LIKE MOTHER. LIKE DAUGHTER
Would you start a podcast with your mum? Singer Jessie Ware, 33, and her mum Lennie, have done exactly that. And the results are a joy
Jessie Ware might be a Mercury-nominated artist who co-writes with Ed Sheeran and counts Sam Smith as a friend, but she still gets told off by her mum for adding too much olive oil to a Lebanese dish. ‘Jessica!’ her mum Lennie said with mock rage on a recent episode of Table Manners, the podcast they host together, which has featured guests from Sandi Toksvig to the aforementioned Sam Smith and reached #1 in the itunes chart in the month it launched. The format is much like a cosy family get-together: Lennie cooks dinner each week (either at hers or at Jessie’s), they invite a celebrity guest to join them, and then they talk about everything from politics to pop music around the kitchen table. The joy of the show is the chemistry between the mother and daughter duo. And while most of us know the former as a musical mega star, here we get a glimpse into the ways that she’s just like the rest of us.
The podcast was inspired by the Friday night dinners Lennie has hosted in her home for years, where family and friends gather to eat homemade chicken soup and Matzah balls, swap stories, laugh, fight and make up again around her kitchen table. Jessie describes her mum as ‘an amazing woman’ who is often ‘accidentally funny’, and confesses a part of starting the podcast was just because she wanted people to get to know her.
Today, she is incredibly proud of Lennie, who raised her alongside her sister and brother as a single mother, after their dad left when she was nine. ‘I think since becoming a mother myself I have this new ridiculous respect for her,’ reflects Jessie, who gave birth to her own daughter just over a year and a half ago. ‘I was like, “I don’t know how you did that on your own.” I guess she’s been my best friend for a long time, but I hadn’t realised it. We speak about five times a day.’
While Lennie, who is a social worker, has become ambitious about the podcast’s guest list (she’s like, “What about David Beckham?” And I’m like, “Easy now, Mum!”’) she is still the show’s ‘reluctant star’.
‘She wants to take a back seat, and I’ve definitely kind of blackmailed her into this,’ Jessie admits. But now they have three guests in the next three days, she knows she’s pushing her luck, ‘My mum’s going to kill me!’
Jessie insists she wants the podcast to be ‘warts and all’. ‘I’m not perfect and my family certainly isn’t. We put the ‘fun’ in ‘dysfunctional’.
What’s so special about Table Manners, is that on one hand, it’s a celebration that all the best conversations happen around the kitchen table. But really, it is a paean to mother/daughter relationships, and the joy and wisdom they bring.
Lennie says that her daughter is observant, a powerful advocate of women and ‘doesn’t tolerate discrimination… she expects her daughter to have the same opportunities as men.’
Jessie, on the other hand, thinks she has inherited her mother’s drive, work ethic – and possibly some cooking skills, too. ‘She’s an incredible mother and I don’t know if I’m half the mum she is. But I hope I’ll keep learning from her.’
One of the funniest parts of the podcast is the end-of-show debrief, like the moment they both fangirl over ‘goddess’ Sandi Toksvig. As the episode ends, Jessie says, ‘Mum, I really think we’re getting the hang of this podcast thing.’ And they really, truly are.
Download or listen to Table Manners on itunes
‘I’m not perfect and my family certainly isn’t. We put the fun in dysfunctional’