30 of the best podcasts for summer 2025
From Alan Partridge's latest comedy offering to political insights and gripping true crime, these are the podcasts to get into this summer.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
Whether you're in need of a laugh, looking to catch up on the latest political goings-on, or hoping to improve your general health and wellbeing, podcasts have become a big part of daily life for many of us.
Here, Radio Times runs down the 30 best podcasts of summer 2025 – from the worlds of entertainment, current affairs, history, crime, wellness and sport.
Best podcasts for summer 2025
Entertainment
1. Alan Partridge: Tales from the Oasthouse
Some 34 years after Partridge hatched, fully-formed, as the unwittingly naff and desperately insecure golf sweater-wearing sports reporter on BBC Radio 4 comedy On the Hour, Steve Coogan’s excruciating creation shows no signs of getting tired. Male vanity is, as far as comedy is concerned, the gift that keep on giving but it is testament to Coogan’s precision and nimbleness as an actor that he also delivers moments in which your heart goes out to his petty, resentful and un-self-aware character. Gareth McLean
2. Heavyweight
In the first episode of Heavyweight, a show in which Jonathan Goldstein seeks to bring closure and/or reconciliation to his guests whose lives are marked by rifts and estrangements, the American-Canadian humourist tried to heal the decades-long division between his father and his uncle. Poignant, bittersweet, funny, it set the tone for this extraordinary, often tender, occasionally horrendously awkward, pod. GM
3. The Teen Commandments
Radio 2 presenter Sara Cox and her longtime BFF Clare Hamilton discuss the often-messy reality of parenting teenagers as well as reminiscing about their own teenage misdemeanours in the 1980s. A refreshing and rare beast amid a sea of parenting pods focused on babies and young children, the result is, Cox says, “not an advice pod”. “We thoroughly encourage people to do the opposite of what we do with our parenting. People call it more of a parental panic group.” GM
4. The Problematic Gaze
Social historian Dr Lee Arnott and TV producer Dave Moor each week ask how a pop culture artefact from yesteryear measures up to today’s mores. Episodes range from the place of race in Til Death Us Do Part to how Friends treats trans characters, via The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Carry On Girls and Men Behaving Badly. GM
5. Central Intelligence
A stellar cast headed by Kim Cattrall and Ed Harris bring to life the hidden history of the CIA in this scintillating drama that delights in its roll call of maverick agents. Cattrall is our guide to the USA’s many foreign policy misadventures in her role as the agency’s highest rank female officer, Eloise Page. David Crawford
6. Nile Rodgers: Deep Hidden Meaning
Artists discussing their “process” might sound a little high-falutin but when the art is music and the artists range from Paul McCartney and Bjorn Ulvaeus to Shakira and Debbie Harry - each in conversation with the genius Nile Rodgers - the listening couldn’t be more compelling. Rodgers’s insights abound and the joy of shared creativity is infectious. GM
Current affairs
7. The Rest Is Politics US
Famously sacked by Donald Trump after 11 days in the role of White House director of communications, Anthony Scaramucci shares his insider-outsider insights and impressive historical knowledge in one of the fastest growing and always compelling political podcasts. Bringing an expertise honed over 30 years reporting on world news, his co-host is the cut-glass Katty Kay. GM
8. A Podcast of One’s Own
Extremely earnest, lacking rhetorical flair and apparently content with what is a terrible name for her show, Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister and presenter of this interview series focused on folks striving for gender equality, is not a natural broadcaster. And yet her limitations do not diminish but rather enhance her encounters with activists, actors and authors, among others. It’s an odd kind of alchemy. GM
9. Newscast
BBC News political editor and co-host Chris Mason tells RT that, in a market packed with similar offerings, what sets this daily analysis show apart are its BBC values, what he calls “anchors not shackles”. He tells us: “Opinions are ten a penny. There is still an audience for hopefully intelligent conversation which is deliberately not about what I think.” Caroline Frost
10. Black British Lives Matter
Inspired by the 2021 collection of essays of the same name edited by Sir Lenny Henry and Marcus Ryder, the podcast interrogates and celebrates what it means to be Black and British. With each episode dedicated to a particular subject - from mental health to art, food to hair - Henry, Ryder and their guests’ conversations are rich and revelatory. GM
11. The Take (Al Jazeera)
For those missing the breadth and depth of the BBC’s HardTalk, some comfort is to be found in this daily interview-driven gem of a show fronted by Malika Bilal. In the last month, it has focused on the attempted assassination of Colombia’s presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, student protests in Bangladesh, and Iran’s right to resist regime change. GM
History
12. Empire – William Dalrymple and Anita Anand
With three years, almost 300 shows and 75m downloads under their belts, Dalrymple and Anand have come a long way from when Dalrymple first appeared as a guest on The Rest Is History. But from small acorns, great oaks grow. Much like empires. Only great oaks don’t brutally suppress, massacre and inflict famines on other trees. If you believe that the British empire was a benevolent, virtuous and civilising force, you should listen to this podcast. You won’t, but you should. GM
13. The Rest Is Classified – David McCloskey and Gordon Corera
Another thoroughbred from Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger stable, The Rest Is Classified has a former CIA analyst and ex-BBC security correspondent trade spy stories to raise eyebrows and heart rates. Meanwhile, we await Goalhanger’s inevitable podcast about sleep, “The Rest Is Rest”. GM
14. Centuries of Sound
With a mix of up to four hours for every year of recorded sound since 1859, James Errington’s aural collages are epic, sprawling portraits of change. For example,1925 was the first year that, in theory, all audible sound could finally be captured. Among Errington’s ear-tefacts from the time are songs from Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and Guy Visser with his Singing Duck. GM
15. Half-Life
Author Joe Dunthorpe uncovers a disquieting truth when he tries to learn more about his German-Jewish family’s dramatic escape from Nazi Germany in 1936. Themes of hidden family trauma, ethical compromises and the very physical scars of war mix in a story that stretches across continents and features a soundscape that subtly reflects the disturbing subject. DC
16. 16 Sunsets
From the team behind the award-winning 13 Minutes to the Moon, including space expert presenter Kevin Fong, this offers a deep dive into the cultural, political and scientific context of the birth of the NASA Shuttle programme. The Zimmer-esque score sets the scene, celebrating the collaboration of uniquely skilled people, all clearly made of “the right stuff”. CF
Crime
17. Mark Horgan – Stakeknife
Three years in the making, featuring dozens of interviews and using never-before-heard secret recordings, Mark Horgan’s investigation into the double life of Freddie Scappaticci aka “Stakeknife”, the IRA member responsible for punishing informers within the paramilitary organisation – who was himself an informer – is a rare and unflinching look at just what the British got up to in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. GM
18. The Grave Robbers - Sue Mitchell
Having caught a scorpion in Iraq and exposed widescale abuse of England’s power of attorney in previous series, the award-winning Sue Mitchell maintains a domestic focus for her next must-hear pod: an investigation into criminal gangs who fake wills to steal the estates of the dead and purloin other people’s inheritances. Two-thirds of Britons don’t have a will so the victim pool is huge. Luckily, Mitchell used to be a lifeguard. GM
19. Not Another Crime Podcast
Not to be confused with the possibly-a-parody Not Another True Crime Podcast presented by “partners in crime, wine and time” Danny Murphy and Sara Levine, this Australian offering has journalist Georgia Love and civilian Sammy Petersen discuss often gruesome deaths, usually of women, also over a glass or two of wine. Because nothing goes with discussions of violent misogyny like a chardonnay. GM
20. Operation Seal Bay
A sleepy Welsh coastal village. Some strange goings-on down at the beach. Retired locals set out to investigate in the true story of what happened when some wrong’uns chose a quiet Pembrokeshire cove to stash their… I won’t spoil it. Six enjoyable episodes remind us there’s no sleuth like a pensioner, especially when a stranger starts dropping £50 notes in the village pub. CF
21. Stalked
The horrors of one of the most pervasive and pernicious of modern crimes, cyber stalking, are laid bare in this empathetic series, which gently draws listeners into the story, through the relationship between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr (the journalist who exposed the workings of Cambridge Analytica) and the victim, who happens to be her ex-stepdaughter, Hannah. DC
Wellness
22. The Mel Robbins Podcast
Mel Robbins describes her podcast as about “being real” and herself as “a friend who tells you the truth, helps you focus on what matters, and pushes you to create a more meaningful life”. She wants to help you change and, with a reported 37m monthly downloads, Robbins seems to be effecting change on a large scale, as seems necessary nowadays. After all, don’t we all know at least one person who could do with such guidance? (If you don’t know someone, it’s you who needs the guidance.) GM
23. Where Should We Begin?
The intimate environment of the medium has lent itself to thousands of therapy podcasts but, for eight years, the grand dame of couples counselling has been Belgian-American Esther Perel. With humour softening the blows of her forensic insight into people’s motivations and demons, time and again she dismantles the armour around her subjects and helps them find a way to tell another, truer story. CF
24. Just One Thing
With his scientific but accessible approach to improving health and wellbeing, Michael Mosley changed hundreds of thousands of people’s lives. Just One Thing is the perfect legacy of the man and his endeavours. “He was a great communicator and people trusted him,” his widow Dr Clare Bailey Mosley told RT in November. “He really did want to make a difference to people’s lives.” GM
25. Katherine Ryan’s What’s My Age Again?
Probably the only podcast to demand blood from its celebrity guests – in order to establish their age at a cellular level – this series sees the Canadian comic play host to a resident scientist advising the likes of Katie Price, Jedward and Alastair Campbell on how lifestyle changes may make them feel younger. “More sleep, less alcohol” may be news for some. GM
Sport
26. The Price of Football
Football finance experts Kevin Day and Kieran Maguire deep-dive into club accounts and tot up the costs of the beautiful game – and often reveal some ugly truths. Twice weekly, this digest covers the Premier League and local clubs with the same no-nonsense diligence. GM
27. Football Daily: The Commentators’ View
Though BBC commentators Ian Dennis, Alistair Bruce-Ball and John Murray have their name above the door, there’s a whole community of commentariat called up to offer insights and wisdom you don’t hear on the radio, including Vicki Sparks, the first woman to commentate live on a World Cup match on British TV, in 2018. GM
28. The Grade Cricketer
Among dozens of podcasts dedicated to all things leather on willow, this remains the giant, with a slot on TV and live shows around the world. Hosted by Australians Sam Perry and Ian Higgins who met playing grade cricket, the tone is more Shane Warne than Ricky Ponting, with their respect for the game matched by their larrikin irreverence for everything else. CF
29. Sir Bradley Wiggins’ Café Aficionado
If you’re going to have a podcast about professional cycling, then who better to host it than the first Briton to win the Tour de France and a man who’s not short of an opinion or two, Bradley Wiggins? He’s joined by his friend, the journalist and similarly velo-obsessive Graham Willgoss, to ruminate on all the latest action from the cycling world. DC
30. The Game Changers
The bad news is that “women’s sport” in 2025 still needs its own podcast. The good news is that, with host Sue Anstiss (co-founder of the Women’s Sport Collective), we meet athletes, coaches and administrators, all trailblazers who have broken down barriers, and shifted the needle on equality in sport. Inspiring stuff, even as Anstiss waits for the day when we have to call it “the men’s World Cup”. CF
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