Bad People BBC Sounds
Conspiracy, She Wrote Unladylike Media
Sport’s Strangest Crimes: Confessions of a Match Fixer (Radio 5 Live) | BBC Sounds
Rising Phoenix: What Does It Take? Harder Than You Think/Persephonica
Texts from mothers to daughters, in my experience at least, aren’t usually as odd as the one that kicks off the rebooted series of BBC Sounds’ Bad People: “If it all goes tits, you have this message. I love you to the ends of the earth.”
Her husband has slagged off her bubble and squeak over dinner, and soon after sending this text, Penelope Jackson murders him, before calling 999 to announce what she has done. We hear the actual audio of this incident early on in the episode before it’s chattily described and dissected. “I’m in the lounge,” she tells the call handler, breezily, “and he’s in the kitchen bleeding to death, with any luck.”
Bad People used to be a BBC podcast with ethical questions in its episode titles. These ranged from lighter examples (“Is sleepwalking a valid legal defence?”) to darker (“Does anyone deserve the death penalty?”). This time around, its refreshed focus is on specific stories with shocking, mainstream appeal, such as the case of Jackson, a retired accountant in Somerset who stabbed her husband, David, to death in the early 2021 Covid lockdown. She became known as the pyjama killer after asking police if they’d ever arrested anyone for murder before who was wearing M&S nightwear.
The show’s “new look, feel and host” also sees Amber Haque, a young true crime documentary-maker, replacing quirky comedian Sofie Hagen as the foil to psychologist Julia Shaw. The branding for the show sums up the pivot: two young women cowering camply before the silhouette of two people, one of them hoisting an axe, rendered in garishly bright, B-movie colours.
Both women are likable pros on the mic, but this reboot feels grim. The focus on Haque on her “sofa with my Post-it notes trying to piece it all together” will be catnip for armchair detectives, which feels a bit – sorry to spoil the fun, guys – irresponsible. Shaw says she’s hoping to steer Haque “off-course… towards weird ethical conversations”, but there are only a few interesting diversions into gendered violence and psychopathy, and nothing goes deep.
Personal details being divulged less for analysis than gossipy fun seemed to be the MO. I felt a Mary Whitehouse grimace creep up on me throughout, especially when we were reminded of the couple’s surviving daughter at the end, and left with a final, pithy message of advice: “The worst arguments often do start with the small things, so talk about it.” Too much sensationalism has been stirred into this true crime cake for my taste. Consider the ingredients before you gobble it up.
More bad behaviour is to be found on a sparky new show, Conspiracy, She Wrote, which aims to unravel the webs of conspiracy theories woven by and about women. Presenter Cristen Conger’s languorous, slow southern American drawl takes a while to get used to – you have to adjust to her speed – but 10 minutes in, the figure of author Nesta Helen Webster barrels into view and the podcast lifts off.
Assisted by British cultural historian Lindsay Porter, Conger tells us about this fascist who thought she was a reincarnation of a French revolutionary aristocrat, revived ideas of the Illuminati, and whose book, Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, was published, at a time of surging antisemitism 100 years ago. “And no, this is not a book recommendation!” Conger says, before offering a neat comment: “It’s too bad podcasts weren’t around because, Lord knows, she probably would’ve built an empire from there.”
The mix of rigour and sardonicism is refreshing. QAnon mums, “tradwives” and Taylor Swift government psyop conspiracy theories come next. Don’t tell Elon and Donald, but I’ll be listening.
Still, the most compelling radio I heard last week wasn’t about women at all, but English former footballer Moses Swaibu, the subject of 5 Live’s brilliant new Sport’s Strangest Crimes series, Confessions of a Match Fixer. Jailed for 16 months in 2015, Swaibut had been involved in a jaw-droppingly huge international illegal betting scandal. But this story isn’t concerned with grimy glamour.
Early on, it’s about broader, bigger things: football as a fickle engine of social mobility; money as a propeller and a corruptor; and about how harsh it can feel for a young man when your form and your luck leave you behind. It’s especially moving on how the game can give structure and safety to boys with tough early lives – there’s a devastating section about Swaibu spending his early adolescence on night buses after being locked out of home every day at 4.30pm by his strict father.
Interviews with old coaches and friends frame archive recordings as Swaibu is asked why he did it. I’m two episodes down, in a changing room with a bag stuffed with cash. Wish me luck.
If you need more uplifting sports stories after that, Rising Phoenix: What Does It Take? is a tonic – a new podcast charting the stories of some of the world’s greatest Paralympians. It’s hosted by friends Matt Stutzman, a world record-holding American archer born without arms, and former Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson, known in recent years for his intelligent athletics commentary for the BBC. The opening episode is a short spin through Stutzman’s life, from being adopted as a baby, to his determination to master a sport, to his friendship with Johnson blossoming over dinner before the 2012 London Games. “You just saw me for who I was,” Stutzman says, as he recalls eating with his feet. The bromantic vibes are infectious – a real winner.
