Welcome to Nightvale

The surreal American Radio Drama/fake community show podcast Welcome to Nightvale launched a couple of years ago now and in that time has built up quite a cult following.

If you’ve never heard of Nightvale it’s kind of a cross between a David Lynch film, the twilight zone, the TV series Eureka … and a community radio show.

I’ve been a casual listener to the podcast’s for over a year now, although I’m about 6 months behind their release schedule, and I’ve generally really enjoyed listening to them. I like slightly surreal stuff like this and, of course, I love radio drama, especially ones that do something new with the genre.

So when I heard they were doing live shows, and bringing the tour to the UK I thought it would defiantly be worth checking out.

I had sampled some Radio-drama-as-stage-show at the Edinburgh Fringe back in August courtesy of the Wireless Theatre Company. (which you can read more about here) and found it a really enjoyable and amusing experience.  But, you think, isn’t it just people at microphones standing on a stage? That’s a bit dull right? Well in the examples I’ve seen, not at all! These guys are professional actors, professional actors used to making radio dramas, they know how to entertain an audience with just their voice.  And little touches like amusing facial expressions,  Seeing Spot FX created live, and in creative lighting all add to it.

Nightvale live started off well, introduced in a very stand-up comic way by the lady who’s voice is often heard at the beginning or end of the pod casts (sorry, I forget her name). Right from the off I found myself chuckling out loud to her witty one liners in her introduction. It was a good start. We were then treated to a fantastic music set from Mary Epworth. The regular Nightvale Podcast always has a music section in it, the weather (they announce that it’s time for the weather as any radio station would… and then music starts instead, just one of Nightvale’s many quirks) , but that’s just one song and, to get a good live artist along for one song for the live show would have possibly been a struggle and to fill a whole 2 hour live show you need to expand your format a bit from your usual 30 min podcast, so this 20 minute set was a nice addition to kick things off with (and of course, she came back for the weather later).

Then it’s in to the usual Nightvale weirdness, told to us, as always, by Cecil, the host of this fictional radio show from this fictional US city, our guide into it’s weird world and underworld.

If you don’t pay much attention to the podcasts while you’re listening you may miss that they do actually have plots running through them. There is usually some kind of event that is tracked through news updates and phone interviews with people on site. It escalates throughout the episode and is usually quite strange (Randomly appearing glow clouds, disappearing children, a mayoral race between a man who is “Literally a five-headed dragon” and “The faceless old woman that secretly lives in your house” … you get the drift). Not only this some plot points crop up In multiple episodes. Yes this strange little wonderful show even has story Arcs.

I won’t spoil the live episode too much (they will be releasing the audio I gather), but the main plot revolves around Liberians, and in Nightvale Liberians are not things you want to meet down a dark ally.

There were a lot of in-jokes, referencing back to previous episodes. Some I got, some I didn’t. but the ones I didn’t get didn’t spoil my enjoyment over all. I’m quite a casual night-vale listener. I’m about 6 months behind on the episodes and it’s just something I enjoy listening to. But there are some seriously dedicated fans of this show. A large number People at this event were dressed up in their own interpretations of the various characters (some costumes were really impressive as well… particularly glow clouds). Good on them, it’s great to be passionate about something but I don’t think you have to have that level of passion to have a good time at this show.

Sadly, due to train engineering works, I had to duck out early to avoid having to sit for hours on a replacement bus service so I still don’t know how the plot was wrapped up.

But then, not getting what the hell is going on is part of the fun of Nightvale anyway, so maybe I got the truest Nightvale experience by leaving anyway, 

Find out more about Welcome to Nightvale and where you can download the Podcast: Here