Talk ’90s to me

Diving deep into all things ’90s… Stand-up comic, actor, prolific podcaster, 5 Live fixture and proud ’90s kid Elis James has led a hectic life, from playing in indie bands in his mum’s wedding dress to selling out the London Palladium. Today he’s here to talk about his ’90s – from his burgeoning obsession with music and the music press as a teenager to the real (read: not so great) fashion of the...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Observant, razor-sharp, and totally uncynical, there’s a reason why Clueless has stood the test of time. Often referred to as the best teen film ever, it takes Jane Austen’s Emma and transplants her into the plastic-chic world of 90s Beverly Hills. At its centre is Cher Horowitz played by Alicia Silverstone, a blissfully unaware teenager who – while desperate to i...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Big Breakfast presenter, tabloid icon and 50% of THE rock power couple, Paula Yates was one of the most fascinating and complicated figures of the 1990s. A journalist, presenter, style icon and gossip column fixture, she helped redefine celebrity culture with her unconventional Big Breakfast interviews. Her high-profile marriage to Bob Geldof, and later relationsh...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Not many images epitomise Britpop more than Suede’s Brett Anderson in front of a Union Jack with “Yanks go home!” emblazoned across his chest. Suede were not happy… but the readers of Select Magazine – the delinquent lovechild of Smash Hits and NME – loved it. In-your-face, colourful, and never taking itself too seriously, Select brought Oasis, Reeves & Mortimer,...

This episode was recorded prior to the sad death of the brilliant Anthony Head on 5 June 2026. Diving deep into all things ’90s. Fangs for the memory! Buffy the Vampire Slayer began life as a teen horror-comedy film that came and went in 1992 with barely any impact. But five years later, creator Joss Whedon brought Buffy back for television, casting Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead role and someh...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. The music business’s last hurrah of excess, extravagance and super-colossal expense accounts came in the ’90s – and John Niven was in the front row as an A&R man* at era-defining label London Records. His experiences of trying to sign the next big thing in a cloud of money and “stimulants” became the cult book and movie Kill Your Friends (the British American Psyc...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Paul Verhoeven’s camp, deranged, Vegas-based “erotic drama” Showgirls was a $45 million Hollywood gamble that became one of the biggest box office flops of the decade. Nominated for 16 Razzies, it got its lead actress Elizabeth Berkeley effectively blacklisted for almost 20 years. But thirty years later, things look very different. Once dismissed as pure camp exce...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. John Robins was a child at the start of the ’90s and eighteen by the end of it. He talks through his early obsession with Freddie Mercury and Queen’s ‘90s releases, his controversial non-uniform day outfits and how his music taste evolved to the likes of Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Plus, he discusses his new book Thirst, which is out now.  Buy Thirst t...

Diving deep into all things ’90s… Elizabeth Wurtzel’s groundbreaking grunge-era memoir of depression, medication and alienation Prozac Nation divided opinion like few books ever have. How did it become the book of a generation? Does it stand up now? Did Wurtzel reinvent an old genre or start a new one? And would Lena Dunham’s Girls exist without it? Miranda Sawyer is joined by Sian Pattenden, cult...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Bright, sugary and brewed to go down far too easily, alcopops arrived in the ’90s with a bang. They blurred the line between soft drink and spirit, encouraged a new generation into the pubs and if you believed the tabloids sparked a youth drinking revolution.  This week on Talk ’90s, Miranda is joined by drinks writer Pete Brown to revisit the sticky-sweet rise of...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. It’s 1994, three schoolkids from Downpatrick get permission from their headteacher to go on tour with Elastica… and the rest is history. Ash arrive with the bombastic Girl From Mars and pure teenage nerve, somehow landing a record deal before they’ve finished their exams, then opening their A-level results live on BBC Radio 1! Frontman Tim Wheeler joins Miranda to...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Nothing captures the raw excitement of ’90s clubbing like the speaker-shattering sound of jungle and drum’n’bass – a collision of real time breakbeats and chest-rattling sub-bass that created a culture that still lives on today. And the undisputed don of the scene is Goldie, the Metalheadz mastermind whose unstoppable ambition brings drum’n’bass out of the undergr...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Stuffed with high-glam, sex-soaked shots featuring the likes of Kylie, Johnny Depp, Madonna, Ewan McGregor and Uma Thurman, Sky Magazine was the glossiest badge of adulthood you could possibly leave on the coffee table. In an age when satellite TV was booming and the remote was king, it catapulted suburban Britain to the heart of Hollywood.    Sky Magazine’s edito...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. “The Judge won’t budge!” DJ Julius O'Riordan AKA Judge Jules was at the centre of the ’90s dance music boom that took the scene from pirate radio and illegal raves to Radio 1, superclubs and Ibiza at its most ’avin it. The law student turned DJ became one of the defining figures of the decade. Miranda sits down with Jules to talk about how dance music changed acro...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Cigs for breakfast! Oral sex in the kitchen! Wobbly cameras! E binges! Egg! Milly! Miles! Anna! Warren! And “the punch”. It’s 30 years since the groundbreaking houseshare drama This Life exploded onto our screens and gave us a candid look into the lives of young lawyers living together in London. What made this ramshackle saga work? And what made the characters so...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. What happens when you grow up on the most famous square in Britain? Natalie Cassidy was barely a teenager when she became Sonia Fowler and suddenly the nation was watching her first kisses, first heartbreaks and, yes, her many trumpet solos. In this episode of Talk ’90s To Me, Natalie looks back on life as a child star at the heart of EastEnders at its peak: the p...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. In 1994, a 19-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio received his first Academy Award nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. It proved he was the real deal  and set him on course to become more than just an actor. Within a few short years he’d become the ultimate poster boy, with bedroom walls across the globe filling up with Leo pictures carefully snipped from teen mags...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Jeff Buckley died in 1997 at just 30 years old, leaving behind only a handful of recordings but a huge impression on his fans. In the decades since, the mythology of the singer-songwriter hasn’t really faded. Buckley didn’t leave a long catalogue behind, but what he did leave was enough to make him a legend. This week, Miranda sits down with music Journalist Jude...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. British comedy got faster, stranger and more gleefully quotable in the ’90s than ever before. At the centre of it all was John Thomson, the everyman who helped turn The Fast Show into a cultural phenomenon, popped up everywhere from I’m Alan Partridge to Men Behaving Badly, and then pivoted to the Sunday night, must-watch dramedy Cold Feet. This week, Miranda sits...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. 1994, Loaded lands on newsstands and suddenly the tone of British magazines shifts overnight. Louder, cheekier, more irreverent than anything before. At the centre of it all is James Brown, the unlikely magazine wunderkind who rocked the world of ’90s publishing. This week, Miranda Sawyer sits down with James, author of new fanzine Zine Age Kicks to discuss his be...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Pop was trying very hard to look polished, predictable and a little bit American in the early ’90s… then Björk arrived, barefoot, uncompromising, and sounding like the future of music. She didn’t just release hit records. She blew open the idea of what a pop star could be: experimental but chart-friendly, weird but deeply human. In this episode of Talk ’90s to Me,...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. CK’s iconic black-and-white underwear ads didn’t just sell underwear – they practically defined the style of the ’90s. Slip dresses that looked like you’d forgotten the rest of your outfit, billboards full of brooding half-dressed teenagers, and a minimalist aesthetic all reshaped fashion forever. Sali Hughes, The Guardian’s beauty columnist and host of the Beyond...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. The Disney Renaissance is usually remembered for its big tunes and Broadway bombast, but one of its most long-lasting impacts is the strength of its villains. From a sea witch inspired by the most transgressive drag queen of the ’80s to a Shakespearean lion schemer voiced by Jeremy Irons, these characters defined the era. Louder, stranger and far more interesting...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. Brooklyn and Nicola? Pffft. In 1999 David Beckham and Victoria Adams were the two most stratospherically famous people in Britain – and their wedding blew the nation’s collective mind. How did the Posh’n’Becks nuptials change celebrity culture, the media and the minds of everyday people? Diehard Posh’n’Becks fangirl, Guardian columnist and Mirror veteran Polly Hud...

Diving deep into all things ’90s. In 1999, Britney Spears exploded into pop superstardom. One song, one video, and suddenly she was everywhere with barely any build-up and no room to breathe. Was Britney’s debut a pop miracle, or the start of a life lived on other people’s terms? This week, Miranda Sawyer is joined by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, author Being Britney, to look back at culture that ma...