Podcasts: Under The Flyover and Croydon Insider

 

Under The Flyover is our occasional podcast which complements our website reporting with interviews and recordings for our loyal supporters. In 2023, iC introduced a new strand of podcasts, the Croydon Insider, round-table discussions of the latest news in this bit of south London – but a politician-free zone, devoid of the usual nonsense spouted at Westminster or the Town Hall.

Under The Flyover and the Croydon Insider are co-produced with Tim Longhurst, formerly of Croydon Radio.

Since early 2023, as well as qualifying for money-saving offers, prize competitions and advance bookings for iC events, our subscribers have also been able to get exclusive, free access to premium content – our Under The Flyover interviews and Croydon Insider news podcasts.

Our guests on Under The Flyover have included cricketer Mark Butcher, actress Joanna Scanlan, author and local charity worker Jad Adams, and Bishop of Croydon Dr Rosemarie Mallett.

Our well-informed and inspired guests on the Croydon Insider have been regular website contributors such as Andrew Fisher, Ken Towl and Donna Fraser, backed up with volunteers from among our subscribers, being given a chance to air their views.

All of these recordings are now available on our special Spotify page – but only after paying for access.

So, if you want to listen, you’re going to have to pay.

For a fiver per month, you will get access to all our podcasts, as well as regular offers and iC-organised events and competitions.

And you will also be helping to support the only independent and award-winning news outlet still based in Croydon.

The Croydon Insider, our podcast discussion programme

During 2023, we unveiled a news discussion podcast, The Croydon Insider, with a new episode every month, delving behind the headlines and lifting the curtain on the goings on at the Town Hall and at Fisher’s Folly.

Our last episode of the year looked at recent events in and around the borough, but also included a hilarious special bonus episode of Have I Got Croydon News For You! – the panellists all had their own buzzers and everything, just like one of those shows on Radio 4.

The Croydon Insider has begun to provide a platform for our regular readers to discuss what they have made of recent events inside Croydon, and for this episode, first aired in December 2023, Sharon Owen and Annabel Smith join regular contributors media pundit Andrew Fisher and arts correspondent Ken Towl to discuss what was happening inside Croydon.

Sign up as a paying subscriber – less than a fiver a month – and download it now, from our page on Spotify.

  • To find out more about becoming an Inside Croydon subscriber, click here
  • Do you think you could be a guest contributor on a future episode of the Croydon Insider? If so, write to the Editor at inside.croydon@btinternet.com making a case for you to have a guest slot on our podcast. Politicians need not apply…

Under The Flyover with MasterChef contestant Vanessa D’Souza

Vanessa D’Souza, from South Croydon, has been one of the stand-out contestants in the 2023 series of MasterChef on BBC1.

Here, in an exclusive Under The Flyover interview with iC Editor Steven Downes (who goes full on Alan Partridge at one point), she talks about her late-diagnosed autism, her special Goan fish curry, how she sources her ingredients from Surrey Street Market and she reveals exactly why she likes to use blueberries with mushrooms…

This premium content podcast was originally available exclusively to patrons to Inside Croydon, one of many benefits they receive for supporting our independent, story-breaking journalism, still proudly based in Croydon.

  • To find out more about becoming a subscriber, click here.

Under The Flyover with Joanna Scanlan

Joanna Scanlan is the South Croydon-based award-winning actor who has starred in hit TV series including The Thick Of It,  Doc Martin and The Larkins, and who in January 2022 was at the David Lean Cinema for a screening of her acclaimed film, After Love.

Afterwards, Scanlan took part in a Q&A with the audience about the thought-provoking film and how it was made, in an interview conducted by David Lean Cinema Campaign volunteer David Lavelli.

 

Under The Flyover with Will Travers, founder of the Born Free Foundation

Will Travers has been involved in wildlife conservation all his life, from the moment when his parents, actors Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers, took him as a youngster off to Kenya for a year-long adventure to film the acclaimed movie Born Free, the story of the release of a captive lion, Elsa, back into the wild.

These days, inspired by the campaigning work of his mother and late father, Travers is the President of the Born Free Foundation, which works tirelessly to preserve the habitats of wildlife and protect species around the world.

In September 2022, the Born Free Foundation is staging its first in-person event for three years, a glittering gala dinner with celebrity guests, at Denbies Vineyard in Dorking, and Travers and his charity want to encourage as many people to buy tickets to support their important work.

Here, Inside Croydon speaks to Travers about his work in wildlife conservation, the movie careers of his parents, the lessons from last year’s COP conference and the global inequalities inherent in the climate emergency.

 

Under The Flyover with Dr Rosemarie Mallett, Bishop of Croydon

Dr Rosemarie Mallett was recently named as the next Bishop of Croydon.

Ahead of her consecration service in June 2022, for our latest episode Under The Flyover podcast, iC editor Steven Downes conducted this thought-provoking interview in which the soon-to-be Bishop tells us how for her, Croydon is a place with “real heart”.

Dr Mallett also talks about what she and the church are doing to tackle the links between school exclusions and knife crime, her lifelong battles for equality and against racism, and the challenges for the church in Croydon following covid.

Hear the interview here:

 

  • To find out more about becoming an Inside Croydon subscriber, click here.

Under The Flyover with Kevin Day

Our first podcast of 2021 was with celebrity Palace fan, stand-up comic, TV comedy writer and all-round good bloke Kevin Day, interviewed by our guest presenter Ella Hopkins.

Day’s got a new book out – his first – Who Are Ya?, which is all about football and fans’ love of their clubs.

In a fascinating half-hour, Day talks about his book, how he was inspired by his then eight-year-old son, and of a career in comedy, including writing for some of the biggest names in show business on some of the best-loved programmes on television.

This premium content was made available first exclusively to Inside Croydon subscribers, who help to support our independent, news-breaking local journalism. You can help, too, and get exclusive content and other benefits by signing up here today.

And listen to the full Kevin Day interview here…

 

First to go Under The Flyover was Mark Butcher, former Test cricketer, now a TV sports pundit and mean guitar player, who has his second music album – Now Playing – out.

Butcher came into our Under The Flyover studio this week to talk cricket, naturally enough (England were playing a World Cup match at the time), but also to chat about music, the role it has played in his life, and about his new album, including some of the things that have inspired his music, as featured in his single, Country, taken from the album.

Our full first podcast is available here, free of charge.

We hope you enjoy the interview, and don’t forget to sign-up to become an Inside Croydon subscriber.

 

Under The Flyover at the Regina Road protest march

Our latest episode has reporter Sanjana Idnani meeting some of the council tenants of South Norwood who took to the streets to protest at the four-month delay in any real action by Town Hall officials to fix the appalling living conditions in their resident tower blocks.

Idnani reports from the march and rally, interviews residents and records some of the speeches made to draw attention to the tenants’ plight.

ITV News’ report from Regina Road in March shocked the nation, as it showed the damp, mouldy and overcrowded conditions families were having to endure, and which many had been filing complaints to the council about for up to four years.

This is the kind of premium content which is usually made available first exclusively to Inside Croydon subscribers.

Our subscribers help to support our independent, news-breaking local journalism. You can help, too, and get exclusive content and other benefits by signing up here today.

Listen to Sanjana Idnani’s full broadcast report here:

 

This episode of Under The Flyover features Jad Adams, the chair of Croydon homelessness charity Nightwatch.

It was around 40 years ago that Ralph McTell wrote Streets Of London, his best-known song and a number which has resonated ever since over issues of homelessness in the capital.

Around the same time, Jad Adams was driving off to work wondering what more he could do to help homeless people in south London. Soon after, Adams started volunteering with Croydon charity Nightwatch, and has been working with them ever since, most recently – well, since 1992 – as the chair of the charity.

In the latest Under The Flyover podcast, Adams explains how the situation for the homeless in our borough is now much worse than it has ever been.

In a wide-ranging interview, Adams talks about his work – including writing the biography of Tony Benn, as well as books on Gandhi and the Nehru political dynasty, and his latest, about votes for women, as well as appealling for donations to help Nightwatch’s valuable work.

You can get a taste of the podcast here:

Click here to sign up as an Inside Croydon supporter on Patreon to hear the interview in full, and benefit from a range of other special reader offers.

This episode of Under The Flyover features an interview with community activist Emma Hope-Fitch, who together with friends and neighbours in SE25 have worked for more than four years to create the Love Lane community garden and play space.

But by the end of July 2019, with the long summer holidays beckoning, the Love Lane community garden was under threat from the land owners, Mayfair-based property developers.

Click here to sign up as an Inside Croydon supporter on Patreon to hear the interview in full.

 

Andrew Ah Weng: BAFTA-winner at just 14

Under The Flyover meets Croydon’s 14-year-old BAFTA-winner
In the latest episode of our exclusive podcast content for Inside Croydon subscribers, reporter Sanjana Idnani interviews Sanderstead teenager Andrew Ah Weng following his recent with of a BAFTA award for his computer game design.

Inside Croydon first reported the success of the 14-year-old Trinity schoolboy earlier in July.

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts stages annual Young Game Designer Awards. And Ah Weng’s game, called Getting Out Of It, took top prize in the 10- to 14-year-olds’ Game Making category.

Now hear him talk for the first time about how he came up with the idea for the game, the software he uses and his plans for more coding and games development in coming years.