Mild at heart
It’s a sweet, green, glowing dawn in north-west Scotland. All around us are empty hillsides of rock and heather. The…
Lost in the fog: The Fell, by Sarah Moss, reviewed
Novelists are leery about letting the buzzwords of recent history into their books. The immediate past threatens to upstage the…
It's amazing how little insight Paul McCartney has into the Beatles' genius
The Paul people are out in force these days. A New Yorker profile, a book and a new documentary have…
In 1980s Bennington it was a badge of dishonour not to have slept with your professor
It is incredibly hard to convey the fleeting invincibility and passionate self-significance that we feel on the cusp of adulthood.…
The Sunday Feature is one of the most consistently interesting things on Radio 3
The story is likely apocryphal — and so disgraceful I almost hesitate to tell it — but it goes like…
A podcast that will rescue your relationship: Where Should We Begin? reviewed
Let me give you a free piece of relationship advice: just break up. If it’s more work than pleasure, if…
Why do I find sketch shows – even the better ones – so embarrassing and charmless?
On sketch shows, the wisdom once was that you needed a punchline. That is, a slightly hammy, summative sign-off to…
Much smarter than your average podcast: Passenger List reviewed
Passenger List opens with a carefully structured ripple of breaking news bulletins: a mysterious catastrophe, an unconvincing official explanation, the…
The worst idea ever for a podcast – and it's great: Our Struggle reviewed
Our hosts are Lauren and Drew and they want to talk about Karl Ove Knausgaard. Or rather, they want to…
Insane and fascinating: BBC World Service's Lazarus Heist reviewed
The narrative podcast remains a form in search of a genre. The template set by the hit show Serial —…
It's almost touching that the NFT world see itself as radical
Some things are explained so many times that they become unexplainable: we can only relate to them as something complicated…
Why In Our Time remains the best thing on radio
In Our Time is the best thing on Radio 4, possibly the best thing on the radio full stop. It…
The funniest current affairs show since Brass Eye: Into the Grey Zone reviewed
It was something a friend said to me about The Revenant, Leonardo diCaprio’s bloody-minded and brutal Oscar vehicle: ‘The problem…
Pleasant, cheerful and a little exhausting: Graham Norton on Virgin Radio reviewed
In my parents’ house, the radio is always tuned to one of two stations: Magic FM and LBC. When Magic…
A round-up of horror podcasts
Good evening! Come shivering on in through the garden side door, my friends, and distance yourselves in a semi-legal fashion…
The world’s greatest podcast: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History reviewed
It’s well known that you should never meet your heroes because they will only disappoint you. Less commonly said, but…
Boldly going where hundreds have gone before: Brave New Planet podcast reviewed
Since technology is developing at such light-speed pace, why does it feel so strangely slow? There is a sense that…
A beautiful radio adaptation: Radio 4’s The Housing Lark reviewed
Nineteen fifty-six: the Suez crisis, the first Tesco, Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in a match. But also: Trinidadian pianist…
Tacky and incomprehensible: The Sandman audiobook reviewed
Listening to the tacky and incomprehensible audio-adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel seriesSandman, I couldn’t stop thinking about the 19th-century…
A podcast about the literary canon that actually deepens your knowledge (sort of)
While most of life’s pleasures can be shared, reading is lonely. It’s more than possible for six friends to enjoy…
Louis Theroux’s podcast reveals a master at work
I always want to know more about Louis Theroux, which is odd, since I’ve seen so much of him already.…
Why is Robert Burton’s masterpiece Anatomy of Melancholy being sold as self-help?
The BBC has been having a good pandemic. Stuck at home, a generation raised on podcasts and YouTube has discovered…
The Literary Disco podcast made me want to throw my laptop at the wall
One of the stranger things that happened in the period just before lockdown was the sudden disappearance of audiences from…
The importance of sadism in writing a great screenplay
How do you tell a great story? According to Craig Mazin, you have to be a sadist. ‘As a writer,…
You’ll keep saying ‘I’m sorry, did I hear that correctly?’: Fiasco reviewed
Kevin Katke was quite a man. He had no military training, no political background and no espionage experience. Nonetheless, his…
