The Pallid Mask: Exclusive Preview with Writer Jordan Acosta, and Directors Emily Inkpen and Chris Gregory

0:22 Welcome to a short preview of our upcoming drama series, the Pallid Mask, which launches on Friday, the 30th of October. My name's Chris Gregory. I am a director and sound designer on the show, along with writer and co-director of the Pallid Mask, Jordan Acosta, and with co-director Emily Inkpen, who's also the writer of our award-winning and chart-topping drama the Deck's Legacy.

0:46 Jordan and Emily, welcome to this short preview. Are you excited about the show finally seeing the light of day this week?

0:53 Yeah, I'm incredibly proud of this. I'm sort of in that stage where there's so many jobs to do before Friday. I can't quite pass it, but I'm I'm going to look back on this week and just go, yeah, I'm really proud of what we've managed to produce here.

1:08 Yeah, and and and Emily, this is not your first rodeo. You've done quite a lot of uh audio drama launches before. They don't get easier, do they?

1:17 No, no, they're terrifying. Although I would say that the first time I did it, I had no idea what I was doing. It was in lockdown, the world was going to hell. And so really it all feels like a blur because the entire world was a blur then.

1:30 Yes, indeed. Well, let's let's just say a little bit about it. the the the challenge on these previews is always not to give away really important stuff. But we also want to uh tease the show and wet your appetites. So the Palette Mask is a full cast audio drama with immersive sound design, a wonderful music score, and we're going to talk about those things shortly.

1:54 But first, Jordan, can you tell us a bit about the origins of the show and what our listeners can expect from it, please?

2:03 After I wrote my first novel, which Bags Be a Literary Agent, uh, the novel went on submission to various publishers um in the publishing industry. And with these things, it's often a very long wait. So I was kicking my heels round. And it occurred to me that even if I got a book deal tomorrow, you know, you wouldn't actually see the book in, you know, Wall Street's or any other bookshop for about two years.

2:30 I thought to myself, I might as well write a short story just to put up on my website for free, and so people would have something to read. And um at the time I was actually rereading this really amazing short story collection called the King in Yellow by Robert Chambers. I've read it several times, and I don't really know what happened.

2:54 I just I just started writing this parallel story to the very first story in this collection, which it's set in 1920, but it was published in 1895. So it was this really weird, almost alternate history going on, and I just thought, oh, that's that's really great. And I took a couple of threads from that, and the thing about this particular short story collection is that it's in the public domain, so I could use the characters and I invented my own.

3:24 I started weaving the two stories together. Eventually, you know, I showed it to my uh writing friends, and they said, Well, this is really good, you should do something with this. Then I had this idea, well, I might as well get it narrated by a voice actor, and then I believe I got in touch with you.

3:43 So uh the Paladmask, partly an adaptation, partly a story inspired by the work of Robert W. Chambers, partly a contemporary framing narrative looking at the the the history of an imagined real stage play uh of the King in Yellow, which Chambers um posited in in the story.

4:07 So one of the first decisions I made actually when when I started writing this thing was like, well, let's just uh take the position that we are going to write these stories in Chambers version of the 1920s, which for him is 25 years in the future. But of course, with the the passage of time, we have that really interesting thing where you can actually start blending, you know, this Chambers version of the future with our own recorded and documented history.

4:40 And one of the really prescient things that's actually quite chilling is that Chambers through these stories correctly predicts a large-scale conflict with Germany, with the Which was still 20 years away when he wrote about it. And so so you know, he obviously knew something that a lot of people didn't, and and so being able to actually take those threads and then merge them with sort of bits of our recorded history and then y make some alterations really produces this really fertile uh sandbox to play stories in.

5:18 There is a a fine tradition of telling cosmic horror stories in audio drama. Um I'm sure many people listening to this will have uh heard the Lovecraft investigations, which was a in an incredible series. Yeah, I believe lots of others inspired by the work of Lovecraft particularly. And you know, gamers may be aware, uh Call of Cthulhu, of course, is is from the same kind of cosmic horror stable, isn't it?

5:47 So it's a whole kind of subgenre, yeah, it's it's it's its own thing.

5:53 Well, it's probably my favourite tabletop role-playing game system, it's absolutely fantastic. And what's great about that, of course, is that unlike Dungeons and Dragons, where you start off and you get better, with Call of Cthulhu, you start off and just get worse.

6:10 Yeah, the world damages you.

6:13 He degenerate this this whole thing, it's just so unbelievably creepy. And and I entirely credit that with the direction and the production are on this Volt Everton stories. It's absolutely amazing.

6:32 One of the directors uh is Emily Penn. And and and Emily, you you sort of cut your teeth there directing your own show, the Deck's Legacy, Wasteland.

6:41 Which also escalated.

6:43 Which also escalated um to a ridiculous degree. Uh over half a million downloads and and counting. Most of what we've directed before has been broadly sci-fi, or we've done a few things set in our own world, but never really done cosmic horror before, have we? How did you find it?

7:03 From a directing point of view, it's not that different. It's like what you you get a feel for the text and you get a feel for exactly what it is. And then it's just a case of making sure that everybody stays in line with that and nobody strays into territory that uh is outside the parameters of what it is.

7:24 And the fact is is that we Jordan, your scripts and everything, your your your the materials that you provided, the direction that you provided at the beginning as the writer was so great. And the actors were so phenomenal that really then it's it's just a steering, it's gentle steering. And that's it.

7:43 And yeah, if you've got the right team, one one thing I think you should definitely look out for is this character called Mr. Wild, which for me embodies so much of the weirdness of the story. Oh yes. And I I I don't want to I'm not gonna pick out individual actors, but I will mention the actor who plays Mr.

8:03 Wild, and that's uh the brilliant Alistair Buchan by turns creepy as hell and hilarious. There were times we were in the control room listening to Alistair and and just laughing so hard because he just embodied this character so the word bizarre I think comes out quite because weirdly it's like it's not a comedy.

8:28 No, no, no, no. No, it's a tragedy.

8:31 Yeah, but the bizarrness exists perfectly plausibly within the sort of the the work itself. So even though like it's got elements that in any other context would be comedic.

8:45 Yes, yeah. Well Mr. Yeah, yeah, Mr. Wild in particular, I think, was probably the pivotal pivotal character because he is he is one of the pivotal characters in the original short story the Repairer Reputations by Chambers, and you know, he is you know like he enables the protagonists of the story to descend into this madness brought on by the book and you know enables him and and effectively is his fixture almost.

9:18 And I just you know, I actually I began with I began with Mr. Wild with the corridor. I just thought, wow, what a weird character this is. What can I do with Mr. Wilde? And and so actually was actually how do I get a consistent tone of, you know, I'm not Robert Chambers, so how do I take the dialogue and write the dialogue in Mr.

9:46 Wild that hopefully would sound seamless between my imagined prequel and this adaptation of the original source material?

9:54 Jonathan Keatley, proprietor of the Coronet Theatre on Coney Island, called August 8th. Reputation to be repaired by Christmas Day, retainer $50. the Prince in Waiting has commanded that you be installed as the Coronet's new house manager, Mr. Barden, to act as his eyes and ears. Indeed. Coney Island.

10:22 That nexus of New York's pleasure seekers is frequented by military officers and prominent politicians propping up Winthrop's administration. You shall learn their secrets as they carouse and cavort.

10:44 And so like one of the things that I always hear actors saying and then completely try to like deny myself in my head is the fact that it's much easier to act from a good script. Shocking, I know, as a concept. Now when actors say this to me as a writer, I sort of do a very British and then try to like forget it and and do that.

11:08 Um but I will say now to you, um that yeah, it's a hundred percent true. And I can say that to you because you know it's not directed at me.

11:17 It's it's one of those things where a script um uh looked absolutely fantastic on the page before we went into the studio. You're never quite sure how well it's gonna go when actors actually get hold of it. And um I think it's fair to say both of us, myself and Emily, both felt that it surpassed the expectations that we had as high as they already were, actually.

11:42 So um amazing job. One more thing that I will say that really elevates things is that we've got a fantastic score for for this show. Jay, I mean, just tell us a little bit about the score and the composer.

11:59 Yeah, before we do that though, I do want to say that all the other actors' performances were amazing, and we will return after the season ends to talk about to dig into all the other actors and their performances. Absolutely. Um so Adele Etheridge Woodson is a an American composer who now lives in London, and I I've actually followed her for ages on Instagram uh just because she just does great work, and there came a point where she started composing sort of music to the chapters of her favorite fantasy books, and I just thought I need to work with her in some capacity, there will be some reason I can invent to work with her, and so when the opportunity came up, I basically said to Chris, Oh

12:52 my beer, I've got I've got someone in mind, and uh you know we we we worked it out. Adele came on board and just wrote us just the most incredible score, and I I still can't quite believe she actually came and did it for us because it really punches so hard, it's so good, it's so memorable. I still think a lot about you know the the sort of the motifs and the theme songs and stuff, you know.

13:22 I can I sing my sleep now, I dream about it.

14:13 Now, talking of which, that the show is going to be running well into February. So settling for a long and somewhat weird ride. Um so Emily, how how can people who've whose appetites have been wetted, how can they listen to the Pallad Mask?

14:32 Yeah, so you can listen to uh the Pallad Mask on all platforms, on all podcast platforms, uh wherever you normally get your podcasts, and get early episode release and bonus content on the Alternative Stories Patreon, which is well worth the subscription because we've got multiple shows, multiple bonus episodes for all of them, and the paladmask is going to be a treat for the bonus materials.

14:56 And so sorry, I'm also going to throw in that we also have a YouTube channel. Um so you can listen to uh the whole show either on YouTube or YouTube Podcast if you follow at the Pallid Mask Podcast and uh and Instagram as well at the same at the Paladmask Podcast.

15:18 And and and Jay, we have a we have a website for the show where you can find out all about it and all about the cast, can't you?

15:25 Yes, so we have our the show's website lives on the publishing outfit so there's the small publishers called Horbuck Press, and you can find episode guides, content warnings, casting crew biographies, all the things at thepallidmast.online.

15:42 As always, we will put clickable links to all the things we've just mentioned in the show notes in the description of this episode and probably on on all of our channels as well. So um check them out. Check out the show. It launches on Friday the 30th of October, and then it's gonna run uh weekly thereafter, right up to Christmas.

16:05 There might be a little a little break at Christmas, but then we'll resume again in uh sometime in January and and run for another few episodes. So yes, settle in for the ride. Uh Jordan Acosta and Emily Inkpen. Best of luck for the show. We can't wait to share it with you everyone. Do let us know what you think.

16:25 If you enjoy the show, you can leave us ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts, uh, you can leave little comments on Spotify. We love to read them and we will get back to you. And if you've got friends that are into Cosmic Horror, into um the world of chambers or Cthulhu Lovecraft, please tell them about the show and um hopefully we will live up to all the expectations.

16:50 We are gonna leave you now with our long preview for the Pallid Mask. So thank you for listening and enjoy the show.

16:59 Alternative stories and Hawberk Productions presents the Pallad Mask, an audio drama by Jordan Acosta.

17:08 the King in Yellow. Are you a playwright, Eugene? Or an actor? Once, perhaps, in my life, along the shore, the cloud waves break, the twin suns sink behind the lake, the shadows lengthen in Carcosa.

17:36 When from Carcosa, the Hyades, Pastor, and Aldebaran, where the black stars hang over the skies above the Lake of Holly. For time immemorial, the Yellow King, who even emperors have served, hides Ythill forever and preserves the mystery of Hyades.

18:04 the Imperial family through Camilla and Cassilda runs thus, heralding the Phantom of Truth and the Last King. the son of Astur, if you follow this bloodline too. Castaigne. Louis de Calvados. Born December 19, 1877.

18:33 Have you ever heard of the King in Yellow?

18:36 the King in yellow. What? Sounds like a lost Shakespeare.

18:39 No one knows where it came from. It made the rounds across Europe in the 19th and early 20th century, banned from press to pulpit, according to contemporaneous sources. From Budapest to Paris to London, then across the pond by the 1920s.

18:55 Go on.

18:56 Well, from all the accounts I found, anyone who's read it or seen it in its entirety has or gone completely mad. And here's the thing: fragments appear in multiple languages, and yet there appears to be no complete surviving copy of it anywhere in the world. And the recorded deaths surrounding it are strange, to say the least.

19:29 Can he not do it himself? Fong. It's required elsewhere. Phone calls, radio transmission. Monitored by the Bureau.

19:40 Get out of the way. Now stay here. Enjoy yourself, Bindle.

19:52 Don't just stand there, you sap head after it. I come in. I got him. You dump.

20:02 I'm a PhD student at St. Francis Davis College. You might know it. It's next to Holburn Station. Right. I've tried emailing. Right. And calling. Hi. I've got some questions. I was wondering if you might be able to help me. See, this is the Trent Fallaby printing code, isn't it? It's good. I thought I might have wasted a trip.

20:29 We are now in communication with 10,000 through the Yellow Side. We can count on 100,000 within the first 24 hours, and in 48, the state will rise on the mass. the country follows the state, and the portion that will not may as well be uninhabited. A new broom sweeps clean. the ambition of Caesar and Napoleon pales before that which will not rest until it has seized the minds of all, controlling even their unborn thoughts.

21:07 You speak of the king in Yellow.

21:10 He is a king whom the Empress.

21:38 Full cast biographies, episode guides, and more can be found at the Paladmask.online.