Best British Theatre Guide Podcasts (2025)

1
Akiko Takenaka, "Mothers Against War: Gender, Motherhood, and Peace Activism in Cold War Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2025) 57:51

1h ago57:51

57:51

Mothers Against War: Gender, Motherhood, and Peace Activism in Cold War Japan (U Hawaii Press, 2025) examines the shifting relationships among motherhood, peace activism, and women's rights in the decades following Japan's defeat in 1945. With a focus on the concept of bosei, generally understood to be the "motherly" qualities that are supposedly i…

1
RHLSTP Book Club 135 - Deborah Frances-White 1:03:42

2h ago1:03:42

1:03:42

RHLSTP Book Club 135 - Six Conversations We’re Scared To Have - Richard talks to Guilty Feminist host Deborah Frances-White about her new book in which she discusses topics that people are generally nervous to offer an opinion on. They chat about how her time in a cult helped her recognise cult-like attributes in social media groups, whether we can…

1
Jonathan Bryant, "Compassion and the Characterization of the Markan Jesus" (Brill, 2024) 40:52

21h ago40:52

40:52

Why does the Gospel of Mark make specific and repeated reference to the compassion of Jesus in the miracle stories? Compassion and the Characterization of the Markan Jesus (Brill, 2024) discusses the function that compassion has in the Markan characterization of Jesus, particularly in how the terminology employed depicts Jesus as entering the suffe…

1
Diamond Forde, "Mother Body" (Saturnalia Books, 2021) 29:02

21h ago29:02

29:02

Mother Body (Saturnalia Books, 2021) is an intersectional exploration of the trauma and agency held within a body defined by its potential to mother. As Mother Body unfolds, it tasks its reader to understand the expected and unexpected manifestations of motherhood, through menstruation and womb work, but also generational, societal, and literary mo…

1
Agnieszka Pasieka, "Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe" (Princeton UP, 2024) 46:29

21h ago46:29

46:29

Radical nationalism is on the rise in Europe and throughout the world. Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe (Princeton University Press, 2024) provides an in-depth account of the ideas and practices that are driving the varied forms of far-right activism by young people from all walks of life, revealing how these social mo…

1
John Nemec, "Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures" (Oxford UP, 2025) 53:57

21h ago53:57

53:57

Brahmins and Kings: Royal Counsel in the Sanskrit Narrative Literatures (Oxford UP, 2025) examines some of the most well-known and widely circulated narratives in the history of Sanskrit literature, including the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, Visnusarman's famed animal stories (the Panchatantra), Somadeva's labyrinthine Ocean of Rivers of Stories (the…

1
Richard Overy, "Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the Surrender of Japan" (Norton, 2025) 39:39

21h ago39:39

39:39

September 2 will mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s formal surrender to the United States aboard the USS. Missouri, ending the Second World War. The U.S. decision to drop two atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—what drove Japan to surrender, at least in popular history—is still controversial to this day. How did the mass…

1
Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP) 41:46

21h ago41:46

41:46

Back in 2021, John and Elizabeth sat down with Brandeis string theorist Albion Lawrence to discuss cooperation versus solitary study across disciplines. They sink their teeth into the question, “Why do scientists seem to do collaboration and teamwork better than other kinds of scholars and academics?” The conversation ranges from the merits of coll…

1
Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts 58:39

21h ago58:39

58:39

In 2012, Steve Green, billionaire and president of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores, announced a recent purchase of a Biblical artefact—a fragment of papyrus, just discovered, carrying lines from Paul's letter to the Romans, and dated to the second century CE. Noted scholar Roberta Mazza was stunned. When was this piece discovered, and how cou…

1
Understanding Ukraine: A Discussion with Author Yaroslav Trofimov 53:52

21h ago53:52

53:52

Yaroslav Trofimov, chief foreign affairs correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, is a native of Kyiv. In this conversation, we discuss two books. Our Enemies Will Vanish (Penguin Press, 2024), is a nonfiction narrative chronicling Putin’s invasion of Ukraine through the reporter Trofimov’s eyes. No Country for Love (Abacus Books, 2024), is his n…

1
Erica Stern, "Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story" (Barrelhouse Inc., 2025) 56:09

21h ago56:09

56:09

Frontier: A Memoir and a Ghost Story (Barrelhouse Inc., 2025) is a genre-bending expedition into childbirth. Seamlessly blending memoir, fiction, and research into the fraught history of birth—from midwives to Victorian-era sedation through the Natural Childbirth Movement and modern L&D suites—Frontier lays bare visceral truths that are too often g…

1
William Cooper and Michael McKinley, "A Quiet Life" (Arcade, 2024) 27:50

2d ago27:50

27:50

Michael Housen is living a typical, white-collar American life at a security company when he falls for a phishing campaign with dire implications. One click, and suddenly the US is under marshal law and bombing Tehran. Michael unknowingly triggered a cyberattack by Iranian hackers, which a belligerent President Davis uses as pretext for war against…

1
Stedmond Pardy, "Beached Whales" (Mosaic Press, 2024) 39:21

2d ago39:21

39:21

NBN host Hollay Ghadery is delighted to speak with Toronto area poet Stedmond Pardy about his newest book, Beached Whales (Mosaic Press, 2024). Stedmond Pardy’s first book of poems The Pleasures of this Planet Aren't Enough was published by Mosaic Press in 2020 and launched his career as a boundary-pushing literary and poetic voice. His devoted rea…

1
Is Democracy and Peace Possible in Myanmar? A Conversation with Claire Smith 41:11

2d ago41:11

41:11

As the civil conflict in Myanmar passes its fourth anniversary, is this ethnically complex country any closer to a peaceful resolution of its internal conflict? Do opposition forces have a singular vision for what a post-conflict Myanmar might look like, or could the country simply break apart? Join Petra Alderman as she talks to Claire Smith about…

1
Mary Bosworth, "Supply Chain Justice: The Logistics of British Border Control" (Princeton UP, 2024) 58:36

2d ago58:36

58:36

In the UK’s fully outsourced “immigration detainee escorting system,” private sector security employees detain, circulate and deport foreign national citizens. Run and organized like a supply chain, this system dehumanises those who are detained and deported, treating them as if they were packages to be moved from place to place and relying on poor…

1
Constitutional Private Law: A Conversation with Garrett West 53:31

2d ago53:31

53:31

What is constitutional private law, and how does it differ from the way we traditionally think about constitutional issues? When an individual employed by the government breaks the law, do we sue the person or the government? And what do these choices reveal about justice, accountability, and constitutional interpretation? This week Madison’s Notes…

1
Yellowlees Douglas, "Writing for the Reader's Brain: A Science-Based Guide" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:01:55

2d ago1:01:55

1:01:55

What makes one sentence easy to read and another a slog that demands re-reading? Where do you put information you want readers to recall? Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, psychology and psycholinguistics, Writing for the Reader’s Brain (Cambridge University Press, 2025) provides a practical, how-to guide on how to write for your reader. It introd…

1
María de Los Ángeles Picone, "Landscaping Patagonia: Spatial History and Nation-Making in Chile and Argentina" (UNC Press, 2025) 1:08:53

2d ago1:08:53

1:08:53

In late nineteenth-century Latin America, governments used new scientific, technological, and geographical knowledge not only to consolidate power and protect borders but also to define the physical contours of their respective nations. Chilean and Argentine authorities in particular attempted to transform northern Patagonia, a space they perceived…

1
Serhiy Kudelia, "Seize the City, Undo the State: The Inception of Russia's War on Ukraine" (Oxford UP, 2015) 1:00:43

2d ago1:00:43

1:00:43

How do separatist conflicts arise and spread? When does separatism become a cover for a foreign aggression? How do local communities respond when state institutions collapse, and militants take over? The armed conflict in Eastern Ukraine, which started eight years before Russia's full-scale invasion, contains unique evidence to address each of thes…

1
Ian Boyd, "Science and Politics" (Polity, 2024) 1:11:14

2d ago1:11:14

1:11:14

The recent coronavirus pandemic proved that the time-old notion seems now truer than ever: that science and politics represent a clash of cultures. But why should scientists simply “stick to the facts” and leave politics to the politicians when the world seems to be falling down around us? Drawing on his experience as both a research scientist and …

1
Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, "The Idea of the City in Late Antiquity: A Study in Resilience" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 1:15:19

2d ago1:15:19

1:15:19

The city was one of the central and defining features of the world of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean. Challenging the idea that the ancient city 'declined and fell', Andrew Wallace-Hadrill argues that memories of the past enabled cities to adapt and remain relevant in the changing post-Roman world. In the new kingdoms in Italy, France and Spain …

1
RHLSTP 557 - John Robertson 56:42

2d ago56:42

56:42

#557 Sex Dungeon - Richard is back in Leicester again, fresh from an interview with a journalist who has been up the Queen. His guest is Australian comedian and adventurer John Robertson. They talk about how an appearance on a TV show led to him getting married, his fantastic interactive game show The Dark Room, scary gigs in pubs in small towns in…

1
Debra Spark, "Discipline" (Four Way Books, 2024) 26:57

3d ago26:57

26:57

Discipline (Four Way Books, 2024), Debra Spark’s latest novel was inspired by the life of Walt Kuhn, who introduced Americans to modern art, and also by an infamous east coast boarding school that was forcibly shut down in 2014. The novel twists and turns through the lives of an artist and his wife, a teenager forced to attend a horrifying boarding…

1
Anita Say Chan, "Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future" (U California Press, 2025) 46:06

3d ago46:06

46:06

It’s a common refrain: AI is neither good nor bad because that depends on how its used. Professor Anita Say Chan begs to differ. Chan is the author of Predatory Data: Eugenics in Big Tech and Our Fight for an Independent Future (U California Press, 2025). Chan is Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences and Department of Media and …

1
Sarah Saddler, "Performing Corporate Bodies: Multinational Theatre in Global India" (Routledge, 2025) 1:10:32

3d ago1:10:32

1:10:32

How do corporations use theater to reconcile the crises of late capitalism? In our latest interview on Ethnographic Marginalia, we speak with Dr. Sarah Saddler about her new book Performing Corporate Bodies (Routledge, 2024), where she describes how corporations have borrowed techniques from activist theater to manage their workers in India and bey…

1
Gabe Henry, "Enough Is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell" (Dey Street, 2025) 46:05

3d ago46:05

46:05

In Enough is Enuf: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Eezier to Spell (Dey Street Books, 2025), Gabe Henry presents a brief and humorous 500-year history of the Simplified Spelling Movement from advocates like Ben Franklin, C. S. Lewis, and Mark Twain to texts and Twitter. Why does the G in George sound different from the G in gorge? Why does C be…

1
Anne Korfmacher, "Fan Podcasts: Rewatch, Recap, Review" (Routledge, 2024) 1:19:29

3d ago1:19:29

1:19:29

Starting from the observation of the ubiquity of fan podcasts engaging in media commentary, Fan Podcasts: Rewatch, Recap, Review (Routledge, 2024) explores three fan podcast genres in which commentary manifests as a structuring form: rewatch and reread podcasts, recap podcasts, and review podcasts. Anne Korfmacher conducts a formalist genre analysi…

1
Your Devotee in Rags 29:16

3d ago29:16

29:16

NBN host Hollay Ghadery speaks with cultural icons, Anne Waldman (The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment) and Andrew Whiteman (Broken Social Scene) who have collaborated to create Your Devotee in Rags—a metamorphic sonic poetry LP released by Siren Recordings in 2025 and is available from Spotify. The conversation starts with a d…

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