Interview with Julian Simpson

Since I started listening to podcasts all day (almost) every day, there have been a few that have become untouchable. Ones that become benchmarks by which all others get judged. Some start out as indie productions before getting picked up by companies like Rusty Quill, but some seem to go the other way. It just so happens that this is the story of Julian Simpson, someone who is behind probably more of my favorite shows than anyone else.

If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know my love of the world that Julian has created. The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward was one of the first podcasts I reviewed, and since then I have listened to everything he has written.

With the new series of The Lovecraft Investigations approaching like the alien ships in War Of The Worlds, I thought now would be the best time to reach out and try and get him for an interview. I’ll be honest, what follows is a bucket list moment for me on this blog, and I’m so happy he took the time to answer the questions (which, with hindsight, could have been written better).

But anyway, enough of my frothy hyperbole, here is my interview with Julian Simpson.

What was it that got you interested in writing fiction? Was it something you have always done, or did it start as a hobby?

It was never the intention. I’d been quite good at it at school, but never took it very seriously. But I was really into film and decided to become a director fairly early on. In my early twenties, I put a short film project together and realised that the only thing I didn’t have was a script. So I sat down to write that, which took forever (I’ve got faster) and then I wrote another, and then a feature film, and it all went from there. After a while, I started getting hired to write screenplays and I guess that’s when I started accepting that I was now a writer.

How did you go about creating the Pleasant Green universe? What was the inspiration?

I don’t think I ever did set out to create it. Initially, the name came about because I was writing my first radio play, “Fragments”, which was a kind of J.G. Ballard thing about trouble being caused in a sleepy English village and I was looking for a name that was really on-the-nose, so I landed on Pleasant Green. Later on, another play, “Fugue State” also needed a village name and I decided to use the same one, because it seemed to fit and I didn’t imagine anyone would ever notice because I didn’t think anyone was really listening. In my head, they could have been the same place, but it wasn’t really important. It was only when we got to The Whisperer In Darkness that I realised there was a mythology growing in my head, that I was building a universe, quite unwittingly, and so I decided to lean into that.

Is it a conscious effort to tie all the stories together in the same world, or do you just get to a point and think “this seems like a good place for The Black Windmill to show up”?

It’s almost never intentional. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward was supposed to be a standalone story. But then the BBC commissioned a follow-up, which I did not initially intend to connect to the first story except that the two host characters would stay the same, but stuff started to connect. It has all grown quite organically – at no point have I ever sat down with a blank piece of paper to “create” the universe. But I no longer resist connections when they want to happen, like Kennedy wandering into the first season of Aldrich Kemp; that was never planned, but when the idea sparked, I went with it.

The Lovecraft Investigations is a perfect blend of fiction and actual history. What is the thought process that goes into deciding what history to include? In the original series there were quite a few times I was googling something I heard in the story only to find out it wasn’t real!

I remember listening to Tanis and marvelling at how many of the things they talked about turned out to be true (or at least real urban legends). That was a big inspiration for the Lovecraft Investigations. The thought process for me is quite random. We’re modernising the stories, and part of that process requires finding real-world settings. During that process, things will come up in the research that seem to tie in and I will go down as many internet and library rabbit holes as necessary to find something real and interesting to tie into the story.

At the time, it seemed like a very novel approach to fiction, although now there are lots of podcasts that do it. Why did you decide to create TLI that way? Why not just write a standard work of fiction. Not that I’m complaining, as I said in my reviews I love that style!

This was really a product of timing. I wanted to modernise Lovecraft and at the time I was first thinking about it, the first season of Serial was released, and it occurred to me that most Lovecraft stories involve some kind of investigation, so setting this up as a non-fiction podcast would do a lot of the heavy-lifting towards making it feel modern.

How has the process been this time around now you have had to fund it yourself as well? Was there ever a danger that this new series was never going to get made?

Until we hit our target on this crowdfund, the danger was ever-present. We don’t have a fallback position now – if we can’t fund it via crowdfunding, there is no show. So it’s a lot of work setting up a campaign and getting the word out, a lot more work than it used to take pitching to the BBC. That said, the BBC can take months to respond, and I like that the crowdfund can happen on my schedule and we can know very quickly whether we’re making a show or not. I also prefer to be dealing direct with the community that has grown up around this show, rather than have an exec tell me what does or doesn’t work for the audience.

Knowing what you know now, are you ever tempted to revisit your older stories and carry them on? A new series of Mythos might be quite good!

We did a new Mythos episode as part of the Crowley crowdfund last year, so it is ever-present as an idea. The Call of Cthulhu represents the start of “Volume 2” of the Lovecraft Investigations, so we have at least two more seasons to do in this run. In amongst that, there may be some more Mythos adventures. And I’d really like to do another Aldrich Kemp season. And that’s all before we get to the new ideas I’ve been working on…

Now that the release date is in sight for TLI, are you going to enjoy a bit of time away from the keyboard or are you already on to the next story?

The release date is only in sight insofar as we have said we want to deliver by the end of the year. But I only started writing the show this week, so I have a summer of writing, then recording, mixing etc. Then I have to get all the books/CDs/T-shirts etc made and shipped, then we’ll be straight into the crowdfund for the next season. So no, no time off for me.

Who has been your favourite character to write? Could be a main character, or a minor role. Is there one that you’re particularly proud of?

I don’t have a favourite to write, I don’t think. Maybe Aramis Levesque, because his speech is so stylised. I’ve just been re-listening to The Shadow Over Innsmouth, which I think is our best season, and I love Alice and Casey in that, though that is more down to Jennifer Armour and Kyle Soller’s performances than the writing.

And last of all, a chance to boast all you want to. Why should people listen to your podcasts?

Oh I can never answer that. I think different people get different things out of them. I hope they’re immersive and interesting, and I know they’re as well-produced and well-performed as anything else in the medium, because we have the best sound designer and the best actors out there. From a personal perspective, I always like it when it feels like someone has built a whole world and you can’t see off the edges of it. I think we’ve achieved that, partly by accident, but it’s there.

So folks, there we have it. You can’t imagine how exited I am at some of these answers. More TLI? More Aldrich Kemp? Be still my beating heart! Here’s to the future, whatever Julian puts his pen to will surely become a classic!