Better Known

Ivan looks back at previous discussions with a variety of guests and picks out the things which they think should be less well known. Foregoing the normal positivity, guests rant, complain and moan about famous people, books, television shows, sports, ideas and 90s dances which they find deeply tiresome. The guests and topics are: James Runcie on Lord of the Rings Helen Thompson on The West Wing P...

Matthew Rice discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Matthew Rice paints, writes and runs courses in the summer which utilise his garden, which is the focus of the rest of his time. Over his career he has published 11 books on architecture, designed many millions of mugs for the business he ran with his then wife Emma Bridgewater, and illustrated for Country Life magazine. His...

Richard Mills discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Dr Richard Mills is Associate Professor in English Literature and Popular Culture at St Mary’s University, London. He has been programme director for the Film and Popular Culture, Cultural Studies and Irish Studies degrees. He has published extensively on popular music, Irish literature and culture, film, fashion and Britis...

Noreen Masud discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Noreen Masud is a Lecturer in Twentieth Century Literature at the University of Bristol, and an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker 2020. Her first book for non-academic audiences is A Flat Place (2023): a memoir-travelogue about the beauty of flat places, and how they might help us relate to each other. The beauty of flat lands...

Bob Cryer discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Bob Cryer is an actor and writer best known for Coronation Street and Hollyoaks. He is the youngest child of Barry Cryer. He collaborated with his father on Barry's book of anecdotes, Butterfly Brain, in 2010. Shortly afterwards, they created the book series Mrs Hudson's Diaries, which was adapted into a play for Wilton's Music...

Martin Knight discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Martin Knight is a British author. He has written autobiographies with footballers George Best, Dave Mackay, Peter Osgood and Charlie Cooke also Alan Longmuir founder member of the Bay City Rollers. In addition he has authored true crime titles and novels. His latest book Justice Killer is released in November 2023. His col...

To mark the 300th episode of Better Known, actor Henry Lewis discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Henry Lewis is a power house creative: writer, actor, director and puzzle genius. He is the Artistic Director of Mischief and writes, produces and performs for the company. His work with Mischief includes: The Play that Goes Wrong (Broadway, West End, UK & International Tou...

Lucy Eaton discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Lucy Eaton’s theatre credits include: The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Trafalgar Studios), The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (Donmar Warehouse), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Southwark Playhouse), Daisy Pulls it Off (Park Theatre), Khadija is 18 (Finborough Theatre) and Almost, Maine (Park Theatre). T...

Simon Garfield discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Simon Garfield was born in London in 1960. He is the author of an appealingly diverse and unpredictable canon of non-fiction, including the bestsellers Mauve, Just My Type and On The Map. He is a trustee of Mass Observation, and is the editor of several books of diaries from the archive, including Our Hidden Lives and A No...

Leah Morgan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Leah Morgan is a project engineer and science communicator working in fusion energy research. She makes science and engineering videos on her YouTube channel Leah Morgan and gives talks all about the energy of the future! You can find her at www.leahmorgan.co.uk and on TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram @LeahLoveScience. Fusion e...

Max Décharné discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Max Décharné‘s new book Teddy Boys – Post-war Britain and the First Youth Revolution is published by Profile Books on 25 January 2024. He was the drummer of the band Gallon Drunk, and has been the singer and songwriter with The Flaming Stars since 1994. An authority on the 1950s and 1960s counterculture, his other books incl...

Nigel Planer discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Nigel Planer is an actor, writer and musician. He played Neil in the BBC comedy The Young Ones and Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich & Catflap. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including original casts of Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. His play, It’s Headed Straight T...

Danell Jones discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Danell Jones is a writer with a PhD in literature from Columbia University. She is the author of The Virginia Woolf Writers Workshop; the poetry collection Desert Elegy; and An African in Imperial London, which won the High Plains Book Award for Nonfiction. Her newest book is The Girl Prince: Virginia Woolf, Race, and the Dr...

Angus Jackson discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Angus Jackson is a screen and stage director and writer. For the screen he has directed the feature length film Elmina’s Kitchen for the BBC for which he was nominated for a BAFTA as best new director. For The Royal Shakespeare Company he has directed Oppenheimer, Don Quixote, Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. He wrote and dire...

Cathi Unsworth discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Cathi Unsworth is a novelist, writer and editor who lives and works in London. She began her career on the legendary music weekly Sounds at the age of 19. Her novels include The Not Knowing, Weirdo and That Old Black Magic. She is currently teaching novel writing for Curtis Brown Creative's online platform. Her latest book...

Doreen Cunningham is an Irish-British writer born in Wales. After studying engineering she worked briefly in climate related research at NERC and in storm modelling at Newcastle University, before turning to journalism. She worked for the BBC World Service as a international news presenter, editor, producer and reporter, for twenty years. She won the RSL Giles St Aubyn Award 2020, was shortlisted...

Becky Smethurst discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Dr Becky Smethurst is a Royal Astronomical Society Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. She is the star of astronomy-themed You Tube channel Dr Becky. Her current research is trying to answer the question, “How do galaxies and black holes evolve together?” Her latest book is A Brief History of Black Holes. Black h...

DanRam discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. DanRam travels the globe as an Event MC & Speaker at over 100 events a year. Hosting changemakers like President Barack Obama, billionaire founders Sir Richard Branson and Reid Hoffman, F1 champion Nico Rosberg, Grammy-winning artists and celebrities, he works on 4 continents from college campuses to parliaments to in-house co...

Helen Batten discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Helen Batten is an author and psychotherapist. Her non-fiction books delve into the historical worlds of circuses, nuns, a family of redheaded sisters and Victorian music hall and opera. After reading history at Cambridge, she trained as a journalist, and worked in television producing and directing documentaries for the BBC...

Andrew Pontzen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Andrew Pontzen is a cosmologist and a Professor at University College London. He is currently principal investigator on the ERC-funded GMGalaxies project, and co-director of UCL's Cosmoparticle Initiative. Previously he held a Royal Society University Research fellowship and, before that, junior fellowships in Oxford and C...

Jonathan Sayer discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Jonathan Sayer is an award-winning comedy playwright and screenwriter; he is the co-author of The Play That Goes Wrong, Peter Pan Goes Wrong, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, and many more. He is a writer, performer and Creative Director of Mischief Comedy. His work has been performed internationally in forty-six territori...

Thomas Curran discsses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Thomas Curran is a professor of psychology at the London School of Economics and author of a landmark study that the BBC hailed as “the first to compare perfectionism across generations.” His TED Talk on perfectionism has received more than three million views. His research has been featured in media ranging from the Harvard...

Anna Katharina Schaffner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. Anna Katharina Schaffner is a cultural historian and professional burnout coach. Her books include The Art of Self-Improvement: Ten Timeless Truths, Exhaustion: A History and the novel The Truth about Julia. Anna writes regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and Psychology Today. Feelings of exhaustion are n...

Ivan Wise adopts six quiz show formats and asks himself some searching questions. He uses Family Friends to try and work out if we all think of the same extinct bird, American prison and canyon, He adopts Uiversity Challenge to try and answer the text of Padgett Powell's The Interrogative Mood - A Novel? in which every sentence is a question. He employs Who Wants to be a Millionaire to consider th...

David Robson discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known. David Robson is an award-winning science writer based in London. His latest book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Transform Your Life (Canongate/Henry Holt), was a Financial Times Best Book of 2022 and won the British Psychological Society Book Award in 2023. His was previously a features editor at New Scientist...