Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan Lucas Hare, Kerry Shale

Actress Nathalie Armin (speaking at a digital distance) has been a Dylan fan since the age of six, when an unknown voice “showed her the colours in her mind” as she lay in the back seat of her father’s car. She graduated to playing Bob games on stage at the Royal Shakespeare Company (“we’d whisper Dylan song titles to each other. I always won”) and watching him perform at the Royal Albert Hall (“he was 72. I don’t know any 20 year-olds who have that much swagger”).

The Bootleg Series Volumes 1 -3 is given a serious going over (“what must it be like to be Bob Dylan’s drawer? Blind Willie McTell – it was almost too private to put on an album”), as is the instant classic Murder Most Foul (only just released at the time of this recording). If you crave freewheelin’ discussions of Moonshiner, Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues, House Carpenter, Catfish, Need A Woman and Foot of Pride, please zoom on down and join us.

Nathalie Armin is an Anglo-Iranian actress. She has appeared in many acclaimed stage shows including THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT at the National Theatre, LIMEHOUSE at the Donmar Warehouse and Robert Icke’s award-winning production of THE DOCTOR at the Almeida Theatre. Her film and television work includes FINAL SCORE, DENIAL, GROW YOUR OWN, Philip K. Dick’s ELECTRIC DREAMS, the award-wining THE LOST HONOUR OF CHRISTOPHER JEFFERIES, UNFORGOTTEN, MARCELLA and MAIGRET’S DEAD MAN. Nathalie can currently be seen as Yasmine in Channel 4’s hit comedy HOME.

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Recorded 30th March 2020
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Bestselling Shakespeare authority James Shapiro joined us on the Bob Phone from New York, just before the world locked down and the Shakespeare-laden Murder Most Foul unexpectedly dropped. “In a time like this,” he told us, “I find great comfort in the complete works of William Shakespeare and Bob Dylan”. He goes on to link them more closely: “we think of Shakespeare as a word guy - but he collaborated with the greatest musicians of his day. He understood that music is magic” and he happily agrees that “both of them were professional, creative thieves”. Join us for an important episode that celebrates, as James puts it, “the extraordinary simplicity and range” of our two favourite artists.

James Shapiro is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He’s the author of numerous books including 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, awarded the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book published in Britain; and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, awarded the James Tait Black Prize. His latest book, Shakespeare In A Divided America, was a Radio 4 Book of the Week, read by podcast co-presenter Kerry Shale. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the TLS, the Sunday Times, the Irish Times, the New Statesman and the Financial Times.

Website: jamesshapiro.net
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Recorded 19th March 2020
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Comedian Nish Kumar says: “Bob Dylan is the most enduring and important creative relationship of my life. If you can’t think of one Dylan song you like, then a part of your humanity may be missing”. When Bob and his band played the Hendrix arrangement of All Along The Watchtower at his first (and only) Dylan concert, it was “one of the greatest moments of my life”. In other words, he’s our sort of chap.
Cheerfully agreeing that “there’s no bore like a Dylan bore”, Nish gives us his takes on Tangled Up In Blue (“I don’t think he’s ever finished it”), The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll, Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream and I Shall Be Released. We get the inside story on using Bob as a role model when being booed (“bloody-minded obstinance in the face of people being dicks is very inspiring”) and for personal grooming inspiration (“my hair grows the way it grows because of the Blonde On Blonde album cover”).
Nish Kumar grew up in Croydon, South London. He has a degree in History and English from Durham University. His sold-out solo shows have won awards at the Edinburgh Fringe and toured nationally and internationally to huge acclaim. Nish’s TV appearances include a Netflix Special, The John Bishop Show, Have I Got News For You, Alan Davies As Yet Untitled, QI, Mock The Week, and Live At The Apollo. He has been the presenter of the topical comedy show Newsjack on Radio 4 Extra, hosts television’s very popular The Mash Report on BBC Two and chairs The News Quiz on BBC Radio 4.
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Recorded 24th February 2020
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Scottish playwright David Greig was first “cracked open” to Dylan when he heard Desire in a remote part of South Africa “under the influence of the most extraordinarily strong dope”. “That’s it”, he thought, “I’M GOING IN!” He has yet to come out.

David wrote his version of Euripides’ The Bacchae by playing the Hard Rain album over and over while drinking red wine and channelling “Dylan as Dionysius, Dylan as shaman”. Quotes that leap out of this most Scottish of episodes: “Bob Dylan couldn’t exist except for Edinburgh”, “I secretly love the glorious oddness of his bad rhymes” and his favourite bit of advice from Bob: “an artist should always be in the state of becoming” (from Scorsese’s No Direction Home). Other names lightly dropped include Kris Kristofferson, Robert Burns and David’s recent collaborator Mark Knopfler. Join us for a special episode that’s as warming as a wee dram.

David Greig is Artistic Director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. His many plays and adaptations, staged in Scotland, London and around the world, include: Europe, Tintin In Tibet, Caligula, The American Pilot, The Bacchae, Midsummer, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Lanark, The Lorax, Touching The Void and this summer’s Old Vic production of Local Hero.

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Recorded 6th February 2020
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Writer Neil Gaiman fell in love with A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall via Bryan Ferry’s cover version. It ended up influencing the imagery of his novel American Gods (as well as the Amazon TV series). The song also provided a few gloomy pronouncements (“we’re in an apocalyptic state of mind: the doomsday clock is ticking”) in our otherwise jolly discussion. Colourful Bob theories are espoused: “if I were going to go cold turkey, I would have taken three months off to live with the local pharmacist” and sad information about that chaise longue is dispensed: “it has become somewhat damaged by cats over the years”. The location of the iconic piece of furniture is also discussed: “a weird and lovely faux-Dutch farmhouse… haunted by the ghost of the still-living Bob Dylan”. Tune in for Neil’s insights about Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Joan Baez, Andy Warhol, Lord Buckley, Penn & Teller and Gilbert and Sullivan.
Neil Gaiman is a British writer. His first book was a paperback biography of Duran Duran. Since then, his works have included the cult DC Comics series The Sandman, which won him nine Will Eisner Awards (including the award for best writer four times). His six-part TV series for the BBC, Neverwhere, was broadcast in 1996. Stardust, an illustrated prose novel in four parts, began to appear in 1997. American Gods was published in 2001 and won all the awards going. He co-wrote Good Omens with Terry Pratchett (now a hit TV series). Coraline, his first novel for children, was another international bestseller. And the hits kept coming: Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (adapted into a hit play at the National Theatre). Neil has appeared as himself on The Simpsons.
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Recorded 13th December 2019
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Rock journalist Barney Hoskyns comes on board for a special episode that focuses on The Band, with Dylan as their “weird” sideman. Tears Of Rage is compared to Philip Roth’s novel American Pastoral. Barney suspects it might just be “an anti-hippie song”. His “deeply emotional” attachment to the town of Woodstock is explored in depth: “overwhelmed by the mythology of the place”, he raised his kids there and explored its musical history in his book Small Town Talk (title taken from the song by Bobby Charles).
After writing the acclaimed Band book Across The Great Divide, he reports on the feedback he received from Robbie Robertson: “Oh Barney, Barney, Barney, Barney…” while he praises the remarkable Woodstock-based novella Music From Big Pink by John Niven. He remembers an awful interview with Prince: “he sat like a sadistic cat, waiting to maul me” and connects the Minnesotan “Imp of the Perverse” with Bob. Is Barney ultimately a Dylan man? While admiring the early work, he’s also put off by its “sadism and cruelty”.
“Barney Hoskyns is the finest British rock writer of his generation” - Charlie Gillett.
He graduated from Oxford with a First Class degree in English and began writing about music for Melody Maker and New Musical Express, British Vogue and The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Observer. He has also contributed to Harper's Bazaar, Interview magazine, Spin magazine and Rolling Stone. He was Associate Editor and then U.S. Editor of Mojo. Barney has written over fifteen books: investigating Bowie, Prince, Led Zeppelin and The Doors; plus Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted: Country Soul In The American South, Across The Great Divide: The Band And America and Joni: The Anthology.
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Recorded 2nd December 2019
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