2024: My Favourite Audio Dramas

I've been posting about my favourite 2024 things. In my last post I looked at theatrical productions while the whole series can be seen here. And now my attention turns to audio drama I enjoyed in that year, some of which is from further back in time.

Limelight: Money Gone (2024)

This begins with all the bank accounts in the world suddenly emptying, leaving everyone with only whatever cash they have on them. The multi-stranded narrative follows different characters over a chaotic few days, with their paths eventually coming together at the end (mostly). It's good but at times the intense drama jarred with the more slapstick comedy elements (although I did really like the out of her depth prime minister and her stupid aides), while the ending was a bit pat.

Listen here

Limelight: Exemplar (2022)

This sees Gina McKee playing a sonic investigator, who listens to audio recordings to investigate crimes and stuff. It is episodic, in that individual episodes are largely self-contained (and somewhat variable in quality). However, hints of an overarching story lurk in the background, with this exploding into view in the superb last episode that is alone worth the price of admission.

Listen here

The Foundation Trilogy (1973)

This is a vintage BBC radio adaptation of the Isaac Asimov novels, featuring voices you've probably heard on Doctor Who, I Claudius, and other TV programmes of the era. It suffers from the fundamental Foundation problem: the Foundationers are a shower of imperialist shits and the story only really becomes interesting when The Mule shows up to kick their ass. But it's well done and in particular The Mule twisteroo is very enjoyable. The bits with the Encyclopedia Galactica voice are also amusing as a clear influence on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Listen here and here.

Limelight: There’s Something I Need to Tell You (2023)

While on holidays with his new girlfriend in Dubai a man meets some Russian guy in a bar, who offers him ten grand to mind an envelope for a few hours. In a situation like that there is a right choice and a wrong choice to be made, but let's face it, it is making bad choices that drives narrative. And I know, jaded cynics might well feel that the setup here is a bit hokey but I assure readers that this drama manages to ratchet tension up to an unbearable level.

Listen here.

The Specialist (2024)

This superb drama from the ever-reliable Matthew Broughton tells of a doctor and her brother who move to an isolated Welsh community where the recently deceased previous doctor had a somewhat cavalier approach to medical ethics, scientific experimentation, and doctor-patient relationships.

Listen here.

Limelight: The Incident at Ong's Hat (2023)

BBC audio dramas are typically set in Wales, but this moves the action to the United States. Jon Frechette and Todd Luoto have created a faux documentary about some weird stuff that is actually a real internet conspiracy except that was made up too by some japester (OR WAS IT?). The faux documentary format working very well, giving things a disconcerting and strange ambience.

Listen here.

Limelight: Spores (2023)

Written by Marietta Kirkbride, this is a split narrative in which a woman in the present day is being interviewed by someone (a journalist? a psychiatrist? a scientist?) about past events, with the other strand being flashbacks to those past events. And in the past she describes working as a social worker (in Wales) and seeing a strange mould appearing first in a client's home and then her own. But somehow only she is able to see the mould. It wobbles slightly in the middle but overall this is a deeply unnerving and my audio highlight of the last year.

Listen here.