Podcast appearances and mentions of Paul McGann

A man who was right there tells us the tale of one of history's most notorious military failures. Castro's former lover is given a handful of poison capsules and dispatched to Fidel's hotel. A Havana schoolboy crosses his fingers as the American bombing begins. And a young activist prepares to do whatever it takes to repel the impending invasion... A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Carlos Eire, Peter Kornbluh, Monica Mercedes Perez Jimenez, Alex von Tunzelmann, Ileana Yarza, Eduardo Zayas-Bazan. This is Part 5 of 10. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Castro goes on a victory parade, eventually arriving in Havana on top of a tank. Vengeance is wrought on the old dictator's supporters, as the new leader moves into the Hilton hotel. Fidel takes a trip to Washington - for a sit-down with Richard Nixon. And a regime insider tells us how he turned his back on Castro, only to pay the price... A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Carlos Eire, Lillian Guerra, Jonathan Hansen, Jennifer Lambe, Alex von Tunzelmann, Ileana Yarza, Eduardo Zayas-Bazan. Special thanks to University of Miami Libraries for the use of the Huber Matos archive. This is Part 4 of 10. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Anisha Deva, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Death in Blackpool… Good Review Guy: UNIT: Nemesis - Masters of Time… Behind-the-Scenes and Drama Tease: Dark Gallifrey Missy Part 2… Also Available: The Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller Series 4.

While Batista tries to convince the world that Castro is dead, Fidel regroups in the mountains. The world's press descends on Cuba, hoping to meet this elusive rebel, and Fidel is only too happy to grant everyone interviews. Meanwhile, in Havana, Batista's sick son helps to save him from assassination. But his grip on the island is slipping… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Anthony DePalma, Carlos Eire, Lillian Guerra, Jonathan Hansen, Jennifer Lambe, Alex von Tunzelmann, Ileana Yarza.Special thanks to University of Miami Libraries for the use of the Huber Matos archive. This is Part 3 of 10. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay, Anisha Deva, Rob Plummer | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Operation: Vengeance… Good Review Guy: Prisoners of London… Behind-the-Scenes and Drama Tease: The War Doctor Rises: Fallen Heroes… Also Available: The Fifth Doctor Adventures: Hooklight 2.

Castro wrestles with Marxism and begins another affair. Attempting to reignite the revolution, he swims naked across the US border. At a get-together in Mexico City, he strikes up a rapport with a scruffy Argentine known as “Che”. Together, in a battered old boat, they will set sail for Cuba - to bring the fight to Batista… A Noiser podcast production.Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Michael J. Bustamante, Carlos Eire, Lillian Guerra, Jonathan Hansen, Irene Lopez, Alex von Tunzelmann, Eduardo Zayas-Bazan. This is Part 2 of 10. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay and Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Walnut Whip… Good Review Guy: Torchwood: Among Us Part 2… Behind-the-Scenes and Drama Tease: The Sixth Doctor Adventures: The Cosmos and Mrs Clarke… Beyond Doctor Who: The Omega Factor.

Today Alan Doak looks at DNA Trail: The Promise, a podcast about Laura Ancell who is searching for the real family of her late father. He also discusses Titanic - Ship of Dreams where host Paul McGann explores what is known and what is not known about the build, launch and ultimate demise of the Titanic.

Fidel Castro - a revolutionary turned strongman dictator, beloved by his supporters and loathed by his enemies. The bête noire of the United States who pushed the world to the brink of annihilation. The ultimate political survivor who evaded hundreds of barely believable assassination attempts. We scroll back to the early years of the one they would call El Loco. It all begins on a farm in the east of Cuba - an island paradise with dark undercurrents swirling beneath the surface… A Noiser podcast production. Narrated by Paul McGann. Featuring Michael J. Bustamante, Carlos Eire, Lillian Guerra, Jonathan Hansen, Peter Kornbluh, Jennifer Lambe, Rogelio Martinez, Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, Alex von Tunzelmann, Ileana Yarza, Eduardo Zayas-Bazan. Special thanks to University of Miami Libraries for the use of the Huber Matos archive. This is Part 1 of 10. Written by Edward White | Produced by Ed Baranski and Edward White | Exec produced by Joel Duddell | Sound supervisor: Tom Pink | Sound design & audio editing by George Tapp | Assembly editing by Dorry Macaulay and Anisha Deva | Compositions by Oliver Baines, Dorry Macaulay, Tom Pink | Mix & mastering: Cian Ryan-Morgan | Recording engineer: Joseph McGann. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser podcast network. Click the subscription banner at the top of the feed to get started. Or go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

MIDNIGHT SEQUEL!! Doctor Who Full Reaction Watch Along: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Support The Channel By Grabbing Yourself Our Doctor Who Inspired Apparel: https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ The Doctor Who "The Well" Reaction, Recap, Commentary, Analysis, Breakdown, Spoiler Review, & Ending Explained! Greg Alba & John Humphrey return to the TARDIS to react to Doctor Who Season 2 Episode 3, where the Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) arrive on a mining colony on Planet 6767, encountering the only survivor Aliss Fenly (Rose Ayling-Ellis) and facing off against a deadly, radiation-soaked entity linked to the classic "Midnight" episode. We dive into the shocking twists, emotional sacrifices like Shaya Costallion (Caoilfhionn Dunne), the thrilling horror atmosphere, the implications for Mrs. Flood's return, and the larger mysteries of the universe including the disappearance of Earth. Plus, we reflect on the broader Doctor Who legacy, where the Doctor has been portrayed by William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, and now Ncuti Gatwa, each bringing their own magic to the role! Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE GOD OF LIGHT!! Doctor Who Full Reaction Watch Along: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Choose Your Doctor with our NEW Doctor Who-inspired T-Shirt at https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Doctor Who “LUX” Reaction, Recap, Analysis, Commentary, Breakdown & Ending Explained! Greg Alba & John Humphrey react to Season 15 Episode 2 of Doctor Who titled "LUX" starring Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education, Barbie) as the Fifteenth Doctor and Millie Gibson (Coronation Street) as Ruby Sunday. This episode features epic set design, shocking character revelations, intense emotional beats, and sci-fi twists that dive deep into Ruby's mystery and the hidden truth of the LUX organization. We break down how this story connects to previous Who lore, the darker tone under Russell T Davies' writing, and theories for the future of the season. Doctor Who has been played by iconic actors including William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, and Ncuti Gatwa. Let us know your thoughts on this episode and your theories for what's next! Intense Suspense by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@reelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/reelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Music Used In Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Happy Alley by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Real Dictators will be back on April 30th with the story of Fidel Castro. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com  Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is a taster episode of a brand-new podcast from the Noiser podcast network. Join host Paul McGann as he explores life and death on the most famous ship in history. You'll be right there on board - setting sail from Southampton, chugging across the Atlantic, striking the iceberg and sinking into the icy depths. We'll hear the harrowing tales of the victims and the testimonies of the lucky survivors. And Paul explores his own family story, following his great uncle Jimmy McGann - a trimmer down in Titanic's engine room. Search ‘Titanic: Ship of Dreams' in your podcast app and hit follow to get new episodes each Tuesday. Or listen at noiser.com Episode 2 is live now on Titanic: Ship of Dreams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: More weather… Drama Tease and Behind-the-Scenes: Planet Krynoid: Nightfall - Sunlight by Jonathan Morris.

It's Gallifrey One, it's the start of a mammoth weekend for Doctor Who fans, and it is a milestone for the Three Who Rule – their ONE THOUSANDTH episode! And what better way to pass the one thousand barrier than a full length interview with Doctor Who writer and former show runner Steven Moffat, and current Doctor Who executive producer Julie Gardner! Thanks to Shaun Lyon, Graham Kibble-White, Jack Kibble-White, Ken Deep, and special thanks to Paul McGann for narrating our opening video! Links: Support Radio Free Skaro on Patreon Gallifrey One

Time Ram take time off from watching boxsets to review 'The Doctor's Wife' as made for Paul McGann in the late 1990s! In the process, we observe early wirrns, CGI swirly balls, JNT's desirable office and screaming Bovril. Could we really, finally have caught up with the Doctor's father, Ulysses? One thing's for sure: Time Lords are weird.

This week we're joined by @InstabilityPro  's own George Guidera! Join us as we pose George your questions, talk at his love for Paul McGann and we hold an intervention for his very obvious 'fan Doctor ' addiction! The George is always the George is always the George is always the George is always the George is always the George is always the George is always the George is always....Hosted by George "Jack Alexander" Guidera & George "Robin Foale" GuideraEdited by George "Star Craib-Leete" GuideraLogo by Star Craib-LeeteIntro by Josh Murphy StudiosPringle Vortex by Stardust VFX

I spoke  to iconic Irish artist and songwriter Perry Blake who released his latest album called "Death Of A Society Girl" on Moochin' About Records. This album features  Paul McGann, best known for his roles in BBC's "Doctor Who'", "Withnail & I'"  "Empire of the Sun'", '"Alien 3'" and "Queen of the Damned ."This album also marks 26 years for Blake as a recording artist. It's also his first music in five years, following the critically acclaimed ‘Songs of Praise' (5 Stars MOJO). Hailing from Sligo county, Perry Blake has been dubbed one of music's great untapped resources. Polydor UK released his debut album ‘Perry Blake' in 1998 (with three singles chosen as 'Singles of the Week' on Jo Wiley BBC Radio 1). After which he moved to France. He achieved cult status there and across Europe, releasing a string of critically-acclaimed studio albums, a live album recorded at Cirque Royal Brussels with a full orchestra, as well as the soundtracks for ‘Presque Rien' and 'Trois Petites Filles'.The "Death of a Society Girl'" album was co-written and co-produced with long-term collaborator Graham Murphy (Clannad, Sharon Shannon, Marie Brennan). These nine compositions feature Blake's hallmark surrealist lyrics and original artwork by Syrian-born artist Helen Abbas.https://moochinaboutltd.bandcamp.com/...https://moochinabout.com/perry-blake/To Watch The Rest Of The  Interviews- Go Herehttps://www.youtube.com/@DJNocturna

Lucie Miller needs the Doctor's help. The whole planet Earth needs his help. But he is nowhere to be seen. While Lucie struggles to survive a terrible sickness, an even greater threat to the human race is about to be unleashed. And this will be the second Dalek invasion of Earth the Doctor's granddaughter has had to endure. After a last, futile fight-back against the Daleks, Lucie, Susan and Alex are heading home to England in the desperate hope of saving the Doctor's life. But the true, terrible nature of the Daleks' plan is beginning to emerge and the Monk has blood on his hands. To defeat the Daleks, it can only be a struggle… to the death. Contact us at prydonian.post@gmail.com Bluesky @huestone44.bsky.social https://siskoid.blogspot.com/ This is Siskoid's last episode as a regular with us at Straight Outta Gallifrey.  His readiness, professionalism and encyclopedia knowledge is incalculable.  He will be more than missed here.    

Random movie number 993 on Metacritic's all time movie list, Withnail and I (1987) is a dark comedy written and directed by Bruce Robinson, starring Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann. Set in 1969, the film follows two out-of-work actors navigating squalor, desperation, and a disastrous countryside holiday. Will they survive their chaotic antics and questionable decisions? Listen on and find out! Want to contact us? 15krandommoviereviews@gmail.com Follow, rate, and review our podcast on all audio platforms here: https://linktr.ee/15krandommoviereviews Follow us on Tiktok to see our favourite (and least favourite) scenes: https://www.tiktok.com/@15krandommoviereviews We are Colin and Niall, two movie enthusiasts from Ireland who wanted to take a different approach to movie watching and reviewing. So we came up with the idea to randomly choose a movie from Metacritic's all time movie list (which at the time of starting our podcast was over 15,000 movies, hence the title!). We take pleasure in bad movies as well as good! We hope you enjoy our podcast and follow us on your favourite podcast platform (or Youtube). See all our review ratings for all our movies in all our episodes in spreadsheet form! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BLin0MnPslu13i003F9PE9c6CBOCs4RQfWcblt65PhI/edit?usp=sharing Our list of movies reviewed on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls526575109/ Our list of movies reviewed on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/15krandommovier/list/15k-random-movie-reviews-1

CHRISTMAS AT THE TIME HOTEL!! Doctor Who Full Reaction Watch Along:  https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/thereelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Doctor Who: Joy to the World Reaction, Commentary, Analysis, & Spoiler Review w/ Greg Alba & John Humphrey! Join Greg and John as they delve into the 2024 Doctor Who Christmas Special, "Joy to the World," featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Fifteenth Doctor and Nicola Coughlan as Joy. In this festive episode, Joy checks into a London hotel in 2024, only to discover that her quiet stay is anything but ordinary, leading to a time-traveling adventure filled with laughter, tears, and a timey-wimey conundrum. The special has been praised for its "beautiful" final minutes and the chemistry between Gatwa and Coughlan. Doctor Who has been portrayed by a remarkable lineup of actors, including William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Jodie Whittaker, and Ncuti Gatwa. Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Podcast Xmas… Good Review Guy: Doctor Who Audio Novel: Terror of the Master… Behind-the-Scenes and Drama Tease: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Puccini and the Doctor… Also available: Bernice Summerfield - The Eternity Club 4.

My guests today are Lisa McMullin and Alfie Shaw, both of whom write for Big Finish Productions, creators of audio dramas ranging from established series like Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, and Dark Shadows to original dramas featuring the Air Transport Auxiliary from World War II and Marcus Tullius Cicero in Ancient Rome. Lisa started her career as a drama teacher before moving into dramatic writing—she's written for TV series like Death in Paradise and the Sister Boniface Mysteries as well—and Alfie, who is also a producer for Big Finish, dabbled in stand-up comedy. We talk about Big Finish's apparently magical ability to redeem characters—including villains—who were less than beloved, the challenges and opportunities of recasting familiar characters, the way Big Finish finds new writers (including the best ways to do that), what the writing process looks like for an audio series, and a lot more. While there's a lot of Doctor Who in this conversation, there's also a lot of insight into the creative process, too. We apologize for being a bit vague about particular stories so as not to spoil them for those who haven't heard them. Here's my conversation with Lisa McMullin and Alfie Shaw. Episode breakdown: 00:00 Introduction 01:39 Lisa's creative childhood 09:22 Alfie's early passion for stand-up. 11:03 Alfie worked at BBC before Big Finish. 21:10 Lisa met writers, felt impostor syndrome, networked successfully. 23:19 Mixed interests: Paul McGann, river, Big Finish's "Survivors." 27:46 Amused student challenges English class symbolism interpretations. 34:57 AI affects creativity more than expected. 42:27 Exploring creativity within set formats is valuable. 44:13 Big Finish enhances characters like Sixth Doctor, Daleks. 50:54 Varied reactions to piece on religion, conversion. 57:04 Balancing new ideas and classic elements creatively. 59:44 Paul Spragg entries processed anonymously for judging panel selection. 01:05:56 Balancing established and new talent in writing. 01:14:58 Audio parallels theater through character-driven dialogue. 01:21:24 Recast Doctors' strength: unique, non-traditional portrayals. 01:23:24 Continuously innovate and explore new creative possibilities. 01:28:25 Eleventh Doctor and Jacob Dudman. Check out the full show notes (now including transcripts!!) at fycuriosity.com, and connect with me and fellow creatives on Substack. Please leave a review for this episode—it's really easy and will only take a minute, and it really helps me reach new listeners. Thanks! If you enjoyed our conversation, I hope you'll share it with a friend. Want more? Here are handy playlists with all my previous interviews with guests in Doctor Who and writing.  

Don't go dropping no eves, but follow the failed goo trail to well-regarded Tom Baker story 'The Ark in Space' which has been Time Rammed to star Paul McGann! We also investigate Litefoot's family tree, take damage in the sentence and mourn Grace's opera gown. Includes previously unused Hanson and a surprising message from David Duchovny!

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Tim Treloar's tenth… Good Review Guy: Class: Secret Diary of a Rhodian Prince… Behind-the-scenes and Drama Tease: Time War Uncharted: Reflections… Also Available: The Scarifyers… Podcast Archive: Wendy Padbury.

Celebrate Gene! When listener Mike T. heard Shat The Movies desperately wanted to cover "Withnail and I," he stepped up with the funds to make it happen.  On its surface, "Withnail and I" is a simple movie about two out-of-work actors navigating the bleak landscape of 1960s England. Big D didn't realize it was the 1960s; he just thought England looks like that. But this cult classic inspired millions—including Gene Lyons—with its sharp wit, unforgettable quotes and rich character study. In this episode, the Shat Crew dissects the film's themes of friendship, disillusionment and the struggle for identity, all while celebrating the iconic performances of Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann.  Subscribe Now Android: https://www.shatpod.com/android Apple/iTunes: https://www.shatpod.com/apple Help Support the Podcast Contact Us: https://www.shatpod.com/contact Commission Movie: https://www.shatpod.com/support Support with Paypal: https://www.shatpod.com/paypal Support With Venmo: https://www.shatpod.com/venmo Shop Merchandise: https://www.shatpod.com/shop Theme Song - Die Hard by Guyz Nite: https://www.facebook.com/guyznite

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: the App and news… Good Review Guy: Torchwood - Double Part 2… Behind-the-scenes and Drama Tease: Eighth Doctor and Lucie Miller Series 3… Podcast Archive: Sarah Sutton 2017.

Deimos, moon of Mars - where Lord Slaadek's plans to revive the ancient Ice Warrior civilisation hang by a thread. Only the Doctor can stop him… but an old enemy, hiding in the catacombs, has an alternative plan. A plan that will test the Doctor's heroism to its limits. Just how far will the Doctor go to prevent the destruction and resurrection of Mars - on a day when his friends become enemies, and his enemies have right on their side? Written by Jonathon Morris and directed by Barnaby Edwards.   Contact us at prydonian.post@gmail.com Twitter/X @sogallifrey www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork  

This week, due to illness and other stuff, we are having another DEEP DIVE. And this week's film is 1990's Paper Mark starring Paul McGann. If you would like to receive this podcast earlier, get longer episodes, listen to the full interview with Julian as well as exclusive episodes and get the chance to ask David Edwards movie questions LIVE every Saturday Morning - then head over to patreon.com/davidearl Thanks for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, Who fans and welcome to the [Month] Round Table!It's nearly a full house for the September Round Table, Who fans! This time, Garry is joined by Jordan, Maria, Harry and Matt for their review of the recent live performance of The Stuff of Legend starring Paul McGann from Big Finish.After that we wind down with some chat about the recently announced spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea and what spin-off we'd love to see given the choice.Enjoy!This is The Big Blue Box PodcastJoin us each week for a new episode every Friday from your hosts Garry and Adam. We talk news, reviews, commentaries and general chat on everything Doctor Who PLUS listen to our monthly Round Table episodes with the whole team. Check out our website where you can also listen to all of our episodes for free along with the amazing reviews and articles from our writing team.Follow us on the socialsCome and get involved and chat Who between episodes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. We also have a free Discord server for you to hop in and chat with other like-minded Who fans.Thank you for listening to this episode and remember to follow the podcast on your fav podcast app so you don't miss an episode when they drop every Friday (or pop over here for links to all the popular podcast platforms). Have a fantastic week and until next time remember... Aaaaaaaaaaallons-y!

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: UFO, The Stuff, the App… Good Review Guy: Torchwood Double Part 1… Behind-the-scenes: Dark Gallifrey - The War Master - Part 3… Also Available and Drama Tease: Doctor Who: The Stuff of Legend… Podcast Archive: Bonnie Langford.

Paul McGann and India Fisher have played the Doctor and Charley Pollard, live, on stage, in front of four theatre audiences. Of course, Pieces of Eighth was there to cover this - with unprecented access before, during and after the production. We bring you exclusive chats with author Robert Valentine, director Barnaby Edwards, and Alex Macqueen, the Master himself. And Kenny and Matt are joined by other fans to share their thoughts on the production, mostly live, outside the Cadogan Hall.

Mark & Joe head to Cambridge to see how Paul McGann fares in a Tom Baker script - and we talk all about the new Big Finish website and Big Finish Day!

Today we get to visit with Daniel Spelman of Liverpool UK. Daniel grew up experiencing the condition of cerebral palsy which greatly affected his mobility as a youth. It led to a major surgery for him when he was in his second year of what we call high school. Doctors told him it would take at least two years before he would be able to walk again. Daniel and his unstoppable attitude were walking after only eight months.   At the age of 15 he began volunteering at a community radio station. He ended up working at that station for ten years holding several jobs and eventually became the station manager and program director. During his tenure as manager the station received significant accolades including winning the North Radio Station of The Year 2021.   Daniel left the station in 2022 as he felt it was time to move on to something different. He held sales positions which now have led him and his brother to start their own company that launches in late January of 2024.   This conversation shows what is really like for someone to be unstoppable. We all can learn from Daniel Spelman and what he has to say.   About the Guest:   I was  born with the condition  cerebral palsy this led me struggling in school as kid socialising I also missed a lot of high school due needing surgery in this really indepth procedure that saw my ankle smashed and reset with mental plates and screws in bedded within my foot, my hamstring and calf had work done in this 5 plus hour surgery, I was told I it be be very unlikely I wouldn't be able to walk for the next year or half I recovered and was walking within 8 months returning to school for last term of that year.  However having missed a chunk of my time in education my grades were massively effected me. I knew I had to push forward be the hardest worker in any room I walked in learn and shadow from the best people I could. so when I finished school I few weeks later took my first steps into my career.   At just 15 years old I started volunteering at community radio station 99.8FM KCC Live learning not just presenting & programming but advertising and marketing at a high level & fast paced marketing techniques and dealing with sponsorship and advertising as years past, I was a part  of multiple award winning teams at KCC Live fast forward few years, I was asked and took the regins of one of the prime time shows (drive time) The Big Live Drive, I built such strong branding it became regular that past, current and future UK Chart Stars, and with myself becoming  well known nerd I positioned a partnership with my then drive show with multiple nationwide comic con conventions working on social media content for both the station and comic con as well as interviewing TV and movie stars from likes  DC, Marvel, Doctor Who universe and many Tv and movie producers.      Whilst growing the show I was asked and took on the role of Station Manager following a brief spell as Station Coordinator following previous management structure breaking down, the station at the time struggling in multiple areas however my strategies took the station from struggling to tripling content output both on and off air within a few weeks. I was then tasked with guiding the station through and out the pandemic, training new staff in leading marketing strategies and after just over a year and half being  Station Manager I had guided KCC Live to wining Prolific North Radio Station Of The Year 2021. Those awards highlight those in marketing and media sectors putting the north on the map. I stepped down as Station Manager in 2022 after false promise and my contract not being honoured by the station director,, I represented myself in the tribunal and proved the unlawful decution of wages that was ruled in 2023.    This situation took its toll on my mental health I spent the last year rebuilding myself I lost passion for radio and mentoring others I needed to how I was going to regain my confidence.   I did so moving into Sales Executive role working with and representing companies/partners such as BT/EE for few months I know embark on new journey setting up my own company alongside my brother at Luma Socials set to launch in January 2024.   Ways to connect with Daniel:   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/producerdan95?igsh=ODA1NTc5OTg5Nw==   About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi there. Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset wherever you happen to be. I am your host, Mike Hingson. Today, we get to chat with Daniel Spelman. Daniel lives in Liverpool. I haven't heard that, that he tried out with the Beatles yet. But well, we can talk about that if he wants. Before my time for a little bit before your time. Well, there you go. But still, I know Daniel has lots of stories and lots of things to talk about. Gosh, starting out almost from birth, but we'll get to all of that. But Daniel, first of all, welcome to unstoppable mindset. Really glad you're here. And looking forward to the next hour.   Daniel Spelman ** 02:03 Michael, thank you for having me. I just just had to before we would start recording, it's uh, you know, hearing your story. And what you've been through and the challenges you face to be asked to be a guest on your podcast is an absolute honor, mate. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:16 I'm glad really to, to, to have you here. And I know you have a lot of a story to tell. So why don't we start by Why don't you tell us a little bit about kind of the early Daniel, growing up and all that that you want to talk about? Yeah.   Daniel Spelman ** 02:33 So growing up, we spoke briefly before when we were sort of arranging the podcast, and something I've never really touched on in my sort of career in radio broadcasting, his people sort of forget, they hear my voice, but they may not know what I made look like or what I go through. But I was born with the medical condition cerebral palsy. I never say disability or just it's not in my mindset. To say that I feel like it's a negative. I don't know why I just always have felt that way. But yeah, growing up was tough. You know, having a condition not many people sort of understood. And I feel like to this day, cerebral palsy is one of them. conditions that people don't fully understand what because people can have it in different spectrums. You know, one of my closest friends in radio has it a little bit more severe than me. But it's still one of the best broadcasters I've ever watched, grow and develop and one of the best human beings I know as well. And you know, I had a big surgery, just going into my teens. But before getting into that, like, I think just the social aspect. You know, cerebral palsy can be anything from just moderate thing. So like I had difficulties and shoelaces at a young age, tie in buttons and fiddly just wasn't for me. Socially, I wasn't that great. I was quite anxious. I was quite shy. Which is mad to think now. But yeah, I did really struggle and sort of childhood had to wear splints, something I've never really spoke on before, which wasn't a nice thing. You know, I was sort of bullied in in primary, what we call primary school in the UK, and it sort of thickened me up. I've always had a thick skin. And it's funny now that I'm saying people who picked on me back then now sliding into mediums because of the career I've somehow managed to sort of carve out for myself and the things I've achieved. But going into 2008 I had a major surgery. I still remember the doctor's name. And Dr. Sampath was in one of the probably the best hospitals in the UK for children called all the hay here in Liverpool as well. And, and I had to go on into that I had to do this thing called data analysis or basically I don't know if you've ever you're a big sci fi fan, Michael. Oh, yes. Yeah, so joke's on you, like, you might sort of watch something and you've got like probes on them to record or you know, do to make the movie sort of thing. And you'll see them in like weird suits, or you'll, you know, hear it and it's just one of them things. So I basically had to do that it looked like I was going for like an episode of Star Trek or something. So I had all these probes stuck on me, I had to walk up and down out of all these different movements just to see what was going on. And then that led to led to the surgery in 2008, where my hamstring was re lengthened, my calf muscle was redone. My ankle was shattered and put back together with metal plates and rods and all that stuff. It was really in depth surgery. And I was in surgery, I think for six to eight hours, a family member told me, I got told that I won't be able, I'd have to learn to walk again, obviously, but I won't be able to walk for you're looking at like two years. And so you know, I was in like year eight at this point, which is like, middle school, I guess in high school teams in America. I'm not too sure. But yeah, so it was like second year of high school, basically. So I missed the entirety of that, and sort of just had to somehow just sitting in one room for six, eight months, just the idea to do and that drove me insane. I managed to rehab in eight months. So from two years being told not to walk I was walking again in eight months, which was I still stay say to this day is probably my biggest achievement. I don't know how I did it. I was 1314. And then land to have the mindset of knowing how to walk again. And I don't even know how I would do it if I had to have that surgery over again. But yeah, that was sort of early childhood going into teens.   Michael Hingson ** 06:56 Now. Was the surgery, essentially the result of the cerebral palsy? Is that really kind of the underlying thing that caused the need to do it and why your ankle needed to do to be LinkedIn and so on.   Daniel Spelman ** 07:11 Yeah, so went that it had to be it was becoming uncomfortable. So basically what cerebral palsy is, for those who don't know is it's basically the spasticity around your joints constantly tighten. So this Adrianna post, there be a long term fix for me. And I'm not saying it is, but I've went on from that Airdrie in 2008. I always say that is the turning point in my life really, there was 210 points, one we'll get onto in a little bit. In 2011, the other one was 2008 gone through that. And the was the it was a result of the CP but it was to not check like it was just to give me a better quality of life. It went to say it was going to be life altering which it turned out it was both me luxury supposed to be getting done. But the wet market, like I'm more predominant on the left side than just the left leg. So my right side is quite strong. As I said, I had a mild through either bleed on the brain whenever when I was born. That's where my CP came from. And I call TP for sure. Because a   Michael Hingson ** 08:22 lot of people know that.   Daniel Spelman ** 08:25 Yeah. So yeah, so the surgery was a result of that. So like just the it was more the rehab. So you'd see different elements. I went through hydrotherapy. So it was a lot of getting into hot water and movements. And that was the TV side of it. I always remember I hated swimming anyway. And so when I was like, we're gonna do hydrotherapy. And I thought, oh, that sounds lovely. That sounds like I'm gonna be on a beach. No, no, it was a lot of hard work, a lot of hard work and a really hot swimming pool. But, you know, came through it. It was definitely a life changing experience in mentality, as well as physical for me.   Michael Hingson ** 09:02 How did your parents cope with all of this?   Daniel Spelman ** 09:04 So my parents were separated when I was growing up, so I only live with my mom and my mom. And I've never said this to her because I'm quite, you know, I'm not I'm not a soft Thiebaud she was definitely a rock. My soul was my brother and my sister. It must have been hard on them to see me go through that but and obviously they must have got some stick in school. I don't know a dad. I don't know what they experienced. But my mum always has been this sort of super caring person. My dad also visited me it's not like I don't know who he is. But yeah, and like it was it definitely did take its toll and I think more on the mum than anyone else. Because obviously it was bad written in the living room for those eight months. And they get school visits from, you know, my classmates and it was me when we talked me into school because she just saw me being fed up at home. So I ended up going into school in a wheelchair towards the end of that second. Second year in high school, I got back to the start of the third. And then the wants to take the metal rods out. And I was like, you can wait a little bit because I'm not sitting in any more beds or hospital beds. I've only just started walking again. No, we crack jokes. I think with my family, it's a lot of humor. So my brother because he knew I had them at play, and we fought or we said he'll get a big magnet to it and see what happens. And but yeah, it was just a little bit of humor, I think he's just sort of deal with them things. In the moments, I'm sure you've had their moments as well, with your condition where people wouldn't sort of understand fully, you sort of just get these handles and you've sort of got to jump over them, or it's sort of sink or swim, there's probably the best way to put it.   Michael Hingson ** 10:50 Right? Well, then that's the choice that you get to make. Yeah, and you talked about disability and the you don't like to say that what you had was a disability, I appreciate that. I'm actually in the process of writing an article that probably I'll finish this weekend, and the title of it is disability a new definition. And what I'm basically saying is, in the article, disability does not mean a lack of ability. And that the reality is that everyone has some sort of disability. And I could make that case very strongly. And the idea is that basically, disability is a characteristic we all have, and it manifests itself in different ways. Yeah,   Daniel Spelman ** 11:35 I always remember, I don't my work experience, we do this thing in the UK, I don't know if you do it in America, or where where you are. Like basically, you'd go into towards the end of high school, you'd go into a place of work for two weeks, and you would experience what it's like just doing an everyday job. So I don't know what you call it a canteen, like a canteen, lady. But that's what I did, basically, when a company lady was just serving food. But in that process I met it was a mom school, my mom was a TA and she supported kids with autism. People who couldn't physically speak data use sign language or packs, like these little sign sort of box things. And it was very interesting to be for. And this was a lot in a different class to be on. But I just thought it took a liking. We sort of just bonded. And he had a condition, I can't remember where it was called. But basically his life expectancy wasn't that high, like you're looking at mid 30s tops. But he understood and probably lived more like life wise, like you just enjoy life, the little things. So so much. And I just to this point, I was like no matter, you know, some people live more in 30 than some people do an 80 Yeah. And that's something that just sort of stuck with me. And then they're all sort of motto is like a read somewhere in a book, you can, you know, just decide what you want to be and go be it I can't remember where I saw that. But that's sort of a motto that stuck in my head. I didn't know what I wanted to do. Because obviously I had all these surgeries, I had all these obstacles to overcome. I didn't really do well in a classroom. And at all in that sort of environment. It just wasn't for me, I was always fidgeting. And I sort of just was like, I want to be doing something I don't want to be sat here doing, you know, math, which was quite handy to refer. But you know, you think like that when you're young. And then when you leave you go, I should have took advantage of being in that room and laying off these people who've got degrees and stuff. And so yeah, I was sort of in that sort of back end of high school just my mind wasn't in it. I was just like wanting to be elsewhere and actually wants to be a cook. My granddad was a massive influence on me. He still is to this day. And even through the battles he's having currently with his health, I still want the one looking after all of us. And so yeah, I want to sort of be a chef like him, but then realized that just didn't have the patience when it comes to cooking at all. Or they'll eat the food while they're making it. And so I remember, I've always been intrigued by music we brother BJ, I play guitar. My dad was a massive Barbies fan. So you know music. I was a massive Beatles fan growing up not like it's popular now for young people like old music. It wasn't then I was playing Beatles riffs on electric guitar at the age of 1415. Don't get chance to play the guitar as much as I would now like to now. But yeah, absolutely loved Beatles loved different genres of music. My mom was a big rock fan. And she also like a lot of parts of it was always different. Something was being played, there was always some musical elements in the house, or the radio was on. And I just got intrigued by radio, like, how does this work? I've always I always had that sort of inkling. So in 2011 I was volunteering anyway. Because I just felt like because I left school with not much in education wise, like qualifications, anything like that. I was like, How can I make up for that? Right? Okay, I can I can outwork everyone in the room, that's always been just my mentality, it doesn't matter if I've got a condition. I'll outwork any person in any room. They like you can be the fit. I'm the first one in the last to leave. And, and that's the mentality of taken to everything to do. And so I started just volunteering in charity shops, furniture shops, like, you name it, I locally I was involved in in it, if it was putting on events for charities, if it was just collecting money for charities. I did that. And then I remember going into college to enroll on a on a media course. And they came across a community college, radio station, and red community radio station based within the college I was going to, and I was speaking to a lot called Dave North who's now a presenter on BBC Merseyside. Now who's phenomenal still, I would later become a mentor, I would later go on to, you know, work alongside him at the radio station. And, you know, go on to take one of the shows, he sort of made iconic at that station. And so yeah, signed up at 15. And just got this radio book, I was a massive nerd, I would just became a sponge listening to all these amazing people who have gone on to have commercial success in the radio industry in the UK, I could name so many people off the top of my head. You know, Rob Tobin, who's Kiss FM is one of the biggest stations in the UK. He's now producing the breakfast show there, which is like Emmys, and there's so many people. And it's not even the people who made it in the industry. It's all the people who are just really good mentors in how to be a good person. And so yeah, I learned a lot at that station. KCC lives I was there from 2011 That's when I started there.   Michael Hingson ** 17:24 And how long were you there?   Daniel Spelman ** 17:25 All the way up till 2022. So how's 10 years? Yeah, 1010 plus years?   Michael Hingson ** 17:34 Yeah. So right, so radio, you definitely got the radio bug. And yeah, you decided to kind of make that up a career to work at.   Daniel Spelman ** 17:45 I realized I was really good at chat and nonsense very quickly. And, and I was naturally just funny without thinking. I'm funny. And but I went right off the bat. Like, I had amazing teachers how Evans you know, he was a massive mentor in sort of the management stage. And he saw something in me when I started presenting the Dr. Show, but Chrissy, Chrissy, well, it's now she's another like, Hi open in BBC and sort of management and journalism and stuff and she sort of a call me radio mom, she'll hate me here heard me say that to her. But like, she just was she was a really good mentor, you could just have a cup of tea with her and talk about anything that's going on, sort of person, because that's what the community radio station is, I don't know if it's the layout in, in America, but over here, you know, several different types of radio stations. So that was a community station. So you will have some paid staff, you will have some, I must have called a volunteer base within it. And so it was like 5060 volunteers at any given time, rarely, in different roles. I sort of done a lot of shows. I did take a breather in 2015. And sort of, you know, I was going into mid 20s. Then I just finished me sort of media sort of course. And I was just I took a little bit of a breather from doing radio shows and still sort of popped into the station still kept my head in there. I was always doing management stuff behind the scenes as well. So I'll just present now I was learning programming how to put shows together islands like the production of a show what goes into you know, making entire product and and all these other elements. And so when I sort of left and got that breathe and came back I remember crazy turnarounds me I came back, and I was just covering a mid morning show 10 to one. We call it mid morning over here and for a couple of weeks and then the Dan drive presenter. The show was called the big loud job never changed his name in the time period. A Dutch Shell run from the beginning of the station. So it broadcasted to the whole of noseley, which is one of the biggest borders, a Liverpool and, and it had the challenges financially because of you know, it was a community radio station and a lot of people's connotations with radio were very commercial or the BBC or it's not like that a lot of its funding. It's a lot of its community projects. So we are doing a lot of that events as well. I Lance, and there was just a broad practice mock up effort. ATAR was talking about it. But yeah, when I came back in 2015, after a little bit of a breather, so 2015 back end of 2015 going into 2016. Chris, he asked me to save on the den, sort of Dr. Shawn going into 2012 2017 No, so 20 2017 And it's like we're not there yet. So that was a massive honor, because that's the show Dave North who I was like, when I speak about radio, the one I think about doing radio, his ideas when it comes to radio games, or features you'd hear on the radio, I've never met someone as brilliant as him, he'll just come up with so many amazing games, stuff like that, and nothing in radios original, but you've got to put your own spin on it. And you've got to be okay with it. So once thought of an idea, but how can you make it different? How can you make it your own. And a good example of that is like a carpool karaoke was a big thing in America, it was I don't know thing called dry town karaoke, where I would just phone someone, and they would have to finish a karaoke song.   Michael Hingson ** 21:30 For this, what time of day was the show on.   Daniel Spelman ** 21:34 So it was three till 6pm. That was to Thursday, but when I took over, it was Monday to Friday. So I actually co host that with a friend of mine all the way down. And he was just someone who taught me tacky, say this stuff when I ended up taking over the radio station. A few more years. So I co hosted with him. So I started originally there on a Monday, Tuesday, he then Wednesday, Thursday, and we're just sort of shared the Friday slot. And then when Chris he left to go, BBC, and she made me the main sort of dry presenter, and I would then go on to do that show Monday to Thursday, sometimes Friday for the for the first year. And for five years, six years, which was, well, I didn't think of it at the time. But by the time I left in 2022, you know, someone said, people have started uni and finished uni. And I've gone into the careers while you've done this show. And I was like, I've never really thought about it like that. And so it was a weird show to leave. For me, it was somewhere I think I felt sort of comfortable in that time slot, I grew as a person, and I sort of grew up as well from a sort of a teenager, young adult into, you know, doing adult things, and, you know, actually, you know, adult challenges and stuff and day to day life have done this. You know, it was just like the topics but it was so different. When from when I started that show, they were so silly to like that I won't go I'm not gonna say they were serious. But you know, they were more mature, sort of funny, you know, stuff. So as a presenter, I sort of found my groove in in doing that show. nuts when I was poor, sort of put in the position, the station at the time went through a management change as a secretary as he left, who was then the station manager, and one of my best friends who I was close to at the at the station, Mark took over. And it was just a lot of different elements. And for some reason, it just didn't work out. And I sort of without realizing it took up the mantle and running the station. And I think a lot of people just look to me, because I was a part of that management setup with with so many of the people marshals and other person. And we were crazy that I was always around those people in the early years. And so I started doing things what they would do, but they put my own little twist on it. So you know, my my music tastes and the way I see things, there's going to be different to what, you know, Johnny down the street is gonna think but you know, we could find some common ground. And obviously, you've got to move with the time. So I was very aware of that. And then when I was offered the position and station manager and going into it was like back in the 2019 2020 I was running the station as a coordinator for the 2019 and so I became the station manager 2020 Officially. And from that point it was it was struggling financially. And I was talking to someone who's like involved with the station. You don't show but he wants to sort of come on board and help sort of financially and support it. So I just put them into contact with a board of directors who's sort of been the front of the station while I saw a lens how to You sort of get to grips with managing a radio station. I was only at this point 2324, which is crazy to think even a small radio station, but it's so you know, 1000s of people. And that's a lot of pressure. Like that's, that's not many people do that. I think back now, and not many, not, not many people, it's a very sort of big step. And it was how we were mentioned earlier who saw you saw something in me when I was doing that sort of drive show. And he started becoming the mentor, he was working in commercial radio. And at the time, and I remember, we saw I'd never really spoke with him, he was the founder at the station as well. And with a guy called Chancellor George Sweeney, the station still exists to this day, definitely one supporter, you know, I think it's definitely needed in the area. It's from I'm from that area. So like, it's 1% needed. And but yeah, when he came to me, and we sort of broke with a sort of a friendship and mentorship, because I went off to them one day and went, can you just tell me how I can improve as presented, be as harsh as you want, because I need darted, something's not working. And I can get to another level presenting, but I need to want to be harsh, not harsh on purpose, but like, you know, critique me the best you can, because I'm only going to develop through through through there. And he didn't even hold back, which I totally respect. And I, you know, I saw the benefits of myself when I talk in everything he said. And then later down the line, when it became station manager, he was a massive part of me being mentally sort of coping with that. And so yeah, that was a big challenge. So literally, I was announced as station director, Air Station Manager in December 2019. And obviously, that was going into, you know, I think called the global pandemic, which we all didn't see, come on. So like, the first thing I had to do is, was stare at a radio station through that.   Michael Hingson ** 27:16 Officially, yeah. And so you, you, you took on this responsibility, were you still doing a show? Or were you just manager full time and not doing a show anymore than   Daniel Spelman ** 27:28 now? I'm still doing a show. I was doing a show five days a week.   Michael Hingson ** 27:32 Dr. Show? Yeah,   Daniel Spelman ** 27:34 I felt like, I want to be in the transfusion trenches with the volunteers. And, and I would, I wasn't being paid for that time I was doing the radio show. I am. Like, it was something I had a passion for. It's something I wouldn't tip on. So I was doing in that time period, we're talking about when, when I was becoming station managers during the show, and still continue with the show, obviously, when station manager was was, you know, in a position of technically paid stuff, and, and basically, I would just be making, because I just felt like, well, you know, I'll do the show, but I'll also be doing planning meetings with people, right, going in and out, I'll be recording odd links and then jumping into the Zoom or I'll be on the phone to Samangan right? This what we're gonna do this what we're gonna plan and, and sort of my methodology was just the biggest thing because I came into that station as in a managerial role when it was sort of on its knees financially and creativity creatively.   Michael Hingson ** 28:37 Why was why was that the case? Why was it having financial problems? It sounds like your show at least was very successful. Why were their financial problems community   Daniel Spelman ** 28:46 radio, so like, as I said before, a lot of people's connotations with radio, especially in the UK are very commercial or BBC so these distinctions don't really make money like you will think like shifted the code or a lot of it through funding projects and the kindness of people to you know go I see the value in this if you think of it like the local sorry about the local boxing gym or something like that. It's the exact same thing what what we were doing with just radio Atlanta like punching each other in the face. But essentially that it's the exact same thing it's the exact same principle it's just copy and paste. So it was just that management. Like between myself and Chrissy mark just sort of broke broke down for I don't know the reasons I still talk to Mark to this day have a huge amount of respect for him as he does me not many people knows what it's like to sit in that seat as a as the manager on a radio station. And I saw just fell into it. I say this to people I went the probably the pair factories. I was just the right plate person at the right time you picked have a couple of meetings you people pointed out or just let look that for leadership and I don't know why. And so that's when I sort of realized at 24, I was a leader and had to, you know, those people 10 years, 15 years older than me who had 1010 years experience on me. But I remember, two volunteers in particular, and I'm really good friends with them. And the ones just been on me shoulder to shoulder the other. And so I don't mind name dropping them right now. But like, his name's Johnny be great DJ, and Matt, your music re volunteer, you should also just be not long become a dad. So congratulations, Marty, if you're watching this. And I remember when I was announced the show manager, my biggest worry was how do I get the people who I've known for years on board behind this decision that the board of directors have made, and both of them called me back to back within an hour of each other. Just saying you've got this support? Yeah. 100%. So like, soon as I knew I had them on board, I brought some old cases, you'll have Oh, geez, we used to call them and back. And they they they got involved and I was Dad sort of touch me emotionally just people that I looked up to when I was 1516. Landing off them came back just to do a show or just be involved in the station or just support like the new people at the station. And so it was a big team effort. And the first year when I was coordinator, we all just donated money to keep the station going. That is a true story. Him all the presenters myself, I was working in another job. But yeah, like that's what we did. We just chipped in chipped in money. And then like, going into 2020, obviously, we had a new director come in. So Howell stepped away after 17 years. And which even though we were still always on the phone to me, or I knew the call, if I needed them, I could call them that was a big like I was then like, Okay, this is this is sort of, I'm rarely staring the ship now. And yeah, we had a new station director. And and that was something that was a big challenge. But first of all had to get through COVID. So being 24, knowing how to no one dealt with a global pandemic. So stay there through that somehow, we actually traveled contents in that time. So we went from struggling, so we are still struggling financially, but we are, you know, with the new director, he sort of had connections with funding streams. So he sort of took care of that side of things, I just my job was just to worry about the programming. So I was doing that got through co COVID. Somehow I was doing like the safety checks for COVID. So I was I was the guy who would still go in even when the disability was still going, well, condition, I said the disability were and, and I went in and I sort of checked in on the station. But I also have an open door policy. So I can continue that through call without having meetings with everyone, every day, I'd have a four 4pm check in or 5pm Check in time where we'll just have a zoom. And we could talk and sort of chatter everyone. And if anyone had any inclination, or they wanted to change something about the station, I was totally open to that. Because you need to be you need, you know, you're only as good as your weakest part of the team. And no one was weak, we all helped each other. We all like my my things always been like, Oh, I'm doing really well. I'm going to pick my friend up and we're going to you know, we're going to climb this mountain together, come on over, there's a bigger hill that's come on, let's go together. You know, if you want to go fast, you go alone, if you want to go long you go together. And it's one of them like if it works. You built a team. Yeah. And we we managed to turn it round, strong, quite strong financially, to the point where we had I had paid staff around me as well. So I had an amazing marketing guy I got to pick him come in and he changed the atmosphere to another level. So I went from being non creative sort of creatively stifled when I took over to everyone laughing taking the mick but in a good way. And we're all like every Could everyone could just give freedom of expression, which was the whole point of the station. It was there for young people to sort of develop and learn about themselves like I did. And it's all it's all about, you know, young people finding the voice as well. So you make that front and center and you say to people like you make a mistake, I'm not going to tell you off, you only learn from your mistakes. I encourage mistakes like people go, Oh, I messed up. I started on that I was like, and that means you don't sound like Siri or Alexa or all these other, you know devices. That just proves to the listener. You're human. It's okay. And so it was just little things like that and people felt comfortable. And then we brought in I'm Meg shore, who's a phenomenal singer, by the way, local artists, where I am in Liverpool, she actually went to a Paul McCartney school, by the way, talking about the Beatles. And so she came in on a Kickstarter scheme. And within months, this is just 18 months old from me taking over we own radio station of the year, which is the award just behind me for those, I've just realized it's on the shelf just right there. So I've got a copy of that one. There's one in the case slave headquarters still, but yeah, they got kindly given one as well. And so that's quite nice to sort of have have one to keep. And so yeah, that was probably a highlight as well. Sadly, my team at the time got COVID. And I didn't, so I was the only one at the awards. bought, like, we were up against major, you know, BBC bite sized programs. And although radio entities, and I just we were just glad to be invited to go to the awards. And so in 2021, to win that I was just sat there, it took me a little second when you said the station and was like, oh, yeah, that's me. And so yeah, that was a really nice moment to you know, pick up an award. In such an incredible venue is Old Trafford cricket ground. So yeah, which is quite historic as well.   Michael Hingson ** 36:23 So as you are working at the radio station, and all the work that, then an activity that you had, was kind of the remnants or all of the issues regarding CPE, much of an effect, or were you able to just not pay attention to that anymore, because the surgery and everything that happened, made you to the point where it wasn't really an issue for you,   Daniel Spelman ** 36:50 I think there's a lot of you sat down quite a lot. So it's sort of what you just said, like, it was very much sort of out my mind, because I was so proactive and so busy. And, and I was also building bridges through this, this program with working with special schools who deal with young people with sort of challenging lives themselves, and who have either, you know, different conditions, maybe it is Cp, maybe it's autism, I sort of built a bridge for them to come in and be a part of some projects and, and hear them get on the radio a little bit through a feature. And that was really cool. Because it then opened their eyes that oh, we can do this done used to come to the school, or Dan has something similar to what I have boy, he's, you know, interviewed a lot of famous people, which I was lucky to do before it became station manager. So I'm happier experience doing that sort of stuff like interviewing char stars and film stars, and working up and down the country, which dimension on, you know, ComiCon conventions, and sort of, you know, I got to get this high list of contacts who still keep in touch with me to this day. So I'm very fortunate with that, you know, I've got to interview my favorite band who are American, against the current, like, became friends with them. Like, to the point where, you know, they would invite me to shows even ever where I'm going to interview them, we'll just hang which was really cool. I would end up interviewing them because I'm all about content, as you already know, Michael, never waste a moment, right. But yeah, like, it was just all systems go. And, and there was also someone else at the station with a similar condition to me, with the same condition but a little bit more severe to what I had and just seeing him he was like a right hand man in the early years, you just develop his name is broad. He's an absolutely phenomenal person, and his radio knowledge. Second to none, and he's very open about me and him, you still have open conversations about CPE. So it was not like, I totally forgot about it. It was something that you know, I think it motivated me more to be like, Yeah, I can do this. Like just because, you know, I walk with a little bit of a limp doesn't don't count me out. I'll outwork anyone in the room and, and approve that, like, I was doing well, five, six meetings. In a day, I was doing a drive show. I was still doing the interview. So I'll still add it and do that. And then I was obviously creating shows with other presenters. I was doing the community events. I was, you know, a radio practitioner. Sorry, that's my cat, Hendrix making an appearance there. I was also the company we merged with at this point. And I run a radio course for them. So while I didn't run it, I was the practitioner of it. So I would teach some young people into sort of level one radio course or while I was running this radio station, and we Should I look back now? And I don't know how I know, you've just asked me how I did it. I don't know. And that's the total honest to God truth. Like, I don't know how I did it. It was a lot of fun. And I wouldn't change anything really apart from well,   Michael Hingson ** 40:16 you, you basically made a decision to move forward with your life and if you will be unstoppable, but you made the decision to, to move forward. You knew how to do it. And and you did. And as you said, it was mostly out of mind, as you pointed out, a lot of it was sitting down. It's not like you were out on a construction job or anything like that working at the radio station. I don't know how many rooms that were in the, in the facility, but certainly not a lot. But there were a few but still, you were mostly not in a situation where an incredible amount of mobility was required. And you here it certainly had the mobility to do what you needed to do.   Daniel Spelman ** 41:00 Yeah. Not only that, though, it's sort of, you know, even celebrities I've interviewed asked me a little bit about like, how, how can you Olympia Okay, think of like fell over or something, I would talk to him about it. And they just, they were just amazed by what I was doing. And when, like, I'll tag friends along with me. So like, if I was doing an event, and it was for the station, I had to best meet you, it had nothing really to do with the station, but would help me gain content. Just as I said before, I'm one of them people live, I'm going to the next mountains up, I'm going to pick you up with me, you know, we're going to go together strongest, that's always been a mentality for me. And so they were amazing. Kevin, my two sort of my two best mates who sort of helped definitely through sort of when things got a little bit more darker in the following months. But yeah, Kev would actually come on board with the station. And they did show we are massive nerds. And I was sort of struggling when I was station manager and just sort of more so after COVID, to be honest, it became a lot of people. It became a little bit more difficult to sort of manage, when you know, not everyone wants to be in the office. But some of those are very split where it was just that was the probably the biggest challenge when people were there a bit hesitant with COVID. And which was understandable and we kept that people want to work remotely can people want us to come in the code, but it was a very, that was probably the biggest sort of challenge. And managing that because obviously people are too in like multiple places. And you've got to be in multiple places. But yeah, that was that was a massive challenge that did then step away from the during the show in 2022. And just had to in my last couple of months at the station just had to I just felt it was the right time. I felt like it was the right time a year prior. But the station director asked me to stay on board then we I sort of said, like I need to sort of step away from from this just often focus on the backside of the sort of the station, I want to sort of delve myself, the more I was in the role, the more I just wanted to be in behind the scenes, I didn't really want to be the guy in front of the mic anymore. I felt my time had passed. And it's the same with sort of managerial things I knew, you know, I'm not going to be there forever. It was it. I'm there for a good time, not a long time. I said that in the first meeting, I'm there for a good time, not a long time. Because any managerial sort of role and comes with a shelf life and you've got all that you need to know when's the right time for you to step away. And then towards the end for me it was probably the difficult because it was a it was a passion project to this day, I loved the station and I loved everyone who's and I still love the people who were there now and what the station stands for it was just for me, I showed on the voted loyalty to the station and towards the end the last year or so that loyalty went shown back to me. And it did end quite sour but you've got to move on. I ended up going into sales, which was definitely a different extreme. And they have a very brief run brief run in as a sales exec what I absolutely loved the business, the business side of it and working with these companies, because I was sort of back at square one to a point of I don't want to do radio I want to take a little bit of a break from it but I like the whole go into meetings representing businesses marketing talk a niche for as well and do an SEO work as well. That's something that intrigued me and I wanted to know that were so I was doing a lot of business, the business and we'd like sort of broad bands and some of the biggest names in the in the UK when it comes to that sort of stuff. So I was it's not like I was working for a small company I was wearing For a major firm who had major clients, and so it was definitely interesting for the brief since I was doing that. And but that's where I think it was the sort of the, that's my cat saying, Hello, everyone. So you   Michael Hingson ** 45:15 said your cat's name is Hendrix. Is that relation to Jimmy? Yet? It is so Okay.   Daniel Spelman ** 45:21 Since as I told you everything is musical with me, so yeah, he's a very talkative cat for sure. And so is mine.   45:29 Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 45:30 I think I think I did is the only thing I did like, close the door. So she can't come in because otherwise we would be very disrupted.   Daniel Spelman ** 45:37 Yeah. To him. He's probably wondering why I'm still like, awake.   Michael Hingson ** 45:42 Why are you still trying to go to sleep there buster?   Daniel Spelman ** 45:47 Basically getting told off? Yeah. Where was we? So yeah, I was doing sales. And that's where, when we were talking about before, that's where, because I was down constantly on the goal. That's where my disability came in. So I stepped away from that role. It was a you know, I love the title of a sales executive, but I stepped away for for that just because of my condition. That's where it did. I think mentally with everything I've went through towards the back end of my last position into the sales one sort of took its toll. So I then stepped away from sort of that, and went through a few different avenues, done a lot of marketing. And, you know, doing some, some other projects got back into radio. So the radio boy came back, which was nice. It went on for that long. But then setting up my own company currently, where my brother is one of the projects I'm currently working on, which is marketing and social media management, something, I've got a passion for something I've won awards in doing as well and privately, so like, that's something my brother said it was my brother's ID, and I'm not gonna take credit for it. Like he approached me and was like, you've got all these contacts, you've got this wealth of experience, I want something different. And so at the moment, but you know, it's taken a little bit longer to set up the plan that what we're looking at launching later this month. So we've got a few clients, and we've been sorting. So sorting that out of it out, obviously, we both have awesome day jobs, and which I'm sort of going into a new career now, as well as well, still doing radio and doing this. So I've got three things on the go, and which I'm enjoying being busy again, but it's also a manageable schedule. And when I was station manager, I think I look back at that now. And I think I was definitely being so young benefited, because I don't think they I was managing it at a pace that was not like obtainable, basically wouldn't, I couldn't keep going at that pace, all the time, you have to learn to slow down. So I still manage certain things as well, I've been a part of charities in Liverpool, and I've managed projects since and that's something and I'm now a mentor to a few people. So like Warhol was to me, I'm now that a few other people I mentioned they're unable for their, for their limited companies. And they're cits they come to me and I chat with them. And, and I try and advise them and stuff and what I would do or you know, just you know, if they want to throw a text at two in the morning, go, Hey, I've got this mad idea. And I know why straightaway, but I totally get it because I was there. Not that long ago where you do you have those crazy project ideas where you go, I want to do this and it's at 2am. So you've got to write it down, or you've got to tag someone to be like, or you're gonna lose it lose the trail of thought. And but yeah, that was that's pretty much my journey in the last about 18 months.   Michael Hingson ** 48:52 So what do you do in radio today?   Daniel Spelman ** 48:55 So I am presenting a breakfast show on CANDU FM, so I was on out 7am This morning. Okay. So that's fun. I enjoy them. And that I do that one day a week. I been sort of hosting multiple shows up and down the UK. I don't promote all of them. Because I'm COVID on a lot of stations. I've actually I think I can I can animate it to a point. I can't say what that's okay. Just recorded for an audiobook, and which was really cool. That when   Michael Hingson ** 49:27 will it be published?   Daniel Spelman ** 49:28 Not too sure. Yeah. Just it was the rough draft I've just recorded a few days ago. My family don't even know that that close is   Michael Hingson ** 49:36 the is it? Is it a book you wrote? No, no, no, it's okay.   Daniel Spelman ** 49:39 I just got asked to voice it. And it's a well known person. So I was very intrigued by that. So yeah, I've sort of enjoyed doing that. And I've continued sort of working with some of my sort of biggest contacts sort of made up and down the UK. So I'm planning on doing a little bit more with The color cones and, and the football clubs and stuff. I love soccer as using football. So yeah, I plan on doing that. And yeah, the other radio show though, is houseparty radio, which is for enough one of the lads from KCC. Life, his station, he's opened his own station. So I give some time to that. And I'm also currently talking about redoing a Dr. Show with one or two stations, it's just knowing where I'm gonna land and what's the benefit. But yeah, they went to Dr. Show is Back in sort of niggling at me, I want to do do a daily show again. So I am talking to a couple of stations as well about doing that sort of full time with them and being exclusive, but not fully exclusive to them. Because obviously, I'm not going to leave the other stations just yet. But I'm sort of, you know, getting to sort of, after being 10 years at one station, I feel like I'm in that zone right now I'm enjoying or dipping in and out of all the stations here. And all the stations operate completely different. And it's, it's very interesting. And obviously, I still have big ties with people in Liverpool and talking and being someone that, you know, I do talks as well, I've been into schools. So I went into my old school about a year ago, and want to talk to the kids there, which was, which was interesting. And, and then obviously, you know, I've got interviews and stuff that I've just recorded with some well known cosplayers and, and I've asked, being asked to do a few more podcasts like this, not like this, but like culture, live media, sort of,   Michael Hingson ** 51:45 you know, having done radio, and not to the level that you did, but I was in radio, in college, and so on, and a little bit of professional radio, now doing a podcast and I've been doing this since August of 2021. The the advantage of a podcast, I suppose if you, you could say it's a lazy attitude, but you don't have some of the limitation that you have in radio. So the podcast is whatever length you choose it to be. You can choose whether you want to have sponsors and commercials and all that. But podcasting is very much from the general operation of it a lot like radio, other than some of the things that are not as restrictive, like you have to end at exactly a particular time. So something else you might think about, and podcasting can be a very interesting and very visible medium to, to be able to, to be out there for the world to see and hear.   Daniel Spelman ** 52:44 Yeah, it's something I've been approached about as well. And I've been lucky that I've got these commercial contacts have made over the last 10 years have reached out to me but it's also it's a mentally I'm ready to jump back into that sort of cycle of cars that that industry people don't learn and preparation. Yeah, it's media music that that whole industry is it's such fast paced, so you can get away with it, even though it's for a few years do some different things, you know, I think I'm still only you know, 20 Yeah, I've got 10 years at one company of sockets, from, you know, being broke, to award winning, and, you know, went from not being able to walk to, you know, walk in and, and, you know, be an ambassador for you know, sticking stuff with to try to be I'm not, you know, doing as much as I would like with that charity, which is a charity that raises awareness for CPE. And so I want to give them a mention here, I'm actually be an ambassador for them. And, and they do phenomenal work. And I'm going to try and planning a visit and go and see see some of the little ones who they sort of support and they deal with kids with CP with who's got severe or mild but like a cold progressively at worst, it just depends on the spasticity, every, it's like everyone, like, everyone's different and it's it goes case by case. So not every case of CP is the same, it just varies on the person. Like if you told my doctor who gave me surgery in 2008, and I'm still out and about doing stuff, okay, I have good days, bad days. But I'm open most days quite early to do physio, or just getting the joint sort of moving and do that. And I was doing that when I was running a radio station, I would get up do excises physio, which just gave me when I was recovering and in rehab for me surgery just to sort of give myself an edge. And I try and walk as much as I can to places and I won't push me limits. I think you have to learn very quickly what your limits are. And I had this conversation with a friend of mine who's got Fibro myalgia I don't really understand that but I can sort of get the similarities of what Hi Fi thrive, where you can feel very fatigued or nowhere. So it's just sort of learning your limit It's with anything in life. And but yeah, that's sort of me in a nutshell really I just keep keep plodding along and   Michael Hingson ** 55:11 there you go. Who Who have you interviewed that I might have heard up?   Daniel Spelman ** 55:18 Oh, so musically or film or just shut her name off a few lists   Michael Hingson ** 55:23 whoever you think I might have heard of over here. No limitations.   Daniel Spelman ** 55:27 So I've music wise a style who's on track with Kanye West. I have you and I have interviewed all my mind's gone a little bit Blanca. Era McNeil, Susan, after you was in a film with Jim Carrey, Paul McGann who was in Doctor Who he actually play Doctor Who in the US, and I'd be very lucky enough to interview Matt Ryan, a great actor. And he was also in DC series have also interviewed David Tennant, who played Doctor Who and Matt Smith as well, which was really cool. And the lists and lists chart char stars, you know, Becky Hill knows but Shinnecock elven football is Steven Gerrard. I don't know if you know who he is. But he's massive. Specially in Liverpool, Luis Garcia, Sammy Huperzia. Josie Enrique, does the list goes on with football?   Michael Hingson ** 56:33 What's your favorite interview that you've done?   Daniel Spelman ** 56:36 Oh, that is a tough question. Oh. Oh, it is a it is a very tough one. And I'm going to pull it down to two. So I'm going to do one open coming artist. And because I've always been wanting to promote open colon talents, and especially in the UK, and one overall for me. And so the Open command talent would be brawny, who's a dear friend of mine, someone I've interviewed and we've just become friends. And really good friends. I touch even though the show at the radio station around for a little bit when I took over it, which I couldn't believe she did that. And so we are brawny for short because the amount of time she's gave me we've interviewed, you know, I've interviewed them multiple times. And my personal favorite would possibly be it has to be against the Quran just because my favorite band Dev, and I've watched him go from YouTube covers to, you know, doing stadium shows in you know, and who is that again? against the current so that, okay, so I think then New York or New Jersey based around that area, or from New Jersey, New Jersey, but based in New York or the labelers. And so they have done a solo tour in America in the UK. They've just been over to the UK. And so yeah, I think just because I've watched them, and I've saw them grow from YouTube, to where they are now, which is phenomenal. And it's great. Yeah, so when I got the call to interview them in 2019 for the first time, in Manchester, I literally about three, four hours before the show went on record, because I literally interview the style and then in the same day ensued against the Korean so that was a very weird day for me. And then, funnily enough in 2020 Going back to the Dr. Show, Chrissy who's the lead singer in the band, I just threw an email because we sort of exchanged emails when we interviewed them and he was like keep in touch because he could tell I was a genuine fan or so of what how they've developed and stuff like that. You gave me an email I reached out during COVID because of a lot of people that are just going to be able to be out on the board there'll be a perfect opportunity to sort of get some names on the show. And Chris he literally out of nowhere, so I was like yeah, let's do this. And you'll get an 11k views on YouTube within I think like three weeks a month, which was crazy for a small community radio station. And so yet it's bringing those commercial interviews and these ad lists or you know, you know open comment towns with huge followings like crazy it's got like over a million followers on Instagram alone. So I bring them to a station not in a bad way but as small as a community radio station was definitely unique and definitely attend a lot of heads up the time. And it's it's really fun when people don't expect something like that to happen and you don't say anything in it just does happen and you can surprise people and go on doing this. And that's the bull's eye thing. I like a lot of people and you must have it interview and people to do this podcast is you get solo Botsford hear people's stories and it's always about the stories. Oh, another interview I've done this year for CANDU. Well, last year now, Chris vandal etoos a four time Emmy award winning presents, presents on CBS over in America. So he's made with Dwayne Johnson, which is crazy, you know, to be friends with the rock, and his story as well. And he has sort of a similar philosophy to sort of me when it's when it's interviewing, and I'm sure you understand this, as well, as you get to hear these people's stories, and you get to take a little bit, or maybe take a little bit of something and put it into your own life on he always ends his interviews, so I twist it on him. He always asked this question, say, um, the three things you're grateful for. So I thought, you know, I've got to ask him, and at the time, he was just about to become a dad. And so yeah, they it was a very special time to to interview him, and he was Super Down to Earth. So he's definitely tough free for me. So yeah, brawny, Chris family against the current. For me. I'm probably missing people out if I am. And you're listening to this. Sorry. I do appreciate it. But yeah, for me, personally, there'll be them three.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:14 Well, that's great. Well, I'm going to thank you very much for being here. Can you believe it? We've been at this now just about a minute over an hour. So we've been having a lot of fun doing it. If people want to reach out to you maybe learn as you're starting companies and doing things, how can they do that?   Daniel Spelman ** 1:01:30 So just search we'll find on Instagram producer done, I'm sure you've put links in the YouTube and on socials and stuff, feel free to click on request on the follow up, follow. Just search my name Dan Spelman. And on LinkedIn, I'm a big LinkedIn user these days. And that's how we sort of connected to Shelby. So Sheldon Sheldon, I'm gonna tell ya, big shout out to Sheldon. And so yeah, feel free to reach out on there. Or just search Luma socials on Google. There'll be contacts in there, you can have a little look at the business, the website is going to be up in the coming days, we've just took it back down to sort of change a few things because I'm a perfectionist. And the growth of those other members is out and about it. But there Yeah, launching sort of end of Jan, going into Feb. Maybe. So yeah, we've got a few sort of we're just ironed out a few things with the first few clients. So I think so. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 1:02:23 Well, cool. Well, I want to thank you for being here. And I want to thank all of you for listening out there, wherever you happen to be. Love to get your thoughts and, and we certainly would appreciate it. If you'd give us a five star rating for our episode. Today. Daniel has been a very fascinating guest and clearly is as unstoppable as it gets. And I am so grateful that he took the time to be here and that you took the time to listen. So thank you for doing that all around. If you'd like to reach out to me, you're welcome to do so you can email me at MichaelHi@accessibe.com. That's m i c h a el h i at accessibe A C C E S S I B E.com. Or go to our podcast page

Straight Outta Gallifrey revisits Susan Foreman... I mean Susan Campbell 30 years after the Dalek Invasion of Earth.  Susan is not passive at all in this post alien invasion/present xenophobic paranoia. She is doing what she can to unite the earth in the fight for peace and progression whereas her son Alex, is setting his political sights in a different direction.  Will Alex end up learning the truth about his heritage, even though has sought so hard to strike down that very thing that might be what he actually is?   Sorry, that previous sentence got away from me.  Oh, and did we mention Paul McGann's doctor is in this one?  Yeah!  Let us know your thoughts at  prydonian.post@gmail.com www.thehuntresspodcast.com X @sogallifrey Instagram @sogallifrey_44 Bluesky @huestone44.bsky.social www.patreon.com/wrightonnetwork  

It's time again for some televisual detective work as Tim Burrows of the Missing Episodes Podcast joins Steven for a fulsome discussion on the latest news in the ongoing search for lost Doctor Who episodes and the collectors hoarding, curating, and preserving them. Plus we've got news of Russell T Davies discussing new companion Varada Sethu, the first block of Gallifrey One guests for 2025 is announced, Ncuti Gatwa heads to London Comic-Con in November, Season 25 coming to Blu-ray, endless tangents about letterboxing versus 4:3 and more! Links: Support Radio Free Skaro on Patreon Showrunner Russell T Davies talks casting the Doctor's new companion First Gally 2025 guests announced – Colin, Sylvester, Katy, Frazer, Gooderson, etc Ncuti Gatwa appearing at London Comic-Con in November Season 25 announced as the next instalment in The Collection Blu-ray range, coming October 21 Paul McGann to star in special live recording of Big Finish's Eighth Doctor Adventures Interview: Tim Burrows from The Missing Episodes Podcast 42 To Doomsday podcast on Melbourne-based videotape collection Film is Fabulous

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese.Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 3rd July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references:Lego House in BillundSutton Hoo (National Trust)Sutton Hoo at the British MuseumThe Dig on NetflixSutton Hoo mask on Lego IdeasThe Dig: Lego version of Sutton Hoo treasure 'amazing' (BBC News)Events at The Hold IpswitchAndrew Webb is a LEGO enthusiast who uses bricks in outreach programmes for teams and organisations as diverse at Arm, Pinset Mason, The National Trust, English Heritage, and the Scouts. During the UK's second Lockdown in early 2021, He made the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo Helmet out of LEGO bricks and submitted it to LEGO Ideas. The build achieved international media coverage, and has since been donated to the National Trust. Andrew continues to help attractions and institutions with LEGO programmes. By day, he works as a global head of content marketing for a B2B tech company. Find out more at http://teambuildingwithbricks.com Transcription:  Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. Today I'm talking to Andrew Webb. By day, Andrew is a content marketer for a tech firm, but in his spare time helps attractions to use Lego as a tool to attract and engage diverse audiences and enable them to interpret history and culture. We're going to talk about what it means to be an building, a model of anglo saxon helmet, and the 24 skills that are used when building with Lego. Paul Marden: So welcome to the podcast. Andrew Webb: Thank you. Paul Marden: On Skip the Queue, we always start with some icebreaker questions that you know nothing about. So let's launch into a couple of those. Book and a pool or museums and galleries for your city break. Andrew Webb: Museum and galleries.Paul Marden: Yeah. I'd expect nothing less given what we're about to talk about. This is one from one of my colleagues, actually, who is really good at icebreakers whenever we do a team building eventually. So he said, “Would you rather have it and lose it or never have it at all?”Andrew Webb: Oh, gosh, I'll have it and lose it for sure. Paul Marden: Yeah, gotta be. That one's from miles. Say thank you, Myles. That was a cracker. Andrew Webb: Do you remember the word there was a great one. Would you rather eat ten donuts or raw onion? Paul Marden: Oh, ten donuts, hand down. I could easily do that. Andrew Webb: I'd get onion. I'd get onion. Every time I would take an onion over ten donuts. I'd be sick after ten donuts. Paul Marden: Oh, no, I reckon I could take that. No problem. Andrew Webb: Okay. Paul Marden: Okay. So we're going to talk a little bit about your adventures in Lego over the last few years. So why don't we kick off and talk a little bit about your original interest in Lego? Because I know it goes back not a long way, because that would be rude. But it goes back to a few years ago, doesn't it? Andrew Webb: It does. I mean, like most people growing up in what we might loosely term the west, I had like, I was a kid, you know, I think most of us grew up with it like that. And then like, you know, growing up in that first age of plastics with Heman, Transformers, Lego, Star wars, all of that sort of stuff. Paul Marden: You're just describing my childhood. Andrew Webb: It's funny because that was. It was all sort of ephemeral, right? I mean, the idea was that the reason why that boom happened, just to dwell on why they're going plastic things. Before that, toys were made out of either tin or wood. So, you know, they were very labour intensive produce there's certainly injection moulding comes along and we could just have anything coupled with the tv shows and the films and all this sort of stuff. So we all grew up in this sort of first age of disposable plastic, and then it all just gets passed down as kids grow up. It gets given away, gets put in the loft and forgotten about. There's a moment when a return of the Jedi bedspread doesn't look cool anymore, right? You hit about 13, 14 and you're like, “Mom, I really want some regular stuff there.”Andrew Webb: So like everybody, you know, I gave it all away, sold it and whatever, but I kept onto my lego and then fast forward, you know, I become a parent and Lego starts to come back into my life. So I'm sort of at a stage where I'm working for a travel startup and I get a press release to go to the Lego House, which if no one has heard about it, where have you been? But also it is a fantastic home of the brick, which Lego built in, opened in 2016. And it is a phenomenal temple to Lego. Not in terms of like a Legoland style approach with rides and things like that, but it's all about the brick and activities that you can do in a brick. Andrew Webb: There is great pools and huge pits of Lego to play with there, as well as displays and all this sort of stuff. They've actually got a Lego duplo waterfall.Paul Marden: Really? Andrew Webb:  Oh, I mean, it's a fantastic attraction. And the way they've done it is just incredible. So they blend a lot of digital things. So if you make a small fish and insert it into this thing, it appears in the tank and swims around and this sort of stuff and the way you can imprint your designs on things. I should just quickly tell you about the cafeteria there as well, just really quickly. So the cafeteria at the Lego House, everyone gets a little bag of Lego and then whatever you build and insert into this sort of iPad sort of slots type thing, and that's what you're. Andrew Webb: So a pink brick might be salmon, a yellow brick might be chicken, whatever, and you put it all in and it recognises it all and then it comes down a giant conveyor belt in a Lego. Giant Lego box and is handed to you by robots. I mean, mind blowing stuff. This is not like with a tray at the National Trust place or somewhere like that for us to come. It is a technological marvel. Absolutely fascinating. So, of course, on the day went, it was a press preview, so there was no canteen workers, so there was no food in the box when me and my daughter, so went without that data, was a bit disappointed. Andrew Webb: But that started that whole reappreciation of Lego, both as a toy to play with my daughter, but also as a way of using Lego in different ways. And that manifests itself in lots of different things. So currently, now, you know, fast forward a little bit. I use Lego for team building exercises, for workshops, for problem solving with organisations, and also just for having fun with adult groups as well as kids. And I think one of the biggest things we've seen since this kind of started around 2000s with the sort of adults reading Harry Potter, do you remember that was like, why are you reading this children's book type of thing? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: And then all the prequel Star wars films came out and Lego made sets about both those two things. And it kind of. I mean, Bionicle saved the company, as only AFOL will know, but it started that whole merchandising thing and adding Lego into that firmament of IP. Right. And we fast forward now, and it's Marvel and Star wars and everything. Paul Marden: You just said AFOL. I know what an AFOL is, but many of our listeners may not know what AFOL is.Andrew Webb: Just to go for acronyms here. So an AFOL is an Adult Fan of Lego. And we've seen actually Lego in the past five years, even earlier. I mean, Lego always had an adult element to it. And one of the original founders used to use it for designing his own house. And there was a whole architectural system called Molodux. So it's always had that element to it. But just recently we've seen, you know, almost retro sets. So we see the Lego Atari 2600 video game system from 1976, which, yeah. Paul Marden: An original NES wasn't there. Andrew Webb: Exactly. NES that's come out. I've got a Lego Optimus prime back here for transformers, you know, all that kind of stuff. So with what's been really interesting is this kidault or whatever, however, call it. And I think that's really fascinating, because if we think about Lego as a toy, we are rapidly approaching the age where we might have three generations of people that have grown up with Lego. Lego first came around in the very late ‘60s, early '70s. And so it's not inconceivable that you might have three generations that had Lego as a child, especially if you grew up in Denmark. A little bit different when it would come to the rest of Europe as they expanded out. So I get to this point, and I'm getting into Lego and doing all this sort of stuff. Andrew Webb: And then, of course, COVID happens and then lockdown happens and we all think the world's going to end and no one knows. Everyone's looking for hobbies, aren't they? They say you were either hunk, drunk or chunk after lockdown. You either got fit, got fat or got alcoholic. So try to avoid those three things. And, you know, everyone's looking for stuff to do, so you have so much banana bread you can bake. And so I stupidly, with my daughter's help, decided to make the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo helmet found at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, now in the British Museum. Out of Lego, as you do. Paul Marden: I mean, just exactly. Just as you do. So just a slight segue. I was at the National Attractions Marketing Conference yesterday and there were two people presenting who both talked about their experiences of wacky things that they did during lockdown. There was one person that opened a theatre in her back garden and had various different stars just randomly turn up in her backyard up in North Yorkshire. And you choose to build a Lego Sutton Hoo helmet.Andrew Webb: Lockdown, there will be a time, I think, as we look back, tragic though it was, and, you know, a lot of people died, but it was that moment when society sort of shuffled around a bit and people sort of thought, “Well, if I don't do it now, why not?” People were launching bakeries in their kitchens and serving their community and like. And that element of it. And so people have that. The good side of that, I suppose, is that people did find new outlets of creativity. And Joe Wick's yoga class is in their front row walking groups, you know, all this sort of stuff and beating beaten horsemans and learning to play the violin and dust and stuff. Suddenly we all had to find hobbies because we're all just in. Andrew Webb: No one was going to restaurants, no one's going to bars, no one's going to gigs, nightclubs, theatres. We like to make entertainment at home. It was like the middle ages. So I decided to build the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, as you do. And so I start this in lockdown, and then, like, I get wind that Netflix is making a film called The Dig. And The Dig is all about, I think it's Lily James and Ray Fiennes in it, and it's all those other people. And it's all about when they found theSutton Hoo helmet. And the guy who found it was called Basil Brown, and he was asked by Edith Pretty, who owned the land, to excavate these humps in the ground that were on her estate. Paul Marden: Okay, so she owns this big estate, in Suffolk, right? And, so she can clearly see there's burial mounds in the back garden, but doesn't know what's in them. Doesn't have any clue that there's treasure locked up inside this. Andrew Webb: I'm not even sure she knew there were anglo saxon burial maps since it was. Paul Marden: They were just lumps of ground in the garden. Andrew Webb: Yeah. I mean, she may have had inkling and other stuff I've turned up over the years and whatever. And some of them were robbed sort of georgian times around then. So some people knew what they were and they were somewhere excavated and gold was taken to fund the polynomial wars and whatnot. But she asked Basil Branson, he was like an amateur archaeologist, right? And so he was just like this local guy would cycle over and do. And the film goes into all that, and the film kind of portrays it as working class. Basil Brown should know his place against the sort of British Museum who are sort of the baddies in this film who think they know what. And of course, this is all set against the backdrop of war. So they escalated it all, then they had to rebury it. Andrew Webb: And then it was used as a tank training ground, so lots of tanks rolled over it. So it's a miracle anything was ever found. But when he did find the Sutton Hoo, who told me and a bunch of other things, clasp brooches, shields, weapons and whatever, when he did find it, so people think it kind of popped out the ground as a helmet, but it didn't. And if you look at the photos, it came out the ground in hundreds of pieces. Paul Marden: Oh, really? So you look at this reconstructed mask that's now in the British Museum, and you think, “Oh, so they just found that in one piece,” lifted out as if it was a Lego hat, you know, for a minifig. In one piece? No, not at all. Andrew Webb: It was actually more like a big parlour Lego in the fact that it was just in hundreds of thousands of pieces. And so there was the first guy to have a go at it was an elderly architect at the British Museum who was, I think, blind in one eye. And he had a go at putting it all together. And he used an armature and clay and pins and whatever, put it all together and said, “Yes, I think it was this.” And then actually it wasn't. He got it all wrong. Lots of different pieces after some more research, and then it falls to this. Nigel Williams is another sub architect, and he was famous for. Andrew Webb: There was a famous Portland vase that was broken in a museum by someone pushing it over as a sort of what you might call, like a just stop oil type of protest now, I can't remember what the call was, but someone smashed an exhibit. And he had painstakingly pieced all this together. He was a total dapper dude. Three piece suit, Chelsea boots, proper swinging sixties, and he had to go and put it all together. His version is the one that's in the British Museum, but he was a massive jigsaw fan. And if you think about Lego, what it is a 3d jigsaw. You get a bunch of pieces and you have to make. Make it into a 3d sculpture. So that was one reason, the dig was the other reason. Andrew Webb: The third reason was that the relationship between East Anglia and essentially Denmark and Billand and Anglo Saxon and Jutland and all that area, I'm talking like Vikings and Anglo Saxons and invasions and all this kind of stuff against the native British, there is essentially a relationship between East Anglia, a trade relationship and a conquest relationship between them. So I built this thing and I frantically put it together and I'm late nights and just losing my marbles trying to get this thing to work. Because Lego is not designed to make, like, spherical shapes, necessarily. It's quite blocky. Right. Everyone knows this. It's the square. Paul Marden: Really easy to make a car, really easy to make a house. A spaceship. Andrew Webb: Houses. Brilliant. Yeah. Square stuff is fantastic. But baking, not only a sort of a semicircle, but a hemisphere, which is what essentially a helmet is. Is even harder because you have to get the Lego to bend in two directions. And so a lot of work went into that just to get the actual face piece came together quite easy. And there was once I had the scale of the pieces under the eyes that formed that sort of thing, and then I could build the nose and face. Ideally, it was going to be so that I could put it on my head. I've actually got a massive head. So in the end, I had to realign that and sort of make it into this sort of child sized head. Paul Marden: But it's a wearable thing, right? Andrew Webb: It is. It is wearable. I mean, at one point, it was probably more fragile than the one in the British Museum because it just kept dropping to pieces. So there's a lot of sub plates that are holding together the outer plate. So it's actually sort of. So just quick Lego terminology here. So bricks, obviously are bricks. The flat things with bubbles on are called plates and then the smoother ones are called tiles. Okay. And used a combination of these to create. There's also a technique called SNOT, which stands for Studs Not On Top. We love acronyms in the Lego community. Right? Paul Marden: Completely.Andrew Webb:  So if you say, “Oh, man, I'm an AFOL covered in SNOT,” people know what you want to know what you mean. So after a night in the tiles, I got covered. Yeah. Andrew Webb: Anyway, so I make the helmet, I make the thing, and then, you know, I get a lot of support from the National Trust, specifically East of England National Trust and Sutton, who site itself because it's there. It's their crown jewels. The British Museum, not so much, because they was like, we've got a billion exhibits here. No, it's just one of them. When you've got the Tippecar moon and the Rosetta stone, it kind of pales into significant. But actually, they were helpful. And one of the curators there, who was on Twitter, who sent me a link to some 3d photos, because if you. If you google it's all pictures at the front. That's fantastic. But what does the back look like? Paul Marden: Oh, right, okay. Andrew Webb: So actually, buried deep in the British Museum's website, in their research department, under a filing cabinet, in the back of a server somewhere, are some quite technical photographic images of it, turning every sort of 30 degrees so that. That it's documented as to what it looks. Because you got to remember that everything on the helmet is symbolic of various different things. There is symbols that mean there's a guy on a horse who's sort of fighting and all this sort of stuff. And it all has quite a lot of meaning. I can occur from different parts of history as well. So there's some sort of roman influencing things there and symbols. And so this whole thing is designed to be not only a battle helmet, but it is also because, remember, crowns haven't been invented yet. Crowns are a later mediaeval sort of invention. Andrew Webb: So this is both a symbol of authority, headwear, like a crown, but also a weapon or a piece of defensive armour and equipment. So it has several functions in its life. So it's quite a complex piece of equipment, that this symbol of authority. So I make all this and then I also submit it to a thing called Lego Ideas. So Lego Ideas is a fantastic programme where anybody in the world, members of the public, can submit Lego Ideas, right? And they go onto a website. There's certain criteria, they have to meet a certain checklist, but then the rest of the public can vote for them. So, I mean, if Taylor Swift just stuck together a load of blocks and said, “Vote for this,” she probably hit the 10,000 threshold instantly. Andrew Webb: But I'm not sure Lego would necessarily take that forward as a build. So there is a judging panel that. But actually, some of the most recent really fantastic sets have come out of Lego Ideas. Members of the public, and they're designing things that the Lego designers wouldn't have thought of themselves. So I think that's been kind of interesting. Sadly, Paul, we didn't make the 10,000 threshold. We did a lot of media coverage. By then, lockdown was over and were sort of getting back to our lives and all this sort of stuff. And my daughter was entering her dark ages. And so it sat in my studio for another sort of year and a half and I thought, “What am I going to do with this?” And so in the end, I thought, “Well, you know what? It's gathering dust here. I'm fed up with it, dustin it.”Andrew Webb: And so I actually approached Josh Ward at the National Trust at Sutton Hoo, who has been a fantastic advocate for Lego and for this particular project, and I have to thank him immensely for that. And they got some money and some funding to build a cabinet and also to house it. So I donated it to National Trust and it is now on display there as part of their firmament of interpretational trail. Paul Marden: That must feel pretty good fow you. Andrew Webb: Yeah, it is quite good looking in there and watching kids go, “Wow.” Because Lego is one of those things instantly recognisable for kids. But certain hill as a site is quite complex for children to contextualise because essentially it's several mounds in the ground. And the helmet itself is at the British Museum. Right. They've got a replica built by the royal armouries. There were several of those. They've got those. They have loads of dress up, they have great explainers and videos and they do a lot of work to show the size and shape and things as a cast iron sculpture, to represent the boat, to show just how big it was when it was pulled up from the sea, because he's buried in a boat. So do a lot of that work, sort of that sort of work as well. Andrew Webb: But having this extra funding in the. They opened up Edith's pretty's house now, and having this room where we've got some other things as well, like crayons and paper and other tools and drawings and colouring in and Lego and big chest of Lego just helps, particularly smaller children who, by the time they've walked from the car park around the site, and it has probably flagged it a little bit. And so just providing that little support for them, it's been a fantastic way to contextualise and another way to interpret that. And I think more and more venues could look into that. When you think, well, how else can we add stuff, particularly for children to help tell the story of this place? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We went to. It was half term last week and went to the City Museum in Winchester. So they've got some mediaeval, they've got some Roman finds there, and there was lots of fun, but they had. It was full of lots of ways for kids to engage, so there was trails to go around, there was colouring in, make your own mediaeval shield. And all of these things are ways that, you know, my ten year old could engage with it because there's only so many glass cabinets of stuff dug up from the ground that she actually wants to look at. Andrew Webb: I mean, I love. I love pit rivers, right, in Oxford, my favourite museum. Paul Marden: It's crazy, isn't it? I love it. Andrew Webb: But basically, he just went around the world nicking stuff. Right, but as a collection of objects, It's fantastic. Paul Marden: It's deeply unnerving. Andrew Webb: Sorry, sorry if any pit rivers curators are listening there, nick, and stuff about it, but, it is my favourite museum because it's just for kids. It's probably really kind of like, how do you tell that story? I also think there was an article in the garden recently that, you know, the cost of living crisis as well. Parents are looking for value solutions now and so I think it wasn't Peppa Pig World, it was Paddington World. And a family ticket is 170 pounds. That is a huge dent in the family finances for a 70 minutes experience. If you are watching the pennies, if you can afford that and save up for it, whatever. And I know these things are, you know, memory making and all that sort of stuff, and I've been to Harry Potter with my daughter. Andrew Webb: That is not cheap, but it's a fantastic day out because once you're in, you spend the whole day there. If you take a packed lunch, you can save a lot of money on that, on the thing. But I suppose what I'm saying is that, you know, our museums and galleries, particularly traditionally, the what you might call free spaces, public spaces, are facing unprecedented demand in terms of parents looking for cost effective value days out, as well as funding being cut from central government and that sort of. So they have to do a huge amount with less and less for a bigger audience. And that is a strain on any institution and things like that. Other examples of places that get this. Andrew Webb: So obviously with the Sutton Hoo helmet, the hold in Ipswich, which is Suffolk Council's kind of flagship museum in the county town of Ipswich, but instead of calling it, you know, the Museum of Suffolk, they've called it The Hold, which is a reference to the fact it's on, I think it's either because it's on the shore or it's doing sheep, I'm not sure anyway. But a fantastic space, contemporary modern space  had a Lego exhibition a few years ago, borrowed my helmet, had some Lego exhibition stuff to do. And the good thing about that is when these teams have to do quite a lot of comms marketing and, you know, that has a cost as well, but often you see different demographics than perhaps would normally go to a stones and bones museum, if you know what I mean. Right. Andrew Webb: You'll see that it makes it more accessible to the community and to different people who don't like going and looking at the Magna Carta or whatever. For some kids, a day at the British Library is fantastic. Look at all these old books for more, maybe more boisterous children. That's probably not a really great idea. So I think galleries can take a leaf out of this and think, or museums or any institution really can take a leap out of this and think, “How can we do more for less? And what tools can we have that perhaps we haven't considered before, like Lego, as a way to open up our interpretation and our offering?” So this could work in Museum of Docklands, for example. This could work in the royal armouries. Andrew Webb: There's lots of places where if you looking to improve your children's offering that some form of lego, I mean, it ends up all over the floor, it ends up being taken away. Sometimes you've got to watch out for things like that. But that's why I always recommend, like, just the basic blocks and plates, not minifigures and stuff like that, because, you know, they just end up in kids' pockets and trousers. But I do think it is a fantastic tool for developing that interpretation piece. Paul Marden: So I run a coding club using Lego. Okay. So I work with years four, five and six, typically. And we normally start off by the end of two terms, we will be building robotics, programming things, doing amazing things. But we start at the very beginning with just open up a box, and it is amazing what a bunch of seven, eight and nine year olds can do with a two by four red brick just given bricks. Yeah. And they will build amazing things. Yeah. And they will tell you amazing stories. And you also see real diversity in the behaviours of children, because some children, in that free play context, they do not have the skills to do that. And I had one girl recently who hasn't played with Lego, and free play just blew her mind, and she was in tears because she couldn't embrace the creativity of it.Paul Marden: But then the following week, when we were following instructions, she was great at building from a set of instructions, You can do that from a limited palette and give them a mission. Sutton Hoo, build a, I don't know, a sword, build a shield, build something to interpret what you have seen. You're in the transport museum. Build, build. How did you get to the museum this morning? Give them something to do and then let them go. And half an hour later, you will be amazed by what they will have built. Andrew Webb: I actually did something this at the National Archives down in Kew, where they had a kids exhibition. Well, an exhibition in the summer about wacky inventions, because obviously the National Archives holds the patents for all these things, and they've got things like Victorian top hats with umbrellas in, and, you know, all this kind of crazy Heath Robinson style stuff that, you know, forks with four sets of tines, so you can eat four times as much. It just bonkers. Really interesting things. The curators had gone through and found this wacky world, sort of. What's his name? The guy that illustrates Roald Dahl. They got illustrations and all that. Paul Marden: Quentin Blake. Andrew Webb: Yeah, Quentin Blake, yeah. So they had this Quentin Blake sort of stuff, and, like, there was activities. And I came down for some special stuff because they had the first Lego brick patent in the UK. When it was first launched in the UK, 1963, I think it was. That's when they filed the patent. Paul Marden: And I bet. So that patent would be exactly the same as a two by four brick, now, won't it? Andrew Webb: The patent was for a one by four brick. Isometrically dawn. Just three diets. Just three views with what? It was a construction toy. And then the page. Sorry. And the address was just Railway Station Billund.  There wasn't like, just all the mail just went to the railway station in Billund just addressed for attention of Lego. And it's only like. I mean, it's not even a sheet of A4, It's a piece like this. And after it is something like a lamp that won't blow out on a thing, and before it's like some special kind of horse comb, but it's kind of this bonkers catalogue of just these things. But again, it was about, “Right. We did some work. The curators and interpreters looked, you know, had kids analyse the painting to think, what could it be? And look at the dates and structure. Look at that.” Andrew Webb: And then I came out and, like, did some Lego. So we did things like, who can build the longest bridge? Who can build the tallest tower out of a single colour? Those sorts of exercises. But then also the free play was build your own wacky invention. And kids are building automatically dog washers, where the dog ran on a thing and it scrubbed its back. And one kid built something that was like a thing for removing getting pips out of apples. It was just like this sort of like this crazy little tool. They like some sort of problem that he had. Andrew Webb: And I think what this also speaks to is developing those stem skills in children and adults and building that engineering, because I've also ran Lego workshops with explorers who I used to, I thought were between Cubs and scouts, but are actually after scouts. So I did this in my local town, here in Saffron Walden, and was like, “Oh, my God, these kids are like, 15, 16. They're not going to want to play Lego. Some of them are in my daughter's year at school, so. Hello, Amy.” And it was really interesting because we did a series of challenges with them. So the egg drop challenge, can you protect an egg and drop it from the floor? And can you build this and work together? Another good one is looker, runner, builder. Andrew Webb: So you give everybody two sets of the same bricks, and one person is the looker, one person is the runner, one person is the builder. So the looker can't touch, but he can tell the runner. The runner can't look at the model, he can only tell the builder, and the builder can't speak back. And so this is a really useful exercise. And I've done this with teams where, because this is exactly what businesses see, engineering will build a product. Sales or their marketing are like, what the hell is, you know, or whatever it might be. Paul Marden: It's that. It's that classic cartoon of a Swing, yeah. Andrew Webb: Yeah. So it's that, you know, this is what the brief said. Engineering interpreter does this. Marketing saw it. So it's a great tool for things like that. Especially when you put people like the C Suite or CEO's or leaders at the end, because all they're getting is the information and it. It's there and it's how to build communications. Because in life, the fluctuations reverse. A CEO says, “Let's do this.” And by the time it's cascaded down to engineering, who don't get a say, it's not at all what he imagined so, or they imagined so, it's. It's an interesting case of using tools like that. So I did that with these kids and it was fascinating because they're 14, 15, 16.Andrew Webb: A group of three girls won two out of the three challenges and probably could have won a third one if I felt that I couldn't award it to them again because it would just look weird. And they were smashing the looker runner builder thing. They were working together as a team, they were concentrating, they were solving problems, they were being creative, they took some time to prototype, they refined and iterated their design. They were doing all this sort of work. And it's brilliant because 15 year old girls don't often take engineering related STEM subjects at GCSE. Certainly, probably don't take them at a level and more than enough. And I think that I once interviewed Eben Upton, who invented Raspberry Pi, and he said, “We think about the eighties as this sort of like golden age of computing, but actually it was terrible. It was terrible for diversity, it was terrible for inclusion.“Andrew Webb: And he said, “Like growing up, there was one other kid in his town that had a computer, you know, so there was no sort of way to sort of getting other people involved and make this accessible.” And part of the reason now computers have got smaller. Some of the work I did at Pytop was like trying to make technology more accessible and seeing it not just video games and things like that, but actually I can use this in a fashion show, or I can make music, or I can use this to power some lights to do a theatre production, and trying to bring the, I guess, the creative arts into technology. And that's when we start to see the interest application of technology. Andrew Webb: And Lego plays a part in that, in the fact that it is a tool, a rapid prototyping tool that everybody is familiar with. And it is also, you know, clean, safe. There's no, you don't need blow torches and saws and those sorts of things to kind of prototype anything. You don't even need a pair of scissors, you know, it's completely tool free, unless you're using that little mini separator to get your bricks apart. And so I think that just circle back on, like, how the Science Museum or what's the one down there? Isabel Kingdom Brunel Museum and things like that. I can see those guys could be and should be thinking about, “How could we have a Lego programme?“Andrew Webb: You don't have to have a permanent deployment like they've got at Sutton Hoo although that is great because they've got the mast there as the head piece of it. But certainly a programme of events or summer camps or summer events, because I did this with English Heritage at Kenilworth Castle as well. They were having, like, a big Lego build and the public were invited in 15-minute shifts into a big marquee and everyone got given a tile. And the idea was to build the gardens because the gardens at Kenilworth Castle were laid out to impress Elizabeth the first. And so everybody got there was like bunches of stuff and regular bricks, also flowers and this sort of stuff. And it was like, “Come on, we've got to build something to impress a queen.” Andrew Webb: He said to kids, like, “Yeah, you've got to impress. Bling it up, like, dial it to ten.” And were just getting these enormous, like, avatar sized trees with just incredible bits hanging off it. And like, “There she has a teapot because she might want a cup of tea.” And you're like, “Brilliant, excellent. Of course she does.”  And so I think that. And then they moved through. Some of the Legos were selected to be displayed and things like that. So there's different ways you can do it. You can either do it as like. And I'm a big fan of the drop in sessions because kids and parents can just naturally build it into their day rather than the pre built. My child was. We were rubbish at, like, organising things. Andrew Webb: People like, “Oh, great. Half term, it's a chocolate thing, sold out ". And you're like, yeah, because there's 30 spaces for three and a half thousand kids who want to do it. Whereas if it's like a walkthrough or a. In groups phase through and then the activity, small kids kind of conk out after about 20 minutes, half an hour anyway. You get much more people through and much more people get to enjoy the experience rather than the 30 organised people who got up early and booked. So that's my other top tip to any institution, because it's heavily weather dependent as well. Sun comes out, everyone piles pass into the nearest sort of stately home, national attraction. All of those places can definitely benefit English Heritage. Did a really big push this half term, just gone on Lego at several events. Andrew Webb: We had one here at Audley End, there was one at Kenilworth that I was at. There's been pairs of the ones all around the country, because again, you just need a marquee, which most venues have access to because they use them for other things or some sort of space in case it rains. And you just see someone like me and a whole massive tub of Lego and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Exactly. So we were talking about this at the conference yesterday about ways in which. So for many attractions, people turning up is a literal flip of a coin. Is the weather good or is the weather bad? What can you do to adapt your attraction to be able to deal with when it's bad? And then what can you do to bring people when you have made that adaptation? So, you know, you've now got a marquee and you have a Lego exhibit that you can put into there. So it's just dumping a pile of Lego and a bunch of well trained volunteers or visitor experienced people who can facilitate that, police it, little Johnny sticking minifigs in his pocket. Paul Marden: And then you turn on your Google Adwords and show that you've got this, you know, bad weather reason to go to a stately home that my daughter would turn her nose up to all of a sudden, “Okay, we're going to go and do that. We're going to go and have afternoon tea and you're going to go and play with some Lego and see some animals, maybe.” Yeah, what can you do to attract that extra audience and adapt to the bad weather and service different sorts of people? Andrew Webb: I think that comes down to a bear in mind. I convert some of my Lego lens rather than a venue lens. But I think speaking as a parent and someone who does this is you need a reason to go back to somewhere that you already know. Okay, so you go to Stonehenge, you go and look at the stones, you go, “Wow.” You look at the visitor centre and then it's ticked off. I mean, you see busloads of tourists. Stonehenge is at Cambridge, maybe, or Oxford people, when people do England, Lambeth, Heathrow, London Crown Jewels, Tower Bridge, West End, day trip out on a coach to Stonehenge, maybe to Cambridge, and that's it, off to Paris. Right? So parents like British people like that too. Like why go to Stonehenge four times a year? Or why go to any venue when you're familiar with it? Andrew Webb: It's always about offering something new and something different. Audley End up near where I live, I think, is English Heritage. All through July, every Sunday, they're just doing music. So there's a string quartet or someone with a harp or maybe someone with a guitar or whatever. And you've got a book, but it's. It's not like there's 30 places and it's a bonfight. It's just like, “Oh, wow, they've done something different.” They do a really great thing. Like, they do victorian falconry, for example. So they get someone in who talks about how Victorians use falconry for hunting as a sport, but also for the kitchen table, and they're flying falcons around and doing the whole bit of meat on a string and all this sort of stuff. And everyone, like, “They do a world war two one.”Andrew Webb: I mean, the editorial calendar for any venue's got to look like, “Go and make Christmas food. January, we're closed to kind of dust and clean everything. Valentine's Day, chocolate make you put. It's daffodils”, it's whatever it might be. And then you just build that. Build that programme in and you need. This is why I think that venues now, again, I'll just come back to that. You talk about AdWords, but that, again, is more spend. It's like, how'd you build that mail list? How do you drop into the local Facebook groups and Mumsnet and all that kind of stuff? You know, that's where you can do it organically rather than. Because people don't sit in front of Google necessarily, or think, like, what should we do? Paul Marden: You sit on the sofa on a Thursday night trying to figure out what on earth are we going to do this weekend? Yeah, so you're completely right. The mum's net, the content marketing, is hugely important, isn't it? Andrew Webb: Which is my job. But also it's kind of like how can institutions become part of that? When I say community, if you think about most people travel a thin hour to go somewhere. I mean, people go further afield, you know, but. But basically it's like, what? My mom turns, like, a tea and a pee. So you've got to go somewhere. You've got to have a cup of tea, visit the loos. It's all about tea. It's all about canteens and loos, basically. You could have a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage site. And it's like, how good's the caf? And are the toilets clean? Yeah, that's what people remember. Gar went hens at dawn. I was awed by the majestic. But that Looney D cleaning, you know, it's not good. It's all that people come home with. Andrew Webb: So, you know, institutions go into place that they are trying to offer different things. Like late nights. We've talked about that. How can we use this space after hours? Because if you think about it, if your institution's open 10 till 6, most people are at work five days a week, you're gonna have students and pensioners who are gonna be not great spenders, either of those two groups. So, late nights, I went to a great one in the National Gallery when the James Bond film. I was kind of sitting royale or whatever. He's still on the top of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square, and they've got the national dining rooms there and they had Vesper Martini, everyone got a cocktail. Andrew Webb: And then went to look at the fighting Temeraire, which is the bit where he's standing with Q, the new Q, who voices Paddington, whose name escapes me and gives him, like, a gun and a radio, but they're like the fighting Temeraire by Turner is this little thing. And so, you know, you've got to make hay out of that, right? You've got to sort of, like, do a late night, various ones. And so all it was a few cocktails in the cafe next door and are taught by the curator and stuff like that. But 30 people just looking for an experience. And so if venues are clever, of course, the dark side of this is when you get Willy Wonka world up in Scotland. Andrew Webb: Or interestingly, some of the Lego events that have been happening at NEC have caused a massive online backslash in the community for just being exceptionally bad value for money. And so you read about these things that people have said, “Come and visit Santa's grotto, and it's just a muddy field with a tree in it,” so you've got to be careful. But I think those events, those sort of fly by night kind of institutions, don't really work. But how galleries can leverage the creativity of what they're doing? Whether they are come and paint in our, you know, our local gallery, come and have an art class, come and do that. People are looking for stuff to do that is value for money. That isn't always drink lead, you know, it's not always cocktail making or things like that. Andrew Webb: And that comes with a whole heap of other things and dietary requirements for cookery courses and just clean up and the mess and all that kind of stuff. So I think that, yeah, canning organisations, the ones that can really think about that, and I'm happy to help organisations who want to think about this, especially through the life of Lego. They will be the ones that will start to add and build out and develop their. What you might term this whole sector needs a name. The kind of extracurricular offering, we might say, above and beyond their collection and then their traditional interpretation and if they're. Paul Marden: Thinking of doing this. So there's a good why. Yeah, the why is you can reach diverse audiences, helps people with interpretation. Andrew Webb: Quite cheap. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. It's a cheap way of extending your offering and diversifying what you do. You can bring in event elements to this, but how do they do it? Apart from engaging with somebody like you? And I'm going to guess there's not many people like you. So that's going to be a tricky thing for some people to do. But if they were starting from scratch, how would they go about doing this? You said earlier, “Don't go mad with buying the bricks and spending a fortune on.”Andrew Webb: There are people like me that can do all this as well as myself. I think that the first thing is plan it. Plan what you need to do. You can't throw this stuff together. You might be looking at. Already the hold have been contacting me for a late night they're doing in September. They contacted me April. Paul Marden: Okay. Andrew Webb: Because if you're a creator, you're planning exhibitions, you are thinking on that long term cycle. Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. Andrew Webb: And so what you need to do is bake this in as part of that curational process or part of the interpretation of things at the start, rather than like, “Right, we're doing exhibit on Peter Rabbit, let's chuck in a load of fluffy bunnies or whatever.” You know, it's got to be. You've got to think about it and have it contextualised. I think the best things are. What success looks like is, first of all, you need a space. Now you can hire a marquee that comes with a cost. If you're a venue and you've got your own or you've got a hall or a stables or interpretational room or something like that, often spaces, specifically bigger ones, will have classroom spaces for school groups anyway. So that's often that can be where you can host these sorts of events. Kids are very familiar. Andrew Webb: The chairs are all small wall colour, you know, etc. Industrial strength carpet in case stuff gets built. So locations like where you're going to stage this? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: Secondly, I think you need to think about, what do we want people to do? What is the experience? What is the narrative piece? Because you can't just say, here's a big part of Lego. Kids will just build cars and houses, right? You know, they need context. You know, if you give a kid a sheet of paper, you could draw anything. They're like, well, what? And so you need to give them a mission almost. They need a task, I think. Also think about, as I said before, keeping the tasks around 20 minutes, because actually adding the time running out jeopardy element is quite fun for kids because they'll go, “Well, I've only got five minutes left.” And often that's when it all falls apart and then they have to iterate the design. Andrew Webb: So think about that kind of moving people through in 15 to 20 minutes cycles. We had kids at Kenilworth, that would go out the exit and just walk back around and come in the front like that. Like four or five times. One boy came in, he was loving it. So think about that. Think about how you're going to move people through the space. Think about what you need to envisage it. So the Kenilworth, for example, there was me hosting it from dawn toward dusk. We had another builder there who was helping take break it all down and put them against the model that we built. There were two members of staff who were letting people through, so just monitoring it from an entry exit point of view, walkie talkies, in case people had issues and things like that. Andrew Webb: And think about when you're going to do it. Okay, so half term is a good one. It's a good thing to do. We saw a lot of this at Kenilworth, but I've seen other places as well, particularly half terms and things like that. You often see grandparents caring for grandchildren, right? Because parents are at work and grandparents can only walk around the site so much before they want to sit down. So sometimes have it, like, think about where they can. And when I was at Kenilworth, grandparents came in with their two grandkids, and the kids started playing and I was like, you could join in, too. Oh, no, I don't want it. You know, they were almost like, “I can't do this. It's like, come on, get in, get in. Come on, grandma. Come on. I'll show you how it works. “Andrew Webb: By the end of that session, they were memory making. I then took their photo with their phones, they'd have this sort of grandparent. But, you know, you always say it like, my grandfather taught me to fish. Like Sean Connery says in the hunt for red October. This sort of moment where sort of, it's a Hollywood trope that grandfather knowledge is sort of passed on type of thing. Right. And so you can see that where you could have this, almost either the reverse of that, of kids showing grandparents, but also they're all having this event outside of the parental unit. So it's a new type of experience. It adds value, it gets people to play with their grandkids. Paul Marden: Priceless. Andrew Webb: So I think that's kind of an interesting way. So think about when, think about where and think about what will be my three sort of tips for any institution looking to put this together. Paul Marden: You gave one the other day which I thought was priceless, which was, don't give them wheels. Andrew Webb: Oh, yes. Paul Marden: Don't include the wheels. Andrew Webb: Take the wheels out of any sets, unless you are the Transport Museum or the, you know, a car based museum, because kids will do wings as well. I'd probably suggest taking those out because kids have just built cars. Some kids have just built cars, you know, even if you give them a mission. Unless that is the mission. The other thing that I would think that venues could do as well as sort of all day events, because it's quite a time drain, you know, on staff and this sort of stuff, but it is a value. The other thing you can think about is one off evening events for adults. Yes, I've done this. I did this at my local add them shops. Bricks, beers and bubbles challenges supercompass teams. Think of it like a pub quiz with brick is the answer. Andrew Webb: So build me a thing that does that kind of thing. Teams all get together, you can race them, you can see who goes the furthest. You can do all this stuff. And the hold is what I'm doing at the hold in September. I did it at the hold a couple of years ago. And what was interesting was that we had quite diverse groups of adults. We had just couples who were clearly AFOLs and were like, “Yeah, I'm going to go to that.” We had a group of friends. One of them had just come back from years travelling and they didn't want to go sort of straight to the pub and just interrogate him about his travelling, whatever. Andrew Webb: They kind of like, “Well, we wanted something to do where we could have a beer and have a chat, but were doing something else whilst we're doing that.” And that's the joy of Lego. Your hands are doing the work and you're almost like the back of your brain is doing the work and you're like, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Before you kick them.” And the concentration levels are there and then you can kind of get into that state of flow. And so they were just having this lovely chat, had a beer, talking about stuff, but also memory making in terms of when he came back from his travelling. So I think that's really important. Andrew Webb: Did you know that this is your brain, right? And then your brain on Lego, there are 24 discrete skills that are happening in your brain. So Lego research this, things like fine motor skills, cognitive sort of thinking about things, future planning, my favourite emotional regulation that is not going, “Oh, my God, it's not working. And smashing all to pieces.” So I've seen this as well with children, is that when you give them a Lego, if you gave them jelly and a football, they'll all just. They're a high energy kind of things, right? And that's fine, great outdoors, kids want to burn off energy. Here's a load of balls. Go crazy, right? Or ball pits, trampolines, bouncy castles, those sorts of things. When you get on Lego, what actually happens is it's very hard to be anarchic, to use a wrong word, but a word. It's very hard to be anarchic with Lego because you can't really do it. Andrew Webb: And so you can get a group of kids together and they'll almost self invigilate. And at one point, I ran it at a local toy shop and the parents are all hanging about and like, “I've never seen them so quiet.” They were just in the state of flow. And so, I think, you know, again, back to the. Back to the explorers and the scouts, that was one of the best sessions that those kids had done as teenagers because the reason was they were given permission to play with Lego. They still had the muscle memory from when they were smaller children. They were solving. They weren't just being told to play with Lego, they were actually solving engineering challenges. How can you design a bridge that will take this weight? How can you protect an egg? How can you think about this? Andrew Webb: And so you need to think about the challenge and the what. You need to think about that, the where and you think about the when, as I said, and get those right. You can have a very exceptional visitor experience for not a huge amount of effort. It's not highly costly, it's not highly technical, it's just a bit of elbow grease and a bit of forward thinking in terms of what we might need. And I think that parents appreciate just that minute away where they can. It's almost like a 20 minute babysitter, right, where they can just go, “Don't touch that.” You know, you're walking around a stately home, “Don't sit there, don't touch. Mind the lady.” All that kind of no data that parents give out institutions, they can just take a breather and check their phones and whatever. Paul Marden: And the kids are just having an amazing time. Andrew Webb: Yeah. And the kids are happy. And at the end of the day, as a parent, we all do our best and you just want, you know, them to be playing with something screen free, getting along and learning something. And, you know, that is the win. That is the ultimate takeout. You can layer on your own institution in context and rev up the visitor experience, bring in new visitors, attract a more diverse group of people that perhaps wouldn't normally come to a Regency Rococo style villa or whatever it might be, then that's all to the better, because, you know, you can start to use this in your planning and you can do what Suntton Hoo did? And go, right, well, we've done this and it's really worked. Andrew Webb: And then I can apply for funding for it and I can expand and I can make it permanent and then I can sort of say, well, this now becomes a tool and a string and arbo for our educational. It doesn't have to be split between visitor attractions and development. It can, you know, you can split it between several parts of the institution and use it in different ways, use it for educational purposes as well as visitor experience. So the world's your oyster with a bit of thinking. Paul Marden: With a bit of Lego and a bit of thinking. Andrew Webb: Bit of Lego, yeah. A few bricks and a couple of tricks and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been brilliant. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Paul Marden: I've got one more question for you before we finish. Now, you bottled this earlier on when I said we always have a book recommendation from our guests. And in spite of having the fullest bookshelf I've seen in quite a long time, you've bottled it on a book. But you did offer me a favourite movie. And so what would be your movie recommendation of choice? Andrew Webb: My go to movie would probably be Withnail and I, Richard E. Grant's first film. Every line has came down from God on a tablet. I mean, it is just. Yeah. Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty, Paul McGann. It's just one of my favourite films and, you know, cult classic that no one's really. Well, people have heard of it now, but again, they even make stuff out with Alan Eyright. So you can go and watch a screening of it at the farm at Crow Crag up in Penrith, you know, and everyone dresses up and everyone comes with Mister blathering sets tea and I come on holiday by mistake and Jessie says, Danny. Andrew Webb: And, you know, fortunately, for better or for worse, I know these are tough times, but people try and find the fun in things. They try and at the end of the day, everyone's looking for a good time, whether we're children or an adult. You want something to just have a laugh and take you away for a moment. And if films and culture but also experiences can do that, then that's all for the good. Paul Marden: Well, look, this is going to be a challenge, but listeners, if you would like a copy of Andrew's film recommendation, then when we release the show message on X, if you can retweet that and say, “Give me Andrew's movie”, then the first person that does that, somehow I will get the movie to you. It might be on VHS, it might be on DVD, but somehow we will get you a movie. Andrew Webb: I found a CD the other day from a bar I used to go to in Clapham in the noughties and late ‘90s. I said to my mate, look, I'm great, put it on. And I went, “I can't.” I haven't got a CD player anymore. I had to go dig through a box somewhere in the study to find a portable CD player that plugged into my computer that could. By the end of it, we're just laugh. Forget it. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been wonderful. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Cheers. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Help the entire sector:Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsFill in your data now (opens in new tab)

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Lucie Miller… Good Review Guy: The War Master: Escape from Reality… Drama Tease and Behind-the-scenes: Dark Gallifrey - Morbius Part 3… Also Available: Eight Doctor and Lucie Miller Series 2.

The new show from multi-award-winning podcasters, Noiser. Narrated by Paul McGann. Launching June 6th 2024. For ad-free listening, join Noiser+. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started with a 7-day free trial. Or, if you're on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Daphne Ashbrook had a very memorable appearance on the Star Trek DS9 episode, "Melora," playing the titular character in an episode that examined physical disabilities through a 90's sci-fi lens. Today, the episode is still discussed and debated, and this ensign's actress is ready to explain her side of the story, as well as tales from other productions ranging from modern films, period pieces, and a few things timey-wimey.Daphne tells us about wearing the Elaysian makeup and body prosthetics, navigating the tricky sets in an electric wheelchair, flying in the air on wires while kissing Alexander Siddig, and her take on the plot and intentions of "Melora," and how she views it through a modern perspective. Plus, her secret audition for a Star Trek movie, working with David Hasselhoff on "Knight Rider," the incredible stunts she did on an obscure made-for-TV movie, her trio of “Murder, She Wrote” appearances loaded with Star Trek alumni (as well as Florence Henderson), and behind-the-scenes stories from her starring role in the American “Doctor Who” movie with Paul McGann. Check out Daphne's memoirs "Dead Woman Laughing” on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3y0ImWuMeet Daphne and many other guests at Trek Long Island 2024 this summer in Hauppauge, NY from May 31 to June 2, featuring celebrity guests from multiple eras of Star Trek shows, authors, artists, podcasters, and more in this epic event. Details on www.treklongisland.comPlease subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@trekuntold .There, you will see all the old episodes of this show, as well as new episodes and all of our other content, including shorts and some other fun things planned for the future.Visit my Amazon shop to check out tons of Trek products andother things I enjoy - https://www.amazon.com/shop/thefightnerd View the Teespring store for Trek Untold gear & apparel- https://my-store-9204078.creator-spring.com Support Trek Untold by becoming a Patreon at Patreon.com/TrekUntold.Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating if you like us!Follow Trek Untold on Social MediaInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/trekuntoldTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/trekuntoldFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/trekuntoldFollow Nerd News Today on Social MediaTwitter: Twitter.com/NerdNews2Day Instagram:

Daphne Ashbrook had a very memorable appearance on the Star Trek DS9 episode, "Melora," playing the titular character in an episode that examined physical disabilities through a 90's sci-fi lens. Today, the episode is still discussed and debated, and this ensign's actress is ready to explain her side of the story, as well as tales from other productions ranging from modern films, period pieces, and a few things timey-wimey.Daphne tells us about wearing the Elaysian makeup and body prosthetics, navigating the tricky sets in an electric wheelchair, flying in the air on wires while kissing Alexander Siddig, and her take on the plot and intentions of "Melora," and how she views it through a modern perspective. Plus, her secret audition for a Star Trek movie, working with David Hasselhoff on "Knight Rider," the incredible stunts she did on an obscure made-for-TV movie, her trio of “Murder, She Wrote” appearances loaded with Star Trek alumni (as well as Florence Henderson), and behind-the-scenes stories from her starring role in the American “Doctor Who” movie with Paul McGann. Check out Daphne's memoirs "Dead Woman Laughing” on Amazon - https://amzn.to/3y0ImWuMeet Daphne and many other guests at Trek Long Island 2024 this summer in Hauppauge, NY from May 31 to June 2, featuring celebrity guests from multiple eras of Star Trek shows, authors, artists, podcasters, and more in this epic event. Details on www.treklongisland.comPlease subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@trekuntold .There, you will see all the old episodes of this show, as well as new episodes and all of our other content, including shorts and some other fun things planned for the future.Visit my Amazon shop to check out tons of Trek products andother things I enjoy - https://www.amazon.com/shop/thefightnerd View the Teespring store for Trek Untold gear & apparel- https://my-store-9204078.creator-spring.com Support Trek Untold by becoming a Patreon at Patreon.com/TrekUntold.Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave a rating if you like us!Follow Trek Untold on Social MediaInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/trekuntoldTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/trekuntoldFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/trekuntoldFollow Nerd News Today on Social MediaTwitter: Twitter.com/NerdNews2Day Instagram:

Nick and Benji present… The Chat: Sound Design… Good Review Guy: The Ninth Doctor: Hidden Depths… Behind-the-scenes and Drama Tease: The Eighth Doctor Adventures: Echoes - Birdsong… Also Available: Torchwood: Disco.

On this week's show, we watched 1992's Alien 3 starring Sigourney Weaver, Charles Dance, Charles S. Dutton, Paul McGann, and Lance Henriksen.  From director David Fincher, this third installment of the Alien franchise starts immediately following the events of Aliens (1986), where the survivors of LV-426 were headed back to Earth via the Colonial Marine spaceship, The USS Sulaco. Somehow, the Xenomorph queen made it onboard and laid 3 eggs before meeting her doom at the end of the previous film. Following a facehugger attack, our heroes (who are still in hypersleep) are jettisoned to a nearby planetoid; former maximum-security prison facility, Fury-161. After the escape pod crashes and its survivors are recovered, calamity ensues and it's once again up to Ellen Ripley to save everyone; even though it may cost her everything.  This is one of those movies with a production hellish enough that it might be more entertaining than the film itself.  Be sure to let us know what you think of the movie, and the podcast. Thanks and enjoy!

In the spring of 1937, a child dies and his brother is born. Translated from Arabic, the newborn's name - Saddam - means ‘one who confronts'. As his life will demonstrate, it couldn't be more appropriate. So how does a boy from a tough peasant background go on to rise to the very top of Iraq's leadership? How does his journey towards global infamy begin? Narrated by Paul McGann. A Noiser production, written by Duncan Barrett. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you're on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With President Macías in power, educated Equatoguineans come under attack, as a bizarre vendetta is pursued against teachers, lawyers and doctors. Things take a turn for the metaphysical, as Macías declares himself God. Finally, as paranoia completely overwhelms him, his inner circle will take matters into their own hands… Narrated by Paul McGann. A Noiser production, written by Sean Coleman. This is Part 2 of 2. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you're on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is the extraordinary, blood-curdling story of a dictator you may never have heard of. From 1968-1979, the African nation of Equatorial Guinea was helmed by its first, and to date only, freely elected president. Initially, Francisco Macías Nguema was seen by the Spanish colonial authorities as a safe choice. He proved to be anything but. Things went off the rails at an astonishing rate, as Macías rapidly turned the country into what would be called the ‘Dachau of Africa'. His is a tale of sheer opportunism on the way up, and drug-fuelled paranoia on the way down… Narrated by Paul McGann. A Noiser production, written by Sean Coleman. This is Part 1 of 2. Get every episode of Real Dictators a week early with Noiser+. You'll also get ad-free listening, bonus material and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started with a 7-day free trial. Or, if you're on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices