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 podcastsales@sonymusic.com
Episodes
April 24, 2024 • 58 mins
TW: this episode contains discussion of sexual assault and suicide.
In many ways, Will Young is the definition of resilience. As a child, he endured physical and psychological abuse at prep school. In his 20s, he found fame on a reality TV show and was forced to be public about his sexuality by a tabloid newspaper, after which he faced years of homophobia. In his 30s, he coped with extensive periods of depression as he struggle...
Mark as Played
April 17, 2024 • 59 mins
I loved interviewing Richard Osman and can’t stop thinking about our conversation. I think it’s because his brain works at warp speed: I genuinely felt he was three steps ahead of every question I was about to ask. It became something of a personal challenge to ask a question he couldn’t guess beforehand and I *think* I managed it when I asked if he’d ever written to Jim’ll Fix It (he had, by the way).
His mind was formed by an ea...
Mark as Played
April 10, 2024 • 54 mins
TW: infant loss and birth trauma
Dr Jen Gunter is an obstetrician-gynaecologist, pain medicine physician and bestselling author. She’s most well-known to many of us as Twitter’s resident OB-GYN, the woman who took on Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop with claims of medical misinformation and one of the fiercest advocates for women’s health the world over.
She had premature triplet boys in 2003 and tragically, one of her sons died at birth. ...
Mark as Played
April 3, 2024 • 48 mins
My guest today has a nickname in showbiz circles: he’s called ‘Ideal Actor’ because of his scene-stealing talent and his ability to get under the skin of what it is to be human. If you’ve watched Netflix’s monster hit, Fool Me Once, or seen Sherwood or Back To Life or The Night Manager or if you’ve watched the movies Four Lions or Murder Mystery 2, the chances are you will remember his performances. He’s a brilliant actor, but he’...
Mark as Played
March 27, 2024 • 50 mins
TW: this episode contains discussion of sexual assault and suicide.
In the 90s you might have known Katie Price as ‘Jordan’ - featured on page three, known for her succession of plastic surgeries and her complicated personal life. But, in reality, she is so much more than the cartoon character the media created for her.
Today, Katie is a mother of five and her disabled son, Harvey, is - she tells me - the only person who ‘never j...
Mark as Played
March 20, 2024 • 41 mins
Nicole Scherzinger became famous as part of The Pussycat Dolls - one of the biggest selling female groups of all time - but it almost didn’t work out that way. For years, she was a jobbing singer and dancer who learned how to deal with rejection from a succession of failed auditions. Yet her resilience - and her work ethic - shone through. Now, after a highly acclaimed run in London, Nicole is set to storm Broadway as Norma Desmon...
Mark as Played
March 13, 2024 • 60 mins
Jon Ronson is a journalistic hero of mine, as he is to many. He was one of the first people to write about the culture wars, well before the phrase became commonplace in our news cycles. His two audio series exploring real-life origin stories from these everyday battles ‘Things Fell Apart' (BBC Sounds) have been a huge commercial and critical success.
Ronson has written a handful of fascinating works of non-fiction including ‘Them...
Mark as Played
March 6, 2024 • 43 mins
Big Brother host, Strictly Come Dancing finalist and the woman who, by her own admission, ‘puts black into Blackburn’, AJ Odudu is a force to be reckoned with. Growing up in Lancashire, no one ever knew how to pronounce her name and she was questioned constantly on why she was different. But as an adult, she has turned these early experiences into inner strength - resilience that has served her well throughout personal and professi...
Mark as Played
February 28, 2024 • 60 mins
TW: coercive / controlling relationships
Mel B has a story that everyone needs to hear. It’s a story of resilience in the face of severe adversity - and how we can conquer our biggest fears if we put our minds to it.
Melanie was in a coercively controlling and abusive relationship for a decade. After finding the courage to leave, she dealt with years of isolation, post-traumatic stress disorder and a loss of confidence. She also ...
Mark as Played
February 21, 2024 • 50 mins
Spoiler alert: I’m low-key obsessed with this woman. Sabrina Dhowre Elba is a UN Goodwill ambassador, a skincare maven, an actor, producer and all-round good egg. She is, then, *so* much more than some bloke’s wife, but given that the bloke in question is Idris Elba, she’s incredibly understanding when asked questions about how she copes with the attention.
She joins me to talk about the boxes we put women in, her failure to work ...
Mark as Played
February 14, 2024 • 55 mins
TW: miscarriage
Paloma Faith’s teachers used to ask her why she ‘acted stupid’, which is ironic given that she’s now one of the smartest, sharpest guests I’ve ever had on this podcast. A global singing sensation, as well as an acclaimed actor, she’s got a totally unique perspective on the world - and a refreshingly frank way of expressing it.
Her failures included being thrown out of ballet school aged 10(!) for being ‘too curvy’...
Mark as Played
February 7, 2024 • 50 mins
Full disclosure - Sathnam is a dear friend of mine. He was a guest on the first ever season of How To Fail and there’s a very good reason why I’m chatting to him again.
A lot has shifted in both our lives. Since he was last on here, Sathnam has written Empireland and more recently Empireworld, two bestselling books which have garnered him critical acclaim, a Channel 4 documentary and which - even more crucially - have changed the ...
Mark as Played
January 31, 2024 • 54 mins
TW: addiction
The popularity of Joe Wicks’s online workouts and meal plans as ‘The Body Coach’ catapulted him into fame during lockdown. He’s a source of endless positive energy for the rest of us, but he had a challenging childhood. Growing up on a council estate, his father had a debilitating heroin addiction and his mother lived with severe OCD. His escape was physical exercise.
Joe’s failures include learning to become...
Mark as Played
January 24, 2024 • 49 mins
We bonded over eyebrows, amongst other things.
You’ll know Dan Levy as David Rose in the widely adored TV show Schitt’s Creek, which he co-wrote and created with his father Eugene Levy. If ever there was a story of failure leading to success, it’s this, as Dan tells me how his multi-award winning and critically acclaimed show was (initially) turned down by every single network in the USA.
We also chat about relationship failures ...
Mark as Played
January 19, 2024 • 2 mins
Season 20 of How to Fail will be kicking off on the 24th January - where we will be embracing the beautiful messiness of life - yet again.
This season is a celebration of resilience, growth, and the wisdom that comes from our failures. Join me, Elizabeth Day, as I sit down with incredible guests, each sharing three pivotal moments when life didn't go as planned. From these stumbles, we uncover valuable lessons that propel us forw...
Mark as Played
Surprise! Here’s a little Christmas present for you… For this very special episode, a group of my favourite podcasters and I got together to share the microphone and spread the love we feel for each other - and for our listeners. What a joy to chat with legit podcasting royalty - Fearne Cotton (Happy Place), Rangan Chatterjee (Feel Better, Live More) and Jake Humphrey and Damian Hughes (High Performance). As well as dominating the ...
Mark as Played
November 1, 2023 • 60 mins
I LOVE CLAUDIA WINKLEMAN.
There. That's it. That's your shownotes.
Well ok then... Claudia Winkleman is a broadcaster who feels like your best friend - whether she's co-hosting Strictly Come Dancing, fronting her Saturday morning BBC Radio 2 show or sending shivers down your spine as the presenter of The Traitors. And now, for our season finale, she joins me to talk about her hatred of perfect, her distaste for exercise, her intr...
Mark as Played
October 26, 2023 • 63 mins
TW: image-based sexual abuseGeorgia Harrison is a reality TV star turned activist - a woman who has used her own pain to change the law for other survivors of sexual assault. In 2020, her former boyfriend, Stephen Bear, shared intimate video footage of her online - filmed on his own CCTV cameras - without her consent. He posted it onto his OnlyFans page, charging viewers for access. From there it went viral. Georgia fought for two ...
Mark as Played
CW: miscarriage
Maggie Aderin Pocock MBE is a space scientist, educator and broadcaster - and quite possibly the first How To Fail guest who has her own Barbie doll. Fascinated with space from an early age, she even built her own telescope as a teenager. Nowadays, she's the co-presenter of the long-running TV programme The Sky at Night, as well as being Chancellor of the University of Leicester and the first Black woman ever to wi...
Mark as Played
October 20, 2023 • 63 mins
CW: suicide; infertility
I know, I know, we don't normally release episodes on a Friday but when you're offered DAWN FRENCH, you release an episode on whatever blimmin' day of the week you can (and preferably all seven of them).
I am so delighted to welcome the actor, comedian and bestselling author Dawn French to the podcast. She joins me to talk about being - in her words - 'a bit of a twat', anti-perfectionism, why so many come...
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Anna Sale explores the big questions and hard choices that are often left out of polite conversation.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.
A straightforward look at the day's top news in 20 minutes. Powered by ABC News. Hosted by Brad Mielke.