Picks of the week
Stephen Fry’s Edwardian Secrets
Stephen Fry begins his new podcast series – the follow-up, naturally, to his Victorian Secrets – by presenting the well-worn tropes of the Edwardian era, as recounted to him by historians: it was a halcyon era, a prewar time of garden parties at country houses, presided over by the hedonistic Edward VII. But just what else was going on between 1901 and 1914? From the lives of black Edwardians and the suffragettes, to sexual revolution and the growth of labour movements, Fry’s podcast is a polished look at the period, held together with expert analysis. Hannah J Davies
Deathbed Confessions
More cold case creepiness in Parcast/Noisier’s latest true crime series, which recounts the most heinous offences that perpetrators have confessed to late in life. Its first three episodes focus on the death of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor, fatally wounded at his Los Angeles home in 1922, before moving on to Ottis Toole, a convicted killer who confessed to the murder of a six-year-old before his death in a Florida prison in 1996. Grim and gruesome, while also curiously sterile, it eschews bells and whistles for a spare approach. HJD
Producer pick: Have You Heard George’s Podcast?
Chosen by Charlie Phillips
It almost feels redundant to recommend Have You Heard George’s Podcast? given that it has won every award out there, including a Peabody. There can’t be many people out there who don’t think George the Poet is a bit of a genius. Yet I’m doing it anyway, because the new third series is even better than the first two, covering love, celebrity, dancehall, Jay-Z, and everything in between.
George doesn’t really do simple themes – these are just starting points from which to jump off into black history and culture, although that feels reductive because what he does is so universal. His shows speak to anyone who has tried to create, anyone who has negotiated their relationship with family, anyone who has felt love.
Is the show poetry? Partly, although you don’t always realise it’s been a poem until George moves into prose storytelling, so subtle are his changes in register. You also don’t always know what is autobiography and what is fiction, something he does particularly well this season in Flying the Flag – an honest account of his own frustrations with audience expectations, but also a meta-narrative about the perils of the creative process.
Talking points
Another week, another celebrity podcast – and this time one that could leave listeners both shaken and stirred. The Great James Bond Car Robbery sees Elizabeth Hurley delve into the mystery of Sean Connery’s stolen Aston Martin DB5 – as seen in the 1964 film Goldfinger – which has been missing since 1997. For any would-be detectives listening along, there’s a $100,000 cash reward for its return.
Why not try: Football Is Nice with Russell Brand | Short History Of… | Vanishing Postcards
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