Podcasts
Lots of the work below - Short Cuts, Lights Out, Half-Life... - has existed as both a radio broadcast and a podcast. Some things, like Radio Atlas with its visual elements, can only exist in a medium which lets you use a screen as you listen.
Field Recordings is a podcast where audio-makers stand silently in fields (or things that could be broadly interpreted as fields). I started it in March 2020, accidentally around the time the world locked down. The idea had begun years earlier as a joke response to companies who would approach us at Falling Tree inviting us to make documentary podcasts with no funding on dodgy business models. At the time, I’d offer them a podcast where I stand in a different field each week and release an hour-long unedited recording of silence. No one took me up on it.
After a heartbreak at the end of 2019, when all I really felt like doing was standing still and listening to the birds, I decided to actually make it exist. But after the lockdown it changed again - into a way I could hear what was catching the attention of the audio producers I loved around the world who I couldn’t see.
It won the British Podcast Award for Best New Podcast in 2021, was featured in Best Podcasts of 2020 lists for both Vulture and the Financial Times and has been written about in the New Yorker, The Guardian, Vogue and The Times amongst others.
The Field Recordings website (like this one) was designed by Charlie Shackleton and the logo was created by Ariana Martinez. If you want to submit a recording you can contact me here.
“A story about losing the man you love and going on without him; about raising two girls through grief, being alone and surviving - mostly intact.”
I produced this 12-part memoir podcast alongside Sophie Townsend for the BBC World Service. The series is driven by Sophie’s writing, which carries both a weight of feeling and a real generosity with her experience. It felt like a privilege to get to collaborate with her on this.
This was also a collaboration with Chris Oke (story editor), Jon Manel (commissioning editor) and Jeremy Warmsley who created its original score and theme song.
Goodbye to All This was one of the New York Times’ ‘Best Podcasts of 2020’ and won the Australian Podcast Awards Gold for Best New Podcast, “There are few podcasts that fundamentally change the way you see the world. This is one. A brave, masterfully told, gripping, gut-wrenching and deeply, deeply personal story of love felt and lost. It can’t fail to leave its mark in your psyche and make you reach for your loved ones to squeeze them oh so tight.”
Listen to Half-Life on The History Podcast
"Multiple narratives unfurl in this moving, meditative and, at times, improbably comic series (Dunthorne does a winning line in dry self-deprecation). The storytelling is first class, as is the darkly atmospheric sound design... it reveals much about inherited guilt and trauma, the subjective nature of truth and how the stories passed down through family generations are not always to be trusted." - Financial Times
Drawn to a family legend about his German-Jewish family's dramatic escape from Nazi Germany in 1936, the writer Joe Dunthorne accidentally discovers a far more disturbing history.
Half-Life was written and presented by Joe Dunthorne, produced and sound designed by me, with original compositions by Jeremy Warmsley. The story consultant was Sarah Geis and Alan Hall was the executive producer.
This podcast and radio series grew from Joe’s book Children of Radium.
“Simultaneously gentle and devastating... no matter how hard we try to avoid stepping on them, those hidden bombs will eventually go off." - The Observer
“Lights Out is a long-running anthology series in which sound design is elevated to the realms of high art… a small masterpiece of soundscaping and storytelling.” - Financial Times, 2023
Lights Out was a home for adventurous long-form documentary on BBC Radio 4, which I co-created with Alan Hall. It was broadcast late at night on the radio and in 2022 and 2023 released as a podcast.
Between 2018 and 2023, Lights Out commissioned work by Arlie Adlington, Talia Augustidis, Julia Barton, Redzi Bernard, Josie Bevan, Alice Boyd, Hannah Dean, Cherise Hamilton-Stephenson, Axel Kacoutié, Jaye Kranz, Jesse Lawson, Phoebe McIndoe, Andrea Rangecroft, Zakia Sewell, Laura Grace Simpkins, Phil Smith and Mark 'Mr T' Thompson.
Editions of Lights Out have won (and been nominated for) Amnesty Media Awards, the IDA Documentary Award, Whickers Award, Prix Marulic, Prix Europa, the Arias and Third Coast International Audio Awards.
Radio Atlas is an English-language home for subtitled audio from around the world. Created in February 2016, it’s a place to hear inventive documentaries, dramas and works of sound art that have been made in languages you don’t necessarily speak.
I first saw subtitled radio at an In The Dark event over a decade ago. Made by Nina Garthwaite, it transformed the way I engaged with audio-works created in languages I didn’t speak. Radio Atlas wouldn’t have existed without Nina’s inventiveness or the generosity of the audio-makers and broadcasters who have generously allowed me to share their work over the years.
Subtitled documentaries from Radio Atlas have been featured at film and audio festivals around the world including First Look, True/False, CPH:Dox, HearSay International Audio Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Tape Fest, On Air Fest, Audiocraft, Oorzaken, Frames of Representation and Tempo Dokumentärfestival. They’ve been written about in The Observer, The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, Hot Pod, CBC’s Doc Project and Poynter. And the project has received a Silver award for Best New Podcast at the British Podcast Awards as well as a Special Commendation at the Prix Europa.
The website (like this one) was designed by Charlie Shackleton and the logo was created by Moon Hussain. If you’d like to talk about subtitled radio you can write to me here.
“Short Cuts showcased the art of the short documentary, nurturing new talent while consistently delivering strong storytelling… Through humor, introspection, and a keen ear for life’s quieter moments, it leaves behind a legacy that will inspire storytellers for years to come — and it will be deeply missed.” - Podcast Review’s Best Podcasts of 2024
Short Cuts was a space for new, adventurous short documentaries and works of audio art from audio-makers around the world, presented by Josie Long. It ran on BBC Radio 4 from January 2012 until January 2025.
It was co-created by me, Nina Garthwaite from In The Dark and Alan Hall. Over the last decade on the BBC it was collaboratively produced and curated alongside Andrea Rangecroft, Alia Cassam and Axel Kacoutié; executive produced by Alan Hall, Axel Kacoutié and Zakia Sewell and mixed by Mike Woolley. The podcast artwork was created by Jules Scheele
Short Cuts won Gold for Best Radio Podcast at the British Podcast Awards in both 2017 and 2018 and Bronze for Best Documentary Podcast in 2024. In 2025, Josie Long won the Gold ARIA award for best Speech Entertainment for her work on Short Cuts.
Individual features from Short Cuts have gone on to win the Gold award for Best Documentary, Best New Artist and Best Documentary Short at the Third Coast International Audio Awards, the first prize for Short Forms at the Prix Marulić, Hearsay Festival awards, Audio Production Awards and the Miller Audio Prize amongst many others. Work from the series has also been picked up by podcasts like This American Life, Radiolab and The Heart.
“Short Cuts is one of the most important programmes on UK radio” - The Observer, 2024
“The best of creative radio” - Irish News, 2024