Edith Bowman is joined by best-selling author Holly Jackson, whose Young Adult mystery crime series A Good Girl's Guide to Murder has been adapted into a TV series staring Emma Myers as the straight-laced amateur detective Pip. Comedian Nish Kumar is heading out on a new tour later this year 'Angry Humour from a Really Nice Guy', he joins Edith to tell her what makes him angry, (hopefully whilst being really nice about it). Rachel Parris is also going on tour soon, a musical comedy show called '...
Jun 06, 2026•36 min
Comedy writer Ben Elton's autobiography What Have I Done? tells the story of a career of comedy firsts, writing hit shows like Blackadder, The Young Ones and Upstart Crow. His love of words is legendary - as a small child his mother wouldn't let him speak til she was on her second cup of tea to braving the "Oxbridge tutorial" vibe of the Blackadder rehearsal room with Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson. Great Pottery Throw Down judge Keith Brymer Jones is a man so mad about pots they ca...
May 30, 2026•37 min
Recorded in front of an audience at this year's Hay Festival, Clive Anderson is joined by comedian Athena Kugblenu, celebrating failure with her second history book for children, History's Most Epic Fails. Comedian Robin Morgan bears all in his latest stand-up hour, Let's Overshare. Food writer Georgina Hayden's new book is Medesque: Everyday Recipes with Mediterranean Roots. Keith Cameron is the author of 168 Songs of Hatred and Failure: A History of the Manic Street Preachers, telling their st...
May 23, 2026•38 min
Best-selling historical novelist Conn Iggulden on influencers in the Roman Empire, why Emperor Nero wasn't entirely a baddie and why we have far more in common with ancient Romans than we think. The stand-up comedian Cally Beaton didn't get into comedy until she was in her 40s, but after a chance conversation with Joan Rivers, she left the boardroom for evenings telling funny stories from sticky stages at the back of pubs. She has plenty to say about career swerves. Emma Kenny is best known as a...
May 16, 2026•36 min
Ardal O'Hanlon's new book 'A Plot to Die For' is the first in a series of crime novels starring Finn O'Leary, the celebrity gardener who comes back to his small home town where it turns out things aren't quite so cosy. Ella Risbridger tells us why the maxim 'never met your heroes' absolutely does not apply to Nigella Lawson and comedian Kathy Maniura skewers a specific kind of male midlfe crisis in her show 'Cycling Man'. Music is from Jasmine Jethwa and Jim Moray. Presenter: Stuart Maconie Prod...
May 09, 2026•36 min
Its food, glorious food week on Loose Ends as new Masterchef host - the Irish restaurateur and chef Anna Haugh - joins Clive to talk about her chemistry with co-host Grace Dent, kitchen etiquette and the hierarchy of carbohydrates (spuds on top, of course). Potatoes just don't cut it for the comedian Phil Wang, who will always be a noodles-man. He's going on tour but has a number of foodie side hustles, including hosting the Great British Menu and judging "the slurpies" his award for best chines...
May 02, 2026•35 min
Comedian Chris Forbes is better known to many as Duncan AKA the other Murray brother, whose sketches with Judy Murray have tickled the nation. And thankfully they seem to have amused his fictional brothers too. Danielle Jam will be telling us what's the story in Balamory - she's joined the cast in the new series and is the nepobaby of the island, following in her dad's footsteps as village's latest resident inventor Ava Potts. From a sunny summer in London, to life as a Benedictine monk, Andrew ...
Apr 25, 2026•37 min
Alfie Boe's album Face Myself is his most personal yet, packed with original songs which let us get to know the man behind the music. He shares one of his new tracks. Comedian Paul Black has become a star of Scottish social media, with his viral videos reminding us that dads on holiday are all much the same no matter where they're from. His tour Cash Cow brings us more of the characters that people have come to love. Hannah Lavery's latest book Everything Everyday is a collection of poems that c...
Apr 18, 2026•36 min
Kiri Pritchard-McLean welcomes the actor and writer Ralf Little as he tours the country with the first ever stage adaptation of John le Carré's classic book The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Comedian Nina Gilligan joins us to talk about her new Radio 4 comedy special and her upcoming stand-up tour, Lemoncake. Actor Sam Riley is about to star in the new BBC romantic crime drama Mint. And we've music from Kansas-born preacher's son Will Brown, and Janet Devlin with her new single, co-written with...
Apr 11, 2026•36 min
Clive Anderson is joined by comedian Jen Brister, currentl touring her show 'Reactive', she's on a mission to see if she can chill out. Actor Giles Terera is starring in a new production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest at the Old Vic and best-selling novelist Jojo Moyes' latest book is 'We All Live Here'. Angélique Kidjo is back with her first new album in five years, inspired by her mother, it's called 'HOPE!!'. Tessa Rose Jackson performs from her album The Lighthouse. Presenter: Clive Ande...
Apr 04, 2026•36 min
Stuart Maconie is joined in Salford by master of mind control and psychological illusion Derren Brown who is currently touring his latest show 'Only Human'. Stand up Maria Shehata moved to the UK for love, but the course of true love did not run smoothly and the relationship ended soon after. She explores her decision in a new Radio 4 stand up special 'Maria Shehata is Wisdomless'. Alison Larkin turned her one woman show 'Grief … A Comedy into an unusual memoir that sees her guided by the presen...
Mar 28, 2026•36 min
Stuart Maconie soaks up Glasgow International Comedy Festival. He is joined by comedian Alana Jackson who went viral with her stories of Glasgow funerals, took home the prestigious So You Think You're Funny? award in 2024, and took time out of her line dancing schedule last year to enjoy a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival. Plus stand-up Sam Lake, who asks guests on his podcast - I've Had A Rosé, Let's Talk About Feelings - to join him on a deep chat with a beverage of their choice. But why...
Mar 21, 2026•36 min
Comic, Strictly winner and Live Comedy Day ambassador Chris McCausland joins Kiri Pritchard-McLean for a chat about siblings. Chris remembers pitched battles aged 11 with his then four year old sister over TV rights. Comedy cabaret duo Flo and Joan are sisters Rosie and Nicola Dempsey who do perform songs about slipping each other poison in their tea. But we think that's a joke. The Orielles too are a trio made up of the Hand-Halford sisters who bumped into guitarist Henry at a party aged 9 and ...
Mar 14, 2026•36 min
Clive Anderson is joined by The O.C star Mischa Barton who is in a new production of Double Indemity. And it's a double dose of murder and intrigue as we're also joined by best-selling crime writer Ava Glass with her new book 'The Hiding Season'. And from death to life, since we're very grateful comedian Emmanuel Sonibu survived his near fatal heart attack and is here to tell the tale in his stand up show 'Life After Near Death'. Squeeze are back with their first album of new material in 8 years...
Mar 07, 2026•37 min
Stuart Maconie talks to the Riot Women and In The Thick Of It actress Joanna Scanlan on her lastest project, Mercy - a dark comic thriller. Faye Tozer is perhaps best known as part of the crowd pleasing, hearts and flowers pop band Steps, but now she's joining the cast of Mean Girls the musical - what does she make of the world of queen bees and "plastics". Fascinating Aïda's Adèle Anderson on staying fierce and fabulous while on tour with Priscilla Queen of The Desert the musical without her ca...
Feb 28, 2026•37 min
Joining Stuart for this week's Loose Ends are... Comedian and actress Lucy Beaumont on the play that, 40 years ago, inspired her mum to become a writer. It also features a chip-eating Alsatian. Chef and broadcaster Gizzi Erskine with tales of members of The Damned being left with Courtney Love's baby. Comedian Alasdair Beckett-King on the good old days of landline phones and pop tarts. Jonny Balchandani, known to his huge social media following as the Bearded Plantaholic, tells us how he covertl...
Feb 21, 2026•37 min
Stuart talks to the award winning writer and composer of Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots - Tim Firth - about his latest stage creation, The Ladies Football Club. Can the man who got his break with a play about two yucca plants strike fresh gold with this tale of the women who began to play football whist working in Sheffield's munitions factories during World War I and end up playing to many thousands in a South Yorkshire women's league. Taskmaster and Mr Bigstuff star Fatiha El-Ghorri says she's...
Feb 14, 2026•36 min
Joining Clive this week are the actress and singer Keala Settle, who's starring in a newly re-imagined production of John Ransom Phillips' Mrs President. Presenter Michaela Strachan is heading off across the country with her show Not Just A Wild Life, to celebrate 40 years of her career in television. Comedian Ross Noble joins us mid-tour to delve into his Cranium of Curiosities. Star of stage and screen Melvyn Hayes brings along his new autobiography It Ain't Half Late Mum. And there's music fr...
Feb 07, 2026•39 min
Stuart Maconie is in Glasgow for the city's annual folk, roots and world music festival - Celtic Connections. He's joined by comedian Marcus Brigstocke, whose tour Vitruvian Mango sees him trying to figure out what it is to be a man, and why he feels like more of one when his wife asks him to reach something from a high shelf. Ashley Storrie will be chatting all about the new series of her award-winning BBC show Dinosaur. Autistic palaeontologist Nina is knee-deep in mud on an Isle of Wight dig ...
Jan 31, 2026•37 min
Joining Stuart for this week's Loose Ends are actor Nigel Havers, who tells us about his remarkable shepherd's pies and the sex appeal of Mrs Thatcher. Comedy writer and performer Rosalie Minnitt on how dreaming of cows and seeing moonlit owls doesn't bode terribly well. Comedian Mike Wozniak on how a luxuriant moustache can help balance out an underdeveloped lower face. And there's music from Dan Gillespie Sells, performing a song by his band The Feeling, and Liverpool's electro-pop trio Steali...
Jan 24, 2026•35 min
Stuart Maconie's tiptoeing the line between dark and light in this week's Loose Ends. When she won Strictly Jill Halfpenny got the highest ever score for her sequin studded jive, but there's not a glitterball to be seen in her latest role as the traumatised mum Eve in the dark psychological thriller Girl Taken, which also stars Alfie Allen as the creepiest teacher you'd never hope to meet. Ian Smith is a comedian who mines his own anxieties for his art - be that his Radio 4 series called "Ian Sm...
Jan 17, 2026•36 min
Joining Stuart Maconie for this week's Loose Ends are Professor Alice Roberts with her book Domination, which takes a deep dig into the heart of the Roman Empire. Comedian and poet Rob Auton is about to tour with his show CAN: The Story of a Man Called Can...he's here to tell us all he can about that. Actor Amir El-Masry is starring in the new film Giant as the boxer Prince Naseem Hamed, and he joins Loose Ends to talk technique, training and working with Pierce Brosnan and Sylvester Stallone. T...
Jan 10, 2026•33 min
Clive Anderson is joined in Glasgow by broadcaster and author Sally Magnusson, whose latest novel breathes new life into stories told to her as a child by her Icelandic father. She brings together modern day Orkney and the Norse myth of Hel in The Shapeshifter's Daughter. In 2017 Ray Bradshaw became the first comedian to perform simultaneously in English and in sign language. In his upcoming tour CODA, he returns to tales of his parents and the experience of growing up as A Child of Deaf Adults....
Jan 03, 2026•35 min
There's plenty of festive energy left with Stuart Maconie and guests in the Loose Ends twixtmas studio: Taskmaster champion Maisie Adams tells us how she got in touch with her previously hidden competition-demon on the show, her highly-flammable competition outfit and that nailbiting finish, as well as revving up for a new tour in 2026. ITV's hit drama Red Eye is back for a second season on New Year's Day and its star Jing Lusi tells us about reprising her role as the kickboxing DI Hanna Li. She...
Dec 27, 2025•37 min
Stuart Maconie presents the Loose Ends festive Christmas special, recorded in front of an audience in the BBC's Philharmonic Studio at MediaCity. King of the Christmas jumper, Gyles Brandreth brings his book 'Somewhere, A Boy And A Bear' - a biography of AA Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh. He regales us with stories of Christopher Robin and of a surprising encounter with a Rolling Stone. Carrie Grant tells us all about the book she's written with her husband David, 'Joy To The World', which explores t...
Dec 20, 2025•35 min
Clive Anderson is joined in Glasgow by My Mad Fat Diary actor Sharon Rooney. In her latest thriller series The Revenge Club she joins Martin Compston and Meera Syal in a cast of motley divorcees who want to get back at their exes. Jonathan Watson is back on the telly this Christmas when Two Doors Down returns. The neighbours of Latimer Crescent reunite for a special episode, as Beth and Eric dare to put their tree up a bit earlier than usual. Interior Design Masters winner Banjo Beale has filled...
Dec 13, 2025•35 min
Making lemonade from the lemons of life is the theme to this week's Loose Ends. The comedian Omid Djalili was so incensed by having his shows cancelled after 9/11 due to his Middle Eastern heritage that he devised a stand up tour called Namaste so he could let off steam as well as make us laugh. Elizabeth Day's How to Fail podcast is, ironically, a massive success but she says her latest novel - a darkly humorous political satire - draws on her own feelings of being an outsider. Neil Morrissey h...
Dec 06, 2025•41 min
Stuart Maconie welcomes Angie Le Mar to talk about appearing in her son Travis Jay's Radio 4 comedy Rum Punch. The actor Nabil Elouahabi talks about his role as the veteran explosives officer in the TV drama Trigger Point and comedian Phil Ellis is about to tour the country with his new show Bath Mat. He joins us to tell us why he's about to wipe the floor with his new show. And we've music from Seb Lowe and Glasgow's Goodnight Louisa, who perform their new single 'Drew Barrymore'. Presenter: St...
Nov 29, 2025•37 min
Loose Ends is cavorting among the snow-caps of Cumbria at the Kendal Mountain Festival this week. Chef d'Equipe Stuart Maconie reaches for the summit of chat with navigation from the adventurer and broadcaster Ben Fogle - celebrating twenty five years since he was Castaway on a remote Scottish island for the BBC reality TV show that he says is more relevant today than ever. The award-winning writer Sarah Hall provides forecasts as she describes the star of her new novel Helm - a personification ...
Nov 22, 2025•36 min
What's a Kentucky? Comedy legend John Lloyd is here to reveal all, in honour of the 42nd anniversary of his cult dictionary 'The Meaning of Liff', co-written with the much missed Douglas Adams, Jessica Swale is the writer behind the new Paddington musical and she tells us about her emotional first meeting with the bear. Jessica Valene stars as a woman on the edge in a new drama series, Summerwater. There's music from cabaret star Kit Green with her new album 'Four Letter Words' and alternative p...
Nov 15, 2025•37 min
