Australian jock and NOT Nepo-brother Steen Raskopolous pops by Early Work HQ to expose himself once again to the cruel world of sketch pitching, a la SNL style read-throughs. Timberlake, Kutcher, Goliath - the big three - all get their flowers, before Steen performs a Tupac/Biggie (couldn't say which) inspired rap. Rhys also reads a flimsy comedy sketch idea written in his teenage years and everyone goes home horny. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sophie Duker brings a teenage blend of filth to Early Work with, you guessed it, erotic Harry Potter fan fiction. What else would you expect from the life-online generation, experiencing fame first through internet comments describing you as a literary messiah. Rhys responds in kind with a disturbing semi-sexual rap about technology written when he was, erm, 18. ADULT CONTENT WARNING TBF!!!! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Music royalty Tom Odell heads into Early Work Mansions (sheds) to share some bona fide insight into the creative process, how your childhood affects your job and crucially, some ACTUAL SONGS. We are treated not just to the song lyrics of a future Ivor Novello and BRIT award winner's youth, but the melodies, as he plays his piano for us live on air. Impossible to match up to this greatness, Rhys panics and reads something from when he was 21, and already a working comedian. Hosted on Acast....

Lyrical Hull superstar Lucy Beaumont enters Early Work towers to share WILTY level anecdotes about short taxi drivers, school roof campouts and being picked up by a 'crow'. We dip a toe into collaborative poetry in response to being grounded, going solo and secret house parties, entirely for her mate Claire. Topped off with 'The Boy With Crystal Eyes', to this day one of the most beautiful poems ever written. In Lucy's words, it's all 'nationally normal behaviour'. Hosted on Acast. See...

For the first episode of the 'Lost Episodes', recorded in 2021 for a series that never came to be, Mock the Week, Outnumbered, The Now Show and general British comedy legend Hugh Dennis joins Rhys to share his childhood writings: military precision diary entries, ballads and odes for his classmates and the biggest cliffhanger in the history of the murder mystery genre. Surprisingly Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Early Work returns with 5 episodes recorded during the pandemic for a series that never was. Hugh Dennis, Sophie Duker, Tom Odell, Lucy Beaumont, Steen Raskopolous. All coming soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Christmas is a magical time of year, which is why our Christmas episode is with certified childhood member of the Bradford magic circle, Nick Mohammed, here to talk us through some of the tricks of his youth. These include starting every word with R, dazzling at 50th birthday parties and a choice gag about a cheese grater. We also hear the outline and one song from a previously hilariously titled musical and a recipe that came with its own sound effect instructions. Plus Rhys reads a poem...

When Solange wrote A Seat At The Table, Catherine Bohart related to it, because she was picturing the grown-ups table. Precocious x 1 billion, bard-chat and petition based revenge is how Catherine spent her youth when she wasn’t busy dominating debate club. It’s all very impressive, but the early work is baffling, cryptic madness, frankly. A lot better than Rhys’s though which elicits screams of incredulity from Bohart.

Katy Wix had a very weird red nose day one year as a child and this is your chance to hear about it. Honestly, it's wild. She didn't just swing by the EW Zoom for that though, she also brought poems in a plethora of styles, from the jaunty to the dark to the sexually naive. Plus some choice criticism for Rhys's poetry which it's hard to believe hasn't already been said, and complete ambivalence at Rhys's unfathomable accuracy in his guess of what she was like at school. Follow Early Work on...

Fizzing creative genius Sara Pascoe proves it was sort of always like this, as she pops into Early Work mansions to discuss a childhood of Doing Things™, like setting up a bullying line and making everyone sing in assembly or remixing Oliver Twist with her sister. Work-wise we get into some very surprising parody songs, a hard-drive of dread-inducing poetry with some dramatic endings and quintuple word meanings, before closing out with a rewrite of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme tune to be...

Hi Early Work fans! Radio X are releasing Season 2 of a podcast we think you’ll enjoy. That’s A First! is hosted by comedians Maisie Adam and Tom Lucy and in each episode they’re joined by a guest who reveals some interesting firsts from their life… and then gets ripped to shreds. In series 1 we heard about the first time Romesh Ranganathan soiled himself just before he was due to go in stage and series 2 promises to be just as revealing with guests such as Joel Dommett, Kiri Pritchard...

Riskiest comic in the biz Jordan Brookes swings by to chat being an obnoxious prankster at school, embracing his stagecoach family roots, and tales passed down from generation to generation to find their way onto this podcast. Spooky ghost stories (and boy are they spooky), some poems (and boy are there some fo them) and a funny joke (ok). Plus there's a wooden head in his grandad's house and you won't understand much more about that from listening. Lots to unpack, plus an extremely deep poem...

The only person evert to cast Rhys off the back of an audition, David Baddiel zooms into Early Work with the hefty anecdote collection you’d expect. School revues that turn you cool and inspire the writing process for one of the most famous songs in British history, plagiarising famous poets and getting away with it, misinterpreting flirtatious guitar lessons for an actual interest in learning the guitar. All the hallmarks of a teenager who had practically no choice but to turn to comedy. Not...

Some players dedicate their entire careers to just one club. John Terry, Ledley King, Paolo Maldini. But some Playaz (see 'Don't Hate The Playaz' [ITV2]) spread themselves across 8, 9, even 10 clubs - that goes with the Playa territory. This playa, Amelia Dimoldenberg, was in every club you can imagine existing, and if you can't imagine it existing, she founded it. With precious sights set on being Vogue editor, Amelia dedicated her youth to making Vogue necklaces, reviewing Vogue articles...

What could a self-proclaimed uncreative boarding school attendee like Ivo Graham have to offer the Early Work archive? Well, very on brand tales of finally putting himself out there creatively and getting roundly humiliated, of course. Ivo reads some short stories about monsters killing his friends, a book that's dangerously thrilling, a storm which turns out to be largely about Gary Neville, and a very innocent, 9 year old's view of what adults get up to in pubs - and how they get home....

Performance levels go up a notch as accidental graduate of RADA and soon to be Hollywood superstar, O.T. Fagbenle, Skypes into Early Work from, you guessed it, Tanzania. From Frank Sinatra style songs for his girlfriend to a one-man-show based on a real exchange with a homeless lady and a barbershop in San Francisco (with professionally trained accents obv), all the way to a teenage poem called Larry’s Fall. Plus, maybe Rhys’s worst poem yet - and the scoring isn’t sugarcoated just because...

Early Work is back for a new series, and the work is even EARLIER than before. We kick off with our first American guest, the inimitable comedian and poet Catherine Cohen, who kindly Skyped into the podcast from a porn set at 9am. One of the most equipped Early Work guests of all time as she brings a hench 60 page word document full of angsty teenage poetry, which is not so much 'up Rhys's street' as 'living in Rhys's loft'. There’s also a song written in the bath she was convinced would be...

Hello podcast listener, Early Work Series 2 is coming Monday 19th October. If you haven't already subscribed then do so now so you don't miss out on forthcoming episodes with the likes of Catherine Cohen, OT Fagbenle, Ivo Graham and more. Whilst you're here make sure to follow Rhys on Instagram and Twitter - @rhysjamesy

The final episode of series one! Emily Dean brings letters from a spaceman to his 'leave him on read' wife, a fake memoir with no chance of a sequel, tales of performing grudge plays, learning the hard facts too young and perhaps the best named character yet. Plus she has the confidence to guess what Rhys was like at school. Can she out guess the master guesser? Make sure to subscribe as we'll be back with more Early Work before you know it.

It’s transatlantic guest time! Amy Hoggart is live from New York to tell us all about her frankly ridiculous childhood. Pretending to win public speaking contests, dressing up as a big egg, demanding to play men, accidentally exposing herself, and for the second episode in a row, watching her own school burn down. That’s all before we get into the work: a novel about a young genius pianist who travels in style, a play trying to pull your own cousin and a poem about The Lord just to impress...

Project man Danny Wallace pops into the Early Work Zoom to discuss his childhood pranks showing off his knowledge of the legal system, his Gaelic poetry illustrations and finally some billboard-worthy deep and thought-provoking poems. All the hot topics covered: Race, where you come from. All of them. Not to mention the stark, brutalist poetry he wrote about his deceased, awkwardly named cat. Rhys then plucks up the courage to read professional columnist Danny Wallace his own student column...

An actual poet on Early Work for the first time! Charly Cox Skypes in for another lockdown special, becoming the second guest to bring fan fiction. This time it's about George Sampson, his sisters phone number, his home address, and then the fiction starts. Charly and Rhys open up about their shared need for internet friends and forum admin status as children, song lyric ghost writing for friends and still writing poems well into their 20s (although only one of them has ever been paid for...

Inventor of the fake cockney accent singer-songwriter genre Isy Suttie Zooms into Early Work with a smorgasbord of youthful angst, unrequited love and radio plays about hat shops. The first guest to play live songs on the show, one of which was only meant to be heard by Tim and Dan, so this really is an exclusive. Not to mention egotistical band names, lyrics Bob Dylan would be proud of and poetry so deep you could drown in it. Plus Rhys shares a poem really biting off the GCSE anthology and...

Glenn Moore! Once newsreader and maybe someday if live events return, back to being a comedian. Glenn has always had great jokes comics have been jealous of, but just wait until Tarantino, James Cameron, Spielberg, Scorsese and, yeah, why not, Richard Curtis, hear his adolescent story telling. Extremely visual, extraordinarily cinematic (in that a lot of it is scenes from existing films) and wildly unpredictable. With such mind-blowing twists in every tale, Glenn was clearly a talent, it’s a...