My New Obsession: 'Welcome to Night Vale'

So this is something a little different to my usual reviews and recaps. It's basically just an enthusiastic rant over something I've become hooked on lately and I guess (in a way), a recommendation also. A public service if you will.

My latest obsession? The quirky-ass podcast Welcome to Nightvale.

Podcasts are something I don't have a huge amount of experience with in general despite the odd dabble here and there, but last year, with the dawn of Serial, my interest was piqued. Like so many others, I was hooked instantly to the aural crack that was Sarah Koenig's weekly investigation into the 15-year old murder of a high school senior and the possible wrongful incarceration of her ex-boyfriend for the crime. I raved about it to anyone who would listen (which to be honest, wasn't many), and it is a daily struggle waiting for the next season to start later this year. If you haven't already experienced it then stop reading right now and go and check it out. But come back and finish reading after!

In any case, it wasn't just the content of the podcast which I found compelling (and boy is Serial compelling!), but the podcast format itself really appealed to me. I do a lot of walking and I like the idea of being able to consume a narrative whilst on the move (as I did with Serial). I used to often be found walking Belle-like through the city reading a book, which I didn't mind, but that brought with it all sorts of restrictions including the co-operation (or lack thereof) of the weather, having to tear my eyes away from the pages to perform inconvenient tasks such as crossing roads, and simply just having to hold the damned thing. With the podcast (and audio-books which I also listen to regularly on my travels), these problems don't exist (look mum, no hands!). I can avoid being hit by traffic and not be wrenched from the story. In this way, I guess you could say that Serial saved my life. Thank you Sarah Koenig.

These days are over...

So after Serial (which I will for sure be writing more about in the next few months in the run-up to the new season. Daily. Struggle.), I ventured out to see what else I'd been missing out on in the podcast world. As expected there is a LOT of content out there, but the one title that kept popping up again and again in lists of the best podcasts and the like was Welcome to Night Vale. A twice-monthly podcast in production since 2012, the show has racked up more than a few episodes so I was hesitant to start at first, being a stickler for starting at the beginning and all. This past week, I finally got around to listening however, and despite being late to the party, I definitely see what the hype is all about.

Simple in premise, but executed masterfully, the show is presented as a nightly community radio news show broadcast from the desert town of Night Vale. Sounds thrilling huh? But Night Vale isn't just an ordinary desert town. It's a town where all manner of supernatural phenomena takes place, where foreboding glow clouds hover, where hooded figures and five-headed dragons roam, where government conspiracies are a daily occurrence and most importantly, where all of this is as normal as normal can be. It's this mundane approach to the absurd which gives Night Vale it's uniquely macabre-yet-hilarious tone.

This is all channelled through our host Cecil Gershwin Palmer, whose deadpan delivery of the most outlandish scenarios and stories create such a delicious dissonance that you can't help but fall in love with. Taking the form of news bulletins, community announcements and station editorials, the show slowly builds a picture of this complex and mysterious town with subtly developing narrative threads woven into seemingly throwaway comments or announcements.

The show has a very surreal quality to it, equal parts laugh out loud and deeply unsettling, and whilst I mainly listen to it whilst walking from A to B, I have listened to the odd episode in bed in the dark and there's something vaguely chilling about certain elements. Don't get me wrong, you'll find yourself laughing more than anything, but the show definitely has a dark underbelly beneath all that quirk.

In fact it's this juxtaposition of the creepy with the outright bonkers which gives the show its edge. A personal favourite of mine is the regular 'weather update' which simply consists of a song by a different original artist each episode, many humorous in tone, but all worth a listen and all in-keeping with the wonderfully weird tone of the show.

I'll admit it's definitely not a show for everyone. I can see how some people might tune in and just not get it. And that's due in no small part to it's unique type of quirkiness. You'll either love the type of humour the show contains, or you won't. For those that enjoy the humour but find the show a little hard to get into, I can understand that too. I personally was hooked straight away, just by the pure otherness of the whole production, but it's definitely a slow build and it takes its time in constructing the world through small glimpses and random mentions of events and recurring characters. It's not the kind of show that will have you gasping to find out what happens next, there are no cliffhangers here (at least not as far as I've listened), but it leaves you with a peculiar sense of intrigue and wonder over what you've just listened to. And if you're anything like me, it'll also leave you with a giant smile on your face.

As much as I hate to compare things to each other, as I feel it's very limiting and can often portray something inaccurately, if I had to describe Welcome to Night Vale to the non-initiated I'd say it's like an uncanny cross between Eureka, Parks and Recreation, Twin Peaks and 50s sci-fi B-Movies, but all through the lens of under-funded community radio!

So if that sounds like something that you'd enjoy (and even if it doesn't, I haven't nearly done it justice), then give it a go. It's already racked up 71 episodes to date (with each episode ranging from around 20-25 minutes in length), but once you get hooked it's pretty easy to burn through them rather quickly. Or if you're like me, listen to them whilst carrying out a mundane or repetitive task. Like walking and crossing roads!