Speaker 1: And now Audio Theater Central.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome to Audio Theater Central. This is the show
that explores family friendly audio drama through news, reviews and interviews.
I'm your host, J D. Sutter, and this is episode
two zero six. Well, I've got a couple of reviews
coming up. First, we're going to talk about the Darkness
Duology from Heart Matters and then the Jungle Book from
Root and Twig Sounds. I've got some feedback from Michael
and Blake, and before we get into that, we've got
a bunch of audio drama updates to get to. Lots
of cool stuff coming up in this space to talk about.
But first I just want to say thank you to
everybody who came out to the World Audio Drama Day hangout.
It was a really great time just talking about audio
drama and it was really enjoyable. Now I do have
to apologize because the link that I sent out in
the newsletter, for some reason, it got broken in the
newsletter software. I copied it directly from Riverside, pasted it
in and didn't change anything, but somehow the link got broken,
and I don't know how many of you tried to
click it and join and were not able to. Some
people were able to figure out the link was missing,
like a slash or the colon after the HTTPS or
something like that. Somehow something got truncated there and so
it wasn't working properly. That was a bummer. But for
everybody that did show up, we had a great time.
And I think we had three different countries represented at
one point, so yeah, it was great time and we
will probably be doing some more of those at some
point in the future. All right, well, let's jump into
the updates.
Speaker 3: Water up the program to bring you a special report.
Speaker 4: And in other news tonight.
Speaker 5: A brief look at the headlines.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 7: They want exciting, fast piece news that's relevant and entertaining
like this.
Speaker 2: Just a quick reminder as always, if you have some
updates regarding a show that you're involved with or one
that you are just a fan of and you want
to let us know about, head over to PFM dot
link slash atc News and send us the information. Now,
if for some reason you can't get that form to work,
it does require you to be logged into a Google account,
so you can send attachments such as a trailer or
artwork or whatever. If you can't get that to work,
then you can always just email us, but preferably use
that form to get your information over to us. Well,
this time around, it looks like we only got one
recent release to talk about and then the rest of
these are going to be upcoming projects. So first from
Eternal Future Productions their second episode of the Chester and
Ralphie short audio drama series. These are so so fun.
This one is called Forest Fires and it is out
now available for purchase, and it's only two bucks and
it's a little bit longer than the first one, so
it's just fun, fun stuff. Head over to Eternal Future
Productions dot com and you can get your copy. Here's
the synopsis. Ralphie learns a valuable lesson in listening when
his frustration ignites a rather heated issue. This was written
and directed by Jonathan Cook with sound designed by Alicia Hanson,
and as in the previous one, Jonathan Cook plays Ralphie
and Chester and Alicia plays the young Bunny. So it's
about eight minutes long. Another fun installment in this, I
don't know, it's almost like an audio cartoon just with
the fun animal characters. So a lot of fun. So
that is out now now coming up also from Eternal
Future Productions. Episode two of Venture is in the post
production stage. Jonathan Cook was working on voicetrack editing and
now it's off to the sound designer Lee Stang, so
that should be coming soon if you missed it. Episode
one is out now, also at the EFP store, so
you can check that out at the link in the
show notes. By the way, it's also available on Dramafi
and their YouTube channel, but if you want to purchase it,
you'll have to go to their store. Now more news
from Eternal Future Productions, and that is on Robin Hood
Rising to Honor, which is their co production with LRT Media.
Season two is completely finished recording. That is, so all
the recording is done. This is a really really good show.
I really enjoyed season one, so they're making great progress
with season two. If you missed it, you can get
those episodes at the LRT Media or Eternal Feature Productions
stores and you can get digital or CD copies of
season one and of course definitely looking forward to season two.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 2: This next item is something that I'm quite excited about,
and that is BBC Radio is doing an audio version
of C. S. Lewis's Space Trilogy now I know this
is something well, I say, I know I've heard. I
haven't actually asked him directly, but I heard somewhere, and
I don't remember where, that Paul McCusker had said that
he would like to do these in audio drama, because,
of course he did the Chronicles of Narnia and C. S.
Lewis at War and the Screw Tape Letters. He was
involved in all of those projects for Focus on the
Family Radio theater. And these are interesting stories.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 2: I read the books just within the last handful of
years and they're very interesting. Obviously, they're completely different from
the Chronicles of Narnia. The books are Out of the
Silent Planet, Perilandra, and that Hideous Strength. Now, personally I
liked Out of the Silent Planet the best of the
three books. But BBC Radio is doing audio versions. Now,
this is going to be interesting. It's coming out in
March of twenty twenty five. But the listing I found
for this project on Audible says, featuring a reluctant hero's
extraordinary journey through the Cosmos. C. S. Lewis's classic trilogy
contains all the magic, invention, humor, and big ideas of
his Narnia novels thrilling, mystical, and evocative. It mixes theology
and mythology to tell the epic story of an interplanetary
struggle between good and evil. This audio collection includes Alex
Jennings's unabridged readings of Out of the Silent Planet and Perilandra,
and a stunning full cast adaptation of That Hideous Strength.
So the total run time is nearly sixteen hours on
all three of these. Now, I don't know exactly why
they're only doing an audio adaptation for one of them,
and the last one in the series especially, but I'll
take it. I'll take it. And you know, it's interesting
because a listener not long ago emailed in about a
project I think it was Sarah emailed us about a
project that her and some friends had done to adapt
a section of one of these books. I think it
was Out of the Silent Planet. But right after, you know,
very shortly after I get that email from her, then
I find this news about this BBC adaptation. So I'm
looking forward to hearing this. I wish they were doing
all three of them, but I have high hopes about
this project. So again, the fact that they're doing the
last one is kind of odd, but I'll take it.
If you're familiar with the Space Trilogy from C. S. Lewis,
I'm sure this is exciting news for you, and if
you're not, I would say go read them first and
then listen to these when they come out in March
of twenty twenty five. So link is in the show
notes if you want to pre order this, but in
any case, it's definitely what I'm looking forward to.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 2: Next up is faith Filled Stories. This is the show
from Austin Peache and the trailer for the next episode.
The upcoming episode called an Extraordinary Lunch, has been released
and sound design is close to completion. Early versions of
the music cues have been received and the production is
on track to be completed and released by the end
of this year twenty twenty four. So let's go ahead
and give a listen to the trailer for faith Filled
Stories and Extraordinary Lunch. I heard that teacher everyone who's
been talking about is outside best saying we certainly can't
give them all something to eat. There's got to be
at least five thousand men here. That boy over there
offered his lunch to Jesus at least we have some
food for Jesus to eat. There is enough for everyone.
Speaker 1: This is incredible perfect.
Speaker 7: You only brought a small lunch for two.
Speaker 3: There's not just enough.
Speaker 2: There's more than enough. Faith filled stories presents on extraordinary lunch.
Speaker 7: Nice. Nice.
Speaker 2: This is my first time hearing this, so this is
sort of like a trailer first impressions episode from backstage
for you here on the main show. But I recognized
a few voices there. Of course, Dwane Reffenberg as our
announcer for that show. Always great to hear his voice.
And I think I heard in there Jonathan Cook and
Christianna Thomas, Caleb Bresler, I think, And I'm not one sure,
but I think I heard Daniel Roth in there as well.
I may be wrong about that. I'm totally it's just
that one line there, but yeah, that sounds great. Obviously.
I think we can tell from that clip what Bible
story this is going to be, so looking forward to
that one coming hopefully by the end of this year.
Link is in the show notes. If you want to
check out that trailer you're on your own, or listen
to the previous episodes. Well, I mentioned Caleb Bresler a
moment ago, and he also reached out to let us
know about a new show that he's working on. It's
called He Vanished Below. He said, this is a mystery
thriller audio drama with creepy elements that is being produced
by Caleb Bresler and Craig Hart. This is intended for
an older audience than many shows in the family friendly
space such as Adventures in Odyssey, and is more along
the lines of the Father Gilbert series in terms of
the target audience. The initial script has been completed. Currently
we do not have a timeframe for release, but we
should be moving into casting relatively soon. So this sounds
really really interesting. The artwork looks really cool and it
definitely has a creepy vibe to it. And link is
in the show notes to the website where you can
go sign up to stay on top of this project.
They'll notify you when things are progressing and I'm assuming
when the episode is out. No word at this point
on distribution methods yet, but in any case, as I've
said before, I like seeing people do new things, and
content it's aimed at an older audience is always welcome
in my opinion, because there is plenty of stuff out
there for the really young ones and for older kids
and teens. So something that's like this aimed at adults,
I'm all for it. And we've recently talked about The
Jake Muller Adventures, which is definitely in that category. So
the more the merrier, I say, so I'm really excited
to hear more about this show. He vanished below, and
we go from a thriller mystery show to an adaptation
of classic literature. And this one is from Dramafi, a
brand new Drama PHI original, an adaptation of and Prejudice. Now,
I recently got to meet up with Elizabeth Hanson of
Drama PI and she told me a little bit of
the behind the scenes of this production. It's sounding really,
really cool. I'm really excited to hear this on myself.
And this is going to be a brand new six
part adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Dramafi partnered
with a UK theater company, Little Pixie Productions, so all
of the actors for these British characters are British actors
and it was written by Melissa Leilani Larson and directed
by Elizabeth Hanson. Elizabeth said that The show has a
stellar cast, including Shannie Wallace or Shaney Wallace, I apologize,
I don't know the proper pronunciation of that name, but
she was the star of the movie Oliver. So this
is a really really exciting You know, the BBC has
done an adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Lifehouse Theater
on the Air did one handful of years ago, but
that was a highly, highly truncated, condensed, abridged version of
that story. There's a lot more to this that they
couldn't pack into the short timeframe that they were going
for with their adaptation, and it's a great one, don't
get me wrong. But this is a brand new adaptation.
So I'm really excited to hear this. And the first
episode will be available on Drama Phi starting November nineteenth,
and new episodes will drop each week until the full
show has been released. So something cool to look forward
to on Drama Phi. Next up is from in Victim
Digital and this is regarding the Invicta Collective. Now, the
first episode of this, the pilot, was released I think
about a year ago now, and it was released as
a podcast to give people a chance to check out
what they were doing with this project. Now they have
launched a Kickstarter which is running until December first, so
they are trying to fund the rest of the season
of this show, The Invicted Collective. So what is the
Invicti Collective? You ask, if you haven't heard that episode,
here's a little teaser. What if the Tale of Gilgamesh
wasn't just simple fantasy? What if it was a story
carefully constructed to hide an ancient truth that the world
was never meant to discover. Our story, taking place in
the nineteen thirties, will follow Arthur Mohammad, Lola Bashir, and
a wide range of colorful characters as they seek to
unearth the shocking truth behind this ancient Mesopotamian mystery, all
while facing down a violent foe who seems to want
to stop their mission no matter the cost. Think Indiana
Jones meets the Strange Brigade, and you'll be close to
the pulp action style we're going for. For the twenty
five minutes a week that you put your headphones on
and join us story, you'll be immersed in an audio
drama adventure that will blow your mind and take you
to places you've only dreamed of. So obviously that sounds
pretty epic now, I think it was. In the last episode,
we talked about the Marona Grant Show, which is also
a production of in Victim Digital, and they're also going
to be kickstarting that. So they're using this model of
producing a pilot, an initial episode of a project, putting
it out there for free to give people a taste
of what they are capable of producing, and you can
make the decision based on that free episode whether or
not you want to back the project. So I think
this is a great way to, you know, kind of
test the market and see what people are interested in.
Now I know that this show sounds very interesting to me,
so I'm on board and I will be backing this project. Now,
I'm not telling you that you must or anything like that,
but I think you should go check it out. At
the very least, go listen into the episode, which is
linked up in the show notes, and see if that
sounds like something you're interested in. And then there's also
a link to the kickstarter project so you can go
back that. Now, this is an interesting thing too. If
they make their goal on this project, they have some
stretch goals with this Kickstarter that will then end up
funding the Marona Grant, so they may not even have
to do another campaign for that show. So I really
hope this is successful. And if this sounds like something
you would be interested in, please go check it out
and back it with your dollars. And our last item
is another upcoming audio drama, and that is a brand
new ish show from yours truly. So in January of
this year, I produced a micro audio drama called Another
Year Older, Another Year Wiser, and I got some really
great feedback on that problem and several people were asking
me what happens next with these characters, And it was
never my intention to turn it into a series, but
after hearing that from several different people on multiple occasions,
I decided to go ahead and give that a try.
So there is a link in the show notes to
a post on my website which explains more of the
behind the scenes of how I'm developing this show. But
that initial episode is now going to be the first
of a series called One Day in Aspen Creek, and
episode two is already in the works. It is called
Another Day, Another Dollar, and is going to be featuring
the one and only Phil Lawler, co creator of Adventures
and Odyssey I am super, super excited about that. And
Phil did an amazing job with his role in this,
and I'm excited to get this one out to you.
The goal is to have it out by the end
of November. Don't know if that's actually going to happen.
Life has been a little crazy for me lately and
things have been slowing me down. But that is the
goal to get it out by the end of November.
If not, it will definitely be out by the end
of this year. And again, this will be part of
this new series one day in Aspen Creek, as I
said a moment ago. If you want more information on
the development of this new series, links in the show notes.
Go check that out, and you can go ahead and
put in your email address to sign up to my
email notification list, so you'll know about the new episode
the moment it comes out, and it will be available
to stream on my website for free. All right, well,
let's move into the reviews.
Speaker 7: What do you think of our little plan?
Speaker 4: Your characters were weak, your dialogue was cliched, and you
didn't have much of a story.
Speaker 1: Wonderful everyone, We have a delightful show.
Speaker 2: It's the Michael A true genius to use symbolism in
that way.
Speaker 7: You may even get a standing of.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got two reviews for you in this episode,
and we're going to start off with one that is
a little bit more on the serious side, and then
we'll move into one that is a little bit lighter.
But first we're going to talk about the Darkness duology
from Heart Matters. Now, this is a really really interesting
audio drama concept. Now, I think there have been others
who have done something similar, where you explore multiple outcomes
of a story, such as things in Odyssey. I can't
remember the episode titles off the top of my head,
but you know where a character will explore possible outcomes
through one of WIT's envisions or something like that. But
this one is a very different approach to that sort
of idea, and that is where you take the same
story or the same circumstances that lead up to a story,
and then you explore both outcomes in different episodes. So
I'm probably not explaining this very well, but I'll try to.
I'll try to explain it a little bit better as
we get into it. If you have not heard this
audio drama yet, But before I go any further, I
just want to say at the outset, this one is
not one for kids. This is not for the little ones.
And that is not because it is bad content in
any way, but it is dealing with some very dark
and serious topics that are not for little ears. But
it is a message because we know that the audio
dramas that Heart Matters produces they do have a message
to them, and there is a purpose there is. I
know this term has a negative connotation most of the time,
but there is an agenda here, and I don't think
that's a bad thing in this case. But these topics
that are touched on are very very important for teens
and young adults in this era that we're living in,
and so I'm glad that somebody is addressing these sorts
of topics. But it's dark. It's not fun necessarily to
listen to, though I think it is handled in a
great way. I just wanted to make it clear from
the beginning that parents, this is one for you to
listen to and then maybe listen to with your older
teens if you think that it is applicable for them,
but not for the little ones. Okay, So the darkness
duology is just that it's a two part audio drama,
and each one explores a different story outcome. So story
outcome one is darkness consumed and story outcome two is
Darkness exposed. Now, even though they are exploring two different
outcomes from the same route or starting place, they do
not like retread a bunch of ground, which is one
thing that I was a little bit concerned about as
I was going in when I heard about the concept
of this audio drama. I was worried that, you know,
you would listen to part one and it's not even
accurate to call them part one in part two because
they are not concurrent, right, They're two different stories here,
but they both stem from the same event. But I
was concerned that I would listen to one of them
and then you know, you get to the end, and
then you go to the second one, and you're going
to retread a bunch of content before you get to
where the where the paths diverge, so to speak. But
that is not how it is handled. And I should
say at this point that it was written by Darby Kern.
And we know Darby is an excellent writer. He's skilled
at writing audio drama scripts. We know that from his
work on Lamplider Theater and The Extraordinary Adventures of G. A. Hinty,
and of course his own shows Jake Muller Adventures and others.
So I guess I should not have worried too much
about that. But it was done in a really, really
nice way. I thought the way that the story plays
out between the two different variations was done very well.
That said, when you go to listen to these, if
you haven't already, you will want to start with story
outcome number one, which is called Darkness Consumed. Now, between
these two episodes, the runtime is nearly an hour, so
just over fifty five minutes total, and these were released
in September of this year, twenty twenty four. As I mentioned,
both parts were written by Darby Kern, and these were
produced and directed by Austin Peachy with the executive producer
Christy Jardo, and music by Jared Depesqual and sound design
by Ezra Losa. Now, again, this was a unique approach
to telling a story with alternate endings, and I think
they did it very well. It was brilliantly written, and
I do have to say it is extremely sad everything
that is touched on in this in this two part dramatization.
It's heavy stuff. It's heavy stuff. I mean, it's not
dissimilar from some of the topics that are covered in
River Cross productions that we've talked about in the past.
It's tough subject matter, but the things that kids are
exposed to these days online and from their peers in school,
even it necessitates a frank approach to these topics, I believe.
And so these these touch on things such as sus
side and extortion and blackmail and kids sending not great
photos via instant messaging. So I'm trying to be careful
how I phrase think, because I know that there are
younger people who listen to this podcast, but I think
you get the gist of what I'm talking about here,
and again, these are topics that parents need to address
with their children. And also keep in mind that Hard
Matters is not just making audio dramas for churched people, right,
They are also coming at these topics in a way
that makes it approachable for unchurched people. And so I
think the way that they handled it is really really
well done in these audio dramas.
Speaker 7: Here.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk a little bit about the cast here. Now,
Andy Harvey is sort of like the main character. He's
the common thread that runs through both of these parts.
Even though the story is about a teen boy. Andy
Harvey plays this sheriff in this story and he is
really really good. And the teen boy I mentioned is
Branson Keeley and he's played by Devin Lewis, and his parents,
Roger and Beth, are played by Jonathan Cook and Alicia Hanson.
And so those are sort of our four main characters.
There are a lot of other supporting characters in this.
In fact, I think, if I'm not mistaken, I believe
this is probably one of the largest casts in a
Heart Matters production, at least ones that have been released
to date. There was quite a large cast, and there's
a lot of supporting characters. And I've noticed that's something
that I think is one of the things that Darby
does really well is incorporating because in real life a
little bit of a tangent here. As you're just going
through life, you know, you're running into people constantly. You're
interacting with the cashier at the grocery store, or the
teller at the bank, or even just walking down the street.
You might say hello to somebody that's walking past you,
So you're interacting with a lot of different people. Now
when you're writing an audio drama script. A lot of times,
at least I try to do this as a writer,
try to find a balance between super authentic and realistic
and a manageable cast. Right, So you know, every single
character you write, you have to find an actor for
that character, whether they're that cashier at the grocery store
who says two lines or not, You've got to find
somebody to voice that character. So I've noticed that Darby
writes a lot of characters in his stories. Like I
don't want to give any spoilers, but in Jake Muller
Adventure's Blood, there are a ton of just characters here
and there that are you know what we call in
the industry bit parts. They're a line or two here,
but they help with the realism of the story and
they help move the plot forward with a brief interaction
with this main character. And so again a little bit
of a tangent, but I picked up on that in
this story. There's a lot of little pieces here, and
it helps make this story feel very real, genuine and authentic.
So all of these other characters, you know, we have
Brandon's peers at school and school staff, and a couple
of fishermen in one scene and things like that. So
there's a lot of these characters, and there's a lot
of familiar names in the cat here that I think
you will probably be familiar with, such as Heidi Stewart
and Bethany Baldwin and Rose Beasley, and some well known
names like Amy Lilly and John Thornoff and Glenn Haskell.
So great, great cast. Everybody did really really well with
their parts. And so just to give you a little taste,
because I don't want to go into too much detail,
because I really don't want to spoil anything, because I
think this is a show that you need to really
just experience for yourself. And so let's go into the
summary of part one, Darkness Consumed.
Speaker 5: I want to look at you, boy. I can see
the lies, I can see the love and the sum
bright fields of joy, dark nights away in a story bed.
Speaker 3: I want to go with you, but I can't follow.
Speaker 4: So keep too, you.
Speaker 6: Keep to the road, and you'll find joy.
Speaker 2: The town of Roosevelt is in shock after the unexpected
death of local high schooler Brandon Keighley. Sheriff Madson goes
on an investigation to find out what really happened to him.
What he discovers will reveal some tragic secrets that will
affect the lives of the Kighleis and everyone around them.
Now that is the summary for Darkness Consumed, which is
story outcome number one. Now story outcome number two, Darkness Exposed.
The summary is as follows. Brandon Keeley is the hometown
hero after an incredible football game. However, his world starts
to crumble around him when he makes a mistake that
may affect his entire life. And a little bit of
a side note here, but I love that Heart Matters
has scripture versus for both of those parts that tie
into the things covered. And again some dark, heavy material here,
but so well done. The content and the topics and
themes covered are presented in such a good way that
I think even though it is it is point blank
like what is being talked about, it's done in a
palatable way, and I think they did a very good job.
The sound design is quite good. Kudos to Ezra Loosa.
He did a really good job with the sound design.
The music is super solid, like it feels really really nice.
If a bit minimal. It's not always at the front,
because with a story like this, you want the message
to be at the forefront. And I don't mean that
in a bad way. I mean want you don't want
anything to get in the way of the story here,
and the music does not do that. I have heard
some audio dramas where that is case, not anything that
Jared has composed, because he's a master at this, but
it is a bit minimal. It's not like a very
elaborate orchestral kind of thing. In fact, there is some
bonus content and interview with Jared talking about the process
of scoring this audio drama. It is really really interesting
and I think it's definitely worth a listen. It's only
about thirteen minutes. And speaking of bonus content, there's also
not just the scripture references that you can read to
help talk about some of these topics with your family,
but there's also discussion guides and those are very very
helpful as well. And in addition to the interview with
the composer, there's also another dozen minutes or so of
testimonials from cast and crew members which just talk about
the impact of the story and so all of that
bonus content is super cool. You know me, I'm a nerd.
I love the behind the scenes information about a production,
and so that kind of stuff is always going to
be high on my list. So as soon as I
finished listening to these I went and consumed all of
the bonus content as well, and it's fantastic. But I'm
not going to give specifics here, but technology and the
Internet in particular is a big part of what happens
in these stories, and so Jared used some tech elements
and I'm not going to give specifics here to help
inform his score and the way he wrote the music
for this production, and he goes into all of the
specifics of that in that bonus interview, and I found
it absolutely fascinating. If you've listened to the show for
any length of time, you know Jared is one of
my favorite composers, and so just hearing him talk a
little bit about his process on this show in particular
was really really cool. But there isn't a whole lot
more that I can say because I don't want to
give away too much, so this is going to be
a shorter review. But I think for adults, especially parents
and grandparents even I think this is something that you
should go listen to find out exactly what is going
on in the world of proliferation of mobile devices for
kids these days, and using this audio drama as a
way to inform yourself about what is going on. I
know that Darby Kerr did a lot of research into
this as he was writing this, and even though it's
covering some dark it's needed. I think it is needed
today and I think this would be a good way
to open up some conversations with your teen children about
some of the dangers that are out there. And I
appreciate what Heart Matters is doing in this space of
trying to tackle these sort of unsavory topics that nobody
really wants to talk about but are important to cover
in this world that we're living in. So I think
they did a fantastic job with it. It's not an
audio drama that you're gonna want to listen to over
and over again. It's definitely not, at least I don't
think it is. It's not one that I will go
back to over and over again. But it has a
purpose and it serves that purpose really well. And the
various elements of the production, the acting, sound design, music,
all come together and support this story, and I think
it is a valuable audio drama And I love I've
said this before. I love seeing people do things with
audio drama that is not common. It's not done all
the time. And so one, they're tackling topics that you
know are not fun to have to address, and they're
using the medium of audio drama and storytelling to broach
these subjects. And two, this really unique storytelling method of
looking at two different outcomes of a situation, and one
has a not great ending and one has a much
better ending. So even though I said it is extremely sad,
there is a happy outcome in one of these and
so it doesn't leave you with despair. It leaves you
with hope, and it leaves you with a depiction of
how some of these things can be combated or tackled
in a teen's life, and how they can overcome, move
past mistakes, and recover from some of these terrible situations.
I know I'm being very vague here, but I'm trying
to be careful about what I say here. I think
you get the gist of what is what I'm talking
about here, and I will be a little transparent here
and say that it took me a while to listen
to these because I knew that there was going to
be an element dealing with suicide in these stories. And
I have lost family members to suicide family members plural here,
and while those were not recent, one was just within
the last handful of years. And then this year twenty
twenty four, I lost to other people, not family members,
but people in my social circles to suicide as well,
and one was right before the release of this audio drama,
and I had to give it a little bit of
time before I could actually even listen to these. But again,
I think they did a really good job of making
sure to be straightforward with what they were talking about,
not sugarcoat things, but not dwell too long on those
dark moments. So again, kudos to Heart Matters for producing
this powerful audio drama Darkness Duology links in the show
notes as always to go ahead and check it out.
As with all of the Heart Matters audio dramas, you
can listen to them for free in their app and
all of the bonus content that I mentioned is also there.
And I definitely think it is a well produced audio
drama that is worth your time, especially if you have teens,
even if you have younger kids. Right now you can
get ahead of some of these topics. You inform yourself
now before your kids get to the age where they
might be faced with the topics that are covered here.
So again, Darkness Duology from Heart Matters, very well done
and as I said, link is in the show notes,
so you can go in and listen to this while
moving into our second review, something a little bit lighter,
and that is classic literature with a bunch of animal characters.
And I am really excited to talk about this because
we've talked about this over the years on this show,
and in recent years there has been a sort of
resurgence of interest in this type of production, and that
is what I call the audio drama audiobook hybrid. Now,
that is a production that's like what Sergent Family Productions
did with Wayfarer and with their Generations audio books. It's
a full cast, word for word narration of the audiobook,
but all of the dialogue is actually acted out and
there's a full sound design with effects and music in
the background. Now, that is what Graphic Audio produces. And
we've talked about their adaptation of the Gospel of Mark
and some of the other stuff that they have done.
It's a really cool way to take an audiobook to
the next level. Now, what I want to talk about
today is from a new Ish company called Root and
Twig Sounds and their production of The Jungle Book. They
call it a soundscape audiobook. Now, it is very, very
similar to the other productions that I just referenced. The
main difference is that all of the characters and the
narration is done by one voice. However, this one person
does amazing character voices, and that is Phil Draggish. He
does a fantastic, fantastic job. Many of the characters sound
completely different from one another and you would not even
know that it is the same man doing all of
these characters. So let's talk about the Jungle Book Soundscape audiobook.
It was released in twenty twenty three and it is
nearly six hours long, five hours and forty eight minutes long.
And here is the summary.
Speaker 6: In the water, the suns and the daughters, and we
hold our hearts.
Speaker 4: Before us, and we look to the distance and raise
our resistance in the face of the four sents gathered Aginsta's.
Speaker 6: Penwy dream and the Knight of a King and a
Kingdom which Joy writes the salts and the innocening will
we will carry the five?
Speaker 4: I will, I will carry the five.
Speaker 6: I'll carry the five for you.
Speaker 2: Step into the mythic world of Rudyard Kipling's classic The
Jungle Book through the immersive power of a soundscape audiobook
Meticulously crafted. The Root and Twig Sounds production crew is
proud to present this unique take on the timeless tale,
featuring captivating sound effects, epic original music, as well as
delightful voice acting and narration by Phil Dragish. Join us
listener for an unforgettable and unabridged journey with Magli Bagheera
Baloo and the treacherous Sheer Khan. Now, as I said,
all of the characters are played by Phil Dragish, And
as you heard in the summary, there is original music
composed by Alexander Amadeo. Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly, and
it was produced and directed by Phil Dragish and A.
Y Barker. Now, this is a mostly word for word
narration and dramatization of the original text by Rudyard Kipling,
written in eighteen ninety four. And I say mostly because
I was following along the audio production while reading the text,
and I did notice a few slight differences, a transposed
word here or there, and maybe where the original text
might use a word, you know, a couple of times
in succession, like in a bit of dialogue. They might
have dropped one of those out. But essentially it is
a word for word audio dramatization of the original novel.
Now I want to play a little sample so you
can get an idea of what this audiobook, this soundscape
audiobook sounds like. So let's take a listen to this
sample of root and Twig sounds the Jungle Book.
Speaker 3: The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the
cave for Sheer Khan's great square head and shoulders were
thrust into the entrance. Tobaki behind him was squeaking, and
I wend in there. Sher Khan does us great honor,
said father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. What
does sher Khan need.
Speaker 7: My quarry? Our man's scarf went and.
Speaker 3: Sway, said sher Khan.
Speaker 7: It's spars frog off, give it to them.
Speaker 3: Cha Khan had jumped at a woodcutter's campfire, as Father
Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of
his burned feet. But Father Wolf knew that the mouth
of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to
come in by, even where he was. Sher Khan's shoulders
and forepoles were cramped for want of room, as a
man's would be if he tried to fight in a beryl.
The wolves are a free people, said Father Wolf. They
take orders from the head of the pack, and not
from any striped cattle killer. The man's cub is ours
to kill, if.
Speaker 7: So you choose, and you notions till the fish chooser
by the booth that I kill. I just standing to
your dogs, tand for my fair torus, it is I
shell can oh speech.
Speaker 3: The tigers rolled down the cave with thunder. Another wolf
shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward her
eyes like two green rooms in the darkness, facing the
blazing eyes of sheer car.
Speaker 1: And it is I luxure the demon who answers the
mans comes mine locally, mine to me. He shall be killed,
he shall live, to run with the back and to
hunt with the back. And in the end, look, hundred
of little naked cubs, frog eater fish, can you shall
hunt me?
Speaker 7: Now?
Speaker 1: Get heads or by the sum board that I killed.
I eat no stuff cattle. Fact, I'm goings to thy mother,
beast of the jungle, lamer than ever the chemist to
do the world.
Speaker 3: Father Wolf looked on, amazed. He had almost forgotten the
days when he won Mother Wolf in a fair fight
from five other wolves, when she ran in the pack
and was not called the demon for compliments. Khan might
have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up
against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was
she had all the advantage of the ground and would
fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave,
mouth growling, and when he was clear, he shouted.
Speaker 7: He'll snog box in his own yard. We will see
what a packfussly to this fostering of man cobs. The
cover is mine and to my keys. He will come
in been oh, bush of thie.
Speaker 2: Oh it is so so good, It sounds so amazing.
And the interesting thing about this this is the first
production from this team under the brand of Root and Twig,
and it was funded by a Kickstarter project in the
spring of twenty twenty one, and this allowed them to
sort of get started, and they've done a couple of
shorter pieces since the release of The Jungle Book, and
I'm excited to see what else they can do, because,
as I mentioned, there's been a resurgence of interest in
this sort of format of these enhanced audiobooks where it's
a single narrator and then those audiobook audio drama hybrids
where you have a full cast, and I really like
these types of stories. I love straight audio drama, you know,
that's one of the storytelling mediums that I dearly, dearly love.
But I'm also a big fan of long form audiobooks.
And when you sort of merge those two together, you
get these enhanced ones where there's a single narrator and
sound effects and music, and there's a lot of that
kind of stuff out there, and then you have these
other ones where you have a full cast. And I
like all of this kind of stuff. So we've said
in the past that, yes, Audio Theater Central is primarily
about traditional regular audio drama, but occasionally, if there is
a one of these enhanced audio books or hybrids that
are really compelling, we'll talk about those as well, because
they are so closely related. And this is an example
of one that has done extremely, extremely well. So because
this was funded by a Kickstarter. They have a really
interesting introduction to set up the production and they sort
of frame the story with the whole team there around
a fireplace and introduce Phil as this storyteller and I
thought that was a really neat way to set up
the production. And when I was contacted by the team
about this show from the producer A. Y. Barker, he said,
our company, Root and Twig Sounds, is focused on creating
classic novel soundscape audiobooks spectacularly done for the modern ear.
Much of our inspiration comes from productions like Focus on
the Families Chronicles of Narnia adaptation and BBC's Lord of
the Rings adaptation, the one with Ian Holme as Frodo,
And if you have been around for any length of time,
you know I love both of those. The Radio Theater
Narnia's are fantastic. I love BBC's Lord of the Rings
so so good. And I will say that even though
it wasn't an official release, I said a moment ago
that The Jungle Book is the first official release from
Root and Twig. It is not the first production that
Phil has worked on, and that is because back he
produced a fan production of the Lord of the Rings
where he gave that whole story this same treatment where
he does all of the voices. Now it's not an
official release, so you can't purchase it anywhere. So I'm
glad to see that he sort of found his niche
in this world of audio storytelling, and he's taking those
skills and applying it to other texts that are in
the public domain that he can make. And so his
performances here are fantastic. His Bagheera and Sheir Khan especially,
and the voice that he does for Ka, I mean,
they are so so good. The music also in this
production is fantastic, so shout out to Alexander, really really
great music. Now, there is one thing to note if
you are only familiar with like the Disney version of
the Jungle Book story, some of the the pronunciations are
going to be different. They I think these might be
a little bit more British pronunciations, Like for the bear,
they say Balu instead of Blu, and Maugli instead of Mowgli,
which is you know, the disnification of that story. I
don't know how Kipling would have pronounced it, but those
are the pronunciations that they use for those characters. So
that is one difference you might notice now speaking of
Disney's jungle Book. Now, there is an audio drama version
of Disney's Jungle Book which is also quite good, and
they take audio from the animated feature for that audio version,
which is also linked in the show notes, So if
you are partial to that Disney version, there is an
audio edition of that, so it's really cool now. Also,
not that long ago, ATC contributor Joe Pearson did a
review of Audible's new exclusive audio drama adaptation of The
Jungle Book, which is a full cast, and that's also
really really well done, so link is in the show
notes to that. Also, BBC Radio has done an audio
drama adaptation of The Jungle Book, and if you are
familiar with the full book from Rudyard Kipling, you will
know that the Disney version cuts out a ton of
stuff and it only focuses on the characters of Mowgli
and the wolf pack and the tiger and the monkeys
and that kind of stuff. But the Jungle Book is
much more than just those characters. It's a whole collection
of all of these different stories with mostly animal characters,
and the Mogli stories are only part of it. So
this version or this production here from Root and Twig
produces the entire book, all of the stories, so it's
not just the Mowgli stuff. And one of the stories
which is included is the story of Ricky Ticky Taby
the Mongoose and Lifehouse Theater on the Air did an
adaptation and audio drama adaptation of Ricky Ticky Tabby several
years ago, which Robert Thacker ATC Contributor reviewed here on
our site as well. So links to all of these
adjacent productions are in the show notes if you want
to check those out. As well as while we're talking
about Rudyard Kipling, for our verses in Vox series, we
did an audio production of Rudyard Kipling's epic poem If
and it has an original score by Jared Dipesqual, so
that is also linked in the show notes. But I
wanted to mention all of these tangentially related productions because
what Kipling has done here with these stories, it's epic,
and there's all these different interpretations of them and they're
all great. They're all great, and so I wanted you
to be aware of all of those other versions and
what Root and Twig has done here is take the
entire source material and has just made it come alive,
right because they have all the elements of an audio
drama with the sound design and the music and the acting,
but it is the entire text of the book. So
this is another level. It's another layer of really cool
audio content. Again, it's almost six hours long, and it's
quite affordable as well, so they're not trying to charge
you an arm and a leg for this, even though
most six hour audiobooks are going to be quite expensive.
If you go to Audible or other audiobook outlets, which
I think you can get this there, so if you
want to go that route, you can, But I would
recommend going directly to the Root and Twig website and
getting it directly from them. You get the DRM free
files so you can put it on your own device,
and it is a really really cool Now, if I
were to get a little nitpicky, I would have preferred
a bit more differentiation between the narrator and Bagheera's dialogue
because that character voice was a little similar to the narrator. Now,
I know that in some adaptations with the Mowgli stories,
they often have Bagheera as sort of the narrator of
these tales. So I don't know if maybe that was
an intentional decision on Phil's part to try to make
that connection there, But for me just personally as a consumer,
I would have liked to have heard those differentiated just
a hair more, you know. But other than that, his
character voices are top notch, And in addition to acting
out all of the dialogue, they do put in some
vocal effects to help things and layer things and make
it sound like these are really animals and things like that.
So this projection is really really high quality. I really
enjoyed listening to this. Now, as I mentioned, this is
the entire collection of stories from the Kipling books, so
as I alluded to a moment ago, it has the
story of Ricky, Ticky Tavy and the seals, and the
story of the elephants and all of this stuff. So
there is a lot to enjoy about this production. For
me personally, I think the Moguli stories are the most compelling.
Now that is no reflection at all on Root and Twig.
That's just a reflection on Kipling, but and it's just
a personal preference as well. The rest of the stories
are fine, I just particularly enjoy the Moguli and Bagheera
and Blue stories, and I mentioned a moment ago, but
it Feil's voice for Co the Snake fantastic and sheer
Khan just extremely well done. And so as always, a
link is in the show notes to go check out
the production here, which I think would be a solid
investment for you. But also I'm just really looking forward
to hearing what else this team comes up with, because
the public domain is jam packed with some amazing stories.
And as I said, I'm a big consumer of audiobooks,
and I much prefer listening to unabridged audiobooks, and so
when there's an option to get an unabridged audiobook with
those extra layers of music and sound effects and acting,
most times I'm going to choose that over the traditional
single voice narrator without any of those other audio elements added,
because I just love how enriching and immersive this other
approach to audiobooks is. In fact, I mean we recently
had John Erickson from the Hanky Caut Dog series. I
mean those are enhanced audiobooks, right, I mean it's it's
a single narrator, but he's doing character voices as well
as having the layers of music and sound effects. So
this is similar obviously with a different audience in mind,
perhaps with classic literature versus you know, stories for kids,
but this is all in the same spectrum of this
audiobook to audio drama content. And so I'm loving what
I'm hearing from Root and Twig Sounds and I hope
they continue. So well done to this team for their
first production. And link is in the show notes if
you want to go check out Root and Twigs Soundscape
Audiobook of The Jungle Book.
Speaker 7: So what do you think of the show?
Speaker 4: Please leave your message after the zione Hi Audio Central.
Speaker 2: Hey guys, this is awesome preaching.
Speaker 1: How about j D Royan Andrew minumed Victoria. Now, yesterday
I received a letter from a big band. No time
to I've got emails another package for me today. No,
it's actually just your mail.
Speaker 7: Yes it is that.
Speaker 2: Time to get to the feedback from you, our community.
But before we do that, I did forget to mention
in the review there of The Jungle Book that Kipling's
original book, The Jungle Book also contains a handful of
poems throughout, so it's not just these stories, but there's
also some poetry, and these poems are written from the
perspective of various characters from the stories, like there's one
written from Mowgli's perspective, and so all of those are
included in this soundscape audiobook that Root and Twig Sounds
has produced. So I did neglect to mention that during
the review, so I wanted to make sure to let
you know about that. So it's really really cool. But
now let's get to the feedback. If you would like
to get in touch with us, feedback at audio central
dot com is the way to do that. Comment on
our show notes or send your text messages or a
voicemail to six two three six eight eight two seven
seven zero. Well, first up is an email from Michael C.
And he said, JD thanks for the Hank the cow
Dog recommendation. I listened to one book reading by John
Ericson and the Hank Audio Drama podcast. I noticed embedded
in the podcast was an advertisement with a song that
included references to HGB grocery store bags being brought in
by Sally May of the Hank series, and another with
Wallace the Buzzard talking about how HGB meets are so
fresh and he likes his meats to not be so fresh.
John Ericson voiced Wallace the Buzzard, and I love Wallace
and Junior the Buzzards, but I was thinking of your
idea of using partnerships for marketing through audio drama. The
aboved examples seemed related somewhat, but not exactly your idea,
and that is a really good point, Michael. I had
completely forgotten about that sponsorhip deal there from the Hank
podcast when I was talking about that idea in a
previous episode, but that is a good point. I don't
know the specifics. I didn't ask John about this, but
obviously AGB was involved in this in some way. I'm
assuming there was an exchange of money there for them
to integrate AGB into the story like that, And there
were definitely audio ads in the podcast as well. Now
I listened to this quite some time ago, and I
don't know if those are ad files that they have
switched out at all, or if they've updated them since then,
because it was a few years ago when that first
came out, so I don't know if those full on
advertisements are still a part of the files today, but
there were actual ads in them. At that time as
well aside from these integrations that you're talking about. But yeah,
that is a really great idea. I like that idea
of combining these things and it doesn't get in the
way of the story. I mean, that joke there with
the buzzard is hilarious. I mean, and it fits into
the storyline. So we don't have agb around here in Arizona,
at least not anywhere near where I live.
Speaker 7: I don't.
Speaker 2: I've not heard of any here. I think that is
a Texas grocery store chain, so that makes sense. The
stories are set on a ranch in Texas, so integrating
a regional a regional business like that makes a lot
of sense. So yeah, I would love to see more
things like that and innovative ways of getting funding for projects.
I think it's great. Back to Michael's email, he said,
please keep recommending and covering the hybrid audiobooks like the Bible.
John Fornoff is doing well. I will keep doing that,
as you just heard a moment ago in the review
of the Jungle Book. Back to the email, he says,
one more thing, what is the name of the children's
audio drama created by the man from Germany who died
of cancer. Well, that was the Billy Brown Audio Adventures,
and as you said, it was a children's audio drama.
He produced three episodes, one called Billy Brown and the
Mystery Package, Billy Brown and the Frog Tunnel, and Billy
Brown Goes Hiking, and they were like thirty to forty
minute episodes, a really well done, well acted, well produced
audio drama. Very very unfortunate that he passed away a
handful of years ago. I'm not exactly sure how to
pronounce his last name, but his name, his first name
was Yin's Yan's Humor, I think is how you say it.
But we had some conversations back in the day and
I was excited about what he was doing, and again
I thought they were very well done. The artwork for
them was really good. Unfortunately, since his passing, I've been
unable to find those anywhere online available. His website is
gone now. I'm assuming that the domain just ran out
and you know, nobody was paying for it, and the
other outlets which had digital versions are no longer available either.
So it's very unfortunate because I would love to find
those available somewhere, so I could, you know, promote them again.
I thought they were extremely well done. So if anybody
is listening and knows how to get in touch with
his family or anything like that, I would love to
get in touch with them and figure out how to
make these available if it's at all possible, because I
think they're worth listening to. And he was aiming them
at a very young age, from like three to seven
years old, as part of his tradition of growing up
in Germany. It was a very very common thing for
children to listen to audio dramas as they went to
bed at night, and it's just part of their culture,
he told me. And so I would love to see
these live on because he did such amazing work on these,
and I thought they were really fun shows. But again
that was called Billy Brown's Audio Adventures. And if you're
curious what, there is a post on our website which
talks all about them. Next up is an email from
Blake and he said, as you know, I am the
primary editor of Radio Theater Wiki and Hinty Alive Wiki.
But I wondered how many actors from the four major
series recorded in London with the Glassboro Players have actually
appeared in all four series. So I checked and double
checked all of the cast lists for all of the
London productions of Focus on the Family Radio Theater, Lamb
Ladder Theater, Heirloom Audio Is, The Extraordinary Adventures of Ga
Hinty and the Augustine Institute Radio Theater. And I made
sure I was careful in doing this so not to
miss any and of all the Glassboro players, meaning all
the British actors that have worked with Philip Glassboro on
family friendly audio drama. The following actors have appeared in
all four of the major series. Now there's quite a
list here, so I'm not going to read out all
of them here on the show, but they will be
in the show notes the entire list, and he continues,
which actors are you surprised did not make the list?
Do you think I missed anyone? Remember that many of
the Glassborough players have been on two or even three
of them. For example, my friend Heather hiher Forster has
only been in Focus on the Family Radio Theater. She
played the Mouse in Narnia's The Last Battle, Young Cosette
in Les Miss Arab and Mary Lennox in the Secret Garden.
She was in lamp Lader Theater, Jesse in a Peep
behind the Scenes and Air Theater Joan in the Victory
of Joan of Arc. So she was in three, but
she didn't make it into the fourth ones. She wasn't
in Hinty apparently, and he continues that some may have
used different names as well, like Heather used Lily Milton
and Zoe Thorne before using her legal name for the
first time in the Victory of Joan of Arc or
Stephen Webb, who played Eustace in the Chronicles of Narnia,
using the name Tom Alexander in his Heirloom Audio and
Air theater roles. So what do you think who surprised
you the most, both in who made the list and
who didn't appear in all four? Wow, it sounds like
he has done an extensive amount of research. I would
have never known about some of these actors using different names.
I would never know that those are the same people.
I haven't done that kind of research myself, So that
is fascinating to me, and I love it. I love
it that people are so passionate about this stuff that
they dig into the details like this, because I do
find it interesting. I just don't always have the time
to dig into things as much as I might like sometimes.
But again the full list of actors that he mentions
is in the show notes and it includes I'll just
mention a couple are here. Of course, Philip Sherlock, who
is Philip Lasporo, that's the name he uses for his
acting credits, John Reicse, Davis Finti, Williams, Peter Morton, Tao
Maggs just a few, and some of these people will
have also appeared in The Brinkman Adventures William Bradford a show,
so several of these people were in those as well,
So even though that wasn't recorded in London, many of
those actors were involved in that as well, so really
really cool interesting stuff. So that list is available if
you want to check it out and post in the
comments or let us know and we can pass it
on to Blake. But thank you so much to Blake
and Michael for sharing your feedback. Really really appreciate that.
Always really enjoy hearing from you. I mean I may
say that often, but I don't just say that to
say that, I really do mean it. I appreciate that
you take the time to send in feedback, ask questions,
open up a dialogue about family friendly audio drama and
that you're even listening to the show. I definitely appreciate that,
so thank you and keep your feedback coming.
Speaker 7: Well.
Speaker 2: The songs at the top of the review segments were
Carry the Fire and You'll Find Your Way, both by
Andrew Peterson from his twenty twelve album titled Light for
the Lost Bowie. Be sure to join the ATC Insiders,
which is our mailing list, so we can let you
know about cool stuff that we're up to, such as
the World Audio Drama Day hangout that we did not
long ago and things like that special episodes that are
coming up that we might want some feedback on that
kind of stuff. It's very infrequent. I don't bombarde your
email inbox, but it is nice to have a direct
connection to you so we can stay in touch in
between episodes when we need to, so be sure to join.
That link is at our website audiotheatercentral dot com and
you can add a slash contact to the end of
that to see all the ways to get in touch
with us. And of course, show notes for this episode
are at Audio Theatercentral dot com Slash two zero six.
I will see you next time. Thank you so much
for listening. Audio Theater Central is a production of Porchlit
Family Media. Our theme music was composed by Sam Avandanio.
The show is produced and edited by Yours Truly JD Setter,
and our website is audio Theatercentral dot com. Porklight Familymedia
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