5 new podcasts to listen to this week

This week’s podcast picks have something for everyone.

1. Safe 

Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube

Genre: Society and culture

On this week’s episode of Safe, from the Youth Endowment Fund, host, youth worker and author Ciaran Thapar is joined by Grace Strong, director of prevention at Leicestershire Police.

Each episode usually brings together researchers, practitioners, campaigners and young people to discuss approaches to reducing violence and why it affects children and young people today.

Strong opens up about her journey from probation officer to community leader, why violence is a public health issue, and explains a groundbreaking way of working with young people.

She also discusses with Thapar what being safe meant for her as a child, the human connection that motivated her to continue her probation work, and why violence happens for many complex reasons.

Sadly, for many children, being affected by violence is a daily reality. Safe is a thoughtful podcast which explores why this happens and how we can solve it.

(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)

2. A World With

Streaming platform: All streaming platforms

Genre: Culture and society

A World With is a podcast of personal monologues imagining alternatives to the systems we live in.

Host Sara Bafo records this episode from her childhood council home in West London, reflecting on housing, inequality, and what could be different. She weaves her own experience growing up in a large family among the reality of rising homelessness, despite thousands of empty homes across the capital.

This episode, with the idea of ‘no landlords’, questions their role and Bafo reframes housing as something to live in, not profit from, and offers grounded, practical ideas for change that feel both personal and possible.

“Homes have become trophies for investment, not places to live,” Bafo explains, which is a lasting thought as the nine-minute episode ends.

(By Sara Keenan)

3. Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube

Genre: Fashion and wellbeing

For Bella Freud, a luxury fashion designer with a family legacy in psychoanalysis, becoming a podcast host seems only natural.

In the style of her great-granddaughter, Sigmund Freud, Fashion Neurosis encourages guests to recline on the sofa and engage in interviews structured like talk therapy sessions.

In the latest episode, Freud interviews Riz Ahmed, the award-winning actor and musician, who is promoting his latest Amazon Prime series, BAIT.

Straight away, the dulcet tones resemble more guided relaxation than a hard-hitting interview, but still, she manages to get her guests to open up. Even Ahmed surprises himself as he talks about the “magic of lying on the couch”.

You don’t have to be fashion-obsessed to enjoy the chat, but Freud enables Ahmed to analyse his fashion choices without really probing. The pair discuss code switching, and Ahmed talks about his green and white Reebok classics and how fashion choices intersect with heritage, colonialism and relationships.

Freud ensures the podcast is a two-way street, telling stories about her childhood and her design process, helping weave the conversation throughout.

The podcast covers a mixture of fashion, life, youth, arts, and so much more, showcasing some genuinely honest and interesting conversations.

(By Alexandra Snow)

4. A Voyage to Antarctica 

Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube

Genre: Travel

A Voyage to Antarctica transports listeners to one of the most remote and unforgiving places on Earth.

In the second episode of its latest season, pioneering explorer Ann Bancroft reflects on a lifetime shaped by ice, endurance and exploration.

Bancroft, the first woman to ski to both the North and South Poles, speaks with a cool collectedness that makes even the most extraordinary achievements feel matter-of-fact.

Her relationship with Antarctica emerges as something more than a conquest and transforms into something innately personal as she describes a landscape that has challenged, humbled and ultimately defined her.

Instead of dramatising danger, Bancroft reflects on what it means to return to such an extreme environment and how it changes the way you see the world beyond it.

For those drawn to stories about resilience and perspective, this is the perfect podcast to get lost in.

(By Lara Owen)

Spotlight on…

5. Intelligent Machines

Streaming platform: All streaming platforms and YouTube

Genre: Technology

Have you ever thought about what will happen when AI inhabits all our devices, from cars and appliances to smartphones and robots?

In each episode of This Week in Tech (TWiT) podcast series Intelligent Machines, hosts Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and Paris Martineau will chat with the AI pioneers, inventors, and innovators who are about to disrupt every aspect of modern life.

They will explore some of the most exciting human revolutions, what these new devices will bring to our lives, and how to make the best use of them in the 21st century.

In the latest episode, tech journalist Marshall Kirkpatrick joins Laporte, Jarvis and Martineau to showcase a new AI-powered tool that doesn’t just summarise articles – it thinks like a journalist, flagging what’s truly new and revealing the patterns that matter.

If you want to stay several steps ahead in the AI race, Intelligent Machines is a must-listen.

(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)