New Times,
New Thinking.

BBC Radio 4’s The Untold returns with offbeat human stories

Episodes can be heavy in subject matter or dovetail with broader topical issues – the Windrush scandal, Brexit and Covid-19 – but they never opt for the obvious approach.

By Anna Leszkiewicz

The columnist Grace Dent has been hosting BBC Radio 4’s documentary series The Untold for five years. Each episode tells a small human story: a long-distance romance; the dreams of a choirboy; an adult woman’s struggle to learn to ride a bike. They can be heavy in subject matter or dovetail with broader topical issues – such as the Windrush scandal, Brexit and, increasingly, Covid-19 – but they never opt for the obvious approach.

The first episode of this year’s series (5 April, 11am) comes from inside the Hard Knocks Gym in Bradford, a boxing club caught illegally holding a fight with a full house of spectators in October last year. After a police raid, the gym was fined £10,000, which has as yet not been enforced. Dent seeks out the organisers and discovers some striking characters, who are disarmingly candid and nonchalant about their misdemeanour. “Well, it was good fun!” the organiser Darren Moffitt says. “They said in the papers there was about 30 or 40 [spectators], but there must have been 200.” He gives a full belly laugh. “I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong.”

[see also: BBC Radio 4’s Conspiracies is a deep, broad consideration of conspiratorial thinking]

Gym owner Scott Midgley is torn. He admits that at first he was keen to follow the rules, but as the crisis dragged on, he struggled. “I’m not bothered about the police or the government, I’m bothered about my fighters and my friends,” he says. When he insists, “I’m not a trouble-causer, I might have been a little rascal when I was younger, but…” Dent interjects, brightly: “Well, you said you’d been in prison.”

Ultimately, even with all their hubris, it feels hard to judge those who have seen their main source of income devastated by the pandemic. Darren’s bravado softens. “Well, I say it was 200 – it wasn’t,” he hedges. Dent encourages him to open up about past mental health issues that left him suicidal and his fears for his isolated friends. She pushes him on whether he’d feel differently about his choices had his beloved mum contracted Covid. He sounds pained. “Urm… I don’t know what to say. You’ve put me on the spot there. My mum, bless her.” A more vulnerable side emerges. At the end, he asks Dent: “Do you think I come across alright?”

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how Progressive Media Investments may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

The Untold 
BBC Radio 4

Content from our partners
No health, no growth
Tackling cancer waiting times
Kickstarting growth: will complex health issues be ignored?

Topics in this article : ,

This article appears in the 14 Apr 2021 issue of the New Statesman, Careless people