The Marvyn Harrison Podcast

Michelle Gayle actress, singer, and one of the most recognisable black British faces of the 90s, joins Marvyn for a conversation spanning her Harlesden childhood, her friendship with a young Naomi Campbell, the Jodeci vs Boyz II Men debate that defined 90s R&B fandom, and the real story behind why she walked away from EastEnders at the height of her fame. Along the way: grandmother wisdom, cod...

He was in your living room every night. He played the first gay character most of us ever saw kiss another man before watershed on Channel 4. Men still message him today saying his character saved their life. Behind the scenes, he was drinking alone on his kitchen floor on a Tuesday afternoon, waiting for someone to deliver drugs, freshly divorced, trapped in a cycle he thought was freedom. This i...

In August 2018, Raneem Uday and her mother Khaula Saleem were murdered in the West Midlands despite multiple 999 calls made that night. The system failed them — not through a single act of negligence, but through structural gaps in how those calls were handled and risk was assessed. What followed is a study in what grief becomes when it meets determination. Raneem's aunt, Nour Norris, campaigned f...

This morning, Keir Starmer walked out of Downing Street and resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. In this solo episode, Marvyn Harrison cuts through the noise and asks the questions the rolling news cycle won't slow down long enough to answer. How does a landslide majority of 172 seats collapse in two years? What does this moment mean for Black and Brown communities who voted Labour in...

It's World Sickle Cell Day, and the NHS Modernisation Bill, which proposes a single patient record bringing together a patient's full medical history in one place, has just reached committee stage in Parliament. In this episode, we speak with Professor Arlene Wellman MBE: a senior nurse leader and strategic adviser at the Florence Nightingale Foundation with over 27 years' experience across the NH...

Two days' notice. One email. "Are you available on the 15th at 7:30am to talk to Liz Kendall about some work she's doing." That's how this started. What followed was a morning inside Downing Street watching Keir Starmer announce a ban on social media for every child under 16 in the country — backed by a consultation of 116,000 responses, where 83% of parents said the risks outweigh the benefits an...

Marvyn Harrison is joined by Paige Lewin and Brandeis for the most chaotic, most fun, most opinionated food game show in podcast history. No earnest deep dives today, just diaspora food debates, Caribbean heritage on the line, and Marvyn as the sole judge, jury and point-giver. They go in on: the 30-minute meal that will win over your partner's parents, the Nigeria vs Ghana jollof rice war, the mo...

The crisis: 948,000 young people aged 16–24 in the UK — 1 in 8 — are not in education, employment, or training. In the US, it's worse. Youth labour force participation has been collapsing since 2000. That's 25 years of failure. The experiment: The UK government is running a £45 million test across 8 regions to find out what actually works. The answer isn't obvious — Switzerland gets 90% of young p...

BBC investigative reporter Jacqui Wakefield spent a year inside the global manosphere — travelling to Kenya and Mexico to track how Western influencer culture is radicalising young men at scale. She shares what she found in the data when young men handed over their full social media histories, what happened when she confronted influencer Andrew Kibe on camera, and why it's women who ultimately pay...

Gareth Southgate joins Marvyn Harrison for a rare and honest conversation about the crisis facing young men and boys in Britain today — and what we actually do about it. In this episode, Gareth discusses his new BBC One documentary Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men (airing 8th June, 9pm, BBC One & iPlayer), why he felt compelled to make it after his Dimbleby Lecture, what a goo...

In this follow-up conversation from South by Southwest, Marvin Harrison sits down with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to address the influence of the "manosphere" on young men and boys. Mayor Khan discusses the urgent need to hold big tech companies accountable for algorithms that prioritize engagement through negativity and misogyny. He outlines a dual approach to the issue: calling for stricte...

This week, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan delivered a landmark speech at SXSW London, warning that manosphere influence online risks creating a lost generation of young men. In this solo episode, Marvyn breaks down what the Mayor actually announced, what the research tells us, and why the real intervention isn't a government policy, it's the conversation you have with the boy in front of you. Covered...

Başak Erten is a creative strategist, radio and brand consultant, and founder of The Art of Audacity — a cultural platform for women in creative industries, as featured in Forbes. She's spent over eight years producing content across the BBC, Sony Music Entertainment, and branded work for Vanity Fair, Bloomberg, and Nike. In this episode she brings three sharp takes on where culture, media, and co...

Marvyn Harrison and Kojo go back. Two decades of parallel paths, community builders, event makers, fathers, who were never quite in the same room long enough to have the real conversation. Until now. In this episode, they cover everything. The g:hop era. The Sunday Show years, Ed Sheeran performing there eight times, Drake, Jay Cole, Wretch 32, Nicki Minaj, Omarion, Boys II Men. How the show grew...

Tyler West opens up about PTSD, witnessing violence at 14 & going back to therapy. Dr Amos explains anxiety conditions. NHS Talking Therapies: https://www.nhs.uk/talk In this episode of The Marvyn Harrison Podcast, Marvyn sits down with Dr Amos Ogunkoya and Tyler West for a raw, honest conversation about mental health, masculinity, and what it really takes to ask for help. 62% of people can’t...

Show details: https://www.youtube.com/@TheDayAfterTNB You probably know Marvyn Harrison from Dope Black Dads. Or from Jeremy Vine. Or from Good Morning Britain. But do you know where he started? In this episode, Marvyn takes the room on the full journey — from g:hop, the lifestyle movement that tried to do for grime what hip hop did for itself, to Sunday Show where Ed Sheeran performed most of his...

Arsenal Football Club are Premier League champions for the first time in 22 years. A generation of fans who weren't born the last time this happened are now old enough to drink, vote, and cry in the streets of North London. And that's exactly what tens of thousands of them did on the night of May 19th, 2026. Marvin was one of them. In this episode, Marvin breaks down everything, the night itself,...

Scary Movie didn't just parody horror it gave a generation permission to laugh at the things that scared them. Then the Wayans left. And we all felt the difference. Now they're back. Marlon. Shawn. The original crew. And in this conversation, Marlon reveals the moment that made it happen: a promise made to his father, hand to hand, on one of the last times they were together. We talk about what it...

Julie Adenuga and a South African guest join Marvyn for the most chaotic, unresolved, and genuinely entertaining TV parents debate you'll watch this year. Aunt Viv. Claire Huxtable. Peggy Mitchell. Moira Rose. Jack Pearson. Uncle Phil. Logan Roy. Walter White as a dad candidate. Nobody agreed. Nobody backed down. This is what happens when three people with completely different cultural references...

He broke Kanye West in the UK before College Dropout dropped. He filmed Drake's first ever UK interview in Hyde Park — paid the cameraman £50 out of his own pocket because the station didn't care. He flew to New York to sign Fatman Scoop and got aired for a week until a 4am diner meeting sealed the deal. Ghostface Killah called his book the Bible of hip hop. Chuck D wrote the foreword in five minu...

View the images in order, here! https://canva.link/4eacwrp87m3qfxh I've known Dane Baptiste for 20 years. I watched him find five minutes at the beginning of my Sunday Show when nobody knew his name. I watched the crowds not get it. I watched him come back anyway. This conversation is the full story, from his first day at Haberdashers, to being the only deadpan Black British comic in a room full o...

She trained as a social worker. Spent 15 years watching what happens when relationships destroy people. Built a community of 250,000 women on Instagram. Wrote a Sunday Times bestseller. And then sat across from me and said: "I don't know if this is working. Nothing's changing." This is Layla, Lalalaletmeexplain and this is not the conversation you're expecting. We go into: Her dad leaving her mum...

Poppy Jay arrives with no prep. What follows is one of the rawest conversations on this channel. Director, writer, comedian, and co-host of the cult podcast Brown Girls Do It Too, Poppy walks me through ten photos from her life, and each one opens a door she wasn't planning to open. We talk about the forced marriage she gave in to as the eldest of six daughters in a strict Bengali Muslim household...

Sadiq Khan just announced £30 million to put a youth club in every single London borough. They're called Youth Lates — open evenings, open weekends, with food, mentoring, music, mental health support, all under one roof. The biggest investment in youth clubs by any Mayor. Ever. Marvyn grew up in Hackney at a time when youth clubs still existed. His youth worker was Justin Pickett — the actor who p...

The UK government opened the biggest consultation on children's digital safety ever attempted. Social media age bans. Overnight app curfews. Restrictions on infinite scroll. Controls on AI chatbots. They want to hear from parents directly. So when the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology invited me to the Black Prince Community Trust in Lambeth to sit down with Kanishka Narayan MP, th...