The appeal of many podcasts, regardless of the actual topic, is the feeling that you’re listening to your friends having a candid conversation. This is taken to another level by Are We Friends Yet?, a podcast about friendship and friendly conversation. Young creatives Abby and Amy choose a topic to yarn about, the aim being to see whether these are quality yarns and whether the two of them are, in fact, friends. 

For this live special, they’ve crowdsourced conversational questions off social media. The first set of these are things you’d ask someone you just met, the second set you’d ask when catching up with someone, and the third are more intimate. Naturally, these questions act as conversation-starters, with a single question about restaurants turning into a lively disagreement about different kinds of soup. The conversations often come back to the stress of work and the endless underpaid hustle of being a young theatremaker, counteracted by the idyll of Netflix in bed. 

There’s also a sampling of oddly-flavoured jelly beans, and games of Would You Rather and Never Have I Ever, where the audience votes by raising their hands. The live audience is of reduced size for social distancing, and contains many friends and relatives of the performers.

The talk gets deeper as it goes on, moving at a comfortable and natural pace. It’s a nice reflection on friendship, and you leave with a warm sense of familiarity. 

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