British Scandal
4.2/5
Critic Rating
In a country obsessed with gossip, the great and the good fear one thing more than any other - scandal.British scandals change the course of history. They bring down governments, overthrow the rich and cause the mighty to fall. Some are about sex, others about money. In the end, they’re all about power. But often at the heart of a scandal, there are ordinary human stories. Stories of those caught up in the swirl of outrage. Who was really to blame for what happened? Why did they do it? And when all is said and done, did anything really...
Critic Reviews
Score: 3
James Marriot • The Times UK • Sep 28, 2023
"(Liz Truss) ...Truss is not an interesting person. Levine and Forde do their valiant best, bantering through the episodes on her early career in the Conservative party. Forde’s impersonation of Truss casts her as a close cousin of Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy — a fitting point of comparison, though perhaps Tory Boy has more charisma. The hectic tabloidy tone is part of the fun of British Scandal. It works best with high tabloidy drama. It’s true that Truss’s career has never sounded so entertaining. But inevitably that is qualified praise."
Score: 5
Patricia Nicol • The Times UK • Sep 17, 2023
"Irreverent and close to the knuckle, abounding in absurdist detail and gallows humour, it is narrated by Matt Forde with sideswipes from Alice Levine."
Score: 4
Miranda Sawyer • The Guardian • Sep 9, 2023
"Quicker, snarkier and – yep – entirely scripted, British Scandal is a far funnier proposition than SFF. This storytelling show has been going for a few years, with excellent hosts Matt Forde and Alice Levine....It’s the telling of the story that makes this show: the silly, overwrought, unsubstantiated details, the delivery, the tone."
Score: 4
Ximena Smith • Stuff NZ • Nov 12, 2022
"(Series: Boris Johnson) The podcast is conversational, with Forde narrating Johnson’s story to Levine (complete with dramatisations, accents and sound effects) – it’s theatrical and entertaining and there’s a particularly funny description in episode two of Johnson getting stuck on a zip-wire while he was Mayor of London."
Score: 3
James Marriot • The Times UK • Oct 28, 2022
"(Series: Boris Johnson) The new series is more ridiculous than ever. Forde throws himself into (genuinely brilliant) impersonations of almost every current political figure...The show has also acquired the irritating tic of sprinkling its reconstructions with pseudo-cinematic stage directions. Still, for those who still have an appetite to hear more about our badly behaved former prime minister and the by now much-discussed evils and absurdities of his political rise, this is an entertaining, if somewhat madcap, account."
Score: 4.5
Fiona Sturges • Financial Times • Oct 23, 2022
"(Season: Boris Johnson) British Scandal podcast wittily tackles Boris Johnson’s rise and fall...This is, remarkably, the 19th season of British Scandal since its launch in 2021, an output that is only possible if you recycle existing material rather than try to unearth something new. Nonetheless, Forde and Levine are good company, and their jokes aren’t bad either. British Scandal doesn’t aim high but it does what it does with aplomb. …"
Score: 5
Hannah Verdier • The Guardian • Jun 16, 2022
"Alice Levine and Matt Forde bring a touch of My Dad Wrote a Porno-style side-eye to their retelling of scandalous stories involving sex, money and power, but resist making the tasteless jokes that could be so easy."
Score: 4.8
Catherine McGregor • The Spinoff NZ • Aug 24, 2021
"British Scandal’s real secret sauce is the co-hosting duo, Matt Forde and Alice Levine – the latter a true podcasting queen thanks to her other show, the global sensation My Dad Wrote a Porno. There are no toe-curling sex scenes in this one, but it’s surprisingly funny all the same."
Score: 4.7
Miranda Sawyer • The Guardian • Mar 8, 2021
"I initially found this a strange listen, but gradually Levine and Ford won me over. Their jokes are good, what can I say? This is a dramatically bonkers story, they are immensely warm hosts and their daftness highlights all the parts you would expect (the assassins visited a nightclub where the taps were shaped like penises: not to make a joke would be remiss). My job is not to reason why, etc, but just to tell you if British Scandal is any good. It is."
