Tony Slattery's Rambling Club

The emergency continues.

Owing largely to the fact that Paul insists the Presidential Garden Shed contains no technology newer than a black and white Magnavox television with a three-inch screen, plus a water-powered radiogram, once again we find ourselves without a shiny new episode this week. However, Paul and Allan are still joined by the ever-welcome Mark Hutchinson, Tony Slattery's partner for almost forty years. This is another of our Patreon-exclusive conversations, in which our patrons provide the Dewey numbers.

Wendy Slattery (no relation) starts us off with a bid of 636: Animal Husbandry. Much appreciated, I'm sure. Paul regales us with tales of his animal hostel and Mark reintroduces us to Molly the Wondercat before Allan relives some childhood trauma. One hopes there is a psychiatrist on call this evening. Blue Peter rears its cobwebby head with its elderly dogs from the olden days, and we think of happier days in Edinburgh with Tony. Paul also has some reproductive tales for us - his own and other animals'.

Wendy also asks us how Mark spends his days now he's up on the sunny Wirral with all the nice people, so we get some personal insight as well as more memories of lovely Tony and we engage in some fantasy casting as well as talking about the fabled documentary What's the Matter with Tony Slattery?.

Next, the mysteriously mononymous Rachel asks us to take a point at topic 191: Modern Western Philosophy of the United States and Canada. Are there any two nations who enjoy a closer bond than the US and Canada? Apart from maybe North and South Korea, or England and France, or literally any two nations at all. We enjoy a good moan about America, Allan forgets what languages the Canadians speak (dolt), and we sympathise with Americans for their current plight. Probably none of us are getting through US immigration again any time soon, but nevertheless let's draw a hasty veil over that one.

Then Rachel redeems herself with a lovely question about theatre and theatres. More memories, and the lovely Kiki Dee makes an appearance.

Digressions digress. Tangents tange. Rambling occurs. And we hope you've enjoyed this further emergency gibberish
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A slightly unusual Rambling Club this week.

There was supposed to be a lovely ramble with a celebrity guest. Unfortunately, the computer on which the episode was edited has decided that this is not a thing it wishes to participate in. Rather than leave you entirely ramble-less, however, we have opened the Patreon cupboard and brought out something rather special.
So this week we remain firmly inside the Presidential Garden Shed, where Paul and Allan are joined by the ever-welcome Mark Hutchinson, Tony Slattery's partner for almost forty years. This is one of our Patreon-exclusive conversations, in which our patrons provide both the Dewey numbers and the questions and, on this occasion, there is plenty to talk about.

We begin with a question from Linda Craig: which of Tony's performances remains particularly special to us?
That turns out to be rather more difficult to answer than you might imagine. There's Radio Times, and Tony singing "My Thanks to You" with nothing but a piano. There's an extraordinary evening of Noël Coward with the BBC Radio Orchestra, a balcony scene from Private Lives with Lorraine Chase and Tony singing Coward with forty musicians behind him. There's Neville's Island, The Head of the Class, I Got News for You and a remarkably obscure Lost in Space VHS voiceover. And then there is the performance that Eric has chosen for entirely different reasons.

In other words, the question is answered.

Sort of.

Then the magic bingo machine produces 787: Stringed Instruments.
And suddenly we're talking about the cello, the violin, Paul Tortelier, Truly, Madly, Deeply, Cynthia Erivo and the extraordinary emotional power of strings. We discover that Paul's mother played the cello, that Allan once played the violin, and that Tony himself encouraged Allan to take his long-neglected instrument out of the wardrobe and play it again. There's even the story of a nine-year-old Allan conducting an orchestra at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
From there we begin wondering whether our tastes change as we grow older. Country music enters the conversation. So does The Archers. So does the extraordinary ability of music to transport us instantly back to another time and another place.
And then we get rather more philosophical.

What was it like being a child who didn't quite fit in? What happens when the thing that makes you different suddenly becomes your superpower? We hear about music teachers, terrifying Welsh women, clarinets, singing in school assembly and the extraordinary moment when being the quiet, awkward child suddenly becomes an advantage.

That leads us into education, opportunity and the arts.
Why is access to drama and music becoming increasingly difficult? What has happened to the idea of education as something more than preparation for employment? And what happens when the arts become something available primarily to those whose parents can afford to support them?
Along the way there are memories of Cadbury's remarkable drama department, Jacqueline Hill, RADA, university life, the social importance of education and the simple joy of learning for its own sake.

There are, naturally, tangents.
There are musical digressions.
There is some fairly robust criticism of the 1990s.
And there is a great deal of affection for the man whose name is on the door of the Club.
It's not our usual ramble.
But perhaps, in the circumstances, it's exactly the ramble we needed.
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There are few people better suited to a Rambling Club than a writer. After all, if anyone understands the importance of starting somewhere and having absolutely no idea where you're going to end up, it's a playwright. This week, our guest President is the remarkable Tim Firth, writer, dramatist, screenwriter, songwriter and the man behind everything from Neville's Island and Calendar Girls to The Girls, Our House and The Rottentrolls.

With Tony's magic bingo machine selecting our destinations, we leave the Presidential Garden Shed and head into the great outdoors, where the rambling can begin. And perhaps appropriately for a man whose career has taken so many unexpected turns, the first number sends us somewhere rather useful.
371.3: Methods of Instruction and Study.
Do we actually need a particular methodology when it comes to teaching and learning? And how did Tim's own experiences of education eventually lead him towards a career in writing?
His story includes an extraordinary turning point: an Arvon writing course in Yorkshire run by Willy Russell, attended when Tim was just 18.
But what happens when the lessons end and the professional world begins? How has the process of commissioning scripts changed? What does a writer actually have to navigate before an idea ever reaches an audience? And, somewhere along the way, what on earth is all this about a modern Macbeth in the style of Marillion?

Next, the machine produces 788: Wind and Percussion Instruments.
Which, naturally, means musicals.
Tim's career has taken him into some extraordinary musical territory, from Our House, created around the music of Madness, to The Girls, his musical collaboration with Gary Barlow, and The Band, built around the music of Take That.
So how did a writer of plays find himself working with Madness? What happens when you collaborate with someone like Gary Barlow? And where does the musical instinct come from in the first place?
That takes us back to Tim's childhood and his father, Gordon Firth, whose creativity would eventually become part of one of Tim's best-loved achievements: Roger and the Rottentrolls.

614: The Incidence and Prevention of Disease.
There could hardly be a more appropriate route into one of the Rambling Club's most important subjects: Tony Slattery.
Tim and Tony worked together on Neville's Island, Tim's hugely successful comedy about four businessmen whose team-building exercise goes catastrophically wrong. The original West End production featured Tony alongside Jeff Rawle, James Fleet and Paul Raffield, and the play has subsequently travelled around the world.
Tony, of course, possessed a particular fascination with disease and all its component parts. So what could possibly connect Tim, Tony, a theatre and some dead rats?
You'll have to join us in the great outdoors to find out.

And as the ramble winds its way through education, music, writing, theatre, television and memories of an extraordinary performer, one thing becomes increasingly apparent:
Tim Firth knows how to tell a story.
Which is fortunate.
Because once Tony's magic bingo machine has finished with him, there's every chance we'll be here for a while.
Presented by Paul Carmichael & Allan Lear

Music composed and performed by Michael Livesley & Andy Frizell

The voice of Pwfthhh- Michael Livesley
www.michaellivesley.com

Series Producers- Erica Lear and Mark Hutchinson

Producers- Alan Dyebing & Stuart Morris

Executive Producer- Mark Strickson

Join the rambling club and receive your club membership card, badges, exclusive content and access to early release episodes, an exclusive extra podcast you won't hear anywhere else and exclusive club-only perks!
www.patreon.com/SlatteryLive

Official Website- www.tonyslattery.com
Twitter/X: @SlatteryLive
Instagram: tony_slattery_official
BlueSky: @ramblingclub

Paul's Threads: @paul.carmichael.1213
Paul's Bluesky: @paulcarmichaeluk

© Fanfaronade Productions 2026

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There are guests who arrive at the Tony Slattery's Rambling Club shed expecting a conventional interview. And then there is Mark Strickson.
As Executive Producer of the Club from Day One, Mark knows rather more about what happens inside the Presidential Garden Shed than most. So perhaps we'd better all be on our best behaviour as this week's President takes us on one of our regular rambles into the great outdoors.
Mark is, of course, best known to many as Vislor Turlough, companion to Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. But that is only the beginning of the story. Since leaving the TARDIS, Mark has forged an extraordinary second career as a television producer and director, particularly in the world of wildlife and natural history. His work has taken him around the world and included the programme that helped bring Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, to international attention.

And so, with Tony's magic bingo machine having selected our destinations, we set off.

First stop is 378: Higher Education. How did education shape the man who would eventually move from acting into zoology and then into the world of international television production? Mark's own journey is rather remarkable: after leaving Doctor Who, he moved to Australia, taught Theatre Studies and studied for an honours degree in Zoology. Somewhere along the way, one career became another.
But what exactly does Mark make of education, and where might this particular ramble lead us? As ever, the number is only the starting point.

Then we're heading for 804: Literature and Rhetoric, an especially appropriate destination for someone born in Stratford-upon-Avon. Mark attended King Edward VI Grammar School in his home town, the same school traditionally associated with Shakespeare, and was a chorister at Holy Trinity Church, where his father was organist and choirmaster.
So Shakespeare is inevitably somewhere on the horizon.
But once the Rambling Club starts walking, there's no guarantee where it will end up. What does the Bard mean to someone who grew up surrounded by Shakespeare's legacy? And what happens when an actor's relationship with words and storytelling develops into a career spent telling very different kinds of stories?

Finally, the bingo machine gives us 577: The General Nature of Life.
And here, perhaps inevitably, we arrive at the world that has dominated so much of Mark's later career: wildlife, natural history and the extraordinary business of making television about the living world.
Mark has produced and directed programmes for major international broadcasters including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Discovery and Animal Planet. His work has taken him from the world of acting into some very different and occasionally dangerous environments.

Eventually, after our journey through the great outdoors, Tony's magic bingo machine does what Tony's magic bingo machine does best and transports us back to the Presidential Garden Shed.
The walking stops.
The rambling doesn't.
And perhaps, given that Mark has been helping to steer this particular ship since the very beginning, we should be grateful that he hasn't yet revealed everything he knows about us.

Presented by Paul Carmichael & Allan Lear

Music composed and performed by Michael Livesley & Andy Frizell

The voice of Pwfthhh- Michael Livesley
www.michaellivesley.com

Series Producers- Erica Lear and Mark Hutchinson

Producers- Alan Dyebing & Stuart Morris

Executive Producer- Mark Strickson

Join the rambling club and receive your club membership card, badges, exclusive content and access to early release episodes, an exclusive extra podcast you won't hear anywhere else and exclusive club-only perks!
www.patreon.com/SlatteryLive

Official Website- www.tonyslattery.com
Twitter/X: @SlatteryLive
Instagram: tony_slattery_official
BlueSky: @ramblingclub

Paul's Threads: @paul.carmichael.1213
Paul's Bluesky: @paulcarmichaeluk

© Fanfaronade Productions 2026
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Would you believe it? This week's guest President is the extraordinary Paul Rhys, one of Britain's finest and most respected actors. From Vincent & Theo and A Discovery of Witches to Shakespeare's greatest roles and, most recently, Russell T Davies' acclaimed drama Tip Toe, Paul has quietly built one of the most remarkable careers in British theatre and television. Despite that, he rarely gives interviews and has never before appeared on a podcast, making this a particularly special Rambling Club.

So pull on your walking boots and join us as Tony's enchanted bingo machine once again chooses three entirely unexpected destinations. As ever, Sir Stephen Fry's reassuringly omniscient voice keeps watch while the rest of us happily lose ourselves in conversation.

Our first stop is 292 – Greek & Roman Religion. Since the theatre itself was born from religious ceremony in Ancient Greece, this proves a surprisingly fitting place to begin. Paul's Catholic upbringing, spirituality and the enduring relationship between faith and performance soon come to the fore, before we ask whether modern theatre has lost something by turning its back on the spiritual. Along the way we celebrate King Lear, explore Paul's lifelong fascination with William Blake, and discover how a self-confessed introvert copes with the modern expectation that actors must become their own publicists on social media.

Next, the machine produces 629 – Other Branches of Engineering. None of our ramblers claim to possess much practical engineering ability, but President Rhys immediately confounds expectations by revealing that he once built rather more than a career... he built a house! The conversation gently wanders through family, parents and the curious guilt many of us feel about whether we've somehow let them down, before arriving at a rather different form of engineering altogether. How do you construct a character? How do you breathe life into words on a page? Using his acclaimed performance in Tip Toe as a guide, Paul offers a fascinating insight into the meticulous craft of acting and the invisible work that audiences rarely get to see.

Finally, Tony's bingo machine lands on 179 – Cruelty and Ethics. What begins as a discussion about morality soon develops into a thoughtful conversation about politics, empathy and the responsibilities of artists in an increasingly polarised world. Paul reflects on his father's upbringing and the beliefs it instilled, while considering how today's cultural climate affects actors and the stories they're able to tell. We also celebrate his recent collaboration with the legendary Russell T Davies, asking whether drama still has the power to challenge prejudice, change minds and make us look at one another with greater compassion.

Then it's back to the Presidential Shed, where William Blake is still providing the poetry, nobody has successfully engineered a flat-pack bookcase, and the bingo machine is quietly contemplating the meaning of existence.

Presented by Paul Carmichael & Allan Lear

Music composed and performed by Michael Livesley & Andy Frizell

The voice of Pwfthhh- Michael Livesley
www.michaellivesley.com

Series Producers- Erica Lear and Mark Hutchinson

Producers- Alan Dyebing & Stuart Morris

Series Executive Producer- Mark Strickson

Join the rambling club and receive your club membership card, badges, exclusive content and access to early release episodes, an exclusive extra podcast you won't hear anywhere else and exclusive club-only perks!
www.patreon.com/SlatteryLive

Official Website- www.tonyslattery.com
Twitter/X: @SlatteryLive
Instagram: tony_slattery_official
BlueSky: @ramblingclub

Paul's Threads: @paul.carmichael.1213
Paul's Bluesky: @paulcarmichaeluk

© Fanfaronade Productions 2026
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.