Welcome to The Big Smoke Variety Show!

This week, we brave the sting and fly into the surprisingly fascinating world of wasps — from Shakespeare and Aristotle to cockroach hunters, paper architects, picnic pests. We explore some of nature’s most misunderstood creatures.

Kevin is joined by Seirian Sumner, Professor of Behavioural Ecology at University College London and author of Endless Forms: Why We Should Love Wasps. Seirian has published more than 80 scientific papers, received numerous awards for her research, and is co-founder of the citizen science initiative The Big Wasp Survey.

Together, Kevin and Seirian explore the remarkable lives of wasps, and the myths, stories and misconceptions that have shaped our view of them for centuries. From Aristotle declaring there was “nothing divine” about them, to biblical hornets, Shakespearean insults, and the wonderfully ridiculous 1959 film The Wasp Woman, they look at why wasps have spent so long as the villains of the insect world.

But this conversation also reveals a very different side to them. Seirian explains how parasitoid wasps inspired Darwin’s doubts about creation, how emerald jewel wasps can effectively lead a cockroach to its underground tomb, and how bee wolves use antibiotics, waterproofing and even fungicidal gases to keep their prey safe for their young.

Along the way, we learn why most wasps are nothing like the yellowjackets that bother us at picnics, why the adults are essentially vegetarians, how a simple “wasp offering” might save your summer barbecue, and why these much-maligned insects may have an important role to play in pollination, pest control, medicine, sustainable farming and even future food systems.

Kevin and Seirian also travel beyond the usual Western view of wasps, exploring traditional wasp-keeping in Nagaland, India, where communities farm hornets and other wasps for food, drawing on generations of ecological knowledge and a far more tolerant relationship with these remarkable creatures.

We’re also trying something new, with episodes now coming to you every week. Join us next Thursday for the next stop on Kate Sharpe’s Blue Plaque Tour and a special tale from the Mahabharata told by Scott Brooksbank in Stories You Haven’t Heard.

So whether you’re guarding your picnic, watching a wasp at work in the garden, or wondering whether the insect world’s great villains might actually deserve a second chance, remember: every creature has a hidden story, and sometimes the thing we fear most is simply the thing we haven’t understood yet — just as we keep discovering here in The Big Smoke.

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Links

🐝 Seirian Sumner

📚 Endless Forms: Why We Should Love Wasps

🍖🍯 Get Involved and Learn More — Wasp Picnic Survey

🐝🔍 The Big Wasp Survey

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Chapters

(00:00) Intro & Show Menu

(01:37) Seirian Sumner Interview

(55:16) Outro

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Credits

Hosted & Executive Produced by Kevin Bennett

Produced & Edited by Alex Graham

Original Music by Giles Terera

Music arranged and played by Joseph Atkins

Welcome to The Big Smoke Variety Show!

This week, we throw open the doors to Variety Week and descend into the wonderfully strange — from apprentice magicians wrestling with the laws of reality to historic London loos wrestling with the laws of plumbing.

First, fan-favourite trainee magicians The Strange Brothers return from the Xander Eldrick Institute of Illusion, Divination and, of course, Dance. This time, Salazar Strange and Craig attempt one of magic’s most iconic feats: sawing a man in half. What could possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Then, once the blood has been mopped up and the Wi-Fi re-connected, we head back out into London with Rachel Cole-Wilkin of London Loo Tours.

This week, Rachel takes us beneath Covent Garden to explore one of the capital’s most atmospheric public conveniences. Tucked beneath the west side of St Paul’s Church, these underground loos come complete with iron gates, turnstiles, fading grandeur, old-fashioned scales, 1960s byelaws, and a rich aroma that leaves little doubt about what lies below.

We’re also trying something new, with episodes now coming to you every single week. So stay tuned next Thursday for more adventurous audio from across The Big Smoke.

So whether you’re attempting impossible magic or simply looking for somewhere to spend a penny, remember: there’s always something unexpected waiting beneath the surface — and we’ll keep finding it together here in The Big Smoke.

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Links

🚻 London Loo Tours

🍸 Cellar Door

🍷 WC Bars

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Chapters

(00:00) Intro & Show Menu

(01:55) Strange Brothers

(13:13) London Loo Tours

(22:43) Outro

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Credits

Hosted & Executive Produced by Kevin Bennett

Produced & Edited by Alex Graham

Original Music by Giles Terera

Music arranged and played by Joseph Atkins

The Strange Brothers written and performed by Jamie Sandersfield and Matthew Nicholson

Welcome to The Big Smoke Variety Show!

This week, we log on and step into the complex world of China’s internet, a digital landscape shaped by innovation, censorship, and the ever-shifting boundaries of freedom and control.

Kevin is joined by journalist and author Yi-Ling Liu to discuss her new book, The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet. Yi-Ling’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, WIRED, and The New York Review of Books and her book has been named a finalist for the 2026 Orwell Prize for Political Writing.

Together, Kevin and Yi-Ling explore the human stories behind one of the most influential digital worlds on the planet. From the Great Firewall and the rise of Chinese social media to hip hop, online censorship, queer communities, tech entrepreneurs, and the strange ‘dance in shackles’ between expression and control. Along the way, Kevin reflects on his own experiences working in China as a theatre director, from touring an English-language production of The Merchant of Venice to directing a Mandarin version of Romeo and Juliet in Beijing. Yi-Ling also shares the personal journey that led her to the book: growing up between Hong Kong and mainland China, encountering censorship for the first time as a teenage intern at China Daily, studying at Yale, reporting on Chinese hip hop in Chengdu.

We’re also trying something new, with episodes now coming to you every week. Join us next Thursday for more adventurous audio from across The Big Smoke, including more magical mayhem from fan-favourite apprentice magicians The Strange Brothers, and another wonderfully unexpected trip to the loo with the London Loo Lady.

So whether you’re scrolling through your feed, peering behind the firewall, or wondering how much of the internet you truly understand, remember: behind every screen are human stories, invisible boundaries, and people trying to make sense of an increasingly connected world — just as we do here in The Big Smoke.

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Links

💻 Yi-Ling Liu

📕 The Wall Dancers

📝 Recommended Journalists: Viola Zhou, Sarah Wu and Vivian Wang

📚 Recommended Book "I Deliver Parcels in Beijing," by Hu Anyan.

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Chapters

(00:00) Intro & Show Menu

(01:34) Yi-Ling Liu Interview

(1:00:09) Outro

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Credits

Hosted & Executive Produced by Kevin Bennett

Produced & Edited by Alex Graham

Original Music by Giles Terera

Music arranged and played by Joseph Atkins