The comedian’s new podcast plunders neighbourhood messageboards for fun, feuds, gossip and second-hand goldfish. She explains all – and looks ahead to her Edinburgh show, a support group for men in crisis
Jayde Adams is flying the flag for that most maligned of female hobbies: gossiping. “It has been women’s power for so long,” says the standup, one eyebrow camply raised in what has become her comic signature. “We may physically have been at a disadvantage – but find a group of women and they’re not just sat there in silence, are they?”
Yet as Adams proves with her new podcast Welcome to the Neighbourhood – the latest entry on a CV that includes comedian, sitcom star (the Bafta-winning Alma’s Not Normal) and presenter of multiple food programmes – gossip is changing. The pandemic can take some credit: the boredom and isolation of lockdown not only connected us more closely with our neighbours, it also whetted our appetites for the most mundane tittle-tattle. Technology has played a part too. It has never been easier to talk about relative strangers behind their backs, largely thanks to neighbourhood groups and message boards devoted to crime-busting, hearty political debate and the giving away of old tat that have proliferated in recent years.
