Performance Anxiety Alex Dale and Maren Thom

Everyone is wrong – the Oscars are still relevant. Maren and Alex are back and kicking off season 3 in style! In this episode they explain why the Oscars, as a celebration of a populist art form, are the only game in town. They also ask why, in spite of everything, the Academy keeps rewarding films no-one has seen.

Maren and Alex ask why everyone is raving about Emma Stone's performance as Bella Baxter in Yorgos Lanthimos's new film Poor Things and why its success is so hard to pin down. What does Emma Stone stand for as a performer? The team use Freud and Žižek to explain Stone's unique quality and appeal, and why her performance is bigger than the film itself.

In this episode, Maren and Alex analyse why vibes are gaining such prominence when it comes to understanding culture. Is story is getting lost as a casualty in a culture war over meaning? Maybe, but sensation and emotional affect still exist and still make for artistic experiences.

The duo then look at the performances of up-and-coming vibe exemplar Jacob Elordi to see how vibes work on screen, and how an actor's persona are affected by – and help create – vibes.

In this episode, Maren and Alex ask why so many historians are upset with Ridley Scott's Napoleon, explore the different requirements of artistic and historical representations, and ask what the film Napoleon call tell us about Ridley Scott's film-making and preoccupations. Why did Scott chose to dramatise Napoleon's story, and why is Napoleon the archetypal Ridley Scott film? Why cast Joaquin Phoenix? Listen and find out!

A very special episode, live from the Battle of Ideas, discussing the meaning of performance and "cultural cosplay"!

In this first ever live episode of Performance Anxiety, Maren and Alex are delighted to welcome their first ever guest host and interlocutor, writer and broadcaster Timandra Harkness.

Timandra helps the team explain why they started the podcast and why they chose to analyse performance in particular.

The team then use their particular set of skills to analyse the Bradley Cooper film Maestro, looking especially at whether or not Cooper's prosthetic nose is "cultural cosplay".

This episode contains one reference to the sitcom Larry Sanders. A special prize awaits the listener who spots it!

In this episode, Maren and Alex analyse why so many people hated the Marks and Spencer Christmas advert by examining the meaning of each performer, look at why Christmas adverts are such a phenomenon in the first place, and use Kant to explain the clash of values in the culture war arguments around the ad. Warning: this episode contains two bad impressions.