Blank Podcast with Giles Paley-Phillips & Jim Daly

Phil Wang is a comedian, actor, and writer. His Netflix special 'Philly Philly Wang Wang' explores race, romance, politics, and his mixed British-Malaysian heritage. He recently released his first book Sidesplitter, part memoir, and partly a series of observational essays.  We talk to Phil about his late teens when he returned to live in the UK after growing up in Malaysia, how he started getting...

Nova Reid is an anti-racism activist, TED Speaker, author and podcast host. She spoke to Giles and Jim and growing up in Hertfordshire, creating Nu Bride and what drives her in her work as an anti-racism activist. PLUS we have extra content for our Patreons at patreon.com/blankpodcast Massive thanks to our Patrons: Mary Catherine Byrnes, Victoria Nielsen, Manya Kay, Alex Williams, Joel Piveteau, R...

Leonie Benesch is a German actress who has played roles in major productions including Babylon Berlin, The Crown and Around the World in 80 Days. We talked to Leonie about her journey into acting via circus school, moving to London to study acting, and her love of movement.  PLUS we have extra content for our Patreons at patreon.com/blankpodcast Massive thanks to our Patrons: Mary Catherine Byrnes...

Florence Hall is a actor who stars in AcornTV's “Queens of Mystery” and the massive Netflix series “The Princess Switch" alongside Vanessa Hudgens and Sam Palladio. She graduated from the Drama Centre London in 2009 and since then has worked for the BBC on Jonathan Creek, Holby City, Doctors and Mayday. She is also an experienced stage actor and her theatre work includes "You May Go Now" at the Fi...

Tim Downie is an actor and writer. Well known for his roles in Toast of London, Outlander, Upstart Crow, and Good Omens. Tim has also starred in many films including Paddington, War Machine, and The King's Speech.  Tim has also written several plays including A Portrait of Maureen Flange. We started by talking to Tim about school and the challenges he faced having dyslexia. He shares his passion f...

Rich Wilson is a multi award-winning standup comedian who has been working in the industry for nearly 20 years.  He has performed at sellout shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, Adelaide Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival and the New Zealand Comedy Festival as well as winning Best International Guest at the 2016 New Zealand Comedy Awards, followed by a sell out run in 2017 which saw him nominated for the...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive. Stephen Fry is a writer, comedian, and actor. A prolific career spanning some over 35 years, Stephen Fry has become an icon of British TV, film, and literature and a genuine national treasure. We caught up with Stephen while he was in LA and began our conversation by talking about America an...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive. Vicky McClure is a Bafta award-winning actress and presenter. Best known for her roles as DI Kate Fleming BBC's Line of Duty and Lol in Shane Meadows This Is England film and subsequent series on Channel 4. In 2019 she made a very personal documentary called Our Dementia Choir, which showed...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive Nick Offerman is an actor, comedian, writer and professional woodworker. Best known for his TV roles in Parks and Recreations, Devs and Fargo and films including We're the Mill, 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie. We talked to Nick from his house in the hills of LA about his love of writer Wen...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive Dame Kelly Holmes is one of Britain's best-loved and most highly decorated athletes and what better person to help celebrate our 50th Episode. We met up with Dame Kelly at Acast Studios to chat about all things Blank, she talked about her time in the army and how the levels of discipline help...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive Louis Theroux is an American-British documentary filmmaker, journalist and broadcaster. Theroux is best known for his documentary series, including Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends, When Louis Met..., and many BBC specials, including most recently his series Altered States. His career started i...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive Dawn French is a British actor, comedian, and writer. Her partnership with Jennifer Saunders, which began in the early '80s has produced multi-award-winning sketch shows for the BBC and made them household names. She has been a successful actor in her own right starring in comedy shows like T...

In celebration of reaching 150 episodes, today we're bringing you a classic Blank episode from the archive Jon is a multi-award-winning author, screenwriter, and documentarian, whose work includes The Psychopath Test, Them, The Men Who Stare at Goats and So You've Been Publicly Shamed AND the first-ever guest on the BLANK podcast! We caught up with Jon while he was in the UK to do some live shows...

Biff Stannard is a writer, producer, and record label owner. Biff has been responsible for some of the most iconic and well-known pop records in the last 25 years having worked with the likes of Kylie Minogue, The Spice Girls, U2, Ellie Goulding, Leona Lewis, Will Young, and many more. He has won Ivor Novello and Brit Awards for his production and songwriting. We talked to Biff about his earliest...

Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian, author and podcaster who has appeared many times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman's Hour and Four Thought. Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize and followed a trilogy of solo shows investigating the psychology of love and relationships. Her new book The Breakup Monologues is based on her acclaimed podcast...

Holly Matthews is a former TV actress, Ted X speaker, Life Coach, NLP practitioner and founder of The Happy Me Project. From an acting career that started at the age of nine on legendary children’s TV drama Byker Grove at the age of nine where she spent seven years, before leaving to pursue a career in singing. She has also appeared in Waterloo Road, Casualty, Doctors and The Bill. In 2017, she la...

Gamba Cole is an Actor, recently seen in The Outlaws the comedy-drama written and directed by Stephen Merchant, Hanna on Amazon Prime and The Asset alongside Samuel L. Jackson, Maggie Q and Michael Keaton. We talked to Gamba about growing up in Bristol and his journey into acting via being a security guard at the Olympics. Gamba tells us about negotiating the performance industry and dealing with...

Rob Auton is an English stand-up comedian, writer, actor, poet and podcaster. He is a veteran of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, having performed a show there each year since 2012. He is also a poet and illustrator, with his work having been published in a series of books by Burning Eye Books and is a member of Bang Said The Gun, and as part of the 2014 Glastonbury Festival, Auton was given the pos...

Daniel Mays is a British actor, known for his roles in Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, Line of Duty, Des and most recently Sky One's Code 404. A prolific actor, Danny has worked with some of the biggest filmmakers in the world including Stephen Spielberg, Sam Mendes, Joe Wright and Mike Leigh. We talked to Danny about his journey into acting, the incredible six-month process to creating the characters fo...

Wendi McClendon-Covey is an actress, writer, comedian and podcaster. Best known for her leading role as Beverly Goldberg in The Goldbergs, Wendi has appeared in many films including Bridesmaids, Blended and Army of One and TV shows Reno 911, The Office, and American Dad. Wendi told us about her early life living in Long Beach and her always wanting to be a performer. We discussed having a regular...

Andrew Hunter Murray is a writer, actor and podcaster. Well known for his work with improvisation group Austentacious and podcast No Such Thing As Fish, Andrew is also one of the amazing elves that work on QI. We talked to Andrew about school and discovering improvisation groups at university, the perils of social media and how our brains might be getting a little lazy in the 21st century. PLUS we...

Nazaneen Ghaffar is a British television weather presenter. She currently appears on the Sky News channel, having previously presented for BBC South East Today and ITV West. Nazaneen chats to Giles and Jim about what it takes to present the weather on TV, how weather affects our moods and Greensleeves, in one of our most fun episodes ever. PLUS we have extra chat with Nazaneen just for our Patreon...

Dean Hammond is an ex-footballer and podcast host.  Dean played over 440 professional games at League One, The Championship and Premier League level. Dean hosts the podcast Life outside of Sport, where he talks to professional sportspeople about life after sport. We talked to Dean about his career in the game, from the youth team at Brighton and Hove Albion to playing in the Premier League with Le...

Samantha Baines is an actress, comedian and children's author. Known for her roles in The Crown, Lee Nelson's Well Funny People and A Royal Night Out, she is also a prolific stand-up and has recently seen the release of her second children's book The Night the Moon went Out. Samantha is also the host of the podcast The Divorce Social. We chatted to Samantha about getting into drama at a young age...

Kerry Howard is an actress and writer, known for her roles in Him and Her, Reggie Perrin and more recently HBO's Two Weeks to Live. We talked to Kerry about paint swatches, moving in lockdown, her relationship with social media and her grandfather who always believed she'd become an actress. PLUS we have extra chat with Kerry just for our Patreons at patreon.com/blankpodcast Massive thanks to our...