by You will never beat Kyle Walker | BBC sounds
The Artificial Man (BBC Radio 4) | BBC sounds
The Case of the Little Suit/Case
The Beauty of Everyday Things (BBC Radio 4) | BBC sounds
Launching a football podcast at the end of the season is an exciting move. You might have the balls to do that, as it were, if you were captain of a team that had just won the Premier League title four times on the trot, and you were hoping for a Cup win the FA just before your first show.
Balls indeed. You will never beat Kyle Walker he arrived at BBC Sounds four days after his club, Manchester City, lost to Manchester United in a match that the Guardianchief sportswriter, Barney Ronay, as a “hungover performance”. Podcast presenter Chris Hughes, the chirpy veteran, doesn’t have this fact to say Island of Love contestant turned BBC sports serial host. Instead, Walker is known as the captain of the European champions, which he was on Wednesday, but not now (this year’s Champions League final, between Dortmund and Real Madrid, is tonight). “The boffins at the BBC have spent months talking about what we could do in a series,” Hughes continues, laughing, “but in the end what we wanted to do was the talk football and take the listeners inside the life of a serial winner. .”
During this latest addition to the BBC Sounds Players Channel, rightly or wrongly, I felt the overwhelming force of program-making directed by an external publicity machine. Walker has been in the tabloids regularly this year over his personal life (an extramarital affair resulted in two children) and his team’s alleged breaches of Premier League regulations (without, as yet, getting docked points in the table). Of course, none of the features here.
I’ve just watched episode 2 of The Case of the Tiny Suit/Case and my stomach muscles are still hurting from laughing
Still, the first episode has its moments. Walker is keenly self-deprecating, describing how a “winded merchant” enlivens his training days. When asked if he has other languages to communicate with his teammates, he jokes: “I’m English at the moment, I’m from Sheffield, aren’t I?” But opportunities for interesting insight are missed. He is not pressed when he says, somewhat sarcastically, that “no one taught me how to deal with fame”. An interesting line about footballers being “as much entertainers as they are winners” could have sparked a great conversation about playing styles or fan expectations, but nothing came of it.
I often wish that the BBC’s obsession with what the commissioners call “talent” – which often means recognizable celebrities – would get to the root of that talent to inform, educate and entertain more. Weekly episodes continue over the summer. Let’s hope they start a little.
On Radio 4, a new series of The Artificial Man after launching many authors, only three months after its first series in February. In it, hosts Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong ask listeners to submit questions about how they think AI could help them. Last week: how AI could help the elderly manage their care.
Sounds like a Radio 4 lunchtime staple You and me at first – earnest, old-fashioned, not particularly attractive – he then began to ask interesting questions. What if an elderly person being monitored by audio and video recording took a new lover? Why are older people often thought of as a “homogeneous mass”? These issues of agency and power were discussed briefly, not in depth enough for my liking. Still, the last 10 minutes were better: a beautiful exploration of the work of occupational therapists, who assess how to make people’s lives comfortable and meaningful on a person-to-person level. How refreshing it felt to remember that AI cannot replace human contact.
Then, some huge treats – first, The Case of the Little Suit/Casea new series from the makers of the parody/true crime comedy Who Shat on the floor at My Wedding (international viral hit in 2020, racking up 6.2m downloads and counting). Amateur sleuths Karen Whitehouse, Helen McLaughlin and Lauren Kilby have moved on to a new case, because, as Kilby explains in her deadpan New Zealand tones, “one year is enough to spend on faecal material”. This time, we hear the terrifying story of how a tiny corduroy suit, and then a suit, turns up in the middle of the night on the veranda of Kilby’s mother-in-law’s cottage in Sweden.
Scandinavian noirs had a brilliantly absurd sense of humour. The questions asked of the mother-in-law, Kristina, are amazing: “Have you ever dated a man that big?” “You don’t mind if we find things like a screwdriver and intimidate anyone? Waterboarding, that sort of thing?” Experts are drafted in to help them, and sound is used extensively throughout: sinister cars reversing on gravel only to have their warning tires beep; strings ominous slathering high drama moments.I’ve had a look at episode 2 and my stomach muscles are still aching with laughter.
Finally, a beautiful half hour: Ian McMillan’s The Beauty of Everyday Things. The Yorkshire poet and long-time Radio 3 host The Word He’s been tweeting short sweet posts about his trout walks for years, and here, they get a chance to expand. He deliciously explains the appeal of that time of day: “It’s as if you’ve opened the egg of the day.”
Looking back in depth, he visits a red bench on a railway platform he frequents on the train and a cafe he loves (“a temporary theatre… a temple of meetings”), to explore what the French writer Georges Perec called it “subnormal… the humdrum of the day”. Modern strains would bring this caution, and it is, in free-flowing form. It also proves that one person who delves deep into world content is what the BBC does best.
