Kill List (Wondery and Novel)
Call Her Daddy (Sirius XM) | Apple Podcasts
Boj & Kate Have a Lot on Their Plate (Podmasters)
Johnny Walker (BBC Radio 2) | BBC Sounds
The Wondery podcast Kill List has had quite a bit of news coverage and it’s easy to see why. Here’s the story behind it. A few years ago, tech journalist Carl Miller was approached by an IT expert, Chris Monteiro. The latter had got into the back end of a dark web hitman site. The site was a scam: it promised to murder people for a price, but only took the money and never ordered the hit.
Which seems… just a bit dark webby, really. But now Monteiro was inside the site, he was scared that the people ordering the hit would do it themselves if the bogus hitman didn’t. He worried that the potential victims were in imminent danger. And Kill List starts with exactly this worst case scenario. In 2016, Stephen Allwine, a US church elder, paid for a scam hitman to kill his wife, Amy. When that didn’t happen, he murdered her himself.
But what should Miller do with a list of 600 potential victims from all around the world? How to let them know that someone wants them dead? And, once they know, how to persuade the police that this danger should be taken seriously? Episode two is occupied with this conundrum and is frustrating listening as a result. Miller agonises about how to tell the hit-ees and then does so very badly (he’s so vague on the phone that they hang up, thinking he’s a scammer).
I could have done with a lot less of this and the “Oh, I’m so tense” stuff from Miller, but once the series gets going, it’s gripping. The ordered hits are all personal, often the results of coercive relationships that have broken down. Such cases are notoriously difficult to get police to take seriously, especially when the threat appears to be online rather than “real”. One potential victim in Spain says, despairingly, that the police want a body before they do anything. Also, half-hearted police involvement can make things more dangerous for the potential victim. As Miller says, in episode four: “Ineffective police investigations are dangerously destabilising. It creates a shrinking window of opportunity that one of these perpetrators will feel compelled to act within.” Thank goodness that Miller and his producers keep going: one particular case attracts FBI involvement and, after that, not only do prosecutions start happening, but the series really takes off. Get past the agonising and this is a really fascinating listen.
Last week, Kamala Harris appeared on the podcast Call Her Daddy, to much sniffiness and snark. Donald Trump was rallying in Butler, Pennsylvania, with Elon Musk his cheerleader – surely Harris should be doing something more eye-catching. Well, maybe, but going on Call Her Daddy is not to be sniffed at. It’s a huge show, second only to Joe Rogan in the US on Spotify, and is the most listened-to Spotify show by women. Hosted by Alex Cooper, it used to be quite saucy, with a sex tip every week, but has turned into a more informative, snappily edited listen, with Cooper interviewing celebrities and experts about relationships, sexual assault, trauma and mental health.
Cooper “agonised” about interviewing Harris, she says, because she didn’t want to alienate her Republican listeners, but “my goal today is not to change your political affiliation, what I’m hoping is that you’re able to listen to a conversation that isn’t too different to the ones we’re having here every week… on women’s bodies and how we are treated and valued in this country”. She’s also asked Trump to come on the show. Still, judging by the social media comments, many of her listeners weren’t convinced and have flounced in Trumpy disgust.
To the UK ear, Call Her Daddy can be an abrasive listen. Cooper has that exaggerated reality show way of speaking, as though everything she says is highly significant. Plus, her questions to Harris really were softball at points: “When people tell you no, when people look at you and doubt you, what does that ignite in you?” Harris did well, though: engaging and warm, even a little slow and homely. “I don’t hear no,” she said. Also, about when things go wrong: “Think about where you had agency in that moment, don’t let things just happen to you.” From this interview, Harris needs to find a little more pizzazz, but she’s definitely human.
Here’s another couple-chatting podcast, but with a twist. Boj & Kate Have a Lot on Their Plate sees Maybe Baby couple, presenter Kate Lawler and her husband, Martin “Boj” Bojtos, have a niggly, funny discussion before keen cook Boj explains a dish that he’s made for Kate and their toddler Noa (hence, no more of the couple’s popular Maybe Baby shows: they had the baby). Topics included several fun stories about mad neighbours, weird chiropractors, doing strange things when you’re asleep. I expected the cooking to be more upfront – chicken and leek pie, yum! – but that’s perhaps because I listened around teatime, when I was hungry. (The recipes can be found on the @bojandkate Instagram feed.) This is Lawler’s show, anyway: she’s spiky and silly, nuttily charismatic. Maybe one episode could be Boj trying to get her to concentrate long enough to make a sandwich.
Johnny Walker has announced he’s leaving Radio 2 at the end of this month due to his pulmonary fibrosis, a dignified bowing out from an exceptional broadcasting career. It’s interesting that his hosting duties will be taken over by Bob Harris (Sounds of the 70s) and Shaun Keaveny (The Rock Show). Keaveny was controversially let go by 6 Music in 2021, but battled on, putting out his own daily radio show-style podcasts until he was given a BBC Sounds podcast, Your Place or Mine, and now a Radio 2 show. In similar “oops” news, Frank Skinner has started hosting a twice-weekly podcast, Frank Skinner Off the Radio (the first episode was on Friday). Skinner was recently dumped by Absolute Radio in unceremonious manner, after 15 years presenting his well-loved Saturday morning show. Both Skinner and Keaveny are hugely talented, idiosyncratic, personable broadcasters who are made for audio. Podcast or radio, thank God they’re back.
