Review: Fellfoul
Mulgrave Audio 2024
How propitious that this latest Mulgrave Audio release should find its way into my downloads folder on exactly the right day: Walpurgisnacht.¹ It’s hugely appropriate, given how this story very much plays with ideas of the liminal, and the cracks between worlds that you can either fall down, or squeeze your way through, if you are at all inclined to do so.
It is also short and sweet. Andrew Orton’s drama is a mere 12 and a half minutes, in two chunks, but plenty happens in a short space of time. There is also the joy of an accompanying soundtrack, courtesy of Jim Jupp’s Belbury Poly, that has absolutely the correct note of the unsettling early 80s drama of the kind you’d remember from dark autumn Sunday teatimes in your childhood.²
Fellfoul tells the story of Eleanor Wood (played by Aja Dodd), living a not entirely happy life at home with her mother, and it is suggested, afflicted with some kind of longer term but undisclosed malady, in some ways similar to the protagonist of Mulgrave’s previous release, Bob Fischer’s Simon Perkins’ Lurgy. Eleanor appears to be living a life that doesn’t quite fit her properly for some reason, feeling stifled by a mother who is later described as ‘overbearing’, though how reliable the narration might be by that point is certainly open to question by the listener.
When her mother finds a discarded plastic artefact in a field, a passing remark about the location being used during the shooting of a film adaptation in the area leads Eleanor, a lover of fantasy fiction, to find out more about the film’s source series of novels, set in the land of Fellfoul, that she has never heard of before. At first, the trail is cold as they are long out of print, but she manages to visit a second hand book shop, whose proprietor, Mr Chambers (very much having the air of a man who subscribes to the CAMRA newsletter, and has his own tankard behind the bar), proves to be rather more helpful. And so Eleanor’s adventure begins.
By the end, what is actually real, and what is not? You’ll not find any spoilers here, dear reader. You’ll have to decide for yourself.
The slightly snarky LARPing/reenactment references towards the start of the story are quite amusing, especially if you’ve ever run a round a muddy field bashing each other with rubber swords, or have had regular contact with those who do³. But it’s also nice to see how, as the story continues, there is some artfully executed code switching, with the imagery and dialogue gradually tipping from the everyday into the fantastic. It happens slowly at first, but then there is a more sudden shift, and the mood becomes very different. Towards the end, at the appearance of a particular character, there’s an even a faint hint of Mr Benn’s shopkeeper thrown in⁴, which is another nice touch.
It’s well worth a few minutes of your time to experience a simultaneously slightly unsettling, but affectionate little slice of storytelling. Here’s hoping Mulgrave can continue to turn out more little gems like this from time to time.
¹ You could say Halloween too, I suppose, but there are perhaps overtones with the onset of the darkness of winter that aren’t really the case here. The eve of the feast of St Walpurga is (sort of) coincidental with the beginning of Beltane, and so is a liminal space suggesting the dawning of brighter things, perhaps.
² If you’re of that age, of course. #onefortheteenagers.
³ In my case, very much the latter. At University, a number of friends were LARPers — hello Durham University Treasure Trap! So though I wasn’t one of the muddied ranks, I did have the opportunity to wield some of the weapons, and even try on a suit of mail. It’s heavier than you think.
⁴ Well, that’s immediately what I thought of. YMMV, of course.
