroad
once upon a day and in later years a solo artist.
The chats are amiable and Baldwin
clearly knows his stuff, with asides mentioning landmark moments in
Farner’s career.
It also takes on intriguing subjects,
such as Farner’s Christianity, which came to feature in his music
as his career progressed, and touching on Baldwin’s own Catholicism
– he says he’s a churchgoer, but a more regular churchgoer when
things go wrong in life.
They also talk about health issues,
including Farner’s own two close brushes with death which he
describes as leaving the meat sack.
The show might last three-quarters of
an hour, but it absolutely flies by in the company of such a genial
host and great guest.
The Dinner Party Download
Also mixing celebrities and chat is The
Dinner Party Download, with hosts Rico Gagliano and Brendan Francis
Newnam roaming around several guest spots and more.
That can include quirky facts – the
latest show tells us how we’re all using salt wrong – and
contests involving listeners.
Among the guests in the latest show are
musician Aimee Mann and actor Hank Azaria (who you may know from his
show Brockmire, but is also a voice from The Simpsons and much more).
The interviews tend to be less formal,
more shooting the breeze, with Azaria fun as he puts on all kind of
voices during the talk and Aimee Mann relaxed and honest as she talks
about copycat tattoos and how weird it is when you hear your own song
playing somewhere or, worse, someone humming it nearby.
It’s probably a measure of how these
segments go that they leave you wanting more. As they wrapped up the
two interviews above, I was urging them to stay just a little longer.
Splendidly produced, it’s well worth
a lunchtime listen.
Website:
http://www.dinnerpartydownload.org/
RuPaul: What’s The Tee with Michelle
Visage
RuPaul is, of course, a legend, and
this is the famed drag star’s podcast, with air time shared with
Michelle Visage, who fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race will be familiar
with as a host.
The latest show also sees Glee star
Naya Rivera as a guest but you’ll be waiting a long time before you
get to her appearance. It’s almost an hour of chat with just RuPaul
and Visage before we get there – and sadly, that’s not a great
thing. RuPaul is a smashing host, but Visage seemed to be endlessly
complaining, while busily flashing all kinds of celebrity privilege.
Her complaints ranged from the quality of computers being given to
kids at the school her children attend to the trials and tribulations
she had to endure in Celebrity Big Brother. We hear how she
constantly loses her phone and her favourite social media apps. Those
with younger ears around are also advised that it’s filled
liberally with swearing. It feels like a lengthy gossip session over
coffee, which might suit what you’re looking for, but for me it
grated – and the interview at the end felt rather shallow, not
really digging much into Rivera’s career and life.
If it was dialled back more to RuPaul’s
level – who shows genuine interest in the others on the show and
asks engaging questions – it would be a whole lot better. But who
knew that you’d be thinking that RuPaul would be the one playing it
down?
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