Ian Boldsworth up for two awards

Ian Boldsworth has been nominated for two podcast awards.

He is up for the ‘digital champion’ award from mental health charity Mind for The Mental Podcast, which he released late last year.

And The Parapod – in which he investigates supposedly supernatural phenomena with believer and fellow comic Barry Dodds –  has been shortlisted for an Ockham Award by Skeptic magazine. 

Boldsworth said: ‘I’ve wanted to get nominated for an Ockham Award SO much for the simple reason that it recognises that a podcast that was an argument between a sceptic and a believer was officially won by the sceptic – as it’s now recognised for excellence in critical thinking rather than bollocks.  

‘The bollocks is the funniest part of the podcast of course, but I am as delighted as Dodds is gutted. I keep checking our emails but am yet to find our nomination for an award in excellence in proving ghosts are real because there isn’t one because they aren’t.’

The Ockham awards – named after Ockham’s Razor, that the simplest explanation is usually the most accurate –  are announced next month.

Boldsworth and Dodds are currently working on a feature-length film of their adventures. 

Meanwhile, in nominating Boldsworth for its digital champion award, Mind said: ‘After addressing mental health issues in his stand-up tour and in several interviews, Ian created The Mental Podcast. The series deals with deeply personal accounts from Ian regarding his mental health, alongside interviews with friends.’

Boldsworth, who formerly performed under the name Ray Peacock, said: ‘It’s a nice thing to be nominated in these awards, as I get so many emails saying how it has helped people – and you can’t make them public when the comedian show-off part of you wants to go "Look how impressive I am, look at all these people I have saved!"

‘Getting nominated in this is has meant that somebody else is showing off for me.  I am genuinely proud of the podcast as a thing, it was a living hell to put together - I can’t begin to explain how stressful it was, in both logistics and being detrimental to my own head, but I think it’s a properly positive piece of work that pulls no punches which came out of something really rather horrendous.’

Other nominees in other categories include Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, starring comedian Dave Johns, which is up for the film award; and Cold Feet, which is shortlisted in the drama category for the storyline involving John Thomson’s character Pete and his struggle with depression 

Winners will be announced at a ceremony hosted by Fearne Cotton in London on November 13.

Published: 22 Sep 2017