Uncharted with Hannah Fry

2024 Nominee - British Podcast Awards - Best Factual
2024 Nominee - ARIA awards - Best New Radio Show

Uncharted was a shock hit for Radio 4: none of us expected a show driven by stories about science and graphs to become a no. 1 chart topper!

We set out to create genuinely gripping tales of data and discovery. And it worked: both series 1 and series 2 spent time as the overall No. 1 podcast in the UK.

Listeners loved the short story format with its plot twists and turns, and relished the sense of insight that emerged from the science. We shared how horny soldiers drove a spike in the proportion of male births after the two world wars; how a mistake on an excel spreadsheet ended up justifying austerity measures; and how one nuns' extraordinary brain shed new insights on preventing dementia. We covered the Challenger disaster, the Shipman murders and more.

The Times called Uncharted “a series of little audio gems glinting with insight” and included us in their best podcasts of 2023.

I've linked to the first ep of the first series - The Returning Soldier - which investigates the strange phenomenon that a higher proportion of boys are born just after wars. It's follows an eccentric academic obsessed with unravelling the mystery.

Lovely sound design work by Jon Nicolls.