Bigmouth
Clever talk about pop culture.
Bigmouth is pop culture talk for discerning grown-ups. Music, TV, movies, books or something else entirely – we’ll enthuse, argue, squabble and pick over the bones of what’s happening in the world of the stuff we love.
Presented by WORD magazine veterans Andrew Harrison (ex-editor of Q, Select and Mixmag) and Siân “Stan” Pattenden, a graduate of the Smash Hits and Select Mag Schools of Excellence.
26
Lana Del Rey, Falcon & Winter Soldier, The Flig...
Will disaster princess Lana Del Rey hold on to her title as the F Scott Fitzgerald of the blasé Instagram generation with Chemtrails Over The Country Club? After the phantasmagoria of WandaVision, will the newly Marvelized Disney+ audience take to the ...
59 min
27
Don Letts guests, Blitz club doc, Sananda Maitr...
Special guest and all-purpose film-directing dread about town Don Letts joins us to talk about his new book There And Black Again plus untold tales from 40 years spanning Bob Marley, The Clash and B.A.D. up to the present day. And film critic Linda Mar...
59 min
28
Poly Styrene documentary, WandaVision finale, A...
The great punk misfit Poly Styrene features in new documentary I Am A Cliché, showing this week on Sky Arts. Will it earn her her proper place at last? Laura Snapes of The Guardian and writer Travis Elborough join us to examine it plus the first album ...
65 min
29
I Care A Lot, The Anchoress, Zappa documentary
There’s a con woman coining it in the care homes of America: will Rosamund Pike crime caper I Care A Lot on Amazon Prime Video scare us straight? The ecstatic grown-up grief-pop of The Anchoress. Andrew finally succeeds in turning the panel on to a com...
67 min
30
Lupin, Class Action Park doc, Jane Weaver, SG L...
Fyre Festival/Lord Of The Flies vibes in Class Action Park, a frankly astonishing documentary about America’s most insanely hazardous amusement park now showing on Sky Documentaries. New albums from the Radiophonic Kate Bush of cosmic Cheshire Jane Wea...
65 min
31
Adam Curtis’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head, The...
Hot from the podcasting mill for the Patreon people… Is Adam Curtis’s latest think-about-it-yeah epic Can’t Get You Out Of My Head worth the eight hours you’ll need to navigate his “emotional history of the modern world”? New music from electr...
62 min
32
Hip Hop history, slowthai, Stewart Lee’s Nighti...
Does AMC’s ambitious Hip Hop: Songs That Shook America (all eps now on iPlayer) expand our knowledge of the boom-boom-bap? What happens when Stewart Lee makes a documentary about Robert Lloyd of The Nightingales, a man who makes Radiohead seem hungry f...
57 min
33
White Tiger, Call My Agent, Black Country New R...
Bass player to the gentry Guy Pratt of Pink Floyd, Bryan Ferry and My Bass And Other Animals fame and Harry Hill scriptwriter Dan Maier join us to delve into the pop culture bran tub. This week: Dirty deeds in Delhi in the stunning White Tiger on Netfl...
61 min
34
It’s A Sin, WandaVision, Scottish indie doc, St...
Everybody should be watching It’s A Sin, Russell T Davies’s riotous, heartbreaking and funny saga of AIDS in young London, and guests John “Kill Your Friends” Niven and Daryl “He’s the Disco Curator” Easlea will tell you why.Plus all the BMX Bandits, ...
74 min
35
Sleaford Mods’ Jason is our guest, Bowie biopic...
On the actual day that new album Spare Ribs comes out, Jason from Sleaford Mods joins Siân, Andrew and guest Iestyn “NME/GQ/Golf Punk” George for pop’s most penetrating panel. On the agenda: that weird-looking Bowie movie Stardust (is it as terrible as...
67 min
36
The Serpent, Viagra Boys, Soul on Disney+, 2021...
Is BBC1’s hippy-murderin’ heart of darkness horror show The Serpent what we need in a cold January? Why should you bone up on the new album from Viagra Boys? How did Disney/Pixar’s ‘Wonderful Life for kids’ Soul illuminate our Christmas? And a preview ...
60 min
37
Best of 2020 Part 2 feat. Baxter Dury, Childish...
An appalling year comes to a glittering crescendo as Alexis Petridis of The Guardian and Pete Paphides – rock’n’roll impresario at vinyl Mecca Needle Mythology and author of Broken Greek – join us to select their (and Siân’s!) “fave r...
70 min
38
Best of 2020 Part 1 feat. Mrs America, Paul Wel...
God, is it that time of year again? Repeat offender guests Jude Rogers of The Guardian and Eamonn Forde of The Final Days of EMI: Selling the Pig fame join Siân and Andrew to choose their favourite albums, tracks, TV things and hidden gems of this terr...
50 min
39
Shane MacGowan biopic, Avalanches, Mank on Netflix
In Julien Temple’s biopic Crock Of Gold, Shane MacGowan is a wheezing wreck of himself. Is the Pogues frontman a neglected poet, a cautionary tale, an Irish hero or all three and more?Plus The Avalanches take the cut-and-paste sampledelic collage to w...
60 min
40
Belushi on Sky, High Contrast, Mogul Mowgli
John Belushi: kamikaze genius, drug disaster, wounded soul or all three? An epic new biography on Sky Documentaries tries to explain. Plus guest Robin Turner on his memoir of Heavenly Records, grown-up jungle from High Contrast, and Riz Ahmed’s portrai...
62 min
41
Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, Megan Thee Stallion,...
What’s in Steve McQueen’s miniseries exploration of Black Britain, Small Axe? Can our panel of senior b-boys plus one b-girl relate to hip hop raunchstress Megan Thee Stallion? World War II animated drama The Liberator on Netflix – is war hell...
65 min
42
HATE! Comic, Cabaret Voltaire and Paranormal – ...
It’s a broad appeal edition this week as we look back at Peter Bagge’s HATE!, the infamously gross and hilarious ’90s comic book that stands as Generation X’s Great American Novel. How does it come across now in luxury box set form? Plus Cabaret Voltai...
56 min
43
ICONS Music photography doc with Gered Mankowit...
Sky Arts’ epic series Icons: Music Through The Lens tells the history of rock photography on album sleeves, mag covers, publicity shots and beyond. Legendary photographer Gered Mankowitz – yes, he took that Hendrix shot!! – and director Dick C...
64 min
44
The Queen’s Gambit, Kylie’s disco, Sophia Coppo...
PAWN COCKTAIL: Is brilliant Netflix chess psychodrama The Queen’s Gambit the true apotheosis of the Bunty comic cruel orphanage story – or is it really a superhero tale? STUDIO 5’4”: Kylie Minogue returns to her (and our) happy place with new album Di...
62 min
45
Trial Of The Chicago 7, Gorillaz, saving Pepe t...
Is Aaron Sorkin’s Trial Of The Chicago Seven a timely look at the corrupt roots of cop/state bad vibes or just more burnishing of the hippy myth? Gorillaz: the only valid model for 21st Century pop or a big ol’ ego trip for Damon Albarn? And a startlin...
62 min
46
Simon Halfon’s album covers, John Cooper Clarke...
Sleeve designer to Weller, Oasis, George Michael and Madness Simon Halfon tells us about a life in pop art and the untold tales and unseen art in his new book Cover To Cover. Film critic Linda Marric brings us more gems from the London International Fi...
60 min
47
Ivor Cutler, Autechre, Kajillionaire at London ...
Under the electron microscope of pop culture this week: Outsider artist Ivor Cutler in a SKY documentary/love letter from KT Tunstall. Have Autechre, creators of bass-driven Barbican Centres of brutalist electronics, made their “accessible album” with ...
65 min
48
New Romantic with Dylan Jones, White Riot, Idle...
Who will win this week’s pop culture smackdown? The troubled peacocks of our guest Dylan Jones’s new epic work Sweet Dreams: The Story Of The New Romantics? Contemporary agit-punk shoutmongers Idles? Their spiritual forebears The Clash and other Rock A...
62 min
49
Brave New World, Working Men’s Club, Miss Junet...
Soma lovin’, had me a blast… Can NBC do justice to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, with Harry Lloyd and Jessica Brown Findlay free-lovin’ their way across futuristic New London? It starts on SKY next Friday. Can the debut album by Todmorden noiseniks ...
60 min
50
Public Enemy, David Tennant in Des, Róisín Murp...
Have Public Enemy really made a masterpiece with What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down, their first album for Def Jam in 22 years? A Pong From Under The Floorboards: David Tennant as Dennis Nilsen in Des. The discomatic return of ...
63 min