'Birkbeck taught me to hone my interests - now I record a true crime podcast under a duvet'
Grace Cordell (MFA Theatre Directing, 2023) spent her time at Birkbeck learning how to craft a captivating story that entertains and fascinates. Since graduating, she has built her podcast REDRUM into a full-time job with a dedicated following of true crime enthusiasts, all of whom are captivated by her compelling storytelling.
When acting work dried up during the Covid lockdown in 2020, Grace Cordell saw the promise of opportunity.
With time on her side, she embarked on the MFA Theatre Directing course at Birkbeck, having been encouraged to join the programme by award-winning and critically acclaimed director Atri Banerjee, a Birkbeck alumnus himself.
Supported by a scholarship to widen access to professional training for those from underrepresented backgrounds, Grace said her time at Birkbeck allowed her to hone her interests.
She said: “The course was all about telling a compelling story and how to entertain and fascinate.
“The course director, Professor Rob Swain, really taught us how to nurture what we were interested in and make that into a creative outlet that other people would be interested in too.
“I felt so fortunate to have the scholarship from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation, so that I could really commit to the craft. I am really grateful for my time at Birkbeck.”
Inspired to have a creative outlet, Grace launched REDRUM – ‘murder’ spelt backwards - a true-crime podcast with each episode focusing on a new story.
Initially it began as a hobby and has since developed into a full-time job, building up more than 150 episodes and up to 250,000 monthly downloads. Since the podcast’s launch five years ago, Grace has built a dedicated following of true crime enthusiasts, all of whom are captivated by her compelling storytelling.
She said: “I think we all find true crime so fascinating, which is why the podcast has done so well. True crime has become more accepted now with the rise of Netflix documentaries.
“If I take it back to the initial moment where true crime piqued my interest, I think it was from reading my mum’s magazines when I was a kid. I read a true crime case written like a story and from then, I was hooked.
“I started the podcast because I was listening to other true crime podcasts but they were very perpetrator-focused and I always wanted to know more about the victims. I am really interested in building the world around the case.”
For each episode, which is usually between 30 to 50 minutes long, Grace trawls through reams of publicly accessible material, including books, appeal details and court transcripts, to delve deeper into each crime.
She said: “I am really good at going to the end of Google. I go as far as I possibly can.”
The ethical considerations of choosing cases is “a really difficult part of the job”, says Grace.
Initially, she was unsure about whether to approach victims or victims’ families about the fact that she wanted to feature the case in the podcast.
She said: “Even just bringing it up to them again could be really triggering, so I made the decision that I was not going to contact family members but if they approached me and weren’t happy then I would be respectful and take it down. I don’t want to bring up trauma for families.”
The success of her podcast – all of which is recorded under a duvet to reduce echo – has taken Grace by surprise.
She said: “I never expected it to get this big and that it is listened to all over the world. Half of my listeners are from the UK with 20 per cent of listeners coming from America and another 20 per cent listening in Australia. It’s wonderful to have such supportive listeners.
“I recently signed with a new podcast management, which makes it possible for this to be a full-time job. I can’t believe that this is real life.”
As for what’s next for Grace and REDRUM, she has already increased her output to two episodes a week and films her podcasts episodes to camera for a YouTube audience.
She said: “I am interested in the theatricality of what this could be and turn it even more creative. There will definitely be new elements of storytelling.”
To listen to REDRUM, search for ‘REDRUM true crime’ on all usual podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube.