One of my more surprising recent gigs has been writing scripts for Land Rover. Good Heavens. It's a family adventure podcast called The Discovery Adventures, advertised as "the UK's first 3D binaural branded podcast series." The listener is placed at the heart of the story using binaural sound, courtesy of triple Academy Award winning sound designer Gareth Fry (whose work includes Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and the 2012 London Olympic Games opening ceremony). The action happens around you, creating an immersive and exciting world of discovery, conspiracy, and folklore across the United Kingdom.

The show stars Hugh Skinner and Natalie Dormer, and boasts an eclectic cast including the Olivier Award winning Sophie Thompson, BBC journalist Kate Silverton, explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and Springwatch's Chris Packham. Fans of Wooden Overcoats will like to know that Tom Crowley wrote the first two episodes, whilst I wrote the last two - meaning that I've now written comedy dialogue for Natalie Dormer, Alexander Armstrong, and Olympic sailor Sir Ben Ainslie. So there we are.

Episodes will be released over the next seven weeks, available from iTunes, Spotify and Acast.

I was also delighted to present Wooden Overcoats Live at the London Podcast Festival on Sunday, which saw our regular cast joined by Pip Gladwin and Alice Osmanski to perform two Funn Fragments and a brand new episode from next year's Season 3. It was particularly splendid to meet with members of the audience afterwards, including an actual mortician who writes her own blog about her experiences, and two fans - pictured above with Ciara Baxendale and Felix Trench - who made for us Wooden Overcoats cookies and some scented candles with a clementine and cinnamon smell (Antigone Funn's embalming fluid scent of choice!). They even threw in some of Rudyard's favourite sherbet dip dabs! 

Though we have raised the money to make Season 3 and the Summer Special, the Kickstarter is still ongoing and if we raise £15,000 we'll be able to invest more money into our live shows and create a bumper length Halloween Special episode for all our listeners. All donations are greatly appreciated!

On Thursday morning, Wooden Overcoats launched its new Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to make a  3rd season of the show.

By the end of Sunday evening, we'd successfully reached our £8,000 goal.

We're astounded and delighted. To raise that amount of money so quickly is incredibly gratifying - we've raised in 4 days what it took 34 days to raise last year. All we can say is a massive thank you to our listeners who enjoy the show so much. Should we reach £10,000 we'll be able to create a summer special exclusively for our backers - so chip in whatever you like whilst the Kickstarter's running to get your hands on that episode! To meet the rising demand, we're also announcing new stretch goals imminently, so do keep tabs on what we're doing by following Wooden Overcoats on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr etc.

Three of our Funn Fragments - Antigone Antagonised by Ben Cottam, At Home in the Dark by Lauren Shippen, and The Social Rudyard by Chris Hogg - are available on the podcast feed and the WO website, with the remaining two due imminently.

Last night was also the recording of Drayton Trench 1-3, live at the Museum of Comedy in London! It was wonderful to hear those scripts performed in front of an audience, and by such a talented cast including Beth Eyre (Wooden Overcoats), Simon Kane (BBC Radio 4's John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme), and Stephen Critchlow (the West End's The 39 Steps). Episodes 4-6 are being recorded in the same place on Sunday 10th at 7pm, so if you're in London do please drop by!