Picks of the week
Climate of Change
Audible, all episodes out now
“I am categorically overwhelmed,” announces Cate Blanchett, as she drives an electric car in the intro to her new eco podcast. It’s an attempt to provide hope with cheery environmental expert Danny Kennedy, discussing solutions from clean energy initiatives to solar power projects. Interviews with entrepreneurs (and Prince William) have so much of Blanchett’s endearingly genuine curiosity that you might end up thinking things aren’t so bleak. Alexi Duggins
Trials to Triumphs
Widely available, episodes weekly from Monday
Victory over life’s struggles is the theme of this vibrant celebrity interview series from Dear White People’s Ashley Blaine Featherson-Jenkins. There’s a warm openness – verging on soul baring – to these chats, the first of which sees Kelly Rowland open up about forgiveness, self-belief and eating chicken in strip clubs. AD
Looking for Esther
Spotify, all episodes available
“What’s in a name?” In this incredibly moving memoir series, host Esther Robertson – a Scottish woman of colour who had three different names before she was three years old – delves into her past to find out what really happened when she was adopted and re-adopted. Hollie Richardson
Lusus
BBC Sounds, all episodes out from Wednesday
Your 3.44am worries come alive in this gloriously unsettling new drama featuring a solid cast including Utopia’s Alistair Petrie and Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa. Although each character’s fears start out as simple Insta-fomo and quarter-life crises, they soon find a mysterious door leading to the things that real nightmares are made of. Hannah Verdier
Dead End: A New Jersey Political Murder Mystery
Widely available, episodes weekly
Nancy Solomon takes on a true-crime cold case in this seven-parter, asking what happened to Republican donors John and Joyce Sheridan. When the couple were found stabbed with their house set on fire, the authorities suggested a murder-suicide but their son Mark wasn’t convinced. Solomon speaks with local people for answers. HV
There’s a podcast for that
This week, Rachel Aroesti picks five of the best investigative podcasts, from a 1950s poltergeist mystery to a decade-long catfishing case
The Battersea Poltergeist
In 1956, a ghost named Donald began violently pursuing 15-year-old Shirley Hitchings in her family home – or at least, that’s what she believed. The apparent haunting would continue for the next 12 years, grabbing plenty of hysterical headlines along the way. In this fascinating and occasionally chilling podcast, host Danny Robins attempts to make sense of this ordeal by talking to experts, witnesses and Shirley herself, as well as thoroughly examining the likelihood of the many different logical explanations put forward by his interviewees and listeners.
West Cork
True crime – in both television and podcast form – has a fine line to tread in moral terms, especially when dealing with the brutal and high-profile murder of a woman. But voyeuristicor gratuitous are not adjectives you could ever apply to West Cork, an investigation by British documentarian Jennifer Forde and her journalist husband Sam Bungey into the 1996 killing of French television producer Sophie Toscan du Plantier in a remote part of Ireland. Impeccably researched and scrupulously even-handed, the 13-part series features hours of in-depth interviews with practically everyone involved in the case – including the self-mythologising prime suspect.
Mystery Show
Not all investigations are disturbing or dark: this series from This American Life contributor (and, more recently, a writer on offbeat comedy-drama Search Party) Starlee Kine only ran for six episodes in 2015, but its host’s optimism, idiosyncrasy and sterling detective work means it’s become a podcast classic. Shot through with Kine’s distinctive humour, the show takes on a series of amusing conundrums – a disappearing video store; an astonishingly intricate belt buckle found on the street; Jake Gyllenhaal’s seemingly changing height – and actually gets some answers. Really, though, it’s Kine’s ability to connect with the strangers she encounters that makes Mystery Show such a profound, life-affirming joy.
Sweet Bobby
Sometimes investigative podcasts revive a cold case, or revisit a job the police quite clearly botched. Sweet Bobby – hosted by reporter Alexi Mostrous – takes a different tack, attempting to get to the bottom of something that seems like it should be a crime, but actually falls through the legislative cracks. The story belongs to Kirat Assi, now in her 40s, who spent a decade being catfished by her female cousin. What Kirat doesn’t understand – and what Mostrous duly digs into – is the motivation behind this disturbing deception.
Drilled
Billed as a “true crime podcast about climate change,” this long-running series hosted by investigative reporter Amy Westervelt is concerned with the ways corporations and politicians alike have impeded climate change action: themes include everything from greenwashing to Big Oil pushing consumer guilt and the funding of outright climate denial. In fact, with over 100 episodes in the can, there are few areas Westervelt hasn’t explored with both thoroughness and rigour. Drilled’s knotty, involved style does mean it requires deliberate, focused listening – but it’s difficult to think of many topics more deserving of your full concentration.
Why not try …
Smart chats on awards show inclusivity and the joys of the TV intro in the new series of Still Processing from the New York Times
Greek myths for tweens in Live From Mount Olympus, which features cameos from Anna Kendrick and Isabella Rossellini in its latest series.
Queer Spaces: Behind the Scene, a new podcast on LGBTQ+ spaces in the UK, complete with an accompanying photography series.
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