Character Study

Author and Boys Book Club co-founder Lucas Oakeley answers listener questions in this Q&A episode of Character Study.Listeners ask Lucas where his creative spark comes from, whether he has a way of dealing with people who interrupt his energy (he doesn't, he thinks friction is good for you), and how he gets back into his novel each time he sits down to write. His tip: never stop writing when you have nothing left to say, stop when you know what comes next, so you always sit down with momentum. He also shares his niche Wikipedia rabbit hole hack for kickstarting creativity, and tells the story of spending a day visiting four London bookshops trying to find his own debut novel on the shelves, and not finding it in a single one.This is a conversation about the writing life and why, by bookshop four, he was absolutely fuming.🎥 Watch on YouTube📘 Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Lucas Oakeley is the author of Nearly Departed, a debut novel about a man navigating grief and love three years after losing someone close — a rom com that somehow manages to be genuinely funny. He's also the co-founder of Boys Book Club, a community built around the radical idea that men can just read books for pleasure, and a journalist whose bylines span Vogue, GQ, and Esquire. In this episode, he joins Freya to talk about the writer he always wanted to be versus the writer he actually is, and why those two things aren't always the same.They discuss what it means to write emotionally open fiction from a male perspective — and why an early agent told him nobody would want to read a rom com written by a man. Lucas talks about writing grief that's "fuzzy rather than sharp": the kind that happens three years on, when the emails still need answering and rent still needs paying. He and Freya also get into the strange intimacy of writing characters who are, essentially, all versions of yourself; what Boys Book Club is really for (it's not a men's mental health initiative); the moment he knew his book was real — a stranger in a falafel queue; and why social media is basically professional wrestling.A warm, funny, honest conversation about finding your voice, learning to let go of the book you thought you were going to write, and the small happy ending Lucas is currently hoping for.🎥 Watch on YouTube📘 Nearly Departed by Lucas Oakeley📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Singer-songwriter Hope Tala answers listener questions in this Q&A episode of the podcast.Listeners ask Hope what she wouldn't change about the music industry, who her dream collaborator is — her answer is Kendrick Lamar, whose album To Pimp a Butterfly she wrote her university dissertation on — and how she navigates the pressure to post constantly on TikTok when she'd rather be writing. She also shares the message a stranger sent her ten years ago about a song she'd put on SoundCloud that made her realise making music might be her purpose — a message about grief, and a moment of peace — and why she still remembers it now.This is a conversation about what keeps a creative going — and why it's almost never the things you'd expect.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Singer-songwriter Hope Tala reads from her debut album Hope Handwritten in this passage episode of Character Study.Hope reads the lyrics to A Story to Tell — a song she wrote on a sunny day in Los Angeles when the music wasn't coming and she felt completely stuck — and reflects on why writing has been a solace since she was a teenager, the quiet resistance of making things purely for yourself, and why creativity isn't something reserved for artists. She and Freya talk about half-finished diaries, the 13-year-old boy on a ferry with headphones and a notepad writing songs, and why somewhere along the way we start to feel embarrassed by the urge to make things.This is a conversation about what it means to have a story to tell — and why all of us do.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE 📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work 💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions 📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts 🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Singer-songwriter Hope Tala, one of the most exciting voices in British R&B, whose debut album Hope Handwritten charts three and a half years of heartbreak, new love and coming of age. As if writing an acclaimed album wasn't enough, Hope is also in the process of writing a debut novel, Maelstrom which sold in a heated seven-way auction.She joins Freya for this week's episode of Character Study to talk about writing a coming-of-age album over three and a half years, what it feels like to watch strangers sing your most intimate songs back to you, and what happened when Hope took her album to her label and they told her it was only 60% there. They also talk about being a big feelers in a stiff-upper-lip culture, Hope's artistic journey and why openness has been the making of her, sending a song to your partner very early in a relationship to say this is how I feel, and what it means to release art into the world and let it stop being yours.This is a conversation about feeling things deeply — and why the best things in Hope's life have happened because she let herself.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE🎶 Listen to Hope's music🤳 Follow Hope on insta📘 Buy Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️ And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Stand-up comedian, writer and Peckham bookseller Ben Pope answers listener questions in this Q&A episode of the podListeners ask Ben whether inspiration comes in sparks or from hard work, how you know if your joke is original or just unconsciously borrowed from someone you admire, and what the best knock knock joke he's ever heard is. Ben reflects on the years he spent writing material that came out sounding entirely like Dylan Moran, why comedians freely give each other punchlines after gigs, and why sitting in a café with a notebook is genuinely the pleasure of his life.This is a conversation about creativity, originality, and why the thing that makes your work truly yours is simply that you wrote it — even if someone gave you the ending.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE🎟️ Buy tickets to Ben's Book Club comedy show at the Fringe this year, or his WIP standup also in Edinburgh this summer📘 OUT NOW Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work.💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Comedian Ben Pope reads his mischievous short story, Tomato Mozzarella Salad. A recipe that is also, somehow, an entire relationship contained in a single dinner.The story begins as a set of instructions and ends as a meditation on love, choice and the specific friction of spending a life with someone. Ben and Freya discuss what it means to make the choice right rather than the right choice, why the arguments you have with a partner are often the same argument on repeat, and why the grass on the other side looks greener only because you haven't spent enough time standing in it.This is a conversation about commitment, and why the smell of basil might be all the answer you need.🎥 WATCH the full episode HERE🎟️ Buy tickets to Ben's Book Club comedy show at the Fringe this year, or his WIP standup also in Edinburgh this summer📘 OUT NOW Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work.💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts

Ben Pope is a comedian, bookseller and writer based in south London. He manages Review bookshop in Peckham, has been doing stand-up for over a decade, and has taken a string of critically acclaimed shows to the Edinburgh Fringe — most recently The Cut, a narrative show that begins with a very personal medical decision and opens out into something much bigger about grief, fathers, and what it actually means to look after yourself.In this conversation, Ben and Freya talk about what it's like to build a creative identity in public when your work resists easy categorisation, the difference between performing vulnerability on stage and exposing it on the page, and why comedy is one of the best coping mechanisms humans have — as long as you're honest about what it's actually doing.They get into the real economics of Edinburgh Fringe, why Ben didn't have a smartphone until 2020, and the strange experience of performing something deeply personal in front of strangers and having them come up afterwards and say: me too.This is a warm, funny and quietly moving conversation about what happens when the most honest story you can tell also turns out to be the funniest one.🎥 WATCH the full episode on YouTube🎟️ Buy tickets to Ben's Book Club comedy show at the Fringe this year, or his WIP standup also in Edinburgh this summer📘 And remember you can now pre-order Freya's novel: A Real Piece of Work.💛 Follow @freybromley on Instagram for updates and to ask your questions📚 Join Freya's newsletter at freyabromley.substack.com for behind the scenes thoughts🎙️And hit subscribe wherever you get your podcasts