Family drama, politics and the science of orgasms: The best podcasts around

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Ever felt like following a bunch of car salesmen around for a month? Or tracing a family’s secret past? Perhaps you’d like to eavesdrop on two high-powered political foes ‘disagreeing agreeably’ while trying to make some sense of the world.

Whether it’s true crime, expert takes on the science of sex or the economics of literally anything, you guessed it: there’s a podcast for that.

Almost 45 per cent of Australians are regularly tuning in. Comedy, news and true crime are the most popular genres but self-help and sport are growing. Here we’ve selected a few of our favourites, with a brief rundown of why you need them in your life.

The image of Amelia Oberhardt’s mother – and the catalyst for her Secrets We Keep podcast.

Secrets We Keep
At her mother’s funeral, journalist Amelia Oberhardt spied a photograph in the slide show that changed her world forever: her mum as a teenager, holding a baby and wearing a wedding ring, together with a young man she’d never seen. Who the hell were these people, she wondered. Turns out, her mother had a life the Brisbane-based journalist knew nothing about. This compelling true story investigates that life, including secret pregnancies, shotgun marriages and forced adoptions, with a backdrop that reveals what life was like for young women in this country in the 1950s through to the 1970s. With Oberhardt as the narrator on a journey to make sense of her mother’s life, it has a particular poignancy. KO

The Rest is Politics
On the face of it, this might seem less than promising – two former British political insiders discuss politics from home and abroad. However, it is rarely less than compelling. The pair is Alastair Campbell, former communications director for Tony Blair and, in part at least, the inspiration for The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker, and Old Etonian Rory Stewart, former diplomat and Tory cabinet minister under Theresa May and David Cameron. They are both brilliantly well-informed and from their opposite ends of the political spectrum (although, they find common cause more often than one might expect) engage in informed discussion, agreeing to “disagree agreeably” when disputes arise. Their discussions are an oasis of sanity and informed debate in the desert of populist nonsense that dominates so much of world politics. Also, check out Leading, their weekly long-form interviews with fascinating world figures, from Gerry Adams to John Major. NG

The Thick of It: Fictional Malcolm Tucker rarely disagreed agreeably.Credit: BBC

Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis Dreyfus
Jane Fonda, Isabelle Allende, Amy Tan and Fran Lebowitz are just a few of the big name guests on series one of this fabulous pod hosted by Julia Louis Dreyfus. As the name suggests, it’s inspired by learning from our elders but with none of the worthiness that idea might imply. It’s funny, insightful and poignant.

Julia Louis Dreyfus speaks to women wiser than her for her podcast.Credit: Getty Images

“I always preferred the company of older people because they knew more than me. Why would I want to be around people who know less?” Lebowitz says. What did they know more than you? “Everything,” she says. Fans of Seinfeld andVeep will be delighted – and probably not surprised – to hear Louis Dreyfus is as hilarious and charming as you might imagine. At the end of each ep, she has a chat with her own mother, providing insights into her personal life, upbringing and worldview. KO

The Daily
“From the New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro … and this is The Daily.” Fans will be able to recite those words in their sleep and for those who have yet to add this daily half-hour deep-dive into a topic du jour to their podcast list, you’re in for a treat. Each episode, Barbaro (and sometimes colleague Sabrina Tavernise) interview a New York Times journalist on one story they have worked on. Frequently, the topic is American, but just as often, they tackle international stories. The format is the perfect way to get a handle on, say, the Israeli/Hamas war or Donald Trump’s latest legal setbacks. At the end of each show, Barbaro gives a quick round-up of other important stories prefaced by his idiosyncratic and much imitated, “And here’s what else you need to know today…” NG

Science Vs.
Did you know breath work has been trialled as a treatment for PTSD and depression and has shown some remarkable results? Or are you more interested in the whistleblower who says the US government is covering up what it knows about aliens on Earth and the military pilots who testified to seeing strange objects in the sky? This Gimlet production explores state-of-the-art research on a huge cross-section of issues, fads, trends and realities – from orgasms and vaping, to bats and magic mushrooms. Presenters are entertaining and informed, interviewing experts across all facets of science, and issues are often tied to news of the day or pop culture – one episode went behind the scenes of Oppenheimer on the movie’s release, for example – making the pod timely and relevant. Think science made sexy. KO

Planet Money
From the stable of the US’ National Public Radio – which consistently delivers some of the best podcasts going around – Planet Money takes the dry world of economics and rehydrates it into a deeply fascinating and colourful half-hour by digging into the stories behind the numbers. “Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy” is their boast. Mostly they neatly pull off that trick by highlighting a tiny corner of economic individual activity – pretty much everything we do, when you think about it – and then pulling back focus to illuminate the big picture.

Sometimes, episodes are serialised, such as the time the team set about making a T-shirt, going from cotton growers to factories to container ships and retailers, all in the name of explaining how supply chains work. For a quick hit of economic fun, turn your ears towards their sister podcast The Indicator, which presents bite-sized episodes based on an individual economic statistic. This is not your high school economics class.
NG

This American Life
If you’re new to podcasting, the Pulitzer-Prize winning This American Life is an excellent place to start. Each episode is themed and broken into segments, featuring first-person real-life stories, like a snackable audio magazine. Topics range from Switched at birth and Breakups, to 129 Cars, which followed a bunch of car salesmen for a month. More than 600 episodes have been produced and can be searched in the archive; to simplify where to start, there’s a ‘best of’ included.

Ira Glass, creator of This American Life.Credit: Showtime/Monty Brinton

Co-founder and longtime host Ira Glass is something of a legend in the genre, as well as the first to take a pod into a real-life space with Glass on the road. This American Life spawned the award-winning Serial series, which was arguably life-changing for its central character and an excellent entree to true crime podcats. KO

Notable mentions: State of the World (NPR), Hidden Brain, Lex Fridman Podcast, Pod Save America, Americast, Renegades: Born in the USA (Barak Obama and Bruce Spingsteen), Radiolab, Strong Songs, Ear Hustle, Throughlines, 99% Invisible.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.

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