Take a glance at the national podcast charts on any podcast app and you may notice that, although many popular American podcasts make the British list, very few shows from Britain reach across the pond. Does this matter? Yes, old chap, it does. Britain has a rich radio heritage, producing publicly funded arts and news programming that included “audio dramas” long before podcasts tried to make them a thing.
In recent years, these British radio shows have become available on streaming platforms and now call themselves podcasts, which raises a debate in and of itself. Can a radio show also be a podcast? What happens when a podcast is so popular it moves to radio? Britain, on the whole, has rejected these categorizations. But we don’t only do radio. Podcasts from a wide variety of British talent have joined the ranks — even if those ranks are, unfortunately, overrun with shows that stick to the tiresome host-plus-celebrity format. But don’t lose heart. As the representative of my country’s cultural offerings — at least for the purpose of recommending podcasts — I’m here to tell you that there are plenty of excellent British shows that may have passed under your radar. Here are eleven of the best British podcasts.
There are countless daily news shows out there, but few burst onto the scene with the same verve as The News Agents. Hosted by veteran journalists Emily Maitlis, Jon Sopel and Lewis Goodall, this show delivers the news with snark as well as “grown-up” analysis. All three of these journalists left the BBC to pursue their own ventures, namely this podcast; so far, their gamble is paying off.
Before we continue, let’s address the elephant behind the microphone: this show isn’t without bias. Amongst the critiques, some argue the show has a pronounced London-centric perspective, and there’s validity to that claim. However, in terms of listenability, The News Agents stands out. It offers moments of keen insight and journalistic prowess that most other British punditry shows lack. With its eyes on both British and American politics, The News Agents does what Crooked Media’s Pod Save the UK promised but without the awkward jokes. If you’ve grown up with BBC radio and find yourself craving something with more bite, The News Agents is worth chewing on.
Things Fell Apart, the latest podcast from writer Jon Ronson, examines the “culture wars” with an approach that manages to be both challenging and balanced. Season two explores Covid-era controversies, such as vaccine skepticism and fears about antifa, by tracing them back to their original human motivations.
This technique is a hallmark of Ronson’s work, offering a refreshing perspective in a polarized landscape. In the fourth episode, he quotes the Yeats poem that Things Fell Apart references in its title. “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” But is the center really weakening?
Ronson’s approach makes a case for the enduring power of the middle ground. He allows listeners to empathize with his subjects before revealing their roles in these harmful conspiracies. This is a masterful podcast that offers a compelling look at our recent past.
Have You Heard George’s Podcast?
Most of us will remember when we looked at the night sky and believed there were nine planets orbiting the sun. “When I was in school there was a planet called Pluto,” George the Poet mumbles in his signature, melodic tone, “turns out there’s not…maybe that’s just the story we tell ourselves.” It is easy to see why his show was singled out at the British Podcast Awards and the second season was picked up by British national radio. Have You Heard George’s Podcast? turns life on a London estate into a multi-sensory audio manifesto, questioning the media narrative around Black and working-class communities. Listening requires a sensitivity to language and rhythm that places the show more in the sphere of literature or art installation, making it an innovative and compelling production.
Do you believe in ghosts? Tristan Redman doesn’t. He’s a journalist who prefers rational arguments — but he can’t deny that strange things used to happen in his teenage bedroom. So, when he hears that the people who now live in the house have seen the ghost of a faceless woman, he can’t resist returning to his childhood home to investigate.
As the story unravels, Tristan discovers that his old bedroom is close to the house where his wife’s great-grandmother, Naomi Dancy, was murdered in 1937. Here’s where it gets strange: she was killed by two gunshots to the face. As you might expect, there is some resistance when he starts asking questions about whether his in-laws could be involved with a murder. Will he discover the truth or alienate his wife’s family forever? You can binge this one in a day. Just try to finish it before the sun goes down.
Another common format in British podcasting is the weekly conversation, or as we call it, a good chinwag. One of the most popular examples of this style, The High Low, came to an end recently, but the gap is being filled by shows like Brown Girls Do It Too. Listening to an episode of BGDIT feels like going to the pub with your mates. Fun, carefree, littered with expletives, the episodes are raucous, exploring topics of sexuality for young Asian women with humor but without apology. Poppy and Rubina aim to normalize conversation about sex and “wanking,” defying cultural expectations in effervescent, anecdote-filled romps.
If Kirat Assi shared her story with you, you’d think she was making it up. Sweet Bobby, a Tortoise Media podcast, investigates Kirat’s decade-long catfishing ordeal in all of its unbelievable details. Host Alexi Mostrous traces the scam from 2010, introducing Kirat as a promising 30-year-old Panjabi radio presenter in a relationship with a man she has never met. Bobby sounds too good to be true; he is.
In her review of the show, Kat Rooney described Monstrous’s reporting as a “gentle but persistent desire to get to know Kirat and to understand her experience even when he struggles to … [it] makes for a sympathetic and relatable vantage point from which to process the psychological complexity of the story.” Despite lacking concrete conclusions, the podcast’s exploration of this convoluted case remains thoroughly engaging — it’s still considered to be one of the best British true crime podcasts ever made.
My Dad Wrote a Porno is a since-finished podcast that contains adult themes, sexual content, and strong language — or, as the show proclaims, all the good stuff. The show is hosted by Jamie Morton, whose dad, if you haven’t guessed, wrote a very long porno. On each episode, Morton and his friends, James Cooper and BBC Radio 1’s Alice Levine, read a chapter of the titular work of literature to great comedic effect. If you enjoy British humor — our signature brew of self-deprecation, irony, and bum jokes (and puns! Don’t forget the puns!) —then you must go back and listen from the beginning. After all, the characterization, plot, and thematic foreshadowing are all essential to the experience of Morton’s dad’s porno. Trust me.
If you ask any true crime fan what podcast you should listen to first, the answer will usually be one word: Scamanda. For a story that’s full of strange twists, it might sound oddly familiar: Amanda, a wife and mother, starts a blog to document her battle with cancer and gains a huge following of online supporters. Of course, it all turns out to be a sham.
Award-winning journalist Charlie Webster investigates this true story of an American woman whose deception tore apart a family with real skill. With only eight episodes in the series, Scamanda is the perfect content for a road trip. We promise you’ll be captivated by episode one.
Katy Hessel, the creator and host of The Great Women Artists podcast and Instagram account, is the quintessential British art history student. Eccentric, verbose, and impassioned, her interview style will either captivate or infuriate you. Hessel is on a mission to bring forgotten woman artists to the fore of the art world by capturing the younger generation through social media and podcasting. The format of the show is a stroke of brilliance. Each week, Hessel interviews another influential female historian or artist about her subject (Wanda M. Corn on Georgia O’Keeffe, for example). Her intelligent interviewees make for fascinating listening, bringing to life a visual medium that might otherwise fall flat as an audio experience. There are also a number of contemporary women artists, such as Chloe Wise, that move the show beyond history to become a measure of the millennial cultural zeitgeist.
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Alice Florence Orr is a staff writer and assistant editor for Podcast Review. She is based in Edinburgh. You can connect with her on Twitter or read her work on aliceflorenceorr.com