The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift with Sam Baker

The Shift is a podcast that aims to tell the truth about being a woman post-40, created and hosted by writer and broadcaster, Sam Baker. Did you ever wonder why you stop hearing so many women's voices once they pass 40? That's where The Shift comes in - a frank, funny, sometimes heartbreaking, always honest look at what it means to be a woman in midlife and beyond. Work, life, love, health, sex, money, identity, body image... What does it all mean when everything around you (and inside you...) is changing? Each week, award-winning author and journalist Sam Baker asks a different woman how she got here, where she's going - and how it feels to be where she is right now. Expect intimate conversation, big laughs, occasional tears and an awful lot of ripping up the rule book and stamping on it... Past guests have included Elizabeth Gilbert, Martha Beck, Siri Hustvedt, Jojo Moyes, Nicola Sturgeon, Marian Keyes, Guilty Feminist Deborah Frances-White, Minnie Driver, Philippa Perry, Anita Rani, Tracey Thorn, Isabel Allende, Bobbi Brown, Barbara Kingsolver, Zandra Rhodes, Liz Earle and many more, talking everything from confidence to career reinvention, mental health, menopause and so much more. If you enjoy The Shift podcast, and you'd like to show the love, you can buy me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/theshiftwithsambaker And if you really love The Shift and would like to hear more conversations with women over 40, why not become a member of our community and receive a weekly newsletter, get exclusive transcripts, join The Shift bookclub and so much more, please visit https://theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com/ For advertising enquiries, email sales@auddy.co

Episodes

Meera Syal: 'I am now a Triple Bad Bet – Old, Female and Brown!'

August 31, 2026 • 60 mins
My guest this week is the actor, playwright, screenwriter, novelist and multi-award winner Dame Meera Syal. Most of us have those people we grow up alongside and it feels like Meera has always been a fixture in my life, ever since I first saw her in the 80s film, Sammi and Rosie Get Laid. She’s been writing, performing and breaking new ground ever since and now in her early 60s she still is. In the early 90s she wrote t...
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Tabitha Webb on being an older mum & the menopause-puberty collision

August 24, 2026 • 52 mins
My guest today is the fashion designer and entrepreneur turned novelist Tabitha Webb.  What can I tell you about Tabitha - other than her life makes mine look extremely dull? She ran away from university, chased a hot surfer to America, was a roller blading extra in the movie Birdcage and got held up at gunpoint. Then, despairing of finding the bag she wanted, she decided to design her own and a fashion career was bor...
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Charlotte Wood: 'I don't fear ageing, but I do fear becoming a boring, annoying old person!'

August 17, 2026 • 61 mins
My guest today is the Australian writer and thinker, Charlotte Wood. Charlotte is the celebrated author of seven novels and three books of non-fiction. I first encountered her with her novel, The Natural Way of Things, which won the Stella Prize (the Australian equivalent of the Women’s Prize) in 2016. Then, my favourite, The Weekend, which follows three women in their 70s as they clear the house of their dead friend over ...
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Helen Thorn on how to bounce back from life's shittiest moments

August 10, 2026 • 63 mins
My guest today is the award-winning comedian and podcaster Helen Thorn. The co-creator of the comedy duo and hit podcast, Scummy Mummies, Helen travels the UK performing in a gold catsuit. Which might scream confidence to you, but her books tell a different story. She is also the bestselling author of Get Divorced, Be Happy and How To Face Big Change and Come Back Stronger, which harness her trademark hope, humour and honesty to...
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Jennie Godfrey: 'midlife is a powerful place if you lean into it'

August 3, 2026 • 59 mins
My guest today is the bestselling novelist Jennie Godfrey. Jennie has experienced the kind of midlife turnaround most of us can only dream of. She started her career working in HR and rose to the top of her chosen industry working for a large corporation. Life was a whirlwind of high powered meetings, swanky job titles, frocks and heels - and boozing to release the pressure valve. Cue burn out - and drying out! In her mid 40s...
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Jane Green on being a walkaway wife & rebuilding your life in your 50s

July 27, 2026 • 59 mins
Where do you turn when the identity you’ve clung to for decades slips away? That’s the position today’s guest, Jane Green, found herself in at 55. Her solution? She packed a case and ran away! Anyone who was a fan of women’s commercial fiction (aka chicklit, ugh) in the 90s and noughties will know Jane’s name. Along with Marian Keyes and Helen Fielding, she ruled the roost. She wrote 21 novels - the...
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Sarah Hiscox on self esteem, shame and overcoming addiction

July 20, 2026 • 48 mins
Hello and welcome to SEASON 22(!) of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast. That's 300 fascinating conversations with women in midlife and beyond, if you're new here and fancy diving in. (To think that when I started it back in 2020, I thought I'd only do six!) My guest today is Sarah Hiscox. Now a counsellor for NA and AA, amongst other things, the first three and a half decades of Sarah’s life were marked by turbulence and ad...
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Stacey Duguid on coming back from midlife collapse - THE SHIFT REVISITED

July 13, 2026 • 66 mins
Ever since I wrote about Stacey Duguid's campaign to shine a light on women's midlife career crisis loads of you have messaged me to say, 'Get her on the podcast!' Well, I have news for you - Stacey has been on the podcast! She first shared her midlife experience with me in September 2023, but now she's made it her mission to life the lid on the secret midlife career shame so many of us are suffering it felt like the right time to ...
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Clare Grogan: Back on the road and better than ever at 60 THE SHIFT REVISITED

July 6, 2026 • 55 mins
This episode first aired in the summer of 2022. I'm replaying it now because Altered Images are going back on the road this autumn, touring their iconic album, Happy Birthday, 45 years (45!!!) after its release.... I can’t remember the first time I met my friend Clare Grogan. But like many Gen-Xers, I remember the first time I saw her in the cult movie Gregory’s Girl, and then, later the same year, on Top of the Pops...
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Sabrina Pace-Humphreys: how running saved me from workaholism and alcoholism THE SHIFT REVISITED

June 29, 2026 • 58 mins
This episode first aired June 2022... This week’s guest will make you wonder what you do with your time! Sabrina Pace-Humphreys is an award-winning business woman, a social justice activist, an ultra-runner, a mother of four and grandmother of three. (And as if that wasn't enough, right now, as of June 19th 2022, she's running 268 miles along The Spine of the UK!) Not bad going for 44.  But it is none of those things...
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Dawn O'Porter - on ageing, Botox, self-worth & kaftans! THE SHIFT REVISITED

June 22, 2026 • 56 mins
This episode first aired in autumn 2022. I'm replaying it now because Dawn's new memoir, Hungry Eyes, borne of her love of food (and her Celebrity Masterchef almost triumph!) is out now... My guest today has packed a helluva lot into her 43 years. Dawn O’Porter started her career in TV production, before finding her way in front of the camera to host a series of attention-grabbing documentaries on everything from polygamy ...
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Lyse Doucet: What I learnt from 40 years on the frontline THE SHIFT REVISITED

June 15, 2026 • 67 mins
This episode first aired last autumn, but I'm replaying it now because last week Lyse won The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for her remarkable people's history of Afghanistan, The Finest Hotel in Kabul... My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet. Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanista...
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Liz Earle: 'Much of what we've been told about ageing as women is wrong'

June 8, 2026 • 61 mins
My guest today is the woman who put Cleanse & Polish cleanser and muslin cloths in bathroom cabinets all over the country, Liz Earle. Back in the 1980s, Liz started her career as a beauty editor, before going on to found a skincare empire that started with the aforementioned Cleanse & Polish - and grew beyond her wildest expectations.  In her own words, she then spent 15 years ‘travelling the world selling ...
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Dr Kate Lister: Most women could benefit from 'pleasure education'

June 1, 2026 • 62 mins
My guest this week is a historian columnist television presenter and vocal advocate for better sex for women! I first encountered Dr Kate Lister when I stumbled across her brilliant instagram account @whoresofyore, along with half a million others.  In a world where even back in the late 20-teens where we thought the work was, if not done, then at least going in the right direction - laughs hollowly - it was still radica...
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Maria Semple knows all the dirty little secrets of midlife!

May 25, 2026 • 69 mins
My guest this week is Maria Semple the author of one of my favourite books of all time, Where’d you go bernadette,. Once encountered, Bernadette Fox is never forgotten. I wasn’t alone, Bernadette was translated into 40 languages, sold over 200k copies in the UK alone, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and was made into a movie starring Cate Blanchett. Maria, who was previously a TV writer for Saturday Ni...
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Melissa Auf der Maur on surviving the 90s and her big midlife resurrection

May 18, 2026 • 58 mins
Today’s episode will take you ricocheting back to the 90s - in all the ways. Canadian singer, songwriter, photographer and producer Melissa Auf der Maur is best known as the bassist of Hole throughout the  mid/late 90s, and consequently had a front row seat at the pillorying of Hole’s legendary front woman Courtney Love. As she puts it, ‘I watched society burn a woman at the stake’. For a few year...
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Katriona O'Sullivan on women's bodies, hunger & why women shrink

May 11, 2026 • 70 mins
My guest today is Dr Katriona O’Sullivan.  Katriona grew up in Coventry and her early life was marked by poverty, addiction and abuse. She became pregnant and subsequently homeless at 15, let down and written off by the adults who were meant to care for her. In 1998 she moved to Dublin with her son and entered Trinity College through the access programme. There She earnt a Phd in psychology and is now a professor a...
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Siri Hustvedt on living on when the love of your life dies

May 4, 2026 • 63 mins
My guest today is the acclaimed writer Siri Hustvedt. The author of seven novels (including my personal favourite What I Loved and the Booker longlisted The Blazing World), five essay collections, a poetry collection and a memoir, The Shaking Woman, or a history of my nerves. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She is also a lecturer in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical college. Siri’s work h...
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Bryony Gordon is done with people pleasing

April 27, 2026 • 66 mins
There aren’t many people I let make a repeat visit to The Shift, but sometimes a guest proves so popular that I have to make an exception. That’s the case with journalist and author Bryony Gordon. The first time Bryony came on The Shift we talked mental health, alcoholism and the gratitude she felt in reaching 40 . A couple of years later it was all about perimenopause. Today, Bryony is back and we’re talking a...
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Margaret Busby: Britain's first black female publisher on the power of passing it on

April 20, 2026 • 69 mins
My guest today is the pioneering publisher, Margaret Busby. It is safe to say that without Margaret’s lifelong work the publishing industry today- and indeed our bookshelves - might look very different.  In 1965, at just 22, she became Britain’s youngest first black female publisher, when she formed Allison and busby with Clive Allison, who she met at a party at university. Margaret was editorial director the...
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