The best podcasts to keep you entertained
From celebrity gossip to history deep dives, these are the most binge-worthy series
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.
In Our Time
“Try stepping into these boots. This is going to be really difficult.” That’s what Misha Glenny said about the prospect of replacing Melvyn Bragg on BBC Radio 4’s “In Our Time”. And he had a point, said Fiona Sturges in The i Paper. Bragg created the scholarly discussion show, and presented it for 27 years, overseeing more than 1,000 episodes (now all available on Sounds) on an eclectic range of topics, from echolocation and 18th century vases to the ontological argument and “The Epic of Gilgamesh”. In podcast form, the show has attracted a huge following, including among younger listeners, and Glenny has sensibly opted not to mess with a winning format. The subject of his first episode was typically serious – John Stuart Mill’s essay “On Liberty” – and he marshalled the standard trio of expert contributors with the same balance of “genteel civility” and no-nonsense rigour as his predecessor. “In Our Time” “remains in safe hands. Long may it continue.”
Museum of Pop Culture
If you feel downcast by the weather and world affairs, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer, fear not, because here comes Mr Blobby “to put a smile on your face”. Mr Blobby, for those who missed him, was a yellow-spotted “pink blancmange” of a character who featured on the hit 1990s TV show “Noel’s House Party”. Now, Blobby and Edmonds are “exhibit number one” in “Museum of Pop Culture”, a new podcast from the comedian Josh Widdicombe. The host’s “delight in the ludicrousness of British light entertainment is uplifting”, and careful research underpins the “laugh-out-loud moments. The music production trio Stock Aitken Waterman are his next topic. Perfect.”
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.
Get Birding with Sean Bean
The RSPB hires a new celebrity to front each new series of its birdwatching podcast, said James Marriott in The Times – and the latest iteration, "Get Birding with Sean Bean", is an unexpected treat. The screen star sets the tone by pronouncing “podcast” as if it’s a “slightly pretentious word he’s never heard before, an effect that’s enjoyably enhanced” by his Sheffield accent and air of “mild-mannered, downbeat bemusement”. His descriptions of birds and birdwatching prove both charming and faintly poetic; in fact, I’d have ditched some of the guests for more Bean monologues. The pick of them, though – singer Guy Garvey, lead singer of the band Elbow – has a lovely story about how he got into birdwatching: a saucer he had left out on his balcony filled with rainwater, and one day he noticed that a mistle thrush had started “fledging its young on the balcony”.
The History Bureau: Putin and the Apartment Bombs
In September 1999, more than 300 people were killed when bombs exploded in four apartment blocks in the Russian cities of Buynaksk, Moscow and Volgodonsk. The Kremlin narrative was that Chechen terrorists were behind the attacks, said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, and the aftermath helped turn the prime minister – then a relatively unknown former FSB chief – into a “national hero”. He became president not long after. But then a fifth bomb was discovered before it detonated. And investigative journalists found that the trail led back not to Chechnya, but to the FSB itself. Conspiracy theory? Or sickening truth? A new Radio 4 seven-parter, “The History Bureau: Putin and the Apartment Bombs”, digs into “one of the most contested stories in modern Russian history”. The first episode gets off to a slow, expository, start, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. But then Vladimir Putin arrives, and “as he tightens his grip on power”, this series, presented by Helena Merriman, “tightens its grip on the listener”.
The Rest Is Science
Did you know that more than half of the water on Earth is older than the Sun? That only 0.0072% of all water on our planet is drinkable? That Coca-Cola is drier than tap water? These were among the fascinating facts I discovered on the terrific first episode of Goalhanger’s “genuinely delightful” new production “The Rest Is Science”, said Chris Bennion in The Telegraph. The format is familiar: two “erudite, witty, knowledgeable hosts chew the fat over whatever topics they see fit each week”, leaving listeners (and viewers too in this “video-first” offering) informed and entertained. Here, our hosts are the media regular Professor Hannah Fry and – less familiar to Brits – Michael Stevens, an infectiously enthusiastic American educator known for his hugely successful Vsauce YouTube channel. Both are “serious science brains” with a gift for sprightly communication.
Train Tracks
As a celebration of 200 years of rail travel in Britain, you couldn’t do better than BBC Radio 3’s “Train Tracks”, said Barney Horner in The New Statesman. This nine-hour extravaganza is presented by Petroc Trelawny as he journeys from Inverness to King’s Cross aboard the Highland Chieftain; at each stop he’s met by another Radio 3 presenter, who introduces music by train-mad composers such as Johann Strauss. There are also specially commissioned pieces, live performances on platforms and interviews with ordinary railway workers. Trelawny, though, is the star, offering a commentary with all “the crispness and limpidity of the Highland brooks and streams he shoots past”. Despite occasional hitches and service delays, the podcast serves as a welcome reminder that Britain is not “a nation in spluttering distress”, whatever the far-right might claim.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Instant Classics
Which Roman emperor does Donald Trump most resemble? That’s a question that Mary Beard and Charlotte Higgins are often asked at parties, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer – and it’s one they explore in the first episode of their “fascinating” new podcast “Instant Classics”. Beard insists that for “101 different reasons” it is not useful “to compare the American president with a Roman emperor”. But when really pressed for an answer, she plumps for Elagabalus, who suffocated his guests under an avalanche of rose petals. Higgins nominates Caligula, who made his horse a senator. The podcast, which is infused with the infectious enthusiasm of these two experts, has a main weekly episode (the second is about a day at the charioteer races) and a “quirky second string” – a book club focusing on Emily Wilson’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey. It’s like a “free weekly Oxford tutorial from two eccentric dons. I’m in.”
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.
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.
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!
The House at Number 48
As a child in the 1970s, Antony Easton sometimes wondered if his father Peter – a “gruff”, inscrutable figure, prone to “dark moods” – was an on-the-run Nazi who’d adopted an English persona. Peter received periodic visits from a strange benefactor, Mr Mann, and under his bed there was a suitcase full of German banknotes and newspaper cuttings. It was only after Peter’s death in 2009, said Patricia Nicol in The Times, that Easton discovered the truth – and it was rather the opposite of what he had imagined. Born into a Jewish family of industrialists and art collectors in Berlin, Peter was originally Peter Hans Rudolf Eisner. He had fled to Britain aged 14 in 1939, via Prague, Warsaw and Copenhagen; and almost every member of his extended family was murdered by the Nazis. In the latest, superb series of “The History Podcast” (BBC Radio 4 and Sounds), the investigative journalist Charlie Northcott tells this “fascinating, thought-provoking” story. Following Antony Easton as he explores his lost heritage – and tries to track down his extremely wealthy family’s stolen fortune – “The House at Number 48” is a “taut story of hidden documents and mysterious visitors that will have you hooked until the final episode”.
Have you missed the biggest news of the week? Or the stories that will shape our lives in years to come, when the passing hype of the day's headlines have faded from memory. That's what we explore on The Week's own award-winning podcast, "The Week Unwrapped", which seeks out under-reported stories with unexpected consequences. Listen on: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or wherever you find podcasts
Looking for more podcast recommendations? Take your pick from our round-up of the best true crime and political shows.