Podcasts
Music, Money and Mayhem
Developed and originated by Cart Before Horse, and produced with BBC Studios & Novel. Chris Atkins hosts a riveting six part podcast about the collapse of EMI, the UK’s most successful and debauched record label.
Founded in 1931, EMI was the record company behind the biggest acts in music history: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Queen, Bowie,Blur, Radiohead, Coldplay and Robbie Williams. It was Britain’s most profitable and influential cultural powerhouse, selling billions of records nd CDs all over the world. But in2007 it was bought by a group of sharp suited city hustlers, and within three years the company had exploded. This is a cautionary tale of greed hubris backstabbing, and the unholy culture clash between money and art. It has a cast of the largest ego in pop music, who went to war with the biggest sharks in the city, and together they blew up the golden goose. It symbolises the moment when rampant excess in the worlds of finance and music came to a crashing halt.The story is told by the people who lived through it, including Neil Tenant from the Pet Shop Boys, Ed O’Brien from Radiohead, Jonny Marr, and demonised banker Guy Hands who bought the company and helmed it’s crushing collapse.
Music, Money & Mayhem was launched worldwide in 2025 to huge exposure and critical acclaim.
A Bit of a Stretch
Developed and produced by Cart Before Horse, this multi award winning podcast about the UK prison crisis has run over three seasons and had over 600,000 downloads. Hosted by Chris Atkins, and inspired by his Sunday Times bestselling book A Bit of a Stretch, the podcast interviews dozens of former and serving prisoners about the chaos and heartbreak inside British prisons
Released in three series between 2020 and 2023, the podcast looks at the prison crisis from every angle and its secrets are exposed by those living inside the broken system. Series one covers a range of big themes - Arrival & Survival, Love, Family and Mental Health. Series two features big stories of incarceration from Chris’s second book, Time After Time, including The Fake Duke, a hero from the London Bridge terror attacks and a man who escaped a high security jail pretending to be his own twin brother. Season three looks at how we might fix the prison system and offers practical solutions to the crisis.
Winner of Best Podcast series at the 2024 True Crime Awards, and Winner of Outstanding Digital Media at the 2021 Criminal Justice Alliance Awards.
File on 4 - The rise in prison recalls
Chris Atkins presents for BBC Radio 4’s flagship current affairs programme, File on 4, about the shocking rise in prison recalls. The show reveals how the number of prisoners recalled back to jail has skyrocketed, and why this makes the public far less safe.
Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on October 2024 and available on BBC Sounds.
