Podcasts of the week: sitting down, music, and life-altering events
Featuring A Somewhat Complete History of Sitting Down, Aria Code, Sticky Notes and Life Changing with Jane Garvey
Its ability to cater to niche or unlikely interests has always been part of podcasting’s charm, said Fiona Sturges in the FT. But an eight-part series about being seated? It sounds bizarre, but A Somewhat Complete History of Sitting Down, from Audible, is highly absorbing. It helps that we’re in the safe hands of Greg Jenner, the historian, author and host of the BBC Sounds podcast You’re Dead to Me. Here he uses the “story of who gets to sit and on what and when and why” as a means of exploring different societies and eras. The series takes us from Rome’s Colosseum to Victorian music halls, from the Palace of Westminster to Montgomery, Alabama – yielding stories of injustice, struggle and triumph. Jenner has long “perfected the art of livening up potentially dusty subjects”, and his script here is “irreverent, illuminating and sharply funny”. It’s a clever idea, cleverly done.
Classical music has been “slow to embrace podcasting”, though the medium is “ideally suited” to its sounds and stories, said Joshua Barone in The New York Times. But over the past year, with live performances on hold, classical and opera podcasts have flourished. Aria Code, hosted by the “cross-genre luminary” Rhiannon Giddens, has found “new depths of poetry and resonance”. Recent episodes cover operas by Stravinsky, Mozart and Rossini. Sticky Notes, from conductor Joshua Weilerstein, has been experimenting with approaches to score analysis. Beethoven fans are particularly well-served by its current season, which discusses his symphonies in depth. And the Miller Theatre at Columbia University, known for its excellent anthology Composer Portraits, is breaking new ground with Mission: Commission. The series follows three contemporary composers as they create pieces for the final episode (released this week). “Rarely are audiences granted this kind of insight into a composer’s process.”
Life Changing, a Radio 4 series and podcast from ex-Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey, is simply “mesmerising”, said Charlotte Runcie in Prospect. In it, she talks to ordinary people affected by dramatic, life-altering events. One guest is a Welsh man, adopted as a baby, who tells of setting out to trace his birth parents and discovering that his natural father was a Malaysian prince. Another is a gambling addict who embezzled £1m. Other episodes are more sombre, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer – such as the story of Grace Spence Green, a young medic. She was left paralysed in 2018 when a man jumped from the top floor of a shopping centre and landed on her. “I’m not out for revenge,” she says. “If I had any anger directed at this man, I think I would just feel miserable.”
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: Toxins, abortions and rectal breathing
What should we know about ‘forever chemicals’? Are abortion rights at risk in Northern Ireland? And can we breathe through our bottoms? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
5 category 5 cartoons about hurricane Helene
Artists take on precarious conditions, planning ahead, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Wolfs: 'comedy thriller' stumbles despite George Clooney and Brad Pitt
While the crime caper might 'pleasingly pass a Saturday night' its star-studded duo cannot ultimately salvage it
By The Week UK Published
-
The death of Hassan Nasrallah
In the Spotlight The killing of Hezbollah's leader is 'seismic event' in the conflict igniting in the Middle East
By The Week UK Published
-
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
-
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
-
Podcasts of the week: Philippa Perry, bite-size science and a spy caper
The Week Recommends Featuring Consumed by Desire, Who Is Aldrich Kemp?, Short Wave and One to One
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Podcasts of the week: politics, time travel and Ukrainian culture
The Week Recommends Featuring The Rest is Politics, Travels Through Time, Revolutions, Olive and more
By The Week Staff Published