I blame Tiger King personally. Before that, I was just a casual podcast listener; a bit of Serial here, a bit of Radio 4 News Quiz there. But then we had what Singapore called our "circuit breaker" and like everyone with a Netflix account I binged Tiger King, which left me feeling the same as if I'd binged a bottle of vodka or a an entire Wall's Vienetta; billious.
I couldn't believe I'd wasted my declining brain cells on something so vapid and populist. After days of staring at screens had I really decided to fry my eyeballs further with this bilge? Enough! I went out for my government mandated walk and...stared at my phone a bit more.
I was looking for more "content", that stuff that fills every corner of the internet like foam insulation in your walls. I was done with TV, had lost my focus for reading and, much as I adore music, I work with it on all day and need a break at night. Little did I know at the time but these were the perfect circumstances for discovering audio drama...almost.
Like the sheep I clearly am I gad devoured Serial but failed to find anything else like it in the immediate aftermath so stopped looking. But I was desperate now, I needed that escapism that only a mystery whispered into my ears in the dark could provide. I turned, for the first time, to Audible, Amazon's audiobook platform.
I tried a couple of novels but they lacked the immersive element of Serial, the multiple voices in different soundscapes. They made me sleepy. Serial was written and hosted by a journalist, maybe that's what made the difference? I kept scrolling, looking for names I recognised. I found some of my favourite columnists; Caitlin Moran, Oliver Burkeman, Stuart Maconie, George Monbiot, they all had books out but not series. Then I found a listing for British journalist Jon Ronson who had a series call The Butterfly Effect.
Not strictly an audio drama, The Butterfly Effect nonetheless has strong dramatic elements as Jon describes in his blurb:
Welcome to The Butterfly Effect. It's sort of about porn, but it's about a lot of other things. It's sad, funny, moving and totally unlike some other nonfiction stories about porn - because it isn't judgmental or salacious. It's human and sweet and strange and lovely. It's a mystery story, an adventure. It's also, I think, a new way of telling a story. This season follows a single butterfly effect. The flap of the butterfly's wings is a boy in Brussels having an idea. His idea is how to get rich from giving the world free online porn. Over seven episodes I trace the consequences of this idea, from consequence through to consequence. If you keep going in this way, where might you end up? It turns out you end up in the most surprising and unexpected places.
Finally, something to give me the buzz of Serial! The Butterfly Effect is an investigative piece that plays like a mystery with Jon as the detective, following his nose into all sorts of scrapes. I binged it, I loved it, I wanted more. And there was more. The Butterfly Effect was produced in 2017 and Jon had followed it up in 2019 with another foray into porn called The Last Days of August about the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of porn star (they're always 'stars' aren't they?), August Aimes.
Having devoured these two series either on evening walks around my neighbourhood or lying in a dark air-conditioned room to escape Singapore's perma-heat, I was feeling refreshed and intrepid, ready to discover more, much as I had felt after hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit aged 11, which opened the door to punk for me. Serial had opened the door to audio drama and Jon had widened it but all their series' were still dramatisations of factual events, I had yet to go full fiction until...
Homecoming. Released before The Butterfly Effect but only just making it on to my radar, Homecoming caught my eye because of the calibre of the cast; Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, Amy Sedaris and David Cross - real Hollywood heavyweights. I didn't think they did audio but, like advertising, they do now and not just in Japan.
The first scripted show from Gimlet Media, Homecoming centers on a caseworker at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life. Presented in an enigmatic collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations. The result is an innovative, immersive audio experience, a mystery unfolding across the twelve episodes of Seasons One and Two.
Now an Amazon Prime Original series Homecoming has the writing, acting and sound design talent to completely immerse the listener in another reality and is a must-listen for anyone getting into audio drama.
I listened to Homecoming on Spotify, which I suddenly realised has an almost inexhaustible supply of audio drama (as does iTunes but I'm Android not iOS). This discovery led me down an inevitable click-hole of possibility in which I honed my taste for high-concept audio dramas including The Message & Life After, two stories set in the same universe from GE Podcast Theatre released in 2015 and 2016 (which may turn out to be vintage years for audio drama). At the time GE’s head of media innovation Alexa Christon said of audio drama:
“What we learned is that while the space is flooded with content, there still isn’t a defined space for this fictional, dramatic radio-style storytelling, and people are really enjoying it. We also learned that people feel this one-to-one relationship with their podcast hosts, and in this space, it’s almost literary, in that you set the stage, create this platform and listeners are imagining it with you, and that’s compelling and exciting.”
This was of course five years ago but, like with actual literature or even music, I still don't think anyone has colonised this space and nor should they. There are too many stories to tell and ways to tell l them for anyone to claim dominance.
Next up for me was Forest 404 a magnificent experiment from the BBC in which each episode is accompanied by two supporting episodes, one featuring just the music by pioneering electronic musician Bonobo and the other featuring the soundscapes from the episodes with expert zoological narration on what you're hearing (it's an eco-drama).
Forest 404 was British and I have to confess I find the accent easier on the ears so Tracks was a Godsend, blending high concept with human emotion better than anything I'd heard before. Written by Matthew Broughton this conspiracy thriller kept me hooked through nine episodes of the opening season and genuinely stopped me in my tracks during the final episode - I nearly came off my bike when the twist was revealed.
The second series is a little more sedate but I am in the midst of series three and a building in central London has been blown up and the protagonist is pregnant with a clone (I think), so we're back to vintage Tracks territory. With five series currently available, discovering Tracks was like discovering a new author with an extensive back catalogue to dive into, bliss.
And that brings you up to speed, I've listened to many more but these are the greatest hits, the shows that inspired me to move my own dramatic writing in a new direction. I'll be adding new reviews to this site as well as documenting the process of getting my own shows up and running. If you have any ideas or recommendations drop me a line and subscribe for more reports on the journey.
Neal