Full Disclosure with James O'Brien

Full Disclosure is taking a short break, but we’ll be back very soon with brand new episodes.
Until then, why not dip back into the archive! There are some brilliant episodes to catch up on, including conversations with Jonathan Pryce, Billy Idol, Grace Dent, Sadiq Khan, Dawn French, Irvine Welsh, Hugh Laurie, Jon Ronson, David Harewood and Brian Cox. And that’s only scratching the surface!

Full Disclosure is a Global Production
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Baroness Beeban Kidron has lived several lives in one. Award winning filmmaker, Hollywood director, crossbench peer and one of the earliest and most persistent critics of Big Tech, she has spent years sounding the alarm about the digital world long before the rest of us caught up.
In this episode of Full Disclosure, James O’Brien sits down with Beeban to trace the path from a radical North London childhood to the House of Lords, via Greenham Common, Hollywood and a career spent telling stories about power, exclusion and who gets heard. She reflects on the childhood operation that left her unable to speak, the camera that gave her purpose and the instinct that has driven everything since, from filmmaking to political campaigning.
Beeban explains why the arrival of smartphones felt like a turning point, how her documentary work with teenagers exposed the hidden costs of life online and why she believes the harms caused by tech are not accidental but built into the system. She speaks about lobbying, political failure and the transfer of power, money and control from public life into private hands.
It is a fiercely intelligent, deeply personal and often incendiary conversation about technology, democracy and what it will take to fight back.
Find out more about Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back by Beeban Kidron here
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After Andy Burnham's landslide win against Nigel Farage's Reform party in Makerfield, we thought you'd love to hear his interview with James O'Brien again, first released in 2022

Dubbed 'King of the North' at the height of the pandemic, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham speaks to James about why he sees the country of his birth as containing 'two Englands'. After growing up in a catholic Labour family in Aintree, Burnham went on to study at Cambridge but did not fit in. He tells James why.

Cressida Cowell is on of the most beloved children's authors, selling millions and millions of books worldwide, including 'How to train your dragon' which is now a global film franchise too.
In this episode of Full Disclosure with James O'Brien, Cressida tells us about her loving childhood with summers spent on Little Colonsay in the Inner Hebridies - a small, inhabited island that her environmentalist dad bought. From boarding school to sixth form, she charts back through her love or reading and illustrating to the struggles, and sometimes lack of, that she faced to become a successful author.
A self-proclaimed misfit at school who struggle with concentration and organisation, Cressida tells james how she felt powerless as a child and loved reading stories with strong female heroes - something she strives for in her writing.
But school never held her back, and with some good fortune of meeting the right people at the right time, Cressida discusses how she got her big break, 'How To Train Your Dragon' didn't become an instant hit, but a cult one and how Hiccup came to be.
Find out more about Cressida Cowell and her new book How To Train Your Dragon School: Fight of the Flamestrike here.
Full Disclosure is a Global Production
Listen or watch every Friday on Global Player, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

This episode includes discussion of sensitive topics, including addiction, that some listeners may find distressing. Please take care while listening, and feel free to pause or step away if you need to.
DJ Fat Tony has spent a lifetime turning chaos into charisma. Long before he became one of the most recognisable figures in British nightlife, he was a kid from Battersea learning, far too young, how to protect himself, how to perform, and how to survive. His childhood wasn’t without love or colour - he speaks warmly about his glamorous, indulgent mother, his complex but protective father, and the freedom and style that shaped him - but it was also marked by abuse, secrecy and the sense that he had to grow up far too quickly.
In this episode of Full Disclosure, James O’Brien sits down with DJ Fat Tony to trace the path from those early years to the centre of London’s club culture. Tony reflects on sneaking into nightlife as a teenager, finding his people on the King’s Road, and building a reputation not through technical brilliance but through instinct, energy and an unerring ear for what moved people.
He speaks candidly about trauma, addiction, identity and the masks he wore to stay in control, as well as the extraordinary highs of a life lived at full volume - from the golden age of clubbing to the friendships, fame and excess that came with it. Tony opens up about recovery, honesty and the hard work of building a life that no longer depends on performance or escape.
It’s a funny, moving and often startling conversation about survival, reinvention and what it means to finally feel at home in yourself.
Find out more about Recover Me by DJ Fat Tony here
Additional support:
If you've been affected by anything you've heard in this episode, please take a moment to read the resources listed: We Are With You, Change Grow Live, Turning Point
Full Disclosure is a Global Production
Listen or watch every Friday on Global Player, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
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