Cats and Other Celebrities

Dr Aseem Malhotra, ranked the world's most influential doctor on X in July 2026, was bitten by a dog as a boy, and for years afterwards he kept animals firmly at a distance. Then a beige pug called Tiny moved into his life, and the cardiologist never recovered. What followed is the reason a heart doctor belongs on a show about cats. Malhotra came to believe, and now tells his patients, that touch is medicine. He prescribes hugging: four times a day, twenty seconds each, doctor's orders. He will tell you that the unconditional love of an animal, the simple act of petting a cat, can measurably lower your heart rate and your stress, the sort of claim that sounds whimsical until a cardiologist makes it with a straight face. He is often called Britain's most controversial doctor, and he arrives at Chrissy's table fresh from testifying in the US Senate. But the conversation that matters here is quieter and more personal. He has lost his whole family and has found his way through grief with the help of Buddhism, of purpose, and, it turns out, of a pug and a cat. He talks about Samson, the cat who sat on his bed for a full day after he left, about loneliness, about why suffering is inevitable and can still be turned into growth, and about the idea that the greatest meaning in a life comes from helping other people. It is warm, unexpected and genuinely useful, an episode that quietly argues the best medicine in the house might be the one purring on the sofa. New episodes wherever you listen.

Patricia Quinn does not love cats, and Rocky Horror fans have loved her regardless for fifty years.She originated Magenta in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and she is still touring it, selling out theatres across America in the same jacket, night after night. She has met three generations of the same family dressed as Magenta, grandmother to granddaughter. Mick Jagger once turned up backstage. On the way into the studio to record this episode, strangers stopped her in the street asking for a photograph. She married Robert Stephens the day before his knighthood came through, and stayed twenty two years. When he died, King Charles wrote the letter read at his memorial. Cats, by contrast, never got a look in.Across the table with Chrissy, Patricia is Rocky Horror royalty who never chased a knighthood, a cat, or anyone's approval.New episodes wherever you listen.

A founding member of the first Neo-Rockabilly band put together by Leee Black Childers in 1977, who was Andy Warhols stage manager at the Factory, David Bowies tour manager for Ziggy Stardust along with Iggy Pop working for Mainmain ent, Leee Was on the Anarchy tour with his Band Johnny Thunders Heartbreakers personally invited by Malcom McClaren, Smutty Left a Basildon Essex council estate with a hippie mum and no father, with zero musical training or background.Chrissy talks about Smutty's love of cats his new cat Princess Leigh, her fussy eating habits and her favourite food: expensive dried cod from Iceland!Smutty is currently working in the studio in London and Palm Springs on his first ever solo album a Rockabilly dub album using chapters from his book for the songs, The title of the album is "No Thieves, Fakers, Rougues, or Tinkers"; the producer is Rockabilly super legend Tim Polecat.Also, a documentary about his journey from council estate boy to fame against all odds is already being filmed in London.Smutty also has a vintage Punk and Rockabilly store in the world-famous Alfie's Market in London along with a shared art gallery called "Walk on the wild side" withStephen

He built the first Muslim sitcom British television ever had, out of pure defiance, and became a national radio broadcaster long before most people knew his face. These days he anchors Good Morning Britain and fronts Lingo, the quiz show that somehow gets five year olds and ninety five year olds shouting at the telly in unison. He is currently the only British Muslim to anchor a peak time news show in mainstream media. He is also, by his own admission, a man who spent years convinced a specific cat had it in for him. Personally. He had theories. Then a cat he did not invite sat down on his chest, and every single one of those theories fell apart. Adil throws secret vinyl-only parties nobody talks about. He has a dream guest he has never landed. He has a lot to say about the state of British comedy, and even more to say about the cat. New episodes wherever you listen. 

Arya Goggin spent years trying to make a cat love him. She never did. He grew up around dogs, then met Trixie, who tolerated him out of what he suspects was pity. "I fell in love with Trixie," he says. "I don't know if she ever fell in love with me." It did not put him off. He waited, and when the time came he got two cats of his own, rescue sisters from Celia Hammond named, with great ceremony, after a Bond girl and a Disney princess: Domino and Belle. One struts like a model, one is the girl next door, and one, allegedly, has a French accent. The cats are only half of it. Arya drums for Skindred, the band from Wales that took on a major label with nothing but a tiny indie behind them and stole a UK number one, a win so unlikely the whole rock community rallied behind it. He is brilliant on what that actually took, on the MOBO that was, by any sensible measure, too sharp to hand out on the night, and on a truth that applies equally to bands and to cats: no one will ever care about your work more than you do. He joins Chrissy to trace the whole unlikely road, from Wales via Devon and Iran, through drummer's arms and a shield that would not look out of place on Jason and the Argonauts, to a life where the cats arrived during Covid and now travel down to Devon like royalty. Belle and Domino, naturally, supervise the entire conversation from a polite distance. Roger has views of his own, and a French passport.

The most vicious cat in London adored Richard E Grant. She adored no one else. Her name was Shiksa, she belonged to Chrissy, and she once worked a dinner table of Oscar winners dispensing pure contempt. Richard she loved on sight, and that was the test passed. Forty years after Withnail & I, he sits across the table with Chrissy. He now lives in what he cheerfully calls a commune, with his daughter, a two-week-old grandchild, and a blue-eyed ragdoll called Neo who comes when whistled and whom he calls his master. He keeps a two-foot sculpture of Barbra Streisand's head in his garden. He told her. She said he was crazy. An Oscar nominee, a devoted cat slave, and a raconteur who could charm the varnish off a door. New episodes wherever you listen. Roger's verdict: a natural. Shiksa had taste, and Roger trusts Shiksa.