Loose Ends

BBC Radio 4
Loose Ends
Latest episode

472 episodes

  • Loose Ends

    Lucy Beaumont, Gizzi Erskine, Alasdair Beckett-King, Jonny Balchandani, Jesca Hoop & Lail Arad with The Songs of Joni Mitchell

    2/21/2026 | 37 mins.
    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
  • Loose Ends

    Tim Firth, Fatiha El-Ghorri, Operation Mincemeat, Lois, Stuart Maconie, Tom Hodgkinson

    2/14/2026 | 35 mins.
    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.
  • Loose Ends

    Beverley Knight, Keala Settle, Michaela Strachan, Ross Noble, Melvyn Hayes

    2/07/2026 | 38 mins.
    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
  • Loose Ends

    Marcus Brigstocke, Ashley Storrie, Louise Welsh, Stuart Maconie, Rum Ragged, Hen Hoose Collective

    1/31/2026 | 36 mins.
    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
  • Loose Ends

    Nigel Havers, Rosalie Minnitt, Mike Wozniak, Dan Gillespie Sells, Stealing Sheep

    1/24/2026 | 35 mins.
    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

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About Loose Ends

Clive Anderson and guests with an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy
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