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 & 🔥
Fiona Sturges in the FT
- Hooked on Freddie: "Veering between comedy and tragedy, Hooked on Freddie tells of a tabloid storm, a feud and a reputation stained. It’s a terrific story that at times feels stretched"
Miranda Sawyer in the Observer
- Hooked on Freddie - "the punchy setup of a true crime series, this seemingly slight narrative given status and warmth through great reporting and dramatic dynamics"
- Case 63 - "you know the very best Doctor Who episodes, the ones with save-the-planet urgency and mind-boggling time slippage and scary memory erasion and, yes, love? Case 63 has all of these things, but makes them grownup and sexy".
The Guardian’s Hear Here column recommends
- McCartney: A Life in Lyrics - "delightful and detailed"
- Black Earth - "A brilliant ball of positivity and action"
- Comfort Eating - "lively fun, with plenty of engaging culinary chatter"
- The Real Sex Education - "The fact [the hosts are] mother and son certainly doesn’t stop them getting into the nitty gritty"
- The Today Podcast - "behind-the-scenes insights on how the programme is made and deeper dives"
Also in Hear Here, Charlie Lindlar chooses five of the best podcasts on masculinity
- Rylan: How to Be a Man - "hit[s] its stride from the jump"
- The Art of Manliness - "every man will find something to dig into"
- Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe’s Parenting Hell - "humour, panache and a healthy dose of not taking themselves too seriously"
- A Gay and a NonGay - "no episode is inaccessible to a listener pressing play for the first time"
- Stories of Men: Beneath the Surface - "unafraid to throw in curveballs"
Also mentioned: Green Flags, Wonderstruck and Truth and Lies: The Boston Strangler
Radio Times reviews
- Physical Capital - "A fascinating delve beneath the surface"
- British Scandal: Liz Truss - "vaulting ambition and a catastrophic lack of nous" (the person, not the podcast)
- Uncanny - "its haunting soundscape means the rational is often secondary to the thrill of being scared witless"
- The Reason We're All Still Here - "really quite comforting"
- Hooked on Freddie - "titter-inducing yet tragic"
- The Past and the Curious - "quirkier side of the past"
Scott Bryan in Great British Podcasts
- What A Combo with Fern Brady - "There are a lot of food podcasts... [but] Fern Brady, takes this format in a different direction"
- Media Confidential - "[Rupert Murdoch's] legacy is explored in-depth in the first episode of a new media podcast by Prospect Editor and former Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger"
- Hooked on Freddie - "A bewildering and unpredictable story"
- McCartney: A Life in Lyrics - "a treat for Paul McCartney and Beatles fans"
In PodPod’s Earworms column:
- Alexis Darker, Acast - What's Goes Around? - "fun and uplifting with some amazing guests"
- Megan Thomas, Brandwidth - You're Dead to Me - "an hilarious history podcast that dives into the most interesting topics your school syllabus might have missed"
- Sufia Hussain, Wunderman Thompson - Diary of a CEO's Jimmy Carr episode - "the focus of the podcast is positivity even when he was suffering from anxiety and depression"
- Jason Cobbold, BMB - The Infinite Monkey Cage - "a brain-stretchingly brilliant podcast"
In “Freshly Dropped” they mention Hot Mess with Alix Earle, A CRISPr Bite, One More Life, Stick To Football and Media Confidential
