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Podcast fans from all around - come and nerd out about podcasts and discover new shows along the way!
On Podcast Book Club - a different group of podcast industry pros sit down each week to pour over an episode of a show they admire.
We're a group of podcasting professionals who spend every day scripting, producing, engineering, and promoting podcasts. And in our free time? We’re podcast fans just like you. We love to listen to even more podcasts and figure out what makes the best podcasts so good.
So tune in and join the club - listen to podcast reviews of some of our favorite gems. We’ll give feedback on podcast content but also sound design, production, scripting, storytelling, and more.
Want even more? Catch Podcast Book Club on Twitter: twitter.com/podbookclub
Podcast Book Club is produced by Alex Bennett, Head of Post Production at Lower Street. Alex is a domesticated audio nerd, who has spent the past five years learning about human social conventions via the medium of podcasting. From Edinburgh, Scotland he is an audio engineer that helps produce audio dramas in his spare time. Alex specialises in soundscapes and creative mixing. He has a deep and abiding love for sandwiches, and is the 2nd worst bowler at Lower Street.
Lower Street provides next-level podcast production services for ambitious companies: everything from podcast strategy and creation to growth. We’ve worked with companies like BCG to develop multiple podcasts like Climate Vision 2050, BCG Compliance, BCG Fintech Files, and BCG In Her Element. We’ve also helped produce: Cadence Bank’s In Good Companies; HPE’s Technology Now, Zuhlke’s Data Today, Northern Trust’s The Road to Why, Zoobean’s The Reading Culture; ICR’s Welcome to the Arena and ZeroNorth’s Navigating Zero.
Find out more at https://lowerstreet.co/ and sign up for our newsletter to keep in touch https://lowerstreet.co/newsletter-sign-up
00:00 Elizabeth
Welcome to the Podcast Book Club from Lower Street Media, where we take a look at what makes great podcasts so, well, great. Our day job is making podcasts, but we're also fans of the medium and know there's still a lot for us to learn from some of our favorite shows. Today we're talking about a show that's new to me, although it's been winning awards since it launched in 2020 called Stuff the British Stole. As the name suggests, this podcast from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation covers some of the significant artifacts, objects and histories looted throughout British imperialism. Each approximately 30 minute episode is hosted by Mark Finnell and dives into the history of a particular item, piecing together the modern implications of their theft through a variety of interviews and narration. The episode we are discussing today called Best Named Dog Ever doesn't actually focus on an object, but on a breed of dog, the Pekingese. I'm Elizabeth, Lower Street's production manager and your host for this episode of Podcast Book Club. Today I'm joined by Alex.
01:04 Alex
I am senior audio engineer at Lower Street and as always, cupboard dweller.
01:08 Zoe
Hi I'm Zoe. I am a producer here at Lower Street and I'm also a cupboard dweller today.
01:18 Jackie
I'm Jackie. I'm a producer. I am not a covered dweller, but I will say you can't say the title of that podcast without doing comic book guy.
01:26 Elizabeth
I don't know what that reference is. The Simpsons. Alex will know it.
01:31 Zoe
The Simpsons.
01:32 Elizabeth
wasn't allowed to watch The Simpsons as a kid. Oh,
01:34 Jackie
it's very clearly. Oh my god, you deprived child. It's very clearly a Simpsons reference.
01:44 Elizabeth
That's funny. Oh, gotcha. I was, I actually have a whole question about titling. Yeah, yeah, totally. I'm very excited for that part. Oh, embarrassing.
01:54 Clips
Worst episode ever. Oh, not even close.
01:58 Elizabeth
Alrighty. Let's start with some broad thoughts on the episode. Zoe, do you want to start us off?
02:05 Zoe
Yeah, totally. So really interesting and very important subject matter. I really am a fan of history podcasts, but also of dogs. So that was a nice mixture of things to be in there, although the dogs, I don't think were the main attraction in this one. It was more of the kind of history angle. I enjoyed listening to it to an extent. I think there's definitely some things in there that need to be improved. Definitely an interesting one to listen to. It kind of brushed up on some things I'd heard in other podcasts, but took a different angle, which I always appreciate.
02:48 Jackie
Yeah. I also wish it talked more about the dog. But I grew up watching History Channel and Discovery Channel exclusively. And so this very much felt like one of those TV shows that I'd be watching on the floor of my grandparents' living room, which is to say it was really fun. It's kind of like very surface level and more storytelling than it is like historical substance. But it is really, really interesting. And I thought it was really good. I enjoyed it. Obviously, anything could be improved. But overall, I think it was good.
03:15 Alex
I really like the format. I like a good old bait and switch. I think this did a pretty good job, especially tonally, going from the opening scenes when they're talking about the dogs to unbridled imperial chaos. I also thought from a post-production standpoint, just nice and crisp and clear. And I could hear what was going on the whole time, even though I was out and about whilst listening to it.
03:42 Clips
Bad dog. I'm Mark Finnell, and this is Stuff the British Style.
03:45 Elizabeth
To me, not all interviews featured in this episode were equal and not all interview guests felt… not that they weren't equally weighted in terms of airtime, but I felt like in terms of content, not all interviews were equal. And I'm curious if anyone had any initial thoughts about the edit and if you were the producer of this episode, is there any content that you would have left on the cutting room floor? Is there anything you wished that we dived a little deeper into in terms of the edit? And all in all, how did you feel about the choices of when to feature which interview guest? Because I think there was a lot of overlap in what they were discussing, and I'm curious about what everyone thought about that.
04:37 Zoe
I totally agree with you, Elizabeth, on the point of like, a lot of the interviewees were sort of saying the same thing. There's that whole section where they're talking about the person's relative being brought back and tortured on this ship. And there's lots of voices coming in at that point, and they're all sort of saying the same thing. I think you're absolutely right. And, you know, it's fine, and it gives a little bit of variety to it, but you are just kind of getting the same information over and over again. But I thought it was really interesting that the great irony of a podcast which is about like British imperialism, there wasn't that many Chinese voices in this.
05:00 Jackie
I was thinking the same thing. Oh my gosh. That's really okay. I thought somebody else would have thought that.
05:04 Zoe
There is a couple of examples. You know, there's the British woman who has Chinese heritage, and then there's the I think she's a professor who's in Australia. But other than that, on the kind of historical side, while this story is being told, you don't get any of that perspective. And one of the sort of shining moments in it is the professor talking about how this sort of destruction that the story is based around, like still affects people culturally to this day. And it's like, well, that's a super interesting point. And it's there's just some sort of crazy irony that the voices that this is about really aren't in there. From my perspective.
06:04 Jackie
To go deeper into like that specific irony, they were able to track down a person who had a relative on the British side and featured that person. And like, that's a super interesting connection. But it is like, it's very, very antithetical, I guess, to what they're trying to say, which is to say the whole podcast itself, a lot of the guests were like Western, right? It's like Australian, American, British. And you're telling this story about the culture, the lost culture through a West. I understand that they're like acknowledging the issues with the way that the British acted in, like the loss for the Chinese people. But at the same time, they're still telling that through that Western voice, which is a little bit disappointing. I will say I was sympathetic as a producer for two reasons. One, it's very difficult to track down people in countries and stuff where you don't have those kinds of connections. Although universities are a very easy go to to find people. So I'm kind of on the fence about that. There is a language barrier. And so finding somebody who Wimby was connected or whatnot is a little bit more difficult. There's like an added layer of, OK, well, you also have to find somebody who could still speak English, because at the end of the day, this is an English speaking podcast. But it is still like, I feel like you could have put that extra effort in because of the content of the actual podcast.
07:18 Clips
The emperor at the time would sometimes race his concubines through the maze, you know, things to do when you're an emperor and you're bored and you've, you know, you've already conquered Tibet a couple of times. So why not just race the concubines?
07:31 Elizabeth
I thought it was interesting that the tour guide specifically that was interviewed was like an expat tour guide. And that was one of the guests who I had. While I think we got a lot of interesting and important information on the topic from him, there was also some kind of more tangential stories that I felt were not like as a applicable to the content, but also potentially leading us down the wrong path of the story. I don't know that like discussing concubines running through the mazes of the garden, that that kind of story really hits the right tone for the subject matter being discussed.
08:11 Zoe
Yeah, totally agree. I totally agree. I felt exactly the same thing when that was mentioned.I was like, hmm, this isn't hitting right somehow with me.
08:24 Elizabeth
So you mentioned some of the kind of overlapping points of view. One section where I remember people specifically telling the same story in different ways where I thought it worked really well was when they were retelling the story of how the dogs themselves brought back to England because it started off with the guest who was the British tutor with Chinese heritage, Sarah. She started off by saying, we don't know what really happened, but we do know what the story is. And so I think there to hear different people telling slightly different versions of the same story that does a lot to capture how history actually gets documented or gets relayed. And that there is always some nuance there. I'm curious, did other people feel like that section worked well in terms of storytelling or did it feel a bit overdone?
09:24 Jackie
When I listened to that, I actually felt like it was repetitive because it's maybe not necessarily the actual content of what they were saying, but it's the way that they said it that they kept it in. That was kind of like, oh, I just heard that. Because she says, like you're saying, and the story is this. And then like 30 seconds later, you hear this is the story. The story is this. And so it feels like they spend like 30 seconds setting it up and they have the same set up two times in a row from different people. But yeah, it's interesting to say like, history does kind of get passed down through these like legends or whatnot. But the actual edit, I probably would have at least cut the specific wording of the story is like not having it back to back.
10:09 Clips
The story is that in and the story also is that these were… We have a story. We have a story. And that story goes something like this.
10:14 Elizabeth
Another aspect of the production of this show that I feel sometimes works exceptionally well and sometimes doesn't is the soundscaping. I find that this podcast makes quite heavy use of soundscaping. I'm curious what everyone's thoughts are on the sound design. When do you feel like it works particularly well? Did you ever feel like it was not working and why?
10:43 Alex
So I listened to this the first time when I was out and about doing stuff and I basically missed most of the music and sound design, which isn't a knock against the show. That's just what happens when your surroundings are loud. I listened to portions of it again when I was back in a more quiet environment. I was quite impressed with how much they used and how they seem to generally, like tonally, keep it on track. There was one specific point where the British guy is talking about his ancestor, Bulby, and how he ends up getting killed. And the interesting thing was when I couldn't hear the sound design, his death came as somewhat of a surprise or it was like a new development in the story. But when I could hear the sound design in the music, it was like telegraphed and telegraphed and telegraphed and telegraphed. And actually, I would rather get hit with that turn in the story and then have the sound design reflect that. I think it's really easy because it often works incredibly well to always have some of the production furniture elements, whatever you want to call it, like prime the listener for what's coming up. When actually, if it's impactful enough, it can be better to just hit them with it and then support it after the fact.
12:09 Clips
Chris's ancestor, Thomas Bulby, went as an observer and reporter. But what he didn't realise is that he was about to become a crucial player in history in the worst way possible.
12:21 Zoe
So I'll just read you some of my notes that I wrote down about this. So yeah, overall, I thought a lot of the choices were very impactful, but then I've written some of the audio effects were kind of weird. So there's moments like at the start, especially you have these voices that kind of echoed in.
12:45 Clips
People will just burst out laughing when I show them images of these early dogs. And I think that's fair enough. But I also would like to think that it's not all a laughing matter. What it must have been like and how quickly he realised that he was in desperate trouble and how lonely those last few hours must have been.
13:00 Zoe
And the echo is just like really overdone. There's just some moments in it which are a little bit overproduced and a little bit naff would be the word I'd used or kind of corny, let's say. And there was some moments like that with the soundscape too, like when we're initially to the tour guide and he's talking about the history of the place, there's a moment where they're talking about the children, like the royal children playing in this amazing palace. And it's like the sound of children playing is layered on real thick. And it's kind of like, I don't know, I'm not feeling this so much. It just kind of felt like this has sort of been slapped on here and maybe not thought about that much. I'm not sure. There was just kind of moments in it where it wasn't quite working for me. But I would say overall, I liked how much sound design and music they used to really bring it alive. Because at the end of the day, it's like a visceral, colourful story. And it is important, I think, with these kind of things to have that element.
14:10 Elizabeth
It is interesting to think about, and I don't have the answer, how much you should show or show in an auditory way, things that have already been described verbally. Does that reinforce the point or is it just redundant?
14:28 Alex
Sometimes when you go and see films, they're a bit overproduced, they're very stylistic. And you can tell that that's the intention of the people who made it. And I think if the intention of the people producing the show was to make something that has a bit of extra sauce on it, for want of a better word, then they did a great job. And even though there are points where it doesn't work for me personally, if that was the effect they were going for, then I think hats off to them. And it is, at the end of the day, a stylistic choice. I think we talked before about, you can't make a podcast for everyone. So maybe you should just pick a line when it comes to how much sound design, music, effects, etc. to put on top of something and just go for it.
15:16 Jackie
I get What you're saying is like Adam McKay movies, for people who may not recognize that name immediately because I also had to Google it. Vice. But it is that, it's an intentional choice to over edit and it's a way of constant simulation that's a little bit different and sets you apart stylistically. But I'll also say that, and I don't know if this is the same for the other podcasts, like the other episodes in this series, but it really was about putting you in a place. And I think maybe this is part of the reason why it reminded me so much of the History Channel shows that I used to watch growing up or Discovery Channel shows. It was because it was like really, really putting you in that place with all this like added production. And like I said, you kind of got a little lost in the story of it. And that's why I do think that there were times when it was a little bit, it almost would have served better to describe it as opposed to give sound effects. There was like something at the beginning in the gardens. I think there was like sprinklers or something and it kind of just sounded like white noise. And I was thinking, oh, you know what, I would have preferred them to walk in and kind of describe the garden a little bit because hearing that doesn't really give me much. So yes, there's like stylistic choices, but also I think sometimes there is an objective answer about whether or not it's more effective to describe versus to put a sound effect in there.
16:33 Elizabeth
There were a few instances where the sound effects came across as white noise to me, and I really had to think about what they were meant to be. And I don't necessarily think their placement was inappropriate, but I wonder if there could have been more specific sounds chosen. One of them was a fire sound that I think could have been more crackly and would have sounded more like fire. I felt like the timing of that one was appropriate because it created this kind of like ominous, I don't quite know what's going on, but I'm like getting uncomfortable feeling at an appropriate point, but it didn't sound like fire to me. It sounded like white noise. And then there's also some wind sounds throughout that feel white noisy to me as well and didn't feel as-
17:20 Alex
Wind is always a losing battle. It sounds like different things to different people. I've had it in the past where I've gone back and forth repeatedly where some people have decided what I think sounds like wind to them sounds like rain against leaves or a car passing or something. So you really have to pick your battles and don't actually be anchored to what things actually sound like. A fire should have crackle and rumble and some whooshing, which they don't in real life. They just make weird popping noises. Yeah.
17:56 Jackie
That's kind of like actually it's kind of like sound design for film. When you watch Foley behind the scenes, it's what they're actually doing to make the noise is not natural at all. Like think about a punch in a movie. You have to sometimes play it up so that people can actually understand it. I get what you're saying, Alex, but the actual idea of like, if you want people to recognize a fire, especially without the visuals, maybe you do need to be a little bit exaggerated. And have people explain it. Yeah. And have people explain it. Because we're screwed because we can't like, you can't see anything when you're listening to a podcast. I also just want to draw attention to my spot on wind impression earlier. I think that went overlooked.
18:28 Zoe
Yeah. It did not go overlooked.
18:31 Elizabeth
Yeah. Wind whistles a lot more in sound design than it whistles in real life.
18:35 Clips
Okay. It's the standard grandpa drill. Everybody into the cellar.
18:48 Elizabeth
Okay. Moving on from sound design specifically. This episode is very informative, but I find it also strikes a more entertaining note than a typical history lesson might. I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on the use of humor in this podcast and what other elements might be part of the recipe that is producing something that is really engaging while getting a lot of information to the listener.
19:21 Alex
I thought the humor was fine. I like dry podcasts, so it's not a necessary ingredient for me. But I do think if you're doing something like this for a wider audience, you need little spots of lightness there, which is helpful because the dogs almost inherently bring that because they talk about them as little mop heads that wander around the place and they have recordings of them yapping and all that. So I think it's good to have it there. I didn't feel as though it was overblown when I listened to the episode.
19:51 Jackie
Yeah. I'll say that, again, that's so much of the reason it reminds me of those history channel documentaries. I think also the context of the actual conversation, there's lots of depth to this, but I think anybody listening to a podcast called Stuff the British Stole is already in that mindset where they're understanding the depth. So I think a lot of the more nuanced things that you could get into, people are already thinking about. This is more just telling a story of a specific example. So I think that for this podcast specifically, it was effective because you already know. I'm listening to this and I'm already understanding the British stole a lot of stuff and it was devastating for cultures and there's a lot that you can take from that. But this is just like, this is a specific story about these gardens. And I also think that sometimes you do need to lighten things up or the information is not going to sink in. I always say that nobody wants to read a textbook, nobody wants to listen to a textbook. So you have to put something in there that's like story based and kind of make it engaging or nobody's going to listen to it because you don't want to be a chore for the listeners, right?
20:52 Alex
And I also felt like the host, he had like a bit of a light and breezy part of his personality. So I think it's better that he's just allowed to conduct himself naturally rather than try to play the part of sort of erudite historian.
21:07 Zoe
Yeah, it's a fine line to toe between talking about something that's really quite serious historically, but also like keeping it light. And I guess like the anchoring of the, you know, the dogs does do that. It will give it a natural sort of light flavor, but it's difficult. It's very, very difficult. And I do respect how they've kind of balanced it out.
21:33 Jackie
I think for the most part, they've kind of managed to do it. I'm going to offer like a slight solution and it's kind of, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier and it's that I think it's okay to inject humor and to be maybe a little bit more light than you should in these kinds of scenarios, again, to make sure that the content is actually getting across. But I do think how far you go depends on the lens and what you're telling the story. And we were telling it, they were telling it from like a Western lens. And so they're joking about it and making it light. But I don't think it was like their place to do that. I think if they had somebody on who was like, you know, more Chinese perspectives that were making, you know, light of things and keeping it digestible, then that would have been a lot more appropriate. But yeah, you have to know your place. It's like, it's making jokes in spaces where you don't have the right to make those jokes.
22:30 Zoe
Yeah, Jackie, that's so, so true. Yeah, you're completely right. I totally, totally agree.
22:35 Clips
I think the closest thing we have in Western consciousness to this would be like Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch minus the creepy sleepovers.
22:45 Elizabeth
Something else that I think helps make this content engaging is that the concept is quite strong. There is like a strong thesis to each of these episodes, which is we're telling the story of this moment in history using a catalyst of an object or a stolen piece of history, which is 90% of this episode about the dogs. No, right. It's about this event in history and how it connects to relationships between China and the West today, as well as throughout the last few hundred years. But having the story about the dogs being stolen ground that history is, I believe, a strong point of view that helps connect the rest of the material in a way that I feel like I maybe remember more details about this history, having learned it this way and being able to connect it to that story about the dogs than I would have without that kind of thesis. And I wonder if anyone else had the same experience.
23:49 Jackie
I actually have two minds because every single person that I work with, I always tell them, you need to be able to describe this episode in one sentence. You need to have a very, very strong thesis or it's just going to come across as muddy and the takeaways are going to be very difficult to actually find. So I really, really love hooking things on like, this is the story, this story is the vehicle for all of this other information and we'll let people come to that naturally through this story. But I will say the dog wasn't the story. And so it felt more like clickbait to me. It was like, this is how this ancient Chinese dog ended up in Britain. And it's like, well, actually, this story is about the gardens. And I understand that, again, it's about making things fun and getting people engaged, but it's not about the dogs. I think that it would have been more effective to make this story and to highlight it right from the start about the gardens. And then the dogs could be like that breaking point, you know, around like the third act when it's like, and then there was another aspect of this and then you hear like the dogs barking and then it's like, wait, what? There's dogs involved? And so you could still inject that lightness and like that humor to it. But I don't think that the dogs were the focus here. And I think that they chose, they made a wrong choice in my opinion.
25:03 Alex
I do wonder if when they started, if the dogs were the foundation for the episode, how much of the episode they felt as though they might be able to, like how many minutes they could get out of the story about the dogs. Because it seems the more they uncover it, the simpler it becomes, basically. So they found them in a corner and took them back. And one of them got like a very insensitive name. It's like, oh, we still have a whole episode to do.
25:31 Clips
We're so happy to have gone to war to protect your good name as the world's largest narco Baron. In exchange, you get a dog and she names the dog Lootie.
25:41 Elizabeth
I think I do still think that it is a strong concept to use these kinds of stolen objects or histories or dogs as the kind of launching point for an investigation of a moment in history. But I wonder if there should be something in the description or in the titling that kind of helps us know that we're signing on to a different story than one just about dogs or just about other objects.
26:05 Jackie
I'm going to contradict myself right now. It is like, actually, you're right. The podcast is Stuff the British Stole. They technically didn't steal a garden, right? They stole the dogs. So I get that. That's maybe why you have to tie that in to that specifically. But I also want to say you have to honor your story a little bit too. If you're writing something, and this is very true in journalism too, which is my background, so I'm going to bring it up. If you're writing a story and then it starts taking you down a different way, you don't force the story to go down what you intended. You go down the path that the story is taking because you're telling, you're being honest to that. And so maybe they did come into this thinking, we can get a whole episode out of this dog. But if they are starting to research and they're realizing, wait a minute, maybe the story's over here, you got to pivot, right? To be honest with it.
27:01 Clips
Oh, what about this? A pit bull? What is it? To stop a pit bull attacking her daughter, a Texas man bit the dog. Well, that's an interesting story. A man bites a dog. It's not what I would call news.
27:18 Elizabeth
Any final thoughts? Anything you loved about the episode that we didn't get to touch on? One or any other last criticisms?
27:28 Zoe
I guess for me, the big takeaway for my podcasting practice is to never assume that something is your story to tell and that you're coming at it from, you have to examine the perspectives you're coming from and the people that you're including. And I think like sometimes if you're on a tight budget or if you're really pressed for time, it can be very easy to take the path of least resistance. But it's like we have to make an extra effort to include voices who are really central to a narrative that we're telling a story about.
28:06 Jackie
I second.
28:08 Alex
One thing I would add is it is interesting when you listen to something like this, and it just reminds you that you can push music and sound design quite far before it starts to break. And it can actually be surplus to requirements before it starts to get obnoxious or distracting. So I think it is useful every now and then to look at what I would consider a more maximalist approach.
28:36 Elizabeth
Agreed. And for me, I think my takeaway is that a strong concept can be a great vehicle for a larger story. Something to hang your hat on, if you will, like a real hook should never be underestimated in storytelling.
28:50 Jackie
It's a reminder that there's a balance between being honest with your story, being honest with your listeners, and then being something that's going to be attractive. You want to make sure you don't want just want people to click and listen to it part way or listen to it for one thing. I want people to want to listen and then want to be engaged with all of it and not feel misled at all.
29:15 Elizabeth
Great. All the dog breeder societies that clicked on this episode thinking they were going to learn a lot about Pekingese dogs might have been disappointed.
29:26 Jackie
I just picture my seven year old Nana learning about British colonialism.
29:33 Elizabeth
That's all we've got for today. If you listened along with us, let us know what you thought about this episode of Stuff the British Stole. You can connect with us on Twitter and hit follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so you don't miss our next episode of Podcast Book Club with a new host and a new featured podcast that just might become your next favorite. Thanks.