Queer politics • sex • culture
Outcast World is a queer politics, sex and culture podcast hosted by multi award-winning broadcaster and podcaster Graeme Smith, alongside rotating guests and co-hosts.
Each week features an eclectic mix of guests. Journalists, comedians, academics, authors, activists and artists appear alongside queer stars from the BBC’s groundbreaking I Kissed a Boy, and familiar faces from global reality franchises including Married at First Sight and TOWIE. The show also features authors of he biggest-selling LGBTQ+ books in the world and Oscar nominated film makers.
Reactive, candid and often funny, the show unpacks politics, sexuality and culture through discussion and debate. While rooted in a queer perspective, its cultural analysis and political commentary resonate well beyond LGBTQ+ audiences.A gold winner at the British Podcast Awards and nominated for Best Interview Podcast in 2025 — alongside Louis Theroux and The News Agents — Outcast World has been recommended by The Guardian and The Independent, and was named a must-listen queer podcast by The Independent.
Get involved, watch our latest episodes and read the latest queer and gay news, politics, sex and relationships and culture on www.outcastworld.net
When Liam Rondi watched a GB News panel discuss the murder of a baby and heard a guest claim that gay men are more likely to abuse the children they adopt, he was sitting in his flat in the south of France, a country he had moved to two years earlier partly to get away from the direction Britain was heading in. He picked up his phone, recorded a rebuttal and told people how to complain to Ofcom. Within a week there were 1,300 complaints, and by the time Caroline Farrow had appeared on Alex Armstrong Tonight to link Pride with paedophilia, and Bimini had built a complaints generator, the total had passed 15,000 and Ofcom had opened two investigations into the channel.
In this episode he talks about the trope that is older than he is, why an apology broadcast two weeks after the fact reaches almost nobody who saw the original, what it is like to fight your own country's battle from abroad with no newsroom, no organisation and no lawyer behind you, and why, for all the invitations he expects never to receive, he would point blank refuse to go on GB News.
Ofcom's investigations into both broadcasts are ongoing. GB News says it complies fully with the Broadcasting Code and will robustly defend them.
14 Sept 2026
A funeral for queer nightlife from Fatt Butcher
What happens when the places that helped us become ourselves disappear? A Brummie drag and The Voice UK legend has the answer...
Drag artist and musician Fatt Butcher joins Graeme Smith to talk about the dance floors that changed their life—and why losing a gay bar means losing far more than somewhere to drink.
Growing up in a small village during Section 28, Fatt watched Queer as Folk with the volume barely on, wondering where a queer life might be possible. Finding Birmingham’s gay village opened up a world of first kisses, new identities and possibilities that had once felt out of reach.
Now, Fatt is turning that experience into Congregational: a drag funeral for the gay village that attempts to resurrect it, complete with a queer choir, mirror balls, dance music and a decidedly unconventional approach to worship.
But this isn’t straightforward nostalgia. Graeme and Fatt get into the contradictions of spaces that can save lives while relying on selling us another drink, the loneliness of performing five nights a week, and reclaiming the joy of singing together after a complicated religious upbringing.
Plus: smoking-area friendships, poppers and dubstep, turning hate into a badge of honour—and what it actually takes to build a community beyond the dance floor.
7 Sept 2026
Half the Patients on Some London AIDS Wards Were Irish. Why Didn’t We Know?
During the 1980s, half the patients on some of London’s AIDS wards were Irish. It is a staggering fact—and part of an almost-forgotten chapter of queer history.
Homosexuality remained illegal in Ireland until 1993. Many queer Irish people crossed the Irish Sea in search of freedom, safety and the chance to live authentically. They created homes, friendships and chosen families in Britain. But as AIDS devastated the community, many also found themselves on London’s wards, far from home.
At the centre of this episode is Fr Bernárd Lynch, the openly gay Irish Catholic priest who founded New York City’s first AIDS ministry in 1982. He cared for people as they died, challenged the Church over safer sex and gay rights, and later continued that work in London, including at the London Lighthouse.
Bernárd’s testimony—alongside the experiences of others who lived through the crisis—is at the heart of Mammy’s House, a new black comedy now running at Upstairs at the Gatehouse in Highgate until 13 September.
Graeme speaks to Bernárd and the play’s co-creator and star Derek Murphy, whose screen credits include RTÉ’s We Watch, You Watch and hit sitcom Killinaskully. Derek explains why he was determined to bring this uniquely Irish story to life, combining humour and humanity while doing justice to people whose experiences were in danger of disappearing.
Bernárd has now seen Mammy’s House twice. He considers it one of the most profound and authentic depictions of the era he has encountered—and believes it gives this extraordinary community the recognition and dignity it deserves.
Who has been a guest on OUTCAST UK
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Bob Vylan
Jordan Burrow
Kitty Scott-Claus
Topher
Andrew Flewitt
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
6 ratings
Spotify
4.6 / 5
43 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 60 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
86
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
85
Contact OUTCAST UK
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
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