This American Life
The Inquiry (BBC World Service) | iPlayer
Five Women, last week’s edition of This American Life, the long-established, well-respected doyen of informative podcasts, is very much a programme of now. The story begins with a woman who’s been in a relationship for 23 years. She starts wondering about her partner, how he treats other women. Her wondering begins because of the #MeToo movement. And, it turns out, she is right to wonder: BuzzFeed publishes an article about her partner, whose name is Don, detailing several instances of him sexually harassing women at his company, Alternet. And Vivian, Don’s partner, the woman at the start of the story, starts unravelling her own attitudes, her own history.
What follows is a complicated, subtle tale that involves four other women, all of whom accuse Don of harassment. We hear about their pasts, how they learned about sex, the relevance of what they were taught as children. It’s about them, rather than about him. “It’s a reckoning,” says Chana Joffe-Walt, the interviewer and presenter. And it is. If all of us have been brought up in an environment where women make allowances for men, where women recall sexual experiences and justify the times when it felt wrong, when we tell each other that “that’s how men are”, then it is hard to step up and speak out when we need to. We haven’t learned how to do that. We haven’t had the practice.
There are many memorable quotes in this programme. One young women describes an older man unexpectedly talking about her body, or showing her porn, as another type of imposition: “I’m going to force the fact that I have a sexuality on you.” (As though it’s her business, as though she wants to know.) Another speaks of when she was 12 and realised that her male friends had started to treat her differently. It was as if, she says, there were two of her. One “separate, objectified body” and another person, who was actually her. But the most easy-to-remember quote is when Don, in a rage because he’s been denied sex, starts shouting at his then-girlfriend. He yells: “I am the most feminist man you know!” It’s so ridiculous it makes you laugh out loud. Until you remember that if you hear that stuff enough times, you might start believing it.
Rather more academic, but as relevant to today’s world, is the World Service’s latest episode of The Inquiry, How Did We Get Hooked On Plastic? In under half an hour, we follow plastic from its initial creation (wow! It’s unbreakable) to today, when it has taken over the world (uh-oh! It’s unbreakable). Right now, we are in crisis, as China has stopped accepting other countries’ plastic for recycling and many places don’t have the facilities to correctly dispose of all this environmentally unfriendly waste. In short, there is a whole load of plastic out there and no place to put it. The Inquiry looks back to the start, when this wonder product was created to ease our plundering of the world’s resources. It all sounded so positive, back then.
Unusual storytelling podcasts
Zombies, Run! – The Way of All Flesh
Audible
Booker-prize winner Naomi Alderman’s fantastic novel, The Power, has been rightly feted by many, including Barack Obama. Why not enjoy Alderman’s humour and talent for sci-fi tension in a different format? The Way of All Flesh takes the story of the fitness app Zombies, Run! (which Alderman helped to create) and makes it into a more conventional audio drama. The Zombies, Run! app, if you don’t know, puts you into an audio world where you are fleeing zombies and trying to help others defeat them. You’re less physically active in the audio drama, but a rest is always nice.
Story Quest by Fun Kids
Funkidslive.com
Story Quest gives kids proper tales, well told, with new (extremely short) episodes every week. If you can’t wait seven days, there are some stories already up on the site that are binge-worthy. Bryony Brownwell’s Mystery Project Is Fun (strange goings-on at school!) and there’s 40 minutes’ worth there already. So, if you can’t face another bedtime of reading David Walliams, simply plug your phone into speakers, load up Bryony B and leave the kids listening…
Anywhere But Home by Save the Children
iTunes/Acast
A series of six true-life tales from displaced families across the world. Save the Children has taken the testimonies of those in war zones such as Syria and writer and producer Alexia Singh has turned them into stories. The charity has helped many families in similar situations and realises that one way they can make us understand what’s happening is by telling true stories in a way we appreciate. Actors (including, full disclosure, my husband, Michael Smiley) voice the words and Singh uses sound and music to create an intimate, moving listening experience.
