Josh Homme was born in Joshua Tree and grew up in Palm Desert, California. He founded Queens of the Stone Age in 1996 and is the lead singer, primary songwriter and guitarist in the band. Josh is one of the music industry's most prolific collaborators. Alongside Queens, he formed the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures in 2009 with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), and has produced music for Arctic Monkeys, Iggy Pop, Lady Gaga and many more. Queens of the Stone Age...

Danny Dyer was discovered by a scout while at school in East London and landed his first acting role in Prime Suspect 3 in 1994. He gained a reputation for playing the tough guy and films like Human Traffic (1999) and The Football Factory (2004) put him on the road to stardom. Danny is most famous for his portrayal of Mick Carter in EastEnders from 2013 to 2022. Ryan Sampson was born in Rotherham and studied acting at Drama Centre London. He began his career on stage in various theatrical...

Anne-Marie Duff is one of the UK’s most respected actresses. Born and raised in London, she performed at family gatherings from an early age and was soon honing her craft at an amateur theatre company. Her stage career began in 1994 and roles in War and Peace, King Lear and Collected Stories alongside Helen Mirren raised her profile. In 2004, Anne-Marie was cast as Fiona McBride in Shameless and many notable TV and film roles followed. She is best known for appearances in Nowhere Boy, The...

Perrie Edwards hails from South Shields and has musical roots - her mum was a soul singer and her dad played in rock bands on the northern club scene for many years. Perrie had to be convinced to audition for The X Factor at 17, but went on to win the show with Little Mix in 2011. The band scored five UK number one singles and became the first British girl group since the Spice Girls to have a debut album enter the top five in the US. In 2022, Little Mix decided to take a hiatus from music to...

Proud Mancunian Emma Barnett is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. She began in print journalism before landing a job on radio at LBC in 2012. Emma became known for her agenda-setting interviews, delivered in a warm but forensic manner, and it wasn’t long before a career at the BBC beckoned. She hosted a daily three-hour show on Radio 5 Live for many years before moving to Radio 4 to front Woman’s Hour, a show that became the BBC’s most downloaded podcast under her...

East London comedy and stage actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe studied drama and began gigging and writing sketch shows from a young age. His hit improv show Kool Story Bro sold out in London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Kiell landed his first professional TV job on the ITV drama Whitechapel in 2012. He is best known for his roles in Stath Lets Flats on Channel 4 and in the much-loved BBC series Ghosts, which ended in 2023 after five series. Kiell can now add presenting to his list of skills,...

The Queen of Country Pop has sold over 100 million albums worldwide and won five Grammy awards, but her path to stardom was not easy. Growing up in poverty, Shania’s mother sent her out to sing in bars and clubs at a young age to make ends meet. Fame found her at 30 and, to this day, Shania Twain remains the only female artist to have three consecutive diamond albums in the US. Her record-breaking second album, The Woman in Me, was released in 1995 and became the biggest-selling country album...

Harry Hill is one of the UK’s most respected entertainers. He studied medicine at St George’s Hospital Medical School in South London before quitting to become a comedian. Harry spent 10 years hosting his multi award-winning TV show Harry Hill's TV Burp, which at its peak was watched by more than six million people on a Saturday night. These days, Harry is one of the hosts of Junior Bake Off on Channel 4 and has just launched his own family friendly podcast, Are We There Yet?. He is going on...

National treasure and proud Bristolian Stephen Merchant struck gold when he collaborated with Ricky Gervais on a little comedy series called The Office in the early 2000s. Buoyed by their TV success, Stephen and Ricky branched out into a brand new medium and became one of the pioneers of podcasting. The Ricky Gervais Show became the most downloaded podcast in the world at the time, securing them a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Stephen has won three BAFTAs, two Golden Globes...

Nick Mohammed is a comedian, writer and actor. In the UK, he is best known for his character Mr Swallow, who he developed more than 20 years ago. Nick played Nate in the hit series Ted Lasso, opposite Jason Sudeikis, earning him Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor In A Comedy Series in 2021 and 2022. He created, wrote, executive-produced and co-starred in Sky One's Intelligence, alongside David Schwimmer, and is here to talk about playing Billy Blind in Disney+’s Renegade Nell,...

Comedian and broadcaster Joel Dommett grew up on a farm in Gloucestershire but, with no interest in getting his hands dirty, he set off for the bright lights of London. He is blessed with funny bones and, after some challenging years on MTV News, he set his sights on stand-up comedy. A stint in the Jungle in 2016 secured his big break and he returned the following year as the host of I'm a Celebrity... Extra Camp. These days Joel Dommett is prime time, presenting The Masked Singer and the...

Dua Lipa is one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. She has won three Grammys and picked up her seventh Brit award in March for Best Pop Act. Last year, she collaborated with Mark Ronson on Dance the Night, which featured on the Barbie soundtrack, and appeared in the film as Mermaid Barbie. This year is proving to be Dua’s most successful yet with the release of her highly anticipated third studio album, Radical Optimism. As well as fulfilling a lifelong dream of headlining Glastonbury,...

The actor and writer join Nick and Angela to talk about the new series of The Responder. Martin Freeman is a man of many genres and he has mastered most of them in his 27 year career. We first fell in love with him as Tim in The Office in 2001; he gained cult status as Dr Watson in Sherlock in 2010; and then hit the big time as Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit in 2012. Martin won a Bafta and an Emmy for Sherlock and last year scooped an International Emmy for his portrayal of Chris Carson in...

Lily Allen burst onto the music scene in the mid-2000s with her debut album Alright, Still. It received critical acclaim and a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. Recently, Lily appeared in the West End production of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman and also starred in Dreamland, a six-part television series based on Sharon Horgan’s Bafta Winning short about four sisters living on the Kent coast. Miquita Oliver is a television presenter and radio personality, best known for...

Marian Keyes is one of the most successful Irish novelists of all time. She has written more than 20 books and sold over 35 million copies worldwide. Marian studied law in Dublin to placate her parents but had no interest in pursuing a legal career. Instead her rebellious nature took her to the UK where she lived in a squat in East London. It never occurred to Marian that she might be a writer until one day when she was inspired to write a short story. Her first novel, Watermelon, was...

Kaya Scodelario has grown up in the spotlight. The British-Brazilian actress shot to fame as Effy on E4’s comedy-drama Skins. The show has remained popular with audiences since the early noughties, tackling issues such as teen addiction and mental illness. That success propelled Kaya to the big screen, where she won roles in two massive movie franchises, Maze Runner and Pirates of the Caribbean. Kaya’s latest role is in Guy Ritchie’s hit series The Gentlemen on Netflix, playing Susie Glass...

Jordan North and William Hanson are an unlikely pair. They met at the BBC in 2012 and walked away assuming it would be a one-off. However, fate had other plans and today they are best friends and present a very successful podcast together called Help I Sexted My Boss. Each week, their listeners share hilarious dilemmas and Jordan and William respond with very different advice. The duo now have a sold-out tour and a companion book out. Jordan North has recently left Radio 1 to take over the...

Siobhán McSweeney always wanted to be an actor but her parents wanted her to be a teacher. Undeterred, she completed a science degree at University College Cork and moved to London to study at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Siobhán’s big break came in 2018 when she was chosen to play Sister Michael in Derry Girls. The show was a huge hit and Siobhán won a BAFTA for her performance in 2023. Now a big star of the small screen, you can catch her presenting The Great Pottery...

Elizabeth Day is a household name, an award-winning writer and presenter of one of the most successful podcasts in the UK. On How to Fail, she speaks to luminaries such as Gloria Steinem, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Bernadine Evaristo about the things that haven’t gone right - and what we can learn from them. It’s fair to say that Elizabeth Day’s superpower is her vulnerability. She has written candidly about her divorce and fertility struggles in The Times, the Guardian, Vogue and Vanity Fair,...

Jay Blades, MBE is a furniture restoration expert and TV presenter from Hackney, East London. Jay struggled with dyslexia growing up and found solace using his hands. He got by in school, but never learned to read and has since shared his journey to help break the stigma for others in his position. Jay is the much-loved presenter of The Repair Shop on BBC One, which won a BAFTA for Best Daytime Programme in 2023. He released a memoir in 2022, Making It: How Love, Kindness and Community Helped...

Nick and Angela kick off season 5 with the inimitable Claudia Winkleman Claudia Winkleman studied Art History at Cambridge but soon decided a career in Art was simply too quiet for her. She left the gallery and wandered into television, appearing on shows like Holiday on the BBC, This Morning on ITV and Liquid News on BBC three in the nineties. Her big break came in 2004, when she began presenting Strictly Come Dancing: It Takes Two. Ten years later she stepped on to the dancefloor proper...

Nick and Angela welcome their final guest of season 4 to Dish HQ. Amol Rajan was born in Kolkata and raised in south London. As a boy he dreamt of becoming a cricketer and would watch tapes of Shane Warne on repeat. He studied English at the University of Cambridge before beginning a career in journalism, becoming one of the youngest ever UK editors of a national newspaper, the Independent, in 2013. Amol spent six years as the BBC’s media editor before taking over the reins on two of their...

Nick and Angela welcome an OG Derry girl to Dish HQ. Saoirse-Monica Jackson grew up in Northern Ireland and studied acting at the Arden School of Theatre in Manchester. She is best known and loved for her portrayal of Erin Quinn in the Emmy award-winning series Derry Girls. Over three seasons the 90s-set comedy became the most popular show on Channel 4 and is now a hit with a global audience on Netflix. It wasn’t long before Hollywood came knocking and Saoirse-Monica won a role in the DC...

Nick and Angela welcome an author and charity co-founder to Dish HQ. Dawn O’Porter was born in Scotland but grew up in Guernsey with her aunt and uncle. She spent three years at the Liverpool School for Performing Arts but decided that acting wasn’t for her and got into TV instead. Dawn made her name making documentaries, which explored topics like dieting, dating, pregnancy and polyamory. She moved to LA and met her husband, actor Chris O’Dowd. In 2013, Dawn published her first novel...