Afleveringen
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Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him two decades of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
This month, he's joined by Wrighty, Mark and Elmo; fellow members of the Soul Buggin' collective – a passionate group of DJs, promoters and music lovers dedicated to celebrating soul, funk, disco, jazz, house and broken beats.
Through their events and community-focused ethos, they’ve built a reputation for creating inclusive spaces where great music and good vibes take centre stage. They chat about their early beginnings, the Nottingham music scene and they even play a game of 'Soul Buggin' Room 101'.This interview was recorded in at Movers in May 2026.
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This episode we are joined by Nyrobi and Chaya of ALT BLK ERA, who talk about their whirlwind year of winning a MOBO, appearing on Jools Holland and touring Europe with Pendulum…
In 2022, sister duo and Notts natives Nyrobi and Chaya Becket-Messam emerged onto the local music scene as electronic-rock act ALT BLK ERA. They started recording music in 2020 when they were just thirteen and sixteen years old, creating an eclectic sound that ranges from nu-metal and rap to electronica and drum and bass.
Since then, they’ve gone from strength to strength, from winning a MOBO award and appearing on Jools Holland, to touring late last year with drum and bass band Pendulum.
It’s been a while since we’ve caught up with the duo. Ahead of their upcoming performances at Rescue Rooms and Rock City, they set aside time to walk us through their crazy journey to this point.
This interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor Sophie Gargett in April 2026.
Head over to the LeftLion Spotify channel to listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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Jim Baron is best known as one of the founders of Notts electronic music titans Crazy P. Their sound is a fusion of house, disco, and soul and between 1998 and 2024 they’ve released nine studio albums. Previously known as Crazy Penis, they are one of Nottingham’s most successful music exports. They’ve played at festivals all around the world including most years at Glastonbury in some form or other and they get around a million listens on Spotify each month.
Crazy P were formed from the Nottingham club scene of the mid 90s and their most recent album from 2024 Any Signs of Love received a lot of critical acclaim. However, lead vocalist Danielle Moore sadly passed away a few months after the release and it’s put the live band on hiatus for a while.
However, earlier this year Jim unveiled a new (old) project called White Elephant, which features his fellow Crazy P co-founder Chris Todd, alongside another old Nottingham uni mate Ben Smith (of Smith & Mudd fame). He tell us more about that and plenty more in this podcast.
This interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson in January 2026.Head over to the LeftLion Spotify channel to listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts.
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Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him two decades of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
This month’s guest is Parisa East from Acoustickle. She's a music artist and entrepreneur with many years of experience promoting live music events, supporting local talent, and providing quality cultural experiences in Nottingham.
In 2009 she launched Acoustickle: a live music platform to spotlight emerging artists, and encourage musicians to share their original compositions with respectful audiences. With decorated venues, and intimate, inspiring performance spaces, the immersive atmosphere captivates all that are present.
This interview was recorded in at Movers in March 2026. Find out more about Acoustickle Events and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
AcoustickleSoul Buggin' -
Born and raised in Clifton in a Notts County-supporting household, James Belshaw took a circular route to finally becoming Notts County’s goalkeeper. After dropping out of the Magpies youth system in 2005, at the age of 35 he finally signed for the club last January. This followed a journey via the USA, the English National Leagues, two play-off final wins for Harrogate (including one against Notts), and player of the season award at the Bristol Rovers…
His early memories of supporting Notts and playing in their youth teamsHeading out to the USA to play and study over thereHis return to England and a few years in the lower leaguesHow he met Kelle Roos playing together at Nuneaton back in 2013Signing for Harrogate and playing against Notts in the 2020 play-off finalFinally establishing himself in the Football League at the age of 30His hopes and dreams of what he can do achieve with Notts County FCWhat he might end up doing after football
In this interview he talks about:This interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief (and Notts County Supporter) Jared Wilson in March 2026.
Head over to the LeftLion Spotify channel to listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts.
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Dave Rowntree is one quarter of the British alternative rock group Blur. He’s the drummer. However, he’s also been a politician, a lawyer, an animator, a composer and quite a bit more.
Dave is appearing at Metronome in Nottingham this month doing a Q&A around a book he has released of early photos of Blur called ‘No-one you know’ all of which were shot in the very early days on his Olympus OM10 Camera.
Blur formed in 1988 and released their first album Leisure in 1991. In 1993 they played the Heineken Beer Festival on Wollaton Park. For those who weren’t around then, it was a bit like Splendour, completely free with no barriers or tickets. After this they made a couple of appearances at Rock City, most notably in 1997 in the same week that Beetlebum went to number one in the charts.
Aside from Blur, Dave has also been a radio DJ and in 2014 he was the regular Sunday night host on XFM. He’s been a podcaster and a series of ‘The Dave Rowntree Show’ went out in 2021 and can still be found on Spotify. He’s also stood as a Labour MP and was elected as a county councillor in Norwich in 2017.
Dave Rowntree is appearing at Metronome Nottingham on Friday 10 April in conversation with Dean Jackson from BBC Nottingham’s The Beat.
This interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson in March 2026. -
Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him two decades of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
This month’s guest is Oli Gibbons from Tumble Audio, Risque Rhodes and Build Beats. He started out promoting death metal events at the Old Angel as a teenager, but moved onto attending raves like Misst, Futureproof, Rubberdub, Basslaced and Detonate.Oli discusses playing in a Notts death metal band (Never Fail) and dancing for Gene Simmons, to putting on raves with Rubberdub and a Funktion One Sound System. He even wrote a dissertation at University on rave culture!
This interview was recorded in at Movers in February 2026. Find out more about Bohemian Events and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
Tumble Audio on Soundcloud Soul Buggin’ on Instagram -
Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him two decades of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
The guests for this episode are Adam and Rob Perkins, two brothers from Nottingham, who founded Bohemian Events and Boho Festival. Influenced by attending parties at Venus nightclub and The Garvey in the early 90s, the duo began organising pop-up parties at Riverbank bar together in the 00s and soon spread out doing other events across the city.
Boho Festival is planning for it’s third year on 24-26 July 2026 with a line-up including The Farm, Utah Saints, Dub Pistols, Levi Roots and a comeback gig from local legends Bent. Previous guests have included Martin Kemp, Jeremy Healy, Graeme Park and Fat Digester.This interview was recorded in at Movers in January 2026. Find out more about Bohemian Events and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
Bohemian EventsSoul Buggin’ on Instagram
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Night Creatures is a LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
The guest for this episode is Nate Coltrane from Mimm (aka Music Is My Motive). Mimm started out as a clothing shop 14 years ago and moved on to become a much-loved club night as well as a cultural hub and recording studio.
On top of organising lots of parties, Nate was also the founder of Nottingham Street Food Club which ran for several years in Victoria Centre and Sneinton Avenues and now uses the Trent Bridge Cricket Ground as it’s regular home. More recently Nate has also been working on a new project entitled Our Yard, which looks back at the history of soundsystem culture in the UK and beyond.This interview was recorded in at Movers in November 2025. Find out more about Mimm and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
Mimm websiteSoul Buggin’ on Instagram -
Night Creatures is a new LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city
The guest for this episode is Killer Jim from Out To Lunch who has hosted jazz dance sessions in Nottingham for over a quarter of a century.
The Out To Lunch nights first started as an offshoot of his shop Culture Vulture on Mansfield Road and later moved on to venues like Casa, Dogma, Snug, Palais, Pandoras Box, Moog, Spanky Van Dykes, The Rose and Crown and more.This interview was recorded in at Movers in September 2026. Find out more about Out To Lunch and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
Out To Lunch on FacebookSoul Buggin’Head over to the LeftLion Spotify channel to listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts.
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Night Creatures is a new LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city
The guests for this episode are Laurence Ritchie and Steve Littleman from Smokescreen Soundsystem. They’re one of the longest-running soundsystems in Nottingham and have been putting on parties in the city for over thirty years.
Originally formed in Sheffield, Smokescreen launched amid the backdrop of the acid house and free party movement of the eighties and nineties. They eventually made Nottingham their base and moved over their parties out of warehouses and into nightclubs.This interview was recorded in at Movers in August 2026. Find out more about Smokescreen and Soul Buggin’ on the links below:
Smokescreen on FacebookSoul Buggin’Head over to the LeftLion Spotify channel to listen and subscribe to all of our podcasts.
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Hetain Patel is an English visual artist specialising in performance, sculpture, video and photography. Born and brought up in Bolton, his work is influenced by identity, his family's Indian heritage and mainstream Western pop culture.
He first came to Nottingham in 2000 as a Fine Art student and spent more than a decade living and working here before spreading his wings; exhibiting in Norway, India, Belgium and more.
Notable works from him include 2014’s American Boy where he showcased a range of influences from mainstream American movies, swirling together snippets of Bruce Lee, Batman, Gladiator, American Psycho and much more into a piece reflecting on his own identity. Then for 2015’s The Jump he dressed as Spiderman and recreated a scene from his childhood home wearing a very special handmade suit.
Hetain is back in Nottingham with his latest work Mathroo Basha, performing at Lakeside Arts on Saturday 1 November as part of Nottdance festival 2025.
This interview took place over Zoom in September 2025. -
Bafta-winning documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis has a long career under his belt of making surreal films exploring how people think, feel, and act in the West.
He first began his career as a conventional documentary producer for the BBC throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s. However, the release of Pandora's Box in 1992 marked the introduction of Curtis's distinctive presentation that uses collage to explore aspects of sociology, psychology, philosophy and political history.
Since then he’s made dozens of films and series in this style, many of which can be found on BBC iPlayer, including Bitter Lake (2015), HyperNormalisation (2016) and Can't Get You Out of My Head (2021).
His latest Shifty: Living in Britain at the End of the Twentieth Century is a five-part series of hour-long episodes, which just happens to feature archive footage from Wollaton Hall, filmed back in the 80s by the BBC. With this in mind we jumped at the opportunity to pick his brain about filmmaking, politics and more.This interview took place over Zoom in September 2025.
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Night Creatures is a new LeftLion podcast, shining a light on the promoters of Nottingham. Your host and interviewer is Beane, co-founder of Nottingham’s beloved Soul Buggin’ night and he brings with him over twenty years of experience of putting on great parties in the city.
The guest for this first episode is Felix Coulton, the director and founder of Nottingham’s Swing Dash Radio and the new Hockley venue Movers. Felix originally moved to Nottingham from Sheffield to study here, but he found our local scene so compelling that he’s still here a decade later and helping to shape our local dance music scene. He also regularly DJs in venues across the city under the name of OK Flex.
Swing Dash Radio is a Nottingham-based community radio project that operates a self-service livestreaming and recording studio for DJs, MCs, and producers to create their own radio shows and music content.
Movers is a DIY day-night venue and coffee spot at the bottom of Hockley which opened in July. It’s a three-storey multi-purpose space that hosts everything from gigs and club nights to DJ live streams, workshops and panel talks.
This interview was recorded in July 2025 at Movers in Hockley Nottingham. -
James Graham grew up in Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Notts and has gone on to be one of the most prolific stage and screen writers in the country. In 2020 he was awarded an OBE for his service to drama and young people in British theatre.
To date he’s written thirty five plays including Quiz (about the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire coughing scandal), Ink (about the Murdoch Empire) and Dear England (about Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England football manager).
James also has a prolific career as a screenwriter and has written dramas like Brexit: The Uncivil War (starring Rory Kinnear and Benedict Cumberbatch) and Brian and Maggie (starring Steve Coogan). However, James’ biggest TV baby is the prime-time BBC One drama Sherwood for which he is the showrunner.
James has quite a lot going on at the moment. When we recorded this interview he was in a hotel room in New York. This was because Punch!, a play he wrote last year about a man from the Meadows, Jacob Dunne, who killed a man with one punch is heading to Broadway over there and premiering in September.
However in mid September James will be back in Notts as Dear England, is playing at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal as part of their 160th birthday celebrations.
This interview took place over Zoom in early August 2025.
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Upcoming BBC mini-series What It Feels Like For A Girl tells the story of Byron, a Queer teen who is desperate to escape the confines of Hucknall. Based on the novel of the same name by Hucknall-born journalist Paris Lees, the witty, gritty and heart-breaking show delves into what it was like growing up as a trans person in a small town during the early 2000s. To hear about the show, ahead of the premiere, we caught up with LaQuarn Lewis, who plays Fallen Diva, ‘the premier podium dancer-cum-hellraiser’ Lady Die…
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Originally from Lenton, Matt is a comedian, TV and radio presenter, writer, impressionist and more. He’s perhaps best known for his podcast The Political Party, where he interviews politicians including in the past the likes of Kier Starmer, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Nicola Sturgeon, William Hague, George Osborne and Angela Raynor.
Matt is a regular on radio stations like Radio 4, 6Music and Absolute Radio, usually either talking about politics or football.
He has also done lots of TV including fronting Unspun, a political comedy series that ran on Dave from 2016-2018. He was also a prominent member of the cast in the 2020 reboot of Spitting Image, which might help to explain the sample you heard at the start of this show. In early 2025 Matt was the winner of Celebrity Mastermind, answering questions on the specialist subject of 'Nottingham Forest Football Club from 1977 to 1993’.
A couple of years ago Matt was diagnosed with bone cancer and had a tumour removed from his spine. He now lives with a colostomy bag. As you’ll find out in this podcast he’s not shy of discussing that and he has a show coming up at Nottingham Playhouse in June where you can hear all about it in person…The interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson in April 2025.
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DJ Jonathan (aka Jonathan Woodliffe) is a veteran DJ who grew up in Burton Joyce in Notts.
He became well-known across Nottingham in the 1970s and 1980s as the first in-house DJ at Rock City. Believe it or not he even had a flat at Rock City in the early days and has some fun stories as a result. However, this interview focuses on his formative years at the place he first started DJing: The Palais.
This April The Palais celebrates 100 years as a night (and sometimes day) club. In an industry where nightclubs come and go, it’s an amazing achievement that The Palais (aka The Palais De Danse, Ritzy, Oceana and PRYZM) is going to be open to celebrate it’s centenary. At LeftLion we decided to celebrate with a big spread in our April print issue and a long-form chinwag with Jonathan about what the club was like in his days there in the mid-late 1970s.
The interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson in March 2025.
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George Akins is the Managing director of DHP Family, who run music venues and events both in Nottingham and around the UK.
In Nottingham DHP Family venues include Rock City, Rescue Rooms, Stealth, The Bodega and most recently they acquired The Palais. Across the UK they also run the Thekla in Bristol and Oslo and The Garage in London.
As well as the dozens of gigs they put on every week they are the company behind music festivals like Dot To Dot, Splendour and the upcoming Beat The Streets charity festival. To date Beat The Streets has raised around half a million pounds for Framework to help fight homelessness in Nottingham.
However, these are just the tip of the iceberg and in this interview we talk at length about some of the festivals and venues from the past, as well as George’s favourite personal gigs and much much more.
The interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson in October 2024.
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Chanel Cresswell is a BAFTA-winning actor who trained at Nottingham’s Television Workshop.
She got her first professional break as a fifteen year-old appearing in Shane Meadows’ 2006 film This Is England. She then went on to take a leading role in the three subsequent television series’ and in 2016 won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Kelly.
Following this Chanel went on to star in TV shows like Trollied, The Bay, Dracula, Des, Vardy vs Rooney and most recently she’s been working with Guy Ritchie on his Netflix series The Gentleman.
The interview was conducted by LeftLion Editor in Chief Jared Wilson and recorded in front of a live audience at Nottingham Central Library on Friday 6 December 2024. - Laat meer zien
