Inheritance Tracks

Two-time World Champion heptathlete, British record holder and Olympic medallist Katarina Johnson-Thompson, known affectionately as KJT, first came to international prominence at the 2012 London Olympics, where she competed as a teenager. She grew up in Liverpool with an English mother who was a dancer and a TV production assistant father from The Bahamas - and music was always part of her life......

Luke Evans says growing up in the South Wales valleys was tough at times. He was an only child in a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, bullied at school both for his religion – and for being gay. But, that quiet boy from the valleys who tried to blend into the background is now a huge international star. He shot to fame on the West End stage in the early 2000s – with roles in Rent, Miss Saigon and Les...

Ellie Taylor is a comedian, actor, writer, award winning podcaster, host of Bake Off the Professionals and a reluctant mother - according to her book. You’ll probably have caught her being clever and funny on any number of TV panel shows, here on Radio 4, and as Sassy Collins on Ted Lasso. She’s about to take part in a celebrity Gladiators special and is going out on tour after four years. We aske...

Kate Humble has presented the majestic Animal Park from Longleat for more than two decades. As a champion of the environment and rural affairs, she’s been the president of the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust and founded Humble by Nature, a rural skills centre based at her farm here in Wales. But when she’s not frolicking in the fields or mucking out meerkats Kate unwinds at home, often in the kitche...

There’s so much more to the actor Peter Capaldi than his brilliant, edgy and original Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who…his career stretches far beyond the Tardis. He won a BAFTA, for playing the ferocious, foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, another BAFTA for the film spin off ‘In the Loop', and whilst we’re on awards…He’s also won an Oscar! A punk in his younger days…he’s now...

In his regular column Adrian Chiles has written candidly about everything from wearing compression socks to struggling to bend down - even his favourite coat hanger. These musings are now collected in a single book. He admits that his "orgy of oversharing" isn't for everyone, yet insists even life's most mundane details can hold deeper meaning. So, what meaning will we uncover in his musical taste...

This week’s Inheritance Tracks come from the funny and startlingly honest double act and married couple Chris and Rosie Ramsey. They struck gold when they turned their bickering and banter into the wildly successful podcast… Sh*gged, Married, Annoyed… They take the quotidian absurdities of marriage, parenthood…life in general …and transform it all into comedy gold…nothing seems to be off limits! T...

The best-selling crime-writer Sir Ian Rankin began his life surrounded by food. His dad ran a grocery store in Fife, his mum worked in a school canteen, and Ian's early writing saw him reviewing wine. He says he never intended to turn to crime, so to speak, but it was his creation of the hard-drinking and stubborn Edinburgh detective Inspector John Rebus which changed his writing style – and his l...

Comedian, actor, Pointless presenter and debut author Alexander Armstrong, grew up in rural Northumberland where his musical ability and joy at being able to entertain began at a young age. He went to both school and Trinity College Cambridge on music scholarships and after a Footlights’ writing stint, he went on to become one half of the BAFTA-winning comedy duo Armstrong & Miller If you’re w...

Celia Imrie has worked in television, theatre and films over the past five decades. She’s taken roles at the Royal Shakespeare Company and in big budget films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Calendar Girls and Mamma Mia! to name but a few. Celia will be starring in the film adaptation of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club. The story follows a group of friends in a retirement home who...

The two-time Sunday Times bestselling author and journalist Candice Brathwaite grew up in Brixton, south London. Candice first became known for her conversations about the often over-looked experience of Black mothers in the UK which became the subject of her raw, searing and witty 2020 book, 'I am Not Your Mother'. She followed that with 'Sista Sista' essays which were equally forceful on the iss...

Leigh Francis’ creation Keith Lemon came to our attention with Bo Selecta in the early noughties, and he hasn’t been off our screens much since, with various sketch and panel shows becoming hits, most notably Celebrity Juice and the revamped Through the Keyhole. Surreal and silly, his is a brand of comedy that has mass appeal, and his new book 'Leigh, Myself and I' charts how "a little boy called...

Tim Minchin is the multi-talented Australian musician, comedian, actor, writer, director, who helped bring Matilda from book to stage with his hit musical lyrics. In his new book "You Don't Have To Have A Dream" he shares his thoughts and advice on life, art, success, kindness, love - but it was his dream to be a musician that drove young Tim from an early age. It was his tongue-in-cheek songs and...

Nicola Adams was one of the stand-out stars of the London Games in 2012 when she became the first woman to win an Olympic boxing gold medal. And then she won gold again in Rio four years later. Born into a tough life in Leeds in the early 1980s, Nicola immediately loved enjoyed the discipline she found in boxing at the age of 12. If her punches have unnerved her opponents in the ring, her charm an...

Carrie and David Grant are the BAFTA award-winning power couple, broadcasters and vocal coaches to the stars. If, like me, you remember the early noughties reality song contest Fame Academy, they were the expert vocal coaches that helped the likes of Lemar find their voice. Their TV and music career has spanned over 35 years winning them a MOBO award and has seen them write a revealing memoir 'A V...

Since graduating from Durham University, Ed Gamble has become one of the UK’s most successful stand-up comedians. He’s been a Taskmaster champion, a Pointless host and one of the Hunted on Channel 4. And his “Off Menu” series with James Acaster is one of the most listened-to podcasts in the UK – where guests choose their ideal meal. But Ed's own love of food hasn’t always been easy. He has Type On...

Adam Kay was born in Brighton to Jewish parents, his father was a doctor and he too went into medicine gynaecology and obstetrics. After a traumatic experience in the operating theatre, Adam left medicine and wrote his first memoir…This is Going to Hurt. It covered his time as a trainee doctor and became not only a bestseller, but was adapted by him, into the TV series of the same name, starring B...

Rachel Stevens shot to fame as part of the iconic group S Club 7 aged just 19, catapulting her to fame, bringing with it all the glamour, glitz and BRIT Awards. But it was in 1993 when she first caught the attention of talent agents by winning a modelling contest sponsored by UK teen magazine Just 17, beating 5,000 other competitors. After a stint studying a business diploma at the London College...

The comedian and professional quizzer Paul Sinha, grew up with a surgeon father and a midwife mother. He also became a doctor. His calling however was comedy and although for a while he was a full-time doctor and a part time comedian making people laugh proved irresistible. He became a household name in 2011, when he joined ITV’s show The Chase as one of the Chasers. Knowing his encyclopaedic know...

Danny Robins has created all kinds of shows for TV and radio – often embracing the spookier side of life and death. From the BAFTA-nominated Young Dracula on BBC One to The Cold Swedish Winter on BBC Radio 4. For Danny’s new series of the hit podcast – Uncanny – he’s criss-crossing America with a team of paranormal believers and sceptics as they investigate matters that seem to defy logical explan...

10 years ago Marlon James published 'A Brief History of Seven Killings' his bestselling novel which would go onto be awarded the Booker Prize. Born in Jamaica in 1970 his parents shared with him their passion for poetry and Shakespeare – but Marlon preferred to be in his room reading comics like X-Men...the mutant group who went onto inspire him to write his 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf' trilogy. For...

Actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe is perhaps best known for playing the non-clairvoyant husband Mike in the BBC One series, Ghosts. Kiell grew up in East London and his future as a thespian was set in stone when at the age of five he began acting in nativity plays. He studied acting at East 15 Acting School, and he honed his skills by making musical skits in the early years of YouTube, and can now be seen o...

Reece Shearsmith rose to fame with the darkly comic League of Gentleman. Since then his fascination with the macabre has led to starring roles on TV and stage, as well as to an enduring writing and acting partnership with Steve Pemberton. He is currently on our screens with his latest and last series of the genius Inside No9 - and these are his Inheritance tracks. Inherited: White Christmas by Dar...

Hilary and Michael are an entertainment power-couple. Having worked as a leading theatrical agent and producer for many years, with clients including Nigel Havers, Judi Dench and Colin Firth – it was at a glitzy party that Michael first set his eyes on the then actress Hilary Gish Hilary says of that night...“I was looking for an agent, he was looking for a wife.” They’ve gone on to have three chi...

Jamie Laing found fame in the second series of Made in Chelsea in 2011, and has gone on to rebrand himself several times. First as a veritable Willy Wonka, as the great great grandson of biscuit mogul Sir Alexander Grant, it is perhaps no surprise that he has created his own line of incredibly successful sweets. These days he is just as at home in the audio studio as he is on the factory floor, ha...