Closing the Book: A Timefold Story: The New Student Podcast, interviewed by Jasper Evans

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Crackpot Soprano is a group of six Falmouth University students who have created a podcast for their 3rd year collaborative project. The group includes Samuel Goward, Will Kevern, Joseph Lotter, Eleanor Rogers, Susi Warner and Freja Wright. 

Their podcast, titled Closing the Book: A Timefold Story, is co-written and produced by the whole group; each member was responsible for writing their own episode in the six-part first season. Jasper Evans interviewed the group to uncover the inspiration behind the exciting project. 

Q. What inspired this podcast project? Why this? Why now?  

You look at the state of the world, even before COVID-19, and there’s a lot of fear. We want to tackle that. Science fiction has allowed writers and creators unlimited scope to tackle real-world problems of their day; Closing the Book is no different. We’re dealing with dystopia, government surveillance, a layperson’s feeling of powerlessness in a greater society – and that’s just in episode one. We want to pose a lot of questions to the audience, and we’re confident that our characters’ choices will give them their answers.  

That is why we love science-fiction, and this is one of the best parts about Closing the Book: our heroes can fight back. We hope that will resonate with audiences, especially now, because it so often feels like there’s nothing we can do. 

Q. With six people, Crackpot Soprano is quite a large collaborative group. Tell me a bit about your backgrounds and interests? 

We all share a love for fantasy and sci-fi, and we also come from backgrounds where video games have been a huge part of our lives, so the podcast’s format and genre play into that. When it comes to our individual interests, they are varied: we branch into every corner, from dystopian to romance. We’ve built a world that combines all of our interests and allows us to use our individual strengths as writers. It’s a tale of adventure, the classic hero’s journey, and the villain’s too.   

Q. What are you setting out to achieve with these six episodes?  

Right now, we’re working towards completing the story of this first season. We’ve created a compelling world and characters that we can’t wait to share. We hope the audience will love our protagonists Mia and Em in particular, but there are so many diverse characters involved in the story, so hopefully it also appeals to a wide range of people. 

We’re already planning future seasons, so in terms of what we’re looking to achieve, audience hunger for season two would be up there. We have Twitter, Tumblr, and a website in the works too. We want as much feedback and questions and conversation about the podcast as possible. Audiences are going to find out that the world of Timefold is so ripe with potential and adventure. We cannot wait to tell more stories in this universe, and we hope everyone will come along for the journey.  

Q. Did you need to tailor your production around the present COVID-19 restrictions? 

Discord and Google Docs have been our saviours these past few months, particularly with the limited access to campus. But, if we’re being totally honest, it’s not been too detrimental to the project thus far, knock on wood! Of course, we’ve had to back up our recording plans to fit around any new restrictions. Providing things stay as they are, recording will be relatively simple. We have access to recording equipment that needn’t be any closer than 2 metres to the voice actors and we’ve managed to schedule our recording sessions with no more than six people. 

Q. How can people keep up with your progress and find Closing the Book when it’s published?  

The first episode of Closing the Book is due to release on Wednesday, December 9th at midday. You’ll be able to find the episodes on YouTube, iTunes, Spotify and Anchor. In the meantime, you can follow our official social media accounts for frequent updates of our progress. We’ll use all of them to link to our first episode when it releases so there’s no chance of missing it! 

Edited by Charlie Halfhide

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