John Phipps

Insane and fascinating: BBC World Service’s Lazarus Heist reviewed

Plus: O.C. Swingers is an archetypal narrative podcast, one that left me feeling seasick

Posters for Sony's US-hegemony-cum-stoner-comedy The Interview, in which Seth Rogen and James Franco are sent to assassinate Kim Jong-un. Image: AFP / Getty Images 
issue 22 May 2021

The narrative podcast remains a form in search of a genre. The template set by the hit show Serial — enterprising American journalists with janky piano theme tune shed new light on tantalising murder — still predominates seven years on. To this we can add the format pioneered by S-Town (initial murder investigation subsides into rich human detail) and, more recently, the excellent Wind of Change (intriguing what-if maps cultural and macropolitical shifts, with bonus CIA window-dressing).

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