Loose Ends

Kiri Pritchard-McLean welcomes the actor and writer Ralf Little as he tours the country with the first ever stage adaptation of John le Carré's classic book The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.Comedian Nina Gilligan joins us to talk about her new Radio 4 comedy special and her upcoming stand-up tour, Lemoncake.Actor Sam Riley is about to star in the new BBC romantic crime drama Mint.And we've music from Kansas-born preacher's son Will Brown, and Janet Devlin with her new single, co-written with Jack Savoretti.Presenter: Kiri Pritchard-McLean Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Clive Anderson is joined by comedian Jen Brister, currentl touring her show 'Reactive', she's on a mission to see if she can chill out. Actor Giles Terera is starring in a new production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest at the Old Vic and best-selling novelist Jojo Moyes' latest book is 'We All Live Here'.Angélique Kidjo is back with her first new album in five years, inspired by her mother, it's called 'HOPE!!'. Tessa Rose Jackson performs from her album The Lighthouse.Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Jessica Treen

Stuart Maconie is joined in Salford by master of mind control and psychological illusion Derren Brown who is currently touring his latest show 'Only Human'. Stand up Maria Shehata moved to the UK for love, but the course of true love did not run smoothly and the relationship ended soon after. She explores her decision in a new Radio 4 stand up special 'Maria Shehata is Wisdomless'. Alison Larkin turned her one woman show 'Grief … A Comedy into an unusual memoir that sees her guided by the presence of her late fiance. And there's music from the Peter's Field - a musical ode to the victims of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 and a celebration of men and women who championed votes for working people, written by Sean Cooney who performs alongside Sam Carter and Eliza Carthy.And there's more music from Francesca Pidgeon aka DilettantePresenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Jessica Treen

Stuart Maconie soaks up Glasgow International Comedy Festival.He is joined by comedian Alana Jackson who went viral with her stories of Glasgow funerals, took home the prestigious So You Think You're Funny? award in 2024, and took time out of her line dancing schedule last year to enjoy a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival. Plus stand-up Sam Lake, who asks guests on his podcast - I've Had A Rosé, Let's Talk About Feelings - to join him on a deep chat with a beverage of their choice. But why did jelly change the way he flies forever? Writer and restaurant critic Candice Chung delves her relationship with her family and how food says things that words can't in her memoir - Chinese Parents Don't Say I Love You.With music from Vitamin String Quartet, whose classical pop-covers help bring the world of Bridgerton alive, and the cast of One Day: The Musical share a track from the new production.Producer: Caitlin Sneddon Production Coordinator: Lauren Stewart

Comic, Strictly winner and Live Comedy Day ambassador Chris McCausland joins Kiri Pritchard-McLean for a chat about siblings. Chris remembers pitched battles aged 11 with his then four year old sister over TV rights. Comedy cabaret duo Flo and Joan are sisters Rosie and Nicola Dempsey who do perform songs about slipping each other poison in their tea. But we think that's a joke.The Orielles too are a trio made up of the Hand-Halford sisters who bumped into guitarist Henry at a party aged 9 and are are now on their 4th record. The best selling thriller writer Dorothy Koomson admits to writing anybody who crosses her into her books, complete with sticky ending. And the space historian and broadcaster Dallas Campbell explains why the astronomer Galileo may have shopped in a 16th century middle aisle.Presenter: Kiri Pritchard-McLean Producer: Olive Clancy

Clive Anderson is joined by The O.C star Mischa Barton who is in a new production of Double Indemity. And it's a double dose of murder and intrigue as we're also joined by best-selling crime writer Ava Glass with her new book 'The Hiding Season'. And from death to life, since we're very grateful comedian Emmanuel Sonibu survived his near fatal heart attack and is here to tell the tale in his stand up show 'Life After Near Death'. Squeeze are back with their first album of new material in 8 years, 'Trixies', as well as Samantha Crain who brings us even more intrigue with her new album 'Gumshoe'.Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Jessica Treen

Stuart Maconie talks to the Riot Women and In The Thick Of It actress Joanna Scanlan on her lastest project, Mercy - a dark comic thriller.Faye Tozer is perhaps best known as part of the crowd pleasing, hearts and flowers pop band Steps, but now she's joining the cast of Mean Girls the musical - what does she make of the world of queen bees and "plastics". Fascinating Aïda's Adèle Anderson on staying fierce and fabulous while on tour with Priscilla Queen of The Desert the musical without her caberet co-stars. Plus music from smokey-voiced, Americana-inspired English singer song-writer Elles Bailey and BBC Introducing NorthEast indie pop singer ERNIE. Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Olive Clancy

Joining Stuart for this week's Loose Ends are...Comedian and actress Lucy Beaumont on the play that, 40 years ago, inspired her mum to become a writer. It also features a chip-eating Alsatian.Chef and broadcaster Gizzi Erskine with tales of members of The Damned being left with Courtney Love's baby.Comedian Alasdair Beckett-King on the good old days of landline phones and pop tarts.Jonny Balchandani, known to his huge social media following as the Bearded Plantaholic, tells us how he covertly turned his wife's office into a living, breathing jungle.And there's music from Jesca Hoop and Lail Arad as they perform Morning Morgantown and Big Yellow Taxi from their show The Songs of Joni Mitchell.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Stuart talks to the award winning writer and composer of Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots - Tim Firth - about his latest stage creation, The Ladies Football Club. Can the man who got his break with a play about two yucca plants strike fresh gold with this tale of the women who began to play football whist working in Sheffield's munitions factories during World War I and end up playing to many thousands in a South Yorkshire women's league. Taskmaster and Mr Bigstuff star Fatiha El-Ghorri says she's ironing her swaggest hijab to head out on her debut stand up tour - Cockney Stacking Doll. She'll also have the story of her journey out from divorce and back on the dating scene in her new Radio 4 comedy - A Match Made Inshallah. Tom Hodgkinson's the editor of The Idler and author of books such as How to be Idle, The Idle Parent and - here's the outlier - The Ukelele Handbook. So perhaps busier than he makes out? His new book is a fresh look at one of the world's oldest philosophies - How to Live Like A Stoic. Stoicism is having a moment in the manosphere but he explains how "bro-ism" has got stoicism all wrong. With music from the cast of the smash hit musical Operation Mincemeat and from BBC Introducing "one to watch" , Lois.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Olive Clancy Assistant Producer: Samuel Nixon Technical Producers: John Coles, Amy Brennan, Phillip Halliwell Production Co-ordinator: Pete Liggins.

Joining Clive this week are the actress and singer Keala Settle, who's starring in a newly re-imagined production of John Ransom Phillips' Mrs President.Presenter Michaela Strachan is heading off across the country with her show Not Just A Wild Life, to celebrate 40 years of her career in television.Comedian Ross Noble joins us mid-tour to delve into his Cranium of Curiosities.Star of stage and screen Melvyn Hayes brings along his new autobiography It Ain't Half Late Mum.And there's music from Beverley Knight, who's about to grace the stage in the West End premiere of Marie and Rosetta.Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Stuart Maconie is in Glasgow for the city's annual folk, roots and world music festival - Celtic Connections.He's joined by comedian Marcus Brigstocke, whose tour Vitruvian Mango sees him trying to figure out what it is to be a man, and why he feels like more of one when his wife asks him to reach something from a high shelf. Ashley Storrie will be chatting all about the new series of her award-winning BBC show Dinosaur. Autistic palaeontologist Nina is knee-deep in mud on an Isle of Wight dig site, living the dream. Well, either that or she's desperately missing reality tv marathons on her own sofa with some sausage rolls. In writer Louise Welsh's latest novel The Cut Up, Glasgow auctioneer Rilke is once again drawn in to drama, murder and detective work, as he curses his very loyal but very troublesome friends. With performances from Newfoundland folk band Rum Ragged who are keeping the music of their Canadian island home alive. Plus Glasgow-based female and non-binary music collective Hen Hoose share a track from new album The Twelve. Producer: Caitlin Sneddon Production Coordinator: Lauren Stewart Engineers: Andrew Hay, Fiona Johnstone, Sean Mullervy

Joining Stuart for this week's Loose Ends are actor Nigel Havers, who tells us about his remarkable shepherd's pies and the sex appeal of Mrs Thatcher.Comedy writer and performer Rosalie Minnitt on how dreaming of cows and seeing moonlit owls doesn't bode terribly well.Comedian Mike Wozniak on how a luxuriant moustache can help balance out an underdeveloped lower face.And there's music from Dan Gillespie Sells, performing a song by his band The Feeling, and Liverpool's electro-pop trio Stealing Sheep, with their track GLO.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Stuart Maconie's tiptoeing the line between dark and light in this week's Loose Ends. When she won Strictly Jill Halfpenny got the highest ever score for her sequin studded jive, but there's not a glitterball to be seen in her latest role as the traumatised mum Eve in the dark psychological thriller Girl Taken, which also stars Alfie Allen as the creepiest teacher you'd never hope to meet. Ian Smith is a comedian who mines his own anxieties for his art - be that his Radio 4 series called "Ian Smith is Stressed", the unintentionally hilarious news from his hometown in the Northern News Podcast or his new tour, "Footspa Half Empty".The comic, actor and Dead Ringers impressionist Jess Robinson's very funny and also very sad new memoir contrasts her own twentysomething exploits as a stage ingenue with her Jewish Grandmother's diaries at the same age - Life Is Rosi: Grandma, Me and Our Diaries at 23. Grandma Rosi loved music, boyfriends and having a laugh too but was enduring Germany during the rise of Hitler at the same time. And as they head out on tour, we have performance from The Charlatan's new album We Are Love. Producer: Olive Clancy Assistant Producer: Samuel Nixon Technical Producers: John Cole and Mark Ward Production Coordintor: Pete Liggins

Joining Stuart Maconie for this week's Loose Ends are Professor Alice Roberts with her book Domination, which takes a deep dig into the heart of the Roman Empire.Comedian and poet Rob Auton is about to tour with his show CAN: The Story of a Man Called Can...he's here to tell us all he can about that.Actor Amir El-Masry is starring in the new film Giant as the boxer Prince Naseem Hamed, and he joins Loose Ends to talk technique, training and working with Pierce Brosnan and Sylvester Stallone.The comedian Esther Manito drops into the studio mid-tour to bring her humorous take on what she calls a "very undignified period of life".And there's music from Cast who are about to release their new album Yeah Yeah Yeah at the end of January.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Clive Anderson is joined in Glasgow by broadcaster and author Sally Magnusson, whose latest novel breathes new life into stories told to her as a child by her Icelandic father. She brings together modern day Orkney and the Norse myth of Hel in The Shapeshifter's Daughter.In 2017 Ray Bradshaw became the first comedian to perform simultaneously in English and in sign language. In his upcoming tour CODA, he returns to tales of his parents and the experience of growing up as A Child of Deaf Adults. Grado has many a feather in his cap - wrestler, Two Doors Down star, presenter - and he is currently brightening up panto season in Jock and the Beanstalk (oh no he isn't!).Plus music from Nathan Evans x SAINT PHNX, and Mairi Campbell.Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Caitlin Sneddon

There's plenty of festive energy left with Stuart Maconie and guests in the Loose Ends twixtmas studio:Taskmaster champion Maisie Adams tells us how she got in touch with her previously hidden competition-demon on the show, her highly-flammable competition outfit and that nailbiting finish, as well as revving up for a new tour in 2026. ITV's hit drama Red Eye is back for a second season on New Year's Day and its star Jing Lusi tells us about reprising her role as the kickboxing DI Hanna Li. She thinks DI Li would not approve of her penchant for Romcoms and fitness avoidance. And Radio 3's Elizabeth Alker outlines how rock and pop musicians from The Beatles to Radiohead to Manic Street Preachers owe a debt to classical music with tales from her new book Everything We Do Is Music. She also has tales of her rockstar Yorkshire terrier Terry who rules the roost at her house in December and well, all year round really.Plus inspiring music for the turning of the year from Thea Gilmore and from Carly Mercedes Dyer singing You Are My Lucky Star from the musical Singing in the Rain.Producer: Olive Clancy Assistant producer: Sam Nixon Technical producers: John Cole & John Benton Production coordinator: Pete Liggins

Stuart Maconie presents the Loose Ends festive Christmas special, recorded in front of an audience in the BBC's Philharmonic Studio at MediaCity. King of the Christmas jumper, Gyles Brandreth brings his book 'Somewhere, A Boy And A Bear' - a biography of AA Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh. He regales us with stories of Christopher Robin and of a surprising encounter with a Rolling Stone.Carrie Grant tells us all about the book she's written with her husband David, 'Joy To The World', which explores the stories behind iconic Christmas songs, including Stay Another Day, Last Christmas and Gaudete.Lisa Faulkner is returning to the stage for the first time in 21 years, as she's about to star in new stage adaptation of the hit 90s movie Single White Female alongside Kym Marsh. We hear about her upcoming epic tour, as well as her controversial take on the role of Yorkshire Puddings on a Christmas dinner.Comedian Simon Evans takes a break from his current tour 'Staring At The Sun' to talk Coleridge, James Joyce and, of course, Bernard Manning...There's music from The Unthanks as they perform 'The Cherry Tree Carol' and the beautiful winter song 'Hawthorn'.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Clive Anderson is joined in Glasgow by My Mad Fat Diary actor Sharon Rooney. In her latest thriller series The Revenge Club she joins Martin Compston and Meera Syal in a cast of motley divorcees who want to get back at their exes. Jonathan Watson is back on the telly this Christmas when Two Doors Down returns. The neighbours of Latimer Crescent reunite for a special episode, as Beth and Eric dare to put their tree up a bit earlier than usual.Interior Design Masters winner Banjo Beale has filled our screens with transformations across the country. Now Banjo and Ro's Grand Island Hotel takes him and his husband to the remote island of Ulva as they attempt their biggest design project to date. Flora Shedden first charmed the world when she appeared on The Great British Bake Off as a teenager in 2015. Now she keeps her community in Dunkeld supplied with baked goods and local produce, and in her new book Winter in the Highlands she shares some of those recipes with us.Plus music from Malin Lewis, and a track from new folk musical Ballad Lines. Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Caitlin Sneddon

Making lemonade from the lemons of life is the theme to this week's Loose Ends.The comedian Omid Djalili was so incensed by having his shows cancelled after 9/11 due to his Middle Eastern heritage that he devised a stand up tour called Namaste so he could let off steam as well as make us laugh. Elizabeth Day's How to Fail podcast is, ironically, a massive success but she says her latest novel - a darkly humorous political satire - draws on her own feelings of being an outsider. Neil Morrissey had an ill-starred childhood but managed to head straight for the limelight in Men Behaving Badly, Line of Duty and is now playing Jacob Marley who brings redemption to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. And Taskmaster contestant and comedian Ania Magliano attributes her personality to growing up playing with Sylvanian family toys rather than Barbies - find out how that inspired her new stand up show, Peach Fuzz. Plus a performance from Dracapella, a comedy retelling of the Dracula story, introduced by its writer Dan Patterson, the creator of Whose Line Is It Anyway?Producer: Olive Clancy Assistant producer: Samuel Nixon Technical Production: Giles Aspen and Gayl Gordon

Stuart Maconie welcomes Angie Le Mar to talk about appearing in her son Travis Jay's Radio 4 comedy Rum Punch. The actor Nabil Elouahabi talks about his role as the veteran explosives officer in the TV drama Trigger Point and comedian Phil Ellis is about to tour the country with his new show Bath Mat. He joins us to tell us why he's about to wipe the floor with his new show.And we've music from Seb Lowe and Glasgow's Goodnight Louisa, who perform their new single 'Drew Barrymore'.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Elizabeth Foster

Loose Ends is cavorting among the snow-caps of Cumbria at the Kendal Mountain Festival this week. Chef d'Equipe Stuart Maconie reaches for the summit of chat with navigation from the adventurer and broadcaster Ben Fogle - celebrating twenty five years since he was Castaway on a remote Scottish island for the BBC reality TV show that he says is more relevant today than ever. The award-winning writer Sarah Hall provides forecasts as she describes the star of her new novel Helm - a personification of Britain's only named wind, the puckish, mercurial, destructive force of the Eden Valley she grew up on. Horrible Histories author Terry Deary confesses to being an inveterate townie, but keeps our spirits up with gruesome tales from his latest book Revolting, which asks what would make you fight the power and how would you do it? He cites the Suffragists and their daring idea to wrap themselves in brown paper and post themselves to Downing Street. With music from rising Americana band Smith and Liddle who hail from the Northeast and Cumbrian singer-songwriter Holly Brooke. Producer: Olive Clancy Assistant producer: Samuel Nixon Technical producers: Mark Ward and Liam Juniper Production coordinator: Pete Liggins

What's a Kentucky? Comedy legend John Lloyd is here to reveal all, in honour of the 42nd anniversary of his cult dictionary 'The Meaning of Liff', co-written with the much missed Douglas Adams, Jessica Swale is the writer behind the new Paddington musical and she tells us about her emotional first meeting with the bear. Jessica Valene stars as a woman on the edge in a new drama series, Summerwater. There's music from cabaret star Kit Green with her new album 'Four Letter Words' and alternative pop singer-songwriter Luvcat will be performing from her debut album Vicious Delicious.Presenter: Stuart Maconie Producer: Jessica Treen

Clive Anderson is joined by a giggle of comics or should that be a brace of jokers in the Loose Ends studio this week. Fawlty Towers creator John Cleese recalls being told his nascent sitcom - 50 years old this year - would fail if they didn't "get it out of the hotel more". Sue Perkins describes the urge to get out on a stand up tour again after a decade presenting shows from Great British Bake Off to Just a Minute, her show is called The Eternal Shame of Sue Perkins - what could be so embarrassing? Judi Love is on our screens practically daily - on ITV's Loose Women or shows from Taskmaster to The Wheel but she too is drawn to the stage - what gives? Meanwhile Hugh Dennis is not on tour, but he's on stage, as Rev Chasuble in the National Theatre's production of The Importance of Being Earnest - he may not be planning to go all churchy but he does feel right at home in clerical garb. With music from Editors front man Tom Smith with a track from his forthcoming album There Is Nothing In The Dark That Isn't There In The Light and from Natalie Duncan Trio with her new single Breakaway before her London Jazz Festival gig.Produced by Olive Clancy

It's a particulary spooky edition of Loose Ends as we're joined by Danny Robins - host of Uncanny and writer of 2.22 a Ghost Story and cult horror author Garth Marenghi. But which of them is the real king of horror? Rebecca Lucy Taylor, AKA Self Esteem brings us her literary debut, A Complicated Woman and there's music from The New Eves with a song from their debut album 'The New Eve is Rising' and Donna Thompson performs 'Gardner Street'Presenter: Clive Anderson Producer: Jessica Treen