100 brilliant podcasts to listen to now
Comedy
Gossipmongers
Comedians Joe Wilkinson, David Earl and Poppy Hillstead read out ridiculous childhood gossip and absurd local rumours from listeners. It’s not only hilarious – there’s also something oddly nostalgic about it. Superb music and sound design too.
Start with S2 Ep4: Kiri Pritchard-McLean
The Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project
In which America’s greatest character comic inhabits a succession of evil men: a deviant off-Broadway producer; a sadistic 91-year-old personal trainer to the stars; a devil-worshipping game show host. Daly does it so amiably you’ll come to love them all.
Start with Hail Satan with Chip Gardner
Dear Joan and Jericha
Julia Davis and Vicky Pepperdine’s perverted middle-aged agony aunts are easily the filthiest comedy duo since Derek & Clive. Their advice couldn’t be worse, but much of the joy comes from hearing these two gross-out masters each doing her best to be more wrong than the other.
Start with S1 Ep One
Comedy Bang Bang
This self-contained universe of recurring characters and insanely committed improv can be baffling for first-time listeners. But when it clicks – usually when impressionist Paul F Tompkins is doing his Andrew Lloyd Webber or Werner Herzog act – there’s nothing funnier.
Start with #229 Two Thumbs & Not Much Else
The Alice Fraser Trilogy
Three storytelling stand-up shows from one of Australia’s most intelligent comedians, in binaural 3D sound: close your eyes, and it’s just like being in the comedy club. The Resistance, about her childhood in a kind of informal Buddhist commune, is particularly delightful.
Start with 03 The Resistance Act 1
The Bugle Presents…The Last Post
Prolific podcaster Alice Fraser (again!) hops between satire and surrealism so deftly in these daily topical dispatches, you start to lose track of the difference between the two. Andy Zaltzman, Tiff Stevenson and Nish Kumar are among the regular contributors.
Start with 64. Future TV news
Beef and Dairy Network
This high-concept, deadpan comedy was picked up by Radio 4 after becoming a word-of-mouth hit. It’s ostensibly the podcast offshoot of a dry journal about dairy farming, but each episode soon descends into freewheeling surrealism.
Start with Episode 5 – Dustin France
Bunk Bed
If you’re confined to your sickbed, why not share it with Patrick Marber and Peter Curran? Each bite-sized episode of this gently charming BBC series finds the writers on the verge of sleep, swapping murmured, meandering banter about life.
Start with Happiness, small birds and Spike Milligan
Inside the Comedian
Fed up with earnest, luvvie-ish interview podcasts? Comedian David Reed skewers the format: in his interviews with fellow comics, the only rule is that every answer must be a lie. His chats with Marcus Brigstocke, Miles Jupp and Rufus Hound are improvisational gold.
Start with 4.1 – Rufus Hound
No Such Thing as a Fish
From the team behind quiz show QI, this weekly podcast combines witty chatter with joyfully abstruse trivia. Where else could you learn what kind of liquor lemurs like, or hear about a robot built to replace the Duke of York?
Start with Episode 312: No Such Thing as Quentin Tarantino’s Bambi
The Isolation Tapes
Elis James and John Robins record their video chats and play games in the time of coronavirus lockdown. It’s funny, friendly and listening to it feels like hanging out with pals.
Start with #51: Clock on, clock off
Current Affairs
Talking Politics
David Runciman, Helen Thompson and a cast of talking heads explore a political topic du jour. The hosts, academics by trade, don’t rush to conclusions: the mechanics behind ideas, parties and events are unfurled and teased out at length.
Start with 215 What’s the Future for Labour?
Red Scare
Dasha and Anna, two New York “bohemian layabouts”, drawl their way, in chaotic style, through the state of contemporary culture and politics. Good things: Slavoj ?i?ek, Bernie Sanders. Bad things: #MeToo (“sexual jihad”), Hillary Clinton, Jameela Jamil.
Start with Shame Theory
Chopper’s Politics
The Telegraph’s chief political correspondent Christopher Hope manages the difficult balancing act of being at once chummy and challenging in his interviews. His weekly podcast is usually recorded in Westminter’s Red Lion pub, but is currently (and quite sensibly) coming from his front room.
Start with Jeremy Corbyn on the Coronavirus response, leadership regrets and being a backbench rebel
Mamamia Out Loud
Another entry in the flourishing “women in a room talking” podcast genre, but what women they are. Twice a week from Sydney, two Aussies and one Brit argue about the news with a wit and open-mindedness often lacking in similar shows. No topic is too shallow or too serious, and the episodes covering Australia’s bushfire crisis were exemplary.
Start with Why I Didn’t Like Your Instagram Post
New Statesman Podcast
Short, sharp, regular: Stephen Bush, Anoosh Chakelian and co provide a weekly survey of British politics. Occasionally there’s a cultural angle, though mostly it’s news through and through. Bush dominates the airtime, but the quiet gem is the magazine’s political correspondent Ailbhe Rea.
Start with The Cabinet of Dr Keirstarmi
Who? Weekly
Of course you don’t much care about the lives of D-list celebrities or bottom-feeding influencers, and nor do the hosts of this entertainingly disdainful podcast dedicated to their movements. The regular “What’s Rita Ora up to?” segment is a joy.
Start with Spencer Pratt?
Corbynism: The Post-Mortem
Journalist Oz Katerji tackles a different theme in each episode as he looks at what went wrong for Jeremy Corbyn in the general election last year, with input from journalists and political figures.
Start with 4: The 2019 General Election Defeat
The Coronavirus Newscast
The team behind Brexitcast have turned their show into a coronavirus news programme. Presenter Adam Fleming and correspondents find some refreshing perspectives on events, including store-cupboard baking tips with Nadiya Hussain and Nigella Lawson, and advice on home haircuts from pro hairdresser Nicky Clarke.
Start with STAY AT HOME!
Trump, Inc
The American President’s numerous vested interests – some obvious, many less so – are given the sunlight-is-the-best-disinfectant treatment in this punchy investigative series. It’s like a conspiracy thriller unfolding live.
Start with The Family Business
Film
You Must Remember This
From pre-code puritanism to Manson-era excess, LA journalist Karina Longworth combs Hollywood history for scandal, long-forgotten cautionary tales and epic power struggles.
Start with Bette Davis and the Hollywood Canteen
The Director’s Cut: A DGA Podcast
Half-hour portions of starry Hollywood shop talk, recorded live at the Directors Guild of America’s Los Angeles HQ.
Start with Knives Out with Rian Johnson and Denis Villeneuve (Ep 241)
Films to be Buried With
British actor and comedian Brett Goldstein asks his guests to reflect on the movies that changed their lives from an imagined posthumous perspective. The conceit is not (quite) as morbid as it sounds, and it makes for unusually heartfelt and spontaneous conversation.
Start with Claudia O’Doherty #53
The Rewatchables
The staff of website The Ringer host a nerdy discussion of films people love enough to watch hundreds of times.
Start with The Devil Wears Prada
Ghibliotheque
Join superfan Michael Leader and newcomer Jake Cunningham on a stroll through the films of Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. Knowledgable, wry and unexpectedly soothing, it’s ideally pitched for buffs and novices alike.
Start with Spirited Away #1
Kermode & Mayo’s Film Review
The secret to the BBC’s best-loved film show isn’t the wit and passion of Mark Kermode’s criticism nor the ease of Simon Mayo’s hosting, but its fusing of the two into a once-a-generation double act.
Start with John Turturro, Four Kids and It and The Whalebone Box
One Heat Minute
Hilariously obsessive – and entirely merited – minute-by-minute analysis of Michael Mann’s near-three-hour LA crime opus Heat. Critic Blake Howard swaps theories and insights with fellow obsessives, culminating with Mann himself.
Start with Episode #30 – Manohla Dargis
Soundtracking
Convivial weekly chats hosted by Edith Bowman about the vibrant relationship between cinema and music. Bowman wears her deep knowledge lightly.
Start with Episode 155: Quentin Tarantino on the Music of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
I Was There Too
Bit-part players tell host Matt Gourley what it was like to be a victim in Silence of The Lambs, or a passenger on the Speed bus.
Start with The Exorcist with Eileen Dietz (on Stitcher Premium)
Books
Freedom, Books, Flowers & The Moon
Stig Abell, TLS editor, lends his blokey enthusiasm to rounding up the week in books and the arts more widely. It can all sound a little too eager, but the variety of coverage, from internet literature to visual art, is superb.
Start with Prize controversies
The Slowdown
Each daily episode is a five-minute nugget of poetry presented by Tracy K Smith, the former US poet laureate. The readings mix the canonical with the contemporary, from Jackie Kay and Jay Bernard to William Carlos Williams and more.
Start with 171: Spring Morning by A A Milne
The Allusionist
Helen Zaltzman’s long-running podcast about language is always enlightening and often very funny. Some of the topics she chews over include why people change their names; how meteorologists choose the right words to describe weather; and whether swearing is good for you.
Start with 95. Verisimilitude
Book Club
A series of lively conversations on writing and reading chaired by The Spectator’s literary editor Sam Leith, full of warmth, wit and easy-going erudition. Whoever the guest of the week happens to be, you will feel better-read just for having eavesdropped.
Start with Piers Torday on the magic of children’s books
Marlon and Jake Read Dead People
This series caused controversy recently after Booker Prize winner Marlon James and his editor Jake Morrissey made devastating assessments of, among others, Charlotte Bront?. It may raise your hackles, but there is something bracing in its revisionism, too.
Start with Trashy Novels to Die For
The New Yorker: Poetry
A simple format that brings the best out of its contributors: each month a guest poet chooses a poem they love and unpicks it line by line with The New Yorker’s poetry editor (Kevin Young, or in earlier episodes Paul Muldoon).
Start with Nick Laird reads Elizabeth Bishop
Reith Lectures
The archive of this seminal annual lecture series, from 1948-2019, is available as a podcast. Highlights include Daniel Barenboim on music, Grayson Perry on art and Atul Gawande on medicine, but start with Hilary Mantel’s talks on historical fiction.
Start with Can These Bones Live?
The Verb
Radio 3’s “cabaret of the word” features fiction, poetry, music and snippets of drama, as well as chat between guests such as Eimear McBride and Tim Minchin. Yorkshire poet Ian McMillan is the avuncular host.
Start with Novels that Shaped Our Language
Something Rhymes With Purple
This terrific podcast features Gyles Brandreth and Countdown’s Susie Dent exploring different words and phrases with strange etymologies. Namby-pamby, the blind leading the blind, grockle… Each is discussed in a light-hearted, whip-smart way.
Start with Boycott
Boring Books for Bedtime
If you are unable to sleep because you have listened to something really gripping, here is the antidote. Intentionally soporific readings from books on a variety of subjects including Bad Drains and How to Test Them.
Start with The Coming of the Fairies by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sport
Brian Moore’s Full Contact Rugby
Spicy, opinionated and with a superb rugby brain, The Telegraph’s Brian Moore chats with the great and the good of the game. If you love your rugby, there are few better commentators.
Start with Brian Moore: Playing behind closed doors is better than nothing
Quickly Kevin; Will He Score?
For football fans of a certain age, this is irresistible. Comedian Josh Widdicombe – with friends Michael Marden and Chris Scull – interviews footballers from the Nineties, who inevitably come with a kitbag of hair-raising stories.
Start with John Moncur: S04 E07
Top Flight Time Machine
Sam Delaney and Andy Dawson, the hosts, claim this isn’t a football podcast (it started off as one, then drifted), but while their general output is entertaining, the real gold lies in their hilarious “deep dives” into the autobiographies of Roy Keane and Kevin Keegan.
Start with The Keane Odyssey – Part 2
The Grade Cricketer
Presented by “three average cricketers who never quite made it”, The Grade Cricketer is a witty and very Australian take on all things leather and willow. Yes, they get big names in to talk to, but the soul of the podcast is in the grassroots. One for village cricketers everywhere.
Start with 81. Oh. My. God.
Athletico Mince
This one really isn’t a football podcast, though it started off that way, with comedian Bob Mortimer and his friend and long-suffering Sunderland fan Andy Dawson (him again). What this really is, is a vehicle for Mortimer’s brilliant and surreal comic mind. It’s some of his best work.
Start with Ep. 41 – Meet Barry Homeowner
That Peter Crouch Podcast
Peter Crouch and friends exchange fun anecdotes from the world of sport, and talk about such things as the nonsense footballers say to each other in the tunnel, dressing room etiquette, and the dos and don’ts of goal celebrations.
Start with That Houses Episode
Tailenders
An oddball trio of BBC Radio 1 DJ Greg James, England fast-bowling titan Jimmy Anderson and indie guitarist Felix White of the Maccabees indulge their love of cricket and all its quirks. It’s joyous, silly and welcoming even to cricket novices.
Start with The Best Day Ever
Weird & Wonderful
The Rob Auton Daily Podcast
Comedy? Poetry? Social history? Philosophy? You could file these gnomic circadian musings from Yorkshire writer and stand-up Rob Auton under all of the above. In truth, though, they’re a podcast category unto themselves; concise, intriguing and cherishably odd.
Start with Ep73: Lego Truths
Reply All
The internet is a jungle, full of dangers and curios. Every week, hosts P J Vogt and Alex Goldman investigate its weirdest, deepest recesses, from child hackers to vanished pop songs and creepy surveillance software.
Start with #158: The Case of the Missing Hit
Ologies with Alie Ward
Alie Ward interviews specialists in extremely specific things. So you get to find out all about the work of spidroinologists (experts in the properties of spider webs), ludologists (games), corvid thanatologists (the death rituals of crows, of course) and many more.
Start with Astrobiology (ALIENS) with Kevin Peter Hand
CBeebies Radio
Compilation of the best of the underrated CBeebies radio channel aimed at under-sixes, including audio adaptations of Postman Pat, Andy’s Adventures, Peter Rabbit and Biggleton’s Big News. If you are not a parent of a young child, this will mean little to you, but if you are, it’s ideal to put on as an alternative to screen time.
Start with Andy’s Sound Adventures, British Woodland
Murmurs
The ghosts of Black Mirror and Blue Jam haunt this anthology of 10 strange tales, each one told in a collage of conversational snatches and ambient sound. It’s ideal bedtime listening: headphones and a dark room are a must.
Start with 1: Over and Out
Story Pirates
A troupe of actors, comedians and musicians adapt ideas written by children into hilarious sketches. A riotous, child-focused and very silly family podcast, Story Pirates encourages kids to flex their creative writing muscles to come up with more madcap stories for the team to act out.
Start with The Girl Who Turned into Spaghetti
Imaginary Advice
Anything goes in poet Ross Sutherland’s wonderful, but erratically released podcast: ambient music, an experimental documentary about washing machines, a spoof of The Exorcist, a cut-up poem made from clips of John Humphrys on the Today programme. Oh, and he teaches a computer to do stand-up comedy.
Start with 45 S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D.
Music
Straight Up
Why did Ed Sheeran become famous and how does Adele write her songs? Co-hosted by The Telegraph’s Eleanor Halls Straight Up talks to the gatekeepers of UK music: from Grammy-winning producer Fraser T Smith to Ed Sheeran's manager Stuart Camp.
Start with Straight Up with BBC Introducing founder Jason Carter
Rolling Stone Music Now
Rolling Stone’s weekly deep dive into some of rock and country’s most cherished musicians and their back catalogues is a must-listen for music lovers who can’t stand the new school of SoundCloud rappers and bubblegum pop.
Start with Woodstock at 50: The Untold Stories
Popcast
Enjoy sparkling music journalism without a hint of snootiness from the pop music team at The New York Times, who spend an hour a week sinking their teeth into the kind of quirky music debates you won’t see in the news.
Start with What’s the point of album covers in a post-album era?
Folk on Foot
Matthew Bannister meets folk musicians (including the Young’uns, the Unthanks and Peggy Seeger) and explores the landscapes that matter to them. The musicians play acoustic songs on location against a backdrop of babbling rivers and rustling leaves. Restorative and beautiful.
Start with The Unthanks on the Northumberland Coast
David Walliams’ Marvellous Musical Podcast
The prime-time polymath turns his hand to classical music for children in this exuberantly silly educational series: think Horrible Histories with harpsichords. An eclectic syllabus takes in everything from Mozart to Ethel Smyth and John Williams’s Star Wars scores.
Start with Episode 7: Beethoven
Song by Song
This is the kind of hyper-specific idea that podcasts have created a space for: two musicians, Martin Zaltz Austwick and Sam Pay, analyse every single song in Tom Waits’s enormous discography, tackling one per episode, with help from less-obsessed guests (including writers and artists). This is unashamedly pitched at Waits superfans.
Start with Black Wings, Bone Machine, Tom Waits [199]
Beatles City
A history of the Beatles made by the Liverpool Echo, telling the story of Beatlemania, with the help of people who were really there. And I mean really there: Paul McCartney talks about his childhood home and Pete Best recalls his drumming days.
Start with Sir Paul McCartney
Interviews
Bryony Gordon’s Mad World
Telegraph columnist Bryony Gordon talks to the great and the good about mental health. Their frank conversations often generate headlines – not least her revelatory interview with the Duke of Sussex.
Start with Prince Harry
WTF with Marc Maron
Celebrity-on-celebrity podcasts are now inescapable, but this is the original. Perpetually ticked-off comedian Maron’s vast archive of funny, revealing chats with presidents and Hollywood greats proves he is one of the best interviewers around.
Start with Episode 67: Robin Williams
Meet Me At the Museum
A famous cultural figure, such as Jackie Kay, Lemn Sissay or Cariad Lloyd, guides a friend around their favourite museum. Each episode is a beguiling and friendly half-hour.
Start with Lemn Sissay at the Foundling Museum
Confessions with Giles Fraser – UnHerd
Fans of Thought for the Day will know how punchy and persuasive the good reverend Fraser can be. Here, guests including Mary Beard and the late Roger Scruton talk about their beliefs.
Start with Charles Moore’s Confessions – Thatcher, theology and the Tories
Feminists Don’t Wear Pink
Writer Scarlett Curtis speaks to Keira Knightley, Lena Dunham, Zoella and others about what modern feminism means to them.
Start with Keira Knightley
Griefcast
Comedian Cariad Lloyd talks with fellow comics and writers, such as Robert Webb, David Baddiel and Sara Pascoe about their own experiences of bereavement and thoughts on “the weirdness of death and dying”.
Start with Ep 18: Emily Dean
How to Fail with Elizabeth Day
Elizabeth Day interviews literary figures and invites them to recall three times they have “failed”. Guests include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sebastian Faulks, Olivia Laing and Gina Miller, and the failures recounted range from broken-down relationships to disappointing cricket matches.
Start with S1, Ep1 Phoebe Waller-Bridge
How Do You Cope?… with Elis and John
Elis James and John Robins (yes, them again) ask a famous name to discuss how they dealt with a traumatic episode. Eye-opening.
Start with #4 – Tom Bradby: ‘The mental health equivalent of a heart attack’
Longform
By writers, with writers, for writers. Each episode is a one-on-one conversation with a writer of longform pieces. Whether it is sports writing or tech journalism, over a gentle, probing hour, you learn how they do it.
Start with #297: Elif Batuman
Fresh Air
How did Joaquin Phoenix lose all that weight for his Oscar-winning role in Joker and how would Winston Churchill have handled coronavirus? NPR’s Terry Gross engages actors, historians, writers and musicians with empathy, grace and humour.
Start with Jordan Peele / Francis Ford Coppola
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Liberated from Trump jokes and boring guests plugging their new “projects”, US TV’s longest-serving talk show host finally gets to talk. Come for the anecdote-rich interviews with celebrity pals such as Martin Short or Eric Idle, but stay for the merciless ribbing of his assistant-cum-co-host Sona Movsesian.
Start with #12 David Sedaris
Off Menu with Ed Gamble and James Acaster
Comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster invite a guest to discuss the best starter, main dish, side, dessert and drink they’ve ever had, to make up their dream meal. It’s funnier than it sounds.
Start with Ep 9: Selasi Gbormittah
The Adam Buxton Podcast
Feeling grumpy? Let comedian and actor Adam Buxton tickle you with his deliciously meandering conversations with high-profile guests (Billy Connolly, Brian Eno, Simon Pegg). The experience feels less like listening to a celebrity interview and more like eavesdropping on two friends catching up at the pub.
Start with Ep 76 Charlie Brooker
Mel Giedroyc is Quilting
The comedian and actress is attempting to make a patchwork quilt using squares of fabric donated by listeners, who also share their memories. It’s sweet, soothing and beautiful.
Start with Touching Jochen’s Velvet
Documentaries
Serial
The podcast responsible for the deluge of true-crime podcasts. The first series is a brilliantly told, thoroughly sad story, focusing on US high school student Adnan Syed, who was accused of murdering his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee. Utterly compelling.
Start with S1 Episode 01: The Alibi
Slow Burn
Who were the real victims of Watergate? How sleazy was Bill Clinton? Who really killed Tupac? Deeply researched and sober, yet a breezy listen, this series allows you to indulge your American tabloid habit with none of the guilt.
Start with S1 Ep 1: Martha
The Habitat
One for the current climate. The Habitat tells the story of the six volunteers who agreed to live on a fake Mars habitat for one year, for a Nasa project. Their living space is the size of two tennis courts. One of them brings a ukulele.
Start with Episode 1: This is the Way Up
Ear Hustle
A fascinating insight into life in an American prison, made by people with direct experience of the justice system, and featuring interviews with current and former inmates.
Start with Prime Real Estate
Banged Up
Hosted by prison lawyer Claire Salama in conversation with ex-inmates Rob Morrison and Mike Boateng, the first series of Banged Up revealed what prison is really like: from sharing a cell with a killer to handling boredom. The new series sees Rob, Mike and Claire talk to other ex-cons, a "guv" at a maximum security prison and a victim of knife crime, asking each guest: are prisons fit for purpose?
Start with S1, Ep 1: Where the f--k am I? First night
Fake Heiress
A thrilling true crime podcast without a single dead body, this is the tale of the fake New York socialite Anna Delvey, who talked her way into fancy celeb parties, conned the rich and powerful – and was then convicted of fraud.
Start with Ep 1
Hidden Brain
Shankar Vedantam presents this long-running, well-informed podcast about human behaviour, including why we are tempted to ignore official warnings, and how Ikea influences the behaviour of unsuspecting shoppers.
Start with Warnings, Warnings Everywhere
Dictators
This weighty series gives nearly two hours to each despot (one episode on his rise, one on his fall). Its rogue’s gallery includes Hitler, Stalin and Ivan the Terrible.
Start with Vlad the Impaler Pt 1: Wallachia (Romania)
Cautionary Tales
Tim Harford (presenter of Radio 4’s brilliant More or Less) has come up with this fascinating series in which he tries to find lessons from history. Why, for example, did John Maynard Keynes fail to predict the Wall Street Crash?
Start with La La Land: Galileo’s Warning
The Missing Cryptoqueen
This high-profile podcast is all about Dr Ruja Ignatova, a Bulgarian woman who somehow managed to persuade millions of people to join her financial revolution… and then promptly disappeared.
Start with Introducing The Missing Cryptoqueen
You’re Dead to Me
Made by the people behind Horrible Histories, this has much of the impish charm of that series. It’s deliciously eclectic, with subjects ranging from Saladin to Stonehenge, from Harriet Tubman to the history of football.
Start with Eleanor of Aquitaine
The Visitors From Maida Vale
This strange, fascinating story relates what happened in 1989 when Patrick Lau, a TV director living in London, was contacted by two Chinese strangers seeking asylum in the light of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Start with Episode 1
Wireless Nights
Jarvis Cocker is your soft-spoken guide through this dreamlike, experimental documentary about nocturnal goings-on, recorded on location everywhere from a Berlin night-train to the mountains of Morocco. An immersive wonder. Start with The Darkest Hour
Lifestyle
Corporate Lunch
The weekly style podcast of American GQ is a quick-witted dissection of trends, ideas and fashion news. It’s savvy enough for the in-crowd, lucid and patient enough for everyone else.
Start with 83: Garbage Podcast with Molly Young
Holy Smoke
One of Spectator Radio’s many facets is its irregular edition on religion. Hosted by former Telegraph writer Damian Thompson, it takes a punchy look at the church’s role in modern life.
Start with Has the Church of England surrendered to “soft socialism”?
Fortunately with Fi and Jane
Radio 4 stalwarts Fi Glover and Jane Garvey are in gloriously relaxed, anarchic and funny mode here, interviewing guests and talking about whatever they fancy. It’s addictive, joyful listening that will make you cackle with glee.
Start with 57. Miriam Margolyes is a lady of great passions
Where Should We Begin? With Esther Perel
Each episode is a real-life, unscripted couples’ counselling session with sex therapist Esther Perel. The sessions are dramatic and intimate, addressing topics such as anger, parenting, infidelity, sex after trauma and even the impact of the current lockdown on relationship dynamics.
Start with Couples Under Lockdown: Sicily, Italy
HandCut Radio
Journalist Aleks Cvetkovic discusses all things menswear with a range of bold and distinctive voices from all corners of the trade. The talk is compelling, the sartorial advice sound – and style, as opposed to fashion, is the watchword.
Start with Benjamin Glyn Phillips (Drake’s) #004
Talk Art
Actor Russell Tovey and gallerist Robert Diament bring a cheery, unpretentious enthusiasm to this podcast, in which they, yes, “talk art” with a starry line-up of artists (Tracey Emin, David Shrigley, Rose Wylie) and celebrity art enthusiasts (Lena Dunham, Michael Stipe).
Start with Sir Ian McKellen CBE
Happy Mum, Happy Baby
Giovanna Fletcher hosts a warm conversation about parenting, with no topic out of bounds. Expect high-profile guests – even royalty.
Start with The Duchess of Cambridge on the early years
Drama
Homecoming
Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer star in this subtle psychological thriller set at an enigmatic government facility, later adapted into a TV show. The soundscapes are eerily realistic, and with just 12 episodes it’s perfect binge-listening.
Start with 1. Mandatory
Limetown
A genuinely frightening horror tale with shades of Stranger Things, presented as a documentary about a mass disappearance. If you’re of a nervous disposition, don’t listen to this one after dark: there are things that go bump in the night.
Start with Episode 1: What We Know
Have You Heard George’s Podcast?
Using poetry, fiction, music and news bites, spoken-word artist George Mpanga, aka George the Poet, reframes what it means to be black and British, to mesmerising effect. His independently produced first series proved so popular, the BBC snapped him up for a second.
Start with 3. A Grenfell Story
Welcome to Night Vale
This influential horror-comedy-drama has had more than 100 million downloads. It’s set in the community radio station of an imaginary desert town where eerie things are afoot. Think Twin Peaks-meets-Under Milk Wood, as rewritten by H P Lovecraft.
Start with Ep19A – The Sandstorm
Within the Wires
Each season of this slow-burning anthology drama borrows a different medium for its inventive storytelling: dystopian sci-fi in the form of relaxation tapes, say, or (in the masterful second season) a romantic whodunit told through a museum audio guide.
Start with Season 2, Cassette 1: Tate Modern (1971)
Wooden Overcoats
Following the misadventures of two feuding funeral parlours on a fictional channel island, this full-cast production is one of the funniest British sitcoms of recent years, in any medium. Brilliantly acted, it taps into an Ealing-ish vein of genteel black comedy.
Start with Season 1 Episode 1 – The Bane of Rudyard
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So you want to start a podcast? An idiot's guide