wicked

I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Not a bird, not a plane

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Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Everyone knows Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. How many who just know Agatha Christie from the film and TV versions have ever heard of Endless Night, the 1972 mystery featuring Hayley Mills, Hywel Bennett, Britt Ekland and George Sanders? Perhaps this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees by Sam will point a few people in the direction of this forgotten Christie adaptation, not least because of its score by Bernard Herrmann!

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A Damn Fine Espresso: December 2025

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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.

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #99: Ozmosis

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Arguably, the big event movie of this year’s holiday season is Wicked: For Good, the second part to last year’s hit film Wicked. (Sorry, Avatar fans, but that’s just how it is.) Most people loved the first instalment adapting the stage musical, which in turn adapted Gregory Maguire’s 1995 revisionist take on L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel The Wizard of Oz and especially its iconic 1939 reincarnation as iconic Technicolor musical fantasy.

At the time this podcast was recorded, Wicked: For Good was just about to be released, prompting Sam, Alan and Julie to talk about the 2024 blockbuster and to revisit the Judy Garland classic. How does The Wizard of Oz stand up, and what does our trio think of the first Wicked film?

P.S.: Since we can do what Hollywood does as well, it is just about possible that we’ve split our discussion of Wicked into two separate podcasts. Watch out for the forthcoming December espresso, for good or for bad!

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #90: And the Oscar goes to…

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This Sunday, the 97th instalment of the Academy Awards, more commonly known as the Oscars, will be awarded in Hollywood. In keeping with the times, it has been an uncommonly heated lead-up to this year’s awards, and not everyone is a big fan of the line-up – but it is undeniably a very varied Oscars year, and the big nominees range from the controversial (Emilia Pérez) via the outlandish (body horror favourite The Substance) to the monumental (The Brutalist with its run time of over 3½ hours). Will 2025 be the kind of year where one film sweeps most of the awards, or will the Tinseltown love be spread out across musicals, biopics, dramedies, ecclesiastic thrillers and sci-fi sequels? Join Matt, Julie and Sam as they talk predictions and favourites – and make sure to tell them how wrong they were come Monday!

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