Worst Foot Forward

We're back with more sunshine, history and daftness in a hostful episode where we look back at previous episodes about terrible magic tricks, monarchs, legal defences, burlesque performers and playwrights and pick our favourite examples of each. It's a real pic'n'mix this week including the many faces of William Shakespeare, blowjobs, the coolest spy of all time, Dom Pedro the Magnanimous and some very unhinged knifeplay. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde   Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

Strike a pose, this week we are strutting our stuff on the catwalk of catastrophe that is the World's Worst Fashion Show. Theatre director extraordinaire Lucy Jane Atkinson is with us to tell us of the time she found a fashion show up a mountain and to peek at the crotch of Rick Owens' more revealing creations. Ben takes us to the bizarre world of digital fashion and Barry delves into the past to meet Lucille, a trailblazer and trendsetter who was aboard the Titanic. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @lucypapoosky  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

Here we go! Our first ever live show, recorded on 29th February at the Network Theatre in Waterloo as part of London's VAULT Festival. We were joined by three brilliant guests - Roann McCloskey, Anna Ploszajski and Joel Morris - who returned to the pod for the World's Worst Dinner Party in front of a lovely, lively audience! We sample food from the Futurists Cookbook and, while we chow down, Roann talks to us about the World's Worst Party Trick, Anna proposes a surprising candidate for the World's Worst Ingredient, and Joel brings the Women's Institute and pirates together for the World's Worst After-Dinner Speech. With thanks to VAULT Festival and our producer Andy Goddard. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @romeister8 @AnnaPloszajski @ruleofthreepod Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support our NEXT live show: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.pod

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Joel Morris, Dr Anna Ploszajski and one more to be announced... follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ This month's extra Patreon episode is inspired by one of our favourite ever discoveries on this show: Sweden and Finland's deployment of February 30th to regulate their calendars.  We talk about Alfred Jarry, Pope Joan and get very confused indeed about maths. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Bec Hill, Dr Anna Ploszajski and Joel Morris follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ We have food royalty with us this week, the King of Tarts, the Prince of Profiteroles, the Emperor of The World's Most Famous Tent: 2019 Great British Bake-Off champion David Atherton joins Ben and Barry to chat about the World's Worst Restaurant. David shares his own dining disasters, Ben takes us to meet the maitre d' from hell and Barry explores the murky pages of the Michelin Guide. And all three boys decide which celebrity they'd be most likely to eat. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @nomadbakerdavid Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.pod

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Bec Hill, Dr Anna Ploszajski and Joel Morris follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Pop on an enormous ballgown, gargle until your vocal folds are primed and ready and prepare to belt out laughs at this week's episode all about the world's worst opera.  Joined by an actual real domesticated opera singer - the brilliantly talented Delea Shand - Barry and Ben discover the cultural aberrations of operas that are short, long, Esperanto, Klingon and feature both helicopter blades and Paris Hilton (sadly not at the same time.) Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @MadameOpera Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Bec Hill, Dr Anna Ploszajski and Joel Morris follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Join us 20,000 leagues under the sea this week in Davy Jones's locker, somewhere behind his used socks and half-eaten apples. We are in the company of improviser extraordinaire and lover of all things maritime Katy Schutte and we be sailing in search of ye World's Worst Sea Creature. Along the way we meet some beautiful blob fish, some slimy hagfish and learn exactly Where Be Dragons. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @katyschutte Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Bec Hill, Dr Anna Ploszajski and one more to be announced... follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ 150 not out ladies and gentlemen! To celebrate hitting this, frankly ridiculous, milestone Ben and Barry interview each other and find out a few more of their own personal worsts. There's still lots of daft trivia thrown in too, including racehorse mating practices, Viking marriage ceremonies and the reason the Queen Mother became a drunk. Here's to another 150! Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, with special guests Bec Hill, Dr Anna Ploszajski and one more to be announced... follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ This month's extra Patreon episode is about Dancing Plagues. Ben takes Barry on a waltz through pre-Reformation Europe, around shrines to St Vitus, as well as to dance marathons in Depression Era USA and some rebellious riotous Japanese dances in the 1860s. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show in London on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ . Our guests include Bec Hill and Dr Anna Ploszajski plus another to be announced!** Tickets please, and get your feet off the seat while minding the gap and moving down inside the carriage: It's time to hop aboard the World's Worst Train, destination This Podcast. Ben and Barry are joined in the caboose by Vicki Pipe whose All The Stations project has seen her visit all the train stations in the UK and Ireland. She is here to discourse on the rickety old Pacer trains which are basically buses on tracks, while Barry finds some presidential funeral trains and Ben sticks a train on some wheels and then on some more wheels for good measure. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @norwegiancheese Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s ba

For tickets to our first ever live show in London on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ For tickets to Barry's play The First on February 11th - 16th, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/the-first/ For tickets to Ben's tour of Fablemaker, head to his website and follow the ticket links: https://www.benvandervelde.com/tour Since the third Monday in January is, apparently, statistically the most depressing day of the year, we thought we'd whack a smile on your collective faces with an episode celebrating some of life's little upsides.  Going over topics from episodes 36-40 we find the best gadgets, mythical creatures, words, strikers and environmentalists. Expect to be uplifted, delighted and baffled in equal measure! Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @DomNicholls  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s

For tickets to our first ever live show in London on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Boom-bang-a-bang! Worst Foot Forward are waving their deadly weapons around. Ben and Barry are joined by former army man and current defence correspondent at The Daily Telegraph, Dom Nicholls who tries his best to be sergeant-major to their minor misdemeanours. Dom gives us the lowdown on nuclear weaponry, especially the ill-fated hand-held nuclear rocket launcher. Meanwhile, Barry kills a multitude of different animals in the company of Catholic saints and our friends at the Special Operations Executive. And Ben takes the old joke about razorblades and tried to get as many barrels as possible onto a single gun. Take cover!  Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @DomNicholls  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s cri

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ We're gonna make you an offer you can't refuse: an hour of sinister and stupid tales about mobsters who often make Bugsy Malone look like Don Corleone.  Accompanied by award-winning stand-up comic Rahul Kohli, who mines his own chequered past growing up in Newcastle amongst some haphazard company, we discover why you should never let the mafia put up your Christmas decorations, the Yakuza's charming outreach work and even more evidence for Frank Sinatra being a total shit. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @raulkohlicomic Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support endeavours such as our upcoming live show: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Ho ho ho! Happy "that time of year again when the old year dies and the new one rises from its ashes"! But this time we're also changing decades. For those of you who find this much change far too scary, we've got some good ol' fashioned nostalgia to keep you grounded. Ben and Barry, with help from some of their dutiful Twitter followers, have been digging out some of their favourite moments from Worst Foot Forward in 2019 and here they are in all their glory. Savour again delights such as a chorus of vaginas, the invasion of Sark by a single Frenchman, how Joan Rivers changed Cally Beaton's life, the saint who suckles at a deer's teet and the maddest ten minutes of your life as we lose our minds over toad sex. Thanks to all of you for listening in 2019, here's to a new year as silly as the last clearly was! These crimes against podcasting were aided and abe

** Still need a last-minute Christmas gift...Well, why not buy some tickets to our first ever live show, which is in London on February 29th 2020! Follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Merry Christmas one and all! If you've already run out of topics of conversation with your family members, well Worst Foot Forward is here to help! Join us for a batch of festive trivia as Barry takes us on a sleigh-ride through some Christmas traditions from around the world. There is the New Zealand Christmas Tree, the Christmas Pickle, The Late Late Toy Show and the Swedish TV tradition that ruined its host's marriages. Thanks to all our listeners for their support this year and through the years, hope you have a peaceful holiday season and we'll see you in 2020! Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s cr

**For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ It's a momentous episode as we have our first ever $20/month Patreon donor joining us as a guest on the show! It's Sara Pettit, a history graduate, American gal and old chum of Ben from way back when, and she joins us to bring some of the World's Worst Tycoons to light. We delve into the backstories of big hitters like JP Morgan and JD Rockefeller, we learn about how the founder of IKEA got his big break and we discover the weirdest sperm bank ever. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

Peer into your perpetually murky crystal ball and you might just be able to pick up this week's episode with comedian Chris Stokes, all about the world's worst mysteries.  There's everything from the wildly implausible to the disappointingly mundane as we discover who might (but probably didn't) kill JFK, the sad tale of a very hungry French circus freak and why herring farts almost started a war. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @_chris_stokes  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

For tickets to our first ever live show on February 29th 2020, follow this link: https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ This week our lipstick is smeared, our eyeliner is running and our foundations are subsiding as we apply the World’s Worst Make-Up. We are joined by prosthetics artist Suzi Battersby (http://www.suzibattersby.com) who talks us through her work on Star Wars and Holby City as well as visiting some of cinema’s less glorious and more racist moments. Ben goes on a jaunt with an Edwardian toff and prankster, while Barry has us glowing with radium-infused tinctures. There are also man-eating beds, horny giraffes and rabbis with a youthful sheen. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde  Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.po

BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TIME! We are doing our first ever LIVE RECORDING of Worst Foot Forward! It’s time to allow an audience to witness just how shambolic things are behind-the-mic… On February 29th 2020, at 4.30pm, we are throwing the World’s Worst Dinner Party at the VAULT Festival in Waterloo in London. Ben and Barry will be joined by 3 former guests of the podcast - yet to be announced, but we promise you, they’re among our and your favourites from the past 3 years of shows. We will be trying out some food from the Futurists Cookbook. There will probably be party games, anecdotes, audience questions, our usual mix of silliness and trivia, and a whole lot else besides. Tickets are on sale right now so please get booking - because we want to see as many of you wonderful listeners as we can, and because we are terrified of no one coming! You can find all the details at this link here:  https://vaultfestival.com/whats-on/worst-foot-forward-live-recording/ Follow us on Twitter for further updates, audience competi

Come brethren, follow us into the unknown in search of greater glory - or certainly greater glorious failure, as we set off on the World's Worst Pilgrimage. We are joined barefoot and penitent by comedian and history buff Mike Shephard who teaches us all we could ever hope to know about the Children's Crusade. Ben leads us three times around a few Irish islands, and Barry gives creepy Japanese dolls a Viking send off. There are also chapels for dogs, imaginary pilgrimages and the micronation of Seborga. Follow us on Twitter: @worstfoot @bazmcstay @benvandervelde @MikeShephard Visit www.worstfootforwardpodcast.com for all previous episodes and you can now donate to us on Patreon if you’d like to support Ben’s baby and Barry’s crippling trivia addiction: https://www.patreon.com/WorstFootForward Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com