The week in radio and podcasts: The Whisperer in Darkness; Slow Burn: Biggie and Tupac – review

The Whisperer in Darkness (Radio 4) | iPlayer
Slow Burn: Biggie and Tupac (Slate podcast)

Ooh, The Whisperer in Darkness began last week and I am all of a quiver. It’s the companion series to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, one of my absolute favourite shows of last year. In that series we met Matthew Heawood and Kennedy Fisher, the two hosts of Mystery Machine, a podcast about, yes, unsolved or unusual true-life mysteries. They followed up a story about a man who seemed to disappear from a locked room in a sanatorium, and that tale led them, twistily, to a strange and scary occult world, where strange and scary things happened. Fisher, in particular, had a very tough time…

Did I mention that none of this is real? Maybe I didn’t. Because the great enjoyment of both Charles Dexter and, now, The Whisperer is that they are fiction – drama – that seems to be fact. Both take the familiar format and aural style of murder-mystery podcasts – intrepid podcast-makers following a hunch, while telling us in real time what they’re up to and how they’re feeling – and use it to create a world we feel we know and understand. Then, into that familiarity, they insert something very unfamiliar indeed…

Both shows are devised, written and directed by Julian Simpson and are based on HP Lovecraft tales. I’ve never read either of the stories the series are based on, but you definitely don’t need to in order to enjoy yourself. I’d recommend that you listen with earphones though: much of the “what was that?” jumps and surprises come with the enveloping intimacy of the sound, the weird noises in your head. And you will jump. At one point, listening to the second episode, I suddenly stopped walking and exclaimed “No!” so loudly that the dog dropped whatever she’d picked up and made “I’m sorry” eyes.

I know I bang on about disliking audio drama a lot in this column, but it really has been stagey and moribund for years. This podcast is an example of how well it can be done. Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter, who play Heawood and Fisher, are completely natural, and every use of recorded material is believable. There is texture in the sound, which is properly recorded, whether a voice on an old-fashioned minicassette, the fizz and hiss of short wave or the crunch of leaves underfoot.

Three episodes have been released so far, and things are getting deeper and more convoluted. We’re in East Anglia, mostly, near Dunwich, wandering with Heawood and Fisher through forests, around suddenly abandoned houses, meeting too-nice-to-be-wholesome vicars, and strange women who talk in riddles. Everything seems to be leading back to elements of the first series too, so I would listen to that before you get into The Whisperer. Ooh, you’re in for a treat.

Another treat for you: the new Slow Burn podcast. This strand made its name with two series that examined past political, um, situations. The first concerned Nixon and Watergate, while the second centred on the Clinton years, especially the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Clinton’s impeachment. So you might expect Slow Burn’s third series to also be built around recent American political history. And it is, sort of. This one tells the tale of 90s rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, another real-life story that’s been revisited several times, often sloppily or sensationally. Slow Burn, which originates from Slate magazine, takes a different approach. It doesn’t overexplain, but just starts the story, often from a place you don’t expect. Series one began with Martha Mitchell, the wife of Nixon’s first attorney general. Series three starts with Tupac in trouble, various legal cases hanging over him. He goes to hang out at a recording studio…

This series is presented by Joel Anderson (the first two were hosted by Leon Neyfakh), and he has clearly done his research, interviewing those who were actually there when Tupac was on the medical trolley having been shot. The detail is what gets you: within minutes, you find out who he’s actually flipping the bird to in that picture. Another great podcast to transport you away from the smaller, sadder stories of today.

Three shows to help you sleep

Sleep Meditation Podcast
God, I love this podcast. Every episode is just a 30-minute loop of reassuring noises to help you drop off. So there’s Super Calm Ocean Waves, or Grandma’s Living Room (slight sound of a ticking clock), or Oscillating Fan Noise, or (a personal favourite) Purring Cat Sound. Listeners make requests, too, usually very specific, which gives the whole podcast a somewhat pervy “whatever turns you on” feel. So there’s Rain on a Car Roof With Windscreen Wipers and Slight Wet Road Noises (be warned: the windscreen wipers squeak). Zzzz.

Sleep Cove
Hosted by the relaxingly toned, slow-paced Christopher Fitton, this podcast offers what it calls sleep stories, such as Alice in Wonderland or Aladdin. Fitton reads these carefully, without much characterisation, over the kind of spacey background sounds that you might hear in the relaxation part of a yoga class. Other episodes offer guided sleep meditation or hypnosis, specifically designed for mental troubles such as overthinking, confidence and (duh) insomnia. Sleep Cove is fairly new, so there aren’t that many episodes, but it’s nice to hear a sleepy show hosted by someone English, rather than American.

99% Invisible
OK, so this one isn’t really conducive to sleep, as 99% Invisible is one of the most enthralling listens out there, but Roman Mars’s chocolate voice is just soooo gorgeous and warm that I can’t not mention it. 99% is the reason I first started getting into podcasts, and listening as you snuggle down makes you feel as though you’re expanding your knowledge of the world as you relax. Choose from hundreds of episodes. The most recent, about baby incubators, is excellent, and Mars is in it quite a lot.