Ah, the “two friends chatting” podcast genre: it’s like millions of besties across the globe sat down during the worst of the pandemic and thought, “We find each other interesting and amusing! We should share this with the world!” This wasn’t always the best idea: the standard, to put it mildly, is varied. But Talking Bollox, an exemplar of the genre, has risen to the top of the heap, and rightly so.
Calvin O’Brien and Terence Power, two inner-city Dubliners who began this podcast in November 2020 from O’Brien’s kitchen table, have all the key ingredients – interpersonal chemistry, charm, smarts and some pacy banter – but also, maybe more importantly, it never feels like they’re trying too hard.
They’re gifted in their use of language – where else will you hear about drinking a coffee so big “you could baptise a baby” with it or other less printable uses of Dublinese – but they’re not afraid to be serious, and they plunge into topics from sexual assault to justice system failures without falling back on making light.
Their second episode set the tone right out of the gate: that’s where O’Brien and Power introduced themselves with candid discussion of their own personal experiences with addiction, childhood neglect, poverty and depression. That’s trademark Talking Bollox: your hosts may make you laugh but they’re never trite or throwaway for entertainment’s sake, giving their subjects the weight they merit while still skewering middle-class manners and often themselves to amusing effect.
Mental health in particular is something they take seriously, and it’s refreshing and timely to hear them take on the naysayers and defend the need for recognition and help, particularly when it comes to men’s depression.
A total of 120 episodes since that first tell-all – via sold-out live shows, awards and all manner of guests – and they’re talking to the likes of Tánaiste Micheál Martin about decriminalising cannabis and homelessness. It’s not all soft-pedalling deference, either – they’ve got real questions about some of the bigger issues facing the country. And true to form, they hit him with some zingers, a regular feature where is an either/or: Tayto versus King, licking the length of O’Connell Street versus disposing of a bomb after only one hour’s training, or the one they posed to Martin, which was whether he’d prefer to see 10 All Ireland wins in a row for Dublin footballers or Sinn Féin winning the next election (spoiler alert, he went for the football).
Dipping in and out can unearth gems but also reveal some questionable positions that render the podcast title a little on the nose
Other aspects have evolved: O’Brien and Power no longer record their bollox talk at the kitchen table, for example, and their editing has, thankfully, become tighter, though they’re still apt to spin their rambles long past the hour mark, which is a lot of earbud throughput, even if you go for 1.5 playback. (That latter also gives them an Alvin and the Chipmunks pitch, but if Alvin was from Cabra).
Roddy Doyle, Sarah Grace, Jason Byrne, Aoife Moore: all have joined the bollox talk. Dipping in and out can unearth gems but also reveal some questionable positions that render the podcast title a little on the nose (see the discussion on whether or not to take the Covid vaccine for reference). But, not unlike their southside counterparts in the bestie podcast genre, Vogue Williams and Joanne McNally of My Therapist Ghosted Me, they couldn’t give a bollox what the haters say. They’re just talking, after all.
