What could bring greater cheer this time of year than a podcast about death and funerals? We are, after all, a people who love a good death and a decent funeral. How did they die? God be good to them. And who showed up? And what kind of sandwiches were there? All the questions we want answered, and so, it turns out, does the newly minted Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake. The podcast just landed from comedian Kathy Burke – she of French & Saunders, Nil by Mouth and, uncoincidentally, Irish parentage – is bound to be embraced by a nation that dines out on death notices. Thus far, just a month in, death has never sounded quite so amusing.
Burke’s got a voice – smoky and deep – made for irreverence: she curses like a fishwife, she is bawdy and raucous, and her laugh is a cackling, husky joy bomb. If you want to laugh in the face of death, this is the podcast for you. Add to this Burke’s roster of charming comedic friends who have signed up as interviewees: Dawn French, Jamali Maddix, James Acaster, Joe Lycett, Diane Morgan. Basically, Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake is a host of funny Brits talking about their deaths, and it’s a hoot.
Burke leaves no death stone unturned: her guests must address manner of demise, funeral details, reincarnation, libations to be served at the wake, will reading and who will meet you at the pearly gates before you come back as a diddling baboon (see Joe Lycett’s episode).
We begin this fantasy funeral series with an interview with Dawn French about her own demise and, by god, that’s going to be some kind of funeral, not least the part where her long-time comic partner Jennifer Saunders shall be forced to read the eulogy, ending with a rendition of Wind Beneath My Wings. (The wake will also feature Um Bongo juices, pick-and-mix sweets and some Squid Game-level carnage for those who eat their scones wrong.) The laugh-out-loudest part of this imaginary passing and its aftermath is Dawn’s hilariously naughty plan for embalming her corpse, which involves her body being used for “tit rubbing” for luck (you’ll have to listen yourself to get the rest).
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Despite the subject matter, this podcast is not philosophical or interested in the bigger questions of mortality. But it’s not entirely possible to avoid the profundity that hovers around such a subject. French may be joking about embalming and Um Bongos, but she’s still, if facetiously, addressing an inevitability that will some day leave many of those tuning in to hear her here grieving, pick and mix or no, and that knowledge lends strange weight to what’s happening here.
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Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake is a polished production; Burke doffs her cap at the goddess producer Jemima, who apparently whispers in her ear. If Jemima is responsible for the wonderful funereal choral dividers aptly introducing each new section, then she deserves the worship, to be honest.
Naturally, there is some bonus content behind a paywall – episodes on listeners’ deaths and stories – but you came for the comedian interviews and they deliver all the laughs while discussing their last ones. Dead air never sounded so good.
