Nigel Planer has been a towering figure in British comedy since the late 1970s. From his anarchic exploits with The Comic Strip to his portrayal of the hapless student Neil in The Young Ones. Today Nigel takes us on a journey through comedy, literature, and the wonderfully weird corners of his life. He reveals the surprising real-life inspirations behind his most iconic characters, shares tales from the golden age of music and comedy, and gives us an insider’s look at his new book, Young Once.

Host: Dan Schreiber

Guest: Nigel Planer

Producer: Cassie Merritt

Senior Producer: Ben Tulloh

Head of Factual Podcasts: Al Riddell

Welcome to Café del Weirdo. This week’s guest is an explorer of the extraordinary. It's author, researcher, and professional curiosity collector Edward Brooke-Hitching.

Ed is the bestselling author behind The Phantom Atlas, The Madman’s Library, and his brand-new book The Madman’s Orchestra, an illustrated dive into the oddest stories from the history of music.

From cat organs and pig pianos to musical hoaxes, devilish tritones, and lost symphonies, Ed reveals the weird rhythms of history. Expect wild anecdotes, obscure facts, and a few Spotify playlists to soundtrack the madness.

If you're ready to find out which composer wrote music for the Devil, or how a black hole might sing, step into Café del Weirdo and find out.

Host: Dan Schreiber

Guest: Ed Brooke Hitching

Producer: Cassie Merritt

Senior Producer: Ben Tulloh

Head of Factual Podcasts: Al Riddell

Sam Nicoresti is a comedian, writer, and surreal storyteller whose work blurs the line between the hilarious and the unsettling. Winner of the 2025 Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Show, Sam has become one of the most original voices in British comedy. Moving between sharp social satire and the beautifully absurd, Sam’s work embraces the weirdness of being human in all its contradictions.

Sam's show Baby Doomer tours the UK in Feb–Mar 2026, followed by a full run at the Melbourne Comedy Festival in Apr–May. More dates will be announced later in the year. Tickets and details at samnicoresti.com or via Sam’s newsletter on their website and Instagram.

Host: Dan Schreiber

Guest: Sam Nicoresti

Producer: Cassie Merritt

Senior Producer: Ben Tulloh

Head of Factual Podcasts: Al Riddell

For this month's Lazy Code bonus episode Dan, Leon “Buttons” Kirkbeck, and Halina Brooke dive into the dream world, that weird nightly sandbox where logic crashes and reality reboots. Are dreams just lazy coding from the simulation? Are they glimpses of the future? From lucid dreaming to shared dream theories, we explore what our sleeping minds might reveal about the code behind consciousness, and whether the simulation ever truly logs off.

Chris Hadfield is the astronaut who turned the void of space into his stage. A farm kid from rural Canada who climbed his way into the stratosphere, first as a fighter pilot, then as a test pilot, and eventually as commander of the International Space Station. Hadfield has lived a life that hovers somewhere between science fiction and sheer nerve. He’s flown more than seventy types of aircraft, stared down mechanical failures mid-flight, even blacked out in the cockpit and somehow lived to tell the tale.

And then came the moment that made him a legend: drifting through the ISS with a guitar in hand, recording a zero-gravity cover of David Bowie’s Space Oddity (the first music video ever filmed in space.) It was haunting, poetic, and a little bit absurd, exactly like Hadfield himself.

His newest book, Final Orbit a high-tension space thriller and the third instalment in his Apollo Murders series has just launched into the world and is available everywhere.

Host: Dan Schreiber

Guest: Chris Hadfield

Senior Producer: Ben Tulloh

Production Support: Cassie Merritt

Head of Podcasts: Al Riddell

Penn Jillette is an American magician, author, and performer best known as one half of the magic duo Penn & Teller, a Las Vegas headliner and television personality. He is also an advocate for atheism and scientific skepticism, a former libertarian who disavowed the political stance, and the author of several books, including God, No!. Jillette is recognized for his intellectual approach to magic, emphasizing honesty and scientific principles within the performance.  

Tickets for Penn and Piff

https://www.aegpresents.co.uk/event/piff-and-pop/

Doug Naylor is an Emmy award winning script-writer, novelist and director.He co-created the long running hugely successful sci-fi comedy Red Dwarf, has written or co-written every episode across thirteen series and has directed over twenty episodes. Doug also co-founded Grant Naylor Productions in 1991 which made series IV to X of Red Dwarf. Doug has also written three best selling novels, and a few non-best selling ones too. He co-wrote a number one single which shall remain nameless, but has the words Song and Chicken in the title. Doug also co-created the Carlton TV series The 10 Percenters, for which his script Table 11 won a British Comedy award. Formerly he was Head writer and Script editor on the original run of the hugely popular satirical puppet show Spitting Image and he has also written a number of award winning radio shows. His alma mater was Liverpool University where he claims he was thrown out, at the end of his second year, for drinking too slowly.

Upcoming Doug dates:

Monday 29th Sept - appearance at the Bath Children's Literature Festival. 

Thursday 9th October - at Liverpool Waterstones in conversation with the UK Children's Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce. 

Introducing our new monthly bonus episode, Lazy Code!

Dan welcomes longtime weird-theory believer Leon ‘Buttons’ Kirkbeck and Halina Brooke back and his daughter Halina Brooke. We explain simulation theory, meet the hosts, tease the kinds of glitches and guests to expect (from UFOs to scientific perspectives), and explore what it’s like growing up with a dad who thinks the universe might be broken. Decide for yourself: fascinating deep dive, or is the Matrix is glitching?

Sam Moran is an Australian entertainer born on April 4, 1978, in Sydney. He is best known as the Yellow Wiggle in the children's music group The Wiggles, a role he held from 2006 to 2012. Before joining the group full-time, he was an understudy for original member Greg Page and performed over 150 times in his place.

Moran studied classical voice and music education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, originally intending to become a high school music teacher. His background in musical theatre brought a new dynamic to The Wiggles, influencing their sound and performance style.

After leaving The Wiggles, he launched a solo career with albums like Colour of Love and hosted the children's TV show Play Along with Sam on Nick Jr. from 2013 to 2021. He has won multiple ARIA Awards and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame with The Wiggles in 2011

Dylan Jones OBE (born 1960) is a British journalist, author, and former long-time editor of GQ (1999–2021). He previously held senior roles at i-D, Arena, and The Face, later serving briefly as editor-in-chief of the Evening Standard. Author of books including David Bowie: A Life and his memoir These Foolish Things, he has won multiple editor of the year awards and remains an influential voice in culture, fashion, and media.