Call Me Mother Writer and comedian Shon Faye hosts this selection of “remarkable stories told by remarkable people”, which shines the spotlight on queer trailblazers of different stripes. Highlights include 73-year-old Kate Bornstein, who has lived with seekers from the Amish to the Scientologists, on what her time on the fringes of society taught her about gender, and Marc Thompson, an activist who was diagnosed with HIV at the age of 17 in 1986. Evocative storytelling with no room for stereotypes. Read more Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts Dear Me Katy Wix and Adam Drake invite comedians and actors to take them on a tour of their home towns – then offer up a message for their younger selves. Kiell Smith-Bynoe remembers the thrill of necking J20s at his local underage club in East Ham, while Liam Williams takes the pair to Yorkshire (“the only county that’s obsessed with itself”) and Lou Sanders recalls her girlhood in Broadstairs. With a lightness of touch, and that holy grail of podcasting – actually letting their guests speak – Wix and Drake are perfect travel companions. Read more Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts Death at the Wing Adam McKay of The Big Short and Succession helms this fascinating eight-parter, which deftly examines the untimely deaths of a glut of basketball stars in the 80s, and what their tragic tales tell us about Reagan’s America. From guns to drugs to the media, McKay carefully assesses all the societal factors that left their mark on the NBA. Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts Prison Break When Josie Bevan’s husband, Rob, was convicted of fraud and sentenced to nine years in prison, the family unexpectedly found themselves at the sharp end of the UK justice system. In her first podcast, Prison Bag, Bevan charted the family’s journey into the labyrinthine system – one wholly at odds with their middle-class life. In this follow-up, Bevan considered what prison should achieve, and why it fails so many. Distinctive, socially conscious storytelling. Read more Available on BBC Sounds The Missing The majority of people who go missing are found within 24 hours, with cases hastily wrapped up and social media appeals deleted. But what happens to the small minority of long-term missing people, many of whom vanished without a trace? Pandora Sykes’s podcast offers a sensitive look at a difficult subject rather than “nameless, faceless statistics”, imploring the public to give information, and even examining how a missing person’s background can affect the amount of publicity they receive. Read more Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts The Battersea Poltergeist From The Harrowing to Sour Hall, there are plenty of creepy paranormal podcasts around to keep you up at night. Rising above these is the BBC’s docudrama about a spirit that reportedly terrorised the inhabitants of 63 Wycliffe Road in Battersea, London, between 1956 and 1968. Was it a real haunting … or a practical joke? Blending reenactments featuring the likes of Toby Jones and Dafne Keen (His Dark Materials) with a new investigation from Danny Robins, this sinister series is full of surprises. Read more Available on BBC Sounds The Bias Diagnosis Student doctor Ivan Beckley’s show is a brilliant and shocking achievement, examining how underlying racial biases and misconceptions in healthcare can lead to late diagnoses, substandard care and even death. Whether physical problems – like skin cancer on darker skin, often misdiagnosed – or mental ones – with black people more likely to be detained for mental illnesses than their white counterparts – Beckley uses real-life examples to show why medicine is far from fair. Read more Available on Audible Welcome to Your Fantasy Pineapple Street Studios and Gimlet’s podcast about the Chippendales starts out with what one might expect from the stripping troupe: “giddy, giggling” women, G-string-clad beefcakes, even behind-the-scenes orgies. But, as historian Natalia Petrzela explains, there are murders, arson, dead business partners and many insalubrious things besides bubbling below the surface at this “Disneyland for adults”. Fascinating, silly – and incredibly gripping. Read more Available on Spotify Slow Burn The nonfiction anthology series from US site Slate has long been noted for its compelling deep dives into everything from Bill Clinton’s impeachment to the murders of Biggie and Tupac. Its look at the events leading up to the invasion of Iraq, hosted by journalist Noreen Malone, has kept the bar high, carefully considering the paranoid, post-9/11 climate that led to the conflict, as well as the actions of politicians, intellectuals and tipsters who legitimised the shaky case for war. Available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts Teach Me a Lesson BBC Radio 1 host Greg James and his wife, Bella Mackie, a former Guardian journalist, took the trend for lockdown hobbyism further than most, starting their own podcast to learn the lessons they missed at school. Taught by a range of tutors, subjects range from art to psychology, maths and an English lesson that combined the worlds of Aristotle and RuPaul. The couple’s back-and-forth often meanders, but they’re are so amiable that even their tangents can teach you a thing or two. Read more