Culture Gabfest - There Are No Small Parts Only Miniature Wives Edition
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s show, Dana, Steve, and Dan Kois get into cultural topics of various scales. First, they examine The Christophers, the latest film from Steven Soderbergh. The small scale two-hander starring Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel about an aging artist and an upstart forger is intentionally intimate, but is it too slight? They discuss.
Next, they pick up their cultural magnifying glasses to peep at The Miniature Wife, the new marital comedy series starring Matthew Macfadyen and Elizabeth Banks about a scientist who accidentally aims his shrink ray on his wife. Is this diminutive premise too small for its multiple episode execution? They discuss.
Finally, they take up the small but mighty objects apparently floating at the bottom of many an it girl’s purse: cigarettes. They respond to a recent piece in the Ankler “Cigarettes Get a Sequel: Hollywood’s ‘Cool’ Bad Habit Is Back.”
In an exclusive bonus episode for Slate Plus subscribers, the panel gazes at the vast expanse of space and talks about Artemis II’s mission to the far side of the moon.
Endorsements
Dan: The novel Possession by A.S. Byatt.
Steve: The essay in New York Review of Books “From the Rooftops of Tehran,” an anonymous first person account of life under fire from American and Israeli bombs.
Dana: The radio show Shocking Blue on New York’s WFUV from the DJ Delphine Blue— if you miss it on Saturday nights 8pm-11pm when it airs, check out at WFUV’s archives to listen to episodes after broadcast.
--
Email us your thoughts at culturefest@slate.com.
Podcast production by Benjamin Frisch. Production assistance by Daniel Hirsch.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest. There are no small parts, only miniature wives edition. |
| 0:17.3 | It's Wednesday, April 15th, 2026, and this week we'll be discussing first off the |
| 0:21.7 | Christophers, the latest movie from the ever-prolific and ever-cameleonic Stephen Soderberg. |
| 0:27.2 | It stars Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole as two painters locked in a battle of wills that |
| 0:32.4 | occupies some middle ground between bitter rivalry and nascent friendship. |
| 0:37.0 | Next, we will talk about the miniature wife, a new limited series on Peacock, about an inventor |
| 0:42.1 | who in the course of developing a size-reducing biotech tool accidentally shrinks his novelist |
| 0:47.8 | wife down to a five-inch-tall version of herself. |
| 0:50.9 | The show stars Matthew McFaddean and Elizabeth Banks. |
| 0:53.6 | It's silly, it's slapsticky, but maybe also insightful about the power dynamics of marriage, or not, we will discuss. |
| 1:01.0 | And finally, cigarettes, cancer sticks, coffin nails. They're back in a big way on the big and small screen, and also in social media representations of youth and glamour. |
| 1:10.3 | But is that fad translating |
| 1:12.0 | to a measurable increase of real-life tobacco smoking among the would-be-cool members of Generation |
| 1:17.4 | Z? Joining me this week to discuss these three juicy topics is Dan Cois, Slate Stallwart, |
| 1:23.9 | co-author of Give Me Some Book Titles, The World Only Spins Forward, the novels, Hampton Heights, and what is your first novel? |
| 1:31.5 | I read it, and I can't remember the title. |
| 1:33.1 | Vintage Contemporaries, there's simply too many to keep track of. |
| 1:36.9 | And another work in progress now, which is also going to be a novel, correct? |
| 1:40.6 | Yes, although we're seven to 500 years away from that it's completion. |
| 1:45.6 | So it doesn't even have a title or an elevator pitch yet. |
| 1:48.7 | All right, but another Dan Koy's book is in the works, and I can't wait to read it. |
| 1:53.7 | As ever, also I am joined by critic Stephen Metcalfe, who has an even more mysterious book in the works, Steve, about which I guess that you want to say nothing? Now I have to kill you. Like, why did you even, Dana? Now I have to kill everyone who listen. No, I mean, yes, it's shrouded in mystery, but it's progressing. All right. Excitement all around. You're both a step ahead of me. It's non, look, can can we call it can we call it non-chimerical |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.