The Lovecraft Investigations | |
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Presentation | |
Genre | Horror podcast |
Created by | Julian Simpson |
Written by | Julian Simpson |
Directed by | Julian Simpson |
Voices | |
Language | British English |
Production | |
Production |
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No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 42 |
Publication | |
Original release | 2 January 2019 – 16 October 2023 |
Cited for | Best Fiction (silver) British Podcast Awards |
Provider | BBC Radio 4 |
Related | |
Website | www |
The Lovecraft Investigations is a mystery thriller/horror fiction podcast created, written and directed by Julian Simpson, based on several works of H. P. Lovecraft. Produced by Karen Rose and Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4, the podcast premiered on 2 January 2019, with further series published in November 2019, November 2020 and October 2023.
The story is a modernization of the original Lovecraft works, set around the same time the podcast aired and presented as a podcast-within-a-podcast in which the two hosts of the Mystery Machine, a true crime podcast investigating cases related to the occult and conspiracy theories, stumble upon a case hiding a much larger mystery. It stars Barnaby Kay and Jana Carpenter as the two podcasters, Matt Heawood and Kennedy Fisher, with Nicola Walker as Eleanor Peck, a specialist in myths and the occult who helps their investigations.
Each season of The Lovecraft Investigations is titled after, and mostly based on, one of Lovecraft's works, namely 1927's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward , 1930's The Whisperer in Darkness , 1931's The Shadow over Innsmouth , and 1936's The Haunter of the Dark while creating an overarching story; it is also set within Simpson's Pleasant Green Universe of audio dramas, with the character of Fisher notably appearing in Simpson's Who is Aldrich Kemp? between the third and fourth seasons of The Lovecraft Investigations. [1] [2]
The first season, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, follows Heawood and Fisher as they investigate the unexplained disappearance of Charles Dexter Ward, a young patient in a mental health facility in Rhode Island who vanished one day from a closed room, never to be seen again.
In The Whisperer in Darkness, the duo investigates Henry Akeley, an elderly man from Suffolk and former acquaintance of Eleanor Peck, a woman who helped them in the case of Charles Dexter Ward. Although Akeley contacted Peck claiming to have important things to share, upon arriving to his house, he is nowhere to be seen, and the clues and recordings he left behind are puzzling.
The third season, The Shadow over Innsmouth, the two investigate the family of Fisher, after their previous investigations lead them to believe the family might be connected to the conspiracies uncovered in the podcast. To do so, Heawood goes to Iraq, while Fisher goes to Innsmouth, New England.
The fourth season follows Fisher who, having searched for Heawood for three years, gets a chance to further explore the mysteries around Pleasant Green and Heawood's dissapearance in The Haunter of the Dark, a mystery tying back to Simpson's 2011 radio drama Bad Memories.
The series was written by Julian Simpson and is connected to his Pleasant Green Universe audio drama setting. [3] In particular, a version of The Department, a shadowy government agency monitoring supernatural threats, appears in both the Mythos trilogy of audio dramas and The Lovecraft Investigations; a bonus episode for the final episode of the series also directly mentions Marie Lairre, a character from Mythos. [4] Karen Rose produced all three of the initial series, with sound design by David Thomas and music by Tim Elsenburg. [2] The "Mystery Machine" characters continue in BBC Radio 4's 2022 Limelight series Who Is Aldrich Kemp?, [5] which continues the Pleasant Green storylines without a Lovecraft connection.
In developing the dramas, Simpson sought to modernize Lovecraft's stories while also tying in different folklore and actual unsolved mysteries. [6]
The trailer for The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was released in November 2018 with the full series being released in January 2019. In November 2019, a teaser was released for The Whisperer in Darkness followed the rest of the series in December. The following November, The Shadow Over Innsmouth was released along with three bonus episodes. In October 2023, the series returned with The Haunter in the Dark. [2]
Title | Episodes | Bonus Eps. | Original airing | Production Company |
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The Case of Charles Dexter Ward | 10 | — | January 2019 | Sweet Talk Productions for BBC Radio 4 |
The Whisperer in Darkness | 9 | 2 | November 2019 | |
The Shadow Over Innsmouth | 8 | 3 | November 2020 | |
The Haunter of the Dark | 10 | — | October 2023 | |
Critical reception for The Lovecraft Investigations has been positive. [7] The Verge called the first series "like Serial mixed with True Detective ", [8] and it received praise from The Spectator for its use of audio effects. [9]
In 2019, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward won silver honours for Best Fiction Podcast at the British Podcast Awards. [10] In 2020, the Lovecraft Investigations trilogy was among the top-ten most-listened-to podcasts/broadcasts on BBC Sounds. [3]
Arkham is a fictional city situated in Massachusetts. An integral part of the Lovecraft Country setting created by H. P. Lovecraft, Arkham is featured in many of his stories and those of other Cthulhu Mythos writers.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward is a short horror novel by American writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in early 1927, but not published during the author's lifetime. Set in Lovecraft's hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, it was first published in the May and July issues of Weird Tales in 1941; the first complete publication was in Arkham House's Beyond the Wall of Sleep collection (1943). It is included in the Library of America volume of Lovecraft's work.
The Shadow over Innsmouth is a horror novella by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written in November–December 1931. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization, and references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures, and invocations. The Shadow over Innsmouth is the only Lovecraft story that was published in book form during his lifetime.
"The Haunter of the Dark" is a horror short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft, written between 5–9 November 1935 and published in the December 1936 edition of Weird Tales. It was the last written of the author's known works, and is part of the Cthulhu Mythos. The epigraph to the story is the second stanza of Lovecraft's 1917 poem "Nemesis".
Lovecraft Country is a term coined for the New England setting used by H. P. Lovecraft in many of his weird fiction stories, which combines real and fictitious locations. This setting has been elaborated on by other writers working in the Cthulhu Mythos. The phrase was not in use during Lovecraft's own lifetime; it was coined by Keith Herber for the Lovecraftian role-playing game Call of Cthulhu.
Lovecraftian horror, also called "cosmic horror", or "eldritch horror" is a subgenre of horror fiction and weird fiction that emphasizes the horror of the unknowable and incomprehensible more than gore or other elements of shock. It is named after American author H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). His work emphasizes themes of cosmic dread, forbidden and dangerous knowledge, madness, non-human influences on humanity, religion and superstition, fate and inevitability, and the risks associated with scientific discoveries, which are now associated with Lovecraftian horror as a subgenre. The cosmic themes of Lovecraftian horror can also be found in other media, notably horror films, horror games, and comics.
"Dagon" is a short story by American author H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in July 1917 and is one of the first stories that Lovecraft wrote as an adult. It was first published in the November 1919 edition of The Vagrant. Dagon was later published in Weird Tales in October 1923. It is considered by many to be one of Lovecraft's most forward-looking stories.
The Deep Ones are creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The beings first appeared in Lovecraft's novella The Shadow over Innsmouth (1931), but were already hinted at in the early short story "Dagon". The Deep Ones are a race of intelligent ocean-dwelling creatures, approximately human-shaped but with a fishy appearance. The males would regularly mate with involuntary human females along the coast, creating societies of hybrids.
The Whisperer in Darkness is a 26,000-word novella by American writer H. P. Lovecraft. Written February–September 1930, it was first published in Weird Tales, August 1931. Similar to The Colour Out of Space (1927), it is a blend of horror and science fiction. Although it makes numerous references to the Cthulhu Mythos, the story is not a central part of the mythos, but reflects a shift in Lovecraft's writing at this time towards science fiction. The story also introduces the Mi-Go, an extraterrestrial race of fungoid creatures.
Robert McNair Price is an American New Testament scholar who argues in favor of the Christ myth theory – the claim that a historical Jesus did not exist. Price is the author of a number of books on biblical studies and the historicity of Jesus.
Lovecraft: A Look Behind the "Cthulhu Mythos" is a 1972 non-fiction book written by Lin Carter, published by Ballantine Books. The introduction notes that the book "does not purport to be a biography of H. P. Lovecraft", and instead presents it as "a history of the growth of the so-called Cthulhu Mythos."
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
Jana Carpenter is an American actress, singer and guitarist based in the UK. She has appeared in TV and radio series, episodes and films and is also a vocalist and guitarist in the countryfolk or harmony band Piefinger, and the Mercury Prize-nominated experimental rock band Sweet Billy Pilgrim.
The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society or HPLHS is the organization that hosts Cthulhu Lives!, a group of live-action roleplayers for the Cthulhu Live version of Call of Cthulhu. Founded in Colorado in 1984, it is now based in Glendale, California. Their motto is Ludo Fore Putavimus.
Barnaby Kay is an English actor who has played roles in television, stage, film and performance art. He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
This article provides a list of cultural references to the work of author H. P. Lovecraft. These references are collectively known as the Cthulhu Mythos. For works that are stylistically Lovecraftian, including comics and film adaptations influenced by Lovecraft, see Lovecraftian horror.
Julian Simpson is a British writer and director working in film, television and audio. He is best known for his radio plays for BBC Radio, most of which take place within his "Pleasant Green" universe with loose connections to each other, including The Lovecraft Investigations series, based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
Winter Tide is a 2017 alternate history, fantasy and horror novel by American science fiction and fantasy writer Ruthanna Emrys. It is Emrys' debut novel, and the second book in her three book Innsmouth Legacy series, the first being the novella, The Litany of Earth (2014). The series is set in the Cthulhu Mythos universe created by H. P. Lovecraft, and builds on Lovecraft's 1936 novella, "The Shadow over Innsmouth".
Deep Roots is a 2018 alternate history, fantasy and horror novel by American science fiction and fantasy writer Ruthanna Emrys. It is the third book in Emrys' three book Innsmouth Legacy series, after The Litany of Earth (2014) and Winter Tide (2017). The series is set in the Cthulhu Mythos universe created by H. P. Lovecraft, and builds on Lovecraft's 1936 novella, "The Shadow over Innsmouth".