COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS: WEEK 5//TT22

Can we obliterate your fifth week blues? Probably not. Can we give you some hand-picked recommendations to liven up your week. Now that sounds more doable. Here are the committee’s top five light-hearted(-ish) picks.

Listen

Off Menu

Kicking it off with comedy. Each episode, professional funny humans James Acaster and Ed Gamble bring a famous guest into their imaginary restaurant to talk through their dream menu. The format is invariably comforting yet the idiosyncratic menu of each guest is refreshing and hilarious every time – who’d have thought that food could give such an insight into someone’s character?!

(You’re spoilt for choice with 150 episodes so check out Louis Theroux’s, Romesh Ranganathan’s and Jess Philips’ ones first.)

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times journalist Ezra Klein is an incredibly talented interviewer. He also gets spectacular guests on his show, from Barack Obama to Noam Chomsky. This podcast is perfect for when you’re in the mood for thought-provoking content but could do without a full-fledged brain explosion.

If you feel like you need something particularly uplifting this week, Ezra’s heart-warming conversation with the writer George Saunders is a great episode to start off with.

Watch

Art that Made Us

Do you ever dread the day that someone asks you about art and you have *nothing* to say except, ‘Yeah, the Mona Lisa’s pretty cool, am I right?’ Well, if you want to circumvent that particular nightmare, Art That Made Us is your knight in shining armour. This series tells the story of 1500 years of British art in easily digestible episodes. With engaging experts on eight different periods, you can pick and choose the bits of art history that spark your interest.

Munchies guide to

Another tasty recommendation for you this week. This show from Vice is pure escapism through food, transporting the viewer across the world by delving into different cuisines. It’s the perfect balance between informative and entertaining.

Read

The Onion and the ‘The Onion: 20 Years Later’ on Substack

The satirical newspaper, founded in 1988, has been a trailblazing and hugely influential force in the world of journalism. If you aren’t familiar with it then go and check it out. But whether you’re an avid Onion reader or not, The Onion: 20 Years Later on Substack is a fascinating way to look back at the Onion’s unique cultural and political commentary: “Each week, we review The Onion from exactly 20 years ago to laugh, see what holds up and what pop culture references we forgot about.