The Brilliant Humans Podcast

What happens when a man who built his identity inside the armed forces walks out the other side with nothing to show him who he is? For AJ — 3D print business owner, tabletop gaming lead at Luton Comic Con, and dad of four — the answer came from an unlikely source: Henry Cavill.

Not just Superman. Not just Geralt of Rivia. But the man who sat on the Graham Norton sofa talking about Warhammer 40,000 with zero apology and total conviction — and made AJ feel like his passions were worth owning out loud.

In this special episode, recorded in partnership with Luton Comic Con 2026, AJ traces a journey from post-military identity crisis to full-time creator, and explores why a Hollywood actor's unashamed nerdiness changed the way he sees himself, parents his kids, and shows up in the world. Along the way they dig into tabletop gaming, the controversy around Henry's casting as Superman, his battles to keep The Witcher true to its source material, and the Warhammer film that's quietly in development.

If you've ever hidden a passion because you thought it wasn't cool enough — or needed someone to show you it's safe to be exactly who you are — this one's for you.

She had a condition that made writing physically and mentally painful. She was a woman working in a genre dominated by men. And in 1926, she vanished for 11 days — a mystery she took to her grave. Yet Dame Agatha Christie went on to become the best-selling novelist of all time, with over two billion copies sold.

Gen Dearman, CEO of disability charity Challengers, first picked up an Agatha Christie novel as an eight-year-old in a hotel in Worthing — and hasn't stopped since. In this conversation, Gen traces forty years of companionship with Christie's work: the accessible, put-it-down-and-pick-it-back-up quality of her writing, the feminist defiance hidden in plain sight, the disability Christie never let define her, and the Poirot theme that still conjures the warmth of Gen's late mum on a quiet evening.

Gen also shares the work she leads at Challengers, a Surrey-based charity that transforms the lives of disabled children and young people through the power of play — with a non-exclusion policy as radical as anything Christie herself might have championed. Find out more at disability-challengers.org.

If you've ever found a book that felt less like reading and more like coming home, this one's for you.

She was born at two pounds, three ounces — three months early, fighting for her life before she'd even begun it. Then came the cerebral palsy diagnosis, the surgeries, the bullying, the anorexia. And through all of it, nobody knew whether Sophia would ever live independently, hold down a job, or simply be okay.

In this episode, Jonathan is joined by Nicky Banger — former professional footballer and CEO of the Knights Foundation — who has dedicated his life to supporting families with children who have additional needs. But today, Nicky isn't here to talk about his work. He's here to talk about his daughter.

Sophia's story is one of extraordinary, quiet courage. Multiple major operations. Cyberbullying. An eating disorder. A system that repeatedly told her family she wasn't worth the fight. And yet, at 21, she's studying law — and one of the world's biggest law firms has come looking for her.

Nicky reflects on what it meant to parent through fear without showing it, why resilience can't be taught but can be modelled, and how Sophia is becoming the role model she never had.

Learn more about the work Nicky leads at the Knights Foundation: https://www.theknightsfoundation.org/

If you've ever watched someone you love face odds that felt impossible — and seen them win — this one's for you.

What does it mean to truly live — and what does it cost when the person who showed you how is suddenly gone?

Hendrika Willemse was 23 years old. After working late with her brother Andre a phone call changed everything. A heart attack. A stroke. No goodbye. And a company to figure out alone.

Andre was 18 years older than Hendrika — part big brother, part business partner, part father figure in a home where her biological father was never present. He was the reason she went into tech when almost no other young women were doing it. He was the one who showed her what it looked like to combine deep technical knowledge with genuine commercial instinct, to work hard and play hard, and to squeeze everything out of life.

He was 41 when he died.

In this episode, Hendrika — three-time world karate champion, keynote speaker, and partner at Storyo — shares how Andre's way of living became the lens through which she sees the world. His legacy isn't a lesson she was taught. It's a standard she holds herself to every single day.

Learn more about Hendrika at https://www.hendrika-willemse.com/

If you've ever lost someone before you had the chance to say thank you, this one's for you.

Before Sam Leyden played his first gig, before the tens of thousands of streams, before the song that stopped someone in their tracks at 3am — there was Betsy.

A woman who raised three daughters largely on her own after losing her husband young. A woman who worked every job imaginable without ever making a fuss about it. A woman so well-known and so deeply loved in Liverpool that, as the family saying goes, if her picture appeared next to the Pope's in the newspaper, everyone would ask: who's that man standing next to Betsy Devlin?

In this episode, singer-songwriter Sam Leyden takes Jon inside the life of his grandmother — the storyteller at the Sunday roast table, the woman in the comments of every single post, and the quiet force behind some of his most personal music. From the backstreets of Liverpool to open mic nights with four people in the room, Betsy was always there.

Sam reflects on how her selflessness, resilience, and unspoken grit shaped not just who he is, but how he writes — and why kindness, not status, turns out to be the thing people remember.

Follow Sam on Instagram at @sam_leyden or find his music on Spotify.

If you've ever had someone in your corner who never once made it about themselves, this one's for you.

What does it look like when someone chooses to stay — not because it's easy, but because they can see the gold beneath the surface?

Heather Alford is a legend in the IT channel and founder of Counting Creators (countingcreators.co.uk) — a passionate advocate, a powerhouse in a room, and, by her own admission, someone who has spent years masking extraordinary inner turbulence behind extraordinary outer energy. Diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia in the last 18 months, Heather is still unpacking what it means to finally understand herself.

But this episode isn't really about Heather. It's about Tony — the Bulgarian man she first noticed buying his cleaning team coffees and holding the door open before he ever sat down himself. The man who, when she handed him every reason to walk away, simply didn't. No games. No ego. No flinching at her walls.

The first card she ever bought him had an anchor on it. She didn't know why at the time. She does now.

This is a conversation about what genuine steadiness looks like in a person. About the quiet masculinity nobody puts on a pedestal but everyone deserves. About being truly seen — ADHD, anxiety, armour and all — and held anyway.

If you've ever had someone who stayed when leaving would have been easier, this one's for you.

What does it look like when someone genuinely doesn't run from discomfort — they run toward it?

Mitch MacEachern walked into a stand-up comedy course at Toronto's Second City, threw out his entire prepared set at the showcase, grabbed a bicycle from backstage, and riffed to a room of total silence. He performed open mic nights with a pigeon feather he'd found on the street. He wrote devastatingly sad songs about pigs on their way to slaughterhouses — and sang them, voice cracking, to anyone who'd listen. And then he moved on. Not because he'd conquered anything. Because it wasn't scary anymore.

Mitch lives by a quiet but radical principle: discomfort isn't the warning sign. It's the destination.

In this episode, mental health counsellor, stand-up comedian and former background Glee cast member Jack De Saram reflects on how watching Mitch model that philosophy — over open mic nights, in a smelly back room in Toronto, and in a basement full of guitars — slowly changed the way Jack moves through his own life. From performing comedy songs quietly to an audience of two, to eventually finding his voice in ways he never expected.

You can follow Jack on Instagram at @laughingfreud, and discover Mitch's music — which is genuinely worth your time — on Spotify.

If you've ever had someone in your life who made it feel safe to be bad at something new, this one's for you.

Before the awards. Before the comedy stage. Before the sign language, the podcast, the fearlessness — there was a woman who looked at a child the world had written off and decided to write a different story.

Siobhan Dodd is an award-winning comedian, sign language interpreter, and host of the Following Through Podcast. But in this episode, she's not here to talk about herself. She's here to talk about her mum — the woman who fought to keep her in mainstream school when others wanted to send her elsewhere, who drove her to theatre three nights a week just to watch her daughter come alive, and who quietly pointed her toward her life's work.

What unfolds is a rare and honest reckoning with how much we take our mothers for granted — and what it means to finally stop and count the cost of everything they gave. Siobhan reflects on growing up neurodiverse, finding her voice on stage, and tracing almost every defining chapter of her life back to a woman who never sought the credit.

This one will make you want to pick up the phone.

Follow Siobhan on Instagram at @siobhandoddcomedy and find the Following Through Podcast at @followingthroughpod.

What if a DNA test didn't just reveal a name — it revealed a woman who had already changed the world without you ever knowing she existed?

Five years ago, Dan Albaum received a message that would rewrite his family's story. Through 23andMe, a connection surfaced: Regina Jones, his great-grandfather's daughter, a woman born in wartime South Central LA, raised with little, and driven by something that no circumstance could contain.

Regina married at 15, became a mother of five by 21, and was working the switchboard at the LAPD the night the Watts riots ignited in 1965. Instead of stepping back from that fire, she and her husband Ken ran toward it — and from that crucible, SOUL newspaper was born. The first publication of its kind, SOUL told the stories of Black musicians, entertainers, and artists at a time when no one else would.

At its peak, 127,000 copies were in circulation. When it ended, and her marriage with it, Regina didn't stop. She built a PR agency. She worked alongside icons. She gave back through children's welfare nonprofit Crystal Stairs. And she did it all while raising her family, refusing every ceiling placed above her.

Now, her extraordinary life is the subject of the award-winning documentary Who in the Hell is Regina Jones? Dan joins Jon to celebrate the woman history is finally catching up to.

Nine episodes. Nine guests. Nine brilliant humans who changed a life - and were publicly told so.

Before the next chapter begins, host Jonathan Griffiths pauses to do something simple but important: say thank you out loud, and mean it.

This isn't a full episode - far from it - it's a moment of gratitude for everyone who made Season 2 what it was. For Declan Edwards, Fiona Spargo-Mabbs, Steve Price, Kristen Rider, Simon Cresswell, Tom Barnes, Anna Stewart, Roger Black, and Kriss Akabusi - and for the brilliant humans at the heart of every one of their stories.

But there's a message in here for you, too. Somewhere in your life, there's a person who shifted something in you. A teacher, a parent, a stranger, a friend. Someone who probably has no idea how much they matter to you.

Our ask is straightforward: don't wait. Tell them today.

More episodes are already recorded and coming very soon. In the meantime, subscribe, follow, and if you have a brilliant human you want to celebrate, reach out at [email protected]. Because the most powerful thing you can do today might just be two words.