What can I listen to that is not depressing as hell?

[VenetiaHall]

I'm a big fan of the radio to potter about to while the small children destroy the house around me, but lately everything I turn on (ok, Radio 4) is super depressing. Brexit, drugs, knife crime, the dark web, gambling addictions, suicides... I know this is the world we live in but I don't remember radio programming always being so bloody bleak?

Is there anything on R4, or are there any podcasts worth listening to that might cheer me up, or at least not be so depressing?

Obviously TA is a given

Cabin Pressure.

A Good Read. Tuesdays at 4.30 pm. The 6.30pm comedy programmes (Mon to Fri). Gardeners' Question Time. (Fri afternoon). Round Britain Quiz (Mon 3pm).

Podcast not radio, but Fortunately with Fi and Jane cheers me right up.

Thank you all for the suggestions! I'll check these out. I do love the Round Britain quiz (it's like the radio version of Only Connect )

I’m having that trouble at the mo. I listen to several hours of radio on iPlayer while I commute and the drama’s all a bit gloomy at the mo.
Currently on my playlist is:
More or Less podcast
Kermode and Mayo film review programme (very cheery)
The new Charles Paris comedy mystery
Old Harry’s Game repeats on R4Xtra
Tom Wrigglesworth
The Last Chronicle of Barset (best if you’ve listened to the previous stories though)
Horrible Histories (3 hour slot from R4X combining chaand sample programmes about history used in comedy shows: very light)

Audible is great you can pick your content

i love "Help I Sexted My Boss" but it's quite sweary and not appropriate if you have small people around.

If you, like me, were a teenager in the early nineties i can heartily recommend the 'Again with this' podcast. They recap every episode of Beverly Hills 90210 from the beginning with hilarious results.

There's also Still Pretty which does the same for Buffy.

I listen to a lot of true crime podcasts so the above are my light relief, along with radio 4 comedy!

I quite like American family / life balance podcasts at the moment and I also have small children around - The Edit Your Life podcast, Best of Both Worlds.

I also like this American Life

Meet David Sedaris is always good for a chuckle. And the wonderful Gloomsbury is back, too!

And there's a couple of hours of comedy every night on 4Xtra, between 10pm and midnight.

The Kitchen Cabinet is usually good fun aswell.

Some good suggestions by pps.

I'd add Ed Reardon's Week which started again last week. Tuesdays 6.30pm.

Where'sthecat It's slightly annoying because the old fashioned comedies they play on 4extra, are on through the day too (the same one, some of which really do show their age, the sexism is incredible).. Also they have quizzes and repeats of Just a Minute it's great sometimes.

If you do like Cabin Pressure, you could move on to John Finnemore's other series, Double Acts (two-hander short plays) and the John Finnemore Souvenir Programme, which is a sketch show that has now run to many series. I assume they're all available on Audible. They might pop up on R4 Extra sometimes.

I came on to say Cabin Pressure.
Also My Dad Wrote a Porno - although this does get a bit samey after a while. Some of their guests are good fun.
the David Tennant podcasts are worth a listen too

Oh and lovely 40s music (of course not ALL of it is lovely ! ) on the 1940s Radio Station. The best part is there are NO ADVERTS on it!!

Interesting, ppeat! There was a halcyon period when I used to listen to a commercial radio station that mainly played classic pop and rock from the 60s and 70s. For reasons I could never understand it had no adverts (and also no DJs), just non-stop music from my youth. It was great, but it didn't last. Eventually the adverts started and I stopped tuning in as much.

God, I know, even the dramas on R4 are dreary for the most part and badly written and acted I struggle to find things I enjoy when I'm cooking dinner or at weekends. Do people REALLY want current
affairs/gloomy foreign policy stuff/terrible dramas at these times of day?!

Anyway, Rutherford and Fry are good for jokey science. Loose Ends is lovely; guests from the arts/culture in a chatshow format, all guests together in a room, laughing and joining in with the interviews. Very convivial. They have live music too, often brilliant. NB you don't get the music in the podcast version, but you do if you just Listen Again.

On 6Music they have The First Time, which is an interview with a musician or cultural figure about their musical influences.

Hut 33, comedy series set in Bletchley Park in WW2 is brilliant, with the lovely Olivia Cole as Minka.

DarlingNikita I know exactly what you mean, even worse than the dramas are some of the 'readings' Why would I want to listen to a depressing reading when I've tuned in for You and Yours? Why does every programme on R4 have to be 3\4 of an hour long? GQS and You and Yours are good programmes that could easily last an hour.

Whoever organises R4's output needs to have a serious rethink about it..... And breathe sorry for the rant

I find a lot of them are only 15 minutes (thank God in most cases...) and things like Front Row are too short at 30 mins.

I don't like things like Book at Bedtime because they're usually abridged. What's the point?

Even more annoying is the fact that The Archers is getting more 'dramatic' too which means the plots and characters are being falsely, not cleverly, engineered to introduce 'drama' . PLEASE MRS & MR. PRODUCER CAN WE HAVE THE OLD ARCHERS BACK !!!!!!!!!!!

Some of the books on Book at Bedtime are ones that I would not read, so I find them ok.

Ladies of letters. Totally undemanding and very funny.

Is it being repeated Northern ?