Hello and welcome to Women with Balls, where I, Katie Balls, talk to today's trailblazers.

The podcast series is going to be taking a short summer recess, slightly out of kilta with the parliamentary recess,

but in the meantime, we thought we'd leave you with our first ever episode, where I spoke to Emma Barnett.

At the time, the radio presenter had just returned for maternity leave and was going back to her five live show.

Now she has added newsnight to her CV and she's also earned a reputation as one of the BBC's toughest interviewers.

We hope you enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to Women with Balls, where I, Katie Balls, speak to women at the top of their respective games about their passions, their battles and what makes them tick.

Today I'm joined by Emma Barnett. Since joining the BBC as Five Lives Morning presenter, Emma has quickly carved herself out a reputation as one of the corporation's toughest interviews.

She's drawn comparisons to Andrew Neal, and registered in for another Andrew, Andrew Marr, on the BBC's toughest interviewers. She's drawn comparisons to Andrew Neal,

and when she stood in for another Andrew, Andrew Marr, on the BBC's flagship political show,

she stole the limelight to the extent that next week Ma had to make clear he had no plans to go full Emma

Barner on his intervieves. Prior to that, Emma was head of the women's section at the Telegraph

and a presenter at LBC.

So thank you for joining us today, Emma.

Thank you.

Before we get on to the present and you'll turn on the Mars show, as we mentioned,

I wonder if you could talk us through a bit about how you got to the point you are now.

So when you first decided you want to be a journalist, I know acting was perhaps your first love. Yes. And then somebody pointed out to me, I'd be a waitress most of the year. And I thought, I'm not sure I'll be

very good at that because I lasted one shift at ZZZs in Manchester and then had to jack it in.

So journalism seemed like a good way of still being able to perform, if you're doing it on air,

obviously, as you're doing here with me on a microphone in the lovely spectator office. But also I really like the idea of listening to people's stories.

I was very interested actually in feature journalism. I wasn't interested in news that much.

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