Minecraft: More Than a Game (R4) | iPlayer
Inside The Sex Offenders’ Prison (R4) | iPlayer
Distraction Pieces Podcast | listen
Kids today, huh? Roaming around, killing cuboid pigs with iron swords, mashing spiders and zombies, and then building 17-storey palaces and blowing them up with TNT…
Minecraft, the online game where all this can happen and more, is where increasing numbers of people, young and old (but mostly young) spend their leisure time. And hooray to that, at least from me. It’s the Easter holidays. I wouldn’t be writing this review if my son wasn’t currently engrossed in Minecraft.
Radio 4’s indomitable Jolyon Jenkins is less sure if the game is a good thing. In Minecraft: More Than a Game he took the role of slightly anxious parent, knowing that Minecraft is a creative endeavour, but worrying that children spend too much time thinking about it. Mums were wheeled out to say their kids got really aggressive after a couple of hours of playing the game. But we also heard from another mother who lets her son spend all his time on Minecraft because he is autistic, and many children on the autism spectrum find Minecraft a far easier social space than the real world. Jenkins’s own son talked him through his Crafting experiences: he’s set up his own server, which means he can keep and access his particular world at any time and invite people in as he wishes. One of his invitees wrecked the place.
This was an enjoyable programme, as are all Jenkins’s shows. But for anyone with even a passing interest in Minecraft, it didn’t tell us much we didn’t already know. I’d like to have heard how the game fits in with other imagined, almost-real worlds. Books, films, music and toys used to give us these places: even before any Harry Potter movies were made, his world was so well realised by JK Rowling that it was inside children’s minds. Humans have always wanted to escape real life. Minecraft is a new way of doing it, and – although Jenkins did a great job – I wish this aspect had been discussed in more depth.
Still, his programme demonstrates radio’s ability to deal with contemporary issues in a serious manner, without gimmicks or watch-out-Grandma whizziness. This seriousness was also evident in Rex Bloomstein’s absorbing Inside the Sex Offenders’ Prison, on HMP Whatton, the largest sex offenders’ prison in Europe. Phew, this was a tricky one. Bloomstein met men who had committed the sort of crimes you hope nobody you love will ever have to deal with: from internet porn to rape and child abuse. Some offenders were very depressed about what they’d done, some were pragmatic, others remembered their anger, at the world and themselves. Bloomstein asked all the right questions, and acknowledged when the answers were awkward. There are 86,000 people in prison in the UK; 11,000 of those are sex offenders. HMP Whatton’s in-depth rehabilitation courses are a way of trying to deal with this enormous societal problem. A documentary that will stay with you for some time.
Finally, a quick word about Scroobius Pip’s podcast, Distraction Pieces. This is a sweet show, with a simple format: Scroob meets a famous person and has a chat. Interviewees have included Josie Long, Nick Frost, Russell Brand; this week we’re given the always entertaining Paddy Considine. It’s a nice show, because Scroob is nice and his guests are so relaxed that you hear their real selves, rather than their press constructions. I find the interviews a bit long – they’ve been creeping up to 90 minutes – but perhaps that’s a selling point. Anyway, the show is now sponsored by premium podcast supporter Squarespace, so, you know, it’s arrived.
