Esther Perel’s love letter to romance

The audio superstar is back with a ‘beach read’ of a podcast, The Arc of Love. Plus: five of the best podcasts about death

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Retire the cream polo shirt, put away the Bruce Springsteen football chants whose lyrics bear no relation to reality: Euro 2024 is over. Leaving aside the actual football (probably best), this has been a total first for the competition – the levels of interest in what actually happened on the pitch has easily been matched by discussions about the expert commentary provided by podcasts.

Alright, perhaps “expert commentary” might not exactly be the mots justes, given how many headlines Gary Lineker generated saying that England v Denmark was “shit” on The Rest is Football. But it’s remarkable that a podcast caused a row (albeit one that relied on taking a quote out of context) that ended up seeing England’s captain put on the spot in a press conference. There were articles trying to create the Battle of the Garys: pitting Lineker’s pod against Gary Neville’s. There were financial analyses of how much money had been made out of being unkind about England into people’s earphones (imagine! Being paid to be a pundit who is honest about bad football!).

This time around, what was happening on Euro 2024 podcasts was almost more interesting than what was happening in Euro 2024 – and as podcasting grows, the importance of shows about football tournaments is only going to get more pronounced. Maybe that should be the target for the next England manager: produce a team who are more entertaining than something you can listen to on Spotify. It might be harder than they think …

In other podcasting news, this week we’re showcasing some truly wild tales. There’s the time ZZ Top members impersonated another band for money. Or the blackmail plot that somehow ended up encompassing Charlie Sheen’s ex-bodyguard. They’re joined by a look at the London life coach who convinced numerous women to turn on their families, and a second season of an excellent show which showcases inspirational figures who tried to make a difference in the early days of the Aids epidemic.

Alexi Duggins
Deputy TV editor

Picks of the week

The True Story of the Fake Zombies
Widely available, episodes weekly
In 1969, St Albans-based band the Zombies had a hit single in the US and started gigging across the country. Except, they’d broken up years before, had no idea of their success and were not, in fact, on tour. This show is part fanboy homage, part deep dive into how two separate ensembles – including one featuring two members of ZZ Top – mercilessly pretended to be the Zombies for money. A lively piece of pop history with a wild tale behind it. Alexi Duggins

The Problem With Erik
Widely available, episodes weekly
A defence lawyer who represented Matthew McConaughey after the actor was caught playing the bongos naked at 2am. FBI informants. Charlie Sheen’s ex-bodyguard. There are colourful details aplenty in this tale of a wealthy Texan who was subject to a blackmail plot for having an affair with an escort – only to go off the deep end, leaving two people dead. AD

Dangerous Memories
Tortoise, episodes weekly
Welcome to the dark side of healing in a podcast that delves into the world of posh young women in London who all turned to the same “personal development coach”. However, as Grace Hughes-Hallett finds out, a pattern of these women being turned against their families soon emerged. Hollie Richardson

Resurrection: Heroes of the Early Years
Widely available, episodes weekly
The second season of Dane Stewart’s podcast focuses on trailblazers who tried to make a difference in the early years of the Aids epidemic, but were often blocked by prejudice. It’s fascinating to hear the story of Dr Joseph Sonnabend, who treated a then mysterious illness affecting gay men in New York. Hannah Verdier

Esther Perel: The Arc of Love
Widely available, episodes weekly
Super psychotherapist Esther Perel has put together some of her best observations about love with beach listening in mind. She’s joined by couples in therapy, unloading their feelings on the big love questions, including dilemmas around polyamory, reproduction and divorce. Perel’s thought-provoking questions take you right into the therapy room and her wise asides bring you out. HV

There’s a podcast for that

This week, Rachel Aroesti chooses five of the best podcasts about death, from fantasy funeral planning with Kathy Burke to a guide to navigating all kinds of grief

Griefcast
Before she started her podcast in 2016, Cariad Lloyd was best known as a comedy actor and member of improv troupe Austentatious. Nowadays, she’s synonymous with open, compassionate dialogues about grief, thanks to this humane and somehow reliably amusing series in which she chats to a different guest each week about a loved one they have lost. Sometimes the grief is fresh, at other times the person has been living with it for decades (an experience our host can relate to; she has spent the past 30 years coming to terms with her father’s death). Yet on every occasion the podcast works as a moving act of remembrance as well as a meditation on the deeply personal experience of mourning.

Where There’s a Will There’s a Wake
Providing a novel spin on the “dream” podcast format (see also: dream meals on Off Menu, dream pubs on The Moon Under Water), WTAWTAW sees comedian Kathy Burke quiz celebs on the ideal ending to their lives, from last meals and causes of death to their fantasy funeral location and music. Being a comedy ledge, Burke gets some great guests – Bob Mortimer, Jennifer Saunders, Gimme Gimme Gimme creator Jonathan Harvey – alongside the usual suspects on their pod rounds. Yet for all its blithe levity, this is a podcast that is doing valuable work when it comes to confronting the taboo of death: if you’re joking about it, that means you’re actually thinking about it.

Terrible, Thanks for Asking
In 2014, Nora McInerny had a miscarriage. Six weeks on, she had lost both her father and her husband, Aaron, to cancer. After an irreverent obituary that she and Aaron had written together went viral, McInerny’s grief entered the public eye, where it has stayed thanks to this podcast and a trio of spin-off books. TTFA debuted in 2016, and saw our host grapple with her cavalcade of loss with offbeat humour and candour. Soon, the show expanded to allow other people to tell their stories of losing a loved one and, subsequently, became a home for tales of incredible, often heartbreaking challenges in general. Yet death and grief are still the podcast’s major themes, with recent episodes musing on the connection between grief and magical thinking, and how to ensure your children feel loved after you’ve gone.

The Death Studies Podcast
Death Studies – also known as thanatology – is a real academic discipline, and one that overlaps, fascinatingly, with reams of other subjects. In this podcast, the Open University’s Dr Bethan Michael-Fox and medical anthropologist Dr Renske Visser deep-dive into the most interesting ideas in the field and connected areas of study. The result is an eclectic assortment of conversations involving expert guests such as Prof Helen Wheatley, who talks about portrayals of death on screen, Dr Christopher Hood, who discusses his book about the deadly Japan Air Lines crash of 1985 and Dr Helen Frisby, who delves into Victorian funeral customs.

Grief Works
There are just five episodes of this podcast from psychotherapist Julia Samuel, but our host’s esteemed standing in the world of grief therapy makes it required listening regardless. Samuel, who founded the charity Child Bereavement UK and has authored three books on grief, is an expert in bereavement, possessing a rare understanding of how to comfort and help those who have lost a loved one. For this brief series, she moves from the therapist’s couch to the interviewer’s chair to speak to journalist Decca Aitkenhead, historian Sir Anthony Seldon, fitness coach Victoria Milligan, author Cathy Rentzenbrink and the aforementioned Cariad Lloyd about their losses with huge nuance and insight.

Why not try …

• Vulture’s Land of the Giants returns with an astute look at the rise and rise of Disney.
  

• Sian Clifford leads Radio 4’s canny talk show spoof Time of the Week.

• Chanté Joseph sits down with Rapman – creator of the acclaimed Netflix series Supacell – for the latest edition of the Guardian’s Pop Culture pod.