Audio Drama Review: a new blog

SFFaudio News

Jack J. Ward, of The Sonic Society podcast points me toward this new blog that reviews audio drama.

Audio Drama ReviewIt’s called Audio Drama Review, and the reviewer blogs under the name “AudioDramaReviewer” – hey are you sensing a pattern here?

Audio Drama Review’s moto is:

“Reviews of Audio Drama, Radio Plays, old and new. Current companies and shows both professional and amateur.”

If you’re a fan of audio drama you should definitely check out this new blog!

Already reviewed are:

Icebox Radio Theater

Lightning Bolt Theater Of The Mind

Decoder Ring Theatre

Dream Realm Enterprises

Children Of The Gods

Gaia’s Voyages

My favourite part about this new blog is that the reviewer is taking the time to pointing out how much the website for each show sucks (or doesn’t). Making a decent show isn’t enough, it has to be accessible too!

Posted by Jesse Willis

CBC: A Christmas Carol: Redux

SFFaudio Online Audio

Ready, Set, Panic wrote, produced, and directed a one-hour radio special for CBC Radio that aired on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day 2009. They describe it as “a modern spin on the classic Scrooge tale, with 98.4% more comedy than the original.” Here is clip from the start of the program, featuring narrator Russell Thomas:

And here’s the podcast, just 302 days early for Xmas:

A Christmas Carol: ReduxA Christmas Carol: Redux
Loosely adapted from the story by Charles Dickens; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 54 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: CBC Radio
Podcast: January 6, 2010
A Christmas Carol: Redux” gives a 21st century, dark comedic spin to the Charles Dickens classic. Set in the present day, with a crumbling economy and skyrocketing unemployment, cheapskate Scrooge refuses to share his wealth with those less fortunate. Join our narrator, Russell Thomas, as he recounts this classic Christmas tale with visits by The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future (all while he battles his own ghost: The Ghost of Recent Divorce).

Podcast feed:

http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/xmascarolredux.xml

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis

P.S. CBC Radio is being very Scrooge-like by not releasing The Adventures Of Apocalypse Al!

The Wall Street Journal: Fred Greenhalgh’s Audio Dramas

Aural Noir: News

Today’s Wall Street Journal
, page A1 (the front page), has a well written article by Barry Newman on modern audio drama entitled: Return With Us to the Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear—Via the Internet. It is subtitled “Fred Greenhalgh’s Audio Dramas Hark Back To Radio Golden Era; It Sounds Like Snow” and thus you know the subject of the piece is Fred Greenhalgh (who we had as a guest on SFFaudio Podcast #039). It details Fred’s new project with the Mad Horse Theater Company, to create an audio drama production of the novel Open Season by Archer Mayor. You can read the entire article HERE. There’s also an accompanying video…

Here is the pilot episode of the Joe Gunther Open Season series |MP3|

And here’s a bit more video showcasing how it was made:

For more details visit the Final Rune website HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis

The Dimension X and X-Minus One of William Tenn

SFFaudio Online Audio

Here is a complete listing of all the William Tenn stories from both Dimension X and X-Minus One. Child’s Play doesn’t have any actual children in it, instead it is much more like a Philip K. Dick plot played for humor. Venus Is A Man’s World, on the other hand, features children protagonists. It’s a curious remnant of its era, a satire on gender equality. It also has a fun bit about naming your kids after Canadian provinces. The Discovery Of Mornial Matheway is a humorous time travel story with a clever wrinkle, mining the same material as Michael Moorcock’s Behold The Man and Robert A. Heinlein’s By His Bootstraps.

Dimension X was an NBC radio program broadcast from 1950 to 1951 in the USA. One episode was based on a story by William Tenn. The same script would be re-recorded four years later for X-Minus One.

Dimension XDimension X – Child’s Play
Based on the story by William Tenn; Adapted by George Lefferts; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 24 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: June 21, 1951
Provider: Archive.org
Sam Weber used to be a meek little man. But then one day he received a “Build-A-Man” kit from 100 years in the future – that changed a whole lot. First published in Astounding Science Fiction, March 1947.

X-Minus One was a half-hour science fiction radio series broadcast from 1955 to 1958 on NBC Radio stations in the USA. William Tenn had three of his stories picked out and turned into radio dramatizations.

X Minus 1X-Minus One – Child’s Play
Based on the story by William Tenn; Adapted by George Lefferts; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 23 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: October 20, 1955
Provider: Archive.org
Sam Weber used to be a meek little man. But then one day he received a “Build-A-Man” kit from 100 years in the future – that changed a whole lot. First published in Astounding Science Fiction, March 1947.

X Minus 1X-Minus One – Venus Is A Man’s World
Based on the story by William Tenn; Adapted by Arthur Small; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 22 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: February 6, 1957
Provider: Archive.org
War has severely decimated the Earth’s male population. Females now make all the rules men are subservient to women. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, July 1951.

X Minus 1X-Minus One – The Discovery Of Mornial Matheway
Based on the story by William Tenn; Adapted by Ernest Kinoy; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: NBC Radio
Broadcast: April 17, 1957
Provider: Archive.org
A time traveler from the future returns to the era of Morniel Mathaway, the greatest artist in history only to discovere that Mathaway is completely talentless. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1955.

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis AUDIO DRAMA

SFFaudio News

Focus On The Family, an “American evangelical tax-exempt non-profit organization” has been creating audio dramas that I’ve been completely ignoring (probably unjustly) for years.

It looks like they’ve got some terrific source material and some solid acting expertize for their most recent project, an audio dramatization of The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. More details |HERE|.

It may be that The Screwtape Letters was written as a response to Letters From The Earth by Mark Twain – certainly the two books take the epistolary form and are set in a Bangsian Fantasy world. Twain’s take was skeptical athiesm, Lewis’s was was rational apologetic. Call and response?

In the June 6, 1962 issue of The Christian Century published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question:

“What books did most to shape your vocational attitude and your philosophy of life?”

Here was C.S. Lewis’s list:

1. Phantastes, A Faerie Romance For Men And Women by George MacDonald |GUTENBERG|
2. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
3. The Aeneid by Virgil |LibriVox AUDIOBOOK|
4. The Temple: Sacred Poems And Private Ejaculations by George Herbert
5. The Prelude; Or, Growth Of A Poet’s Mind by William Wordsworth
6. The Idea Of The Holy by Rudolf Otto
7. The Consolation Of Philosophy by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius |GUTENBERG|
8. Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell |GUTENBERG (ABRIDGED VERSION)|
9. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams |GUTENBERG AUSTRALIA|
10. Theism and Humanism by Arthur James Balfour

Given Lewis’ stuggle with both Christiainity and atheism is it not curious that The Bible doesn’t show up on that list? Probably not. It may have been #11.

[via the Audiobook DJ blog]

Posted by Jesse Willis

BASAP’s OTR Swag Cast: Bold Venture and Big Trouble In Little China

SFFaudio Online Audio

BrokenSea Audio Presents: OTR Swag CastBill Hollweg, host of BrokenSea’s OTR Swag Cast, is a lover of all things radio drama. His show showcases all the cool old “old time radio” he wants to share with the world. Of the latest program, Bold Venture, that he’s added to his podcast Bill sez:

“it’s a FANTASTIC episode! Bogart and Bacall SMOLDER with sexual tension – plus death and mayhem and PULP THRILLS!!! brilliant SHOW!! Listen and find out how John Carpenter’s: Big Trouble in Little China (starring Kurt Russell) ties in with this classic Radio Drama!”

He had me at Big Trouble.

If you mention the greatest kung fu comedy fantasy movie of 1986 you’re bound to prick up my ears. If you then add in Bogart and Bacall I’m definitely gonna have to check that sucker out. And you know what? He’s right about Bold Venture being a terrific show. Here’s the rundown on OTR Swag Cast #49 |MP3|:

Tonight you will take a BOLD VENTURE with the AFRICAN QUEEN! PLUS- Mark Kalita pops in, driving the PORK CHOP EXPRESS, during the introduction to let us know what John Carpenter was thinking with his Big Trouble in Little China and why that VENTURE was so BOLD, and gives us some pearls of wisdom when one’s favorite head gets slammed against a barroom wall!

Bold VentureBold Venture stars:
Humphrey Bogart … Slate Shannon
Lauren Bacall … Sailor Duval
Jester Hairston … King Moses

Music by David Rose

Salty seadog Slate Shannon (Bogart) owns a Cuban hotel sheltering an assortment of treasure hunters, revolutionaries and other shady characters. With his sidekick and ward, the sultry Sailor Duval (Bacall), tagging along, he encounters modern-day pirates and other tough situations while navigating the waters around Havana. Aboard his boat, the Bold Venture, Slate and Sailor experience “adventure, intrigue, mystery and romance in the sultry settings of tropical Havana and the mysterious islands of the Caribbean.” Calypso singer King Moses (Jester Hairston) provides musical bridges by threading plot situations into the lyrics of his songs.

Podcast feed:

http://brokensea.com/otr/?feed=podcast

iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|

Posted by Jesse Willis