Second such programme for Radio 4

Sarah Millican is to host a female-led panel show for Radio 4.

Elephant In The Room uses national surveys to establish which of its guest panel is closest to – and furthest from – the average British person.

Recording early summer to air late June, guests for the seven-episode series are still to be announced. But according to Millican, they will confound typical panel show ratios by being comprised of 'three champion women and one smashing male'.

Elephant In The Room's commission –  following a successful 2017 pilot – makes it the second Radio 4 panel show with a predominantly female-led line-up after the topical quiz Where's The F in News, hosted by Have I Got News For You producer Jo Bunting.

Inspired by the experience of running her women's magazine-turned-podcast Standard Issue, Millican says that her work now 'always [has] an undercurrent of lifting women up because there's so much in general media of slapping women down.'

Elephant In The Room is 'the opposite of what all panel shows are' she added.

Speaking to Australian comic Wil Anderson on his podcast, Millican said: 'Panel shows in the UK now have to have a quota, they now have to have one woman on. And everybody knows there's a quota, that should never have been made public. So now that woman is vilified. People are like, "well, she's only there because she's ticking the box", when she's probably there because she's fucking great.

'What I like to do is encourage tiny little industries of women so that I have just a nice place where I'm surrounded by awesome women. But also, it's not pulling up the ladder behind you.'

Millican is performing her stand-up show Control Enthusiast in Copenhagen tonight, and will be appearing at Birmingham's Podfest on March 24 to record an episode of Standard Issue and to guest on panel show Do The Right Thing.

Podfest also features Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, Stuart Goldsmith's Comedian's Comedian, No Such Thing As A Fish, Scummy Mummies and Sofie Hagen and Jodie Mitchell's Secret Dinosaur Cult.

- by Jay Richardson

Published: 12 Mar 2019