News, Reviews, and Commentary on all forms of science fiction, fantasy, and horror audio. Audiobooks, audio drama, podcasts; we discuss all of it here. Mystery, crime, and noir audio are also fair game.
This is an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft short story, a very loose one, and the title is different. I think if you’ve read it you have a chance of identifying it, but if you haven’t you probably won’t.
19 Nocturne Boulevard – The View From Within
By Julie Hoverson; Adapted from a story by H.P. Lovecraft; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 30 Minutes [AUDIO DRAMA]
Podcaster: 19 Nocturne Boulevard
Podcast: November 15, 2010
Cast:
Richard … Philemon Vanderbeck
Edward … Bryan Hendrickson
Charles … Michael Coleman
Warren … Glen Hallstrom
Herbert … Carl Cubbedge
Auguste … Reynaud LeBoeuf
CBC Radio’s Ideas programme from August 19th, 2012 is entitled “Wired For Culture” and is a conversation with Professor Mark Pagel, the author of Wired For Culture: Origins Of The Human Social Mind. With host Paul Kennnedy the talk starts off discussing the differences between humans and apes (with non-human animals there is no accumulation of cultural technology or ideas). It’s an absolutely fascinating discussion. And it goes towards the relationship between ideas and copying of ideas – and hence copyright. Here’s the official description:
Human beings have a unique evolutionary history. We are at the mercy of neither biology nor luck. We survive by learning from each other. Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tells us humans are successful because we are “wired for culture.”
CBS Radio Mystery Theater ran an astounding 1,399 original episodes. Unlike early radio drama series, in which popular episodes were re-staged, sometimes with the exact same script, not one of the nearly 1,400 episodes of CBSRMT episodes was re-done.
And yet, they came pretty damn close once. Episode #0715, which first aired in 1977, is called The Guy de Maupassant Murders. It takes direct inspiration in plot and structure from a short story by Guy de Maupassant called The Diary Of A Madman.
And yet The Diary Of A Madman was itself adapted as episode three years earlier!
Having heard them both I prefer The Guy de Maupassant Murders. I think that’s because I heard it first. But the performance is more interesting too, perhaps because it stars Fred Gwynne, best known for his role as Herman Munster.
When I first heard Gwynne’s performance I thought he was off – that he had just been unprofessional that day – it sounded as if he was just reading the script for the first time while they were recording – but upon a second listening I noticed that the way he delivers the lines completely fits the character and his psychology.
Judge for yourself.
CBSRMT #0715 – The Guy de Maupassant Murders
By Sam Dann; Performed by a full cast
1 |MP3| – Approx. 45 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBS
Broadcast: September 26, 1977
Provider: CBSRMT.com The polymathic houskeeper for an aging bachelor judge follows the reports of a serial killer’s flagitious crimes with interest. The only clue is a note left on on each of the victims. It always reads “THOU SHALT KILL.”
I only know Phill Jupitus from his appearances on Stephen Fry’s, I want to say game show?, QI. From that I gathered he was a comedian, but apparently he’s also a fan of steampunk. In any case he’s the host of this one off “factual” BBC programme about the phenomenon. It’s entitled Mr Jupitus In The Age of Steampunk.
Here’s the description:
If you’ve ever encountered a person with flying goggles, clad in tweeds and clutching a mahogany laptop or brass smartphone on a chain, what’s the explanation? Phill Jupitus steps into an era where the 19th and 21st centuries charmingly collide, to investigate the time travelling cult known as Steampunk.
Travelling back to the steam-powered future, Phill discovers a cast of modern characters – engineers, scientists, writers, artists and inventors – taking their inspiration from the Victorian and Edwardian arts and sciences, and from the fiction of H.G. Wells.
“It’s still the early twenty-first century. The Victorian world, the Edwardian world carried on”, explains Ian Crichton aka Herr Doktor amongst an array of fantastical homemade devices: digital camera modified with rivets, brass-etched ray gun, steam pistol and a space helmet like that worn by Lionel Jeffries in The First Men on The Moon. “We’ve got steam-powered cars on the streets. We’ve got huge dirigibles flying to Japan”.
Steampunk speculates on an imaginary overlap between the 19th century and the present day. Phill investigates at a Steampunk convivial, The Houses of Parliament, on an x-ray ward, at a punk gig and in a shed in suburban Surrey.
With Dr Chandrika Nath from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology ; consultant radiologist Dr Adrian Thomas; comedian Andrew O’Neill; science fiction author, Adam Roberts and lecturer in 19th Century Literature, Dr Christine Ferguson.
Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Testbed Production for BBC Radio 4.
I got the MP3 version via a torrent listed over on RadioArchive.cc.
The Silver Tongued Devil, a Crazy Dog Audio Theatre production penned by the mighty Roger Gregg, has just been podcast on Radio Drama Revival Episode 294. Host Fred Greenhalgh, a protege of Gregg’s, describes it this way:
This saucy mockumentary tries to uncover a surprising Irish poetry sensation… while lampooning Irish culture, academia, mass hysteria, and maybe even a jab at poetry itself (aren’t all poets rich and sexy?
I first heard about The Silver Tongued Devil back in 2005 when it was reviewed as a segment of Gregg’s Diabolic Playhouse |READ OUR REVIEW|. Then, Scott described it as “an absolute treasure for fans of audio drama.”When I got the chance to hear it I completely concurred. Over the years since I posted about it’s twice more, HERE and HERE.
Here’s Scott’s description from 2005:
This entire piece is done like a radio documentary, NPR-style, complete with interviews of average people about the “Silver Tongued Devil”. The actors who did these segments were perfect! If I had listened to this on the radio without knowing that Crazy Dog had done it, I’d have thought it was news. Who is the “Silver Tongued Devil”? He’s an incredibly famous poet from Cork who has the god-like ability to make people swoon with his words. Again, the piece is multi-layered, achieving both hilarity and poignancy.”
19 Nocturne Boulevard – The View From Within
CBSRMT #0715 – The Guy de Maupassant Murders
Here’s Scott’s description from 2005: