The Podcast Hour for Saturday 2 March 2019
The Podcast Hour for Saturday 2 March 2019
'David Tennant Does A Podcast with...Olivia Colman'. A famous boxer's murder conviction overturned: 'The Hurricane Tapes'. On the trail of a serial conman in 'Who The Hell is Hamish?' and an e-scooter safety investigation in 'Post Reports'.
'David Tennant Does A Podcast with...Olivia Colman'
David Tennant Does A Podcast With...logo Photo: Supplied by Somethin' Else Productions
He's probably best known for playing Doctor Who, or for his role as a dishevelled detective in Broadchurch...now the Scottish actor David Tennant's got his own podcast!
His first guest is his friend, fellow Broadchurch star, and now Oscar winner Olivia Colman. And she's bracingly forthright, funny and potty-mouthed about her path into acting, the challenges of fame, and how she copes with life in a 24/7 goldfish bowl enabled by smartphones and social media.
Sounding and feeling very much like eavesdropping on a intimate chat between mates, it's full of lovely revelations too: like how she once ate a cigarette butt in an audition, how she can do a mean Scottish accent, and how she played a great trick on Emma Stone in The Favourite involving a damp sponge.
'David Tennant Does a Podcast with...Olivia Colman'...(A Somethin' Else and No Mystery production)
A boxer's murder conviction overturned: 'The Hurricane Tapes'
The Hurricane Tapes logo (Supplied) Photo: Supplied
Early in the morning of Friday June the 17th 1966, two African-American men walked into the Lafayette Bar and Grill in Paterson, New Jersey and shot four white people, killing three of them.
Rising professional middleweight boxer Rubin Carter and his friend John Artis were picked up by police shortly afterwards and convicted of the killings, with Carter spending 18 years in prison before being cleared and freed.
Bob Dylan protested his innocence in the song 'Hurricane' and there was also a 1999 Hollywood film called The Hurricane, starring Denzil Washington.
Carter himself died back in 2014, but in 'The Hurricane Tapes' sports reporter Steve Crossman and producer Joel Hammer try to get the true story using a treasure trove of 40 hours of old, previously unheard interviews of Carter speaking about the case.
This old scratchy audio, and interviews with just about everyone involved- police, the victims' families, and Carter's contemporaries- tell the twisting, compelling story of the case, and of the sometimes less than heroic Hurricane.
We speak to Steve Crossman about he managed to get hold of all those tapes, and play an excerpt from Episode 1 "The Making of Rubin Carter" (produced by Joel Hammer for the BBC World Service).
Tracking a serial conman: 'Who The Hell is Hamish?'
Who The Hell Is Hamish logo (Supplied) Photo: Supplied
Tracy Hall had been separated from her husband for over a year when she first met a man called Max Tavita via a dating app.
He seemed witty, charming, intelligent, and attractive....a successful investment advisor with a sensitive side.
He'd also been struck by terrible tragedy: he told her that as a 6-year-old he'd been in a plane crash that killed his parents, and left him an orphan.
And then there was his job in New York..he apparently worked in the World Trade Centre, knew lots of people who died on 9-11, and had been walking underneath the Twin Towers when the first plane hit.
But in 'Who The Hell is Hamish?' from 'The Australian' newspaper (presented by Greg Bearup) it soon becomes clear that Max Tavita isn't who he says he is.
E-scooter safety concerns: 'Post Reports'
Post Reports logo (Supplied) Photo: Supplied
Seen by some as a viable, cheap and fun urban transport solution, Lime electric scooters got taken off the streets of Auckland and Dunedin last week over safety concerns.
We share an e-scooter investigation from The Washington Post's daily news podcast, Post Reports.
In it, host Martine Powers speaks to technology reporter Peter Holley, who started looking into the operations and some of the dodgy practices at some of the big e-scooter businesses in the US.