
Show Notes
In the final instalment of the Green Man 2025 preview, we're joined by Jimmy Watkins from Running Punks, who invites you to swap the cider, put on your trainers and head for a brisk morning jog around the Glanusk Estate. We're also joined by festival director Fiona Stewart and Welsh comedian Anna Thomas, who talk about the Green Man Trust, the charitable arm of the event. It runs a year-round operation to bring arts opportunities, science engagement, training and positive change to the people and communities who need them most.
Jimmy Watkins founded Running Punks in 2019. Having broken the Welsh 800m indoor record in 2006, he made the final at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow. His life was very different a year later, when he started a band and followed a very different lifestyle – the life of athletics was behind him. However, just like in 2006, he couldn't outrun the runner! He needed to make his way back – the rock and roll lifestyle wasn't for him. Fast forward to 2025 and we have our very own music-come-running club! Don't forget to pack your trainers!
Fiona Stewart is the owner of Green Man Festival. Since 2006, she has been bringing the industry's best musicians and performers to the valleys of Bannau Brycheiniog. She is a legend in her game. But what she also focuses on is the Green Man Trust, which ensures the values of the festival have a far-reaching impact beyond the weekend in August.
Anna Thomas is an award-winning comedian, originally hailing from Carmarthenshire, South Wales. She wrote and starred in Lady Bigfoot, a short film that premiered on BBC One Wales and became the most-watched comedy short on BBC iPlayer in 2023.
More from The Green Man Podcast
The worlds of pop and rock owe a much greater debt to the classical canon than we realise. A direct and fascinating lineage draws from the experimentalism of Pierre Henry to The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows, from Stockhausen to Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. In her new book Everything We Do is Music, Elizabeth Alker shines a light on the fertile ground that exists between the borders of classical music and pop. Elizabeth is in conversation with broadcaster Huw Stephens.
Two of our comedy heroes putting the world to rights? Oh, go on then.
Power, resistance, and the race to save our world.
Cameron Picton is the former black midi guitarist and bassist and his new project, My New Band Believe, has hit upon a sound that could have taken multiple albums to establish. The debut album released in April is urgent and jangly, almost tripping over itself in its eagerness to be heard.
In his astonishing and subversive memoir, Bless Me Father, Kevin Rowland lays bare his unvarnished life story for the very first time. From the juvenile courts of his troubled teenage years to the early days of the New Romantic scene in the late ’70s and beyond, he recounts his darkest hours, deepest desires and greatest joys. Back with a new album as Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland is joined in conversation with journalist and broadcaster Sophie Williams.