Homing

Max Rollitt is a highly respected interior decorator and antiques dealer. Extraordinary pieces pass through his hands every day, yet most of the objects he chooses to live with at home have little monetary value. Instead, they are tokens of respect and love. The conversation begins with Max’s childhood in Winchester , where he struggled at school because he processed information in images – someth...

Much like her taxidermy -based sculptures, Polly Morgan is an artist who delights in looking beneath the surface.  Her home in Camberwell is deliberately minimalist - a space viewers may recognise from Netflix’s Baby Reindeer . As she prepares to move out after 13 years, with most of her possessions already shipped off to the countryside, she reflects on the highs and lows of her time there.  Grow...

Chris Packham has always fascinated me. As a broadcaster, naturalist, and conservationist, he’s helped millions connect with wildlife and the natural world through shows like BBC’s Springwatch – but sitting down with him in his home, I realised how much of his story is about creating refuge, both at home and within himself. In this deeply personal conversation, Chris speaks candidly about his chil...

The Homing podcast explores the importance of home in shaping who we are.   Join Matt Gibberd , author and co-founder of The Modern House , as he takes listeners inside the homes of inspiring guests to examine what really happens inside our walls – how they influence our emotions, creativity and sense of self.   Featuring leading voices from art, film, wellbeing and beyond, Homing is a thoughtful...

Bethan designs everything from furniture to lighting and textiles, and some of her work is currently on display at the Design Museum in London.     She presents herself to the world like a human peacock. She dyes her hair different colours, wears layers of vivid clothing, and puts dots on her cheeks.     Her flat in east London isn’t exactly demure either. We recorded this podcast in the company o...

Today's guest is the wonderful Lakwena Maciver. Lakwena is an artist whose work has exploded out of the Instagram generation. She uses bright colours and patterns inspired by her African heritage and bold written slogans. Given that her work is so positive and uplifting, I was really interested to find out that she's a natural pessimist with a very tough inner critic. So the words that appear in h...

Christopher was President of the Royal Academy for eight years and given a knighthood in 2021.    I first met him a few years ago, when The Modern House was selling his beautiful home in Camberwell. Shortly after that, he had a joint exhibition in Los Angeles with my wife, Faye Toogood, so I got to know him better during the week we were out there together.    This podcast gave me the chance to go...

Zandra's home is one of the most colourful, cluttered and downright bonkers living spaces I've ever been in.    We recorded this podcast just before Christmas, so there was an extra layer of sparkle on top of the kaleidoscope.    Zandra walked me through her incredible life story... from being born during an air raid in 1940, to being discovered by  American Vogue's  fashion editor Diana Vreeland....

Nigel is the first podcast guest ever to make me cry. I'm a big fan of his writing, and suspected he'd be a kindred spirit, but spending the day with him in his house was an overwhelming experience I wasn't prepared for. He lives around the corner from where I grew up, in a pared-back way that feels very familiar. In this remarkably honest conversation, he outlines the essential role his home play...

Kevin has been a fixture on our tellies for so many years that we feel like we know him. But, actually, I didn’t have a clue about his life story, so this conversation was really interesting for me. He tells me about growing up in what he refers to as an ‘architectural zoo’ of housing from different eras. We talk about his involvement with Footlights, the famous comedy troupe at Cambridge Universi...

Skye Gyngell was born and raised in Sydney, but has never felt Australian. In this honest and heartfelt interview, she paints a picture of a deeply introverted child who wanted to “turn down the volume” on everybody. Her father, Bruce Gyngell, was the first person to appear on TV in Australia, and uttered the immortal line, “Good evening, and welcome to television.” She describes him as very flamb...

For Ruth Rogers, home is at the very heart of everything. Her legendary London restaurant, the River Cafe, is founded on community, friendship and home cooking. Her iconic house in Chelsea, which she co-created with her architect husband, Richard Rogers, has been the backdrop to family life for forty years and has influenced a generation of homeowners to live with light and space. Ruthie invited m...

Most of us know Mary Portas as a swashbuckling TV presenter with a flame-red bob, but her career away from the screen has been no less remarkable. She did the window displays for Topshop during its heyday and was the creative director of Harvey Nichols when it was immortalised on  Absolutely Fabulous . Nowadays, however, she runs her consultancy, Portas, which helps brands create purpose and beaut...

There’s barely an oilcloth, mug or ironing board cover that hasn’t been embellished with a nostalgic floral print from Cath Kidston. Because of the brand’s ubiquity, it’s easy to forget quite how influential it was when it appeared in the 1990s. What I love about Cath is that she’s living proof you can be a wildly successful entrepreneur whilst also being a kind, gentle soul. Although her name’s s...

Today I’m chatting to the swashbuckling artist and restaurateur Jonny Gent. We recorded this episode during a busy lunch service at Sessions Arts Club, Jonny’s inspirational restaurant in Clerkenwell. It’s fair to say that he’d emboldened himself with a few martinis beforehand and what ensued was a conversation that very much represents the man himself: unstructured, poetic and generous.  Jonny’s...

A while back, Tim came to London to perform at the Isokon building in Belsize Park, and I managed to catch up with him to record this podcast.   As a small boy in the Seventies, Tim quietly absorbed the lessons of modernist architecture. He remembers accompanying his parents to a dinner party at a modern house, where the sound of laughter reverberated around the circular lounge; his career seems t...

Luke has kindly invited us to his house in the Cotswolds, which he shares with his husband, Duncan Campbell, and a pair of enthusiastic whippets.   I was intrigued to learn that this modern-day dandy comes from a bog-standard commuter town, and like many of the people I talk to on this podcast, his creative impulses offered a route out of mediocrity.  He tells me his very personal backstory of bei...

This is the first time we’ve recorded an episode in a hotel suite, and that’s because today’s guest knows more about opening doors to glamorous guesthouses than anyone else.  James Lohan co-founded the travel company Mr & Mrs Smith with his wife Tamara back in 2003, and since then he’s visited nearly 4,000 hotels in the name of research.  James is a gregarious character with some brilliant tal...

During her tenure at Nowness, Claudia commissioned the well-known ‘In Residence’ series, which took us inside the homes of the biggest names in design and architecture. Today, I’m meeting Claudia in her beautiful London home to give her a taste of her own journalistic medicine … She tells me about what it was like to grow up in an English prototype of the American dream, and talks fondly about her...

Philippe designs everything from furniture to lighting, combining modern geometry with a sense of humour and materials that are built to last. I first met him many years ago, when he was doing some work with my wife, Faye Toogood. We’d turned our bedroom into a makeshift design studio, and Philippe and a few others would come round to make maquettes and geek out about ergonomics.  Nowadays, he’s a...

Today I’m talking to the wonderful Sumayya Vally, founder of the architecture and research practice Counterspace. When in 2020 Sumayya designed the Serpentine pavilion, she joined the ranks of luminaries including Zaha Hadid, Peter Zumthor and Frank Gehry. In 2021, Time Magazine named her one of the ‘100 Leaders of the Future’ and, more recently, she was artistic director of the inaugural Islamic...

At the time of recording, Tim was knee-deep in building works at home, so I polished up my Chelsea boots for a visit to his London studio.  As always, I asked him to describe his life story through the lens of the homes he’s lived in over the years. It was particularly interesting to find out more about his current home, which he bought after seeing it on our website and falling instantly in love....

I first became aware of Jeremy’s food when he was head chef of Terence Conran’s Blueprint Café, which was above the old Design Museum in Shad Thames. Nowadays, of course, he’s in charge of the kitchen at the revered Quo Vadis in Soho. No one seems to have a bad word to say about Jeremy, and Jay Rayner describes him as ‘one of those rare phenomena in the London food world: a chap everyone agrees is...

Akram’s rich career includes performing at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, collaborating with artists Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley, and choreographing tours and videos for the likes of Kylie Minogue and Florence + the Machine. He was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005.  He kindly invited us to his home last summer and we recorded this conversation in a shady spot in the g...

I first met Roksanda in 2006. We were selling her flat in King’s Cross, which was unlike anything I’d seen before: a brooding space with cast-concrete worktops, a black resin floor and mirrored lightwells. It had a subterranean lap-pool that was completely black, like a cave, where one could imagine Bruce Wayne practising his backstroke. Roksanda had recently shown her first collection at London F...