The Madness of Chartrulean · Packhowl Media

An interview with creator H.M. Radcliff for "The First Episode Of"

July 19, 2023·45 min·4 clips

Radcliffe reveals the Madness of Chartrulean began during the pandemic as a way to ask whether humanity is worth saving, filtered through a messiah modeled on tech billionaires like Elon Musk.

Radcliffe opens with visible discomfort. He calls the interview personal, useful, and a little painful, while thanking Keith Timms for supporting audio drama creators. Before the conversation really starts, The Book Of Constellations gets framed as a down-to-earth sci-fi road trip. Then Timms and Radcliffe settle into the work of making audio drama, especially how elevated figures can still sound like people. Royalty does not turn into marble. Sertrillion, Yoba, and King Starbringer come through by temperament as much as title, with grumpiness, likability, and affability doing real character work. Radcliffe pushes against the easy corrupt-official pattern because he cannot write characters unless he can reach them with some empathy. That gives the discussion some bite. Power, in his view, does not wipe out vulnerability. It makes the writer pay closer attention to what gets projected onto a character. The interview then moves into fiction. A reunion scene between old friends lets the show's ceremonial language rise up, mixing auspicious occasions with uneasy intimacy. After that, the feed turns outward. The closing teaser for The Love Talker drops the royal tension and moves into folk horror: a churchyard below a cliff, then a shot that suddenly feels dangerous. It is a sharp turn. The episode starts with an anxious creator note and ends among mountains, unexplained death, and a launched project dated October 25th, 2023. Even so, the thread holds. Across interview, excerpt, and trailer, grand structures only matter when a flawed or vulnerable person is standing inside them.

As heard by us

A thoughtful behind-the-scenes conversation that keeps the characters feeling human and immediate.

H.M. Radcliffe and W. Keith Timms spend most of this conversation on the work of audio drama, with a close look at how to write characters who feel believable even when they are royalty, a chamberlain, or a villain.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want the craft talk behind a folk horror audio drama and the wider world around it too?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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