Bonus episode - Frank Skinner opens up to Amol
Radical with Amol Rajan
BBC
4.5 • 919 Ratings
🗓️ 1 August 2024
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every week on The Today Podcast Amol and Nick share something significant that’s happened to them that week and they call it their ‘moment of the week’.
But as Nick’s on holiday, Amol invited one of Britain’s best known comedians, Frank Skinner, to The Today Podcast studio to help him out.
And they ended up talking for so long about faith, class, parenthood, grief - and, of course, poetry, we’ve made it into a bonus podcast.
Frank Skinner has been a stand-up comedian for 30 years. He presented Fantasy Football in the 1990s alongside David Baddiel and for co-created the anthem of English football, 'Three Lions’.
But you may not know that he is also a practising Catholic, reads poetry every day, and is striving to write cleaner comedy material.
Subscribe to The Today Podcast for more ‘Moments of the Week’ with Amol and Nick and other special guests sharing theirs including Sara Cox, Hugh Dennis, Prue Leith, Greg James, James May and many more.
Episodes of The Today Podcast land first on BBC Sounds. Get Amol and Nick's take on the biggest stories of the week, with insights from behind the scenes at the UK's most influential radio news programme.
The Today Podcast is hosted by Amol Rajan and Nick Robinson, both presenters of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the UK’s most influential radio news programme. Amol was the BBC’s media editor for six years and is the former editor of the Independent, he’s also the current presenter of University Challenge. Nick has presented the Today programme since 2015, he was the BBC’s political editor for ten years before that and also previously worked as ITV’s political editor.
If you have a question you’d like to Amol and Nick to answer, get in touch by sending us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 4346 or email us Today@bbc.co.uk
You can listen to the latest episode of The Today Podcast any time on your smart speaker by saying “Smart Speaker, ask BBC Sounds to play The Today Podcast.”
The senior producer is Tom Smithard, the producer is Hatty Nash, research and digital production from Joe Wilkinson. The editor is Louisa Lewis. The executive producer is Owenna Griffiths. Technical production from Mike Regaard.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We get it. Life is busy. You want to keep up with the news, but there's just too much going on. |
| 0:06.9 | Which is where Newscast comes in. We do the work, and when you're ready to dig deeper into the day's news, you just pop us into your ears. |
| 0:14.8 | It does mean we have to put in the hard work, though. |
| 0:17.5 | Listen to Newscast every day on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:21.5 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:25.2 | Hello, it's Amol here in the Today podcast studio. |
| 0:27.6 | Alone, alas, because Nick is having a very well-earned holiday. |
| 0:32.4 | Now, as a dedicated member of our Pod Squad, you will know that we often invite a celebrity friend on at the end of the |
| 0:39.4 | episode to talk about their moment of the week. And this week, that friend was none other than the |
| 0:45.5 | superstar comedian Frank Skinner. But it seemed, how can I put this, suboptimal and a bit of a |
| 0:51.3 | waste just to ask Frank about his moment of the week, though it was a |
| 0:54.7 | lovely moment of the week. So we had a chat about, well, everything and you're about to hear it now. |
| 1:01.0 | This is Frank Skinner on class, on comedy, on Catholicism, on parenthood and grief and football, |
| 1:08.2 | on 30 years of hurt, 30 years of dirt, his love of David Badele, |
| 1:12.6 | and, well, loads more besides. |
| 1:15.0 | I really hope you enjoy it. |
| 1:16.8 | Let's do it. |
| 1:34.0 | Can we talk a bit about your amazing life, which I've taken a very close, interesting for some time? |
| 1:34.6 | Go on. |
| 1:38.6 | What was it like growing up in Smethik in the 1970s? |
| 1:41.8 | Well, it seemed great to me. |
| 1:46.0 | We lived in a council house, and we didn't have much money. But I... |
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