What originally started as a weekly radio segment has become a new podcast.
In Simply The Jest: Australia’s Best Stories, triple j Drive hosts Lewis Hobba and Michael Hing, along with best-friend-of-the-show and triple j Weekend Arvos presenter, Jess Perkins, challenge the Australian public to deliver them the greatest, most elaborate stories from real life. After hearing incredibly wild stories from listeners around the country, the judging panel crowns the very best story – Simply the Jest!
Everyone’s got an unbelievable story. Something they tell at parties when an awkward silence hits or when they want to collectively drop peoples jaws to the floor. Simply The Jest: Australia’s Best Stories is the place for those stories to be showcased.
And we’re talking amazing, dangerous and unbelievable stories like; the Aussie backpacker who ran away from a bus exploded by cartels in Mexico after getting “splodey vibes”, the young sailor who died mid competition, was brought back to life… And still came third and the woman who used to swim in George Harrison’s pool as a child and only knew him as that “nice old man with the bucket hat”.
Namesake of the popular segment, Jess Perkins said of the podcast: “Simply The Jest is the highlight of my week, so it’s really exciting that we get to relive some of the wild stories we’ve heard. We’ll laugh, we’ll cry and we’ll dry retch a little bit!”
Lewis Hobba added: “I guarantee you will say ‘no f*cking way!’ at least once per episode,” while Michael Hing mused that “From what I understand, podcasting has a smaller audience than radio, is largely unpaid and the only benefit is my parents won’t be able to find it.”
You can easily stream, download and subscribe to Simply The Jest: Australia’s Best Stories via the triple j app(downloadable on iPhone or Android), ABC Listen and iTunes as of today.
To kick off the weekly podcast, you can listen to seven of our all-time favourite episodes now. Plus each episode features additional outrageous stories that couldn’t be aired previously.
