Picks of the week
Origins With Cush Jumbo
Widely available, episodes weekly
Cush Jumbo is always good fun when doing press interviews for her work (The Good Wife, Criminal Record, Hamlet) – and she’s just as great now the tables are turned in her first podcast. She speaks to stars about their origin stories, including Kate Nash, Harlan Coben, David Schwimmer and, in episode one, Anna Wintour, who says she hates people who waffle and recalls getting fired from Harper’s Bazaar because she couldn’t pin a dress. Hollie Richardson
Rebel Spirit
Widely available, episodes weekly
Comedian Akilah Hughes gives her serious mission a light touch as she returns to her Kentucky home town to try to change her high school’s racist mascot from a Confederate general to a biscuit. Can she drag the school into the modern age – and what will the change mean to her and other pupils? Hannah Verdier
Sara & Cariad’s Weirdos Book Club
Widely available, episodes weekly
Sara Pascoe and Cariad Lloyd go beyond the usual selections with season two of their book club for people who don’t want to discuss reading over cheese and wine. First up is Roisin Conaty with Standard Deviation, Katherine Heiny’s lovely novel about a mismatched couple parenting as best they can. HV
Then & Now
Widely available, episodes weekly
Was parenting and childhood better when Babátúndé and Leonie Aléshé were young? The couple have plenty of cackles and chemistry in their new podcast, which looks at the way parenting has changed. Although Babátúndé is the comedian, his wife gives him a run for his money and isn’t afraid to roast where necessary. HV
Transmissions: The Definitive Story of Joy Division and New Order
Widely available, episodes weekly
Fans of New Order are in for a treat with this second season, which picks up the band’s story as they “go from black and white to colour” with Power, Corruption & Lies. Band members and famous admirers provide great stories about a new era in which working with Arthur Baker, soaking up the beginnings of dance culture in Ibiza, and birthing World in Motion became a reality. HV
There’s a podcast for that
This week, Graeme Virtue chooses five of the best podcasts on science fiction stories, from an alternative Marvel universe to star-studded tech thrillers
Escape Pod
The sci-fi tales featured on Escape Pod often explore dazzling or unsettling futures. But this lovely treasury of speculative fiction is practically prehistoric in podcast terms, having first launched in 2005. Each instalment presents a short story – a mixture of originals and fiction curated from other sci-fi outlets – in no-frills audiobook style. Episodes average half an hour in length so entire galactic empires can rise and fall during the time it takes to walk the dog. A back catalogue of over 900 stories sounds daunting (here’s where to start) but Escape Pod has never lost touch with its DIY origins.
Ad Lucem
The podcasting space has been a hothouse for sci-fi audio dramas with impressively swooshing audio design and at least one big Hollywood name attached. The sleek but unsettling conspiracy thriller Ad Lucem is a state-of-the-art example, although its darker themes and occasional swearing may not be for everyone. While set in 2032 on the eve of a transformative tech launch, its roots are in the touch-starved traumas of the pandemic. It posits the question: what if your voice assistant could hug you? Olivia Wilde, Chris Pine and co-creator Troian Bellisario are the headline stars, but seasoned pros Fiona Shaw and Clancy Brown are immaculate in the margins.
LeVar Burton Reads
Actor and director LeVar Burton (pictured above) will forever be associated with science fiction after his long stint on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Before he played chief engineer Geordi La Forge, though, Burton hosted US educational TV series Reading Rainbow, helping multiple generations of school kids improve their literacy. Both those career threads combine in LeVar Burton Reads, a celebration of fantastical short fiction that ran for over 200 episodes before wrapping up earlier this year (it ended with a classic tale by sci-fi godhead Ray Bradbury). As you might expect, Burton is a skilled and evocative narrator, and after each story concludes he also shares some of his reactions and insights, an added layer of intimacy that helps each one linger in the mind.
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Marvel’s Wastelanders
Are you fed up with spandex-clad superheroes? Good news: in the world of Wastelanders, most of the Avengers get horribly murdered in a sneak attack. Decades later, the US is a post-apocalyptic patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by villains. This Mad Max version of the Marvel universe is the brutal backdrop for vivid character studies of five over-the-hill survivors: goofball space cop Star-Lord (Timothy Busfield), bitter circus act Hawkeye (Stephen Lang), aloof spy Black Widow (Susan Sarandon), angry loner Wolverine (Robert Patrick) and sidelined tyrant Doom (Dylan Baker). Immersive world-building and a rich vein of satirical humour help make each series a rollicking ride even before the scattered misfits all team up for one last hurrah.
Clarkesworld Magazine
Dedicated science fiction magazines publishing stories in the 1940s helped to popularise the genre. Fast-forward to the present day and it makes sense for sci-fi periodicals – from 1970s warhorse Asimov’s Science Fiction to digital anthology Lightspeed Magazine – to have an audio spinoff. The long-running Clarkesworld Magazine podcast offers a horizon-expanding spectrum of science fiction and fantasy stories, often shining a light on international tales in translation. Episodes range from 10-minute snapshots to multi-part novellas and if there is a tantalising sense that anything can happen, Kate Baker – the podcast’s host and narrator since 2009 – provides a welcoming throughline of consistency.
Why not try …
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Football Weekly host Max Rushden teams up with comedian David O’Doherty for What Did You Do Yesterday? in which – bingo! – they ask their famous friends how their filled their past 24 hours.
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The California wellness centre Miracle Ranch promised attending patients a better, healthier life through the “alkaline diet”. Chameleon: Dr Miracle details the deadly consequences.
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BBC satire Everything Is News pairs a former foreign affairs correspondent (played by real-life journalist turned comedian Helen Price) with an ousted cabinet minister (actor Michael Clark) in a skewering of the “Centrist Dads Podcast” genre.
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