This was a really interesting project to produce because Caroline and I had to work together (along with the exec producer and a data journalist) to ensure we could include all the relevant data and research in each episode in an accessible way, while also creating a captivating story to hook the listener in, whether that was through an interview or through Caroline’s own narrative journey.
My favourite episode is about unpaid care work, and involved a trip to Reykjavík to interview two friends who organised a women’s strike in the 1970s. They played off each other really well, but the best part was after the interview (I was still recording, luckily!) when they started singing a song written for the strike.
I worked with writer Rachel Ellis and editor David Taylor to approach this episode of Tortoise’s Slow Newscast very journalistically, wanting to find out what was really going on behind the scenes of the Christian Legal Centre, a group which offers support to parents of children who are terminally ill in cases where the courts have decided it is no longer in their best interests to be on life supporting treatment.
It was important for us to speak to Andrea Williams, the founder of the CLC. We struggled to arrange an interview over email so ended up recording a visit to their offices to door knock, and a trip to a book launch event which we suspected Andrea would be at. It was a great mix of journalism, storytelling and suspense.
This was my first Slow Newscast for Tortoise, with journalist Nicky Woolf. It’s the story of Second Sight, a company which developed a retinal implant to improve the vision of people with a rare type of blindness - but the company went bust, leaving the people with the implants without support, waiting for the technology which has changed their lives to eventually stop working.
I went to Amsterdam to interview one of the people who had the implant, while we sent Nicky to Maine in the US. This involved organising a field producer who doubled as a taxi driver for Nicky, and producing the interview remotely from back in London. We also found many experts and ethicists who helped us make sense of the science and moral dilemmas behind health tech.
I worked with production company Novel and journalist Jim Waterson to produce series two of The Political Butterfly Effect to air on BBC Radio Four. We really wanted to capture absurd and improbable stories in this series, but also heard from experts who could back up our theories.
My favourite episode featured a trip up to Morecambe to speak to local people involved in the creation of a Mr Blobby theme park in 1994. Nearly 20 years on, emotions were still high, and we got some great stories from Steve who worked at the park, as well as some sobering facts from a man called Clive who audited the park after its failure just 13 weeks after opening.
Paris and I worked closely on series one of this BBC Radio Four project as it relied on her personal stories as well as those of our interviewees. In each episode we took one theme, such as language, sex, addictions or forgiveness, and heard two stories that showed us opposite sides of the coin - for example a young man who accidentally caused death by dangerous driving, and a father whose daughter was killed by an Israeli soldier. We also spoke to an expert in each episode who helped us understand the science of the topic, and heard Paris’ own thoughts and personal anecdotes. It was a lot to fit in to half an hour and required some fastidious scripting to keep the listener following the complex ideas.
Journalists Ceri Thomas (Tortoise) and Alistair Jackson had been following the story of Operation Midland since it first broke in 2014, so it was a real challenge to be drafted in to produce this series at short notice when most of the interviews had already been completed, and keep it out of the weeds.
Ceri and Al had spent time getting to know ex-MP Harvey Proctor, who was unjustly accused of being involved in a VIP paedophile ring. Ceri’s approach to storytelling taught me a lot and I think we managed to balance a sympathetic portrayal of what happened to Proctor with the reality of his Powellist political opinions very well.
If you’d like to hear more, or chat about any of the other projects I’ve worked on (yes Jon Snow is really very nice in real life) please feel free to get in touch.