Romesh Raganathan and Tom Davis keep the original spirit of the podcast alive with their low-concept, hugely popular shoot-the-shit podcast Wolf & Owl.
Just two friends chatting about whatever comes to mind, no theme, no guests – the occasional agony uncle advice for a listener, where their emotional intelligence and sensitivity comes to the fore - and improvised parables from sweet, sweet soul Tom as the finale.
The unforced, unrehearsed nature of the podcast gives it its charm, and the pair develop their double act personae – Tom: big hearted, insecure, with the occasional malapropism, Romesh: his slightly cynical, lightly teasing but tolerant mate.
There is often a wrangling about who is most successful; Tom with his A list movies or Romesh who famously seems to scoop up all jobs available to the contemporary comic.
This week Romesh has added a new role to the ever growing list – stage actor. Soon to appear on stage next to Sheridan Smith in Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind we’ll see whether he has finally overreached himself. And will his name be in lights on the theatre next to Smiths?
‘I’ve not discussed that, I mean I feel like I need to focus on being able to convincingly portray the character, rather than ask.’
But it makes for great stories of rubbing shoulders with the great actor Bryan Cranston (he interviewed him on his radio show and their plays have the same production company). The pair slip easily into a role play with Romesh playing Bryan and Tom doing his version of (actor) Romesh meeting up in a bar.
Will Romesh go backstage after seeing Cranston’s performance in All Our Sons? Will he hang back or go in for the hug?
‘Would you cuddle? You’re a theatre actor now…I think you have to cuddle. You’re in the tactile game now brother’
Romesh tells a story where going in for a handshake/hug with David Gandy was misjudged. But who they would go in for a kiss with – Gandy, David Beckham, Lucien Laviscount?
Hopefully in the next podcast we’ll hear more about how the play is going and what happened post-show, backstage with Cranston.
Wolf & Owl is available in all your usual podcast outlets.
