Country Life

The composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim was an icon. As the creative force behind a string of huge musicals — including West Side Story and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum — he is widely regarded as the 'Shakespeare of the musical'.

Sondheim's life and legacy are the subject of a new podcast entitled Loving You: The Untold Sondheim, hosted by two close friends of the composer, Martin Milnes and Peter E. Jones, which is out on March 5, 2026. We're delighted that Martin and Peter joined James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to talk about their own upcoming show.

Loving You: The Untold Sondheim features contributions from many people who knew and worked with Sondheim during his life, from Dame Julie Andrews to Dame Judi Dench, and from Mia Farrow to Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Loving You: The Untold Sondheim will be available on all streaming platforms from March 5. A trailer is available on Apple, Spotify and Amazon.

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Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guests: Martin Milnes and Peter E. Jones
Producer and editor: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist, biographer, journalist and writer Justine Picardie joins the Country Life Podcast to talk about her life in fashion and journalism, her writing, and her close encounters with the Royal Family — including the day she found herself in a remote Scottish bothy, helping the late Queen Elizabeth II clean up after lunch.

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Justine's also talks about her latest book, Fashioning The Crown (Faber, £25), which is published on February 26, 2026 — you can order a copy here.

In the research and writing, she was afforded extraordinary access to the Royal Archives, including the Queen's wardrobe itself — and Justine shares with James some of the most extraordinary insights, including her timeless style, her practicality, and her savvy adoption of bright colours as colour television became widespread. Many of the outfits she wore 'would have looked as perfect today as they would have 100 years ago,' Justine says.

It's a fascinating episode — we hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed recording it.

Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Justine Picardie
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is it worth the effort? That’s the question that many people might ask themselves as they stand in the doorway of a knackered old house in the Cotswolds, wondering whether to buy it and start renovating.

For Jim Chapman, author, illustrator, presenter, occasional model, fashionable dad and social media star, the answer was ‘yes’. And so began the year-long (and still ongoing) odyssey of transformation, as he gives up a life in London, moves his family to rural England, and starts ripping out walls.

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Jim is famed for sharing his life on social media and this renovation is just one chapter of a story that began online all the way back in 2010. In 2010, YouTube was a website to watch your favourite music videos, or compilations of people falling over. It was a simpler, more sinister time. Jim was one of the first to realise that it could and would become something greater, documenting his life, his hobbies and his family. That idea has turned into a following of more than 7 million across multiple platforms. In other words, you might not know who he is, but your kids definitely do.

But while the world of YouTube might be an alien one to us, the one of rural home renovation certainly isn’t. James Fisher talks to Jim about everything from what inspired the move, the benefits of leaving city life, do’s and don’ts when tearing apart a house and putting it back together again, what’s worth doing yourself and what’s best left to the experts, and how not to flood a room.

Is it worth it? A year in, and just a few days from moving in, Jim certainly thinks so

Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Jim Chapman
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For as long as he can remember, the writer and illustrator Aidan Meighan has been inspired by Nature. His early exploits might not have been entirely welcomed by those around him — collecting and storing slugs and snails in a cupboard at school, and stashing a dead adder in a drawer at his parents' home — but they paved the way for a career illustrating the beauty of the natural world, both in words and pictures.

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We're delighted, then, that with his new book The Folklore of Trees about to appear, Aidan came to join James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast. He talks about some of the 36 varieties of tree that he discusses in his book, the creative freedom of working as both writer and illustrator on a project, and how trees have left their mark on human history — not least in the form of the hill in Rome that owes its existence to the Ancient Roman habit of discarding empty olive oil containers.

'We absolutely could not survive without trees,' says Aidan, 'but trees would easily prosper, if not flourish, without us.. They're like guardians, arboreal guardians, to us, and I really think we ought to show them respect.'

Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Aidan Meighan
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Hilder was born to a life in the country. Born in rural Scotland but raised in Hampshire, he went through school always thinking – and being told — that he needed to find a life, and a career, out in the countryside, working with his hands.

A chance meeting with a lecturer at Sparsholt College changed his life for good, and put him on a pathway to become (deep breath) the 'Senior Nature-Based Solutions Officer — Practical Delivery' at the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. It's comfortably the longest job title of anyone who's yet joined James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast, but the aim is clear: to make the world around us a better, greener place.

Tom talks to James about his life, how he ended up working in the field (literally), and the challenges he's faced — from Shetland ponies and landowners suspicious of his tender years to the 'charismatic adders' found on Hook Common, in north Hampshire.

You can find out more about the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust here, and to nominate someone for the 2026 edition of the award Tom won, visit the Schoffel Countryside Awards website.

Episode credits
Host: James Fisher
Guest: Tom Hilder
Editor and producer: Toby Keel
Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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