Talking points
Interesting conflict brewing in the world of audio: the BBC has removed all of their podcasts from some of Google’s platforms, with Auntie claiming that the tech titan has tweaked its search function to prioritise its own content instead. The BBC says it is currently in discussions with Google over how to resolve the situation. The news comes as the Beeb announced that it will allow third parties to add their own series to the BBC Sounds app.
Dan Taberski, who found fame – and no little notoriety – with his series Missing Richard Simmons, has announced his latest podcast. Running From Cops will look at how the trashy TV series Cops, which turns 30 this year, influenced America’s attitude towards the police. The third series in Taberski’s Headlong anthology project, it launches on 23 April. While you wait for its release, it’s worth catching up with season two of Headlong, entitled Surviving Y2k, which concerned the mass panic around the Millennium bug.
Picks of the week
Blackout
Mr Robot and Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek produces this eight-part thriller as well as playing a New Hampshire radio DJ, a role his voice was made for. The plot unfolds quickly and it’s soon clear that what locals think is a power cut is actually an attack on the national grid. Before the end of the first episode, the country is in chaos – and while other DJs would rather use their generator to play Led Zeppelin II, Malek’s character takes on the hero role and tries to protect the community as the situation becomes more crazy. Hannah Verdier
Out to Lunch With Jay Rayner
Delicate cutlery tinkles in the background as Jay Rayner chats to guests over fregula in a posh restaurant. Richard E Grant is a dream interviewee as he heartily licks his plate while telling Rayner about his breakdown at the age of 42. Rayner is clearly a man people want to talk to, sitting back as the revealing and modest Grant effortlessly leaps from Spiceworld to Barbra Streisand, pointing out that he’s past “the gravy years” as an actor. Stanley Tucci, Jamie Dornan and Mel C are on the menu for future episodes. HV
Guardian pick: Books Podcast
Academic Robin DiAngelo steps into the books studio to discuss her book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism. A bestseller in the US, it argues that white people need to listen more and stop avoiding conversations about racism due to their own discomfort, and considers how living in a racist society insidiously affects unconscious thinking.
Also in this week’s episode legendary publisher Margaret Busby joins Claire in the studio to discuss New Daughters of Africa, her followup anthology to her groundbreaking collection Daughters of Africa, which established many black female writers as names almost three decades ago.
Producer pick: Borrowed
Chosen by Daniel Stephens, podcast producer of Chips with Everything
“Borrowed” is a quirky podcast from Brooklyn Public Library that looks at how libraries in Brooklyn, New York have preserved stories from the borough that could easily have been forgotten without them.
The library is the centre point of the podcast, and we learn about the people and systems that work in these old buildings. But the genius of the show is how they use the library as a springboard to tell a specific story from an area in Brooklyn.
This week’s episode sees hosts Krissa Corbett Cavouras, director of marketing and engagement at the library, and Felice Belle tell the story of how the residents of Green Point fought back against an environmental disaster that threatened the health of everyone who lived there. You think the podcast is about libraries, but the narrators take us into themes from pollution and activism to immigration.
