My Favourite Podcasts of 2019
Podcasts continue to go from strength to strength. In the early days, there weren’t enough podcasts to fill the time I had available for them, nowadays I’m constantly having to prune podcasts out of my subscriptions, or skip a few episodes because I can’t listen to all my favourites. Here, though, are a few that I never skip. Some started this year, but a lot have a large back-catalogue to dip in to.
The Birthday Game
If you’re from the UK, you’ll probably know Richard Osman from Pointless, or his sharp, funny, appearances on various panel shows. The format of this light-hearted, weekly podcast is Osman tells the guests a celebrity who has a birthday this week, and they have to guess their age. It’s simple, and fun to play along with, and the guests regularly make me laugh out loud in embarrassing ways when I’m listening to it in public.
The Adam Buxton Podcast
Adam Buxton didn’t start his podcast this year, but there have been some great guests in 2019. I particularly enjoyed the interview with Nicky Wire of the Manic Street Preachers, but there’s something interesting in every episode. It’s introduced me to a lot of people I’d had no exposure to, but found fascinating (Maya Fou, director of Reprieve, springs to mind) Buxton is a great, disarming interviewer - often vulnerable and self-critical and it leads to some fascinating conversations. Also contains some of the best adverts on any podcast, which perhaps sounds like odd praise, but listen, it’s well deserved.
Cautionary Tales
This is a podcast from Malcolm Gladwell’s Panoply network, presented by the Financial Times’s Tim Harford. Harford takes various stories from the past and pulls some often subtle and absorbing lessons from them. It’s clearly well-researched, and Harford is an excellent presenter. There are only a handful of episodes so far, but each is superb.
Beyond The Screenplay
This is the podcast accompaniment to the Lessons From The Screenplay YouTube channel (which also comes highly recommended). The presenters include scriptwriters and an editor and provide insights into what works and what doesn’t in various films, especially regarding structure, character and plot. Time and again I’ve seen films I’ve loved in a new light off the back of this podcast.
Broken Record
This is another Panoply network podcast. Justin Richmond presents with interviews by the producer Rick Rubin, the writer Malcolm Gladwell, and the former New York Times editor Bruce Headlam. The particular favourites of mine are the interviews by Rick Rubin since he’s a hero of mine. Take, for example, the episode where Rubin interviews Andre 3000 - it becomes almost a therapy session and both are achingly honest about the difficulties of creativity. If you have any interest in music and how it’s made you’ll find a lot to love here.
Conversations With Tyler
In his end of year episode, where the tables are turned and Tyler Cowan, the interviewer, is interviewed by producer Jeff Holmes, Tyler's explains that he doesn't understand why people listen to podcasts, which I find particularly interesting because he has a real skill at making incisive, engaging podcasts where he interviews a range of intellectual heavyweights. Tyler himself is a renowned academic economist, but interviews range from literary figures (his interview with the translator of the Odyssey, Emily Wilson is particularly good), other economists, public intellectuals and many other extremely smart people. Each podcast also comes with a transcript which I find extremely useful. I can’t say I come to like every interviewee (I found myself shocked by some of Jordan Peterson’s views, perhaps unsurprisingly) but I love being exposed to people I disagree with, and often these are the episodes I find the most intriguing.
Conversations With Tyler Podcast
You're Wrong About
Each episode, Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes take a story that you think you know reasonably well, or perhaps just haven’t reconsidered since the period it was dissected daily in the press, and reassess it. It’s opened my eyes to a number of my preconceptions (the Kitty Genovese and "Bystander Apathy" episode was a good one for this) and helped me think much more about how the media works. Mike and Sarah are excellent presenters and are funny and incisive making each episode an excellent listen.
I hope you find something you’ll enjoy in these podcasts. Podcasting seems to be the place a lot of the best creators have gone to of late so I’m sure I’ve missed some great ones. Any suggestions?