Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Why our All Killa No Filla podcast has the best fans

Rachel Fairburn and Kiri Pritchard-McLean. Images: Drew Forsyth

For ten years now, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Rachel Fairburn have been dissecting notorious serial killer cases in their true crime comedy podcast, All Killa No Filla, always focusing on the lives of the victims, with plenty of tangents… To celebrate the milestone, they’re off on tour. After a decade, the fans, a community of ‘Legends’, have grown to their thousands. Here, Kiri tells us why they’re the best fans they could have hoped for.

There are a few immutable truths when you start doing comedy.

You will have a preferred service station, you will die on your arse at a gig, and you cannot pick your audience. Instead, your audience picks you. Exciting, right? The feeling of being picked by a group of people, why it’s the exact opposite of everything that’s made you a comedian!

It is exciting, until you find out who they are.

What if they’re dicks? What if they’re the kind of people who close their eyes, smile and nod slowly during your jokes and instead of laughing at the punchline, click? What if the repercussions of all your snidey jokes about non-binary teenagers is a sea of reddened, white faces that only want you to proclaim “you can’t say anything anymore” as you bang out neat lines of bigotry?

Terrifying.

Imagine turning up to do a live show of a true crime podcast and finding out the audience is actually the soundest group of folk you’re ever likely to meet? Well, that’s the privileged position I find myself in. You see I have joint custody of a bouncing Ten year old true crime podcast called All Killa no Filla. Our listeners are called Legends (a decade on I can’t even remember why) and they really do deserve that moniker. True Crime is a tricky, sticky genre and I’m sure the fandoms of other podcasts have to navigate some class A weirdos but I’m proud to say, not us. Legends are a special breed. The community they’ve fostered in their Legends Facebook group is supportive, celebratory and open minded.

A quick shout out on our social media reveals that the Legends group on Facebook (and its various spin offs “Legends Pet Detectives”, anyone?) have facilitated people leaving their homes to due to abuse, sorted each other lifts back from live shows, advised on wedding make-up, helped with CVs, sent care packages in difficult times, paid for hotels for homeless Legends, the list goes on and on.

You never quite know what will happen when you put out any form of content as a comedian. Oh, if you’re a woman you will be told you’re fat and unfunny, but aside from that, you don’t know what ripple effect it might have. Most of the time it’s none. However, the ripple effect of making a daft, empathetic, true crime podcast is an incredibly strong, kind community. On the internet, on Facebook — do you realise how hard that is?! Rachel and I can’t claim to take credit for that group or any of the things that happen in it but we’re both delighted and honoured that our inane chat and slagging off of ex’s has been able to facilitate it.

Yes, you can’t pick your audience but if you could I reckon everyone would pick Legends. Oh and the best service station is Tebay.

Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Rachel Fairburn are celebrating 10 years of their All Killa No Filla podcast with a 10 date UK tour, starting March 30th. All dates and tickets here

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