Podcasts to Sink Your Teeth Into During Lockdown
If self-isolation has you talking to yourself, replaying old arguments in your head or recreating the dance scene from Risky Business with an empty toilet roll tube, a new addition to your podcast collection might be the answer.
Read on to find the most interesting podcasts to sink your teeth into during lockdown.
The Walkers Switch
This podcast will… make you laugh, but also question everything you thought to be true. For those who have a penchant for true crime but are feeling a bit fragile at the moment, this would be a great supplement to your more serious podcasts.
2 out of 3 people remember Walkers switching the colours of their cheese & onion and salt & vinegar crisp packets, but Walkers denied it ever happened. Enter The Walkers Switch: “an investigative podcast… about crisps”.
In this 6 part podcast, hosts Lauren Peters and Augustine Cerf delve deep into the case of the blue and green crisp packet switch of the 1990s, calling on the knowledge of memory experts, Google employees, Gary Lineker, the Illuminati and even the Tories.
Why do some of us remember the crisp packets switching colours and some of us don’t? Is it an Illuminati conspiracy? A collective hallucination? An inter-dimensional glitch? John Major’s fault, somehow?!
Augustine and Lauren explore all these possibilities and more in this hilarious, brain-mushing podcast which will have you questioning everything.
Where to start? For this 6 part investigative podcast, you’ll want to start with episode 1: The People.
You’re Wrong About
This podcast will… make you wish that hosts Michael and Sarah were your witty, well-informed best friends in real life.
In You’re Wrong About, hosts Michael Hobbes and Sarah Marshall examine events, people and panics of recent history in microscopic detail, picking apart the pieces we thought we knew to reassemble them into a brand new mosaic. This funny, well-researched podcast leaves no stone unturned and no story untold.
Where to start: Pick your poison! The You’re Wrong About hosts treat every topic with the same attention to detail, but it’s safe to say that maligned women are their speciality. Their two part discussion on Tonya Harding is a great place to start.
Supplementary Reading: Read Sarah Marshall’s articles about Tonya Harding: Remote Control and Making an Ice Queen, or Michael Hobbes’ new economy coverage for the Huffington Post to get a feel for the podcast.
The Teacher’s Pet
This podcast will… make you spend hours hooked to your iPod, turning over evidence in your head as if you yourself are a detective. If you’re feeling sensitive (i.e. you don’t fancy listening to the details of a grisly murder case), maybe steer clear of this one.
In January 1982, Lyn Dawson went missing from her home in Australia, where she lived with her husband and two daughters. Lyn was a devoted wife and mother, so why did she disappear?
In The Teacher’s Pet, The Australian’s Hedley Thomas investigates the disappearance and probable murder of Lyn Dawson. Hear how the police’s silence following Lyn’s disappearance echoed through the local community, how fame can shroud even the most unimaginable violence and how secrets can’t stay buried forever.
Where to start? As with most true crime podcasts, you should start with episode 1: Bayview.
Reply All
This podcast will… make you want to destroy your laptop and smartphone, before using their disassembled parts to fashion a makeshift time machine. Then travel back to 1900 before this whole internet debacle began and we didn’t have to worry about people hacking our webcams or selling our Snapchat usernames for bitcoin.
(You’d have to get one of those massive hats though, so maybe it’s not worth it. Also, things weren’t great for women then. Well, not that they’re great now. Okay anyway).
Reply All is, as its tagline suggests, “a show about the internet” - but it’s actually much more than that, if it even is really that at all. In fact, ‘the internet’ is just a kind of loose thread that holds all the different episodes together, and a foundation on which hosts Alex Goldman and PJ Vogt lay their stories.
Where to start? Episode 158: The Case of the Missing Hit. This recent episode is a fascinating story about what happens when a song you used to love just disappears off the face of the earth.
For an investigation that takes host Alex overseas to Delhi, listen to episodes 102 and 103: Long Distance. During this two-part investigation, Alex finds out what it’s like when you come face-to-face with your telephone scammer.
The Dropout
This podcast will… make you truly realise the meaning of the phrase ‘fake it ’til you make it ...or get sued.’
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford to pursue her dream of becoming a tech entrepreneur, founding health technology company Theranos when she was just 19.
With just a few small drops of blood, the devices Theranos produced could perform complex blood tests for patients. A game-changing idea… if only it was true.
In The Dropout, ABC News’ Rebecca Jarvis looks into the events in Elizabeth Holmes’ life that led her to become the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire - before losing it all.
Where to start? Start with episode 1: Myth Making.
Supplementary Reading: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou is a more in-depth exploration of this story.
And that concludes your self-isolation ‘to listen’ list - I hope this helped you wade through the endless river of podcasts to pick out the jewels beneath the surface.
Written by Alex Scarlett
