That Ben Clarke from BBC1′s “The Apprentice”  interview in full

Not a Monday Noise Up show, but one of my favourites nevertheless. I helped Fin out on Tuesday Noise Up and persuaded a special guest I bumped into at the chip shop the night before to join us by phone.

Ben Clarke was one of the apprentices from the BBC1 show “The Apprentice”  He made it to week nine of the show before he was “Fired!”  In our interview he shared some of his inside knowledge on how the show works, told us what it was like to work for ‘Suralan’ and was unable to confirm that his fellow contestants Phil Taylor and Kate Welsh are in fact engaged.

CEO of all that is breakdancing in Scotland, Diaz, also dropped in to the studios to talk business with Fin. Being the go to man for breakdance classes and competitions Diaz is also Fin’s son Harry’s boss, kinda-sorta.

Not one of the best shows, but not for the lack of two magazine editors, Rupert Thomson and Billy Gould’s, generosity. They agreed at the last minute to being interviewed on the radio via telephone and waited patiently for me to get the technical stuff right.

Rupert called from The Skinny, a monthly free magazine covering the cultural life of Scotland. Billy rang from The Leither, another free monthly magazine with regular columns on all subjects including a favourite of mine, Carrie’s continuing saga of a Leither in London searching for the perfect man.

See the links in the right hand margin for links to both magazines

As ever I have edited out all the most cack handed parts. What remains, believe it or not, are the slickest parts of the show.

As ever all music has been edited out for copyright reasons

This week the theme of the show was writing novels.  I and my guest Andrew Stott from the Edinburgh Writers Group discussed the ins and outs of getting a book written and moving it towards publication.

Andrew has written a novel “Kirsten” and found himself an agent which is a very long way along the path to becoming a published author.

Things we covered in our conversation were

• The process of writing
• The publishing Industry
• The literature of Jordan and Martine McCutcheon

Two well known writers also joined the show, or rather, two pre-recorded interviews I had with Chris Brookmyre and Mark Billingham at the Edinburgh Book Festival got an airing.

(For copyright reasons all music has been removed from the audio)

This week I had two members of the Actors’ Kitchen,  Danielle Farrow and Mark Prebble into the studio

Actors’ Kitchen is a group set up by professional actors for actors in Edinburgh where members can touch base with colleagues, discuss and share news on the acting scene  and work to maintain and refine their acting skills between jobs.

We talked about Actors Kitchen’s upcoming production “In Transit” on at the GRV on Guthrie Street 17th -21st November. We also discussed, amongst other things,  the evil (my word) phenomenon of ‘talent show’ TV and the difficulty with names for fictional characters. I made a feeble attempt to start a fight by suggesting there may be a divide between the intentions of actors and writers but neither Mark the writer nor Danielle the actor were willing to take up the cudgels (we didn’t have cudgels actually – but some chair throwing woulda been nice)

The recording of the show attached here is a bit of a dogs dinner. I have edited out some of my technical mistakes to make me seem more organised but despite my efforts there are some ragged edits and the last few moments when I wished my guests goodbye and wrapped up have been entirely lost.

Find links to Actors’ Kitchen where you can get details of their play “In Transit”, Danielle’s website and Mark Prebbles showreels on youtube etc in the right hand margin.

Thanks to Mark and Danielle for coming in to the studio.

(For copyright reasons all music has been removed from the audio)

On the 19th October 2009 I welcomed Helen Raw, M.D.  of Raw Talent Productions, actor and singer ( all round empresario really) into the Noise Up studio and we had a long chat about the acting profession, actor training, the actor union Equity and the Actors Centre soon to be set up in Edinburgh.

What will you learn listening to the show?

• Where to go if you want to train in acting
• The difference between agents and casting directors
• How Equity works (chainsaw jugglers pay special attention!)
• Where Detective Shaft goes for his holidays
• Why I am a very courageous man (Check out the youtube link in the acting category box alongside this message)
• The inside story on Glen Michael of cavalcade fame

Massive thanks to Helen for coming in and generously allowing me time in her frighteningly busy schedule.

(For copyright reasons all music has been removed from the audio)

On Monday 12th October John McShane, Debbie Cannon and Ryan Hendrick from the Scottish Screenwriters Group came in to the Leith FM 98.8 studio to chat about the business of screenwriting.

Things we discussed:

• The SSG’s activities
• Movie screenplays – good and bad
• If Debbie wouldn’t be better off with the surname Connor

P.S. Can I clarify one thing. I say at one stage in the show that actors are ten a penny, or was it a dime a dozen? I didn’t mean to diminish actors and their talents. What I meant to say is that unemployed actors may be willing to get involved in film projects that do not promise immediate fiscal benefits if only for the practice and exposure…that still doesn’t sound quite right, but you know what I mean.

(For copyright reasons all music has been removed from the audio)