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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Miranda Sawyer

The week in podcasts and radio: On the Ground – review

Guardian journalist Audrey Gillan at work in Iraq, 2003.
‘A compelling broadcaster, taking us with her wherever she goes’: Audrey Gillan at work in Iraq, 2003. Photograph: Bruce Adams

On the Ground (BBC 5 Live) | BBC Sounds

Audrey Gillan is known to radio lovers as the Scottish reporter who befriended two rough sleepers in Spitalfields, London, and made a six-part series about them. Tara and George was broadcast on Radio 4, and won radio programme of the year at the 2019 Broadcasting Press Guild awards. It was a tender and affecting series, with Gillan, if not at the forefront, decidedly involved: she was honest about her feelings around homelessness, her worries about Tara and George and how they were living. It was this relationship – as well as the one between Tara and George themselves – that gave the series its flavour and heart.

And in On the Ground, Gillan’s new podcast for 5 Live, it’s again her involvement that gives the series its USP. Gillan used to be a Guardian journalist, and in 2003 the paper sent her to be embedded with British troops during the invasion of Iraq. There, she was with the Household Cavalry when one of its troops, L/CoH Matty Hull, 25, was killed by “friendly fire” from an American A10 pilot. The pilot hit Hull’s Scimitar tank, setting fire to the weapons inside. Other members of the troop were badly injured.

Hull’s death was a big story, reported everywhere, and there were three separate investigations of the incident. The US and British military inquests did not find the pilot or his superiors guilty of any crime, instead calling the event a “tragic accident”. But in 2007, a coroner found the killing unlawful and an act of criminality.

On the Ground, presented by Gillan and her producer Dan Maudsley, goes into incredible detail about what happened. A recording was uncovered of what was said in the US pilot’s cockpit, by him and his commanding officers. Gillan and Maudsley use sound techniques to clarify the audio, separate the voices, so that they can be heard better. In the series, there is a lot of meticulous analysis of this, from the presenters and from experts. Not from the pilot, though. He hasn’t responded to Gillan and Maudsley’s requests to talk.

I listened to all 10 episodes in one go. It’s a strange one. Gillan is a compelling broadcaster, taking us with her wherever she goes. Her interviews with the soldiers are gripping, her powers of description immense, and you are brought right into the scene of death. There’s a deeply moving moment when she speaks to a military doctor who responded to a different life-or-death incident; and she’s great on the camaraderie and terror of war, the long-term effects on the psyche. She and Maudsley also uncover that the cockpit recording of what happened is now used, in a different way, by the US military – a bit of a scoop.

Still I wondered, a little, who this series was for. The topic is important to those who were there, and they deserve to know what happened. But exactly what was said in the air, what precisely what was going on in the pilot’s mind? How can anyone know now, even him? What of Hull’s family? They don’t appear in the series: I imagine Gillan got in touch, but they didn’t want to be interviewed. What about the Iraqis who were also killed by the pilot? This question is brusquely dealt with in the penultimate episode: the hosts explain that it was too hard, especially during lockdown, to trace anyone local who also died.

There is a hierarchy of war, of course: we hear British stories, because it’s British troops and reporters who bring them back to us. Similarly, there is a hierarchy of programme-making. Whose truth is available to be told? Who will talk? Who can you get to? It’s access that decides on the shape of any investigation. Gillan, being involved, has much more access than most. But we don’t hear from everyone. There are gaps. On the Ground is a gripping, emotional, occasionally maddening, investigation, but, as Gillan acknowledges in the final episode, it’s a partial one.

Three interesting new music podcasts

James Dean Bradfield.
James Dean Bradfield. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Inspired by Jara
Presented by the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield, this fascinating, sensitive podcast looks at the influence of the late Chilean musician and activist Víctor Jara, whom Bradfield has used as inspiration for his latest solo album. Part one is about Jara’s music, which influenced the Clash and U2, among others. In part two, Bradfield talks to Emma Thompson, who went to school with Jara’s exiled daughters and wrote a screenplay about his life. Part three looks at Jara’s influence on protest. The music, of course, is lovely.

The Art of Rave
This show is hosted, with daft charm, by 26-year-old Becky Hill, a singer and raver who came up through The Voice and had a No 1 with Gecko (Overdrive). Hill chats to people in the rave scene that she thinks are brilliant: DJ Zinc, Sister Bliss, Pete Tong and more. Roni Size discusses how to dance to drum’n’bass: apparently people now mosh to it, which is something us OAP ravers never expected. Tong chats about whether the house scene is still inclusive. Hill’s curiosity and verve makes this show much more than an “in my day we wore deely-boppers” rehash of former glories.

Play Next
A new series from BMW, hosted by podcast champ Edith Bowman, this show is aimed at people (BMW drivers?) who want to keep up with new music. The shows have three new tracks at the start, and then interviews: the first is with the excellent Willie J Healey about his new album Twin Heavy, and Gilles Peterson on whether festivals can survive (yes, he thinks: phew). Episode two features interviews with film composer Hans Zimmer and Barbadian singer-songwriter RoRo. A nicely put-together primer to what’s going on in music at the moment.

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