Howzat? 5.0 / 6

Let’s face it, most people listen to a podcast because of the presenter. Yes, “the content” matters, of course it does, but the intimacy of the listening experience means that if the person talking in your ear doesn’t butter your biscuit, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to choose to make an appointment to listen to them. 

So it’s a relief, then, that Greg Jenner is as affable as a Golden Labrador in a toilet roll commercial bouncing around in a field of daffodils on a sunny summer’s day. Greg does for history what Brian Cox does for science, in that he is a communication expert at heart, ensuring that a typical complicated and often heavy topic is easily understood by us, the thick but willing lay-people – and yet not so dumbed down that even people who vote Tory think it’s a bit patronising. Up the BBC! 

You’re Dead To Me sits in the Venn Diagram circles of history and comedy which results in unbridled and joyous [here it comes] edutainment (©*). Here, the focus is on the South American liberator / dictator / lothario / wasteman [delete as appropriate) Simón Bolívar, who tore through the southern Americas uncoupling states from their oppressive European regimes. 

Jenner is joined by the charming historian (“edu-) Dr Francisco Eissa-Barroso and the equally charming comedian (-tainment”) Katie Green, an American with a British-Salvadoran heritage, so a lovely bit of latino synergy there. The threesome discuss Bolívar’s life story, involving poignancy, death and general insubordination, punctured throughout with various references to how attractive this man is/was.

For the real factfinders, one of the best bits of the show comes right at the end in the form of the ‘nuisance window’ where the expert, in this case Eissa-Barroso, lays out some serious, University-level truth bombs. So, in the spirit of nuisances and windows, here’s our nuisance-window:

It’s great. 

GF

*Not really copyrighted, don’t be daft!