Podcast
OUTCAST WORLD
Hosted by Graeme Smith · EN
Queer politics • sex • culture
Outcast World is a queer politics, sex and culture podcast hosted by multi award-winning broadcaster and podcaster Graeme Smith, alongside rotating guests and co-hosts.
Each week features an eclectic mix of guests. Journalists, comedians, academics, authors, activists and artists appear alongside queer stars from the BBC’s groundbreaking I Kissed a Boy, and familiar faces from global reality franchises including Married at First Sight and TOWIE. The show also features authors of he biggest-selling LGBTQ+ books in the world and Oscar nominated film makers.
Reactive, candid and often funny, the show unpacks politics, sexuality and culture through discussion and debate. While rooted in a queer perspective, its cultural analysis and political commentary resonate well beyond LGBTQ+ audiences.A gold winner at the British Podcast Awards and nominated for Best Interview Podcast in 2025 — alongside Louis Theroux and The News Agents — Outcast World has been recommended by The Guardian and The Independent, and was named a must-listen queer podcast by The Independent.
Get involved, watch our latest episodes and read the latest queer and gay news, politics, sex and relationships and culture on www.outcastworld.net
159episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Edinburgh Fringe Files: Comedian Kuan-Wen Huang on how Andrews are the worst...
2w ago00:46:00Tap to summarizeIn the buildup to our Edinburgh Fringe 2026 coverage we bring this uncut interview with one of the funniest Edinburgh Fringe guests we've had on the show. The Edinburgh Fringe is part of the world's biggest arts festival and is famous for up and coming comedians and performers to show their wares. Kuan Wen spoke to Graeme Smith at the last festival about doing the festival, his comedy and his feelings on the security of his country of Taiwan in the face of global uncertainties. Kuan-Wen talks about how in his dating experience... ANDREWS ARE THE WORST! In an interview that had us crying laughing that we're bringing to you uncut.
Transcribe →
ATTITUDE COVER STAR CARL CASHMAN: 80 PERCENT OF LIB DEMS ARE GAY!
3w ago00:32:47Tap to summarizeRecorded for the BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! podcast at a MEETS event in January 2026, this conversation with Liberal Democrat politician Carl Cashman looked ahead to what might happen during a turbulent year in British and international politics. Several months later, it turns out they got a fair few things right. Carl joins Graeme Smith for a candid conversation about whether queer voters should give the Liberal Democrats another chance — and whether the party could once again find itself holding the balance of power. He faces questions about the coalition years, broken promises over tuition fees and why so many voters still feel burned by the Lib Dems’ time in government. Carl also sets out the red lines he would want from any future coalition, including protections for LGBTQ+ and trans people and opposition to further welfare cuts. There is plenty of political gossip too. Carl argues that the Labour government is not genuinely progressive, questions whether Andy Burnham is becoming an opportunist and considers whether Burnham could eventually replace Keir Starmer. The conversation also takes in the rise of the Greens, wealth taxes, immigration, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Brexit and what defending LGBTQ+ rights should actually look like in British foreign policy. And is it really true that 80% of Liberal Democrat members are LGBTQ+? Subscribe to Outcast World for more queer politics, sex and culture.
Transcribe →
Will it be more of the same from Burnham?
Jun 2500:16:38Tap to summarizeOn a raft of issues it's becoming clear that a change in the man at number 10 for the UK may not bring the change in policies and direction many had hoped for, despite Andy Burnham's victory over Reform at the Battle Of Makerfield! Yes its great to see Reform on the run and the rise of a new left leaning politician. But will Burnham bring a fresh approach on the most pressing issues of our times. Or will be be another centre left disappointment? The London heatwave has meant Graeme has to host from his living room and not the studio today. But Nick Charles is in the studio in Manchester linking up to talk about his Burnham worries and carry the show for G who is almost demoted to a guest for today on a laptop!
Transcribe →
Tip Toe Star Gabriel Clark: Live in the gallery
Jun 2300:52:17Tap to summarizeGabriel Clark joins Outcast World for a candid conversation recorded live at the BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Gallery in London and originally featured on The BOYS! BOYS! BOYS! Podcast. Best known for his work on Hollyoaks and as one of the stars of Russell T Davies' highly anticipated new queer TV drama Tip Toe, Gabriel reflects on growing up in Bolton in an artistic family, finding his place as a young queer person, and navigating fame after landing a major TV role during the pandemic. The conversation explores everything from queer visibility in the entertainment industry to the importance of speaking out on issues that matter. Gabriel discusses why he chooses to use his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, trans rights and Palestine, despite the risks that can come with public activism in the media spotlight. He also opens up about starring in the provocative theatre production Jock Night, which tackles chemsex, shame, addiction and queer identity. Gabriel explains why the play sparked such important conversations within LGBTQ+ communities and how it changed his understanding of Manchester's queer scene and the challenges facing many gay men today. The discussion then turns to The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me, the acclaimed HIV-era play Gabriel recently performed in Manchester. Together, Graeme and Gabriel reflect on the legacy of HIV activism, the progress that has been made since the 1990s, and why many of the themes explored in the play still feel remarkably relevant in 2026. Finally, Gabriel shares what audiences can expect from Tip Toe, Russell T Davies' new five-part drama set around Manchester's Canal Street. Without giving away spoilers, he describes the series as funny, heartbreaking, sexy, political and full of humanity, while offering a glimpse behind the scenes of one of the most talked-about LGBTQ+ television projects of the year. A thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation about queer storytelling, activism, community, HIV history, chemsex, visibility, and the future of LGBTQ+ culture. Subscribe to Outcast World for more conversations exploring queer politics, sex and culture. #GabrielClark #TipToe #RussellTDavies #OutcastWorld #LGBTQ #QueerCulture #CanalStreet #Manchester #Chemsex #HIV #BoysBoysBoys #Channel4 #QueerTV #LGBTQPodcast
Transcribe →
Is The Party Over, Andy?
Jun 1900:30:36Tap to summarizeAndy Burnham, the King of the North, just won Makerfield in a landslide. He's back in Parliament, he's coming for Keir Starmer's job, and the whole country is asking the same question: is this the moment British politics finally changes? We check the lay of the land right now - do you think things can only get better? Are we doomed to disappointment again? Or has he pulled off an incredible feat - united the left and fractured the right? But what if the problem runs deeper than which leader is standing at the despatch box? Metin Pekin thinks so. His book Breaking Democracy's Chains argues that it doesn't matter who wins, who loses, or who challenges whom for the Labour leadership, because the party system itself is the mechanism that keeps real power out of reach. Not just for working people. For minorities. For queer communities who have spent decades depending on whichever party happens to be sympathetic this week. What replaced the parties when Section 28 was repealed? Who fights for trans rights when there's no whip to call in? Where does organised resistance live when you've dismantled the scaffolding? This is the conversation British politics needs to be having today. Not who leads Labour. But whether the whole game is rigged from the start.
Transcribe →
The Fox News Regular Who Sells Paid Protesters
Jun 1500:37:45Tap to summarizeA Fox News regular runs a company that sells paid protesters to the highest bidder. We sat him down and asked about the bodies, the lawsuits, and the crowds he says he can manufacture for anyone willing to pay. Adam Swart is the founder of Crowds on Demand, a Beverly Hills firm that supplies actors and paid demonstrators for protests, hearings and PR stunts. He has spent the past year on Fox News, Newsmax and OANN telling conservative audiences that the protests against Donald Trump are organised, funded and fake. The catch is that manufacturing protest for money is, by his own account, the entire business. This drops the morning after Trump turned his 80th birthday into a cage fight on the White House lawn, while millions took to the streets in a fresh round of No Kings protests. So we dug into the real history of Crowds on Demand: paid actors posing as Hurricane Katrina survivors at a council hearing, a federal racketeering lawsuit settled with a published apology, a recruitment drive for people hired purely to intimidate, and an unverifiable claim that someone once offered Swart millions to fake an anti-Trump crowd. It is not a hit job. He comes with some genuinely interesting anecdotes, including work his company says it did for people who use PrEP, and the conversation finds real common ground before it asks the harder questions his usual bookers never do. Outcast World is an independent, queer, left-leaning interview show. Broadcasting that does not pull its punches. Subscribe and stick around.
Transcribe →
The young gay men jailed for consensual sex in a private home. Using a law from 1533. In 1998.
Jun 1100:38:26Tap to summarizeIn 1998, eight months into Tony Blair's government, seven gay and bisexual working-class men from Bolton were convicted at Crown Court of buggery and gross indecency for having consensual sex together in a private home. No victim. No complaint. Some went to prison. All were placed on the sex offenders register. The laws used against them dated back to 1895, and in one case to 1533. Greater Manchester Police, the same force that prosecuted Alan Turing, pursued this case with a fervour no other police force in the country was matching at the time. Almost nobody knows this happened. Hugh Sheehan is the writer and audio producer behind Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7, the five-part BBC Sounds documentary series that spent years in the making and is referenced in Russell T Davies' Channel 4 drama Tip Toe, starring Alan Cumming as a gay bar owner in Manchester's Gay Village. Davies made Tip Toe because, in his words, the fight is back on. He's right. And the Bolton Seven are a significant part of why. In this episode of Outcast World, Graeme and Hugh cover the full story: the centuries-old laws that remained quietly on the books after partial decriminalisation in 1967, the two-man rule that made consensual group sex a criminal act regardless of what straight people were doing, the class dimension that meant working-class men from Bolton had no legal defences that a wealthier man in a privately owned home might have had, and the Chief Constable whose fundamentalist homophobia had shaped Greater Manchester Police for over a decade before the Bolton Seven were ever arrested. Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 is available on BBC Sounds, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
Transcribe →
Gay MAFS Star "I Was Drunk For Most Of The Show – And The Format Is Dangerous!"
Jun 800:19:57Tap to summarizeAs a wave of safeguarding scandals hits the Married At First Sight (MAFS) shows around the world and the former head of Channel 4 and OFCOM says he would never have commissioned a show this potentially hazardous for participants we ask is this a good moment to call time on the controversial reality series. Former MAFS UK star, Liverpudlian Thomas Hartley returns to Outcast World a different man from the one who last sat in our studio. As Married at First Sight UK brings one of the biggest scandals to TV in years, he gives us the rarest thing in the whole story, the view from inside the format. Back in 2022 he was going viral for his antics on the show's 10th season, but now he says he was out of control at the time and was drunk for most of the recording. He is unsparing about ten years of daily addiction and the queer pain underneath it, but generous about the welfare team who looked after him, and unflinching that the format itself is dangerous and should be redrawn by the very people who have lived it. CONTEXT: A BBC Panorama investigation set out allegations from former contributors that two women were raped by their on-screen husbands during filming, and that a third was subjected to a non-consensual sex act. The men deny the allegations, and the Metropolitan Police have asked anyone affected to come forward. Channel 4 has pulled every episode and a major sponsor has walked, and the regulator is reviewing the broadcaster's own welfare report. Thomas is neither an accuser nor one of the accused, and throughout this conversation he is speaking only about his own experience. Other contributors, and the reporting around the show, have described aspects of the production, including alcohol, differently to Thomas. If anything in this episode affects you. For drugs and alcohol, Talk to Frank, 0300 123 6600. For emotional distress, Samaritans, 116 123, free and round the clock. For sexual violence, the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, 0808 500 2222. Outcast World is an award winning platform for queer politics, sex and culture. Subscribe for the full conversations and the weekly drop. Listen everywhere you get your podcasts and read more at outcastworld.net Follow us on TikTok @thisisoutcastworld #ThomasHartley #MarriedAtFirstSight #MAFS #MAFSUK #OutcastWorld #Sobriety #LiverpoolPride #RealityTV #QueerPodcast #DutyOfCare
Transcribe →
"Now I Tiptoe... Just In Case" | Why Tiptoe Has Hit So Hard
Jun 300:41:34Tap to summarizeRussell T Davies is back with Tiptoe and it has left viewers shaken. In this episode of Outcast World, Graeme Smith and Topher Taylor unpack the first two episodes of Channel 4's most talked-about new queer drama and ask why it feels less like fiction and more like a warning. From the brutal opening scene to Melba's now-viral speech about queer life in 2026, the conversation explores whether LGBTQ+ people are witnessing a genuine backlash after decades of progress. Has the optimism of the Queer as Folk era been replaced by fear? Are queer people becoming political targets once again? And what happens when online hate starts spilling into the real world? Graeme and Topher discuss the rise of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, attacks on queer spaces, social media radicalisation, Reform UK, Donald Trump, trans rights, community resilience and the uncomfortable feeling that many rights once considered secure may no longer be guaranteed. The episode also features the debut of "Topher's Slag Bag" as listeners send in questions about sex, relationships, toys, threesomes and navigating intimacy. A funny, emotional and sometimes unsettling conversation about queer life, community, sex and politics in 2026. In this episode: • Russell T Davies' Tiptoe and its cultural impact • The legacy of Queer as Folk • LGBTQ+ rights and political backlash • Reform UK, Trump and the rise of reactionary politics • Canal Street, queer spaces and community • Social media radicalisation and online hate • HIV, memory and generational trauma • Topher's Slag Bag: sex toys, anal prep and threesomes Outcast World is the global queer group chat — covering LGBTQ+ news, politics, sex and culture from London around the world. Featuring: Graeme Smith and Topher Taylor. #LGBTQ #Tiptoe #RussellTDavies #QueerAsFolk #GayPodcast #OutcastWorld #LGBTQRights #CanalStreet #QueerCulture #DonaldTrump #ReformUK #GayLife #QueerPolitics #Channel4
Transcribe →
Who Really Owns Hoopla?
Jun 100:22:57Tap to summarizeAfter Mighty Hoopla ends for another year, we follow the money... Her off of Loose Women was there. So was Jane McDonald. And so, four ownership layers up, were the financiers. Graeme is joined by Loud Brown Gays host and Outcast alumnus Nick Charles to talk about the contradiction at the heart of the best weekend of the queer calendar. Mighty Hoopla is owned by Superstruct, owned in turn by the US private equity giant KKR, a firm that backs weapons manufacturers and holds stakes in Israeli corporations tied to the occupation. We waved Free Palestine flags at a festival whose money flows straight up to it. This is not a call to boycott and it is not a pile-on. It's a confession, because we were all there, and an honest look at why our anger lands on the rainbow logo while the people with the actual power stay invisible. Plus: queer club night DILF was deleted from Instagram overnight. Who will be silenced next? #OutcastWorld #MightyHoopla #QueerNightlife #LGBTQ #Palestine
Transcribe →