Podcasts... reality TV shows and royal interviews
Painful though it might be to acknowledge it, the “defining cultural medium of the 21st century” is reality television, said James Marriott in The Times. Unreal, a new podcast from Sirin Kale and Pandora Sykes, offers a “critical history” of the genre that proves both “entertaining and depressing”. The question posed by the hosts is this: Is reality TV “the dumbest genre in entertainment, or the one that tells us most about ourselves?” After episode one (about Big Brother), my reply was a reasonable “both”. By episode three (There’s Something About Miriam & Who’s Your Daddy), my answer was: “both – and also an escalating cultural bin fire that is slowly consuming society”.
If the jubilee celebrations have given you a taste for all things royal, take a look at some of the intriguing editions of Desert Island Discs currently being replayed on Radio 4 Extra (and available on BBC Sounds), said Patricia Nicol in The Sunday Times. A 1981 episode with Princess Margaret is notable for Roy Plomley’s deferential manner, and the “imperious” tones of his guest: “Scotland the Brave, please. I hope recorded by the pipes and drums of my regiment, the Royal Highland Fusiliers.” Interviewed by Sue Lawley in 1991, the Queen’s former private secretary Lord (Martin) Charteris is touching in his honest affection for his boss. “Well, I love her very much: a buck-youup person,” he says. “Most captivating” of all, though, is a Kirsty Young edition from 2012 featuring Margaret Rhodes, the Queen’s first cousin. Rhodes recalls childhood holidays at Balmoral, working for MI6 during the War while lodging at Buckingham Palace, and service to the Queen Mother. Her view of Elizabeth is: “a very pragmatic person... who has overseen a gentle change in the monarchy, bringing it a little bit nearer the people”. Also strongly recommended is The India Hicks Podcast, which is a “series of looping, occasionally loopy, conversations” between the podcaster and her formidable 93-year-old mother, Lady Pamela Hicks, a former lady-in-waiting to the Queen, who was also one of her bridesmaids in 1947.
While I have no desire to listen to “famous people prattling to their famous friends about being famous”, I do enjoy a celebrityhosted podcast with a clear focus, said Fiona Sturges in the FT. Podcrushed is one such offering. It’s a new series in which the American actor Penn Badgley (of Gossip Girl fame) and co-hosts listen to “variously poignant, funny and mortifying stories” drawn from the school years of listeners and celebrity guests, such as Drew Barrymore. “The pain of adolescence, with the attendant heartbreak and alienation, proves fertile ground for storytelling.”