Jarvis Cocker is set to return to BBC Radio 6 Music for a one-off festive special, NME can exclusively reveal.
The Pulp frontman will sit in for Iggy Pop on the station with his Solstice Service show, airing between 4pm and 6pm GMT on Sunday December 21. He’ll treat listeners to a handpicked selection of tracks to kickstart Christmas 2026.
“It’s an honour to sit in on Iggy’s show on December 21st: the darkest day of the year,” Cocker explained. “But I will be bringing some light with this special, one-off edition of Jarvis Cocker’s Solstice Service. Be of good cheer!”
The singer-songwriter previously presented Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service on 6 Music between 2010 and 2017, giving fans a weekly dose of his favourite music.
He returned to the station last month to host a one-off broadcast, The Sleeping Forecast. This programme will also be re-aired on 6 Music on Christmas Eve, going into Christmas Day (between 12am-2am).
Cocker’s Solstice Service will form part of a special Christmas schedule on BBC Radio 6 Music – full details of which are yet to be confirmed.
Pulp were named as one of 6 Music’s Artists Of The Year for 2025 earlier this month, and called it their “favourite radio station”.
Jarvis Cocker performs with Pulp at Glastonbury 2025. Credit: Andy Ford for NME
Meanwhile, Pulp have announced a huge outdoor show at Manchester’s Wythenshawe Park for next summer. It’ll mark the Sheffield band’s only major UK headline concert of the year. They have since been confirmed as bill-toppers at End Of The Road 2026, where they’ll deliver an “unexpected” set. “This will not be a typical Pulp show,” they wrote.
Pulp were recently shortlisted for the Mercury Prize with their acclaimed comeback album, ‘More’, but lost out to Sam Fender’s ‘People Watching’. ‘More’ also earned Cocker and co. their first UK Number One album in 27 years. In a four-star review, NME wrote: “Pulp have retained their original spirit and flair into a statement of middle age without feeling any less vital.”
Cocker recently teased that Pulp “might write some more songs” together. It came shortly after his bandmates Nick Banks and Candida Doyle told NME that the group were “not itching” to make another new album. “An EP, maybe, or a single,” Doyle added.
When NME asked Cocker in the summer if there was a follow-up LP to come, he replied: “Maybe. We tried to not have a concept for this record or think, ‘This is it, this is our last gas’ […] Hopefully not in another 24 years, but maybe in a couple of years, there will be something else to say.”
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