After my podcast resolution two years ago, I have to admit two things. One, despite all my original doubts, I am hooked on this form of entertainment. And two, I am very picky. I’ve tried a bunch and stuck with only a few, which often leaves me wanting to listen to podcasts and not having anything to try. I’m always on the lookout for a podcast to suit me. 
The other day, fellow Spec Chicer and horror writer extraordinaire, Gemma Files, mentioned on Facebook a podcast called The Whisperer in Darkness. It sounded awesome. And it was from the BBC4, so I made the assumption that the production values would be excellent.
It turns out that The Whisperer in Darkness is sort of a sequel and that the first season is a reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. I was really curious at this point. Lovecraft and a modern podcast? So I decided to start at the beginning, which turned out to be essential.
Here lies the usual Lovecraft disclaimer. His influence on the SF/F field is outsized and deservedly so. But his writing is also full of misogynistic and racist tropes, which makes them painful to read. Many current writers cope with this by reimagining his works, usually to great effect.
So how did The Case of Charles Dexter Ward do? Did Lovecraft-influenced stories work in podcast form?
Absolutely!
I binged the podcast, consuming the ten episodes that make up the first season in two days. The writer/director, Julian Simpson, modernized the setting and shifted the POV to two podcasters running a show called The Mystery Machine.
As I recall, in the original novel which I read years ago, the gist is: Dr. Willet, narrator and alienist to the Charles Dexter Ward of the title, finds that his long-time patient has made some terrible, life-changing mistakes. CDW has delved into the occult and discovered that he is related to an 18th century “wizard,” Joseph Curwen; necromancy and terrible experiments and rites follow, culminating with Curwen returning from the dead, eclipsing CDW’s mind and taking his place. Mind you, this is not a particularly subtle change: Curwen’s presence rearranges CDW’s appearance to match his own. The gig is up and Dr. Willet destroys him.
There’s so much creeping unease to unpack there about identity and biological destiny and setting yourself on a course that you know will kill you. And that’s on top of the overt horror of necromantic experiments, grave-robbing, shambling monsters, and a cannibalistic series of attacks on local citizens. “Must have it red!”
The podcast takes all these elements and mixes them around. Familiar characters take on new roles. New and female characters are added. Extra heirs to Curwen are added to keep the threat living: after all, the podcasters (Matt Heawood and Kennedy Fisher) arrive at the story after Willit has dealt with CDW. Lovecraft’s stories, for all that they frequently deal with the cosmos, have a certain tightness about them. There’s usually a small cast in a narrow setting. This podcast expands the world and the characters to really good effect.
It’s really smoothly done and highly entertaining. The voice actors — Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter — are first rate, instantly engaging and interesting. The sound mixing is really great. There are a lot of strange sounds and music and it always felt quite clear what was going on. In the end, I’ll only fault them on two things.
First, they trade the horror of your identity being eclipsed by your mad ancestor/eternal sorcerer for more overt horrors — tunnels full of monsters, mysterious attacks, that sort of thing. Don’t get me wrong: there is something compelling and terrible about listening to Fisher discover old Curwen’s secret tunnels, making the decisions that only an idiot would go down there alone, then end up forced to go down there alone, lost and wandering in the darkness underground. And to end up not precisely alone….
As a side note, what is it about tunnels that draws our horrified imagination? A tunnel is such a useful thing! Humans have used them forever, yet they definitely have a whiff of “oh hell no, creepy!” about them. Is it simply being under the earth? A fear of being buried alive stirring in us? Or is it the darkness? By default, there are no windows in a tunnel. Or is it just that tunnels have something secretive encoded into their very nature? A way to get from one place to another, unseen, unscrutinized, unsupervised… It seems like tunnels shouldn’t be this creepy, yet they are ALWAYS creepy.
So while I’m complaining that the horror of this podcast is more overt than the myriad horrors in the novel, the podcast is definitely not lacking in “raise the hairs on the back of your neck” moments.
The second thing that bothered me is that the ending tended too much toward the classic, yet irritating, ambiguity that often comes bundled with shows like The X-Files or Lost or anything where the premise is more evocative than the discoveries. Here, despite their best efforts, investigators Heawood and Fisher never nail down anything to say “oh yes, this is supernatural” and not just a matter of crazy people believing crazy things. They uncover a vast conspiracy, complete with a betrayal that felt really random.
And because underpinning the whole story is Lovecraft’s standard “unspeakable horrors,” as matters become more desperate, they also become more vague; more about flailing and wailing than precise explanations. So that bugged me.
Also, the end of the first season ends on a Limetown-style cliffhanger. I didn’t find it irritating, but that’s partly because season two was already complete.
Overall though, I really enjoyed this podcast. I liked it well enough that I immediately dove into the sequel, The Whisperer in Darkness. Though I’m late to the party, I’d highly recommend this series for anyone who likes lite-horror podcasts, or the X-Files, or Limetown.
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