Must Listen: The best podcasts for your weekend

Do you need some new podcast recommendations for the weekend?

Podcast coach Clare Freeman has chosen three of her favourites as part of 5 Live's Must Listen, every Monday at midnight on the Sarah Brett show.

She's picked: Dirty John, The Cinemile and The Dropout.

Have you listened to any of these podcasts? Comment below to let us know what you think.

Dirty John

John Meehan seems to check all the boxes: attentive, available, just back from a year in Iraq with Doctors Without Borders. But Debra's family don’t like John, and they get entangled in an increasingly complex web of love, deception, forgiveness, denial, and ultimately, survival.

Clare says:

“When I listened to this podcast, I was on a really long drive up the Scottish Highlands with my 18-year-old cousin and we listened to the whole thing. We kept pausing it and saying, 'what’s going to happen next? Each time we’d play through the next episode, neither of our predictions went on to happen – we were guessing the whole way through.

"Debra Newell, the central character in Dirty John, had four marriages that had come to nothing before meeting John who seemed perfect from that first date. What this made me think about as a single woman who online dates, is how quickly that hope that you really want this one to be the one and for it all to pan out and life to be complete and happy.

"Everything seemed to happen so quickly between John and Debra, not giving anything away, it left me thinking ‘this could happen to me, this could happen to any woman?’ It’s connected people to discussion points about domestic violence and an understanding that abuse isn’t just punching people, it can also be much more emotional.

"Dirty John is made by the LA Times and Wondery, who are a huge podcast production company in North America and have done some incredible series. They’re the leaders of 'true-crime', which we know is one of the most popular genres of podcasts – particularly for women.”

The Cinemile

Married couple Dave and Cathy podcast their walk home from the movies. Sometimes with their baby.

Clare says:

"What I like about Dave and Cathy from Cinemile is their natural chemistry – the fact that they’re married really helps! I think in the podcast, that authenticity makes a difference.

"Cinemile is a spin off from something that was just meant to be a bit of fun and they spent quite a lot of time thinking “we want to do a podcast but what about?” and when this idea just kind clicked, it’s such a simple idea. They’re not necessarily people who are technically minded, so Dave had to go and learn how to record, what equipment to get and how to edit. They both kind of have a bit of understanding of marketing.

"They just threw an entry to the British Podcast Awards a couple of years ago and it won in the Best New Podcast category. Then, before they knew it, they’re getting written up in The Observer, The Guardian and in Ireland where they’re from as well.

"In real life they’ve moved house and they had to plan where to move house so they weren’t too far from a cinema. Sometimes they have to switch up their routes when they’re walking from the cinema because they need a bit more time to talk. They now have a baby and talked about the fact they have to book babysitters to record the podcast sometimes."

The Dropout

The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos is an unbelievable tale of ambition and fame gone terribly wrong. How did the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire lose it all in the blink of an eye?

Clare says:

"I had not heard about the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos before listening to The Dropout.

"She had people like Bill Clinton and Henry Kissinger on board believing in her revolutionary healthcare technology… She was almost poaching staff from the Apple headquarters to come and work with her and the way she had changed her voice to sound a bit lower, she’d got the turtle neck jumpers so she could mimic Steve Jobs because that was how she wanted to be seen.

"In real life right now, she’s facing 20 years in jail for a variety of fraud charges because it all turned out to be nonsense."

"This podcast series took three years to put together, a three year investigation so you can imagine how complicated it must have been legally. Some of the material they have from the hearings and people she want to school with - it’s incredible.

"I think The Dropout is potentially one that’s also going to turn into a TV series from what I understand and I imagine, once the trial goes through, is there scope for this to turn into a second series a third series?

"Who know where this one might go. A movie adaptation is also potentially on the cards."