Welcome to this week's Recommendation Engine from Podcast Rex, rounding up the week in podcast reviews. Get this in an email each week by signing up to be a supporter of Podcast Rex from £3.99.
Apple Podcasts New & Noteworthy:
- Comfort Eating with Grace Dent
- The Teen Commandments
- Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right
- Gold Minds with Jessica Ennis-Hill
- Almost 40
Spotify New & 🔥
- The Lulu Podcast: Turning Points
- Gold Minds with Jessica Ennis-Hill
- Fin vs History
- The Teen Commandments
Jude Rogers in the Observer
- Lucky Boy (Tortoise) - “Handled with exceptional due diligence, sensitivity and power.”
- Thirty Eulogies (BBC Radio 4) - “Listen to it without reading the blurb, as I did, and it takes unexpected turns, some desperately sad, others very joyful.”
- Harford: An Oral History (ind.) - “Delivered in his west Walian lilt, these punchy 10- to 14-minuters crackle with bible-black, absurd, twisted humour.”
Fiona Sturges in the FT
- Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky (Wondery) - “Almost any other podcast host making themselves the subject of their opening episode would seem outrageously self-absorbed — more so when it lasts 75 minutes. But this is Lewinsky, a victim of mass shaming and misogyny who, after a long period away from the limelight, has recast herself as an anti-bullying advocate. If anyone knows about coming back from the brink, it’s her.”
James Marriott in the Times
- X Man: The Elon Musk Origin Story (BBC Radio 4) - “This is less ‘the origin story’ of Musk and more a cultural history of the man, taking in the books, video games and comics in which he is marinated.”
Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times
- David Tennant Does a Podcast With… (Sony Music Entertainment) - “He is an enthusiastic and funny host, which means relaxed conversation.”
- Dan Snow’s History Hit: The Leaders (History Hit) - “A mini-series of Dan Snow’s History Hit podcast which examines the leaders whose decisions shaped the modern world takes the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War as its theme.”
- Theatre of Crime (Global) - “A new series in which the actors Pearl Mackie, Emma Sidi and Kiell Smith-Bynoe mix true crime and audio drama.”
Plus Patricia Nicol in the Sunday Times looked at the 20 best podcasts for parents and kids.
The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week column recommends
- Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky (Wondery) - “Monika Lewinsky is her own first guest in her debut podcast – and is incredibly candid and, dare I say, ‘empowering.’”
- Down the Caff (ind.) - “The owners of E Pellicci, the famous cafe in London’s East End, have launched their own show to shout questions at their celebrity customers from Ray Winstone to Annie Macmanus.”
- Lunchbox Envy (No Such Thing As A Fish) - “Did you know that the world’s most shoplifted food is cheese, or that the end of asparagus is called a squib?”
- David Tennant Does a Podcast With… (Sony Music Entertainment) - “After a four-year hiatus, David Tennant resurrects his interview show.”
- Audiolab (BBC) - “Another year, another ace batch of BBC shows promoting new podcast talent.”
And in the Guardian’s Guide newsletter
- Dancing with Shadows (Stak) - “Journalist Nicky Anderson looks at the controversies around the New York City Ballet, which has faced down allegations of sexual, physical and verbal abuse.”
Highlights from the Radio Times
- Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (BBC Radio 4) - “Although billed as ‘a conversation rather than an interrogation’, his previous guest Rachel Reeves seemed so intent on making sure he didn’t land a globe on her that even she didn’t sound like she was listening to what she was saying.”
- Face Off: the US v China (Airwave) - “Timely.”
- Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky (Wondery) - “It’s heartbreaking to hear from Monica Lewinsky’s own lips how humiliated she was by the global scandal.”
Heat’s Top of the Pods
- Three People with Rebecca Front (ind.) ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- David Tennant Does a Podcast With… (Sony Music Entertainment) ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts
- David Tennant Does a Podcast With… (Sony Music Entertainment) - “David Tennant would be one of our most in demand chat show hosts if he wasn’t so busy.”
- The Art of Longevity (ind.) - “Features interviews with artists that have managed to not break through, but have also managed to navigate the choppy waters of the music industry as well as changing music trends.”
- Criminally Queer: The Bolton 7 (BBC) - “How seven gay and bisexual men were convicted under the Sexual Offences Act after having consensual sex with each other in the privacy of someone’s home… in 1998.”
- The World of Wodehouse (ind.) - “It has been 50 years since the death of the writer PG Wodehouse, so to celebrate his life and work the PG Wodehouse Society has assembled some well-known fans of his to read out their favourite passages.”
