Filthy Ritual | Global
Supersenses BBC Radio 4 | BBC Sounds
The Beauty Queen Riots BBC Radio 4 | bbc.co.uk
Mother Neighbor Russian Spy Audible Originals | audible.co.uk
RedHanded is a rip-roaring podcasting success. A true-crime show hosted by Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala, over the past six years it has built its audience to about 2 million downloads per month, with 200,000 regular listeners. And those listeners are devoted enough to vote the podcast the listeners choice prize at the last two British Podcast Awards; to buy the spin-off book; to ensure that any RedHanded live event sells out in a matter of minutes.
I’m an occasional RedHander and I always enjoy it. Maguire and Bala are funny and on point, peppering their intelligent storytelling with wry asides about whatever dark event they are discussing (they have a feminist, system-challenging slant that puts both crimes and criminals in context). Plus, they do their own investigation of whichever crime they are discussing, and their research skills are excellent.
Now the duo has brought out a standalone, six-part, binge-tastic series. Filthy Ritual is set among the genteel sitting rooms of early 2000s north London, and tells the tale of scam shamanic healer Juliet d’Souza and how she convinced several members of this Hampstead set – and others – to hand her hundreds of thousands of pounds.
She did this via Keith Bender, an affable, well-spoken osteopath: “Patient Zero of this whole story,” says Bala. During the 90s, poor old Keith’s marriage collapses, and he finds himself with very little money and even less self-esteem. D’Souza, who’s been a good friend to Keith during difficult times, somehow not only convinces him she’s a psychic, but also that – oh no! – he’s about to get cancer. But guess what? D’Souza has a cure, which is (clears throat) … nailing an envelope stuffed with money to a special shamanic tree, somewhere in Suriname. “The idea that these ancient spirits that have the power to heal people from cancer want cash money!” says Bala. “These capitalist spirits!” says Maguire. (As my own aside: what is it about posh people being unable to spot charlatans? Their twat-ometers so often don’t work.) Anyway, Keith hasn’t got any money, so he borrows from friends, and introduces them to d’Souza.
This is a gripping show, excellently produced. Maguire and Bala worked with Novel, the brilliant storytelling audio production company, on Filthy Ritual, and it’s great to hear them move from scripted in-studio narrative out into the real world, to conduct interviews and wander around Hampstead ponds in search of shamanic enlightenment. Recommended.
D’Souza claimed to see things other couldn’t, to sense what was really going on. A new Radio 4 series, Supersenses, takes a more scientific approach to sight, and all our other senses. The extremely enthusiastic Professor Ben Garrod is our presenter and he bounces us along in the manner of a jolly wowser Open University teacher. Did you know that humans are almost unique among animals in that we cannot see ultraviolet? Most animals have a far more complex visual system. “It’s difficult to imagine how to see the world from the cockpit of a … bee,” says one expert, but artificial intelligence is attempting to expand our senses and it’s these developments that Garrod is examining. It’s fascinating. In Filthy Ritual, poor old Keith had his lid flipped by an ultraviolet image of his chakra energies. You wish he’d listened to this programme before looking at it. Science can blow your mind far more excitingly – and to better purpose – than any fake shaman.
Also on Radio 4, The Beauty Queen Riots considers the 2005 disturbances in the Lozells and Handsworth areas of Birmingham, which were sparked by rumours that a young woman of Jamaican heritage had been raped by a gang of south Asian men. In five short episodes, presenter Amardeep Bassey talks to church leaders, police officers, pirate radio DJs, the cousin of a lad killed during the Troubles and others. There’s some brilliant journalism from Bassey here, born of his knowledge of the area and his sensitive interviewing. His contextualisation of local and systemic pressures is exemplary, and the show demonstrates how community policing actually does work (though – surprise – austerity cuts have meant such initiatives have now been stopped).
And as we’re on a “presenter does some legwork” theme, let’s turn to Mother Neighbor Russian Spy, where the presenter, Rosamund Pike, puts in more effort than you might expect from a hugely successful actor. She doesn’t do the interviews for the show, but she does make the effort to visit various significant sites, and her fruity, Lumley-like tones add gravitas and sparkle throughout. The story here concerns scamming of an oops-I-caused-an-international-incident type. Our scammers are Cindy and Rick Murphy, Russian spies who live for several years in the US passing as an ordinary American couple while also giving information to the motherland … until they’re unmasked by the FBI.
As with many investigative podcasts, there’s a little too much “show your workings” detail (nobody really cares how long FBI investigators sat in their cars, nor how hot they got doing so), but this is a great yarn, lifted above the ordinary by in-depth interviews with Cindy’s best friend and with Cindy’s employer. The always excellent Gordon Corera brings professional insight, and some of the funniest comments come from an ex-spy, who slams Rick’s technique. Still, the parts that stayed with me were the domestic details, especially the impact on Cindy and Rick’s daughters – two children who had their lives blown apart by the US authority’s arrest of their parents. Big scams wreck small lives.
