Screw This… Let’s Try Something Else is a new podcast series created by media brand Immediate and storytelling lab ANTIDOTE.
Hosted by journalists Maryam Pasha and Matt Golding, the series takes listeners around the UK to meet people who are tackling everyday challenges in practical, imaginative ways, often without waiting for permission from institutions.
Across six episodes, the podcast visits communities taking housing into their own hands in Grimsby, building a community-owned wind turbine on an estate in Bristol, and reimagining neighbourhood design in Birmingham to reflect the future people are actually facing.
The stories focus on real responses to issues including food, energy, housing, decision making and social division, showing how local action can bridge gaps and create change that feels achievable.
Screw This… Let’s Try Something Else is built around a storytelling approach developed by ANTIDOTE in collaboration with the University of Bristol, designed to help listeners feel a stronger sense of agency over their own lives and futures.
Alongside the podcast, a Hope Survey created with Climate Outreach will explore how listening affects people’s optimism and sense of control in the face of challenges such as inequality, the cost of living and the climate crisis.
Listeners can also use an AI-powered postcode search tool on the Antidote website, which highlights five positive community projects already happening within five miles of their home, offering a simple way to get involved.
The creators say the aim is not to deny the scale of the problems people face, but to show that meaningful change is already happening, often quietly and collectively, across the country.
Mark Pepper from Ambition Lawrence Weston in Bristol, featured in the series, says: “We don’t take no for an answer anymore. So we just try and find a way around that.”
Launching on what is often labelled Blue Monday, the podcast positions itself as an antidote to pessimism, using grounded, human stories to show how a better future is already being built from the ground up.
