Spieling The Beans

My guest for this episode, the Season 3 Finale, is Professor Noam Chomsky. You know who he is.

My guest this episode is Sarah Mills - the award-winning writer-comedian-producer - on turning the boredom of chemotherapy into the joy of ‘The Chemo Chat Show', how she approached writing her first ever pilot script which went on to win the BAFTA Rocliffe award, how to go about booking experts for Philomena Cunk, and so much more.

My guest this episode is Joz Norris - Edinburgh Fringe Comedian’s Choice Award Winner and, quite simply, one of the finest comedic minds around - on how abstract comedy can help convey abstract feelings, the essential distinction between short films and sketches (and what makes a good one of either), the enigmatic excellence of Pierce Brosnan, and so much more.

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My guest this episode is Sadia Azmat, the brilliant and critically-acclaimed comedian, writer, producer, and podcaster. From reaching the final of Funny Women only 15 months after starting standup, her debut show ‘Please Hold - You’re Being Transferred To A UK Based Asian Representative’ was featured on BBC Front Row, followed up by her nationally-toured 2014 show ‘I Am Not Malala’. In 2018, she c...

My guest this episode is Charlie Dinkin - BBC Studios Comedy Staff Writer, Co-Creator of the BBC Audio Drama Award Nominated sketch show podcast SeanceCast, Edinburgh Fringe Award Nominated stand up director, and the first ever international student accepted into The Second City's Comedy Studies program, on what makes a great sketch, directing standup vs sketches, how anthropology relates to comed...

Welcome to Season 3 of what is now - officially - the World's 43rd Hottest Podcast, thanks to Podcast Magazine's voters! My guest this episode is Chris Yiu - Executive Director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where he leads leads the Technology & Public Policy programme - on how to create effective policy, why he's so optimistic about the decades ahead and why a 1999 episode of The...

A mini episode thanking you for listening and on the stories we tell ourselves. See you in 2021!

Recorded in 2015, my guest this week is the founding President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, The Right Honourable The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers. This episode examines the difference in the Supreme Courts and constitutions of the UK and the US, whether he’d ever considered a political career, media itself acting as a lobbyi...

My guest this week is Mary Houlihan, a New York based comedian, writer, animator and artist who's appeared on Broad City, Billy On The Street, Difficult People, The Chris Gethard Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack, as well as in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s and Reductress. She also did the artwork for the Adult Swim show 'Joe Pera Talks With You'. Her work has also been c...

My guest, Professor A. C. Grayling, is a titan of British philosophy. The Bertrand-Russell-Award-winning author of over forty books - on everything from War to Friendship - is a representative to the UN Human Rights Council, was a Fellow of the World Economic Forum for several years, is fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, a Vice President of the British Hu...

My guest this week is Don Roy King - quite simply, a titan of television. The director of Saturday Night Live since 2006, he has directed more live TV than anyone else in human history and won eleven Emmy awards for it. So far, he’s been nominated for 28 Emmys overall as a writer, producer and director. Beginning his career directing The Mike Douglas Show, he spent 21 years directing Good Morning...

My guest this week is Matt Koff, an Emmy-award winning comedian who has been a writer at The Daily Show, with both Jon Stewart and Trevor Noah, since 2013. He’s also written for The Onion and Hasan Minhaj’s barnstorming White House Correspondents' Dinner, toured with both John Oliver and Bo Burnham, and, at the end of 2019, released his excellent debut standup album, Who’s My Little Guy. (If you h...

My guess this week is Chloe Radcliffe - a writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, a twice national speech champion, a former corporate speechwriter for Target and a standup from Minnesota. Speaking transatlantically one Friday morning in April, we discussed why The Tonight Show is uniquely tailored to socially-distanced writing, how to characterise Minnesotan comedy compared to that of...

My guest this week is Jen Calleja, the 2019 International Booker Prize nominee and the inaugural Translator-in-Residence at The British Library, on why surrealism makes sense, translation vs writing from scratch, the publishing industry under a pandemic, viewing life through the lens of TV, and why Leonora Carrington is like Steve Martin. 

My guest this week is Daniel Matarazzo, a classically trained musical director who, just last week, created a Coronavirus parody of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to share with friends on Facebook. The song immediately became, ironically, a viral hit of its own – albeit in a very good way. Seen by millions and shared by leading figures in the entertainment world, the song has rapidly spread ac...

My guest this week is the 1988 Democratic Nominee for President of the United States of America, the first ever Greek-American US Presidential Nominee, the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history, a four-term member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and a professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University and UCLA. Recorded in 2018, this episode look...

My guest this week is Dr Joanna Nadin. Starting out as a journalist, she soon entered the world of politics, working in Downing Street helping craft Blair’s speeches. She then turned to novel writing and has since become a hugely prolific, multi-award-winning author. Predominantly writing books for children and young adults, she's been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Prize, the Carnegie Medal, and...

My guest this week is Devin Delliquanti. After getting his start at The Onion, Devin’s written for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah ever since Trevor took over the show from Jon Stewart. He’s also written for Kenan Thompson when he hosted the NHL awards and has himself hosted the New York Video Game Awards three times. Recorded the day after Boris Johnson prorogued parliament, our transatlantic con...

My guest this week is Maggie Lalley, comedian and creator of Cold Blooded Witch: The Sex Musical. Maggie’s one woman show about her stint as a teen witch, which after a hugely successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe has since sold out all over NYC, is testament to the power of storytelling and Maggie’s ability to turn even the darkest material into incredible comedy. (Fair warning, this probably is...

My guest this week is Byron Lane, an actor, writer, Emmy-award-winning journalist and creator of Tilda Swinton Answers An Ad On Craigslist - one of the funniest plays I’ve ever seen. In the play, Tilda Swinton, played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Tom Lenk, is a modern-day Mary Poppins who finds a depressed gay man, Walt, played by Byron, on Craigslist and dissects his life for a character study f...

My guest this week is Gabe Mollica, whose Edinburgh Fringe debut hour - entitled The Whole Thing: A True Story of Love, Comedy and Rice Cakes - has seen him be compared to a young Mike Birbiglia. He has also been featured on the NPR / BBC Radio 4 storytelling show The Moth, has written jokes for the New York Video Game Awards and is the host of the ever-popular Funniest People I Met This Month com...

My guest this week is Catherine Bohart, star of BBC Two’s The Mash Report, Comedy Central’s Roast Battle, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, Jon Richardson: Ultimate Worrier and The Guilty Feminist Podcast. We spoke about how to write a weekly satirical show, how school debate clubs create comedians of the future, and why stories within stand-up can create empathy.

My guest this week is Anna Drezen. As a writer for Saturday Night Live, Anna created the legendary Debette Goldry sketches (played by Kate McKinnon), along with many others including the brilliant Romano Tours and Nephew Pageant. She's also been the editor of Reductress and even a student of Shakespeare at RADA. In a busy Pleasance Courtyard bar, minutes after she stepped off stage from her Edinbu...

My first guest is AJ Holmes - star of The Book of Mormon (playing the iconic role of Elder Cunningham in the West End, Broadway and Australian productions), a writer for South Park, co-creator of Starkid musicals such as A Very Potter Musical, and currently appearing in his Edinburgh Fringe debut 'Yeah, But Not Right Now'. We talk in his kitchen over a cup of Guayusa tea about how he went from pre...