20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Podcast Corner: Angela Scanlon's new show aims for the 'Therapist Ghosted Me' market
Angela Scanlon is one of those multi-hyphenated stars we've become used to in the 2020s - she's in ads, she's acting, she's presenting on TV and radio, she's co-founder of a buildable, customisable jewellery company, and yes, she's a podcast host.
Angela Scanlon's Thanks A Million came to an end in 2022, but she's back this month with Get a Grip, co-hosting with Vicky Pattison, a fellow multi-hyphen. The bio: 'From navigating motherhood and newlywed life, to dissecting culture, internet drama, and the ridiculous expectations placed on women, this is an unapologetic podcast where no topic is off-limits."
So basically, a bantercast, so beloved of the podcast ecosystem in 2025 - and yes, it is available in video form.
'I like an overshare,' says Scanlon early on in the first episode. Soon, Pattison is talking about wearing spanx, sharing some, ahem, toilet humour, about people who wear such to the Met Gala, and gossiping about Rihanna's third pregnancy ('When did the second one come?').
Come the second episode, Scanlon says she knows when her eggs are dropping; Pattison replies: 'Like a chicken!?' It's funny, a little TMI, and very much focused on the market cornered by My Therapist Ghosted Me.
The co-host of that show, Joanne McNally, is the first guest on Katherine Ryan's new show What's My Age Again?, wherein she asks her celebrity guests how they feel about ageing and then has them take a biological age test to find out how their bodies' age compares to their chronological age. It's science… we think.
Like Scanlon and Pattison, Ryan is also many different things to different people, perhaps most notably a standup and panellist on various UK shows. 'Why aren't you in the cryochamber,' she jokingly asks McNally - though it's something she returns to with her fifth guest Olivia Attwood, who came to fame on Love Island season three and hosts her own podcast, So Wrong, It's Right.
Indeed, Ryan admits to an interest in cryotherapy, Attwood telling her: 'I was doing that HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen therapy) over Christmas. So I had a couple of little procedures. And it's great for healing. And I was recommended into it. So I went down a hole of reading about the benefits of HBOT. And unfortunately, it's not available on the NHS, apart from very, very specific diseases. But the healing and your brain, your cells, that is incredible. The science is there. It's just not widely backed.' You may want to do your own research first.
As for the age test (there is a disclaimer that it's not a medical-grade device and the biological age is not a predictor of life expectancy), McNally is told she's an outlier, in the top 1%, while Attwood gets the lowest age possible. Perhaps What's My Age Again? Is best taken with a pinch of salt.
