Henry Normal set up Baby Cow Productions with Steve Coogan, co-wrote the Royle Family, Coogan’s Run and Mrs Merton and produced Gavin & Stacy and Red Dwarf. He’s been a central plank in British comedy since the early ‘90s and, throughout it all, developed his own stage show built around poems and stories. He’s touring the UK with Brian Bilston. This podcast is full of hard-won insight into what makes comedy work and how the best poetry connects with “a greater truth”. And much besides including …
… what middle-class BBC execs wanted to change about the Royle Family and why it worked as it was.
… touring with John Cooper Clarke “who lived by a cemetery and had egg custard for breakfast”.
… putting on a Pensioners’ Disco, aged 14, that featured The March of The Mods played at 33.
... the influence of Roger McGough and the Liverpool poets.
… how, apart from the Office, American versions of British comedies mostly fail to get the point.
… seeing Juicy Lucy at the Nottingham Boat Club when he was 17.
… what made Spike Milligan’s Small Dreams Of A Scorpion so original.
… working with Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash and the Guardian’s first review – “three middle-class writers”.
… how to structure spoken word shows – “salad rather than soup”.
… and reflections about Mr Inbetween, Derry Girls, Clive James and Norman Gunston.
Get tickets for Henry Normal and Brian Bilston here: https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/henry-normal
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Great album trilogies, suing Madonna and "the pantheon of psychedelic heaviosity"
The spectacular Dead & Co, songs performed backwards & happy birthday Diamond Dogs!
Why They Might Be Giants now perform an entire song backwards
Guy Chambers - writing with Robbie, a tangle with Bowie & half a bagel with Paul McCartney
Alan Edwards, pop PR – ‘Bowie was like King Arthur and the Spice Girls like the Pistols’
Rock’s image-makers, men on dancefloors and why bands can’t act like bands anymore
Paul Carrack has seen it all – beat, soul, prog, pub rock, pop & the perfect ‘slow burn’ career.
Nige Tassell was so obsessed with Dexys he’s tracked down all 24 ex-members
Why Nick Mason’s “cottage industry” band plays just early Pink Floyd
Let It Be revisited, the wisdom of Steve Albini and a woeful tale about Steve Marriott
The genius of Little Feat, the Man with the Twang & pop’s greatest scandal in the making
Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks remembers the day “a terrible beauty was born”
Rock snobbery, the seven wives of Gregg Allman & the greatest solo on a pop record
Harold Bronson of Rhino Records kept a 40-year rock and roll diary…
The “amniotic throb” of modern pop, the eternal life of the Top Gear theme and the Blue Nile’s lucky break
Hollywood Babylon, the inspired gimmickry of Catch A Fire and the luck of Ron Wood
Neil Tennant remembers life “with dyed red Bowie hair and clattering platforms”
Richard Thompson – “you know it’s time to go when the audience starts throwing chairs”
Neil Tennant remembers the pop press and “the last great era of forward-looking songs"
The Stones’ clothes, our love affair with Abba & rock’s most appalling spectacle
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Superfancast
Derringer Discoveries - A Music Adventure Podcast
Bandsplain
One Song
Popcast