Leon, I know you read these reviews and give shout-outs to the people who leave them, so here’s one for you: I’d genuinely like you to acknowledge this one. I realise this is going to be considerably less comfortable than the usual praise, but that’s precisely why I’m writing it.
Takeaway Trivia might be the most strikingly, relentlessly middle-of-the-road podcast I have ever been forced to listen to. I would never choose to listen to it. Unfortunately, I have to endure it at work, and prolonged exposure has given me an almost uncanny ability to predict exactly what Leon Oldman is going to say before he says it. And that, really, is the entire problem with the podcast: nothing is ever remotely unexpected.
Leon seems to think he is funny because he is a geek. He has decided that being enthusiastic about Doctor Who, Star Trek, roller coasters and various other pieces of extremely mainstream geek culture somehow makes him an interesting or distinctive personality. It doesn’t. It just means he likes the things that an enormous number of other people like. But the more you listen, the more irritating it becomes because he seems to believe that this gives him some kind of authority to have an opinion on absolutely everything, regardless of whether he actually knows anything about it.
Take The Verve. Ask who released Urban Hymns in 1997 and you can practically hear the inevitable “Oh, great album” coming before he’s even finished asking the question. And Urban Hymns is a good album. But that’s precisely why it is such a perfect example of the problem. It’s the completely predictable opinion of someone whose knowledge of The Verve appears to begin and end with the universally familiar material. Would he know A Storm in Heaven, their first album? Would he have anything interesting to say about it? Could he name the songs? Does he actually have any meaningful knowledge of The Verve, or is he simply familiar with the same songs and albums that everybody else knows? Because there is a massive difference between knowing that a famous album exists and having something worth saying about music.
And this seems to extend to everything. He has absolutely no sense of where the boundaries of mainstream culture end because he appears never to have ventured beyond them. He knows the things everybody knows, likes the things everybody likes, recognises the references everybody recognises, and then seems to think that having the exact same opinion as everyone else somehow makes him an authority on the subject.
It’s the same routine constantly. A question about bungee jumping? You already know the answer, and you already know the comment that is coming afterwards. Something about roller coasters? You know his position. Doctor Who? You know his position. Star Trek? You know his position. Everything is telegraphed, everything is safe, everything is familiar, and everything is delivered with the confidence of someone who thinks his reaction is somehow hilarious simply because he is the one having it.
The supposedly ironic humour is no better. The Kim Jong-un jokes, the knowing comments about films, the self-conscious geek references; none of it is remotely daring or original. It is the sort of humour produced by someone who thinks being a geek automatically makes him quirky, when in reality he is operating entirely within the safest possible boundaries of popular culture. The Coyote vs. Acme comments are another perfect example. There is nothing remotely unusual about thinking a film looks good because it was made and written by talented people. But Leon seems to think that expressing an opinion like this somehow makes him wonderfully contrary or ironic. It doesn’t. It makes him someone expressing the most straightforward opinion imaginable while apparently believing that the act of expressing it is itself amusing.
That is what makes Takeaway Trivia so exhausting. Leon seems to have an opinion on everything without ever demonstrating that he has actually explored anything. There is no sense of curiosity beyond the mainstream, no sense that there might be an entire world of music, film, television, literature or culture outside the handful of things that have already been placed directly in front of him. And yet he speaks with complete confidence, as though recognising the most famous reference in the room makes him qualified to pronounce on the entire subject. It is the cultural equivalent of someone reading the back of one book and deciding they understand literature.
The podcast isn’t merely bland. It is aggressively, almost impressively bland. It is the sound of someone standing firmly in the dead centre of mainstream culture, looking around, seeing absolutely nothing beyond it and then assuming there is nothing beyond it worth seeing. Every opinion is pre-packaged. Every reaction is predictable. Every joke is signposted. Every cultural reference is the one everybody already knows. And somehow, through all of this, Leon seems convinced that he is the interesting one.
He isn’t. He is the person at the pub quiz who knows every answer that everyone else knows, laughs at his own little observations and mistakes familiarity for knowledge. Takeaway Trivia doesn’t challenge you, surprise you or introduce you to anything particularly interesting. It simply sits there, squarely in the middle of the cultural road, congratulating itself for being a geek.
I realise that 99% of people listening to this probably absolutely love it, and that’s fine. They’re clearly in the same boat: they like the same things, get the same references and enjoy the same humour. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s simply unfortunate that I’m one of the people who has to listen to it. So, Leon, if you’re going to give shout-outs to the reviews, I’d genuinely be interested to hear you acknowledge this one; and, more importantly, explain why you think I’m wrong.
