This Christmas season whether you’re celebrating solo, with your nearest and dearest or your family, we bet you could still do with a little escape. So the Funny Women team put together their favourite podcasts for you to tune into over the holiday…
Becky Singh’s podcast pick
History Makers with Bec Hill, 2016 Funny Women Awards winner Harriet Braine and Dr Lucy Rogers. The comedy podcast exploring modern technology and the makers from history who made it all possible.
Sounds like: Horrible Histories meets Tomorrow’s World via Radio 4.
Favourite Episode: Episode one, on wireless communication.
Mariana Feijo’s Podcast Picks
Unexpected Fluids – Alix Fox, writer and sex educator and Riyadh Khalaf, vlogger and broadcaster, have bold, no holds barred conversations about sex. From their own personal experiences to the experiences their guests in the studio recount, to the ones submitted by the audience, you’ll listen to fantasies, awkward situations that have sometimes gone wrong and debunk some myths in the process.
Sounds like: The chats you have with your best mates about your awkward dates, with the bonus of a sexpert present setting all facts right!
Favourite episode: Smells with Lauren Pattison, who’s super candid and friendly. Or the one where I learnt the distinction between kink and fetish.
Griefcast – A podcast where Cariad Lloyd invited other comedians for a chat about losing people they love and the process of grief Despite the somewhat dark theme, you’re led along other people’s experiences with death in an open and frequently funny way – we’re in the presence of comedians after all.
Sounds like: Therapy, without having to share any information of your own or dropping those pounds at the end of the session!
Favourite episode: Sara Pascoe’s episode was a fun conversation between friends with a lot of shared experiences
Secret Dinosaur Cult – Brand new podcast with Funny Women Awards finalists Jodie Mitchell and Sofie Hagen as hosts and fun intro jingle by Funny Women Awards winner Harriet Braine. Daddy issues and dinosaur porn – yes, it is a thing, and you’ll learn a whole lot about it – are the excuse for these two friends with great chemistry, to have a chat about their day to day (exciting) lives, in front of a very reactive audience.
Sounds like: At times like eavesdropping into two friends having a chat, at others like the read-through of erotic literature…with dinosaurs!
Favourite episode: Kentrosaurus & Kink: Was It During Bread Week? Considering my first podcast suggestion, I may just be really into hearing others talk about sex, but I’ll give more credit to that Paul Hollywood cameo!
Kate Stone’s podcast picks
Drunk Women Solving Crime – Catie Wilkins, Hannah George and Taylor Glenn join forces with a guest to solve a true crime mystery of old whilst drinking alcohol provided by a different company every week. I like this on several levels, one: I bloody love a murder mystery, two: this is a genius manoeuvre on the part of the Drunk Women to gain access to free alcohol.
Sounds like: A drunk night with friends only instead of setting the world to rights, you solve a crime.
Favourite episode: They’re all good but the Felicity Montagu one was particularly amusing.
Fortunately – Originally this podcast featured the interchangeable Jane Garvey and Fi Glover discussing radio they had enjoyed over the week in the vein of a more irreverent BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week. I was sceptical when the format changed to Fi and Jane talking to a guest but actually, this award-winning podcast is probably my favourite. The pair have a knack of getting even the most straitlaced guest to loosen up and share something marginally scandalous, although you might have to be an avid Radio 4 listener to get all their references.
Sounds like: Your favourite aunties letting you in on trade secrets. Only the trade is the menopause.
Favourite episode: Fields of Chaff with Vicki Pepperdine tied with the Will Self episode.
Nobody Panic– Massive Dad’s Stevie Martin and Tessa Coates began this podcast with the dearly departed Debrief. When the site sadly went out of business the pair’s podcast was so popular that it lives on as Nobody Panic in which Stevie and Tessa discuss an ‘adult’ topic each week and how to manage it. Whilst I cringe at the term ‘adulting’ Stevie and Tessa are so funny together that I can forgive it.
Sounds like: listening in on a pair of very witty best friends.
Favourite episode: Any in which Tessa recalls holding a themed party (look for Halloween and Christmas).
We will be back in 2019 with more podcast recommendations, so send us what you have been listening to and look out for our own podcast making its debut soon!
