I think podcasts and radio dramas are great, I have a lot of pretentious ideas about why (low cost, limitations of the format, easy access), but really I think it's because I can listen to them while walking without repeatedly walking into lamposts, a problem I found trying to read while walking through secondary school (I do still walk into lamposts, but at a reduced rate and velocity). As I enjoy it so much, I've decided to thrust my enjoyment onto you, whether you want it or not, and I think these specific examples of the medium need the 1 other listener I can give them.

The post will be split into 2 lists, first is "pre-written" which is things like sketch and more narrative programmes, with the second covering the "some folk chatting" genre (you know what I mean). I'm not including factual programming (although I do enjoy the FT's "Unhedged" podcast in this category).

The Pre-Written/Narrative Programmes

Cabin Pressure - John Finnemore

Cabin Pressure Programmes Page

It's almost a cliche that Finnemore's wonderful little sitcom about a perpetually failing airdot is held up as a high standard of radio drama, but that's because it's really fuckin' good. It was my first introduction to radio comedy (thank you, SoSi) and there are few better introductions to the genre than this beauty. 10/10, go listen to it. bing bong As you will have noticed the seatbelt signs have been turned off, so please be aware that the cabin crew will be coming round with a new recommendation...

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme - He named the show after himself, come on.

JFSP Programmes Page

Yeah, Finnemore's kinda cracked it. I was going to complain about series 9 as I did kinda bounce off it on first listen, but thinking on it the handling of weaving an interconnected story is as sharp as disconnected sketches (and triplet gags) that it just works. I'm also very excited to learn that, in writing this, there's a new special airing next Monday (14:15, 2025/08/25, BBC Radio 4). And since you ask me for another recommendation...

Beef and Dairy Network - Benjamin Partridge

B&DN Maximum Fun Page

Goddamn. I tried to recommend this to someone at work and ended my explanation with "It is extremely difficult to explain and becomes a curse as you try to recommend it", which I stand by.

In a bid to avoid effort, let's see how the podcast is described in the "official" marketing. The Maximum Fun page reads "The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.", which is the in-universe explanation and barely useful for our purposes. Some episodes were syndicated to the BBC, and the Programmes Page reads "Surreal bovine-themed comedy hosted by Benjamin Partridge." which is getting a bit closer, not in-universe but still a bit broad. My attempted explanation was 'a beef and dairy industry podcast that exists in a surreal world which cannot be (lamb is a drug, there are only 4 meats, a man is reduced to "a head, lungs, liver and anus" yet survives) but played dead straight', which might be closer, but I think this thing is just indescribabale. The creator has said in some interviews that he recognises it's difficult to describe, so maybe only those willing to roll the dice on listening to 20 minutes of a dry industry podcast are allowed access to the majesty within.

The podcast is simply amazing, it is a surreal land played straight as a funeral, no one laughs unless it's at their own bad in-universe joke, even when listening to someone act out passing a kidney stone the size of a golfball, or describing their toddler fighting ring it is treated with the seriousness of File on 4. Benjamin Partridge may be one of the best people writing comedy at the moment (my research is shockingly thin on this) and he has been writing this for 10 years, with clearly no sign of stopping anytime soon, so may he long proceed. And on the website this week, another podcast recommendation...

Limelight: Central Intelligence - Greg Haddrick & Jeremy Fox

Series 1 BBC Programme's Page

A surprisingly stacked cast (Kim Catrall and Ed Harris are the leads) bring through the history of the CIA. The first episode starts at the end of the Second World War with the OSS and Paperclip, then takes you through the destabilisation of the Middle East, Suez, the U2, Vietnam, militarising South America and trying to kill Castro. The beauty of this, instead of just being a straight retelling of someone drily reading out "and then this thing happened, and then another" is that everything is a fly on the wall. Every episode begins with Kim Catrall telling us a bit of what's likely to happen, often linking it to a much more recent event (the episode on the Iranian Coup opens with 9/11 911 call recordings, which... yeah), and then we listen to basically just a bunch of conservations of people talking about what dastardly thing they need to do to "advance American interests abroad, and civilians be damned".

Overall, big fan, as someone who does enjoy true, cold war spy books (big fan of The Spy and the Traitor and Checkmate in Berlin), this really scratched that itch for me, but with fewer lampost incursions.

St Elwick's Neighbourhood Association Newsletter Podcast - Mike Wozniak

dotdotdot Productions SENANP Page

This is the audio-form newsletter for the newsletter of a neighbourhood association (read: NIMBY, small-c busybodies with far too much time on their hands) in a (non-existent) town outside Exeter. This is rather like B&DN above, in that it's difficult to explain and vaguely cursed. While that one is fully batshit nuts, this is much more grounded, there are school fairs, and street parties, and developers try to buy up land from schools, but even the normal stuff doesn't make sense. It is all, of course, played absolutely straight and the host sees nothing hilarious about the couple who live with thousands of toads, just something off.

It probably helps that Ben Partridge and Mike Wozniak are frequent collaborators, because this is also extremely good. It probably didn't help this recommendation that it's been absolutely ages since I listened to SENANP and should really give it a whirl. And in parish notices, another podcast recommendation...

(Also, they stopped making this a few years ago and I will never forgive Wozniak for that!)

Small Scenes - Benjamin Partridge, Mike Wozniak, Henry Paker

Small Scenes BBC Programme's Page

It's a short, fast sketch show. The sketches are pretty short, with plenty of good repeat sketch gags/interweaving stories (do not go to war with the British Literati/National Trust), and they're very tightly written. I don't entirely know if I want to just put those 3 in the title, BP is the sole credited writer on S1 with MW and HP joining in 3 and 4 (2 is missing from BBC Sounds, to lands unknown one presumes) but there is always a "and The Cast" credit, which is weird as the cast is brilliant. Daniel Rigby, Henry Paker and Mike Wozniak appear in all 4 seasons, joined by Sara Pascoe for S1, then Cariad Lloyd for S3/S4, Jessica Ransom for S3 and Freya Parker for S4 (again, S2 is lost to me).

Really, this is just another arrow in my quiver for Ben Partridge being one of the best British comedy writers going (again, my research is thin).

"Some blokes chatting" podcasts

Three Bean Salad - Benjamin Partridge, Mike Wozniak, Henry Paker

TBS Apple Podcasts Page

Where Sarah Koenig's Serial podcast put a urinal in an art gallery, Three Bean Salad is pissing in it. - Ben Partridge, Dinosuars

This is the three comedians I went on and on about above lukewarmly bantering about nothing. It's brilliant, and there are SO. MANY. JINGLES (complimentary).

The substance of an episode is basically the kind of conversation you'd find 3 men having in the corner of any pub, except these three are comedians so it's actually funny to anyone other than themselves, and even then... well. Each episode technically has a topic, and there is much ceremony around the unveilling of the topic (it is produced from "the bean machine", a device described grotesquely as in one of the hosts), and then within 5 minutes the topic has been lost as you wade hip deep through tangents and witless anecdotes.

If you put on the latest episode of this (at pixel time, "Hiking") you would be utterly lost. It may be among the few podcasts that is entirely reliant on not just a familiarity with, but an encyclopedic knowledge of, itself to understand. Do you know your "The Glamorous London Life of Henry Paker" from your "Digestive Tract Talk"? Wouldn't you seem a fool if you mistook an anecdote about Egg, the tortoise next door to Mike, for a gag about a Pret baguette? This is a podcast which, for the love of God, you need to start from the very beginning, you should do that for most podcasts, but this one is reliant on it to a ridiculous degree.

Where We Parked - Kevin Perjurer and Jack

simplecast Where We Parked Page

A podcast with the guy who makes Defunctland and, I'm sorry I don't know the other guy from anywhere but he's extremely good on this podcast so I should give "Theme Parks Shouldn't Exist" a go sometime.

One of them turns up with something they know about a theme park, or sometimes not a theme park, and riff on that for a bit. Sometimes other theme park Youtubers come on and they join in the chat. If you enjoy Defunctland content then you should just put the first episode ("In Search of Excellence") on and see if you gel with it, I was doubled over laughing for an hour. Like, the show just works, I don't know how to explain without talking about what happens and half the comedy is in the delivery.

Conclusion

I don't know if I have a conclusion, shit. I really enjoy/enjoyed all of the above and would like them all to continue for ever and ever. To expand on the pretentious reasons I think audio's a cool medium (and test the Markdown lists in here):

• It is incredibly cheap and the barrier for entry is rock bottom, this means commissioners shouldn't be scared of greenlighting stuff and that bigger creative swings can get made anyway. Beef and Dairy wouldn't get greenlit because you can't explain it to a BBC Radio Comedy exec who thinks the kids lap up The News Quiz and only has £5 to spend for the next 2 years.
• I heard someone in a synth video say "The absence of limitations is the enemy of art", and I think that's a pretty bang-on point. Radio is an extremely focused medium for narrative, you don't have to worry about blocking, set design, costuming, lighting or any of that. If you give listeners two people talking in a way humans are known to talk, they can paint a scene in their mind, and that shit's free, allowing you to focus on dialog.
• Podcasts never got railed into a single platform, like music (Spotify) and video (Youtube) did. The magic of RSS and the insistence to not let it die means that anyone, anywhere can download a reader, put the link for your show in and listen to it. It's just that easy. Without this, we might exist in a world where Spotify get a greenlight on every podcast episode you want to make, but instead we get uninhibited creative vision, however beautiful or unhinged that may well be.

Anyway, I'm sleepy, so I'll close it here. If somehow you are here, why?