Podcast Review | The rewarding Crypt Discussions podcast provides an interesting reflection on the big questions in life

Culture|Podcast review

Today you no longer need Yle’s big machinery to produce a good discussion program, and good so. Of course, the number of audiences without the General will usually be small.

Metropolitan Church and City media podcast Conversations about the crypt offers a good model that is at the same time extremely simple and yet timeless and rewarding. Author-editor Elina Hirvonen meets interesting people in the crypt of Helsinki Cathedral, with whom they talk about the big questions of life. The production company is Suna Mountain Svart Helsinki.

About The main headlines of the hour-long discussions give direction: peace, love, happiness, justice, and so on. Guests include Sirpa Kähkönen, Kirsi Piha, Juha Hurme and Esa Saarinen the most famous to mention. Spiritual things are not actually talked about, even if the context is ecclesiastical.

The discussion series is a child of the Corona era. The intention was to hold public events, which would then produce a podcast, but in the spring, the discussions had to be held without an audience. In the fall, the doors were finally opened for live listeners as well.

When listening to a podcast, the audience share doesn’t matter much. The crypt echo adds a nice extra tone to it.

Discussions there are a total of 12, so there is plenty to choose from according to your own feelings. Right now, I recommend starting with the first episode where Cloud Thursday and Ali Jahangiri talk about peace. The debate dates back to April, but at the time it was not yet possible to imagine that Torst’s experiences of the Bosnian war in the 1990s would be sadly topical again.

A slightly lighter atmosphere, on the other hand, is offered in an envy conversation with the screenwriter Anna Brotkin and a non-fiction writer Anu Partanen consider the importance of the subject in an insightful and honest way, both on a general and personal level.

What things or who do you envy? Can envy sometimes be justified?

To envy is well suited to continue the shame that the journalist is discussing Ruben Stiller and the city councilor Minja Koskela. What is the connection between shame and social class? Where to jump Laura Kolben and Auli Viitalan to discuss the class.

Little ironically, the series could be called a bubble debate, as both Hirvonen and the talkers are on the same line socially, culturally and mostly regionally, and in that sense the choices are unsurprising.

But this is the selected line and does not reduce the value of the series.

Conversations about Crypt, Supla, Spotify, Soundcloud or Apple.