Hello, good evening and welcome, it’s time for us to have a lovely time. Alex Horne and his merry band of multi-instrumentalists that make up the Horne Section have decided to release a regular podcast (for free) and it always guarantees laughs with each new episode. Well-known special guest audiences of one are invited into the Horne Section’s recording studio to giggle away as Alex bamboozles them with his baffling blend of slightly surreal one-liners and charming wit.
Alex Horne is probably most well known these days for being the guy sat next to Greg Davies on Dave’s highly successful comedy series Taskmaster – and less known for the fact he is the creator and brains behind the programme. But before Taskmaster made it to air, he fronted the musical-comedy band the Horne Section for live shows and brought the skit successfully to BBC radio.
However, that was some years ago now, so when The Horne Section Podcast popped up on Deezer last year, it was a genuine delight. Regular faces (or voices) on podcasts appeared in the first series, such as Richard Osman, Adam Buxton and Tim Key, as well as less familiar voices of people like David Arnold (who seemed to be having the time of his life conducting the Horne Section), Jessie Ware and Rick Edwards. The seemingly improv format allowed for this controlled chaos to occur, resulting in some truly hilarious moments.
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Now back for its second series – and employing a Patreon system, no longer associated with Deezer – the show hit full stride pretty early on with the likes of Liza Tarbuck, Andy Zaltzman, John Kearns, Jess Robinson and Jon Robins all joining the troupe in their basement studio. And not forgetting the podcast dog, of course.
The appearance of chaos is very cleverly constructed by Alex Horne – even when it seems like things could veer off the track, there’s never any danger that Horne (as host) is not completely in control of what’s going on at any point. His dry delivery means there are plenty of one-liners and his acerbic wit is always done in good nature with the guests. The regular games he plays on his episodes, like who can sing ‘Saab’ for the longest, or getting guests to stop playing an instrument when they have not done ‘a thing’, are genius.
But inevitably it is the songs that really make this podcast special. The Section are incredibly talented musicians and who have a knack for writing super-catchy songs in an unbelievably varied range of styles. Fan favourite ‘thick and creamy, that’s how I like my milk’ is a recurring joke but if you hear it once (or if you already know the song and you’ve just read the line) then it’s going to be stuck in your head for days. Series 2 may not have quite hit the heights of the first yet, but it still shoots straight to the top of the podcast playlist whenever a new episode is published,