Whether you’re after smugness-free silliness or wise and considered deconstructions of current events – there’s a podcast for that
The problem with topical comedy podcasts is that they often find themselves caught between two poles. They are neither as fast and reactive as Twitter, nor as popular and mainstream as a TV panel show. The secret of a good one, then, is largely down to personality. And it’s this that has propelled Andy Zaltzman’s The Bugle for a decade and a half. Originally co-hosted with a pre-megastardom John Oliver, each week Zaltzman pulls apart the news (with help from one of a rotating band of guests) in a manner that is often absurd or angry but never smug. Given the state of topical comedy in general, that last quality is particularly miraculous.
