What was indie sleaze?

Which is fine; except The Rise and Fall ... performs all sorts of contortions to tell us that, honestly, indie sleaze actually was a scene, but also, OK, no, it wasn’t, really. Whatever: the Strokes were the sleazy starting gun. With one riff, they wiped away the previous few years of Coldplay and Travis. Trousers were tightened; Converse came back. But the Strokes were American, as were the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the White Stripes. The Vines were Australian, the Hives were from Sweden. So where was that elusive UK scene?

“All these little independent scenes in all these different cities, it was almost like a collective consciousness … you only became aware of each other when you all started exploding at the same time,” says Gary Jarman of the Cribs. The very entertaining Jarman and his twin brother, Ryan, were from Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Then there were Maxïmo Park from Newcastle, Franz Ferdinand from Glasgow and London-based Razorlight and the Libertines. These disparate bands’ popularity was fuelled by the new internet phenomenon MySpace (the Cribs almost signed to a MySpace record company), by enterprising teenagers around the country setting up little clubs and by the bands themselves, playing guerrilla gigs.

The Libertines were famous for it, performing in people’s front rooms or their own flat, charging a few quid to get in. The Libertines’s Pete Doherty is a frank and strange presence in the show. “With crack and heroin, I had a very expensive habit,” he says. “That’s why I was doing those guerrilla gigs, to get that cash … But with them drugs comes a very laissez-faire attitude to any rules and … it became a pretty dangerous place to be.”

Singer Kate Nash is our host, and is her usual self, meaning both upbeat and a tiny bit irritating (I can relate). Her asides are funny and astute. I especially liked the fan contributions: Alexandra Haddow, now a comedian, “was never seen without a thin neck scarf … I was the coolest person in the world just ’cos I had skinny jeans and a big fringe.” This series lickety-splits along, with insight and some excellent music. It’s genuinely thrilling when Arctic Monkeys turn up. When bands are that good, there’s no need for a made-up scene to back them up.

Radio 5 Live’s Sport’s Strangest Crimes is back, so let’s see which odd presenter it has landed this time, shall we? Past series have boasted a Formula One scandal hosted by Pete Tong; a US bank heist by an amateur basketball coach presented by, um, Johnny Marr; and the story of Shergar the racehorse, told by – checks notes – Vanilla Ice. Thankfully, other series have had more appropriate hosts, and this instalment, Hansie Cronje: Fall From Grace, about match-fixing in South African cricket in the mid-90s, is appropriately helmed by ex-cricketer and commentator Mark Butcher.

This is a steady, satisfying investigation, even if it tells you where it’s going from the start. Calm but revealing interviews from those who knew the match-fixing Cronje give detail and context. Gradually, the impression of the cricketer as a cool, inspiring, Nelson Mandela-loved, God-fearing man gives way to a more complex character: a money-lover and a bit of a bully. Still, what happens to him is a shock.

Photograph by Alamy