These are fertile times for the podcast. While recent years have shown that almost every middle-aged man with an opinion now hosts his own weekly show on a streaming service somewhere, speaking either to thousands of faithful listeners or else into the darkest of voids, elsewhere we remain spoilt for choice, with a vast range of voices expounding on all manner of subjects, many of them expertly dispensed and addictively moreish.
The more established the format becomes – and the more we continue to listen – the longer the particularly successful ones go trundling on. Some just get better. If there is no more skilful a longform interviewer than Adam Buxton on his, now into its eighth year; John Wilson on BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life remains the best interrogator into what makes a creative talent tick; Rosie and Chris Ramsey continue to amuse with their husband-and-wife shenanigans on Shagged Married Annoyed.
The podcast format really thrives, then, when it has a fresher impetus, and when it faces away from the obvious to dive deeper into more unlikely topics. In this way, whole worlds open up – and the morning commute becomes bearable. They are driven not by the famous and the infamous, but rather individuals asking searching questions, and shining light towards the shadows.
These are the highlights of 2023.
Terri White: Finding Britain’s Ghost Children
Former Empire editor-turned-Terri White made one of the most compelling podcasts this year, focusing on the many thousands of British children who no longer regularly attend school – and asking why. Travelling the country, she consults with teachers, parents and social workers about this growing problem, and grapples with how best to tackle it. But White’s remit is actually wider still: how to help all young people feel safe and protected during their vulnerable childhood years.
I’m Not a Monster: The Shamima Begum Story
BBC Sounds
Certain major news stories paint their headlines in too-broad brush strokes, demonising their subject into caricature. Rarely has this been truer than in the case of Shamima Begum, the Bethnal Green teenager who fled London in 2015 to join Isis.
The story made headlines around the world: why would a teenager leave school in order to become a terrorist?
Documentary maker Josh Baker here sets out to unravel her untold story over 10 painstaking episodes, and interviews Begum herself at length. If she doesn’t always provide quite as many answers as one might hope, she nevertheless offers up insight into a very particular mindset.
The Debutante with Jon Ronson
Ronson is long established as one of the finest investigative journalists of his generation, the podcast where he works best. In The Debutante, he tells the story of one Carol Howe, a young American woman – the debutante of the title – who went on to become the poster girl for the neo-Nazi movement, which she duly embraced with vigour. Ronson’s specialist subject has always tended towards those individuals who stray into extremism. This is no exception.
Rylan: How to Be a Man
BBC Sounds
“So, how masculine are you feeling today?” This is the way in which Rylan Clark begins each episode of his latest project, a show that aims to unravel modern masculinity in all its messiness. With guests including the boxer Amir Khan, gay footballer Jake Daniels, broadcaster Janet Street Porter and model David Gandy, he discusses gender identity, sexism and unhelpful male stereotypes. Rylan is a winning interviewer, less earnest chat show host, more wine bar regular after a couple of spritzers, and this encourages an awful lot of communal sharing. If you’ve ever wondered what Laurence Llewelyn Bowen thought about his penis, look no further.
The Rest Is Entertainment with Marina Hyde and Richard Osman
On the one hand, this is symptomatic of podcast overkill: bring together two well-known personalities with no notional connection – in this case, a newspaper columnist and a TV producer-turned-bestselling thriller writer – to talk about, well, whatever’s grabbed their fancy over the past week. But The Rest Is Entertainment works so well because Marina Hyde is very funny and very clever, and Richard Osman’s not so shoddy either. And so if you crave an authoritative analysis into the world of showbiz – why Nigel Farage going on I’m A Celebrity; how Taylor Swift became TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year – this is where you’ll find it.
Educating Daisy
Daisy May Cooper, actor and co-writer of BBC’s This Country, is one of the sharpest and most candid people in comedy, and she brings her signature scattershot chaos to this highly irreverent show. Its main thrust is (incorrectly) that Cooper is a little thick (“I don’t even know what adolescence is”), and that she has never “read a classic book in my life; I’ve only managed the occasional Jacqueline Wilson.” And so a selection of her celebrity friends – Diane Morgan, Tim Key – attempt to educate her. Key introduces her to the many pleasures of The Diary of a Nobody, first published in the 19th century. Cooper, on brand, struggles.
Believe in Magic
Some stories defy belief, and this one will have you agog. In 2012, 16-year-old Megan Bhari, following a cancer diagnosis, launched a charity to help severely ill children see their dreams – putting on parties, visiting Disneyland – realised. The charity even attracted the attentions of the band One Direction, and it all made for poignant feelgood content until doubts began to surface over whether Megan was actually ill at all. Her sudden death from acute cardiac arrhythmia in 2018 only deepened the mystery, which, in Believe in Magic, presenter Jamie Bartlett works stealthily to unravel.
The Rest Is Football
Chemistry between presenters is a curious thing. Like the science itself, it’s difficult to get just right.
But The Rest Is Football nails it perfectly, because presenters Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards essentially do here exactly what they do on Match of the Day: provide astute footballing analysis with genuine wit and warmth. They’re like a comedy double act with a third wheel. It works.
Meanwhile, the fact that Lineker’s company, Goalhanger Productions, itself owns the ever-growing The Rest Is… stable just shows what a shrewd operator he is.
If you think there can be few things that sound as unappealing as three blokes chatting football, this will change your mind.
Filthy Ritual with Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala
Scam stories are always irresistible, and have taken over popular culture in the last few years (see Inventing Anna, The Dropout, The Tinder Swindler). Filthy Ritual is just as propulsive. It tells the story of Juliette D’Souza, a wealthy socialite living in Hampstead in north London and how she was revealed as one of the most prolific conwomen in British history, scamming people out of over £1m after convincing them she was a faith healer. Hosts Maguire and Bala, whose previous crime podcast Redhanded was a huge hit, travel to Suriname in pursuit of D’Souza, and consult Britain’s leading shaman and “the victims who came together in search of justice”.
Think Twice: Michael Jackson
Fourteen years after his death, Michael Jackson’s music lives on uncomfortably: after the accusations of the pop star sexually abusing young boys, his canon is forever tainted.
But Think Twice, hosted by Leon Neyfakh, re-examines his cultural significance alongside his alleged crimes. There’s much chilling detail here, like the time Jackson approached the writer Stephen King with an idea for a short film: he’d play a figure who alarms parents but is understood by children.
The series digs into an urgent question: do we want our disgraced celebrities rescued and reappraised, and do they ever deserve to be?
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics
Some stories, it seems, bear endless retelling. Though we surely know everything we need to about The Beatles, still the recollections come.
Very often the memories come from indeterminate “experts”, so what a joy it is to hear Paul McCartney himself, in full raconteur mode.
His gentle interrogator is the poet Paul Muldoon (the pair previously collaborated on a book about lyrics) and together they rehash Beatles myths and legends, 81-year-old Macca seeming to enjoy himself enormously. If you didn’t know that Americans thought “Penny Lane” was about selling puppies, you do now.
Pack Your Bags with Russell Kane
This is another example of a fundamentally unnecessary celebrity-driven podcast that nevertheless earns its stripes by dint of its entertainment value. Each week, the comedian Russell Kane chats to guests about the three things they cannot board an aeroplane without. Cue rambling conversations and endless travellers’ tales. Nature presenter Julia Bradbury remembers Costa Rica, chef Fred Sirieix recalls a road trip across America, and comedian Sue Perkins admits to a fear of flying, problems with seasickness, and how she once went on holiday to Croydon.
Political Currency with George Osborne and Ed Balls
Old politicians never die; they simply reach into the back of their wardrobe for something sparkly to wear on Strictly. And then they do a podcast, because, frankly, why ever not? Political Currency sees an old Tory and an old lefty put their differences aside to discuss the political hot potatoes du jour, and if they don’t do so with quite the same elan as Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart on The Rest Is Politics, they give it their best shot. Much laughter, many bantz, and surprisingly humane.