TV: Detectorists
As unobtrusive and gentle as its rural metal-detecting characters, Mackenzie Crook’s BBC4 comedy has surreptitiously become indispensable viewing. The hobby-based friendship between Crook and Toby Jones’s Andy and Lance may seem trite but there’s a wealth of acutely observed detail and subtle humour, and the performances are finely judged.
Video: SHOWstudio
Founded by Nick Knight in 2000, SHOWstudio hosts the fashion photographer’s films and digital projects, often involving high-profile collaborators such as Kate Moss and Lady Gaga. The site is also home to some of the most engaging and thoughtful discussion about fashion around. During fashion weeks, panels dissect designers’ work and new trends, while the In Fashion film series has editor Lou Stoppard quiz influential industry players on their lives; the interviews with magazine editors including Dylan Jones, Jefferson Hack and Terry Jones being especially compelling for their insight into how culture is curated and created by the media.
Audio: The Archers
Radio 4 stalwart The Archers might not seem cutting edge but it’s had no trouble adapting itself to the digital age: the show’s podcast was recently revealed to be the most downloaded single radio programme in BBC history. After being on the airwaves for 64 years, The Archers can also claim to be the longest-running soap opera of all time, managing to stay relevant by conscientiously covering contemporary issues amid all that agriculture. You can catch up with a sliver of the show’s history on the iPlayer or download the podcast from the BBC website and iTunes.
Video: Hack Into Broad City
Scandalously, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer’s brilliantly bawdy comedy Broad City still hasn’t been picked up by anyone in the UK. So for now we’ll have to make do with these webisodes, provided as a stopgap between the show’s first and second seasons, in which the duo discuss love, pimples and body dysmorphia over Skype. Gleefully gross viewing.
Audio: Working
Slate’s newest podcast asks a professional of some stripe to explain their working day. A dull premise, perhaps, but not when you have guests of the calibre of Stephen Colbert, who in the show’s first episode explains in microscopic detail just how his satire series The Colbert Report gets made. It’s as fascinating as you’d expect.
