Hyped!

It's big, it's weird, it's sci-fi and Zoe and Tom fell utterly under its spell. They discuss its political and religious overtones as well as its place in contemporary cinema.

An unlikely pairing? Or an obvious one. Zoe and Tom consider the big ole Macbeth at Doc X with Monsieur Fiennes in the title role, alongside Succession, a contemporary take on a Shakespearean theme - which Zoe finally got round to watching. And.. well, hated.

Tom and Zoe discuss two very different propositions about women. Or is that "women"? One is a cartoonish pastiche starring a Mattel doll; the other a Frankenstein's monster. Guess which Zoe and Tom preferred?

Tom is literally a historian of Napoleon, and Zoe knew shockingly little about the short and angry man. Both squirmed their way through for different reasons: listen to why on this jaunty exploration of Tom's passion area - and the plague of filmic disappointment.

Tom and Zoe got last-minute tickets; Tom was ecstatic, Zoe was skeptical. But the show blew both of their minds. Even so, this is Hyped! Join Zoe and Tom as they debate some of the messaging – but also the mixed messaging – of Queen Bey.

Zoe wants to hate Wagner. Tom has always loved him. They discuss a recent performance at the ENO, in which Zoe, against her will and expectation, finds herself charmed and amused. But is it ok to like Wagner operas? Does it make you a sort of bad person? Or, as Tom reckons, is Wagner the pinnacle of modern culture - deserving of being adored by all, always and forever? Join them as they make their way through an analysis of this splendid, budget performance.

Lydia Tár is a world-famous conductor who gets embroiled in a number of messes both internal and external; professional and private. She's weird. She's amoral. She's refined and unrelenting and unstinting. And boy is she good at conducting classical music. Todd Field's much-buzzed film goes off the deep end more than once, stylistically and every other way. Join Zoe and Tom as they work out whether this is a work of pure genius, or a totally pretentious disaster. Or a bit of both.

"This is the best TV I have ever seen!" – Zoe on the Taormina-based second season of the smash hit written by  Mike White for HBO. Join her and Tom as they pick apart something for which the hype is truly deserved, peeling back the layers of subterfuge, sexual economies, powerplay, irony, mystery, danger and, of course, Sicilianness. There are a few spoilers, so ideally if you're gonna watch, watch first. 

It promised to be one of the weirdest and most politically contentious tournaments in football history. Human rights abuses, Fifa corruption, the last-minute banning of booze and kosher food... issues like these dominated coverage until the knockouts got into full swing. By the end this was being called a blinder by pundits, with, apparently, the best World Cup final of all time between Argentina and France. But what happened to the politics? Were they always destined to fall away in the face of the football? Was there ever really a place for sustained criticism of Qatar – and Fifa –  in the melee? And finally, was this boozeless tournament really better for women? Join Zoe and Tom as they pick their way across the pitch. 

Zoe and Tom return to the royal theme, only this time it's the latest instalment of the Sussex psychodrama. They discuss the couple's manipulation of and addiction to media - the very entity they hate so much – and ask, who was filming them, and why? They contemplate their "love", a huge, agapic, almost Christian entity with the power to save the world. Or... to bore it to death. And is California still the promised land? It is if you can get yourself a big garden and a mansion by the sea, perhaps.

Zoe and Tom discuss – and debate – the reasons for the precipitous drop in excellence, and narrowing of dramatic ambition, of once-great London theatre. Is it a simple case of woke killed creativity? What other forces are at play? And how can the cultural great pride of Britain and envy of the world be saved; is it showing signs of coming back to life already? Join us for this lively discussion.

How do you know if someone did the queue to see the Queen lying in state? They'll tell you about it. And that's exactly what Zoe and Tom are going to do in this episode. But fear not, queue chat is nestled within wider analysis of this extraordinary- and yet minutely planned- moment in British history and the British present. Tom brings to bear his extensive knowledge of monarchical history, Zoe brings to bear her... strong reactions to queues.  

Zoe and Tom do NOT, as a rule, watch football. In fact, until three weeks ago, neither of them even knew that the Women's European Championships were under way. Flash forward to the mesmerising final on 31 July, and a win of national, indeed international, importance. Join Tom and Zoe as they discuss what this means for women, the women's game... and their own feelings about the beautiful game. 

Zoe and Tom discuss the latest and most intensely political outing in recent memory of the campest competition in the world. May 2022 was a spectacle of European unity, in which Britain, the runner up and winner of the jury vote, was shown surprising quantities of love. Join us as we talk post-sexual absurdity, the unpopularity of male crooners, and Eurovision in historical context. 

Zoe and Tom consider the Maxwell story as told in the BBC documentary – and beyond – with particular consideration of Maxwell's Jewish background 

Zoe and Tom have seen a few things recently, and decided to take a kitchen-sink approach to discussing them. Much of what is under review here was pretty disappointing, with the exception, in Tom's view, of the West Side Story remake - find out why.  Three out of four of the things under review are remakes, and one is a sequel, prompting the duo to talk about genre, and why we're feeling... so let down by it at the moment.

Did the government manipulate us through fear to shore up its power during Covid? Are we dupes of a mass conspiracy between media, state and private enterprise? Was the threat of Covid amped up just to make us compliant because...well, why? Here Zoe and Tom pick apart Dodsworth's scary and silly Sunday Times bestseller, worth our time mainly as it encapsulates quite a big vein of anti-lockdown sentiment and Covid suspicion. We talk about her use of stats, her own manipulation of fear, and the way she lumps things together, from the War on Terror to the closure of nonessential businesses in the height of Covid uncertainty. 

Tickets were not to be had for love nor money - not even for Tom and Zoe. So they watched it via remote streaming link from Tom's sofa, beadily looking out for what made this the most-hyped Shakespeare in years. Here they discuss where the magic and the weaknesses lay, and how much of both came down to the starry leading cast: Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn, Little Women, etc etc) and James McArdle (Mare of Easttown). They also discuss the odd status of Macbeth in the pantheon of Shakespeare tragedies, and whether having stars on the stage is a good or bad thing. 

Zoe and Tom try to connect the appeal of three recent blockbusters, considering (briefly) Squid Game's emptiness, Bond's cosy moral universe and Dune's weird and sexy intergalactic or 'hieratic' appeal (at more length). 

The New Republic called Netflix's hit 2021 academic satire 'A elegy for the life of the mind'. Fair? Actually, Zoe thinks it's an elegy for the West full stop. Join Zoe and Tom – both of whom work at UK universities – as they dissect the hit series about a chaotic moment in campus life at a small US liberal arts college. How accurate, or even clever, a skewering of identitarian campus politics is this? Patchy to say the least, but one thing it does reveal is the secret of academic life: try never, ever to be Chair of your department. 

Thongs, egregious bikini tops, and bizarre takes on the English language as love is sought amid the embers of modern romance: Zoe is convinced that Love Island is the most telling social document of our time, while Tom is... forced to agree. Partially. Tune in for a deeper dive on Love Island's gender, race and class politics - oh, and its aesthetics too – than you're likely to find elsewhere (some might say for good reason).

Why is the sheer mundanity, the dreary colourlessness of police procedure, so utterly transfixing when it comes to the doings of AC-12? (That's anti-police corruption unit 12 if you're one of the rare uninitiated). Zoe and Tom consider the latest season (six), its shortcomings, its relationships, and the formal majesty that lent earlier Line of Duty such magic, as well as what role such drama serves in our society. 

A Jpeg by digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), 39, sold for $69.3 at Christie's New York in March. For his pennies, the buyer got an NFT, a non-fungible token, a marker of authenticity enabled by blockchain technology. Zoe and Tom discuss what the sale – and the frenzy for NFTs – means for art and aesthetics and discuss the nature of the new digital markets redefining value itself. 

Zoe and Tom pick over the interview and its reception, considering the couple's claims to victimhood and their path to 'authenticity', and chewing over the biggest casualties of the interview in the Royal family. They brooch race and class, wondering how, in the rush for righteous blame, the latter somehow seems to get lost, along with any thought for the British taxpayer. Something for everyone. Well, perhaps not everyone. 

The inauguration was a jamboree of digital pomp, and saw the making of a star in Amanda Gorman. Zoe and Tom discuss the pageantry and celebrity and where it all fits within American political culture, plus their thoughts on the 'unity' message.

Since we recorded, this diverse Regency romp has become Netflix's biggest series ever, downloaded over 80 million times in the 28 days after its release. Zoe and Tom find this fact both hilarious and terrifying. Join them as they dissect the series' appeal and above all its vision of the Regency court as a diverse utopia, in which present values very much dominate the picture of the past. And why does everyone have to be so thin? Well, all bar one....

The latest series of the Netflix smash hit is different: more recent, nastier, and closer to home. It covers a period within living memory of old millennials like Zoe and Tom, with one of the most painful marriages of the 20th century at its core. This season is the most controversial yet. Its treatment of the past has stirred high-level and intense controversy about whether it is obviously art or a devious form of history.  Join Zoe and Tom as they consider this question, plus the strengths and weaknesses of the portraits of Charles and Diana, Thatcher and the Queen and what it all says about society today and the royals' place in it.

The Queen's Gambit (Oct 2020) fast became Netflix's most-downloaded scripted miniseries of all time. Join Zoe and Tom as they regroup to deconstruct this silky, sexy televisual creature. There is much to enjoy about the mid-century rise and rise of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) from tranqued-up Kentucky orphan to world chess champion... but as usual, Zoe and Tom have some reservations.

These days, it is a challenge to find someone who has not read Sapiens, Harari's astonishingly bold and popular global bestseller from 2014. Sapiens attempts to explain the whole history of mankind, from early versions of the species through to the globalised, gas-guzzling world of today, via the devising of agriculture, money, empire and industry. Yet is this honest history? Harari's story is a political one - an ecological polemic - that ultimately rails against humankind, and prefers to see our legacy as one of destruction rather than ingenuity and betterment. Zoe and Tom discuss the book's flaws and strengths.

The first non-English language film to win the Best Picture Oscar, Parasite lit not just the critics alight but punters too. Rarely has one film - a relatively low budget, highly culturally specific film at that - created such a global talking point. Who or what is to blame here? Is it capitalism? Class warfare? Morality gone awry? Wealth? Who is the real parasite, if there is one? What about the mad tonal shifts in the film from comedy to horror? Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the extreme excitement around Parasite, the 2019 film directed by Bong Joon-ho, and place it in wider context. 

Michaela Coel's comedy drama about a woman trying to process a sexual assault offers TV unlike any most of us have ever seen before. Race, sex, consent, London, youth, social media, identity: it's all there, rendered with formal and intellectual iconoclasm. Zoe and Tom unpick its curious magic, and the fascination this unlikely piece of work has cast over the nation. 

A best-seller following publication in 2017, Eddo-Lodge's polemic lit up a whole conversation about race in Britain, prompting millions to think for the first time about the concepts of systemic racism and white privilege in relation to the UK. The conversation, if that's the word for what often feels like a perilous obstacle course at best and an antagonistic Manichean battle to the death at worst, continues with renewed intensity following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Eddo-Lodge's book has been as controversial and it has been influential. Join Zoe and Tom as they roll up their sleeves and wade into the debate of our times.

Stormzy is a British phenomenon. He is the man who made grime global, the first black British artist to headline Glastonbury and was dubbed 'poet laureate' in Parliament for his response to Grenfell. Stormzy is a chart-topper with political clout. We take a critical look at his 2019 platinum album Heavy is the Hype and dig below the hype to assess the content and appeal of this album, putting it in context of a wider cultural moment.

To listen to full album:

https://open.spotify.com/album/3y4AaloFccKNLQcZNS9L8c?si=-BkQkrUuQAWLDkN8Y5D91g

Time Out called 2019's The Souvenir 'the only film that matters' - this was enough to entice Zoe along to see it, while Tom has long been a fan of its director Joanna Hogg. In a departure from form, Tom and Zoe find the reasons reasons for its instant cult status justified, and discuss Hogg's special touch when it comes to class, art and all things visual. The mother-daughter acting from Tilda Swinton and her daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, who play mother and daughter in the film, adds an unusual touch.

Zoe and Tom consider the mania around Rooney's 2018 best-seller and 2020 TV adaptation, tempering their slight (in Zoe's case substantial) bewilderment with plenty of analysis of what Normal People seems to be saying about sex, class, family and youth. 

Zoe, a former dating columnist just like Dolly, and an author of books concerning dating, just like Dolly, certainly found herself faced with the work of a much more popular and successful - and younger - version of herself. But was it just sour grapes that made her gawp at this book's fantastic success? She likes to think it wasn't. Together with historian of France Tom, they unpack the book's themes and oddities,  discuss what they didn't like (and a few things they did) and think about what made it such a hit.

Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the hype around Sir Tom Stoppard's most recent play, a chronicle of the tragedy of European Jews in the 20th century through the fate of one sprawling family. Zoe was very very unimpressed, and Tom just unimpressed. Why did critics go wild for it? What appetite among British audience goers did it serve? What was it trying to do and where did it go wrong - and in some places, right?  

Based on Deborah Feldman's best-selling memoir about leaving the Satmar ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York, Unorthodox became a global phenomenon after it dropped on Netflix in March 2020 - just in time for lockdown. Zoe and Tom puzzle over themes of gender, female self-discovery, Yiddish, Judaism and place - setting the miniseries in the context of a new, broadening interest by entertainment honchos in Jewish life and casting the usual critical eye over the whole. Join Zoe and Tom as they unpick the hype.

1917, released in the UK in January 2020, was one of the most successful war movies of all time. Unlike its smash hit stablemates, though, it focussed on World War One instead of Two. We discuss the appetite for World War One narratives, how perceptions of the war have changed, and why.