What have you been up to since we launched Season Two? Perhaps you’ve visited a relaxing health spa? Or you’ve been sipping hot chocolate in simulated apres ski lodge? Or maybe you’ve been practicing whelk husbandry?
If you’re looking for a fresh new experience, here are five audio drama podcast recommendations. (PS. You can also listen to this blog as a podcast episode on our feed.)
Just like Oblivity, all are science fiction-y. They are also either comedy, drama or an innovative mix of the two: dra-momedy.
If you love ensemble crews in space getting up to mischief, you’ll love Oz 9.
Here’s the backstory: In 2142, powerful corporation Gated Galaxies send a load of very rich people and very stupid into space. In Oz 9 we follow a few of the particularly not-so-smart ones as they bounce from crisis to catastrophe to disaster.
Oz 9 is one of the most fun and absurd shows out there. At the time of writing there are more than 100 episodes to listen to and each one packs in about a flillion original ideas and jokes. The team behind it are lovely, and thankfully much more capable than their characters!
Second up is an award-winning sci-fi comedy drama from Australia. In Night Terrace, Dr Anastasia Black’s plans for retirement are scuppered when her house spontaneously starts to travel through time and space. Together with uninvited houseguests, she faces aliens, monsters and cool timey wimey concepts!
Night Terrace is made by a production outfit called Splendid Chaps – who are lovely and make us want to go to Melbourne, crack open a tinny and force them to BBQ for us.
You can listen to episode one at their website nightterrace.com, or on Bandcamp. The rest you can buy as downloads, and rightly so – there are too many of us giving away good stuff for free. And what’s more, you can take 20% off the price of the first season of Night Terrace with the discount code ‘OBLIVITY’. Splendid indeed!
p.s., you’ll definitely recognise the legendary voice behind Dr Black if you’ve ever watched Neighbours – the soap, I mean. I don’t mean staring at the people next door through the curtains, which we all do. My curtains, I mean – not their curtains – not standing in their living room hiding behind their duck egg blue curtains which they got from John Lewis in Bicester in November last year hahaha.
Onto recommendation number three, and it’s Civilized, a dark comedy in which a group of far-from-competent explorers are stranded on an extremely hostile planet.
And they die.
A lot.
The really unique thing about Civilizedis that it’s improvised, which is quite frankly mind-blowing. The show is heaps of fun, as long as you consider characters melting in acid rain ‘fun’, which if you’re the sort of peculiar person who listens to a show like Oblivity, you probably do.
Civilizedis made by the Fable and Folly network, who have a ton of acclaimed storytelling podcasts on their books. And the creators are – and you’ll notice a thread running through these podcast recommendations – lovely, as well as being very generous with sharing advice and experience in their blog and website at fableandfolly.com
The Archivist in question is Sam, who has a pretty tedious job, until she finds an alien-bat-like creature inside her robot companion. Sam’s stakes build as she needs to keep the cute, curly-wurly munching creature hidden from the corporation she works for.
(We do love sinister corporations in sci fi don’t we?)
Unlike the others above, Downdoesn’t look to the stars so much as into the abyss. It follows the crew of research submarine Virgil on their expedition into a newly-discovered Antarctic trench.
It does not go well.
Downdefinitely leans more towards the drama end of the dramomedy scale. And it delivers really cool, surprising twists that keep you gripped, uncomfortable and anxious as you descend further and further into the dark.
Down is made by Definitely Human, who make loads of seriously high quality shows. And the creators are… actually they’re dreadful. Awful people. Honestly, the worst. Oh if only they weren’t so darned funny and talented.
So that’s five shows to subscribe to right this minute instead of lamenting the end of Oblivity Season Two. So stop moping about, and go and have fun with them!
