Podcast Corner: Untold story of murder of gay police officer in the North
Podcast Corner looks at Blood on the Dance Floor, Rylan: How To Be A Man, and Believe in Magic
Pitched as “the untold story of the murder of a gay police officer in Northern Ireland in 1997”, across six 30-minute episodes, presenter Jordan Dunbar presents a vivid picture of the late Darren Bradshaw. He loved school and it seemed like he was set for a life in theatre, but it came as a surprise when he instead decided to join the RUC. Amid news clips of how homosexuality was legal but not really accepted in Northern Irish society in the 1980s and 90s, the series lays out the double life that Dunbar and many gay people at the time were forced to lead. The club of choice was the only one that advertised itself as a gay bar — the Parliament in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. Third episode ‘Glitter in the Chips’ takes a detour from the main story to explain why the Parliament was special. As you might expect, there’s some hilarious tales — they decided to put some cages in the club, people were willing to pay to go into them and dance, but they needed a ladder to get up. But contrast these high-octane scenes, with a background of Gloria Estefan and Whigfield’s 'Saturday Night' playing, with the next episode and the murder of Bradshaw. It happened on May 9, 1997, and is no less shocking with the passage of time. As Dunbar says, “Darren’s Belfast and my Belfast are not the same, not just for LGBT people but for everybody, and I start to get angry, angry at the sense of unfairness that Darren died on the cusp of all this change [in Belfast].” A brilliant series.
Reality TV star Rylan Clark has become a compelling voice in recent years, plainly discussing some personal struggles. He hosted a podcast series last year called Ry-union, all about blasts from the past, and is back with a more series topic, about toxic masculinity and well, how to be a man in 2023. Across 10 episodes, he talks to guests including Strictly winner Hamza Yassin, boxer Amir Khan, and Jake Daniels, the first active male professional footballer to come out publicly as gay.
The Missing Cryptoqueen host Jamie Bartlett returns with a seven-part series named after a children’s charity that was shut down in 2020 amid allegations of financial irregularities. It had the support of One Direction and the seriously ill Megan Bhari as its face. Reminiscent of last year’s brilliant, shocking series Sympathy Pains, Believe in Magic is a long, complex story that deserves your attention.
