“His love for the poems he talks about really shines through, in a juicy, funny, and hands-on podcast that goes deep into how poetry intertwines with life and what it can do.”
Charlotte Runcie, Daily Telegraph
“Skinner’s conversational, unpretentious style is a pleasure to listen to”
James Marriott, The Times
It was announced today (Tuesday 15th July) that Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast will return with a brand-new 11th series. In this latest instalment, Frank once again delves into his favourite classic and contemporary poems, offering readings, insightful analysis, and thoughtful commentary on both familiar and lesser-known poets—week by week.
Originally launched in April 2020 to widespread critical acclaim, Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast quickly rose through the podcast charts regularly reaching the top spot nationwide and has maintained a dedicated following ever since. The upcoming six-part series will explore the work of poets past and present, including R.S. Thomas, Jack Clemo, Amy Clampitt, Rebecca Goss, Scott McKendry, and Greta Stoddart.
Speaking about the new series, Frank said, “Proud and excited to be putting out Series 11 of my poetry podcast. It includes a poem about scrap cars, a poem about a village swimming teacher, a poem about the Flintstones, and a poem about 3 tulips in a milk bottle. And they’re all brilliant. There’s another amazing poem that I recited in a church pulpit near Aberystwyth to sympathetic locals. You’ll have to listen to find out why.”
In addition to the poetry podcast, Frank has had a busy year on the podcast scene. He recently launched a brand-new show, Frank Off The Radio, which sees him reunited with longtime collaborators: broadcaster and author Emily Dean and comedian-writer Pierre Novellie. The twice-weekly podcast, released every Monday and Friday, debuted on 11th October 2025 and swiftly hit No. 1 in the Comedy category.
Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast Series 11, produced by Avalon, will be available from Wednesday 23rd July. Listeners can stream or download it on all major podcast platforms.
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What the Press Said About Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast
“Skinner’s passion and enthusiasm are as infectious and enlivening as ever – a great way to discover new poetry”
The i
“A charming, slightly wonky surprise. His choices were sprightly: Stevie Smith’s Not Waving but Drowning and William Carlos Williams’s Danse Russe. Like a revered but unpredictable sixth-form teacher, he offered line-by-line analysis. But there was also something raw, brave and intimate about the self-insight abashedly offered…. I’ll tune in for Skinner’s edgy English class again.”
Patricia Nicol, The Sunday Times
“A very welcome new addition to the cultural landscape: a simple idea without any fancy production presented by someone who brings insight and enthusiasm to an art form that is enjoying a resurgence in popularity.”
Will Gompertz, BBC Entertainment & Arts
“Getting into poetry is an absolutely excellent thing to fill your lockdown hours with, but actually ‘getting into poetry’ is a lot more daunting than you’d think. Where do you start? Let Frank Skinner guide you… his passion comes through in his drily funny half-hour episodes.”
Esquire
What the press said about Frank Off the Radio Podcast
“it’s a hoot. Warm-hearted, relatable, whimsical but never twee, it is light on its feet yet lands laughs that will leave listeners grinning from ear to ear. “
The Sunday Times
“well-loved Saturday morning show… hugely talented, idiosyncratic, personable broadcasters who are made for audio. Podcast or radio, thank God they’re back.”
Miranda Sawyer, The Guardian
“a podcast offering their clever, chucklesome, convolutedly looping chat, only without musical interruption. Funny friends reunited.”
Patricia Nicol, The Times – The 40 Best Podcasts of 2024
“It’s a pleasure to dip in to, and enjoyably rich in traditional British self-deprecation, a humorous art now widely endangered by the rise of Instagram boasting culture.”
Jenny McCartney, The Spectator
It might have taken him a while to come round to podcasting, but saying goodbye to the radio waves might just prove to be the best thing that could’ve happened to Frank Skinner.
Nick Hilton, The i
Notes to editors:
Frank Skinner’s live career began in 1987 when he spent £400 of his last £435 booking a room at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Four years later in 1991 he returned to the city and beat fellow nominees Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard to take home comedy’s most prestigious prize, The Perrier Award. In 2023 he was appointed an MBE by the Princess Royal, Anne, for his services to entertainment.
Earlier this year, Frank wrapped up his nationwide tour of 30 Years of Dirt, his latest sold-out and critically acclaimed stand-up show. The tour was extended into the autumn following a third West End run at London’s Gielgud Theatre, where he performed a three-week stint last summer. This followed two previous sold-out London runs, at both the Lyric and Gielgud Theatres.
During a non-stop 10-hour radio show, which marked the 10-year anniversary of his hugely successful career at Absolute Radio, Frank announced his previous stand-up show, Showbiz, which was a sold-out national tour and subsequent sold-out residency at the West End’s Garrick Theatre. Running for 15 years, the award-winning radio show, The Frank Skinner Show, which won four gold awards at the ARIAs for Best Speech Programme (2011 and 2014), Best Entertainment/Comedy Production (2017) and Best Community Programme featuring Al Gore (2018), attracted over one million listeners per week, achieved over 100 million podcast downloads since launch, making it one of the most successful radio podcasts in the UK, and saw Frank inducted into the Radio Academy’s Hall of Fame in 2015. In May 2024, in the week after it was cancelled, the radio show was nominated for the Best Comedy award at the ARIAs.
The Frank Skinner Show (BBC & ITV), was widely credited as setting the tone for the modern comedic chat show and ran for nine years, attracting 11 million viewers at its peak. Frank also hosted seven series of BBC1’s Room 101 and seven series of Portrait/Landscape Artist of the Year for Sky Arts. He hosted three series of Frank Skinner’s Opinionated for BBC Two and presented documentaries covering passions including Muhammad Ali (BBC1), Elvis (BBC4) and investigating the life of George Formby (BBC4). In 2018 he wrote and starred as Johnny Cash in Johnny Cash & the Ostrich – a one-off special forming part of the successful Urban Myths series airing on Sky Arts.
Frank, alongside David Baddiel and Lightning Seeds, wrote and recorded the iconic football anthem Three Lions, the only song in existence to have become the UK number one on four separate occasions by the same artists. With two one-week stints in 1996, three straight weeks in 1998 for the remake, and again in 2018 during the World Cup. As England made their Euro 2020 final showdown with Italy at Wembley, it shot once again to the Number 1 spot in the Official Big Top 40. A reworked, festive version of the anthem was also released ahead of the 2022 men’s World Cup in Qatar.
The last few years have seen Frank host the Big Hay Weekend on Sky Arts in 2022, and present three mini-series for the channel with author Denise Mina, Boswell and Johnson’s Scottish Road Trip in 2020, Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Romantic Road Trip in 2021 and most recently Skinner and Mina’s Literary Road Trip: Pope and Swift.
Off the back of the Frank Skinner’s Poetry Podcast launching in April 2020, the highly acclaimed book How to Enjoy Poetry was published in September 2020. His latest non-fiction, A Comedian’s Prayer Book, was published in April of 2021 and released in paperback in April 2023. In July 2022, the South Bank Show aired an episode in honour of his career.
Frank has written two autobiographies, the first of which, Frank Skinner, was the top selling autobiography of 2002, spending 46 weeks in The Sunday Times Bestseller List. The second Frank Skinner On The Road, chronicled his 2007, sell-out return to stand-up. He also published Dispatches from the Sofa; a collection of columns he wrote for The Times.
Alongside his Absolute Radio show which ran for 15 years, Frank has carried out exclusive feature interviews for the station with a number of esteemed guests including Nobel Peace Prize-winning former Vice President Al Gore and Russell T Davies, executive producer of Doctor Who and writer of It’s a Sin. Frank has also written and starred in three series of the critically-acclaimed comedy drama series Don’t Start for BBC Radio 4 and has created and hosted two series of his comedy panel show The Rest is History for BBC Radio 4.
