Copyright: Spartina Productions / Busboy Productions / CBS Broadcasting Inc.
Following on from my discussion about “The One Show”, and with “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” ending in May 2026, I am not likely to become famous enough in time to answer the “Colbert Questionert”, a litmus test made of questions that makes a guest truly known, with a title punning on the pronunciation of the host’s name.
While I have already said I don’t usually watch the American chat shows for their interviews, I make an exception for this feature to see how various people answer the same questions, and whether they see each question as a need to make a snap judgement, or whether it gives pause to ruminate, or another chance to perform. Either way, I can see the “Colbert Questionert” continuing to the podcast that Colbert will inevitably do next - maybe I will be properly answer it someday.
I imagine some questions (or answers) are cut for time, so not all the following questions are heard being asked to everyone, and so I have no guarantee of this being a complete list of all the questions. I treated them as snap judgments, so these answers are as true as I can make them.
Best sandwich?
In alphabetical order: chicken, lettuce, salad cream, tomato.
What is the scariest animal?
If not man, then spiders.
Apples or oranges?
Oranges: messier to deal with, but a softer, less acidic taste. You don’t really get apple-flavoured chocolate.
What was your first concert?
The Cross, at Gosport Festival in July 1993. It was the solo / “other band” project of Roger Taylor, the drummer from Queen, with lots of guests. With it still not being long since Freddie Mercury died, it was undeniably thrilling to clap and hold your arms out to the chorus of “Radio Gaga”, as the man who wrote it sang it to you.
Cats or dogs?
Not a pet person, but cats.
What's one thing you own that you really should throw out?
A small circular pillow with a painting of a hedgehog printed on it, a runner-up prize from a family Christmas Day quiz some years ago.
Have you ever asked someone for their autograph?
Yes, from Paul Gannon & Eli Silverman of the "CheapShow" podcast for their vinyl album, but in a non-committal “if you want to” kind of way - of course they did.
What do you think happens when we die?
My energy is redistributed, and things carry on from there.
Favourite action movie?
“The Matrix”, a choice apparently shared with both Sandra Bullock and Matt Damon.
Window or aisle?
On a bus or coach: window. On a plane: aisle.
Favourite smell?
Real vanilla.
Least favourite smell?
Excrement of any kind.
Exercise: worth it?
Disguise it as a good walk, then I’m sold.
Flat or sparkling?
Flat - if a “still” Diet Coke ever comes to market, I will be first in line.
Most used app on your phone?
Its web browser, for nearly two thirds of the time, constantly reading and searching for things.
You get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it? (You can listen to music whenever you like, but when you do, it is only this song.)
“Station to Station” by David Bowie, specifically from his “Stage” live album – the exhilarating rush of “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo, it’s too late” by its end makes it a better version for me than the original studio version.
"CheapShow" album cover (art by Vorratony - vorratony.bsky.social)
You can never accuse the “CheapShow” podcast of having a surfeit of chodneys in the last ten years, and you can make of that what you will, especially I can’t be objective about how much this show means to me.
When I first wrote about Paul Gannon & Eli Silverman’s podcast in 2020, it had already evolved from its initial premise as an “economy comedy podcast” that brings you “intriguing, nostalgic and detestable items that fell through the cracks of popular culture” into a comedic assault on the English language supported by a panoply of grotty characters, like “Derek & Clive” with “The Goon Show” mixed in. I wish I could remember in which episode Paul said, “it’s all mouth talk, isn’t it”, as the phrase perfectly explains my love of “CheapShow” fringing on a Dadaist rejection of podcast norms like structure, context and sanity.
This culminated in 2023’s episode “The Wedding of Squishy Jim and Madam Ladyplops”, a kind of “Crisis of Infinite Earths” storyline – arguably begun in a 2021 episode that introduced the problematic crooner Bill Donut – that reset the podcast’s universe, leaving initially leaving jobbing actor Grumpy Sessions behind as the Psycho-Pirate that remembers what the world was like. Slowly, some of these characters have come back, as “everything old is new again”, but not as often as they once did – telling yourself not to create characters in a podcast where every utterance could become a name is not going to work, and neither should it.
Something the COVID-19 pandemic innovated in “CheapShow” were episodes that took place outside, taking in narrative-led quests, learning about the history of an area, and spur of the moment walks because the weather is too warm. It is one thing to have a podcast that can be a magazine one week, and an audio drama the next, but when you can no longer predict if the next episode will take place indoors, you realise that podcast formats have nothing against force of will. This is before you even get to the audio quality, setting a high standard that other podcasts rarely attempt, having never come across another that offered selected episodes in mono or stereo.
The level of professionalism that I find in “CheapShow” makes me also appreciate how delightfully ramshackle an episode can become, intentionally or not. The recent episode “Walk Hard with a Vengeance” was a sequel to 2021’s “Die Hard... on a Podcast”, the edifice of the podcast substituting for Nakatomi Plaza, and ending in an existential podcast void, but instead of being a tight, contained 38-minute action drama, the sequel was a two-hour-plus sprawling epic recorded on location at Crystal Palace Park, the tension coming from both whether Paul & Eli could save London from the bombs planted around the park, and whether they could hold themselves and the narrative together until they reached the final showdown, the villain having graciously given them extra time. If they were attempting a simultaneous display of anti-comedy with a critique of Hollywood action movie structure, then it worked.
“CheapShow” marked its tenth anniversary in June 2025 with a series of celebratory episodes, and with an album, released on vinyl record and MP3, available at the link throughwww.thecheapshow.co.uk. I cannot be objective in telling you how good this album is, and why you should buy it, collecting new and previous songs from the show like “Top Notch Western Romance”, “Teen Yeti’s Delight” and “The Lament of Captain Blueballs”, alongside new routines and interjections from Paul & Eli between the songs.
The reason I cannot be objective is tracks seven and eight on side B: “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” and “The Mayor Requests”, both by myself. I made a video in 2021 about the former, my entry for that year's Urinevision Song Contest, titled “How to Win a Song Contest, apparently”, while the latter, my entry for the following contest in 2023, was about signs dotted around a town reading “The Mayor Requests the Participance of the Inhabitants in the Protection of the Trees” – based on a real sign I once saw on the old city walls in Chichester – and why this was “because of what happened last time”.
I am happy that these songs have been received well over the last few years, and that listeners remember them fondly, but I hope to remain bemused about being on the end of such goodwill and kindness, especially with their being considered worthy of being committed to the physical format of a vinyl record (and, in very limited amounts, MiniDisc). I remember writing and entering “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” to see if I could write a good song, completing “The Mayor Requests” to see if lightning would strike twice – I should write songs more often.
Please see below for the script I used in completing this video:
Coming up, I take a fond look back on how I wrote a song about nostalgia, how it won a song contest, and why this is not case of “this is how _I_ did it” more than “is _that_ how I did it?”
[OPENING TITLES]
[TITLE: “How to Win a Song Contest, apparently” or “Don’t Take a Stand ‘til You Reach for That Landfill”]
Hello there. In May 2021, the “CheapShow” comedy podcast ran the second Urinevision Song Contest, following the success of the previous year’s event in substituting for the pandemic-hit Eurovision Song Contest. This time around, I had an idea for a song, and decided to enter, despite never having properly written, recorded and sung a song before. I effectively sent my entry to answer the question, “is this anything? Does this sound like something I should be doing?” I faithfully watched the ceremony live on Twitch, to see if I had made the shortlist, and I yelled “yes!” when “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” appeared as the ninth song out of thirteen, meaning my work would now be judged by a panel of thirteen comedians, actors and singers, and I would find out if I had embarrassed myself or not. But… that wasn’t the end of it.
[“RECONSTRUCTION” caption on screen, waveform in background, as Eli Silverman announces: “The winner of Urinevision 2021 is Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You by Leigh Spence.” I am as open mouthed as I can be.]
I was devastated. I genuinely was not prepared for this outcome, especially after hearing the other entries, songs like “Down at the Spoff & Pickle” by Ukulele Jon, and “Piss Crystals” by L.J. Goody, thinking how much more they fit the themes and energy of “CheapShow” as a podcast, and how much more professionally recorded the other songs sounded, at least to me. I do remember feeling incredibly confident for a while after submitting my song, but that was me thinking, “wow, I made a thing,” not “I’m gonna win this thing.” So, thank you to “CheapShow” for putting on a great show, and for the lovely shirt I won, featuring art by their in-house artist Tony Vorrath, and thank you to everyone for all the nice things they said both during the contest and online afterwards.
Before I go any further, I implore you to listen to “CheapShow” as it is a great podcast, and one I have written about at length. Hosted by Real Ghostbuster Paul Gannon, and pickle of destiny Eli Silverman, “CheapShow” rummages through the charity shops, the bargain bins, the thrift stores, the flea markets, the pound shops and record bins of the known world, to give you the treasure amongst the trash. It also has its own tie-in magazine and merchandise, which may itself be the subject of future discussion in another geneeration’s podcast. It is an absurdist comedy machine with an enjoyably filthy mouth on it, like Derek & Clive meets Blue Peter on the bus home from a night at the Cabaret Voltaire. It is a magazine show: you may have board games and charity shop finds one week, novelty records and weird soft drinks another week, celebrity guests or an audio drama with mad characters the week after – it’s great that there is a podcast I can download each week and not know what form it is going to take, other than in minutes and seconds, and you need to cherish something like that if you find it.
And so, in order to explain “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You”, I must play it to you first, using the lyric video I created previously. I will be back in a moment.
[PLAY VIDEO]
I should say the reason I am playing the recording instead of singing it live is because…
Singing at my limit is a mountain to climb,
So I broke the lyrics up and sang two lines at a time.
…and edited it together. On the night of the contest, I did like how the presenters visualised the songs by using puppets. [Clip of ostrich.] Here is some of the reactions from the judges…
[Play selection of some, ending with response to Imran Yusuf: if you can pay for it, you can be my guest.]
I will say the response that made me happy immediately was from co-host on the night, Ash Frith: [“Who performed that, that was amazing!”] …I’m going to play that again. [“Who performed that, that was amazing!”]
There was only one rule for the Urinevision Song Contest: your song had to be between one and two minutes long. How I interpreted this was that I would need to fit as much song as I possibly could into two minutes, working out how many bars of 4/4 time I can get when using a hundred and twenty beats per minute, divided by two bars per line. Rather than entirely sounding like a maths exercise, my favourite Eurovision song, “Ding-a-Dong” by Teach-In, which won for the Netherlands in 1975, clatters along at such a pace that it doesn’t need all of the three minutes it was allowed. At the same time, Tony Christie’s song “Avenues and Alleyways,” the theme to the TV drama “The Protectors,” doesn’t have a chorus as such – Christie sings “in the avenues and alleyways” a second time, followed by an entirely new set of lyrics. Therefore, aside from a short intro and outro, I have three whole verses, a vast middle section to list nostalgic things, and exclaim “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” – I’ve only since realised I unintendedly wrote “nah-nah-nah-nah-naah-naah, nostalgia’s gonna get you!”
The music itself is kept very simple, performed in C sharp major to stretch to what should be out of reach, and to sing just slightly out of my range, but I deliberately chose instruments that evoked the 1980s: a drum machine, synth chords and a synth bass that jumped up and down by one octave to fill the sound. Far cheaper than spending a few thousand pounds on the real thing, Apple’s BandCamp lets you pick a LinnDrum, one of the first sample-based drum machines, and the machine most associated with Prince, from “1999” to “Purple Rain”, with “When Doves Cry” essentially being a LinnDrum featuring Prince. What also helps is that, if you choose the right drums, you can make a pattern that sounds like a clock.
The chords were played on my Yamaha Reface DX, a proper FM synthesiser like the original DX7, replicating the original Electric Piano 1 setting with the same glassy sound that characterises the era, as Yamaha sold thousands of DX7s to musicians who, apart from Brian Eno, used the same thirty-two built-in patches from piano to bass, to brass to marimba, because it was too hard to program.
I am absolutely happy to be compared to them, but I must admit I was initially perplexed by the comparison to Squeeze made by co-host and TV writer Paul Rose, aka Mr Biffo [“Cool for Cats” quote, followed by Depeche Mode.] My only reason for this was my having been so focussed and influenced during this process by the Eighties-est artist of them all, and a recurring name on “CheapShow”: Phil Collins. Yes, I own the sheet music to the “No Jacket Required” album. What happened was I was listening to a local radio station, Wave 105, on a Sunday morning, and after they played a jingle, there was silence, almost like they fell off air. When a song eventually started, it was the dum-da-da-dum-clap of “Take Me Home”, followed by, yes, chords played on a Yamaha DX7. Having since bought the album on CD, I think “Only You Know and I Know” may be one of the catchiest songs ever devised, even more than “Sussudio,” but what I did find were the demos that Phil Collins made of his songs – they are simply a drum machine, a DX7, and his singing almost in tongues to get the melody and the energy down before writing the lyrics. The simplicity of these demos was what I decided to go with in my finished song, but while I wrote the lyrics, I did have the sound of the Phil Collins demos in my head… [Imitate them using “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” tune.]
In terms of the lyrics, I intended to use my three verses to build up into a preposterous situation: start with giving into nostalgia, followed by something weird, then complete all-consuming hysteria – instead of “the greatest hits of yesteryear will do for you now,” it was originally “because there’s no hope for you now.” However, I had the final line “don’t take a stand ‘til you reach for that landfill” from the start as a line that sounds utterly bizarre by itself, but entirely in context by the time you get to it – that is why I was happy for how one of the judges, Tom Mayhew, reacted to it: [Tom Mayhew clip].
I felt it was easy to refer to liminal spaces, hauntology and Jacques Derrida in the song, as they have all been discussed on “CheapShow”, although I didn’t yet know there was a song by Scritti Politti titled “Jacques Derrida”. Dead shopping malls are almost a genre of video on YouTube as people film walkthroughs of places that were once safe and busy, rendered eerie and empty by changing times – while they can be perfect examples of places you have to pass through, but you don’t think that you should be there, I think watching them might be my version of ASMR. Having said that, “That vape shop once sold games on tape for my Spectrum Plus” was the hardest line to condense, and then sing – I only realised later that Sinclair made a computer branded as a Spectrum+, because I was originally working down from Spectrum Plus 2. I also originally wrote “once sold cassette games for my Spectrum Plus,” proving you need to be as clear as you possibly can – this was why I had to change “Birds Eye Potato Waffles, still alive”, which I like, to “Findus Crispy Pancakes, still alive” which I hate – it has to be dah-dum, dah-dum, dah-dum, not dum-dah...
The middle section was always meant to be a list, but I then had to find items that were a stretch to be nostalgic about, like Polaris, which was Britain’s nuclear deterrent at the time, maintaining a base in my home town, but then also had to rhyme with each other, like The Naked Gun and “Pebble Mill at One,” thanks to my pronunciation of “wun” instead of “won.” I loved how the BBC’s daytime TV show, a forerunner of “The One Show”, also made it into another song in the contest, “Watching Shit Old Daytime TV” by the Electric Chair Orchestra. By the way, I was meant to sing “didn’t die” instead of “still alive”, until I had to sacrifice the alliteration when I realised I was singing “die, die, die” all the way through.
My favourite verse is obviously the last one – once I worked out how to talk about the monotonous “rhythm” of the nightly news, the alternate 1985 of “Back to the Future Part II” came to mind very quickly, an easy way to say “what went wrong?” and retreat into the past. “Tomorrow’s World Is Cancelled” both means exactly that, and the fact that the BBC’s science show of that title ended in 2003, the same year that Concorde flew for the last time, as if our idea of what the “future” was, and where you would find it, had ended.
If I had one regret with the song, it was not following Stephen Sondheim’s rule of no half-rhymes all the way through, having left “sounds” rhyming with “around” in the first verse. I think, by that point, I had to stop writing, and put my pen down.
So, what happened next? The Urinevision Song Contest 2021 album is available to listen to and download on Bandcamp – I never expected to be found on the home of vaporwave, so that is mind-blowing in itself. Entering the contest was the best thing I could have done, it has been the highlight of 2021 for me, and if I ever do anything as successful or as popular again, I will remember that it started with “Nostalgia’s Gonna Get You” - it’s as simple as that.
What this experience also confirmed for me is that, within strict legal definitions, I can apparently sing, and I have music confirmed as one more outlet, one I intend on making much more of, after writing a new opening and closing theme for this show. [Closing theme starts.] All I know for sure is this: if you enter your song into a contest, and it moves someone to say [Ash Frith clip] “who performed that, that was amazing,” you must be doing something right.
Thank you for watching. Comment, like and subscribe to let me know what you think, and until next time, the nostalgia culture crisis continues at www.leighspence.net, the new home for dancing with the gatekeepers.
With pandemic overturning routine, my listening habits have changed. Working at home, I started putting on a podcast in the background. Now furloughed, it continues to keep me company, but I don’t have to pause it to answer the phone – what is safe for work changes with where you’re working.
The “CheapShow” podcast [link], has been made by and starring Paul Gannon and Eli Silverman, respectively a radio producer and a club DJ / actor, since it began in 2015, stand-up comedian Ash Frith also appearing occasionally. Taken at face value, it is the celebratory mix of trash culture and body horror that pushes taste for the perfect laugh. Once the offended have stopped listening, the “economy comedy podcast” becomes a fun exploration of the charity shops, bargain bins, flea markets and car boot sales of Great Britain, bringing you intriguing, nostalgic and detestable items that fell through the cracks of popular culture – one man’s trash is literally another man’s treasure. Once you have listened as much as I have – “CheapShow” is approaching two hundred episodes, at 60-90 minutes each, sometimes longer – it becomes a melange of banter, surreal world building, improvised sketches with characters created from out of nowhere, and a slamming together of language that would make Ludwig Wittgenstein think again, all supported by a strong fanbase helping to feed the show back into the culture through their own tie-in merchandise. “CheapShow” is “a chive-filled yoghurt poultice of destiny” like no other, having “blown the goose” years ago on being your standard podcast fare.
In episode 16, from early 2016, in reply to a remark about eating a scab for research purposes, Eli delineated himself and Paul as characters: “I’m meant to be the disgusting little troll, and you’re meant to be the hapless twat.” This was back when “CheapShow” had more items per episode, and the two former stand-up comedians had not yet delved into the wider pool of scatological humour, even if the very first episode involved asking a guest to choose if they could live without their penis or their tongue. By episode 49 the following year, Paul expressed concerns that the show had become reductive through “the curse of nonsense,” after a sketch involving Hula Hoops, but he followed this by imagining a field of death involving zombie scarecrows and dogs, trained to eat chip fat, would attack Gary Glitter and Rolf Harris – a heated discussion over noodles, and a vinyl single about sex change chickens, also formed part of the same episode. Your average “CheapShow” episode should feel like its hosts are continually engaging in telling the “Aristocrats” joke, without either of them admitting they are keeping this going until they remember the punchline. While “CheapShow” has its “economy comedy” concept, its execution answers a key question when creating new media: what it is an excuse for? The podcast Ricky Gervais did for “The Guardian” put his and Stephen Merchant’s names first, but was an excuse to introduce the funnier Karl Pilkington; “Cheers” is a sitcom set in a bar, but is an excuse to present one-act plays centred on character development, and “Leigh Spence is Dancing with the Gatekeepers” is a series of articles and videos about various subjects, but is an excuse for me to dive into something interesting and write about it. The concept of “CheapShow” is an excuse to spin a conversation into flights of fancy madness, but the concept still directs the podcast. In a time when anyone you’ve ever heard of has a podcast, you need more than your name in the title for anyone to truly care.
I came across “CheapShow” via the work of Stuart Ashen [whose YouTube channel I discussed here: link], and “Barshens,” the comedy show made with the cook Barry Lewis, on which Paul and Eli worked as producer and co-star respectively. “Barshens” is a great example of making “timeless” content on through comedy quizzes and games, and the only YouTube channel I have seen formally end, instead of just petering out. “CheapShow” segments that also appeared on “Barshens” included “The Price of Shite,” guessing the price of items bought in charity shops, and “Off Brand Brand Off,” a blind taste-test of own-brand or knock-off food items versus the originals, while the frequent playing of board games benefitted from the existence of “Gannon’s Golden Games.”
The first episode of “CheapShow” I heard was episode 140, featuring Ashen as a guest, but I was not prepared for the onslaught: the feature-film length allows for all avenues to be explored, from arguing over how to start a show, followed by a sojourn (or tranche) into the DJ Mike Read, and Paul telling Eli to “wait my hurry,” the latest in a long line of non-sequiturs that left the two “treading on thin water,” to use an earlier one. This was followed by tasting dill pickle-flavoured crisps, a smell-based board game, and a cursed story tape from a listener’s grandfather, known only as “Derek,” bringing the house down with the attempted revelation that a child was Irish – I matched the wall of laughter that followed that as yes, we all heard that. If something makes you laugh until you cry, you keep hold of it.
What I came to like the most was the hosts’ use of language, and their eye for the obscure and ephemeral. Sure, everyone likes noodles and “Ghostbusters,” but without “CheapShow,” I wouldn’t know about the Winkie badge, comedian Roy Jay (“Spook!”), Wendy Carlos’s demented version of “What’s New Pussycat,” the life of John Meggot, and the comedian Mike Reid’s bizarre song “Freezing Cold in 89 Twoso,” which took an Italian song of gibberish made to sound like English... and sang it in English. The “Silverman’s Platter” feature, drawing upon Eli’s collection of random vinyl, has been an education, filling in gaps in my knowledge, to the extent that I may have to start seeking out some of the songs they have played, especially as they may never appear on CD or to stream online.
But the language... I rarely swear, and only do so here where needed, but I don’t routinely try to bend language, creating new words from sounds, or bashing words together. Creating its own words to use alongside the established language is something I’ve seen work only in “CheapShow” and “Red Dwarf.” I have used some of Paul’s accidental uses of words here, but this is added to Eli’s use of sounds, like the sibilance of scribbles, scrubbles, scruffage, scrummage, spoff, spooge and spunk, and teaching Paul how to use the phrase “spoff my josh off” – this later became used in a mash-up of Rick Astley songs. Upon Eli’s commenting on his odd choice of words, Paul said “helipad.”
Then there is the language that creates life. In the most recent episode at the time of writing (number 176, “Zoltan Sucks”), Eli said, “we don’t have a character called Regina, do we? There should be a character, and she should be called Regina Fatata.” This was dismissed by Paul as “the same collection of stupid sounds that come out of your mouth.” Like Inch Man and Storytime Granddad, the character was ill-advised this time around, but characters created on the spur of a choice of words, and driven by the attitude captured with those words, plays to Paul & Eli’s strengths in improvisation – characters like Squishy Jim, Madam Ladyplops, Bobby Bollocks, Richard Brandoff, Uncle Grumbly, Leaky Ken, Precum John, Teen Yeti and in-show knock-off Adolescent Sasquatch, not to mention Paul’s shadow, Jimmy Biscuits. My observation is that the less a character says their name to assert their existence, the longer they last.
“CheapShow” displays confidence in letting characters, sketches and situations be created and played out during the show, with Paul & Eli periodically “step out of the podcast” to make sure their heads are together, things other productions would edit out in an attempt to sound more professional, or to remove what they hadn’t attended. This has added to the enjoyment of listening back through the mountain of previous episodes, recognising the moments when long-running features like “Silverman’s Platter” and “The Sauce Report” either found their names, or arose without warning, meanwhile witnessing how the show's animosity towards Noel Edmonds, something that doesn't need explanation, came from his legally distinguishable quiz show sitcom hybrid "Cheap Cheap Cheap."
“CheapShow” has also branched out from user-generated content, through the corporeal “Tales from the Shop Floor,” to sending items into the show, and into officially unofficial merchandise – “The Unofficial CheapShow Magazine” [link] has had nine issues so far, and T-shirts and stickers have been created out of various moments from the show [link] – slips of the tongue have become T-shirts to the extent that “That’s a T-shirt” has itself become a T-shirt. These are things that you expect far larger TV and radio shows to have, but I can’t think of any unofficial fan-created items that are endorsed and promoted as effectively official work – it must have happened to something from “The Simpsons,” as there has been enough of it.
For me, “CheapShow” is the “Goon Show” of podcasts: the content may be cheap, but when distinctiveness and originality is free, it’s worth a try – satisfaction will soonly come.
