Christmas is inevitably spent in the orbit of a flat screen, blue light casting a celestial glow. Picking up a book is noble but futile when you’re dopey after a lunchtime Baileys and half a wheel of brie.
Still, to ward off square eyes, you could try binging a blockbuster podcast — one of the few passive activities that can drive a gentle spike in brain activity. The result is a dreamy, subliminal lesson, knowledge by osmosis — and you can have another Baileys while you’re plugged in.
Additionally, if driving home for Christmas actually means a long train journey to the north of England, crouching by a busted toilet staring into the haunted eyes of other desperate travellers, then a podcast might be the thing to take you away from it all.
These are series to binge this Christmas.
The Cut on Tuesdays
30 — 45 minutes per episode
Woe betide the thinking woman with a wicked wit: after 65 episodes, The Cut on Tuesdays sends its final dispatch next week (though we’re promised something new in 2020).
Still, this is a timely invitation to binge its miscellany of whip-smart episodes, which include interviews with heroines such as Sally Rooney, Elizabeth Warren and Rebecca Traister; investigations into sexual assault on ride-sharing app Lyft, and the potency of whisper networks; and thrillingly candid watercooler chats about thirst-traps, penis envy and ambition.
The one about calling your mother will make you cry — even/especially if you are currently not speaking to yours, who is downstairs, after a blazing row about the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special. RIP The Cut on Tuesdays — we were not worthy.
Intrigue: Tunnel 29
20 — 30 minutes per episode
This gripping series about refugees fleeing East Germany via a subterranean escape route is as pacey as the best Netflix thriller. Helena Merriman’s Tunnel 29 has now been downloaded more than three million times.
It is the story, told in 10 compulsive episodes, of Joachim Rudolph, an escaped East German who helped 29 others follow him by engineering a tunnel right under the Wall that scored Berlin like a scar. It has Stasi spies and near-misses and a love story, as well as extraordinary recordings from inside the tunnel and interviews with those involved in the digging.
Dolly Parton’s America
30 — 45 minutes per episode
Think you know all you want to know about America’s ultimate bombshell? You’re wrong.
This seven-part series produced by American station WNYC, and presented by Jad Abumrad, is moving, unexpected and revelatory. It’s both an exploration of Parton’s cultural impact — on politics, feminism and music — and also invokes the very personal story of how Parton travelled from a humble Tennessee Mountain Home to the Americana-on-steroids world of Dollywood.
Abumrad interviews Parton at length — what a pleasure to hear her purring into the mic — as well as friends, relatives, colleagues and superfans.
And the soundtrack is, of course, a belter.
Women Tech Charge
25 minutes per episode
A surefire way to feel the weight of your own inactivity? Face down someone else’s superlative pursuits. Still, don’t let that put you off Women Tech Charge, one of the Evening Standard’s flagship podcasts: a weekly show about women working in tech, who are, of course, far from a uniform bunch.
The second series, which finished this month, features guests including Seyi Akiwowo, the powerhouse behind Glitch, which fights online abuse; Vinita Marwaha Madill of the European Space Agency; Entrepreneur First founder Alice Bentinck; and Rabia Chaudry, the woman who tipped off Sarah Koenig to Adnan Syed, inspiring Serial, and essentially kickstarting second age of radio.
Acast and Apple Podcasts
Dear Joan and Jericha
20 — 25 minutes per episode
One to make you laugh like a drain. Comedians Julia Davis and Vicki Pepperdine play a pair of radio agony aunts with no interest in solving anyone’s problems.
In the show — which returned for a second season in autumn — heartbroken women are dealt with briskly and acidly, and soppy teens are examined with excoriating cruelty. It is dark, judgemental and on the line — but wickedly funny for it.
Acast and Apple Podcasts
Women in tech podcast returns
Listen and subscribe to Women Tech Charge on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Acast or wherever you get your podcasts
