Early Work with Rhys James

Australian jock and NOT Nepo-brother Steen Raskopolous pops by Early Work HQ to expose himself once again to the cruel world of sketch pitching, a la SNL style read-throughs. Timberlake, Kutcher, Goliath - the big three - all get their flowers, before Steen performs a Tupac/Biggie (couldn't say which) inspired rap. Rhys also reads a flimsy comedy sketch idea written in his teenage years and everyone goes home horny.

Sophie Duker brings a teenage blend of filth to Early Work with, you guessed it, erotic Harry Potter fan fiction. What else would you expect from the life-online generation, experiencing fame first through internet comments describing you as a literary messiah. Rhys responds in kind with a disturbing semi-sexual rap about technology written when he was, erm, 18. ADULT CONTENT WARNING TBF!!!!

Music royalty Tom Odell heads into Early Work Mansions (sheds) to share some bona fide insight into the creative process, how your childhood affects your job and crucially, some ACTUAL SONGS. We are treated not just to the song lyrics of a future Ivor Novello and BRIT award winner's youth, but the melodies, as he plays his piano for us live on air. Impossible to match up to this greatness, Rhys panics and reads something from when he was 21, and already a working comedian.

Lyrical Hull superstar Lucy Beaumont enters Early Work towers to share WILTY level anecdotes about short taxi drivers, school roof campouts and being picked up by a 'crow'. We dip a toe into collaborative poetry in response to being grounded, going solo and secret house parties, entirely for her mate Claire. Topped off with 'The Boy With Crystal Eyes', to this day one of the most beautiful poems ever written. In Lucy's words, it's all 'nationally normal behaviour'.

For the first episode of the 'Lost Episodes', recorded in 2021 for a series that never came to be, Mock the Week, Outnumbered, The Now Show and general British comedy legend Hugh Dennis joins Rhys to share his childhood writings: military precision diary entries, ballads and odes for his classmates and the biggest cliffhanger in the history of the murder mystery genre. Surprisingly