Talking points
Two rock titans are getting into the podcasting game. Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant has a new series called Digging Deep, which focuses on Plant’s own musical journey and begins next week, while The Dave Gilmour Podcast looks at some of the Pink Floyd man’s favourite instruments ahead of a charity auction later this month.
Returning next week is Ear Hustle, the acclaimed podcast about inhabitants at San Quentin State Prison, California. Yet the show’s upcoming fourth season is set to be a little different as Earlonne Woods, the inmate at the show’s centre, is now out on parole. As well as tales from inside San Quentin the series will look at Woods’ re-entry into society, as well as the wider challenges faced by those leaving prison.
Picks of the week
The makers of Dirty John and Dr Death certainly know how to tell a tale, as their latest juicy podcast proves. It focuses on Ike, a therapist who lived next door to Bloomberg journalist Joe Nocera. Nocera rolls out stories about Ike’s parties with rich and famous clients at his house full of plastic parrots. “It was a cross between a scene from Meet the Fockers and Fellini,” says one guest. Events take a sinister turn with a disappearance that raises questions about power and influence. Hannah Verdier
The junction where podcasts and musicals meet is not a place for everyone, but John Cameron Mitchell’s new creation is definitely worth a listen. Originally intended as a sequel to Hedwig and the Angry Inch, it stars Mitchell as a man who sets up an online telethon to get treatment for his brain tumour. Broadway veteran Patti LuPone and Glenn Close star, along with Laurie Anderson, who plays the tumour. Yes, it’s strange, but the songs would stand up on any stage and the story’s a compelling one. HV
Guardian pick: The Spin
The Guardian’s new cricket podcast arrives to take listeners through a huge summer of cricket with both the World Cup and The Ashes coming to the UK. Whoever you support, cricket writer Emma John is here twice a week to hold your hand through the highs and lows. She’ll captain The Spin team of Guardian sports journalists, cricket-loving comedians such as Tez Ilyas, Andy Parsons and Felicity Ward, and super-fan guests including filmmaker Barney Douglas and novelist Kamila Shamsie.
Producer pick: Conversations Against Living Miserably
Recommended by Katherine Godfrey, head of audio
When was the last time you felt calm? That’s the first question hosts Aaron Gillies, mental health author, and the brilliantly funny Lauren Pattison ask their guests and, by implication, us, in every episode. The choices from guests – all of them comedians including Matt Richardson, Cariad Lloyd and Zoe Lyons – include meditation, watching a favourite tree and taking a solitary 20 minutes.
The podcast is from comedy channel Dave and the Campaign Against Living Miserably, and carries the promise that while Aaron and Lauren will be talking to guests about their fight against living miserably, they will “try and have a laugh with it because, on the surface, that sounds like a terrible fucking idea for a podcast”. Aaron and Lauren more than deliver on this promise. Like all the best conversational podcasts, theirs is a world you want to stay in - it’s funny, kind and thought-provoking.
I dove in with Elis James’ episode, whose own Radio X show (soon to move to BBC 5 Live) with John Robins has won accolades and legions of fans for its emotionally intelligent discussions about masculinity and mental health. And immediately after finishing Elis’ episode, I went onto Laura Lexx’s chat – where the conversation meanders, in the best possible way, through allotments, eco anxiety and struggles with conceiving. And then straight onto Lou Sanders, who turns the tables on the hosts, eliciting from Aaron a deeply honest and illuminating conversation about the ways he lives with his anxiety.
