Will Storr has spent thirty years working out what a story actually is. He sits down with James for the longest, most personal version he has given of how that obsession started — and what it has cost him to get good at it.

It starts with six words. A tiger. A hunter. A tiger. Will calls this an ancient Bengali story, and inside ninety seconds it has done more to explain how stories work than most books on the subject.

From there he tracks his own arc against the architecture he has spent four books describing — Selfie, The Status Game, The Science of Storytelling, A Story Is a Deal. The Catholic-comp kid who failed every A-level and started a school magazine called The Groover.

The phone call from Loaded where, as he puts it, you were judged on how good your first sentence was. The Oxford open day where an English tutor asked his favourite Tennessee Williams and he wondered, briefly, if it might be a brand of crisps. The great-great-uncle, Samuel Smiles, who in the mid-1800s wrote the book that named the self-help genre.

The thesis of A Story Is a Deal: the most persuasive stories say I see you. I know you. I know how to get you from there up to there. And the question James eventually puts to him — would the boy who pinned a newspaper column to his bedroom wall have had any idea this was coming? Not a chance.

Chapters

(00:00) A tiger, a hunter, a tiger

(02:00) The Catholic comp, The Groover, and the local fanzine

(05:00) Inside Loaded: judged on your first sentence

(10:00) What AI might give back to long-form

(14:00) A Story Is a Deal: hero, connection, status

(16:00) Apple, Sport Club Recife, and the architecture of persuasion

(22:00) The Status Game: virtue as the second route

(24:00) "What's your favourite Tennessee Williams?"

(27:00) Donkins, Smiles, and the comp boy at Cambridge

(36:00) Forget Scott Galloway: get good at something

(39:00) The best of masculinity

(48:00) The method, the jewels, The Five Obstructions

"I see you. I know you. And I know how to get you from there up to there." — Will Storr

Mentioned in this episode

- Will Storr, A Story Is a Deal

- Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling

- Will Storr, The Status Game

- Will Storr, Selfie

- Tom Wolfe, The New Journalism

- Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (1850s)

- George Loewenstein on the psychology of curiosity

- Apple, "Here's to the Crazy Ones"

- Sport Club Recife organ donation campaign

- Lars von Trier, The Five Obstructions (2003)

- Jørgen Leth, The Perfect Human (1967)

- John Gray, Straw Dogs

About the guest

Will Storr is a journalist and author whose books — Selfie, The Status Game, The Science of Storytelling, and most recently A Story Is a Deal — have made him one of the most forensic chroniclers of how identity, status and narrative actually work. He came up at Loaded in the late 1990s, trained in the Tom Wolfe school of long-form, and treats the architecture of a story the way an engineer treats a bridge.

Listen elsewhere

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcast

Website: https://www.storyco.site

Follow: @StoryCoPodcast

Credits

Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Will Storr. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Ryan O'Meera. Music: Doubt Point. Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London.

"I had an early midlife crisis. I ended up at a work event rearranging the downstairs of a restaurant."

Alex Wade is a lawyer, a writer, and a surfer ; in that order of discovery, maybe the reverse order of importance. Fleet Street defamation lawyer. Night lawyer at the Mirror. Head of legal affairs for Richard Desmond. White-collar boxer. Journalist at The Times and The Guardian. Author. Mont Blanc climber. Now co-CEO of Clear Draft, an AI-powered legal clearance business for publishers and broadcasters.

In this conversation, James Kirkham and Alex talk about being risk-friendly as a life strategy; what the ocean and a boxing ring have in common when it comes to telling you the truth about yourself; working for Richard Desmond on Fantasy Channel election night; the moment he sat on a bench outside a church and thought he'd ruined his life; the bedtime poem his 8-year-old daughter preferred in its AI-assisted form; and what Clear Draft is trying to fix.

StoryCo : the podcast about the business of story featuring the people who built it.

Hosted by James Kirkham. Produced by Jago Lee. A Telltale Industries production.

Alex Wade, Clear Draft, StoryCo, James Kirkham, storytelling, AI, legal clearance, surfing, boxing, reinvention

"Is there a formula for fame?" "Definitely." "Can you tell me?" "No."

PR legend Mark Borkowski has spent four decades bending media to his will: from circus stunts to celebrity crisis management, Alcopop scandals to political warfare.

Mark opens with the greatest dilemma of his career , chasing the Holy Grail or pitching Bisto gravy granules, before unravelling how spectacle, nerve, and story have driven his work from the PT Barnum era to the age of TikTok.

He explains why "idea pornography" gets people fired, how fame has collapsed from 15 minutes to 15 seconds, and why the young generation's return to lo-fi, intimate culture gives him hope.

The conversation turns sharply political: Mark dissects Trump's genius as a communicator, Starmer's inability to connect, and makes the case for Citizens Assemblies as democracy's best remaining tool. He closes with a raw reflection on losing his father at 17 and why he's never stopped looking for the next adventure.

Topics covered:

— The Holy Grail vs. Bisto: choosing adventures over accounts

— PT Barnum, elephants, and the birth of experiential PR

— Celebrity + controversy = ignition: Kanye to Bonnie Blue

— The formula for fame — and its 15-second shelf life

— Idea pornography: the stunt that wiped out an entire department

— Soul not scroll: QR codes on lampposts and lo-fi rebellion

— Social media as tobacco: addiction, doom scrolling, and regulation

— Trump vs. Starmer: a masterclass in political communication failure

— The Holocaust memorial stunt that silenced a far-right politician

— Crisis management: why every crisis is unique

— Ricky Jay, dead cats, and the magic of misdirection

— Adventure capitalism: 40 years of fierce independence

StoryCo is a podcast about the business of story and storytelling, hosted by James Kirkham.

Produced by Telltale Industries.

Recorded at TYX Studios, London.

Follow StoryCo: storyco.site | @storyco on Instagram and TikTok

Andrew Lownie spent thirty years as one of Britain's leading literary agents — establishment, discreet, well-connected. Then he started digging into the royal family, and he kept going. His new biography of the former Prince Andrew, Entitled, was called "among the most lurid ever published about a senior royal." Simon & Schuster's US imprint dropped it weeks before publication; he is suing them for breach of contract and self-published the American edition himself. In The Biographer They Tried to Silence, James Kirkham sits down with Lownie to talk about lawfare, lone-voice tenacity, and what it costs to tell a story powerful people would rather you didn't.

The Biographer They Tried to Silence is an episode of StoryCo, hosted by James Kirkham and produced by Jago Lee. Production management by Archan Mohile. Developed by Issa Gibson. Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme music by Doubtpoint. StoryCo is a Telltale Industries production.

• Host : James Kirkham
• Guest : Andrew Lownie
• Producer :Jago Lee
• Production Manager : Archan Mohile
• Development : Isa Gibson
• Theme Music : Doubtpoint
• Studio :TYX Studios, King's Cross

A Telltale Industries Production

Charlie Webster was in a coma on life support for two weeks. She had malaria and multiple organ failure. Doctors gave her 24 hours. She survived, and the story of what came before and after is unlike anything you have heard.

Charlie tells James Kirkham how a TV executive told her the boxing world was not ready for women. Two years later she became the first woman in the world to host a heavyweight world title fight.

She grew up working class in Sheffield, raised by a teenage mother, and coped with a violent home life by reading Stephen King at nine years old and writing her feelings on scraps of exercise books.

She discusses the double standards she faced as a female sports broadcaster: the sexism, the classism, the abuse. She describes being told to sit there and look pretty.

She describes campaigning against a convicted rapist returning to professional football and the rape threats she received. When she nearly died of malaria in 2016, people told her she got what she deserved.

Charlie made the BBC documentary Nowhere to Run about the running coach who sexually abused her and other girls in her athletics group. She made it to change a specific law. She succeeded. The position of trust loophole was closed. The documentary was later used in court to convict another abusive coach.

She explains how she created Scamanda, the most successful podcast of 2023: a story with no murder, built entirely on betrayal, deception and human behaviour. She describes working with 50 Cent on a podcast about the Flores twins and El Chapo, where the real story was PTSD and family loyalty, not cartel action.

Charlie reflects on what resilience actually means, why she has friction with the word, and the difference between getting back up and actually healing. She talks about AI, the future of long-form storytelling, and why she now sees herself as a conduit for other people's voices.

Chapters

1. 00:00 — Introduction
2. 01:05 — The boxing world isn't ready for women
3. 06:30 — Fear, class and the chip on her shoulder
4. 08:30 — Sheffield, Stephen King and a teenage mum
5. 11:15 — The box of scraps she kept for decades
6. 14:00 — London with no money and no contacts
7. 18:00 — Why she has friction with the word resilience
8. 22:30 — Social media and live broadcasting collide
9. 26:00 — Malaria, a coma and being told she should die
10. 29:00 — Nowhere to Run: a documentary to change the law
11. 33:15 — Story first, then format
12. 37:00 — Scamanda, 50 Cent and the Flores twins
13. 42:30 — AI and why human stories endure
14. 54:00 — What comes next

StoryCo is presented by James Kirkham. Sponsored by TYX Studios in London, with special thanks to Jack Freeguard, Panos Agamemnos, Craig Heptinstall and Thailah Newton.

Produced by Jago Lee.

Production managed by Archan Mohile.

Developed by Issa Gibson.

Theme music by Doubt Point.

A Telltale Industries Production.

A five-year-old in the back of a car repeats a phrase he heard at school without understanding what it means. His father explodes with a fury he has never shown before. The incident is never mentioned again — until John Yorke is 22 years old and finally asks. What his father tells him on that Christmas Day walk reshapes everything John later writes about the power of story, and why that power carries an "awful responsibility."

Story has never mattered more. We're drowning in noise, falsehoods, and feeds that never end and say nothing. Right in the middle of that chaos, truth is at a premium — and the people who can tell it are the ones who cut through.