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.
Platforms
Apple Podcasts: New & Noteworthy
Cruising: Queer History and Culture (Realm)
Betwixt the Sheets (History Hit)
Spotify: New & 🔥
The Louis Theroux Podcast (Spotify)
Wrong Turns with Jameela Jamil (ind.)
Bright Ideas (Telegraph Media Group)
Amazon Music: Best Podcasts of the Week
The Rest Is Entertainment (Goalhanger)
Pocket Casts: Featured
Reviews
Fiona Sturges in the FT
- Shadow World: The Smuggler (BBC Radio 4) - “At once an illuminating character study and an extended confession in audio, The Smuggler finds Nick sharing his decade-long activities moving illegal migrants across the English Channel.”
Patricia Nicol in the Sunday Times
- The Ex Files (Global) - “A twinkly, teasing Amanpour is clearly enjoying herself, untethered from the formality of the studio (these are recorded from home). But Global needs to ensure the editorial focus remains sharp; that the veterans’ misty-eyed “I remember it well” moments are always counterbalanced by future-looking insight. The second episode felt too much of a mishmash.”
- One Decision (Situation Room) - “In the UK this unfrivolous show’s good cop-bad cop pairing is the sunny, though not-to-be-underestimated Kate McCann (who also presents Times Radio’s Breakfast Show) with [former head of MI6, Richard] Dearlove — a man of few but precise words, yet a disarmingly powerful audio presence.”
James Marriott in the Times
- The Truth About Sarah (Pushkin) - “This is all outrageous and entertaining and mad. But I couldn’t help feeling that there was also something a bit tawdry and small-time about Sarah’s story. Her lies are terrible, obviously. She shouldn’t have gone around telling everyone she had lung cancer and she definitely shouldn’t have doctored her military records. But is all this quite podcast-worthy?” ★★★☆☆
Chris Bennion in the Daily Telegraph
- Rylan: How To Be In Love (BBC Sounds) - “The secret was out some time ago that ‘Rylan’ is a construct and that the man beneath the Botox – real name, Ross Clark – is far more witty and intelligent than we’d previously suspected. Those qualities were in evidence in the opening episode of the podcast in which Rylan asked Stephen Fry to answer the question, ‘What is love?’ Not before, however, he blew enough smoke up the ‘legendary’ Fry’s backside that you could have sailed the 67-year-old over Mont Blanc.”
Listings
Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times
- The Offcuts Drawer (Speakable)
- Bedside Manners (Pixiu)
- The Polari Prize Podcast (ind.)
- The General And The Journalist (The Times)
- You About? (BBC Sounds)
The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week
- Sacrilege: Curse of the Mbirwi (Audible) - Pick of the Week
- You About? (BBC Sounds)
- Young Warriors (The Big Light)
- That’s Just Wild (Fresh Air)
- Bedside Manners (Pixiu)
The Guardian Weekly magazine’s Podcast of the Week
In the Saturday Guardian magazine
And in the Guardian’s Guide newsletter
In the Radio Times
- Pipeline: Left to Die (Daily Mail)
- That’s Just Wild (Fresh Air)
- The Ex Files (Global)
- You About? (BBC Sounds)
- Sherlock and Co. (Goalhanger)
- Final Thoughts: Jerry Springer (Audible)
- The Truth About Sarah (Pushkin)
- Strange But True Crime (BBC Sounds)
In i Weekend
- How It All Played Out: Sport’s Greatest Stories (Global)
- Sherlock and Co. (Goalhanger)
- How Do You Cope? (Wondery)
- AI Haven’t Got a Clue (ind.)
Plus Jo Whitehead interviews Suzi Ruffell about Big Kick Energy (ind.)
Heat’s Top of the Pods
Woman Magazine’s Listen Up section
- Where There’s a Will There’s a Wake (Sony Music Entertainment)
- Women in the Driving Seat (Autotrader)
In Best Magazine
Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts