Media
Critical acclaim for "Pseudocide S1" (2021)
"These are wildly improbable and hugely entertaining tales, each of them a Hollywood-style thriller boiled down to 40-ish minutes of edge-of-the-seat audio. Historians, writers and descendants of these epic fakers help Damon and Fiennes piece together the stories and provide historical and social context. But the most extraordinary moments come when the protagonists, such as Ramon, are able to speak for themselves and show how there really can be life after death."
- (Fiona Sturges, The Financial Times)
"Spotify’s new podcast about people who faked their own deaths is a hub of tangled twists and turns. Alice Fiennes and Poppy Damon host the show, but in the first episode they let key players tell the story of the “Belrose Bomb”. Brett Boyd was left with life-changing injuries after a parcel bomb exploded at his home, but the circumstances around the attack were already a mystery when suspect Roberto de Heredia disappeared. Future episodes include a blogger who staged a hoax, a 14th-century nun who vanished to escape her life, and MP John Stonehouse, who pretended to have drowned."
- (Hannah Verdier, The Guardian)
"Alice Fiennes and Poppy Damon present a new podcast featuring death fraud: bizarre cases where someone has faked their own death. Fiennes and Damon, clever women who’ve already given us the interesting Murderabilia (about people who collect artefacts from murderers), are great storytellers. And, God, these are weird stories they’re telling. A blogger who pretends to die of leukaemia; a politician who appears to have drowned; a 14th-century nun who decides she’s had enough of the nunnery, so pretends to die and embarks on a life of “carnal lust”. Fiennes and Damon ask all the right questions, and every episode is fascinating. Excellent stuff."
- (Miranda Sawyer, The Observer)
Critical acclaim for "Murderabilia" (2019)
"True crime is one of podcasting's biggest genres, but the subjects of this six-part series take their love of the grisly stuff to the next level by collecting mementos of murder. British reporters Alice Fiennes and Poppy Damon are measured and non-judgemental as they meet a range of enthusiasts." (The Guardian Guide)
"This new Audible podcast looks at people who collect memorabilia from murderers and serial killers. Producers Alice Fiennes and Poppy Damon talk to these people and wonder, you know, why. We meet Charles Manson fans; also those of Dennis Nilsen, the Moors murderers... all the greats." (The Observer)
"There seems to be no end to people's fascination with the darker corners of the criminal mind." (The Times)
"8. You know how some things are so fascinating you can’t look away? Yeah, that’s Murderabilia, a podcast about a fascinating/dark marketplace for grim collectibles that you didn’t know existed, let alone found compelling, until you start listening. These morbid artefacts – lockets of hair from serial killers that kind of thing – are being bought and sold all the time, often just on shady Facebook groups. Poppy Damon and Alice Fiennes meet some of the buyers and sellers to explore the trend, all while returning to the fundamental question of – why?!" (NME, "The 20 best new podcasts of 2019")
"Poppy Damon and Alice Fiennes were at turns fascinated, revolted and intrigued when they discovered that around the world people are collecting, trading and profiting from serial killer memorabilia... Damon and Fiennes talk to collectors and dealers in the US [...] the reporters also look at those collecting ‘souvenirs’ of the English serial killer Fred West and a whole museum dedicated to Murderabilia in the otherwise quiet Sussex seaside town of Hastings." (CrimeReads, "7 International true crime podcasts you should be listening to")
"It's really really well put together... the best podcasts do this: as hosts, they take you -- as the listener -- on a journey through their own moral questioning as they're looking at all of these items." (BBC Podcast Radio Hour, "Top 10 New Podcasts of 2019")
"[...] fascinating and downright disturbing interviews with collectors and those who make a living in trading criminal collectables. Importantly, it’s a show that not only explores the psychology behind the murderabilia industry, but also asks just how complicit all true-crime fans are in transforming murders into an object of entertainment." (Radio Times)