Best Iszi Lawrence Podcasts (2025)

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TLS11E09 Ancient Sea Reptiles 1:01:59

Play Pause

4h ago1:01:59

1:01:59

Long time listener and second time guest Darren Naish joins us to talk about marine reptiles. While Darren is best known for his work on dinosaurs and pterosaurs, he has fingers in a huge number of vertebrate pies, and he has a new edition out of his book on all of the Mesozoic monsters that lived in the sea. So, strap in for an incredibly being to…

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S01E02 The Ancient Egyptian Afterlife 42:53

1d ago42:53

42:53

The ancient Egyptians’ beliefs in the afterlife were many and varying, weren’t the same for pharaohs and commoners, and changed over time but in this episode we did our best to cover the main bases including: the journey made the sun / the king through the netherworld (the ‘amduat’), the main groups of texts including the Pyramid Texts, Coffin Text…

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S01E01 What's Right with The Mummy (1999) 47:28

1d ago47:28

47:28

So, it’s easy – if you an Egyptology pedant – to pick holes The Mummy, which the two of us have done several times at the British Museum. But actually, being more generous about it, a lot of what’s in the film is clearly inspired by good evidence and in this episode we tried to cover what seemed to us to be the most important themes: including the …

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Miles Jupp on JL Carr, author of A Month in the Country 27:28

2d ago27:28

27:28

"I find his novels extraordinarily beautiful .. and they're an excellent length." Miles Jupp picks an author he loves, but knows little about. JL Carr was born in Yorkshire and was a teacher, mapmaker, and an eccentric. Joining the comedian in studio to discuss Carr is a man who knew him well - DJ Taylor - who paints a picture of a man who hated Lo…

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A New Egyptology Podcast Audio Trailer 0:58

5d ago0:58

0:58

LAUNCHING SEPT 2025! Talk Like An Egyptian with Dr Chris Naunton and Iszi Lawrence. To support the podcast join us on Patreon.com/talklikeanegyptian and unlock bonus content. Get in touch [email protected] or use #TLAE. We need your questions for the end of the series so please don’t hold back. Remember to leave us five stars (of Nut)…

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A New Egyptology Podcast 0:58

5d ago0:58

0:58

LAUNCHING SEPT 2025! Talk Like An Egyptian with Dr Chris Naunton and Iszi Lawrence. To support the podcast join us on Patreon.com/talklikeanegyptian and unlock bonus content. Get in touch [email protected] or use #TLAE. We need your questions for the end of the series so please don’t hold back. Remember to leave us five stars (of Nut)…

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Helen Castor on Richard II 27:37

9d ago27:37

27:37

Today's great life is possibly more famous as a Shakespearean character - King Richard II who was deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke in 1399. He's been chosen by historian Helen Castor, author of The Eagle and the Hart, who shines a light on what really happened towards the end of his reign. Also helping is Professor Emma Smith who explains wh…

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DJ Deb Grant on John Prine 26:51

16d ago26:51

26:51

DJ Deb Grant picks US mailman turned country-folk singer John Prine, whose beautiful songs captured the world in which he lived. Bob Harris, who first met him on the Old Grey Whistle Test, adds to the conversation. "I came to know him through him speaking about his own music - it's his character, his personality and his attitude that I fell for," s…

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TLS11E08 Sauropodcast Spectacular! 57:53

28d ago57:53

57:53

Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up! Disaster with the recording this episode! Sorry if it is hard to hear in places we were forced to use the emergency back up! Listeners may remember that Dave went to Utah a couple of years back to try and help with a sauropod…

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TLS11E07 Flappy Flap Bum Flaps 54:06

2M ago54:06

54:06

Pterosaur soft tissues It’s a double new paper episode this time as thanks to the magic of almost random review and publication times, Dave has two papers out on the same subject in the same month! So strap in for some absolute minutiae on pterosaur hands, feet, scales, and the oddly overlooked wing membrane that sits between their legs. Pterosaurs…

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Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana 27:43

3M ago27:43

27:43

Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Bechuanaland when it was still a British Protectorate. In 1966 he became Botswana's first president. In between he married a white Londoner, Ruth Williamson, was exiled by the British, and made to renounce his interest in succeeding as head of the Bangwato. It's an extraordinary and notable life, and he's been nomi…

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TLS11E06 LIVE AT FOSSIL FESTIVAL 1:07:50

3M ago1:07:50

1:07:50

June, rather incredibly, marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of series 1, episode 1 of the podcast. As a rather fortuitous bit of timing, we were invited to host a live Terrible Lizards event at Lyme Regis (home of Mary Anning) for their Fossil Festival. We could hardly say ‘no’, so here is a recording of that hour long session where we field…

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Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB 27:32

3M ago27:32

27:32

For over a hundred years no one thought too much about the origins of the RSPB, but among its founders was a woman in Didsbury opposed to the use of feathers in fashionable hats. Emily Williamson was outraged by the widespread slaughter of egrets and the crested grebe. She had tried to join the all-male British Ornithological Union, and when that f…

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Tina Turner 27:43

3M ago27:43

27:43

Rock Icon Tina Turner proposed by the actress and author Rebecca Humphries. Tina Turner began life as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, joining Ike Turner's band in St Louis at the age of 17. Her presence, her performances and her voice captivated audiences, but this is really a story of triumph over abuse. After she left Ike Turner with noth…

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Raymond Blanc on Professor Nicholas Kurti 27:39

4M ago27:39

27:39

The chef Raymond Blanc nominates his mentor and friend, the physicist Professor Nicholas Kurti.Kurti was born in Hungary but fled to Oxford when Hitler came to power. Pushing the frontiers of low-temperature physics during his career, he went on to create‘molecular gastronomy’ in retirement. Raymond Blanc approached Kurti after a lecture the profes…

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Dervla Murphy, author of the classic Full Tilt 27:38

4M ago27:38

27:38

At the age of 10 Dervla Murphy was given an atlas and a bicycle, and so began an adventurous life. Her account of a journey to India became a classic called Full Tilt but she also went to Cuba, Ethiopia and the Andes where our guest first met her in a doss house. Hilary Bradt is the founder of the Bradt Travel Guides and is picking Dervla Murphy as…

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TLS11E05 Curating Dinosaurs II Curate Harder 59:01

4M ago59:01

59:01

Curating Dinosaurs II Curate Harder! On this episode we welcome Jordan Mallon, a long-time collaborator of Dave’s and, against the odds, a long-time listener of Terrible Lizards. While we talk about Jordan’s research and career in this pod, and his work on dinosaur sizes and ecology, this one also serves as something of a sequel to our previous epi…

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Ned Ludd mythical leader of the Luddites 27:43

4M ago27:43

27:43

We don't even know if Ned Ludd was real, but perhaps that was the point. "You could say he was everyone and no one - and that's what made him so terrifying for the authorities." Leader of the Luddites, who often signed letters and proclamations Ned Ludd, he is shown in one engraving wearing mismatched shoes and a blue polka dot dress, suggesting a …

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Richey Edwards of The Manic Street Preachers 27:40

4M ago27:40

27:40

Richey was, beautiful says Cummins, a natural icon and a gift to photograph. He also believes his writing has been overshadowed by the fact of his disappearance in 1995. "I think nobody has looked beyond that for quite a long time.” Manic Street Preachers biographer, Simon Price, also knew Richey Edwards and says he was "the most intelligent rock s…

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Benny Hill 27:28

4M ago27:28

27:28

Biography show in which the guest picks someone they admire. Benny Hill is a thorny choice but playwright Jonathan Maitland is determined that - despite accusations of sexism and racism later in his career - Britain's most successful comedian deserves a second look. Benny was fired by Thames TV in 1989. "The show was past its sell-by date," was the…

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Maggi Hambling picks muse and lover Henrietta Moraes 27:35

5M ago27:35

27:35

“Henrietta's eyes looked into one's soul at the same time exposing her own. She posed for me most Mondays for the last seven months until two days before she died.” In a raw and very funny opener to the new series of Great Lives, painter and sculptor Maggi Hambling chooses someone she knew extremely well - her lover Henrietta Moraes. Born in India,…

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TLS11E04 Curating Dinosaurs 59:07

5M ago59:07

59:07

We have talked about all manner of fundamentals of research on fossils over the years here on Terrible Lizards, including finding and excavating fossils, writing and publishing papers, reconstructing animals from fragments and more. But we’ve somehow really glossed over the role of museums that store and protect fossils and make them available for …

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Harriet Harman on Maria Callas 27:57

5M ago27:57

27:57

The legendary opera star Maria Callas was lauded for her magnetic stage presence and extraordinary vocal range. Born in New York in 1923 to Greek immigrant parents, she moved with her mother and sister to Greece aged 13. In 1939 she attended the Athens Conservatoire where she embarked on a rigorous vocal training in the Italian "bel canto" traditio…

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Kate Raworth on Donella Meadows 27:56

6M ago27:56

27:56

Born in Illinois in 1941, Dana Meadows studied Chemistry and Molecular Biology, before turning her back on a post doc position at Harvard, to pursue environmentalism. She joined her husband Dennis Meadows as part of the team working on Professor Jay Forester's World3 computer model of the world economy at MIT and wrote the report on the results of …

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TLS11E03 T. rex slugfest! 54:57

6M ago54:57

54:57

This time out we are joined by palaeontologist Andre Rowe to talk about his research into the skulls of giant carnivorous dinosaurs and what this means for their biology. This turns into a debate with Dave about how evidence can be interpreted in different ways and trying to piece together the often limited data we have to work out what these anima…

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Mark Billingham chooses George Harrison 27:00

7M ago27:00

27:00

George Harrison was a musician, singer and songwriter who became one of the most famous people in the world as one quarter of the Beatles. That alone would merit a place in the Great Lives pantheon, but his work in the decades after the band broke up indicates a man of diverse and arguably underestimated talents. Erupting onto the pop music scene i…

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Jake Arnott on John Gay 27:42

7M ago27:42

27:42

John Gay, eighteenth-century satirist and author of The Beggar's Opera, is nominated by the writer Jake Arnott - whose novels, including The Long Firm and He Kills Coppers, are also set in London's criminal underworld. Editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, is the presenter, and Dr Rebecca Bullard of the University of Oxford is on hand to help uncover …

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TLS11E02 Dinos and Dragons 1:06:31

7M ago1:06:31

1:06:31

This month’s episode is a sort of follow-up to that from the start of the year, looking at some of the more problematic areas of dinosaurs and palaeontology when it comes to online discussions. There is an online fandom of dinosaurs that treats them like monsters or superheroes, and can fixate on what is and isn’t the biggest / strongest / fastest …

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Ellen E Jones nominates Florynce Kennedy 27:59

7M ago27:59

27:59

One dubbed "the biggest, loudest and indisputably the rudest mouth on the battleground", Florynce Kennedy was a force to be reckoned with. She was a lawyer, a vocal figure in the American civil rights and feminist movements of the 1960s and '70s, and a champion of numerous other causes besides; from legalising abortion to campaigning for sex-worker…

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A N Wilson selects Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 27:47

7M ago27:47

27:47

"I've chosen him because I think he was possibly the most interesting human being who has ever lived". A N Wilson Born in the middle of the 18th century in Frankfurt, Goethe went on to become the pre-eminent figure in German literature. As well as writing plays and poetry (including Faust) he was a statesman, a scientist, an artist and a critic. Qu…

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Jessica Fostekew on Boudica 27:44

8M ago27:44

27:44

"The Queen Boadicea, standing loftily charioted, Brandishing in her hand a dart and rolling glances lioness-like, Yell'd and shriek'd between her daughters in her fierce volubility": so wrote Alfred, Lord Tennyson in the 19th Century, celebrating the story of an ancient English warrior queen who sparked a brutal and bloody rebellion against Roman r…

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Reginald D Hunter selects Eugene V Debs 27:41

8M ago27:41

27:41

Eugene Victor Debs, born 1855 in Indiana USA, was a railway worker, a trade unionist and a five time candidate for the presidency. He was imprisoned during the First World War for sedition. He'd urged resistance to the draft; President Woodrow Wilson called him a traitor to the nation, but Debs still ran for the presidency in 1920. His sentence was…

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TLS11E01 Say My Name 52:38

8M ago52:38

52:38

Series 11, eh? We don’t think we, or anyone else reading this, expected that. Nor did we expect issues with Dave’s microphone (apologies)… Still, here we are and with more dinosaur goodness coming. We say ‘coming’ because this episode is far less about dinosaurs and pterosaurs than usual, but more about the mechanisms of science. In this case it’s …

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Pen Hadow nominates Sir Peter Scott 27:48

8M ago27:48

27:48

"Make the boy interested in natural history," wrote Captain Scott from his tent in the Antarctic. He was talking about his son, three year old Peter Scott, whom he never saw again and who went on to found the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust and campaign against the hunting of whales. The son also designed the panda logo for the Wold Wide Fund for Nature…

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Lauren Cuthbertson on Margot Fonteyn 28:06

8M ago28:06

28:06

Margot Fonteyn was an icon: a ballerina who helped build and indeed embodied the traditional image of a dancer, just as the artform was finding its feet on the British cultural scene. From humble beginnings she became an international star, enjoying a dazzling career with the Royal Ballet, a glamorous social life as a diplomat’s wife, and an electr…

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Dr Hannah Critchlow picks Professor Colin Blakemore 27:59

8M ago27:59

27:59

Professor Colin Blakemore was a famous communicator of science, the youngest ever Reith lecturer on the BBC. He was also targeted by members of the animal rights movement, which sent bombs and letters lined with razor blades to his home address. Born in 1944 and brought up in Coventry, Colin Blakemore was committed to brain research and the connect…

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Doug Allan on Captain Jacques Cousteau 28:07

9M ago28:07

28:07

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was an oceanographer, filmmaker and explorer who made the seas a subject of fascination for millions. During his time in the French Navy, Cousteau co-invented the Aqua-Lung: the first self-contained kit that allowed a diver to breathe underwater. This and his fascination with capturing images of the subaquatic world pa…

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TLS10E12 End of Year Megasode! 53:02

9M ago53:02

53:02

Thanks to Kyle, Tom, Ashley, Aurous, Wayne, Paleo Pete, Tyler, Will, Israel, Charles, James and Edward Support us on patreon.com/terriblelizards and be rewarded with extra content! We are planning on going live on isztube at 16:00 GMT on Friday 26th December. (Time may change)By Dr David Hone and Iszi Lawrence

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Bonus Episode: PPZZ at the Ri! 11:44

10M ago11:44

11:44

Here's one last surprise from us in 2024 - here's the recording of our set at An Evening of Unnecessary Detail at The Royal Institution! Recorded in October 2024, this set sees us taking a journey around the 7 continents through interconnecting species of plants and animals! We talk pooing bats, birds with STIs and plants that can detect bombs!We l…

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27. Pileated Woodpecker with Elle Kaye 55:20

10M ago55:20

55:20

For the final episode of Season 1 of Planty Planty Zoo Zoo, Steph and Connor are joined by the AMAZING Elle Kaye for a long, winding discussion of the ups and downs of being a taxidermist on the internet, honouring life through art and, of course, woodpeckers🐦‍⬛ We loved having such a raw, honest chat with Elle and are so grateful to her for coming…

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TLS10E11 Skiphosoura - the pterosaur of the gaps 56:21

10M ago56:21

56:21

Skiphosoura – the pterosaur of the gaps So last week Dave had a new paper out and this time it’s a new pterosaur, named Skiphosoura bavarica (the sword tail of Bavaria) and it is both really interesting and really important for pterosaur research. It tells us a lot about the key transition of pterosaurs from the early forms through to the derived p…

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26. Secretary Bird with Tash from Hatchling Makes 53:06

10M ago53:06

53:06

This episode, we're joined by Tash from Hatchling Makes to chat all things small business, and how art can be used to fly the flag for underappreciated and obscure endangered animals! We also chat about the absolutely gorgeous secretary bird, the latest resident of Planty Planty Zoo Zoo! Also in this episode, a run-through of our trip to Battersea …

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25. Planty Planty Interview-View #14: Axel & Ario Drioli 30:06

11M ago30:06

30:06

🌿🐵 Meet Axel & Ario Drioli - the brothers behind Sounding Wild!🐵🌿 The latest episode of ⁠Planty Planty Zoo Zoo⁠, recorded at Global Birdfair, sees Connor chat to special guests Axel and Ario who talk about their amazing VR community outreach project, Sounding Wild which takes recordings of birds and birdsong across the countries making up migratory…

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TLS10E10 Uncovering Dinosaur Behaviour 46:54

11M ago46:54

46:54

Dave has a new book out next week and it’s the culmination of several years work. Longtime listeners will know the major themes already from the episode title – a lot of stuff in the literature on dinosaur behaviour is badly framed, overstated, contradictory or contains major over extrapolations. Happily, you can listen to all of this again as Dave…

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24. Planty Planty Interview-View #13: Charlie Bingham 26:55

12M ago26:55

26:55

🌿🐵 Meet Charlie Bingham - author and podcaster!🐵🌿 Step into the latest episode of ⁠Planty Planty Zoo Zoo⁠, recorded at Global Birdfair, where we welcome special guest Charlie Bingham to chat bonobos. 🐵 Meet the Bonobo:Charlie guides us through the fascinating social structures and behaviors of the bonobo, known for its peaceful and cooperative comm…

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TLS10E09 Mike Benton 58:04

12M ago58:04

58:04

Last month we mentioned that legendary palaeontologist Mike Benton had announced his retirement, but with a few quick emails, Dave was able to grab him for this month’s episode. So, join Dave and Iszi as we have celebration of Mike’s career and take him through his early interest in palaeontology, how he got his PhD, the death of Al Romer, rhynchos…

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Ekow Eshun on the first openly gay footballer, Justin Fashanu 27:47

1y ago27:47

27:47

In 1981 Brian Clough paid £1 million pounds to bring Justin Fashanu to Nottingham Forest. It was the climax of a meteoric career, but within months the goals had dried up, he'd been going to gay nightclubs, and Fashanu had also become become a born again Christian. Four decades later Justin Fashanu remains top flight English football's only openly …

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Anneka Rice picks the largely forgotten Jane Morris, muse to Rossetti and wife of William Morris 27:46

1y ago27:46

27:46

The biography show where famous guests picks someone they admire or love. Jane Morris was the wife of William Morris and muse of Gabriel Dante Rossetti. Anneka Rice believes her contribution to 19th-Century art and culture has been largely overlooked. "I'm not a big fan of needle point," she says, "but we cannot ignore what she brings to art histor…

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The surgeon Henry Marsh picks 'the saviour of mothers' Dr Semmelweis 27:44

1y ago27:44

27:44

The biography show where famous guests pick someone from history they admire or they love. Our only rule is they must be dead. Today neurosurgeon Dr Henry Marsh chooses “the saviour of mothers” Dr Ignaz Semmelweis The Hungarian doctor discovered the link between childbirth and puerperal fever in 19th century Vienna but he was ridiculed, ignored and…

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23. Planty Planty Interview-View #12: Jack Baker 45:58

1y ago45:58

45:58

🌿🌊 Meet Jack Baker - podcaster, presenter and zoo & botanics educator! 🌊🌿 Dive into the latest episode of ⁠Planty Planty Zoo Zoo⁠, where we welcome Jack Baker, the host of Pangolin: The Conservation Podcast to introduce some fascinating new additions to our imaginary zoo and botanical garden! 🌊 Discover the Dugong: Jack introduces the delightful du…