Podcasting’s love affair with the news continues apace. A couple of weeks ago, Jayde Adams’s Welcome to the Neighbourhood returned for a second series of hilarious episodes based on comical local stories, and since the March launch of Northern News, its cheeky sideswipe at headlines based in England’s North has made for fantastic listening. This week, Paper Cuts brings together a dream team of journalists and comedians under the guidance of the Observer’s Miranda Sawyer to dissect the nationals. Given what entertaining shows it’s leading to, long may the love-in continue.
This week we’re also sparing a thought for dads. With Father’s Day fast approaching, we’re rounding up shows including an intimate study in the relationship between father and son, a graceful parental advice forum and a show whose chat only occasionally devolves into craft beer and sports talk. We also have an excellent investigation into Covid’s origins, a “big, gay love story” and the newest from David Weinberg, whose podcast The Superhero Complex was one of our favourite listens last year. Enjoy.
Alexi Duggins
Deputy TV editor
Picks of the week
Paper Cuts
Widely available, episodes every Mon, Wed and Fri
Are British newspapers really obsessed with “wokery”, daytime telly and “feathered psychos”? (That’s pigeons to those unfamiliar with the Daily Star.) Miranda Sawyer hosts a new series that dissects the morning papers with wit, insider info and a sceptical eye. A sparky, up-to-the-minute riot is predicted as journalists such as Marie Le Conte rub shoulders with smart comedians including Grainne Maguire. Hannah Verdier
Dreamtown: The Story of Adelanto
Widely available, episodes weekly
David Weinberg (the man behind the excellent The Superhero Complex) returns with a tale of eccentric characters, corruption and cannabis in California. When a hippyish figure strolled into the rundown prison town of Adelanto, he promised transformation, with a little help from weed. Weinberg documents the town’s rise and fall in style, with help from local voices. HV
Diss and Tell
Widely available, episodes weekly from Mon
If, like Matt Bellassai, you “lost an entire week to all that Don’t Worry Darling drama” last year, you’re in good company with this pop culture podcast from Wondery. He and co-host Sydney Battle are here to do one thing and one thing only: gossip about petty celebrity feuds. Hollie Richardson
Resurrection
Widely available, episodes weekly
“It’s a big, gay love story that spans decades,” says host Dane Stewart, who decided to tell San Francisco playwright Daryl Allen’s tale after he came across a batch of his letters. While Allen died of Aids in 1991, Stewart has spent five years painstakingly piecing together his legacy and the result is a warm, joyous history lesson. HV
Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origin
BBC Sounds, episodes weekly
Did Covid-19 really originate from a Wuhan market? Was it leaked from a Chinese laboratory? The BBC’s former China correspondent John Sudworth investigates in this gripping series, getting insider interviews with staff from one of Wuhan’s top virology labs – and fighting intensive attempts to censor him along the way. Alexi Duggins
There’s a podcast for that
With Father’s Day on the horizon, Charlie Lindlar chooses five of the best podcasts for fathers, from parenting advice from Made in Chelsea stars to a show with a focus on Black fatherhood
Help! I’m a Parent
Those first months with a newborn are usually the longest and hardest any parent will go through. This unfiltered podcast from Made in Chelsea alumni Ollie Proudlock and Emma Louise Connolly charts their journey into parenthood, and makes for a valuable companion. Caring for a new baby can be confusing and exhausting, and hearing both a mother’s and father’s perspective on the physical and emotional changes that a family experiences makes for varied listening for dads. The episode on Emma learning to love her C-section scar is particularly moving, as well as being an informative look at how body image can transform after childbirth.
Dads Who Try
Where many dad pods overcompensate, with hosts who boast about being “kickass” or “bossing” parenting, this show sets a more honest tone, starting with its name. To hosts Nate and Tommy, raising children is impossible to “win”, and in the end is all about trying your best. Though the duo bring on the occasional guest and veer off on charming tangents about sports and craft beer and the news, Dads Who Try is at its best when it is simply two fathers being open about the things they wish they were managing better, whether it’s feeling guilty for missing the gym, figuring out sex after childbirth, or working from home with kids.
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Dope Black Dads
On Father’s Day in 2018, Marvyn Harrison (pictured above) texted his group of dad friends simply to say how much he appreciated them. The response he received moved him so much he began the Dope Black Dads community, from which this podcast was born. Primarily a space to talk about the intersection of fatherhood, race and culture, the Dope Black Dads podcast also touches on all the small things that change in your life when you become a dad too. There’s plenty for every dad to learn here, regardless of your ethnicity.
Mom and Dad Are Fighting
Slate’s parenting advice podcast featuring writers Jamilah Lemieux, Elizabeth Newcamp and Zak Rosen is much less combative than it sounds. There are no squabbles here, just mums and dads tackling tangible, knotty parenting problems, like what happens when your child starts to swear, how to introduce makeup and whether there is such a thing as too much Bluey, with grace and humour. The show runs the gamut from toddler tantrums to teenage angst, which makes this a perfect podcast to listen to in advance to prepare you for the years to come.
Fathers and Sons
For something completely different, try this six-part documentary series produced by podcast house Radio Wolfgang and clothing brand Mr Porter. Each 30-minute episode is an intimate study of a father and son’s relationship, with each telling us something meaningful about what it means to be a dad, a son and indeed a man. The two most touching episodes: The Date, which sees son Jack get his divorced dad James (who confesses to have “lost the impetus to bother” with dating) set up on Tinder, and the show’s finale, The Change, a tale of one dad’s “unwavering support” of their son through gender transition.
Why not try …
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Can’t sleep? Dive into some sleepy soundscapes in a new series of Audible’s Sleep Sound, now hosted by Maya Jama.
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A new series of the NYT’s Modern Love kicks off with a stranger-than-fiction story of a brain injury and a forgotten breakup.
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In The Room with Peter Bergen, in which the journalist behind Bin Laden’s first TV interview delves into topics ranging from war crimes to UFOs.
