A stacked list of collaborators from Toronto’s theatre, drag, art and music scenes have come together for the new podcast No One Receiving.
The scripted five-part apocalyptic sci-fi comedy series is the brainchild of Maggie MacDonald, who based it on a one-act play she first staged at the 2014 Rhubarb Festival.
“At the time I was working in the environmental movement and things were looking bleak,” MacDonald shares. “The science on climate change is grim, and many of my friends and had feelings of doubt about trying to work on policy change, and yet we persisted.”
The story follows Beth Kane, a music snob lost in space and searching for survivors after the world is blown to smithereens by aliens who warn that pop radio is polluting the universe. The whole series drops for free at noonereceiving.com on February 27, and you can hear the first clip trailer below.
The campy comedy podcast is richly produced by Brainchild Podcasts (Max Cotter and Aleda DeRoche) and features a score by Stew Crookes (formerly of One Hundred Dollars) that MacDonald describes as “Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack with synthesizers.” It also features music by John Southworth (who voices a juvenile AI named Bobby), Keith Cole and MacDonald herself.
The cast includes many local musicians whom MacDonald met through the Hidden Cameras (which she used to sing in) and events like Long Winter, including Owen Pallett, Mike Haliechuk (of Fucked Up), Bob Wiseman, Laura Barrett, Brian Taylor, Shaun Brodie of the Queen Songbook Orchestra, former Brave New Waves host Patti Schmidt, plus others like Vish Khanna and Hotnuts hostess Mary Messhausen.
Tonally, No One Receiving falls somewhere between The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and Welcome To Night Vale – a funny yet bleak satire on eco-politics, activism and burnout.
“There are a lot of blogs about whether environmentalists are naive for being optimistic and pushing against a grim eventuality, but you don’t have to be naive to invest yourself in something that might not work,” says MacDonald.
They’ll celebrate with a launch party on Wednesday (February 27) at Tranzac featuring DJ the Robotic Kid spinning Space Disco, a live reading and more. Details here.
@nowtoronto | @trapunski
