Picks of the week
The makers of last year’s disturbing hit Dirty John have come up with another dark podcast about a dangerous doctor. Laura Beil tells the story of spinal surgeon Dr Christopher Duntsch, who botched operations and killed two people. The six-parter unfolds quickly, from tiny clues such as surgical scrubs that remain unchanged to the doctor going missing mid-operation. Add the mental image of a screw being inserted into a spinal canal, plus sounds effects and it’s shaping up to be even more horrifying than Dirty John. HV
The podcasting blockbuster returns on 20 September, and for season three, queen of storytelling Sarah Koenig turns her attention to Cleveland’s criminal court system. She and Emmanuelle Dzotsi spent a year observing cases and their time delivers a rich variety of crimes, set in a world where there’s “pressure to plead … overworked attorneys, dozing jurors”. There are no big mysteries this time around, but what seem like ordinary cases illuminate the way the justice system works and where it fails. HV
The actor and comedian Jo Neary helms a woozy experiment, patched together using listeners’ home recordings: sounds, music, poems, serious musings and comic monologues, most of them captured by pressing Record on a smartphone and all of them tending towards an air of bemused introspection and a delight in oddness. As a format, it is confused by including occasional contributions from professional comedians but, then again, pleasant befuddlement is the aim. JS
Your picks
It’s like listening to your two funniest friends who just happen to be having a brainy conversation about literature. They are actively democratising academia by breaking down these books and providing a fascinating historical context in an approachable and hysterical way.
Recommended by Matt Sanderson
The Spark explores the mind at work through the personal stories of Philips employees. My favourite episode was The Runaway Intellect, which features someone telling his story of fleeing war-torn Angola and starting a new life and a new job.
Recommend by Adolfo Cazanga
Guardian pick: Beyond the Blade
A vital, creative response to the award-winning Beyond the Blade series led by Gary Younge. From 2017, we have been investigating the impact of knife crime upon Britain’s young people and exposing the myths that surround it with the Beyond the Blade project. The story of knife crime among the young isn’t one of angels and demons. It’s a story of kids, some of whom have made bad choices. Choices that may have left other kids just like them dead, and families and communities to mourn. Trying to understand why they made the choices they did is not an indulgence – it’s a necessity.
In this new series of podcasts, we visited groups of parents, key support workers and young people from around the country - real people doing real work across the country to turn back the tide. They have allowed us to listen to, and record, conversations they’re having within their own communities about knife crime. Rather than report on these conversations, we let people speak for themselves.
If you’ve got a podcast that you love, send your recommendations to podcasts@theguardian.com
Your picks are compiled by Rowan Slaney
