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In Praise of Clichés

Trawling through the archive and with a select panel of guests, Steve Punt asks if it’s time to stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic and rehabilitate the humble cliché

Whether it’s author Martin Amis declaring war on overused stock phrases or annual surveys of the well-worn expressions we love to hate - at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is, people have very strong feelings about clichés.

From politics to TV drama, sporting clichés to toe-curling corporate jargon, Steve Punt drills down into the archive to discover why so many of us have been singing from the same hymn sheet.

As he traces cliché origin stories and listens to the sound of some new ones being hatched, Steve is joined by storytelling expert John Yorke, parliamentary sketch-writer Madeline Grant and author of a whole book about footballing clichés, Adam Hurrey. Navigating a linguistic minefield where conventions must be separated from tropes, platitudes from pontification, Steve runs it up the flagpole to ask if it’s time to stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, attempt some blue-sky thinking and rehabilitate the humble cliché.

It could, he says “be a game-changer.â€

Producer: Conor Garrett

Available now

57 minutes

Last on

Sat 6 Aug 2022 20:00

Broadcast

  • Sat 6 Aug 2022 20:00