Pick of the podcasts: Power: Hugh Hefner, Uncanny and Mixtape

Power: Hugh Hefner

Google, Apple, Spotify

Hugh Hefner quite literally lived the Playboy lifestyle.

Wandering around a mansion, surrounded by a cadre of beauties and never managing to get out of your comfortable dressing gown sounds like bliss to a certain type of man.

Perhaps this rather old-fashioned fantasy isn’t as appealing as it once was, yet Hefner stuck with it right up until his death in 2017.

He was owner and figurehead of the Playboy brand which sold a lifestyle – as well as magazines with naked women in them – to men.

The chart-topping podcast investigative series Power returns with a new season which explores the complex story behind legendary Playboy founder Hefner’s rise and the legacy he left behind, told through the eyes of the women who knew him best.

Hosted by journalist and author, Amy Rose Spiegel, the series will delve into Hefner’s rise to power and the origins of Playboy, and investigate questions around the dark side of the brand, including his notorious mansion parties and Hefner’s manipulation and control of his girlfriends and other associates.

Power: Hugh Hefner will tackle important questions around the brand’s complicated role in contributing to both progressive movements and the systems that held marginalised people back in the first place.

Listeners also hear from model and TV personality Holly Madison, who lived in the Playboy Mansion for seven years. They all join this series to offer their first-hand experiences.

“As a journalist who examines power and gender dynamics, Playboy has been a constant source of fascination and influence in my work and life,” says Spiegel. “I’ve always wanted to know more about the women who were really responsible for its power.”

Uncanny

BBC Sounds 

From ghostly phantoms to UFOs, host of previous spooky BBC podcast The Battersea Poltergeist, Danny Robins, investigates real-life stories of paranormal encounters.

Among them is the true tale of a Belfast student bedroom that has a frightening impact on anyone who sleeps in it. Then there’s an ancient farmhouse in the English countryside. But the house has a tragic and terrifying past…

Mixtape

Radiolab

Before there was the podcast and the smartphone, there was the cassette tape and the Walkman – two devices that although not considered much today, were revolutionary.

They were recordable, rewritable, spliceable, compact, mobile. In five episodes from around the world, Mixtape explores the impact the humble medium of the cassette had and continues to have today.