Ian Hawkins bids farewell to the podcast phenomenon

It has been announced that the hit podcast, My Dad Wrote A Porno, would be ending. After seven years, six series,  numerous Christmas editions and sell-out world tours, the cultural phenomenon that saw supermarket shelves stripped of Chilean Chardonnay and pomegranates on Mondays for #pornonight will climax with three final episodes.

MDWAP is a line-by-line reading of a series of erotic novellas, Belinda Blinked, which sees the titular heroine criss-cross the globe in unlikely sexual escapades while dispensing business wisdom as she battles a rival firm over the intellectual property rights of a range of cookware. No, really. 

Each week, the author’s son Jamie Morton reads out a chapter of the book to friends and co-hosts Alice Levine and James Cooper who pull the prose apart like a catty creative writing group. From punctuation to gynaecology, Belinda Blinked is revealed to be a bad book, brilliantly told. 

MDWAP could have been precision engineered as the perfect podcast: landing just as podcasting became mainstream, the subject matter was too explicit for broadcast, yet handled with an innocence that crossed generations and made it the sort of grown-up family listening you could laugh along with in mixed company. 

In the #MeToo age, the troublesome male gaze of the Boomer author is skilfully diffused by being read by his son and commented on by a straight woman and a gay man. Questionable sexual politics are mocked before they have an opportunity to land. 

Word-of-mouth grew a fan base of ‘Belinkers’, drawn in by the promise of NSFW smut and kept hooked by the hilariously poorly written shenanigans of the broadly-painted characters. It felt naughty, but if this is the bluest thing you’ve found online, you’re using the internet wrong. 

There was always more going on behind the scenes than the creators - all of whom have careers in the media - let on: with celebrity guests including Elijah Wood, Emma Thompson and Lin-Manuel Miranda, it was clear that someone somewhere had a contact book and wasn’t afraid to use it. Morton, who edits the show, is skilful in constructing an episode and focusing the funny.

Clearly unforced, and the reason for the show’s enduring appeal, is the chemistry between the hosts. Often sliding off-topic into embarrassing stories from their younger days and sexual (in)experiences that often reduces all three to helpless laughter, each episode places the listener at the kitchen table where it is recorded, dragging them willingly into the shared joke.

The shows themselves bear repeat listening, not least because so much of what is said is so unbelievable you need to check you heard it right. Morton’s reading captures the ick of thinking about his father’s inner erotic landscape, while trying to create voices for an ever-increasing cast list. Levine hilariously exposes the lack of understanding of female anatomy while Cooper affects bafflement at the darned things that straight people do. 

Much like the other podcast stalwart, Answer Me This!, MDWAP has felt like a joyful weekly check-in with smart, funny friends. At the team’s sold-out Royal Albert Hall show, the mood among the audience of Belinkers was not so much adulation as pride that their mates had done so well. 

It is, however, time to go. The early embarrassment of the host has faded, taking a key joke with it. The joy of the early books’ artless mash up of erotic fiction, corporate espionage thriller and business how-to guide could not last: as the show progressed, this listener began to wonder how much was written (badly) to order. A major espionage story arc spanned several series, overtaking the erotic and, once ended, left a sense of ‘what now?’ lurking in recent episodes. 

But by ending now, after a worldwide success of 340 million downloads, the show bows out on a higher note than Game of Thrones managed. Raise your Steele’s Pots and Pans mug of Chilean Chardonnay to the Glee Team: Belinda, Rocky Flintstone and the cast of My Dad Wrote A Porno. 

• The final episodes of My Dad Wrote A Porno will be released on Mondays November 28 an  December 5 and 21. This final episode will include an interview with the author of the Belinda Blinked book series, Rocky Flintstone. To listen to the show, click here.

Published: 14 Nov 2022