Audio Portfolio
This section features my audio work. It includes podcasts, such as Edgelands for the Telegraph, reports for the BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4, and audio documentaries. There are also audio-only recordings of stage performances, such as my storytelling for The Moth.
EDGELANDS
Edgelands is a six-part podcast series for The Telegraph, made during my New Iron Curtain journey along Russia’s European border, in 2018.
Edgelands topped the Apple Podcast Charts: it was Number 1 in the Travel and Places category, and occupied four of the Top Ten sport in the Episodes chart for the duration of the initial run. It has a Five Star average rating on Apple Podcasts and has had over 70,000 downloads.
You can visit the Edgelands website, and here is the Apple Podcasts link. You can also listen to the six episodes through this website by clicking on this link here.
Edgelands was presented by Greg Dickinson and msyelf, produced by Pete Naughton and David McGuire, and championed at the Telegraph by Andy Mackenzie, Head of Audio and Video.
On stage the Union Chapel, London, for The Moth.
THE MOTH MAINSTAGE: DON’T LOOK BACK
The Moth is a New York City-based institution, dedicated to the art of storytelling. Moth Mainstage is their flagship event, at which five storytellers each tell their story on-stage without notes. It tours the world and, when it came to The Union Chapel, London I was asked to tell a story. I chose to tell the story of taking my father’s ashes to India and learning to become comfortable with my mixed-race heritage. Sharing that story live with an audience of 900 people was remarkably cathartic and emotional.
The Moth Radio Hour is syndicated to over 500 radio stations across the US, with over 1 million listeners a week. The podcast has over 1 million weekly downloads.
You can visit The Moth web-page about my story, with links to the podcast here, or you can listen to it by clicking the box below. You can also watch a video of the Mainstage event here.
FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
From Our Own Correspondent (FOOC) is a weekly BBC radio programme in which a number of BBC foreign correspondents deliver a sequence of short talks reflecting on current events and topical themes. The focus is on wit, insight and analysis that goes beyond just news reporting.
I have reported for FOOC three times. My first report was when I followed the route of a World War Two British secret mission through the remote mountains of eastern Albania. My second was from the town of Novhorods’ke, on the front line of the Donbas conflict in Eastern Ukraine. My third report was from Russian-occupied Crimea.
In 2018 I travelled to Kamaishi, Japan, to report on the city’s recovery from the 2011 tsunami, and the helping hand of rugby. I later reported from the New Zealand, about the Whanganui River gaining legal personhood status. In 2020, as Belarus went through political turmoil, I reflected on a run-in with the KGB when I travelled through the country.
FOOC is presented by the legendary BBC News correspondent Kate Adie, and when I heard her read out the introduction to my first report for FOOC, it was one of the highlights of my career. It is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service, which has a global weekly audience of over 300 million.