Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays, episode 5

Once again I have forgotten to tell you about the new episode of my one-woman (+one cat) Yorkshire village sitcom Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays. You can listen to it on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jysaville where you should be able to play it in a browser without logging in to anything.

For those who haven't heard about the podcast before, fortyish Lee-Ann has been moved on to a four-day week at work and wants to spend her Fridays with her portly black and white cat (Lord Salisbury) or researching the history of the village she moved to a few years ago to be near her baby niece. Unfortunately her interfering older sister (Gina) doesn’t think those are worthy pursuits, and Fridays are usually spent trying to thwart Gina. Lee-Ann's Scottish neighbour Douglas isn't on anyone's side but his own. It's structured like a sitcom, but told as a monologue from Lee-Ann's point of view.

This time Lee-Ann's not having a good morning, and seeks sanctuary with Douglas:

Douglas said he always knew it was going to be an especially good day when I invaded so early. I don’t call dropping in on my downstairs neighbour for a friendly chat ‘invading’, and I pointed out that some people would be glad of the company, but Douglas said he bet I couldn’t name three.

episode 5, Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays by JY Saville

The sisters end up at a creative writing workshop together. Bearing in mind I've attended many and led a few myself, my tongue was firmly in my cheek when I invented Crispin, the tutor:

As far as I could tell from a glance at the printed programme of workshops during the coffee break, Crispin’s main qualification for teaching us was that he’d had two poetry pamphlets and a short story collection published and had time on his hands on a weekday

episode 5, Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays by JY Saville

In terms of real history mentioned this time, I did get a theme of Luddites and handloom weavers in there (I'm still trying to perfect my Luddite sitcom set in 1812 but if I get there eventually, you'll be the first to know). Technically, I suppose a Hancock's Half Hour episode from 1959 is history, so if you've never heard the episode Lee-Ann refers to (The Poetry Society) I believe it's available to listen to on the BBC or there's a copy of the script on this university website: https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/morleyd/entry/hancocks_the_poetry/

Thanks to Mike Kelly at Bradford Community Broadcasting (BCB) for featuring Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays episode 1 on Pick of the Podcasts last week.

If you've enjoyed any of Lee-Ann's Spare Fridays and want to support me as I make the sixth and final episode of series one, you can always buy me a cuppa at https://ko-fi.com/jysaville