In the final episode of this season I take a look back over the last 27 shows and include clips of each one. Thank you for all your support and for subscribing, I'll be back later in the year with more conversations and characters to share with you x Title track composed by Jerry Hyde and Nick Van Gelder, produced by Nick Van Gelder, keyboards by Kenny Dickenson, brass by Noel Langley, vocals by Sian O'Gorman. Audio Engineering by Sam Williams at Right Royal...

Chances are you won't have heard of Noel Langley. But you will have heard Noel Langley. One of the world's leading and most talented jazz musicians, indeed one of the world's leading and most talented musicians of any genre, Noel has performed with Elton John, Radiohead, George Michael, Amy Winehouse, Dionne Warwick, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, John Legend, Lionel Richie, Lou Reed, Art Blakey, Macy Gray, Billy Cobham, Mark Ronson, Diana Krall, Massive Attack, Georgie Fame Big Band, R...

This episode was originally released on paris based podcaster Fabrice Florent's Histoires De Mecs show, and he was kind enough to let me to share it here. He describes Histoires de Mecs (formerly The Boys Club) as a podcast that "questions today's guys about what it's like to be a guy on a daily basis and questions their definition of masculinity." And so that's where we go, with me in the hot seat for a change, looking at fathers, parenting, violence, anger, rites of passage, all wash...

If you've listened to this show before you'll be familiar with Sian O'Gorman, for it is she that provides the angelic vocal talent for the theme tune, recorded in the back of the van that is her gypsy home somewhere in Norfolk. I first met Sian by chance 6 or 7 years ago when she asked my neighbour who the person was with the doormat with the words 'fuck off' printed on it. I never imagined that such a doormat could have such a profound effect on my life, and in the years that have pass...

O’Byrne is standing at the corner of Ninth Avenue and 36th Street with a to-go cup in each hand and the hood of his sweatshirt pulled up. It’s six in the morning and very cold. He’s put on twenty pounds since I last saw him and could be a laborer waiting for the gate to open at the construction site across the street. Now that he’s out of the Army I’m supposed to call him Brendan, but I’m finding that almost impossible to do. We shake hands and he gives me one of the coffees and we go to get ...

Hmmmm... how best to describe Welsh actress Bettrys Jones? Known for her work at Shakespeare's Globe, the National Theatre, the Young Vic and Kneehigh to name but a few with productions of Wise Children, Hamlet, The Little Match Girl,The Tin Drum, Life of Galileo, We Want You to Watch, Edward II and War Horse, the TV series Skins and too many radio dramas to mention. Funny, bright, witty, thoughtful, cheeky, mischievous, sensitive, intelligent and strong, she's highly talented, an...

Shivam O'Brien is more than a friend, he's a brother, and like many brothers, sometimes there are misunderstandings and this deeply personal episode was the first time we had spoken in about 2 years, so what you're invited to listen to is the two of us reconnecting with a lot of laughter and a few tears after a long period of silence. Shivam is like no one else I've ever met. A deeply spiritual man with a giant personality to match, he's both blessed and cursed with a chronic and incura...

Claire Arrowsmith is my guest this week, raised in West Africa and Paris she was always destined to live outside of the box and in her role as an aid worker for the Red Cross she has spent time in North East Congo, Sudan, Syria and now Lebanon where she took time out to speak to me from Beirut. Last time I saw her was in Nepal where together we endured a massive 100 mph storm which spun me out but was just another day in the life of this humble, courageous and deeply caring woman. Her m...

Former arts editor and founding member of iconic 90's magazine Dazed & Confused, art curator, writer and consultant Mark Sanders played a key role in identifying the artistic revolution that was happening in London at the time and collaborated closely with Jake and Dinos Chapman, Barbara Kruger and Paul McCarthy. Here he takes time out to talk openly and frankly about his experiences with the sacred plant medicine Ayahuasca, fresh from a retreat in the UK this conversation was recorded ju...

Melissa Unger is a writer, artist, creative consultant and the founder & creative director of Seymour Projects, a not for profit, project-based collective committed to preserving human consciousness in an era increasingly dominated by technology, that envisions a future in which all human beings are aligned with their authentic selves and consciously creating their life experience while living harmoniously within a unified global community. And if that doesn't blow your mind I don't know ...

Scottish Iranian actor Nick Karimi is known for his work in Macbeth, An Oak Tree, and Everyman at the National Theatre in London and War Horse in London's West End. He's appeared nationally in The Arabian Nights, A Tale of Two Cities, Lardo, The Hairy Ape, Titus Andronicus, The Magic Flute, Damascus Aleppo, Game of Life, I Was a Beautiful Day, Outward Bound, The Fear of Breathing, The Double, The Pearlfisher, Nova Scotia, Mother Courage and her Children, Mountain Language, The Dead Fidd...

Aram Zarikian is a musician and teacher of creative technology at the Royal Academy of Music. That in itself is enough to impress me. Aram has worked internationally as a live and studio musician with various bands, orchestras and musical and theatre productions, appearing on stages of all sizes, as well as on radio and television. He’s been employed in management and promotion, has collaborated with many talented stage crews and sound engineers, and has booked a whole host of world-cla...

Nadège Nguyen is an actress and presenter of the Threads Radio Show. I'd never met her before we met to record this episode. A friend of a friend of friends, I'd seen an Instagram post she’d made about her struggles with mental wellbeing and was really impressed by her raw, unfiltered courage and willingness to break the societal taboos that routinely keep people silent and ashamed when they reach breaking point. What unfolded was a really energetic two hour Saturday morning conversati...

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary... Cecil Beaton famously said that and it's a clarion cry could be attributed to any one of my guests, and John Williams is no exception. A senior managing consultant at Deloitte he was set up for life until the day came when he could bare the beige existence no more and so&...

Lebanese activist and former child star Youmna Chamcham is the founder of Live Love Beirut, the NGO she started in 2012 to share, celebrate and help the beauty of Lebanon. A designer, artist, storyteller and musician, she defines the term 'digital nomad', dividing her time between Beirut, LA, New York, Paris and Greece whilst indulging her passion for creating online communities . Here she takes time out to speak with me from California about Live Love Beirut, her childhood...

Robert Crumb is a counterculture legend. Now aged 77 he remains a prolific artist who has contributed to many of the seminal works of the underground comix movement in the 1960s, including Zap Comix, the East Village Other and Weirdo , creating characters such as Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural and his cartoon strip Keep on Truckin' . In this episode he speaks openly about music, the 1960s San Francisco scene, his use of psychedelics and the ultimate backlash against his work that explored his...

Ma Anand Sheela was the spokeswoman of the Rajneesh movement (aka Osho movement) and star of the Netflix series Wild Wild Country. In 1986, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and assault for her role in the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack. As the personal secretary of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh from 1981 through 1985, she managed the Rajneeshpuram ashram in Oregon. In 1986, she pleaded guilty to attempted murder and assault for her role in the 1984 Rajneeshee bioterror attack.&nb...

Clive Hally taught art at Brynteg Comprehensive School in Bridgend, Wales for 36 years. During that time he sexually abused a great many pupils, one of whom was my friend Mark Woods who's courageous decision to go to the police lead to Hally finally being arrested at the age of 67. Mark, who is now 49, was a gifted and aspiring 15 year old artist when Hally first began abusing him , and the after effects of those traumatic experiences which went regularly on until he left school a...

Three brilliant thinkers - Professor Stephen Hopgood, Professor of International Relations, SOAS, University of London, Mai Hua, French Vietnamese Feminist philosopher and film director, and Stephen Price, Broadcast Advisor and Consultant, Journalist and Author join me in the midst of political mayhem as the world waits to see the outcome of the 2020 US election. Due to technical problems my end we actually recorded this conversation twice so this is our second meeting that I'm sharing ...

Here's a rare opportunity for you - a chance to sit in on a conversation between me and my therapist Amadis Cammell where we discuss absent fathers (his was cult film director Donald Cammell, creator of my favourite film of all time, the proto-gangster movie Performance, starring Mick Jagger) spirituality, ancestry, music, rock and roll, beatniks, mythology and dance. What more could you ask for? Amadis is a very cultured, eloquent, deep and fascinating man who solved the problem ...