In our main podcast for the month, we celebrated our one-hundredth episode with Matt, Julie and original co-podcaster Mege, talking about the beginnings of A Damn Fine Cup of Culture. For this month’s espresso episode, we’re continuing the story: Matt, Alan and Sam met up in real life to record their first ever live podcast episode together. Join the three of them in their conversation about 2020, the year they joined A Damn Fine Cup of Culture, and their experiences since. How have they changed as podcasters? How do they keep things fresh and interesting, even after five years of podcasting? What are the episodes they remember best? And what are the topics they hope to do an episode about in the next five years?

P.S.: A big shout-out to the wonderful REX cinema in Bern, Switzerland for letting us meet up at their bar in early January (you can hear the gentle noise of other cinemagoers, glasses and espresso cups in the background) to record our conversation!

We weren’t originally going to do an espresso podcast in December, but then the timing and theme of our main episode for the month almost made it obligatory for us to replan: since our recent episode “Ozmosis” only covered Wicked, the first part of the movie adaptation of the hit musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, and not its 2025 continuation, Wicked: For Good, we are hereby remedying this. Join Matt and Sam as they take a trip to the Emerald City to talk about part 2 of this revisionist take on L. Frank Baum’s classic novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Did they find the film a worthy follow-up to the 2024 hit? Are Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande still as effective as Elphaba and Glinda? Do the new songs live up to the best numbers of either part? And just how does The Wizard of Oz fit into Wicked? Follow us down the Yellow Brick Road for this concluding conversation in our final espresso of the year.