Shows / Garlic & Pearls
Garlic & Pearls
Suzanne and Muriel examine a series of very different things – from a film to a kitchen utensil, a model train to a bar of soap – that define British or French attitudes, each explaining her cultural background to the other and trying to get to the essence of what makes the British British and the French French.
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Episodes
Garlic & PearlsThe Ghost Stories of MR James: All aboard the British uncanny!
The dark is rising, and Suzanne is on hand to make the back of your neck prickle with the creepy, poetic and quintessentially British ghost stories of Montague…
Garlic & PearlsThe boudoir: sulking room, private retreat, haven of frolics?
Things get rather raffish and French as Muriel entices Suzanne into that most Gallic of spaces - the boudoir - and tells her everything she ever wanted to know…
Garlic & PearlsThe Scarlet Pimpernel: The very first and quintessentially British masked superhero.
They seek him here; they seek him there... Suzanne gives Muriel a riveting rendering of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Hungarian émigrée Baroness Orczy's colourful and…
Garlic & PearlsToile de Jouy: A Tale of Printed Fabric, Savoir-Faire and Storytelling
Muriel tells Suzanne the story of the printed cotton or linen known as toile de Jouy, generally printed in a single colour on a neutral background and created…
Garlic & PearlsLiterary Dystopia: A Very British Response to Social Change
Suzanne explores dystopia, one of the most significant sub-genres of the British novel, where trouble often starts with the breakdown of the monarchy and…
Garlic & PearlsDe Gaulle: Resistance: How good is the French blockbuster about De Gaulle's time in London during the war?
Muriel and Suzanne discuss a new French film set during the years 1940-41, a pivotal time in the history of France and Britain, as General de Gaulle, powered…
Garlic & PearlsThe Beaufort Scale: The Poetic British Way of Measuring What Happens at Sea
Suzanne enlightens Muriel about the Beaufort Scale and explores the remarkable story of its creator, hydrographer Francis Beaufort, who went to sea as a boy…
Garlic & PearlsCamus’s L’Etranger: literature, murder and Absurdism in a French colony
Camus’s terse 1942 novel about an enigmatic killing won the Nobel prize for Literature in 1957. It is entrenched as a French literary classic and as a gateway…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Ginger Beer
Lashings of ginger beer all around and nostalgia galore as Suzanne explains the refreshing drink's quasi-parodic Famous Fives connection and unpicks the…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Bonjour Tristesse
Muriel faces up to the melancholy that comes to us all towards the end of summer, and find a Gallic expression of it in the 1954 novel Bonjour Tristesse, a…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Summer Pudding
Suzanne presents Muriel with the magnificent dome of scarlet studded with berries that is summer pudding and reveals the dessert's intriguing origins, which…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Melons
What is the quintessential French summer food? Melon, of course, of the orange-fleshed and deeply aromatic variety. In the summer, Muriel explains, the French…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Ice Cream Vans
Can you hear the clarion call of a tinny version of 'Green Sleeves'? That familiar cheery chime is calling us to the ice cream van, plying its way all over the…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Topless Sunbathing
The golden age of topless sunbathing in France lasted a little over a decade, from the 1970s to the tail end of the 1980s. French women pioneered it and were…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Scampi Fries
Another case of Suzanne pinpointing the essence of Britain; another first-time taste experience for Muriel! What are scampi fries but fish and chips, pubs and…
Garlic & PearlsSummer Postcards: Pastis
In the wake of the banning of absinthe in France in 1915, a new apéritif was born, redolent with aniseed and liquorice, a taste at once medicinal and full of…
Garlic & PearlsStripy Tops: From Devil's Cloth to Top French Icon
Muriel tells the story of the stripy Breton top and wonders how a pattern – stripes – once considered sacrilegious and satanic gradually became the epitome of…
Garlic & PearlsPub Quizzes: The Nation's Favourite 'Brit of Fun'!
Biros at the ready as Suzanne takes Muriel on a tour of a very British obsession: the pub quiz. Did it begin on a mythical night in Yorkshire in 1946? Is it…
Garlic & PearlsThe Institut Français du Royaume-Uni: Britain's Official Portal into French Culture!
With French historian Charlotte Faucher as her guide, Muriel explores the madly ornamental pink-brick Art Deco wonder that is the French Cultural Institute in…
Garlic & PearlsThe Letter J: The Mind-Blowing Creation Story of a British Sound
This episode, full of suspense and mystery, is brought to you by the letter J! In the English language, the letter and its distinctive sound are deployed in…
Garlic & PearlsThe Great Paris Flood of 1910: The City of Light vs Nature!
In 1910, Paris was an ultra-modern electrified metropolis at the height of its confidence, insouciance and triumphant glamour. Then came the winter rains, and…
Garlic & PearlsBell Ringing: Unique Performing Art and England's 'Loud Noise to the Glory of God'!
Starting with the glorious 1934 novel The Nine Tailors by queen of crime Dorothy L. Sayers, set in the mystical, liminal landscape of the Fens and in the…
Garlic & PearlsDebora Robertson: What We Get Wrong About France
Suzanne and Muriel welcome as a special guest the food writer and journalist Debora Robertson. a perceptive observer of French village life in the South-West –…
Garlic & PearlsZebra Crossings: Freedom, Safety and British Science in Black and White!
How, wonders Suzanne, did Britain come to gift the Big Z to the entire world? And how did Britain become a place where pedestrians can expect, in most cases…
Garlic & PearlsThe 100th Episode: Our Peak-Britain and Peak-France Chart-Toppers!
Muriel and Suzanne raise a shaken, not stirred pickled-onion-and-Orangina cocktail to toast a vintage episode of the podcast. Now 100 hours into exploring…
Garlic & PearlsMay 68: How and Why France Dreamed Up Another Revolution
Muriel wonders why the May 68 uprisings happened so expansively and explosively in the France of De Gaulle and not in Howard Wilson's Britain. She takes…
Garlic & PearlsThe Blue Willow Pattern: A Tale of Romance, Bone and Clay
Suzanne takes Muriel on a journey to a faraway land, travelling into the hidden depths of a dinner plate. Its famous pattern – trees, a pagoda, a bridge, a…
Garlic & PearlsThe Laughing Cow: The Quintessential French Cheese
In France, a country with a multiplicity of cheeses, only one achieves national unity: the humble Vache qui rit – or Laughing Cow. But what are the origins of…
Garlic & PearlsThe Monarch of the Glen: The Surprisingly Passionate Tale of Landseer's Emblematic Masterpiece
An imposing stag stands in a dramatic landscape, in a famous painting hanging in pride of place in the National Scottish Gallery. But what are we really…
Garlic & PearlsThe French Garden: Making Nature Artificial, Mathematical and Political!
What makes a garden distinctly French? A geometrical layout, straight lines of regular topiary and not a hair out of place! How, Muriel asks, did the jardin à…
Garlic & PearlsLabrador Retrievers: Did the British Invent the Perfect Dog?
There are over a million Labradors in the UK, but where did this sturdy marvel of bright countenance and sweet temper originate? Is it really possible to…
Garlic & PearlsThe Flâneur: Why The French Walk More Slowly Than The British
Monocles and canes at the ready! Muriel traces the 19th-century origins of a familiar and somewhat raffish figure of Frenchness. Part boulevardier, part dandy…
Garlic & PearlsDaffodils: The Poetic Icon that Means Booming Business for Britain
Suzanne explores the British adoration of the yellow, trumpet-like, optimistic daffodil, the harbinger of spring. The evocative words of William and Dorothy…
Garlic & PearlsThe Café Waiter: Working-class hero? Towering Figure of Haughty Frenchness?
Café waiters are omnipresent in French life and in French culture as a sort of regiment – serried ranks of men in their black-and-white uniform with tremendous…
Garlic & PearlsCagoules: The Great British Cover Up
How to solve a problem like the British weather? It's easy if you invent the right British garment with a French name, whose origins and evolution Suzanne…
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French Baddies in Film: Bad Eggs and Dark Horses
Muriel unravels the reasons why so many film villains happen to be French. From dissolute sophisticates to duplicitous manipulators and downright sadistic…
Garlic & PearlsKen Loach's Kes: Urchin Rebel Bonds With Wild Kestre in Quintessential British Film
Suzanne explores a masterpiece which is 'like being knocked out' – a cri de coeur about downtrodden youth, devastating tragedy and the tyranny of class. But…
Garlic & PearlsA Very French Scandal: Naked Woman at Picnic! Manet’s revolutionary Déjeuner sur l'herbe
Muriel examines a madly famous succès de scandale. What’s going on in Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting of an outdoors scene featuring four people, one of whom is…
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The Guinness Book of Records: Superlative feats! Nature's wonders! Fun for dictators!
Suzanne tells Muriel a very British story of surprise global success, which began at a shooting party in 1951 with a dispute over the speed of a golden plover…
Garlic & PearlsBrittany: The French Wild West - Celtic Identity, Pancakes, Memories of Dukes and Power!
Why does 'Brittany' (in local dialects Breizh and Bertègn) sound so much like 'Britain'? Because this Western region of France, once known as Armorique, was…
Garlic & PearlsFootball: Britain's Gift to the World!
Suzanne moves the goalposts and gives football the Garlic & Pearls treatment: it's a story where passions run high, from obsessive devotion to dogged attempts…
Garlic & PearlsFrench Brothels of the Golden Age: Sex, theatricality, escapism!
Oh là là! From the Belle Epoque to the Jazz Age rose famous French brothels such as Le Chabanais, the One Two Two or the Sphynx. This vanished world, its…
Garlic & PearlsA Study in Silver: The cryptic British world of precious metals, their hallmarks, assays, and guilds
Suzanne illuminates the origins and meaning of hallmarking, which began in the 13th century under Edward I – aka Edward Longshanks – as part of his wider…
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La dictée: How did a school spelling test become a French obsession and symbol of Frenchness?
Muriel goes back to school to explore how in France the spelling test called la dictée became the backbone of French education. Who introduced it and why? Is…
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The Christmas Tale Face-Off: A Christmas Carol or Les Misérables?
In our last episode of 2025, Suzanne and Muriel consider soberly which is more atmospheric and replete with the spirit of Christmas - is it Dickens with…
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The Christmas Drink Face-Off: Indulgent Irish Cream or astringent coupe de champagne?
Cheers! Santé! Suzanne retraces the history of a 1970s Soho brainwave of deliciousness and Muriel obeys the traditional Pavlovian call of Champenois fizz…
Garlic & PearlsThe Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?
Suzanne brings a whole lotta Christmas to the table and parses the delights of the double issue of the Radio Times; Muriel unpacks a cult French sitcom about…
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The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?
Suzanne makes a compelling case for the evocative beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter and its landscape imagery infused with spirituality; Muriel wonders how…
Garlic & PearlsThe Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?
Muriel and Suzanne are swapping seasonal treats: masses of cheerful multicoloured candy vs a handful of meticulously crafted products of the terroir. Both…
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The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?
Suzanne takes a punt at the 2025 Christmas No1 and crowns 1984 as the very best vintage of British Christmas charts; Muriel explains how and why the French…
Garlic & PearlsMetal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!
In which Suzanne unearths the story of a major British hobby and its relationship with landscape and the romance of the past. Why are the British obsessed with…
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French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?
Muriel tackles an awkward truth: the French may love rigour and rationality – France is the nation of Descartes, after all – but they are also susceptible to…
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The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!
In which Suzanne investigates profound differences between our two cultures by asking why the British tax year is not, like in France, aligned onto the…
Garlic & PearlsGreatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 2. The Bald Prima Donna - Zany Avant-Garde on the Paris Left Bank
In the second half of our theatrical diptych, Muriel tells Suzanne about the 'atomic bomb' of the French theatre, an experimental Absurdist masterpiece by…
Garlic & PearlsGreatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 1. The Mousetrap - Agatha Christie's Not So Cosy West End Whodunnit
Suzanne and Muriel consider the brilliance, longevity and significance of Agatha Christie's murder mystery play The Mousetrap, which has been running since…
Garlic & PearlsThe Paris Catacombs: palace of death, gigantic memento mori and a way of solving the problem of excess bones
It's Halloween and Muriel encourages Suzanne to think about the Gallic bones displayed and staged in the Paris Catacombs in a neo-classical early-19th-century…
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Graham Robb: The Real Making of Britain and France: A myth-busting, panoramic trip through time and space
Following on from his book The Discovery of France, Graham Robb has produced another fascinating work of exploration, The Discovery of Britain. Graham's…
Garlic & PearlsRhyming Slang: A distinctly British and creative code that's definitely not 'brown bread'
Would you Adam and Eve it? Suzanne tutors her 'old China' Muriel in a coded language that is full of wit, inventions and surprises. Rooted in old street cant…
Garlic & PearlsBrigitte Bardot: Top French Icon and The Face of France
Where Muriel explains the mythology of the actress, singer, animal activist and all-round contrarian. How did Bardot re-invent French femininity for the 20th…
Garlic & PearlsGiant Redwoods in the UK: A story of intrepid botanists and explorers, and a Victorian British craze
Is there a Californian landscape growing in Britain to the tune of half a million Giant Redwoods? Suzanne recounts the 19th-century story of adventurous plant…