Another chance to hear a Cunningcast Christmas treat: Tony reading his favourite poem ‘Goblin Market’ by Christina Rossetti. He's discussing the context and history of Rossetti’s iconic work with Madeleine Callaghan, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at the University of Sheffield.

In his electrifying reading, Tony captures all the magic and strangeness of ‘Goblin Market’, set in a fairy-tale world where a fraught encounter takes place between the two sisters Laura and Lizzie and a band of sinister goblin merchants who tempt Laura with their ‘forbidden fruits’. Can Lizzie save her sister from the evil Goblin’s temptations?

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

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With

Madeleine Callaghan, Senior Lecturer in Romantic Literature at the University of Sheffield. Author of ‘Shelley’s Living Artistry: Letters, Poems, Plays’ (2017) and ‘The Poet-Hero in the Work of Byron and Shelley’ (2019) published by Anthem Press. ‘Eternity in British Romantic Poetry’ (Liverpool University Press), June 2022.

www.sheffield.ac.uk/english/people/academic-staff/madeleine-callaghan

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

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Thank you, Love Tony x

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To mark Dementia Acton Week, Tony is bringing you a special episode dedicated to the past, present and future of this difficult disease with his expert guest Fiona Carragher, Director of Research and Influencing at the Alzheimer’s Society. Dementia the UK’s number one killer, 1 in 3 people will develop dementia in their lifetime and yet most of us don’t know a great deal about it. But this is a defining year in the history of Alzheimer’s with two new drugs: Lecanemab and Donanemab which have been found, for the first time ever, to slow the progression of the disease.  

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

With

Fiona Carragher, Director of Research and Influencing at the Alzheimer’s Society.

X @alzheimersoc | FB @alzheimers society | IG @alzheimerssoc

If you’re worried about yourself, or someone close to you, then check your symptoms today using Alzheimer’s Society’s symptom checklist. Visit alzheimers.org.uk/checklist or call the Dementia Support Line on 0333 150 3456

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @Cunningcast

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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Ben Elton is on Cunningcast today.  Ben was the co-writer on Blackadder Series 2, 3 and 4: they talk about Ben's comedy roots, working on The Young Ones with Rik and Ade and how Ben got the Blackadder gig via a near miss TV sitcom about Madness. They also chew over the highs and lows of working on Blackadder and how Ben and Richard Curtis created 'Adder speak'.

Alongside Blackadder, Ben Elton cut his comedy chops on The Young Ones. He’s a stand-up legend on stage and TV and one of Britain's biggest live comedy acts. His stellar CV includes writing an incredible 17 novels, as well as the hit musicals ‘The Beautiful Game’; ‘We Will Rock You’ and the sequel to ‘The Phantom of the Opera’.

Last year Blackadder turned 40, to mark the occasion, Tony made a TV show in which he tracked down the lost Blackadder pilot to discover the truth of Blackadder's beginnings. For the show, Tony interviewed many old friends and people who are central to making Blackadder the success it was. You are hearing Tony’s unedited, behind the scenes chat with Ben Elton, recorded for the programme. The show is called Blackadder: The Lost Pilot and you can watch it on catch up on Sky, Virgin & Now.

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Ben Elton | https://benelton.live/

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Blackadder: The Lost Pilot is produced by Red Sauce

A Zinc Media Group production

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YouTube @cunningcast

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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Fresh off the back of celebrating 60 years of Dr Who last year and looking ahead to welcoming the 15th Doctor to the blockbuster show, Tony is joined by Sophie Aldred who played Dr Who’s assistant Ace and the writer, broadcaster and Dr Who superfan, Matthew Sweet. Together they look back over an incredible history of this abidingly successful show, sharing all the Whoniverse gossip from the very first episode starring William Hartnell as the Doctor; the cutting-edge soundtrack created by Delia Derbyshire; hearing how Sophie got the role as Ace aged just 24; though to the show getting cancelled in 1989 and the creative ‘wilderness years’ of Dr Who when it was off air but not out of mind; Russell T Davis’s reboot and the new Doctors for a new generation. We also get answers to the popular questions: was Tony ever in Dr Who? What kind of Doctor would he have made and is Baldrick the ultimate time traveller?

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson | @Tony_Robinson 

With

Sophie Aldred | @sophie_aldred

Sophie played The Doctor’s companion Ace in the original television series (to Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor). She later reprised her role in ‘Ascend From Darkness’. She was in the last episode of Dr Who ‘Survival’, before it was cancelled in 1989.

Matthew Sweet | @DrMatthewSweet     

Journalist, broadcaster, author, and cultural historian. Matthew presented 'Dr Who: The Wilderness Years' on Radio 4 to mark its 60th anniversary

Follow the Show:

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Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald | @melissafitzg

Episode Producer: Simon Hollis

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production 

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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20 years after playing Baldrick, Tony is still stopped in the street and asked where my turnip is!  Turnips made him famous, so today Tony is talking turnips in history: have they always been so unloved, a food fit only for animals and peasants like Baldrick, or is this a recent British bugbear? And when did the potato steal their veggie crown? Tony’s guests today are food historians Rebecca Earle and Serin Quinn alongside a chef for all seasons who loves to cook with turnips, Oliver Rowe.

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Professor Rebecca Earle | www.rebeccaearle.co.uk

An historian of food at the University of Warwick, Rebecca is interested in how ordinary, every-day activities such as eating or dressing shape how we think about the world and how others view us.

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/earle

Oliver Rowe | www.oliver-rowe.co.uk/ | IG: @oliver_rowe_london

Chef and author whose work focuses on local and seasonal food. Oliver’s book, Food for All Seasons, a personal wander through the food year is published by Faber and available online and from all good bookshops.

Serin Quinn

PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Warwick, interested in all things vegetable!

https://theconversation.com/turnips-how-britain-fell-out-of-love-with-the-much-maligned-vegetable-201007

Follow the Show:

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Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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Today Tony is talking to the composer Howard Goodall CBE, who wrote the now iconic Blackadder theme tune. Howard is one of Britain’s best-known composers of choral music, stage musicals, TV and film scores. He wrote the themes tunes for many hit comedy shows including Red Dwarf, Mr. Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, The Catherine Tate Show, 2point4 Children and Q.I. but like so many of the talent who worked on the show, it all started with Blackadder.

Last year Blackadder turned 40, to mark the occasion, Tony made a TV show in which he tracked down the lost Blackadder pilot to discover the truth of Blackadder's beginnings. You are hearing Tony’s unedited, behind the scenes chat with Howard Goodall recorded for the programme. The show is called Blackadder: The Lost Pilot and you can watch it on Sky, Virgin & Now

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Howard Goodall CBE | www.howardgoodall.co.uk | @Howard_Goodall

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Blackadder: The Lost Pilot is produced by Red Sauce

A Zinc Media Group production

Follow:

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @cunningcast

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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Marching 73 miles from coast to coast across the narrowest neck of England, Hadrian’s Wall was the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire for nearly 300 years and yet there is still so much we don’t know about it: only 5% of the wall has been excavated and 7% is viable today. Tony is joined by leading archaeologist Richard Hingley and Collections Curator for Hadrian's Wall and the North East at English Heritage, Frances McIntosh, to give him the low down on how and why Hadrian’s Wall was built, by whom and what it means to us today. 

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Prof. Richard Hingley | https://richardhingley1.wordpress.com/

Professor Emeritus in Archaeology at Durham University. An expert on Hadrian’s Wall, Richard is the author of Conquering the Ocean: The Roman Conquest of Britain (Oxford University Press) and Hadrian’s Wall: A life, (Oxford University Press). https://global.oup.com/academic/product/conquering-the-ocean-9780190937416?cc=gb&lang=en& | https://academic.oup.com/book/27846.

Dr. Frances McIntosh | @englishHeritage | @wallcurator

Collections Curator for Hadrian's Wall and the North East at English Heritage. An archaeologist by training, Frances specialises in Roman small finds, having completed her PhD on the Clayton Collection material, on display at Chesters.

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @cunningcast

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Passwords and codes are something we take for granted in the digital age, but this is such a new development and today Tony is going back to a time when making and breaking codes was an almost exclusively high-level military activity: most famously done behind closed doors by the brains at Bletchley Park. He is joined by two people who are giving him the long view on codes and codebreaking: the Bletchley Park military historian David Kenyon and the Chief Information Security Officer at the BBC, Helen Rabe.

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Dr David Kenyon

David is responsible for historical research in support of all public content at Bletchley Park, the Second World War code-breaking site in Buckinghamshire, now a museum. He has published two books on BP; Bletchley Park and D-Day in 2019, and Arctic Convoys, Bletchley Park and the War for the Seas in 2023.

https://bletchleypark.org.uk/  | X @bletchleypark | IG @bletchleyparkuk

Helen Rabe

Chief Information Security Officer at the BBC, Helen has a proven track record of developing, executing, and maturing bespoke ISMS strategies. She has managed successful high performing teams to mitigate risk, counter threats and deliver world-class security & data privacy management solutions across varied industry sectors ranging from financial services, life sciences & more recently, broadcasting & media.

Cover photo courtesy of the Bletchley Park Trust

Follow the show:

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @Cunningcast

Credits:

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

A Zinc Media Group production X @zinc_media

If you enjoyed my podcast, please follow the show and leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

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Men’s facial hair is very prone to fashions: moustaches and beards are back in, but why is that and what sparks bread trends and facial hair fashions? To help him find out, Tony has invited ‘beard’ historian Alun Withey and male grooming influencer Robin James | Man For Himself. They discuss 17th Century notions of facial hair as a waste product; through barber-surgeons and early shaving practices; powdered wigs; the Victorian beard movement; King Camp Gillett’s safely razor; the First World War military moustache; film star fashion icons to the rising popularity of men’s hair products and male grooming.

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Robin James | Man For Himself

www.ManForHimself.com and IG @ManForHimself 

Exploring men’s hair, grooming, fragrance and lifestyle.

Dr Alun Withey | Historian

http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/history/staff/withey/

Historian of early modern medicine and senior lecturer in History at the University of Exeter. Alun's major research project ‘Do Beards Matter?’, funded by the Wellcome Trust forms the basis of his book Concerning Beards: Facial Hair, Health and Practice in England, 1650-1900 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). 

Follow the show:

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @Cunningcast

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today Tony is talking to his old friend and collaborator, the screenwriter Richard Curtis. They share memories of making Blackadder from the early years to how it all ended. Along the way, they discuss Richard’s comedy roots and how he became a top comedy screenwriter: meeting Rowan Atkinson at Oxford Uni; working on Not The Nine O’Clock News; the influence of Fawlty Towers and plans for a Blackadder series set in the 1960s that never happened. Plus, they read lines from the Blackadder pilot script and discover where Baldrick’s ‘cunning plan’ catch-phrase comes from.

Last year Blackadder turned 40, to mark the occasion, Tony made a TV show in which he tracked down the lost Blackadder pilot to discover the truth of Blackadder's beginnings. For the show, Tony interviewed many old friends and people who are central to making Blackadder the success it was, as well as Blackadder superfan David Mitchell, who is featured in Cunningcast Series 2, Episode 4. You are hearing Tony’s unedited, behind the scenes chat with Richard Curtis recorded for the TV programme. The show is called Blackadder: The Lost Pilot and you can watch it on Sky, Virgin & Now.

Richard Curtis was Blackadder’s mastermind and writer, alongside Ben Elton. He’s one of Britain's most successful screenwriters and producers, with credits including Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Mr Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, Love Actually, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Yesterday. He’s also the co-founder of Comic Relief.

Hosted by Sir Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Richard Curtis

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Blackadder: The Lost Pilot is produced by Red Sauce

A Zinc Media Group production

Follow:

X @cunningcastpod

Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @cunningcast

If you enjoyed my podcast, please leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Electric cars are the future of motoring, or so we are told, but today’s Cunningcast guests don’t agree. In fact, Hugo Spowers of Riversimple thinks hydrogen is the future and he’s designing hydrogen powered cars to prove it. Together with experienced car broadcaster Richard Sutton, they give Tony the low down on the past, present and their vision for the future of car engineering and sustainability.  

Hosted by Si Tony Robinson

X | Instagram

With

Hugo Spowers

Chief engineer and founder of Riversimple, who are pioneering the next generation of zero emission vehicles. They use hydrogen, not batteries and emit nothing but water. Hugo is responsible for all technical aspects of the cars and for the architecture of the business itself. He is considered something of a thought leader on the Circular Economy and has been invited to give talks on entrepreneurship at Imperial College, London and Cranfield University among others. At the Real Innovation Awards in October 2019 hosted by the London Business School, Hugo was awarded the George Bernard Shaw Unreasonable Person Award “for someone who has shown enormous tenacity and stubbornness in pursuing an idea despite the difficulties encountered along the way”.

https://www.riversimple.com/project/hugo-spowers/

IG @Riversimplemovement

X @Riversimple

Richard Sutton

Richard presented ‘Deals on Wheels’ on Channel 4 and he also worked at Goodwood, he’s been immersed in cars for many years. 

Credits: 

Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald X @melissafitzg

Executive Producer: Dominic de Terville

Cover Art: The Brightside

A Zinc Media Group production

Follow:

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Instagram @cunningcastpod

YouTube @Cunningcast

If you enjoy my podcast, please follow us and leave us a rating or review.

Thank you, Love Tony x

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.