The best interview podcasts: great in-depth entertaining chats

You may remember Adam Buxton from the Adam & Joe Show, and while the humour is still there, this is a more thoughtful show where Buxton just chats with interesting people in an informal, relaxed way.

You’ll have heard of most the guests, so the best way to enjoy is just to dip into the ones that interest you – but you’ll almost certainly be back for the ones you’ve not heard of once you’re done.

First launched under the title of Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, this award-winning series has become something of a cult favourite. Chatting with some of the biggest names in comedy, Richard Herring talks candidly with the likes of Stephen Fry, Steve Coogan, Russell Brand, Sarah Millican and David Mitchell to name but a few. With a catalogue amounting to 200+ episodes, this show shows no sign of ending.

Entertaining the masses, Marc Maron invites comedians, actors, directors, authors and musicians to his home for amazingly revealing conversations. Marc's great at probing, that's for sure. And with a catalogue of comprehensive questions ready and waiting, many listeners have never heard these guests interviewed in quite the same way.

TED Talks are a fantastic way of learning something new or seeing life from a new perspective, but they’re essentially well polished presentations with no external input.

The TED Interview podcast fixes that in the most obvious way: Chris Anderson, the Head of TED – a glorious title in so many ways – interviews the speakers and asks all the questions that the format of TED Talks simply doesn’t allow. As with the regular talks, you’re sure to learn something with each episode.

If immersive podcasts about the highs and highs of some of the biggest companies you know and love sound like your thing, then How I Built This With Guy Raz should be on your radar. Each episode features a different company or individual, breaking down their journey to the top and tracking their success from conception through to their success highs (and sometimes lows). It's truly addictive listening, particularly for the aspiring entrepreneurs out there.

Direct from her kitchen table, popstar Jessie Ware joins forces with her mother, chef extraordinaire Lennie, to entertain (and grill) various unwitting guests. Sitting across the table from guests including Gregg James and Bella Mackie, Carley Rae Jepsen and Yotam Ottolenghi, conversation was always destined to be chaotic Covering a host of topics - from dining etiquette and recipes to impromptu wedding proposals and incontinent pugs - this podcast really does guarantee oversharing.

Grief is a peculiar thing: nobody likes talking about it, but doing so is often hugely therapeutic. In Griefcast, actress and comedian Cariad Lloyd speaks to famous figures about the loss of their loved ones and what they learned about grief along the way.

It doesn’t sound hugely uplifting, and it certainly has a sombre tone, but as Lloyd has a tendency to pick funny guests, there’s more joy than you’d imagine. And if you’re currently suffering yourself, it’s wonderful to know that there are others in the same numb boat.

Love + Radio isn’t like anything else on this list… or like anything else you’ve listened to, most likely. You won’t have heard of any of the people being interviewed, nor will you hear much from the interviewer, barring occasional interjections.

What you get is people who have lived through extraordinary experiences explaining them through a monologue narrative, and often it won’t become clear why they’ve been picked for some time. Be they a registered sex offender (A Red Dot), an internet scammer (Jack and Ellen) or a black musician intent on befriending Ku Klux Klan members (The Silver Dollar), the monologues are powerful, intimate and absolutely enthralling.

We're obsessed with this one at the moment. The Kingcast is the work of film critics and Stephen King uber-fans Scott Wampler and Eric Vespe. Each week they bring in a guest to chat about King, whether it's about his books or the movies and shows based on his writing. The research is meticulous, the guests are top notch - even the biggest King nut will find something new here. If you were to go straight to an episode then the one with Glen Mazzara is essential. He was the showrunner for the ill-fated Dark Tower TV series that was meant for Amazon Prime Video. The episode is a perfect example of how to adapt such a sprawling epic for the small screen, as well as showcasing the inner workings of big-budget TV. Brilliant stuff.

James O'Brien's lastest podcast is still young. But having listened to all the episodes, we're pretty confident it’s virtually identical to O’Brien’s previous longform interview podcast – Unfiltered – which ran for 49 hour-long episodes beforehand.

And Unfiltered was very, very good. Deep interviews covering interesting figures’ lives, their beliefs and how they came to hold them. Guests include comedians, politicians, athletes and musicians, but the best are often the ones you haven’t heard of. John Amaechi on how he became the first Brit to crack the NBA despite not liking basketball is a particular highlight.

Comedian Matt Forde chats politics with up and coming Westminster politicians, such as Jess Phillips and James Cleverley, or titans of the recent past such as William Hague, Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair.

Mini episodes featuring journalists, academics and activists punctuate the main event: 90 minute live shows held each month in London with key political figures. Half an hour’s topical comedy gives way to the main interview, and Forde is a brilliant interrogator, being just friendly enough to coax out some surprising admissions and insights. It successfully makes politics funny, which is no mean feat in the current climate.

Channel 4 News’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy meets politicians and influential figures to discuss the things that matter to them the most.

From Rose McGowan on the #metoo movement to Michael Heseltine on what should happen with Brexit, the interesting and influential figures are given the space to talk candidly about the issues that they care about, and Guru-Murthy does just enough to challenge and provoke without derailing the flow.

Considerably more flippant, but no less enjoyable, than most is Walking the Dog: a podcast where journalist Emily Dean interviews celebrity guests on a brisk walk with their respective canine buddies.

It sounds like a gimmick, but surprisingly it’s not. There’s something about the act of dog walking that leads to a light and informal atmosphere to the interviews that other, more intense podcasts lack. It helps if you like dogs though, because chats frequently break down to discussions about what makes our four-legged friends so damned wonderful.