Table of Contents
Selections of the week
A perfect day with Jessica Knappett
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Comedian Jessica Knappett invites her famous friends to talk about their daily routine. First up is her Avoidance co-star Romesh Ranganathan, who talks about having a garbage truck named after him and interviewing 50 Cent, before Knappett shifts the conversation to her trip to Magic Mike Live, giving the podcast a charmingly rambling frame. Upcoming guests include Baby Reindeer’s Jessica Gunning and Saltburn director Emerald Fennell. Hannah Verdier
Arriving late to the party
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Katherine Ryan is always a good choice for interviews and is comedian Grace Campbell’s first guest on her party podcast. The stories come thick and fast, from champagne-filled kids’ birthday parties gone wild to enough celebrity gossip involving Jimmy Carr, Kourtney Kardashian and royalty to keep listeners intrigued. High voltage
Below Deck
Widely available, weekly episodes.
The fashion shows, photo shoots and videos of the 1990s are the stuff of legend, and stylist Paul Cavaco was there. Alongside his daughter Cayli Cavaco Reck, he is joined by some of the era’s biggest names, including Cindy Crawford and Christy Turlington. Crawford speaks candidly about his decision to appear in Playboy and about that period in fashion history. High voltage
The Reggie Yates Podcast
Widely available, weekly episodes.
After a four-year hiatus, Reggie Yates (pictured above) is bringing back his podcast, along with his friends Owen, Bubba and Uzo. One minute they’re feeling the pressure of the best man speech, the next they’re discussing what their characters would be like in prison. This gives way to hysteria and the liberating feeling that they’ve forgotten there are people listening. High voltage
A good athlete
Widely available, weekly episodes.
Anna Ptaszynski and James Harkin (also hosts of the No Such Thing as a Fish podcast), two of the brains behind QI’s data, tap into the spirit of the Olympics for their quiz podcast. Rowing is their first sport and they chat to Team GB’s unassuming Imogen Grant and Eve Stewart, before adding a dash of innuendo and even trying their hand at water. High voltage
There’s a podcast for that.
This week, Raquel Aroesti choose five of the best podcasts about Americafrom a history of country idol Dolly Parton to an investigation of the golden age of sex and scandal in Hollywood.
Dolly Parton’s America
This fascinating podcast treats Parton (above) as a totem for America and a key that helps unlock the nation’s buried prejudices, cultural baggage, and persistent divisions. Named after a University of Tennessee history course, it’s the brainchild of former Radiolab host Jad Abumrad, whose father is a friend of Parton’s (a famous doctor who treated her after a car accident) and gives him a chance to meet the queen of country. In addition to illuminating interviews, Abumrad also delves into Parton’s implications and influence, from her brutal, subversive lyrics to her Appalachian identity to her steadfast (and, for some, infuriating) insistence on remaining apolitical.
1619
To talk about American history, you have to talk about slavery. But this beautifully crafted New York Times podcast goes a step further, using its legacy as a lens through which to examine the current state of the country. Part of the 1619 Project, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism project conceived to commemorate the 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, the series’ scope is broad and its findings illuminating. We hear how a lack of available medical treatment for black Americans led to federal healthcare; how banks have deliberately undermined skilled black farmers; and how the pain and trauma of slavery set the tone for pop music as we know it.
Decoder ring
Journalist Willa Paskin’s investigations into intriguing cultural ephemera are an irreverent chronicle of modern America, told through its strange obsessions, forgotten influences and enduring lifestyle trends. Some themes will be familiar to British ears (in one episode Paskin chronicles the legacy of Bart Simpson, in another she explores the literal riots that erupted around the in-demand Cabbage Patch Kids dolls), but the show specializes in the kind of very specific American giants that never made it across the pond. It also does a great job of tracing the fallout from various cultural conflicts – hear about the “pizza wars” of the 1980s and find out what happened when novelist Jonathan Franzen took on talk show giant Oprah in 2001.
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The Bowery Boys: A History of New York City
Greg Young and Tom Meyers are the Bowery Boys of this smart, sophisticated podcast, in which the duo takes a hard look at the history of their adopted city. As pioneers of the format (the show began in 2007), the pair’s 400-episode podcast is now a well-oiled machine. There’s an installment that focuses on a different element of the city’s past, unravelling the origins and evolution of famous areas (Madison Square Park, Flatbush, Fifth Avenue) and buildings (the Chrysler Building, the Ansonia), as well as a trove of fascinating miscellany, such as the Irish influence on the city, the beginning of the Broadway musical, and New York through the eyes of Edward Hopper.
You must remember this
America is synonymous with spectacle, which makes Karina Longworth’s immersive, illuminating and atmospheric guide to 20th-century Hollywood as crucial a resource for understanding the country as any political podcast. The show effectively tackles the impact of the old, injecting new juiciness into scandals and controversies from a century ago, while profiling legends (Judy Garland, Marlon Brando) alongside forgotten figures (Frances Farmer, Claudette Colbert). But it also excels when it comes to analyzing the more recent past, with the podcast’s latest miniseries focusing on the erotic thrillers of the 1980s and ’90s, from Boxing Helena to Indecent Proposal.