Alfie Brown, Charles Dagnall, Gail Emms, Jim White

Fighting Talk

BBC

Sports, Comedy

4.6 • 3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Former cricketer and BBC commentator Charles Dagnall, former GB badminton player Gail Emms, journalist Jim White, and comedian Alfie Brown join Rick Edwards for an hour of sporting punditry, humour and entertainment. Points are awarded for informed comment, wit and passion, but taken away for nonsense and answers lacking in conviction.

In the final round, the top two points scorers go head-to-head in 'Defend the Indefensible' where they must both defend a statement however ludicrous or distasteful for twenty seconds. There can only be one winner!

Listen to the podcast on BBC Sounds

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:07.0	My Christmas Mix is pure 90s festive nostalgia.
0:11.1	You know, the Christmas songs you listen to on repeat.
0:14.0	Ho!
0:14.3	Ho! Ho! No, no, no.
0:17.5	I'm all about the big hitting Christmas anthems.
0:20.4	Come on, guys. What about those tunes that really slay? It's Christmas kitchen disco season, surely.
0:26.4	Give me hip-hop Christmas bangers every day. Those Christmas tracks that are straight out of Lapland.
0:30.9	Get all kinds of Christmassy. Just search Christmas music on BBC Sounds.
0:35.7	I think I need some help with a buckle on my belt and if Santa doesn't show I want his cookies and his milk.
0:39.7	I'm Rick Edwards, and this is festive fighting talk.
0:56.2	Hello, good morning and welcome.
1:02.3	A mere five days until Christmas and the Fighting Talk Machine is going all out festive.
1:06.4	I'm wearing a shirt which has some quite natty skiing bears on.
1:08.8	Producer Mike arrived on a sleigh.
1:10.8	Producer Rachel slept in a manger,
1:13.0	and producer Simon is blind drunk.
1:16.5	So who is joining the unbridled seasonal fun?
1:20.2	I was warned, forewarned, that one of the panel would be dressed as an elf.
1:22.8	I didn't want to believe it, but deep down, I knew.
1:26.6	And it was always going to be gay off. I don't, I mean... Right, okay, I've got a bit of confession to make. Yeah. I don't know where to look, Gail. I mean, I think I was probably not at you. So basically, when I got booked for the 20th, you know, festive fighting talk, I thought, right, brilliant. We're all going to dress up. And I sort of said it as an offhand comment. I'll come as an elf. I forgot about it. And then producer, Rachel, probably on Instagram, didn't she? And she said, oh, someone's coming. And I was like, oh, well, I'll just dig out my elf. Well, exactly. So I thought, well, I'm going to lose points if I don't come as an elf. And if you do.
2:01.0	Yeah, well, so I thought I'd rather lose points as an elf. Yeah, lose points where you're having a bit of fun. And you've also popped a horrible, I've assumed that's to you, a horrible sort of glittery, I don't even a spiral that's supposed to be a Christmas tree on Dagger's his head. Yeah, I know. The poor man. He's loving it.
	...

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