12. Bored to Death

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I'm Hannah Fry.

And I'm Dara O'Brien.

And this is Curious Cases.

The show where we take your quirkiest questions, your crunchiest conundrums, and then we solve them.

With the power of science.

I mean, do we always solve them?

I mean, the hit rate's pretty low.

But it is with science.

It is with science.

Hi, we're doing a test, myself and Hannah.

We are.

We are.

It's on the boredom proneness scale, BPS.

I don't think it's an official scale.

This looks a lot more like a sort of internet quiz from the 90s.

Oh, it does a bit.

So it's not like, you know,

the Glasgow stool scale or whatever.

The Bristol School stool scale.

It's questions like, it's easy for me to concentrate on my activities, which I would say is broadly not true for me.

I find it quite hard.

Some of them seem very obvious.

Having to look at someone's home movies or travel pics bores me tremendously.

I think that's who doesn't do it.

It seems self-evident.

I absolutely agree.

Oh, here's one.

I feel I am working below my abilities most of the time.

That's not true.

No.

Anyways, whatever it is.

I'm working way beyond.

I've been.

It's been reaching.

Really?

Let's go for the very last one.

When I was very young, very young, I was often in monotonous and tiresome situations.

Ireland in the 80s was, like on Sunday afternoons, often very monotonous and tiresome.

I can well believe it.

Yes, I've seen it.

I once, during a single summer, was so bored that I taught myself how to reorder a pack of cards as quickly as possible.

That was every day for six weeks.

Did you use that skill ever?

No,

once.

I'm going to submit my answers and it's going to tell me how prone I am to boredom.

You are bored 26% of the time.

Oh, really?

Mine was 3%.

So you're never bored?

I don't think I am, really.

No.

Even this conversation is beginning to wear.

I'm a model of inner contentment.

That it says, at 26%, what did it say about you?

It says, you're so calm, you tend to sleep through life.

I would say that is the precise opposite of my personality, Jake.

But thank you very much for entertainment purposes only.

Well, that's what this episode is as well, for entertainment purposes only, because today we have a question that has come in from Edward Bermont, who is 13.

Hi, I'm Edward, and I've been wondering whether it's actually possible to die of boredom boredom or if it's just something people say.

It's quite a weird saying because it's very extreme for a feeling that most of the time it doesn't stay for very long.

I do get bored quite easily.

It's like there's a lot of options of what I could do, but none of them seem to really appeal.

I'm going to take this question in its most dramatic form.

He means die.

Absolutely.

I have lost my will to live.

Like boredom as a torture device.

I cannot take this grammar revision anymore and I simply expired upon a chaise lounge next to my homework.

This feels like it would be quite a short show if that was the literal interpretation of his question because I think if you could literally die of boredom, then anyone in solitary confinement would be at risk to their lives.

Yeah, okay, true.

But I still like the idea of it being a tangible fear for a a 13-year-old that this is...

Because I'd imagine this is written when he was facing into some subject that he really is not interested in.

I'm like, this is going to kill me.

Here to help us get to the bottom of this definitely not dull subject, we've got social psychologist Dr.

Vinand van Tilberg, who studies boredom at Essex University.

And Dr.

Mike Esterman, co-founder of the Attention and Learning Lab at Boston University in the US.

Wynnette, I'm coming into this question dramatically.

Can you literally die of boredom?

First, I just want to ask our questioner if he's alright.

Oh, that's quite sweet.

I hope he's okay.

It seems like quite an extreme question.

So, as far as I'm aware, there's exactly one study that looked at the potential direct link between boredom and mortality.

Called Bored to Death, so very fitting title.

And what they find there is that in a cohort of civil servants in their middle age, so not quite young boys,

those who reported to be bored extensively in the last couple of weeks were later more likely to die of a cardiovascular event.

And this is, as far as I know, the only study on the subject.

So it hasn't been replicated or further investigated.

Why would you not further investigate?

That's the most dramatic result I've heard.

And I may be misinterpreting your results here slightly.

Everyone who declared that they were slightly bored at the time, when they returned 10 years later, they were all dead.

Fortunately, not all of them.

The risk factor was higher, so they were more likely to die of a cardiovascular event later on.

And you're quite right that it's shocking that there's not much more research on this.

Over the last decades, the work on boredom has increased, but it's been ignored for a large period of time, possibly because people tend to trivialize it a little bit.

They think maybe it's

one of these things in life that you just have to endure a little bit.

And only until recently have we started taking it more seriously and looking at the problems associated with it.

Because it's an everyday phenomenon.

We all get bored.

Yeah, correct.

Yeah, most people report that they're bored regularly.

Is there a definition?

Is there a clinical definition of this?

So boredom is not seen as a clinical issue, and that may actually be part of the reason why there is not so much research in it.

But in psychology, it's usually defined as wanting but being unable to engage in some sort of satisfying activity.

And that's a very common experience.

And in its everyday form, it's fine to be bored every once in a while.

But if you're chronically bored, if you can't escape from it, then it comes with some dire correlates and consequences.

So you need to have the desire to be, whether it's entertained or

distracted, but unable to.

So you need to both feel that desire and feel that you are not being given it.

Exactly.

There's a sort of inability to engage with something that you would otherwise like to engage with.

And by the way, Edward is a teenager.

We were laughing about this earlier on, but that is an age at which you're more prone to this.

Yeah, absolutely.

So teenagers, adolescents, and students in university education, they tend to be more bored than their older counterparts.

So boredom is definitely an issue among children.

Is there also a range?

I mean Dara there got what was it, 27% in your extremely scientific test.

And I got slightly lower.

Do some people get more bored than others?

Yeah there's quite a bit of variability and the tendency for people to to get bored.

Some people are definitely more prone to boredom.

In fact that's quite a serious issue because recent work shows that for example people in unemployment, people with lower education levels and people who are excluded from society are far more likely to become bored in one life and also far more likely to suffer its problematic outcomes.

We've used used phrases like bored to tears.

Is there a link or is there a pathway between boredom and depression?

Yes, there definitely is.

So people who are inclined to be bored, so this is this sort of individual difference in the tendency to become bored, they're at risk of becoming depressed, they are at greater risk of developing anxiety, they're at greater risk for substance use, and the list of risks is really long.

So long-term boredom or a tendency to be unable to escape your boredom is something very serious.

What about spending time with people who are bored?

I sort of like to think of myself as enjoying reverse clickbait, things that on the surface look like they're extremely boring.

And then once you actually dig into them, they become more and more exciting.

But I do find that when I spend time with people who do not find such thrills, the world becomes a more boring place.

Is it contagious?

I'm not sure.

But you raise another interesting point, and that is boredom you find in activities that other people may not find interesting.

And we have done research on what people perceive as boring in others.

And one of the things that we found in the top list of what makes another person boring, stereotypically, just to emphasize that, is things related to math, numbers, and finance.

How dare you?

Come on, don't walk into our temple with this.

Of all the two people who speak about this,

the two words matsy, nerdy.

I'm sorry, your nerd is also.

You're looking here at all, Mr.

Non-Maths.

I mean, it's a stereotype, right?

So to make you a little bit more happy, when we look at the various activities, jobs, and that people believe are stereotypically boring, on the low end on the list is, for example, having a sense of humor and comedy, right?

That is not seen as boring, as is being a scientist.

Oh, so despite you know, science being very heavily done, science entertainment podcast, hello, exactly, exactly.

Venn diagram, yeah, right in the middle the fact that we both mentally went to a Venn diagram for that,

yeah.

You're you're going to the other side again,

very few backgrounds.

Haven't you got an Ignobel Prize in this?

Yes, we did receive an Ignobile.

Just explain to what the Ignobel Prize is.

Oh, sure.

Yes, which is for research which is still believed to have helped humanity, but

on the surface seems quite silly.

Yes, absolutely, yeah.

So they run an award ceremony every year in one of America's most illustrious universities.

The chemistry Ignobile Prize was once given to the person who invented the scratch and sniff perfume strips in magazines.

Worthwhile, worthwhile contribution to humanity.

Yes.

But you have one of these awards.

Yes, we did receive one for research on boardman education and in particular on the link between boarding students and boarding teachers.

So what we found was that if a teacher is bored by the topic they are teaching, the students tend to pick up on this even if they don't consciously realize that the teacher is bored.

So it transfers to the students, which in turn don't engage as much.

And in another part of our research, we found that if students come into, in this case, university students, come into a class anticipating that it will be dull, then it essentially makes sure that they will be bored regardless of the topic.

Oh, see,

I mean, personally, my experience, almost the opposite.

If you come into my lectures, right, you think they are going to be the most boring things ever.

And boy, am I going to prove you wrong.

Your expectations are squarely managed.

So I barely need to like lift you up a tiny bit before you're extremely impressed by everything I do.

I admire your optimism.

I hope you're right.

This man is award-winning.

I'm not saying that you're wrong.

Are some people more boring than others?

I mean, do some people sort of come across as more boring than others?

Yeah, there are particular behaviors that cause others to find you more boring.

So one of them is monotonous voices, talking a lot about yourself instead of about others.

Talking very fast, having no sense of humor in conversations.

These kind of things cause others to find you boring.

Then there are hobbies that are seen as boring.

So, for example, observing animals like bird watching, but also sleeping in a lot.

So, if you were to combine those all in one very, very unlucky person, they would probably be perceived as extremely boring, even though they may themselves be very passionate about what they're doing.

However, by them being an extremely boring person, according to science, thus makes them interesting.

At least all the way around.

All the way right around in the circle.

We actually came across a group of people who describe themselves as dull.

Have a little listen to this.

We will meet up

for Anarak of the Earth Award.

And when you get to meet these people, these dull people, it's amazing how charismatic they all are.

It's their hobbies that's dull.

My name's Kevin Beresford.

I'm the president of the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society.

There's nothing more expressive than the one-way gyratory.

And like you know, ACIS and a sea of tarmac.

I get a lot of emails from roundabout enthusiasts from around Britain.

It's such an easy hobby to take up.

My name is Archer Workman, and they call me the drain spotter.

It's not quite like train spotting.

You don't have to stand on the end of a platform and wear an anorak.

You can just go out your front door and walk along the road.

It started when I became a lensman for my local parish and part of the job was cleaning the drains.

I took photographs of the drain covers and I didn't realise that there's so many different names cast on the drain covers.

They have eight holes in them, nine holes, some have four, but I don't think it's boring.

It fascinates me that all these drain covers were made a long, long time ago and they'll still be around after I've gone.

Members of the Dull Men's Club there.

I should say, actually, Dario, you mentioned Ireland in the 1980s.

I do have a strong memory of my cousins coming over from Ireland.

And around about 1990, one of my cousins, who was eight years old, the thing he most wanted to see in his big trip to England was the M25.

Wow, okay.

That's pretty special, all right?

We didn't have an M25 then.

Did not?

Most of us wanted to just come over and see mint arrows because we didn't have them either.

Yeah, and they were like, what?

You have mint arrows?

Anyway, that's a whole other thing.

Do you have any particularly boring hobbies?

Well, I mean, I'd like to stand out in the garden with the telescope photographing the sky.

And like, while my family are just, I can see them through the door watching the television, like, whatever, and I'm slowly tweaking and turning things.

And I'll do that for hours on end.

Like, the, yeah, so, so, yeah,

I'm, I mean, the guy who said, oh, the one-way generator resistor, yeah, like, that is wrong accident, I know, but like, he sounds genuinely passionate about it.

Yeah, I don't think he finds it boring at all.

No, no, no, no, no.

And his passion is almost made me interested in roundabouts.

Almost.

You know what?

Let's do a day trip to Milton Kings.

Okay.

The thing is, is that these people call themselves dull, but they obviously do find their hobbies really fulfilling.

Yeah, that means it shows that they're very sensitive to what other people probably think of them.

You know, they take themselves clearly not entirely seriously by calling it a dull men's club, and also not being at all embarrassed about just finding these things fascinating.

Sucks!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs.

Playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com

It sort of feels as though sometimes out of boredom you can find something useful and good to do.

Is there any evidence that boredom can perhaps spark creativity?

It's one of the things that I think a lot of people want to be true, that boredom has so many negative outcomes.

So wouldn't it be nice if it also sparks creativity?

And there's some research on it, but it's very inconclusive.

It looks like if you take all these different studies together, there's not a very strong case to be made for boredom being a force for creativity.

Like creativity comes from finding some inspiration somewhere instead.

Yeah, so creativity is typically associated with having divergent thoughts.

So thoughts that are unrelated topics and suddenly seeing a connection between the two.

And boredom is associated with, for example, mind wandering, but maybe not constructive enough to actually cause creativity.

Well, that's very interesting to bring of mind wandering.

Mike, what do we mean by mind wandering?

Is it the same as daydreaming?

We sort of define mind wandering as internal mental thoughts that are not externally directed towards the task that is related to your goals.

But you can also mind wander in contexts where you're not engaged in a task.

And the mind wandering may be, maybe your goal itself is to think about the future, think about the past.

And it may be directed.

It may be intentional.

It can also be unintentional.

And it can have positive emotions and you can enjoy it, or it can have negative emotions.

It can be ruminative or intrusive kinds of thoughts that you have less control over.

I do wonder, Dara, this is an experience that's happened to me only a couple of times, but when I've been on stage giving a talk that I know very well, and my mind can be having an entirely different conversation with itself about what I'm going to be having for dinner, while outwardly I'm just, you know, uninterrupted giving this presentation.

Yeah, no, that can happen.

I mean, because if you've done the same material over and over again, it becomes like a mechanical process and your mind can wander off.

Well, of course, we know that as you practice things, they become more automatic.

that they require less cognitive control or effort.

So you have that ability.

But we've actually done some work where we can interrupt people and we can get a sense of how motivated are you at the moment and how much your mind is wandering at the moment.

And typically what we find is when people say their minds are wandering, they tend to be making more errors, right?

That takes them off task and that has a cost.

But when people are highly motivated, their mind wandering isn't very costly to their performance.

And I think that we do that, you know, potentially when we're driving.

We know when we can kind of go in autopilot, we can start to devote less of our attentional resources towards, our control of the car and more towards other kinds of processes.

I'm wondering about something, for example, like an airport security worker

watching things going past over and over and over again,

maintaining the concentration to do what is, in some ways, probably quite a simple task.

Do we see their ability to do that tailing off over time?

Is that fatigue?

Is it boredom?

That kind of job.

How does that affect it by this?

That's a fantastic question.

And it's something that is really characteristic of these tasks that we have developed and that other people use, which is that you're doing these boring, repetitive tasks, and you may have very rare kinds of deviations where you have to detect a rare target that's very infrequent.

And we

find that people

start off pretty good.

It's not that hard to do in any one moment.

It's just hard to do for long periods of time.

And so we see this kind of classic, what's called a decrement.

And this is really different than a lot of other kinds of tasks, right?

We think about, oh, practice.

If I do a lot of tasks, the more you do it, the better you get.

But these are tasks where actually the more you do it, the worse you get.

You know, we see these decrements over time consistently in just eight minutes without a break or, you know, even short periods like that.

You know, that point that you made about motivation really

is kind of coming clear to me because, you know, in airport security, the companies deliberately put in fake images of sort of guns and bombs in order to keep people awake, keep people checking, sort of increase their motivation.

Because if they don't miss them, then they get in trouble.

Also, by the way, I should tell you that the number that they expect people to correctly identify is 60%.

So okay, great.

That's reassuring.

70% of those fake guns and bombs go right through.

Early studies that sort of examine these decrements over time posited this idea that maybe attention is a resource that depletes over time.

You run out of gas like a muscle just gets tired.

But the evidence hasn't really been in favor of those models.

So that has kind of led to the development of these models that are really more tied to reward and motivation.

The idea is that our attention is limited, but it's not limited because it runs out.

It's limited that we can only attend to one or two things at a time.

We can't do everything.

at once.

And so the value of a single task is always a trade-off to the value of the alternative.

In other words, could I be doing something better that would be more fun or rewarding?

So the question is, how do we keep people motivated after, you know, eight minutes of this boring task or 10 minutes of this boring task?

And so we told them that there was, and it was true, that there was one trial.

We call it the magic trial.

And if they got that trial right, so if basically they found this fake gun, basically, they would get a bonus of $14, which is pretty good for a short time.

But we told them we wouldn't tell them which was the magic gun until right afterwards.

It actually was always 10 minutes in.

And we found that if we dangled this carrot of $14

to find that fake gun, people were totally able to maintain their attention and they didn't fall off over time.

Amazing.

Which just shows you how malleable this ability is.

How do you test how much somebody's mind wanders?

We do tasks, really boring tasks that kind of have this continuous flow to them.

People have to engage in very monotonous, routinized behavior, and it encourages internal thoughts about anything else than this.

Okay, so we have a version of this, Dara, that we can...

This is much more scientific than the test that we did earlier.

Okay.

It's something called the Gradual Onset Continuous Performance Test.

What we have to do is every time we see any number apart from three, we have to press a space bar.

And you have to ignore all the backgrounds and just

crack on.

Okay, here we go.

Let's go.

Oh, I can see a three.

Oh, and it's one.

They don't count.

They're very fast.

So they're fast antators.

It's surprising, right?

So those are pictures of furniture and numbers being projected in front of them.

And anytime there's a...

Oh, damn.

You have almost no time to think in between each number coming up.

And now we've got some puppies.

Puppies and kittens.

Oh, babies.

Are you measuring, am I distracted by baby fox?

Of course I'm distracted by baby fox.

Oh, no.

We've been promised that some of these images are going to be more disturbing than others.

And thus far, this is just absolutely delightful.

Oh, there's a mean leopard now.

He has a baby in the incubator.

That's a little bit more.

Some images from.

Oh, oh, dogs fighting.

Yes.

That's a sad dog.

That's a little bit of a bit more of a sad dog.

Oh, I definitely was distracted.

Oh, no.

They've become a bit more intense.

I've done that again.

Now they're taking images from Attabra documentaries, essentially.

Oh, no.

I've completely been unable to maintain my attention.

I'm merely looking at the images now.

No, I'm trying not to look at the image and unfocus on them, but they're quite gruesome some of these.

All right, tell us about this test then.

What did you find?

Okay, well, that was incredibly entertaining to listen to.

I've never listened to so much commentary during the test.

Will that help us or not help us?

I don't know.

I think we're extra focused because of it.

By the way, can you just carry on doing this while you're talking?

You don't know what you're doing.

Absolutely.

Concentrate on three tasks at once.

Presenting a radio show and completing the psychology experiment.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is something.

What do you find in general?

When we have no distractors present, so there's nothing in the background, we find that one of the sources of attention failures are internal thoughts.

Really, again, thinking about what else could I be doing better when you're doing this is, well, I could think about something else.

So we developed this because a lot of times in the world, our attention is focused on one thing and there are other things in the environment that could take us away from our sustained attention.

We look at the number of errors that people make and we can see how they vary with the presence of the pictures as well as with the emotion of the pictures.

And then we can also subjectively interrupt them and we can ask them, okay, at that moment, were you more focused on the digits or did you get more focused by these background distractors?

So what we find is that, yes, putting those distractors there makes it harder for people to sustain their attention.

But we find that the worst case is when those images are highly arousing in the negative domain.

That's when people are most disrupted.

Here's a question, Michael.

When you're at a party and you're talking to somebody, and are you especially attuned to

whether they're properly listening to you or not?

I feel like I am always hearing the other conversations happening at once, and I have a very difficult time tuning out multiple conversations.

Absolutely.

I'm noticing myself not paying attention.

And then your mind's wandering about mind wandering.

Yes.

Gets very better.

I just want to bring it back to you if I can.

By the way, I am still sort of actively trying to host the show while doing this test.

And I think that's a variable that they haven't included in

this examination.

The radio for Saturday mornings lost.

Yeah, that can you do it while actively attempting to pretend to host a radio show.

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Thank you.

There was one particular one of a golden retriever, which we have, a golden retriever, and a baby beside.

And they kind of went, oh, like, come on, what are you doing here?

What can you do about this, though, Michael?

If you wanted to use your learnings to actively increase your attention and minimize your unhelpful mind wandering, what could you do?

I think it's tough.

I think there's been a lot of work to try and develop cognitive training where people do different kinds of tasks.

Maybe they're working memory tasks or in this case, like an attention or an inhibitory control, these different kinds of constructs that kind of surround this idea of attentional control.

And the evidence has been pretty mixed and not that strong that even though you can get a lot better at the task that you're training on, it doesn't necessarily generalize really well.

One of the things that seems to help attention is meditation.

Dozens of studies and meta-analyses have shown that there are some small to moderate effects, although there's certainly selection bias there.

Not everyone can meditate, is able to do that.

In fact, maybe some of the people who have the worst attention are going to have the hardest time doing that kind of intervention.

What is it about meditation that means that you can increase your attention on things?

Is it about how you're practicing your awareness almost?

Yes, I think that would be my guess: is that you become a little bit more, potentially it helps you become more aware of where your attention is focused and when it's not focused on, say, your task.

And maybe with that enhanced awareness, you can nudge yourself back on more effectively than finding yourself catastrophically off task.

Mike, I finished your test and the screen came up and said your scores have been successfully saved.

You can close this page.

I have neither got a result nor $14.

I wish to complain about the test.

You made me look at pictures of puppies and then unhappy puppies while I clicked a button.

Where have my results gone?

I didn't expect it to come up like a, you know, like a BuzzFeed test and go, you are the best concentrator in the world, but still the test just came up It said you're the it actually said you're the best concentrator in the world.

Oh, that's right.

That's that's the result I wanted more than anything else why not what are we doing with our boredom thresholds?

I mean are we hacking them with phones and and doom scrolling?

Are we making boredom more likely to occur?

And is there anything we can do about it?

Yeah.

Yeah, so the research does show that people's ability to deal with boredom is undermined by phones and that boredom levels are generally rising.

But I think we have to take that also with a little bit of a pinch of salt.

Phones, phone smartphones are a relatively new technology.

Maybe society hasn't adapted to it fully yet.

I'd like to see in the coming decades if we can make smartphone use a part of our society without necessarily all those problematic outcomes.

One thing that seems to be in control is that long term, boredom is not a good thing for your health.

Yeah, that's correct.

And but what kind of activity should people be seeking to alleviate their own boredom?

There are some strategies that we have identified that might help people with alleviating boredom.

It will be a very individual approach.

But one key attribute of boring activities is that people report that they have no agency over what they're doing.

So in context, for example, of a bored child, when I was bored as a kid, I would go to my parents and say, I'm so bored.

And they would invariably say something like, oh, you can clean your room or you can help me with the dishes.

It's something that obviously wouldn't make any difference.

And the key issue here is that you have no agency over those tasks.

You're assigned those tasks.

It's not something you do out of your own volition.

And we know in students, in children, that this ability to choose what you want to do is really important.

When we move a bit further to adults, there are some other strategies that might be useful.

Positive, what we call self-transcending emotions, such as gratitude, awe, and self-compassion or compassion to others.

If people actively practice this, they'll also feel less bored themselves.

So whenever you feel bored in the moment, try to think of something you're grateful for.

Try to think of something that makes you fill with awe, like looking up at the sky or something like that.

And that might, at least in the moment, be a relief of your boredom.

So, in many ways, it's a very individual journey, but you've just got to find your own gyratory roundabout.

Exactly, exactly.

And once you do that, that's the key to it all.

Well, on that note, thank you so much

to both of our guests for today: Bainan van Telberg and Mike Esterman.

Well, that was ironically very interesting.

It was, wasn't it?

I am immediately throwing away my phone, though.

Yeah, no, no, I don't think it's doing us any good at all.

But, like, how are you going to say that to Edward, the 13-year-old?

I mean, what?

We're going to just go,

put down your phone, that's the key,

and read a book.

Yeah, as somebody who has teenagers for kids, I can imagine that that won't go down that well.

It doesn't work.

No.

It doesn't work.

Edward, sit through it.

Just sit through it, man.

Just hold on tight.

Five years to go.

Five years to go.

Five years to go.

Whatever you want.

The whole world is there for you.

You won't be bored at 18.

trust me.

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Hello, I'm David Yelland.

And I'm Simon Lewis.

We're the hosts of Radio 4's When It Hits the Fan, the podcast which looks at how big names and big companies manage their PR.

But what about your own personal PR?

How do you better manage your own reputation at work?

We're here to help.

With a series of special bonus episodes, we'll bring a little wisdom and share some tips to hopefully make you better at that job.

Quick Wins is a series of short and snappy episodes with lots of advice aimed at improving your working life.

If that sounds useful, then please listen and subscribe on BBC Sounds.

Just search for When It Hits the Fan.

Suffs!

The new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be home!

Winner, best score!

We demand to be seen!

Winner, best book!

We the man to be quality!

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs!

Playing the Orpheum Theater October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.