How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
How To Fail with Elizabeth Day is a podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven’t gone right and what we might learn from them along the way. Every week, Elizabeth’s guest explores three failures, and what these failures have taught them about how to grow and succeed, better. We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with Elizabeth to share your failures, problems or questions - anonymously or otherwise. She'll go through these each week with the help of her very special guests. And remember: a fail shared is a fail halved. https://forms.sonymusicfans.com/campaign/how-to-fail-uk-2023/ An Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Original Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow @sonypodcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
Episodes
June 18, 2025 • 52 mins
Rapping phenomenon and Tottenham Hotspur superfan AJ Tracey joins us this week to talk about supporting his mum through her cancer journey, the pressures of staying an independent artist and what football has taught him about failure.
AJ Tracey has been rapping since the age of four. He dropped out of his Criminology degree at London Metropolitan University and started uploading tracks to SoundCloud in 2011, achieving five Plat...
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June 12, 2025 • 28 mins
Cynthia Nixon joins Elizabeth to answer YOUR questions and failures including: whose failures would you most like to hear (dead or alive) how to cope with a friendship break up and how to know when to have kids. Elizabeth then takes a moment to reflect on meeting Cynthia, and everything they covered.
To hear Cynthia tackling your failures join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content
Do ...
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June 11, 2025 • 53 mins
Whilst Cynthia Nixon’s versatility is beyond question, it's fair to say that she has become permanently associated with one character, Miranda Hobbs, in Sex and the City and its companion piece, And Just Like That. She won an Emmy for her performance and a generation of fans who identified with the ambitious type-A lawyer whose cynicism disguised as vulnerability has grown markedly through the decades.
Nixon is also a political ...
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June 4, 2025 • 52 mins
TW: discussions around anorexia and sexual abuse.
In an incredibly powerful episode (and a How To Fail first), Christine McGuinness speaks publicly about her sexuality for the first time. She reveals she had a long-term relationship with a woman before her marriage to comedian Paddy McGuinness and that she’s now dating women again. She refuses to label her sexuality - as she puts it: ‘I want love for me’. What an honour to be pa...
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June 2, 2025 • 55 mins
Vicky Pattison was 22 when her life changed and she was cast in reality TV show Geordie Shore. She was on the show for nine seasons between 2011 and 2014, during which time the cameras followed her falling in love, becoming engaged, then breaking up.
Now 37, Pattison has rarely been off our screens - whether it’s as a finalist on Celebrity Masterchef or winning I’m A Celebrity in 2015. She’s a radio presenter on the Heart network,...
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May 28, 2025 • 58 mins
In her most revealing interview to date, Dannii Minogue talks openly about the pressures of fame, the relentless comparisons with her sister, Kylie, and navigating a divorce that left her broke.
It’s an extraordinary conversation with a woman who found fame as a 10-year-old in her native Australia. As a teenager Dannii, signed a record deal and acted in Home and Away. In her early 20s her debut album went Gold in the UK, and sh...
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May 21, 2025 • 55 mins
For many of us who grew up in the the 90s, Julia Stiles was an integral part of our coming of age. Her portrayal of the clever, acerbic Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You was a radical reinvention of the blonde teenage female rom-com lead. Her roles in Save The Last Dance and Mona Lisa Smile spoke to our adolescent feminist awakenings and catapulted Stiles to stardom. And, just like the heroines she played, Stiles chose to do things...
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May 14, 2025 • 56 mins
John Bishop has been a hugely successful stand-up comedian for 25 years. Yet that wasn’t his first dream, which was to play football. We discuss his failure to do so professionally, his challenges at school, the working-class upbringing that shaped him and how comedy saved his marriage when he and his wife were at the ‘decree nisi stage’ of divorce. Plus: skincare tips and why making people laugh is like stripping. Yes, really.
...
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May 7, 2025 • 61 mins
Simon Cowell has built an entertainment empire on his ability to say exactly what he thinks and an uncanny ability to judge the public mood.
From launching Pop Idol in 2001, The X Factor in 2004 and the cultural behemoth Britain’s Got Talent in 2007, he has been at the helm of primetime around the world for over a quarter of a century. His TV shows and Syco record label have shaped the careers of everyone from One Direction to L...
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April 30, 2025 • 53 mins
My guest today has been an integral part of my feminist awakening. Celeste Barber’s instagram posts - which parody the unattainable standards of the fashion and beauty industry - are both hilarious and revolutionary. Her work has helped a generation of women to feel better about their bodies - and made her a star in the process. (Plus she’s been blocked by a few celebrities. Lol.)
Barber began her account in 2015 as a jobbing acto...
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April 23, 2025 • 45 mins
This episode of How To Fail was recorded in front of a live audience at Dublin’s Bord Gáis Energy theatre.
Emma Dabiri is a broadcaster, historian, and bestselling author whose work delves into the complexities of identity, culture, and race through art history and current affairs. She's now written a number of books - culture shifting works which are a radical re-imagining of what we consider to be beauty. Her first book was an...
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April 16, 2025 • 52 mins
This episode of How To Fail was recorded in front of a live audience at London’s Barbican Theatre.
Sally Phillips has appeared in a string of the most influential and hilarious comedy series of all time - from Smack The Pony, Miranda, The Thick of It and Veep. Not forgetting, of course, her star turn as Bridget Jones’s best friend, Shazza, in the hugely popular movie franchise. Alongside her professional success, Phillips has a...
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April 9, 2025 • 53 mins
Over on Failing with Friends this week, Mae Martin talks about self-care, how to stop pushing people away and we tackle a listener’s failure to be messy in their twenties. To hear Mae Martin's brilliant advice, join our community of subscribers: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content
Canadian comedian, writer, producer and singer/songwriter Mae Martin joins Elizabeth to talk about making music, the importance of pronouns a...
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April 2, 2025 • 50 mins
Over on Failing with Friends this week, JVN and I get into relationship therapy and the perfect length of shorts on a man. To hear JVN tackling your failures, join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content
Jonathan Van Ness, one fifth of Netflix’s hit show Queer Eye, three-times New York Times bestseller, podcaster, business magnate and all-round icon is on the pod this week. JVN joins us t...
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March 31, 2025 • 41 mins
For this bonus episode, Elizabeth and Mel open up the post bag to answer the burning questions YOU have when it comes to dating… And, let’s just say, we cover A LOT of ground.
After you’ve listened, you can get all the resources and worksheets discussed at www.thepodclass.co.uk
Mel and Elizabeth are on a mission to revolutionise the world of dating! We want to make it a safe, fun and rewarding experience for everyone. If you’...
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March 26, 2025 • 56 mins
Over on Failing with Friends - Sam Ryder talks about panic attacks, how to forgive, and (in a How To Fail first) why he likes to cut his toenails outdoors. To hear Sam tackling your failures join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content
Sam Ryder is a British singer-songwriter who started posting covers on TikTok during the pandemic that ended up catching the eye of Sia, Elton John and Just...
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March 24, 2025 • 59 mins
For the final episode of How To Date (sob!) Mel and Elizabeth look at the most important relationships any of us can have in our lives: the one with ourselves.
We unpack what this means in practical terms. How do we nurture a healthy sense of self-respect - and why can this sometimes feel so challenging? How can we ensure interdependence rather than co-dependence? We explore why being clear about your own worth is a fundamental...
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March 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Olivia Attwood first appeared on our TV screens in 2017 as a contestant in the third series of Love Island, and instantly became a star due to her dry humour and gobby relatability. You might also know her as a regular panellist on Loose Women or from her hit documentaries for ITV. Last year, she launched her podcast, Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right, which promptly went to Number 1 in the UK charts. On today’s episode, we talk...
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March 17, 2025 • 46 mins
Elizabeth and Mel face one of the most challenging parts of dating: heartbreak and rejection.
We are joined by life coach and author Michelle Elman who went through a devastating, public break-up after being notified via an Instagram DM that her fiance of 24-hours had been cheating on her. Michelle, Mel and Elizabeth explore the impact an experience like this can have and how best to cope with it. We discuss surviving rejection...
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March 12, 2025 • 48 mins
To hear more of Erin offering advice on listener failures, join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content
Erin Doherty’s big break came playing Princess Anne in The Crown. She’s now back on our screens as Mary Carr, the leader of a real-life Victorian female crime gang, in A Thousand Blows (written by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight). Erin talks about acting rejections, struggling with ...
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