Cat Noir Comedy Podcast · Kevin Chilvers and Matt Sanders

Ian and Stella Go West

November 11, 2024·35 min·4 clips

Ian and Stella are on the road west, and the trip is awkward from the start. Ian is a struggling music producer trying to climb the ladder, while Stella has the kind of confidence that can make a bad idea sound almost official. Their first real clash is over formats: a double, an album, an EP, and a single all get dragged into a debate that nobody really settles. The explanation gets messier instead of clearer, which somehow suits them. The episode keeps stacking small corrections on top of bigger nonsense until the logic is buried under its own fuss. Then they spot a hole in the ground with a sign for Old Littrell, the only geezer in the drylands, who is said to grant a wish if you leave your daydreams behind. Ian calls it bull-poo. Stella is not exactly pushing the spiritual angle either, though she does keep the scene alive. Ian decides the chance is too small to ignore and makes his wish anyway: that Stella's singing would blow people away, help them make it, and turn them into something more than hopeful drifters. He frames it with the kind of practical sincerity that makes the wish funnier. The point is not riches for their own sake. The point is to make people believe in Stella, and to make the lyrics she sings hit hard and true. Stella sings anyway, and the song becomes both a real push forward and another comic escalation. The desert stays wide, the town stays far off, and the bit keeps walking. The episode never settles into one target. It moves from producer talk to magical thinking to performance and back again, with every turn making the next one a little sillier. The closing stretch pretends to be done, then keeps going. After the credits, Lawrence rings back with a complaint about America, an invitation to Vegas, and a parking bill from Gatwick that Ian clearly hoped had vanished into the sand. The final beat lands on that petty interruption, which is exactly the right kind of anticlimax for this world.

As heard by us

A desert farce that keeps literal-minded misunderstandings in motion.

Cat Noir presents Go West sends Ian and Stella into a desert caper that starts with a struggling music producer asking for a double and then slips into a hole in the ground that supposedly grants wishes.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a western where a struggling music producer gets tangled up in a magical desert wish and a very confused double-versus-single argument.

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