Based in Fitzrovia, London, Essential Radio (established 2016) is the fancy business name for James Peak (established 1976).
James writes, produces and presents podcasts and features for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds.
He also consults on developing new podcasts and radio programmes.
A joint enterprise between BBC Archives, The Radio Circle and BBC Radio 4, A Year In the Life of the Swinging Sixties is a feature on Radio 4 about a lost arts series, The Public Ear, which featured multiple appearances by the Fab Four just as Beatlemania began in 1963. As well as contributions from Morecambe & Wise, Mary Quant, Yogi Bear, Britt Ekland, Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Tynan and Pauline Boty these progressive programmes asked, in vox-pops probably never to be repeated, ‘Who Would You Drop A Bomb On?’
Radio Times Pick of the Week:“What a discovery! Presenter James Peak receives the guiding hand of the great Joan Bakewell, now 91… the clips are pure gold… a vanished age brought astonishingly back to life.” THE RADIO TIMES
“A really amazing bit of time-capsule radio, enhanced by lovely work from James Peak and Joan Bakewell.” SIMON O’HAGAN
GEGS (9,4) A Cryptic History is a feature for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds about 100 years of the fiendish British invention, the cryptic crossword.
How on earth did the rules and conventions for this agonising intellectual trial develop?
The cryptic crossword is 100 years old in 2024 and over the past century a complicated mechanism of snares and trips has built up to confound even the most diligent of solvers. James and his mate Tony (who certainly aren't the most diligent of solvers) need schooling. Luckily, some brilliant setters and cryptic enthusiasts roll up their sleeves to help.
To celebrate, uber-contributor Alan ‘The Everyman’ Connor of The Guardian & The Observer set a special Radio 4 themed crossword (which you can find online as Everyman 4042) for the 7th April 2024.
The Banksy Story is an AMBIE nominated ten-part series for BBC Radio 4 & BBC Sounds about the rise and rise of the anonymous household name, Banksy. Written, produced and presented by James, the series focusses on the testimony of Steph Warren, who worked with the artist just as he was metamorphosing from hoodrat to the most infamous vandal in the world. The first series to be on R4’s PICK OF THE WEEK two weeks in a row, The Banksy Story hit the top of the pod charts, which meant James had to explain himself on the Today Programme.
“Exploring the social commentary and artistic talent that has made a global phenomenon.” SUNDAY TIMES
“Very playful and cheeky… much here that is intriguing.” THE HERALD
“Funny and light and intriguing all at once.” IRISH NEWS
“Chatty, funny, and clear… there’s a lot of joy in this series… Steph is the star… her sad story providing heart within the flightiness… Peak is good too, when he calms down.” Miranda Sawyer, THE OBSERVER
“An enjoyably informative art tour.” Patricia Nicol, THE TIMES
“An aquarium full of red herrings.” Charlotte Runcie, TELEGRAPH
“Pointless, irritating and patronising.” John Humphreys, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
“James Peak has a simple message: “out there in people’s sheds and attic, are reels and tapes. containing more radio jewels that are part of our shared cultural heritage and belong to the nation! …it’s a heroic act to get them back into the archives so listeners can hear them again”.” DAVID CRAWFORD, RADIO TIMES
Hidden Treasures is a 2024 season across Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 4X celebrating the repatriation of over 1000 lost plays back to the BBC Archives, in the centenary year of BBC Drama.
James, Keith Wickham and The Radio Circle, found some classics, including The Dumb Waiter, with Bob Hoskins and Roy Kinnear. Traitor, by Dennis Potter, starring Denhold Elliott, and plays by Charles Dickens & Wilkie Collins,, Kingsley Amis, Edgar Wallace, JM Barrie and also the first ever stereo version of Macbeth originally broadcast in 1971.
Essential also made a short feature celebrating these amazing finds for Radio 4.
“Fantastic listening… brilliantly clear direction, articulate writing and superb acting… all worth checking out.” THE GUARDIAN
The Banksy Story BONUS EPISODES.
The appetite for The Banksy Story provoked R4 to commission some ad-hoc episodes, so whenever Banksy does something cool James and Steph are ready to report on what it means.
The first of these bonus episodes dropped in November 2023. It was about a 20-year-old lost interview from before Banksy was the world’s most anonymous household name. It caused a bit of a storm when it looked like the BBC had unveiled Banksy’s identity, and James went on The Today Programme again to explain himself. Clickbait headlines flew around the world before it emerged that Banksy was, surprise-surprise, pulling our legs and that his name isn’t actually ‘Robbie Banks’.
The second bonus episode dropped in March 2024, when James scooped the story of Banksy’s new piece, the Finsbury Park tree.
In 2024, Essential Radio is beyond delighted to receive funding from the BBC’s Indie Fund, “allocated to back talented indies to develop… increasing diversity and content from all parts of the UK, allowing the BBC to better reflect, represent and serve all audiences.”
Mohit Bakaya, BBC Director of Speech, said: “We specifically wanted ideas that would help us build up the pool of diverse new talent to bring us great stories from all corners of the UK.”
This funding enables Essential to develop new podcast series and work with BBC Archives to help celebrate the enormous wealth of content therein, which means 2024 could be the most exciting and creative year yet.
Raiders of the Lost Archive, a feature introducing the Lost Gems season on BBC Radio 4, tells the story of a collegiate network of audio archivists who repatriate lost radio programmes back into the BBC archives. Presented by Keith Wickham, Raiders was covered by the Today Programme, News at Ten, Radio Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent and sparked a Radio Times ‘Treasure Hunt’ campaign - which immediately after transmission prompted the discovery of several other lost radio collections.
SWOON as we hear how the Radiophonic Workshop archive was saved! LAUGH as Ken Dodd tells jokes that were old even in 1967. THRILL as we locate 90 lost Desert Island Disc episodes and hand them back to Lauren Laverne for the BBC Archive.
And what is the astonishing holy grail programme that the Raiders archivists have turned up, and which might just include the great Peter Sellers? Something that has not been heard since 1955!
Desert Island Discs is the longest running radio show in the world. But back in the 1940s, programme archiving was not a thing at the BBC - or anywhere - and several hundred early episodes were lost. Essential Radio uncovered a network of radio archivists and archaeologists and have found 90+ lost episodes, including the shows of Noel Coward, Ronnie Corbett, Anita Roddick, Bing Crosby, Joan Hammond, Edith Evans, Margot Fonteyn, David Dimbleby, Dudley Moore and Dirk Bogarde. These shows were released as part of the Lost Gems season which Essential Radio produced to celebrate 100 years of the BBC.
BBC Radio 4 commissioned Michael Palin’s Memory Palaces. The first episode featured Terry Gilliam. James was miniaturised and fired into Terry’s mind for a wander around and a chat.
Radio Times called this “Stylish radio…after substantial post-production it sounds like the grandson of the Goon Show.” RADIO TIMES
Starring Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam
Sound design by Andre Jacquemin
Written, Presented & Produced by James Peak
Available on BBC SOUNDS.
James edited, with Duncan Crowe, the Scoundrels Novels, the disgracefully sordid tales of disreputable spies Major Cornwall and Major Trevelyan of Scoundrels Club, Piccadilly. Scoundrels’ members are often called on by Whitehall to sort out tricky diplomatic problems that nobody else will touch, and the Majors’ adventures therefore require both a pinch of salt and a strong constitution.
The books are one part Flashman to two parts Mortdecai, stirred vigorously and dashed in the face of Ian Fleming. Scoundrels has developed a cult following amongst readers who enjoy scurrilous adventure fiction, and it is now being developed by Rocket Science Films. The Hunt For Hansclapp was nominated for the Literary Review’s Bad Sex In Fiction Prize in 2018. The books are available at Waterstones and Amazon. Scoundrels is published by Black Door Press.
James makes podcasts and animations for Local Trust’s Big Local programme, which puts National Lottery funding into left-behind communities all over the UK. Since 2012, 150 communities have been given at least £1m each to improve their neighbourhoods by spending it on whatever they see fit, with no strings attached.
Now 10 years old, Local Trust is firmly established as the most radical grant-giver in the UK, with a focus on empowering local residents to make their own decisions about how to spend this money on the things that will make a real difference in their community, whether it’s purchasing a village hall, investing in affordable housing, developing playparks and creches, funding youth projects, paying for mental health provision or building sports facilities.
BBC Radio 4 commissioned Read My Lips, a feature about the Human Library, which was broadcast in March 2021. The Human Library is a project designed to challenge stereotypes and banish the stigma of otherness, allowing people to meet ‘books’ with titles like Satanist, Wheelchair User, Trans, Autistic and ask any questions they like. The Human Library now runs in 75 countries worldwide.
Radio Times made this Pick of the Week and said “three extraordinarily frank talks - no skirting away from difficult questions… a life-affirming and rewarding radio experience.”
Available on BBC SOUNDS. Co-presented with Sharmista Michaels.
James made a series of podcasts for the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) called This is Money hosted by Andi Peters and Simon Lambert. The podcasts were about people’s financial lives, encouraging listeners to think more clearly about their fiscal decisions. Guests included Olympic boxer Anthony Ogogo, Atlantic rower Kiko Matthews, author-adventurer Alistair Humphries and comedians Tessa Coates and Stevie Martin of Nobody Panic.
The podcasts are available here.
BBC Radio 4 commissioned There Was a Young Fellow Named Palin, a one-off feature for the Christmas schedule in which Michael Palin challenges James to write a brilliant limerick for him (as Michael is too busy making a documentary about crossing the road to do it himself.)
This two-hander was described as “a delightful little diversion that’s also a sparkling history of that most irresistible of verse forms.”
RADIO TIMES Pick of the Week, Dec 2018.
BBC Radio 4 commissioned Python at 50: The Self-Abasement Tapes, to celebrate 50 years of Monty Python. This five-part series delved into the Python archive for lost gems and little heard oddities, including the infamous Otto scenes from Life of Brian, the rediscovered sketch Fat Ignorant Bastards (‘Did the Pythons predict Brexit?’ CHORTLE mag) and Eric Idle’s Always Look On The Bright Side of Life duet with Professor Stephen Hawking.
“Extreme silliness seems more relevant now than it ever was.” Monty Python.
BBC Radio 4, Pick of the Week, Sept 2020
BBC Radio 4 commissioned Comedy From The Wilderness, a feature recorded at the Wilderness Festival during the UK’s long hot summer of Covid. Would the festival go ahead? Who would perform? Luckily a sell-out crowd of festival-goers desperate to cut loose turned up, and everyone had a very jolly time, especially Henry Blofeld, who came out of retirement to commentate on a very peculiar game of cricket for the Wilderness Cricket Club.
Radio Times Pick of the Week, Sept 2021
When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, the classic children’s story by Judith Kerr, tells the story of a Jewish family escaping Germany in the days before the Second World War. Judith wrote the book based on her own journey, so that her own children would know where she came from and the lengths to which her parents went to keep her and her brother safe.
Michael Morpurgo called it “the most life-enhancing book you could ever wish to read.”
Before she died, Judith recorded audiobooks at Essential’s Windmill St studios. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the book, Tacy Kneale, Judith’s daughter, recorded this audiobook over three days at the studio. Her interpretation of her mother’s work is wonderful.
It is now available through Harper Collins Audiobooks.
To celebrate John’s autobiography So, Anyway, BBC Radio 4 commissioned a series of book excerpts as Book of the Week – which John promptly decided to turn into a full-blown, five-episode radio comedy, John Cleese Presents, featuring Eddie Izzard, Peter Richardson of The Comic Strip, Harriet Carmichael and Peter Dickson.
The conceit of the shows was that throughout John’s astonishing 50 year career, he has never worked as a radio DJ, so the BBC decide to give him his own talkshow. What could possibly go wrong?
RADIO TIMES Pick of the Week, Dec 2017.
Written by John Cleese & James Peak
Produced by Andre Jacquemin & James Peak
Available on BBC SOUNDS.
ESSENTIAL RADIO’S STUDIO IN WINDMILL ST, FITZROVIA, LONDON, W1T 2HX.
About thirty seconds from Soho, and seven mins from Broadcasting House, the studio is perfect for recording voiceover, podcasts, dramas, documentaries and features. It has a main studio and a comfortable space for meetings.
The studio is shared with the brilliantly innovative Pitch & Sync who specialise in sound design and music composition for the best brands in the world.