Sit back, relax and tune in to the best 20 podcasts of summer
From the funny to fascinating to the frightening, we have your silly season podcast needs sorted for a thoroughly entertaining holiday.
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Looking for something to listen to and wile away the summer holiday hours? We have you covered.
ENTERTAINMENT
Somehow Related with Dave O’Neil & Glenn Robbins
These funnymen are given two seemingly random topics – and their task is to work out how these very different things are, well, somehow related. It’s a twisty-turny, often off-topic, always hilarious journey. A few of my favourites include Murder She Wrote and Malcolm Turnbull (and listen out for a surprise phone call from the former PM – or someone who sounds remarkably like him), Johnny Cash and Joseph Stalin and the very Australian kids party treat Fairy Bread and Hobart.
The Crown: The Official Podcast
Prepare a pot of tea and settle in for an all-areas-access behind the scenes of The Crown. This latest series chronicles the recently released fifth season of the royal drama. Host Edith Bowman speaks with the latest QEII, Imelda Staunton, about taking on the iconic role (and the breathtaking handmade costumes); and with Australian Elizabeth Debicki, who truly embodied Princess Diana during the royals’ most tumultuous era. Plus Bowman chats with the series’ mastermind Peter Morgan, who shares how the series has evolved.
Cancelled
This is a fun look at the ridiculousness of cancel culture – Jessie and Clare Stephens’ weekly deep dive into the story of a celebrity’s cancellation and ask who’s in, who’s out and, possibly more importantly, who actually cares. Quite apart from the content, the episode names are hilarious: King “will always be a prince” Charles, Brooklyn “World’s worst photographer” Beckham, Brad “Actually problematic” Pitt” Olivia “we’re worried, darling” Wilde and Kourtney “doesn’t work as hard as her sisters” Kardashian.
The Jess Rowe Big Talk Show
Australian journalist, TV presenter and author Jess Rowe proclaims to dump the small talk and goes big and deep with her guests. From love to loss and everything in between, she tries to show you a different side of her famous guests who might seem to have it all together, It’s where Hugh Sheridan first publicly revealed he was married for nine years. Other eye-opening chats include Trinny Woodall, Carrie Bickmore, Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley and singer-songwriter Ben Lee.
Hollywood Unscripted
This is by film buffs for film buffs. Hosted by actor, producer, director Jenny Curtis, this sporadic podcast chats with some of the top professionals in the entertainment industry. There’s candid conversations that take listeners right inside the creative process and behind the scenes of some of the biggest blockbusters in film history. Curtis has chatted with the likes of Chris Columbus – who directed Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter adaptations – and even Australian showrunner Tony McNamara, who wrote The Secret Life
of Us, Love My Way and Tangle, before creating The Great with Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult.
LIFESTYLE
The Imperfects
The Resilience Project’s Hugh Van Cuylenberg, teaming up his very talented brother Josh and one of Australia’s most successful comedians, Ryan Shelton, has put together a podcast which is all about how perfectly imperfect we all are. The trio chat to a variety of people who share their own struggles. Past guests have included relationship psychotherapist Esther Perel, Nedd Brockmann – who ran 4000km across Australia – comedian Nazeem Hussein, and Olympic gold medallist Libby Trickett.
How Other Dads Dad
Hamish Blake is a dad who adores being a dad, and on this poignant and informative series (he warns in the first episode it’s not intentionally funny but, of course, there’s some laughs along the way), he chats with other dads he really admires – or perhaps whose numbers he had relatively easy access to – about their approach to dadding. In the process he learns a little, steals some of their hard-earned wisdom and helps people dad that bit better. Father-of-five Rob Sitch, Adam Hills and Stan Grant are among the guests. Also worth a listen for mums.
Forty
Hosts Lise and Sarah are fab, fun and (obviously) 40 as they chat with well-known Australian women in their fifth decade. Each episode opens with the question how did you celebrate your 40th? And while there are a plenty of laughs mixed in with great advice, there are a stack of emotional episodes such as author and former news presenter Jacinta Tynan sharing some deeply personal secrets or brekkie radio host Abby Coleman on her complicated relationship with food. In between the chats with women, drops midweek ep Just The Two Of Us where the pair discuss the week that was and what’s going on in their own lives.
No Filter
Mia Freedman has carved out a signature space when it comes to in-depth interviews with this podcast. And, yes, there’s fresh conversations with well-known people – think Nigella Lawson, Malcolm Turnbull, Marian Keyes, Liane Moriarty, to athletes, actors, politicians and business leaders. But also there’s regular people with extraordinary stories like Jessica van Nooten and her husband Kevin Middleton, who had to get their daughter born via surrogate in Ukraine after Russia invaded. The long-form format means there’s plenty of time for them to let their guard down and truly open up.
iweigh with Jameela Jamil
This podcast – an offshoot of Jamil’s activist mental health organisation of the same name – is, as she says, a weapon against shame. Guests have included Billy Porter, Demi Lovato and our own Celeste Barber, as well as doctors and experts. It’s the unexpected moments that get you such as Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon tearing up in her emotional interview while discussing mental health, sharing that she’s still not treated like enough and that she’s still not allowed to feel like she’s doing enough. It’s not all shade though, there’s a balance of light and laughs.
TRUE CRIME
Bikies Inc.
Following Mafia’s Web, a terrific series on the mob in Australia, journalist Stephen Drill peels back the layers on a similarly terrifying organised crime outfit, namely outlaw motorcycle gangs. With the help of legal and law enforcement experts, he examines the links between bikies and the illicit drug trade that makes them $8m richer every single day, as well as the money laundering, domestic violence, murder and betrayals that have become their stock in trade.
Teacher’s Pet/Teacher’s Trial
Four years ago, journalist Hedley Thomas’ hugely successful Teacher’s Pet podcast investigated the disappearance of Sydney mother Lynette Dawson. Earlier this month, in no small part due to Thomas’ detailed investigation, her husband Chris was sentenced to 24 years in jail for her murder. Thomas returned to the podcasting fray during Chris Dawson’s trial and the original series has now been re-edited and rereleased following the guilty verdict that finally brought justice for Lynette.
4 Killed For What?: The University of Idaho Murders
This utterly riveting and perplexing podcast is being played out in real time. Six weeks ago, four college students in the American Midwest state were apparently stabbed to death as they slept and so far police are utterly stumped as to who did it and why. The small town of Moscow is on edge with a killer still on the loose and eager for every fresh piece of evidence that might help solve the mystery.
Bone Valley
In 1987, Leo Schofield was jailed for the murder of his wife in Florida – and he’s still behind bars 35 years later. Author Gilbert King was alerted to the case by a judge who risked his career by telling him he believed Schofield was innocent – and the more King investigated, the more he was inclined to agree. Over nine exasperating episodes, King examines the deeply flawed prosecution case, the botched appeals, elicits a confession to the murder from another prisoner, and comes to a conclusion that will leave listeners howling with impotent fury.
The Sunshine Place
Robert Downey Jr executive produced this stranger-than-faction six-part examination of Charles E. Dederich and his Synanon organisation. What started as a social experiment – and hailed “the miracle on the beach” for rehabilitating heroin addicts and other troubled souls – descended into a dangerous and violent cult with outlets all over the US. Narrator Sari Crawford escaped the cult and fellow survivors share their stories from the inspirational to the utterly harrowing.
SPORT
Cricket, Et Cetera
As long-time mates and two of the finest cricket writers in the country, Peter Lalor and Gideon Haigh make for excellent company as they bring their deep passion for, and knowledge of, the game to life. Their daily wraps of the Test matches are incisive and entertaining and episodes in between are bolstered by their shared love of books and music and a roster of top guests, from former prime minister and confessed cricket tragic John Howard to greats of the game, including Wasim Akram and Michael Holding.
GegenPod
The World Cup is over but football never dies and this homegrown podcast is a treasure trove of the best of the beautiful game from all around the globe. Hosted by a roster of soccer luminaries including Michael Bridges and Mark Schwarzer, it dissects the action from the A League, Premier League, La Liga, J League and offers opinions on thorny issues like whether Lionel Messi is really the GOAT (spoiler, he is).
Browny’s Podcast
Jonathan Brown might have hung up his morning radio show mic but his podcast recently clocked up its 100th episode and it still going strong. Alongside former Hawthorn player Campbell Brown and broadcaster Dean “Deano” Thomas, the ex-Brisbane Lions premiership player presides over a kind of Footy Show-esque organised chaos featuring sports chat across many codes, stunts such as busking and hitchhiking and guests galore. The sports knowledge is genuine – and the laughs are too.
Sports Bizarre
Comedians and sports nuts Mick Molloy and Titus O’Reily unearth weird and wonderful true tales in this hugely entertaining and oddly informative series. The recent six-part series on “the dodgy road to the Qatar World Cup” is as exasperating and mind-boggling as it is hilarious and it’s worth going back into the archives for the wacky story of two New York Yankees players who traded lives and wives in the ’70s, as well as the episodes tracing the disgraceful beginnings and chequered doping history of the Tour de France.
Barefoot Boys
Sports fans still basking in the afterglow of the recent FIFA World Cup would do well to seek out this little-known, enthralling and inspirational true tale of how a band of poor Indians from Bengal went toe-to-toe (and shoeless) with their colonisers in a football tournament more than 100 years ago and galvanised a nation. It’s about much more than sport as it tackles rampant racism and the oppression of the local culture. And for a deeper dive into the British Raj, the excellent history podcast Empire is also well worth a listen.
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