Every week Abbie Chatfield jumps behind the mic for the Nova podcast It’s A Lot, where she chats everything from politics and mental health issues to bad dating stories and sex tips.
Mediaweek spoke to Chatfield about making the podcast, her favourite guests, and what the future looks like.
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Chatfield says that the longer the podcast has gone on, the easier it’s been for her to let go.
“Making the podcast now is a much easier and natural process. When I first started making it I wanted to be perfect – I still obviously want it to be incredible, but I had a lot of pressure on myself to make every single aspect really perfect when the whole point of it was to be conversational. It’s a very important part of my life now, and it’s so much part of my routine. I love it so much for getting my thoughts and ideas out there, I’m very grateful for it.”
Podcast Guests
Throughout the run of It’s A Lot, Chatfield has guests from all walks of life join her. There are two standout episodes
“I did an episode with these two women from Sydney, Glo who is a musician and Sunny Adcock who has her own podcast. They’re both black women, and that was during the peak of the Black Lives Matter movement last year. I learned so much from that episode, I think it’s one of my favourite ones for sure.
“I think one of the most fun people I’ve had on would be Elouise Eftos who I had on really recently, she’s a comedian. They’re probably the standout guests that I’ve had.”
It’s not just the guests that are involved with the podcast, with the audience reaching taking part in the discussions online, and reaching out to submit their own topics (or Nightmare Fuel) to the pod. Chatfield says she’s thrilled to have such an engaged audience.
“Oh my God, it’s the best! When they repost stories saying ‘I love this podcast’ it’s so validating. When you’re recording a podcast you’re just in a room with a producer talking into a mic, then you leave, and you kind of forget that you’ve done it. Then it gets uploaded and it’s out in the world. To get actual humans listening, it’s really great. I love how involved they are with suggestions for podcast topics, getting engaged in conversations, even about things like The Bachelor. I think it’s a really incredible little community that we have.”
Looking Ahead
With live shows largely unable to go ahead because of lockdowns at the moment, Chatfield is looking ahead to the day when she can take It’s A Lot to the stage.
“We definitely are going to do some live shows and tours. I actually was part of a podcast festival in July – which obviously didn’t end up happening. Definitely live shows, but that’s all for now.
“It’s doing really well getting on interesting people, but I only get on people that I really want to have on, I don’t have guests on for the sake of it. So I guess we’ll see. It is hard to plan ahead at the moment, but I think the main thing is doing live shows.”