Here's the radio shows I've listened to in the last fortnight.
Scrambled EGG: Nominally one of the "stand-up specials", instead Anna Leong Brophy and Emily Lloyd-Saini present their comedy double act, (with the addition of a handy Rebecca Boey as a third voice for scene setting), as more of a collection of sketches, going through their personal histories. In particular, the difficulties of being mixed-race, and the tension between needing to be "authentic" and the desire to fit-in.
It's an unusual way to do it, but I really like both it and the back and forth between all three of them. Doesn't dig very deep into sociology/psychology which is fair given the short length, but is probably one that would happily run longer.
The Pivot: Ah, pandemics - they're going to be the dominant theme in media for the next few years I suspect. As in The Pivot, in which a SEARS 25 (South East Asian Respiratory Syndrome of 2025) pandemic may or may not be about to happen, and politicians need to decide whether to panic about it or be somewhat blasé, due to associated trade agreements.
Of course, given that we've also had a year of politicians making money and generally taking advantage of the freedom of power, there's no small amount of political machinations in this. A decent surface level look at some of the issues in a family dynamic of one of those politicians.
Angst: With some similarities here to the (relatively) recent Murmurs, this is a science fiction anthology show, which also means the most obvious comparison is The Twilight Zone (though Black Mirror would perhaps be a little more on point). Five off half hour episodes, all of which take a contemporary trend, and push it out to a troublesome end.
These include professional twitter trolls, the Internet Of Things, plastic recycling, the immigration points system, and AI. I was curious enough to try and come up with equivalent parallels, and I can get a few, but top avoid spoiling them, I'll only list Ray Bradbury's 'A Piece of Wood'.
There's also a rather nice spin on the old anthology host style, in that here there's a single character who pops up in every story, Timor Greer. Hilariously evil.
Party's Over: Kept listening to this one, and it's growing on me. The most recent episode felt less stuffed of unnecessary references, and has leaned more heavily into the farce elements. That definitely helps make it more enjoyable.