British podcasting pair Jordan North and William Hanson are bringing their beloved comedy podcast, Help I Sexted My Boss, to one of the biggest venues in Manchester.
That’s right, the unlikely but undeniably funny duo are bringing their smash hit pod and YouTube show on the road once again in 2026, after a slate of successful shows last year at the likes of the legendary London Palladium.
Burnley-born North and near-Bristol native Hanson have emerged as a somewhat surprising, albeit almost perfect, double act over the last few years, becoming one of the most popular podcasts in the UK and regularly breaking into the top 100 on the comedy charts.
After plenty of demand for more live shows following the 2024 shows, Help I Sexted My Boss is going on tour once again this coming March.
Confirming just a small handful of UK dates, these are nevertheless their biggest gigs yet, with the team booking some of the biggest arenas in Britain.
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In addition to the legendary AO Arena here in Manchester, they’ll also be heading to Wembley, Glasgow and Cardiff – but you already know we Mancs will bring the best crowd.
Announcing details online, the official Sexted My Boss account wrote: “Oh yes, we’re going on tour. Join William Hanson and Jordan North as they bring their hit comedy podcast to arenas across the UK…
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“Experience what happens when William and Jordan’s wildly different worlds collide, as they take on the hilarious challenges of modern life live on stage. Expect laugh-out-loud stories, brutally honest moments and lots of surprises.
“It doesn’t matter if you’ve listened from day one, you’re new to the podcast, or you’re being dragged along, everyone’s welcome!”
Now, if you’ve never heard this modern take on the classic ‘agony aunt’ fan correspondence format, we don’t think there’s a single clip that sums up this nonsense better than this one…
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Be warned, this is a very NSFW listen.
Commenting underneath the post, long-time collaborator and fellow radio hosting peer Siân Welby said, “Seriously, one of the best nights out you can have! Podcast meets panto meets Bongo’s Bingo!”
Pre-sale tickets for Help I Sexted By Boss in Manchester will arrive first for official Three Mobile customers on Wednesday, 24 September, the AO Arena’s own early access window opening the following Thursday – both of which will go live from 10am.
General admission will then be available from the same time on Friday, 26 September. You can get ready to grab yours HERE.
There are plenty of laughs coming to the AO over the next 12 months.
Sir Ian McKellen pays emotional tribute to long-time friend and fellow northern actor Sir Patrick Stewart
Emily Sergeant
Sir Ian McKellen has paid an emotional tribute to his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Patrick Stewart, following his death.
Sir Patrick Stewart – who was born and bred in Mirfield, West Yorkshire, and is best-known for his theatre work alongside an illustrious 60-year screen career, taking on prominent roles in franchises such as Star Trek and X-Men – sadly passed away at the age of 86, with his death being announced publicly yesterday evening (29 October).
And now, his long-time friend and fellow northern actor, Sir Ian McKellen, has paid tribute.
Sir Patrick and Sir Ian shared the stage together countless times over their decades-long careers, but also famously starred alongside each other in the X-Men franchise, and subsequent Marvel movies, as Charles Xavier/Professor X and Magneto.
The tribute, shared across Sir Ian’s social media platforms, reads: “Before everything else, Patrick was defined by being born and bred in Yorkshire, the proud county in the north of England which he loved to the end. You could hear it in his accented voice and in the stern honesty with which he told you what he thought and felt. Yorkshiremen have no truck with half-truths or avoidance of big issues. He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love.
“We first met as ambitious young actors with the Royal Shakespeare Company half a century ago but we weren’t in the same productions.
“My first strong memory was a few years later, meeting him in the street in central London when he told me about an offer to take over a leading part in ‘Star Trek’. “But Patrick think of your stage career in the UK. Do you really want to risk getting lost in Hollywood for years and years?”
“Well, he took the risk and thank goodness for us all that he did, for not just his devoted Trekkies, but film and theatre audiences who marvelled at his using international celebrity to star in a string of cinema successes (‘X-Men’ of course) and in great classical plays by Shakespeare, Ibsen, Arthur Miller, Peter Shaffer, Pinter and Beckett at Stratford-upon-Avon, in London’s West End and on Broadway.
“America was his adopted home, where he met his adored Sunny who has cared for him through sickness and health, through thick and thin.
“But he never forsook his origins: and the proudest achievement of the most respected and beloved actor of his generation on either side of the Atlantic, was his appointment as Chancellor of Huddersfield University in Yorkshire.”
Sir Patrick Stewart’s farewell performance will be in Avengers: Doomsday, which is being released in UK cinemas on 18 December 2026
Featured Image – Gage Skidmore (via Flickr)
TV & Showbiz
James Acaster reveals eerie song all Traitors contestants are forced to listen to before every roundtable
Emily Sergeant
James Acaster has revealed the eerie (and pretty surprising) song that all Traitors contestants are forced to listen to before every roundtable.
In case you’ve been living comfortably under a rock, you’ll probably be aware that comedian James Acaster is currently a contestant on this current season of BBC‘s smash-hit reality TV competition show, The Celebrity Traitors – a show that viewers in their millions are tuning into each week, with some big names on the cast.
Acaster is currently (spoiler alert… but it shouldn’t be at this point, we are several weeks in after all) one of three Traitors competing on the show, and he’s doing a pretty good job at it.
But we wonder how much of his success can be put down to the producers’ love of a certain song they like to play before every roundtable? Probably next to none, but it’s surprising to find out how much of an integral role the tune plays though.
The song we’re referring to here, it has been revealed, is ‘The Hanging Tree’ – a folk ballad made popular by The Hunger Games.
‘The Hanging Tree’, composed by James Newton Howard and Suzanne Collins, was famously sung by Jennifer Lawrence’s character Katniss Everdeen in the third instalment of the film franchise, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
The lyrics are as follows:
Are you, are you Coming to the tree Where they strung up a man They say who murdered three? Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be If we met at midnight In the hanging tree
So, as you can see, the song does make reference to ‘murder’, which is a key part of The Traitors game (not real murder, of course), but even with that context, we’re still not sure why the producers are keen to play it out before every roundtable.
During a viral TikTok clip from an on-stage Q&A this week, Acaster revealed the song’s usage to the audience: “You all walk in silence down the corridor, and you all sit down, and they don’t announce it’s gonna happen.
“The first time this will completely blindside you, but they do it every single roundtable. They play that song from The Hunger Games, that ‘coming to the tree’ song. Like acapella, Jennifer Lawrence.”
He continued: “It was every f***ing time, it was the only song we heard the whole time we were in there, and all day I would have it in my head constantly, everyone would, I’d go ‘have you got coming to the tree in your head?’ and they’d go ‘yes, it’s in my head, again’.”
Viewers who watch the show may have spotted the song being played in the background or transition between certain scenes, but now it’s been revealed that the contestants hear it too.
Who would’ve thought?
Featured Image – Euan Cherry / BBC / Studio Lambert
Danny Jones -
23rd September 2025 
