How To Fail With Elizabeth Day
How To Fail with Elizabeth Day is a podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven’t gone right and what we might learn from them along the way. Every week, Elizabeth’s guest explores three failures, and what these failures have taught them about how to grow and succeed, better. We’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with Elizabeth to share your failures, problems or questions - anonymously or otherwise. She'll go through these each week with the help of her very special guests. And remember: a fail shared is a fail halved. Click here to get in touch. An Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Original Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow @sonypodcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email podcastadsales@sonymusic.com
Episodes
February 4, 2026 • 49 mins
A few years ago, Shabaz Ali was a chemistry teacher in Blackburn. Today, he’s one of the internet’s most beloved creators, best known as Shabaz Says, with millions of fans and a knack for skewering the most outrageous (and often tasteless) displays of online excess.
Since quitting the day job, Shabaz has launched a podcast, performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and published his book I’m Rich, You’re Poor. Beneath the humour though, ...
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February 1, 2026 • 19 mins
This week we’re revisiting two deeply moving conversations that explore what it means to find hope in the face of profound adversity.
First, we hear from the 11-time world champion and a six-time Olympic champion, Sir Chris Hoy. He speaks with remarkable honesty about living with stage four prostate cancer, as well as the shock of discovering that his wife had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis during the same period. He talks...
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January 28, 2026 • 53 mins
Best known for her role as Queen Charlotte in Bridgerton, Golda Rosheuvel is an acclaimed actor of stage and screen. Her career spans powerful theatrical roles including Romeo and Juliet, Jesus Christ Superstar and a groundbreaking lesbian interpretation of Othello. She also stars in the spin-off series Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.
In this conversation, Golda speaks movingly about her childhood and family: how her mother, ...
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January 25, 2026 • 32 mins
Fame isn’t always limousines, five star hotels, champagne and private jets. I find this topic totally fascinating and these two past How to Fail guests give us a glimpse behind the curtain as to what becoming famous at a young age really means.
Shania Twain takes us back to her childhood, singing late nights in smoke-filled bars, growing up far too fast and without real control over her own life. She speaks movingly about the emo...
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January 21, 2026 • 53 mins
Martin Freeman is one of the most sought-after actors of his generation. Whether it’s Tim in The Office, John - the mild-mannered porn actor in Love Actually, Watson in Sherlock, Bilbo in The Hobbit, the stressed parent in Breeders, the Liverpudlian cop with personal problems in The Responder and Everett K. Ross in Marvel Cinematic Universe smash hits Captain America and Black Panther - Freeman is a star, and to date has won two Em...
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January 18, 2026 • 16 mins
Panic attacks are wide-spread in today’s society, and yet remain something we rarely talk about openly. So it’s vital that we normalise an experience so many of us share - because talking about it is often the first step towards understanding, accepting and working through it.
Jamie Laing and Fearne Cotton both came on How to Fail back in 2019 and spoke so honestly about their own experiences. Jamie reflected on the early days of...
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January 14, 2026 • 53 mins
You’ll know Marisa Abela from HBO’s critically acclaimed hit Industry, where her portrayal of Yasmin - a brilliant, volatile young woman with ambition to burn, earned her a BAFTA. She also starred as Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Back to Black and now returns for the hotly anticipated fourth season of Industry.
In this conversation, Marisa spills the beans on her first audition for Industry, why her acting is inspired by T...
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January 11, 2026 • 15 mins
It’s claimed that meditation can fix everything. If you speak to anyone on the topic, they claim it will reduce your anxiety, make you slimmer, result in you earning more and mean your relationships are all perfect. It might be popular, but it’s notoriously hard to keep up.
Broadcasting legend Kirsty Young admits she feels she’s ‘really bad at meditation’ BUT it doesn’t stop her having a go at it every day, even if it’s just f...
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January 7, 2026 • 54 mins
This episode contains description of addiction, eating disorders and discussion of suicide.
Our guest today is the pioneering comedian, actor and activist Margaret Cho. She began performing comedy as a teenager, opening for Jerry Seinfeld at just 14, before becoming one of the most influential stand-ups of her generation.
Now in her 50s, Margaret reflects in this episode on the cancellation of her groundbreaking sitcom, All-Amer...
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January 4, 2026 • 14 mins
Money worries are far more common than we like to admit: from keeping you awake at night to quietly shaping your choices and decisions, financial anxiety affects us all - especially after a season of festive indulgence.
In this episode, comedian Fern Brady (recorded live in Edinburgh) speaks about not having enough money to stay at university - and the unconventional ways she earned a living to keep going.
Media mogul Simon Cow...
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December 31, 2025 • 57 mins
Bear Grylls has achieved worldwide fame as one of the most recognised faces of survival and outdoor adventure. A former SAS soldier, he has climbed Everest, circumnavigated the British Isles on a jet ski, rowed naked in a bathtub along the Thames and once broke his back in a parachuting accident.
But he's most famous for his TV career. He starred in seven seasons of the Discovery Channel’s Emmy Award-nominated Man vs. Wild TV ser...
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December 24, 2025 • 48 mins
This episode contains very strong language and isn’t suitable for small ears.
Sophie Willan is a double BAFTA award-winning writer, comedian and actor, perhaps best known for her BBC comedy drama, Alma's Not Normal. But it wasn’t always red carpets and award ceremonies. Willan experienced an unsettled childhood with spells in foster care, which she talks openly about in this episode. We also talk about a failed Edinburgh show tha...
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December 17, 2025 • 52 mins
Fashion icon Bella Freud on abandoning psychics, learning to trust herself and realising that what happens next is entirely up to her.
Freud is a designer and creative whose clothes have adorned the likes of Zadie Smith, Kate Moss, Little Simz and…well…me. She’s also a cult podcaster with her hit show, Fashion Neurosis, where guests are invited to examine what clothes mean to them.
She’s lived a fascinating life: the daughter of...
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December 14, 2025 • 24 mins
I’ve always been obsessed with friendship - how it shapes us, challenges us and often goes uncelebrated. In this episode, both Dawn French and Vogue Williams get honest about the beauty and the messiness of it all.
Despite being surrounded by great friends, Vogue explains why she worries she’s not the best friend back - although she’s definitely working on it. Dawn then reflects on growing up as an RAF kid. Repeated moves meant sh...
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December 10, 2025 • 45 mins
You might know the star of Rivals for his revealing role in the hit Disney+ show, but did you know about his dramatic allium allergy?! I thought not.
Alex Hassell might be best known for his portrayal of the dashing bounder, Rupert Campbell-Black in the Emmy-Award winning TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals but his career spans the Royal Shakespeare Company, a leading role opposite Anya Taylor-Joy in The Miniaturist, HBO’s...
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December 7, 2025 • 12 mins
Perspective is something we all chase - because when it slips, life can feel chaotic and overwhelming. But when we find it again, everything becomes a little clearer.
In this episode, actor Adeel Akhtar reflects on a time when he lost sight of perspective and how becoming a parent helped him rediscover what truly matters.
Cricketing great Pat Cummins shares how the loss of his beloved mum reshaped his relationship with sport and ...
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December 3, 2025 • 62 mins
I don’t often have repeat guests on How To Fail but Mo Gawdat is the exception. When he first came on this podcast in 2019, he fundamentally changed my mindset and my approach to life.
Back then, he was on a mission to make 1 billion people happier. Now, he returns to focus his brilliant philosophical and analytical brain to the perpetual human question: how to find true love, then nurture and sustain it.
He joins me to d...
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November 30, 2025 • 35 mins
We don’t talk about this enough, even though so many of us face it personally or through someone we love.
Real Housewives of New York star, Jessel Taank, opens up about her three-year journey to become a mum; the strain it put on her marriage, the financial toll and the moments during five rounds of IVF when she questioned everything - even whether she truly wanted motherhood. And then… she had twins.
Paloma Faith also shares her...
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November 26, 2025 • 44 mins
Ruth Wilson MBE has made a habit of tackling psychologically demanding roles. You’ll know her from playing a mother grieving the loss of her child in The Affair, a sociopathic research scientist in Luther or even from her acclaimed stage performances in Anna Christie and King Lear.
Now, Wilson is back with Apple TV's Down Cemetery Road, based on novels by Mick Herron. She stars opposite Emma Thompson, as an art restorer swept...
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November 23, 2025 • 19 mins
We all face rejection, no matter who we are. In this episode we revisit conversations with two extraordinary women who have faced rejection and overcome it: Spice Girl Mel B opens up about her unsuccessful audition for The Sound of Music and the pain of feeling like she didn’t fit the mould because of how she looked while Nicole shares what life was like before the Pussycat Dolls - the endless auditions, doors slammed-shut and the ...
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