Speaker
Rob Beckett
Appearances over time
9 episodes
Episodes
9
It started with a mix
S12 EP52: I am spent
Kane to the rescue as England squeeze past DR Congo
S12 EP51: The Ransom Is My Ego
S12 EP50: My daughter broke her arm
S12 EP49: I love the buffet
S12 EP48: Stop me if you've heard this one before
S12 EP47: The Juggle Is Real
S12 EP46: Laura Smyth (The Return)
Podcasts
Quotes & moments
Rob Beckett's school WhatsApp group has 67 members, with roughly 70% women and the remaining 30% men who never write anything.
Rob impulse-bought a 12-foot above-ground pool for £500 during a heatwave, not realising it required chlorine, a filter, a heater, and would effectively become a permanent garden swimming pool.
Rob Beckett says the household needs an hour and fifteen minutes between waking up and leaving for the school run, which he considers a calm, comfortable buffer.
Rob completed his 5K park run in 32 minutes, which Josh rated as 'just below medium' on the Park Run performance scale.
Rob Beckett paid €5 per bottle for water at Tenerife Airport, totalling €15 for three bottles.
A listener's helium balloon, brought to hospital at their birth in August 1990, was still intact 36 years later and was used again to announce the birth of their own son.
Rob Beckett surveyed the room at a school concert and concluded he is in the top 10% of attractive school dads, partly because bald dads skew the results.
Rob's daughter spent 8 weeks building a Minecraft world that was completely destroyed by a stranger who poured lava over it after she left edit permissions open.
Rob and Josh filmed a TV pilot in Canterbury involving giant inflatable balls, covering 16,000 steps in 30-degree heat, leaving Rob unable to walk for two days.
The same balloon used to announce a listener's birth in 1990 was reused to announce the birth of that listener's own child 34 years later.
Rob's wife Lou left a Velux skylight blind open so natural light would wake her, resulting in Rob being roused at 4:30 AM during summer when it was already fully light.
Rob Beckett complained that Panini World Cup sticker packs cost £1.25 for only 7 stickers, making the full album prohibitively expensive.
After being woken at 4:30 AM, Rob went to bed at 9:30 PM the following evening and slept until 8:30 AM the next day — eleven hours straight.
England drew 0-0 with Ghana at the 2026 World Cup in a game described by both hosts as very boring.
Rob's inadvertent garden swimming pool holds approximately 20,000 litres of chlorinated water, which he plans to drain by siphoning onto his lawn over two days.
Josh Widdicombe's daughter broke her arm doing a cartwheel and had to go under general anaesthetic to have it reset. She took it like a champion and is now discovering she can write with her left hand.
Josh's cat Fluffball was found panting like a dog during the heatwave and rushed to the emergency vet, where she was placed in an oxygen chamber after a heart murmur was detected. The murmur vanished by Tuesday — the vet suspects the heat gave her a panic attack.
Desperate for the toilet while his cat recovered in an oxygen chamber on Father's Day, Josh had to negotiate a padlocked outdoor vet toilet — then used it in complete darkness because the motion-sensor light only activated when he stood up.
Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe spent an exhausting day filming a TV pilot in Canterbury, pushing giant inflatable balls in 30-degree heat. Rob did 16,000 steps and couldn't walk for two days after.
Rob watched England's 0-0 draw with Ghana alone, eating a protein yogurt while his wife went to bed early. He admits that what he used to love about the World Cup was the excuse to get completely drunk with friends.
Rob and Josh both back the UK social media ban for under-16s, with Rob comparing future embarrassment at phone addiction to old photos of tube smokers. Crucially, Rob admits he and his wife are more addicted than their kids.
Rob Beckett missed his children's Sports Day for the third consecutive year after planning 10 months in advance and building his entire filming schedule around it — only for the school to cancel because of the heatwave.
Josh Widdicombe is currently living in the 25% of his house that is Phase 2 of renovations — one bedroom, one sitting room, a futon on the floor, no mattress, and 30 cluster flies. Phase 1 ends in July.
After years without a wallet, Josh finally got one again — and dropped it on the pavement on the very first school pickup. Rob's suggestion: just keep it in a drawer at home.
Since moving to Exeter, Josh keeps encountering people who say they're 'more of a rugby person' when he asks about football. He compares it to saying you prefer S Club 7 to the Beatles.
Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice for Portugal against Uzbekistan at the 2026 World Cup and screamed 'I'm back!' at the camera as he walked off. Rob is appalled — pointing out the opponent was Uzbekistan.
Rob Beckett's work Tenerife trip ended in chaos: the local fixer detoured to drop someone off, adding 20 minutes to the airport run, causing Rob to miss check-in by exactly 4 minutes despite the flight being delayed. He ran from the car park, missed it, then paid to sit in an airport lounge for 5 hours before arriving home at 2:30am.
At a Greek airport during a delay, Josh Widdicombe's nanny Chelle found herself in a waiting room with a celebrity shielded by privacy boards — and then a second celebrity started complaining he hadn't got as many boards as the first. Josh and Rob then debated at what level of fame you get airport boards, concluding that both Josh and retired footballer Adam Lallana got zero boards on the same flight home.
At the end of the episode, Rob Beckett marvelled at how he and Josh went from sharing hotel rooms while gigging at Birmingham Glee Club to Josh hosting Strictly Come Dancing. The reflection came after 12 series of Parenting Hell and over 6 years of podcasting together — a genuine moment of gratitude amid the chaos.
A drunk man at Victoria Station recognised Rob and asked him to settle an argument — which turned out to be him calling his girlfriend a horrible name in front of her. Rob refused to laugh, told him it wasn't nice, and she agreed.
Analysis
What they talk about
- Society & Culture 38%
- Health & Fitness 17%
- Technology 11%
- Sports 10%
- Kids & Family 6%
- Business 6%
- Comedy 6%
- Arts 4%
- Leisure 2%
Connections
Shows they appear on and people they share episodes with. Drag to explore.
