The guest on Radcliffe and Maconie on 12 April (1pm, 6 Music) is the unsinkable Rick Wakeman, who played piano on many of the most memorable hits of the early 70s – songs such as Life On Mars? and Get It On – while also performing in a full cape with prog titans Yes. Wakeman is well into the fifth decade in which he has held the title of the funniest, most self-effacing man in rock. Radcliffe and Maconie are just the men to get that funny out of him.
In the second instalment of Litter From America (12 April, 11.15pm, Radio 4) wireless boulevardier Peter Curran takes the night-time air of New Jersey in the company of Palestinian-American comedian, writer and activist Maysoon Zayid. The possibility that the conversation may stray on to the subject of Donald Trump cannot be excluded.
To mark the entry of the 1,000th recorded conversation into the British Library, The Listening Project One Thousand (10 April, 12.04pm, Radio 4) has Professor Tim Luckhurst explaining the value of these personal conversations in an era when letters have disappeared. To make the point he plays the conversation between a father and son about the post-crash economy that has been the most requested item in the archive. Historians of the future will be able to consult it for an idea of just how little each side of that argument was listening to the other as Rome burned.
Yeah, But It’s Not As Simple As That is a new podcast from Vice dealing in advice for life. It’s tightly targeted at people whose pressing concerns include whether they’re addicted to social media, whether smoking weed is effectively legal and whether they should quit their job to become a standup comedian. It’s not like standard advice shows in that here it’s perfectly acceptable to answer an interviewer’s question by saying: “I don’t remember. I must have been still drunk.”
From the creators of Serial comes S-Town, whose seven hour-long episodes conduct themselves more like a novel than a police procedural. The “shit town” of the title is Woodstock, Alabama, to which reporter Brian Reed is lured to investigate a murder allegedly brushed under the carpet. Back in the 1980s, state-of-the-nation fictions were all set in Manhattan. Now they’re all in Trump country. Early in S-Town we’re introduced to an actual maze, every branch of which leads to a further junction. This may also be a metaphor.
The ads that podcasts manage to sell tell you a lot about who they think is listening. They include services that promise to make your investment portfolio ethical, deliver exotic ready meals to your home, or guarantee better sleep thanks to luxury bed linen. British podcasts tend to shamefacedly shuffle the ads towards the end. Americans put them upfront and promote them enthusiastically. I think the Americans have it right.
