From Formula 1 and classic novels to film and IT, this week’s podcast picks have something for everyone.
1. Up To Speed
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: Sport
Few podcasts are as aptly named as Up To Speed, but Global’s new offering aims to keep your fuel tanks topped up with rich Formula 1 knowledge for the motor-racing season ahead.
Once the lights go out next month for the opening race in Melbourne, there will be a reaction episode each Monday plus a Thursday show looking at the biggest drama off-track, including interviews with key personalities.
Four-handed podcasts can feel a bit chaotic, and in their first episode former drivers David Coulthard and Naomi Schiff, broadcaster Will Buxton and content creator Jolie Sharpe do bump tyres, but are bound to settle down as the season progresses.
Coulthard is immediately in pole position with as many years broadcasting as driving; he made his debut after Ayrton Senna’s death in 1994.
Sharpe is the newcomer but provides Gen Z insight into an old sport always aiming to entice younger fans.
DC has seen it all and knows everyone in the paddock – which may be how they secured four-times world champion Max Verstappen as their first guest.
The drivers might get all the glory, but in F1 it’s the constructor that gets the car out on track and up to speed. On first listen, this team is unlikely to be a backmarker.
(By Amy Crowther)2. The Book Club
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube
Genre: Arts
The Book Club is a new weekly podcast hosted by historian Dominic Sandbrook and Tabitha Syrett, exploring some of the world’s greatest stories, from timeless classics to modern masterpieces.
Each episode is dedicated to one book where the pair will unpack its themes, historical context, ideas and the author behind the prose, why it still resonates with us today, and where it stands in a cultural context.
In the debut episode, Sandbrook and Syrett – who both work on podcast The Rest Is History in respective roles a co-host and producer – dissect the 1847 classic Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
They open with a melodramatic reading from the novel, and talk about why the book is still referred to as one of “the greatest love stories of our time”.
Syrett – who first read the novel at 12 and kept reading it until she was 17 –shares her first impressions before the co-hosts dissect the book’s depictions of mental and physical cruelty, domestic abuse, Victorian morality, religion and the class system.
They talk about how it compares with filmmaker Emerald Fennell’s big-screen adaptation, which was released on Valentine’s Day.
If you are looking for a podcast that captures the enthusiasm – bickering and all – that some people have for literature, then The Book Club is for you.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)
3. The Massive Cinema Podcast
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube
Genre: Entertainment
Are you looking for a new podcast where youth culture and film collide? Or one that brings you access to some of the most exciting upcoming films before anyone else?
Then The Massive Cinema Podcast, hosted by producer and writer Ada Enechi, interviewer, producer and writer Claire Rowden and Massive’s social and editorial lead Hannah Stokes, may be your new favourite listen.
For season one of the weekly podcast series, the trio are focusing on giving nuanced awards season breakdowns, and unpacking all of the major categories in the run-up to the Oscars.
In the first episode, Enechi, Rowden and Stokes discuss why they are excited about the podcast, the pop culture around TV and film – using TV series Heated Rivalry as a recent case study – and why “fan girls make the world go around”.
They also share their hot takes – including why actor Timothée Chalamet is a frontrunner for this year’s Oscars race, the Challengers film score snub and why all Academy Awards voters should do an unconscious bias test — and their film of the year.
If you are looking for a podcast that keeps film conversations going with flair and thoughtfulness, then listen to The Massive Cinema Podcast.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)
4. IT Horror Stories with Jack Smith
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube
Genre: Life and technology
Don’t fall into the trap that I did with this podcast and think of it as something akin to the Channel 4 sitcom The IT Crowd.
I was expecting comical stories of office-based IT nightmares and plenty of “turn it off and on again” references. Alas, this was not to be.
Although billed as a “hilariously chilling journey through the wild world of tech mishaps”, this episode, Surviving the Anonymous DDOS, does require a little more than basic IT knowledge to get the full enjoyment out of it –something I am slightly lacking in.
IT veteran host Jack Smith is joined by guest Andrew to discuss DDOS attacks.
Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks (for those who don’t know) have been happening for years but made headlines, thanks to the hacker group Anonymous.
Here, Andrew tells of an attack on the company he worked for, how unprepared they were, and the measures they took to not only override it, but also to prevent further attacks – some of which ended up being more successful than others.
IT enthusiasts will soak up the tech jargon and in-depth details, but technophobes like myself may get a little lost along the way.
(By Rachel Howard)
Spotlight on…
5. Life Without
Streaming platform: BBC Sounds
Genre: Life
Have you ever wondered what life would be like if something you considered to be essential, just vanished without any warning or second chances?
In a new 10-part BBC Radio 4 podcast series, Life Without, presenter and comedian Alan Davies will explore what happens next.
Every week, Davies will invite two guests, from scientists to psychologists, economists, sociologists and journalists, to discuss the unexpected consequences of losing something vital to our world.
In the second episode, Davies looks into what life would be without rats.
To hold his hand through this scenario, Davies is joined by professor of ecology Steven Belmain, who is the centre leader for sustainable agriculture at the University of Greenwich, and journalist Joe Shute, who has written about the cultural and social history of rats in his book, Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat.
They talk about why the role of rodents in our world is so “tremendous”, how a rat-free world would impact us and how we can try to peacefully co-exist with them.
If you would like to know what would happen if something fundamental – like the moon, salt, sleep, sex, or even something as random as worms – suddenly disappeared from the world, then give Life Without a listen.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)