Clare’s talk on the wild side
Go rambling with Clare Balding, enjoy unusual love stories and a Victorian steampunk detective story
RAMBLINGS
CLARE BALDING takes a wander through the countryside with guests in a podcast that will either soothe cooped-up home workers’ cravings for fresh air – or intensify it.
For most people it will surely be the latter - the sound of her boots squelching through wet sand on the Isle of Sheppey or sloshing through the West Dart River made me want to pull on my waterproofs and grab an Ordnance Survey map.
And you can actually do that if you like as Clare helpfully reveals which OS map they are f following and the grid reference f of where they started.
Recent episodes have returned to the original format of the presenter interviewing a well-known fellow rambler such as Countryfile’s Anita Rani, above, as they stroll, but for a while during the first lockdown she was delving into the archives to create episodes on different themes.
They are worth a listen too, but it’s the interview format that’s most appealing as her companions seem comfortable revealing more on a walk than they perhaps would in a studio. Where to start: Barry Farrimond (The Archers’ Ed Grundy) talks inventing knots, making orchestras accessible and ghostly hairy hands as the pair trek across Dartmoor. Or learn about miscarriages of justice and serial killers with criminologist David Wilson on a walk through Northamptonshire.
Where to find it: All usual podcast providers as well as BBC Sounds.
MODERN LOVE
NETFLIX subscribers will recognise this as the title of a romantic comedy series starring everyone from Tina Fey to Andrew
Scott, but the podcast – also featuring some big names – came first.
Both started as a weekly column in the New York Times, which tells the love stories of real people, but not in the traditional sense – they cover the emotion in all its many guises from a blind man learning to see through his wife’s eyes (read by the excellent David Oyelowe) to a woman who discovers a dark family secret (played by The Affair’s Ruth Wilson).
Prepare to be uplifted and maybe even a little teary.
Where to start: Daniel Radcliffe, below, reads a funny and deeply honest essay about a husband whose wife helps him understand his Asperger Syndrome in Somewhere Inside, A Path to Empathy. Its writer David Finch then speaks about the overwhelming reception to his piece.
Where to find it: All the usual podcast apps or online at nytimes.com/ column/modern-lovepodcast
VICTORIOCITY
IF you were looking for a podcast to demonstrate the boundless possibilities of audio fiction then this would be it.
The detective comedy would cost an astronomical sum to produce for the screen but brilliant writing, great sound effects and the listener’s imagination beats even the wealthiest special effects departments.
Set in the sprawling Even Greater London, where steampunk contraptions meet Victorian morality, Victoriocity follows Inspector Archibald Fleet (Tom Crowley) and journalist Clara Entwhistle (Layla Katib) as they investigate a murder.
It’s ingenious, ridiculous and completely addictive. There are rumours of a third series. Let’s hope they’re true.
Where to start: Episode 1, season 1.
Where to find it: All the usual podcast apps, plus more details at victoriocity. com