How – and why – I made God Next Door
Hello there. How are you? Have you been away? You have a lovely glow about you.
It’s been a few months since my documentary God Next Door aired on BBC Radio 4. I have been reflecting on what an incredible journey it was. If it’s OK with you, I wanted to pop by your inbox and share some of that – because I think it matters.
When my friend Sophie told me about a strange evening she had with a group in Manchester, led by a man called James who claimed to be God, I was hooked. A few years and a pandemic later, I couldn’t shake it off. I knew I needed to find them and figure out who this man was.
I began my journey into their community, trying to understand their world, and why they believed in his man called James. Who are these people? Is this a harmless example of modern spirituality… or is it a cult?
The process of turning this story into a programme was long and sometimes arduous. It went through many iterations. It was going to be a podcast. And then a TV programme. And then a radio programme. And then a podcast again. It was going to be one part, then ten parts, then five parts, then one again. We had endless meetings with excited commissioners and producers. We filmed with the group, recorded with the group, wrote about the group. Before, eventually, it landed in what was probably always its natural home: BBC Radio 4.
That long process gave me more time with James and the group. I spent years in their world. I built a relationship with them, challenged them, was challenged by them… and, maybe, as I reflect in the programme, got too close.
There is one thing I am particularly proud of… that we never relented to sensationalism. There were times that felt like the easiest path, the quickest way on to TV, or to a hit podcast, or on to a streaming platform.
Eventually, I got to tell the story I wanted. While always vigilant to possible abuses, and the need to hold people to account, we told a story about a community, growing in the cracks of a fracturing world. A story about the complexity of being human. We simply wouldn’t have been able to do that were it not for the time, space and freedom that BBC Radio 4 gave us.
The modern media economy is thirsty for clicks, likes and shares. It too often paints in binary colours and resorts to extremes to get attention. It demands clear heroes and villains. It is frustratingly incurious and unpleasantly judgemental.
This is a story that didn’t relent to those instincts. It’s full of messy complexity and contradictions. I literally say at the end of the episode – “I am not really sure how I feel, and I’m not really sure how to end this…” For some reason, that felt like a brave thing to do. And yet, it is the reality of life. Humans are messy. If our job is to reflect life, to tell stories as truthfully as we can, then why don’t more of them feel like that?
I am so thankful there are still spaces to do this kind of storytelling. Hats off to the commissioners and the whole team at BBC Radio 4.
And my brilliant friends at the production company Audio Always. They never lost faith, even though it took such a long time and made far less money than a Netflix hit would have.
I talked a bit more about this process, and why and how we made the programme, on BBC Radio’s 4 Feedback. The most brilliantly BBC thing ever – when you make a programme for Radio 4, sometimes you are invited on to Radio 4 to be held to account and answer questions from Radio 4 listeners about the programme you made for Radio 4. And quite right too. You can listen to that by clicking on this sentence here. That one there. Not this one. The first one, in bold, that is clearly a link.
Finally, most importantly, I wanted to publicly thank my fiancé, Michaela. She was the first person I told about this story, she came with me to meet them, she built a relationship with the group, she guided me when I couldn’t see where I was going, helped to shape the story, shot and edited loads of the content and was her usual calm and patient self as I paced the kitchen while we listened to it go out.
If I never make anything else again, at least I made this.
September 30, 2024 | No Comments