Podcasts of the week: exploring work strife and faked deaths
Featuring Pseudocide, How’s Work?, and The Rob Auton Daily Podcast

A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
You may know of the psycho-therapist Esther Perel from her couples therapy podcast Where Should We Begin?, in which she dispenses advice that’s “startling in its precision and candour”, says Fiona Sturges in the FT. It’s brilliant, but her second foray into podcasting, How’s Work?, is touched by “genius”. The podcast, which has just begun a second series, also involves couples – but these are warring colleagues; or business partners who’ve fallen out; or spouses at odds over their working lives. The series illumin-ates how work is tied up with identity and self-confidence, and is based on the clear under-standing that “we, the listeners”, are “looking for echoes of our own situations”. We are “all different and we are all the same. If anyone can fix us, it’s surely Perel”.
Alice Fiennes and Poppy Damon are experienced podcasters who previously gave us the excellent Murderabilia, about the people who collect artefacts associated with real-life killers, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. Their terrific new series, Pseudocide – about people who fake their own deaths – is equally “fascinating” and “weird”. They explore the life of a 14th century nun who faked her death to pursue a life of “carnal lust”. There’s the strange tale of a disappearing shopping-channel host, and the familiar, but still astonishing, story of the Labour MP John Stonehouse. But my favourite episode, said James Marriott in The Times, is about Kaycee Nicole, a teenage basketball player and blogger who gained a wide online following before tragically dying of cancer in 2001. Or rather, who didn’t die of cancer, and who never played basketball, because she turned out to be a “bored, middle-aged lady named Debbie”.
Occasionally, real podcast gems can get overlooked because they don’t fit into any obvious categories, said The Daily Telegraph. Here are three “weird and wonderful” podcasts that fall into that category. The Rob Auton Daily Podcast is “concise, intriguing and cherishably odd”. But is it comedy, poetry, social history or philosophy? “You could file these gnomic circadian musings” by the Yorkshire writer and stand-up comic under any of the above. Episode 73, Lego Truths, is a good one. The ghosts of Black Mirror and Blue Jam haunt Murmurs – a set of ten strange tales each 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 episode 1: Over and Out. Last, try the “wonderful” Imaginary Advice from poet Ross Sutherland. You’ll find ambient music, an experimental documentary about washing machines, and a cut-up poem made from clips of John Humphrys on the Today programme. Start with episode 45: S.E.I.N.F.E.L.D.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The Week Unwrapped: Greens, investments and space privateers
Are the world’s environmentalists about to take power? Is financial advice getting cheaper? And why are private citizens leading the space race? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Government shutdown odds spike as House GOP hardliners thwart McCarthy, spending bills
Speed Read House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's caucus is in disarray, and the US is now hurtling toward an avoidable debacle
By Peter Weber Published
-
Firefighters save confused delivery robots
Tall Tales And other stories from the stranger side of life
By Chas Newkey-Burden Published
-
'Rates have peaked'
Today's Newspapers A round-up of the headlines from the UK front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Best podcasts of 2023
The Week Recommends Including podcasts about audacious criminals and the fall of civilisations
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Week’s best podcasts of 2022
The Week Recommends Top picks include 28ish Days Later, Can I tell you a secret? and the highly ‘bingeable’ Case 63
By The Week Staff Published
-
The best history podcasts of all time
In Depth From the British Empire to pop culture and the entirety of the human existence in between
By The Week Staff Published
-
Four of the best podcasts about women and society
The Week Recommends Featuring Visible Women, Clipped Wings, Ki & Di: The Podcast and 28ish Days Later
By The Week Staff Published
-
Podcasts of the week: from true crime to a true-crime drama
The Week Recommends Featuring Killer Book Club, RedHanded, Criminal, Radioman and Lady Killers With Lucy Worsley
By The Week Staff Published
-
Podcasts of the week: war reporters, hard news and big interviews
The Week Recommends Featuring The Line of Fire, The Ezra Klein Show and The Backstory with Andrew Neil
By The Week Staff Published
-
Podcasts of the week: from French and Saunders to Vladimir Putin
The Week Recommends Featuring Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Austen?, Comfort Blanket and Taking on Putin
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Podcasts of the week: cult scams, cronyism and bingeable true-crime
The Week Recommends Featuring Twin Flames, Our Friends in the North and Chameleon: Wild Boys
By The Week Staff Last updated