Learning on the job

Edinburgh Tradfest co-producer and now podcast host, Douglas Robertson, reflects on the past month of preparing for our digital festival

Prior to the last few weeks my entire knowledge of podcasts was almost negligible. I’d heard some of the series recounting the lives of British prime ministers, the story of Ghislaine Maxwell and nothing else.

As one of the two presenters with Jane-Ann I was slightly daunted by the prospect of trying to be some kind of Oprah Winfrey or David Attenborough. Smooth professionalism has never really been my thing.

The first part was easy. With some musician friends on the other end of an internet connection we would have a blether. After more than a year where we could rarely meet someone in the flesh this was familiar territory.

Some of our guests would even produce their material and send it over for inclusion.

Just as it t all started to look too easy there came the realisation that instead of entire podcasts we had countless little snippets of conversation and music. The glue that would join all the fragments would have to be the dozens of little links, intros and ‘outros’ (thank you Vivian Stanshall) recorded without the flow of lively conversation.

I now have a great admiration for those professional broadcasters who deliver their lines correctly without a single ‘err’ ‘erm’, or ‘um’ between. They do this with humour whilst remaining cool, calm and collected even whilst facing a senior politician or superstar.

Compare this to our repeated takes of “What’s in tonight’s podcast, then?” - translated to “What’s erm in the, sorry I mean, tonight’s Codpast erm then”.

It has got a bit easier with time but if any of you have a number for Oprah …

Edinburgh Tradfest Podcast begins on Saturday 1 May 2021. Search for ‘Edinburgh Tradfest Podcast’ on your podcast app or listen via our podcast page