All of the words I said out loud for S01E43 of Audio Drama Debut, my podcast showcasing new audio drama, fiction and RPG trailers.
F/X - Fountain pen writing, and then being capped. Fire gently crackles in the background.
THE LIBRARIAN: Hello there. Welcome back to the Library of Audio Fiction. Come in and sit down. Don't worry, the chair is real, you don't have to pretend to sit.
Here, have a cup of tencha. Yes, there is also really green tea in the cup, so you don't have to imagine drinking, like you're a Lost Boy or similar.
I assume you're here for one of our dramas, books, stories, actual plays or a few other things, correct? Well, up front, I have to make it very clear that all of the shows we have are fiction. Any resemblance to real people or events is entirely coincidental.
You might think that warning people that shows in the audio fiction library are fictional is a bit over the top, but it's been an absolutely ridiculous week.
First, there was the bloke who thought that he could end up in a fantasy world by falling through a dimensional rift. He kept "tripping" over things and throwing himself down the back of the settees, while shouting "here comes the hero from another world". Eventually, he tried it near the window with the fire escape. We're getting sued now.
Actually, thinking about it there was two of those. Muppets.
And then there was the fool who would just not get out of the elevator. Constantly going up and down, looking for some mysterious floor that might contain, oh I don't know, Cthulhu or something.
Not as bad as over in the nonfiction library though. Their entire true crime section is full of amateurs re-enacting their favourite "scenes". They are very lucky they've not had a fatality yet, though I think it got pretty close with the incident with the chainsaw and the snake pit.
Still, I suppose unless you're going to be confused by very short snippets of entertainment, that's probably not a problem for you, right? Tell, you what, just to be on the safe side, here are some trailers for pretend things. None of these things are real. Okay? Sufficiently warned? Good.
First, welcome to Cobbler’s Gulch! Fair warning: As a visitor to Cobbler’s Gulch, there’s a better than even chance that you will encounter the following: pirates, circus folk, roughnecks, dwarves of various sizes and temperaments, dragon slayers, and a menagerie of monsters including goblins, tuxedo-wearing frogs, screaming scarecrows, witches, and many others that have yet to be properly named.
If the above list makes you feel uncomfortable, please know there will also be adventure, whimsy, magic, bold acts of derring-do, and lots and lots and lots of goats. So many goats.
[CLIP - Cobbler's Gulch]
THE LIBRARIAN: Then, DEM TIMES. A trouble maker in high school, Samuel finds himself on a plane heading to Ghana; a different country, needless to say, a different life. His formative years have begun.
The show is in the broader sense, a serialised teen odyssey, set within the closed-off microcosm of Ghanaian boarding school life. At its core, this is a cultural migration; a fish-out-of-water story stemming from an outsider’s identity crisis inside the Ghana educational ethos – where the school day begins before sunrise and ends after 9pm, and only after students have finished their homework (assuming chores have been completed too).
[CLIP - Dem Times]
THE LIBRARIAN: Then, this week's RPG, A Game Called Quest.
[CLIP - A Game Called Quest]
THE LIBRARIAN: And finally, Lost Souls Monologues, which features fictional monologues exploring the idea that we're all a little lost from time to time.
[CLIP - Lost Souls Monologues]
THE LIBRARIAN: And that's that. Don't forget, it's not actually possible for you to jump into a game of dungeons and dragons and become a wizard with a smartphone. No matter how cool that would be.
Also, please be aware of fake shows. Follow the library on twitter @AudioDramaDebut for updates on things that might be real.
Anyway, cheerio!