Amy Winehouse’s voice may have seemed unique - but you can sing just like her if you understand her influences. So says Emma Wright, whose musical journey began with an X Factor audition that sounded like Christina Aguilera, morphed into a Stars In Their Eyes contest in which she played Lady Gaga - and culminated in a fully-fledged career impersonating one of the most troubled and celebrated musical icons of recent times. Elsewhere this episode, in The Zeitgeist, Ollie Peart - whose Mum once cal...
Mar 07, 2017•37 min•Season 4Ep. 4
The story behind Baileys, the blockbuster booze brand, is unexpectedly lo-fi. It was invented not in Ireland but in London’s Soho, with ingredients purchased on impulse from a corner shop. David Gluckman was one of the creative team who, by mixing whiskey and cream, unwittingly spawned a new sub-category of drinks - Irish chocolate cream liqueurs - which went on to sell billions of bottles. In this interview, he tells Olly Mann how a disparaging focus group, some drinking policemen and a Jewish ...
Feb 28, 2017•42 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Artist, muse, socialite: when Daniel Lismore visits a nightclub, he charges THEM to host him. How did this quiet man from the Midlands become a fashion insider with countless celebrity contacts and an outrageous style that has strongly influenced London clubland? In this interview with Olly, he discusses how his battle with bulimia, his love of Star Trek and savvy use of social media has propelled him from his mum's dressing-up box to become a 21st Century 'It-Boy'. Daniel's book of extraordinar...
Feb 21, 2017•45 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Raising $1m in venture capital whilst still at Uni; starting a business seemed like child's play for James Routledge. His start-up attracted 50m page views per month, and his investors believed he could be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Except, beneath the surface, he felt stressed, isolated and alone - and his business was burning £30,000 per month. In this honest and compelling interview with Olly, he explains what happened next. James is now co-founder of mental health start-up Sanctus. You can fi...
Feb 14, 2017•53 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Comedians Tom Price and Stuart Goldsmith are facing up to daddy decisions: how to rescue their respective relationships from a world of 'guilt-tennis', how much TV to allow their sons to watch, and exactly how best to celebrate a one year-old's birthday... In this funny and frank discussion, they reunite with fellow father Olly Mann to offer up advice on Baby Sign Language, front-facing papooses, and how to make a fiddle-board. Elsewhere in this season finale, Ollie Peart offers up some trends f...
Jan 03, 2017•45 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Pantomime: the most peculiarly British of festive entertainments. Each year, we Brits gather the family together to watch the same old stories. To cheer at the hero, hiss at the baddies, and watch a bloke in drag doing the same call-and-response routines that have enraptured crowds since the days of music hall. Why? ERIC POTTS is a maestro of the genre. As head writer for First Family Entertainment, he churns out ten panto scripts per year, and even finds time to play the Dame in one of them. In...
Dec 20, 2016•53 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Gary Connery is a Hollywood stunt-man. He's played them all: Harry Potter, Sherlock Holmes, Indiana Jones. But it's for his role as Queen Elizabeth II, parachuting out of a helicopter in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games, that he will truly go down in history. In this interview with Olly, he recounts how it felt to be standing on the edge of that helicopter, knowing that more than 40 million people worldwide were about to watch his stunt - live. And he reveals some tricks of ...
Dec 13, 2016•51 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Amanda Hone has a 'hobby that got out of hand': traversing the UK, visiting myriad miscellaneous landmarks designated by brown signs. In this interview, she explains to Olly how an initial visit to an otter and owl sanctuary made her put down her phone, take the road less travelled and discover the quirky attractions around her - and enthuse others to do the same. In the spirit of 'brown-signing', Olly then takes a trip of his own: to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, where curator Tim Arno...
Dec 06, 2016•51 min•Season 3Ep. 7
What's it like to be radicalised? How do young British men set out to murder their fellow citizens in the name of 'jihad'? And, once committed to that course, can there ever be a route back? Former extremist Adam Deen spent much of his youth as a member of Al-Muhajiroun, the notorious terrorist organisation lead by Omar Bakri Muhammad. For years he believed in the foundation of a UK Islamic state, and was prepared to participate in whatever course of action his leader said was necessary to achie...
Nov 29, 2016•55 min•Season 3Ep. 6
‘Productivity’ is a term that gets tossed around a lot: you should be more productive at work; the nation needs to be more productive in general... But what does it actually mean? There are only so many hours in the day - are there really life hacks that can help us make better use of the limited time we have to boost our output in the workplace AND lead happier lives? One man who knows is Chris Bailey - in a series of experiments upon himself, he spent a year trying out productivity techniques ...
Nov 22, 2016•38 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Down on his luck, and under pressure to maintain his lifestyle, Radcliffe Royds decided to rob a bank. In this incredible interview, he tells Olly his story. It’s a tale of extreme highs and lows, brutal honesty and dark humour. Meanwhile, Ollie Peart has decamped to Lisbon for the 2016 Web Summit - an orgy of start-ups and self-promotion. In this week’s Zeitgeist, he ponders whether laundry services might be the next sector to fall foul of disruptive technology, why Silicon Valley buzzwords are...
Nov 15, 2016•46 min•Season 3Ep. 4
The RNLI lifeboats don’t just save lives at sea - they also rescue people on rivers. London’s Thames is teeming with party-boats, where drunken misadventure can lead to injury. Meanwhile, troubled ‘jumpers’, suffering from poor mental health, all too often consider suicide by plunging into its depths. If you ever find yourself in such a situation, Amber Bowie may be the woman who comes to your rescue. In this interview with Olly, she explains how cold water shock can render you senseless, why wa...
Nov 08, 2016•40 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Dr Guy Meadows, founder of The Sleep School, is a man on a mission. He wants you to sleep better. Not just if you're one of the 30% of Brits who will, at some point, experience insomnia - but also if you're one of the remaining 70%, who will, inevitably, spend some nights struggling to get some shut-eye, staring at the ceiling and wishing you were somewhere else. In this interview with Olly Mann, Guy reveals his tips for changing your mind-set when your brain is racing around and keeping you awa...
Nov 01, 2016•42 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Frank Evans, 74, is a working bull-fighter who lives in Marbella. In this extraordinary interview, he tells Olly how he discovered the controversial sport on holiday in Spain; how a copy of To Be A Matador by Henry Higgins inspired him to 'give it a bash' - and how, with virtually no training at all, he found himself facing death in the ring in Montpellier. Now known as 'El Ingles', Frank sticks out in the sport not only due to his age and English roots, but also because he believes bullfighting...
Oct 25, 2016•44 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Modern-day hermit Daniel Pike is, technically, homeless - but he does have a home, which he built himself, in woodland near Watford. He made it from clay and reclaimed wood, and it's amazing. Now, the landowners want to evict him. In this extraordinary interview, Olly Mann travels to Daniel's hut to learn how he came to be living outdoors - and why he doesn't want to forage for mushrooms any more... Elsewhere this week, Ollie Peart investigates giant spider robots, new emoji symbols and SodaStre...
Jun 07, 2016•51 min•Season 2Ep. 10
What makes you buy a product? The look? The smell? The layout of the store? In today's cut-throat business world, none of that is left to coincidence: behavioural science is influencing the design of high street shops, supermarkets and online emporiums alike. In this episode, Olly meets consumer psychologists Reece Akhtar and Dr Dimitrios Tsivrikos from University College, London and learns how we consumers are manipulated into buying stuff we don't want or need because retailers are cleverly ap...
May 31, 2016•48 min•Season 2Ep. 9
How did Rory Reid get his dream job, presenting one of the biggest TV shows on Earth? Despite many years as a motoring and tech journalist, he had only a few months to adjust to flying around the world driving supercars. In this world exclusive interview, he tells Olly Mann how he prepared for his BBC screentest, and why a rap video may just have secured him the gig; reacts to his treatment by the British tabloids, and explains why he has some sympathy with Jeremy Clarkson... Also this week, Oll...
May 24, 2016•46 min•Season 2Ep. 8
How should you behave in a 'gentleman's club'? Stripper Edie Licious should know - from grinding the stage at super-sized American strip bars to working the pole in humble East End pubs, she's played 'em all. In this frank and funny interview, she tells Olly how nightclubs milk money from hapless drunk punters who pay 'VIP', explains why erotic dancing can still sometimes be erotic, and considers her future in the industry now that she's fallen in love. You'll never not tip a stripper again. Als...
May 17, 2016•50 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Is your smartphone spying on you? Just how secure is the dark web? And is your 'Private Browsing' time actually, you know... private? Buzzfeed's James Ball was just 23 when Julian Assange thrust a USB stick with nearly 400,000 confidential Iraqi war logs into his hands. In this episode he shares with Olly his top tips for conducting conversations, managing documents and meeting associates whilst avoiding unwanted surveillance. If you'd like to try James' 'Location Services' trick on your iPhone,...
May 10, 2016•41 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Comedians Stuart Goldsmith and Tom Price reunite with Olly Mann to compare notes, three months after all spawning sons. What has having a baby done to their time management, sleep routines and sense of self-worth? Which gadgets would they recommend to future dads? And is there such a thing as male post-natal depression? Meanwhile, in The Zeitgeist, Ollie Peart learns French via his smartphone, discusses Radiohead's temporary disappearance from the internet, and the trend for 'dentist beards'. An...
May 03, 2016•48 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Imagine designing rollercoasters for a living. That's what Bradley Wynne, lead creative artist at Merlin Magic Making, gets to do. A life-long adrenalin junkie, he's now heading up the team for Thorpe Park's biggest ever launch, Derren Brown's Ghost Train. Find out how sounds, smells and touch can enhance the experience of riding a rollercoaster; how the fallout from the tragedy on The Smiler has affected the theming process, and how Bradley used a very boring interest in planning application da...
Apr 25, 2016•43 min•Season 2Ep. 4
How DO you make the perfect cup of coffee? Do you grind? Do you press? Do you froth? One man who knows is 'Coffee Masters' champion Ben Morrow, of Melbourne-based coffee roasters St. Ali. In this episode, Olly meets him at Hackney Coffee Company to discuss how to buy coffee, how to prepare it, and how to capture the essence of a Columbian farm in a cup... Meanwhile, in The Foxhole, Alix Fox suggests what to do when your partner has a latex fetish - but you're highly allergic to it. If you have a...
Apr 19, 2016•41 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Photojournalist Alison Baskerville was serving in Iraq when she began documenting the lives of her fellow soldiers. She now independently produces astonishing images from the front line across the world, including Afghanistan, Mali, Israel/Gaza and the Philippines. In this episode, she tells Olly about the moments on basecamp that embedded journalists never get to see, the best way to pack to prepare yourself for a warzone, and why she needed to leave the armed forces to gain objectivity. Elsewh...
Apr 12, 2016•44 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Charlie Gilmour dangled from the Cenotaph during the student protests of 2010, and became tabloid enemy #1. Now he's a writer and, since being scouted at a Xmas party, a male model. In this episode, he reveals to Olly what it takes to make Paris Fashion Week in 2016, how to work on your 'walk', and where models hide their drugs... Elsewhere in what would, if only we were American, be our 'season premiere', Ollie Peart returns with The Zeitgeist - and considers the politics of fear, The West Corn...
Apr 05, 2016•49 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Shaun Attwood survived a 9½ year sentence in America's deadliest prison. He tells Olly Mann his sensational story, from Liverpool to Phoenix, from his initial career playing the stock market to the millions he earned trading ecstasy for the fledgling 90's rave scene in Arizona, in competition with the Mafia mass murderer Sammy the Bull Gravano. In The Zeitgeist this week, Ollie Peart looks forward to the trends of 2016 - from the release of Oculus Rift to the return of silent film - and, in The ...
Dec 29, 2015•50 min•Season 1Ep. 10
What's it like being Santa Claus? In our Christmas Spectacular episode, Olly meets actor Nigel Harvey, who makes a living playing Father Christmas all year round, and hears about the highs and lows of life in that iconic red-and-white outfit. Meanwhile, at the invitation of listener Paul from ice cream cafe Cloud 9, the rest of the team have decamped to Brighton, where Ollie Peart considers Tim Peake's Christmas in space, and Alix Fox presents us with her Christmas-wrapped selection of the year'...
Dec 22, 2015•36 min•Season 1Ep. 9
What if your first bet kickstarted a cycle of addiction that saw you flutter away over £10,000 in the bookies before your 20th birthday? Olly Mann meets Matt Zarb-Cousins to find out. Matt frankly confronts the nature of addiction, the changing face of the British high street and how a life can fall apart when the stakes are raised. Meanwhile, Ollie Peart is, like everyone else, contemplating the return of 'Serial'. Can the new season possibly compete with the first; the most successful podcast ...
Dec 15, 2015•49 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Dating guru Hayley Quinn reveals her 5 principles of approaching a partner, and her thoughts on the industry of 'pick-up artists'. Olly Mann asks: in this age of Tinder, Grindr, no-strings sex and fourth-wave feminism... How do you find someone you want to be with, what do you say to them once you meet them, and where do you take them for a drink? Also this week, Ollie Peart delves into The Zeitgeist to consider Mark Zuckerberg's financial planning, Bill Murray's Netflix special, and whether you...
Dec 08, 2015•41 min•Season 1Ep. 7
How do you get work as a film extra, how much do you get paid - and how do you kill time when you have to spend all day with Britney Spears? Olly Mann meets Dr Chay Allen - an art historian who paid his way through his phD by working as an extra on shows including 24 and Downton Abbey, and films including The Dark Shadows and Skyfall, to answer these questions, and more. Meanwhile, in The Zeitgeist, Ollie Peart - himself struck down with S.A.D - applauds a novel approach to Black Friday, loses y...
Dec 01, 2015•37 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Comedians Stuart Goldsmith and Tom Price join Olly Mann to discuss their impending fatherhood, from the impact it will have on their respective relationships, to the pitfalls of NCT classes and the lack of support society appears to offer men embarking upon their first baby. They also make some bad taste jokes. Meanwhile, in The Zeitgeist, Ollie Peart spends big bucks on Bux, suggests some inventive new names for David Cameron's plane, and reflects upon the death of FHM. And, down The Foxhole, o...
Nov 24, 2015•49 min•Season 1Ep. 5
