From alleged mushroom murders to honesty with Ocean Vuong, here are the best podcasts we've listened to in May

Court is, almost invariably, mind-numbingly boring. While dealing with incredibly important matters, on what could be the worst day of someone's life, the sheer scale of admin, stuffy language and lengthy protocol can make even the juiciest case a real snooze-fest.

And when it comes to the case of Erin Patterson, accused of murdering three people by serving them death cap mushrooms, there's an overflow of both interest and information.

That's why we should be incredibly grateful to the reporters who not only sit through hours of stultifying procedure, but then turn it into bite-size podcast episodes for us to digest at the end of our days. As the country is gripped in the details of this horrifying incident, those court reporters are working overtime.

The Mushroom Daily

ABC Listen

When news broke in 2023 of an alleged mushroom poisoning at a family dinner in regional Victoria, resulting in the deaths of three people, it was hard to look away. But as this salacious story became a legal one, I stopped paying so much attention.

Then, last week, I caught a brief interview on ABC Radio regarding the current trial and heard some of the specifics of the case, and I was intrigued all over again.

Playing catch-up, I've since binged every ep (they're nice and short so this wasn't too difficult) of the ABC's podcast — Mushroom Case Daily.

While completely different content, the podcast reminds me of the hugely popular Coronacast, another timely ABC podcast that required the organisation to move swiftly and develop a simple format that could be delivered daily.

The dynamic between Mushroom Case Daily hosts Stephen Stockwell and Kristian Silva works well, similar to Tegan Taylor and Dr Norman Swan in Coronacast. Kristian is the expert ABC court reporter sitting in during the trial each day, and 'Stocky' asks him the questions.

We learn about the Erin Patterson case in all its detail, and we also get a 101 lesson on the Australian court and jury system.

A seemingly simple format on appearance, this podcast clearly has had a lot of behind-the-scenes planning in order to pull it off, like building a studio in regional Victoria. But you need more than good planning to deliver a successful podcast; the hosts need to work well together and communicate even better. Luckily, these two do both.

— Fiona Pepper

So True with Caleb Hearon

Headgum

"Being born poor, fat and gay in Missouri … I was either going to be funny or closeted or dead," quips Caleb Hearon on a recent episode of his hit podcast So True with Caleb Hearon. Luckily for us, the outcome was that Hearon became one of the most exciting emerging voices in contemporary American comedy.

Hearon's comedic chops aside though, what makes So True stand out in an overcrowded field of comedian interview podcasts is his insistence on elevating diverse, often under-represented, voices.

When he's not starring in movies (Max's Sweethearts), writing for TV (Big Mouth spin-off Human Resources), or performing sold-out live shows across the US, Hearon makes time to highlight the relatively unknown — at least to an Australian audience — artists who seem destined for super-stardom.

Whether it's queer comedians, BIPOC musicians, or his own mother, Hearon deliberately chooses guests based on his relationship with them, as opposed to their follower count. The result is a refreshingly candid and genuine conversation each week, brimming with warmth and hilarity.

Pretty much any episode is a good starting point, but some stand-outs of late have been the episode with Justin Tranter — better known as the songwriter behind Chappell Roan's smash-hit 'Good Luck, Babe!' — alt-comedy darling Chris Fleming, or influencer besties Brittany Broski and Drew Afualo.

— Jack Gow

Proxy

Radiotopia

Anyone who's been through a bad break-up would be very familiar with the term "closure": how much people talk about it; how much you yearn for it; how much it probably doesn't exist.

But what if you could actually ask all the impossible, too-uncomfortable, too-painful questions to someone who understands the situation, but has no skin in the game?

The new season of Proxy takes this premise and runs with it. "Emotional investigative journalist" Yowei Shaw finds someone looking for closure on a very specific situation, and finds a proxy for them to quiz, free from emotional fallout.

The first episode is called Bisexual Wife Guy, and we meet a heartbroken man using the pseudonym George, whose long-term partner recently came out as queer and left him for a woman.

Shaw then tracks down someone who lived through the other side of this experience: in this case, the proxy is Hanna Rosin, who left her marriage when she came out as queer (and who's voice podcast nerds will recognise from NPR's Invisibilia).

What follows is a tender and frank conversation as both George and Hanna ask questions that have obviously been gathering in their chests for months. George asks how he can be supportive of someone he loves undertaking such an important journey, while also being devastated by it. Hanna asks if there's a way to carve out a new identity around someone who has known the old you for so long.

Like all difficult, human conundrums, there are no easy answers. But in this little act of sharing and understanding between two strangers, something good, and maybe healing, happens.

— Katherine Smyrk

Staying alive with Jon Gabrus and Adam Pally

SiriusXM podcasts

If you spent your 20s and 30s more interested in having a good time than maintaining optimum health, then Jon Gabrus and Adam Pally's new podcast, Staying Alive, might be what the doctor ordered.

When these two actors and best friends recently hit middle age, they realised they really wanted to stay alive. To do that, they'd need to start paying more attention to their health.

While not about to delve into juice cleanses and yoga retreats, they figured they could practice better hydration, eat fewer hamburgers, and re-address their relationship with alcohol and partying.

Speaking with medical experts on their new podcast, the men interrogate and demystify health trends like Ozempic, ketamine therapy and hypnosis.

They counter this by chatting with celebrity guests — like Saturday Night Live's Ego Nwodim and Stand By Me's Jerry O'Connell — who relay relatable stories of trying to make health and fitness part of their everyday lives.

The show is in its infancy and there are kinks to be straightened. Once these two extroverted, alpha hosts learn how to leave a little more space to let their experts talk, the chats will carry some more weight. With more episodes will come familiarity that offers guests a better understanding of the tone and purpose of the show, allowing them to come equipped with the anecdotes and hot takes that will sit well thematically.

Anything that makes the topic of health maintenance entertaining is a net positive, and there's so much scope for this to flourish into a show that not only keeps us laughing but also does some genuine good.

— Dan Condon

The Interview with Ocean Vuong

New York Times

It would be so easy to tell Ocean Vuong's life story like another entry into the canon of the American dream.

He and his mother travelled to the US as refugees from Vietnam in 1990. They endured a tough, scrappy existence in Connecticut, where a teenaged Vuong would have fallen into a life of addiction and crime were it not for his discovery of literature. Now, he's a poet and writer, and his book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous won the 2020 American Book Award. He's a tenured professor at New York University and winner of a prestigious MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant".

But that's an oversimplification of his story, as shown in an astonishing interview with New York Times reporter David Marchese (not to be confused with Triple J Hack's Dave Marchese).

Over two separate interviews spliced together, both reporter and subject are almost painfully open and vulnerable as they discuss poverty, labour, intergenerational trauma, kindness, sexuality and family. Crying at times but never hesitating, Vuong recounts a startling moment from his late teens, when he came very close to killing someone.

It's everyday people and the choices they make the writer wants to capture in his new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, based on his time working at fast food restaurants.

"I wondered if I could write a book that didn't have improvement arcs because it aligned with my observation of my communities … but it doesn't mean that their lives are worthless."

As well as getting to hear about the new novel, and revelling in Vuong's unique and enthralling turns of phrase, this is also just a very moving conversation between two people that you will be thinking about for days afterwards.

— Katherine Smyrk

No one saw it coming

ABC

In ABC Radio National's No One Saw It Coming, Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Download This Show) takes a well-known event or object — the fall of the Berlin Wall or the potato, for example — and presents it from a fresh angle.

Each episode features an interview with an expert who has a fascinating but largely unknown story to tell about an episode of history.

In one, Fennell talks to a UK academic who challenges the idea that the Berlin Wall came down due to high-level diplomatic negotiations and instead points to a bungled press conference and the courage of the general populace tired of division.

In another, we hear how Marie Antoinette and economist Adam Smith were among a raft of potato evangelists who transformed the starchy vegetable from a maligned stock feed to the much-loved staple of the Western diet it is today.

Other episodes cover territory as varied as the theft of the Mona Lisa, the development of a prototype of the submarine in the US Civil War and the unlikely coalition between the US government and the Mafia to fight the Nazis in World War II.

Providing new context to familiar subjects, No One Saw It Coming shows how human stories shape history. It's one not just for the history buffs but for anyone who loves a good yarn.

— Nicola Heath