Podcast Corner: Mass hysteria, Henry IV, and policing protests
A new series from BBC Sounds looks at the history of how protests are policed in the UK. Picture: Michael Holmes/PA Wire
The latest series from Dan Taberski (9/12, Missing Richard Simmons, Running from Cops), Hysterical is a seven-parter from Wondery/Pineapple Street Studios that investigates a seemingly mysterious illness that has started affecting a group of girls in high school - why is it always girls affected? It starts with a student baring her symptoms and seeking answers on a YouTube video from a dozen years ago. We can hear the tics she’s developed and Taberski, as is his wont, is good at developing his thesis over the course of the narrative show. He connects the spread to the mass hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials, as well as more recent cases such as CIA officers facing nausea and vertigo, and cops ODing from exposure to fentanyl.
