Tamara Littleton 00:12
This is the Genuine Humans podcast, brought to you by Social Element. I’m Tamara Littleton.
Wendy Christie 00:18
And I’m Wendy Christie.
Tamara Littleton 00:22
In our podcast, we’ll discover the stories of the leaders behind the brands and the trailblazers who are making a real difference in our industry. We’ll delve into how they got to where they are today.
Wendy Christie 00:33
And we’ll hear about the genuine humans who supported and influenced them along the way.
Tamara Littleton 00:45
Welcome back to the Genuine Humans podcast. Wendy Christie, my fabulous co-host, is here as well as always; how are you doing, Wendy?
Wendy Christie 00:52
Yes, very well. Thank you. You’re very happy to be here. How are you?
Tamara Littleton 00:56
I’m really good. The sun came out, which makes all the difference, doesn’t it?
Wendy Christie 01:01
It really, really does. I think we’ve had about six days without rain now. So, I’m like, it’s Summer. Just jinxed it.
Tamara Littleton 01:11
So, I’m very happy today because we have a fabulous guest, Jane Loring, on the podcast. Jane has over twenty years of experience in the performance-driven media tech industry, including my favourite retro one, handbag.com. I think I was working at the BBC when we worked with handbag.com. But more recently, Jane was at Spotify and now has her dream job at Microsoft as the director of sales in media and communications. Welcome, Jane.
Jane Loring 01:41
Thank you. So pleased to be here.
Tamara Littleton 01:44
So, Jane, I’m going to ask the question that I love asking my guests: How did you get to where you are now? Do you want to give us a bit of a flavour of how you got into the industry and your early career?
Jane Loring 01:57
Of course. And it’s really interesting to reflect on this master plan that never was. How I ended up here. I suppose going right back a little bit. And I think it’s nearly three decades. But anyway, we’re talking about that later. So, I left school with the ambition of going to drama school to be an actress. This didn’t quite end up the same the same result as I’d perhaps planned. But I took a year out and started working and applied for a postgraduate job at IBM, which I saw advertised in the Evening Standard this is we’re going back a while when we used to look at the job section. I applied for that, just sort of thinking it would be a good experience to apply for it. But fortunately, I was lucky enough to get into their post-grad scheme without a degree.
I continued to apply to drama school and got a place at the Guildhall School of Drama in London, which was a real, you know, successful audition. So I was really delighted but sort of fell in love with working at IBM, which is very different to training to become, you know, the next Helen Mirren anyway, so declined my place and joined IBM on this sort of, they had sort of like an IBM Academy, I don’t know if they still do it, I think they do where you, you’re pretty much taken through best practice in business in sales, training and management.
I had about 10 years there where I absolutely learned everything; I think that I still utilise it in my toolbox today, from negotiations to working with big enterprise clients. I was flying around the world, you know, it was just a fantastic job. And I was probably one of the very few females there at that time, which has also been quite a theme through especially the earlier years in tech; I met some fantastic friends, friends that are still really close friends for life, and really never looked back because I absolutely loved it. So, that was sort of the starting point. That’s selling mainframe computers to banks not going into the theatre.
Tamara Littleton 04:15
Quite a different world.
Jane Loring 04:18
And then everybody thought I was completely mad because I resigned. So, the reason I resigned was I decided I wanted to go into the new world of the internet.I had been doing a lot of studying and thought it would be very exciting to change careers but take all the things that I had sort of learned as great business basics into a sort of more of a new media career with working within advertising and content on the internet. So, in 1999, I left and took a really huge pay cut and went to a company called Fish4. I don’t know if anyone will remember this but business, but it was all the local press amalgamated into one website where you could fish for homes and cars and jobs
Tamara Littleton 05:09
God. Yes, I do, I do.
Jane Loring 05:10
And yeah, it was run by a couple of people: Jonathan Turpin and Jonathan Lyons, who are ex-BBC employees and based in Hammersmith. One of my first memories is that we all had to dress as fish and walk around the tube, giving out leaflets. I did think at this point, well, you know, I was in the south of France with IBM at the Cannes Film Festival, and now I’m in the middle of Hammersmith dressed as a fish. But you know, it was exciting. And I was learning a lot of new skills and a lot a lot about a new and very, very exciting industry.
Then, I got fairly quickly promoted because I had a lot of experience in doing all those business basics, running teams, business planning, and working with really big enterprise clients. And then I was running their advertising team there, but within about 18 months, then somebody who’s also a big feature in my life still Nancy Cruickshank, who was setting up Handbag, with the Telegraph and Boots, she headhunted me from, which is a, which is a real risk for her to go and be their ad director. So, I think this was a really pivotal point in my career, actually, for many reasons. And you probably remember Handbag.
Tamara Littleton 06:30
It was huge at the moment at the time.
Jane Loring 06:33
Yeah, absolutely. It was huge. It was sort of competing with iVillage in the US and Boots, and The Telegraph really wanted to launch the first sort of female portal for content for advice for shopping for everything for females. Obviously, we had the huge benefit of in-shop promotion with Boots, The Telegraph’s audience, and it grew very quickly. So, I went in as the ad director, and we hired a lot of people. And we famously had some of the best parties I think the industry has ever thrown. But this was a really pivotal role for me because suddenly, I really got to understand the media landscape, working with The Telegraph, working with Boots, working with all the advertising agencies, and working with Nancy, who was the MD and then CEO. And she’s been a mentor to me till now and has actually been responsible for some of my biggest risk taking, and is a very, very good friend of mine now.
And it was really hardcore because we had to, you know, we had to report to the board of Telegraph and Boots, and we had to, you know, really achieve the numbers that there was a lot of funding that had gone into that business. I was there for about six years. And we had huge success, it was really a fantastic time for accelerating business and learning about how to drive a team to really have a growth mindset. Because obviously, nobody really knew what we were but then suddenly, we everybody knew who we were.
The business was eventually sold to Hearst Magazine Group. So that was the point where I then had to make a decision about whether to go to Hearst or not. And I very fortunately, found out there was a role at Microsoft. So, this so going back, I know, I’ve just returned to Microsoft, but there were roles in their Microsoft advertising team. And one of the roles was Director of Sales and Strategy. And at the time, no one really knew what Microsoft advertising, MSN, was. And went through the interview process and thought, well, this is going to be an amazing role for me because I can learn so much about tech. And although I’d obviously really found my feet and understanding about media and advertising and all of those things, this was going to be throwing me right into product development and understanding go-to-market product strategy and, of course, working on huge amounts of business.
So, I joined there, and I had a really big team there. I think it was bigger than Handbag is, probably 50 to 60 people but all different diverse teams from product market strategy to sales excellence to category development. So for me, it was a huge learning about different business strands. And we were also in a very good place. Everybody wanted to work with Microsoft advertising. Everyone wanted to test Xbox, you know, it was it was it was a really exciting period in the industry and perfect timing for that particular team. And we won a lot of awards and I’m still very close with a lot of that team. We had a really good run of success. I also had an all-female team in one of my teams, which was very unusual then.
Tamara Littleton 10:03
Very unusual.
Jane Loring 10:04
Yeah, it was really unusual. And I was fortunate enough to be put on Microsoft’s fast track. And I went to Maui and met Steve Ballmer, and Bill Gates came over, and it was really fantastic to spend a lot of time in Seattle. So, really, the learning curve there was really fast, and I really loved it. I met some of the smartest people I’ve, you know, still know today.
And then Nancy Cruickshank got back in touch with me and said, “There’s a company called Mode Media”, which was previously known as Glam Media. And it was a very big female ad network in the US. And they were looking for an MD. And she said, “I think you should meet the board”. And I said, “Look, I’ve never been an MD”. And she’s like, “Well, I think you should meet the board”, and I then met the board, really clicked with them, flew to New York for an interview, got stuck in the dust cloud, which was pretty stressful, and then secured the role to be the Managing Director for the UK. And that that role was to really grow the UK and then European business, they had a really big footprint in New York in America.
So, we had to, sort of, we were in the very early stage of using influences to grow the content piece, grow out the sort of network of publishers we wanted to work with, grow the audience, work with the advertising agencies. I suppose I transferred a lot of the learnings from previously, especially at Microsoft to running with those different functions. We grew very fast; it was an absolutely brilliant role. We filed for an IPO and didn’t get a second filing. Unfortunately, five years later, the company went under.
It was one of the highlights of my career working there. And then one of the worst days of my career, when you have to tell the team that actually, it’s, we’re not going to continue anymore. But again, it was fantastic for me because I learned how to manage your business; I learned how to work really closely with a US board. It was a really fantastic five years.
Tamara Littleton 12:25
And that theme of you’ve been headhunted quite a lot throughout your career. I think that that’s definitely coming through that these people are spotting your talent and then pulling you in as well.
Jane Loring 12:36
I also think there wasn’t a lot of female leadership. These businesses, if you look at Handbag and Glam, were all about females, so you really don’t think they would like a female leader. But yes, I’ve been very fortunate to have people who really have my back, which is why I want to pay it forward now with people in my network.
Tamara Littleton 13:01
Fantastic. And so from Glam. That must have been tough, um, sort of pick yourself up from that position, though. And then what happened next?
Jane Loring 13:14
Well, it was very interesting because I immediately got phone calls to see if some of the team wanted to quickly transfer to another business because we were actually ready to go as it’s sort of, yeah, quite well-known top-performing sales team, really.
So, I was lucky enough to, I think it was just a matter of weeks, join a company called Playbuzz, which was in a similar space. earlier stage startup, joined them as VP of content and sales for Europe, and took some of the team with me, as many as I could, in all honesty, because people were obviously desperately trying to secure roles. And I was there for, I think, just over two years. They were an Israeli startup. So, I had some fantastic visits to Tel Aviv and expanded my network there.
And then, after that, I did another study of Israeli startups for a year. And then, I moved into the world of influencer.com. So there were a couple of shorter stints in a startup, which also is really good learning because then you’ve done sort of you’ve been in the corporate world, you’ve been in a scale up, and then in a startup, it’s a whole different. It’s a whole different acceleration pace. And you need to be really flexible on your strategy and all those things. And then I joined influencer.com as their COO, and I can’t I’ve tried to remember how I think I got an introduction to Ben and Casper through somebody. So Ben and Casper are very young entrepreneurs. Casper was quite famous as a YouTuber. And I joined them as they say that their businesses, their CEO, COO, and this was also really fantastic. It’s such a young early-stage startup with a lot of investment and a lot of interest; I worked with them just on really setting up the business, getting it operationally effective, and helping with anything really presenting it.
They had a very, very successful business and still have, but then, unfortunately, COVID hit and influenced at that point; their main body of investment and interest was travel influencer. So, there was a lot of resetting that had to happen. And I left the business during COVID. And I am still very close with the business today. And they’re doing great, but COVID was really tough at that time for those sorts of businesses. And then I thought, well, let’s see how COVID pans out. I thought this would be a few months.
Tamara Littleton 15:56
God. We all thought that didn’t we? Maximum three months. Yeah.
Jane Loring 16:01
And then some people that I worked with at Microsoft, were at Spotify. And they suggested that I interviewed to be their director of international sales. And I thought, well, yeah, it’s a fantastic business, let me interview for that. And then I was lucky enough to get that role. So back, I was back in the sort of corporate world, but from my kitchen, I didn’t meet my team for a year with an international team, you know, so it was very challenging but really, really exciting. And I absolutely loved working in that business. And we obviously did return to the office; I did meet my team a year later and then spent another year working from their office, travelling around looking after partner sales, international business, hubbed out of London, understanding a lot more about music, the music business, that’s all very interesting and new to me.
So yes, I did that for a number of years. And as you said, at the start, I have recently rejoined Microsoft. And I was always extremely keen to potentially go back to Microsoft. For me, it’s all about learning and development. So, I’m not in the advertising or media team, I’m running their enterprise team, which works with media and telco businesses. So, I’m now learning all about AI, data, and lots of new products for me to get my head around. And that’s something that was really important to me to keep developing myself. And it’s a completely different way of business. I’ve been there for three months, and I’m absolutely loving it.
Tamara Littleton 17:38
I love that. And then what’s really interesting to me is because I think we were working in the same sort of time in the early internet days or the World Wide Web, as it was called. I do wonder if it drives a real kind of curiosity and passion about always learning because I don’t know how you felt about it. But for me, it felt like we were defining the rules. And you know, yes, Wendy was at AOL at the same time. And it is that kind of just passion around the always searching for the new, I think.
Jane Loring 18:14
I agree. And I don’t know whether it’s because of the nature of the industry we were in or the way we are that made us venture into these different types of industries. But no, I agree, and I think when I reflect, I’ve been extremely lucky and have had some great support. But I’ve also been really resilient through lots of different things that have happened and changed in those different companies. And I say to people that I do a lot of coaching with resilience is so important. It’s to me it’s navigating some of these businesses and some of these difficult conditions. Resilience is really undervalued sometimes.
Tamara Littleton 18:54
Totally.
Wendy Christie 18:56
Let’s go back even further if you don’t mind, Jane; I’d like to sort of pick at some of those themes and try to work out if what you were like as a child has really influenced where you are so far. You mentioned, for instance, that at age 16, you left school and wanted to go into acting. Is that something that you’ve always wanted to do as a child, or did you have any different ideas?
Jane Loring 19:18
So yeah, I had dinner with my father last Friday, and I asked him this question. He said, “You were always a bit of a show-off”. And I absolutely loved to be in the English and Drama groups and all of those things from a very young age. I do remember sort of dressing up at home a lot and acting as if I was in a different character. My sister also had dinner with us on Friday, and she said I was very annoying.
Wendy Christie 19:56
I bet you were glad you asked that!
Jane Loring 20:01
But no, I really had a fascination for performance and singing and acting and going to things and trying to get involved with things from a very, very young
Wendy Christie 20:11
How was your environment generally as a child, and how important do you think that has been?
Jane Loring 20:20
It was very happy and secure, with brilliant schooling and great teachers. In fact, my English teacher, Miss Bowman, who was huge, just, I can vividly remember her, supporting me, and I did some writing for the newspaper and pushed him into amateur dramatics and, and it hadn’t seen her for well, goodness me 30 years. And when my mother died, Miss Bowman was at the place where her funeral took place at an art exhibition because there was an exhibition, and I saw her that day. I mean, it’s just weird stuff, isn’t it?
But my very secure, happy childhood parents were so supportive of us doing what we loved, which gave my sister and me a lot of confidence to follow our dreams. And even when I went and got the job at IBM, they didn’t try to dissuade me from either doing my degree or staying at work. So, they were very supportive and very happy.
Wendy Christie
That’s wonderful. And so, this sense of resilience, I suppose, could have either come from being given that confidence as a child or through the experiences that you’ve had various changes in your career.
Jane Loring 21:36
Well, I think that you know, our grandparents we came from, my father is saved and saved to buy their first house, mother and father both worked really hard, even when we had setbacks, they would really just get on with it. So, I think it was observing some of those behaviours in our family as well. And, also, we weren’t pushed to do anything, but we were sort of encouraged to work really hard from as soon as we could, you know, go and get some pocket money and things like that. So Dartford Girls Grammar was a really good girls’ school, but it really sort of pushed the pupils to take on challenges and to really push themselves out of their comfort zone, which I think also had an effect.
Wendy Christie 22:24
Definitely in a safe environment as well.
Jane Loring 22:27
Yeah.
Wendy Christie 22:29
And you mentioned one of your teachers there. Was there anyone else in particular that you looked up to as a child
Jane Loring 22:35
Well, the headmistress. I mean, goodness me, she ruled that school. I had a fantastic. Family, friends, relatives. I had a cousin we could talk about her a bit later. But yeah, my parents’ friends were really quite inspirational people. And I remember a lot of the females really making a big impact on me in the way that they were very confident and approached challenges and seemed a bit unusual when I was little, they were they were they were big characters.
Wendy Christie 23:10
And how about, you know, can be more up to date. Again, you talked about Nancy, as being someone who’s clearly had a lot of influence in your career and giving you a lot of support. Have there been any other genuine humans that you’d like to call out for having been influential or support men is a challenge.
Jane Loring 23:29
I don’t want to not name-check people. You know, my sister, and my really best friends have been amazing support to me. I’ve had some really traumatic things happen in my personal life, which we’ll probably touch on in a bit. I’ve got great support from my family and people like Nancy but there have been other people; I can honestly say that all my bosses have been amazing and really great friends and allies who really coached me and really helped me take risks.
My new boss, Mike, has been amazing in helping me learn, and so many too many to really talk about in the industry. There are so many amazing people that I’ve worked with, and no through social groups or, you know, industry groups, women in tech, it’s, there’s, there’s too many to really say, and I think people do underestimate the value of your close network and how brilliant that can be as a help on your career, but also just generally in life. And something I’d probably, in my 20s and early 30s, didn’t really understand as well as I do now that it’s huge. And I encourage a lot of people I coach to really think about that, you know, the power of those people and the support they give you.
Wendy Christie 24:53
It’s so important to nurture those relationships.
Tamara Littleton 24:57
And I think also being very conscious of where you are spending your time because I think as life gets busier, it becomes very hard to stay on top of all the different networks, but being really clear about which ones you want to sort of give more to.
Jane Loring 25:11
And you can’t do everything. So it’s also good to try and dip in and out of others as much as you can. But yes, I think you do need to be able to prioritise and also just expand your network to other people so that they can also start to grow and nurture. But I do think that that has changed a lot in the last 10 years; there’s a lot more access, especially for female leadership tech; there’s a lot more than there used to be, in my experience. And so I really try and nurture those.
Tamara Littleton 25:43
Just thinking about you and your leadership style. Are you able to sort of, like, just describe what is your leadership style?
Jane Loring 25:53
So, I am an empathetic leader. And I think that, in my earlier career, that was sort of seen as a bit of a weakness, and now I think people understand that that’s a real superpower. And strength, I’m very direct. I’m aware that sometimes I have to realise that maybe I’m very, I’m very straight talking. But you know, I just want to nurture people; I love coaching and want everybody to do well; that works with me. And I think not taking yourself too seriously. Because sometimes these roles can be quite overwhelming. And there’s a lot of responsibility. I sort of like I like people to get to know who I am, as a, you know, everything about me, I’m very open.
I like to sort of lead by example and not sort of just sit in an office and direct people; I like to really be involved in the industry; I have a real passion for it. And I have a love of tech and being in the market as such with clients. I think I’m pretty hands on, but I also like people just to manage their own business. And that’s how I like to be managed.
I think it’s good to be aware that people don’t want you involved in everything. And then I also like to take a lot of time with the team, you know, whether, you know, it’s doing something outside of our day to day or just working on projects together. I’m very focused on the people.
Tamara Littleton 27:12
And Jane, one of the things that you were talking about is the fact that there have been times where there weren’t many women in leadership roles in tech, and you’ve been kind of a real pioneer there. But how could the tech industry change to support more women in leadership?
Jane Loring 27:30
Well, first of all, it has changed, and it is changing. Yeah, the numbers are still not great in pure tech leadership; I think it’s really still very low, 20 to 30% type numbers in the UK. Look, a lot of women don’t start in tech, and a lot of women are not encouraged to really, even though it’s improving a lot. But even, you know, I’ve got three nieces. And they’re all sort of going in to do things that are not that, not even thinking about tech as a career.
I think there’s a lot of early-stage education that should be taking place when you are lucky enough to get into a great tech business. And I see it now at Microsoft; there’s a lot of encouragement for women in some of the areas where women, perhaps in tech, are not as confident.
I think there’s a lot of in-business training and support that’s needed. There’s early-stage advice needed. And then I think some of the groups we’ve talked about, you know, encouraging more and more women to be involved with groups like Tech Her. I think that there’s a lot that we can do as more senior females, but then also I see a lot from the leaders at Microsoft, the male leaders, also helping women and really encouraging adoption and trying to find talent in the market.
I think there are quite a few things, but it has changed a lot. I’m delighted to say. And then I think as well, you know, we have a duty of care as leaders to really mentor and bring through female talent and try and really encourage it into our teams. And that, you know, even recently, I’ve been interviewing people for my team and I’d just had a huge percentage of male applications, you know, that there were there weren’t that many female applicants. So there’s a place for us to seek out the talent as well.
Tamara Littleton 29:27
Like a pipeline issue. You mentioned, you know that you sort of faced challenges throughout your career. Can I ask you a sort of direct question about what you are most proud of so far in life or work?
Jane Loring 29:42
So, we talked a bit about resilience. I had an awful thing happen to me when I got married for the second time. And I want to talk about it because I think it’s really important that people can look in on somebody’s someone’s career and think, oh, this all looks fantastic and what a great story, but we all have setbacks along the way. And my second husband, unfortunately, turned out to be a con man and sort of took all my money. Right underneath my nose, I didn’t realise.
I really had a challenge then with my career because it took a lot of my confidence away. And unfortunately, he went to prison, and he died in prison. And the whole thing was hugely traumatic. So what I’m proud of is the fact that I went through that but also maintained, you know, my confidence in my career. I mean, I wouldn’t have got through it without my friends and family, that’s for sure. But I’m really proud of the fact that I’ve; I don’t want anybody to have to go through that. But I, I have been through it, and I have come out the other side. And actually, I’m still doing great. And I’ve got myself back on my feet. And you know, it was really, really difficult. But it’s also it’s such a learning and lesson that, you know, people just you read these stories, and you think, well, how can these people have not noticed things were going on, but you just, if you’re very trusting, and you’re very busy, you don’t, you don’t always know what’s going on.
I’m very proud of the fact I’ve got through that; in fact, I think work got me through that if I’m honest, because just the routine and the normality of just keep going, just keep going. And so, I’m very proud of that. I suppose at work, I’m just really proud of the people that I’ve worked with who are doing so well in the industry; I just look at especially a lot of the females that I work with. I mean, you know, the SVPs, MDS CEOs, so I’m very, I love that, very proud of that.
Tamara Littleton 31:39
Thank you for, for sharing that. It was you know, it was something that I was aware of, and I think what’s incredible is how you have got through. And you remain such a funny, wonderful, confident person. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, but I’m, I’m so pleased to see that you did manage to get through it. And yeah. So, what does next year look like for you?
Jane Loring 32:09
It looks quite busy. Obviously, I’m, you know, just back starting my new role. So, there’s a lot going on with that with the team expanding the team. Also, just a lot of travel, which I love. I’ve already been out to Seattle, and I am really looking forward to going to Cannes as part of my new role. We’re working really closely with Microsoft advertising. So really trying to get, you know, talk about the Microsoft narrative, but, but more importantly, as well, you know, next the next sort of year, we’ve got a lot of, in our family, we’ve got lots of really significant birthdays and sort of milestones.
We’re going to spend quite a lot of family time celebrating our family, actually. So, we’ve got a lot of that going on. And then my husband has a significant birthday. So, we are going to be doing some things for that. So, there will be a lot of celebration, I would say a lot of celebration and growth in the next 12 months.
Tamara Littleton 33:10
Love that.
Wendy Christie 33:11
Sounds amazing. Before we move on to the final section of the podcast, I just wanted to come back because you briefly mentioned your cousin. And you said that we might talk about them a bit later. So, I just wanted to check if you want to talk about that.
Jane Loring 33:26
Yes. So just somebody else that had a really big impact but wouldn’t know. It’s right. So there was another Jane Loring, whatever, there’s probably loads of Jane Lorings, but she was another Jane Loring in our family. And my father’s brother moved to Australia. So, I hadn’t really met her. And we were going out for my father’s I think it was his 50th birthday. I can’t remember if it was a significant birthday. And I went with him. And I stayed with Jane Loring. And we’ve just got on so famously.
But unfortunately, when I got to Australia, she said to me, I’ve got to tell you something I have been given, probably at the most 18 months to live; I’ve got terrible breast cancer. But she said, But when it’s not going to stop us having a really good road trip down to Margaret River, and we went wine tasting, and she was just brilliant and such an inspiration. And actually, she lived for eight more years. And I spent many times going to see her.
She moved to Dubai, and I went and saw her there. But she was so brave. And such a resilient, funny person that just to the very end, she came to London to see us, and she died a few weeks when she got back, but she just would not stop, and she would not give up, and she just had the most brilliant approach to life and she just I learned so much from her that she probably would not know now but just somebody that’s always there sort of as a voice that, you know, come on, you can get on with it, and you can enjoy things and just a brilliant human being.
Wendy Christie 35:02
She sounds incredible. Okay, so let’s move on to the part of the podcast where we ask our quickfire personal questions. What’s your idea of a perfect weekend?
Jane Loring 35:13
Going to the theatre?
Wendy Christie 35:16
Not being on the stage.
Jane Loring 35:18
I love it. I really love going away for the weekend, actually. But if I’m honest, sometimes just staying in London and going to something really fantastic at the theatre is one of my favourite things. I go to the theatre all the time, so I’ve seen all sorts of good and bad, but I do love that.
Wendy Christie 35:35
What’s the what did you go and see, most recently?
Jane Loring 35:37
I went to see something. We live in Barnes, and we have a little local theatre. And they had something called The Push. And it was absolutely brilliant about. I don’t even remember the cyclists who ran into the woman on Putney Bridge and knocked her in front of a bus. Anyway, that was that was brilliant. And I’ve booked I’ve just booked for People, Places and Things in the West End in a couple of weeks. But I’d go I go see all sorts of different things.
Wendy Christie 36:01
Fantastic. And let’s say there was a movie about your life. What did the tagline on the poster say?
Jane Loring 36:22
Well, it’s pretty dark, human. But my friends do say Four Weddings and a Funeral because I have had Four Weddings and a Funeral. That would have to be it, I’m afraid.
Tamara Littleton 36:27
Changing gears here. One of my favourite questions. How would you fare in a zombie apocalypse?
Jane Loring 36:33
Really badly. I, you know, I’m not; I’m not practical. I’m quite a scaredy cat. I’d probably just, I don’t know, cling on to someone like you tomorrow.
Tamara Littleton 36:49
So not well at all.
Wendy Christie 36:51
I think that’s true for most of us, to be honest. How would your friends describe you?
Jane Loring 36:58
Well, I did ask some of them. And I was laughing about this with my friend the other day. So the themes that come up seem to be funny, loyal, and quite annoying.
Tamara Littleton 37:15
That’s only your closest friends asking saying that. Right? Yeah.
Jane Loring 37:20
Yeah, exactly.
Tamara Littleton 37:23
What’s your karaoke go-to song?
Jane Loring 37:25
Jenny from the block? Everyone calls me JLo. That’s it.
Tamara Littleton 37:28
Every time.
Wendy Christie 37:29
Perfect.
Tamara Littleton 37:31
I love that you have it straight and ready. Jane, it’s been such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And thank you for being so open and sharing that you know, what goes on behind the scenes for everyone. And as you say, you know, everyone has their own challenges. I really appreciate you coming and sharing with us.
Jane Loring 37:49
Pleasure.
Tamara Littleton 37:50
Is there anything that we didn’t ask that you wanted to be asked? Or do you have any last sort of closing comments for us?
Jane Loring 37:57
I think you’ve asked me quite a diverse set of questions. I’ve absolutely loved being on here and chatting with you. I suppose just, you know, going back to the, you know, everybody has the setbacks and challenges and career-wise, career has been great, but you know, things don’t always go to plan, and I would just say that you know, anybody wants to reach out or have a chat with me if they’re going through anything challenging. I’m always got an open door. And just a massive thank you for inviting me on to talk it’s an absolute privilege.
Wendy Christie 38:38
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