The week in audio: Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? Joanne McNally Investigates; The Sports Agents; Diving With A Purpose – review

Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? Joanne McNally Investigates (BBC Radio 5 Live) | BBC Sounds
The Sports Agents | Global
The Documentary: Diving With A Purpose (BBC World Service) | BBC Sounds

Who Replaced Avril Lavigne is an airy, almost weightless new podcast from BBC Sounds. In it, jovial comedian Joanne McNally is given the assignment of “investigating” the several-years-old conspiracy theory that Canadian pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne is not actually Avril at all any more, but someone else called Melissa Vandella. Before we get into it, let me give you a huge spoiler. Avril Lavigne is fine. She has not been replaced. I know! Worrashocker.

Still, the point of internet conspiracy theories is not whether they’re true (they’re nearly always not), but whether they’re fun. Events this past week have proved this: of course Kate Middleton is alive and getting better, but it’s enjoyable to speculate otherwise. Those photo tweaks prove that Kate’s been replaced! By some sort of AI robot! And not even her kids have noticed!

So, the important question for Who Replaced Avril Lavigne? is, are we enjoying ourselves? And the answer is, yes, mostly. McNally does her darnedest to serve the jollies, charming her way through vox pops with Avril fans at a gig, almost blagging her way backstage (“Just tell her that Joanne’s here!”), and roping in a more cynical friend, Gearóid Farrelly, also a comedian, to assess the conspiracy theories with her. This requires Farrelly to believe McNally when she tells him that, in 2003, Avril, having scored an enormous hit with her Let Go album, went away (and… died? Was kidnapped?) and was replaced by Vandella. And Vandella is playing fake Avril because… well, that’s not really explained. Lots of this is not explained. But McNally and Farrelly look at some pictures and decide that Avril really could be someone else. I’ve looked at those pictures and I can tell you that Avril has just got older and done her eye makeup differently.

But, of course, that’s not the point. McNally and Farrelly and her other comedian friends (Joe Lycett pops up in episode two) are great at fun. Initially, I found the constant diversions a little trying, but that’s because I thought this was an investigative show. It’s not. It’s a comedy one.

The Sports Agents is a new podcast hosted by Gabby Logan and Mark Chapman. Let’s think of it as a halfway house for these two excellent presenters: they’re still on the BBC, but this is a Global podcast, and Global is the commercial audio company that nicked Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel et al. So, a halfway house, or maybe an investment in their futures.

I was completely primed to love this show, as the warm, likable, informed Logan and Chapman are two of my favourite hosts. And The Sports Agents is highly enjoyable, though I have a couple of little structural niggles, chiefly that the show preamble is too long and unscripted. Producers love getting great presenters on a podcast and allowing them to waffle. But actually, a podcast works better with a stronger structure. Bang straight in with “I’m Gabby Logan”, “and I’m Mark Chapman”, “and today we’re wondering…” plus two or three questions to set up the topic. Then “This is The Sports Agents”, play the theme tune and off we go. Otherwise everything’s all too floaty and slow.

Of the three shows I’ve listened to, the one that really gripped was last Tuesday’s, about the very weird Drug Olympics (not its real name). The Enhanced Games is the brainchild of American entrepreneur Dr Aron D’Souza, and the idea is that athletes will compete in events without the restrictions of the World Anti-Doping Agency, so they can take whatever performance-enhancing medications they desire. D’Souza specifically wants someone to beat Usain Bolt’s 100m sprint record, as well as the 50m freestyle swimming record. The winners will get millions of dollars.

Logan and Chapman went to interview D’Souza and the result was riveting, mostly because Logan, in particular, did not hold back. Straight from the off she challenged D’Souza’s woolly statistics, told him “don’t patronise me” when he told her she was old-fashioned, and held him very strongly to account. Ooh, I loved her getting cross. We don’t see this side of Logan on the BBC because her role there is as host rather than reporter. It was thrilling to hear both her and Chapman’s tougher sides. (As an aside, D’Souza is pitching the Drug Olympics as a way to exploit our “potential to overcome our biological limits”, meaning it’s yet more “live forever” nonsense for the tech bros.)

How unusual to hear these two broadcasting heavyweights stretch their wings a little. Yes, we already hear from them a lot, but the d’Souza show demonstrated what we may be missing.

Just room to mention a sweet feature on the World Service’s The Documentary strand. Diving With a Purpose is about an African American diving club of the same name who search for long-lost slave wrecks. They were trying to find evidence of the Guerrero, a slave ship wrecked in the Florida Keys in 1827: 561 captive Africans were on board; 41 of them drowned. Our presenter was the wonderfully positive Kennedy Lucas, one of the divers. Indeed, every young person we met in the documentary was beautifully upbeat and inspiring, though their task was an exceptionally difficult one. It’s hard to find evidence of the shipwreck, because in the 200 years since, the coral has grown over it. They did their best but found nothing conclusive. No matter. Everything about this documentary was generous and heartwarming, even when the climate crisis was discussed. It’s amazing to me how some Americans can transform setbacks into something hopeful. Like a magic trick. Lovely.