5. The Magic Balloon Gang

Gangster

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture, True Crime

4.7 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Buy your ticket for ‘The Ronnie Biggs Experience’. For fifty dollars you will be entitled to Brazilian barbecue, a few beers, and an intimate audience with an international celebrity fugitive. Branded T-Shirts are available upon request.

Live music may be provided by the Sex Pistols or, otherwise, a pop band of adorable children.

Warning: the risk of a kidnap attempt occurring within the duration of this event is high. Snakes are also a known hazard.

This episode has been edited since publication.

Credits: Presenter - Daniel Mays Producers - Phoebe McIndoe & Jude Shapiro Executive Producer - Jack Howson Associate Exec - Chris Pickard Mix Engineering - Will Fitzpatrick Commissioning Producer - Sam Proffitt Commissioning Executive - Louise Kattenhorn Commissioning Editor - Richard Maddock

Contributors include: Michael ‘Breiti’ Breitkopf & Bruce Henry Leitman, musical collaborators of Biggs Ursula Crocker, ex-housemate of Biggs Colin MacKenzie, crime reporter for the Daily Express Professor Ruth Penfold-Mounce, celebrity crime expert Chris Pickard, ghostwriter for Biggs Alex Popovics, son of Biggs’ partner Ulla Sopher John Robb, musician and punk critic Jim Shreim, documentarian and neighbour of Biggs

A Peanut & Crumb production for Radio 5 Live and BBC Sounds

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:07.2	Things just swirling around my head.
0:09.6	Am I really the product of this?
0:12.1	Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests.
0:17.0	Little did I know what more was to come.
0:19.5	I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging
0:25.2	out of the ever-expanding global DNA database.
0:28.8	They did know that I was different.
0:31.7	You had kids together.
0:33.0	Yeah.
0:33.5	Then you met.
0:34.3	Then we met.
0:35.2	The Gift.
0:36.1	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:39.4	Episodes of Gangster Presents, the story of Ronnie Biggs, are released weekly wherever you get your BBC podcast.
0:45.9	But if you can't wait, you can listen to more episodes a week earlier than anywhere else.
0:51.3	Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:53.9	A warning for you. This episode contains strong language,
0:57.4	descriptions of violence and discussions of suicide. There was this guy who called himself Lord Mike.
1:04.8	And Lord Mike had come up with this idea to do a documentary on Ronnie Biggs and he had a glass eye and a cane
1:12.4	and he used to wear black hat and dress a bit like an undertaker.
1:16.6	Jim Shreem is 19 when he arrives in Rio de Janeiro for the first time.
	...

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