From War of the Worlds to Serial, few of us are strangers to scripted audio shows. However, over the last couple of years, especially 2016, podcasts have championed the cause of fiction storytelling with gusto, providing gems from several genres. Here’s our pick of the lot.
Homecoming
This high-strung psychological thriller is one of the first scripted podcasts to boast an A-list cast, which includes Oscar Isaac, Catherine Keener, David Schwimmer, David Cross and Amy Sedaris. Homecoming sees Isaac play a returned US soldier Walter, who is now seeking therapy at a government facility under the Homecoming project with psychiatrist Heidi (Keener). Suddenly the story moves four years forward and we find that Heidi is now a waitress with no ties to the government, but shadowy forces are around to pull her back in. With only six episodes, and all of them less than 30 minutes long, Gimlet Media’s Homecoming makes for an addictive and quick listen.
LifeAfter
A spiritual successor to the techno-horrors of TV show Black Mirror, LifeAfter chases grand ideas of life, death, loss, love and artificial intelligence. The 10-episode series sees an FBI agent use technology to stay in touch with his dead wife. Ross Barnes can’t stop listening to voice recordings of his dead wife on an app. But all of a sudden, she starts speaking to him through the app. The rest of the episodes follow the consequences of his obsession with staying with his wife, without turning his everyday life upside down.
Fruit
Issa Rae, the brilliant mind behind The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and the HBO series Insecure, created the podcast Fruit. A touching story that follows a football star, who identifies himself as only X, as he grapples with fitting into the hypermasculine world of sports, Fruit engages with topics such as sexuality, gender identity, friendships, stardom and the alpha world of football.
The Deep Vault
Sci-fi audio drama has never been this good. The Deep Vault is a serialised, seven-episode audio drama set in the almost-post-apocalyptic United States and follows a group of friends as they journey from the uninhabitable surface world into a mysterious underground bunker in search of safety, shelter, and answers to their past.
Limetown
A cross between X-Files, Fargo and Serial, Limetown sees host Lia Haddock, an investigative journalist, try to trace the mysterious occurrences of Limetown, and the reason behind the disappearance of all its townspeople, including her uncle. As the gripping story unfolds through the findings of her investigation, one could be forgiven for thinking that Limetown is pure non-fiction.
