Walking The Dog with Emily Dean

This week Emily takes award winning playwright and screenwriter Jack Thorne for a stroll with her dog Raymond. They talk about being shy, how it felt to be a state school kid at Cambridge and his huge body of writing - from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to The Virtues. Jack also tells Emily about meeting his wife and naming his son after his favourite film. For information regarding your data privacy, visit

Emily goes for a walk with TV presenter Konnie Huq in her local Ealing park - they chat about the Bangladesh culture her parents grew up in, her early start in television aged just 16, her years as Blue Peter’s longest serving female presenter and meeting her husband Charlie Brooker. Konnie also tells Emily all about writing her first children’s book, Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World out on August 8th.  For information regarding your data privacy, visit

IN a special bonus podcast, Emily talks to Grief Encounters hosts Sasha and Venetia about “starting again” after a series of  painful losses, all accounted beautifully in her new memoir Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog. The books jarring title is completely indicative to the tone of the conversation, as Emily refuses to speak gently about the painful realities of grief.  Now, she is the only survivor of her immediate family and in her interview with Sasha and Venetia, she speaks in great detail of how this strange reality came to be.  The Deans are a genuinely extraordinary family. Her Dad was a famous TV personality and her mother an actress. Her relationship with both of them throughout the years was turbulent at times. “It was a peripatetic, slightly unstable childhood. Lot’s of bohemian artists, who were great fun to be around, but if you wan’t fish fingers on the table at 5pm, they’re not your people.” In contrast to this, Emily’s relationship with her sister Rachael meant more than anything in the world to her “I called my sister my lighthouse, she was home.” Emily’s whole world turned completely on its head in December 2011. Rachael suddenly became very ill, and passed away less than a month later from an aggressive form of cancer. In 2014, her mother was diagnosed with MND, passing away a year later, shortly followed by the death of her father a few months after. Within three short years she was completely on her own.  “There’s something about the family you have grown up, in whatever form that takes, that defines you. It is who you are. “ I had moments where I would go to ring my sister, with something funny, or if I had passed somewhere. And  then you’d get this sinking feeling of I’ve got no one to tell, no one understands this” Emily is a fascinating character, and an incredibly smart and intelligent woman who’s absolute love for her sister is still incredibly evident eight years on from her loss. Her conversation sparked many tears, huge moments of laughter, and that was within the first 10 minutes alone.  If you're looking for a safe haven to express how you feel,  Share articles, photos ,memories and more, Join the Grief Encounters Facebook Group, A place for support, compassion and empathy for those grieving

This week on walking the dog Emily goes for a stroll with comic, writer and co- host of the Older and Wider podcast Jenny Eclair. Jenny is currently considering becoming a dog owner so Emily brought along her dog Raymond and Bruce a French Bulldog who was rescued from a puppy farm by the dogs trust. They talk about Jenny’s childhood growing up in an army family, becoming a female comic when it was a male dominated world and dealing with eye gunk in dogs.  For information regarding your data privacy, visit

This week Emily heads to Northampton for a walk with the Communards star who became an Anglican priest, Reverend Richard Coles. They take out one of his five dachshunds, Daisy, and he tells Emily about coming out as a gay man to his mother, his wild days as an 80’s pop star, and his decision to give it all up and enter the priesthood. For information regarding your data privacy, visit