LRN No.5: the abyss shouts back
Plus: the gift of good stories
Friends, it’s been quite a week.
My BBC series, The Gift, launched on Monday. In advance of the big day, I wrote a long read for The Guardian’s Saturday magazine about the extraordinary truths that unravelled when Donna and Vanner Johnson bought DNA tests for themselves and their two young sons. You can read the piece here.
A lot of people did. A million people read the online version on Saturday alone - and they stayed on the page for a long time, which means they read to the end, so my editor tells me. I got so many messages from people who’d seen it. Working on long form journalism can sometimes feel like shouting into the abyss, so it’s wonderful when the abyss shouts back.
The story of the Johnson family will be told in Episode 3 of The Gift, called Mistakes. That one is going out on 25th September, at 11am on BBC Radio 4, and from first thing in the morning on BBC Sounds and other podcast platforms. But if you can’t wait until then, here’s a little taster.
Episode 1, Fraud, tells the story of how a birthday present given to a man in his eighties ended up exposing a scandal deep in the heart of Harley Street. Listen to it here, or wherever you like to listen. And feel free to like and review and subscribe, etc.
My work depends on people trusting me with their stories, and being incredibly generous with their time as they tell them to me. I’m very grateful to everyone who has done so. That’s truly a gift.
I’ve spent much of the week getting the word out about The Gift: with Naga Munchetty on 5Live on Monday, on the BBC News Channel’s The Context on Tuesday, and anywhere else that will have me. The first review is in. Charlotte Runcie in the Telegraph says The Gift is
“Utterly compelling, stop-what- you’re-doing-and-listen storytelling, the kind of radio that makes me sit in my parked car in rapt awe until it’s over. Unmissable.”
I can’t really ask for more than that.
I am so excited about Episode 2 - Justice, which is dropping on Monday. It’s one of the craziest stories I’ve ever told. Let me know what you think of that one.
Other things:
My editor at the Guardian, Merope Mills, is an extraordinary person. In the space of the two weeks since the last LRN went out, and amid unimaginable grief, she has changed the NHS
I went to see Past Lives, and came out of the cinema in floods of tears. A deft, touching, poignant, brilliant movie
I saw Jessie Armstrong and other members of the Succession writing team in conversation with Adam Buxton at the Southbank centre, and realised that a lot of brains have to work very hard to make a series that clever
My new profile picture is courtesy of my talented friend, Nina Raingold, who somehow manages to make everyone look both very cool and very much like themselves. She took the picture for my book jacket last week. Because there’s still all that to think about