28 July 2024
Episode 454
26 minutes
For years, author and satirist Gabby Hutchinson Crouch has scoured the week’s news for material to use on the programmes in BBC Radio 4’s Friday-night topical slot, ‘Dead Ringers’ and ‘Newzoids’. She has also written for ‘Horrible Histories’, the Bafta-winning children’s series inspired by ‘Blackadder’ and ‘Monty Python’. Today she discusses her latest book, the first in a new ‘historical romantasy’ series, and is quizzed by a ‘Horrible Histories’ enthusiast.
28 July 2024
Share episode
DownloadWant more radio episodes like these in your inbox?
Sign up to Monocle’s email newsletters to stay on top of news and opinion, plus the latest from the magazine, radio, film and shop.
Meet the Writers - latest episodes
Sam Leith
Literary editor of ‘The Spectator’ Sam Leith is surrounded by books of various genres every day. His latest non-fiction work ‘The Haunted Wood’ takes an exploratory look into childhood reading from Aesop’s fables to Malorie…
Magda Szubanski AO
Magda Szubanski is known as Sharon Strzelecki in the comedy series ‘Kath and Kim’ in Australia and globally for the role of Esme Hoggett in the ‘Babe’ film series. The comedy actress won the 2016 Douglas Stewart Prize for…
Nathan Thrall
Life for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank is often stalked by violence, heightened by the events following 7 October. When US journalist Nathan Thrall decided to write about their experience, he wanted to unveil the…
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma
Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwe-born writer who spent her time writing instead of studying at university during one of the most turbulent times in the country’s history. She talks to Georgina Godwin about her childhood,…
Elif Shafak
Best-selling author Elif Shafak is the most widely read female author in Turkey and her work has been translated into a staggering 57 languages. Her 2019 novel ‘10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World’ was nominated for…
John Brown, Australian politician
The Australian politician who popularised koalas in the 1980s and created the “throw another shrimp on the barbie” tourism ad joins Georgina Godwin in Sydney to talk about his new book, ‘Brownie: The Minister for Good…
Gabby Hutchinson Crouch
For years, author and satirist Gabby Hutchinson Crouch has scoured the week’s news for material to use on the programmes in BBC Radio 4’s Friday-night topical slot, ‘Dead Ringers’ and ‘Newzoids’. She has also written for…
Juan M Lavista Ferres on AI for Good
In Microsoft’s pioneering AI For Good Lab, data scientists and researchers’ use of artificial intelligence (AI) is helping to tackle disinformation, predict wildfires, track whales and even detect leprosy in vulnerable…
Tiffany Murray’s rock’n’roll childhood
Ever wondered what David Bowie liked to eat for dinner, or how the members of Queen wrote and rehearsed their famous “Galileos”? Tiffany Murray’s new memoir invites us into the lives of 1970s rock nobility. Set at two…
Christopher Isherwood, ‘Inside Out’, with Katherine Bucknell
The twentieth-century author Christopher Isherwood, made famous by his 1930s work in Berlin, approached his writing about queerness, politics and religion with frankness and wit. The writer repeatedly fictionalised himself…
UK general election special with Alun Evans
The 2024 UK general election is just days away. Speaking to Georgina Godwin is an expert on many aspects of UK government and politics, in particular, the support systems to ministers and prime ministers. Alun Evans CBE,…
Anders Lustgarten
Today’s guest is perhaps the only playwright and novelist to have been an international athlete, teacher of those on death row at San Quentin prison in California and a tree surgeon – and he only began writing in his thi…
Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024 winner
Taking home this year’s prize is US writer and journalist V V Ganeshananthan for her second novel, ‘Brotherless Night’, which took her almost two decades to complete. Her debut novel, ‘Love Marriage’, was longlisted for the…
Sasha Salzmann
The Berlin-based author and playwright was born in the then-USSR and emigrated to Germany in 1995. ‘Glorious People’, their second novel, now translated into English, was longlisted for the German Book Prize and won several…
Kaliane Bradley
The British-Cambodian writer and editor initially wrote ‘The Ministry of Time’ – her gripping sci-fi rom-com debut – as a joke for a handful of friends. The genre-bending thriller, which explores themes including immigra…
