To ask for your BBC Sounds recommendations

Cautionary Tales (same guy that does More or Less) - looks at various historical events and looks at what went wrong and what it tells us about human behaviour.

It’s a fair cop

Do you remember the name of the BBC Ulster podcast? Sounds right up my street.

The Gift, which is about various horrifying stories demonstrating the huge unintended consequences of mass DNA testing leading to people finding out they're not related to who they thought they were.

More or Less is excellent at explaining whether stories in the news have got the stats right.

I like Soul Music. It does seem to divide opinion, though!

I really enjoyed India Rakusen's 28ish Days Later, which is all about the menstrual cycle.

Oh I always download too, but even so, the app just randomly stops. Especially if I try to use another app but also when I'm only using Sounds. It's particularly annoying when I'm driving and can't easily restart it

I really enjoyed The Curious History of Your Home by Ruth Goodman. Stories about the history of common objects in our home.

The Food Chain: There are hundreds of episodes available. All about various aspects of food including many related social issues. You don’t have to be a foodie to enjoy it.

Shedunnit: All about golden age crime stories and authors.

Room 5: A podcast where people share their stories of life changing diagnoses.

Life changing: Stories of people who have experienced extraordinary events.

Shared Experience: A podcast where they bring together people who have some life event or experience in common and share their stories.

The Crossbow Killer is a podcast all about the killing of an elderly man in Wales with a crossbow. It’s horrifying but fascinating.

I’ve just started listening to Real Dictators which is a podcast telling the story of various dictators throughout the world.

I really enjoyed Cold Comfort Farm recently.

Crime Next Door: The Salisbury Poisonings

There are so many aspects to this case that I didn't consider at the time e.g. the perfume bottle contained enough Novichok to kill thousands of people in the town. Why didn't Sergei Skripal have any CCTV on his house? Why was he living openly under his own name?

The Dawn Sturgess inquiry is happening right now and this podcast is excellent at filling in the gaps.

Small Scenes
Clare in the Community
In and Out of the Kitchen

Three very funny series, all in full.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b00rl2ky

Assume Nothing
Crime Next Door
Girl, Taken
The Adoption
Who Killed Emma?
The Crossbow Killer

Helen Lewis Has Left the Chat
Helen Lewis's Great Wives
The Coming Storm
Thief at the British Museum
Things Fell Apart
and, I think I'm in a minority, but I really like Miss Me with Miquita Oliver and Lily Allen.

Natalie Haynes Stands up for Classics is a brilliant series, funny as well as informative

I found the Lovecraft Investigations properly spooky/scary 😁and hadn't realised there's a 4th series - thank you!

If you like real life investigations, the two series of Buried are good - about environmental crimes. Also very depressing in stupid humans are.

The recent series about the Brighton Bomb was fantastic!

I listen to BBC World Service 'The Documentary'. I just pick one at random each time, they're fascinating. Not on the BBC sounds app though, it's useless! Also, Death In Ice Valley is brilliant.

Bad Women, about the Jack the Ripper murders, but focussing on the women themselves and debunking the whole 'prostitutes' myth. Then it does another series about women killed by a serial killer active during the war in London

Yes to all of these!!

Love Lucy Worsley, could listen to her all day! And India Rakusen's Witch is equally compelling. She did another one called Child which I found interesting also.

Forgot about Dead to Me!

Louis Theroux did a series of interviews with celebrities during lockdown. A couple of them are fantastic, particularly the Rose McGowan one.

Agree with pp. re the Desert Island Discs back catalogue, too.

I find that BBC sounds is way crapper at buffering content than other apps like Spotify, If I'm listening to something on BBC Sounds then I make sure I've downloaded the episode before I listen to it.

The app vs Alexa drives me crazy but I think that’s an Alexa issue. I wish they would join up better, streaming the radio and podcast content is the only reason I pay the licensing fee!

The Lovecraft Investigations has four seasons/stories in shortish episodes, really gripping and fun with a conspiracy theory edge.

The new Dickens dramatisations, which are under the title Dickensian, are lovely.

This Thing of Darkness has two or three series I think, about a forensic psychiatrist working with criminals.

Whodunits has loads of classic crime drama.

Does anyone else find that if you look on BBC Sounds by category the results seem to change only very slowly, and many programmes that appear in the BBC radio schedules don't get picked up in the category lists?

I always get the feeling that there are loads of juicy things that I am simply not finding.

If you're a fan of the spooky stuff then Uncanny is a must!

The Intrigue podcasts are good too (To Catch a Scorpion is part of that, but there have been other series that are also worth a listen)

Uncharted with Hannah Fry is really interesting and I've just noticed there's a new series out

I really like the BBC Sounds content but I hate the bloody app! It stops for no reason all the time on my Android phone which is so annoying. Has anyone had similar and managed to stop it happening?

Lucy Worsleys Lady Killers about female murderers through the ages.
Dead to me - horrible histories for adults
Macbeth - David Tennant
There's a witch one looking at modern Witches and the witch trials and the role of women and 'witchcraft' through the ages