As country legend Dolly Parton turns 80, a host of stars line up to pay tribute to her unique talent
Dolly Parton: the Fans' Story is on Radio 2 on Saturday at 12 midnight. Add it to your collection It took some time before I realised what was so disquieting about Radio 2’s celebratory Dolly Parton: the Fans’ Story. It wasn’t the number or calibre of famous people lining up to pay obeisance to the “Queen of Country” – including musical A-listers from Deborah Harry to Melanie C and Gloria Estefan to Mark Ronson – or that words seemed not quite enough to pay the requisite amount of homage. Rather, it was the eerie feeling this was some kind of eulogy rather than a tribute to a woman who turns 80 on 19 January and who, if the preceding decades are anything to go by, has no intention of stopping any time soon. There is certainly a justification for outlining a short list of achievements that will humble anybody who simply thinks of Dolly Parton as the small woman with big hair famous for singing Jolene – a little number she wrote in 1973 that Rolling Stone magazine ranked as the “greatest country song of all time”. In fact, she has written more than 3,000 other songs and has been inducted into countless Halls of Fame, including those for Songwriters, Country, Rock ’n’ Roll and Gospel. Her songs include I Will Always Love You (24 million sales worldwide for Whitney Houston) and feminist anthem 9 to 5, from the soundtrack to the hit 1980 film of the same name in which she also co-starred with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. “When that came out,” reality TV star Michelle Visage tells Radio 2, “it was like, ‘Oh, she’s an actress as well.’ There isn’t much that Dolly Parton can’t do.” Visage continues: “She’s always been an icon to the LGBTQ+ community, because she did everything her way, and still does.” Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters agrees. “She’s got so many queer fans because she feels like family to us. She’s a self-professed weirdo herself, you know? She grew up feeling different. She was the one in the front yard singing to the chickens as a kid.” Shears’s mother hails from the same part of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee as Parton (he claims they share a grandfather) and he draws attention to the poverty the star experienced in her early years. As Deborah Harry, another uber-fan, puts it, “She’s come from the lowest level of the economic climbing ladder in our country and become this fabulous, wonderful, generous person. She is smart, wise, funny and beautiful, and it’s hard to marry all those qualities.” It is, however, the kindness and generosity of spirit that people keep coming back to. Zoe Ball has met her several times. “If you ever try to talk about the Grammy Awards she’s won or how she’s made it easier for women in music because of the way that she fought for her own right from a very young age in a very male-dominated world, she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m just little ol’ me’.” Suzi Quatro also acknowledges the debt. “[She showed you had to] say what you mean, and mean what you say, in every single situation. Dolly cleverly took the male fantasy and built it into her persona. So, if there is sexism, make no mistake, Dolly’s in charge, 100 per cent.” “She’s given so much back,” continues Ball. “She’s really proud of the literacy campaign that’s helped to put books into communities and strongly believes in young people having access to books.” Parton’s Imagination Library initiative is a free book-gifting programme that mails high-quality, age-appropriate books to children from birth until their fifth birthday. To date it has distributed some 300 million books. Recent ill health means this 5ft legend in rhinestone may have scaled back the touring but, as she told People magazine in November about her forthcoming milestone, “So what? Look at all I’ve done in 80 years. I feel like I’m just getting started. I ain’t got time to get old!” She remains beyond compare.
Top Gear creator reacts to mania around beloved hosts: “Would I want any of that? Would I b****cks”
Andy Wilman lifts the bonnet on the chaos, camaraderie and creation of TV’s biggest motoring show.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. "If you had Ricky Gervais walking down one side of the street, and Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond walking down the other, everyone would be asking for selfies and autographs with those guys,” explains Andy Wilman, the executive producer of both Top Gear and its big-budget globe-trotting progeny Grand Tour. "Ricky Gervais is probably more famous, but people just wouldn’t go near him because he’s got a famous aura, whereas people would think, 'You three are in the studio talking about going to the pub and all that sort of thing, we know you and you absolutely belong to us.' The mania and the fan stuff around them was insane. There was no barrier. Would I want any of that? Would I bollocks." And so it comes of something of a surprise that the challenge-setter, mission-controller and arse-kicker-in-chief to the holy triumvirate should now break cover to write Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure – a memoir and insider’s account of life on both shows. "I’ve always agreed with Chris Blackwell [founder of Island Records], who gave Bob Marley and the Wailers to the world. When asked why there was no photograph of him with Marley he said, 'People behind the camera should stay behind the camera.' And that suited me because I was very comfortable with the effect my input was having and genuinely had no desire to be famous." The book has come about because "Jeremy kept getting asked to write about what was going on behind the scenes but said he couldn’t remember anything, and told the publisher to ask me to do it because I’ve got a better memory than him. I’m sure the accountants at Penguin would prefer to have Jeremy’s name on it but it’s mine," he smiles. "I agreed to do it because I wanted a sense of wrapping everything up [after The Grand Tour ended last year], a bit of catharsis, plus I wanted to do something that was not a collaboration like a TV show. My book, my rules. It’s nice to have a bit of control for once." You can get through Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure like Sir Michael Gambon taking a corner in the show’s famous Reasonably Priced Car – ie on two wheels. "Jeremy said he read it in a day," shrugs the author, "I think that’s a compliment." It may well have refreshed what remains of Clarkson’s memory, but this book earns its stripes from the very different perspective the author is able to provide. That is to say, from the driver’s seat as Top Gear is rebooted and then ends up attracting a reported 350 million viewers in 200 countries; from a seat in Clarkson’s kitchen as he waits to find out if his oldest friend (he and Clarkson were at school together in the mid 1970s) is to be sacked following the infamous altercation with a producer; and then from a leather-trimmed Recaro sport seat as the team win the Amazon Prime lottery and set off on The Grand Tour from 2016 to 2024. The stories are all here – and told with a laugh-out-loud combination of perfect delivery, self-deprecation and honesty. Fans of both shows will have heard some of them before (the H982 FKL number plate in Argentina that seemed to reference the Falklands conflict so directly the presenters and crew had to be evacuated before they were lynched, for instance), but not all of them (Wilman’s six-year-old son booting ‘The Stig’ between the legs, Wilman breaking down in tears in the office of the BBC’s director-general after Clarkson was sacked). And they will certainly not have heard them from the man responsible for editing hours of automobile-related carnage into smash-hit TV. When Clarkson was once asked why they didn’t put out a “bloopers version” of Top Gear, he replied that they already did that every week; but, if this account is anything to go by, it turns out that the hardest thing might have been deciding which ones to leave out. Finding Hollywood A-listers to appear was a breeze by comparison. The £2,000 flat fee – a mere token in that world – guaranteed that only the enthusiastic would become involved. So while Mark Wahlberg could have been more invested, Tom Cruise enjoyed his time on the show so much that the Wilman family still get a cake from him every Christmas. Although this might also be due to the fact that the exec producer stepped in when a security guard wouldn’t let Cruise use the presenters’ urinals because he wasn’t in possession of a wristband – "There was none of this 'Do you know who I am?' nonsense despite the fact he was (a) Tom Cruise and (b) desperate." It’s all in the book – but one thing you won’t get is a lesson in how to make the most-watched factual TV programme in the world. "There was no masterplan," laughs the 'fourth man'. "We just started to tit about… we did 'Can Granny do a Donut?' and 'What’s the Right Convertible for a Bald Man?' for our own benefit as a bit of a giggle, and it all seemed to strike a chord. We didn’t go home thinking, 'We’re creating something special here.' We were more, 'Hope we can make this work.'" The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Top Gear is available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Add Top Gear to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more. 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.
Strictly’s Shirley Ballas reveals she has joined famous dating app - and what age brackets she's looking at
In her new book, Strictly’s head judge Shirley Ballas reveals how ballroom has helped to lift her out of some very dark places.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “Shut your gob and get on with it,” says Shirley Ballas. Time is obviously a precious commodity, as she rushes between appointments and meetings in the week the Strictly Come Dancing line-up has been announced ahead of the new series, which starts on 20 September. But the show’s head judge is not being rude; far from it. She’s just happily running through a few of the no-nonsense Northern aphorisms that introduce the chapters in her new book, Best Foot Forward: Life Lessons from the World of Dance. “There are others,” she continues. “‘Hang your problems at the door, pick them up on your way out’, ‘There should be no regrets in life, only lessons,’ and, ‘It’s all sent to test us’. I’ve used them because they are specialities of my 88-year-old mother Audrey, the woman who built the very foundations of my resilience.” Her latest book (she also has a successful line in cosy crime novels) is, she explains, a “continuation” of her 2020 autobiography Behind the Sequins: My Life. “I didn’t have the confidence back then to write some of the things that I’ve written now,” she says. “I’ve written about what’s happened in my life recently, but I’ve brought in a few other stories as well. I wanted it to be a collection of life lessons in confidence, resilience and self-belief, inspired by the world of dance.” It’s fair to say that she has needed all three of those qualities since that first autobiography five years ago: since then, she has called off an engagement, later ending that relationship; coped with her mother’s cancer scare; received counselling and support from the BBC in the wake of severe online trolling; and lived with the attention of a stalker, a situation that ultimately required legal intervention. All this while dealing with the menopause which, she writes, took her to “some terrible places in my head... there were times when I thought I’d be better off dead”. In response to all the above, and with no intention of living with a partner again, she has joined the exclusive members-only dating app Raya (“The age bracket I’ve gone for is fairly broad, but not too young. I reckon anything from 55 to 70 if they’re fit. Up to 98 if they’re loaded!” she jokes), looked fear in the face and, she reveals in her book, started bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) to counter the effects of the menopause and begin “to feel like my old self again.” Confidence, resilience and self-belief? Check. Beyond the response to her own personal circumstances, Ballas – who turns 65 on 6 September – feels that Strictly has given her a platform that confers a certain responsibility. “People on Instagram are always asking me questions about various things like the menopause,” she says. “So I thought it might help people to log and write down some of what I’ve experienced through life to show that they are not alone. “Maybe because of social media, people tend to be happy to talk about their feelings. It wasn’t that way when I was younger, everything was a little bit more bottled-up, even more so in my mother’s era. She still can’t understand why I talk about some of the things I do in the book.” Ballas smiles, before following her own advice from the “Adaptability” chapter – or “step” as she calls them – to “Master the Transitions” and talk about the death of her brother David, who took his own life in 2003. Ballas writes and talks movingly about the loss of her sibling. “I don’t care too much for my own company because it means I have to be alone with my thoughts… every ‘what if’ I’ve tried so hard to bury resurfaces and my mind takes me back to my brother and all the things I could and should have done differently. If I’d had a better understanding of mental health… if I hadn’t invited my mother down to London, leaving him on his own.” She is now a passionate advocate for mental health awareness and a supporter of the charities CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) and Suicide&Co. She discusses this in the “Survival” step, “Accept the Rise and Fall” – something you experience with the waltz and foxtrot. Did she ever consider dance as a form of therapy in itself? “I’ve been dancing since I was two years old,” she explains. “So it wouldn’t necessarily be therapeutic for me, but when David died I did just get on with the dancing.” Of course she did. Shirley Ballas doesn’t know how to stop. She has a dancer’s urge for perpetual motion. An itch that will be scratched by the new series of Strictly, which she promises will have (as well as two new professional dancers) “a few small changes and extra things added which I can’t talk about at the moment – but one thing I can confirm is how much I’m looking forward to working with the amazing cast this year.” As her mother Audrey puts it, “You can’t go back and start a new beginning, but you can write a new ending”. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. 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.
New life-saving medicines require rigorous tests on humans — but how do we avoid a repeat of the “Elephant Man” drug trial?
The Drug Trial That Went Wrong is on Wednesday at 3.30pm Radio 4. Add it to your collection In March 2006, out-of-work actor Rob Oldfield was sitting with three strangers in a room at Northwick Park Hospital in north-west London, waiting to be injected with a drug known only as TGN1412. It was part of a clinical trial by Parexel, an American research organisation, on behalf of German biotech company TeGenero. Oldfield would receive £2,000 for taking part. The drug was administered at 8am, and soon after Oldfield began to feel cold. As his condition deteriorated, he vomited, and acute discomfort gave way to alarm when medical staff arrived with “life-support stuff” for one of the other trialists. The participants experienced a severe immune reaction known as a “cytokine storm”, leading to multiple organ failure, and were transferred to intensive care. Oldfield’s mother was advised to say goodbye to her son. Fortunately, after three weeks in hospital Oldfield made a full recovery. Others were less fortunate: one participant had his toes and parts of his fingers amputated. The incident received widespread media coverage, with sensational headlines such as “We saw human guinea pigs explode” and “My brain was on fire, my head had swollen… I was the ELEPHANT MAN”. The trial continues to be referred to in the media as the “Elephant Man” drug trial. As new regulations for running clinical trials are being rolled out for the first time since that watershed moment in British medical history, Dr Margaret McCartney presents The Drug Trial That Went Wrong on Radio 4. “What we wanted to do with this programme was be fair,” explains the Glasgow GP. “We have examined what happened and what the two sides of the argument are today in terms of innovation versus safety.” TGN1412 was designed to manipulate the immune system and was developed in the hope it would revolutionise treatment of leukaemia and rheumatoid arthritis. It had already passed animal testing; Oldfield and his cohort were the first-in-human subjects. “The animal study seemed to say it was safe,” says McCartney. “However, humans don’t carry the same type of receptors that the drug acted on. They didn’t know what they didn’t know.” As Professor Sir Gordon Duff reported following his investigation into the events at Northwick Park Hospital, there were certain procedural protocols in place that exacerbated the situation. “Looking back, there were things that obviously shouldn’t happen again, such as giving patients the drugs very quickly, one after the other,” says McCartney. This process meant that there wasn’t enough time for immediate adverse reactions to be taken into consideration. Duff also noted that pre-clinical development studies failed to predict a safe dose for use in humans, even though the regulatory requirements were met. “Professor Duff found that there were lots of things that could be improved upon in terms of safety,” says McCartney. His report contained 22 recommendations for the industry around the timing and size of doses, the tightening of pre-clinical trials and consultation with independent experts. A passionate advocate for evidence-based medicine who volunteered for the Novavax trial during the pandemic, McCartney endorsed those recommendations and now welcomes the new regulations that will come into force on 28 April 2026 and bring the NHS in line with medical bodies in other developed countries. However, she’s also keen to acknowledge that, “There’s always pressure to come up with new, better drugs. HIV used to be a fatal condition, and now it’s managed because we have drugs that really work. At the same time, we also know that drugs have side effects and that the marketing departments of pharmaceutical companies are very keen to persuade us as doctors to prescribe more, newer drugs. “The question, really, is about how we are going to navigate that safely in the future and make sure we give high-quality, effective drugs to patients, while also not doing anyone any harm.”
Journalist Kate Lamble says the HS2 farrago is as much about the nuances of British democracy as it is about our ability to deliver big engineering projects
Derailed: the Story of HS2 is on Radio 4 at 1.45pm, Monday-Friday. Add it to your collection. You get this sharp intake of breath when you approach people about HS2,” says Kate Lamble, the presenter of a new Radio 4 series, Derailed: the Story of HS2. “They’re either people who have been personally affected and it’s been dominating their lives for over a decade, or it’s politicians for whom it was all important for a very brief period a long time ago. For many it’s been emotionally devastating.” Political instability and ephemeral ministers are, no surprise, key factors in the series. As it stands today, when “High Speed 2” is completed – at a date yet to be set – it will be Britain’s second purpose-built, high-speed railway after the London link to the Channel Tunnel (aka HS1) and will run between Birmingham and London. The original idea, conceived in 2009 under Gordon Brown, was to extend HS2 to Manchester and Leeds but this has since been cancelled. “Andrew Stephenson, the only dedicated HS2 minister who had been brought in by Boris Johnson at the Ministry of Transport in 2020, was in a factory looking at rolling stock when Boris called to inform him that he’d lost the leadership and said, ‘I’m out, you’re out, we’re all out’,” explains Lamble. This change of prime minister brought a big change in approach. Johnson was determined the project would succeed and had said, “The Treasury must not prevail in terms of HS2,” but former chancellor Rishi Sunak took a view that the cost should not outweigh the benefit and curtailed the line accordingly. “As with Grenfell Tower,” says Lamble, who won an Aria award for her in-depth coverage of that Inquiry, “it’s a long, involved story that hasn’t really translated in the news. In Grenfell, the news is ‘it’s the cladding’ and for HS2, ‘it’s the cost’. The complexities and what it tells us about how the country is run never get picked up.” In pursuit of the former, she has spoken to (and was “surprised by the frankness” of) everyone from Boris Johnson and the man who designed the new high-speed line to industry whistleblowers and people who lost their homes to make way for it. Jonathan Loescher took Lamble to see the garden he tended near where his house used to stand in Staffordshire before it was demolished. Work has since been halted on that section of the line. HS2 was originally designed to resolve capacity around London, but there were problems from the beginning. “A former CEO told me the initial cost estimates were done when they knew three to four per cent of the details,” reveals Lamble. “Former transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin told us about the parliamentary bill [to approve HS2] and that he understood it would give them planning permission. That was a mistake. What it gave them was deemed planning permission, which is slightly different, and means local councils and other agencies are given control over the detailed design of what happens.” In other words, local considerations had to be addressed by central government. “They had to get 8,000 additional permissions as major as increasing the number of tunnels and as trivial as moving a water fountain.” Budgets and deadlines have proved impossible to manage; HS2 has become shorthand for our inability to think big and deliver infrastructure. Lamble disagrees. “Yes, I was surprised the transport secretary didn’t know which kind of planning permission he was getting, but it also speaks to a bigger question about what kind of Britain we want to live in? We live on a small, densely populated, property-owning democratic island and there are consequences. We can’t cut through empty fields or override public opposition in the way that a centralised power like China chooses to, but we have done big builds like HS1 and some new nuclear sites. Those who still support HS2 suggest that when it opens it will be a success and people will forget about the overspend and delay.”
Radio 4’s Derailed will explore “emotionally devastating” impact of HS2 railway project
Journalist Kate Lamble says the HS2 farrago is as much about the nuances of British democracy as it is about our ability to deliver big engineering projects.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. “You get this sharp intake of breath when you approach people about HS2,” says Kate Lamble, the presenter of a new Radio 4 series, Derailed: the Story of HS2. “They’re either people who have been personally affected and it’s been dominating their lives for over a decade, or it’s politicians for whom it was all important for a very brief period a long time ago. For many it’s been emotionally devastating.” Political instability and ephemeral ministers are, no surprise, key factors in the series. As it stands today, when “High Speed 2” is completed – at a date yet to be set – it will be Britain’s second purpose-built, high-speed railway after the London link to the Channel Tunnel (aka HS1) and will run between Birmingham and London. The original idea, conceived in 2009 under Gordon Brown, was to extend HS2 to Manchester and Leeds but this has since been cancelled. “Andrew Stephenson, the only dedicated HS2 minister who had been brought in by Boris Johnson at the Ministry of Transport in 2020, was in a factory looking at rolling stock when Boris called to inform him that he’d lost the leadership and said, ‘I’m out, you’re out, we’re all out’,” explains Lamble. This change of prime minister brought a big change in approach. Johnson was determined the project would succeed and had said, “The Treasury must not prevail in terms of HS2,” but former chancellor Rishi Sunak took a view that the cost should not outweigh the benefit and curtailed the line accordingly. “As with Grenfell Tower,” says Lamble, who won an Aria award for her in-depth coverage of that Inquiry, “it’s a long, involved story that hasn’t really translated in the news. In Grenfell, the news is ‘it’s the cladding’ and for HS2, ‘it’s the cost’. The complexities and what it tells us about how the country is run never get picked up.” In pursuit of the former, she has spoken to (and was “surprised by the frankness” of) everyone from Boris Johnson and the man who designed the new high-speed line to industry whistleblowers and people who lost their homes to make way for it. Jonathan Loescher took Lamble to see the garden he tended near where his house used to stand in Staffordshire before it was demolished. Work has since been halted on that section of the line. HS2 was originally designed to resolve capacity around London, but there were problems from the beginning. “A former CEO told me the initial cost estimates were done when they knew three to four per cent of the details,” reveals Lamble. “Former transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin told us about the parliamentary bill [to approve HS2] and that he understood it would give them planning permission. That was a mistake. What it gave them was deemed planning permission, which is slightly different, and means local councils and other agencies are given control over the detailed design of what happens.” In other words, local considerations had to be addressed by central government. “They had to get 8,000 additional permissions as major as increasing the number of tunnels and as trivial as moving a water fountain.” Budgets and deadlines have proved impossible to manage; HS2 has become shorthand for our inability to think big and deliver infrastructure. Lamble disagrees. “Yes, I was surprised the transport secretary didn’t know which kind of planning permission he was getting, but it also speaks to a bigger question about what kind of Britain we want to live in? We live on a small, densely populated, property-owning democratic island and there are consequences. "We can’t cut through empty fields or override public opposition in the way that a centralised power like China chooses to, but we have done big builds like HS1 and some new nuclear sites. Those who still support HS2 suggest that when it opens it will be a success and people will forget about the overspend and delay.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Derailed: the Story of HS2 begins at 8pm on Saturday 19th July on BBC Radio 4. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
From Spitting Image to Dead Ringers, the late Bill Dare’s instinct for comedy will inspire those he helped on the road to success
Add Bill Dare: Comedy Alchemist to your collections. In January this year, a few weeks before 64-year-old comedy producer Bill Dare died in a road accident, I interviewed the actor Steven Mangan about his starring role in the forthcoming Radio 4 show, The Island. The conceit was that certain celebrities who had appeared on Desert Island Discs subsequently ended up on the eponymous desert island with only each other and their luxury items (usually a coffee machine) for company. “An email came to my agent [from Bill Dare],” Mangan explained. “I’d never met Bill but obviously I know the name because it’s said in that Tom Baker voice at the end of Dead Ringers. I don’t think we had any scripts at that point but it was a very funny, clever idea and I thought if Bill Dare is involved, it sounds good.” “I’m not surprised,” nods Jon Culshaw, the man behind the Tom Baker-voiced credit for the man who created the beloved Dead Ringers comedy impressions show. “Once you heard that name you wouldn’t hesitate. He would command that kind of trust and confidence.” Culshaw has been synonymous with Dead Ringers since Dare asked him to appear in the pilot show in 2000 but the two had known each other long before. “I was a DJ at Viking Radio and interviewed Lenny Henry in about 1989, we hit it off doing different voices and he said, ‘You should send the tape to Spitting Image.’ So I did. Bill Dare was the one who received it and he said, ‘Yes, we could probably do something with you here.’” Dare was just about to leave the Emmy-Award winning satirical puppet TV show but not before the producer had given Culshaw the break he still acknowledges today as “making my whole career work”. At Broadcasting House a decade later, young comedy writer Jon Holmes (The Skewer) had just landed a job with the BBC and was sitting in a basement waiting to be told what to do. “A head appeared round the door and this weird guy just said, ‘Are you the new writer? We’re doing a Spitting Image-type show for the radio, make it funny.’ It was Bill Dare.” Jan Ravens, another strand of the Dead Ringers DNA, also knew Dare from Spitting Image. “I think I covered for Kate Robbins when it started in the mid 80s,” she says. “Then I met him again doing a Radio 4 series called Life, Death and Sex with Mike and Sue, which he also created. We’re almost the same age but I’ve always considered him my comedy dad. There are very few comedy producers that you just trust implicitly. He commanded respect because he was so good at what he did.” Culshaw was due on stage in Hull with his Imposter Syndrome show when he heard that Dare had been involved in an accident. “The first thing I heard in the back of my mind was Bill saying, ‘Well, anyway, gotta get on with it.’” He then called Ravens to break the dreadful news before, having worked in the same theatre with Dare a few years ago, he “went to where I had stood on the stage and looked at the area where Bill had been sitting, urging him to pull through… “It was the next night when I’d just come off stage at the Buxton Opera House that I heard he’d gone. The following day you think, ‘How can I possibly go on and do a funny show tonight when I’ve just been handed this?’ but once I got backstage again the vivid memories of when Bill and I had been in the same environment together brought the essence of him nearer somehow. So it was, ‘Right. Yes, Bill, I’m not going to crumble here. I’m going to remember your great motivating strength and keep the show tight and bang on track. Let’s do this now.’” Ravens declares Dare’s passing, “Beyond shocking and unbelievable. Surreal.” Both performers are visibly emotional but happy to recall Dare’s no-nonsense style of putting the show together (Culshaw calls him “an alchemist”, Ravens marvels at his instinctive ability to “know what would work, what wouldn’t and act decisively”) and his delight in a character done well. “I know he liked my Ed Miliband, John Craven and Michael Gove,” smiles Culshaw. “Tom Baker, obviously, and we had fun with George Bush and Tony Blair. He once sent me an email saying, ‘Your Nick Robinson is fantastic, we take it for granted’ and that meant such a lot.’” Theresa May was one of his favourite Jan Ravens characters, but the impressionist also remembers his “great excitement when someone new like Liz Truss arrived.” And, for Bill probably, she drops briefly into Truss saying, “I know”. He had an almost childlike joy for a voice that just captured the person perfectly,” she says. “Dead Ringers happened because he really wanted to do a show on the radio that was all about the impressions, about putting them front and centre.” Poignantly perhaps, the new series marks the 25-year anniversary of the show and a UK tour that Dare pushed to make happen will celebrate that landmark in autumn. “The tour will be a kind of greatest hits,” says Ravens. “Bill had moved away to write a novel – he was always doing new things, like The Island, which he edited despite not having done it before and loved it – but he would have helped to choose the scripts and characters that we will perform on tour and been at rehearsals and the first few venues to make sure it was as good as it could be, so his presence will be missed.” Holmes, who also worked with Dare on shows including The Now Show and The Island will be the man to fill his mentor’s large brogues. “I’m doing it really because I know it would annoy him,” he laughs, “But he’s left such a fantastic legacy it’s really just a question of keeping a hand on the tiller.”
Landmine-detecting rats and drug-sniffing bees are just some of the creatures performing new niche jobs
The Animal Employment Agency is on Radio 4 at 3.30pm on Wednesday. Add it to your collection now “I think pandas are overrated,” says Simon Watt, author, comedian, evolutionary biologist and the man behind the Ugly Animal Preservation Society. “And I can say what I want because people who care about the panda are already on my team – they care [about conservation] and want to make a difference.” Pandas only cropped up because we were discussing the collective nouns for animals (for pandas it’s an “embarrassment”). A “business” of ferrets features in Radio 4’s The Animal Employment Agency, in which Watt highlights certain niche jobs where only an animal will do. “Despite the technology, AI and robotics available today,” he says, “animals are still smashing it.” Animals like Ronin, an African giant pouched rat, who was recognised by The Guinness Book of World Records last month after uncovering 109 landmines in Cambodia since 2021. Ronin was trained by Apopo, the same non-profit organisation in Tanzania as Jones, the HeroRat (as they’re known) encountered by Watt while recording the documentary. “Their sense of smell, trainability and extraordinary problem-solving intelligence, plus their size and ability to walk on landmines without triggering them, means they can significantly speed up operations,” he says. “Ethically, they are following their natural instincts, and they’re rewarded in both an emotional sense and with food as they build a relationship with their trainer.” HeroRats are also more efficient than humans and can check an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes whereas a person with a metal detector might take four days. Ferrets, too, are “way better than humans or machines in their field of expertise”. Which is? “They go into walls and find a way out,” says Watt. “They can be sent down a pipe and, wearing little telemetry trackers, discover a blockage that means you don’t have to rip up 100m of the central business district.” The National Ferret School in Derbyshire (yes, really) takes advantage of ferrets’ long, sinewy bodies and ultra-flexible spines when training them to lay fibre optic cable. But, despite having a higher number of olfactory receptor neurons than most animals, their application for “detection by smell” work is not a natural fit temperamentally – unlike, bizarrely, for bees. “Bees have got incredible ‘classical conditioning,’” says Watt. “If you get a bee to associate sugar with a certain scent, it will do it at the second time of asking. It learns that quickly. The research is ongoing, but a device to capitalise on this would look a little like an old tape cassette case with the bees hooked up in a line and their heads peeking out, a bit like a stable of horses. Once they’re trained to associate sugar with a particular scent such as Semtex or cocaine, a proboscis will pop out when they smell it as if they’re going to have a lick of sugar and that will break a laser beam and tell you instantly. The fact that they associate so well means that there is no need for weeks of training, as is the case with dogs.” Sniffer dogs have, of course, been hanging around airports for years, but Watt’s documentary extols their ability in another area. “Anecdotally, there have been stories for years about dogs licking at a human mole that turns out to be skin cancer, but we still don’t know how they know. The scent profile of somebody who’s got bladder cancer or bowel cancer can’t be run through a machine yet, so dogs are going to be superior here until we can work out how they do it.” And it’s not just cancers. “We meet Lauren,” says Watt. “She has postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), which can mean she has seizures. Her dog is able to anticipate this and give her five minutes’ notice to make sure that she’s sitting somewhere safe. It has revolutionised her life.” As well as finding mines, giant pouched rats can also detect disease in humans and, for example, can sniff out tuberculosis quicker than a lab can diagnose it using microscopy. But a dog “will actually learn your other habits and idiosyncrasies to keep you safe,” says Watt. “It will also provide companionship. Studies are beginning to show that if you cuddle a dog, your oxytocin, one of the happy chemicals, rises – but so does theirs and there is a desire as well as a capacity to actively help us. Plus, they’re the right size to follow you around, which you can’t say about a bee.” Or a rat or robot. “The other jobs that were historically undertaken by animals, such as transportation or pulling a plough, have been superseded by technology,” says Watt, “But these guys will be around doing their thing for years to come.”
Rachel Burden is fed up with the cynicism of news and looking for hope
Café Hope is on Radio 4 on Monday at 9.45am. Add it to your watchlist now April fools’ day is cancelled this year because no made-up prank could match [what’s] going on in the world right now.” You probably saw the meme last month and, rather than laugh, just silently acknowledged the sad truth at the heart of it. Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East, the re-election of a man to the top job in the White House that comedian John Mulaney famously compared to a horse being allowed into a hospital, followed shortly by $1 trillion wiped off the stock market amid a seemingly random tariff war certainly make the world look like an unfunny joke. And these are just some of the events Rachel Burden could be talking about when she says, “Anyone who works in news media these days, whether that’s radio, digital or TV, is aware that there’s only so much that an audience can take.” In a fine case of nominative determinism, the Radio 5 Live weekday breakfast show presenter has frequently found herself breaking bad news to the nation as it has woken up over the last 14 years. She feels the despair. “People are turning off the news because it’s overwhelming. They feel they’ve no agency and are curating their own universe in terms of the media they consume.” For all the reasons above, that may well now include Café Hope, a Radio 4 show she has also been hosting since last year. In keeping with a slew of recent books such as Utopia for Realists and Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World – and Why Things Are Better than You Think and other initiatives like The Uplift on the CBS News app, Radio 4 “wanted to do something around finding a bit of hope and optimism in a very dark world,” explains Burden. “I jumped at the chance to be involved because it’s just so different to what I do every day.” Although she is careful to stress that, alongside the rolling news, her 5 Live show also tries to make “the audience smile or give them opportunities to feel hopeful”, the format for Café Hope revolves around a virtual coffee shop where guests drop by to talk about positive things they have done or are trying to achieve in their lives. “It’s such a simple concept,” she explains. “It’s a space where you’re sitting down, taking time out in a little community of people who all have very different backgrounds and life experiences but are joined together by doing really lovely things for other people. They’re not already well-known or successful, or have big established charities, they’re people who have the day-to-day pressures that everyone has but they do something extra and it is usually prompted by what we call a ‘sofa moment’ – ie the thing that took them from sitting on the sofa, frustrated with the way the world works, to getting off the sofa and doing something about it. And that’s a reason to celebrate them.” But is it the job of journalists to search out good news stories? Didn’t TV anchor and newsreader Martyn Lewis run into a wall of criticism when he suggested having more positive stories in news bulletins in 1993? “That was years ago,” replies Burden, a touch defensively. “Local radio, where I started in journalism, has always done this kind of thing brilliantly, so I see what we do as an extension of stuff that’s been going on for years... I don’t think there’s a huge difference between what I do on the 5 Live breakfast show and here, other than leaving behind the cynicism you need on a news programme. You can take this show entirely at face value but that’s not to say we don’t ask questions like, ‘How do you deal with conflicts of interest?’ or whatever.” Guests who have dropped in for a virtual coffee have included a woman who lost her child and set up an organisation called Emily’s Star to provide boxes of the special kit parents need when a baby is born prematurely, a group of volunteers who use drones to track lost pets, a man with Down’s syndrome who runs his own business, homeless people who have become tour guides, and a woman who rescues chickens. “Yes, bad news, conflict and division drive clicks,” she says, “but there is a space and there is an appetite for stuff that people find uplifting and reassuring, and Café Hope is a place where they can come and find that.”
Café Hope host Rachel Burden: 'Bad news drives clicks – but people still want uplifting stories too'
The BBC Radio 4 show is a virtual coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they're doing to make the world a better place.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. "April Fools' Day is cancelled this year because no made-up prank could match [what's] going on in the world right now." You probably saw the meme last month and, rather than laugh, just silently acknowledged the sad truth at the heart of it. Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East, the re-election of a man to the top job in the White House that comedian John Mulaney famously compared to a horse being allowed into a hospital, followed shortly by $1 trillion wiped off the stock market amid a seemingly random tariff war certainly make the world look like an unfunny joke. And these are just some of the events Rachel Burden could be talking about when she says, "Anyone who works in news media these days, whether that’s radio, digital or TV, is aware that there's only so much that an audience can take." In a fine case of nominative determinism, the Radio 5 Live weekday breakfast show presenter has frequently found herself breaking bad news to the nation as it has woken up over the last 14 years. She feels the despair. "People are turning off the news because it's overwhelming. They feel they’ve no agency and are curating their own universe in terms of the media they consume." For all the reasons above, that may well now include Café Hope, a Radio 4 show she has also been hosting since last year. In keeping with a slew of recent books such as Utopia for Realists and Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong about the World – and Why Things Are Better than You Think and other initiatives like The Uplift on the CBS News app, Radio 4 "wanted to do something around finding a bit of hope and optimism in a very dark world", explains Burden. "I jumped at the chance to be involved because it’s just so different to what I do every day." Although she is careful to stress that, alongside the rolling news, her 5 Live show also tries to make “the audience smile or give them opportunities to feel hopeful”, the format for Café Hope revolves around a virtual coffee shop where guests drop by to talk about positive things they have done or are trying to achieve in their lives. "It’s such a simple concept," she explains. "It’s a space where you’re sitting down, taking time out in a little community of people who all have very different backgrounds and life experiences but are joined together by doing really lovely things for other people. "They’re not already well-known or successful, or have big established charities, they’re people who have the day-to-day pressures that everyone has but they do something extra and it is usually prompted by what we call a ‘sofa moment’ – ie the thing that took them from sitting on the sofa, frustrated with the way the world works, to getting off the sofa and doing something about it. And that’s a reason to celebrate them." But is it the job of journalists to search out good news stories? Didn’t TV anchor and newsreader Martyn Lewis run into a wall of criticism when he suggested having more positive stories in news bulletins in 1993? "That was years ago," replies Burden, a touch defensively. "Local radio, where I started in journalism, has always done this kind of thing brilliantly, so I see what we do as an extension of stuff that’s been going on for years. "I don’t think there’s a huge difference between what I do on the 5 Live breakfast show and here, other than leaving behind the cynicism you need on a news programme. You can take this show entirely at face value but that’s not to say we don’t ask questions like, ‘How do you deal with conflicts of interest?’ or whatever." Read more: Radio 3's Michael Berkeley on the 30th anniversary of Private Passions – and how the format has plenty left to give Radio 2 is a religion, says DJ Trevor Nelson Guests who have dropped in for a virtual coffee have included a woman who lost her child and set up an organisation called Emily’s Star to provide boxes of the special kit parents need when a baby is born prematurely, a group of volunteers who use drones to track lost pets, a man with Down's syndrome who runs his own business, homeless people who have become tour guides, and a woman who rescues chickens. "Yes, bad news, conflict and division drive clicks,” she says, “but there is a space and there is an appetite for stuff that people find uplifting and reassuring, and Café Hope is a place where they can come and find that." The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Café Hope continues Monday at 9:45am on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, where previous episodes are available on catch-up. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Imagine a world where Desert Island Discs castaways are marooned for real — Stephen Mangan is about to join them
The Island is on Radio 4 on Monday 17 February at 2.45pm. Stephen Mangan's Desert Island Discs interview is available on BBC Sounds. Add it to your collection now There’s a naughty rumour circulating about Stephen Mangan. It was probably started by a contemporary envious of the actor’s ubiquity – from The Split and Portrait Artist of the Year on TV to his own show on Classic FM and more voiceover work than seems feasible. Now he’s performed a takeover on Radio 4 with an appearance on Desert Island Discs and the lead in a related comedy series – The Island – within a week of each other. The gossip is that he only agreed to do the latter once a prestigious appearance had been secured on the former. “That’s hilarious if that’s walking around,” he laughs. “And no [that didn’t happen]. I’m not that clever. “They came in about the same time a year ago,” he says. “And I was delighted to be considered for both.” As the scheduling has played out, the sitcom will come after he talks to Lauren Laverne on 9 February. “There are only two things that I’ve been asked to do that have made me go, ‘Oh my goodness, that’s pretty fantastic.’ One was View from the Boundary on Test Match Special and the other one is Desert Island Discs. “I chose my eight records and if I don’t come out looking like the hippest cat in the business, I don’t care. I’m 56 and this happens to be the music that relates best to my life.” Protocol forbids full disclosure, but Mangan’s line-up includes Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees (used in his cult TV comedy Green Wing) and I Recall a Gypsy Woman by Don Williams. Of the latter, he explains: “To me, this is being driven through the Irish countryside after I’d finished serving pop and crisps to 1,500 very drunk Irish people in my Uncle Eamon’s dance hall – dancing, that hint of sex, violence, all very thrilling – and everybody singing along.” The format of the show lends itself to such revelatory biographical detail and Mangan remembers hearing Johnny Vegas on his episode, somebody he thought he knew well, talking about training to be a priest. “I had no idea. That’s why it’s such a great way to do an interview. There’s nothing to promote and you get to know people.” Unfortunately, Vegas and his vaguely ecclesiastical leanings are nowhere to be found in The Island. The Lord of the Flies-inspired comedy is based around the idea that celebrities who’ve been on Desert Island Discs are actually abandoned on an island with each other for company. So, Mangan washes ashore at the start of episode one to find a population of Desert Island Discs castaways, in his words, “ruled with a rod of iron by a terrifying Sandi Toksvig. It’s just a brilliant idea. “I had an email from Bill Dare, who I’d never met but I knew his name because it’s said in that Tom Baker voice at the end of every Dead Ringers. The whole conceit is just funny from the get-go. There were no scripts at that stage but I said yes immediately. They must have sat down with a list of everyone who’s done it – and you can’t get a more eclectic mix of people – put them on this island and wondered what would happen once their inner demons emerge.” Mangan reveals that, “Hugh Bonneville has gone slightly loco, taken his top off and is fishing for salmon while, without giving too much away, Richard Madeley is struggling.” An unnecessarily aggressive Delia Smith, Professor Brian Cox and an emollient Tony Robinson – all carrying sharpened sticks – also make brief early appearances alongside lachrymose ex-footballer Ian Wright, but that’s it for spoilers. “I wasn’t involved with the writing,” says Mangan, “but it was a joy to do, although I’m not sure it would be that bad in real life. The castaways are an interesting bunch. As for Desert Island Discs, we have three kids and there’s always a lot going on in our house, plus I’m quite busy at work so the idea of enforced solitude is very appealing at this point.”
Tony Parsons has seven Max Wolfe books under his belt, and says a TV version with Aidan Turner is on the cards
To order Murder for Busy People by Tony Parsons (Century, £20) for £18 including p&p, click here. You can tell when you walk into a publishing house exactly where your stock is and how well you’re selling,” says Tony Parsons, a “hip, young gunslinger” at the NME in the 1970s, author of 2001’s bestselling Man and Boy and, since 2014, the Max Wolfe detective novels. “If you’re doing well, girls you’ve never met say, ‘Hi, how’s it going? Love the new book.’ When your stock starts falling, guys you know don’t catch your eye because you’re on the way down… but it ebbs and flows.” Right now, Parsons’s stock is high: the seventh book featuring DC Max Wolfe, Murder for Busy People, is in bookshops and Aidan Turner is in talks to play the tough but compassionate London detective. But the 71-year-old author is playing it cool. “You know how it is. People want to do it and it doesn’t happen for whatever reason. We’re looking at a six-part series, they cost a few million each, and you come to that moment when even if it looks fantastic, someone’s still got to make that major investment.” Perhaps he’s still scarred by the Man and Boy experience. “We sold the TV rights to the BBC and the film rights to Harvey Weinstein, which you’re not allowed to boast about these days but was a big deal back then. The BBC took a book that was loved and turned it into something that was loved by nobody and I’d have preferred it not to have been made. Weinstein loved the book but didn’t make the film. Sometimes something not being made isn’t the worst outcome. “With the Max Wolfe series, [the people trying to put the adaptation deal together] are talking to me and I’m involved but, as Nick Hornby said, you sell them the right to do what they like with your book, their own vision, and I’m not writing it. I’ve always got this thing: if you’re smart, you’d get me to write it. I always believe that.” Peculiarly, it was this insistence that helped give birth to Max Wolfe in a roundabout fashion. “[Director] Sam Mendes phoned me out of the blue when Man and Boy came out. He was interested in making it but I told him I was the only person who could possibly write it. It was a bad phone connection and the line went dead. “We met again a few years later at a screening and he told me that he was going to direct the next James Bond movie and was re-reading all the Ian Fleming books, so I decided to re-read them as well. Before I got through the first page of Casino Royale, I thought ‘I’m going to try and write a serious hero.’ If you can invent a character like Bond or Philip Marlowe that lasts beyond your lifetime, that’s an incredible achievement. The determination to do that is where Max began.” That first Wolfe book, The Murder Bag, became a number-one bestseller, and ten years on we have the same London setting but a new challenge for Wolfe in the form of career criminal Emma Moon. She’s based loosely on a real person. “I know a couple of people who knew Micky McAvoy, the youngest on the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery. When he died I became interested in him because he didn’t rat out the people he was with. It’s unusual, a professional criminal keeping the old code. It struck me as something a woman was more likely to do because they have more emotional intelligence.” The deadline for the book was extended last summer because, at that point, “It wasn’t good enough. I was aware I could raise it a notch, and now I think it’s the best in the series. I’m working on another book called Man and Dog, about my beloved cavalier King Charles spaniel Stan who died last year. And with Who She Was [his 2023 bestselling psychological thriller set in Cornwall] and now Murder for Busy People, I think I would quite like to go out on a high.” Max Wolfe fans need not panic, however. Tony Parsons often says something like this after publication of a new book. But, as his anti-hero Emma Moon puts it in his latest story, “There’s always unfinished business.”
Helen Lewis and Armando Iannucci are putting the language of politics under the spotlight
Strong Message Here is on Radio 4 on Thursdays at 9.45am. Add it to your collection. If you can pinpoint the inspiration behind the name of Radio 4’s Strong Message Here, then this is undoubtedly the show for you. It is, of course, the moment at the 2015 Labour Party Conference when Jeremy Corbyn accidentally read out an autocue prompt instructing him to be extra-emphatic. “It could happen to any of us,” smiles Helen Lewis, political journalist, broadcaster and SMH co-host. “It wasn’t too much of an obvious cliché to use as a name for the show and it sums up what we’ll be talking about, which is the idea that people don’t always say the things that they’re supposed to.” The other component part of “We” is Armando Iannucci – the man behind, among many other things, award-winning political satires Veep and The Thick of It. “Strong Message Here was Armando’s idea,” Lewis explains. “He comes at political language from writing comedy about it and I come at political language from trying to dissect it, but we share a fascination with how you can lie and flatter with language and how it is used [by politicians] to manipulate. My hope is that, as well as being an entertaining listen, the show will encourage people to think about something in a new way.” Lewis is talking to Radio Times from Pennsylvania, where she’s on US election duty, with a front-row seat at the rallies of Donald Trump – which are perhaps the most astonishing verbal pyrotechnic displays in recent political history. “The funny thing is that his speeches weave all over the place but in the moment you always know what he’s saying... it’s like a magic-eye painting, in that bits of it don’t really make sense but you step back and you can see the shark, you can see Hannibal Lecter,” to name just two of his recent off-script non sequiturs. “We might talk about that and ‘the enemy within’, a terrifying phrase he has just started using that recalls McCarthyism and [political] witch hunts.” Strong Message Here will also take on buzzwords, slogans, which things catch on and which don’t and the role of special advisers in all of this. “The Thick of It was a fierce satire of British politics but all the anti-heroes were adopted as heroes by the people working in it. Armando has had an amusingly profound influence on a whole generation of young politicians and special advisers. It’s a terribly backhanded compliment.” After pondering why people never finish the quote most usually associated with Michael Gove about experts [he went on to say “from organisations with acronyms getting it consistently wrong”] or Peter Mandelson’s on being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich [as long as they pay their taxes]”, Lewis concludes that “by talking about political language, we can talk about history and where these phrases came from, psychology and what little bits of our brain they tickle and also philosophy and traditions of thought. That makes it sound very grand, but it’s hopefully a very funny, short and sweet, Radio 4 programme.”
English is constantly evolving — which is just the way Phil Wang and Susie Dent like it
Unspeakable is on Radio 4 on Thursday at 6.30pm. Add it to your collection. Did you know that Stephen Fry is officially credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with coining the term “luvvy” in the late 1980s? It refers to a type of actor much like himself, but it was “a linguistic gap” that needed a word to fill it and, inadvertently, he provided it in print. Unspeakable is the Radio 4 show that allows panellists to dream up new words or raid other languages for universal, shared concepts and experiences that have up till now lacked an English expression. The hosts, comedian Phil Wang and lexicographer and RT’s Countdown wordsmith Susie Dent, tell us all about it and reveal some new contenders for inclusion in the OED. How did they sell the idea of Unspeakable to you both? SUSIE DENT When it came to me it was already this enticing package of a radio show about language… and Phil Wang was involved. So I said, “I’d love to do it.” PHIL WANG Well, to me they said, “We’ve got this show about words and Susie Dent’s involved…” Not really. They said, “We’ve got a format idea for a show about words and made-up words.” And because my persona is, I guess, nerdy, for want of a better term… SD [Raises hand] PW OK, Susie is also nerdy but she carries it with a glamour that I don’t have. I think I’m just nerdy. SD Can I just throw in that “grammar” and “glamour” were once exactly the same word? “Glamour” was the magical learning that was part of “grammar”, which meant all knowledge. And then they needed something else for the sparkly bit, so it went off in a different direction. So you can be grammarous, I reckon. PW This is exactly the content you can expect from Susie. When was the last time someone used a word in conversation and you didn’t know what it meant? SD It happens more often than you might think, but I enjoy it because it sends me to the dictionary, which is the place I am happiest. As Phil will tell you, I have the OED on my phone. PW Usually it’s new slang that catches me out. A “sigma male” is above an “alpha male” for the younger generation, so when this kid in the street overheard me joking to my girlfriend that I’m a sigma he shouted over, “You’re not sigma, mate, you’re skibidi.” SD Skibidi is the word that nobody can define, because it can mean cool and it can mean really uncool. Language changes all the time. Wasn’t it Dr Samuel Johnson who wanted to build walls around the English language to prevent this? SD Yes, he set out to try and freeze language to protect it against impurity. He didn’t want any vulgar slang to come in and he didn’t particularly like French words, but then he realised it was impossible. Or, as he put it, very beautifully, “to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind” were equally futile exercises. So how does Unspeakable work? SD I’m always asked, “Why don’t we have a word for X, Y or Z?” Usually followed by, “I bet the Germans do.” And the Germans either do have a word for it or can easily make one up with their Lego-style language. However, it turns out that there are words from our own past that can often fill a gap, so I offer a word of the week that’s lesser known but might be useful and the panellists each bring a word. We suggest words that cover existing language and ones that should exist but don’t. PW The panellists often create a portmanteau word from two existing words, which is a great insight into their personal lives... SD Stephen Fry, for example, brought “shiffle”, a blend of riffle and shuffle – that is when you are scrolling through the photos on your phone to show a friend but can’t find the right one. Miles Jupp came up with “app nauseam” , which is where you need an app to do absolutely anything in life. Any contributions yourselves? SD This might be too rude for Radio Times but “askhole” is a good one – a person who’s always asking for advice but then never takes it. There’s also my current favourite word, “crambazzled”, which is Yorkshire dialect and means to be prematurely aged from excess drinking. PW [Laughs] I was brought up in Malaysia and I want to introduce tin kosong to English. It literally means “empty tin” but refers to a person who has nothing in them but is very loud. SD We call that, believe it or not, “trumperiness”. It’s the state of being extremely showy but utterly worthless. How prescient is that? And its first recorded use was… [checks phone]… 1868. How did the live audience react to the show? SD They were phenomenal, because we also asked them to come up with their own suggestions for words and they absolutely did. PW They also loved the part when the panellists can consign a word that they detest to the bin. Before you ask, mine is “massively” or, rather, the overuse of the word “massively”. SD Mine is “basically”, which is used as filler by people who then carry on talking about nothing for five minutes. So that, or “gusset”.
Daisy May Cooper: 'I received a paranormal visit from late This Country co-star'
"If anybody was going to come back and let me know there was something after death, it would be him."
"There was this banging at the bedroom door," says Daisy May Cooper, BAFTA-winning actor, screenwriter, star of This Country and now author. "It was a month ago. Before that the duvet had lifted off the bed. And this knocking at the door wasn’t a normal kind – there was a rhythm and me and my partner just looked at each other." We are talking about paranormal experiences. Chiefly because that’s what Cooper’s book, Hexy Bitch: Tales from My Life, the Afterlife and Beyond, is all about and contains so many of them. But we’re also discussing the untimely death of her friend, 33-year-old This Country co-star Michael Sleggs ("Slugs" in the show). "I’m sure it was him," she says. "If anybody was going to come back and let me know there was something after death, it would be him. I mean, even the way he went." He claimed to have been visited by an angel in his hospital bed who promised him that in seven days he would have a new body by midnight – he died at 11:59pm seven days later. "I made him promise he would come back, and he would definitely do it because he knows it would freak me out and he’d find that hilarious." The funny side of grief and dealing with loss has been insufficiently covered in celeb memoirs in recent years. But in Cooper’s case it’s perhaps a natural expression of the fascination she has felt for the unexplained since she was four years old and her mother’s sister died in a car crash. She writes in the book: "When Auntie Alison died, Granny seemed to cross over into another realm. Mum did too… It was this family tragedy that set Mum and Granny on a never-ending quest to find Alison." And they dragged Daisy with them – to spiritualist church services, the backs of pubs, or sometimes a visit-at-home for an audience with freeloading clairvoyants. "They were basically trading on people’s grief," she says now. "It was so obvious to me at the time that they were taking people for a ride, but I suppose it offered hope where there was none." There’s a lot of bittersweet in Hexy Bitch, and a lot of wrestling with both the unknowable and the unprovable. But, Cooper maintains, it’s all about keeping an open mind. "People have experiences they can’t explain all the time – like when I was at school, researching a project about a famous ghost in the Cotswolds around Halloween. I ran into this woman who gave me and my friend palm readings. She said that I was going to become a famous actress." Perhaps that was the moment she became alive to the possibility of a world outside the prosaic? "Maybe," she laughs. "Shame she didn’t bother to tell me about how bloody hard it was going to be." A successful career foretold, and, with a higher profile, Cooper began to reach out via social media to other members of what she calls the "para-curious" community to help with Hexy Bitch. The feedback varied in quality, peaking (or troughing, depending on your perspective) with the revelation that one man in his 80s insisted he was having an affair with Jackie Kennedy and that, having been an item in a previous life, she knocked on his door one night to tell him he hadn’t locked it properly. In the same way that Danny Robins’s Radio 4 show Uncanny has set about detailing the experiences of the public with the undead, the idea is to bring together those with stories to tell but who fear opprobrium for doing so. And if that is the motivation for writing the book, the catalyst was an apparition that came to her while she was in bed with her young son a few years ago. "It was of the legs, just the legs in PE shorts, of a young boy who ran round my bedroom," she recalls. "It was as real as anything else in my life, solid, but then melted away, and then a feeling of calm washed over me." Read more: Best books coming out in 2024: Essential reads for the rest of the year Booker Prize 2024 shortlist revealed - with history-making line-up There have been several other inexplicable events in her life – she has "Don’t be afraid" tattooed on her wrist after hearing a female voice telling her precisely that while she was in hospital in 2019 (she recorded it on her phone at the time and I have heard it) – and, consequently, late last year Robins was invited to spend the night at her house to put together The Haunting of Daisy May Cooper, an Uncanny Christmas special. Cooper has moved house since then, so it’s the strange knocking on her bedroom door that exercises her today. "It was definitely a sign from Slugs," she insists again. "He promised." This may be an appropriate time to state for the record that, for the first time in my journalistic career, our interview together disappeared/wiped itself at some point after she sent me that recording of a voice telling her "Don’t be afraid". Almost certainly some kind of technological glitch, but unnerving just the same… Daisy May Cooper's Hexy Bitch is released on Thursday 24th October and is available for pre-order now. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Matt Chorley brings his light touch reporting on politics to the BBC
Matt Chorley's weekday show on 5 Live begins on Monday. Add it your collection. Politics is a funny old business, so who better to host 5 Live’s new afternoon politics show than a comedian? Matt Chorley, columnist, author, Have I Got News for You regular and, for four years, a presenter on Times Radio, is the man in question. Three sold-out political comedy tours in recent years confirm the 42-year-old’s stand-up credentials. “There is a sort of precedent,” he notes. “John Sergeant [former BBC chief political correspondent] was in a sketch show on TV with Alan Bennett before journalism and had a very similar path to me, though slightly more successful on the comedy side.” A similar-ish path. Sergeant went from private school to Oxford, whereas Chorley, by his own account, “Grew up on the Somerset Levels, went to a state comp, did A-levels in the bright lights of Taunton, and was all set to go to university when I got paid work experience on the local paper over the summer. I thought, ‘If I go to university, in three years’ time, I’ll be right back here wanting exactly this’, so I didn’t go. And that’s quite unusual in the world of national journalism.” After the Taunton Times he moved to London in 2004 and a year later got a job in the House of Commons press gallery with the national news agency PA. He has been in or around Westminster ever since, working for media organisations including the Independent on Sunday and The Times. “I’ve had something of a portfolio career. But at my core I’m still a journalist. I want to tell stories and I want people to learn about a world that is really interesting – one way of doing that is using humour. “Watching Rishi Sunak calling an election standing in the rain without pointing out that he might have been happier with an umbrella would be just odd. Being able to laugh at the absurdity of the world along with listeners, rather than people thinking that politics is boring and distant, is a way of hooking people into thinking, ‘That show’s fun. And if I’m learning about stuff along the way, that’s a bonus.’ ” Ironically, one person watching Sunak getting drenched outside Downing Street but unable to raise a smile was Chorley himself. A press release trumpeting his move from Times Radio to 5 Live with the implicit sell of a forthcoming general election had been issued the day before. “I had a very irritated afternoon,” he admits. “But it’s fine now. I’m in this for the long haul. There will be other elections, and for now we’ve got a new Labour government, a Tory leadership contest and the US election, which is massively unpredictable.” He can’t wait to get started. “Joining the BBC, the most famous broadcasting organisation in the world, is an enormous privilege and a big deal personally. It’s not exactly, ‘I didn’t think little old me from Somerset would ever get to the BBC,’ but there is an element of that. And it’s not just being at the corporation, but being given a chance to launch a big, meaty political show, which hasn’t been done for a while.” Unlike his stint at Times Radio, he will now be the subject of intense scrutiny with regards to any perceived political bias. He has no concerns. “I’ve done the impartiality training, and it turns out I’ve been doing it all my working life because I just didn’t think my job was to tell people what to think. Nobody could come and see my stand-up show and think they know what my politics are – largely because I don’t really have any.” Who is your political hero, I ask abruptly. It’s an unkind question of the sort he will be expected to ask politicians. He equivocates before offering, “He’s not quite a political hero, but someone who I knew very little about [before writing his latest book, Planes, Trains and Toilet Doors: 50 Places That Changed British Politics] and think is quite extraordinary is Ramsay MacDonald, the first Labour prime minister. He came from a poor part of Scotland, was brought up by his mother on her own, and ended up becoming prime minister for a party that had never been in government before.” A clever answer with both a plug and a caveat that avoids nailing his colours to any contemporary political mast. Almost a politician’s answer, in fact. Funny that.
Ralf Little on "slightly eerie" Death in Paradise Christmas special
The DI Parker star chats to Radio Times magazine about the festive episode and the upcoming season.
Ralf Little will never forget the call from his agent. "My other half and I had pulled up in a car park on the west coast of Ireland. I was standing in the rain when I was told they wanted me to be the new detective in Death in Paradise. I was banging on the windscreen, trying not to shout it out loud, waving at my girlfriend inside the car, 'I got it, I got it!' You could say I was really delighted." Then he phoned his mum. "She said, 'I’m so pleased, I'm really proud of you.' She then called back two minutes later and warned me not to ruin it." She had no need to worry. With a Christmas special on Boxing Day and Little’s third series beginning on 6th January, his character DI Neville Parker is now the longest-serving expat British cop to be trapped on the fictional Caribbean island of Saint Marie. "That doesn’t particularly mean anything," he says, humbly. "It’s just nice to have been accepted by the public in a role that means such a lot to people." The Christmas special was shot in Guadeloupe at the end of May. "It’s not an unusual thing in the industry to have to don your Christmas jumpers and party hats at the wrong time of the year," Little, 42, reflects. "But there’s always something psychologically heartbreaking about picking up one of the presents the props department have left under the tree and realising it’s empty. And the beautiful bright sunshine takes a little bit of getting used to. Christmas is dark nights, chillier weather and cosy houses." And sprouts, if DI Parker has anything to do with it ("I’m with him on that," says Little, "and my mum’s gravy is a must"), but that is merely an intriguing subplot. "The Christmas episode is like a slightly eerie ghost story in a vaguely Dickensian style. There are some spooky goings-on the gang has to try to explain but Neville, of course, is a cynic. It’s got that lovely, let’s-huddle-on-the-sofa vibe, and Les Dennis is magnificent as the psychic. I think people will love it." The new series, he promises, will also not disappoint. "There are a couple of surprises. It’s Neville’s most challenging time on the island yet. He has to deal with things that he never thought he would have to." Stopping a runaway jet ski, however, is unlikely to be one of them. "This is the one downside about playing Neville," says Little. "All the stuff he hates doing is all the stuff I love doing. I can’t wait to get on a jet ski and go scuba diving, but I have to pretend to be scared when really I’m thinking, 'Please let me go faster!'" Not that he’s complaining. As with faking Christmas, he says, "It’s all for the art." But do mince pies in May mean that his Christmas is already half-done? "No, not at all. I’m looking forward to it. It’s all about family for me. We’ll get together, exchange gifts, hang out and cook nice food. We don’t really get to see each other that often, especially with me being away filming Death in Paradise for six months of the year. It’s an opportunity to reconnect with my family and remind them what I look like." The Death in Paradise 2022 Christmas special will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer at 9pm on Boxing Day, 26th December, with previous episodes available to stream on BBC iPlayer. Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. The Christmas double issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Inside Qatar ahead of the 2022 World Cup
The world holds its breath as Qatar prepares to host the FIFA World Cup – against all the odds.
There were audible gasps when Qatar won the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup – and not just in the room where it was announced. The world rushed to judgement with accusations of corruption and a desire to point out that the small Gulf state had no football heritage. Beyond that, the general consensus was that it would not even be possible in a country where temperatures can hit 50°C in the summer. “A football will not be kicked in Qatar,” predicted astonished talkSPORT presenter Danny Kelly at the time. It was hard to disagree. 12 years later, 20 storey images of the greatest players in the world – Lionel Messi, Gareth Bale, Sadio Mane and Harry Kane among them – adorn the sides of skyscrapers in the opulent forest of statement architecture next to the Persian Gulf and flags of all 32 represented nations flutter at the side of the street and congregate in select locations in the city, along the 7km long Corniche and in several ‘FanFest’ sites like the main one at Al Biddah park. The official mascot (‘La’eeb’) and the elongated Arabic script viewers at home are about to become very familiar with are everywhere from the airport arrivals hall to the pin badges of the hotel staff. As a branding exercise alone, it is remarkable. For more World Cup features check out: World Cup 2022 kits ranked | World Cup 2022 TV schedule | World Cup 2022 fixtures | Best players in the world 2022 Two things have made this tournament possible: It was moved to the winter and revolutionary cooling technology was developed to regulate the temperature inside the new and bespoke stadia at a comfortable 23-35°C for both players and spectators. The construction of these stadia, however, has made headlines for all the wrong reasons and highlighted the appalling treatment of migrant workers in the country. FIFA and the Qatari authorities remain keen to move the story along but the grievances of unpaid, underpaid and injured workers and the relatives of those who lost their lives remain. It would be fair to say it has cast a shadow over the tournament but seemingly done little to stifle demand for tickets. An estimated 1.2 million football fans are expected over the next two months in a country with a population of just 300,000, only 15 per cent of them Qataris – quite a few of whom are intending to disappear like the locals in Monaco when the GP is in town. Many ex-pats from other countries will fly in from Dubai or other Gulf states for certain matches and then straight fly back but, by sheer weight of numbers, Doha will be transformed into the transient capital of world football for four weeks. The fans will be provided with areas set aside for drinking and partying, live entertainment has been brought in at great expense, and the feeling is that things will be fine if they just stay in the designated areas and don’t misbehave. This will be the most centralised World Cup in history with all venues within 55km of Doha and supporters encouraged to drive to games - those conscious of their carbon footprint can use the brand new Metro system or catch a ludicrously cheap hybrid cab using the Karwa app – but gangs of shirtless England fans wandering around downtown Doha on a stag do is not going to happen. There is a sense of anticipation in Qatar right now, but also nervousness as the pervasive weight of global football culture arrives en masse in a small and conservative Middle Eastern state. In four days in Doha, I saw plenty of official-looking men strolling about wearing lanyards and high vis jackets but I did not see a single football, let alone anybody playing with one, and only noticed three replica shirts (AC Milan, Brazil and Qatar). FIFA talk about leaving a legacy in Qatar but apart from the stadia, it is difficult to see what might be left behind. Time will tell. If you’re looking for something else to watch, check out our TV Guide or Streaming Guide, or visit our Sport hub for all the latest news. The latest issue of Radio Times is on sale now – subscribe now to get each issue delivered to your door. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Fighting back: How DIY SOS helped Grenfell's community reclaim its world-class boxing heritage
After the Grenfell fire, Nick Knowles and DIY SOS took on their greatest challenge to date...
As he had done many times in the previous 18 years, Mick Delaney locked up the boxing gym on the second floor of Grenfell Tower at about 9.30pm on Tuesday 13 June, 2017. The last of the seniors had finished training and as he cast his eyes over the modern, two-ring gym, brand new heavy bags hanging in front of spotless mirrors and framed pictures of Dale Youth Amateur Boxing Club old boys James DeGale and George Groves – both now super-middleweight world champions – he knew the long wait for the council-led refurbishment had been worth it. Three-and-a-half hours later the 24-storey tower block in North Kensington, London, was on fire. It would burn for the next 60 hours, claiming the lives of 72 people. Delaney heard about it at 5.30am. Meet Grenfell Tower’s original architect Channel 4 combines virtual reality with emotional testimony to recreate Grenfell before the fire “One of the coaches who works with me was on his way to work and he called and said, ‘Get up and put your TV on, you will never believe it, there are flames coming out of all the windows in Grenfell.’” Gary McGuinness, another coach at Dale Youth ABC, had already been outside for three hours watching the blaze. “I just couldn’t take it all in,” he says now. “It was so close. My garden was full of ash.” View oEmbed on the source website David “Little Dave” Price, just nine years old at the time, was woken by his father in a nearby tower block to be told that he was not going to the boxing club any time soon. “I said, ‘Why, Dad? What have I done?’, he remembers now. “I put the radio on and went out on to my balcony and saw all the smoke. My friend Luana [Gomes] was in there with her family, we were boxing buddies.” Luana was rescued, placed in an induced coma and treated for cyanide poisoning. She has happily recovered, but Tony Disson, a 65-year-old supporter and helper at the gym, died in the fire. The community has begun to rebuild, and replacing the gym – temporarily reconvened in a disused multi-storey car park – has been an integral part of this healing process. Always more than just a collection of sparring pads, skipping ropes and weights at the bottom of Grenfell Tower, the 45-year-old club was the focus for boys and girls, young men and women who sought a life away from the gang culture so prevalent on the street. “They mix together,” says Delaney. “No matter what nationality, when they get into the gym and start working they get to know each other and it is their family.” Nick Knowles, the presenter of DIY SOS, who was himself raised in a tower block in west London, was in the Cotswolds working on another build for the show on the night of the fire. “We all saw it,” he recalls. “We were all in our hotel rooms and we came down to breakfast and started talking about whether we could do anything in any way.” Three days later a member of the team came to visit the area. “It was an interesting time,” says Knowles. “At that stage television and newspapers were becoming less welcome but we didn’t come here with cameras, we came to walk around and talk to people. And as we were talking, I think because as a programme we have been around for almost 20 years, a lot of people in the community were asking us if we were going to build something. “We said if we could find something to build, something that is relevant and of use, then we will. So we reached out to various different groups that were involved after the fire, and started a process of consultation where we opened it up to anyone or any groups in the community to tell us what we might be able to build. What we didn’t want to do was a token build that was like putting a sticking plaster on such a huge thing so it was important that we built the right thing.” The process ran for almost five months, the planning a similar amount of time and then the build, in a derelict space beneath the A40, less than 800m from the tower, was completed in a frankly improbable nine weeks. It was the biggest and “most important” project the DIY SOS team had ever undertaken. To complicate matters, a complementary community centre (the subject of a second programme) was built on the same site. There is space for about 50 kids to train and they all had an input into the design of the gym and their pictures are on the wall. As “Little Dave” puts it, “We don’t want to train in the car park, it’s not ours, it doesn’t feel like home. This new gym is like going back home. I know I am a kid but it’s like I am a kid at Christmas, I never thought this day would come.” A year is a long time when you’re nine years old, but the last year has been a long time for everybody affected by the Grenfell disaster. When he shut the doors the night before the fire, Mick Delaney would have seen the motto, “THE PAIN YOU FEEL TODAY IS THE STRENGTH YOU FEEL TOMORROW” on the whitewashed wall opposite. They are not his words, but the Grenfell community, particularly those young boxers, must take great solace from them. Thanks in part to the DIY SOS team, they now have more than a fighting chance of rebuilding what was taken away from them. How were Knowles and the team affected by the project? “When we saw the kids running around trying out all the equipment with big smiles on their faces, I said to the guys, ‘This is what you’ve done, just listen to that sound.’ It hadn’t been heard for a long time because it had been such a tough year and to actually hear the joy and excitement was truly wonderful. We were all in tears. DIY SOS: Grenfell airs on Wednesday 5th September at 9pm on BBC1 and concludes on Wednesday 12th September at the same time
"Jo was the only presenter I could imagine working with" – Simon Mayo and Jo Whiley prepare to co-present after Radio 2 shake up
Simon Mayo and Jo Whiley, friends since the 90s and now co-presenters on BBC Radio 2, discuss their new drivetime show
"Do ladybirds milk aphids?!” asks Jo Whiley, who is clearly as bemused as RT as we sit and consider the question. “It turns out that ladybirds eat aphids, but ants milk aphids,” says Simon Mayo, without missing a beat. The two venerable presenters are wedged next to each other in a cramped office belonging to the head of Radio 2 on the third floor of Wogan House. “It’s one of the weirdest things ever,” Mayo continues. Whiley looks at him, then at Radio Times, then back at Mayo again. “It was a Homework question on yesterday’s show,” he offers by way of an explanation. “Ladybirds will eat aphids but ants look after them.” This is precisely the kind of entertaining, useless information that keeps Mayo’s show tripping along for two hours every weekday evening and has helped turn it into the most popular drivetime show on radio, with almost six million listeners. Jo Whiley may not have been among them the day before, but she would have been preparing for her own Radio 2 show, which goes out at 8pm Mondays to Thursdays. But from this Monday they are teaming up to co-present the new Jo Whiley and Simon Mayo show from 5pm to 8pm. It’s one of a number of Radio 2 schedule changes this week, with a new show for Sara Cox, Cerys Matthews taking over The Blues Show, and a new programme hosted by OJ Borg. Jo Whiley to become first woman to host Radio 2 drivetime for 20 years The 50 best BBC radio broadcasters of all time RadioTimes.com newsletter: get the latest TV and entertainment news direct to your inbox View oEmbed on the source website “It was a deal-breaker,” she teases. “If I’ve got to work with him I said we would have to talk about gardening.” The former Radio 1 DJ is now well known for her love of gardening. “Yes, we’re going to do a long gardening feature,” deadpans Mayo. “Every Thursday is going to be devoted to gardening tips – like Gardeners’ Question Time but for two hours.” He is joking, but as we speak, three weeks before their first show goes on air, the format of the show is still to be confirmed. The pair are in today to work on a pilot and, while they obviously enjoy each other’s company, it’s fair to say this development does not fill either with any appreciable delight. “We’re being very truculent about it,” says Whiley of the pilot. “If it was down to me we wouldn’t do any [pilot shows] at all,” says Mayo. “In an ideal world it would just be the digital equivalent of coming into the studio with a pile of records and some guests.” Similarly, the idea of a co-presenter did not come from Mayo. “Jo and I didn’t say, ‘Hey, let’s do a show together,’ but when the idea was floated to me, Jo was about the only possible presenter I could imagine working with.” They’ve known each other since their days on Radio 1 in the 1990s, and even went on family holidays together when their children were young. What’s more surprising is that when Whiley sits next to Mayo on 14 May, she’ll be the first female presenter of a mainstream daytime Radio 2 show since Debbie Thrower in 1998. Was there pressure to ensure that May’s co-presenter was female? “It would have been odd if it had been two guys turning up,” says Mayo. “It would have been unusual and not wise, but we never had that conversation because it went as far as working with Jo and that was it.” In accordance with BBC policy, both will be paid the same amount for the same show. Mayo has no problem with equal pay but is less sure about publishing salaries (last July Mayo was revealed to earn between £350,000 and £400,000 and Whiley £150,000 to £200,000). “My worry is that it will become like a yearly turkey shoot and I think it’s often used as a stick to hit the BBC with… The critics are saying, ‘Look at this, this isn’t right,’ but actually their broader agenda is dismantling the BBC, so that’s one of the reasons why it’s so uncomfortable.” Whiley sounds more enthusiastic about being transparent. “It’s ludicrous to think two people would be doing the same job and be paid different amounts of money because of their sex; that’s just unfathomable,” she says. “I don’t like talking about money at the best of times, but if it’s necessary to put things right, to correct the balance so that women are treated fairly and are paid fairly for the job that they are doing, then let’s discuss it, bring it on.” It’s clear that as double acts go, they already have an easy rapport. “If you’re listening to two people who are friends being the presenters of the show, then I think that is an enormous asset,” says Mayo. “I’ll check my rose bushes tomorrow,” says Whiley as they stand up to leave the office. “I’ve cleared my diary for a day of gardening and that’s all I want to do.” “If you’ve got aphids, get some ladybirds,” counsels Mayo. Jo Whiley and Simon Mayo is on Monday—Friday at 5pm on Radio 2