Narrator Leeman Kessler’s reading of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Unnamable is, at first, marred by an unnecessary and obtrusive sound bed. Then later it is ruined by a series of noises that interfere with Lovecraft’s words.
There’s a reason why sidewalks don’t have hurdles built into them. It’s the same reason why commercial audiobook companies don’t add bed music and sound effects to audiobooks. They get in the way.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Up the close and doun the stair,
But and ben wi’ Burke and Hare.
Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief,
Knox the boy that buys the beef.
—19th-century Edinburgh skipping rhyme
There may never have been a blacker comedy than this horrifying (and horrifyingly funny) audio drama about a pair of real life murderers. William Burke and William Hare apparently killed sixteen people in the early 19th century selling the corpses to an anatomist named Dr. Robert Knox.
This audio drama, which I found in the Moonlight Audio Theatre podcast feed, is well written, smartly acted, and full of ripe innuendo. Burke And Hare is clever and creepy. If you’ve seen the 1999 horror/comedy film Ravenous, also based on a true story, you know how disturbing this kind of mix can be.
Burke And Hare
By Terence Newman; Performed by a full cast
2 MP3 Files – Approx. 77 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: Moonlight Audio Theatre
Podcast: June 2013
This is the story of the infamous 19th Century Scottish Grave-robbers who weren’t Scottish and didn’t rob graves. They were actually Irish and as robbing graves to supply the needs of Edinburgh’s anatomists proved to be rather hard work, they just took to murdering people – usually their neighbours – for profit. In collaboration with their common-law wives they set about supplying corpses for Dr John Knox an eminent Scottish surgeon with considerable enthusiasm and gusto. The play follows their business exploits from small beginnings, through their days of peak output to the final reckoning – set against a world that is becoming recognisably modern.
Podcast feed: http://moonlightaudio.libsyn.com/rss
Starring:
Rob Crouch
Jonathan Clarkson
Genevieve Swallow
Holly McLay
Clive Greenwood
Neil McCormack
Adam Hall
Edited by: Joe Siddons
Directed by: Robert Valentine
Music by: Adam Bernstein
Posted by Jesse Willis
Knighttime is an “ongoing fantasy/humor adventure” audio drama series. Each week The Hazardous Players offer up a new chapter in the adventures of good Sir Cottington and Sir Bratwurst. They reluctantly stumble their way through the land of Udenland, while trying to avoid being eaten by any number of terrifying beasts. Along the way they meet several of the eccentric members of Udenland society who more often than not, prove a greater challenge than the terrifying beasts.
The voice acting in this show is actually pretty great, and there are some pretty fun jokes in there too.
All that Knighttime is missing, other than a blog feed, is a podcast feed! How can you have an audio drama series without a podcast feed? Crazy.
Quoth The Hazardous Players:
“We, The Hazardous Players, have been building a fantasy adventure where we plan on constructing multiply narratives using various media: writing, audio performance and art, (eventually video), to create a story that is an expanding fantasy for children and adults. Though we realize this is a nontraditional approach to literature, we do see that this could be a unique way to tell a story, harkening back to the time of episodic adventures on the radio.”
Here’s the first episode of their first adventure |MP3|
Check out the rest HERE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
The Radio Times is an invaluable resource for radio drama fans. I truly wish it was available at my local newstand here in Canada. I fuzzily recall something similar back in the 1980s for CBC Radio – but I can’t quite find anything online that matches that memory. Luckily a friend of the site, Roy, has a subscription to the U.K.’s Radio Times and he happily points us to these clippings. So here’s a clipping from next week’s BBC Radio 4 schedule…
Afternoon Play: Grey Expectations
By Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran; Performed by a full cast
1 Broadcast – Approx. 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: BBC Radio 4 / Afternoon Play
Broadcast: Monday 30th November @ 14:15-15:00
Grey Expectations is the third – but not necessarily the last – in a trilogy of stories written by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran.
It follows on from the surreal My Blue Heaven (2006) and My Blue Wedding (2007) which told the story of Graham Slater, a redundant and downtrodden mouse-pusher whose life was transformed when he was offered a job by his childhood friend Laz. However, Laz turned out to be imaginary, blue and furry and lived in a parallel universe.
In this story, Graham learns what happened to all the billions the international bankers lost during the credit crunch – they have turned up in Laz’s blue furry world. Nobody knows what to do with the mountain of waste paper, but can Graham just get rid of it?
Stars:
Stephen Mangan
Rebecca Front
Phyllida Law
Toby Longworth
[Thanks Roy]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Elliot Miller, one of the participants in last year’s SFFaudio Challenge has completed his audiobook project! Elliot recorded one of the funnest, and funniest SF novels of the 1950s:
The Pirates Of Ersatz by Murray Leinster!
I’m loving this novel’s playful storytelling, I find it very reminiscent of The Space Merchants.
First published in three successive 1959 issues of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. It was later republished as half of an Ace double novel under the title The Pirates Of Zan.
The Pirates Of Ersatz
By Murray Leinster; Read by Elliott Miller
12 Zipped MP3 Files or Podcast – Approx. 6 Hours 16 Minutes [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: LibriVox.org
Published: November 19, 2009
Bron is the offspring of infamous space pirates but instead of following in the family footsteps he decides to become an electronic engineer. Unfortunately, every time he tries to get out, something pulls him back in. This is a tongue-in-cheek space adventure along the lines of the Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. It was originally published in the FEB-APR issues of Astounding Science Fiction in 1959.
Podcast feed:
iTunes 1-Click |SUBSCRIBE|
[In addition to the reader, this audio book was produced by the good works of dusty, Betty M. and David Lawrence – Thanks so much folks!]
Posted by Jesse Willis
Nathaniel Tapley, of the In The Gloaming podcast, subtitled “Creepy Tales of Now” sez:
We’ve just started making a new monthly horror-comedy podcast that might be of interest to you and your readers. Called In The Gloaming it features some of Britain’s most exciting young comics in creepy tales of now…
The first episode, Dead Skinny, is out now. Have a listen |MP3| or get it via the podcast feed:
http://inthegloaming.podbean.com/feed/
So I listened to the first episode, it features some very silly (but very funny) jokes in the intro and lots of laugh-out-loud ridiculousness in the story proper. It’s very dark humour, dark and very funny. It’s actually quite creepy how much laughing I did. Body dysmorphic disorder probably shouldn’t be this funny. I’m going to subscribe.
Posted by Jesse Willis