Mysterious hooded figures in the town square. Inexplicable lights in the sky. Local traffic updates. Welcome To Night Vale might be one of the most popular podcasts in the world, but everything about it remains resolutely odd. It's an unsettling radio drama masquerading as a local community news programme. Imagine the overwhelming cosmic dread of HP Lovecraft, served up in a style not entirely dissimilar to BBC Look North.
Hypnotic and darkly funny, Welcome To Night Vale belongs to a particular strain of American gothic that encompasses The Twilight Zone, Stephen King and Twin Peaks, with a bit of Tremors thrown in. The setting is a sleepy-yet-creepy desert town where every conspiracy theory is real, but it's not really a big deal; the residents just try to get on with things amid the mayhem and horror.
"We didn't want to make a podcast that sounded like all the other podcasts we were listening to," explains Joseph Fink who, along with Jeffrey Cranor, has written every episode since Welcome To Night Vale launched in June 2012.
Fink, Cranor and narrator Cecil Baldwin met through the puckish theatre troupe the New York Neo-Futurists, and some of that anarchic spirit has seeped into Night Vale, a place where a love of the bizarre meets a love of language. "We agreed early on that we could write whatever we wanted, it could be weird and poetic, but it needed to have strict continuity," says Fink. "If we say something happened in Night Vale then it happened. Because the world needs to be believable within itself, even if it's not believable at all compared to our world." So Khoshekh, the hovering male cat that gives birth to kittens with poisonous spine ridges, becomes a beloved recurring character, and Night Vale's alarming mythology grows – throbs, even – with each fortnightly instalment.
Written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. Music by Disparition.
Logo by Rob Wilson. Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents.
GUEST VOICES INCLUDE:
Jackson Publick as Hiram McDaniels
Molly Quinn as Fey
Retta as Old Woman Josie
Symphony Sanders as Tamika Flynn
Lauren Sharpe as Lauren Mallard
Wil Wheaton as Earl Harlan
Mara Wilson as the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home
HOW DO I LISTEN TO YOUR SHOW?
You can subscribe to this podcast or stream it online via any podcast app, including Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic,
Google Play, and Spotify.
You can also listen on our official Youtube channel, where we also have some behind the
scenes videos and bonus content.
WHERE DO I FIND THE MUSIC PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND OF THE PODCAST?
Disparition composed nearly all of the bed music for Night Vale. It can be downloaded at disparition.info. It is too complicated
to list every track we've used at every moment in every show, so we encourage you to explore his fine work and find the music on
your own.
CAN I SEND YOU MY IDEAS FOR YOUR SHOW?
Please don't. We are unable to use episode or line ideas from people, and it's easier to write the show without all that bouncing
around in our heads. Your idea is probably really good anyway, and you should use it in your own writing instead of making us look
good based on your work.
HOW DO I AUDITION TO BE A VOICE ACTOR ON WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE?
The answer, unfortunately, is you don't. We cast people very rarely, and we generally only do it when we already have an actor we
know in mind.
WHY DON’T YOU SELL [SPECIFIC ITEM OF MERCHANDISE] IN YOUR STORE?
We are always trying to come up with new items for our store, ones that are cool and fun and interesting
(but also ones that will sell enough to make up for the cost of creating them). Just know we’re always working on new things.
