Summary
Josie Long presents short documentaries about people or places who become known for a single thing.
From the contested title of Britain's most haunted village to a tender reflection on an actor defined by their most famous role.
Most Haunted Produced by Ross Sutherland
Babi Featuring Rosalind Jana
The Bystander Featuring William Genovese Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in February 2019.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, welcome to Shortcuts. It's a new series. I'm still Josie Long. You may recognise me from the recent online voiceover for the English National Opera's ticket giveaway. You may also recognise me from not doing as well as I would have liked on |
| 0:22.8 | several comedy panel shows in the past eight to ten years. But hopefully you recognise me |
| 0:28.5 | from shortcuts. |
| 0:34.1 | This is Shortcuts. |
| 0:38.3 | Brief Encounters, true stories, radio adventures and found sound. |
| 0:44.3 | Today, known for. |
| 0:47.2 | I tell Jackie that I am from the real most haunted village in England. |
| 0:52.1 | I set out my intentions to steal the title back. |
| 0:55.2 | This is how I tend to talk about her in showy facts and fragments, things that compress a complex life down to a few choice details. |
| 1:06.4 | I'm from Orpington in Kent. And growing up in Alpington, I used to get very frustrated by the fact that |
| 1:13.2 | they really didn't seem to be anything to be proud of or to connect with. Like, there wasn't any |
| 1:18.5 | nature, there weren't any mountains or rivers or lakes, there was no coastline, but at the same time |
| 1:23.2 | there wasn't really any culture or art or anything like that. There's a breed of chicken called |
| 1:28.5 | the buff, Orpington, but you wouldn't see them walking about. I never even saw one until Google |
| 1:33.5 | came along. It's a fine chicken. I'm so jealous of anyone who grew up somewhere where there |
| 1:39.6 | was something to cling on to. Even a statue where the legs of the horse were wrong. Even a low-level |
| 1:46.4 | contestant from Fame Academy. Nothing. I just wanted to come from somewhere where something |
| 1:52.6 | exciting was happening. I have spent my entire life telling people that I grew up in the most haunted village in England. |
| 2:05.6 | Coggeshaw, in Essex, the most haunted village in England, according to an article in The Daily Star, someone showed me when I was 11. |
| 2:14.6 | Oh yeah, we've got ghosts, mate. We got Robin the Woodcutter. We've got the |
| 2:21.0 | ghost monks of cradle house. We got the poltergeist of 47 Church Street. Not that I really believe in |
... |
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