Richey Edwards of The Manic Street Preachers
Great Lives
BBC
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Richey was, beautiful says Cummins, a natural icon and a gift to photograph. He also believes his writing has been overshadowed by the fact of his disappearance in 1995. "I think nobody has looked beyond that for quite a long time.”
Manic Street Preachers biographer, Simon Price, also knew Richey Edwards and says he was "the most intelligent rock star I've ever met".
This programme covers alcoholism, anorexia, and self-harm, but it also celebrates Richey’s sensitivity and, as Price says, the fact that he is one of those "icons of alienation" like Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain who will " always be there for people to discover the genius of his work".
Presented by Matthew Parris and produced for BBC Studios by Ellie Richold.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it's Lucy Worsley here and we're back with a brand new series of ladies swindlers. |
| 0:07.5 | Promise never to mention a word of what is going on. |
| 0:10.1 | Join me and my all-female team of detectives as we revisit the audacious crimes of women trying to make it in a world made for men. |
| 0:19.5 | This is a story of working class women trying to get by in a world made for men. This is a story of working-class women trying to get by. |
| 0:24.4 | This is survival. |
| 0:25.3 | Join me for the second season of Lady Swindlers, |
| 0:28.2 | where true crime meets history with a twist. |
| 0:31.4 | Listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:34.8 | If you can't wait for new episodes of this podcast and you're in the UK, more episodes are available now. |
| 0:41.8 | First on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:44.6 | BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts. |
| 0:48.7 | Our subject today is one of music's most enigmatic and alluring legends. |
| 0:58.0 | Fears are growing for the safety of the Manick Street Preachers' guitarist after his car was found abandoned at the Seven Bridge service station. |
| 1:01.0 | Richard Edwards, or Richie, the lyricist and guitarist with the band |
| 1:05.0 | The Manic Street Preachers, disappeared from a London hotel on the 1st of February 1995. |
| 1:12.9 | His empty car was discovered near the Seven Bridge some days later. |
| 1:17.3 | Though he was declared legally dead in 2008, his body was never found. |
| 1:23.5 | For years, his bandmates continued to pay a quarter of their earnings into his bank account |
| 1:28.6 | and would set up his mic on stage for gigs. Today, the Manics enjoy global success and have |
| 1:35.7 | gone on to be one of the most enduring bands from that era, but many believe they would not |
| 1:40.9 | have got there without the intense and magnetic force that was Richie. |
| 1:46.5 | Nominating Richie Edwards is the photographer, Kevin Cummins, |
... |
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