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:
Spotify New & 🔥
Tristram Fane Saunders in the Telegraph
- History’s Secret Heroes - “The opening episode is a corker, largely thanks to clips of a 1981 interview with Ida Cook, author of over 100 Mills & Boon novels, who (with her sister Louise) helped dozens of Jewish families to escape Nazi Germany in the 1930s. “I never had a husband,” she said, happily. ‘I never had a car, I never had a television set, I never even had a washing machine, but it’s been a marvellous life.’”
James Marriott in the Times
- The Belgrano Diary - “An enthrallingly novelistic tour of British society in the early Eighties. We meet plummy-voiced establishment grandees, cantankerous publishers, Thatcher-hating activists, flag-waving British patriots and Argentinian servicemen.”
Fiona Sturges in the FT
- The Endless Honeymoon - “I had imagined the shift from daft spouse banter to IVF-related heartache would be jarring, but the hosts just about pull it off.”
- How Was It For You? - “While much of what they say is undoubtedly relatable — who hasn’t endured a train journey from hell? — it is also wincingly banal.”
Jude Rogers in the Observer
- Courtney Love’s Women - “A rough-and-ready, very charming memoir emerges, told through the voices and sounds of other women – singers, instrumentalists and writers – who Love sought while growing up in what she calls a male ‘gatekeeping mono-overculture’.”
- Kicking Back with the Cardiffians - “You wonder who will listen to this who isn’t a fan of Church, although it’s so refreshing to hear these working-class stories explored in depth.”
- The Belgrano Diary - “O’Hagan’s got a great podcast voice, all Glasgow fog and bite, bringing levity to the military material.”
- Word in Your Ear - “Digging into his gorgeously ordinary working years before fame, Neil Tennant recounts being the father of the chapel for his union during a dispute with Robert Maxwell.”
Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times
- 3 Body Podcast - “Not only do they do the usual PR thing of talking to stars and showrunners, they also speak to experts putting the series in context.”
- Monsters Inside Me - “Gross but entertaining US series that looks at true stories about mysterious illnesses caused by objects, animals and small creatures.”
- How Was it For You? - “If you aren’t coupled up it is a bit like being at a dinner party where people won’t stop talking about catchment areas.
- Putin’s Murders - “In the wake of the death of Alexei Navalny in February, Giles Whittell discovers why so many of Putin’s enemies have met an early end.”
- Who Killed the Video Star?: The Story Of MTV - “An essential cultural listen.”
The Guardian’s Hear Here column recommends
- How Was It for You? - “Each week they’ll find another life dilemma to ‘review.’”
- Lucy and Sam’s Perfect Brains - “Your very silly hosts are Taskmaster’s effortlessly charming pair Lucy Beaumont and Sam Campbell.”
- The Belgrano Diary - “A solid history of the war and this incident’s impact on it.”
- Split Screen: Kid Nation - “Dropping a group of kids aged between eight and 15 into a desolate New Mexico town and getting them to form a society was clearly on the braver side of reality TV commissioning.”
- Pretty Sure I Can Fly - “Jackass legend Johnny Knoxville and This American Life’s Elna Baker are spotlighting people who ‘grab life by the bunglesteen.’”
And in the Guardian’s Guide newsletter
- The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast - “This will be a decidedly loose affair.”
Highlights from the Radio Times’ Earth Day special
- Trees A Crowd - “Celebrates nature, but also explores the relationship each guest has with it.”
- Drilled - “Explores our complicated history with big oil and cleverly theorises our way out.”
- The Rewild Podcast - “The journey of a lifetime in his campervan visiting pioneering places across Europe.”
- Oceans: Life Under Water - “Dive below the waves in an engaging podcast produced by Greenpeace.”
Heat’s Top of the Pods
Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts
- The Belgrano Diary - “From the conspiracies to the whistleblowers who helped expose the truth.”
- Eras: ABBA - “A lovely deep dive into the history of the band.”
- One Life for Another - “Throws you into the middle of a fascinating criminal case in Mexico.”
- Lessons in Dyslexic Thinking - “Highlighting what we know about this form of neurodiversity and how dyslexics are great for business, creativity and society.”
