Coming Soon: A pulp fiction-inspired dieselpunk audio drama, “Filthy ’47”

By John Freeman on February 19, 2020 • ( 2 )

If you’re fan of old pulp fiction, then an upcoming four-part dieselpunk audio drama Filthy ’47 by “Danvers Nettlefold” may well be your cup of tea.

Some excerpts for the serial are already available to sample on Danvers YouTube channel.

Danvers has been trailing the project for some time now, a series reviving the spirit of the vintage British comedy-thriller, echoing the work of early Alfred Hitchcock, Ealing Studios, Launder and Gilliat, and others.

Among the cast for the drama, written by Richard Raymond, is Katherine Moran, who’s also voiced various characters in video animation for Encircle Games and GameOn.

Voice artist Katherine Moran is among the cast for Filthy '47 — Voice artist Katherine Moran is among the cast for Filthy ’47

Set in post Word War Two England in 1947, former Land Girls Joyce and Kay scrape a meagre living as a cover artist and model for lurid pulp paperbacks. While painter Kay prefers the quiet life, the tall and ebullient Joyce still resents being turned down for wartime espionage work on account of her height.

However, Joyce belatedly gets her chance to “do her bit” when, together with two new chums, pilot turned pulp author Peter West and his old comrade Flight Sergeant Byron Bayley, she and Kay stumble upon a sinister plot to plunge the world back into war…

Fate soon brings the foursome to the centre of this Wodehousian web of intrigue, Thrapsley Hall. In their remote gothic edifice, disgruntled aristos Sir Reginald and Lady Muriel Thrapsley hold court to a motley crew of conspirators: Murchison, a shadowy American wheeler-dealer; Kessler, a fugitive Nazi; and ribald radio comedian Jehosophat Jenks, accompanied by his support act, all-female ukulele trio, The Dinky-Don’ts. Also along for the ride are a dashing Polish army captain, Kay’s long-lost brother Harold and Loretta Duquesne, a ditzy New York adventuress.

Not everyone, though, is who or what they seem.

Can Joyce and her friends gain the upper hand when confronted with a lethal cocktail of mischief mixed from ingredients including a secret nerve gas formula, a coffin full of guns, a primitive video disc whose contents would shock the world, and one woman’s fanatical thirst for revenge?

• If you’re intrigued, then check the project out here on YouTube – and while you’re on the way there, you may also want to stop and pick up The Art of Reginald Heade: Special Edition by Stephen James Walker, from Telos Publishing – the very pinnacle of British pulp art!

• All four episodes now available at: filthy47.podbean.com

About the Author
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John Freeman

John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.

He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.