Best comedy podcasts

Amy Poehler’s Dr? Sheila is ‘truly snort-laugh material’

Listening to… Say More With Dr? Sheila

This laugh-out-loud podcast satirises our obsession with listening to other people’s problems. Narcissist Dr? Sheila is a terrible couples’ therapist, not least because she isn’t actually a doctor, rather a character created by American comedian Amy Poehler. Her “couples” aren’t real either. They’re actors, including Maya Rudolph and Ilana Glazer, who come with “problems” ranging from infidelity to mother-in-laws. Fiona McCann in The Irish Times called it “truly snort-laugh material” and “one of the funniest podcasts I’ve listened to in a very long time.” The fact that the 25-minute episodes are mainly improvised “lends it a freshness”. As Dr? Sheila herself says: “It’s beautiful, beautiful work.”

Wolf and Owl

Two mates who share an anxious disposition take the mickey out of each other and answer emails from listeners. So far, so not funny. Yet this “rambling pub chat of two especially funny old friends”, aka comics Romesh Ranganathan and Tom Davis is “particularly soothing”, says The Guardian. Bruce Dessau in the London Evening Standard said they “have a chemistry that could never be concocted in a test tube”. At their sold-out live podcast event in London “the laughs flew” as they talked about “the appeal of Airbnb, going for walks, and the first dance at your wedding”.

Lolly Adefope: Fanmail

The glorious actor who stars as Kitty in “Ghosts” plays an “insufferably self-involved version of her celebrity self” in this comedy series, said Hollie Richardson in The Guardian. Her sidekick is her assistant Sandy, who helps Lolly answer her bag of fanmail every week. Lolly also invites her showbiz pals in for chats, including Steve Coogan, Diane Morgan and – “somewhat unexpectedly” – Steve Buscemi.

The Rest is Entertainment

The latest addition to Gary Lineker’s blockbuster stable of podcasts, this one is all about the “showbiz, gossip, music [and] celebrity scandal” we used to stand at the watercooler and chat about pre-WFH. The tone set by the presenters, Guardian columnist Marina Hyde and TV quizmaster Richard Osman, is “insidery, sarcastic and sceptical”, said James Marriott in The Times. Hyde is hilarious on Nigel Farage as a man “with absolutely no hinterland”, saying that if he were to listen to music, it would be “on a CD that came free with The Sunday Times in about 2001”.

Elis James and John Robins

These best friends have been a big deal in the radio and podcasting world for a  while now, and won gold in the Best Entertainment category at the 2023 British Podcast Awards. This month the pair kicked off a new podcast at BBC Sounds, plus a live show on BBC Radio 5 Live on Friday afternoons. The first episode had James sharing an anecdote about ravers from Suffolk and producer Dave treating listeners to a celebratory poem. Doesn’t sound funny but their millions of downloads would beg to differ. As Robins himself says, it’s “a commercial indie radio show that has got wildly out of hand”.