StoryCo

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  The $450 Million Lie: How the Art Market Manufactures Value | Ben Lewis 23.07.2026 47мин

  SummaryBen Lewis on the art market, the Salvator Mundi, and why the most beautiful objects are used for the ugliest purposes.Episode OverviewIn 2005, a painting sold at auction for $1,000. In 2017, the same painting sold to the ruler of Saudi Arabia for $450 million. Christie's marketed it as a Leonardo da Vinci. It probably isn't. Nobody can prove it either way because most of the original surface is gone. That is not why it sold for $450 million.Ben Lewis is an art historian and investigative journalist who has spent his career reading the art market like a forensic investigator. What he found is a largely unregulated parallel financial system in which narrative manufactures value, forgers get hired as restorers, and the mechanics that made Damien Hirst worth hundreds of millions are the same mechanics that gave us crypto, NFTs, and meme stocks.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: the most beautiful objects used for the ugliest purposes(01:00) Intro: art historian, investigative journalist, MTV(02:00) Tell me a story: The Great Contemporary Art Bubble for the BBC(03:00) The leaked inventory: 200 unsold Damien Hirsts worth £100 million(04:00) Setting the journalistic trap(06:00) Going viral two weeks before the auction(07:00) Zero impact. Succalia.(09:00) How value is actually decided: curators backing horses(10:00) From art history to MTV: the transformation from cheerleader to cynic(11:00) The visuals at The Fridge in Brixton in 1989(13:00) The Gursky lookalike contest and the Channel 4 commission(14:00) Art Safari: Cattelan, Murakami, Barney before they were household names(16:00) The market goes crazy: $30 million for a Lichtenstein in 2006(17:00) The art market as a canary in the coalmine(19:00) When art history became the art market(20:00) Style as brand, brand as machine: the Hirst spot paintings(22:00) The late 19th century boom: record prices, worthless by 1910(23:00) The Salvator Mundi: $1,000 in 2005, $450 million in 2017(24:00) The family in Baton Rouge who got $700(25:00) Christie's visited and walked past it(27:00) Restoration, forgery, and where the lines blur(29:00) Was it ever a Leonardo? Is it still a Leonardo?(30:00) Why the Saudis bought it: pivoting from oil, building museums(31:00) Forging provenance: you don't just forge the picture(33:00) The Charles I stamp in Moscow: the evidence the protagonists missed(35:00) Fake versus forgery: a genuinely difficult distinction(37:00) The book: four years on Federico Joni(38:00) Doorstepping Joni: caught in the act, photo book produced(39:00) "Would you consider working for us as a restorer?"(41:00) Joni appointed head of the Siena art school by the socialists(42:00) The art market as template: NFTs and meme stocks learned from it(43:00) The April Fool's NFT(44:00) The contemporary market is crashing: 20% a year for three years(46:00) The tsunami of revisionism is coming for blue chip work too(47:00) AI and the search for originalityAbout the GuestBen Lewis is an art historian, investigative journalist, and documentary maker. He made The Great Contemporary Art Bubble for the BBC, created the Art Safari series for BBC Four, and spent a decade inside MTV before turning his attention to the art market. His book The Last Leonardo investigates the Salvator Mundi. He is currently completing a book about the 19th century Sienese forger Federico Joni.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Ben Lewis.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  This Museum Boss Took a Francis Bacon to the Pub | Jago Cooper 16.07.2026 50мин

  SummaryJago Cooper on living art, the Easter Island myth, and why things are better storytellers than people.Episode OverviewWhat if artworks aren't objects but living entities? Jago Cooper, Executive Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, made headlines when he became the first museum director in the world to change his institution's governance structure so that every artwork is treated as a living being, and every staff member's job is to give those entities their best lives. Yes, including taking a Francis Bacon painting to the pub.In this episode, Jago sits down with James Kirkham to explain why museums have got it wrong for centuries, how a childhood digging up artefacts in Gloucestershire shapes his radical approach today, and what happened when he dismantled one of history's most enduring environmental collapse myths: the story of Easter Island.This is a conversation about what happens when you stop seeing art as property and start seeing it as a relationship. One you can trust with your deepest secrets.Chapters(00:00) Introduction: artworks as living entities(00:49) Jago Cooper's background(01:40) The 2009 Copenhagen climate speech that changed everything(03:30) Why climate storytelling needs a rewrite(04:50) Digging up fields in Gloucestershire: Jago's childhood(06:50) Archaeology and art: there's no difference(10:50) Why museums feel unwelcoming(12:20) Inside the British Museum: what's broken(13:50) The Sainsbury Centre's radical concept(15:20) No hierarchies, just emotional connection(21:00) "Artworks are living entities": the governance change(23:00) Staff reaction: "So basically, museums are like zoos?"(27:00) The museum as a creative agency and media company(28:50) Francis Bacon goes to the pub on day release(34:00) Programming around life's biggest questions(38:00) The Easter Island myth, dismantled(41:00) Public backlash and not reading the comments(44:00) How to curate a big question exhibition(48:00) Next: what is the meaning of life, and how do we find love?"Artworks are actually living entities. I mean literally." — Jago CooperAbout the GuestJago Cooper is Executive Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia. Previously curator of the Americas at the British Museum, he has made archaeology documentaries for the BBC and conducted fieldwork across the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Latin America. His work on Rapa Nui challenged the dominant Easter Island collapse narrative. He is a professor of both art and archaeology.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Jago Cooper.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Pompeii Wasn't Just a Disaster - It Was a City Full of Life | Dr Jess Venner 09.07.2026 43мин

  SummaryDr. Jess Venner on Pompeii, the ordinary people history forgot, and why resilience is a better story than disaster.Jess Venner grew up in Hainault on the end of the Central Line, at a school in special measures, having never heard of classics. She is now a research fellow at Oxford, and her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians: a pub landlord, a female entrepreneur, a slave. Not emperors or generals, but the people the ancient world made deliberately invisible.She got there by quitting her marketing job overnight, funding her own sabbatical from savings, and doing a master's on her lunch breaks in instalments. Her method is critical fabulation: take the material evidence as far as it will go, apply common sense, and stop the moment it runs out. This is one of the most enjoyable conversations the show has had, from how a book idea actually arrives, to a disaster porn argument that lands hard, to the Hampton Court visitors who said they never thought a place like that was for them.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: resilience, and something she couldn't believe she'd found(01:00) Hainault, a marketing degree, the overnight resignation(03:00) The Devil Wears Prada, discovering Rome, a master's on lunch breaks(06:00) Access, classics, and the prejudice that perpetuates(07:00) Oxford, and The Lost Voices of Pompeii(09:00) Critical fabulation: reconstructing the invisible(11:00) Petronas the slave and the fish scales in the market(18:00) The forum, Vesuvius, and a calling(20:00) Nine visits in a year and the felt-tip map(22:00) Euxinus, the phoenix, and rebuilding after the earthquake(24:00) Julia Felix: female entrepreneur after the earthquake(26:00) An educational platform for people who weren't invited in(27:00) AI as a tool, not a replacement(29:00) Disaster porn and why we are trained to seek it(31:00) Humanising disaster: friends, family, dogs, and the refugees nobody mentions(34:00) Who painted the picture? Whose stories get told(35:00) Treasure hunting, smashed frescoes, and what got thrown away(37:00) The Leverhulme fellowship, and sitting on information like Smaug(40:00) Hampton Court: "I didn't think this place was for me"(42:00) Tactile memory, and why we never dream of our phones"I wanted to tell a story of resilience and innovation in Pompeii, and show it differently." - Dr. Jess VennerAbout the GuestDr. Jess Venner is an ancient historian and archaeologist, and a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford University. Her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians using the method of critical fabulation. She studied at Birkbeck and the University of Birmingham, spent a year at the British School at Rome, and specialises in urban agriculture and ordinary life in Pompeii. Her channel Life In The Past Lane has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers across TikTok and Instagram.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production. Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Dr. Jess Venner. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Nelly Batt. Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme: Doubt Point. Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Thailah Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  One Photograph Unravels Ireland's Forgotten Story | Emma Dabiri 02.07.2026 46мин

  SummaryEmma Dabiri on hair, history, and why the Black/white binary is a design choice, not a fact of life.Episode OverviewEmma Dabiri wrote a book about hair. Except it wasn't about hair. Don't Touch My Hair used braiding as a trapdoor into 6,000 years of African philosophy, pre-colonial constructions of time, and the question of who gets to name things, and what happens to the things that get named wrong.That argument has driven every book she has written since. The new one, Born to Be Blue, begins with a discovery in the Irish language: that people racialized as Black were traditionally called not Black but blue, after the iridescence of light on a dark surface. Chapters(00:00) Cold open: ADHD, Irish words for Black and white, planetary consciousness(01:00) Intro: Dublin in the '80s and taking the pen back(02:00) Tell me a story: Irish grandparents on a Tobago beach(04:00) The grandfather who never approved, the family she never met(05:00) Born in Dublin, Atlanta, the Deep South(06:00) Coming back to Ireland: "go back to where you come from"(07:30) Discovering how Irish she was by leaving(08:30) Irishness as an anchor: MBEs and why she could never go home(09:00) Atlanta wealth, then Dublin during the heroin epidemic(10:00) Always reading from a very young age(11:00) The Victorian arcade bookshop: radical literature by accident(13:00) Seven schools, hating school, a very ADHD profile(14:30) Instability and nothing feeling safe or certain(16:00) University in African studies: the first time learning worked(17:00) The ADHD diagnosis(18:30) The ADHD tax: life admin, spreadsheets, posting letters(19:00) Raptures of joy from music, feeling things overwhelmingly(20:00) Knowing things were true that other people couldn't hear yet(22:00) Finding her people in London(23:00) Alignment and attracting what you should have(24:00) Don't Touch My Hair: smuggling philosophy through hair(25:00) Cartesian binaries and the world organised into oppositions(26:00) Divisiveness, social media, and the same problem(27:30) Hair as a populist entry point for African philosophy(28:30) The chapter on time: what does "too time-consuming" actually mean?(29:00) Pre-colonial Yoruba time versus post-industrial capitalism(31:00) Braiding, intimacy, and a day organised around what needs doing(32:00) The connective tissue across all three books(33:00) Solutions suppressed as primitive that contain the answers(34:00) Irish language, Yoruba philosophy, rehabilitating Irishness(35:00) Blindboy and recognising neurodivergence(36:00) The new book: saying less, what stays with people(37:00) Substack: testing ideas before the printed page(38:30) Why social media killed good faith debate(39:30) Early Twitter: Spike Lee, bell hooks, when it felt like a club(41:00) When conversations get monetised: competition replaces collaboration(42:00) Born to Be Blue: the Irish language word for people racialized as Black(43:00) Blue and bright: both words describe a relationship to the cosmos(44:00) The memoir, the dissident thinkers, the blue concept(45:00) Blue and bright are not opposites. They share the moon and the sun.About the GuestEmma Dabiri is a writer, academic, and broadcaster of Irish-Nigerian heritage. She is currently completing her fourth book, Born to Be Blue, due October 2026. She writes on Substack and has contributed to the Guardian, the Times, and the BBC.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Emma Dabiri.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Why Hollywood is broken | Leaving Las Vegas Director Mike Figgis 25.06.2026 55мин

  SummaryMike Figgis on Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode, and why the best creative work comes from stripping everything back.Episode OverviewMike Figgis shot Leaving Las Vegas in three weeks on Super 16 with a skeleton crew and no permits on the Las Vegas Strip. Nicolas Cage won the Oscar. The film cost almost nothing. That was the point.Figgis has been making this argument for 50 years, from trumpet in Bryan Ferry's pre-Roxy band in Newcastle, to getting booed off stage in Hamburg by a diehard blues crowd, to Timecode, his real-time four-screen film written on music paper as a 95-bar string quartet. This is a wide conversation that earns every turn. The story of the first Roxy Music rehearsal, Figgis standing in the room thinking it would never work, sets up everything that follows about being wrong in interesting directions. The worst test screening in Hollywood history, which left him sitting next to Richard Gere feeling oddly happy, is one of the best anecdotes this show has had. And the Coppola story at the end, one small camera following $120 million of someone else's vision, lands the argument the episode has been building toward: the people who invent the system are sometimes the last ones to escape it.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: does the world need a Beatles biopic?(02:00) Get Back and the creative power of nothing happening(05:00) Meeting Lennon in a Notting Hill macrobiotic restaurant(07:00) Newcastle, Bryan Ferry, and The Gas Board(09:30) Trumpet to impress his dad, guitar for the girls(11:00) The Gas Board falls apart(12:00) The first Roxy rehearsal and why Figgis didn't rate it(13:30) Bridge to film: late '60s London explosion(14:00) The Arts Lab: all art is one thing(15:30) Free music and "just listen, man"(17:00) Experimental theater: booed off stage in Hamburg(19:00) Failure as second nature(20:00) The worst test screening ever(22:00) Theater into film: actors on stage and screen simultaneously(24:00) Hollywood, the social contract, and being "cocky, arrogant, naive"(25:00) Leaving Las Vegas: Super 16, three weeks, casting by personal contact(27:00) Camera as creative control(29:00) Boy porn camera tech vs. Bergman's locked-off face(30:00) The Figgis box: constraint as method(32:00) Timecode: four screens, no edit, real time(34:00) Writing the script as a string quartet on music paper(36:00) Salma Hayek doing other people's makeup in the toilet(37:00) Four earthquakes and actors watching their own film the same day(40:00) Marina Abramović: switch to your left hand(41:00) Live mixing Timecode at the NFT(43:00) "AI is as clever as Hollywood — not clever enough"(45:00) Advice to young filmmakers: don't wait for the Netflix lifeboat(47:00) Paul Auster on the attrition rate(48:00) Megalopolis documentary: one camera, no plan(52:00) "You invented this system — and now it's smothering you""AI is as clever as Hollywood, but that's not clever enough." — Mike FiggisAbout the GuestMike Figgis is a British filmmaker, composer, and writer. His films include Stormy Monday, Internal Affairs, Leaving Las Vegas (two Academy Award nominations), Liebestrahl, One Night Stand, and Timecode. He has composed scores for his own films and others, worked in experimental theater with The People Show for ten years, and most recently directed a documentary following Francis Ford Coppola during the making of Megalopolis. He is currently developing a film shot in Korea and Japan.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Mike Figgis.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Zak Klein.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Have We Lost The Art of Desire? | Rowan Pelling, The Erotic Review 18.06.2026 49мин

  Rowan Pelling on the Erotic Review, the death of the tease, and why desire needs saving from pornography.Episode OverviewRowan Pelling founded the Erotic Review on a single bet: that the sexiest organ is the brain.The young are having less sex than any previous generation on record. Pornography is free, instant, and infinite. The tease has disappeared. The accidental workplace romance, the fumbled first kiss, the slow build that nobody was filming, none of it exists in the same way anymore. And Pelling, who has been writing about desire, intimacy, and the culture of eroticism since she was 13 and writing her own problem pages, has a great deal to say about where it went and whether it can come back.This is a wide-ranging conversation that earns its runtime at every turn. What follows covers the Navy ship that subscribed, the '90s lads' mag world Pelling loved for its craft and its excess, the memoir she has been writing for 20 years, and the case for a ministry of sex, which she has offered to run. James Kirkham gets her to slow down on the things that matter: what was actually lost when the tease disappeared and why the inability to make mistakes is the thing that worries her most about young people right now."If men and women are constantly at loggerheads and frightened, there's not gonna be another generation." — Rowan PellingChapters(00:00) Cold open: British hypocrisy about sex(01:00) Intro: the Erotic Review, desire, and pornography(02:00) Tell me a story: Hazel, Betty Boothroyd, and Gerald's subscription(04:30) What the Erotic Review was and what it looked like(06:00) The magazine as flirtation device: for couples, not hiding(08:00) HMS Something: the Navy ship that subscribed(09:30) Richard Desmond's fury and why tone was everything(10:00) Puritans vs Cavaliers: why this could only work in Britain(12:00) What readers were actually paying for(13:00) The decline: fewer sexual incidents, Gen Z, digital natives(15:00) The amateur fumble and why no one could record it(17:00) Erotic glamour: what "it" actually is(19:00) Growing up in a pub, older men, and saying yes(22:00) Dubrovnik, war zones, and the theory of the open yes(23:00) The barmaid at heart: listening, flirting, holding the room(24:30) Steering drunks and Tories: the pub as training ground(25:00) The Amorous: women first and the MeToo near-miss(27:00) Physical magazines and the gravitational pull of the real(29:00) Problem pages at 13 and a third-class degree(30:00) GQ, the lads' mag era, and Loaded as genius(32:00) Raising sons: porn, consent, and the word on the necklace(36:00) Dating apps and the disappearing workplace romance(38:00) Young men, the manosphere, and the ones she actually knows(41:00) The inability to make mistakes: fumbling as a feature(42:00) The memoir: 20 years percolating, Britain and sex(44:00) The tease as a lost art: erotica vs porn culture(45:00) Strictly Come Dancing and vertical desire(46:00) Living at home, no privacy, and the death of the house party(47:00) A summer of love and a ministry of sexAbout the GuestRowan Pelling was the founding editor of the Erotic Review, which she grew from a newsletter to a 30,000-reader magazine. She has judged the Booker Prize, won the Funny Woman Award, written for the Telegraph for many years, and later founded The Amorous. She is currently working on a memoir about Britain and sex, and writes regularly on desire, intimacy, and the culture of eroticism.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Rowan Pelling.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  She Can Make You Confess to Murder | Julia Shaw 11.06.2026 50мин

  SummaryJulia Shaw on false memory, green crime, and why AI is both the problem and the solution.Episode OverviewJulia Shaw once implanted a false memory of a violent crime in a volunteer's mind using three conversations and a few leading questions. The volunteer described it in vivid detail three weeks later. That was her PhD. Now she says we have built the same machine and put it in everyone's pocket.Shaw is a criminal psychologist whose research is used by police forces, war crimes investigators, and the International Criminal Court. She founded an AI reporting tool now used by the Bar Council. She wrote a book applying true crime storytelling to environmental destruction. And she is about to spend a summer inside an AI governance residency asking how these systems get built safely.This conversation moves across a lot of ground and earns all of it. The false memory implantation study is the sharpest opening this show has had. The argument that AI hallucinates for the same reason humans confabulate is genuinely clarifying. The bit where Shaw explains why London's air is the cleanest it has been in centuries, and why no one knows, is the kind of thing that makes you want to look it up the moment the episode ends. And her case for optimism, that despondency is the one emotional response that achieves nothing and that she personally knows the people building these tools, is harder to argue with than you might expect.Chapters(00:00) Opening: the false memory machine in your pocket(00:55) Intro: criminal psychologist, memory scientist, green crime author(01:50) The implantation study(04:00) Why our brains prefer stories to accuracy(06:30) Memory, courtrooms, and the cognitive interview(08:15) AI hallucinations and human confabulation(09:35) AI as the ultimate false memory machine(11:30) Witness statements and AI smoothing(13:00) The allergic reaction to AI content(16:30) The positive case: AI as therapist at 3am(18:30) Talk to Spot: the chatbot that replaced the cognitive interview(23:15) Why Shaw stays optimistic(25:00) Meta, frat boys, and why AI founders are different(28:50) Aphantasia: Shaw can't picture anything(31:00) Memory, brands, and the aftermath economy(35:00) Green crime: true crime storytelling for the planet(38:00) The categorisation problem: "it's about the trees, though"(41:00) London's air and the victories we forget(43:30) Space satellites and environmental crime(47:55) What's next: AI governance and the residency"AI is the ultimate false memory machine, because what it can do is personalise everything to you." — Julia ShawAbout the GuestJulia Shaw is a criminal psychologist, scientist, and author whose research on false memory has been used by police forces, the International Criminal Court, and war crimes investigators. Her books include The Memory Illusion, Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side, and Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet and How to Stop Them. She is the founder of Spot, an AI-powered reporting tool used by the Bar Council of England and Wales, and is currently embedded in an AI governance residency in London.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Julia Shaw.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.#crime #psychology #ai #false #memory #storyco
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  Who gets paid when a story travels? | Richard Welsh 04.06.2026 49мин

  Summary Richard Welsh on COPA90, Decent Partners, and why AI is a translation tool, not a threat.Episode Overview Richard Welsh beat David Beckham's team to a YouTube channel with no rights and no leverage, just a deep understanding of how networks actually work.What followed was 20 years of arriving early to every platform shift: Bebo, MySpace, YouTube Originals, Web3, and now AI. Welsh has called the current AI moment the largest creative value extraction in human history: every model trained on human intelligence, packaged by a corporation, rented back to the people who generated it. His company, Decent Partners, is the attempt to build something structurally different: a network that routes value back through the people who made the work, rather than the companies that own the infrastructure.This is a long conversation that moves fast. Welsh is someone who thinks in systems, rivers, sediment, network effects, and James Kirkham gets him to slow down and show the working. The Advent calendar story at the start is one of the best career origin stories this show has aired. The AI framing at the end reframes the debate without dismissing the risk. The bit in the middle, Welsh nearly advising KSI to dial it back, is the most instructive 90 seconds on the difference between platform experience and platform understanding.Chapters (00:00) The gut bacteria story (01:45) Intro: COPA90 and creative value extraction (04:30) The Advent calendar: getting into Hat Trick at 19 (08:15) Development, TV, and how ideas actually happened (11:00) Bebo: the platform the adults didn't understand (15:30) COPA90: pitching against Beckham with no rights (20:30) KSI and the advice Welsh is glad he didn't land (23:00) Bitcoin, digital scarcity, and Web3 (29:00) Tether, TrumpCoin, and the pattern behind the noise (33:30) Everything is a story, and Bitcoin proved it (36:00) Decent Partners: currency, credit, context (42:00) AI as aggregated human intelligence (47:00) Resilience over towers"The intelligence is ours. There's nothing artificial or alien about it : it's just our intelligence that in aggregate creates this incredible translation tool." — Richard WelshAbout the Guest Richard Welsh co-founded COPA90, the YouTube-native football channel that beat established rights-holders to one of the platform's earliest funded slots. He has worked in development at Hat Trick, RDF, Endemol, and Studio Lambert, and has won awards for Who Killed Summer and You, Me & the Apocalypse. He is the founder of Decent Partners, a network-native company building tools that distribute credit, payment, and knowledge through the communities that generate them.Listen Elsewhere APPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE:⁠https://linktr.ee/storycopod⁠Credits StoryCo is a TellTale Industries production. Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Richard Welsh. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Community is the Whole Business Model | Wez Saunders, Defected Records 28.05.2026 44мин

  Summary A cold email, a chest-infection phone call, a buyout, and 951 sold-out shows since 2021. The CEO of Defected Records on what holds the centre.Episode OverviewWez Saunders cold-emailed Simon Dunmore in 2013. Two days after a meeting in which Dunmore said he could sell a pen, Wez was home with a chest infection when Dunmore called. He took the club promotions job. Four years later he ran Defected.In an hour with James Kirkham, Wez traces the line from a dropped Sony Walkman tuned to Kiss FM, through twelve years on the fast track at Deutsche Bank, to the summer of 2008 when his brother was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 23 days. He explains the £265 first quarterly paycheck from his first label that forced him to build an ecosystem rather than one imprint. He walks through the management buyout that made him chairman as well as CEO, the ninety-page manifesto he wrote for staff, and the pendulum metaphor he uses to keep house music's centre still while its edges swing. Then come the numbers: since 2021, Defected has put on 1,033 events outside Ibiza and 951 of them have sold out, against a live scene squeezed by inflation, war in Ukraine, and venue closures. He covers the fifty-plus-show virtual festival run during COVID that reached tens of millions, why a market that has gone from 100,000 songs a day to 140,000 makes brand and provenance matter more not less, and why bands like Jamie Webster and The Lathums may be the early signal of an AI-era backlash. The through-line he keeps coming back to is one word: community.Chapters(00:00) Cold open and intro(01:30) Tell me a story: Kiss FM, decks at fourteen, blagging gigs(05:30) Married at 22, Deutsche Bank, brother dies in 23 days(07:00) Endemic Digital, £265 and an ecosystem of labels\(09:30) Cold email to Simon Dunmore: sell me this pen(11:30) The phone call in bed: club promotions to MD(14:30) COVID and the virtual festival born on a Sunday WhatsApp(17:30) The management buyout: from licensee to CEO and chairman(22:30) Cola, streaming and why Defected stopped licensing out(27:30) 1,033 events, 951 sold out, the squeezed live scene(35:00) The ninety-page manifesto and the pendulum(38:30) AI, 140,000 songs a day and a bands renaissance"Since 2021 we've put on 1,033 events that are not Ibiza. 951 of them have sold out." — Wes SaundersAbout the guestWez Saunders is the CEO and chairman of Defected Records, the independent dance label founded by Simon Dunmore in 1999. He spent twelve years in finance, joining Bankers Trust in 1999 and rising on a fast track at Deutsche Bank, before leaving on his thirtieth birthday to acquire Endemic Digital and re-enter music. He joined Defected in 2014 as club promotions manager after cold-emailing Simon Dunmore, became managing director within four years, led the company through COVID with a fifty-plus-show virtual festival run that reached tens of millions, and led the management buyout that made him chairman as well as CEO. Defected and its sister brand Glitterbox have put on 1,033 events outside Ibiza since 2021, of which 951 sold out, and now move roughly a million tickets a year.Listen elsewhereApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastWebsite: https://www.storyco.siteFollow: @StoryCoPodcastCreditsHost: James KirkhamGuest: Wez SaundersProducer: Jago LeeAssistant Producer: Nelly BattEditor: Ryan O'MeeraMusic: Doubt PointRecorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  Ted Talk From The Toilet | Ryan Hopkins 21.05.2026 47мин

  Ryan Hopkins filmed his first TEDx talk from a toilet cubicle, ran a hundred episodes of Toilet Break Wellbeing on LinkedIn and turned the script into an Amazon No. 1 business book. Three years before any of that he was a former rugby player with a broken leg, an eating disorder, and a Halifax bank clerk who found himself unable to speak across the counter.In an hour with James Kirkham, Ryan draws the line the wellness industry refuses to draw: wellness is a $9.2 trillion industry trying to sell you a hot stone massage; wellbeing is your subjective satisfaction with your life, and the two are not the same thing. He explains why an Oxford Wellbeing Research review found that eleven of thirteen workplace wellbeing interventions worsened wellbeing in the short term, and why a stress-management webinar inside a 49-hour week shines a light on the problem and does nothing to fix it. He covers his rugby injury and the bulimia that followed, the one-way flight to Argentina with £600 from a sold Vauxhall Tigra, the Ecuadorian hostel he helped build on the side of a mountain, the wildcard slot onto the Deloitte grad scheme, the LinkedIn show Toilet Break Wellbeing that ran a hundred episodes and became 52 Weeks of Wellbeing, the Wetherspoons table in Putney (212, by the water) where the book got written, the fintech where he cut five hours a week off the average work week and saved 2.4 million hours, the NatWest project with JAAQ that correlates with a 6.9% drop in mental health absence, why bricklayers are the best meditators in the world, what 'orthosomnia' is doing to your sleep, and Rory Sutherland's argument that an office needs a library space and a pub space and nothing else. He ends on the call he used to make to his nan every day at 12:15.Chapters (00:00) Cold open and intro (02:00) Tell me a story: the book that started on a toilet (06:30) Rugby, debt and a one-way ticket to Argentina (09:30) Bulimia, a Halifax bank counter and the call to mum (12:30) Oxford Brookes, the Deloitte wildcard and the work (16:00) Wellbeing is the output of good work, not an event (19:00) Wellness vs wellbeing: the $9.2 trillion confusion (23:00) Why bricklayers are the best meditators in the world (24:30) Sleep apps, orthosomnia and the wellness paradox (27:30) Healthi: putting a number on the value of looking after people (36:00) Calling Nan at 12:15 (38:00) Library space and pub space: what work looks like after the laptop"Everything I do is to help people not end up where I did, and if they do, to know they're not alone." — Ryan HopkinsAbout the guest Ryan Hopkins is a workplace wellbeing specialist, a TEDx Shoreditch speaker, and the Amazon No. 1 bestselling author of 52 Weeks of Wellbeing (Kogan Page). He started his working life as a trainee electrician, came back through Oxford Brookes after a year travelling through South America, joined Deloitte as a wildcard grad, led wellbeing at Sainsbury's Tech, and returned to Deloitte to build out its wellbeing consultancy with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. He is now the founder of Healthi, a corporate health platform that quantifies the impact of an organisation's healthcare spend, with pilots launching in the UK, UAE and US.Listen elsewhere Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcast Website: https://www.storyco.site Follow: @StoryCoPodcastCredits Host: James Kirkham Guest: Ryan Hopkins Producer: Jago Lee Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt Editor: Ryan O'Meera Music: Doubt Point Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  The Bald Yorkshireman in the Bath | Joe Fattorini & Mel Jappy | StoryCo 14.05.2026 54мин

  Joe Fattorini sat in a bath of red wine in the Atacama Desert, filmed himself talking to camera and uploaded the clip to YouTube. Years later the producer Mel Jappy found it, four-by-three and badly cropped, and built The Wine Show around him.In an hour with James Kirkham, Joe and Mel walk through how a show ostensibly about wine ended up in 110 countries and in front of hundreds of millions of viewers by refusing to be about wine. The first rule Mel set Joe: never talk about anything you cannot taste in the glass. The second, when pitching: three sentences only — a question, two numbers, a visual image. They cover the Argentina episode about Malbec they were filming the day the Trump administration announced its Muslim ban, and the producer who burst into tears on a vineyard wall; the Georgian supra, a dinner whose name means tablecloth because the food is meant to hide the cloth; the Moldova shoot where a Red Army parade gatecrashed a piece to camera and a bear of a man told the crew, on the lens, to be quiet; Hermann Göring's wine collection in a Chișinău cellar; Howard Gossage's 1962 Paul Masson ad copy ("cheaper than cars, quieter than hi-fis, tastier than stamps") that Joe still considers the best wine ad ever written; The Picnic Society's 1801 rule of six bottles a head; and the 1791 Vin de Constance, dropped in Constantia and sieved before it reached the glass, that Napoleon drank on Saint Helena in the year Mozart died.Chapters(00:00) Cold open and intro(01:30) Tell me a story: a bath of red wine in the Atacama(05:00) Pitching a show that should not work(08:00) Finding Joe at the bottom of a YouTube recommendation column(14:00) Cheese, not snobbery: why most people think they don't know wine(19:00) Ego in a box and the wrong-size trousers(24:00) The drunken monkey, the pheasant slippers and the show's real fans(30:00) Evergreen by design: would you make it the same today(32:00) Argentina, Georgia, Moldova — the day the show wasn't the show(44:00) Three sentences to pitch: the producer's rules that travel(53:00) The 1791 Vin de Constance: Napoleon's wine, Mozart's year"The wine show is not about wine. It's about great stories." — Mel JappyAbout the guestsMel Jappy is a BAFTA-nominated executive producer with nine years at the BBC and credits including Who Do You Think You Are? and Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection. She trained as a solicitor, came into television as a MasterChef contestant, and created and produced The Wine Show. Joe Fattorini is a philosophy graduate, was wine correspondent for The Herald for fourteen years, an International Wine Challenge Personality of the Year, and the presenter The Guardian once called "the Attenborough of Oddbins."Listen elsewhereApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastWebsite: https://www.storyco.siteFollow: @StoryCoPodcastCreditsHost: James KirkhamGuests: Joe Fattorini and Mel JappyProducer: Jago LeeAssistant Producer: Nelly BattEditor: Ryan O'MeeraMusic: Doubt PointRecorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  The Headhunter Turned Therapist | Kathleen Saxton 07.05.2026 56мин

  Kathleen Saxton was repossessed out of her family home at 11. By 40 she was running C-suite headhunting at The Lighthouse Company. She trained as a psychotherapist along the way and now argues boards have governance for cash, finance and risk, and none at all for behaviour.In an hour with James Kirkham she walks through the memoir she wrote on domestic abuse and the lawyer she hired to defend it; the flute teacher Norman Blow who took her on after she got a clean note out of the mouthpiece on her second try; the safe-cracking interview method she used to read C-suite candidates at Lighthouse; the candidate's story that pushed her to enrol at Regent's University; what private equity buyers and founders are actually doing to each other after the deal closes; "human remains" wellbeing post-COVID, and the executive whose chair refused him half an hour off a board to dial into a friend's funeral; AI as triage versus AI as treatment; what covert narcissism actually looks like, the dark tetrad, and the moment her ex-fiancé asked if she was wearing that to the wedding; lobbying the BACP and UKCP to add narcissism as a search specialism; the difference between what UK and US guests will say on tape; and the Felix Dennis answer she keeps thinking about.Chapters :(00:00) Cold open and intro (01:30) The memoir her lawyer warned her not to publish (03:30) Repossessed at 11: shame, sofas and two gerbils (07:30) Sweet tooth and 'don't be a Coca-Cola bottle' (10:30) Cracking the safe: how she read C-suite candidates (14:00) The interview that sent her to train as a therapist (21:00) Founders, private equity and the wellbeing mask (25:30) AI in therapy and in the boardroom (30:30) No governance for behaviour (33:00) Narcissism: grandiose, covert and the dark tetrad (39:30) Writing the book and training other therapists (47:30) What's next: live radio, a documentary, accessibility"I can't bear the thought that someone can't be helped." — Kathleen SaxtonMentioned in this episodeMy Parent the Peacock — Kathleen Saxton (book, on narcissistic parents)Endless — Kathleen Saxton (forthcoming memoir)DSM-5 — American Psychiatric Association (the diagnostic manual Kathleen references on cluster B and the nine narcissism traits)Billions — Showtime (the Wendy character as house psychologist)Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over — BBC (cited as the format Kathleen would borrow for a narcissism documentary)This Morning — ITV (Kathleen's regular phone-in slot)The Lighthouse Company — C-suite executive search firm Kathleen foundedPsyched Ventures — Kathleen's clinical-psychology-into-business ventureSky, Global, Omnicom — Kathleen's prior media and advertising postsRegent's University, London — where she trained as a psychotherapistThe Priory — psychiatric placement during trainingBACP and UKCP — UK psychotherapy accrediting bodies; Kathleen successfully lobbied for narcissism as a search specialismFelix Dennis — publisher; the "I forgot to get married" anecdoteBruce Daisley — interviewer in the Dennis storyMatt Shetna — co-founder with Kathleen of Advertising Week EuropeRonnie Scott's, London — venue of the Dennis interviewCambridge Analytica — referenced via the whistleblower lawyer Kathleen hiredAbout Kathleen Saxton Kathleen Saxton spent three decades at Sky, Global and Omnicom and founded the C-suite headhunters The Lighthouse Company. She is a qualified psychotherapist with rooms in London and New York and a co-founder of Psyched Ventures. My Parent the Peacock hit Amazon category number one. Endless is forthcoming.Listen elsewhere Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcast Website: https://www.storyco.site Follow: @StoryCoPodcastCredits Host: James Kirkham Guest: Kathleen Saxton Producer: Jago Lee Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt Editor: Ryan O'Meera Music: Doubt Point Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  The Science Behind Every Story Ever Told | Will Storr | StoryCo Ep6 30.04.2026 55мин

  Will Storr has spent thirty years working out what a story actually is. He sits down with James for the longest, most personal version he has given of how that obsession started — and what it has cost him to get good at it.It starts with six words. A tiger. A hunter. A tiger. Will calls this an ancient Bengali story, and inside ninety seconds it has done more to explain how stories work than most books on the subject. From there he tracks his own arc against the architecture he has spent four books describing — Selfie, The Status Game, The Science of Storytelling, A Story Is a Deal. The Catholic-comp kid who failed every A-level and started a school magazine called The Groover. The phone call from Loaded where, as he puts it, you were judged on how good your first sentence was. The Oxford open day where an English tutor asked his favourite Tennessee Williams and he wondered, briefly, if it might be a brand of crisps. The great-great-uncle, Samuel Smiles, who in the mid-1800s wrote the book that named the self-help genre. The thesis of A Story Is a Deal: the most persuasive stories say I see you. I know you. I know how to get you from there up to there. And the question James eventually puts to him — would the boy who pinned a newspaper column to his bedroom wall have had any idea this was coming? Not a chance.Chapters(00:00) A tiger, a hunter, a tiger(02:00) The Catholic comp, The Groover, and the local fanzine(05:00) Inside Loaded: judged on your first sentence(10:00) What AI might give back to long-form(14:00) A Story Is a Deal: hero, connection, status(16:00) Apple, Sport Club Recife, and the architecture of persuasion(22:00) The Status Game: virtue as the second route(24:00) "What's your favourite Tennessee Williams?"(27:00) Donkins, Smiles, and the comp boy at Cambridge(36:00) Forget Scott Galloway: get good at something(39:00) The best of masculinity(48:00) The method, the jewels, The Five Obstructions"I see you. I know you. And I know how to get you from there up to there." — Will StorrMentioned in this episode- Will Storr, A Story Is a Deal- Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling- Will Storr, The Status Game- Will Storr, Selfie- Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism- Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1850s)- George Loewenstein on the psychology of curiosity- Apple, "Here's to the Crazy Ones"- Sport Club Recife organ donation campaign- Lars von Trier, The Five Obstructions (2003)- Jørgen Leth, The Perfect Human (1967)- John Gray, Straw DogsAbout the guestWill Storr is a journalist and author whose books — Selfie, The Status Game, The Science of Storytelling, and most recently A Story Is a Deal — have made him one of the most forensic chroniclers of how identity, status and narrative actually work. He came up at Loaded in the late 1990s, trained in the Tom Wolfe school of long-form, and treats the architecture of a story the way an engineer treats a bridge.Listen elsewhereApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastWebsite: https://www.storyco.siteFollow: @StoryCoPodcastCreditsHost: James Kirkham. Guest: Will Storr. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Ryan O'Meera. Music: Doubt Point. Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London.
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  What Surfing Taught Me About Truth | Alex Wade 23.04.2026 49мин

  "I had an early midlife crisis. I ended up at a work event rearranging the downstairs of a restaurant."Alex Wade is a lawyer, a writer, and a surfer ; in that order of discovery, maybe the reverse order of importance. Fleet Street defamation lawyer. Night lawyer at the Mirror. Head of legal affairs for Richard Desmond. White-collar boxer. Journalist at The Times and The Guardian. Author. Mont Blanc climber. Now co-CEO of Clear Draft, an AI-powered legal clearance business for publishers and broadcasters.In this conversation, James Kirkham and Alex talk about being risk-friendly as a life strategy; what the ocean and a boxing ring have in common when it comes to telling you the truth about yourself; working for Richard Desmond on Fantasy Channel election night; the moment he sat on a bench outside a church and thought he'd ruined his life; the bedtime poem his 8-year-old daughter preferred in its AI-assisted form; and what Clear Draft is trying to fix.StoryCo : the podcast about the business of story featuring the people who built it.Hosted by James Kirkham. Produced by Jago Lee. A Telltale Industries production.Alex Wade, Clear Draft, StoryCo, James Kirkham, storytelling, AI, legal clearance, surfing, boxing, reinvention
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  Mark Borkowski | 40 Years Engineering Fame 16.04.2026 41мин

  "Is there a formula for fame?" "Definitely." "Can you tell me?" "No." PR legend Mark Borkowski has spent four decades bending media to his will: from circus stunts to celebrity crisis management, Alcopop scandals to political warfare.Mark opens with the greatest dilemma of his career , chasing the Holy Grail or pitching Bisto gravy granules, before unravelling how spectacle, nerve, and story have driven his work from the PT Barnum era to the age of TikTok. He explains why "idea pornography" gets people fired, how fame has collapsed from 15 minutes to 15 seconds, and why the young generation's return to lo-fi, intimate culture gives him hope. The conversation turns sharply political: Mark dissects Trump's genius as a communicator, Starmer's inability to connect, and makes the case for Citizens Assemblies as democracy's best remaining tool. He closes with a raw reflection on losing his father at 17 and why he's never stopped looking for the next adventure.Topics covered:— The Holy Grail vs. Bisto: choosing adventures over accounts— PT Barnum, elephants, and the birth of experiential PR— Celebrity + controversy = ignition: Kanye to Bonnie Blue— The formula for fame — and its 15-second shelf life— Idea pornography: the stunt that wiped out an entire department— Soul not scroll: QR codes on lampposts and lo-fi rebellion— Social media as tobacco: addiction, doom scrolling, and regulation— Trump vs. Starmer: a masterclass in political communication failure— The Holocaust memorial stunt that silenced a far-right politician— Crisis management: why every crisis is unique— Ricky Jay, dead cats, and the magic of misdirection— Adventure capitalism: 40 years of fierce independenceStoryCo is a podcast about the business of story and storytelling, hosted by James Kirkham. Produced by Telltale Industries. Recorded at TYX Studios, London.Follow StoryCo: storyco.site | @storyco on Instagram and TikTok
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  The Biographer They Tried to Silence | Andrew Lownie 09.04.2026 43мин

  Andrew Lownie spent thirty years as one of Britain's leading literary agents — establishment, discreet, well-connected. Then he started digging into the royal family, and he kept going. His new biography of the former Prince Andrew, Entitled, was called "among the most lurid ever published about a senior royal." Simon & Schuster's US imprint dropped it weeks before publication; he is suing them for breach of contract and self-published the American edition himself. In The Biographer They Tried to Silence, James Kirkham sits down with Lownie to talk about lawfare, lone-voice tenacity, and what it costs to tell a story powerful people would rather you didn't.The Biographer They Tried to Silence is an episode of StoryCo, hosted by James Kirkham and produced by Jago Lee. Production management by Archan Mohile. Developed by Issa Gibson. Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme music by Doubtpoint. StoryCo is a Telltale Industries production.Host : James KirkhamGuest : Andrew LownieProducer :Jago LeeProduction Manager : Archan MohileDevelopment : Isa GibsonTheme Music : DoubtpointStudio :TYX Studios, King's CrossA Telltale Industries Production
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  Given 24 Hours to Live, She Had Other Plans | Charlie Webster 02.04.2026 57мин

  Charlie Webster was in a coma on life support for two weeks. She had malaria and multiple organ failure. Doctors gave her 24 hours. She survived, and the story of what came before and after is unlike anything you have heard. Charlie tells James Kirkham how a TV executive told her the boxing world was not ready for women. Two years later she became the first woman in the world to host a heavyweight world title fight. She grew up working class in Sheffield, raised by a teenage mother, and coped with a violent home life by reading Stephen King at nine years old and writing her feelings on scraps of exercise books.She discusses the double standards she faced as a female sports broadcaster: the sexism, the classism, the abuse. She describes being told to sit there and look pretty. She describes campaigning against a convicted rapist returning to professional football and the rape threats she received. When she nearly died of malaria in 2016, people told her she got what she deserved. Charlie made the BBC documentary Nowhere to Run about the running coach who sexually abused her and other girls in her athletics group. She made it to change a specific law. She succeeded. The position of trust loophole was closed. The documentary was later used in court to convict another abusive coach. She explains how she created Scamanda, the most successful podcast of 2023: a story with no murder, built entirely on betrayal, deception and human behaviour. She describes working with 50 Cent on a podcast about the Flores twins and El Chapo, where the real story was PTSD and family loyalty, not cartel action. Charlie reflects on what resilience actually means, why she has friction with the word, and the difference between getting back up and actually healing. She talks about AI, the future of long-form storytelling, and why she now sees herself as a conduit for other people's voices. Chapters 00:00 — Introduction01:05 — The boxing world isn't ready for women06:30 — Fear, class and the chip on her shoulder08:30 — Sheffield, Stephen King and a teenage mum11:15 — The box of scraps she kept for decades14:00 — London with no money and no contacts18:00 — Why she has friction with the word resilience22:30 — Social media and live broadcasting collide26:00 — Malaria, a coma and being told she should die29:00 — Nowhere to Run: a documentary to change the law33:15 — Story first, then format37:00 — Scamanda, 50 Cent and the Flores twins42:30 — AI and why human stories endure54:00 — What comes nextStoryCo is presented by James Kirkham. Sponsored by TYX Studios in London, with special thanks to Jack Freeguard, Panos Agamemnos, Craig Heptinstall and Thailah Newton. Produced by Jago Lee. Production managed by Archan Mohile. Developed by Issa Gibson. Theme music by Doubt Point. A Telltale Industries Production. 
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  The Man Who Cracked the Code of Story: John Yorke 26.03.2026 1ч 8мин

  A five-year-old in the back of a car repeats a phrase he heard at school without understanding what it means. His father explodes with a fury he has never shown before. The incident is never mentioned again — until John Yorke is 22 years old and finally asks. What his father tells him on that Christmas Day walk reshapes everything John later writes about the power of story, and why that power carries an "awful responsibility."That is how this episode of StoryCo begins. It is one of the most quietly devastating openings you will hear on a business and culture podcast.John Yorke is the former Controller of BBC Drama Production, the founder of the BBC Writers' Academy, and the executive producer who ran EastEnders at a time when 20 million people watched it two or three times a week. He is also the author of Into the Woods, the most rigorous analysis of story structure written for a general audience, and Trip to the Moon, his new book on how narrative is used — and misused — in public life.In this conversation with James Kirkham, John argues that every story ever told shares the same fundamental structure: three acts, endlessly magnified. A 15-second TikTok clip has the same architecture as five seasons of Breaking Bad. He calls this fractal structure, and once you see it you cannot unsee it. He explains why the best stories require a protagonist the audience secretly wants to be, an antagonist they want to defeat, and emotion as the engine that dissolves the boundary between the audience and the story.The conversation moves into territory that matters for anyone building a brand, a business, or a platform right now. John is candid about AI: he asked a machine to write an episode of Hollyoaks and it did — but it could not give him what a great writer gives, which is "the products of their tussle with the world." He cites Nick Cave on creation requiring effort and struggle, and warns that an AI designed to please you is doing the opposite of what good criticism requires.James raises Walt Disney's three rooms: Dreamers, Realists, and Critics. John says the Critic is the role that has never mattered more.The episode closes where it began: with the story of a father who spent two months at Bergen-Belsen in 1945, who came home and distrusted forever politicians who tell stories, and a son who spent a career studying exactly that power. "I finally understand," John says of a man fifteen years dead. It is, James says, the most fitting way to close the show.Follow StoryCo on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube for a new episode every week.John Yorke’s website : https://www.johnyorkestory.com/CREDITSHost: James KirkhamGuest: John YorkeProduced by: Telltale IndustriesSeries Producer: Jago LeeAudio Editor & Mix: Panos AgamemnosMusic: Osaka, Doubt PointArtwork: Lindsay FaganShow Development: Isa GibsonFilmed at TYX Studios, LondonSpecial thanks to Jack Fregaard, Craig Heptinstall and Thailah NewtonSOCIALSShow website: www.storyco.site Instagram: @storycopodcast TikTok: @StoryCoPod
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  What If Story Is the Only Thing AI Can't Replace? | StoryCo with James Kirkham 23.03.2026 3мин

  Story has never mattered more. We're drowning in noise, falsehoods, and feeds that never end and say nothing. Right in the middle of that chaos, truth is at a premium — and the people who can tell it are the ones who cut through.StoryCo is the podcast about the business of storytelling, across every discipline, every industry, every culture there is. Hosted by James Kirkham — entrepreneur, brand strategist, and one of the sharpest minds in the attention economy — StoryCo goes far and wide, deliberately. Because that's what story demands.In this Episode 0, James explains why he's making the show, where it's going, and why he believes story is the last great human preserve in an age of AI and algorithmic noise.New episodes every Thursday. Subscribe so you don't miss Episode 1.——————————————————————🎙️ ABOUT STORYCOStoryCo explores the story economy — the idea that in a post-feed world, story is the currency that actually counts. Football, fashion, music, culture, business, sport: they all bleed into each other. And the thread connecting all of it is story.——————————————————————📲 FIND STORYCOSpotify → https://open.spotify.com/show/5RiTIoXWVEqkveDkGm1pBU?si=HXdp7vO7RmO__K4vJLPxZAApple Podcasts → https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/story-co/id1886770413Website → storyco.site——————————————————————🔔 Subscribe and hit the bell so you never miss an episode.#StoryCo #JamesKirkham #Storytelling #BusinessPodcast #CreativeStrategy