Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.Should you need evidence that fiction podcasts are no longer a niche interest, consider the megastars currently being tempted into the sound booth. Once a low-budget genre typically aired on late-night radio, audio fiction has now migrated to podcasts along with much of the big acting talent.The last month has brought two starry new fiction pods. The first, Tom Slick: Mystery Hunter, features Owen Wilson and Sissy Spacek and concerns “the most interesting man you’ve never heard of”. Slick (Wilson) is a scientist, explorer and alleged spy whose story unfurls via a series of recordings found in his daughter’s house long after his death. In the first episode we find his granddaughter, Liv (Schuyler Fisk), braving the bats in her mother Claire’s (Spacek) attic to retrieve the cassette tapes, after which the two of them crack open a bottle of wine and press play.From there, the drama splits into two timelines: one with Liv and Claire listening to the tapes and gasping at the contents, and the other featuring the voice of Slick as he narrates his own story, starting with his early years in Texas as the son of a self-made oil tycoon. Slick Sr’s fortune came during the Oklahoma oil boom of the 1910s and he left a $75mn fortune which allowed his son to pursue his ultimate dream: to find the Himalayan yeti.His early life was nothing if not eventful. When Slick was 14 his father died, meaning he was “forced to be a senior when all I knew was how to be his junior”. Several years later, his home was invaded by the notorious robber George “Machine Gun” Kelly, who took his stepfather hostage. Before turning his attention to the yeti in the late 1950s, he is said to have worked for the CIA chasing down fugitive Nazis.Wilson is well cast in the title role, an Indiana Jones-meets-Edmund Hillary figure bursting with charisma and derring-do, while Spacek is a more down-to-earth presence as the daughter posthumously getting to know her father. The soundscaping is excellent: ambitiously multi-layered and noisy in a way that is entirely fitting for a rollicking and bingeable action-adventure series.Unsinkable, another tale of heroism and adventure, comes similarly laden with A-listers, featuring Succession’s Brian Cox, John Malkovich and Thomas Brodie-Sangster. It is inspired by the true story of a ship, the San Demetrio, which made the perilous journey across the Atlantic during the second world war while dodging German battleships and U-boats. The sound design is impressive — this is a pod best heard on headphones — and the cast acquit themselves well. But the series is hamstrung by a script full of clichés and maddening exposition. podcasts.apple.com, wondery.com
