Word In Your Ear

John Lydon on the genius of Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and the fine art of Spoken Word

John Lydon is among us in 2025 - with Public Image in May and on his Spoken Word tour in September. Entertainment is guaranteed, as it is in this podcast with Mark where he considers … Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and the “sadness in all comedians”, stage fright, the day his dad threw him out of the house, why PiL is like opera, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, the “crippled emotions” of youth, why people open their hearts to him, the ghost of Johnny Rotten in Gladiator 11, the lost world of conversation in pubs, and missing his wife, best friend Rambo and Sid Vicious.   Order tickets for his spoken word tour here:<a href="https://www.johnlydon.com/tour-dates/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.johnlydon.com/tour-dates/</a> PiL tickets here:<a href="https://www.ticketmaster.com/public-image-limited-tickets/artist/241" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ticketmaster.com/public-image-limited-tickets/artist/241</a> Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear</a> <a href="https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/4234399" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get bonus content on Patreon</a> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1. Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.  Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit <a href="http://www.wiyelondon.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">wiyelondon.com</a>. <a href="https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/4234399" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get bonus content on Patreon</a> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color:grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.