The Wind Thieved Hat

This episode is something of a departure for The Wind Thieved Hat … it’s the first time I’ve been married to the guest. Kate Shooter happens to be my wife, but even if she weren’t I’d have her invited her on to TWTH to talk about her work. Her extraordinary paintings sit somewhere between figurative and abstract, playing with shape, colour, text and collage. We talk about the brutality of the crea...

Adam's Instagram bio reads ‘confusing background, focused foreground’. His focus lies in creating brilliantly colourful work which delights in its own artifice. As well as being an artist and designer, Adam is also a thinker and provocateur. He likes to upset the creative apple cart. Is less really more? And should form always follow function? Our conversation roams widely. We cover that confusing...

Dominic Wilcox began his career as a designer and artist but his practice today is wide ranging and defies an easy description. I can say though that he’s one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met and the only person I’ve interviewed ever to have held the floor at the United Nations. Our conversation covers where ideas come from and how to find them; we talk about how creativity helped Domini...

Is it possible to combine running a fish and chip shop with being an internationally acclaimed photographer? It is if you’re Kazem Hakimi. In this conversation recorded at his home in Oxford, the charming and disarmingly modest Kazem, who came to the UK from Iran over 30 years ago, explains how he photographs for love. For the love of the medium of photography itself, and for the love of people. I...

In this episode I join my mate Algy Batten. The softly spoken but hugely inspiring Algy, who was recently included in a list of the World’s 100 Makers and Mavericks , talks about his latest project The Art of Ping Pong , as well as the lessons he’s learned through a career in design – a career which began with him scratching logos off tennis rackets. Our conversation covers perseverance, the dange...

This time I talk creativity with someone Stephen Fry has described as funny, frank, intelligent & enchantingly entertaining: Tourette’s Hero Jess Thom. Jess and I cover a lot of ground … from the neurodiversity movement, and how Jess ended up in the only seat in the house she wouldn’t be asked to leave - on the stage; to the crazy language generating machine that is Tourette’s. You can find ou...

In this episode, recorded above a pub in Leyton, I chat to writer, artist and performer Rob Auton. He’s funny, frank and very honest about what creativity and performing mean to him. To Paddy Considine he’s ‘a very funny man’; to Vanessa Feltz he’s ‘just sad’. I’m with Paddy.

An honest and personal discussion about creativity and process with photographer Siân Davey . Despite having only been photographing for six years, since her early forties, Siân has built up an incredible body of work. During our conversation, recorded in her garden in Devon, we discuss at length her project Looking for Alice , in which she came to make sense of her relationship with her daughter...

In this inspiring and amusing conversation on creativity Richard talks to his old mate Tony Pipes. Their conversation ranges from hip hop, to ADHD, to how it was that Tony’s band the Space Monkeys killed the infamous Factory record label …