Three Bean Salad (Ind.) - “Last weekend, the cult Three Bean Salad podcast had what I venture to call a weekend’s residency at Kings Place in London, rounding off a national tour. The Beans are Mike Wozniak, Henry Paker and Benjamin Partridge. They offered three shows, all briefly available for streaming for a tenner via the venue’s KPlayer. Some will then come to the podcast.“

Susie Goldsbrough in the Sunday Times

Short History Of…(Noiser) - “The episodes, which generally retread comfortable pub quiz territory — the Aztecs, the Ashes, Arthur Conan Doyle — are intelligently researched, jazzily produced, lightly camp and rather charming. Each comes with a cosy waft of primary school history lessons: of slow, sleepy afternoons spent half-absorbing the bloody or bamboozling dramas of yesteryear as the radiator creaks and the rain lashes outside the classroom window.”

★★★★☆

Gerard O’Donovan in the Daily Telegraph

America: A History (Mercury) - “US history expert Liam Heffernan’s wide-ranging podcast celebrated its centenary edition last week in a fascinating interview with 1997 Nobel Peace laureate Jody Williams about her long campaign to ban landmines”
Bottoms Up! With With Alan Carr and Lee Peart (Listen) - “It’s cast as a “journey” – enthusiastic as the pair are about drinking it, they’re not versed in wine’s finer points just yet, aiming to get there with the help of expert guests like Tom Gilbey. Best of all, there’s at least as much laughter as drinking, and with barely a sour note.”
Life After Prison (Prison Radio Association) - “Some good news stories in the run-up to Christmas, compliments of the British Podcast Award-winning Prison Radio Association’s new series that brings together people who have turned their lives around following a spell behind bars.”

Lucy White in the Irish Independent

101 Part Time Jobs (Mighty Moon Media) - “Not everyone was born into the material comforts bestowed on the likes of Florence Welch, Chris Martin, Lily Allen and Marcus Mumford. So it’s interesting to learn from musicians who had much to lose, and juggle, while finding their own sound (see also authors, activists, politicians).”
Bottoms Up! With With Alan Carr and Lee Peart (Listen) - “It all has the effect of being sat in a pub lounge with two of your favourite giddy aunts – and more double entendres than a Carry on… box-set.”
The Third Act (Ind.) - “Approaches ageing more like a fine wine than an existential catastrophe. In each episode Catherine Fairweather chats with well-known “vintage” actors, artists, adventurers and entrepreneurs about their hard-won wisdom in an attempt to “leave you with the strong belief that the best is yet to come”.”

Carter Sherman in the Guardian

The Katie Millier Podcast (Ind.) - “Unfortunately for Miller’s grand ambitions, her podcast has a fatal flaw. Interview shows run on chemistry, charisma and the sense that the listener has been transported to a Room Where It Happens. The Katie Miller Podcast, by contrast, is aggressively vibeless. Its project is fundamentally tedious: she can’t ask too much about the unique elements of her powerful interviewees’ lives – the backroom negotiations, the moments of doubt and revelation – because her questions seem designed to make them appear generic.”

Clair Woodward in the Sunday Times

The Guardian’s Best Podcasts of the Week

In the Saturday Guardian magazine