Artworks: What Happened to Counterculture? (BBC Radio 4) - “It all makes me wish I could wade, like some barefoot bohemian nymph, out of the mainstream: but where would I go? Is there counterculture left for me? [Stewart] Lee will attempt to answer this question when finally he arrives at our dismal digital age.”
Understand: The Trip (BBC Radio 4) - “[Tim] Hayward, having spent 14 days in a hallucination-filled coma, wants to know why people are chemically inducing similar experiences voluntarily.”
Write Me Dirty (JamPot) - “[Katherine] Ryan asks comedians – Louise Sanders, Grace Campbell, Tatty Macleod and co – to write a piece of naughty fiction around a theme and read it aloud.”

Fiona Sturges in the FT

The Lab Detective (The Observer) - “The Lab Detective isn’t solely about one woman’s wrongful conviction. Sylvester uses the familiar true-crime framework to explore a wider theme about motherhood and how society, and the justice system, believes mothers should be: nurturing, selfless, perfect. Sylvester observes how, when babies die in unexplained circumstances, fathers are rarely accused of killing them even though they may share parenting duties equally.”

Patricia Nicol in the Sunday Times

The History Podcast: The Second Map (BBC Radio 4) - “The podcast’s creator and host, Kavita Puri, has recorded the experiences of the last remaining veterans and unearthed from the archives the voices of those caught up in the war in the east. But she also wanted to interrogate why, when every schoolchild is taught about the rise of Nazism and Britain’s heroic stand against it in Europe, this “history that touched so many homes in Britain and its former empire” remains comparatively unknown.”

James Marriott in The Times

Talk ‘90s To Me (Podmasters) - “I would very much like to believe the Nineties were not all they were cracked up to be. Maybe the reasonably priced houses and inexorable spread of liberal democracy had a downside? Alas, the journalist Miranda Sawyer’s brilliant (but upsettingly joyful) new podcast Talk ’90s to Me confirms it was indeed a blast. Damn it.” ★★★★☆

Lucy White in the Irish Independent

Book of Leaves (ind.) - “Host Ceara Carney won the Climate Podcast Award at the inaugural Irish Podcasts Awards in 2022 and she’s still going strong as she queries business owners, activists and academics about the steps they’ve taken to better serve the Earth.”
That’s Just Wild (Fresh Air) - “It’s a bit like the aural version of The Really Wild Show, but there’s plenty for adults too, as readers of all – and unknown – ages submit their most burning questions, including Hudson, age seven, asking if sharks fart, to Frederick, age three, wondering why do tortoises go on land and turtles in the sea.”
The Casual Birder (ind.) - “Just the ticket for anyone bereft between TV’s Springwatch and Winterwatch.”