Sam’s Spring Picks

Imagine boarding a flight thinking you’re heading on holiday, but instead you get taken hostage by Saddam Hussein. It might sound far-fetched, but in August 1990 this really happened to the passengers and crew of BA Flight 149. What followed has been dubbed the most shocking government cover-up of the last thirty years. From journalist Stephen Davis.

The story takes place in the summer of 2003 when two half-starved young men turned up in a small Canadian town telling an incredible story.

They’d been raised in the British Columbia wilderness, and this was their first-ever contact with society. So the community took them in and set about introducing them to the modern world. Before long, the international media descended on the town, enthralled by the mysterious “Bush Boys.” There was just one problem: not a word the boys said was true. Nearly 20 years later, award-winning journalist Sam Mullins uncovers the bizarre true story of the strangers who turned his hometown upside-down.

For 5 shoppers and a security guard, it’s just another day in the supermarket until a masked man walks in with a gun. The hostages tell the inside story of what really happened on those two dark days in December.

A 5 episode, audio drama podcast from BBC Radio 4’s Limelight.

Three years after Elizabeth Holmes was charged with 11 counts of fraud, the verdict we’ve all been waiting for is finally in. After seven days and over 50 hours of deliberation, the 12 members of the jury found Holmes guilty on four counts. They were hung on an additional three. How did they reach these conclusions? And what happens next? What will affect Elizabeth’s sentencing, and how will the appeal process work in this case? Finally, what will the ripple effects be for Silicon Valley?

The founders of WeWork thought they were on the brink of making history. The company was valued at $47 billion dollars, it was ready for a huge IPO, and its charismatic CEO Adam Neumann thought they were going to change the world. Adam had a prophet-like vision for WeWork that he sold to some of the world’s savviest investors — but did his vision ever match the company’s reality? WeCrashed is a six-part series about the rise and fall of WeWork. It’s a story of hope and hubris, big money and bigger screwups, and the lengths people will go to chase “unicorns.”

QAnon and the plot to break reality. A year on from the Capitol Insurrection in Washington DC on 6 January 2021, Gabriel Gatehouse journeys into the dark undergrowth of modern America. He’s looking for the origins of the story that drove the crowds to storm the heart of US democracy. From conspiracy-soaked barrooms in 1990s Arkansas, via spies in hotel rooms in the shadow of the Kremlin, to anarchic chatrooms on the early internet, this is a search for the answer to one big question: did this just happen, or is somebody trying to break reality?

7 Episodes

A great 10-part scripted crime podcast, Verdict centres on a federal investigator Abigail Kaplan, who must unravel the mystery behind the murder of a star high school athlete in small town Texas. When the victim’s best friend confesses to the brutal crime that could land him on death row, Abigail must navigate small-town politics, the local police and the awesome power of the local Mega Church in order to uncover the shocking truth.