Podcast Corner: Trojan Horse Affair is the latest offering from Serial stable
The Trojan Horse Affair: Hamza Syed and Brian Reed. Picture: Sean Pressley
The Trojan Horse Affair is the latest series from Serial Productions (and New York Times) and features a familiar voice, that of Brian Reed, last heard mired in S-Town. From Alabama in America to Birmingham in England, over the course of this eight-episode series, all released in one go at the start of February, Reed has teamed up with strident student journalist Hamza Syed to investigate Operation Trojan Horse.
Very basically: A school in Birmingham has had a remarkable turnaround in its grades, led by Tahir Alam, who realised that the student demographic (nearly 90% Pakistani) is not matched by the teaching staff (only one full-time Pakistani Muslim teacher), an issue which he quickly sets about addressing.
Alam is vaunted for improving the reputation at the school and is asked to examine more in the area. He’s dogged in his actions, believing that you have to ruffle a few feathers to get the required results - and that it is the students who matter most of all.
But then an anonymous, undated letter arrives alleging a conspiracy - Operation Trojan Horse - to Islamise schools in Birmingham five stages. Tahir loses everything - when we first meet him, he’s working out of a converted room in his garage, tutoring some pupils because he’s been banned from volunteering or working officially in schools ever again.
And so the premise of the podcast: Just who wrote the Trojan Horse letter?
What follows is a dense journalistic investigation. Three of the eight episodes top an hour’s listening; the shortest is 40 minutes. Reed and Syed are dogged and their work is admirable as they face down threats and dead-ends, utilising sources and freedom of information requests. Indeed the series should be required listening for budding student journalists.
But for the lay listener, the one who hung on Sarah Koenig’s every word in the first series from Serial, is it entertaining? We’re inundated with names, grades, teaching boards, council members - it can all feel a bit heady. The best moments are the long, lingering interviews with politicians fumbling for answers or a couple, who used to teach at the school, one of whom wrote anonymised letters herself around the time of the Trojan Horse claim.
Reed and Syed bounce off each other and occasionally face off with one another as frustrations boil over and their investigation scrambles for answers to a very complex case with significant racial overtones. We won’t discuss the ending other than to say we won’t be surprised if there may be follow-up episodes.
