Zoe Ball and Jo Whiley's new podcast might just get me gardening

Telegraph

5 days ago

'Anyway, I digress…' said Zoe Ball during the debut episode of Dig It, a new bi-weekly 'visual' podcast she is hosting with her friend and BBC Radio colleague Jo Whiley. Yet if there was a format designed with the sole function of being impossible to digress from, it's Dig It. The podcast is sort-of about gardening – hence the title – but it's not really. It's about everything and nothing. 'These are the conversations that you and I would have with each other,' Ball told Whiley. 'It's about life, it's about being working mums, it's about our teenagers and what they're up to, it's about our parents, ageing, keeping healthy… It's about 'Can I get away with wearing a Hunza G swimsuit?'. No. I can't….' Anyway, she digresses. You see? It's about everything and nothing.
For most of the time, Dig It aspires to be little more than a cuppa and natter, an audio equivalent of those momentarily amusing little books you'd buy at the till in HMV with titles such as 'The Little Book of Gin' or '1001 Funny Dogs'. However, there's no doubt that a cuppa and a natter with Ball and Whiley is a perfectly lovely thing. These are two pleasant, intelligent middle-aged women with stellar broadcasting careers, outstanding radio voices and inoffensively enviable lifestyles. Not every podcast has to change your life.
To give them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps this first episode was an opportunity to stretch their legs and get all the clichés out, even if it occasionally drifted into the dangerously banal. 'The joy of getting older is you have experience,' said Whiley, before informing Ball that 'when you throw a big party, you have so much to do'. 'How do you know how much food to put in your fridge?' asked Ball, shortly after telling us about her flatpack shed. With these sorts of 'mum' podcasts, I worry about the teenage children, who probably don't need a warts-and-all insight into their parents' lives. The Ball and Whiley broods have nothing to fear here, with the biggest revelation being that Ball's son calls her 'Madre'.
If they wanted to, the pair could produce a barnstorming production, filled with scurrilous tales from their decades in the business, but Dig It is deliberately second-gear. A tantalising glimpse was offered when they briefly discussed how they met – sharing an office while the pair of them were employed on The Big Breakfast and The Word, respectively. 'Most people who worked in that office now run most of television,' said Ball. Oh really, do tell. Alas, industry gossip was not forthcoming and we instead had to make do with a (genuinely lovely) anecdote about how Whiley's sister Frances, who has learning difficulties, heckled her way through Whiley's wedding.
The show deserves Brownie points for actually giving some thought to the visual side of the podcast, giving us some graphics and family photos, where most other 'visual' podcasts merely stick a camera in front of their hosts and press record.
Towards the end of the episode, something remarkable happened – it stopped being about everything and nothing, and started actually being about gardening. Neither woman, particularly Ball, makes any pretence of being an expert in this area, but this is what gave their horticultural ramble its appeal. When Monty Don tells me I need to start mulching the flowerbeds and I should be giving my herbaceous perennials a 'Chelsea chop', I assume it's beyond my meagre talents. However, when Ball and Whiley discussed it, with the zeal of the keen hobbyist, I found myself taking notes. It was utterly charming and surprisingly inspiring. I'll certainly drop in at Ball and Whiley's for a cuppa and a natter again – but I hope they digress to the garden when I do.