Find out what Dublin comedian Gearóid Farrelly had to say about the new series of Fascinated.
Last year I made 6 episodes of a podcast series called Fascinated. Any time I talk about it I always find myself saying that it is my favourite thing I have ever done. It absolutely is. It was hard work, a steep learning curve, a source of many a sleepless night and there is no money. But I loved making it. Everything from contacting the guest and convincing them I wasn't trying to trick them to watching youtube videos trying to learn how to remove background noise from audio.
Listen to Fascinated with Gearóid Farrelly here
For the first series I interviewed Mariama Goodman from the 90s band The Honeyz. She told me about leaving the band and going back to college to study and delivering a baby and having the parents ask her to sign her cd. I also spoke to former boybander David Ross who was in Bad Boys Inc. He was gay and had to hide it from the fans of the band. He then reconnected with them to crowd-fund his movie about marriage equality.
My favourites were Barney Rosenzweig who created the 80s cop show “Cagney and Lacey”. He told me about the show being cancelled three times before he made it a success. Also I spoke to Gillian Blakeney who starred in Neighbours with her twin sister Gayle as Caroline and Christina Alessi. They were both child stars in Australia and moved to Los Angeles to move on from that. They founded companies and build brands. Today Gillian runs a very successful scarf line. A business idea she happened upon when she struck up a conversation with a woman she met on the subway in New York.
This time around I continued to interview people I think are amazing. There is no point in interviewing someone you are not interested in. The beauty of a podcast is I know if I'm interested I will be able to make it interesting. Well that's the goal anyway!
The first episode of this new batch is actress Pauline McLynn. She is most famous for “Father Ted” but we also got to talk about her time in another sitcom “Jam and Jerusalem” written by Jennifer Saunders which is one of my favourites. I also spoke to Mike Stock who was part of Stock, Aiken and Waterman, the Hit Factory team that produced dozens of hits and made Kylie Minogue a star. I also spoke to west-end star Frances Ruffelle about winning a Tony for originating a role in Les Miserables in the 80s and her continued stage work and we also chatted about how she worried about her daughter, pop-star Eliza Doolittle, following in her footsteps.
My favourite of this new batch is Carnie Wilson which will be the second of this new batch to come out. She is a member of Wilson Phillips the group that had a series of hits in the 90s and recently appeared in “Bridesmaids”. She was great.. she’s really funny and even insisted on teaching me the harmony for “Hold on”.
I think if was to chose a dream guest to interview it would be Angela Lansbury she has had an amazing life. I doubt that will happen but I've read her autobiography so I'm ready!!
Gearóid Farrelly
