Category Archives: Podcasts

From bawdy fun to fantasising with Demi Moore: the best erotic podcasts

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If it’s audio kink you’re after, there’s a podcast for that. Rhik Samadder picks out the best out of the horny bunch

The biggest noise on the audio porn scene is Dipsea, whose range of consensual, sex-positive stories are written by women, for women. The stories, all between 10 and 20 minutes long, are streamlined, yet grounded in character and situation. By the time things descend into panting, the idea is that attuned listeners will be, too. The app has more than 400 stories behind a paywall: straight and queer and diverse in content, with a few enticing freebies concerning military-style yoga instructors and massages between friends. Anyone whose primary erogenous zone is inside their head will find succour here.

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The rise of ‘citizen sleuths’: the true crime buffs trying to solve cases

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Inspired by hit podcasts and documentaries, ordinary people are trying to track down fugitives and reopen cold cases. But should they be?

Although the story you are about to read involves a fugitive, law enforcement and a six-month chase across Mexico, for Billy Jensen it was just another day on the job. In 2017, Jensen was on the hunt for a pale, ginger, tattooed California killer hiding out in Mexico. Jensen uploaded a photo of the fugitive to Facebook. “¿Has visto a este hombre?” he asked, using Facebook’s targeted ad tools to ensure the post was seen by people living near American bars. Tips came flooding in. One tipster snapped a photo. In just 24 hours, Jensen had his guy.

Unfortunately, the killer was on the move. It took half a year of similar posts for the 49-year-old Jensen to finally get the suspect apprehended by the Mexican police – for Jensen isn’t a police officer himself, or a detective, or an FBI agent. He is a podcaster, author, journalist, and self-described “citizen sleuth”.

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Joe Rogan has Covid – and his treatment will make health experts feel ill

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The media host says he used ivermectin, a medication that the FDA has warned against

Joe Rogan, the host of Spotify’s most popular podcast, has contracted Covid, he announced on Wednesday. He says he is feeling better – but his health update undoubtedly made health experts instantly sick.

On Instagram, the podcaster, who professes not to be “an authority on health” but has discouraged young people from getting the coronavirus vaccine, said that he had “immediately thrown the kitchen sink” at his infection. Among the many medications he used, he said, was ivermectin, a drug used to deworm horses.

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The revolt against liberalism: what’s driving Poland and Hungary’s nativist turn? – podcast

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For the hardline conservatives ruling Poland and Hungary, the transition from communism to liberal democracy was a mirage. They fervently believe a more decisive break with the past is needed to achieve national liberation. By Nicholas Mulder

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Listen up: why indie podcasts are in peril

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As big spenders such as Amazon and Spotify fill our ears with more commercial, celebrity-driven fare, can grassroots, diverse shows survive?

The British Podcast Awards were different this year. Held in a south London park, they had a boutique festival feel, with wristbands and tokens for drinks, an open-sided tent for the actual awards, and people lounging on blankets in front of the stage. There were also sponsor areas – those small, picket-fenced areas where invitees could drink and mix with brand bigwigs. Awards are expensive to stage, and to give any sort of a professional sheen, money is needed. In 2017, the BPA sponsors included Radioplayer and Whistledown, an independent audio creator. In 2021, the BPA was “powered by Amazon Music”. Spotify, Stitcher, Audible, Acast, Global, BBC Sounds, Podfollow and Sony Music also dipped into their sponsorship pockets. Clearly, podcasting has gone up in the world.

Over the past 18 months, podcasting has hit the corporate big time. Apple, long the most recognisable name in podcasting, its iTunes chart being the public measure of any show’s success, is attempting, clumsily, to move from being a neutral platform that hosts shows into one that makes money from podcasting (by, for example, charging creators for highlighted spots).

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‘An American riddle’: the black music trailblazer who died a white man

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A fascinating new podcast delves into the life of Harry Pace, forgotten founder of the first black-owned record label in the US – and unlocks a shocking and prescient story about race

There are, according to the academic Emmett Price, “six degrees of Harry Pace”. He is referring to the man born in 1884 who founded America’s first black-owned major record label; desegregated part of Chicago; mentored the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and spearheaded the career of blues singer Ethel Waters. Pace is a figure who is seemingly everywhere at once, yet his name has been suspiciously absent from the history books.

“This story encapsulates how progress comes about in America – and it is never in a straight line,” says Jad Abumrad. “It is often a cycle – one that contains hope and despair, smashed together.”

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My husband’s death inspired It’s a Sin scene, says Russell T Davies

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In new Guardian podcast, TV dramatist tells Grace Dent about writing Colin’s final hours

Russell T Davies, the writer of It’s a Sin, the Channel 4 drama about the HIV/Aids epidemic in the late 1980s, has revealed that the death of Colin, one of show’s characters, was partly based on the death of his partner.

Speaking to the food writer Grace Dent on a new Guardian podcast, Comfort Eating, which launches on Tuesday, Davies said he had drawn on the experience of watching his husband, Andrew Smith, die from brain cancer in 2018 to write the scenes featuring Colin’s death.

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Bake Off to Inside No 9: what to watch instead of the Euros

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A football-free cultural guide to the week ahead, from comedy podcasts to Sean Bean dramas

Listen, I’m with you. I have no interest in Euro 2020 either. But luckily, over the years I’ve perfected the art of finding other things to do. Here’s a day-by-day alternative viewing guide for the first week of the tournament (after that, you’re on your own).

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Tongue-in-cheek tales from 19th-century India – podcasts of the week

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Meera Syal and Jennifer Saunders star in Audible’s new spoof, Raj! Plus: a tense history lesson in GunPlot, and Unearthed offers gripping plant-themed tales

Raj!
Meera Syal and Jennifer Saunders give standout performances in Audible’s new pod drama, spoofing life in British-controlled India. Ineffectual governor Henry arrives in a rural province, “allergic to emotions”, part of an unwieldy bureaucratic structure, and unwilling to acclimatise. As well as the lines you might see coming (“can’t imagine the British ever going for Indian food!”), there is plenty you might not, in this tale of blustering Brits, and Syal’s Rajmata side-eyeing and sticking it to the man.
Hannah J Davies

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The week in audio: Sunday Feature; 1Xtra Talks With Richie Brave; Assignment

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A sombre week as BBC presenters pondered war reporting ethics, George Floyd’s death, and a decade of conflict in Syria

Sunday Feature: Regarding the Pain of Others (BBC Radio 3) | BBC Sounds
1Xtra Talks With Richie Brave (BBC 1Xtra) | BBC Sounds
Assignment (BBC World Service) | BBC Sounds

Today, on Radio 3’s Sunday Feature, the vastly experienced journalist Allan Little considers Susan Sontag’s 2003 essay Regarding the Pain of Others. In the essay, Sontag wonders about the ethics of war journalism, particularly photography. Do pictures of the horrors of war engage the viewer or make us turn away?

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Prince Harry appears to criticise way he was raised by his father

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Duke of Sussex also speaks of ‘genetic pain and suffering’ in royal family in new interview in US

The Duke of Sussex has appeared to criticise the way he was raised by Prince Charles, discussing the “genetic pain and suffering” in the royal family and stressing that he wanted to “break the cycle” for his children.

In a wide-ranging 90-minute interview, Prince Harry, who is expecting a daughter with Meghan and is already father to Archie, two, likened life in the royal family to a mix between being in The Truman Show and being in a zoo.

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Covid listener surge sees podcast firm’s results perking up

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Shares and revenues at UK-based Audioboom are soaring despite stiff competition from the world’s digital giants

A year ago, podcast producer Audioboom was facing an uncertain future as management sought, ultimately unsuccessfully, to find a buyer to inject cash to expand the business. When the company gives its latest financial update this week, it will be telling a very different story: in the past 12 months its market value has more than tripled and a maiden profit is looming as Audioboom joins the ranks of the pandemic winners.

Digital entertainment services from Netflix to Spotify have been supercharged by lockdown viewing and listening, and Audioboom has been no exception. It now draws 25 million listeners a month with content from partners ranging from Formula One to the former Bake Off presenter Sue Perkins.

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Louis Theroux: ‘I worry about not coming up to scratch’

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He made a film on Joe Exotic a decade before Tiger King, lulls interviewees into personal revelations – and can rock a leather suit. So why is he so anxious?

“There’s no getting away from the fact that, even aged 50, I’m a slightly awkward person, a fearful person, worry-prone,” says Louis Theroux, wriggling in his seat. The film-maker picks up and puts down a coffee without drinking. He wears all blue: navy sweater, stock denim, one of those indestructible plastic Casio watches on his wrist. “I worry about what people think,” Theroux continues, “I worry about giving offence, being judged, not coming up to scratch, being thin-skinned.”

We are in the corner of a photography studio in London, sheltering from rain on a Friday afternoon. The room has long emptied of people, but, even so, as Theroux chats, he snatches quick glances over his right shoulder, as if expecting to find somebody or something lurking there. “Everyone has things that preoccupy them, right?” he says. “I just tend to think, on a spectrum of people in general, I definitely skew, uh, anxious.”

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‘An escape from dark times’: how ancient history podcasts bring comfort and clarity

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I started listening to tales of yore in 2019, when long drives with my infant son became essential. They soothed him to sleep – and transported me to a different world

Fans of Paul Cooper’s podcast Fall of Civilizations will know that it usually begins in a particular way. A traveller, often far from home, encounters a ruin that hints at a vast and forgotten story of the past.

Hiding from bandits in the desert, the Italian nobleman Pietro della Valle takes shelter in the shadow of the crumbling Ziggurat of Ur. Clambering through the rubble of a once magnificent site of Roman Britain, an unknown poet of the eighth or ninth century writes an elegy to the broken “work of giants”.

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Fear in your ear: the unstoppable rise of the horror podcast

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The Battersea Poltergeist is just one of many surging up the charts. Its creator, and others, explain why the pandemic has led people to seek out scary stories

By his own admission, Danny Robins has always been “obsessed with ghosts”. “I think it might have been growing up with atheist parents,” says the writer and broadcaster, who co-created Radio 4’s lauded Sir Lenny Henry vehicle Rudy’s Rare Records, among many other works. Among them is the 2017 investigative podcast about the paranormal, Haunted. “As a kid, I was very aware of the absence of belief,” he continues. “I think I might have just wanted to be part of a club. To be part of a club of believers.”

Now in his early 40s, Robins is trying to recruit as many believers as possible to the club via his new docudrama podcast, The Battersea Poltergeist. Available on BBC Sounds, it tells the story, beginning in 1956, of a bizarre 12-year-long haunting that resulted in Shirley Hitchings (just 15 at the start of it all) and the victim of the titular spook, fleeing to Bognor Regis. A poltergeist in Enfield in 1977 may have inspired Hollywood, but it’s south-west London’s one that put in the longest shift.

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On my radar: Aidan Moffat’s cultural highlights

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The Arab Strap vocalist on late-night horror chats with his mum, spending time with Alan Partridge, and bingeing on Succession

Born in Falkirk, Scotland, in 1973, Aidan Moffat is the vocalist of indie rock band Arab Strap, which he founded in 1995 with Malcolm Middleton. Characterised by Moffat’s half-spoken vocals over lo-fi instrumentation, the band gained international acclaim with 1996 single The First Big Weekend; they went on to release six studio albums before splitting in 2006 and reforming in 2016. Since 2002, Moffat has released music under the name L Pierre, and collaborated with artists including Mogwai and Bill Wells. Arab Strap’s first album in 16 years, As Days Get Dark, is was released this month on Rock Action.

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‘For women, it’s behind enemy lines!’ Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe on their parenting podcast

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It began as a way to moan about the pandemic – or avoid childcare. Now Lockdown Parenting Hell is downloaded 2m times a month. The comedians chat fatherhood, burnout – and dreaming of the pub

Like many comedians, Josh Widdicombe and Rob Beckett found themselves without an outlet when the pandemic struck. And so, like many comedians, they decided to make a podcast. Theirs – Lockdown Parenting Hell – has become one of the most popular in the country, mining the stresses of everything from twins, tantrums and building a trampoline to the tune of more than 15m downloads.

Beckett has two young children with his wife, Louise Watts, while Widdicome and his wife, Rose Hanson, have one, with another on the way. Each week, the pair interview a celebrity (past guests have included Michael Sheen, Philippa Perry and Paddy McGuinness) while sharing stories about their upended domestic lives. It is fast, fun and, at times, genuinely touching. Here, they share their thoughts on their pandemic pastime.

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Harry and Meghan put son Archie centre stage in first podcast

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Surprise at end of episode featuring Sir Elton John, comedian James Corden and tennis star Naomi Osaka

When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced that they would put guest speakers at centre stage in their new podcast, few would have expected to hear from their toddler Archie.

But Prince Harry and Meghan’s 19-month-old son made a surprise cameo appearance at the end of the first episode, released on Tuesday, revealing a slight American accent as he wished listeners a happy new year.

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