Loose Ends

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Producer: Olive Clancy

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