Between the Butcher and the Block

Two on one in our season finale this week as Steve and Rob talk to Nick. We discuss sport (poorly), personality typing, personal training tips for lazy people, mental health and its links to creativity and entrepreneurship, social media, RUOK?, parenthood, the (in)visibility of the homeless, and – of course – prisons.

This weeks guests have long experience with prisons and the incarcerated in the US. We talk to Curt and Coss about inspiration, redemption, connection, racism, and (of course) Shakespeare in prisons.

Rob and Steve talk to Kat and Rachel about their very different relationships to the theatre. We try to teach Rachel to pronounce ‘gnocchi’, try not to make fun of Kat for being vegan, and talk about food, stories, religion, anti-vaxers, and Shakespeare in Prisons.

Two Texans, one Republican and one Democrat, discuss US politics. And they do it in a civil fashion, because they’re not arseholes. Unlike our hosts. Hear them discuss US foreign policy, the recent election, covid, incarceration rates, and the limitations of the two-party system, as well as outline their best and worst case scenarios for the next two years in the ‘land of the free’. Yippee-kai-ay!

Meet the hosts and listen to them talk about Trump, the origins of God, war, kombucha as a gateway drug, and Shakespeare in Prisons.

The Butcher and the Block met ten years ago in a high security Queensland prison, and between them have spent almost fifty years in some of our most notorious institutions (prisons and universities). From their earliest endeavours, creating productions of Shakespeare in the slammer, they have wilfully and cheekily been juxtaposing high and low brow. This podcast, their latest collaboration, could be called big ideas for/from ordinary people. It harkens back to a time when philosophy, politics, and metaphysics were not the sole purview of the educated elites, and brings together guests with a common core belief but different backgrounds. Why are you here? When we take away the outward trappings of your station, occupation, and accomplishments, at your core, who are you? These are the questions the presenters ask of one another, and of their guests as they willingly place themselves between the Butcher and the Block. There are also bawdy jokes and low-tech silly sound effects.