It Is What It Is with Raven Smith

It sends the nation to a halt faster than a cen­time­tre of snow in Decem­ber (and divides the nation more than a jar of Mar­mite). We’re talk­ing about Love Island: the ITV2 real­i­ty show that sees a group of fit, half-naked peo­ple find­ing love. On an island (nat­u­ral­ly).Whether you like it or not, it feels like all any­one can talk about at the moment. Why? Well, mind­less voyeurism for one. But also because it’s just Prop­er Good Tel­ly. A chance to see all man­ner of rela­tion­ships and inter­ac­tions laid bare on the small screen. A great anthro­po­log­i­cal exper­i­ment you can watch with a brew and a bacon but­ty. Script­ed by Shake­speare. Dressed by Nasty Gal.Still, we have ques­tions. And while After­sun, the Love Island com­pan­ion show, gives us some­what of an overview, what we need is some­one who’ll unpack the meat in full force. A per­son unafraid to lay on the big ques­tions fac­tor 50 thick.For our final fifth episode (boo!), Raven Smith has enlist­ed the help of ser­i­al dater Amelia Dimold­en­berg. She’s tak­en a fair few of the UK’s biggest music acts on dates – to chick­en shops – so we’d like to think she knows a thing or two about the rocky path to true love. They’ll be round­ing up Love Island 2019, dis­cussing the con­tes­tants in the – gasp! – real world, the bril­liance of Amber and Greg win­ning in the shock turn-of-events and… Chris Hemsworth. Enjoy!

Episode 4 welcomes guest and queer heartthrob Olly Alexander, also lead singer of Years & Years. While he’s known for singing a catchy tune or two, he’s also a fierce advocate for LGBT+ rights, as well as promoting safer sex and HIV screenings. Definitely sounds like our type on paper. Each episode has been record­ed at Sound Stu­dio at The Stan­dard, London

For our third episode, host Raven Smith has enlisted the help of Tolly Shoneye, one third of the brains behind The Receipts: a hilarious, straight-up podcast offering advice on questions such as: “How do I turn my boyfriend into a husband?”. Perfect for this podcast, then. Crack on for yourself above.

Joining our host Raven Smith this week is Joel Golby – author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant (we think it’s brilliant) and among one of the most-read contributors at Vice, having been the brainchild behind London Rental Opportunity of the Week. Known for his sharp wit and dark sense of humour, Russell Brand described him as a “little bastard”. Expect offence.

It sends the nation to a halt faster than a cen­time­tre of snow in Decem­ber (and divides the nation more than a jar of Mar­mite). We’re talk­ing about Love Island: the ITV2 real­i­ty show that sees a group of fit, half-naked peo­ple find­ing love. On an island (nat­u­ral­ly).Script­ed by Shake­speare. Dressed by Nasty Gal.Still, we have ques­tions. And while After­sun, the Love Island com­pan­ion show, gives us some­what of an overview, what we need is some­one who’ll unpack the meat in full force. A per­son unafraid to lay on the big ques­tions fac­tor 50 thick. Cue the host of our new Love Island pod­cast: Raven Smith. Instagram’s answer to US Week­ly with an opin­ion on all things pop cul­ture. Raven will be joined for the first episode by the hilar­i­ous writer and direc­tor Chris Sweeney, direc­tor of BBC’s acclaimed Back To Life and also co-founder of the award-win­ning pod­cast Homosapi­ens.Sounds like our type on paper, we must say. Crack on for yourself.