EPISODE 85: Where All The Trouble Lies
Strangers on a Bench
Tom Rosenthal
4.8 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 April 2026
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
*Content warning : contains one graphic description of violence*. Tom Rosenthal approaches a stranger on a park bench and asks if he can sit down next to them and record their conversation.
This is what happened!
Produced by Tom Rosenthal
Edited by Rose De Larrabeiti
Mixed by Mike Woolley
Theme tune by Tom Rosenthal & Lucy Railton
Incidental music by Maddie Ashman
End song : 'The Night Before Your Wedding Night' by Matt Maltese
Stream it here: https://ffm.to/thenightbeforeyourweddingnight
Listen to all the end songs featured on the podcast (so far) on one handy playlist :
https://ffm.to/soabendsongs
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Instagram : @strangersonabench
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, sorry to bother you. Can I ask you a slightly odd question? |
| 0:08.5 | I'm making a podcast called Strangers on a bench where essentially I talk to people I don't |
| 0:16.9 | know on benches for 10 or 15 minutes. Are you up for that? Do you want to favourite day of the week? |
| 0:48.3 | Can't say I do really. |
| 0:53.3 | They're all pretty much the same. Sometimes I wonder which day it is, you know. |
| 0:59.0 | Do you know what day it is today? I just want to say Sunday, but it's Monday. |
| 1:03.0 | There we go. Can you remember the best Monday of your life? |
| 1:08.0 | No. Can you remember a time in your life when you enjoyed Mondays the most? |
| 1:13.6 | I've had a few jobs where I couldn't wait to get back on the Monday, yeah. |
| 1:18.6 | What were those jobs? If you think of one particular job where you were most excited to get back? |
| 1:23.6 | The one that comes to mine straight away is I worked in an ice cream factory. |
| 1:28.3 | Wahee! |
| 1:29.3 | And it was all bright and sunny in there and everyone was sort of happy. |
| 1:35.3 | It was ridiculous. |
| 1:37.3 | Why was it ridiculous? |
| 1:38.3 | Well, it's like a scene from a carry-on film, you know. |
| 1:42.3 | All enjoying yourself and yeah. So what was your what was your role in the ice cream |
| 1:47.2 | factory? Just chucking all the ingredients together in a big vat and uh hope for the best |
| 1:52.6 | turn the switch and stir it all up clean up afterwards. Did it change your relationship with |
| 1:59.5 | ice cream? Yeah it was great at first and you could |
| 2:03.5 | buy a cheap chest freezer brand new like for 30 quid or something because you've got like four |
| 2:09.8 | tubs of ice cream every week. All right. You got to give it as an added bonus. Did you manage to get |
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