Hack Circus

Luke Jennings is the creator of the hit TV series Killing Eve, about the mutual obsession between an MI6 agent and a female assassin. He was also, until recently, the dance critic for The Observer ne…

Hazel Findlay is a top professional climber, constantly touring the world in search of new adventures and breaking records. In recent years she has been working as a coach, helping climbers of all ab…

The Hack Circus podcast is back with a bang after an enormous break of two years!

The star guest this episode is Tom Tobia – a creative entrepreneur based in Sheffield. We cover the origins of an org…

If you want to get stuff made regularly, get your duty on and work out who you're doing it for.

In this episode, Leila addresses the common misconception that creative work always has to follow on fr…

How do you get inspired in the least inspiring circumstances? I answer a listener's question about staying creative even when exhausted and miles from home, this week – bringing in a mixture of my ow…

Emma Bearman founded Playful Leeds – now Playful Anywhere, and is the proud proprietor of the Playbox, a shipping container full of surprises, entertainment and imaginative potential that turns up in…

A short but packed episode where I explain why you should create, rather than simply drink up experiences; why you may not be using your community to the full (but feel like you are) and why our cons…

This week I meet showmen and fairground archivists at the National Fairground & Circus Archive in Sheffield, and learn about the fascinating and community-minded history of travelling show people of …

We need to look closely at what we're trying to protect, about ourselves, whenever we feel fearful of making big steps in our creative lives. When we really examine the anxiety, it often turns out to…

Neil Mullarkey is known as one of the Comedy Store Players – the famous long-running improv troupe with their own theatre in central London.

He also works with brands and businesses, helping the corp…

To share your work and reach a wider audience, you have to be prepared to relinquish some of it. Leila explains the problem and suggests some ways to do this more effectively, in this short episode.

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Mike is a mindfulness teacher based on the Isle of Man.

Mindfulness and meditation are portrayed as serene but it can also be a serious confrontation with the self which brings a raw, often brutal, t…

We all have our dreams – run a gallery, open a cafe, do a Masters degree, learn a language... Most of us are lazy and distracted and never quite seem to get off the blocks, but serial entrepreneur, c…

Sometimes it seems like we have the wrong number of ideas: too many or not enough, and the flow is totally beyond our control.

This week Leila has some tips for keeping your neverending stream of bra…

Rhodri Marsden has his finger in many creative and media pies.

A journalist for publications including The Independent, writer of talks and books, keyboardist in Scritti Politti and Dream Themes, mus…

This week we tackle some issues around turning your hobby into a more serious enterprise. How to think about 'turning professional' in a way that will prepare you for the realities of it, plus the mo…

This week we meet Alex Heminsley, or "Hemmo" – author, reviewer, wit and champion of women in sports. 

We discuss a life of challenges, sportiness, glamour, creativity and humour in this entertaining…

Self doubt is one of the most common things I get asked about, and it comes in all kinds of disguises. I think anxiety about presenting your work to the public is often about self-consciousness, and …

This week we meet Simon Munnery, who you've probably come across on TV, radio or the live circuit doing his characters The League Against Tedium or Alan Parker Urban Warrior, or one of his experiment…

Leila addresses a couple of positivity paradoxes this week. When it comes to getting on with a creative project, we might have been trained rather unhelpfully to think about our audiences, and think …