大象传媒

Whether it鈥檚 author Martin Amis declaring war on overused stock phrases or annual surveys of the well-worn expressions we love to hate - at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is, people have very strong feelings about clich茅s.

From politics to TV drama, sporting clich茅s to toe-curling corporate jargon, Steve Punt drills down into the archive to discover why so many of us have been singing from the same hymn sheet.

As he traces clich茅 origin stories and listens to the sound of some new ones being hatched, Steve is joined by storytelling expert John Yorke, parliamentary sketch-writer Madeline Grant and author of a whole book about footballing clich茅s, Adam Hurrey. Navigating a linguistic minefield where conventions must be separated from tropes, platitudes from pontification, Steve runs it up the flagpole to ask if it鈥檚 time to stop rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, attempt some blue-sky thinking and rehabilitate the humble clich茅.

It could, he says 鈥渂e a game-changer.鈥�

Producer: Conor Garrett