Worse than losing podcasts which are essentially just elevated discussion is the loss of shows possessive of a narrative, a distinct vision or world to impart. The shows coming from a greater ‘artistic’ perspective, that require more than just having comedians in a room. But these are just as easily lost, the higher production neccesities, the need to write the show and the requirement to keep up the standards all tell their toll as series continue. Such was the case with 118: Migration, a story of a world after the zombie almost apocalypse, but which was so much more than that. A hub of ideas contorted into an elusive, addictive and intermittently psychedelic tale, written by a combination of Will Ross, Christian Haunton, Aaron Sailors and Chris Wiig.
Will Ross, reading.
A drama is nothing without it’s writers, and thus it is to the credit of the quartet that the whole experience is so thoroughly intoxicating. Starting with an enviable piece of snappy exposition, the show seemed to arrive almost fully realised, leaping into the tale with enthusiasm, vigour and real ideas. The story wasn’t just limited to sole narrative though, instead ambitious enough to expand and describe a whole new existence, with whole episodes will just recount a day wherein the story is pushed forwards though greater knowledge and understanding of the world and how people have reacted to it’s changes rather than through pure narrative. This eye for crafting more than a story, to instead ‘write a universe’ is where I feel the podcast shows it’s heart most brutally. In truth, to define this as a ‘zombie apocalypse story’ would almost be an insult.
Christian Haunton, reading.
And this is without even mentioning the exquisite production, which creates a space so onerous, opaquely ominous and gloom-ridden that the whole piece drags this overbearing sense of oppression with it like a great wave. You truly feel like you’re inside someones head, drowned within their experiences and complexities, trials and tribulations. The sound adds such a depth and enrapturing complexity that only make the story more complete and utterly excellent.
Chris Wiig, speaking.
Jonas Waight takes the lead role and star turn in this majestic podcast, a complete character, manifesting the sort of viscous, fleshy and muscular sense of place that makes up the story, but also mirroring the distinct cracks that riddle it’s surface. Charged with both leading and holding together this beast of a story, his magic lay in his constant struggle with inner demons, fresh dangers always lurking and threatening to overwhelm him with each new episode. In praising Jonas as a character though, we must also praise the writer’s four, and in particular the hand in this vocal puppet: Chris Wiig. Wiig plays Waight’ with a wonderful melodiousness that verges fluidly between the monstrous, the broken and the desperate in a way that wonderfully mend the seams between character and vocal manifestation. To so perfectly voice this character of such internal and external struggle with the almost mocking amount of weight heaped onto his shoulders is one of the great triumphs of the show.
Aaron Sailors, rearing.
Yet this story never reached it’s end. In fact it only seemed to be reaching it’s middle. As is so often the case, a new series was heavily hinted at, but this seems to (as yet) have been in vain. And although hopefully it is being worked on somewhere somehow, the website is deafeningly silent on this front since March. Alas, one can only hope that the creators are brewing great plans, and can one day be afforded the design and space to grant us a third series of this majesty that had only really just begun to be explored.
You can find all the (current) fantastic episodes at www.19NocturneBoulevard.net, whilst bothering @WillRossWriter never did anyone any harm. The others would take more finding, and I tend to take this as indication that they don’t want to be found, so I’ll leave them be. Please enjoy, goodnight!