View From My Sofa

This week’s guests are the mother-daughter duo dominating the broadcast world, Andi and Miquita Oliver. We discuss their broadcast careers, why both of them needed to take a step away from the industry, why if your dreams don’t scare you they are not big enough – and how despite having a challenging relationship with food in the past, it has become the backbone of their success.

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Joining me, Kelly-Anne Taylor, this week is the writer, director and actor, Dolly Wells. She grew up off of Kensington High Street in London – the youngest of six children. Aged 18 – she discovered that her stepfather was actually her biological father – the great comic actor, John Wells. In her 20s, Dolly worked as an actress – but also as a photographer’s assistant, she had a stall in Portobello Market and wrote book reviews for the express. It was only when she had her daughter in her 30s that she really decided to go for it. Since then, she’s made her mark – and there seems to be very little that she can’t do. She’s played a vampire-hunting nun in Steven Moffat’s Dracula, a woman locked in a basement with David Tennant in Inside Man and an incompetent assistant in the Sky comedy Doll & Em (which, she co-wrote with her best friend, the actress, Emily Mortimer). Now, she turns her hand to directing BBC3’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – which follows a bright-eyed, precocious teenager Pip (who decides to investigate the unsolved murder of a schoolgirl. In this episode, we talk about the beauty of ageing, her life-changing friendship with Emily Mortimer, and how female directors are changing the industry.

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On this week’s episode of the Radio Times Podcast is the comedian, Jo Brand. Raised in Kent, she was a student at Tunbridge Wells Girls Grammar School and on a sure-fire path to Oxbridge. However, when her parents attempted to uproot her and move to Hastings, she revolted and left home as a teenager. She got her life back on track after accidentally setting the bed-sit she was living in on fire and trained as a psychiatric nurse – a career she pursued until she made a name for herself in the alternative comedy scene of the 1980s. The rest is history – she’s a BAFTA award-winning actress and a national treasure. In this episode she sits down with Kelly-Anne Taylor to discuss how her nursing days primed her for a career in comedy, how she never had a life-plan and why she never watches herself on panel shows.

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For the season finale of the podcast, Kelly-Anne Taylor is joined by Adam Buxton. The actor, comedian and podcaster attended Westminster School – where he befriended future-documentary-maker Louis Theroux, and Joe Cornish, who he would later star alongside in Channel 4’s The Adam and Joe Show. His podcast, The Adam Buxton Podcast, has been a hit – featuring conversations with everyone from Zadie Smith to Robbie Williams to Paul McCartney. In this episode, Buxton discusses the sacrifices his parents made to send him to public school, how he felt when Louis Theroux decided to launch a podcast and which interviews have been his best… and worst.

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This week, joining me, Kelly-Anne Taylor, on the Radio Times sofa, is the comedian who has been a staple on our televisions for almost two decades – Jack Whitehall. He broke into telly, aged 19, while presenting E4’s Big Brother’s Big Mouth – but he soon became a household name as a panellist on the likes of Would I Lie To You, 8 Out of 10 Cats and Mock the Week. His stand-up career has been glistening – with multiple sell-out shows, and he’s also made his mark in the world of TV and film – starring in Fresh Meat, Bad Education and most recently, Apple TV’s The Afterparty. In this episode, we talk about the highs and lows of his career, what it’s really like making a TV show with a parent and working on his American accent…

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For our series finale Kelly-Anne Taylor is joined by the restaurant critic and MasterChef regular, Grace Dent. Grace is the host of the chart-topping podcast Comfort Eating – in which she invites celebrity guests to talk about their lives through the prism of food. Now, she gifts us a book – Comfort Eating: What We Eat When Nobody’s Watching – which as well as talking about everyone’s favourite foods – delves into Grace’s own life. In this episode she speaks about how writing the book – after the passing of her mother – wasn’t cathartic, but like picking a wound. Plus, they discuss the pressures placed on women to look a certain way, why Grace has ditched the booze and how coronation street has informed her perception of glamorous women.

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This week’s guest is the British adventurer, Bear Grylls. Born in Northern Ireland, and raised on the Isle of Wight, Bear – a nickname he was gifted by his older sister – developed a taste for adventure whilst on excursions with his father. He started at Eton aged 8 – and found solace in a regimented world by making rafts, climbing buildings and exploring the sewers at night by torch. Later, he was accepted as part of the SAS. A horrific parachuting accident which left him with a broken back turned Bear’s life upside down. While lying in a hospital bed, with a poster in front of him of Everest, he vowed to get better and one day climb that mountain – which he did, becoming the youngest Briton at the time to do so. Since then, he’s brought a number of successful television shows to our screens – and cemented himself as Briton’s favourite adventurer. In this episode, he talks to Kelly-Anne Taylor about the invaluable life lessons his parents instilled in him, the joys of watching telly in bed and what one soldier said to him in the SAS recruitment process.

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This week’s guest is the LBC radio host, James O’Brien. James grew up in Kidderminster in the 70s and 80s with his adoptive parents Joan and Jim O’Brien. He attended Ampleforth College, the famous Catholic public school in Yorkshire. He describes his school years as rebellious – but reflects that the ‘weird burning sense of injustice’ he felt was ‘pretty well placed’. Following in his father’s footsteps – James pursued a career in journalism – and got his foot in the door thanks to a chance encounter with John Major. Although he started out in print, he later segued into broadcast – starting his LBC show in 2004. In this episode he discusses with host Kelly-Anne Taylor the impossibility of impartiality, receiving hate on social media, imposter syndrome, his new book 'How They Broke Britain' and what he gets up to on Christmas Day.

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This week’s guest is Capital Breakfast’s radio host, Roman Kemp. Breaking intro broadcast aged 21, he has forged an intimate relationship with listeners – often thanks to his oversharing and unfiltered conversation! In this episode, he discusses growing up as the ‘famous kid’ (his dad is Spandau Ballet singer Martin Kemp and his mother is Shirlie Holliman) and what his upbringing taught him about the world of celebrity. Plus, he talks to Kelly-Anne Taylor about his campaign work surrounding male suicide – and how bearing all and investigating a topic so close to home can be a burden.

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This week Kelly-Anne Taylor is joined by the popstar-turned-actor Lily Allen and the TV presenter Miquita Oliver. They grew up in Ladbroke Grove, West London, in creative households, spending much of their youth roaming Portobello market and flunking school. Allen’s mother is the film producer, Alison Owen, and her father is the actor, Keith Allen. Oliver was raised by her mother, the broadcaster and chef, Andi Oliver. Both Oliver and Allen made their name at a young age – Oliver as a TV presenter on Channel 4’s music show Popworld and Allen for her debut-smash-hit Smile. In this episode they talk about the perils of fame and how they handle trolls. Plus, they reminisce about the hedonism of the 00s and reveal why they never listened to the advice imparted by their famous family members.

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