Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Television Times with Steve Otis Gunn

Ciarán O’Keeffe was 13 when he phoned Columbia University after seeing Ghostbusters to ask if their parapsychology department was real. They said no. He became a parapsychologist anyway. Welcome to this year’s Halloween special.

Dr. Ciarán O’Keeffe is a parapsychologist, psychologist, and author, known for his work on Most Haunted and Uncanny, and as Head of the Department of Psychology at Buckinghamshire New University. He is also the man who invented the name “Kreed Kafer” to test Derek Acorah on live television.

• How Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World, Rent-A-Ghost, and Sapphire and Steel quietly shaped a career in parapsychology — and the burnt-down pig farm where he did his first ghost hunt at the age of seven
• The bed in the wrong room — the very first Most Haunted investigation, the moment Derek Acorah gave incredibly accurate information about completely the wrong object, and why, for Ciarán, that was the end of any doubt
• How he invented “Kreed Kafer” — an anagram of Derek Faker — fed it to Derek Acorah as a spirit name, and watched it come out of Acorah’s mouth live on television
• Walking down Bold Street in Liverpool every single day, hoping the famous time slip would happen to him — despite not believing in it

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A quick bonus episode to say hello from Leeds. It’s a short, scruffy little check-in, a bit of an interim chat between the repeats you’ve been getting and the brand new episodes, which begin at the end of this month.

I just wanted to pop my head round the door, say hi, and let you know how things are going. It’s not a full-blown episode, more a cup of tea and a natter before Television Times comes back with fresh material.

There’s also a song at the end, because why not.

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In this repeat transmission, Danny Robins chats about how he became Britain's go-to ghost expert by accident — and now he can't get rid of them.

Danny Robins is a British writer, broadcaster and playwright known for creating and hosting the BBC's Uncanny podcast and TV series, and for writing the acclaimed West End play 2:22 A Ghost Story. His work bridges comedy and the supernatural in ways that manage to be both funny and genuinely unsettling.

• How a comedy writer became the UK's most trusted voice on unexplained phenomena — and when the fascination really took hold
• What started as a podcast and became a BBC TV series, live tours, and a book
• The unsettling film that influenced his signature look — and the surreal experience of being interviewed by The Guardian as Basil Brush
• As a Halloween Bonus: Clinton Baptiste pops in to talk theatre ghosts, plus an excerpt from Steve's Edinburgh show featuring his own spine-tingling tale

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In this repeat transmission, Bernie Clifton chats about how he once flew in a Cold War bomber to a football match, took Oswald the Ostrich up in a microlight for a newspaper stunt, and was featured on Inside No. 9. It's been quite the ride.

Bernie Clifton is a British comedian and entertainer with a career spanning decades, beloved for his warmth, wit and prop comedy — including television appearances on 321, Crackerjack, and It's a Royal Knockout.

• The unexpected path from early ambitions through a brief RAF detour to the comedy stage
• The encouragement from Bob Monkhouse and Les Dawson that helped shape his now-iconic style
• How Oswald the Ostrich came into existence — and the surreal moment he took it up in a microlight
• What decades of live performance reveal about audiences, stamina, and why comedy endures

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In this repeat transmission, Graham Fellows talks about how he accidentally became Jilted John, accidentally became John Shuttleworth, and has spent several decades building one of the most quietly inventive careers in British comedy — largely by following things to see where they go.

Graham Fellows is a British actor, comedian, and musician best known for creating Jilted John and John Shuttleworth. As Jilted John, he scored a late 70s hit that thrust him into the spotlight; as Shuttleworth, he developed one of British comedy's most beloved characters — a middle-aged suburban man with a deep love of music technology and dry wit.

• How John Shuttleworth came into existence following a publishing deal — and then refused to leave
• What appearing on Top of the Pops in the early 80s was actually like
• The shifting world of 1980s and 90s television — Saturday Night Zoo, The Paradise Club, and what that era made possible for comedy
• Why following an accidental creation wherever it leads is a more reliable creative strategy than planning

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In this repeat transmission, Terry Christian talks about how he hosted one of the most exciting and controversial shows in British television history, survived everything it threw at him, and has been telling the truth about it ever since.

Terry Christian is a pioneering British television presenter, comedian, and author best known for his iconic role on The Word — the groundbreaking Channel 4 show that pushed boundaries and left a lasting mark on 90s broadcasting.

• What it was really like inside The Word — the chaos, the creativity, and the bits nobody planned
• The wild behind-the-scenes encounters with the famous and infamous, including the unforgettable Oliver Reed
• What it takes to stay true to yourself when the cameras are rolling, and the stakes are high
• What British television in the 90s looked like from the inside — and why nothing has quite replaced it

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In this repeat transmission, Sam Simmons shares his strong opinions about Come Dine With Me, Celebrity Big Brother, and the global standing of Australian sitcoms — and delivers all of them with the kind of sideways energy that makes everything funnier than it should be.

Sam Simmons is an Australian comedian, actor, and writer known for his surreal humour and absurdist style, with a career spanning multiple continents and credits including Last One Laughing Australia and multiple Edinburgh Fringe runs.

• Why Come Dine With Me and Celebrity Big Brother have become such enduring fixtures in modern pop culture — and what that says about us
• The state of Australian sitcoms and why they've yet to fully break through on the global stage
• The creative impulses behind his comedy — and how he leans into chaos, imagination, and unpredictability
• What the best absurdist comedy refuses to explain — and what happens to audiences when it doesn't

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In this repeat transmission, Nick Helm explains how he's made getting things spectacularly wrong into one of his most consistent creative strategies — and it's won him an Edinburgh Comedy Award, a British Comedy Award, and a Chortle Award along the way.

Nick Helm is a British comedian, actor, and writer known for his bold, high-energy performances and dark humour, with a distinctive style that blends absurdity with emotional depth across stand-up, television, and film.

• Why the risks worth taking on stage are the ones that terrify you the most
• What really goes on behind the scenes of creating television and film
• How failure has been one of the most important and underacknowledged forces in his career
• Why embracing the possibility of getting it spectacularly wrong is a more reliable creative strategy than playing it safe

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In this repeat transmission, Jarred Christmas explains how he has been navigating the comedy industry long enough to know that the only constant is that everything keeps changing — and has built a career on being good enough to keep up with it.

Jarred Christmas is a comedian, actor, and writer originally from New Zealand, known for his sharp humour and charismatic personality across stand-up comedy and television.

• Why evolving as a performer is less of a choice and more of a survival strategy
• How balancing family life with creative work changes the kinds of projects you take on
• Why comedy can be used to engage with serious social issues — and when that works and when it doesn't
• What resilience in a creative career looks like when the industry keeps shifting under you

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In this repeat transmission, Paul Foot explains why he has strong feelings about Heinz baked beans, finds genuine comfort in the image of Judy Murray orbiting the Earth, and once had Keith Chegwin turn up in a conversation in a way that's difficult to fully explain. A completely normal episode.

Paul Foot is a British comedian and writer renowned for his offbeat and surreal comedic style, with a career spanning stand-up, television, and radio, and a loyal fanbase drawn to his entirely unique comic voice.

• The figures and ideas that spark his imagination — and the strange places they end up taking the material
• Why the image of Judy Murray orbiting the Earth is, in context, genuinely comforting
• A surprisingly passionate critique of Heinz baked beans — and the conviction with which it's delivered
• Why comedy that doesn't try to be relatable can be more connecting than comedy that does

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In this repeat transmission, Derren Brown explains how he's spent his career making the impossible seem plausible, and the plausible seem impossible — and has strong feelings about a particular spatula, which is somehow equally interesting.

Derren Brown is a master illusionist, mentalist, and bestselling author renowned for performances that blur the line between magic, psychology, and human perception, and for a career spent pushing the boundaries of what audiences think they know about their own minds.

• What a career built on the gap between what people believe and what's actually happening has taught him
• The craft of magic — and why suggestion and storytelling often matter more than technique
• A youthful shoplifting confession at Harrods — and how he frames it now
• Why the unreliability of memory is one of the most fascinating and unsettling things about being human

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In this repeat transmission, Dom Joly talks about how he invented a format, watched it become a global phenomenon, spent years explaining why the American version wasn't quite the same thing, and has since investigated the conspiracy theory that Finland might not exist.

Dom Joly is a British comedian, broadcaster, and author best known for Trigger Happy TV, and for a career that has expanded into travel writing and conspiracy theory investigation.

• The creative risks behind Trigger Happy TV — and how something that simple became so influential
• What happened when the format travelled internationally, and why translation is always more complicated than it looks
• The misunderstood moments in his career — including This is Dom Joly and why he still wants to talk about it
• His time on Celebrity Island with Bear Grylls — what he expected and what happened
• Why conspiracy theories are more interesting as a subject than their believers

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Matt Reed believes Newcastle has one of the best comedy audiences in the country. He's also still recovering from Allo Allo and Watership Down, in roughly equal measure.

Matt Reed is a comedian and co-host of the comedy podcasts This Tastes Funny and Mother's Ruin.

• Why the North East is the most joyously funny region on the planet — and why Bill Bryson got off the train at Durham just to prove it
• Why Watership Down traumatised an entire generation more effectively than anything modern horror has managed since
• The fascination of seeing Jaws as a child, then seeing The Shark Is Broken on stage as an adult — and the brilliant on-set stories about Bruce the mechanical shark
• Why Top of the Pops needs to come back — with fewer dodgy presenters, more live performances, and everyone miming badly just for fun

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Jake Donaldson was once a teenage street magician, and this year he's weaving parts of his old magic act into his Edinburgh Fringe show

Jake Donaldson is a comedian and writer known for his groundbreaking comedy shows, including Spectacle, which explores his visual impairment.

• How performing card tricks for on the streets of Newcastle as a teenager led him toward comedy — and why magic and stand-up are closer cousins than people think
• Growing up with Victoria Wood as a comedy hero, and what it taught him about gender and power
• Why he resisted the word 'disabled' for years — and how that became Spectacle, a show all about his eyesight
• The CBT motorbike test that he somehow passed despite crashing the bike mid-test

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Andrew P. Stephen and Steve Otis Gunn have been friends since 2001, toured India together with The Woman in Black, and recently Andrew toured China performing Shakespeare.

Andrew P. Stephen is a British actor whose career spans decades of theatre touring and recent screen work, including Apple TV+'s Silo and the horror thriller Dark Game.

• The day trip to the Taj Mahal that broke down on the way back — a minibus, an open sewer, a man with a big spanner, and a director who nearly fainted after the ordeal.
• Smoking cigars in a high-rise Singapore hotel and playing billiards in Raffles.
• Woman in Black in India: stagehands eating samosas in the wings, the ghost unable to get through the auditorium, and the company manager holding the door shut.
• Andrew in China touring Shakespeare — including an unrehearsed performance in front of 5,000 people.

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Megan Lockhurst is back on the podcast with plenty to catch up on. Fresh from her parents' 50th wedding anniversary in Mexico, she's been busy with auditions, filming, and a growing list of projects.

Megan Lockhurst is a Canadian actress based in the UK, who recently starred in Murder at the Highland Manor, appeared in Havoc, and continues to build an impressive career on both sides of the Atlantic.

• The commercial audition she went to at 16 — a long trip to Toronto, hours of waiting around, and a memorable introduction to the realities of casting
• Murder at the Highland Manor — what it's like to lead a TV movie, and read reviews of your own performance
• Why social media feels completely unnatural to her, regardless of the necessity to engage
• Why elevators can be the scariest places of all

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A 50-degree heatwave, a rusty shower in a converted Indian palace, a chilli that nearly took Tony's face off, and a moped chase through Vientiane — this is the unaired adventure stories collection, and it's about as un-PC as the podcast gets.

Television Times Presents: Adventure Stories Vol. 1, a full-length episode pulled together from unused travel story segments recorded during the show's brief run as All My Clothes Need Burning. Steve is joined by his friend Tony P for stories that didn't quite fit the regular format — and some that probably shouldn't fit any format.

• Delhi, 1999: rickshaw scams, a hedgerow hideout, and a tale that's hard to look good in
• The converted Indian palace with two showers in one room, one producing nothing and the other producing pure rust — and the brine-pickled chilli that nearly demanded a second toilet
• A local "currency collector" on the road to a shipyard inspection
• A moped chase through Vientiane after two masked men on a scooter sliced off Steve's wife's bag, followed by an encounter with a police officer who tried to fine them for reporting the crime

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Following the news of Keir Starmer's resignation, I wanted to jump on the mic and share a few thoughts on why these moments feel like television events in their own right, especially after seeing that bloody lectern again!

I also look back at my brief involvement in Labour politics during the 2010 leadership contest and recount my own encounter with Andy Burnham. Having met various political figures over the years, I explain why I think Burnham could make a compelling future Prime Minister.

This isn't a political podcast, and it certainly isn't a conventional bonus episode, but when the nation's eyes are glued to the screen and history is unfolding live on television, it feels very much in the spirit of Television Times.

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Cal was doing impressions in the playground before he knew it could be a job, appeared on Britain's Got Talent (twice), and is currently touring a show featuring 100 impressions in 60 minutes — and if you catch him at the Edinburgh Fringe, you'll get 101!

Cal is a comedian, impressionist, and pantomime regular from the North East, known for his appearances on Britain's Got Talent and a magnificent touring show that is exactly what it says on the tin.

• How Robin Williams in Mrs Doubtfire made him realise that doing voices could be a job
• Why learning an impression is easier now than ever — and conversely, why finding someone worth impersonating is harder than it's ever been
• Why Jeremy Vine is more fun to impersonate than Piers Morgan, and why mimicking Donald Trump is the exception to every rule
• Why, if you were famous in the 70s, you're famous forever — and why those names still get a bigger reaction than anyone who went viral last week

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Meka Mo grew up in Queens, worked on Wall Street, watched the Miracle on the Hudson happen from her office window, lost a South London church basement crowd the moment she swore in front of some Jamaican grandmas, and has never once been pickpocketed anywhere in the world. She's been navigating cultural minefields ever since — and making it look easy.

Meka Mo is a New York City-based comedian, host of the emotional wellness comedy podcast We're Done Here, and a regular on the international comedy circuit. Her new show, New York City Dreams, will be playing at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.

• Why performing internationally means constantly working out which jokes travel and which ones don't
• Why she's never been pickpocketed anywhere in the world — and the flatmates who kept getting robbed in London
• The Columbus Day joke that went badly in Las Vegas
• Watching the Miracle on the Hudson happen in real time from her office window on Wall Street.

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Get tickets for Meka's Edinburgh Fringe show here: NewYorkCityDreams

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Steve returns to the microphone to explain why his brief podcast rebrand has already been abandoned, why Television Times is back, and what he learned from watching listener numbers dwindle.

In this short bonus episode, he talks honestly about burnout, second-guessing three years of work, and the surprisingly emotional experience of trying to rename something that people already know and trust.

• Why the rebrand to All My Clothes Need Burning lasted only a handful of episodes before being reversed
• The listener reaction that convinced Steve he'd made a mistake — and the awkward task of re-editing episodes and contacting guests
• What three years and 120+ episodes have taught him about podcasting, branding, and knowing when to stop fighting your audience

Plus, an adventure story from Thailand in 1999 featuring malaria tablets, questionable holiday hair braiding, and a brief encounter with the Thai police that could have gone very differently.

Normal service resumes shortly. Television Times is back, and Steve will now try to refrain from starting any more unnecessary rebrands.

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Dewey Gaedcke was in Hawaii as a last-minute concierge favour when a friend told him about a volcano worth seeing at night. Five days later, he was rescued by a teenager in a tourist helicopter. The park service had already told his family he was probably dead.

Dewey Gaedcke is known for surviving one of the most extraordinary ordeals in recent memory — five days lost on a remote lava field in Hawaii without water, proper footwear, or any idea where he was.

• The small decisions that compounded into a survival situation — an hour-and-a-half hike, a pair of jogging shoes, and no water
• What it actually feels like to be lost with no landmarks, no path, and no signal
• How he kept himself alive in conditions that should have killed him
• The footage he recorded for his daughters in case he didn't make it
• How a teenager in a tourist helicopter found him after the park service had already told his family to prepare for the worst

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John Scott has been doing stand-up since 1999, accidentally said "Brexit" at a Yorkshire corporate full of insurance folk, co-wrote a Japanese animated drama, and once did a gig in Budapest that he's fairly certain was arranged for the Russian mafia. He also wants to go back in time and hang out with Bowie in Berlin, but then again, who doesn't?

John Scott is a comedian, scriptwriter, and host of The Scottish Sweary News, known for his sharp, laid-back delivery and a career that has taken some genuinely unexpected turns.

• The Budapest gig — flown in, flown out the same night, performing to a room full of salespeople who were, he strongly suspects, selling to some very dodgy people indeed
• Walking on stage at a corporate event and saying the one word he'd told himself not to say
• How a pandemic freelancing site led to co-writing a Japanese animated drama — and what it taught him about storytelling
• How The Scottish Sweary News started as an accident — and suddenly gained thousands of followers
• Why he's stepped back from the Edinburgh Fringe — and why he thinks it stopped being a viable career step a long time ago

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Seymour Mace spent time as a clown in Japan, did a Fine Art degree during COVID, built a potter's wheel in his back garden, got a first, and somewhere in the middle of all that did some stand-up. He's fine.

Seymour Mace is a British comedian and actor known for his surreal, offbeat humour and cult status on the UK comedy circuit, best recognised for his role in the BBC series Ideal.

• How he ended up working as a street clown in Japan in the '90s — and how he nearly stayed on as Big Bird at Tokyo Disneyland
• What doing a Fine Art degree during lockdown taught him about creativity — and why the education system quietly beats it out of most people
• Comedy courses and clown schools — why Seymour thinks the best training is just being around funny people and working out why they're funny
• The freedom of not chasing fame, and why, with no mortgage or anyone to answer to, he's essentially living like a rich person without having to be a c**t

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Howard J Ford has stared down a four-ton boulder held up by a single pebble, sat on funeral pots containing the dead while eating lunch, been lifted off his feet by hundreds of people in Burkina Faso, and walked out of a Mississippi murder house that nobody could bring themselves to buy. All in the name of independent filmmaking.

Howard J Ford is a British filmmaker, director, and cinematographer whose films include The Dead, Never Let Go, The Ledge, River of Blood, Dark Game, Escape, and Bonekeeper — out now on Prime Video & Apple TV. His new action thriller Zipwire is heading to Cannes, and if his track record is anything to go by, it won't be long before it lands on your streaming service of choice.

• Why filming Bonekeeper in real caves in Wales and Herefordshire meant learning to light absolute darkness
• The Burkina Faso incident: filming in a village with no electricity, sitting on pots containing dead relatives, and being swept off his feet by hundreds of people at the end of the shoot
• The haunted house in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where both Howard and his producer felt something was seriously wrong
• The screenplay Howard wrote, which Morgan Freeman once wanted to star in
• Why boredom is the starting point for everything — and how every film begins as a blank void before thousands of images and a story slowly emerge from nothing
• The cannibal on a bicycle who stayed to watch the shoot — and why he was laughing

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Paul Critoph returns for the annual TV debrief

Paul Critoph is an actor and regular friend of the podcast, joining Steve for the third consecutive end-of-year television review — the one where they figure out which shows they've actually both watched.

• Why Alien Earth started brilliantly and then made its xenomorphs bulletproof in broad daylight — and why that ruins everything
• Squid Game 2 and 3: the hide and seek episode that was genuinely brilliant, the policeman on a boat for far too long, and why the ending made them angry instead of emotional
• The Summer I Turned Pretty — a show aimed at teenage girls that Paul's wife binged entirely while Paul occasionally wandered in to ask who Conrad and Jeremiah were
• Why Andor is the best Star Wars thing since The Empire Strikes Back — and why it's really a show about fascism and how it gets its tendrils into communities
• Black Mirror's return to form — and why the Bandersnatch multiple-choice situation still annoys Steve
• The Bear: essentially someone chopping a radish very slowly while looking moody, for weeks on end

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Steve empties the whiteboard, clears his head, and has an honest conversation about what making this podcast actually feels like from the inside — the burnout, the uncertainty, the ads he hates, and why he's seriously considering living in the woods.

This is a bonus solo episode featuring no guest, one very good cup of coffee, and more honesty than most podcasts manage in a full series.

• A full rundown of every podcast Steve actually listens to — from Memory Lane and Parenting Hell to The Rest Is Politics, Louis Theroux, What Did You Do Yesterday, and why Bill Maher is simultaneously brilliant and infuriating
• Why the end of a season brings on the funk — and what it's like running a podcast entirely solo with no producer, no team, and no idea who's listening
• The comedy character he's been developing in his head for years: a sound engineer with a broken mixing desk, a Mick Hucknall lyric, and a show provisionally titled Knob Jokes
• The treacherous taxi ride at 3,000 metres in the Bolivian Andes to reach the schoolhouse where Che Guevara was killed — and the song he eventually wrote about it

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The co-creator of Red Dwarf wrote a number one single in five minutes, turned around a failing Spitting Image, and had his brand new Red Dwarf movie cancelled because it was the BBC's only successful comedy. You couldn't write it. Well, Doug could.

Doug Naylor is the co-creator and writer of Red Dwarf, which has run for 12 series and continues to find new audiences decades on. He co-wrote the Chicken Song (number one, 1986), was script editor on Spitting Image, and wrote for Jasper Carrott, Cannon and Ball, Ken Dodd, and numerous others. His children's book Sin Bin Island is the Financial Times Children's Book of the Year.

• The casting sessions where Alan Rickman, Hugh Laurie, and Alfred Molina all auditioned — and why Danny John-Jules, half an hour late in his dad's old suit, got the Cat after the very first audition
• How Craig Charles pestered Paul Jackson until he said "just see him to get him off my back" — and why Doug originally didn't like him
• The BBC cancelled the new Red Dwarf movie because it was the only successful comedy they commissioned
• The fake Duke of Manchester, who offered £12 million, sent a fax with his bank balance Tipp-Exed out and the amount typed in — and was later sent to prison

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Two lads from the North East of England built props that ended up purchased by Disney for actual Mandalorian productions — and they're still not entirely sure how to feel about it.

Luke and Paul from Orbital FX are a North East-based practical effects and prop-making team whose work spans Star Wars replica props, Marvel productions, Disney theme parks and events, including a full-size Millennium Falcon build and components used in the Ant-Man quantum experience filmed at Pinewood.

• Why Lucasfilm's relationship with its fan community is completely unlike anything else in Hollywood — and what George Lucas apparently told Disney when they bought Star Wars
• The story of restoring the original Boba Fett blaster from The Empire Strikes Back in five days
• Why making props for convention costumers is actually harder than making them for films
• How the carbon fibre Darth Vader helmet came about — and why cutting 40% of the weight is, apparently, a genuine game changer
• The day Steve introduced himself to George Lucas at a bankrupt Fashion Café in London with broken speakers, dodgy lights, and a Tandy mixer
• Why practical effects never really went away — and how Star Wars single-handedly reinvigorated an entire generation of model makers and creature shops

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Olaf Falafel gaslit his own mother into believing she had a serious wind problem using a remote-control fart machine with a subwoofer — and has somehow turned that energy into an award-winning career in children's books and stand-up.

Olaf Falafel is a comedian, illustrator, and author known for his Edinburgh Fringe shows, the Dave Funniest Joke at the Fringe 2019, and children's books including Old MacDonald Heard a Fart, Poo on a Pogo Stick, and the Trixie Pickle Art Avenger series. His new graphic novel The Far Out Five is out now, and his family show — Olaf Falafel's Stupidest Super Stupid Show, is currently on tour.

• Why comedians make better children's authors than celebrities — and why the crossover is more natural than the publishing industry admits
• The origin of Old MacDonald Heard a Fart — how singing it on the school run with his daughters turned into an actual book deal
• How to achieve the perfect duck fart
• Why winning the Dave Funniest Joke at the Fringe brought death threats
• Why Lost is the show he'd erase from history — and the years he spent downloading it on Limewire before the ending stole everything back
• What it means to draw 200-page graphic novels while watching Liam Neeson films as background noise — and why Taken is genuinely one of his favourite movies

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Henry Naylor spent years travelling the world making Barclaycard ads with Rowan Atkinson, gave Ben Miller his first comedy gig, wrote the first ever Tony Blair sketch on British television, and is now taking a play about Elton John's battle with the Sun newspaper to New York. And he can do a very good Scooby Doo.

Henry Naylor is a playwright, writer and comedian whose credits include Spitting Image, Dead Ringers, the 3D animated sketch show Head Cases, and multiple Fringe First-winning plays. His play Monstering The Rocketman — about Elton John and Britain's largest ever libel settlement — sold out Edinburgh, has a London run and is heading to New York.

• How 17 Barclaycard commercials took him to Bora Bora, Luxor, Sardinia and Elba — and what it was like to watch Rowan Atkinson go from recognisable to A-lister in real time
• How he gave Ben Miller his first comedy gig at university — and how he felt when Ben's agent rang up about the Johnny English movie
• Writing the first Tony Blair sketch for Spitting Image when nobody knew anything about him
• Why the Jeffrey Archer puppet was deliberately withheld
• Head Cases: the 3D animated sketch show that had DreamWorks calling, but was cancelled when ITV nearly went bankrupt

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Stephen Mear CBE has choreographed for Broadway, the West End, the Royal Albert Hall, Rhys Ifans in an Oasis video, a dancing dog-head Goldfrapp video, and Victoria Wood's Christmas specials — and he only found out he was dyslexic somewhere in the middle of all of it.

Stephen Mear CBE is one of the UK's most celebrated choreographers and directors, with credits spanning five Broadway shows, multiple West End productions including Mary Poppins, Chess, Sunset Boulevard, and Shoes, television work with Victoria Wood, and a decades-long career that has taken him from Sheffield to LA to the Metropolitan Opera.

• What it was like opening The Little Mermaid on Broadway with the New York press already against Disney before a single rehearsal
• How he got Rhys Ifans through the entire Oasis All Around the World video by standing next to him and counting throughout
• The Goldfrapp dog-head video — why the heads could only turn certain ways, and why the whole thing would take ten minutes with AI now
• What it was like getting the cast back on stage at the Royal Albert Hall for the first post-COVID show — everyone drenched in sweat behind masks, praying nobody rang in sick
• Miriam Margolies discussing OnlyFans around the dinner table — and why she is the funniest person in any room she walks into

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Helen White started stand-up at 50, dropped the C-bomb early doors to dispel any assumptions, came second in a gong show in South Shields, and is now getting theatre gigs. Nobody saw any of this coming — least of all Helen.

Helen White is a Geordie comedian based in Middlesbrough, known for her sharp short-form material, a deadpan delivery that wrong-foots audiences from the first line, and a late start that has clearly not slowed her down.

• Born in West Germany, raised in a Northern Irish army barracks, moved to Newcastle aged six, and had a Geordie accent within a week
• Why starting comedy at 50 was exactly the right time — and why the creative curse of leaving it too late turned out not to be a curse at all
• The Raleigh Shopper birthday bike that looked like it belonged to a 40-year-old woman doing her groceries
• Growing up in a house where nobody could cook — TV dinners, chip pan lard, and not encountering rice or pasta until university
• Why 90 Day Fiancé is genuinely compelling television — and why she follows the cast on Instagram

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Australia and New Zealand have been quietly producing some of the funniest people on the circuit for decades — and this episode rounds up the best of them in one place.

A compilation episode featuring Steve's favourite moments from his conversations with Sam Simmons, Daniel Muggleton, Robert Morgan, Mark Trevorrow (a.k.a. Bob Downe), Harry Jun, Stephen Curry, Dane Simpson, Jenny Tian, Ange Lavoipierre, Nick Schuller, Phil Hammond, Tom Ballard, John Robertson, Jarred Christmas and Nic Sampson.

• Why Antipodean comics consistently punch above their weight on the international circuit
• The shared sensibility — and the crucial differences — between Australian and New Zealand humour
• What it takes to build a comedy career when you start 10,000 miles from the main markets
• Why absurdism, deadpan and chaos seem to be the default settings down under

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Evelyn Hollow grew up in a country embedded in mythology, studies the paranormal for a living, and has seen the Night Night Man. She's also remarkably calm about all of it.

Evelyn Hollow is a Scottish writer and paranormal psychologist with a Master of Research in Paranormal Psychology. She appears as a paranormal expert on the BBC's The Battersea Poltergeist, The Witch Farm, and Uncanny, as well as Spooked Scotland and Spooked Ireland, and is the author of Atlas of Paranormal Places.

• Why growing up in Scotland — a country embedded in mythology — shapes the way you think about the unexplained before you've even encountered it
• The fine line between science and the supernatural — and why the value of an experience often lies in personal comfort rather than scientific proof
• Evelyn's personal struggle with sleep paralysis — and what it taught her about the edges of consciousness
• The "digital necromancy" of AI and the uncomfortable questions it raises for anyone who studies what happens after death
• Steve's kettle switching itself on in a darkened room, and Evelyn's sightings of the Night Night Man
• Why the unknown continues to fascinate us — and whether understanding it would actually make it less frightening

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Robert Morgan has ridden horses through the Australian desert with Ray Winstone, filmed in the wilderness of New Zealand alongside Florence Pugh, navigated the culture shock of working in Beijing, and is about to play Burgess Meredith in a Sylvester Stallone biopic. He calls this a career.

Robert Morgan is a Welsh-Australian actor, writer, and former boxer known for The Proposition, The Accountant 2, Landman, High Country, and Hacksaw Ridge. He has worked alongside Brad Pitt, Jason Isaacs, and Guy Pearce, and continues to champion emerging talent.

• The physical endurance required to film The Proposition in the Australian Outback, where the environment was as brutal as anything in the script
• Filming in the New Zealand wilderness alongside Florence Pugh — and the reality of being an Australian actor constantly in transit
• Why playing Burgess Meredith in the upcoming Sylvester Stallone biopic, I Play Rocky, required a completely different kind of preparation
• The art of being a "good bastard" — and why that philosophy has kept him working across four decades and multiple continents
• His passion for independent film and the emerging talent he keeps going out of his way to support

Rob does not engage in social media, but you can see what he's up to here:

• IMDb Profile

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Ian Smith filmed a sitcom in the middle of a desert, debuted on Have I Got News For You, and has strong feelings about dental mouth-guards. A career on the road will do that to you.

Ian Smith is an award-winning stand-up comedian, writer, and actor from Yorkshire, known for The News Quiz, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, Popatron, and The Ark. His Edinburgh Fringe shows include Crushing and Foot Spa Half Empty, and he co-hosts the popular podcast Northern News with Amy Gledhill.

• The logistical nightmare of filming The Ark in the middle of a desert — and what that does to a cast and crew
• What it actually feels like to debut on Have I Got News For You with no safety net
• The stamina required for early sitcom work — and why nobody warns you how relentless it is
• The bizarre realities of life on the UK tour circuit that don't make it into any brochure

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Steve interviews Steve — and gets more out of it than either of them expected.

In this solo episode, Steve Otis Gunn turns the microphone on himself, exploring the creative mind behind the podcast, the personal tenacity required to keep making things, and the gap between idea and execution that most people never cross.

• The "nutty" reality of maintaining a long-term creative project entirely on your own
• Why commitment to any project eventually starts to feel like a personality disorder
• What the gap between idea and execution really looks like — and why most people stop there
• Why talking to yourself is, it turns out, genuinely useful if you do it properly

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Milo Edwards moved to Moscow to work in financial services, ended up performing stand-up on Russian television, and has been explaining that sequence of events ever since.

Milo Edwards is a stand-up comedian and podcaster from Essex, a former Cambridge Footlights member who moved to Moscow in 2015 and performed on Russian TV before making his mark on the UK comedy scene with his Edinburgh Fringe shows. He hosts the podcasts Trashfuture, Masters of Our Domain, and Glue Factory, and has written for Mock The Week, The News Quiz, Private Eye, and The New Statesman.

• How a job in financial services became a back door into Russian stand-up television
• The immense resolve required to navigate Moscow's bureaucracy as an expat comedian
• Why the discipline of working in a completely alien environment makes you a better performer
• The unexpected skills that transfer from finance to comedy — and the ones that really don't

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Laura Lexx went from optimising search engines to commanding the stage on Live at the Apollo — and has been unapologetically honest about everything in between.

Laura Lexx is a critically acclaimed comedian, writer and podcaster known for sell-out Edinburgh Fringe shows, Live at the Apollo and Celebrity Mastermind. She is the author of Klopp Actually and Pivot, and hosts the podcast Comedy Bureau.

• How working as a search engine optimiser accidentally prepared her for stand-up
• The immense persistence required to navigate the early years of the comedy circuit
• What the cramped rooms and chaotic logistics of the Edinburgh Fringe really teach you
• The things about TV production that drive Laura genuinely mad — and why she keeps doing it
• Why a willingness to be completely honest on stage is both the biggest risk and the biggest reward

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John Robertson accidentally won awards for a kids' show that was never meant for children, has been pitching television ideas to networks that find him simultaneously fascinating and baffling, and does all of this on a voice that should probably be rested more than it is.

John Robertson is an Australian comedian, writer, and creator of the cult live-action video game comedy show The Dark Room. A veteran of the Edinburgh Fringe and international festivals, he is known for his booming voice, razor-sharp crowd work, and chaotic energy across stand-up, Twitch streaming, and multiple TV development runs.

• Why maintaining a voice-shredding performance schedule requires a level of preparation most people don't expect
• The constant cycle of pitching TV ideas — and the even more constant cycle of those ideas not quite happening
• What the cult success of The Dark Room revealed about what audiences actually want from live performance
• How comedy anarchy differs from just being chaotic — and why the difference matters enormously

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Tom Ballard started doing stand-up at 14, burned out completely by his mid-twenties after yelling excessively every night across Europe, and came back with something much more interesting to say.

Tom Ballard is an award-winning Australian comedian, writer and broadcaster, known as co-host of Triple J Breakfast and host of the late-night ABC series Tonightly with Tom Ballard. He has also acted in Deadloch and Fisk, and has become one of Australia's most distinctive comedic voices through sharp political commentary and fearless humour.

• Why a gruelling tour through London, the UK and Europe left him with nothing left to say — and what he did about it
• Why stepping back from the annual festival treadmill was the best creative decision he made
• The difference between comedy that reacts to the world and comedy that tries to understand it
• What slower, more deliberate creative work produces that the relentless festival cycle never could

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Sharlene Hector has performed for festival crowds at Glastonbury and Mount Fuji, toured internationally with Muse and Alicia Keys, starred in a Coca-Cola advert seen around the world, and then discovered during a global pandemic that what she really wanted to do was act.

Sharlene Hector is a British singer, performer and actor with a career spanning over two decades. She has toured with Basement Jaxx, Gorillaz and Michael Bublé, sung backing vocals for Muse, Alicia Keys and Emeli Sandé, and in recent years has moved into musical theatre with acclaimed roles in Dreamgirls, A Strange Loop, Standing at the Sky's Edge and Hercules.

• What the grit of international touring teaches you that nothing else does — and how it compares to the disciplined world of musical theatre
• The story behind her iconic Coca-Cola advert — and what happened in the aftermath
• How lockdown became the unlikely moment she discovered a genuine passion for acting
• What performing for massive festival crowds at Glastonbury and Mount Fuji feels like from the stage
• The leaps of faith and pivots that have defined a career built on saying yes to things that terrify you

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A Casio MT100 keyboard, a mate called Des, the streets of Peterborough, and a pop duo called Wolfgang that the world never heard — until now.

Wolfgang was an unknown pop duo formed in 1985 in Peterborough by Steve Otis Gunn and Desmond Pye. This bonus episode finds them back on the streets where it all started, working out what they actually remember and whether any of it matches up.

• How a humble Casio MT100 keyboard and a school friendship became the unlikely foundation of a pop duo
• What life looked like in the 1980s when you were leaving home and making things up as you went
• The unexpected places the conversation goes — ghosts, religion, AI, and the nature of nostalgia
• Why recording on the very streets where it all happened makes for a completely different kind of episode

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Charlie Parsons turned a real East London lock-keeper's cottage into a pop culture laboratory, invented a show watched by a billion people, and spent years watching imitators make money from it. Now he's doing it all again — in theatre.

Charlie Parsons is a British television producer and format innovator, co-founder of Planet 24, and the creator of The Word, The Big Breakfast, and Survivor. Today, he produces theatre, including Girl from the North Country and upcoming stage adaptations of The Hunger Games and A Knight's Tale.

• The wild, chaotic origins of The Big Breakfast — and how a real lock-keeper's cottage in East London became one of TV's most iconic sets
• How Survivor evolved from a strange idea into a worldwide phenomenon
• The court battles and imitators that came with inventing a genre — and how Charlie fought back
• Why the entertainment landscape shifted from daring commissioners to algorithms — and what was lost in the process
• What drives him now, and why the immediacy and unpredictability of theatre feels like the closest thing to what he loved about television

Charlie keeps a low profile online, so why not check out his IMDb page instead:

• IMDb

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Andrew O'Connor was a frustrated magician who went looking for "a mind-reading David Blaine" — and found a then-unknown Derren Brown instead. That decision alone reshaped British television.

Andrew O'Connor is a British actor, magician, impressionist, game show host, and award-winning producer. He co-founded Objective Productions and helped shape Peep Show, Derren Brown: Mind Control and Star Stories, with a career spanning light entertainment, theatre, and groundbreaking television.

• How early frustrations as a performer led to founding one of British TV's most influential production companies
• The tip that led him straight to Derren Brown — and what he saw immediately that nobody else had
• How Peep Show was built from a simple idea into a groundbreaking comedy on a tiny budget
• The strain of touring musicals and what the realities of that life taught him about the gap between ambition and logistics
• The Hollywood years — directing movies, navigating the system, and the projects that never saw the light of day

Andrew isn't one for Social Media, so instead, check out his IMDb page here:

• IMDb

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Ignacio Lopez grew up in Mallorca, spent his British holidays on rainy Welsh caravans, and has been finding the comedy in the gap between those two worlds ever since.

Ignacio Lopez is a Welsh-Spanish comedian known for his clever, culturally layered humour and appearances on Live at the Apollo and Have I Got News For You. He performs in English, Spanish and Welsh, and is a familiar face on the UK comedy circuit and television.

• Why growing up between Mallorca and Wales gives you better comic material than either place alone
• What rainy holidays in Wales reveal about the British relationship with optimism
• The chaos of TV quiz shows — from the inside
• How dubbed films shaped the way Ignacio thinks about language, timing, and performance
• Why blagging your way into work is a legitimate career strategy — and why the right mattress matters more than you think

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Moe Singleton left New York, moved to Berlin, and discovered that Seinfeld had quietly prepared him for all of it.

Moe Singleton is an American comedian known for his smart, deeply relatable style across continents and cultures. He is the creator and host of the Thoughts For Your Thoughts podcast, where he interviews comedians about their origin stories, early bombs, and breakthrough moments.

• Why Berlin turned out to be the right city for a comedian who needed to start over
• What leaving New York actually costs — and what it gives back
• How Seinfeld quietly shaped an outlook that travels across cultures and continents
• Why simplicity — a good chat, no agenda — is more radical than it sounds in the age of social media

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Joe Kent-Walters trained at a clown school in Paris, created a cult character, won the Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer Award, and has been throwing himself around stages in dress shoes ever since.

Joe Kent-Walters is a British comedian best known for his larger-than-life alter ego Frankie Monroe, blending physical theatre, absurdism and punk cabaret in a way that earned him the Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer Award in 2024.

• What a Parisian clown school actually teaches you — and what it definitely doesn't
• How Frankie Monroe went from a Fringe experiment to a cult phenomenon
• The physical toll of performing high-energy character comedy every night on the road
• How late-night comedy culture shapes the kind of work you end up making

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Darren Harriott describes himself as a "click-your-fingers celebrity" — famous enough to be recognised, not famous enough for anyone to be entirely sure why. He's made peace with that, moved back to the Black Country, and is now living near some greenery.

Darren Harriott is an acclaimed British stand-up comedian, writer, and presenter, and a two-time Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee known for his smart, honest, high-energy comedy and sharp takes on class, race, and modern masculinity.

• Why he's stepping away from late-night gigs — and what the circuit costs you if you don't
• The reality of working with Richard Osman and the behind-the-scenes world of The Wheel and Michael McIntyre's Big Show
• Why the Midlands won the argument over Kilburn — and what that decision changed
• The vintage tech obsession and Gen Z nostalgia that connect in ways he didn't expect

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