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Cast Spotlight: The DesignSpark Podcast

Our brand new comedy series about technology, The DesignSpark Podcast, will be released on Monday 20th May across all of your favourite platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and Podbean.

We have reunited the cast and crew behind our 5-star-rated debut podcast series, History Makers, which reached a high of number 4 in the iTunes Tech Chart.

To celebrate we have decided to put a spotlight on those amazing people who are going to be bringing some TechLOLogy into your life and help you to put a face to the voice when you’re listening.

The Cast

The terrific trio is back!

Dr Lucy Rogers

Edited013_f6c6daf5b698c51beb5ccf77177ebec21d1ce2db.jpgThose of you who are regular DesignSparkers will know Dr Lucy. The former Robot Wars judge often shares her projects and work through her blogs with the community. In fact, you can visit her profile and read them all by clicking here.

Lucy, who founded the Guild of Makers, is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and a member of the Association of British Science Writers. She also has a City and Guilds in Woodturning.

She prides herself on looking at things from a different angle, using this skill to transform simple electronics into cool gadgets, science into plain English and problems into opportunities.

Lucy is our resident tech expert, super-inventor and fun guru, making her the perfect person to chair The DesignSpark Podcast. She certainly has her work cut out to keep her hyperactive and excitable children co-hosts under control!

The big question is, will she be able to smuggle through a fact or two amongst all of the gags?  

FOLLOW @DRLUCYROGERS ON TWITTER

Bec Hill 

Edited220_84370f5c92b438933dcc7f9154e9ec9b63339c8b.jpgAustralian-born Bec has gained a cult following in Australia, the UK and Ireland thanks to her award-winning solo shows, Twitter presence and popular YouTube videos. She has a talent for incorporating arts and crafts into her stand-up routines, creating a unique and unforgettable comedy style that she calls “paper-puppetry”.

Bec can be found as a guest on the 2nd series of "Dara O'Briain's Go 8 Bit", a judge on "Sam & Mark's Big Friday Wind-Up", and the voice of several characters in "Mass Effect: Andromeda". She also appeared in several series of CBBC's “The Dog Ate My Homework”, and starred in the Sundance UK Grand Jury Prize-winning short film "Russian Roulette".

Her one-liners regularly feature in "best joke" lists by "reputable" sources like The Telegraph, Dave, The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Record and Buzzfeed, which isn't surprising, as she is the creator of the UK’s only pun-based comedy night, Pun Run. She has also written for The Amazing World of Gumball, Bluestone 42, Dilemma, The Now Show and her first short animation directorial debut, "Scoring Pointes" aired with Disney in 2016.

She is also one half of the award-winning, critically-acclaimed family comedy double-act, Bec & Tom.

Bec is one of the sharpest, smartest and most inventive comedians we know. Which is why we asked her to give us her BIG IDEA™ in each episode of The DesignSpark Podcast! What could possibly go wrong?

FOLLOW @BECHILLCOMEDIAN ON TWITTER

Harriet Braine

Edited109_e54b5ec5e5d5eddf07aa5090ec8c3c20d8391196.jpgHarriet Braine is a musical comedian, who dedicates a remarkably large portion of her oeuvre to Art History.

After winning Best Newcomer at the 2016 Musical Comedy Awards, she started gigging around London and the South East and has played at venues as diverse as Up The Creek, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Brighton Komedia, and that building that looks like a cheese grater. She reached the final of Gilded Balloon’s So You Think You’re Funny? competition, and was crowned the winner of the Funny Women Stage Award 2016. 

Harriet was listed as one of Culture Trip’s 11 up-and-coming comedians to see in London Spring 2017 “Her range of impressions have hit home all over London” (Culture Trip).

2017 saw Harriet debut at the Edinburgh Fringe with her superbly titled show ‘Total Eclipse of the Art’. The show sold out every day and Harriet made numerous appearances at the BBC Tent including an interview with Jonathan Ross for his BBC Radio 2 ‘The Arts Show’. 

As a talented musical comedian AND real-life history buff she’s perfectly placed to bring the past to life through the power of song!  But will we ever let her use our time machine in The DesignSpark Podcast?

FOLLOW @HARRIETBRAINE ON TWITTER

The Writers 

The majority of the show was written by our terrific trio, but we also had some help from a crack team of writers.

Dan Page

Dan produced the show and helped write and edit the scripts. His attention to detail and witty humour is infectious! The Sitcom Mission 2018 finalist and SRA award winner has ensured that The DesignSpark Podcast is a blend of comedy gold, building on his debut podcast History Makers. 

Liam Beirne

Liam has written for more BBC shows than I can count, and I can almost count up to eleven-teen!  Does this mean he’s some form of super artificial intelligence powered by big data?   Probably. Find out for sure by listening to his sketches in Episodes 1 and 4!

Catherine Brinkworth

Catherine is currently one of the two BBC comedy writing bursary holders, making her one of the funniest new writers in the UK. You’ll laugh so hard you’ll need medical attention after hearing her sketch in Episode 2!

Stu Cooper and Kate Hinksman

Stu and Kate must see the world from a funny perspective, having worked on BBC shows including Newsjack, Breaking the News and Class DIsmissed. Here’s hoping we get to see their ‘point of view’ in their sketch in Episode 3.

Stephen Mawhinney

Stephen is a speedy writer who’s been nominated for a BBC Audio Drama award and written on no less than six BBC comedy shows.  Let’s hope his sketch isn’t too fast for us in Episode 5.

Tai Campbell

Tai is a multi-talented writer, director, comedian, actor, improviser and impressionist, who’s worked with Stormzy and had material on BBC Three. Which means his sketch for us in Episode 6 will probably be out of this world.

The Crew

Would any of this have been possible without the behind the scenes team?  Yes! But it wouldn’t sound anywhere near as good…

Andy Partington

Andy is the head honcho at Swift Pro Audio and our audio engineer for the show, meaning he’s a really sound guy. As in he’s really a sound guy.  As in he did the sound. Is this thing on? Yes! Cos Andy is really good at his job. Listen to his handiwork in the whole of Series 2 and then book him for your podcast!  

Becky Singh

Becky is a hugely talented multi-platform comedy professional with loads of experience, so we were thrilled when she agreed to be our Creative Consultant for Series 2!  She’s currently busy as Awards Director for funnywomen but might just be able to fit you in if you need help developing your comedy ideas!

Stu Cooper

Stu gets a double mention because not only did he write for us, but he was also the Script Editor! You can catch his work on most episodes of the past 8 series of BBC’s Breaking the News and the award-winning Damn the Torpedoes for BFBS.

Rosemary Branch Theatre

A big thanks also to the team at Rosemary Branch Theatre for making us and everybody in attendance feel so welcome for the live recordings of this series.

Subscribe and Listen

The DesignSpark Podcast consists of six episodes, which will be released each Monday from 20th May 2019. 

You can subscribe at the links below to ensure that you never miss an episode. 

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Podbean

Stitcher 

Player.FM

YouTube 

DesignSpark 

RS DesignSpark is the go-to platform for students, makers, hobbyists and professional design engineers, providing design resources such as the award winning DesignSpark PCB and DesignSpark Mechanical CAD software. Join the community today at https://www.rs-online.com/designspark/register
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