Telling Tales

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Radio 4 Extra celebrates the best in storytelling. Different voices and different genres.

BBC Radio 4 Extra celebrates the very best in storytelling, showcasing different voices, and different genres, from the BBC archives and beyond.

Telling Tales: Peter Curran

Peter Curran

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Telling Tales, Peter Curran

Freewheeling conversation, interviews and storytelling, from a Bunk Bed to Belfast.

Freewheeling conversation, interviews and storytelling, from a Bunk Bed to Belfast.  From 2019.

This week’s guest is a writer, broadcaster, failed drummer and former carpenter, who loves to make radio shows.

Peter’s first break in broadcasting was at GLR in the early 90s, answering the phones and making tea for Tommy Vance. He taught himself to edit on reel-to-reel tape, before landing his own daily show, and then leaving the BBC to make documentaries and audiobooks.

Since those early days, Peter calculates that he’s interviewed 10,000 people - across local, national and international radio. Latterly some of these interviews have been conducted in the unconventional setting of a bunk bed, thanks to his critically-acclaimed show with Patrick Marber. 

The format and furniture lends itself brilliantly to the kind of storytelling that emerges late at night, when you can relax and allow your mind to wander. We listen to an episode from the second series, which covers Voltaire, Spike Milligan, Antony Burgess and more. It is produced by Peter's own company Foghorn Productions.

Peter remembers encounters with the famous, including the last interview with Sir Kingsley Amis, and Cate Blanchett's low-key appearance on the pull-out mattress for Bunk Bed.

He also reflects upon the more personal storytelling in the live show Some Kind Of Man, which was recorded for Radio 4 by Giddy Goat Productions in 2017; and Collecting The Troubles At The Ulster Museum, Peter's 2018 documentary which looks at the creative response to conflict in his hometown of Belfast.

Producer: Ali Gardiner 

Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra and first broadcast in 2019.

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