Seldom less than gripping: Banged Up podcast reviewed

Prison-based podcast Banged Up, now in its second series, is far more uplifting — and less soapy — than its name suggests. It begins with the tacit assumption that, if you haven’t personally been incarcerated, you probably have at least a dozen questions you’d want to ask someone who had. Is the food really awful? How likely are you to be beaten up? Is there a lending library? (I’d start with the last.) Banged Up has the answers to plenty more besides.

The podcast is hosted by a prison lawyer named Claire Salama and two ex-inmates, a former footballer, Mike Boateng, known as ‘Boats’, and university-educated Rob Morrison, who describes himself as ‘probably not their [prisons’] target market’. While Claire takes the back seat, dropping in the odd bit on the criminal justice system and steering the discussion, Rob and Boats speak honestly about life behind bars. They are, both of them, highly engaging speakers.

Most episodes feature a guest who has also served time. Recently, Boats brought in Ed, who had been locked up at High Down in his teens after being arrested for possession of an offensive weapon. Ed was in hospital, where he had been treated for a stab wound to his own arm, when the police approached him. Although he knew who his attacker was, he refused to tell them his identity, explaining to us: ‘It’s not really how it works.’

Those who need to imagine how it works can appreciate the courage it takes to recount all this publicly. I was struck by the young man’s maturity and readiness to acknowledge his mistakes. Throughout, in fact, he came down harder on himself than on the police or the system, some of the shortcomings of which became only too apparent to the listener as the programme progressed.