New Golf Ball Finder Army Tricks: Best Podcasts of the Week | TV and radio

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Explosive lies

Alice Levine tells this story of fraud in her usual sarcastic way. We meet Steve, a former copper man who helps his childhood best friend sell his advanced bomb detector, only to end up being arrested by detectives. It’s a brilliantly produced story of a hoax that fooled governments and armies, with the action moving from questionable Hong Kong banks to the Iraqi airports where it was installed as a security measure – with potentially deadly consequences. Alexey Duggins
Widely available, weekly episodes

mercy

Joanna Scanlan stars in this monologue-driven drama, written by Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw. She has the charm and warmth of a nurse forced into early retirement, and opens up about everything from her opinions on patients’ sexual appeal to why people should never stop smoking. Compelling listening. advertisement
audible

Ransom man

What if most of your private thoughts end up on the dark web? Radio 4’s Intrigue returns with this poignant story about a Finnish mental health platform – the ‘McDonald’s of Cure’ – being hacked, resulting in thousands of private patient records being made public. Jenny Kleiman revisits a daring hack and the shock it caused. Hannah J. Davis
Widely available, weekly episodes

The problem with…

Fitness influencer James Smith’s new podcast is a weekly interview with an expert about a different way to make everything as bad as you fear. Topics for two-hour episodes include the difficulties of life as Generation Z to the looming crisis in population size with demographer Paul Morland. The latter will require you to listen to his acerbic approach to climate catastrophe. advertisement
Widely available, weekly episodes

You look like me

“Since last season, the number of my unknown half-siblings has increased again.” Irish journalist Louise McLoughlin is back with a thoughtful podcast in which she talks to people who, like her, were conceived via a donor. This includes a father who kept a life-changing secret from his daughter for nearly 40 years. Holly Richardson
Widely available, weekly episodes