The Man City captain turns to podcasting; Radio 4 gets deep on AI; into the woods with the team behind Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding; and poet Ian McMillan hymns the mundane

You’ll Never Beat Kyle Walker | BBC Sounds
The Artificial Human (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
The Case of the Tiny Suit/Case
The Beauty of Everyday Things (BBC Radio 4) | BBC Sounds

Launching a football podcast at the end of the season is a plucky move. You might have the balls to do so, as it were, if you captained a team who’d just won the Premier League title four times on the trot, and were expected to win the FA Cup just before your show’s premiere.

Balls indeed. You’ll Never Beat Kyle Walker arrived on BBC Sounds four days after his club, Manchester City, lost to Manchester United in a game described by the Guardian’s chief sports writer, Barney Ronay, as “a hungover performance”. This fact is conveniently left unsaid by podcast presenter Chris Hughes, the chirpy former Love Island contestant turned serial BBC sports host. Instead, Walker is called captain of the European champions, which he was on Wednesday, but isn’t now (this year’s Champions League final, between Dortmund and Real Madrid, is tonight). “The boffins at the BBC have spent months talking about what we could do in his series,” Hughes continues, laddishly, “but in the end, all we wanted to do was talk football and take the listeners inside the life of a serial winner.”

The social media influencer on how he became a hit on BookTok, democratising book reviewing, and trying to explain to his family what he does for a living

Born in 1998 and brought up in Brighton, Jack Edwards started a YouTube channel at secondary school. After documenting student life at Durham University, he began posting videos about books in 2020. Now a renowned book influencer with 2.3 million subscribers on social media platforms, he also has a guest-led, weekly podcast launching this summer, is writing his first novel, and hosted the International Booker prize livestream last week.


You’re one of the biggest stars of BookTube and BookTok. Why do young people watch you?

I’ve been asking myself the same question for a very long time! I think seeing someone talk with enthusiasm about their interest, and conveying how much they adore their area of expertise, is kind of magnetic. Also, reading is one of those things that so many people make their resolution, and it started to take off [more] during the pandemic when we’d baked all the banana bread, learned all the TikTok dances and done all the puzzles in the attic.


Gary Younge and Carys Afoko rebalance the news; amateur detectives take centre stage; all that glitters is dodgy in Borneo; and brains amaze in an exploration of the senses

Over the Top Under the Radar (Unedited/Skin in the Game Productions)
Home Sleuth | BBC Sounds
The Six Billion Dollar Gold Scam (BBC World Service/CBC) | BBC Sounds
Beyond Five Senses (Audible)

Not every new podcast sets out to remind you of the weirdest public art idea of all time: a giant Queen Mother on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. “It’s an equestrian plinth!”, says Orwell-prize-winning journalist Gary Younge, as his co-host, Carys Afoko, creases up with laughter. “She would have been this colossus, like a huge centaur figure with a handbag.”

There’s been high drama in Ambridge and a great start for Today’s new presenter. Plus, a delightful Lee Krasner documentary and an amusing study of unfinished art

The Archers (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Today (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Death of an Artist: Krasner and Pollock | Pushkin Industries/Samizdat Audio
Archive on 4: Gareth Gwynn Hasn’t Fin- (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds

Pray for this week’s radio reviewer, allergic since time immemorial to the theme tune of The Archers, finding herself writing in the thick of a blockbuster storyline. But with a crack consultant to hand (my mother-in-law, who remembers listening to Grace Archer dying in a stable fire in 1955: thank you, Lill) I’m braving the challenge.