PODCASTS/AUDIOBOOKS
Educating Daisy
This new podcast series from Baftawinning writer and actor Daisy May Cooper is based on the fact that she hasn’t read a book since she did her GCSE English, which actually says more about our education system than it does about her. The format of the series is that, in each episode, she invites a celebrity guest to come and speak to her about a novel they love that Cooper hasn’t read, thereby educating her at the same time. In the opening episode she hears from poet, comedian and actor Tim Key who waxes lyrical about the 19th century comic classic The Diary of a Nobody. Diane Morgan, Nish Kumar, Jamali
Maddix, Katie Price and Alan Carr are all lined up to share their literary loves.
Rylan: How to Be a Man BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston
Rylan Clark presents this new series that explores modern masculinity and what it means to be a man today, discussing with his celebrity guests topics such as outdated male stereotypes, body image, parenthood, gender identity and role models. As an interviewer Rylan is sensitive, thoughtful and kind and his line of questioning elicits some interesting thoughts and revelations. In the opening episodes he speaks to wildlife cameraman and Strictly Come Dancing winner Hamza Yassin who talks about his Sudanese upbringing, dating, feeling broody, being a gentleman and the wild animals that inspire him to be a good man. Other guests include comedian Phil Wang, designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, boxer Amir Khan, supermodel David Gandy, Paralympian Mark Ormrod and footballer Jake Daniels.
The Foxes of Hydesville Various platforms, review by Yvette Huddleston
Inspired by the true story of the 19th century Fox sisters, this atmospheric nine-episode audio drama starring Carey Mulligan tells the story of the family who rose to fame when they began communicating with the dead which inadvertently led to the new religion of Spiritualism. The opening episode takes the listener back to 1848 as the eldest sister Leah Fox (Mulligan), a witty intelligent piano teacher, leaves Rochester with her friend Adelaide Granger and heads back home to Hydesville when she discovers that her teenage sisters have been claiming that they are able to ‘talk to the dead’. She intends to expose it as a hoax, but once she arrives home, things take a sinister turn and Leah becomes involved in seances.
In the Studio: August in England BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston
This fascinating series from the BBC World Service takes a look behind the scenes of creative endeavours – covering all art forms from theatre to music, sculpture to film. In this episode, presenter Vishya Samani follows Lenny Henry as he prepares for the opening of his debut play August in England at the The Bush Theatre in London. A one-man show, in which Henry also stars, it tells the story of August Henderson, a West Midlands grocer who arrived in the UK from Jamaica as an eight-year-old on his mother’s passport 52 years ago and is now facing deportation. The play is a searing indictment of the Windrush scandal and the thousands of lives that were, and continue to be, impacted by it.