Pick of the week
Anglesey Vampire Killer
The 2001 murder of 90-year-old Mabel Leyshon at her home on the Welsh island of Ynys Môn (Anglesey) by an assailant who drank her blood made once-friendly neighbours suddenly fearful of one another. Behind the slightly sensationalist title, this podcast from the BBC’s Crime Next Door strand sensitively retells the story, with host Meic Parry contextualising what a case like this meant in a close-knit Welsh community. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly
Olga, Erika and Me
It’s probably unsurprising that this podcast by Ilanit-Michele Woods, the Emmy-nominated sound editor of Adolescence, sounds great. More importantly, the six-part series – a tender portrait of her Holocaust survivor grandmother Olga, the parent of Woods’s mum Erika – is highly moving. Translated from the original Hungarian, it is told largely via Olga’s own memoirs. HJD
Widely available, out now
(Un)common Ground
Tarek Iskander, artistic director of Battersea Arts Centre, and journalist Lyn Gardner host this new series about the state of the arts. If there can be a tendency to be a little mealy mouthed about these things, it isn’t the case here, as the hosts launch straight into dissecting Baroness Hodge’s recent review of Arts Council England. HJD
Widely available, episodes bimonthly
Screw This … Let’s Try Something Else
This series speaks to communities that have organised new ways of doing things, from a revolutionary housing model in Grimsby to a locally owned wind turbine built in Bristol. It’s always nice to find people serving up a slice of hope. Hollie Richardson
Widely available, out now
The Interface
Technology podcasts are a tricky feat: go too insidery and they’re impenetrable, but no one wants thin, internet-flavoured gruel either. This BBC series strikes the balance, with tech writers Nicky Woolf, Thomas Germain and Karen Hao mindful that not everyone will have been following stories such as the US TikTok takeover in painstaking detail, while also assuming some knowledge. HJD
Widely available, episodes weekly
