Last Rites

This week we cover our first Belgian — and our first pie-thrower. Noël Godin made a career out of throwing cream pies at celebrities, including Jean Luc-Godard, Nicolas Sarkozy and Bill Gates. His mission was to puncture the humourless pretensions of the high and mighty and he inspired a collective of pie-throwers known as the International Patisserie Brigade. Few were safe, especially those who r...

Before she was an internationally famous star, Dolly Parton was a child of the Smoky Mountains, making up songs on a porch with a tin-can microphone. In this episode, we trace her remarkable journey from dirt-poor Appalachia into one of the shrewdest minds in music who spun moments of shame into anthems of pride, giving voice to millions of working-class women in her distinctive East Tennessee twa...

This week, we interviewed the New York Times obituarist Sam Roberts, who has just published a book about the art of the obit: Are They Dead Yet? We spoke about his path into writing about the dead, how to do justice to a life in a thousand words, interviewing people for their own obituary and why writing about ordinary lives is sometimes more gratifying than summing up the high and mighty.

This week on Last Rites, we explore the life of Gunther von Hagens: anatomist, inventor of plastination and creator of the hugely successful BODY WORLDS exhibitions. We trace his unusual journey from East Germany to international fame and consider the scientific, ethical and legal controversies surrounding his work. Along the way, we explore the wider history of anatomy and dissection—from Renaiss...

In August 1988, as Soviet troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war, Abdul Ahad Momand became the first Afghan to travel into space. An air-force pilot chosen for the Soviet Union’s Interkosmos programme, Momand spent nine days aboard the Mir space station, conducting experiments, photographing Afghanistan and broadcasting a message of peace to the country below. His mi...

This week, we explore the life of Norman Balon, the self-proclaimed “rudest landlord in Britain”, who presided over the Coach and Horses in Soho for more than fifty years. Balon turned insults, arguments and the occasional eviction into an art form, becoming as much an attraction as the pub itself. Along the way, we ask why the British are so fond of formidable pub landlords and revisit the raffis...

What was it like to be in the newsroom on the day the Queen died? This week we explore the life of Elizabeth II. Georgia interviews The Times Obituaries Editor Nigel Farndale, who takes us behind the scenes as news of the Queen’s death filtered through the newsroom, revealing what it was like to write the obituary of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

Where does creative genius come from? And what are the costs? This episode of Last Rites digs into one of the most culturally explosive moments of the 20th century - the jazz renaissance of the 1950s - through Sonny Rollins, the maestro who helped define it. Rollins had his demons: he was an obsessive who never rested on his laurels and disappeared from the spotlight again and again, who kicked a...

This week we look at Birutė Galdikas, a primatologist who went into the rainforests of Borneo in 1971 to study one of the world’s least understood great apes: the orangutan. One of Louis Leakey’s famed “Trimates,” alongside Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Galdikas spent more than five decades documenting orangutan lives and fighting to protect their habitat against loggers and the exotic pet trade.

This week we discuss how Georgia wrote Matthew Perry's obituary before he died, and what this can tell us about the craft of obituary writing more generally.

Ted Turner turned a small Atlanta television station into a media empire, then changed the rhythm of the world by launching CNN in 1980: the first 24-hour cable news network. Brash, restless, and often outrageous, Turner helped invent the modern news cycle, with effects that continue to shape democratic politics today.

This week we take a look at Billy "the Brush" Mumford, an affable East Ender who fooled the art world to become one of Britain's most prolific art forgers.

In our first episode, we reflect on the life of Annette Dionne, the last surviving member of the famed Dionne quintuplets. Born in Canada during the Great Depression, the sisters became a global sensation almost overnight. But behind the headlines lay a story of exploitation, loss, and resilience.