Hey everyone!  Welcome to the first MAT episode of 2014!  We’re super-excited about this year — we’ve got new stories to share, more works to produce, even some secret projects in the works which we can’t tell you about yet.  But we do have one piece of news to announce – our Scriptwriting Competition winners of 2013 have been chosen!  This was a really tough year to choose – I know, you’re thinking “you say that every year”, but it’s true!  You can see the winners listed on our page in the links bar above, or just click here.

But now!  Onto our programming for tonight.  We have a great line-up in store this evening; we’re starting off by bringing you the start of a wonderful audio drama series called ‘Our Fair City‘; a ‘post-apocalyptic sci-fi radio epic’ curious and quirky enough to make you question what’s normal, while still being relatable, especially with smart bits of humor in each episode.  Some have called it ‘campy’ but don’t let that fool you; this is well done and a treat we’re excited to share.

After that, we bring you the Prologue for the amazingly mixed, performed and produced story of ‘The Minister of Chance‘.  Doctor Who fans might recognize some of the voice actors in this production, as it brings in Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann into some of the main roles, but to focus solely on that would be a crime.  All of the voice actors perform brilliantly, and both sound design and story of this crowdfunded production are a delight to listen to.  We’re just sorry we only have the Prologue for you tonight!  Episode 1 will be featured next show, with much more meatier content and more characters to share – this is just a quick taste of what’s to come.

And last but not least, we have a piece from 19 Nocturne Boulevard entitled, ‘The Jingles‘.  This kind of story has a lot of flashbacks and scenes inside/outside the character’s minds; a challenge for audio dramas, not just in the storytelling but especially in the sound design and direction.  19 Nocturne Boulevard pulls it off very well and very effectively here, however, in what may be some of the best storytelling we’ve heard from them on this show thus far.  Definitely worth a listen!

We’ve got a great show tonight to kick off the start of 2014, and this is only just the beginning!  Hang in for a fun and wild ride this year, folks!