There are so many excellent podcasts to choose from it can be tricky deciding what should be top of your list. From illuminating interviews to gripping investigations and celebrity gossip, here are some of our favourites.
Instant Classics
Wanging On with Graham Norton and Maria McErlane
Graham Norton and Maria McErlane used to run an agony aunt feature on Norton’s Radio 2 show on Saturday mornings. “Now, like almost everything else in the world, their double act has been turned into a podcast,” said James Marriott in The Times. It’s called “Wanging On with Graham Norton and Maria McErlane”, and it’s highly entertaining. The best agony aunts are “sceptical of their correspondents’ motives” and alert to their “subtly self- justifying” omissions, but Norton and McErlane “go one better and treat their correspondents with cheerful hostility”. A man who’s fretting about taking his fiancée to his mother’s house for the first time – owing to the presence there of a number of “lewd pictures” painted by his step-father – is given amusingly short shrift. A woman miffed at not being invited to the wedding of an old friend she hasn’t seen much of in recent years is given a ticking off. The podcast’s only misstep is to invite paid subscribers to offer their own “rather dreary” opinions via voicenote.
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Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth
I stumbled across “Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth” while browsing for an alternative to the politics podcasts that I usually listen to while jogging, said Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. And it was a “revelation”, twice over. The amiable Brandreth turns out to be an “interviewer of genius, nudging his guests, coaxing them, almost sashaying through the conversation of their lives”. I kicked off with the Gary Oldman episode and imagined that he might be “a bit of a self-obsessed thesp”. Instead, I discovered him to be a man of uncommon humanity and wisdom – and listening to him describe his turbulent life “moved me, elevated me, edified me”. Since then I’ve listened to episodes featuring John Cleese, Ed Balls, Judi Dench, Chris Patten, David Jason and Boris Johnson. In each case I was impressed by Brandreth’s “light, textured, immersive” style. But the Oldman episode provided on that sunny day a moment of unexpected joy that will stay with me for ever; and I am profoundly grateful to both him and Brandreth for providing it.
The Water Road
Listeners to BBC Radio 2 or 6 Music may be familiar with Adam Porter, or with his voice at least, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. He was for years a BBC newsreader, but at the start of this year he quit his job, sold his house, and moved onto a narrowboat with his partner. Since the spring, he has been documenting their “watery meanderings” in “The Water Road” – and it’s proving an absolute joy. Bite-sized episodes, rarely longer than ten minutes, are a “terrific showcase for the sounds of canal life, from the narrowboat’s gentle chug to the gurgle of water tanks being filled, to the clatter of locks being winched into place and emptied”. Immersive and soothing – almost meditative – and “determinedly sedate”, the podcast provides a “picture-postcard version of England and Wales where ducks quack, strangers cheerfully greet each other, and everyone is having a nice time. Ideal summer listening, then.”
Mistresses
For a “fun twist” on the usual two-hander history show, look no further than “Mistresses”, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. This “beautifully edited and produced” Audible series, presented by historian Dr Kate Lister and actress and all-round motormouth Jameela Jamil, digs into the hidden histories of well known “other women”. Its six subjects include Wu Zhao, who became the first female emperor of China, and Madame de Montespan, dubbed the “true Queen of France” owing to her position at the court of Louis XIV. Lister and Jamil are a funny and charismatic combo: the former leads in terms of the storytelling, while Jamil interjects with jokes and questions. They are appealing and quick-witted hosts, and their podcast has “more in common with “British Scandal” than “The Rest Is History” (a compliment): you learn things while laughing at how the story is delivered”.
What’s My Age Again? with Katherine Ryan
One of the best podcasts of the year so far is “What’s My Age Again? with Katherine Ryan”, said The Guardian. In each episode, she interviews a celebrity guest about their age, their attitude to ageing and its impact on their personal or professional lives. She also gets them to take a “nifty test”, which involves taking a blood sample to analyse their biological age (which, depending on how well your body is faring, can differ significantly from your chronological age). The results are then discussed with biologist Dr Nichola Conlon, who also sheds light on the science of longevity. Guests so far have included former professional footballer Jill Scott, pop star Sophie Ellis-Bextor and comedian Romesh Ranganathan. “It feels low-stakes enough for casual listening, but – like most things Ryan is involved with – that initial breeziness belies its frankness”, as guests open up about adoption, addiction and more.
Threshold
“Threshold” is a terrific podcast about the natural world, notable for its “exquisite and imaginative sound design”, said James Marriott in The Times. Host Amy Martin explores questions such as: ‘What sound does a frozen lake make on a sunny day?” (The answer, to my ears, is a “sort of squeaky, bloopy, howling noise like the ghost of a sad spaniel trapped in a tunnel”.) Elsewhere, we meet the treehopper, which communicates by sending “waves of vibrations through its legs into the stems and leaves of plants”, and listen to the sound of a coral reef: a static crackle of “claw clicks” made by snapping shrimp. This is a “commendably imaginative” series – and if it “gets a little precious” at times, “well, sometimes whimsy is the price you pay for interesting thoughts”.
Chasing the Sound
Genuinely excellent music podcasts are “vanishingly rare”, not least because securing the rights to play the music can be tricky, said Fiona Sturges in the Financial Times. Perhaps that’s why “Chasing the Sound”, a cracking new series by the British writer and director Kirk Flash, comprises so disappointingly few episodes. Each of the four takes a single song and uses it as a springboard for a musical – and literal – journey. The Specials’ “Free Nelson Mandela” takes Flash to Soweto, to explore South African dance music. The Gipsy Kings’ “Bamboléo”, a slice of flamenco pop rooted in Moroccan culture, takes him to Marrakech and the scene that has sprung up there around Arabic rap. The other episodes focus on Mumbai and London. Flash is a superb host, “charismatic and full of witty asides, who uses his own musical memories to spark storytelling and discovery” while interweaving historical and geopolitical context. Encore!
Illuminated: The Organ Symphony
“What does your liver sound like?” Or your kidneys, lungs, heart or brain? Not the bodily squelch of fluids mixing or air pumping. But as music. What if our vital organs, and our relationship to them, were reconceived as musical notes and instruments and composed into a symphony? What might that sound like? The question might seem so eccentric as to be almost nonsensical, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman. But it’s the premise for a “bizarre and brilliant” Radio 4 special titled “Illuminated: The Organ Symphony”. Maia Miller-Lewis spoke to five people, each with a special relationship with a different one of the five vital organs – one participant had donated a kidney to her husband and written a novella about it; another’s lungs had both collapsed within the space of two years. She then made a soundscape of their stories, which composer David Owen Norris turned into classical scores, with each organ assigned a section of the orchestra. Performed by the BBC Concert Orchestra, these pieces are “eerily surreal yet emotive”.
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Miss Me?
Celebrity-hosted podcasts are often a bit flat because “the stars involved don’t do the behind-the-scenes work on their presenting, and are too cautious about their careers to do anything other than gush”, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. But “Miss Me?”, by lifelong friends Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver, is not one of these. Their show is relaxed, super-honest – and “laugh-out-loud funny”. Oliver, a London-based TV presenter, takes on more of the hosting role, while pop star Allen, who lives in Brooklyn, supplies “intimate and hilarious” anecdotes. (Sample: once, when a rapper she was sleeping with asked her about her liposuction scars, she was so embarrassed, she told him they were the result of a hip replacement.) It’s really two shows in one: on Mondays the pair chat about what’s on their minds or in the news, then on Thursdays they answer listeners’ questions. “Topics arrive and are dismissed, talked around, then recalled; huge diversions are made into other areas.” It’s a bit messy and a “complete hoot”.
Looking for more podcast recommendations? Take your pick from our round-up of the best true crime and political shows.
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