The week in audio: Allen Stanford: The Man Who Bought Cricket; Poison; And Away…; Athletico Mince

Take your pick from an amusing spin on how Allen Stanford conned cricket, Jacob Zuma’s fear of being poisoned, and a doubly delightful Bob Mortimer

Allen Stanford: The Man Who Bought Cricket | BBC Sounds
Poison (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
And Away… | Audible
Athletico Mince | play.acast.com

In 2008 a black helicopter landed on Lord’s cricket ground, an area of grass usually referred to as “hallowed turf”. Out of it stepped Allen Stanford, a big, brash American. To say this was unusual is an understatement. It wasn’t just the helicopter, but also that someone who wasn’t a member of Lord’s was permitted to put a toe upon the holy green stuff. “Trying to get into Lord’s is difficult enough,” remembers Nasser Hussain, former England captain. “As captain, I couldn’t walk through the Long Room to take a look at the pitch.”

No such restrictions for Stanford. After being warmly greeted by the bigwigs of the England and Wales Cricket Board, he made his way inside the building to a large Perspex box. There, the assembled media took his photograph, as he grinned alongside Ian Botham, Viv Richards and the ECB chaps. The box was front and centre, because inside the box, in neat piles of $50 bills, was $20m.

The money wasn’t (just) a gimmick. It was a prize. Stanford was funding a one-off cricket match in the Caribbean between England and his own handpicked West Indian team, the Stanford Superstars. The winning team would take the entire contents of the box. “And if you lose?” asked a reporter. “Nothing, absolutely nothing,” said Stanford. Unbelievably, the ECB was up for this. “We were just furious,” recalls Jonathan Agnew, the BBC’s cricketing correspondent. “It’s not cricket, it’s everything that cricket isn’t.”

Allen Stanford: The Man Who Bought Cricket is the second, and much better, series from Radio 5 live’s podcast strand Sport’s Strangest Crimes. The first series, you may recall, was about the kidnapping of the racehorse Shergar. That series was narrated by Vanilla Ice. This time round our host is more … expected. Greg James, Radio 1 breakfast show host, is well known as a massive cricket fan, and co-hosts a popular podcast on the subject, Tailenders. And here he is clearly having great fun. It’s enjoyable stuff.

Despite its sporting title, we could file this podcast into a familiar schaden-fraud true crime slot, alongside other great shows such as The Dropout and WeCrashed. They all go like this: small-town blagger with ginormous ego morphs into massive bullshitter who parlays their way into a lot of money. Then it all goes wrong. That’s the “fraud” bit. The “schaden” part is not only provided by the central character being brought down, but also by us laughing at all the important people willing to link their money and reputations to such an obvious charlatan. Here, the enjoyment is provided by leading members of the England and Wales Cricket Board. You may have guessed (or remembered) that the link-up doesn’t end well.

James is an excellent host, neatly manoeuvring between cricket acronyms, FBI investigations and general silliness. His script sometimes over-explains – did we really need a deconstruction of ye olde “So what attracted you to billionaire Allen Stanford?” joke? – and I would have been happier with slightly sharper editing and a shorter series. But this is immensely entertaining stuff, enlivened by James’s warm interviewing and presentation.

Another man of merde de taureau is, sadly, the former president of South Africa Jacob Zuma. In Poison, a short series in Radio 4’s after-lunch 15-minute slot, Andrew Harding unpicks Zuma’s strange obsession with being poisoned. This, too, is a very interesting story, but had the opposite problem to the Allen Stanford tale: there were occasions where we needed more context and explanation. Just a date, or a short summary of Zuma’s rise to power, or what he was being prosecuted for. Perhaps the 15-minute slots weren’t the right format for this fascinating tale. It might have benefited from a little longer to breathe.

A slight detour: I spent a bit of time in bed last week, and I can recommend, both for this situation and for most others in life, the audiobook of Bob Mortimer’s touching, funny autobiography And Away… Mortimer, who reads it himself, has an uneven delivery, sometimes swallowing his words, but when he steps into silly character he’s absolutely hilarious. And for those who might protest that this isn’t a podcast or a radio programme (it is audio, of course), then may I push you towards Mortimer’s longstanding podcast with Andy Dawson, Athletico Mince? I hadn’t listened to it for a while, but it’s as madly daft and laugh-out-loud as ever, with the pair telling made-up stories about “Mr” Sting being tragic about his lute, Jeremy Corbyn being mean about a runner’s medal and loads more. If you liked the odder characters in Vic Reeves Big Night Out, then this one’s for you.

Contributor

Miranda Sawyer

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
The week in audio: 28ish Days Later; The Followers; In Dark Corners
Periods, stalkers and sexual abuse in private schools are all the subject of essential, fascinating listens

Miranda Sawyer

09, Jul, 2022 @4:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: The Exploding Library; Famous Firsts; Ry-Union; Bed of Lies
Flann O’Brien takes centre stage, while the latest round of celebrity ‘interviews’ are in need of a tough producer

Miranda Sawyer

27, Nov, 2021 @5:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: Strike Force Five; British Scandal; Intrigue: The Immortals – reviews
US talkshow hosts raise funds for striking staff via a rambly Zoom call; the podcast that takes on the murky British elite has a field day with Liz Truss; and Radio 4 asks if tech bros really can live for ever

Miranda Sawyer

09, Sep, 2023 @4:00 PM

Article image
This week in audio: Fat Leonard; Harsh Reality: The Story of Miriam Rivera; Afterwords: Stuart Hall
The man at the centre of a vast US navy scandal confesses all; the human cost of reality TV; and in praise of the superstar intellectual

Miranda Sawyer

04, Dec, 2021 @5:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: Rental Health; Saturday Night at the Movies; Tim’s Listening Party; Tagged – review
Radio 4 took an in-depth look at local incarnations of the housing crisis from Leeds to Ullapool, while Jonathan Ross and Tim Burgess find new radio homes

Miranda Sawyer

01, Apr, 2023 @4:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: The Archers; Buried; The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome and more
While Ambridge is left reeling, new podcasts delve deep into a waste scandal in Derry and a sinister Cuban mystery, and Zoe Ball gets reading

Miranda Sawyer

29, Jan, 2023 @11:30 AM

Article image
The week in audio: Angela Rayner, Chris Bryant, Annie Mac and more radio sit-ins
Angela Rayner and Chris Bryant excelled as talk radio understudies on LBC, while Annie Mac and Deb Grant were impressive guest hosts on 6 Music

Miranda Sawyer

23, Jul, 2022 @4:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: Two Mr Ps in a Pod(cast); Teach Me a Lesson; Schools Apart and more
Shows on education range from the warmly comic to the thoughtfully investigative, while TS Eliot’s The Waste Land gets a centenary revival

Miranda Sawyer

16, Jul, 2022 @4:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: Queer the Music; Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative; Elis James and John Robins – review
Jake Shears’s deep dive into LGBTQ+ anthems hits all the right notes; a documentary-maker turns the spotlight on her own craft; and a lovable radio double act find their internet feet

Miranda Sawyer

10, Feb, 2024 @5:00 PM

Article image
The week in audio: Digging With Flo; Intrigue: Burning Sun; Blum; The Ashes – review
NTS Radio fosters deep chats at the allotment, Radio 4 investigates K-pop sex scandals, a Swiss drama takes its time, or there’s always the cricket…

Miranda Sawyer

01, Jul, 2023 @4:00 PM