BBC Four

The 39 best podcasts you need to listen to right now

by

The RadioTimes.com team recommends their favourite podcasts – from politics to comedy to real life stories

Podcasts are everywhere in 2018. But how do you find shows that are actually good?

To answer this question, the RadioTimes.com team has sorted the proverbial wheat from the chaff, the brilliant from the merely mediocre. We have pulled together our top recommendations – in no particular order – from podcasts that will make you laugh to podcasts that will make you cry.

Fortunately… with Fi and Jane

Nothing warms the cockles more than the sound of two incredibly sharp, intelligent and mischievous women discussing totally random things for 40 odd minutes. BBC Radio veterans Fi Glover and Jane Garvey have one special guest per episode and discuss everything from Marxism to sex positions. [ . . . ]

Read the complete list at RADIO TIMES: The 39 best podcasts you need to listen to right now

The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Series 12, The Stressful Scone

by

Why do we have regional accents?

“How do accents start and where did they come from?” asks Sachin Bahal from Toronto in Canada.

Hannah is schooled in speaking Geordie by top accent coach Marina Tyndall. And Adam talks to author and acoustics expert Trevor Cox about how accents evolved and why they persist.

We meet Debie who has Foreign Accent Syndrome – an extremely rare condition in which your accent can change overnight. After a severe bout of flu, which got progressively worse, Debie’s Brummie accent suddenly transformed into something distinctively more European.

Listen to the podcast at: BBC Radio 4 – The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry, Series 12, The Stressful Scone

A Faraway Back of Beyond Place

by

A musical drama about a young musician’s quest to find the truth about her family. The drama stars much loved iconic Scots actor Bill Paterson and, in her first appearance in a radio drama, the award winning folk musician Karine Polwart.

As BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year 2018, Karine Polwart is a multi-award-winning Scottish songwriter and musician, as well as a theatre maker, storyteller, spoken-word performer and published essayist. Her songs combine folk influences and myth with themes as diverse as “Donald Trump’s corporate megalomania”, Charles Darwin’s family life and the complexities of modern parenthood. She sings traditional songs too and writes to commission for theatre, animation and thematic collaborative projects. Karine is six-times winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including twice for Best Original Song.

Cast:

Tommy … Bill Paterson
Lucy … Karine Polwart

Listen at: BBC Radio 4 – A Faraway Back of Beyond Place