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Are you wanting to learn more about british fiction? Well you’ve come to the right place. This is a curated list of the best british fiction podcasts of 2021.
We have selected these podcasts for a variety of reasons, but they are all well worth a listen. We tried to select a variety of podcasts across the spectrum from hosts with a wide breadth of experience.
Best British Fiction Podcasts 2021
With thanks to ListenNotes, Crunchbase, SemRush and Ahrefs for providing the data to create and rank these podcasts.
Discussing the works of prolific British fantasist Michael Moorcock, as well as other bits of 60s and 70s genre fiction that came to me via my Grandad in the 80s and informed my world view!
On Flex and Herds as they take you on a Murder Mystery World Tour in Death of the Reader. If you don’t have time for all this, buy research papers to help you delegate all your work and do the things you really enjoy. From classic British puzzles in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction to the weirdest of foreign detective fiction, explore everything in the grizzly world of the ‘locked room’. Each week we’ll feature academics, authors and more as we trace the influences of the genre around the world
Breakfast in the Ruins
- Publisher: STIMBOT5000
- Total Episodes: 28
Discussing the works of prolific British fantasist Michael Moorcock, as well as other bits of 60s and 70s genre fiction that came to me via my Grandad in the 80s and informed my world view!
Shipwrecked & Comatose: A Red Dwarf Pod
- Publisher: We Made This
- Total Episodes: 39
A podcast all about British science-fiction sitcom Red Dwarf.A proud part of the We Made This podcast network.
Death of the Reader
- Publisher: 2SER 107.3FM
- Total Episodes: 121
Join Flex and Herds as they take you on a Murder Mystery World Tour in Death of the Reader. From classic British puzzles in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction to the weirdest of foreign detective fiction, explore everything in the grizzly world of the ‘locked room’. Each week we’ll feature academics, authors and more as we trace the influences of the genre around the world.
Zenith: A Blake’s 7 Podcast
- Publisher: Decorative Vegetable
- Total Episodes: 56
Blake’s 7. The quintessential British Science Fiction Show, depending who you ask. And now, two regular guys who’ve driven themselves a bit mad watching Doctor Who are here to dedicate themselves to podcasting their way through it. Filled with “laughter”, the barest of surface level analyses, and a total inability to take anything seriously, Zenith is the premiere Blake’s 7 podcast.
British Invaders
- Publisher: Brian and Eamonn
- Total Episodes: 160
The podcast all about British Science Fiction Television
The London Necropolis Railway
- Publisher: LNR Podcast
- Total Episodes: 8
The London Necropolis Railway is an original, full cast audio drama podcast that premiered in fall 2018. The story takes place in London’s underground system where an organisation called The London Necropolis Railway moves the souls of the dead out of London to avoid the city getting overrun with hauntings. Barney works at the LNR, he’s one of the ghouls whose job it is to ensure that the souls end up on the trains that take them to the hereafter. He is bored with his job and tired of his endless existence when one day a soul refuses get on the train. The soul, a private investigator named Agnes, convinces Barney to help her catch the demon she was hunting when she died. Together they have to confront his boss, the demon that wants them dead, and even death itself. The show is is inspired by the real London Necropolis Railway which was active from the middle of the 1800s to the middle of the 1900s. It was a train line that moved dead bodies out of London to a cemetery 40 minutes outside of the city. The BBC has called it ‘the spookiest, strangest train line in British history.’ The podcast is part of denandrasidan.se – a project based in Sweden that uses fiction to tackle difficult themes such as death, suicide, and existential questions in a way that makes them approachable for young people.The goal is to create platforms online that can both encourage young people to share their thoughts and emotions around the subject, and to show them that they are not alone in their experiences. CAST Alex Lawther as Barney Olga Amelia Silkina as Agnes Charlie Vero-Martin as Siobhan Connor Jones as the Head Collector Patrik Karlson as Peter CREW Writer and Director: Hillevi Gustafson Sound designer: Mathias Schlegel Producer: Amanda Romare First Assistant Director: Adina Romare Production Assistant: Maja Lindberg LNR is made possible by the support of Allmänna Arvsfonden, Region Skånes Sociala Investeringsfond, and BoostHbg.
The Discovery Adventures
- Publisher: LAND ROVER / CECILIA.FM
- Total Episodes: 8
THE DISCOVERY ADVENTURES WINNER: Most Original Podcast and Best Branded Podcast, British Podcast Awards. Best Entertainment Podcast and Best Series Podcast, Lovie Awards. Webby Award Honoree: Music & Sound. Turn your next drive into a real family adventure, with our all-star mystery drama series. You’re Sam, and together with your Uncle, you have to track down the villains who are disrupting GPS signals and threatening to bring chaos to the UK. Recorded on location – in immersive binaural sound – at some of the UK’s most fascinating places. Featuring the country’s best-known outdoor experts, it’s a unique blend of fact and fiction, like nothing you’ve ever heard before.
The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second by Thomas Babington Macaulay
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 14
Hailed more as a literary masterpiece than an accurate account of historical facts, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second by Thomas Babington Macaulay is an admirable mix of fact and fiction. Modern day readers may find much that is offensive and insensitive in this five volume work which covers a particular period in the long and eventful history of Britain. However, it is certainly a book that leads the reader on to further research into the events and people mentioned. The book opens with an elaborate and detailed introduction which describes the writer’s motives and reasons for embarking on this project. He goes on to trace the early civilizations that preceded the establishment of the British Monarchy. He credits the British people with resisting all foreign influences beginning with the Romans and going on to the French, Dutch and Germans who had an important role to play in the affairs of the country. The British character and traditions are lauded and commended above all others. This was something which was characteristic of the Victorian age in which Macaulay lived, when the British Empire was at the height of its powers. He was still working on the fifth volume and the reign of William III when he died at the relatively young age of 59. For Macaulay and his contemporaries, Britain at that time represented the zenith of civilization. Macaulay himself was assigned the task of introducing English in British colonies, especially in India. Some of his controversial ideas included dividing the world into “civilization and barbarism” and his contempt of indigenous cultures. His famously insular outlook which he himself took great pride in was something which permeated through all his writings. The History of England… was seen as an essentially Whig representation of events. It inspired a generation of British politicians and thinkers, the most notable among them being Winston Churchill. The philosophy and viewpoint it represents evokes a past era in which the politics of the world was completely different. Macaulay is also famous for having insisted on personally visiting many of the places he describes and thus introducing the concept of social history in addition to a mere political discourse. In spite of all the attacks it received both when it was first published and later, the book remains a highly readable account of the history of the tiny island nation which went on to become a superpower.
Adventures of Bulldog Drummond
- Publisher: Humphrey Camardella Productions
- Total Episodes: 160
The British Hero Bulldog Drummond is a fictional character created by H. C. McNeile, as the hard boiled no nonsense-style detective. The stories followed Captain Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., a wealthy former WWI officer of the Loamshire Regiment, who, after the war, spends his new-found leisure time as a private detective.Drummond is a proto-James Bond figure and was a muscular man with a group of followers who helped him in his adventures. They rounded up crooks and took them to a place only they knew and reformed them. Drummond and his men, the “Black Gang”, beat the be jabbers out of the men till they learned their lesson and renounced crime. Join us as we listen to the adventures of this British Detective.
Uneasy Dreams
- Publisher: Marlon Farrugia
- Total Episodes: 10
UNEASY DREAMS is a short story programme by Marlon Farrugia, inspired by classic fiction anthologies like Tales of the Unexpected and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Unsettling and uncanny, these stories delve into the heart of the British psyche and emerge having twisted and corrupted its contents beyond recognition. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 27
In 1877, two gentlemen, Messrs Tonnison and Berreggnog, head into Ireland to spend a week fishing in the village of Kraighten. While there, they discover in the ruins of a very curious house a diary of the man who had once owned it. Its torn pages seem to hint at an evil beyond anything that existed on this side of the curtains of impossibility. This is a classic novel that worked to slowly bridge the gap between the British fantastic and supernatural authors of the later 19th century and modern horror fiction. Classic American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft lists this and other works by Hodgson among his greatest influences.
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 27
Extraterrestrial invasion, the earth taken over by omniscient intelligences from Mars, the whole of humanity under siege and a nameless narrator who seems to be the lone survivor of the complete devastation of human civilization – scenes from a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster? Far from it! The War of the Worlds by HG Wells was written more than a century ago and went on to become an iconic work in the science fiction genre, spawning a whole new genre of literature featuring alien invaders. It was in fact the first book to present the idea of conflict between inhabitants of different planets. The story begins in an observatory in Ottershaw, when scientists note a series of mysterious explosions taking place on Mars. Some days later, the narrator who is on a walk on the Surrey Downs notices a weird cylindrical vehicle that suddenly opens to release a horde of hideous creatures who are later discovered to be Martians. The creatures are unable to breathe Earth’s air and swiftly return to their vehicle. A peace delegation of humans tries to make contact but they’re ruthlessly scorched to death by Martian heat-ray weapons. Thus begins the War of the Worlds. The British military swings into action, but their arms and ammunition are defenseless against sophisticated chemical weapons and heat-rays. Events race towards calamity as the nations of the earth unite to combat these fearful invaders to no avail. Survivors are reduced to scavenging for food with the cities of the world reduced to mere rubble. Can the human race survive? Will the narrator and his family escape destruction? The author, HG Wells was a science teacher in a small village in Somerset, England. However, he was also a gifted writer who wrote in several genres – science fiction, literary novels, short stories, history, politics and social sciences. A keen student of war and combat, he created a set of rules for playing war games with toy soldiers, which provides an interesting glimpse of logistics, strategy and close combat techniques. Wells’ contribution to our ideas of science fiction remains unparalleled and the book has been widely filmed, staged and televised. The War of the Worlds was immortalized as a Halloween prank in a radio show that aired on CBS on October 30, 1938, causing widespread panic and chaos as listeners across the United States tuned in and began fleeing from their homes! The enduring appeal of this book makes it a must read classic for readers of all ages.
His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 16
The disappearance of a German spy and the gathering storm that foretells the prelude to World War I is what greets you in this riveting book. The further you read the more mysteries unfold like secret submarine plans with some pages missing found in the hands of a corpse. There’s also family insanity in Cornwall, a dead Spaniard and mafia hiding in an empty London flat. His Last Bow was published in the Strand Magazine circa 1908 and included several other short stories as well. Even during Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s own lifetime, Holmes had acquired cult status. His deductive methods, brilliant powers of observation, eccentric habits, occasional dabbling in drugs, strange and exotic clients and his connections among the high and mighty across many countries and continents went on to attain legendary fame. In His Last Bow, Holmes tackles themes like adultery (in The Adventure of the Cardboard Box) which resulted in this particular story being left out of American editions. Holmes’ enigmatic and secretive brother Mycroft makes a rare appearance in The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans and Holmes famously remarks, “… that Mycroft should break out in this erratic fashion… A planet may well leave its orbit!” This is also the story where one of Holmes’ most famous axioms appears, “…when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” The title story is somewhat different from the others. This spy story turned murder mystery is not narrated by Dr. Watson. Conan Doyle experts have dubbed it a propaganda tool written to boost the morale of British soldiers in WWI. There are the famous concluding lines which are often mistakenly attributed to Churchill, “There is an east wind coming, Watson… But it is God’s own wind, nonetheless…” For Sherlock Holmes fans, His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is indeed a thrilling and compelling read from the master of detective fiction.
The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 10
Off the coast of Greenland, a man finds a floating thermos bottle. Wedged tightly inside is a sheaf of papers covered with minute handwriting. As he begins to read, a fantastic tale begins to unwind. The writer, on his way to a WWI battlefield was shipwrecked and his entire regiment except for a woman and his faithful dog are killed. The three are rescued by a passing British tug, but fall prey to the schemes of a German spy aboard. They are then captured by the crew of a German U-boat. After many near mishaps, they sail towards Greenland. Stranded, with fuel in short supply, they spot an island that seems washed by a warm-water current. As they sail closer, they spot a decomposing human body. Nevertheless, they decide to disembark. An amazing world greets them – filled with lush tropical vegetation, giant reptiles, exotic species and most frightening of all, a race of sub-human Neanderthals…. First published as a three-part serial in The Blue Book magazine in 1918, The Land that Time Forgot by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the first in his Caspak Trilogy. These stories are located in the fictitious island of Caprona, which is called Caspak in the native language of its inhabitants. Similar to the “lost world” novels of Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne, the book would certainly appeal to modern-day Jurassic Park enthusiasts. Burroughs, best known for his Tarzan series undeservedly earned the reputation of being a “pulp-fiction writer” although his books are well-researched and explore the dimensions of their characters. For this trilogy, he researched prehistoric studies, geography, biology and human development. The book has been adapted very successfully for film and has also been released in graphic/animation form, to be enjoyed by generations of readers and viewers. A racy thriller, filled with excitement, adventure and fantasy for all ages!
Barmy Dale
- Publisher: Barmy Productions
- Total Episodes: 20
Award nominated comedy series! Ranked in the Top 10 internet sitcoms! Guest stars featured include Vicki Michelle, Jeffery Holland, Mike Fenton Stevens and Karl Howman. First broadcast on BBC Radio in 2020. Set in the fictional Northern English town of Barmy Dale and following the lives of the local residents during and after lockdown. This cult classic radio sitcom harks back to the much loved British sitcoms of the 60s, 70s and 80s. Enjoyed by all the family! Starring Juliet Howland as Gracie, Camilla Simson as Sharon, Stuart Wheeldon as Dan and Martin Skellern as Keith. Created & Written by Martin Skellern and Stuart Wheeldon. Music by Jordan Frater. Please do not forget to leave a review! Series 2 will be available from April 2021.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/barmy-dale-sitcom. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 48
A young woman who inherits a beautiful diamond known as The Moonstone on her eighteenth birthday becomes the center of this mystery story. The diamond is a gift from an uncle who once served as an army officer in British India. She proudly wears the jewel on her dress at her birthday party that night. The precious stone has a dark and sinister history, which will have a terrible impact on her life and the lives of those around her. You’re about to read what’s been termed the very first real detective story in the English language. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is the book which is deemed to have set many of the traditions for the generic detective story. Elements like murder in an English country house, plenty of suspects, a famous detective who is called in to solve the crime, a complicated motive and a final twist in the tale as the perpetrator is revealed. The Moonstone was serialized in 1868 in Charles Dickens’ magazine All The Year Round. William Wilkie Collins was an aspiring law student when he first met the great Charles Dickens. Encouraged by the famous author, Collins began to contribute short stories and longer novels to Dickens’ magazines. The two became good friends and often coauthored many pieces in these magazines, read, discussed and traveled together and shared a great literary and personal friendship. However, by the time The Moonstone was written, Collins was suffering from serious ill-health and became addicted to opium, which he began taking to get relief from excruciating pain. The Moonstone was actually a break from the kind of stories Collins had written to that point. The Victorian “sensation” novel genre was all the rage in England at the time, but with The Moonstone, the focus began to shift to mystery, crime and detection. The effects of colonization, looting of local treasures and oppression of the natives are all underlying themes in The Moonstone. As a forerunner of the great traditions of detective fiction, The Moonstone is a gripping, interesting and fascinating read for whodunit fans of all ages.
THE PAUL TEMPLE SERIES
- Publisher: NON STOP MUSIC POD SHOW!!
- Total Episodes: 3
Paul Temple is a fictional character created by English writer Francis Durbridge. Temple is a professional author of crime fiction and an amateur private detective. With his wife Louise, affectionately known as Steve in reference to her journalistic pen name ‘Steve Trent’, he solves whodunnit crimes through subtle, humorously articulated deduction. Always the gentleman, the strongest oath he ever utters is “by Timothy”.Created for the BBC radio serial Send for Paul Temple in 1938, the Temples featured in more than 30 BBC radio dramas, twelve serials for German radio, four British feature films, a dozen novels, and a BBC television series. A Paul Temple daily newspaper strip ran in the London Evening News for two decades
A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great by John B. Bury
- Publisher: Loyal Books
- Total Episodes: 43
For the Irish historian John Bagnell Bury, history should be treated as a science and not a mere branch of literature. Many contemporary histories written in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were poetic and heroic in tone, blending fact and fiction, myths and legends. They sometimes relied on sources from Shakespeare and classical poets. For Bury, the facts of history may be legendary or romantic in nature, but they should be recounted in a scholarly and non-judgmental manner, without the accompanying emotions. His aim was simply to “tell history as it happened.” A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great was first published in 1900. It went on to become a standard text in many colleges and was used as a definitive guide to our understanding of the pre-Hellenistic kingdoms. Richly supplemented with maps and columnar notes, the book deals with its subject in an academic manner, but it is a work which is easily accessible to the ordinary reader as well. There are many interesting illustrations from antiquities in the British Museum and photographs of busts from various art galleries. There are 18 chapters, portraying the beginnings of Ancient Greece in the Heroic Age. The author is also concerned about how previous histories of Ancient Greece have largely ignored the Greek presence in Persia, Asia Minor, Italy and Sicily while emphasizing the Greek history of Sparta and Athens. Later chapters deal with Athenian democracy, Pericles and the Golden Age, the advance of the Persians, the Peloponnesian war and the decline of Athenian Greece, the rise of Thebes, the Syracusan empire, the rise of Macedonia and the final conquest of Persia and East Asia. There is also an interesting chapter on Aristotle and Alexander. Aristotle’s background and how he became Alexander’s teacher, the differing visions that tutor and pupil held about the ideal city-state and the ultimate influence that these ideas had on the development of Europe are discussed in the last chapter. Bury was a young genius who became a Fellow at Trinity College Dublin at the young age of 24 and a professor at Cambridge, where he taught both history and Greek, before he was forty. His interests included medieval studies and philology. His works cover a range of subjects including Greek and Byzantine history and the role of the Church and the Papacy in the 19th century. Though some of the information in this book may be a little dated following new studies, technological advances and discoveries uncovered by the latest research, it is extremely readable and interesting. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great is a historical and interesting read.
The Mahé Mysteries
- Publisher: Podcast Radio Original (PRO-Show)
- Total Episodes: 11
Inspired by real events – the discovery of three human skulls placed around the tropical paradise of Mahé island in Seychelles – British expatriate journalist Patrick Muirhead’s fictional tale sets him to investigate a mystery in the Indian Ocean. He soon uncovers a white aristocratic family’s dark secrets and clues to an unsolved murder committed 20 years earlier. When links emerge between the family and the illegitimate birth of a mixed-race baby, a local Catholic priest admits to killing the baby’s father – a blackmailer – and the case seems complete. But the exhumation of the victim’s body from a shallow grave on an old coconut plantation reveals injuries inconsistent with the priest’s confession. It leads Patrick to the real killer and a showdown in the mansion home of the proud family’s matriarch, the Comtesse Marie-Alise de Challis. All That Remains is the opening ten-part story of The Mahé Mysteries. Written and recorded on location by Patrick – a former BBC World Service and Radio 4 announcer living in Mahé – it explores the realities of island life and its sinister underbelly in a seemingly tranquil tropical paradise.
Here’s looking at you. » podcast
- Publisher: Dr Ellen Wright
- Total Episodes: 19
Here’s looking at You podcast is a series of conversations hosted by Dr Ellen Wright. Conversations around feminism and politics, gender and sexuality – in film, photography and performance – with particular interest in classical Hollywood, pin-up cultures and burlesque. Dr Wright is the Vice Chancellor’s 2020 Lecturer in Cinema and Television History at DeMontfort University in Leicester. She has taught Film Studies, Media Studies and Photographic Theory. Her research interrogates the wider notions of gender, sexuality, class, taste, nationality and consumption linked to Classical Hollywood cinema and tends to focus on denigrated forms such as the celebrity group ‘selfie’, pin-up photography, slash fiction and pornography as well as press books, promotional materials for films and TV shows, film fan annuals, film and photography magazines/pamphlets, syndicated radio plays, film star fiction, film star/celebrity endorsements and advertising tie-ups. Her published work so far has examined female star personas and celebrity, film star scandals, gender and performance, costuming, censorship, fandom, youth audiences and moral panics, audience and critical reception and media discourse across British and American contexts, primarily through the use of extra textual materials. This website is a hub for her various research projects.
