The best podcasts to keep you entertained

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.

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.

The Reith Lectures

I don’t usually get excited about Radio 4’s annual “The Reith Lectures”, said Miranda Sawyer in The Observer. But the 2025 series, which aired before Christmas, was gripping, stimulating, spiky and funny – “the first unmissable ‘Reith Lectures’” in years. They were delivered by Rutger Bregman, a Dutch historian and the bestselling author of “Humankind: A Hopeful History” and “Utopia for Realists”. In the series, entitled “Moral Revolution”, he talked about the sorry moral state of our political class and leaders – and what we can do about it. “His descriptions were pin-point, his language glorious, his disdain withering.” For instance: “If the Right is defined by its shameless corruption,” says Bregman, “then liberals answer with a paralysing cowardice.” Ouch. Perhaps listening to these lectures will give you a taste for Reithian rigour, in which case, you’re in luck. Previous lectures are available on Sounds, going back to the very first, which was given by the philosopher Bertrand Russell on Boxing Day 1948.

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Adrift

“Swashbuckling”, is the word that best encapsulates “Adrift”, said James Marriott in The Times. This new Apple podcast is about the Robertsons, a family from Devon who, in 1972, became stranded in a dinghy on the Pacific Ocean for 38 days, after their 50-year-old schooner was attacked and sunk by killer whales during a round-the-world sailing trip. It is the kind of yarn you might hear “from a grizzled old sea dog in the corner of a pub in a port town”. Hosted by journalist Becky Milligan, it contains vivid testimony – of the whale attacks themselves; of assuaging their hunger by gnawing the meat off passing sea turtles; of their raging thirst; of the horrifying impact of sea water on their skin – from the now-adult Robertson children. It also explores why their father, a gruff Merchant Navy sea captain turned dairy farmer, led them on this ill-fated adventure. “Highly recommended. Enjoy from the safety of dry land.”

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.

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!

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".

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”.

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Looking for more podcast recommendations? Take your pick from our round-up of the best true crime and political shows.