High Performance

Those of us who have had their radios permanently tuned to Radio 4 for years, were more than ready to embrace the tsunami of podcasts that have assailed us over recent year. The idea of listening to someone speaking without the distraction of the moving image, which therefore removes the need to sit down and focus unreservedly, might seem a product of today's frenetic lifestyle. But it's also a return to the concept that ideas matter, as do dialogue, debate and discussion. The High Performance podcasts are packed with all three, and though it’s largely a platform for personable people to chat to each other, the common thread running through the episodes is how a positive outlook has contributed to the success of its guests. The fact that hosts Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes had filled the Theatre Royal with an audience eager to experience a live version was testament to their own, apparently well-founded, positive thoughts.

It's not uncommon to find yourself in an audience for a live recording of a podcast, and l had imagined High Performance was going to be just that, but otherwise full credit to the team for defying my expectations. Instead of aping the format of the podcast, Humphrey and Hughes had obviously put a lot of thought into offering up a stand-alone live show - this was a full on theatrical experience, complete with multimedia screens, pulsating music, theatrical haze and striking lighting design. It's open to debate how much this contributed to the overall message, but the intent was clear - this should be a proper event.

So what was that message? Rather than just present yet more interviews - although clips aplenty were offered up on screen - Humphrey and Hughes pivoted the show towards their motivation for creating the podcast in the first place. They consequentially shifted from podcast hosts to motivational gurus, expounding their philosophy in an extended two handed monologue that had more than a whiff of evangelical zeal. By making the causal link – as they saw it – between attitude and success explicit, the pair sometimes relied more heavily on sincerity than substance but these were not snake oil salesmen. I'm convinced they believed every word spoken and the impact they would have. The audience seemed to hang on their every word, and were quick to applaud and cheer the sentiments expressed.

I couldn't escape the notion, however, that we were being presented with a largely blank canvas onto which we were invited to project the message we came predisposed to receive. Although notionally about positive affirmation of one's own qualities, much of the evening was taken up with an exploration of how to combat negative thoughts and emotions. Judging by the audiences Q&A questions it was what resonated most clearly. I got the sense that the target audience for the podcast - certainly the theatre version - was a generation caught up in the corrosive effects of social media, weighed down by the baggage of expectation and comparison. It's a generation uncomfortable in their own skin, ironically looking towards a podcast to reassure and codify an appropriate response to that which constantly bombards and oppresses them. When psychotherapist Owen O’Kane popped up, he focused on techniques to block negative preoccupations rather than the value of positives. When audience members spoke, it was of imposter syndrome, child care and personal tragedy. Humphrey and Hughes did their best to respond sensitively, but much of what was said teetered dangerously close to sophistry. I don't think anyone would take exception to the idea of being kind to each other and yourself, and perhaps the hosts were asking too much of themselves to construct meaningful answers to very complex issues, but I can’t help think the brave souls who opened up so publicly must have felt short changed by the superficial feedback they got back.

At the start of the show, Jake joked that we were watching the rehearsal for their national tour, a quip he could have only got away with in front of a home crowd. For all the smoke and mirrors of its impeccable production design, it did feel a little like that. Along the way, Kye Sones lobbed in a couple of songs and Megan Smith was pulled out from the audience to speak about her footballing career. Sones has the distinction of being knocked out, by Rylan Clarke no less, from the X factor, while Smith spoke movingly about her battle with thyroid cancer. They have both regained careers with tenacity and hard work, and both served to break up what would otherwise been a glorified TEDtalk. They nonetheless added to the niggling suspicion the show had been assembled piecemeal, rather than in service to an abiding and consistent theme.

I’m guessing those involved will be circumspect about the evening - they seemed self-aware enough to accept their own fallibility - and tweak the show into a better shape than presented on this first outing. They are, after all, trying to do something overwhelmingly positive through a medium where the default value is often the absolute opposite. Plaudits too should go the Theatre Royal for supporting something so daringly different.