The time has come to pick a side: are you pro-riff or anti-riff? Do you think that caution kills the riff? Would you wilfully step into the riff matrix and do your damnedest to see it through to the bitter end? In short, do you back the riff? This is what Producer Dave must decide. But he’s not the only one facing tough questions this week. Elis is confronted by his young son about a timing mishap that leaves him quoting Harold Wilson at his daughter in his pants. And John is left questioning wh...
Jul 01, 2025•1 hr 12 min
It’s a strange old time for Elis James. On the one hand he’s being called a thirst trap on the carra (the Instagram carousel, for those not in the know); people can’t seem to get enough of his floppy hair, his jawline, and his interesting t-shirts. On the other hand, he’s getting hammered for slagging off Belgium, and having some harsh words directed at him by one of TV’s greatest quiz hosts. What the sigma can he do!? But no worries, it’s Rodmas Day! He’s off to see Olivia Rodrigo, one of the m...
Jun 27, 2025•1 hr 6 min
There’s something drifting in on the air today. A funk. Criminality. Yes it seems to be bifta o’clock as John spots a doob roller on the tube. That, and it being the relaxfest which is Glastonbury, combine to see the hazy funk of ‘da ‘erb’ and its ensuing uncoolness discussed at length. Because simply put this is not how Britain will build back better. Elsewhere, Elis comes in today on a high. A cycling high. And that high isn’t from anything which Lance Armstrong might have partaken in. It’s ju...
Jun 24, 2025•1 hr 2 min
There’s some good upstanding British gear flying around today. Bin chat. Which bins? What goes in what? What blooming colours have you got? Show us your bins on [email protected] or WhatsApp on 07974 293 022. In less disposable content, there’s a right to reply from one of Colin’s holiday companions and he may have to be sent to prison for telling the truth. Plus there’s an absolute anxiety dream as John is forced to sit through playing the voice of DI Robbyns to someone from Cork. There’s b...
Jun 20, 2025•56 min
Elis James has become the story, and not for the right reasons. No matter how much he talks about ‘Zoe on the train’, there’s no doubt that our Cymru Connecting prodigy has lost his way. He’s in the Bobby Gould years. Today we attempt to correct his woeful form with some expert help. Colin makes a welcome return to proceedings as John shares more information about his holiday. Plus, there’s a belting taxi-based stag Shame, and everyone tries to work out who Alan Howard is. And remember, the pric...
Jun 17, 2025•1 hr 17 min
You can tell John’s been on holiday because he starts the show by giving a promotion to someone who doesn’t even work on the show. The mood is high. And he’s come back a new man. He’s Colin now. An even more chill and organised version of Johnny JR. He’s the opposite of pura vida - i.e. not the same as his travel companions, who included someone who lost their bank card before they set off and a second bank card before they returned. No surprises for who that could be. So expect a bumper John Wi...
Jun 13, 2025•58 min
William Wordsworth, Carol Ann Duffy… Tim Key. Just a few of the great poets this fair nation has produced. But there are two more names to add to the pantheon, two new kids on the block: Elis James and John Robins. Our heroes have picked up their pens (opened their laptops), unfurled their manuscripts (opened Word), and trawled their creative depths to write some verses that Shakespeare himself would be proud of. Why is poetry the order of the day you might be asking? Because the aforementioned ...
Jun 10, 2025•1 hr 4 min
After a week when John offered apology texts to Elis, Dave and the production team for being in a bad mood, he’s back to his Billy best. There’s a bright ray of sunshine in his heart and nethers which clears the studio air. No black eps today and Elis can leave the studio without an impending sense of worry. But there are challenges afoot for our hero, as he contends with holidaying with one whose administrative approach sits in bleak contrast to his own. Luckily he’s superchillathon, and amidst...
Jun 06, 2025•57 min
Wagon wheels, mushy pea hummus and baked bean daal. Move over Rick Stein, there’s new gastronomic broadcasters in town. Yes, food is the order of the day as the delectable George Egg rides into the studio to serve up a delicious Made Up Game for Elis and John. And the theme doesn’t stop there, for before you can say ‘Ready, Steady, Cook’ there's a longing for Great British puds and the question “why do chippies give you so many chips?”. In non-edible happenings will Elis continue to fail at conn...
Jun 03, 2025•50 min
It’s the TFI Late Review on the show as a night-time recording has Elis at his energetic peak. He's ready to throw a chair at a wall and also discuss the latest avant-garde Spanish melodrama. It’s a different vibe altogether, the boys don’t even know what day it is. But in such a circular audio environment, what even are days? We speak to the chattiest man in Wales - a pillar of the world accent community no less - and there is a real fear that Elis could be stealing John’s exercise thunder. Not...
May 30, 2025•45 min
Every week on this show you think that the last vestige of John’s weird past is revealed. You think there cannot be any more layers peeled back. And then bam(!), another one, as yet another aspect of intense Robins c.1994-2004 hits you smack in the face. This is one such episode. But don’t worry it’s not all too harrowing, for there’s a huge and extremely handsome surprise for Producer Dave, and a couple of absolutely top tier Mad Dads. Plus, Elis just simply needs to connect, as the words ‘Derb...
May 27, 2025•1 hr 3 min
There’ve been contrasting weeks for our two heroes. It’s a non-stop all anecdote premiere for Elis. For he has as follows… met Hugh Grant, attended Ken Clarke’s curry house, been to film screenings and had his greatest ever stag - apart from the one organised by John he stresses. *And* Mo Salah thinks he matters. John meanwhile has been asleep for half nine each night, talked about trauma and bought two sheds. We also have a guest who is perhaps the biggest mover and shaker in South Gloucestersh...
May 23, 2025•55 min
It’s official. Elis and John are the most listened to on demand radio programme amongst the Under 35s on BBC Sounds. This is huge. Finally the boys are appealing to a demographic that extends upwards to those could well be married with two children. Bringing 5 Live’s average age down from 57 to 55 was the aim. But they’ve overshot so far that it’s likely now pushing down to the cyber bullied generation. And to indicate just how willing the boys are to tailor their content to the next gen, here’s...
May 20, 2025•1 hr 11 min
He’s only gone and done it again. The serial winner himself, John Robins, the narrative bender, has won yet again. Despite not even really liking football, John just can’t help being John, and he's done something on the football pitch worthy of an end-of-tournament emotional BBC sports montage that makes Elis cry. If anything feels significant, this does. John’s footballing escapades are recounted with the help of friends of the show Annie McGrath and Rick Edwards, but there is debate about whet...
May 16, 2025•54 min
This show isn’t often one for big announcements. But today we park the trivialities. There’s not a mention of word games or credit scores in sight. For another obsession is about to take over the life of Johnny JR. It’s big. And it could complete his transformation from movement cynic to the Haile Gebrselassie of rural Bucks*. And Producer Dave is simply rubbing his hands together at the prospect of 11 months of ready baked content. Oh we’re busy bees today, because there’s also time to dip into...
May 13, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Young John Robins goes under the microscope as we learn some revealing things about his burgeoning adulthood; whilst other holidaymakers were making art around turtles and sunsets, what was a youthful Johnny JR focusing his attention on? When students were showing off their favourite books in their dorm rooms, what tomes was Robins proudly showcasing? All is revealed within. Other specimens to go under the proverbial podcast microscope in this episode are two belting accents. Yes, the newly bran...
May 09, 2025•1 hr 11 min
It’s been a fallow period for Mr Elis James. The one time leading light of Cymru Connecting has faltered. Boy wonder no more. With 5 failures in his past 6 outings, everyone is asking "has his star fallen?" Will he become like Adel Taraabt, a mere “the streets won’t forget” connector of unfulfilled promise? Today he tries to arrest the descent and rectify his mid-season slump. There’s a lot else flying around the show today as well. The ruthless competition of the Stockport kids entertainer is e...
May 06, 2025•1 hr 10 min
Who built John? We find out that it takes more than just a village/borough/nation to raise such a superhunk. He has an entire team behind him, like all of the top athletes of his generation. And not just any top athlete superhunk, but one on the verge of yet another birthday. With this year's birthday, Elis has pushed the present boat out even further than the standard BACS. John’s got more gifts coming out of his A than he does roulade, and they will no doubt be sweet and wreak yet more havoc o...
May 02, 2025•1 hr 8 min
“This question will have enormous ramifications for my mental health for the rest of my life.” It’s that sort of episode. Today is MASSIVE for Robins, as Producer Dave surprises him with a humdinger of a special guest. It's John's time to enjoy the fruits of 14 months worth of Made Up Games labour. But it’s not all about fruit - which, yes, could be deployed as a starter. It’s also an episode about mimicry and a tale regaled by Elis which will make your head sink deeper into your hands with each...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 7 min
John and Producer Dave are back from a high after John turned 2,000 revellers up to eleven with his problematic walk in music. Elis has questions but Robins simply adds so much value to live events. And he’s been adding his own energy to another live event - that of the singles night variety. And he sure did set the vibe by diving straight in with tube station facts as an ice breaker. The dating scene is perched on the lips elsewhere as there’s a fantastic suggestion from a listener about the be...
Apr 25, 2025•1 hr 1 min
You’ve probably heard it whispered on the train on your way into work. You’ve likely heard mutterings about it on the concourse at the football. And you’ve almost certainly heard your grandma claim it at Sunday dinner. Well, this episode confirms the rumours; no one else is doing this. Especially if by ‘this’ you mean an extensive chat about spare pants, an extraordinary insight into the ice cream van outside the BBC’s broadcasting hub, and an update on a boggle tournament. For this is a show th...
Apr 22, 2025•1 hr 22 min
We join our heroes during a telling off session, because someone is being a naughty boy. Has John eaten too much chocolate on the way in and he’s about to experience the mother of all choco crashes? Has Elis insisted that we scrap the proposed running order to talk instead about every conceivable permutation of the Nations League? Or could Producer Dave be the one in the firing line…? After the air has been cleared, it’s pumped full of excitement. Elis receives quite possibly the greatest bit of...
Apr 18, 2025•58 min
Acceptance is the word on everybody’s lips today, but it has different meanings for Elis and John. For John it’s a meaningful form of accepting things as they are in life. For Elis it’s about accepting that his wife Isy will never be interested in the Nations League. Both are valid, I'm sure you'll agree. Also getting in on the acceptance game is this week’s special guest, Harriet Kemsley, fresh from her appearance on Last One Laughing. Her form of acceptance centres around dating, and together ...
Apr 15, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Elis and Producer Dave are fresh from taking breaths of the night DJ’ing. The only two people on planet Earth to become hipper as they age. But Mixmag has it that Elis spent most of it seated. Because that’s what the top DJs do. Harris, Tong, Guetta, all from a seated position whilst sucking on Werther’s Originals. Yes Elis got a little bit tired bless him and John simply isn't willing to let him forget it. Elsewhere there’s 7 minutes of observational stand up which is hot to go to the nimblest ...
Apr 11, 2025•49 min
John’s managed to pick himself up after last Friday’s show. Well to a certain degree at least - thank the lord. But the collective vibe scale is nudged handsomely towards ‘winning’ as Elis has had one of his all time great days. Cycling? Check. Wales? Check. All time hero who laughs at every single one of his jokes? Check. So it’s all the fun of the fair today. The topics of ‘banning pranks’, ‘the greatest accents of the world’ and ‘how to pad out an autobiography” float around the apple bobbing...
Apr 08, 2025•1 hr
We’ve hit a low ebb. The show which won Best Entertainment Podcast at the British Podcast Awards just a few years ago is dredging the bottom of the barrel. That new low being production staff researching their credit scores ‘live’ on the show. Throw in a chat with an expert on credit ratings and it’s a wall to wall credit ball. And at such an ebb one would have thought it would lift the mood of Robins. This is him. Distilled Robins. But no. Rather, it’s broken him, because Dave has a 999 credit ...
Apr 04, 2025•1 hr
Huge news in Elis and John towers today, for Producer Dave bumped into the man, the myth, the Solero supper himself, Mr Tim Davie. Could he use this opportunity to pitch a brand new true crime podcast about dupes from Stockport who get sold fake shoes? Well that commission’s ripe for the taking if there’s a Magnum that goes the other way. Alongside yet more DG discussion Elis really thinks he should get into juggling, for some inexplicable reason, and we have a game which makes the greatest use ...
Apr 01, 2025•1 hr 3 min
The sun is shining, blossom is blooming and death and divorce are on the lips. Oh the joys of spring. For how is John going to bid farewell when he and his wheels go off to the great scrapheap in the sky? And how does the statistical likelihood of marriage breakup impact the need to draw cold hard financial lines in the sand? It’s all cheery stuff but amidst all that joy Elis has to bring the tone down by documenting one of his great weeks in North Macedonia with the venerable Eggy. (Think ‘scen...
Mar 28, 2025•47 min
Palin, Chalmers, Livingstone… Robins(?!). Yes, gliding into the show today is one of Britain’s greatest travellers. An adventurer unequalled in the 21st century. Because John has been on his once per 9 months short haul trip. Naples has experienced Robins, and he it. With such pizza consumption and the undoubted oscillation between ‘hungry’ and ‘full’, Elis struggles to believe that he can actually have been a laugh there. But filled with more pies than than all the ninja turtles combined, Robin...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 5 min
Tech problems aplenty behind the scenes, but none of you will notice until the boys bring immediate attention to it. No matter though because the mood is high, for John has not yet had his two squares of chocolate. And there’s a lot flying about today. Adrian gets intense about the length of forests and some of the finest fancy dress in the region abounds. Plus Elis has been on a historical coffee tour of London and it’s time for the final instalment of This Is Your Stand Up Life, where we uncov...
Mar 21, 2025•51 min
