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:
- ChatterBeans
- I Could Murder a Podcast
- Olivia Attwood’s So Wrong It’s Right
- The White Lotus Official Podcast
- Romanov Czar of Hearts
Spotify New & 🔥
Miranda Sawyer in the Observer
- Radio Atlas (ind.) - “It finds the best audio pieces from around the world and gives them a beautiful translation into English that appears on your screen, each word timed perfectly to those spoken, so that you’re not rushing ahead or catching up.”
- The Great Post Office Trial (BBC Radio 4) - “Much of it is centred on ex-Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells.”
- The Teen Commandments (ind.) - “The episodes need a specific topic rather than a jovial ramble around the edges, and are in need of listener contributions too, which no doubt will come flooding in. Until then, it’s a bit formless.”
Fiona Sturges in the FT
- Why is Amy in the Bath? - “A seemingly absurd question about an actor’s career choices quickly turns into something else: a funny, quizzical and improbably in-depth podcast about the nature of success itself.”
James Marriott in the Times
- Scam Inc (Economist) - “Scam Inc has an extraordinary story to tell. But it starts slowly and you have to stick with it to get there.”
Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times
- Baby Broker (Sony Music Entertainment) - “Peter McDonnell investigates the Detroit-based adoption agency Always Hope and its owner, Tara Lee, who duped more than 100 couples who longed for a child.”
- The Magnificent Others (ind.) - “The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan launches a new series in which he has lengthy talks with guests whose careers he feels have been overlooked.”
- Stalked (BBC Sounds) - “Carole Cadwalladr and Hannah Mossman Moore present a ten-part series detailing the latter’s cyber-harassment.”
The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week column recommends
- The Teen Commandments (ind.) - “Less an advice show than a “panic room”, it’s packed with entertaining tales of dealing with kids once they lose the squeaky voices and develop an attitude.”
- You Don’t Know Peanuts (ind.) - “A second season for the official podcast dedicated to Charles Schulz’s classic comic strip, which celebrates its 75th birthday this year.”
- Dancing with Shadows (Stak) - “New York City Ballet’s history is laid out in an engaging, personal manner by journalist Nicky Anderson.”
- Greatest Escapes (Filmnation/iHeart) - “Guatemalan American actor Arturo Castro shone in his freewheeling sketch show Alternatino, sadly cut short after a single season in 2019. This podcast feels like a coda.”
- Cramped (ind.) - “When host Kate Downey first had “death cramps” at 14, a doctor told her they ‘usually go away when you have a baby.’ Why has this pain been dismissed for so long.”
And in the Guardian’s Guide newsletter
- Scratch & Win (GBH News) - “It looks at that relationship through the rise of the humble scratchcard in the 1970s, and the battle for its control between state bureaucrats and organised crime.”
Highlights from the Radio Times
- A Point of View: Clive James (BBC Radio 4) - “The recycling of these ten-minute talks underlines how enthusiastically Clive James would have embraced the medium of podcasts.”
- Romanov: Czar of Hearts (BBC) - “Hearts fan Martin Geissler relates an astonishing tale of boardroom power struggles, unfettered ego and self-inflicted chaos.”
- SystemShift (Greenpeace/Crowd Network) - “An intense listen, but also a hopeful, positive one.”
Heat’s Top of the Pods
Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts
- The Teen Commandments (ind.) - “Unbelievably, despite having been in radio broadcasting for more than 25 years, BBC Radio 2’s Sara Cox has never fronted her own podcast.”
- It’s Reigning Men (ind.) - “Probably the best named podcast in quite some time.”
- Stalked (BBC Sounds) - “A disturbing new investigative series looking at how one woman’s life was turned upside down by a relentless stalking and a cyber-harassment campaign.”
- Imaginary Advice (ind.) - “Now containing four short stories per episode rather than one self-contained piece, the stories verge from surreal to strange.”
