Shows
CreageivityCreageivity 29 - with the Number 29Our special guest in this episode is the PRIME NUMBER 29 which gives us the chance to mention the 29 other guests we've had on our previous podcasts. And what guests! OK, on this occasion we probably overuse 'amazing' and 'incredible', but then these descriptions are actually justified.Plus 29 the number is also pretty amazing and incredible: tune in for some very interesting 29-related facts and figures which you can astonish friends and family with.Add to this the fact that the intro and outro songs are created with the help (well about 92% of h...2025-07-0142 min
CreageivityCreageivity 28 - with Musician and Educator Mike PailthorpeOne of the secrets to MIKE PAILTHORPE’s survival and success in music, education and - at one time, publishing – is simple: ‘Just talk to people.’Mike grew up in Hounslow, and at school, started punk band The Milk (our first podcast track) which went on to play numerous Rock Against Racism gigs, with the encouragement of established bands Misty in Roots and The Ruts. Mike then, ‘Retired from punk’ to study English at Queen Mary College London, and from there found himself in Worthing, on the South Coast of England. W...2025-06-0142 min
CreageivityCreageivity 27 - with Author, Academic and Activist Gaby WeinerGABY WEINER has held various professorial and honorary research positions in universities in the UK and Sweden. Publications include Just a Bunch of Girls (1985); Feminisms in Education (1994); Closing the Gender Gap; Kids in Cyberspace, Reconstructing and Deconstructing Lives; Tales of Loving and Leaving (2016); Harriet Martineau and the Birth of the Disciplines; and Reintroducing Harriet Martineau: Pioneering Sociologist and Activist. In recent years she has also been an active contributor to the Lewes Holocaust Memorial Day Group and Martineau Society.In this episode of Creageivity, Gaby talks particularly about her own family...2025-05-0140 min
CreageivityCreageivity 26 - with Author and Activist Ashton ApplewhiteAshton Applewhite is the author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism and a co-founder of the Old School Hub. She has written for Harper’s, the Guardian, and the New York Times; speaks widely at venues that have included the United Nations and the TED mainstage; and is at the forefront of the emerging movement to raise awareness of ageism and make age a criterion for diversity. In 2022 the United Nations named Ashton one of the Healthy Aging 50: fifty leaders transforming the world to be a better place to grow older.In a wi...2025-04-0149 min
CreageivityCreageivity 25 - with Designer Peter BossonArchitect and Designer, Londoner PETER BOSSON attended Hornsea Art School before going on to the Royal College of Art and gaining a degree in architecture. Working as a consultant for Olivetti (then the largest computer manufacturer in the world), Peter studied the lack of ergonomic thinking in computer and office design and saw the need to “Connect the disconnect between furniture and IT.” The research conducted with Olivetti engineers lead to significant changes in how we now all work with computers. By 1990, Peter and two colleagues had founded the Colebrook Bosson Saunders design agency...2025-03-0144 min
CreageivityCreageivity 24 - with Husband, Writer, Film Director and Bridge Teacher Brian ReynoldsBrian Reynolds: A Storyteller Who Plays to Win Brian Reynolds is an LA-based writer, director, and choreographer of movement—whether it’s the perfectly timed punch in a stage fight or the subtle, loaded pause between two characters on screen. With a background spanning theater, film, stage combat and storytelling, Brian has a knack for crafting narratives that balance sharp wit with emotional depth. His work moves fast, crackles with wit, and keeps audiences on their toes—whether they’re watching a film, a play, or a cleverly executed finesse at the bridge table.2025-02-0146 min
CreageivityCreageivity 23 - with Guitarist Eli DoksonMusician ELI DOKSON converted from high school trumpeter to electric guitarist after seeing the Beatles perform live: “Everyone else was standing there screaming, and I was just standing there staring,” he recalls. And so began a lifelong passion for playing guitar, which Eli still continues at the age of 75, gigging regularly in the area around his home of Crestone in the high desert of Colorado, USA. In Creageivity 23 Eli gives Adrienne a lesson in the basics of chord structures, and why anyone can play the blues if they know their I, IV, and V. He also...2025-01-0142 min
CreageivityCreageivity 22 - with Author and Activist Monica ClarkeOur guest for Creageivity 22 is MONICA CLARKE – also known as Ouma Monica, meaning Grandmother – who was born and raised in South Africa during the brutal and repressive Apartheid regime which separated people according to their skin colour. By the 1980s Monica was an activist for the African National Congress, smuggling revolutionary literature and funds into the country – which led to her life being threatened, and escape to Britain, where she was given political asylum. Monica has worked as a nurse, midwife and lawyer, based in London. She is also an accomplished writer and storyte...2024-12-0142 min
CreageivityCreageivity 21 - with Filmmaker Mary DickinsonFilmmaker MARY DICKINSON has an astonishingly long filmography working as a Producer and Director, mainly for the BBC’s flagship Arts programme, ARENA. During her seven years of art school, culminating in an MA from the Royal College of Art, Mary rapidly abandoned her teenage dreams of becoming a painter. Instead she experimented with decaying food as sculptural statements, performance art, and developed an interest in human mortality and the rituals of death. As Mary tells us in CREAGEIVITY 21, she realised that these preoccupations would not necessarily provide a ste...2024-11-0144 min
CreageivityCreageivity 20 - with Glass Artist Norma GeddesBorn in Canada during the Second World War, Norma Geddes has for many years been resident in Virginia, on the Eastern seaboard of America. She forged a career in healthcare and garnered a fistful of degrees along the way, while always being interested in creative expression. In our lively and entertaining meeting with Norma, she tells how one of her early forays into spinning yarns had to cease due to a lanolin allergy, however in time she found her calling: stained glass. She discovered stained glass art when renovating her kitchen and needed t...2024-10-0140 min
CreageivityCreageivity 19 - with Actor / Writer / Artist Martin CrockerSouth-east Londoner MARTIN CROCKER fronted school plays and was drawn to performing, while at the same time going on to become a sportsman and enthusiast for the outdoors, including mountaineering. In CREAGEIVITY 19, Martin describes how and why he was attracted to success in different areas, especially as an actor on stage, television, and as an in-demand voice-over artist. At the same time he admits to the ‘yin-yang’ of a fascination with corporate life – one which was to lead him, at a relatively late age, to starting a whole new life in France as a Director of Com...2024-09-0140 min
CreageivityCreageivity 18 - with Composer and Conductor Lucas RichmanAs Adrienne points out in Creageivity 18, listing the many and varied accomplishments of composer, musician, GRAMMY award winning conductor and writer LUCAS RICHMAN is quite the task. Coming from a family of performers, including his actor father and mother, Peter Mark Richman and Helen Richman, Lucas knew from early on that he would be a musician, and as we hear in this episode, at 17 he was commissioned to write the score for A Streetcar Named Desire. Lucas gives fascinating insights into what a composer does and reflects on the inspiration and m...2024-07-0155 min
CreageivityCreageivity 17 - with Actor / Producer / Activisit / Educator - Latifah TaorminaA graduate of the Second City improvising group in Chicago, Latifah Taormina went on to co-found, produce, direct and perform with The Committee, San Francisco’s famed improvisational theatre of the late 60s. Under her stage name of Jessica Myerson, her Hollywood career included parts in The Graduate, Mrs Doubtfire, and Steelyard Blues, and she was a familiar face on American TV with appearances on many popular evening shows.As well as her performing history, Latifah is highly experienced as an arts administrator, painter, educator and mentor. She also in...2024-06-0146 min
CreageivityCreageivity 16 - with Us! (Adders & Harl)Our planned guest for this episode was unable to join us, so we made the creative decision to fall back on our own resources, with Adrienne Thomas the special guest of Harlan Cockburn and vice versa. Back in the 1970s we met at Maidstone Art College in Kent, southern England, and the journeys there were similar... but different: Adrienne battled for her place, and Harlan arrived by accident. Hear about 'Honouring your mistakes as hidden intentions', the magic of Captain Beefheart, and the bloke that wrote Ulysses... Y'know whassisname...We hope...2024-05-0149 min
CreageivityCreageivity 15 - with Singer / Songwriter / Performer Graham McGregor-SmithGraham McGregor-Smith took a long detour as a Chartered Accountant, and then stay-at-home Dad before eventually launching himself into music. Having started with a love of AC/DC, he became influenced by the Great American Songbook, with artists such as Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. However it was many years before he was able to progress things, when a chance meeting in a park led to him start realising that he can write highly melodic, lyrically-charged songs, and - as he says in the podcast - 'show off' by performing them live. Also performing live...2024-04-0141 min
CreageivityCreageivity 14 - with Author Christine Cohen ParkCHRISTINE COHEN PARK is a novelist, freelance writer, facilitator of shared reading groups, and a former tutor on the University of Sussex M.A. in Writing & Personal Development,She’s written three published novels, Joining the Grown–ups, The Househusband, and A Key To Lock Out Cougars. She has also co-edited a prize-winning collection of short stories Close Company. As Christine joins us on Creageivity she has just completed her latest novel Bye Bye Apartheid Road set in Israel and Palestine, and this f...2024-03-011h 02
CreageivityCreageivity 13 - with Movie Set Designer and Jeweller Mark RimmellTo describe MARK RIMMELL as a movie set designer, or as a jeweller, is to barely scratch the surface of an extraordinarily rich and varied life. Mark starts us off with his birth in the slums of London's East End in 1933, followed by incredibly difficult years. Gradually he overcame many obstacles and his creativity began to flower as a singer, and through an appreciation of fabrics. As a young man, moving back to London from Northamptonshire, Mark ran an antiques shop and started rubbing shoulders with the likes of Paul McCartney, Derek Jarman...2024-02-0141 min
CreageivityCreageivity 12 - with Everyone! A Treasure Chest compilation of 11 episodesWow! Eleven episodes of Creageivity, so we thought we would open the treasure chest for a bumper bundle compilation of clips from throughout 2023. Featured guests are: Lisa Armytage, Claire Waller & Arthur Brown, Tim Fraser, Gregory Gudgeon, John May, Honora & Dahlan Foah, Jonathan Weightman, Mich Maroney, Steve McDade, Hermione Elliott, and Emil Thompson - All full of inspiration, fascination and creativity!Music clips include If You Don't Love Me by Louise Setara, Fables of Faubus from Mingus in Newcastle, Long Long Road by Arthur Brown, I...2023-12-311h 25
CreageivityCreageivity 11Bonus - King LearOur guest on Creageivity 11, Jonathan Weightman, performs as King Lear - a 2023 film role he starred in. Listen to this wonderful bonus minute of Jonathan in full flight!If you feel you're too old to be creative, or too creative to be old, then Creageivity is the podcast for you!2023-12-1500 min
CreageivityCreageivity 11 - with Director, writer and actor Jonathan WeightmanJonathan Weightman has had a storied career as an actor, writer and director, beginning with almost exclusively female roles including Lady Macbeth and St Joan while at school, coming right up to 2023 when he starred as King Lear in a movie, shot underground! With an English father and Brazilian / Uruguayan mother, Jonathan describes how he always felt something of an outsider. However while he was at university in Manchester, Jonathan's mother moved to Portugal, and on his visits there he began to love and appreciate the country. Meanwhile he was involved in theatre and...2023-12-0146 min
CreageivityCreageivity 10 - with writer, artist and magazinist Mich MaroneyVisual artist, writer, magazine publisher, and classical music enthusiast, Mich Maroney is an inspiring creative who relocated from the metropolis of London to the rural peace of Ireland. It's here that she has realised a long-held ambition to start a magazine blending the written word with distinctive visual art. SWERVE Magazine is available in print and on the web, featuring stunning images and writing, from a wide variety of contributors. These include international artists, as well as members of the local community.Mich is the designer and maker of SWERVE...2023-10-3142 min
CreageivityCreageivity 09 - with Musician and Stonecarver Emil ThompsonBased in the countryside near Dundee, Scotland, 'Old Man Thompson' - Emil Max Thompson - is a talented musician, songwriter, stonecarver... and so much more. In this fascinating podcast he traces some of his family roots, including a cross-dressing great grandfather who was a risque star of Music Hall. We also learn what ekphrastic means, and how this is linked to the Glasgow city coat of arms and Saint Mungo. Then there's a diversion into piano tuning and how every instrument has its individual character, and why Dundee played a formative part in the wr...2023-10-0154 min
CreageivityCreageivity 08 - with End of Life expert Hermione ElliottIn her late 50s, as she was contemplating retirement from a career as a nurse, midwife and counsellor, Dr Hermione Elliott instead embarked on a huge journey of what she describes as ‘Unfoldment’. She saw the need for end of life care which was analogous to the Doulas who assist with birth, and has since worked tirelessly to found and lead the organisation Living Well Dying Well. Hermione is passionate about care of the whole person – physical, emotional and spiritual – and about upholding dignity and self-determination at every stage of life. In our p...2023-09-0151 min
CreageivityCreageivity 07 - with Artist Steve McDadeA drummer who arts, or an artist who drums? Steve McDade's academic career culminated as Head of Fine Art at the University of Chichester, and he has been a constant painter and exhibitor over the years: his most recent work being shown in 2023, with a back catalogue spanning very many art shows. As a musician he was inspired by Tony Williams at an early age (banging out rhythms on Tupperware, as we learn in this podcast). He has played in a wide variety of jazz-oriented combos, from the free-form Displacement trio, the guita...2023-08-0146 min
CreageivityCreageivity 06 - with Multimedia-ists Honora & Dahlan FoahHonora and Dahlan Foah are multi-disciplinary artists and producers, living in Atlanta USA, and working across a dazzling variety of media. Together they are creating a sequence of seven Frequency Operas, with the first of these unique events being staged in a Budapest church, and the latest taking place in the Vatican. Honora originally trained as a dancer, while Dahlan was a photographer and early audio-visual pioneer. They joined forces, forming Visioneering, a production company making large scale events and experiences around the world. In this podcast Honora talks m...2023-07-0153 min
CreageivityCreageivity 05 - with Generalist John MayWhat hasn't John May been involved in? He describes himself as a Generalist, and his first activities were in the early UK Arts Lab network. There followed eight years with the New Musical Express (at the time the most influential music weekly in Britain), writing as Dick Tracy.He has met and interviewed - among many others - Allen Ginsberg, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, William Burroughs, Al Gore, and our favourite muso, Captain Beefheart.He is authour of numerous books, including four for Greenpeace, and is active in green and climate c...2023-06-0154 min
CreageivityCreageivity 04Bonus - actor Gregory Gudgeon performs ShakespeareIn Creageivity 04 Gregory Gudgeon talks about performing Shakespeare's King Richard II, with puppets. Richard is alone in his prison cell, and begins to use objects there to take the place of people in his life as he compares how far he has fallen: ' Sometimes am I king; Then treasons make me wish myself a beggar, And so I am.' He hears distant music, and is irritated, and also soothed by it, 'In this all-hating world.'We're delighted that Gregory offered to perform Richard's soliloquy especially for Creageavity listeners, so 2023-05-1503 min
CreageivityCreageivity 04 - with actor Gregory Gudgeon, and songs from Mark FlettActing seems to have been in the blood for Gregory Gudgeon from an early age, with family connections to the stage, and a childhood role in a local pantomime which captured his imagination. Later, movement training came at the Jaques Lecoq school in Paris, with productions in French, and the mentorship of the Czech actor and director, Hannah Kodicek. Gregory has appeared with the international touring theatre company Complicité, is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has performed his one-man show of Richard II (along with a ho...2023-04-3057 min
CreageivityCreageivity 03 - with songwriter Tim FraserPlatinum and Gold record songwriter Tim Fraser got traction relatively late in his career, but hasn't looked back since, with multiple successes for major artists around the world. In this podcast he relates the story of how Tina Turner came to record one of his songs, and mentions a few other performers along the way. There's also the opportunity to hear four of Tim's recent compositions. With music spanning Rap, Pop, Rock and Show Tunes, Tim is a prolific and gifted songwriter, who nevertheless has a very practical approach to his work. His songs have...2023-03-2844 min
CreageivityCreageivity 02 - with Claire Waller and Arthur BrownArthur Brown's debut album The Crazy World of Arthur Brown was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic... in 1968. Since then The God of Hellfire has never stopped making music and collaborating with a wide range of amazing musicians. (In this podcast he recalls gigs with Frank Zappa, and hanging out with Jimi Hendrix in his LA apartment). A true legend, Arthur met Claire Waller when she was running her much-loved Buttercup Café in Lewes, East Sussex, and the two slowly formed a partnership to bring Arthur's music and performance t...2023-03-2650 min
CreageivityCreageivity 01 - with actor Lisa ArmytagePodcast 01 features special guest, actor LISA ARMYTAGE, who fell into acting – literally – aged 6, when she entered the school stage headfirst as The Angel Gabriel through the wrong entrance - where the curtains were tied together at the bottom. Recovering from this mortifying beginning has been a lifelong quest. You may remember Lisa as a 30-something actor in the main cast of ‘Neighbours’ as Dr Beverly Marshall, mark 1. Leaving the show to spend more time with a young family, Lisa has nevertheless continued to work on stage, television, and film in a variety of dramatic a...2023-03-2637 min