Saturday Live

Sophie Ellis-Bextor first topped the charts with Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) and successes continued with hits including Murder On The Dancefloor and Take Me Home. Sophie joins Aasmah and Richard to talk about her career, taxidermy and reaching the final on Strictly Come Dancing.Ashley Walters found fame as rapper Asher D in So Solid Crew. He's subsequently carved out a successful acting career, including an award winning performance in the film Bullet Boy, and starring roles in Top Boy and Inside Men. Ashley discusses his career, playing PC Ryan Draper in BBC drama Cuffs, and dealing with his phobia of birds.We visit listener Jo Rhodes's Community Soup project in Settle, in North Yorkshire. In exchange for £4, hungry punters receive a bowl of soup, entitling them to vote on one of 4 pitches. Once all pitches are heard, votes are cast the winner takes all- to kick-start their project.Mark Mason talks about travelling Britain collecting facts and trivia from every one of its 124 postcode areas.Cricket Umpire Dickie Bird shares his Inheritance Tracks: Nat King Cole When I Fall in Love and Barbra Streisand The Way We Were.Donal Skehan is a self-taught cook who has been in a Boyband, had a failed bid to represent Ireland in the Eurovision song contest and has been a presenter on Junior MasterChef. He reflects on his varied career and the art of presenting food.Sophie Ellis-Bextor's latest album Wanderlust is out now. Cuffs starring Ashley Walters starts on Wednesday 28th October at 8pm on BBC 1. Mark Mason's Mail Obsession: A Journey Round Britain by Postcode is out now. Dickie Bird - 80 Not Out, written with Keith Lodge, is out now. Donal Skehan's latest book 'Fresh' is out now.

Joining Aasmah Mir and Richard Coles is the actor, writer and comedian Steve Coogan. He has won seven comedy awards, six BAFTAs for his work including The Trip and Philomena, and had a box office number one with Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa. He discusses his childhood, comedy career and love of cars, including his mum's Morris Minor Traveller. Deborah Alma, emergency poet, turns up in a 1970s ambulance - not with a suture but a sonnet. In honour of Alan Partridge JP Devlin visits Cromer to meet some of the locals. Ninette Finch - an 82 year old grandmother - describes how she became a successful 'extra' in retirement after a career in a bank, and the strange stunts she's been asked to perform. Colin MacLachan on serving in the SAS before swapping his beret for a mortar board, taking a First in History, and meeting his wife in the line of duty. And author Tony Parsons shares his Inheritance Tracks: In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning by Frank Sinatra and London Pride by Noel Coward.Easily Distracted by Steve Coogan. The Emergency Poetry - An Anti-Stress Poetry Anthology by Deborah Alma. SAS: Who Dares Wins, starts on Channel 4 on Monday 19 October at 9pm. The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons is out now.Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel.

He rose to fame playing windmill dwelling magician sleuth Jonathan Creek, but it was quite a departure from his roots in the comedy circuit. Alan Davies has since garnered our sympathy as the fall guy to Stephen Fry's genius in TV quiz QI. But all the while he's never stopped the stand up and he joins us mid tour.When she was only 13 years old, Yeonmi Park fled North Korea for a better life. She survived trafficking, gangsters, extreme hunger and cold, and constant fear. Her speech at the One World Summit in Dublin last year went viral, with more than 2 million views online, detailing how she wanted to "shed light on the darkest place in the world".Brett Nielsen believes he was the first of about 35 thalidomide babies born in Australia, but says he has shaped his story into a happy one. At 55, he's a successful musician with three children and two step-children. He hasn't let the fact that he was born with no arms stop him from driving a tractor or - his great love - playing the piano. In 1964 Brett was the star of Roger Graef's award-winning documentary entitled, One of them is Brett. In February this year Roger Graef revisited Brett and the result is a new hour long film about Bretts' life some 50 years later.Scott Bryan is entertainments editor at Buzzfeed who has made every single technical challenge from this year's Great British Bake off with largely disastrous results. In the week of the programme final, he joins us on Saturday Live to tell us about his experiment, bringing his final effort, the Millefeuilles.Sticking with the theme of popular TV programmes, we catch up with Jeremy Vine on his participation in Strictly come Dancing.And singer Frances Ruffelle joins us for her inheritance tracks.Alan Davies' Little Victories tour continues in Middlesborough on 30th October. The new series of QI starts on 16th October.Yeonmi Park's book In Order to Live is out now.The film Brett a Life Without Arms, is scheduled for broadcast on BBC1 13th October 2015.Brett Nielsen's latest album, Pigs in Space is available now published by Big Toe Music.Frances Ruffelle's new Album 'I Say Yeh-Yeh' is out now.

Inspired by Blue Peter at the age of three Gaby Roslin's career has taken her from The Big Breakfast to Chicago and the National Lottery Draw. She joins Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir to talk about her life and career on stage and TV. George Dowell dreamed of playing professional football before a car crash left him paralysed from the chest down. The former defender used to play for Worthing FC but he now has a different dream - guiding the club into the football league. JP Devlin meets Allan Charles Wilmot, who describes moving from Jamaica to the UK and his life as a WWII Serviceman and post-war entertainer. Martin Withers DFC, The Vulcan to the Sky Trust's Chief Pilot, was the captain of the Vulcan that flew the historic, record-breaking, bombing run to the Falkland Islands in 1982. He talks about flying her for her final display on Sunday. Marty Jopson shares his passion for the science of everyday life - from why teapots dribble, what's the difference between a biscuit and a cake and why leaves go brown. And the singer Belinda Carlisle shares her Inheritance Tracks. She chooses True Love sung by Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly and Drugs Don't Work by The Verve.Vulcan's final display is on Sunday 4 October at Gaydon - Heritage Motor Centre (Warwickshire) and Old Warden (Bedfordshire).The Science of Everyday Life by Marty Jopson, is out now.Now You Know, The Memoirs of Allan Charles Wilmot, is available from Liberation Publishers.Belinda Carlisle is touring the UK from 3 - 10 October. BELINDA CARLISLE: CD SINGLES 1986 - 2014 is out now.

Aasmah Mir and Richard Coles are joined by Sophie Thompson. The award winning actor has appeared in Harry Potter, EastEnders and won celebrity MasterChef in 2014. Sophie talks about how her family, which includes sister Emma and father Eric, narrator of the Magic Roundabout, inspired her to create a cookbook.Peter Bleksley is one of the experts on Channel 4's TV series Hunted, where the police are on the hunt for 14 'fugitives'. Peter worked undercover for 10 years with the Metropolitan Police and has first-hand experience of hunting and being hunted.Listener Sara Marshall describes how the cooing sound of wood pigeons helped her through a turbulent year.Trevor Lyttleton, a Saturday Live listener, talks about Contact the Elderly, a charity he founded 50 years ago aged 29.Ben Cohen, a member of the England national team that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup, shares his Inheritance Tracks: The Power of Love by Jennifer Rush and That's Life by Frank Sinatra.Sarah Hyndman is a graphic designer who is an expert in type and the way we respond to fonts. She explains the power that fonts wield over us, how they appeal, or otherwise, and can prompt us to think of food, luxury or tradition.Sophie Thompson's My Family Kitchen is out now.Hunted continues on Channel 4 on Thursdays at 9pm.Carry Me Home: My Autobiography by Ben Cohen is out now. Ben's anti- bullying charity is the StandUp Foundation.Sarah Hyndman is taking part in the London Design Festival.Producer: Claire Bartleet Editor: Karen Dalziel.

He's sold over three million records, has over 2 million twitter followers and has notched up 66 million YouTube views of his work. Rapper Professor Green aka Stephen Manderson has now written his autobiography which details his troubled past, successful present and hopes for the future. He joins us on Saturday Live.Charlie le Mindu is a hair artist. He cuts hair, makes wigs and what he calls 'haute coiffure' a fusion of high fashion and hair which has produced hair coats and clothes. He's worked with Lady Gaga, Lana Del Ray and gave Florence Welsh her flame red dye. He joins us on Saturday live to tell us about his passion for and the power of HAIR.Seva Novgorodsev is famous in the former Soviet Union for broadcasting pop music across the Iron Curtain and introducing Western culture via the BBC World Service. This month saw him retiring after 38 years, and he joins us to reflect on a career in which he also played a baddie in a Bond film, and received fan mail in the form of a message in a bottle.Catherine Gallop is a listener who contacted us about her regular visits as a volunteer to Lourdes. She tells us what impact it had on her life and those who she travelled with.Actress Emilia Clarke rose to prominence playing "Khaleesi" in Game of Thrones, she's also starred on Broadway and appears in the latest Terminator film. Her inheritance tracks are 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' by The Beatles and 'Check yo self' by Ice Cube.and JP meets Ken Wilkinson who was a Spitfire pilot who flew in the Battle of Britain 75 years ago.Professor Green Lucky by Stephen Manderson is published by Blink publishing Haute Coiffure by Charlie le Mindu is published by Roads Publishing.

Science journalist and self-experimenter Michael Mosley joins Kate Silverton and Suzy Klein. Michael's varied career started in banking and then he qualified as a doctor before joining the BBC. He talks about the Fast Diet, reveals the most terrifying experiment he's undertaken, and why he's now investigating life before birth.In the week that the Queen becomes Britain's longest-serving monarch, listener Steve Evans talks about his experiences as this month he becomes the longest serving Paramedic in the North West.Shelby Holmes' family run a travelling family fair. Despite missing a lot of school when she was growing up she has just graduated from Oxford University. Shelby discusses her experiences and future plans.Ann Davidson a retired nurse living near Bodrum in Turkey talks about helping Syrian refugees.JP Devlin ventures to the bottom of author Cressida Cowell's garden to see if there are dragons in her shed.Marin Alsop, the conductor for this year's Last Night of the Proms, shares her Inheritance Tracks.Critic and author Adam Mars-Jones talks about the relationship with his father Sir William Mars-Jones, a free thinking, maverick high court judge, who was involved in some of the most famous criminal cases of the 20th century.Michael Mosley's Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You is a three part series which begins on Monday, 14th September, at 9pm on BBC 2.Cressida Cowell's How to Fight a Dragon's Fury is out now.Marin Alsop's tracks are Piano Quartet by Robert Schumann and Victory Stride by James P. Johnson.Kid Gloves, a Voyage Around My Father by Adam Mars-Jones is out now.

Richard Coles and Suzy Klein are charmed by Nigel Havers. He shot to fame as Lord Lindsay in the Oscar winning film Chariots of Fire, and is best known for playing charmers, cads and conmen from Coronation Street to Downton Abbey. He describes how he transformed himself into Mick Jagger, and why he's returned to the role of Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest.A Saturday Live listener got in touch to tell us about a singing sensation from the 1930s. JP Devlin meets 98 year old Helen Clare to hear about her remarkable career.While commuting the length of the Northern Line Amy Dicketts noticed no one ever talked to strangers. She decided to change this and now chronicles the stories of her fellow passengers.Piano player Davis Rogan, talks about his life in New Orleans, involvement with the US TV series Treme, working as piano coach with Brad Pitt and his first visit to London for the Notting Hill Carnival.DJ Edith Bowman chooses her Inheritance Tracks: - Blackbird by The Beatles and Slow Show by The National.Produced by Louise Corley Edited by Karen Dalziel.

Long before the actor Larry Lamb achieved notoriety as the evil Archie Mitchell in EastEnders or twinkly Micky Shipman in Gavin & Stacey he'd lived a life dramatic enough to be made into a TV hit of its own. A working class London boy with a troubled dad and a much loved mum Larry blundered into acting more by chance than design. In his early years he filleted fish and worked as an encyclopedia salesman and later as an oil engineer in Libya and Canada. It was there he really discovered his passion for acting and went on to play opposite major stars - Maggie Smith, Vanessa Redgrave and Lauren Bacall among them. He's taken tea at Buckingham Palace and hung out in George Harrison's kitchen. Despite such successes Larry has always been a restless soul. Now, however, he says he's finally grown up.Katherine Mills is a magician and mentalist. Combining psychology and sociology with her love of trickery and magic, Katherine crosses the line between the possible and the truly amazing. She is one of only 100 women members in the Magic Circle out of 1,500 total members. Joy Ballard is head teacher of Willows School in Cardiff which features in a new series of the Educating Cardiff. Joy left school at 16 without any qualifications and didn't go back into education until she was 26. She has been a head teacher since 2007 and this year won the national Pearson Head Teacher Award. Educating Cardiff begins on Channel 4 on 25th August.Listener John Dalby wrote to say he'd led a full and interesting life over the past 67 years. Twenty plus years at sea, he was the first commercial "pirate hunter" and is now engaged in airborne reconnaissance and surveillance.This week's Inheritance Tracks are from the poet Simon Armitage. Producer: Maire Devine Editor: Karen Dalziel.

The prolific podcaster, comedian, writer and blogger Richard Herring joins Kate Silverton and Richard Coles to tell them why, after an unbroken run of performing a different stand-up show at the Edinburgh festival for the last eleven years, he's not going this year. Instead, he's re-enacting all his festival shows, plus creating a twelfth brand new one, in London.Former soldier Hannah Campbell was the first British mother wounded in Iraq in 2007. After years of surgery she decided to have her leg amputated and in her words, hasn't looked back since. She describes the mental and physical transformation she has been through since the attack and why she is now happier than ever.Listener Jonathan Lovett runs 'Tales of the Plague', a walking tour of London with his partner Mary Ann. He tells us about the three-day festival coming up (4th-6th September) to commemorate the 350th Anniversary of the Great Plague whilst dressed as a plague doctor and accompanied by his fake pet rat Robert.Noel Smith spent most of his adult life in prison. After the death of his son in 2001, he was inspired to turn his life around. Having already taught himself to read and write while in solitary confinement, he has gone on to have four books published. Noel now spends his time as the commissioning editor of 'Inside Time' newspaper and giving talks to young offenders.Conchita Wurst, Austrian pop star and drag queen who came to international attention for winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 shares her Inheritance Tracks. She chooses 'Goldfinger' by Shirley Bassey and 'Only Love Can Hurt Like This' by Paloma Faith.Plus listener Emma Clayton tells us about her Saturday's spent volunteering at her local Repair Cafe.Produced by Pete Ross Edited by Alex Lewis.