Death, Laughter & Smart Homes with Molly Conisbee

Welcome to The Big Smoke Variety Show! This week, we step into the ‘undiscovered country’ — and explore the one subject we so often avoid: death. But rather than dwelling in darkness, this episode asks a more vital question: what can mortality teach us about how to live? Kevin is joined by social historian and bereavement counsellor Dr Molly Conisbee, author of No Ordinary Deaths: A People’s History of Mortality. Together they explore how death was once woven into everyday domestic life — cared for at home, ritualised by communities, marked visibly through mourning dress and shared customs. From Victorian mourning warehouses, to Irish wakes, Jamaican Nine Nights, and the rise of the death-positive movement, Molly reflects on what we’ve lost as death moved behind hospital doors — and how reclaiming conversation, ritual, and radical acceptance might liberate us in the present. To balance the existential weight, Archie McAlpine returns with a fresh Neuro Nugget on the science of laughter. What actually happens in the brain when we laugh? Why is it contagious? And in an age of caution and cancellation, how do we protect humour as a force for bonding, healing and social synchronisation? This is laughter under the microscope — and a timely reminder that humour is medicine. Then, we pop to the local for a quick Pub Quiz, raising a glass to the incomparable Catherine O’Hara. From Home Alone to Best in Show and Schitt’s Creek, we test your knowledge of one of comedy’s greats. Finally, Audio Archives opens the vault once more. In this unsettling tale from an early smart home, we meet Tristan and the ever-listening Iris. What begins as weather checks and chicken cooking queries spirals into something more revealing — a story of birthday cake, Drake playlists, and the uncomfortable truth that being truly heard might mean being truly seen. So wherever you are on this strange and splendid rollercoaster of life, there’s always room for you in The Big Smoke. — Pub Quiz: Catherine O’Hara the Great — Answers At a funeral parlour ‘God Loves a Terrier’ Soap opera actress — Links ⚱️ No Ordinary Deaths by Molly Conisbee 🧠 Archie McAlpine — Neuro Nuggets — Chapters (00:00) Intro and Show Menu (02:24) Dr Molly Conisbee Interview (50:24) Archie’s Neuro Nuggets: Laughter (57:53) Pub Quiz: Catherine O’Hara The Great (1:00:23) Audio Archives: Hey, Iris (1:15:19) Outro — Credits Hosted & Executive Produced by Kevin Bennett Produced & Edited by Alex Graham Original Music by Giles Terera Music arranged and played by Joseph Atkins Audio Archives: ‘Hey, Iris’ written by Aidan Parker and performed by Matthew Nicholson and Cait Roddam Jones