 | | | Inside the life of Phoenix Jones, Seattle's real-life superhero | | | | What is it like to suit up and hand out vigilante justice as an actual caped crusader? Find out in the thrilling Superhero Complex. Plus: five of the best comedy talkshow podcasts
| | |  |  Phoenix Jones, subject of the Superhero Complex podcast. Photograph: Ted S Warren/AP
| | | Alexi Duggins, Hannah Verdier, Hollie Richardson and Stuart Heritage
| | | | Sometimes a premise is everything when it comes to creating a brilliant podcast. It's certainly the case for our favourite podcast of the week: The Superhero Complex. Before you even listen, you know it's gold dust, thanks to a bizarre setup about Seattle's real-life costumed crimefighter, who patrolled the streets with a team of Avengers-lite pals – until he was arrested on drugs charges. It's also true of one of the most compelling podcasts of recent weeks: Stories of the Stalked, whose creator Lily Baldwin has turned her 13-year stalking ordeal into a gripping, chilling immersive audio experience, which you can read more about in our interview with her over here. On the other hand, though, a thrilling premise couldn't have less to do with the brilliance of another pod we're highlighting for you this week: the supreme Cuddle Club. Do we love it because it's about cuddles? We do not. As Stuart Heritage explains below, we love it because of the ginormous amounts of charisma its host Lou Sanders possesses. Its setup is tangential at best – and yet it's one of our favourite comedy podcasts. In conclusion: podcasts eh? They're great for all sorts of reasons. Hence this newsletter. If you have any more you'd like to flag to us – gripping premise or otherwise – you can email us at newsletters@theguardian.com.
Alexi Duggins
Acting deputy TV editor Picks of the week | | | | |  | Bridgerton's Adjoa Andoh stars in the mysterious Don't Mind: Cruxmont Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer
| | | | | | The Superhero Complex
Widely available, episodes weekly
The phrase "real-life superhero" may sound like a contradiction in terms, but not according to this new series about Phoenix Jones – the man who patrols Seattle's streets and claims to be registered as a superhero with the FBI. It's a tale full of deception and intrigue, chronicling his rise to media sensation and leader of a team of superheroes, before being arrested for allegedly selling cocaine to undercover officers. Alexi Duggins Run, Bambi, Run
Widely available, episodes weekly
This true-crime documentary from Apple TV+ opens on the 1990 Wisconsin jailbreak by Laurie "Bambi" Bembenek – a one-time police officer jailed for murdering her husband's ex-wife. It's a gripping exploration of the – seemingly quite plausible – suggestion that Bembenek was framed by Milwaukee police department, against whom she was pursuing a sexual harassment case. AD Behind the Sun
Amazon Music, episodes weekly from Tue
Nadia and her family fled Syria six years ago, but she wants to tell the stories of those who went "behind the sun" – or disappeared without a trace. In episode one she talks to Riyad, her father's cellmate in the infamous Sednaya prison, whose wife was also accused of plotting against the state.
Hannah Verdier Don't Mind: Cruxmont
Widely available, episodes bi-weekly
Bridgerton fans will recognise the velvety voice of Adjoa Andoh in this well-crafted supernatural drama. It follows Dr Kingston who, after discovering that her Alzheimer's patient has made a miraculous recovery, heads to a village called Cruxmont to find answers. There, she meets a man on a mission … Hollie Richardson Partners
Widely available, episodes weekly
Hrishikesh Hirway kicks off a second season of his podcast about business, creative and romantic teams with musical powerhouse Lin-Manuel Miranda and Thomas Kail. He lets his consistently interesting subjects talk between themselves, with great results. Future guests include Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. HV Reader's choice Last week, we highlighted five of the best audio dramas and asked for your suggestions – here is one from reader Amy Kelly: Homecoming had me totally gripped from start to finish. I loved the mystery and disquieting feel that only grew in each episode. It's been adapted for TV, too [by Amazon] with Julia Roberts and Janelle Monáe, and is so bingeable in either format. There's a podcast for that | | | | |  | James Acaster (left) and Ed Gamble host Off Menu Photograph: Publicity image
| | | | | | This week, Stuart Heritage picks five of the best comedy talkshows, from a show that zooms in on comics' best jokes to Conan O'Brien's magnum opus Off Menu
In which comedians Ed Gamble and James Acaster essentially do Desert Island Discs, but with food. On paper the premise has the potential to be grindingly repetitious – because, honestly, nobody cares about your preferred method of potato preparation – but what really makes the podcast sing is the spectrum of its bookings. As you'd expect, plenty of British comedians pass through the gate, but their numbers are occasionally peppered with more unexpected names from the world of showbiz (see: Gok Wan and, er, Ross Kemp) and members of the comedy elite that the hosts desperately want to impress (David Cross, Michael McKean). The fact that Gamble and Acaster can deal with both is hugely impressive.
Hollywood Handbook
There are two stages to listening to Hollywood Handbook. The first is utter hopelessness, as hosts Sean Clement and Hayes Davenport (two comedy writers with very similar voices) throw out a barrage of context-free references to life in Tinseltown. Soon, though, something will click and you'll have a new favourite podcast. Part of the joy is hearing a guest audibly struggle to adapt their shtick to the insular tone of the hosts. If they can (like Tom Scharpling, the unofficial third host), it is wonderful. If they can't (like Pauly Shore) it is astonishing. Good One
Although in itself very funny, Good One – hosted by Vulture's Jesse David Fox – also has the distinction of actually being about comedy. The premise of the podcast is that Fox and his comedian guests drill down into one specific joke of theirs. The calibre of comics featured is impossibly high (Martin Short, Seth Rogen, Jenny Slate, Jamie Demetriou) and, by filtering the conversation through the specific choices that informed their work, the interviews are impressively intimate. Also, points should be awarded to Fox for always sounding like the guest's most knowledgable fan. Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend
Three decades presenting a nightly late night show, and it turns out that Conan O'Brien's perfect vehicle was podcasts all along. Each episode's longform interview gives O'Brien much more to work with than the two-anecdotes-and-a-clip format of American talkshows (and lets him talk to people he genuinely admires, like biographer Robert Caro) while the segments that bookend the interviews allow him to indulge his more gleefully dickish nature. These moments, which regularly spiral out into him railing against his assistant and producer, are some of the purest comedy that he has ever put his name to. Cuddle Club
Ostensibly, this is comedian Lou Sanders' podcast about cuddles, although in reality it's a rambling, sometimes seemingly formless discussion between her and a different celebrity, bolstered by Sanders' ability to be nosy almost to the point of pathology. Quite often, especially with a guest as thoughtful and reserved as Alex Horne, her line of questioning drifts away from 'traditional interviewer' and more towards 'socially oblivious nan interrogating her granddaughter's terrified new boyfriend over dinner'. Obviously this is meant as a profound compliment. Why not try … The strange – and occasionally moving – world of Chris Morris-esque news satire The Skewer
A nostalgia hit of black UK music with Lethal Bizzle, The Receipts' Tolly T and more in +44 Presents: The Noughties |
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