Welcome to Am I Old Yet? the podcast. Joining our subscriber group gives you access to occasional newsletters (approximately quarterly), with background stories about the episodes and the cast.
Composer and Arranger
Mark Bunyan was an out gay cabaret performer to start with, then wrote a youth musical JUST GOOD FRIENDS which played to packed houses and was named Best Musical of 1982 by City Limits magazine. This led to various other musicals with various degrees of success. (The most recent, BEING COLONEL BARKER (www.beingcolonelbarker.com) and DEFINING DR MINOR (www.definingdrminor.com) were workshopped at the Royal Academy of Music and have their own websites. Websites will be soon available for www.emyntrudeandesmeralda.com, www.unburiedtreasures.com and www.trueromances.com.
His stage play, DINNER, won the international playwriting competition —and had a successful run—at the Warehouse Theatre, Croydon. In 1995, he was canonised by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, as St Mark of the Musical Tendency, for his contribution to gay liberation which included, in 1983, co-founding, with the late Brian Kennedy, the Pink Singers, now the oldest LGBT+ Choir in Europe.
A short documentary about him, MARK BUNYAN, VERY NEARLY ALMOST FAMOUS, was a selection at the San Francisco International Gay Film Festival in 2013 and is available to watch online for 99p (get some friends round and charge them 20p each) at https://vimeo.com/ondemand/mark.
Mark served as a local magistrate from 1995 to 2019, won two national gold medals for trampolining in the over-60s category for the British Gymnastics association and has recently started flying trapeze.
He lives with Andrew, his partner of 47 years and counting. As you can tell he’s probably a terrible big head but surprisingly approachable. His website www.markbunyan.com desperately needs updating but his YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3IgrRy7d7Aw5Z5yY9VSNew is better tended.
Episode 2 of Season 3 finds Helen attending the opening of a showing of her friend Jean's watercolours at a local art gallery. She enjoys an elbow bump with Deji, her son-in-law's boss, played by Tayo Aluko). They share some...
Season 3 kicks off with Helen and her oldest friend Joey, sharing their thoughts on the phone about lost clichés, odd earrings and stampeding generations.. And please rate and review the programme in your favourite podcast...
Season 2 is brought to a close with Episode 17. Helen and her daughter Janey can rub each other up the wrong way, but they love each other, and hopefully can find a way to reconcile their differences. If only …
In Episode 16, Helen shares her fears about spending too much time on Facebook with her old friend Joey Wilkinson. Is this an unhealthy attachment to social media? If so, what to do about it? Flloyd plays both Helen and …
Episode 15 finds Helen preparing a late luncheon of toasted cheese. Her granddaughter Susie has something on her mind, so she calls her Gran for a chat. What could possibly go wrong? This is an independent podcast, no adverts...
Episode 14 of Season 2 finds Helen on a train, returning home after spending a few days in Hampshire with a friend. An elegant elderly lady asks to sit with her, and doesn't seem to know where she is going. …
Episode 13 At the Cheese Shop Cafe for her much loved flat white, Helen is introduced to Gary, an IT consultant from Perth, who is in town to visit his teenage nephew René (S1. 14, 15 and 22, and S2.6), …
In Episode 12, Helen's old friends from her college days have teamed up to check out retirement homes in Dorset. Rozzie, (who claims to be an ex-Secret Service agent) explains about the mysterious phone call from Russia (epis...
Episode 10 of Season 2 sees Janey annoying Helen by fussing over her, as usual. Helen's elder sister Marian phones up from Rockhampton, in Central Queensland to ask a very special question. The memories this brings up are pai...
Episode 9 introduces Jack's Uncle James, retired school teacher. Helen phones Susie, who is visiting Jack in Liverpool, but as is her wont, Susie has gone out without her phone. The result is Helen and Uncle James getting to...
In Episode 8, Helen enjoys a catchup chat with her neighbour Jennifer. Jennifer's 102 year old grandmother, Nana Madeleine, suspects that Helen is feeling a bit down, so she invites herself in for a coffee and a natter. Suppo...
Episode 7 (Season 2) sees Helen and her granddaughter Susie about to take a trip to Lancashire to celebrate a birthday party. Helen likes to hand over the receipt to the recipient when she buys a gift, and Susie is …
in Episode 6, Helen accompanies her daughter Janey to the Cheese Shop cafe to collect the illustrations for Janey’s children’s book. René, the teenager who rescued Helen’s cheese in a previous episode, comes to the rescue ag...
Helen sets off to a different park for her walk, and finds a 'big kid' swing. As she walks, she ponders the state of the world, human exceptionalism, how trees communicate with each other, and also surprises herself with a …
Helen has trouble getting out of the house to go shopping, and Carol, the new salesperson at her local Cheese Shop, doesn't know what Picos Blue is! (Episode 14 "Hey Old Lady!}. Walking home in the rain, Helen and Carol …
Helen has been commissioned to write her memoir, and she is still not convinced that she has anything special to write about. So her publisher and long time friend Joey has asked Sadie, another old friend from college to giv...
Susie has lunch with her grandmother Helen, then heads off to visit her parents. Helen calls daughter Janey to let her know Susie is on her way, and Jonathan answers the phone. Jonathan is also from Australia originally, so...
Season 2 is on! Helen (in London) and her old college friend Joey (in Sydney) are chatting on Zoom, when Joey gets an unexpected phone call from Sadie, another college friend, who lives in New Hampshire, and connects her up...