Monstrosities Mon Amour

Archaeologist Rebecca Lambert is used to investigating stone circles and prehistoric sites, but when she first visited the National Theatre she found a modern henge on the south bank of the Thames.
In the year of its 50th Anniversary, we visit the original ‘concrete monstrosity’, Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre, which opened in 1976. Seen through the eyes of an archaeologist it is a very different place, a vast modern henge and a place of ceremony where rituals, stone and water come together to create somewhere of great power and presence.
Is the National Theatre like Stonehenge? Rebecca Lambert takes us through the many strange similarities - and dissonances - that show us a whole new side of one of the most magnificent modernist buildings in Britain, with startling insight and wit.
But it’s drama of a different kind that has drawn our esteemed archaeologist to her other choice, that 1987 masterpiece of muscle, the Dolph Lundgren film Masters of the Universe. Find out what still captures her imagination in its depiction of small town America and its ‘Final Countdown’-style barrage of portentous hysteria and stonewashed denim.
Join us for an episode that is part revelatory reading of prehistory and modernism, and part riot of camp. I won’t say which is which.
Rebecca Lambert is an archaeologist and curator dedicated to public engagement, accessibility, and innovative research practices. Follow her on Instagram or Bluesky, or keep up with the progress of her work at https://practisesmakeplaces.wordpress.com/ where she’s investigating artistic responses to English ‘prehistoric’ monuments - from the 1720s to the present day. Her previous work has included the intriguingly titled Underpasses Are Liminal Places.
Monstrosities Mon Amour is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new episodes and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando. You can support Monstrosities Mon Amour by subscribing through Substack or through Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/grindrod


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Writer Tom Cox has long been fascinated by the eerie flatlands of the Fens, those drained marshlands on the edge of East Anglia.
On our way around we discuss the folk horror of scarecrows, the romance of agribusiness and the weird agoraphobia - or is it claustrophobia? - of somewhere so flat and relatively uninhabited. And we marvel too at the odd midcentury modern villages that have cropped up in this landscape of ancient and modern.
As well as that, Tom dazzles me with his love for the Rolling Stones’s psychedelic experiment, their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request, which many fans deem a failure but which Tom rates higher than Sgt Pepper. Find out why this album is so inspiring, and how its spirit is the very antithesis of people-pleasing AI.
Tom Cox is the author of three novels – Villager, 1983 and his most recent, Everything Will Swallow You, as well as numerous works of non-fiction such as 21st-Century Yokel (on the spooky edges of the outdoors) and Ring the Hill (it’s a book about hills, obviously). You can find out more about his work on his site, where he also shares lots of new writing.
Grindrodia is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando. You can support Monstrosities Mon Amour by subscribing through Substack or through Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/grindrod


Get full access to Grindrodia at johngrindrod.substack.com/subscribe

Get ready for an underwater adventure as we go beneath the Thames with curator and architectural historian Dr Rosamund Lily West.
Have you ever been told you’ve got a mouth as big as the Blackwall Tunnel? Or been stuck in a conversation about the traffic? Or worse still, been actually stuck in the traffic there? It’s easy to overlook what an engineering marvel the Blackwall Tunnel is, the first tunnel built in the late Victorian era, and a second opened in 1967 as part of a second age of engineering ingenuity. But why does art and architectural historian (and local) Dr Rosamund Lily West like it? And what secrets does this great unsung piece of London’s infrastructure hold for the curious Monstrosities Mon Amour listener?
After a joy ride through the tunnel Rosamund takes us for a booze-up at Wetherspoons, the pub chain people love to hate, where we marvel at their incredible historic buildings, gasp at their local interpretation boards, and polish off our microwaved curries.
Dr Rosamund Lily West is a brilliant architectural historian and academic. You can find out more about her work, her publications and her walking tours on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/rosamundlilywest/ and Bluesky @rosamundlilywest.bsky.social and at her profile on British Art Network https://britishartnetwork.org.uk/membership/members/rosamund-lily-west/
Monstrosities Mon Amour is a reader-supported podcast. To receive new episodes and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando. You can support Monstrosities Mon Amour by subscribing through Substack or through Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/grindrod


Get full access to Grindrodia at johngrindrod.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s visit an ancient Norfolk town, and instead focus on its postwar estates with one of Britain’s best loved housing historians, John Boughton of Municipal Dreams.
Thetford gets a bad rap. It isn’t particularly well known outside of Norfolk, and in many ways feels like a lot of towns expanded in the 1960s and 70s. With a variety of housing estates demonstrating the fashions and philosophies of the day, Thetford is a town of great history, from Roman to medieval and Georgian, and also of modernity. Discover where Dad’s Army’s Warmington on Sea was filmed, where Conran’s modern furnishings were made, and where a young municipal dreamer’s fascination with postwar housing was first kindled.
And let’s also find out just why he’s so obsessed with white bread – not the plastic ready-sliced sort, and certainly not sourdough…
John Boughton’s book Municipal Dreams grew from his amazing Wordpress and Substack sites: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com and https://substack.com/@municipaldreams
Monstrosities Mon Amour is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando. You can support Monstrosities Mon Amour by subscribing through Substack or through Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/grindrod


Get full access to Grindrodia at johngrindrod.substack.com/subscribe

Let’s visit a wonder of Britain’s industrial heritage – the gaudy seafront excess of Blackpool, Britain’s most extraordinary seaside town.
After a summer break Monstrosities Mon Amour is back with a seaside special!
Blackpool isn’t just the Tower, the illuminations and Strictly. Where else could you get your bumps felt on the beach by a phrenologist, see a dead woman in a coffin just for fun, and experience Britain’s first carpeted amusement arcade? Kathryn Ferry has spent years researching seaside history, and here she shares her love for this, the ultimate holiday destination, a place that thrived until the rise of the package holiday. Here’s a joy-ride through unexpected murano glass mosaics, beach huts and post-war design heritage, in a place as heady as candy floss and as over the top as drag bingo. Let’s allow ourselves to enjoy laughs, thrills and memories in one of the most remarkable towns in Britain.
And let’s discover another of Kathryn’s passions too – postwar plastics, here in the form of drip-dry wonder fabric crimplene, which was invented in Macclesfield in 1959. Guaranteed to make you rush to Vinted to buy a psychedelic outfit fit for a distant relative at a 1970s wedding.
Kathryn Ferry’s new book is Twentieth Century Seaside Architecture: Pools, Piers and Pleasure around Britain’s Coast, published by Batsford with the 20th Century Society. You can find out more about her other books and her work at https://kathrynferry.co.uk/ and follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/seasideferry/
Monstrosities Mon Amour is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new episodes and posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Theme tune by Lorna Rees and Rufus Rees Coshan. Logo by Richard de Pesando. You can support Monstrosities Mon Amour by subscribing through Substack or through Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/grindrod


Get full access to Grindrodia at johngrindrod.substack.com/subscribe