Radio Gorgeous

Mari Wilson Pop Diva  Aka, Miss Beehive, The Neasden Queen of Soul, Mari Wilson has remained “What I Always Wanted” since the 1980’s. She tells Josephine that her career has changed and evolved as the music industry has but her singing for an intimate audience is timeless. Emotional glamour indeed.  Go see MARI http://www.mariwilson.co.uk

Rula Lenska on GORGEOUS LIVES  “All my life I have run into excitement, danger and discovery.” Legendary red head, beauty and talented British born of aristocratic Polish descent actress and West London denizen tells Josephine about her most dangerous roles.  Josephine is now addicted to Rock Follies. Listen here for Rula's life story. 

In the 1960s Twiggy was the most famous model on the globe. And she was  as big as the Beatles and she was only 16. Hear Twiggy's story here on Radio Gorgeous.  Twiggy tells us about growing up in Neasden,  the madness of fame and her career as a model, film star, musical theatre star,  and more. ALL MUSIC CHOSEN BY TWIGGY  http://www.twiggylawson.co.uk/ @Twiggy  

The late Shirley Conran tells us about her new book then quickly moves onto her whole life story.   Shirley's early divorce, along with her innate and pragmatic design sense and a gift for teaching has driven Shirley Conran to do many things: free women from housework (Superwoman), teach girls about sex (Lace), demand a work/life balance and she has now turned to money and maths. Women don’t have...

From the simple idea of wanting to create the perfect bowl and mug for her mum's dresser, Emma Bridgewater built the pottery empire she always dreamed of. The colourful, cheerful and practical ceramics have the same design she drew 30 years ago in her Brixton squat. She's come a long way since then and is off on another adventure. She talks to Josephine about her life and her book: Toast & Mar...

Kate Adie presents From Our Own Correspondent on BBC Radio 4. Kate talks to Josephine Pembroke interviews Kate about her book and her life as a very special correspondent.  It became something of a joke in the British army that when Kate Adie arrived on the scene, the soldiers knew they were in trouble. The BBC’s chief news correspondent became one of the best-known faces on television for her rep...

We love makeup, it gives us confidence – a splurge at the make up counter cheers us up. And, we are always hoping to find that miracle in the jar. Lindy Woodhead and the has written a book about the creation of the beauty industry as we know it. Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein may have been on your mother’s dressing table, but I bet you have owned a tube of 8 Hour Cream and you probably clea...

LAURA ASHLEY A Life in Design by Anne Sebba  with Josephine Pembroke  Laura Ashley’s vision was very different from the retailing conglomerate we knew.   Laura Ashley had a vision: Go back home and create hand made cotton clothes dyed with natural colours and made up in her own factory in rural wales. She gave jobs to the community especially women who were encouraged to leave early and collect th...

Geoff Deane is most recently known as the screenwriter of Kinky Boots , but his career swerves have encompassed founding the punk band Leyton Buzzards and salsa band Modern Romance. He has been a writer and producer for television, a journalist, restaurant critic and songwriter but it is his observations and appreciation for the joyful cast of characters he has met along the way that colours From...

Megan Ramos, co-author of the best-selling Life in the Fasting Lane (with Dr Jason Fung), has now written a guide to intermittent fasting specifically for women, with step-by-step advice for preventing and reversing metabolic disease. As a teenager, Megan was diagnosed with both non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and polycystic ovarian syndrome and developed type 2 diabetes in her mid-twenties. Whi...

Donna Freed meets Marisa Haetsman, one half of the husband-wife writing partnership, Ambrose Parry, authors of a series of medical murder mysteries set in Victorian Edinburgh. Marisa sets the scene for the latest, Voices of the Dead , which takes place in 1853 when Edinburgh while still sceptical of medical men in the wake of the Burke and Hare murders is experiencing a resurgence in interest in m...

Before they were interrupted by a gorgeous, if unruly dog, Donna Freed and Christina Ford were marvelling at some of the twists and turns in Christina's personal life as related in memoir, In Search of Mr Darcy . In this segment, Christina alludes to the genuinely shocking and ingenious end to the relationship that brought her to London from her native Toronto and explains why she decided to stay...

Toronto-native Christina Ford is a former TV and film executive who lives in London and chronicles her adventures in A-Broad in London . In Search of Mr Darcy, Lessons Learnt in the Pursuit of Happily Ever After is both her first book and a middle-aged lady manifesto!  Her memoir charts her life and career through the lens of the men she has chosen to share it with. Typical of her warmth and gener...

The Ugly Truth , L. C. North's debut thriller, told exclusively told through interviews, transcripts and diary entries, explores the dark side of celebrity culture and trying to determine the truth through the distorting lens of reportage and social media.  L. C. North lives in Suffolk, co-hosts the crime thriller podcast In Suspense and is working on her second novel.  #TheUglyTruth @Radio_Gorgeo...

Susi Hartmann is a modern etiquette consultant and life coach as well as an entrepreneur hosting bespoke wellness retreats through the company she co-founded, Beaumont Awareness . She shares her very personal journey of treating the symptoms of menopause with psilocyben microdosing. She preferred an all natural solution and after thorough research and conversations with experts, she discovered the...

Coming home was just the beginning... Kate Hamer follows up her taut psychological blockbuster The Girl in the Red Coat with an equally engrossing sequel, The Lost Girls .  Carmel has been returned home five years after she was abducted by the preacher of a cult. But the trauma of her experience continues to haunt her and and her mother Beth. Beth is paralysed by fear for her daughter while Carmel...

Introducing the next female 007, Makepeace, Emma Makepeace! Ava Glass' hyper-pacy thriller, The Chase follows novice MI6 operative Emma Makepeace as she attempts to escort a man wanted by the Russians across surveillance-filled London without being detected by CCTV.  Ava spent over a decade working with British spies at MI5 and MI6, has trained spies and been vetted to become a spy herself, so she...

Kitty Murphy introduces the first book in her Dublin Drag Mystery Series: Death in Heels . When Eve, frenemy to all in Dublin's drag club Trash, is found dead, Fi McKinnery is forced to turn 'Hagatha Christie'. No one else, including the police nor her best friend Robyn - who performs as Mae B - believes that Eve was murdered. Even as Robyn distances himself from Fi, she is determined to find out...

Sara Cox is a  writer, editor and coach. After completing her MA in Creative Writing, Sara set up her own editing business. In 2021, tired of literary prizes that offered no feedback, Sara set up her own and The Cheshire Novel Prize for unrepresented, unpublished or self-published writers was born.  In its first year The Cheshire Novel Prize attracted 998 entrants and each entrant received persona...

You'll Never Walk Alone - Poems for life's up and downs Rachel Kelly is a former Times journalist who is now a mental health campaigner, public speaker, and writer.  In her early thirties, Rachel was diagnosed with serious depression and subsequently suffered two major depressive episodes. These two episodes have become the defining events of her life. Since then, she has written about the conditi...

The Working Girls of Soho - Saucy Tales of Notorious Women  A fabulous cabaret celebrating Soho's glorious past. Featuring the club runners, strippers, whores and thieves with songsand stories. Josephine Pembroke of Pussies Galore talks about her sell out show featuring the female club runners, strippers, whores and thieves from Soho's past. Your chance to experience the real Soho, faded glamour a...

Michelle Toth is a bit of a polymath, in part because she loves learning and in part because when other people ask why, Michelle tends to ask, why not? She has been an entrepreneur, consultant, executive, novelist and story teller and is now a highly accomplished executive coach. She is passionate about connecting people through art and specifically, storytelling. The telling of our true, personal...

MAN WEEK ON RADIO GORGEOUS  Donna Freed with Adam Zmith, author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures Adam Zmith is a writer, talker, thinker and maker with podcasts, stage and film credits to his name. Deep Sniff is a  meditation on the history of poppers and their role in gay culture as well as his own queerness came out of a Fringe! Queer Film and Arts Fest talk he gave in Novem...

Last century central London and the suburbs were awash with 'Halls of Temptation,' giant emporiums where you could buy anything from exotic pets to opening your own bank account. Author Tessa Boase tells us about the golden days of shopping, when  visiting a store was a magnificent assault on the senses.  #RadioGorgeous #SocialHistory #MrSelfridge 

Donna Freed at the Corfu Literary Festival with Melanie Hewitt and Isabelle Broom Donna landed in Corfu just in time to catch up with authors Melanie Hewitt, Looking for the Durrells and Isabelle Broom, The Summer Trip (among many others) prior to their Corfu Literary Festival event: Love in a Hot Climate. Melanie attended the festival last year as an author and returned this year to chair a discu...