Untrue Stories

Wells arrives in a distant future where humanity as we know it is extinct. How will he get his bicycle repaired now?

Following H. G. Wells' hurried departure from Orwell's world of 1984, his malfunctioning time-bicycle veers into the far and bizarre future that he will one day chronicle in his own novella, The Time Machine. Facing off against super-evolved pale blue cannibals, he's relieved to run into a couple of unexpected familiar faces.

CAST:

• Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells;
• Tara Court as Julia;
• Canavan Connolly as the Morlock;
• Robin Johnson as George Orwell and Liselle Nic Giollabháin as Thought Captain Rutherford.

Written and produced by Robin Johnson, with music by the author and sound effects sourced from freesound.org.

References:

• H. G. Wells' The Time Machine is in the public domain, and can be found at Project Gutenberg.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

If you've enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you could leave us a rating on iTunes, Spotify, Podchaser or your favourite podcast site/app — and tell your friends!

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If you would like to help cover our costs, you can tip us at ko-fi.com/untruestories or buy Untrue Stories merch at our zazzle store.

Robin can be contacted at robindouglasjohnson@gmail.com. Share and Enjoy!

Brush up your Newspeak with a selection of typical scenes from Oceanian everyday life, with Oldspeak translation.

As a bonus mini-episode, we bring you a telescreen programme from the world of Orwell's 1984. Learn about Oceania's official language, Newspeak, maked hardworkwise by Oceania's goodest brainers to plusficient your talkfulness while decriming your think.

CAST

• Robin Johnson as the shopkeeper and police
• Alexander Paul Walsh as the Announcer and customers
• Liselle Nic Giollabháin as Thought Captain Rutherford
• Eve Morris as the Oldspeak interpreter

The lyrics of the Oceanian National Anthem, Oceania, 'Tis For Thee, were extrapolated by Robin from a title by George Orwell. The anthem was sung by several of Robin and two of Eve Morris, and accompanied by an unaccompanied public domain recording of The Internationale.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

If you've enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you could leave us a rating on iTunes, Spotify, Podchaser or your favourite podcast site/app — and tell your friends!

Follow us on

• twitter: @untrue_stories
• facebook: untruestoriespodcast
• instagram: untrue.stories
• soundcloud: untrue-stories

If you would like to help cover our costs, you can tip us at ko-fi.com/untruestories or buy Untrue Stories merch at our zazzle store.

Robin can be contacted at robindouglasjohnson@gmail.com. Share and Enjoy!

H. G. Wells takes a wrong turn on his time-travelling bicycle, and finds that he and Orwell have both lost their bets.

Continuing the adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells, Wells' inaugural time-travel journey takes him a bit further into the future than he intended: instead of one week, he travels nearly forty years. What he finds matches neither his own predictions nor Orwell's – but is surprising, horrifying, and completely untrue.

Starring Robin Johnson as George Orwell and the telescreen voice, Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells, Joanna Lawrie as Mrs Watchett, Tara Court as Julia, and Liselle Nic Giollobhain as Captain Rutherford. Sound effects were sourced from freesound.org.

7 September 2022: This episode has been edited to enhance audio quality.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

If you've enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you could leave us a rating on iTunes, Spotify, Podchaser or your favourite podcast site/app — and tell your friends!

Follow us on

• twitter: @untrue_stories
• facebook: untruestoriespodcast
• instagram: untrue.stories
• soundcloud: untrue-stories

If you would like to help cover our costs, you can tip us at ko-fi.com/untruestories or buy Untrue Stories merch at our zazzle store.

Robin can be contacted at robindouglasjohnson@gmail.com. Share and Enjoy!

How a power-crazed junta of 20th-century dystopian authors overthrew Western democracy — and what went wrong.

In the fourth exciting instalment of the time-travelling adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells, 1984's Big Brother himself has appeared before our heroes to relate the story of his rise to power at the head of a team of dystopian visionaries — Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, Aldous Huxley and Yevgeny Zamyatin.

CAST

• Robin Johnson as George Orwell
• Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells
• Tara Court as Julia
• Liselle Nic Giollabháin as Thought Deputy Chief Rutherford
• Eve Morris as the security guard

WITH SPECIAL GUEST DYSTOPIANS

• Alexander Paul Walsh as Yevgeny Zamyatin and the BBC Announcer
• Simon Beck as Aldous Huxley
• David Court as Ray Bradbury
• Alex Noussias as Margaret Atwood

Zamyatin's We, often credited as the inspiration for dystopia as a modern genre, is in the public domain and you can find an English translation at Project Gutenberg. Huxley claimed not to have read We before he wrote Brave New World. Orwell definitely read both. Huxley really was Orwell's French teacher at Eton.

The Oceanian National Anthem, Oceania, 'Tis For Thee, with lyrics extrapolated by Robin to the tune of The Internationale, can be heard on our soundcloud, sung by several of Robin and two of Eve.

While this episode was in production, the US Supreme Court struck down the federally protected right to abortion. This directly endangers and removes bodily autonomy from tens of millions of Americans, and sets a terrifying example for the rest of the world. Of all the dystopian novels discussed in the episode, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is now the most horribly relevant. Untrue Stories is free, but if you've enjoyed it as much as something you'd pay a few dollars for, you could donate those dollars to an organisation like the National Network of Abortion Funds, and/or perhaps to an organisation that will help the queer and trans people whose rights the Court has more or less promised to dismantle next. (You can even make those donations if you haven't enjoyed the show.) Love and anger.

2022-07-27: This episode has been updated to adjust volume levels.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

If you've enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you could leave us a rating on iTunes, Spotify, Podchaser or your favourite podcast site/app — and tell your friends!

Follow us on

• twitter: @untrue_stories
• facebook: untruestoriespodcast
• instagram: untrue.stories
• soundcloud: untrue-stories

If you would like to help cover our costs, you can tip us at ko-fi.com/untruestories or buy Untrue Stories...

Halloween special featuring bitter karella's Hugo-nominated microfiction The Midnight Pals!

In a quest to resurrect a Morlock, Orwell and Wells find themselves in a weird metaphysical forest inhabited by historical horror writers, and attempt to impress Mary Shelley, H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe around the campfire.

The Midnight Pals is created by bitter karella. You can follow their antics on Twitter at https://twitter.com/midnight_pals. They are currently crowdfunding for their third book! More details at https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/submitted-for-the-approval-of-the-midnight-pals-3

CAST

• Robin Johnson as George Orwell
• Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells
• Tara Court as Julia
• Joanna Lawrie as Mrs Watchett
• Rachel Pulliam as Ursula Le Guin
• Rebecca Thibodeaux as the newspaper seller
• Alexander Walsh as the servant
• Canavan Connolly as the Morlock

WITH SPECIAL GUEST MIDNIGHT PALS

• Rebecca D'Souza as Mary Shelley
• Robin Johnson as H. P. Lovecraft
• Canavan Connolly as Edgar Allan Poe

I'm Cthulhu goes to (something like) the tune of Flanders and Swann's The Gnu.

A transcript of this episode is available at https://untrue-stories.simplecast.com/episodes/midnight-pals-halloween-crossover/transcript.

If you've enjoyed Untrue Stories, we'd love it if you could help us amuse more people by telling your friends about us, and/or leaving us a rating or review on iTunes, Spotify, Podchaser, Goodpods or your favourite podcast site/app—thank you!

Follow us on

• twitter: @untrue_stories
• facebook: untruestoriespodcast
• instagram: untrue.stories
• soundcloud: untrue-stories

If you would like to help cover our costs, you can tip us at ko-fi.com/untruestories or buy Untrue Stories merch at https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/untrue_stories.

Robin can be contacted at robindouglasjohnson@gmail.com. Share and Enjoy!