gemcode

I really love narrative podcasts. Fictional, non-fictional, original or a retelling, I don't care. And one of my recently discovered favourite non-fictional podcasts is Radio New Zealand's Black Sheep, which finished its second season a couple of months ago, and specialises in telling the stories of "shady, controversial and sometimes downright villainous characters from New Zealand history," complete with interviews of relevant historians and a soundtrack of nicely evil jazzy music. Each episode ends with a 'baa,' just in case you had forgotten that "black" and "sheep" are both New Zealand symbols of a sort. It's Radio New Zealand. Patriotism is probably written into their charter somewhere. Heck, it's probably written into their charter everywhere.

Still, patriotism has never stopped RNZ from criticising the New Zealand government, and this podcast is no exception, whether it's recounting how the prime minister got taken in by a con artist during World War II, or owning up to some of the terrible policies that were placed on Western Samoa when it was under New Zealand control. "Black sheep" includes outlaws and murderers, but it also includes questionable or downright malevolent behaviour from public officials.

By far the most fun episodes are the complicated ones: the highly intelligent convict from Australia*, swearing vengeance on the world for the punishments he endured, or the abortionist who may or may not have committed actual infanticide, but who seems to have been very much liked by her community even though abortion was illegal at the time (and still isn't legal in New Zealand unless you satisfy some fairly-broad-but-finite list of allowable circumstances). Mind you, it's also fun to hear about people who were just downright stupid. There's something nice about the way New Zealand is small enough that historical characters can be worthy of note while still being, in many ways, so normal.

New Zealand's small size also gives rise to a fun mini-game of "spot the recurring players". Lawyers, in particular, seem to have been in rather short supply for most of the nineteenth century, so sometimes the same ones will pop up in completely unrelated cases. At least one prosecutor was a sitting Premier -- that is, Prime Minister -- of New Zealand at the time of the trial. There just weren't enough lawyers or something.

Good on Radio New Zealand for producing something so fun, complex and informative. If you want to listen to any of the existing episodes, you can find them for free here, or, probably, in a podcast app.

*Convicts were not sent to New Zealand directly. European settlers generally came to New Zealand willingly, of their own accord.