Scamanda (Lionsgate) | Apple Podcasts
Shiny Bob: The Devil’s Advocate | BBC Sounds
Call Jonathan Pie (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
The Louis Theroux Podcast (Spotify Studios) | Spotify
How Do You Cope?… with Elis and John (BBC Radio 5 Live) | BBC Sounds
Scamanda, yet another true-life schaden-fraud podcast, is riding high in the charts. This time the scammer is a young American woman, Amanda C Riley, smiley and attractive; a family type with a baby, an older stepdaughter and a supportive husband she calls her “rock”. In 2012, Riley started a blog about her Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She gave all the devastating details – the chemotherapy, the radiotherapy, the hair loss, the tiredness, along with photos of blood tests, swollen eyes, hospital beds – and many people were moved by her account. They donated money to the fund set up to pay for all the expensive treatment Amanda needed. How much? Oh, just over $100,000 (£80,000)…
I mean: do I need to go any further? Presenter Charlie Webster – great, as ever – grabs us by the hand and takes us through the Riley story, bit by very detailed bit. But we all know where this is going. Personally, I’m finding that it’s taking too long to get there (we’re on episode 5 of 8, and each episode is an hour long), but the story is well told, and the appeal of “Ooh, that perfect woman is actually very far from being perfect” is, of course, universal.
Far darker, but better paced (six half-hour episodes) is BBC Scotland’s Shiny Bob: The Devil’s Advocate, an investigation by Myles Bonnar into Robert Henderson QC and the so-called Magic Circle affair. Henderson was an Edinburgh lawyer who wielded great power among the Scottish establishment of the 1980s and 90s – and seemingly used that power to get clients off the hook. He had a secret list, he said, of lawyers and judges who were gay but not out, and he would use that list, if needed. But was that true?
Bonnar, who hosted the excellent Good Ship BrewDog, is top-notch, telling a story that’s exceptionally tricky, both plot-wise and emotionally. Gradually, we’re pulled into a world that is very dark indeed. Be warned: the final episode contains some awful – and highly triggering – details about what Henderson and his horrible cronies were actually up to. The list was a macGuffin; a homophobic distraction from a far worse situation. You hear with relief that Henderson is dead and one of his awful friends is in prison. Unfortunately, another one is still out there…
After that, we need some silliness. And here’s the strange figure of Jonathan Pie, the huge-on-YouTube fictional journalist (“news hooker”) created by Tom Walker, to provide just that. Pie is sold to us like a younger Alan Partridge – a second-rate broadcast journalist, complete with slightly tragic home life – and indeed many of the laughs come from this. But unlike Partridge, Pie is also politically well-informed, with a ranty but right-on take on many difficult subjects. His articulate outbursts are very clippable, perfect for social media… but they don’t sit quite right with the other parts of his personality. You’re constantly flipping between sniggering at Pie’s pompous buffoonery and nodding along with him. It’s very odd.
Anyway, Pie has a new 10-part series, Call Jonathan Pie, and it’s good fun. He’s unexpectedly hosting a live phone-in radio show. The interactions between him and his producer are comic and well-drawn, and it’s always funny hearing a host move seamlessly from sweary off-mic apoplexy to smooth on-air persona. Plus, you know: phone-in callers. But then there are the rants: in the first episode, a defence of the BBC; in the second, a coruscation of private schools. Perhaps today’s audiences need their funny characters to have spelled-out, right-on politics in order to feel able to laugh at them. Older, more cynical listeners might feel differently.
More light relief: Louis Theroux is back. This time with a twist: he has moved from the BBC to Spotify. What the Spotify move means is, one assumes, more money for Theroux. For the listener it means: nothing much. The Louis Theroux Podcast is, to all intents, exactly the same as his previous BBC celebrity interview show. The only changes are that we’re given a little more Louis – we hear his thoughts after the interview – and he has a new theme tune. Weirdly, this new music is Serial-esque, making it seem as though he’s embarking on an obscure-but-riveting multi-episode investigation into the American psyche, as opposed to a diverting hour-long chat with a sleb.
Shania Twain is his first guest. Theroux quizzes her brilliantly, creating the right relaxed atmosphere for her to speak honestly about her exceptionally difficult past (singing after midnight at bars when she was just eight, looking after her kid brothers when her parents died, fending off revolting men throughout her life). He does this while also inserting his diligent research into the chat, without anything sounding forced. It’s great. Theroux is terrific at his job, as we all know, and this is a great interview.
Elis James and John Robins’s How Do You Cope is back for a fourth series, with an unusual opening episode. Usually, the pair chat sensitively with a famous person about that person’s mental health issues. But for this show they talk about their own difficulties over the past 18 months: James getting madly stressed over a house move, and Robins, far more seriously, discussing how he has given up alcohol. As ever, it’s very funny, but also honest and touching. The older I get, the more moved I am by addicts finding their way to sobriety. I found myself choking up by the end. Recommended.
