An all too brisk and too narrow history of eugenics: Radio 4’s Bad Blood reviewed
Like so many of history’s great catastrophes, the story begins with an eccentric Victorian Englishman. Francis Galton was a maker…
The extraordinary case of Malcolm MacArthur
Non-fiction tells you what happened, fiction affirms the kinds of things that happen. According to Aristotle, anyway. So while journalism…
Shocked and moved me far more than I anticipated: Hoaxed reviewed
I shied away from conspiracy stuff during the Trump era. Not the theories themselves, but the huge volume of content…
A belter of a podcast, featuring a mad South African: Smoke Screen reviewed
I go back and forth on tobacco companies. On the one hand, they are merchants of death. On the other,…
No genre of storytelling is more formulaic or more exhausted than true crime
Nothing new under the sun. Or at least it feels that way these days, doesn’t it? The movies are TV…
The cruelty of reality TV was part of the appeal
Jade Goody appeared on Big Brother in 2002. She was a short, loud, blonde-haired woman who broadcast her every thought…
A podcast with real emotional heft: Philippa Perry’s Siblings in Session reviewed
Have you ever taken a piece of advice? I’m not asking a rhetorical question. Have you ever once in your…
Don’t read Ulysses; listen to it
Don’t read James Joyce’s Ulysses, says John Phipps. Listen to it
A strange blend of farce and tragedy: Wild Things – Siegfried & Roy reviewed
The prestige podcasting era began in 2014, when the true-crime Serial gripped us with the ‘did-he-dunnit’ mystery of whether Adnan…
