Scott Mills confirmed to have left BBC Radio 2 following personal conduct allegations
The news was confirmed to BBC staff this morning.
Broadcaster Scott Mills has been sacked by the BBC following allegations over his 'personal conduct', and will no longer be hosting the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show. As reported by The Mirror, the radio DJ was taken off air last week while the BBC assessed the information. A spokesperson for the BBC said: "While we do not comment on matters relating to individuals, we can confirm Scott Mills is no longer contracted to work with the BBC." Mills rose to prominence presenting the Scott Mills show on BBC Radio 1 from 2004 to 2022, before making the move to BBC Radio 2. He took over Zoe Ball's Radio 2 breakfast show show earlier this year, moving from his afternoon show slot on the station. In an internal note to staff, Lorna Clarke, director of music at the BBC, said: "I wanted to personally let you know that Scott Mills has left the breakfast show, and the BBC. I know that this news will be sudden and unexpected and therefore must come as a shock. "Not least as so many of us have worked with Scott over a great many years, across a broad range of our programmes on R1, 5Live, R2 and TV. I felt it was important to share this news with you at the earliest opportunity. "Of course, it will also come as a shock to our audience and loyal breakfast show listeners too. I will update everyone with more information on plans for the show when I’m able to. While I appreciate many of you will have questions, I hope you can understand that I am not going to be saying anything further now." Mills is also a prominent figure in the Eurovision circuit, having been a commentator for the semi-finals over the years, although details on the BBC's presenting line-up for the contest this year is yet to be confirmed. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Paul McCartney debuts brand new single on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio Merseyside
The Beatles icon says the new song is about John Lennon and growing up in Liverpool.
Sir Paul McCartney has premiered his brand new single Days We Left Behind, marking his first musical release in six years. The new song debuted on Radio Merseyside today (26 March), meaning the people of Merseyside, where McCartney and the Beatles famously came from, heard the song before anyone else. Meanwhile, on The Afternoon Show with Trevor Nelson on BBC Radio 2, the Beatles icon also announced that the track is from a brand new studio album entitled The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The station exclusively broadcast a voice message from McCartney as he opened up about the inspiration for the new song, saying the lyrics were about the past – namely of growing up in Liverpool – and of John Lennon. "So this next song is very much a memory song for me," McCartney said. "I was doing an interview yesterday and I was thinking, well, songwriters, and writers in general, what else can you draw on, besides the past? I mean, you can do the present, but still a lot of the past in that. "So, anyway, this is the past. You know, it's just a lot of memories of Liverpool for me, and that involves a little bit in the middle about John, Forthlin Road, which is the street I used to live in." He continued: "I used to live in a place called Speke which is, you know, working class. It's only looking back on it, you think, yeah, we didn't have much at all. "But you know, as they always say, it didn't matter, because all the people were so great and you didn't notice you didn't have much." Listen to Days We Left Behind by Paul McCartney: View oEmbed on the source website McCartney found global fame in the Beatles, with whom he released 12 studio albums between 1963 and 1970. He'll soon be seen on the big screen... in a manner of speaking, as Hamnet star Paul Mescal will be playing McCartney in Sam Mendes's new Beatles films, alongside Harris Dickinson, Barry Keoghan and Joseph Quinn as the other members of the Fab Four. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Zeb Soanes reveals why his stroke at age of 44 pushed him to star in play about Alec Guinness
After a stroke in 2021, Classic FM’s Zeb Soanes has got his dream job — playing 33 roles in a show about Sir Alec Guinness.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. On the first night of the revival of Mark Burgess’s play Two Halves of Guinness, Zeb Soanes sat backstage in his dressing room, preparing to spend the next two hours telling the life story of one of the 20th-century’s great theatrical knights, Sir Alec Guinness. Surrounded by good luck messages from friends and family, Soanes made sure to read one small card in particular: a rare reply to a fan, more than 30 years old, from the man himself. Soanes has one of the country’s most distinctive and beloved radio voices. For 25 years a BBC TV continuity announcer turned Radio 4 newsreader, with forays into The News Quiz, the Shipping Forecast and presenting the Proms on television, he now has the primetime evening slot presenting on Classic FM. But as a trained actor who gave up a job in repertory theatre for the lure of the BBC – “broadcasting was a diversion that somehow lasted for half my life” – Soanes grew up on a diet of classic British films, including all the Ealing comedies, and quickly marked Guinness as his favourite: “Other actors like Olivier used to project their personality outward, while I always felt that Guinness was quieter, inviting us in.” Aged 17, Soanes was even moved to write a letter to his idol, being careful to avoid any mention of Star Wars, which had famously become something of an (albeit lucrative) albatross for the versatile star. A week later, an envelope arrived at Soanes’s home in Suffolk, with a message short but sweet and eternally inspiring – “Good luck with your career.” Now here we are, with Soanes in the title role of Two Halves of Guinness, a witty, intimate one-man exploration of Guinness’s life, sharing his reflections on a dazzling career on stage and screen and the luminaries he encountered along the way. While Guinness famously opted to play all eight members of the D’Ascoyne family in 1949 caper Kind Hearts and Coronets, on stage Soanes delivers 33 characters in total – from Sir John Gielgud to Peter O’Toole and even Dame Edith Evans. His power of mimicry was the bane of his colleagues: at the BBC, Soanes delighted in buzzing through to producers in the voices of colleagues Peter Donaldson and Brian Perkins. He’s had plenty of time to warm up. Soanes first went to see a production of Two Halves 15 years ago, when he realised he was too young for the part. This despite having a voice much older than his years: “Whenever guests visit the studio, they always seem surprised I don’t have a white beard and pipe.” Much later, two things happened. In 2021, aged 44, he had a stroke in his London home. In the 10 minutes he sat waiting for an ambulance, Soanes felt “both an immense wave of gratitude for everything in my life, but also a sense of things left undone”, and one of them was this play. Secondly, he realised that 2025 would mark the 25th anniversary of Guinness’s death, and that he’d come of age himself to take on the role. In 2022, he left the BBC to helm his own show at Classic FM. He says now: “Both are about storytelling, but my BBC job required following a script. It’s lovely being able to express myself fully, and to do other things besides.” Such things have included taking up the role of Chancellor for the University of Suffolk, and campaigning for a statue of Benjamin Britten to be erected in Lowestoft, the composer’s childhood home. Does Soanes ever worry, like his idol, of the work drying up? He laughs. “I have what we’d call a portfolio career, and I love the variety of it all. This play has been a proper labour of love, and I never stop appreciating the fact I’m out there on stage, telling the story I’ve always wanted to tell.” Two Halves of Guinness is currently touring the UK – tickets are available now The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Farewell, Liza Tarbuck – our Saturdays evenings have lost their light
After the announcement that Liza Tarbuck is stepping down from her Saturday evening Radio 2 show, we pay tribute to her incomparable style.
If the murmuration, mohomes, Top Bird Trumpingtons and “Pauline!” mean nothing to you, then you’ve obviously never tuned in to Radio 2 at 6pm on a Saturday evening for two hours of the most joyous, slightly bonkers show on the airwaves. Now, sadly, you will never have that experience, as the host of that gem in the BBC’s crown, the incomparable Liza Tarbuck, has said that after some time off, she will not be returning to the show as she’d “like her weekend back”. This isn’t supposed to be an obituary, but you can bet that for her thousands of ardent listeners – aka the murmuration – a little light went out when they heard that their Saturday evening lodestar was disappearing. Before the news of her departure broke, and while it seemed she was only on a sabbatical, a colleague commented that there would be “uproar” if Radio 2 got rid of Liza. As it is, there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. For since she took up residence in 2012, up until what would turn out to be her final show on 17 January this year, she grew a devout community of followers all too willing to share their silly family sayings, elderly relatives’ confused malapropisms, tales of stupidity and woe, and most importantly, what they’re cooking for dinner and where they have parked the motorhome (mohome) for the night. The more outrageous of these tales could induce one of the most delightful sounds on the radio, as Liza struggled to hold it together while dissolving into a fit of giggles at the sheer madness of it all. Her approach often followed the Mel Brooks adage, “Stubbing your toe on the sidewalk is a tragedy; falling into an open sewer and dying is comedy,” with the more terrible the listener in the story’s personal anguish, the more guffaws it could elicit. Yet none of it was done with spite or malice; there was a genuine mutual feeling of love for her family of listeners – for beyond the mentions of “dad” and “Pauline!”, it was those who wrote in, took part in the weekly fancy dress ice skating, or simply listened in for an uplifting, eclectic playlist that could range from a 1920s New Orleans jazz side to Bruno Mars, who became a strange, widespread family. A bit like a murmuration when you come to think about it. On the morning after the announcement, one member of that flock was quick to share their admittedly bittersweet appreciation, writing to Radio Times, "The quirkiest, funniest, most eagerly anticipated show: Liza Tarbuck on a Saturday evening, whether we were in our caravan or not, the most eclectic, brilliant, funniest show on that station with a choice of music second to none. Yet, suddenly, it is no more." Posting on Instagram about her departure, Liza returned the compliment: “We made 2 hrs of radio feel like a private members club, that's the stuff of dreams. Thousands of people enjoyed each other's company like great friends... Thank you for letting me in, it's been a privilege.” Writing in Radio Times in 2022, to mark the show’s tenth anniversary, under the heading, Chaos by Appointment, Liza pinned the success of the show squarely on those on-air friends, “That longevity is all thanks to our marvellous listeners and their stories. We get the most messages of any show on the station (about 50 texts and emails per minute) so there’s a lot to wade through. “Basically, we’re after a good laugh. I’m enjoying our running thread about things dropping on people’s heads. There was an email the other week from a guy who had a squirrel fall out of a tree and land on his head. In the ensuing panic, a load of school kids pointed and laughed. Perfect.” As chaotic as the show may have seemed, leading many to suspect that Liza was either suffering from some kind of menopausal meltdown or had one or two glasses too many of “lady petrol” beforehand, it was a carefully constructed two hours – despite Liza always seeming surprised when the ice skating music played in – in which she wore her music knowledge lightly (though she would arrive at the studio early to check that the correct versions of everything on the playlist were cued up) and was more likely to introduce an oldie with what would now be considered questionable lyrics with a cheery, “Listen to this idiot!” She was surely the only BBC presenter who could get away with something like that, and in the announcement of Liza’s departure, Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2 – on FM, DAB and on your smart trousers – said: “Every Saturday evening, Liza created a truly magical, fantastical world. She was beloved by everyone at the station and all her listeners, and the door at Radio 2 will always be open for her.” We can but wish... But as Liza skates off into the distance, wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit festooned with chaffinches, a silver-tipped feather boa and a Carmen Miranda fruit-and-nut hat made specially for the occasion, all that remains is to name her in six words or less: Shine on you crazy diamond.
If the murmuration, mohomes, Top Bird Trumpingtons and “Pauline!” mean nothing to you, then you’ve obviously never tuned in to Radio 2 at 6pm on a Saturday evening for two hours of the most joyous, slightly bonkers show on the airwaves. Now, sadly, you will never have that experience, as the host of that gem in the BBC’s crown, the incomparable Liza Tarbuck, has said that after some time off, she will not be returning to the show as she’d “like her weekend back”. This isn’t supposed to be an obituary, but you can bet that for her thousands of ardent listeners – aka the murmuration – a little light went out when they heard that their Saturday evening lodestar was disappearing. Before the news of her departure broke, and while it seemed she was only on a sabbatical, a colleague commented that there would be “uproar” if Radio 2 got rid of Liza. As it is, there will be plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth. For since she took up residence in 2012, up until what would turn out to be her final show on 17 January this year, she grew a devout community of followers all too willing to share their silly family sayings, elderly relatives’ confused malapropisms, tales of stupidity and woe, and most importantly, what they’re cooking for dinner and where they have parked the motorhome (mohome) for the night. The more outrageous of these tales could induce one of the most delightful sounds on the radio, as Liza struggled to hold it together while dissolving into a fit of giggles at the sheer madness of it all. Her approach often followed the Mel Brooks adage, “Stubbing your toe on the sidewalk is a tragedy; falling into an open sewer and dying is comedy,” with the more terrible the listener in the story’s personal anguish, the more guffaws it could elicit. Yet none of it was done with spite or malice; there was a genuine mutual feeling of love for her family of listeners – for beyond the mentions of “dad” and “Pauline!”, it was those who wrote in, took part in the weekly fancy dress ice skating, or simply listened in for an uplifting, eclectic playlist that could range from a 1920s New Orleans jazz side to Bruno Mars, who became a strange, widespread family. A bit like a murmuration when you come to think about it. On the morning after the announcement, one member of that flock was quick to share their admittedly bittersweet appreciation, writing to Radio Times, "The quirkiest, funniest, most eagerly anticipated show: Liza Tarbuck on a Saturday evening, whether we were in our caravan or not, the most eclectic, brilliant, funniest show on that station with a choice of music second to none. Yet, suddenly, it is no more." Posting on Instagram about her departure, Liza returned the compliment: “We made 2 hrs of radio feel like a private members club, that's the stuff of dreams. Thousands of people enjoyed each other's company like great friends... Thank you for letting me in, it's been a privilege.” Writing in Radio Times in 2022, to mark the show’s tenth anniversary, under the heading, Chaos by Appointment, Liza pinned the success of the show squarely on those on-air friends, “That longevity is all thanks to our marvellous listeners and their stories. We get the most messages of any show on the station (about 50 texts and emails per minute) so there’s a lot to wade through. “Basically, we’re after a good laugh. I’m enjoying our running thread about things dropping on people’s heads. There was an email the other week from a guy who had a squirrel fall out of a tree and land on his head. In the ensuing panic, a load of school kids pointed and laughed. Perfect.” As chaotic as the show may have seemed, leading many to suspect that Liza was either suffering from some kind of menopausal meltdown or had one or two glasses too many of “lady petrol” beforehand, it was a carefully constructed two hours – despite Liza always seeming surprised when the ice skating music played in – in which she wore her music knowledge lightly (though she was fastidious about the playlist, arriving at the studio early to check that the correct versions of all the songs were cued up) and was more likely to introduce an oldie with what would now be considered questionable lyrics with a cheery, “Listen to this idiot!” She was surely the only BBC presenter who could get away with something like that, and in the announcement of Liza’s departure, Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2 – on FM, DAB and on your smart trousers – said: “Every Saturday evening, Liza created a truly magical, fantastical world. She was beloved by everyone at the station and all her listeners, and the door at Radio 2 will always be open for her.” We can but wish... But as Liza skates off into the distance, wearing a gold lamé jumpsuit festooned with chaffinches, a silver-tipped feather boa and a Carmen Miranda fruit-and-nut hat made specially for the occasion, all that remains is to name her in six words or less: Shine on you crazy diamond. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Crown stars Eileen Atkins and Alex Jennings reunite for BBC Radio 4 drama
The two stars worked together on biographical drama Hope Bourne for the first time since their roles as Queen Mary and her son the Duke of Windsor in The Crown
Hope Bourne (1918–2010) was a writer and artist who lived for several decades alone on the remote moorlands of Exmoor, without electricity, surviving by hunting, growing her own food and maintaining a fiercely independent way of life. Despite her geographical isolation, Bourne was an accomplished intellectual and artist who was once offered a place at the prestigious Slade art school at the age of eleven. Writer Zalie Burrow has taken a pivotal period in Bourne's life as inspiration for her radio play, Hope Bourne, which she wrote specifically for Dame Eileen Atkins. It concerns Bourne's relationship with the publisher Anthony Dent, played by Alex Jennings, who becomes intrigued when she sends him an untidy but compelling draft of her journals, illustrated with striking drawings. His subsequent visits to Exmoor to discuss publishing lead to an unlikely friendship that develops over several years, during which time Dent’s assumptions about society, success and fulfilment are gradually challenged. The publication of these works led to Bourne becoming quite a celebrity later in life. Burrow describes the genesis for the play as coming from an epiphany in a library: "Hope Bourne first came into my life on a visit to the Exmoor Library in Dulverton, Somerset. Her face, radiant and weathered, shone out from the front of a book perched on a low shelf, and I swiftly devoured all of her wonderful nature books and visited the Exmoor Society, where her amazing little watercolour paintings, adorning receipts and old ripped envelopes, had found a safe home. I researched and quickly became infatuated with this incredibly resilient woman who lived off of one pound a week, a woman who filled her boots with straw in winter to ward off the cold, who lived almost entirely self-sufficiently in the wilds of Exmoor for decades with no hot water or central heating." Yet that initial encounter with Bourne led to a rather long gestation period for the play, as Burrow delved deeper into the life of a woman who played by her own rules, but had a multifaceted personality hidden beneath the surface eccentricity: "Over the months that followed I learnt so much more about Hope; she was not just this wild eccentric woman of the moor who didn’t fit in, she was an incredible individual oozing with talent who had led a very challenging and interesting life layered with deep friendships, heartache and unfulfilled dreams. And so, I wrote a play… a very long play… over two hours in fact, which covered her life from her first memory of being pushed in a pram on Armistice Day down Oxford High Street to her final days of living in a small bungalow in Withypool surrounded by her beloved bantams." However, the challenge for a writer is always to get a commission and so Burrow's producer, Cherry Cookson, suggested that she write the role of Hope specifically for Eileen Atkins and aim for the much shorter afternoon drama slot on Radio 4. With that in mind, Burrow read Dame Eileen’s autobiography: "I discovered many similarities between these two remarkable women – both are humble and straightforward, delicate yet feisty and both are extremely resilient. With thoughts of Hope and Eileen intermingling in my mind the play very quickly found its way onto the page." And the end result justified that decision, as Burrow explains: "Watching Eileen Atkins inhabit Hope Bourne in the recording studio was just such a wonderful experience. There was such an honestly and simplicity to her delivery that quietly lifted Hope off the page and brought her back to life." Dame Eileen is swift to return the compliment to Burrow about her writing: 'This had everything going for it, a very unusual and interesting play, about a woman who was very tough and determined who lived her life her own way." On working again with her co-star from The Crown, Alex Jennings, Atkins belies her status as a grand dame of stage and screen in her praise, " It was simply lovely to be acting with Alex again. He's not only a great actor, but he was wonderfully patient with me." And in a nod to the old adage abut being nice to people on the way up as you may need them on the way down (not that's likely in Dame Eileen's case), the star of Hope Bourne is certain to mention as many people involved as possible, "There was Cherry Cookson, a director I had worked happily with many times. And the sound engineer, Jon Calver, without whom I probably couldn't have done it." A humble and straightforward woman, just like Hope Bourne herself. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Stunning drama based on true story starring Derek Jacobi and Frances Barber wins Radio Times award
The stars played two giant figures of 20th century life in the radio drama voted the best this year by Radio Times readers.
On Sunday 1 March at the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House, London, the inaugural Radio Times Readers’ Drama Award was presented at the BBC Audio Drama Awards ceremony. The Radio Times award was one of three external awards presented on the night, alongside the Imison and Tinniswood Awards, run by the Society of Authors and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain, for the best original script by a writer new to audio drama and for best original script, respectively. Radio Times has been around since almost when the first radio drama was aired in the UK, but we missed Phyllis Twigg’s The Truth about Father Christmas 1922 play for children by several months. Ever since RT has been championing a form that remains beloved by our readers. This year, we decided to give them the chance to tell us what they really like with the Radio Times Readers' Drama Award. From a list of 30 dramas drawn up by a panel of our esteemed critics, which ranged from pacy podcast series to theatrical single dramas, readers could vote online for their favourite. Here’s what they picked as their winner… A play that imagines the meeting between two diametrically opposed giants of 20th century life, played by two giants of the acting profession, its witty and thought-provoking approach to a little-known historical event clearly struck a chord. The winner of the inaugural Radio Times Readers' Drama Award is When Maggie Met Larry by Tim Walker, directed by Richard Clifford for Catherine Bailey Productions. Tim Walker says of winning the award: "My heartfelt thanks to the readers of Radio Times for choosing my play When Maggie Met Larry – focusing on the real-life acting class that Laurence Olivier gave to Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s – as the winner of the magazine's inaugural drama award." As a seasoned, award-winning journalist for The Daily Telegraph and The Observer, Walker knows it’s never a solo effort to get a story out in the world, "Any writer who thinks a drama wins solely on account of him or herself is at best delusional and at worst egomaniacal, so it goes without saying this is as much an honour for Sir Derek Jacobi — Olivier in the drama — and Frances Barber, who essayed Thatcher. "Take a bow, too, Richard Clifford, the director; Catherine Bailey, the producer; Leon Chambers, who presided over the technical side; and the great [theatre director and producer] Michael Grandage, who saw the play's potential and brought us all together." He says of Grandage’s pivotal role in the genesis of the play, "Ages ago, over a dinner, I told Michael the story of Olivier giving an acting lesson to Thatcher and he said, 'There's a bloody good play in that – you've got to write it,' and, with great skill, diplomacy and patience, he got us all together to make it happen." When Maggie Met Larry was up for two more awards, the Imison Award for first-time writers of audio drama, and best actor for Sir Derek Jacobi. Unfortunately it took neither so the Radio Times win was all the sweeter for Walker and producer Catherine Bailey, as Walker explains, "We never in a million years thought we had a chance in the Radio Times award since it was such a large and distinguished field – it felt like the Grand National and I couldn't see us even getting over Becher's Brook – so we were absolutely in shock it was announced. Long may this award continue to raise the bar in audio drama." We also need to acknowledge the success of a strong runner-up in the voting, Chicken Burger N Chips by Corey Bovell based on his moving one-man stage play, a coming-of-age story set in south London and starring Gamba Cole and produced by Bernard P Achampong for Unedited Productions. Its depiction of the gritty reality of life for young Black men on the streets of Lewisham stands in contrast to the often rarefied circles enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher and Sir Laurence Olivier in our winner and goes some way to show the range of what can be found in the best audio drama. To echo Tim Walker, long may the medium continue to entertain, surprise, amuse and shock us. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Comedian Slim on his Guide to Life: "I know how to navigate myself in this industry, that's why I've been in it for so long"
Comedian Slim sits down with Pass the Mic to chat about his brand new BBC Radio 4 show and how he's seen the industry evolve over the years.
It's not often that people sit down and look back on their entire life for the purpose of bringing about laughter, but that's exactly what comedian Slim has done for his latest venture for BBC Radio 4. His new six-part series, Slim's Guide to Life, is just another string to his impressive career bow, having been the first Black British comedian to sell out the London Palladium with a solo show and now widely celebrated as the Godfather of the Black British comedy scene. Having performed to audiences all around the globe, Slim now reflects on his life and career in his trademark comedic way, telling stories about being a teenage father to working as a London bus driver. Chatting to Radio Times for Pass the Mic, he admits that he's "happy and excited with anticipation to see it all come together, to see the final result". He remarks: "It's a nice experience because you're evaluating your life. I think we do it as humans every 10 years anyway. Every 10 years from 30, you look back on the decade before and think, 'How have I done? Have I advanced? Am I any further? My dreams, have they come true?' So, it was nice to go back, especially the early years." But how has it been penning a script based all around your life for a brand new radio audience? As Slim explains below, it's been a cathartic experience and is also an opportunity to expand his fanbase further in an industry that he has grown confident in navigating over his years of experience. How did you go about crafting Slim's Guide to Life – what was the writing process like? I had material that was written anyway but I had to go and write for the first few decades, as I realised I didn't really have any material. All my material's after 20 years old so that was nice revisiting that, sitting down and writing that on top of stuff I already had. I enjoyed happily sitting down and doing the project. Was it cathartic to revisit those early years of your life? Absolutely. We're adults now... I had a happy childhood so it was nice to go back and revisit. Your memory jogs with certain events that you'd totally forgotten about and then when you're sitting down and thinking about it, it's like, 'Oh yeah!' I enjoyed doing it. How was it working with a script editor for this radio project? I'd sit down and write down the material, then we'd go over it and just trim the fat. It was nice because me being a stand-up comic, I work on stages. I haven't got as much restrictions as radio has. We had to tailor it and trim the fat but it was good. I can imagine it's a different mindset to the improv and stand-up routines you're used to delivering. Was it more of a stationary environment doing it for radio? Well, we actually filmed in front of a live audience so it's not canned laughter. We done that at Up the Creek Comedy Club. Doing it in front of an audience was different for me. I had to read out my script and because it's for radio, there's certain visual aspects that, when I'm on stage, you would see if you were watching me live. Now you're listening on the radio, I've got to make sure that everything translates over to the airwaves. On the whole, it wasn't too much of a problem. It was different for me but it was no problem. You're celebrated as the Godfather of Black British comedy – how did you go about crafting the series to be both insightful about your career and funny? My life's always had these little funny moments from young. There's a lot of stuff that – although people know who I am – they wouldn't know about me, especially my younger years. For me, it was a great experience just going back and evaluating that 50 years of my life. A lot of people don't really do that – that's auditing half a century. It was exciting to do and I feel like the people out there, the listeners, will enjoy the final production. There's likely to be a different fanbase for radio, with some listeners maybe not aware of your work till now. How does that feel to possibly have a new legion of fans? Absolutely love that, it'll keep me in business longer. If you can keep getting new fans along the way, you'll usually stay in business longer, so I welcome all the fans and the people who love my kind of comedy. Across your remarkable 20-year career, you've seen a lot of trends and people coming and going. How do you think the comedy industry has evolved over the years, in terms of representation and Black British talent specifically? Now we've got social media and the internet, that is the way that most of the young comics are coming through, rather than finding a little pub with a little comedy night going on upstairs. That used to be the original way. Now, people are posting up their own stuff and coming through that way. Comedy has evolved. We've got more social media influencers coming through and making a career in comedy. I do believe that we've evolved, definitely, in the last 10 years. For the better? Yeah, I'd say so. At the end of the day, there's people that might not be able to make it out to a theatre or a venue but they can stay at home and have a laugh. I do believe that the comedy scene has changed a lot – there's also a lot of comics that, after Covid, didn't come back. It's always changing, no industry stays the same and it evolves in some kind of way. As an older or more mature comic, I just try and move with the times and not be left behind. Social media lowers the barrier to entry in the industry, which is a good thing – do you think that is a major positive in terms of the range of stories and comics we're seeing in the scene at the moment? Absolutely! Everybody's got a different sense of humour – what one person thinks is funny, another doesn't. So what you do need is an array of comics who can cater to everybody's needs. You may have the quirky comic, the dark humour comic. Do you think there's still more that needs to be done to nurture diverse talent in British comedy or is it somewhere you've seen vast improvements? There are improvements, I don't want to bang on like we've not seen any form of Black people on TV – but there's still gatekeepers to this industry, definitely. I don't know how the TV industry works out who they choose to work on, uplift and promote. At the end of the day, I don't overthink that. The comics I've seen that overthink it, they upset themselves and now you're at work with a bad energy. I might as well work a 9-5, this was supposed to be a love that they paid for! I know the pitfalls and I know how to navigate myself in this industry, that's why I've been in it for so long. There could be better representation, especially on national TV but look, people are now using social media, YouTube and stuff like that. They're kind of skipping the middle man as it is now and making their money. I think the industry is losing out really or they come way after the person's already established. You were the first Black British comedian to sell out the London Palladium with a solo show – how do you reflect on that time in your life and that achievement now? It was a major achievement but it's on to the next one, you're only as good as your last show. I savoured the moment, I really did, but then I just moved on. Obviously, people who have known me and watched me rise, for them to see me at such a grand venue – it's a very well-known historical building. People can watch me grow from a little place in Brockley to a big, world renowned venue in the West End. I think the pride, that's what I felt a lot from people. I do feel the pride and the love from my fans. For me, it was a chance to go upmarket a bit and just to show that a venue like the Palladium, I deserve to be in there. I knew that I was going to bring a top-tier show to a top-tier venue with top-tier people in it and it was a great night. It will be unforgettable but what's the next big one I've got? On to the next one! What are you hoping that people get from Slim's Guide to Life? That deep down, I'm just a normal, regular guy that's grown up like everybody else and has made it good for himself. Same struggle as everybody else, single parent household, siblings that you fight with, friends – it's just my life. I'm hoping they'll get a lot of laughs out of it but that they'll be able to resonate with a lot of stuff that is in there as well. Slim's Guide to Life premieres on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 18 February at 11pm. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Love Island icon Chloe Burrows talks dream interviews in exciting new KISS Breakfast role - and talks best friend Millie's All Stars journey
Ever since she burst onto screens via an interesting voice note on Love Island in 2021, Chloe Burrows has remained a frequent face across television and the audio waves, and she isn't showing signs of slowing down. Earlier this year Burrows, alongside Tyler West, took over the reins from Jordan Banjo and Perri Kiely on KISS Breakfast, and it's been something Burrows has been working towards ever since she stepped out of the villa. "This has been a four year stint, so I actually started demoing radio straight after Love Island. I was very bad," she told Radio Times. "So I took a break and then I always, always, always wanted to do radio, more specifically KISS, hence why I have done so much with them over the years because I would not let them leave me alone." Burrows, who also hosts her own podcast, explained she was always first to ask whenever KISS had something going, having worked with them on a red carpet for the BRIT Awards as well as their Haunted House Party. But as for the actual breakfast show, Burrows says it has been "months" in the making, with her and West often "pretending to do breakfast shows" before getting the gig. Burrows and West kicked off their show at the start of the month and have already done some impressive interviews, from Halle Berry to Margot Robbie, but there is a long list forming of dream guests the presenter would love on the show. "I think I would love Amelia Dimoldenberg because I think everything she touches, I think she's incredible," Burrows told Radio Times. "Maya Jama, obviously, because who doesn't love Maya Jama? I would also love Snooki (Nicole Polizzi) or JWoww (Jennifer Lynn Farley) from Jersey Shore. "I think they would be iconic. Any Kardashian, obviously. I love Ru Paul as well, like there are so many people that I think are amazing." View Green Video on the source website Soon, our conversation turns to Love Island. Millie Court, Chloe's best friend whom she met on the show in 2021, is currently back in the villa on All Stars and is incredibly loved up with American bombshell Zac Woodworth, and Chloe has been (and will continue to be) rooting for her as we approach the final. "I know I am bias, but she has been really, really lovely," Chloe told Radio Times. "I think she's just looked after literally everyone in there, like she's really just the nicest, loveliest person with the best heart." As for Zac, he "seems nice enough" but Chloe jokes that she'll "get back" to us on that one once she meets him. "Of course we aren't familiar and she looks really, really happy with Zac," she added. "So yes, I'm definitely room for them to win." Since she appeared on Love Island, Chloe has launched a podcast, worked with Channel 4.0 and has appeared on other reality shows including Celebs Go Dating and Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, with each venture helping to shape her into the presenter she is today. " I've been so fortunate with the opportunities I've been given, so I've got the documentaries, which definitely helped me think as a viewer, like what did they wanna take from it," she told Radio Times. She continued: "With my podcast, I'm really selfish and when I have a guest on, I just wanna hear what I wanna hear, hoping that translates to the listener. But [it's] definitely [helped me] learn what radio's about. So I think it's the documentary definitely helped me with that. "SAS has not helped me here, funnily enough, Celebs Go Dating taught me how to celebrate on Friday after finishing a week but I think all the work with Channel 4.0 has made me realise that everything can be a joke on radio. As long as it's not serious on the news, but everything is funny. I'm just hoping subconsciously I've taken loads of these skills to be honest." KISS Breakfast with Tyler West and Chloe Burrows is on KISS, weekdays from 6am to 10am. Check out more of our audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Why Carry On icon Kenneth Williams's legacy in British entertainment continues to endure
Radio presenter and dedicated Williams fan Wes Butters spoke to Radio Times about the legendary performer.
Say the name Kenneth Williams and immediately you’re reminded of a rubber face, elongated vowels, a camp persona and a master of comic timing, as demonstrated in the Carry On films and radio programmes that are still popular today. But for radio presenter and dedicated Williams fan Wes Butters, the comic luminary remains much more than a "cartoon character". Butters says, "He transcended all age groups, all levels of society, all BBC networks." In a book, a radio documentary and now a film to be released later this year, Butters has been at pains to stress the star’s qualities as a person, something Williams would have appreciated, having often referred to the supposed ignominy of the creative artist required to perform low comedy. When Butters was planning a celebration of Williams’s centenary – a whole day of programmes on Radio 4 Extra this Saturday to mark exactly 100 years since Williams’s birth on 22 February 1926 – he had the same aim, to remind us of his idol’s dedication and versatility. Featured highlights include The Streets of London (1980) in which Williams proudly showed off his neighbourhood to Johnny Morris and Percy Edwards, and panel show The Law Game (1988), one of his last appearances. For Butters, this recording is bittersweet: "He’s so buoyant, at his best just months before he died." Butters, 46, was still a boy when Williams died. "He was ubiquitous in my childhood," Butters recalls of a time when Williams’s cross-generational appeal extended to frequent storytelling duties on Jackanory. "Everything about him was amusing to me," says the presenter, who was confused when he read the star’s celebrated Diaries, posthumously revealing a much darker side. "I couldn’t reconcile that happy joyous character with the man who would not allow himself to feel joy." One night in 2005, Butters bought a photo on eBay reportedly once owned by Williams. Butters contacted the seller, Williams’s godson Robert Chidell, who said he was selling everything, a collection his longtime fan was happy to scoop up in its entirety. Later, Butters was sitting with his memorabilia when Williams’s diaries fell open at a page on which the actor wondered what would become of his possessions after his death. "It’s not just serendipitous, it’s spooky," Butters says. "I feel at times as though his hand has guided me." Whether he was indulging in dirty postcard humour, a poetry recital or, surprisingly, Bible readings, Williams "drew you in". He was one of BBC Radio’s biggest stars, greatly loved for three comedy series – Hancock’s Half Hour, Just a Minute and Round the Horne — that have retained their popularity. Meanwhile, Williams’s chat show anecdotes enjoy repeated airings, and the Carry On films remain a perennial TV treat. More than half a century later, why does Williams’s unique contribution to British entertainment endure? "Because there was nobody like him," Butters offers. "He wasn’t trying to be anybody else." Williams died relatively young at 62; where could his career otherwise have taken him? "I like to think that he would have become a serious character actor," Butters says. But he also wonders whether that would have made Williams content: "The laughter was so important to him." The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. The Versatile Voice of Kenneth Williams: A Centenary Celebration is on Sunday from 6am on Radio 4 Extra. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers favourites star in 75th anniversary photoshoot and talk THAT dramatic George whodunnit reveal
Radio Times heads to Ambridge to take a deep dive into the latest plot twist.
This article originally appeared in Radio Times magazine. It began in 2024 when Alice Carter, an intermittently recovering alcoholic from the prosperous Aldridge family, fell asleep drunk in the passenger seat of her car. Her nephew-in-law George Grundy, a farmworker’s son, couldn’t resist offering to drive her home (it was a flash car). But Alice half-woke and clawed drunkenly for the door: it made George swerve and knock another car, bearing Mick, Joy and Fallon, from the bridge into the River Am. George dived in for a heroic rescue but afterwards panicked and moved the blotto Alice into the driver’s seat. Fallon lost the baby she didn’t know she was expecting, and everyone’s trauma rolled on for weeks. Alice was riven by guilt, though she couldn’t remember driving. George finally admitted the truth: when his grandparents Neil and Susan reported it, he got sent to prison for eight months. On release, he found most of Ambridge pretty unforgiving. Jobless and barred from the Bull, he ranted at all of them on New Year’s Eve. Following a conversation with the now saintly, forgiving Alice however, he resolved to put the past behind him and make good. Hollie Chapman, who plays Alice, explains, “The tables turned, and when she went from being the drunk to someone giving George wise advice, the scene felt really emotional, and I nearly lost it.” Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. Angus Stobie who voices George and joined Chapman on RT’s photoshoot to mark the dramatic storyline for the soap’s 75th anniversary, agrees that something changed in the characters’ dynamic. “I think George is slightly in awe of Alice and how she handled the whole situation. He also then means to change, family is at the centre of it all, and he wants to work and give back and provide.” But as George walked to his parents’ house in the dark that night, someone followed him, whacked him on the head with a wine bottle and left him for dead. Thankfully George recovered, and for weeks listeners heard characters suspecting one another of the attempted murder: Jolene the landlady; Fallon the pub cook and her policeman lover; George’s sister Keira; Alice’s dad Brian; Joy and her boyfriend Mick; and Amber’s roughneck father. Now we learn it was actually – shock! – Alice’s illegitimate half-brother Ruairi, who aspires to take over the family farm. Will Brian, in his 80s with angina, continue to pretend it was him to save his son? Will Ruairi confess? Will George lose his rag again? We asked Chapman, Stobie and some of the other actors who play these key figures how they feel about the dramatic revelation and what it means for the future of their characters in Ambridge. "There are a lot of ways this could play out. Not necessarily criminal justice, but village justice – the people themselves might deal with it!" Chapman reveals. She wasn't the first to learn of the latest Ambridge twist - that honour was bestowed on Brian star Charles Collingwood. "I was let in on the secret about Ruairi before everybody else, and sworn to secrecy," he explains. "Everyone was saying it would be me who did it. But really! Brian could barely lift a bottle – except up to his lips! I loved the great scene with George, when Brian decides to cover for Ruairi. And then the one with Ruairi! "Alice is Brian’s favourite child, he adores her. But remember, he has daughters and a stepdaughter and always longed for a son. Ruairi is the apple of his eye." He continues: "Back in the 1980s, they nearly wrote out the Aldridges for being a happy, wealthy family with no problems. But then they gave Brian a romantic wandering eye and the affair with Siobhan, from which Ruairi was born. Crises are an actor’s dream: the hard scenes to play are the ones where you’re walking across a field of not-quite-ripe oilseed rape." Arthur Hughes, who has voiced Ruairi since 2018, says that keeping the plot's outcome a secret what somewhat akin to the Beeb's reality TV show hit The Traitors. "It was very exciting, the clandestine nature of the whodunnit. I was taken aside in November and told it was my character, when The Celebrity Traitors was at its height. "I had to be careful in the studio not to give it away. Luckily, there was an ordinary plot to focus on, about wanting the farm…" Sunny Ormonde, better known to listeners as Ruairi's step-aunt Lillian Bellamy, adds: "Would she agree to protect Ruairi? Interesting one. She might, you know! Blood is thicker than water, though he’s just her step-nephew-in-law." Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary Read our interviews with George, Ruairi, Alice, Brian and Lilian – or the actors who play them – in tomorrow's edition of Radio Times – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Has The Archers cheated listeners with George Grundy reveal?
The identity of the Ambridge resident who attacked George Grundy came as a shock to most fans.
So we now know who lamped poor George Grundy (played by Angus Stobie) with a bottle of well-oaked Chardonnay on New Year’s Eve as he walked to make amends with his mother, Emma (Emerald O'Hanrahan). But I doubt whether any Ambridge addict who placed a bet on whodunnit is now sitting pretty after their hunch paid off. None of the main suspects who were in the frame turned out to be guilty – from one of Marky’s henchmen getting even for George grassing him up in prison to the improbable notion it was George’s younger half-sister Keira, fed up with the disruption he caused in the family. Add in the long list of others with potential motives, including Brad (Taylor Uttley), Jazzer (Ryan Kelly), Fallon (Joanna Van Kampen), Harrison (James Cartwright), Mick (Martin Barrass), Chris (Wilf Scolding), Lilian (Sunny Ormonde), Brian (Charles Collingwood) and Amber’s dad, and the scripts were a masterclass in misdirection. Yet when it was revealed in last Friday’s episode that it was Brian’s beloved son Ruairi (Arthur Hughes) who had done the dastardly deed, listeners couldn’t help but be surprised. Not that there’s no logic behind Ruairi being the attacker. He is the half-brother of Alice (Hollie Chapman) after all, and she almost went to prison after George placed her – blind drunk – at the wheel of her car, following the crash back in 2024 that saw Mick, Joy (Jackie Lye) and Fallon career off the road and into the icy waters of the Am. Fallon lost her unborn child after the crash and the guilt almost overwhelmed the hoodwinked Alice, who couldn’t remember what happened that fateful night, and saw her turning back to her old, destructive friend, the bottle. So it’s feasible that Ruairi has harboured a long-simmering grudge against George and that on a drunken New Year’s Eve in the Bull at which he saw George square up to his elderly father Brian, whose angina seems to strike whenever he gets het up or over-exerts himself, he would grab one of the bottles of fancy wine that he hadn’t already polished off and in a mist of alcoholic rage, followed George out of the pub, saw him talking to the saintly Alice, and further incensed stalked behind him on the bridal path and whacked him. It’s admittedly a neat bit of plotting that the rash actions of a volatile, impetuous young man prove to be the rough justice handed out to another volatile, impetuous young man whose rash actions in panicking and putting Alice in the frame for the crash – when he could have easily explained what happened and used his heroism in saving Mick, Joy and Fallon as mitigating evidence – started all the trouble and upheaval in the village in the first place. However, the problem I have is that the writers appear to have ignored one of the golden rules of crime writing, namely that the reader (or listener in this case) should always be able to work out whodunnit, or as American critic, editor and bestselling author SS Van Dine put it in his 1928 “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” – the reader must have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described. Since the New Year’s Eve episode I don’t think listeners have had many clues plainly stated that could lay the blame at Ruairi’s door. Yes, we heard him reacting angrily when a contrite George visited the Aldridges in an attempt to apologise for what he did to Alice and move on with his life. Only the most perceptive listeners would think he lost his cool because the prospect of George being accepted as a decent albeit troubled human being by his family, would mean that his violence against him was even more heinous. It just seemed like volatile, entitled Ruairi acting out again. Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. And one would have to have an eidetic memory to have noticed that Ruairi, Kate and Adam sunk their freebie bottle of swanky vino early in the evening on NYE, thus making Ruairi drunk and giving him a ready-made weapon in the form of an empty bottle with a fancy label. Writer and director Dave Payne, who came up with the idea for the whole storyline, told The Archers Podcast that when he first took it to the editor he was told to come up with a list of suspects and, walking away, instantly had a list of 20 possibles. It feels as if we were presented with the 19 others as potential suspects, but the real one was hidden from view. Hiding behind his father again, right up to the last. Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary However, having said all that, placing Ruairi in the frame has served up the prospect of a juicy story in which Brian tries to protect the son-who-can do-no-wrong, to the extent of facing prison time, while George could use his recording of Brian confessing to the crime to leverage an easier ride for himself in a village that has been unforgiving in its approach to rehabilitation for ex-cons who have done their time. Or will Ruairi come clean and be sent to jail, and come out a hardened criminal with even more of a grudge against George? More for Ambridge fans to obsess over and we have to be at least thankful that it wasn’t a Murder on the Orient-Express scenario, with the whole village having had a hand in meting out rough justice to George. Read our interviews with George, Ruairi, Alice, Brian and Lilian – or the actors who play them – in tomorrow's edition of Radio Times – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
5 everyday household items that are toxic for you – from dishwasher tablets to air fresheners
Scientist and broadcaster Mark Miodownik reveals the toxins that lurk in our homes.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Modern technology has allowed us to create homes of unparalleled comfort and convenience, but in doing so we have unwittingly exposed ourselves to invisible dangers through some of the products we buy. These dangers originate from the chemicals created by talented scientists trying to solve human problems and deliver miracle materials, some of which have been shown to be dangerous to human health and the biodiversity of the planet. Here are five everyday household items to look out for: Dishwasher tablets Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are chemicals with carbon–fluorine bonds, which give them properties such as non-stick, water-proofing and stain resistance in products like cookware, clothing, packaging and even dishwasher tablets. They gain these properties because the carbon-fluorine bonds are so strong that they do not chemically react with almost anything. But they are so stable and inert it’s hard to get rid of them as there are few micro-organisms that can break them down – hence why they are called forever chemicals. Their prevalence means they end up in our food and water. Evidence is mounting that as the concentration in our organs increases, they can cause illnesses and even cancers. Plastic food containers Plastics are wonderful and versatile materials. In the form of packaging they make food last longer and so prevent food waste and reduce prices. However, during the manufacturing of plastics, additives are added to give them strength and durability. Many of these chemicals have been shown to have a detrimental impact on human health. These include Bisphenol A (BPA), which interferes with the body’s hormones, affecting reproductive and metabolic systems. BPA acts like the hormone oestrogen, affecting the immune system – it’s also been linked to many other disorders. The EU has now banned BPA in all food-contact plastics, but in the UK it has only been banned for use in babies’ bottles. Avoid heating up food in plastic containers containing BPAs to reduce their ability to leach into the food. Synthetic clothing Another emerging problem with plastics is their ability to fragment and form tiny particles called microplastics. These fragments are often invisibly small and go unnoticed. They find their way into our food, drinks and even the air we breathe. One of the biggest sources of these particles are car tyres. The microplastics are produced as the tyres wear and are then washed into rivers and nearby land. The smallest ones are so light they become airborne and we breathe them in. Other major sources are synthetic clothing, paints and packaging. It’s not yet clear how they affect human health, although experiments show that they create an inflammatory response in cells and tissues. Evidence is growing that they are accumulating in our bodies as well as nature, affecting the health of everything from plants to fish. Air fresheners Many very useful products in the home are manufactured using volatile organic substances (VOCs). These are carbon-based substances like solvents that have low boiling points so in a warm environment like a home, they become gases and are part of the air you breathe. Since many VOCs are toxic, there can be a significant health impact, especially for people with respiratory conditions. Long exposure to VOCs can come from cleaning products, paints, personal care products, carpets and furniture. Many VOCs, such as solvents and air fresheners, smell nice but are often dangerous, nonetheless. Pet flea treatments The active chemicals responsible for killing fleas on cats, dogs and other pets are insecticides such as fipronil and imidacloprid. They work by attacking the nervous system of the parasites. They are powerful and indiscriminate and can kill a variety of pollinators, invertebrates and aquatic life. They are banned for use in agriculture in the UK, but are still used in “spot-on” treatments. Studies show that these chemicals are quickly spread around the home by pets, including on to their owners. The health risks are not well researched but there is evidence they are linked to diabetes and high blood pressure. If washed into rivers their impact on biodiversity is dramatic. Mark Miodownik presents Toxic! on Monday 16 February at 11am on Radio 4. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers at 75: Reflecting on the British institution with BBC Radio stars and its celebrity fans
From cake competitions to coercive control, The Archers has captivated its devoted listeners for 75 years and counting.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. For all the gentle storylines about lemon-drizzle cake and family tiffs, there is something oddly majestic about The Archers and its survival for 75 years. It’s not about thriller events – though there’s a grand shock revelation coming very soon. The more solid pleasure of the radio drama lies in getting to know the characters over years, watching them arrive, reveal themselves, scrape against the others, maybe intermarry and bear children, with all recognisable tensions and worries and rows. And the reason that this tapestry of lives becomes sort of majestic is its sheer longevity: the following of fictional lives in real time. And in a largely urban society, it perhaps helps to remind those in cramped cities that food comes from hard work and green fields. When you meet the long-serving actors they always stress that peculiar sense of living in a parallel reality. Pat Gallimore, who has played Tony Archer’s wife Pat for 52 years, says: “If anyone had told me at that audition in 1974 that I would be around for half a century, it’d be unbelievable. But like your own life it becomes part of you, surviving and thriving. A second life, a second family.” Gallimore’s character Pat is a classic example of a figure listeners have heard evolving over the years: from a Welsh-accented CND firebrand and leftist, who cancelled Tony’s Express for The Guardian, we’ve heard her support the farm going organic “way before it was mainstream”. The Archers was part of that new acceptance just as it reflects today’s rewilding enthusiasm. Her Pat also worked through a delicate handling of grief over her elder son’s death on a tractor. I remind her how furious farming people were when the then-editor giggled in an interview about his departure as a “fun” plot. “Yes,” says Gallimore thoughtfully, “we all know that things can hit people personally. It matters.” Another storyline that hit people personally, making national news, was the “coercive control” story between Pat’s daughter Helen and Rob. She portrayed a mother entirely unaware of what the listener – in genuinely troubling scenes – had heard happening. “I did argue a little bit at the time, asking why hadn’t Pat spotted what’s going on,” protests Gallimore. “But I suppose she had come to trust Rob, he helped on the farm.” That was a big story, but over 75 years there have been many smaller ones that gripped listeners, with news of them sometimes (as in my case) drawing back midlife listeners who got irritated or bored and gave up for two or three years. Returners easily fall back into the entangled stories of imaginary Ambridge, amused by changes in half-familiar characters, soothed by the rhythm of life. And of death, too: my generation has seen the end of several, from the roguish Joe Grundy and Walter Gabriel to wicked but repentant Rob and, just lately, the formidable matriarch Peggy herself. It’s a narrative hymn to humanity and mortality, and that is no small thing. My mother once said, “It helps us age, it’s company.” When the performance and script are particularly well done (right now under Jeremy Howe, a serious veteran of radio drama, it is on a high), it can touch hearts and change attitudes. A modern-slavery story a while back made many listeners say they became more conscious of how a plausible gangmaster would exploit homeless men, chillingly alluding to them as “the horses”. But all this wasn’t really the aim, back in 1951 when it launched nationally on New Year’s Day. When farmer Dan Archer was invented, paired with a London girl called Doris in a fictional village called Ambridge, it was actually an educational project for farmers: there was still rationing after the Second World War and it was vital to boost the national food supply. The BBC, with government urging, wanted to publicise new ways forward, beyond the plough-horses and steam threshing machines. But its first editor Godfrey Baseley realised that, actually, it would be family and neighbourhood relationships that kept the interest going. He gradually created a balance, so that the agricultural story editor’s rather plodding information wouldn’t overwhelm the general listener who just wanted “an everyday story of country folk” to calm them down while making supper. Successive editors devised non-farming plots to run alongside the informative stuff about dairy and arable problems, and kept up with changes in society. The Archer family – spreading sideways into the Aldridges with the marriage of Peggy’s daughter Jennifer to the rakish, affluent Brian – has always dominated, but gradually, to the relief of many, the working-class Grundys and Horrobins have been elevated from mere cartoon yokels. (Neil Kinnock once said The Archers should be called “The Grundys and Their Oppressors”.) Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. The economic pressures on all classes are woven in: whether it’s Brian fretting about the cost of a £150,000 farm machine, old Peggy’s will supporting Alzheimer’s research and rewilding rather than her family members, or Emma’s heart breaking because she will never own a house. The introduction of Asian characters has been gradual (artfully, the first one fell in love and married the vicar). That again reflects the nation, albeit sometimes stretching rural probability: the old joke is that it’s the only village in England where the year revolves round Diwali and the Pride festival. The latest, touchingly, is Akram Malik (Asif Khan), husband of the new local doctor, who involves himself with the Ambridge farm people because he is homesick for family farming in Pakistan. But aside from race and technology, producers also, with cautious but determined steps, had to keep up with changes in morals and family values since the staid 1950s. Doris Archer’s stout-knickered world is not ours. At a BBC event celebrating the life of June Spencer – who played Peggy for 70 years – I was asked to speak about the changes this matriarch had seen. I mischievously listed the “sexual rewilding” of Britain – Archers coping with adultery, divorce, hookups, abortion, single mothers with multiple baby daddies (including an anonymous donor and a “friend with benefits”), gay and lesbian couples, surrogacy, a granddaughter drunk while pregnant, and even a family grandson selling sex as an escort. Some more traditionally minded listeners objected to this, especially the acceptance of uncommitted hookups, but it does reflect modern mores just as faithfully as Brian’s £150,000 seed-drill and bovine TB anxieties reflect modern farming. Sunny Ormonde, who for 20 years has played the ageing femme fatale of the Archer family, cheerfully observes, “Lilian seems to have had affairs with almost everybody in the village, though never Brian. “When I started in 2000, I wanted to check whether listeners would take this middle-aged manhunter on board... but it’s interesting how things change as the long story goes on. With the loss of Peggy as well as her sister Jennifer, family dynamics change. There’s nobody left to put Lilian in her place, she’s had to grow up. Be the new matriarch.” Like several of the other professionals who receive scripts and recording dates, Ormonde completes the curious, beguiling loop between listener and actors that the series has created. “You see, I am a listener as well as being part of it. Sometimes I hear something that I didn’t know anything about and think, ‘Oh, my goodness!’ And I’m in it!” Indeed, the urge to be in it for a few lines of cameo has captured over the decades starry names from Princess Margaret to Queen Camilla, Dame Judi Dench to Sir Terry Wogan and Sir Bradley Wiggins. The jury that finally acquitted poor Helen of stabbing evil Rob included Catherine Tate and Dame Eileen Atkins. It’s become a bit like being asked to be in Who’s Who. As to the real cast, any theatre company talking to journalists can paint itself as a happy family, whether in truth it is or not. But I have over the years run into a fair few of the Archers cast, and it really does seem to be a reality in that sense. Certainly those who get killed off tend to strike a slightly wistful note, and there are apocryphal tales of senior actors complaining at not getting enough scenes (it is, of course, piece-work!). Pat Gallimore reflects, “I can’t remember any major fallings-out. Certainly not with me involved. One thing about it is, even though you’re together in scenes for years, it’s not claustrophobic like a real family. You do your work and come home. In the studio, we particularly enjoy the table scenes, loading the dishwasher and arguing about who’s making the supper, all together. But of course,” she adds, “as an actor it’s much more fun to play conflict or crisis. “I remember dear Colin Skipp [the original Tony] saying, when John [Pat and Tony’s son] died, that in a way those scenes are easier to play because there’s something to react against. Doing the workaday stuff, feeding the cows, doing the shopping, is actually far more difficult to get right. But you’re hardly going to win an Oscar for saying, ‘Let’s go and make some blueberry yogurt,’ are you?” Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary Celebrity fans Ruth Jones The Archers is my little 13-minute daily sanctuary. I’m not going to lie, they’re in bed with me almost every night. Sometimes I get really frustrated with it but that’s part of its joy. I nearly stopped listening when David and Ruth Archer almost lost the farm when it was threatened by a new road. I can picture all the characters in my mind, and yes, I do have favourites. I love Jazzer and in more recent times George and Brad. But Susan is also a joy, as is Tracy. My absolute top favourite though is Lilian (Sunny Ormonde, top right). Her wicked gin-swilling laugh, and her life-affirming, life-grabbing presence cheer me up every time she’s in a scene. Though the truth is I love ’em all. Seventy-five years – I won’t be around in another 75, but I do hope The Archers will. Brad Horrobin might be the future Joe Grundy, Martha Carter may be the future Lilian and who knows if the Bull will still be serving, but I’ll keep listening into my old age if I’m lucky enough! Sir Stephen Fry One of my very earliest memories is of fitting myself under the chair that my mother sat on and listening with her to The Archers. The theme tune was as familiar to me as Pop Goes the Weasel, Happy Birthday or Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. In fact, I cannot really remember a time when I didn’t think of The Archers as a natural and inevitable part of my life, like the milkman and the chimney sweep. Those have more or less stepped away from our world, but The Archers is still there. I listen to it more religiously, rarely missing an episode, much more when I’m abroad than when I’m at home. Because it always takes me right back to England. And, like England, it can be as banal, embarrassing and ridiculous as it can be charming, brave and lovable. The people of Ambridge are for the most part sound, well intentioned, friendly, forgiving and kind. It is always the same, but it changes with the times without one quite noticing. There’s minimum tillage and mob grazing on the farm now, and Pat and Tony’s yogurts are kefirs. Alan Titchmarsh Thirty years ago, my wife told me that she would only consider that I had “made it” when I’d appeared in The Archers. I thought there was no chance. Then I was asked if I would judge the Ambridge Best Garden competition – as myself. I got to meet Lynda Snell and was driven around the village by Joe Grundy (actors Carole Boyd and Edward Kelsey, right) in a pony and trap pulled by the legendary Bartleby. The fact that the “trap” was one table upturned on another with two broom handles placed between them to allow movement mattered not a jot. What a fun day. But I can’t for the life of me remember who won! Still, my wife now admits I’ve made it. David Mitchell My mum has been listening to The Archers for as long as she can remember, almost since it began, and I think she still does. So I heard a lot of it during my childhood. I haven’t entirely kept up, but I’m very glad it’s still going. And in a frightening and changing world, I think it’s great that some things continue. And it’s the original soap opera, isn’t it? Congratulations to it! Emma Freud My favourite characters have to be the Grundys — not because they’re easy to like (they’re not), but because they’re written without flattery. They’re flawed, often irritating, and test our sympathy, but even when they’re horrendous, I find myself rooting for them. I want them to win, to prosper. Maybe I want them to take over Ambridge? The Rob and Helen storyline was a slow, devastating depiction of coercive control. Each episode contained so much thoughtfulness, research and creative discipline. The writers didn’t hold back: scenes were as uncomfortable as they were impactful. But for every Rob and Helen storyline, there’s delightful eccentricity – such as the “soiled pants” competition, where characters buried their underwear to test the soil. Only The Archers. I love the low dramas – precious episodes when life just potters on with its moments of sweetness, meanness, small wins, small losses, long-term love, loneliness, Clarrie’s arthritis. It’s life… and it’s gently talked about in a way that only happens behind closed doors. I know some villagers better than my own family but I never have to buy them Christmas presents. I also love the lack of money. We rarely hear details of salaries, house prices, rents or the cost of a gift. This means we can exist in a world where we aren’t constantly looking through the lens of finance for status or position or value. It’s a subtle but welcome omission. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Iconic Radio 1 DJ Andy Kershaw confirms cancer diagnosis and is now "unable to walk"
"I am in good spirits, feeling very positive and planning another podcast."
Former Radio 1 DJ Andy Kershaw has revealed that he is battling cancer which is affecting his spinal column and has left him "unable to walk". Kershaw's friend and podcast producer Peter Everett shared the news on Facebook this week, confirming that the broadcaster has been receiving treatment including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and physiotherapy. Fans had been expressing their concern for the 66-year-old as no new episodes of his self-titled podcast had been posted for more than six months. Everett shared a comment from Kershaw himself, who despite his diagnosis had maintained his typical sense of humour. "I am in good spirits, feeling very positive and planning another podcast," he said. "I am determined not to die before Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Ant’n’Dec. That should keep me going for a while." Everett himself added: "My friend Andy has been going through a difficult time. Although we’ve not been able to put together any podcasts in the last six months, we are very grateful to all the patrons and supporters who have stuck with us." Kershaw began his career in radio first, but in 1984 he enlisted as a new presenter for BBC2’s Whistle Test before getting his own show on BBC Radio 1 the following year. He presented his own music show for 15 years, which was characterised by his boredom of Anglo-American music and had a strong African influence. Over his broadcast journalism career he also worked for BBC Radios 3 and 4, reporting on stories from around the world, notably the Rwandan genocide, Angola's civil war in 1996, Sierra Leone in 2001 and repeatedly from Haiti. In 2021, Kershaw launched The Andy Kershaw Podcast as a continuation of his much-loved former BBC Radio 1 show. He officially describes the premise of his podcast as "Andy Kershaw plays some bloody great records". There are currently 37 episodes of his podcast which can be listened to on its website. The last upload was in June 2025 and whilst Kershaw and Everett have confirmed that a new episode is coming, they have not revealed when fans can expect to see it. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Vote now for the Radio Times Readers' Drama Award
Radio is famously the “theatre of the mind” and that’s most apparent in audio drama, where listeners can be transported from a cosy village pub to the far reaches of the galaxy, all from the comfort of their bed, bath or beyond. Alison Hindell, commissioning editor for drama and fiction at Radio 4, says the best audio drama “enlightens and illuminates, leading the listener into lives they will never lead and to places they may never go. Every listener will experience an entirely unique production, and be touched in different, individual ways, because for each of us it all happens within our own imaginations.” To celebrate this transportive genre, we have established our own Radio Times Readers’ Drama Award, for dramas broadcast or released between 1 October 2024 and 31 October 2025, and now invite you to vote for your favourite from a 30-strong shortlist (see below along with clips to jog your memory) drawn up by a panel of our expert critics. They range from gritty one-man shows to star-laden adaptations of literary classics and from meditative pieces on loss to heart-thumping thrillers. Chris Jones, senior director of production for Europe at Audible, highlights the three elements that comprise good dramas: “First, writing – a script designed to be heard, where every line of dialogue, every breath, sound effect or moment of silence earns its place to reveal character or carry action. "Then, casting – the right actor doesn’t just read lines, they embody the character. Lastly, sound design – treating the acoustics of an environment or the footsteps of a character not as background, but as storytelling itself.” Bear these in mind when you cast your vote. The vote closes at 11:59pm on Friday 20 February and the winner will be announced at the BBC Audio Drama Awards ceremony on Sunday 1 March and revealed in the issue of Radio Times on sale Tuesday 3 March. The vote follows below - make sure you choose carefully as you only have one vote. The shortlist is below. View Riddle on the source website Radio Times Readers’ Drama Award shortlist Gatsby in Harlem - Radio 3 Ncuti Gatwa, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Malachi Kirby star in Roy Williams’s re-imagining of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic on the streets of Harlem. Listen now Central Intelligence - Radio 4 Kim Cattrall, Ed Harris and Johnny Flynn return in the second series of the drama about the CIA. Listen now Moorgate - Radio 4 Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran’s retelling of the 1975 Moorgate Tube disaster, in which Marks’s father died. Listen now One Hundred and Fifty Days - Radio 4 A posthumous play from dramatist Oliver Emanuel, comprising his unfinished last audio drama and his writing about his brain cancer. Listen now The Fever - Radio 4 Cate Blanchett performs Wallace Shawn’s polemic monologue about global trade, adapted from his play. Listen now Buzz: the Man and the Moon - Podcast John Lithgow stars as Buzz Aldrin in a series that delves into the Apollo 11 astronaut’s complex personality and issues. Listen now Star - Radio 3 Drama from Sarah Wooley about the making of the movie A Star Is Born, Judy Garland’s 1950s comeback bid. Listen now Breaking the Rules: O Is for Orson - Radio 4 A dramatisation of the events behind the making of Orson Welles’s masterpiece, Citizen Kane. Listen now When Alan Met Ray - Radio 4 Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield star in the story of the beginning of the Galton and Simpson writing partnership, famous for Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. Listen now Waiting for Waiting for Godot - Radio 4 Adrian Edmondson writes and stars in a play about a play disrupted by lockdown. Listen now The Film - Radio 4 Retelling the wartime role of Alfred Hitchcock in bringing the horrors of Bergen-Belsen to the wider world. Listen now An Inspector Calls on Moscow - Radio 4 Rory Kinnear stars as JB Priestley in a recounting of how his play An Inspector Calls came to be premiered in Soviet Russia. Listen now Secrets and Lies: Mona Best and the Beatles - Radio 4 A reimagining of the integral part Mona Best, Pete’s mum, played in the Beatles’ early years. Listen now High Cockalorum - Radio 4 Jeremy Dyson’s Bradford-based play about a young lad’s encounter with Hollywood royalty. With Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Monica Dolan. Listen now Samhain - Radio 4 Drama infused with storytelling and song, inspired by the myths and rituals surrounding the pagan festival of Samhain. Listen now Aldrich Kemp and the Rose of Pamir - Radio 4 The latest series of the spy thriller sees Clara Page and Aldrich Kemp on a hunt across the globe. Listen now Exemplar - Radio 4 The second series of the award-winning series about forensic audio analysts, starring Gina McKee. Listen now Murder in Aland - Radio 4 A Baltic noir in which a murder on a storm-lashed island draws a grieving investigator and a retired officer into a web of espionage, betrayal – and forbidden love. Listen now It Can’t Happen Here - Radio 4 Sinclair Lewis’s prescient 1936 satirical novel about the rise of an unlikely US president, adapted for radio by Mike Walker. Listen now Faith Healer - Radio 4 A radio adaptation of Brian Friel’s acclaimed stage play telling the story of a charismatic travelling healer, starring Aidan Gillen, Michelle Fairley and Daniel Mays. Listen now Up in Smoke - Podcast Adam Buxton and Mei Mac star in a “true crime podcast” about a fictional event, a house fire in a small village that supposedly left a teenager dead. Listen now Chicken Burger N Chips - Radio 4 An adaptation of Corey Bovell’s one-man play, a raw coming-of-age story about growing up in a changing south London. Listen now The Yafa Cherry Orchard - Radio 4 Hassan Abdulrazzak relocates Chekhov’s masterpiece to Palestine as an aristocratic family attempt to hang on to their estate during the country’s partition in 1948. Listen now The ABC Murders - Audible Peter Dinklage leads a starry cast as Hercule Poirot in Audible’s Agatha Christie dramatisation. Listen now Secrets and Lies: The Final Touch - Radio 4 Roy Williams’s story of warring brothers, born to West Indian parents and fostered to a white couple, trying to make it as professional footballers. Listen now King Lear - Radio 4 At the age of 88, Richard Wilson takes on Shakespeare’s great role for the first time. With Greta Scacchi, Tamsin Greig, Phoebe-Loveday Raymond, Toby Jones and David Tennant. Listen now Only One Word for Love - Radio 4 Jessica Raine and Rupert Evans star in Susie Dent and Peter Souter’s play about love, recovery and lexicography. Listen now When Maggie Met Larry - Radio 4 Frances Barber and Derek Jacobi star as Margaret Thatcher and Laurence Olivier in a reimagining of their meetings in which Larry taught Maggie how to project her voice. Listen now A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Radio 4 Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of the late Marina Lewycka’s witty and tender novel about emigrating and immigration, sisterly rivalry and the lure of a green satin brassiere. Listen now Hersey’s Hiroshima - Radio 4 A dramatisation of John Hersey’s New Yorker account of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, written after two weeks spent interviewing citizens in the city. Listen now The vote closes at 11:59pm on Friday 20th February and the winner will be announced at the BBC Audio Drama Awards ceremony on Sunday 1st March. For more recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary
Designer Jo Thompson has created a garden for the inaugural RHS Badminton Flower Show.
As part of The Archers’ 75th anniversary celebrations, the show has teamed up with the Royal Horticultural Society and garden designer Jo Thompson to bring to life a location central to the drama for decades, Bridge Farm. Remarkably the farm went fully organic in 1984 and has been innovating regularly ever since, moving into organic milk production and running its own dairy. The Archers 75th Anniversary Garden at the new RHS Badminton Flower Show will look to reflect that commitment to organic farming and be a similarly pioneering, productive, sustainable, welcoming, family centred and optimistic space. Though it’s more recent Bridge Farm history that has inspired the overarching spirit of the garden – the sewage spill last year that caused havoc for the Archers’ business and had listeners across the land gagging at the sloshing sound effects. The plot is designed to be a hopeful front garden, lovingly rebuilt after the damage from the spill. That rebuilding will be reflected on air throughout the year, with references to the replanting of the Bridge Farm garden in the programme, some of which will then be on show at RHS Badminton. Jeremy Howe, editor of The Archers, says: “For the past 75 years [The Archers] has been reflecting rural life in the UK. The RHS garden will be a wonderful opportunity for fans to see Bridge Farm brought to life as never before – we can’t wait.” Thompson says: “I’ve been a long-time Archers fan, so creating a Bridge Farm garden to mark the programme’s 75th anniversary has been an absolute joy. The Archers world feels incredibly familiar to so many people, and everyone has their own idea of what Bridge Farm looks like – which has made it both exciting and a little daunting, in the best possible way. I can’t wait to see it come to life, with plenty of small details that will feel familiar to listeners.” Some of those details in the 12m by 18m feature garden, will include Bridge Farm’s visitor entrance and noticeboard with bunting and pots; orchard fruit trees growing within a wildflower meadow; a cheese making area; and a potting bench with branded Bridge Farm vegetable boxes. There will also be a wildlife pond. Speaking via video at the launch of the RHS Badminton Flower Show, Thompson has also teased, “there’s also a nod to goats!”, in reference to the burgeoning herd of goats at the farm. View oEmbed on the source website She adds: “It’s also really exciting to be bringing this garden to the new RHS Badminton Flower Show. Set within a working landscape, it feels like exactly the right place for this garden to be. It’s not a judged garden, it’s simply there for people to enjoy.” Whether any of the Archers cast will be there enjoying the garden is yet to be revealed, but we’d hope to be able to have a taste of Borsetshire Blue and perhaps bump into Eddie Grundy trying to get his ferrets involved somehow. RHS Badminton Flower Show will take place 8–12 July. It is one of the RHS’s new touring Shows – alongside RHS Sandringham Flower Show for 2026 — and the first RHS Flower Show to take place in the beautiful Badminton Estate set within the South Gloucestershire countryside. Visit rhs.org.uk to purchase tickets and find out more about the show. Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama The Archers stars David and William Troughton talk being father and son in iconic radio soap and in real-life You can listen to The Archers on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Amol Rajan confirms exit from major presenting role: "It's time to get my coat"
Rajan also presents University Challenge.
Amol Rajan has announced he is leaving his role on BBC’s Today programme after five years. The presenter, who joined the staple radio show in 2021, revealed in a statement that he is unleashing his "inner entrepreneur" to launch his own unspecified company. The BBC said that Rajan will continue to work for the BBC, hosting University Challenge and the Radical podcast. "The pips have sounded, and it's time to get my coat," Rajan said in a statement, adding: "Leaving Today might be mad. This team is the best of the best: consistently world class, and exceptionally well-led by Owenna Griffiths and Mohit Bakaya. I will always feel like I played in the editorial version of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, or Steve Waugh's Australia." He continued: "I genuinely couldn't be prouder of Amol Rajan Interviews, which will stand the test of time. Travelling all around the world (or indeed Essex) to spend so much time with so many icons has been an unforgettable privilege. Speaking about his reasons for his departure, he added: "Twenty years after I first flirted with the idea, I'm extremely excited to jump into the Great Digital Narnia of the Creator Economy, and build my own company. I'll still do Britain's oldest TV quiz and most exciting podcast. "But Del Boy was my hero growing up, and it's time to unleash my inner entrepreneur. I am very much not leaving the BBC, Britain's noblest cultural institution, whose Reithian spirit is such a generous gift to a world in flux. It's that world I'm heading for, and I'm excited." Rajan took over from Jeremy Paxman as the host of University Challenge for the 53rd series in 2023. Before joining the BBC, Rajan worked as the editor of The Independent, becoming the first non-white editor of a national newspaper in over a century. He quit the role in 2016 when he was appointed the BBC’s first media editor, before joining Radio 4’s Today programme five years later. Owenna Griffiths, editor of Today, praised Rajan’s "rare combination of intellectual dexterity, impressive breadth of interest" and "brilliant sense of humour", adding that "It has been enormous fun working with him on Today and setting up Radical. He will be sorely missed." Mohit Bakaya, Director of Speech and Controller of BBC Radio 4, said it will be really sad to lose Rajan’s "distinctive intellectual energy and curiosity" but said he was pleased that he will still be a regular presence on Radio 4. John McAndrew, Director of Live and Daily News, added: "Amol’s a huge talent who’s been a fantastic addition to the Today line-up. I’d like to thank him for everything he’s done and I’m delighted he’ll continue presenting for the BBC. "Amol has brought a real breath of fresh air to Today and we will keep evolving the programme as we continue to refresh the presenting team in the months ahead." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Bookish star Mark Gatiss adapts and stars in classic cosy crime tale – and it airs on Monday
Gatiss's audio drama adaptation of Murder Every Monday first aired in 2008.
As fans of Mark Gatiss's period crime drama Bookish wait for it to return for season 2 later this year, another crime story from Gatiss is set to air on Monday (12th January 2026). This time, it's an audio adaptation of Pamela Branch's novel Murder Every Monday, which Gatiss dramatised and starred in for BBC Radio 4 back in 2008. The hour-long drama is set to air again on Radio 4Xtra, with broadcasts of it at 3pm and again at 9pm on Monday 12th January, and another at 5am on Tuesday 13th January. The synopsis for the audio drama says: "Asterisk Club founder Clifford Flush hasn't murdered anyone for years. But when the urge comes upon him to bump off his bridge partner (the man's bidding was really quite unforgivable), he and the rest of the club are forced to leave London in bit of a hurry. "Once out of harm's way, in the rural hamlet of Krunte Abbas, they acquire the dilapidated Dankry Manor and set themselves up as homicide consultants." The dramatisation of Pamela Branch's novel, which was first published in 1954, stars Simon Williams, John Castle, Barbara Kirby, Graham Crowden, David Ryall, Stephanie Beacham, Mark Benton, Ian Hallard and Cal Jaggers, as well as Gatiss himself in a supporting role. Gatiss has plenty of history when it comes to both crime dramas and adaptations, as he is not only behind hit original series Bookish, in which he also stars as bookshop owner and amateur detective Gabriel Book, but also acclaimed modern Arthur Conan Doyle adaptation Sherlock. Gatiss has also adapted a host of classic Ghost Stories for his annual BBC Two programme A Ghost Story for Christmas, most recently A Room in the Tower, which starred Tobias Menzies and Joanna Lumley. Murder Every Monday by Pamela Branch will air on Radio 4Xtra at 3pm and 9pm on Monday 12th January, and again at 5am on Tuesday 13th January 2026. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Emma Willis to host new BBC Radio 2 programme as Zoe Ball steps down
Emma Willis will replace Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 Saturday lunchtime programme, as the presenter today announced she will step down later this month. Willis will be on the airwaves from January 2026 each Saturday lunchtime between 1pm and 3pm. The BBC has teased her programme will be jam-packed with special guests. Emma said of the announcement: "I'm a huge fan of Radio 2, so I'm absolutely chuffed to be joining the family - and it's a real honour to follow in the huge footsteps Zoe leaves behind, who's someone I admire and adore. I'm very much looking forward to spending my Saturday lunchtimes with the Radio 2 audience and I’ll happily be the filling to a Romesh and Rylan sandwich!" Willis has spent six years co-presenting Sunday mornings on Heart Radio alongside Stephen Mulhern. And since 2019, she has been a regular voice on Radio 2, often deputising for Sara Cox, and Claudia Winkleman and Romesh Ranganathan. Helen Thomas, Head of Radio 2, commented: "Emma is one of the UK’s most popular broadcasters, so I’m thrilled that she’s joining the all-star Radio 2 family of presenters. I’m certain that our loyal listeners will welcome her with open arms. "I can’t wait to hear Emma’s new show as a part of our Superstar Saturday weekend schedule, which features Tony Blackburn, Dermot O’Leary, Romesh Ranganathan, Rylan, Liza Tarbuck, Gary Davies and Fearne Cotton." Read more: Rum Punch's Travis Jay: "I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me" BBC Radio Christmas 2025 line-up confirmed – with Hollywood legend set as guest editor for the Today programme Zoe Ball will present her last programme on Saturday 20th December, though she will continue to host specials on the station, which she has done throughout the year. Zoe said: "Spending Saturday lunchtimes with the Radio 2 gang has been an absolute hoot, the listeners, the stories, and of course my weekly giggles with Romesh and Rylan. I’m over the moon for the fabulous Emma to take the reins, she’s pure sunshine and is going to bring all the joy (and tunes!) to your Saturdays." Helen added: "Huge thanks to Zoe for keeping Saturday lunchtimes cheerful and warm. She’s much loved by our audience and amazing team of presenters. Zoe will always be a highly valued member of the Radio 2 family." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Rum Punch's Travis Jay: "I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me"
Having cut his teeth in the world of comedy, Travis Jay chats to Pass the Mic about returning to BBC Radio 4 for a full season of award-winning sitcom Rum Punch.
After the success of his pilot episode of Rum Punch last year, comedian Travis Jay is back for a fully fledged series of his radio sitcom – and it's only set to be the start of something greater, should the stars align for Jay who also has dreams for Rum Punch beyond the airwaves. As we speak before the release of the BBC Radio 4 series and even ahead of the live recording of his second batch of episodes, Jay is admittedly "super excited" for the release of the full season. "I think the response to the pilot was definitely eye opening. It was a real surprise because it's an audience I'm not familiar with, on a platform I'm also not familiar with. While I listen to podcasts, the idea of being on Radio 4 was just like, 'Okay, everybody speaks so positively about this'. It's just something I still didn't know. So, the response has been far bigger than I imagined," he says. And a positive reaction was definitely recieved around Rum Punch's initial episode, with the pilot going on to scoop up the award for Best Comedy Sitcom at BBC's 2025 Audio Drama Awards. Winning that was "something else", Jay beams, with it proving that the positive feedback "is not in my head and it really did connect". "I genuinely didn't know that we'd be in the running for something like that. When you start writing, it's the furthest thing from my mind. Then it's like – bam, nominations are in," he laughs. He continues: "It's my first comedy award, and I've been doing this for 16 years. I'm just grateful the people are enjoying the project. I think it's a powerful story to tell and I think the feeling it leaves is the thing I really aim for. "I'm one of these stand up comics – I do touch on serious things. Previous specials I've done, I've touched on grief, losing my grandfather. It would seem like, how did you make that funny? But I know that there's value in real life and authentic stories. "The comedy will come, I trust my bones to find comedy. But dealing with real subjects is also quite a powerful thing. The fact that a story like this could connect like that and we go to a full series in an audience I'm not familiar with in that way, it made me feel really, really proud." Describing Rum Punch as a "multigenerational family sitcom", the series follows Jay in the lead role as Marley, an aspiring boxer who has dreams outside of working in his family's Caribbean restaurant. Set in Lewisham, the family comedy follows the Campbell family as they come together to keep the business afloat but also, pursue their own individual ambitions. Upon first listening to it, many will likely be warmly reminded of other Black-led sitcoms that have aired alongside many of us growing older. Desmond's, My Wife and Kids and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were all shows that were staple to Jay's experience growing up, he tells me. "It's a nod to the legacy of Black sitcoms," Jay says, with those shows remaining so iconic all these years on for a variety of reasons. The studio sitcom format gives viewers "a deeper connection" to many lead characters, Jay says. "The connection runs so deep, it's that real life experience. You're in the room laughing with them and I really wanted to touch on that because it's just things I grew up loving," he says. In reality, the laughter you hear dotted throughout the episodes is all real, recorded live in front of an audience. It's a part of the series that was special to Jay, he admits, but is was always part of the plan when a stand-up comedian is at the helm of the series. "I think if we're going to call it a comedy, it belongs in front of the audience. I think the fact it's real laughter, it lets you know in the moment whether this worked or it didn't. These are stakes that I like, that I'm used to having." The embracing of Rum Punch as an outright comedy is something that Jay says he's doing unashamedly. "I think sometimes we take a shot at comedy but we might fall a bit short so we might say, 'Hey, it's a comedy drama'. "Whereas, I'm like – nah, it's a comedy. We're going to shoot for comedy and if it doesn't hit, that means I didn't do my job. These are the stakes that I think comedy belongs in so I really embrace that challenge." Having gone to one of the live recordings myself, it seemed far from a challenge for Jay to leave the audience in hysterics. Just like the series itself, the audience was made up of all different ages, with jokes landing seamlessly across the auditorium. Just from the material itself, you wouldn't think that Jay wasn't the biggest consumer of audio dramas or really, a listener of BBC Radio 4 ahead of penning Rum Punch. It's refreshing to hear, I tell the comedian once he admits that, but the lack of a personal connection to the form or the platform was a challenge that Jay wholeheartedly embraced. "I thought that if I'm not familiar with this platform and consuming this type of content like this, I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me. It was a real good challenge as a writer, to write blind," he says. "There's no visual aid, your script is setting the tone of the imagination that you try to capture." Jay describes himself as a "very competitive guy", saying that once he sets a goal then he becomes "laser-focused" on it, which is something that the wider Rum Punch team fully supported him in. When it came to sitting down to writing Rum Punch's full series, Jay said one thing was at the forefront of his mind: "Alright, I've got to write for someone like me." He adds: "Because if we're going to drag these new ears to this space, we've got to do it with a big bang. That's why with the pilot, we went full-fledged into it. It was a nice challenge, I'm glad that the response is positive." Riding that high of positive feedback going into the full series must be a lovely feeling for any writer, with Jay saying that many remarked that listening to the pilot felt like watching a TV show due to the excellent visual storytelling at the heart of it. "A lot of people were just like, 'We need this on TV' or 'I haven't seen a family like this in so long'. So, I'm really grateful for that," Jay smiles. Part of the family appeal of the show comes down to the family at the heart of Rum Punch, a cast that Jay couldn't be more proud to work alongside. As well as his own mother, comedian Angie Le Mar, starring as his mother in Rum Punch, the cast also includes The Real McCoy legend Eddie Nestor, Jay's real-life best friend Kevin 'KG' Harry (Ted Lasso), comedian Kyrah Gray, 3 Non-Blondes star Ninia Benjamin and more. Describing them as "a cast of dreams", Jay says that transferring his stand-up comedy writing skills to Rum Punch really underlined the importance of teamwork, both in the realms of crafting narratives for a group of people and not himself, but also ensuring that every cast member felt supported and as though they can shine on stage. Although his mother couldn't make the pilot, she's now in the series and it's a role that Jay had written for her, describing working with her as a "phenomenal experience". "There's a lifetime of memories with this person and they're side by side with you," he says. He recalls one thing his comedian mother had taught him over the years and that's that if you have to explain the joke, it simply isn't funny. "The rules of comedy have been embedded in me from early," he smiles. When it came to crafting the story at the heart of Rum Punch, Jay also credits another anecdote from his mother, who told him to write what he knows. Simply put, the show is the life that I've lived, Jay remarks. "This is the community that I'm from. So, I know the textures and the nuances like the back of my hand." Jay says that most people can likely think of a cultural community hub, like the restaurant in Rum Punch. While he wanted to touch on those elements of relatability, Jay couldn't shy away from the fact that more serious topics do crop up. "Black sitcom has always been impactful," he says. "There's something that it does that just leaves people with a feeling. I think today, there is a little bit of a gap in terms of where we might see that on TV." When it comes to resonating with so many people, Jay also highlights the important of sticking true to the story you want to tell. "I always like to be in that pocket of authenticity all the time. That's why I'm quite stubborn, I'm quite a difficult person to work with because if I feel like we're straying away from authenticity, I'll dig my heels in," he admits. It's an admirable quality to have for any writer, I tell Jay, with the Rum Punch creator saying: "A lot of time we do focus on – especially when shows come out and it's created by a Black person – it's about, 'Okay, explain the Black experience'. Well no, it doesn't need to be explained actually because if I explain myself, it suggests that I have to explain myself. "With this show, it's not a case of anybody explaining why or how they are. Everybody's just living their lives. That's what I really wanted to capture." When it comes to the future of Rum Punch, Jay – as previously mentioned – is thinking big and would love to take the idea for the show to the screen. "I'm incredibly grateful for the radio opportunity we have, because what it's done for my pen has just been ... writing without visual has made my pen a lot stronger. So I think, if TV was available, I'd be ready for it," he says. No stranger to the screen himself with a recent notable role in Netflix's Supacell, Jay says that starring in such a hit Netflix series and working with Rapman opened up his eyes to how much he "really fought for the authentic capture of South London within a superhero show". It was inspiring to witness and was something that Jay took into Rum Punch, further proving that authenticity really can achieve what people think it does. In terms of what he hopes listeners get from Rum Punch, Jay says first and foremost that he wants people to laugh – it is a comedy, after all. "Outside of that, I hope that you see a family that you can connect with. I would love for somebody in the show to almost speak to your experience in some kind of way." He adds: "It's always nice when you've got somebody fighting for your perspective in a conversation. So, I hope that somebody feels represented in the show. We all come from different families, have different networks. That's really what I hope for – that connection is what comes when you listen to Rum Punch." Rum Punch airs on Thursday 27th November at 6:30pm on Radio 4, and is also available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio Christmas 2025 line-up confirmed – with Hollywood legend set as guest editor for the Today programme
Six festive guest editors for BBC Radio 4's Today programme have been announced.
The BBC has unveiled its Christmas 2025 radio line-up, with Cate Blanchett, Baroness Theresa May and acclaimed historian Tom Holland among the celebrities set to guest edit BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this festive season. They will be joined by broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, inventor Sir James Dyson and AI entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, and each be curating an episode between 24th December and 31st December. The festive takeover kicks off on Christmas Eve, with a special guest edit from Bragg, where he will be exploring the origins of the nativity story. Dyson will use his episode on Boxing Day to explore how Britain can get its inventive streak back, while Blanchett’s guest edit, which will broadcast on 27th December, will examine a range of topics including the impact of AI technology on women in the film industry and beyond. Suleyman’s guest edit on 29th December will ask how we can navigate the realities of a post-superintelligence world. Holland will edit the programme on 30th December, hosting an early celebration for England’s 1100th birthday and examining the impact of AI on academic research. Finally, May will explore the themes of domestic violence, trust in politics and modern slavery in her guest edit on 31st December. Owenna Griffiths, Editor of the Today programme, said: "Every Christmas on Today, a new set of guest editors take up residence and bring with them a wonderful range of new stories, fresh ideas and, hopefully, a sprinkling of joy." She continued: "This year is no exception. In a rapidly changing world, this year's guest editors will help bring illumination and understanding and I'm enormously grateful to all of them for giving up the time to take part." Elsewhere on the BBC radio Christmas line-up, TV presenter Lorraine Kelly is set to make her Radio 2 debut. Kelly is set to take over Jeremy Vine’s slot during the festive period, while the station will also host a Jane McDonald special and a celebration of the music of Stevie Wonder presented by Trevor Nelson. Over on Radio 4, fans can expect a festive edition of Desert Island Discs with Kate Winslet, as well as a celebration of 75 years of The Archers, a new adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse’s Joy in the Morning, and a new performance of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Radio 1 will present the exclusive reveal of the official Christmas No. 1, while the return of the Presenter Takeover will give brand new DJs an opportunity to front some of the network’s most recognised programmes. Meanwhile, Radio 3 will aim to "blend tradition, reflection and celebration" with Carols Across The Country, live broadcasts from dawn to dusk, and a landmark Advent service from St John’s College, Cambridge. Read more: 'Lust is a great creative force': David Bowie reveals what drove him in exclusive interview Silent Witness star Emilia Fox on new true crime series: 'It's left up to the listener to decide' The BBC’s Orchestras and Choirs will also be presenting concerts on the stations throughout the Christmas period. Over on Radio 5 Live, fans can look forward to a packed schedule of live sport and special shows, including Elis James and John Robins celebrating their 500th episode, Roman Kemp and Tom Grennan’s festive You About?, and The Wayne Rooney Show. On Radio 6 Music, Jarvis Cocker and Bill Nighy sit in for Iggy Pop, Beth Ditto will curate indie disco hits, Nick Grimshaw will look back on the year, and Craig Charles will deliver funk and soul. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Rick Edwards reveals why fatherhood has changed his presenting work for ever - and talks his modelling past
The 5 Live DJ on the joys of fatherhood, the downside of modelling — and crying on air.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What’s the view from your sofa? It’s a fireplace that I think I like, but I’m not completely sure about. It’s very ornate, with a wooden surround that incorporates a mirror above it. It probably dates from, and hasn’t been changed since, the 1920s. Then there’s the TV, which is small and probably temporary, and keeps tilting backwards because I mounted the little feet on it badly. Sounds like you need a TV upgrade! We left the TV that we loved in our old house because it was wall-mounted, was perfect in the space and it felt like a nice thing to do, to leave it for the next people. My wife Emer [Kenny, Karen Pirie writer and actor] and I really regret that now. You began your career as a model — when did you realise you’re handsome? I was a cute kid, I think, and then, from 10 to 16, which is the worst age for this to be the case, I was not a good-looking boy. At all. I wonder if, in those formative years, it was character-building. Then, around 17 or 18, the proportions of my face sort of settled down, and from that point, it’s been fine. It’s weird to go from being not-good-looking to, a couple of years later, getting scouted for modelling work. I did it when I was at university and just after. That was odd. I didn’t like it one bit. Aside from the models, who seemed fine, it’s an industry of a lot of not very nice people. I found it a bit grubby. What’s the best TV programme you’ve watched recently? Your Friends & Neighbours on Apple TV starring Jon Hamm. He’s great – the whole cast is good – and it has some quite interesting things to say about family. As a fairly new father, with anything that says anything at all about family and fatherhood, I am quite likely to cry. How do you juggle family life and, among other things, 5 Live Breakfast? It’s tricky, because both Emer and I work and I’m very conscious of ensuring that she still has all the time she needs to work. Trying to dovetail it all together is a complicated jigsaw. One good thing is that, although the hours of my job are horrendous, doing a breakfast show does mean I’m home in the day and I get to spend time with my son then. You have to make it work. How ready were you for fatherhood? It was definitely something we wanted to do, and I thought and read about it quite a lot. But there is absolutely no way you can be prepared for what it’s like. There’s a depth of feeling you really can’t get your head around before you experience it. It’s crazy how it’s massively heightened my emotional response to almost everything, because you just see everything through a new lens of: “What is that going to mean for his future?” How has it affected your work? My emotions are much closer to the surface, so when we have people on who have distressing stories, I’m very affected by them. In my first year doing 5 Live Breakfast, Russia invaded Ukraine. In those first few weeks, we were speaking to Ukrainians and it was like nothing I’d ever done before. It was completely overwhelming and I really struggled. I’ve definitely cried on air, and I think the audience kind of get that because it’s quite a human response, but you don’t want someone crying all the time. How’s your relationship with your dad? My dad was and is terrific. The world I live in is probably quite different from the world he lived in and lives in, but I still go to him for advice, even when I know he won’t know much about the thing I’m asking him, because I’m still interested to get his take. He’s a safe person for me. What has surprised you most about becoming a parent? Sometimes, being a parent is hard, sometimes boring, sometimes annoying. But you don’t let those fleeting emotions override the core emotion, which is “this is brilliant, this is special”. What it has made me realise is how much my mum and dad must love me. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Rick Edwards presents 5 Live Breakfast Mon—Fri 6am/Fighting Talk 11am Sat/The Inside Track podcast Mondays. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Caroline Wyatt gets candid about life with MS - and why she thinks the BBC will endure
A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis disrupted BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt’s career. But 10 years on she’s unbeaten and still broadcasting.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Caroline Wyatt uses the word “luck” a lot. Lucky to have started out in journalism at a time when the world seemed to be changing for the better. Lucky to still be broadcasting, even though it leaves her exhausted and bed-bound. And, yes, lucky to have only been struck down by what she describes as a “gentler” version of the chronic illness multiple sclerosis. “Some people get it very aggressively from the beginning, so yes, I have been so lucky with the way that my MS has developed.” She’s sunny and speaks with no hint of self-pity, even though she acknowledges, with almost a newsreader’s detachment, that her condition is deteriorating. “I am slowly getting worse and I have got to the stage where I’ve had all the drugs I’m eligible for with the NHS. The thing that I really notice now is the way my brain is changing. I can’t focus and concentrate as much… it’s like accelerated ageing.” She also has to contend with crushing fatigue. “You wake up in the morning feeling as if you haven’t been to bed. And the older I get [she’s 58], the worse it gets.” We last met 10 years ago in her central London flat, where she spoke for the first time about the hospital results confirming she had MS. Today, as that diagnostic anniversary approaches, we’re at the BBC’s HQ, from where she broadcasts a 30-minute version of Radio 4’s PM programme every Saturday. She laughs – as she does frequently – about the support she needs from colleagues in getting the programme on air. “My eyesight is really quite unreliable now, so if I’m nervous or have a lot of adrenaline in my system I find it really hard to read words on a screen. I ask the team to print out a script in big letters, which these days is the equivalent of saying I’m a dinosaur, but it just makes it a lot easier.” Today is also the day that Donald Trump is in town and the world’s broadcast media are in tow. Considering she was the BBC’s woman in Berlin not long after the reunification of East and West Germany, was Moscow correspondent at the time of Putin’s rise to power and the corporation’s first female defence correspondent covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, does she miss the cut and thrust of it all? “A bit,” comes the reply, quickly followed by a story – despite self-proclaimed memory failings she’s a wonderfully detailed storyteller – of why she took her leave of the front line. It was 2014, and in northern Iraq Isis was committing a genocide of the Yazidi people. Wyatt was there as religion correspondent and reporting, as she describes it, “appalling stories of rape, murder and retribution”. “I came home after that and decided I really can’t do that again. I think everyone has a limit and I had reached my limit of witnessing other people’s suffering. I just thought I am really pleased that I have these amazing colleagues who are going to carry on reporting wars and extreme situations, but I can’t do it any more.” Part of it, she acknowledges, was also physical. The as-yet undiagnosed MS was taking its toll. “In those situations you need to be fit enough to get out quite quickly. But I thought if they [Isis] did come to kidnap us, or worse, I couldn’t run.” These days she uses a walking stick to get about and admits to episodes of tripping over “because my foot doesn’t lift in the right way”. Her MS is now classified as “secondary, progressive”, so how does she manage the symptoms? “I try not to fight it and just acknowledge that I need a lot more rest and sleep. If I work on a Saturday, I try not to arrange too much on Sunday and Monday and hope that by Tuesday I can go and see friends. Pacing myself has been a massive lesson that I haven’t quite cracked yet. I still try to do too much and then I crash.” Does she ever despair? “Yeah, of course I get down and depressed and despondent.” What lifts her spirits? “I think friends and family… all the normal things. Being able to talk to other people who understand.” Cue more throaty laughter. “There are four of us women near where I live, all with MS. The hospital we go to got us together and we’re supposed to meet once a month, but because we’ve all got MS we cry off at least every other month!” Her Saturday stint on PM is, she agrees, a lifeline. For all its debilitating aftermath, she still enjoys the challenge of live broadcasting, though admits she had to step back from the hour-long show on Fridays because of exhaustion. “By the end of the programme I was gripping the desk to keep focused. I feel so lucky to still be there and still working. But I don’t know how long it’s going to last, because I don’t know what’s going to happen in health terms or in BBC terms.” Her own future health may be as uncertain as the BBC’s, but she has faith in both. “There are lots of people at my stage of the disease where the thing you need most is hope – that something’s going to come along that will halt or slow down the progression. There’s lots of research going on. I just want them to hurry up.” And what of the BBC? Is it robust enough to withstand the body blows it’s receiving from all sides? “I think it is. I hope it is. I can see that the BBC is in the crosshairs a lot of the time – certainly on social media – but we do live in an age of partisan debate, and having something that’s available to everyone in a society that is increasingly atomised is really important.” What’s important to Wyatt is maintaining a sense of perspective and appreciating there’s much in life still to be enjoyed. Though she rarely travels abroad now, she’s enjoying discovering unfamiliar parts of the UK. A study of her social media feed on X reveals daily repostings of beautiful paintings. She explains: “Algorithmically, I was getting war, killing, death, doom and destruction, so to influence the algorithm I went to other stuff, and that way it feeds me beautiful pictures every morning. Going to art galleries is one of the things I’ve started doing a lot more – sitting, looking and contemplating. It’s been a revelation. Although it’s quite knackering, they’ve got really good cafés – so tea and cake at the end!” More laughter. Her motto is simple: “Be glad, be grateful. One of the things the job taught me was how incredibly lucky we are.” There it is again, that word luck. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 2 host Sara Cox details key differences between her radio and podcasting work
Sarah Cox spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about her podcast and radio career.
Sara Cox has been a mainstay on the audio waves for years, having hosted BBC Radio 2's drivetime show since 2019, and she's showing no signs of slowing down! Alongside her radio show, she also hosts The Teen Commandments, a podcast in which she and best friend Clare Hamilton reminisce and commiserate as they attempt to write the 'commandments' of modern teenagedom. Because after all, the best teen advice comes from those who have already been through it. While the outputs of her radio show and podcast are different, there is so much more that differs between the shows that listeners may not realise. Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com at the British Podcast Awards 2025, Cox said: "The difference is that on the radio I've got everyone at the table, so I've got four year olds and teenagers and everything from sort of seven hours old to 107 listen to Radio 2, and I love that about it that you're just speaking to everybody at the table. "But I feel like with podcasting you do have that little bit more freedom to be a little bit wild. And it's exactly like how me and Clare speak to each other in real life, and to have that freedom is really refreshing and quite exciting." Hamilton and Cox launched the podcast back in February and have been having a blast ever since. "Getting to work together with your best mate is the dream," Hamilton told RadioTimes.com. "It's not like work, we forget the microphones are there and we just have a real giggle!" Cox added: "I've got loads of lovely jobs and I've been doing this for nearly 30 years now but without doubt this, creatively, and the heart of it is really the most satisfying thing I've done for a while. "It's just so different to have so much control. And podcasting is so different from radio or any kind of broadcasting that I've done before so I feel like it's really special. "You feel like your listeners are a community that comes together." Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC launches three new radio stations: "It's all about the audience"
The Radio 1 and Radio 3 spin-offs were approved while Radio 2 and 5 Sports Extra proposals were dismissed.
Twenty-three years since it last launched new national radio stations – BBC 6 Music, 1Xtra and Asian Network – the BBC has three starting on the same day. Previously available since November 2024 as live streams on BBC Sounds, Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 Dance (which has been on Sounds since 2020) and Radio 3 Unwind passed full competition assessments undertaken by the industry’s regulatory body Ofcom in July of this year and will start broadcasting on DAB+ on Friday 12 September. The three stations were part of wider proposals from the BBC, which also included the launch of a Radio 2 spin-off and the extension of the broadcasting hours of 5 Sports Extra. Both the Radio 2 spin-off and the extension of 5 Sports Extra were refused by Ofcom for the negative impact it was deemed they would have on commercial competitors. Sam Jackson, the controller of Radio 3, says that while he couldn’t be certain that Unwind would get approval, “I wasn't surprised, because I think we made a very, very strong case. I was very proud of the submission that we made, I felt we did a good job of arguing why this was distinctive and why it would be welcomed.” He points out that around 8,000 different pieces of music will be played on Unwind each year, from a broad repertoire but with a focus on recordings from the past 10 years – even of Baroque or classical pieces – and a mission to introduce new contemporary works, including from performers or composers who aren’t signed to record labels. Radio 1 controller Aled Haydn Jones is similarly robust in his defence of why we need two new stations: “It’s all about the audience. Ofcom has pointed out that the BBC needs to be doing better with young audiences. Having services for young people is a public service. Radio 1 is the biggest radio station for youth audiences in the UK, so having stations with the Radio 1 brand offering more is a pretty special thing.” Both men are keen to stress the differences between what their stations are offering and what can be found on commercial radio, with Haydn Jones claiming that Radio 1 plays more tracks in a week than its nearest commercial competitor does in a year, though he understands the commercial imperative that may account for that disparity. “Commercial stations are going to pick the songs that work best for their audience and play them as frequently as they want to play them. Whereas Radio 1 are about new artists coming through; over 50 per cent of Radio 1 tracks are within the last six weeks of release and Radio 1 Dance will do the same for UK dance DJs and producers coming through.” On the back of that he expects Radio 1 Dance to play around 3,000 unique tracks a year – in previous years on BBC Sounds it has averaged around 3,200. Sam Jackson takes an additional angle in his argument as to how Radio 3 Unwind is distinct from its competitors, saying: “If you compare what we do with Classic FM Calm where, I believe, there are no presenters, we have programmes that are presented by experts in their field.” He points to mid-morning presenter Sian Williams, who as well as being a respected broadcaster also has now an NHS practice in the field of trauma mental health, working with first responders. “She brings with her this other side to what she does. She's a broadcaster, she loves classical music but she's also trained professionally in mental health and wellbeing.” Continuing in the comparison with Classic FM Calm, he’s at pains to point out he’s highlighting differences not setting out to denigrate the competition: “This isn't meant to be a slight on what they do. They do what they do, they do that very well, but they have a kind of jukebox of music that is played with no presenters. There's an audience for that, there's an audience for a version of that on Spotify as well and I think anything that introduces more people to classical music is a good thing. “But I think we have to collectively have the confidence to say there's room for everybody and then let the audience decide what they want to listen to.” Haydn Jones also points to the breadth of presenting talent on Radio 1 Dance, which includes many big cheeses from the dance music world, from veterans like Pete Tong to newer names such as Charlie Hedges and the Blessed Madonna. Defending Radio 1 Anthems, which has a stated mission of serving up nostalgia for young people with a playlist of “bangers” from the Noughties to now, against accusations that it’s just like any number of commercial “decades” stations (Absolute 90s, Heart 80s, etc etc) is a bit tougher but Haydn Jones remains staunch. “The people who are presenting it are in some of the first presenting jobs, they've had out of university. We work with the Student Radio Association, where we had a panel of students playlist our shows, but also inform the Radio 1 team about songs they grew up with or remember. “But then also we add our curation with our knowledge of young people under 24 to find out which pockets of eras or genres we could delve a bit deeper into to give them ‘new to me’ music; things that they might not have discovered as they were growing up. For us, it's about the target audience and trying to ensure that they have a service that's dedicated to them.” He also points to the fact that getting Ofcom approval is recognition from the broadcast industry that there needs to be a focus on young audiences, and that the BBC is better placed than any to serve that audience. “It may not be where the easiest money is for our commercial friends, there are going to be more affluent age demographics that can pay bills. The fact that we are able to say we want to make sure that young audiences do not move away from DAB or from broadcast media and drift to streaming, I think is an important one. "So, I think the fact that we were successful with these is great. It won't be the full answer to our problems of ensuring that young audiences get what they need from broadcast media and BBC specifically but it's a brilliant step.” Asked whether there could be any more spin-offs from their stations, Sam Jackson is cautiously optimistic, saying: “Could there be a Radio 3 jazz station, a Radio 3 live music station? I love the idea of launching some new services that introduce Radio 3 to even more people so long as we keep the main network as healthy and as strong as ever.” Everything would, of course, be subject to the same lengthy Ofcom approvals process that the new stations have already gone through and it’s this that makes Haydn Jones more reluctant to say yes to more Radio 1 stations: “No one is asking for that right now. And I'm imagining at the pace these things take, if there ever is in the future, I'll be long gone by then.” Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Jeremy Dyson shares "pure joy" of reuniting The League of Gentlemen stars for brand new project
The cast of The League of Gentlemen team up again in a new radio comedy drama written by Jeremy Dyson.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. There is a picture on the wall of Jeremy Dyson’s office, and he is gazing at it as we speak: “It’s the four of us riding the log flume at Blackpool Pleasure Beach after the end of our first big tour. We’re all screaming with joy, and it sums up the miracle of the journey – an absolute thrill-ride that we went on together.” Now, 24 years on, the quartet – Dyson and fellow The League of Gentlemen stars Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss – is reuniting for High Cockalorum, a gentle Radio 4 comedy drama penned by Dyson and inspired by his uncle’s brush with stardom. Commissioned as part of the BBC’s Contains Strong Language festival (there’s a live playout and Q&A at St George’s Hall, Bradford, on 20 September), Dyson describes the 1978-set story as “a mini road movie about an encounter between a humble lad from West Yorkshire and a Hollywood film star”. In real life, Dyson’s uncle worked for a record label, where he was occasionally called on to look after actors working on soundtrack albums – which is how he once came to spend time with James Mason, star of such films as A Star Is Born and Lolita. Dyson says: “When I told Mark this story, he joked, ‘You write it, I’ll play it.’ Eighteen months later, here we are.” As well as the charm of two very different people brought together by circumstance, High Cockalorum explores how fame can change people. It’s a subject Dyson has long had opportunity to witness first hand, as he and his League friends reached dizzying heights after winning the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997. Unlike the other three, Dyson has opted to stay mostly behind the camera, giving him what he says is “the best of both worlds”. On the pros and cons of the instantly recognisable celebrity experienced by his colleagues, Dyson muses: “The inconveniences strike me more. You get hassled everywhere and there’s not much upside to that. I don’t feel deprived.” He continues: “I have a love-hate relationship with what Alan Bennett calls ‘the tinsel’. “There’s a lot I struggle with – the insincerity, the manipulation. A party full of famous people is not conventional. All the social cues that operate normally disappear, it’s highly status-driven and who’s where in the pecking order governs how much attention they get. You need a thick skin to navigate all that, which I don’t have. But I’m fascinated by it all, and the tinsel remains. It’s a simultaneous fascination and repulsion.” If the public side of The League of Gentlemen’s success tested Dyson, the friendships at its heart have brought him nothing but delight. “Up to when I met Mark, I had a particular set of interests that I’d had since I was seven years old, from Doctor Who to horror movies, plus TV comedy. I had friends who covered bits of that, but then a mutual friend, Gordon, met Mark, and within five minutes, he was on the phone: ‘There’s someone you have to meet…’” Through Gatiss, Dyson met Shearsmith and Pemberton – and the troupe was born. What did each of them bring? Dyson can’t pin it down, saying instead they were united in temperament and commitment. “Nobody was looking to go off to Hollywood; we just wanted to do good work. It was all pleasure. It’s strange looking back on it, but I guess it’s the story of any successful group endeavour, the gravity that pulls people together.” It’s a pull that has remained strong, most recently when an episode of Good Omens two years ago was conceived as a League reunion, and now High Cockalorum. Dyson is freshly appreciative: “It’s pure joy. In the first two minutes, we all collapse crying with laughter and it continues in that vein, in pure hysteria from start to finish. That’s what it’s like and why whenever we get the opportunity, we grab it. The older you get the more you become aware of the preciousness of it all.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 1 confirms Love Island: Aftersun favourite and more fresh faces to join presenting line-up
The presenting line-up is expanding this autumn.
BBC Radio 1 has announced a dazzling new line-up of presenters joining the Friday Early Breakfast monthly rotation and the station's Life Hacks this autumn. Beth Wallace, Jack Remmington and Ash Holme have been confirmed as the next wave of presenters set to host Fridays 5am - 7am. Wallace, who has been part of the Radio 1 family since last Christmas, will kick off the rotation in September. She also presents a show on the Scottish-based local Forth 1 and was nominated for Best New Presenter at the 2025 ARIAS. "I'm absolutely buzzing to be part of the Radio 1 team for the next few weeks," said Wallace. "Radio 1 is a station I’ve always adored and it’s gonna be an absolute pleasure to kick start Fridays, get folk in the weekend mood early. Laughs, good vibes and fun times coming your way." Presenting duo Jack Remmington and Ash Holme will be taking the October slot, with both of them known for their hilarious videos on social media. Holme has built a following of over two million on social media, and was part of this year's Love Island: Aftersun panel. Remmington is known for his pop culture commentary and hosting red carpets, as well as his work on the podcast Famously... In Love. The duo said: "We're sooo excited to be back at BBC Radio 1 and this time soundtracking your Fridays through October - tune in to liven up your mornings and enjoy the energy and chaos we’re bringing your way." And while Shanequa Paris is on maternity leave, Charley Marlowe and Lina Nielsen will join Lauren Layfield to co-host Radio 1's Life Hacks, with Marlowe taking over in September and Nielsen in October. The pair will also co-host The Official Chart: First Look alongside Lauren Layfield. Nielsen said: "I’m thrilled to have this opportunity with Radio 1 and the Life Hacks team. Having been a guest on the show before the Olympics, I’ve always loved catching up with them live on air. Now, I can’t wait to join as a co-host throughout October." Aled Haydn Jones, Head of Radio 1, commented on the new presenter signing: "Supporting and developing new presenting talent is at the heart of what we do at Radio 1, and the schedule this autumn is a great example of that. "I’m excited to welcome Beth, Jack, Ash, Charley and Lina to the station and can’t wait to see the energy and creativity they bring to their shows." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers star reveals how Game of Thrones role left him with “agony”
Actor Rupert Vansittart, who plays The Archers’ latest bounder, has form.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. You know summer’s really here when you’re sitting on the boundary watching a cricket match,” said Usha, solicitor and wife of Alan, the local vicar, in a recent episode of The Archers. “Freshly mown grass, the players in their cricket whites...” The recorded thwack of willow on leather conjured a timeless English idyll. Except, being The Archers, village cricket is more often the inspiration for a strong plotline. The latest involves Lawrence Harrington, chair of the rival Roserran Cricket Club, who first appeared when Lynda Snell, chair of the Ambridge Cricket Club, asked his advice after the team rose up the league. He promptly made a pass at her, undeterred by the fact she is happily married, and horrified her with snide, implicitly racist remarks about her friends the Maliks, the newly arrived Muslim family. Now the cricket season is in full swing, Lawrence is back. And if his distinctive voice is familiar, it’s because he’s played by Rupert Vansittart, regularly called on to play a not very nice toff. His notable roles include Lord Ashfordly in Heartbeat, MI5 boss Sir Alec Myerson in the final two series of Foyle’s War, and Lord Yohn Royce in Game of Thrones. “You don’t think of me if you want a drug dealer in Newcastle,” he says, entirely pragmatic. “If people want me to play a man in a tweed suit throwing a tenant out of their cottage, well, why not? It’s only acting.” And while there are pleasures to be had in TV drama – “I spent my time as Lord Ashfordly driving around gorgeous settings in Yorkshire in a Rolls-Royce” – there are downsides to TV roles, such as having to wear historic costumes. “With Game of Thrones, I tried to make the costume halfway comfortable with huge foam pads under my shoulders – the breastplate was agony.” But there are other reasons why he’s enjoying The Archers. “Radio is you and the script. It’s elegant and straightforward, and you’re not being watched,” he says. “And I knew a lot of the cast already. I’d worked with them or met them before.” The distinctive Vansittart voice you hear today is, he says, a reaction to changing times. “When I went to drama school I had a very public school accent. But it has toned down. That happened with a lot of people – like the [late] Queen. You can’t talk like that any more.” A keen radio listener since he hid his transistor under the bedclothes at boarding school, Vansittart, now 67, has long been an Archers fan – not least because, having moved with his wife to the Cotswolds and found some villagers welcoming and others decidedly frosty, he knows from his own experience that it’s true to life. But then he comes from a larger-than-life family, with links to entertainment. One grandmother was in the Ballets Russes, while other relatives worked at the BBC and as film scriptwriters. They form part of the Vansittart history, from their 12th-century origins as Dutch merchant venturers, arriving here, by way of Germany and the Baltic, in 1674. It’s a story – all in a bound volume handed down the generations – involving rogues, illegitimate children, maidservants making good and land sell-offs to George III. It would make a rollicking family saga – and who better to play a leading, roguish role than Vansittart himself? As to whether Lawrence is truly a cad, he says it’s up to the listeners to judge. “My job is to say the lines as well as I can. But if he’s adding a bit of spice, that’s great.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers star Lucy Speed reveals her pride in show embracing "important" new BBC initiative
"As someone who plays a farm manager, I really want our content and storylines to be as real as possible so that they honour the legacy of farming at the heart of the show."
On Thursday 7 August, BBC Farmwatch will see farmers taking over the airwaves, broadcasting for 24 hours nonstop across local radio, BBC Sounds and BBC News. As the initiative offering a comprehensive look at the daily realities of modern farming returns for a second year, with an emphasis on discussing some of the most pressing issues currently facing the industry. Stories to be featured include a 25-year-old farmer in Herefordshire who unexpectedly took over the family farm at 17 – leaving her in charge of a 200-acre site, with more than 1500 sheep and cattle; investigating the financial and emotional cost of farm fires in the East and West Midlands; meeting a fifth-generation wool farmer in County Durham; and 12 hours of outside broadcasting from a mixed farm in Somerset which makes its own gelato. There will also be a live broadcast from a combine harvester — with a so-called “Combine-Cam” — showing a field being harvested and allowing viewers to ask questions directly to farmers while they’re working. Harriet Cowan, the popular farmhand from Clarkson’s Farm, and Mike Wilkins, the fourth-generation Wiltshire farmer who starred in last year’s Great British Bake Off, will be presenting a live programme on every BBC Local Radio station across England. Yet, anything on BBC radio linked to farms and farming has to pay a visit to the nation’s most famous farmers in Ambridge, with The Archers on BBC Radio 4 featuring a special BBC Farmwatch storyline in which some of the Ambridge residents tune into their local radio station and are inspired by what they hear. Talking to Radio Times about the initiative, The Archers actor Lucy Speed said, “Farmwatch is a brilliant BBC Local Radio initiative that shines a light on the real stories behind British farming, and it’s something I’m proud to see reflected in The Archers.“ Her character, Stella Pryor, has been at the heart of a recent story that explores the conflict between environmental initiatives such as rewilding and farms’ food production capacity and profitability, with the harvest proving a pivotal plot point in the battle between the entrenched points of view of two old rivals, Justin Elliott and Brian Aldridge. So it’s unsurprising the view she takes of the importance of the public learning more about farming, “Our storylines are rooted in real agricultural life so it’s vital they are authentic. That’s why campaigns like Farmwatch are so important, not only because they celebrate the community spirit that defines rural Britain, but also reflect the everyday challenges our farmers face.” One of the Archers’ farming and countryside advisers, Fiona Mountain, adds to that, “’70 per cent of land in Britain is farmland, so farmers have a huge impact on all our lives, whether we live in the town or the countryside. Many people who listen to The Archers gain an impression of rural life and farming through the drama, which is why we do our utmost to convey farming and countryside issues authentically. Farmwatch builds on this by showcasing real life farmers who play such a crucial role in providing us with food and acting as custodians of the land.” Lucy Speed also links Farmwatch back to the rural soap and the work of Mountain and her fellow adviser Sybil Ruscoe in keeping everything in Ambridge as grounded in reality as possible, “As someone who plays a farm manager, I really want our content and storylines to be as real as possible so that they honour the legacy of farming at the heart of the show.” We’re not sure how Eddie Grundy’s madcap schemes fit into that, but if you tune into Farmwatch on 7 August and learn of a farmer building a “Ferret Wheel”, do let us know! Farmwatch will air on Thursday 7th August. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.