Art / Creative Lockdown
Creative lockdown: Pommy Harmar and Melissa Cheman
Pommy Harmar and Melissa Cheman are part of the ongoing Bristol24/7 Creative Lockdown series, showcasing how people in Bristol have been getting arty under lockdown.
A broadcast journalist come podcast producer and a journalism polymath have come together to create a quarantine podcast, aptly named The Quarantini Podcast.
Pommy Harmar, who works at Ujima Radio, and Melissa Cheman, a writer, radio producer, lecturer in journalism and writer-in-residence at the Arnolfini, met in mid-March of 2020, just before the Government’s lockdown.
is needed now More than ever
“I applied to volunteer for local radios in Bristol,” explains Melissa. “We both shared the same passion for audio and podcasting, so we planned on creating something together.
“When the lockdown happened, I thought a podcast could bring people good news and broadcast further the wonderful initiatives so many Bristolians have come up with to help others.”
The Quarantini Podcast broadcasts some of the creative responses and the ingenuity expressed by people during the coronavirus pandemic.
“We both wanted to steer a little away from the avalanche of daily news stories of doom and counteract some of the fears we inevitably face,” Pommy says. “In a way, the podcast is a small return to the ‘happy hours’ we are missing!”
Pommy Harmar hosts the podcast with Melissa Cheman. Photo: Pommy Harmar
The pair will be broadcasting the podcast throughout lockdown, with the hope to continue afterwards with another version on “good ideas and solutions to learn from this crisis”.
“The name, by the way, came through a joke my son passed on to me,” says Pommy.
“What do you get if you add a large vitamin C tablet to a vodka? A quarantini. I thought the name was a good fit for a ‘cocktail’ type podcast.”
Listen to the podcast at www.the-quarantini.captivate.fm
To share your work, email lowie@bristol247.com with a bit of information about you and how you created your masterpiece.
Main image: Melissa Cheman
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