Episode Transcript
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Um, welcome to the mysterious old Radio Listening Society, a podcast dedicated to suspense, crime, and horror stories from the golden Age of Radio. I'm Eric.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm Tim.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: And I'm Joshua.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: We love mysterious old time radio stories, but do they stand the test of time? That's what we're here to find out.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: In December of 2017, we each selected Christmas themed episodes to listen to, and I chose an adaptation of Charles Dickens other ghost story, the Signal man. The story doesn't inherently have a Christmas theme, but ghost stories are a bit of a holiday tradition in Britain.
[00:00:57] Speaker C: 23 years after publishing a Christmas carol, Dickens published the Signal man in the 1866 Christmas edition of the literary magazine all the year Round. It was part of an anthology called Mugby Junction, which featured stories about the rail lines that extend from that junction.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: The story was adapted by several series, including Lights Out, hall of Fantasy, Columbia Workshop, and Nightfall. The Weird Circle adapted the story under the name the Thing in the tunnel. Suspense adapted the story for radio three times. The first featured Agnes Moorhead and aired March 23, 1953. It returned in November of 1956, featuring Sarah Churchill, and then again in February of 1959, featuring Ellen Drew.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Given how many adaptations of the story exist, I thought it would be fun to make a holiday tradition of listening to a different version each December. Our first year, we listened to the suspense version from 1956 with Sarah Churchill. The year after that, we listened to Columbia Workshop's version. Next we listened to beyond Midnight's adaptation, followed by Lights out version, and then we returned to suspense for the adaptation, starring Ellen Drew from February 1959. Last year, we checked out Nightfall's take from December of 1982. I assumed we wouldn't be listening to anything more recent than that, but I was wrong.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: From 1997 to 2001, seeing ear theater created audio plays in the style of radio's golden Age, which were hosted on the SCI-Fi channel's website, back when it spelled Sci-Fi with eyes rather than y's. Much like suspense, seeing ear theater attracted a slew of talented performers, including Alfred Woodard, John Ticuro, Bill Irwin, Marina Sertis, Mark Hamill, Steve Buscemi, Peter Gallagher, Tim Curry, and a whole bunch of MST three K alumni. Also among their guest stars was Andre Brower, who sadly just passed away. This is the 7th version of the signal man we've listened to. It was adapted by George Tsar and first broadcast, or rather posted online sometime in 1998.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: It's late at night and a chill has set in. You're alone and the only light you see is coming from an antique radio. Listen to the sounds coming from the speaker. Listen to the music and listen to the voices.
[00:03:16] Speaker D: Hello there.
He was standing at the door of his shack with a flag in his hand, burled around a short pole. He was so shadowed and steeped in the glow of an angry sunset that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
I say hello.
Below there.
One would have thought he could not have doubted from what quarter my voice came. But instead of looking up to where I stood on the top of the steep embankment over his head, he looked instead down the railroad tracks.
There was something haunting, something mysterious in his manner, though I could not have said for my life what I am. A reporter, a woman reporter. Remarkable in this year of 1860, I know. But this man's behavior was even more remarkable enough to attract my notice.
He was down in a deep, dark trench, an eye high above him.
Somehow I felt drawn to him. To the stranger, he seemed a living, breathing question mark, and I needed to know the answer. I called again.
Hello?
From looking down the railroad tracks, he turned himself about again and, raising his eyes, finally saw my figure high above him. Sir, is there a path by which I can come down and speak to you?
He looked up at me without replying.
Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back as though it had forced to draw me down.
When such vapor had rose to my height from this rapid train had passed me and was skimming away over the landscape, I looked down again and saw him referring the flag he had shown while the train went by.
I say, is there a path by which I can come down and speak to you?
He motioned with his rolled up flag toward a point on my level, some two or three yards distant.
All right.
I made for that point, and by looking closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descendant path notched out, which I followed.
The cutting was extremely deep and unusually precipitate.
The path was made through clammy stone that became oozier and wetter as I descended. When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which the train had lately passed. In an attitude as if he were waiting for me to appear, I stopped a moment.
His attitude was one of great expectation and watchfulness.
I resumed my downward way and, stepping out upon the level of the railroad and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark, sallow man with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows, his post was in as solitary and dismal a place as ever I saw on either side a dripping wet wall of jagged stone, excluding all views but a strip of sky.
The perspective one way only, a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon. The shorter perspective in the other direction terminated in a gloomy red light and the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, and whose massive architecture there was a barbarous, depressant, and forbidding air.
So little sunlight ever found its way to this spot that it had an earthy, deadly smell, and so much cold wind rushed through it that it struck chill to me as if I had left the natural world.
I was near enough to him to have touched him, not even removing his eyes from mine.
He stepped back one step and lifted his hand.
This is a lonesome post to occupy, and it riveted my attention when I looked down from up Yonder.
A visitor is a rarity, I should suppose.
Not an unwelcome rarity, I hope.
I'm sure what you see in me is merely a woman who has been shut up within narrow limits all her life, and who, being at last set free with my new occupation as reporter for the Daily Dispatch, has a newly awakened interest in great works such as railroads.
He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's mouth, and looked all about it as if something were missing from it, and then looked at me.
That red light over there. It's part of your charge, is it not?
[00:09:01] Speaker E: Don't you know it is?
[00:09:04] Speaker D: You look at me as if you have a dread of me.
[00:09:07] Speaker E: I was doubtful whether I had seen you before.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: Where would you have seen me before?
There, by that red light near the tunnel.
Yes, my good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I never was there. You may swear.
[00:09:28] Speaker E: I think I may.
Yes, I am sure I may.
[00:09:35] Speaker D: And as a tree bears fruit, I, as a reporter, bear questions.
Have you much to do here?
[00:09:43] Speaker E: Yes, I have enough responsibility, madam. But exactness and watchfulness are what is required of me actual work. Manual labor to change the signal, to trim those lights, and to turn this iron handle now and then. That is all I have to do.
[00:10:02] Speaker D: And the long hours.
[00:10:06] Speaker E: Well, the routine of my life has shaped itself into that form, and I have grown used to it in the time I have been down here. During the slack time, I have taught myself a second language. I have also worked at fractions and decimals and tried a little algebra.
But it is damp. Follow me into my shack with your questions, madam. I have a fire burning to fight this chilly night, and several chairs we may use.
[00:10:36] Speaker D: Thank you, sir.
Is it necessary, when on duty always to remain in this channel of damp air? Can you never rise into the sunshine from between these high stone walls?
[00:10:48] Speaker E: Why, that depends on times and circumstances, madam.
Under some conditions there would be less traffic on the line than others, and the same holds good as to certain hours of the day or night. In bright weather I choose occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows, but being at all times liable to be called by this.
[00:11:13] Speaker D: An electric bell.
[00:11:14] Speaker E: Yes, madam. Here on my desk, next to my telegraphic instrument. Listening for this bell from up above would redouble my anxiety, making my relief less than you would suppose.
But you are still standing. Please sit.
[00:11:31] Speaker D: Thank you, sir.
We spoke further, the signal man and I. He with his grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He claimed to be nothing but what I found him to be.
[00:11:44] Speaker F: Excuse me.
[00:11:45] Speaker D: Of course, sir. He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to read off messages and send replies. Once he had to stand outside the door and display a flag as a train pass.
In the discharge of his duties, I found him to be remarkably exact and vigilant. In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was speaking to me, he twice broke off with a fallen color, turned his face towards the little bell when it did not ring, then each time opened the door of the hut and looked out towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel.
On both these occasions he came back to the fire with an inexplicable air upon him, said I, when I rose to leave him.
You almost make me think that I have met with a contented man.
[00:12:58] Speaker E: I believe I used to be so. But I am troubled, madam.
I am troubled.
[00:13:07] Speaker D: With what? What is your trouble?
[00:13:11] Speaker E: It is very difficult to impart, ma'am.
It is very difficult to speak of it.
If ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you.
[00:13:31] Speaker D: But I expressly intend to make you another visit. When shall it be?
[00:13:38] Speaker E: I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten tomorrow night, madam.
[00:13:44] Speaker D: I will come at eleven.
[00:13:47] Speaker E: Thank you, madam.
I'll show my white light till you have found the way up.
When you have found it, don't call out.
When you are at the top, don't call out.
And when you come down tomorrow night, don't call out.
[00:14:12] Speaker D: Very well.
[00:14:15] Speaker E: Let me ask you a parting question, madam.
[00:14:19] Speaker D: Of course.
[00:14:20] Speaker E: What made you cry?
[00:14:22] Speaker F: Hello. Hello there.
[00:14:25] Speaker D: Earlier tonight, heaven knows I cried something to that effect.
[00:14:31] Speaker E: To that effect, madam? Those were the very words.
I know them well.
[00:14:39] Speaker D: I said them, no doubt because I saw you below for no other reason? What other reason could I possibly have?
[00:14:48] Speaker E: You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any supernatural way?
[00:14:55] Speaker D: No.
[00:14:57] Speaker E: Good night then, madam.
[00:15:01] Speaker D: He held up his light and I walked by the side of the rails until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my lodgeend without any further adventure.
Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the zigzag. Next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven, he was waiting for me at the bottom with his white light on.
I have not called out. May I speak now?
[00:15:45] Speaker E: By all means, madam.
[00:15:47] Speaker D: Good night, then. And here's my hand.
[00:15:48] Speaker F: Good night, madam.
[00:15:49] Speaker E: And here's mine.
I have made up my mind, madam, that you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me.
I took you for someone else yesterday evening.
That troubles me.
[00:16:08] Speaker D: That mistake?
[00:16:09] Speaker E: No, that's someone else.
[00:16:13] Speaker D: Who is it?
[00:16:14] Speaker E: I don't know.
[00:16:16] Speaker D: Resembling me?
[00:16:19] Speaker E: I don't know. I never saw the face.
The left arm is across the face and the right arm is waved violently. Waved this way.
[00:16:30] Speaker D: I thought to myself, there is so much passion and agitation in his waving, as if to indicate, for God's sake, clear the way.
The signal man continued his story.
[00:16:45] Speaker E: One moonlit night I was sitting here when I heard a voice cry.
[00:16:51] Speaker F: Hello, below there.
[00:16:55] Speaker E: I started up, looked from that door, and saw this someone else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and.
[00:17:10] Speaker F: It cried, look out. Look out.
And then again, hello there. Look out.
[00:17:20] Speaker E: I caught up my lamp, turned it.
[00:17:22] Speaker F: On red and ran towards the figure calling, what's wrong? What has happened? Where?
[00:17:27] Speaker E: It stood just outside the blackness of the tunnel.
[00:17:31] Speaker F: I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up to it and had my hand stretched out to pull.
[00:17:39] Speaker D: The sleeve away when it was gone into the tunnel?
[00:17:46] Speaker F: No, I ran into the tunnel 500 yards. I stopped and held my lamp above my head.
[00:17:53] Speaker E: I saw in the measured distance the wet stains stealing down the wall and trickling through the arch.
I ran out again, faster than I had run in, for I have a mortal abhorrence of the place upon me.
[00:18:10] Speaker F: I looked all round the red light.
[00:18:12] Speaker E: With my own light, and I went.
[00:18:14] Speaker F: Up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it.
And I came down again and I ran back here. I telegraphed both ways. An alarm has been given. Is anything wrong?
The answer came back both ways.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: All well.
[00:18:35] Speaker D: This figure must be deception of your sense of sight. But the cry, the imaginary cry. Do but listen for a moment to the wind in this unnatural valley while we speak so low.
And to the wild harp it makes of the telegraph wires.
[00:18:56] Speaker E: All very well, but I ought to know something of the wind and the wires. I, who so often pass long winter nights here alone and watching.
[00:19:08] Speaker D: Oh, I meant.
[00:19:09] Speaker E: And I have not finished.
[00:19:11] Speaker D: Then I beg your pardon.
[00:19:13] Speaker E: 6 hours after the appearance, the memorable accident on the railroad line happened. And within 10 hours, the dead and wounded were brought along through the tunnel. Over the spot where the figure had stood.
[00:19:31] Speaker D: Well, yes. It is not to be denied that this is a remarkable coincidence, calculated deeply to impress your mind. I must admit, however, that men of color.
[00:19:42] Speaker E: I have not finished.
[00:19:45] Speaker D: I beg your pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.
[00:19:48] Speaker E: And this was just a year ago.
Six or seven months passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shocked when one morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at that door, looked towards the red light and saw the specter again.
[00:20:11] Speaker D: Did it cry out?
[00:20:13] Speaker E: No, it was silent.
[00:20:17] Speaker D: Did it wave its arms?
[00:20:19] Speaker E: No.
It leaned against the shaft of the light with both hands before the face.
[00:20:25] Speaker D: Like this, like an action of mourning.
I have seen such attitude in stone figures on tombs.
Did you go up to it?
[00:20:39] Speaker E: I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts. Partly because it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above me and the ghost was gone.
[00:20:53] Speaker D: But nothing followed. Nothing came of this.
[00:20:58] Speaker E: That very day, as the train came.
[00:21:01] Speaker F: Out of the tunnel, I noticed through a window on the side of the train facing me, what looked like a confusion of hands and heads. And someone waved from the car. I saw it just in time to signal to the driver.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: Stop.
[00:21:14] Speaker F: We set off and put his brake on. But the train drifted past here, 150 yards or more. I ran after it then, as it went along, heard terrible screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one of the compartments. And was brought in here and laid down on this very floor.
[00:21:36] Speaker D: Well?
[00:21:37] Speaker E: True, madam, true. Precisely as it happened. As I tell you now, madam, mark this and judge how my mind is troubled.
[00:21:50] Speaker F: The specter came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there now and again by fits and starts.
[00:21:59] Speaker D: At the light.
[00:22:01] Speaker E: At the danger light? Yes.
[00:22:06] Speaker D: What does it seem to do, this?
The signal man waved his arm violently, looking again as if he were indicating. For God's sake, clear the way.
[00:22:20] Speaker F: I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me for many minutes together in an agonized manner. Below there. Look out. Look out.
It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell.
[00:22:38] Speaker D: Oh, wait. Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was here and you went to the door twice? Why? See how your imagination misleads you? My eyes were on the bell and my ears were open to the bell. And if I am a living woman, it did not ring at those times. But no, nor at any other time except when it was rung in the natural course of physical things by another station communicating with you.
[00:23:07] Speaker E: I have never made a mistake as to that. Yet, madam, I have never confused the specter's ring with the man's, the ghost's ring. It's a strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else. And I have not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to hear it. But I heard it.
[00:23:33] Speaker D: And did the specter seem to be there when you looked out both times?
Will you come to the door with me and look for it now?
There is the danger light. There is the dismal mouth of the tunnel. There are the high, wet stone walls of the cotton. There are the stars above them. Now do you see it?
[00:24:04] Speaker E: No, it is not there.
[00:24:07] Speaker D: Agreed.
[00:24:10] Speaker E: By this time you will fully understand. Madam, what troubles me so dreadfully is the question. What does the specter mean?
[00:24:19] Speaker D: I'm not sure.
I don't fully understand.
[00:24:22] Speaker F: What is its warning against?
What is the danger? Where is the danger? There is danger overhanging somewhere on this railroad line. Some dreadful calamity will happen.
[00:24:37] Speaker E: It is not to be doubted this.
[00:24:38] Speaker F: Third time after what has gone before. But surely this is a cruel haunting of me. What can I do? If I telegraph danger on either side of me or on both, I can give no reason for it. I should get into trouble and do no good.
No. They would think I was mad.
Message. Danger.
[00:25:01] Speaker D: Take care.
[00:25:02] Speaker F: Answer. What danger? Where?
[00:25:05] Speaker E: Message. Don't know.
[00:25:06] Speaker F: But for God's sakes, take care.
They would displace me. What else could they do?
[00:25:14] Speaker D: You mustn't torture yourself. You are a conscientious man, oppressed beyond endurance by an unintelligible responsibility.
[00:25:23] Speaker F: When it first stood under the danger light, why not tell me where that accident was to happen? If it must happen, why not tell me how it could be averted? If it could have been averted when on its second coming it hid its face. Why not tell me instead? She is going to die. Let them keep her at home.
If it came on these two occasions only to show me that its warnings were true, and so to prepare me for the third, why not warn me plainly now?
And I, lord help me, a mere poor signal man on this solitary station.
Why not go to somebody with credit, to be believed and power to act.
[00:26:10] Speaker D: Setting aside all question of reality or unreality? I told him that whoever thoroughly discharged his duty must do well, and that at least it was his comfort that he understood his duty, though he did not understand these confounding appearances.
In this effort I succeeded far better than in the attempt to reason him out of his conviction. He became calm.
The occupations incidental to his post as the night advanced began to make larger demands on his attention, and I left him at two in the morning.
I had offered to rouse friends, and we would all stay through the night, but he would not hear of it.
I see no reason to conceal that I more than once look back at the red light as I ascended the pathway, that I did not like the red light, and that I should have slept poorly if my bed had been under it. Nor did I like the two sequences of the accident and the dead girl. I see no reason to conceal that either. Home late from your newspaper travels, ma'am?
But what ran most in my thoughts was the consideration.
How ought I to act, having become the recipient of this disclosure? I had proved the man to be intelligent, vigilant, painstaking, and exact.
But how long might he remain so? In his state of mind, he held an important trust.
Would I like to stake my own life on the chances of his continuing to execute it with precision?
I ultimately resolved to accompany him to the wisest medical practitioner we could hear of in these parks and to take his opinion. A change in the signal man's time of duty meant he would be off an hour or two after sunrise and on again shortly after sunset. I told him I would return accordingly, unable to overcome feeling that there would be something treacherous in my communicating. What he had told me to his superiors and the railroad. I would keep the signal man's secret for the present.
Next evening was a lovely evening, and I walked out early to enjoy it. The sun was not yet quite down when I traversed the field path near the top of the deep cutting. I would extend my walk for an hour, I said to myself, half an hour on and half an hour back, and it would be time to go to my signal man's shack.
Before pursuing my stroll, I stepped to the brink and mechanically looked down at the point from which I had first seen him.
I cannot describe the thrill that seized upon me when close at the mouth of the tunnel, I saw the appearance of a man with his left sleeve across his eyes, passionately waving his right arm.
But then I saw that this appearance of a man was a man indeed. And that there was a little group of other men standing at a short distance to whom he seemed to be rehearsing the gesture he made with a flashing, self reproachful fear. That fatal mischief had come of my leaving the signal man alone there and causing no one to be sent to overlook or correct what he did. I descended the notched path with all the speed I could make. The danger light was not yet lighted against its shaft. A little low, hut entirely new to me, had been made of some wooden supports and tarpalin. It looked no bigger than a bed.
Gentlemen.
What is the matter?
[00:30:10] Speaker G: Signal man killed this morning, ma'am.
[00:30:13] Speaker D: Not the man belonging to that shack? Yes, not the man I know.
[00:30:19] Speaker G: You'll recognize him, ma'am, if you knew him. He's under the topper in here. His face is quite composed here.
[00:30:28] Speaker D: Whoa. Please pull the COVID back over.
How did this happen? How did this happen?
[00:30:36] Speaker G: He was cut down by an engine, ma'am. No man in these parts knew his work better. But somehow he was not clear the outer rail. It was just a broad day. He had struck the light, had the lamp in his hand. As the engine came out of the tunnel, his back was towards her, and she cut him down.
That man drove her and was showing us how it happened.
[00:31:00] Speaker H: Show the lady coming around the curve in the tunnel.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Man.
[00:31:04] Speaker H: I saw him at the end, like as if I saw him down a perspective glass. There was not time to check speed, and I knew him to be very careful as he didn't see the big heat of the whistle. I shut it off when we were running down upon him and called to him as loud as I could call.
[00:31:22] Speaker D: What did you say?
[00:31:24] Speaker H: I said, below there, look out.
[00:31:27] Speaker F: Look out for dark.
[00:31:28] Speaker H: They slam away.
[00:31:35] Speaker D: That is what you said.
[00:31:38] Speaker H: It was a dreadful time, ma'am.
I never left off calling to him. I put this arm before my eyes, not to see, and I waved this arm like this to the last.
But it was no use, that warning.
[00:32:00] Speaker D: They were the very words that the signal man repeated to me as haunting him.
[00:32:10] Speaker H: Haunting man.
[00:32:11] Speaker D: But those other words, I myself not. He used them to describe the wild hand gestures, but I said them only in my mind.
[00:32:36] Speaker A: That was the signalman from seeing ear theater here on the mysterious old radio listening society podcast. Once again, I'm Eric. I'm Tim.
[00:32:45] Speaker C: And I'm Joshua.
[00:32:46] Speaker A: And that is our 7th signal man. Seven years now, we've done a signal man, and we've had some good ones and we've had some terrible ones. And before we launch into this one, seriously, the list, how many do you.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Know of remain that my sketched out plan is we'll make it to ten years.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Ten years. Okay. Is the Agnes Moorhead ones?
[00:33:08] Speaker B: That is year ten.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: That a boy. Save it for the last. So we'll have to come up with something else after that. Yeah.
Here in general is my thought on this particular signal man, it was really difficult to listen to sandy the squirrel from SpongeBob squarePants for 30 minutes.
I'm not sure where this discussion is going to go because I got really sidewalk.
[00:33:40] Speaker C: Sideswiped.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: Sideswiped? Waylaid. I was trying to combine those two words.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: Sidelaid.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: I was sideways caught in a bear trap. Is it the woman that plays Sandy the squirrel from SpongeBob SquarePants?
[00:33:53] Speaker B: It is not.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: She has a voice act. Because.
[00:33:55] Speaker F: Wow.
[00:33:57] Speaker C: I had a totally different response because it struck me as a Dickensian blanche Dubois.
All I could think of was a signal man named.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: I also.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: I'm writing that.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: I also thought, this is the hardest episode of Reba I've ever listened to.
I could not get past her voice. I couldn't do it.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: Loved her voice, personally. Really engrossed by that choice. And that got me through. I was less impressed by the gentleman who played the signal.
[00:34:37] Speaker A: I didn't like him either.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: That was the show's biggest achilles heel to me.
The signal man's got to be there.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: He's supposed to be scary or something.
[00:34:47] Speaker C: He just didn't deliver.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Pretty dry reads.
[00:34:49] Speaker B: Yes. That's my main response to this, is they made some really bold choices with these characters to change the setting. Lots of things about these characters. And I felt like she delivered to that idea well, and he did not as well.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: They changed so much setting. It felt contemporary, but didn't change the language.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: Wasn't contemporary, it was just american. No, because she says it's 1860.
[00:35:15] Speaker A: Okay, I understand that.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: But I felt contemporary with old language in my head. It was like raising Arizona of, like, these simple, humble country folk talking in.
[00:35:25] Speaker C: A very high diction, which drew me in. And my disappointment, ironically, was that it adhered so closely to the short story. The setup seemed to promise that it was going to do something less conventional. And so I had that expectation the entire time. But they stuck hard to the story.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: Yes, they did.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: The main thing for me was the choice to make the signal man himself.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: Much, much younger, that jumped out. And his performance was also very muted. And he didn't really try to give any foreshadowing or hints of regret or guilt. He just seemed not there.
There needs to be a lot of depth to this character.
[00:36:14] Speaker A: Well, merry Christmas, everybody. Thanks for tuning in.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: I think the other problem with the signalman is it's critical that he elicits the listener's sympathy. And because that actor doesn't give much, you don't really care what happens to him. And I didn't really realize that until hearing this performance. So sometimes that is the benefit of a less than stellar performance. It can also tell you things that you maybe didn't consciously realize about a beloved story like this.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not just like he was bad, but to specifically, what it was missing was that of creating some sort of mystery to who this person is secretly. There's a treasure hidden away in this little house, in this trench, that the way he's presented here is like, I'm just a kid doing my job.
[00:37:07] Speaker C: Yeah. If he's not an enigma, there's nothing to draw the narrator back over multiple nights or even that first time to draw her down into this cutting. I will say the sound is really good. There's great ambient sound just when they're down in that cutting. There's a great little audio moment when the signalman is describing the various gestures that the specter is doing, and he describes how the specter covers his mouth. He's saying like this, and he actually mutes his voice. And so it's a great radio image where you can just see him.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: And I enjoy the layer in the train sounds to reinforce these stories he's telling.
[00:37:59] Speaker C: What didn't work is a segment toward the end where he just breaks down sobbing in an unconvincing manner in the background. That was another, and that very well could have been a bad director choice. But again, I was really drawn to that idea of not only making the narrator a woman, and we've heard that already in suspense, but then keeping it in 1860 and pointing out that this was remarkable for the time. The problem being, again, I expect, like, ooh, what are they going to do with that? It was more like they were almost apologizing the way it ends up, because you don't get much from that.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: This crew clearly knows their radio stuff and suspense specifically because among the shows they do in syringe, in theaters, they do a version of. Sorry, rung number.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: Okay, so they're aware of that version of suspense?
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Yes, certainly. So I think they knew that choice to make the narrator a woman and liked it, went along with it, and for whatever reason, chose to stick more religiously to the actual text than some of the other changes that the suspense version does.
[00:39:09] Speaker C: But occasionally that reimagining lines up in really interesting ways with the original script and gives lines from the story new meaning. For example, they add the line a woman to it when she says, a woman who has been shut up within narrow limits all her life and being set free with my new occupation as a reporter. Those are pretty much straight from the Dickens story, but it means something different. The meaning suddenly completely changes. And at that moment, I was like, oh, cool, they're going to do this really interesting parallel between the reporter narrator character and the signal man. Her life was confined previously, and she made a professional choice that opened up her life in contrast with the signalman who had all this potential and lived a life and made choices that forced him to step into a confining profession. And so I was like, I'm getting ready to write my paper on this, really excited. And then nothing much comes of it because clearly of their love of the original story. So I give them credit because they just stick to it.
[00:40:18] Speaker B: And I don't know if it was this script in particular or just having heard it seven times now, that parallel of he is a person who, for whatever reason, is a signal man that is getting signals from beyond, they just can't interpret. And that she and her interest in him and is aware that there's something mysterious and strange about him is also getting signals that she is also a signal person. And in this, they kind of put a button on it with. He said the exact thing that was in my head.
[00:40:49] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:50] Speaker C: And that's from the original story, too. And that was my question for you. If you went back and listened to any of the other productions.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: I think this is the first time I heard that.
[00:40:58] Speaker C: I think this is the first one that uses that idea. And we may or may not have commented on that in the past. I can't remember. But it is a fascinating idea that she's being used.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: Like the electric bell.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Yeah. That she is part of this phenomenon.
[00:41:14] Speaker C: Whatever history is, which I've still never.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: Been able to figure out exactly what's going on in this story.
[00:41:20] Speaker C: I don't think you're supposed to. It opens up all these unanswered.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: I mean, if you do, that'd be awesome here, that is.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: And we should say to listeners who maybe are just listening to this version of the signal man first, you probably shouldn't because we tend to. After seven episodes, we've long ago.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: They're 42 minutes in.
[00:41:40] Speaker C: We long ago delved into the plot mechanics of the actual story. So it's not something that we tend to go over for the 7th time, but because this is new, this element where it underscores that, yes, the words spoken by the conductor were words that she only thought in her head and attributed to the gestures made by the signalmen creates this whole question of whether any of this would have played out as it did if she had not walked down those steps into the cutting.
[00:42:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:10] Speaker C: Which adds yet another fascinating question mark.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: To the entire story in the same vein of, like, this sounds cool. I wonder what they're going to do with it. And nothing is the answer is that whole idea of even though we've not listened to, I think, any british versions, we listened to australian, canadian, a lot of american. But this is the first one that actually moved the whole story to America.
What does that mean to have this story existing here and the social dynamic of being. I just wandered up to this stranger and started talking to you in America versus in Britain. Apparently it doesn't mean anything.
No, just meant accents.
[00:42:52] Speaker C: Which accent do you do better, southern or English?
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: All right. We're in Arkansas.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: I do a hell of a sandy the squirrel from SpongeBob impression. Would you like to hear that for 30 minutes?
[00:43:06] Speaker C: That's all you got?
[00:43:08] Speaker A: It really is all I got for this.
[00:43:10] Speaker B: Because the other thing I was thinking is that last year. Last year was listen to Nightfall, and we were expecting, like, the big contemporary, weird adaptation of what's this going to be? And they zigged when we were expecting a zag and did it. This is a very classic Heidi adept adaptation that is right in line with the sorts of things you might have already heard. So this was now, like, this is the weird contemporary one, and it's a little weirder.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: But am I right in remembering that we all agreed last year that the nightfall one was the best or one.
[00:43:43] Speaker B: Of our favorites, much better than we.
[00:43:44] Speaker C: Expected, and it was excellent.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Sarah Churchill, still our favorite one, or the Ellen drew is the one that we hated, right?
[00:43:51] Speaker B: Yeah, the Ellen drew one with drum suspense.
[00:43:53] Speaker C: Sarah Churchill is still my favorite one, but nightfall was up there, and that came down to performances.
[00:44:00] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:00] Speaker C: And this is an interesting phenomenon that I have experienced with contemporary audio drama, particularly in America. And I don't know if it's just because it's a lost art, so people don't take it as seriously. But contemporary audio drama performances are so hit and miss. They're always really muted, even like new from audible, some X Files audio drama. You hear actors that you usually love on tv give these really dull, muted performances.
[00:44:32] Speaker A: It's the idea that not everybody understands that it is, performance wise, a different discipline. And an actor will walk into it going, oh, I can act with my voice without understanding. There's a training and a discipline to that performance style. And it's hubris to believe that if you're a great stage actor or a great on screen actor that you can obviously do audio drama. And it is not true. And that happens frequently where they fail because they didn't study or take the time to understand what the nuances of that discipline were.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Trying to read behind the lines of the sort of bio of seeing eye theater. They had a lot of very talented voice actors. Kevin Conroy did a lot of their narration sorts of work. I think we just got the one actor that didn't fit the mold. But overall, it sounds like they had a lot of very good people.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: Okay. All you had to say in the opening was a slew of MST, three K, Ali.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: They were all in one episode, but there was a lot of them. Yeah.
[00:45:40] Speaker A: Which one did they do?
[00:45:42] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if it was a title you'd recognize, but. Mary Joe Peele.
[00:45:45] Speaker D: Yay.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: We love you, Mary Jo.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: She's not listening to this.
I just saw her not too long ago. I don't know why I'm name dropping.
Yeah, me and Mary Jo go way back.
[00:45:54] Speaker B: Hey, Minnesota. Yeah, we have a little narrow window. People can name drop.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: There's only 100 people here. You can't help but know everybody.
[00:46:01] Speaker B: And I think Prince was in one of these episodes as well.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: Well, I just had dinner with him the other day.
[00:46:07] Speaker C: Uncomfortable.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: So, any other thoughts on this gentleman?
[00:46:12] Speaker C: I'm ready to vote.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: I'm ready to vote. Joshua.
[00:46:17] Speaker C: The production values are top notch, and I'm glad to hear that the performances are stronger in other installments. For me, the signal man's underwhelming turn really distracted me. And so I would say it definitely stand the test of time. It's only 20 years old, and I really admired their reverence for the original story.
But I, ironically, would have liked to have seen a little more playfulness with the new ideas they introduced. It would have made it a little more exciting to listen to and might have made up for the strange take on the signalman if it was actually going someplace and giving us a new take on the signalman. But since it adhered to the story so closely, it was just a bit of a damp squib.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: Damp squib.
It's not the worst signal man I ever heard. That will always forever belong to the production company that tried to do a stage version at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023. Sorry, it was horrible. And it's not the second worst that still belongs to Alan Drew, but it is the third worst out of all the signal man's I've heard.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Now I'm trying to think of how to stage a signal man worse than the one you saw.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: Oh my God. It would be so easy to do one better. Just say hello down there for an hour. Hello down there.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: Like 18 kindergartners to all line up and be choo train would be better.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Everybody in this is probably still alive, and so I don't want to google both the actors.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: She has a pretty significant voice.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: Great. I love you. You're great.
You're great as Sandy the squirrel.
The accents and the setting in America and the fact that it didn't reveal anything much new. Although I will give credit the ending where he was saying what was in my head, keeping that part from the original story. I wish everybody would do that because I think it's an important part of this story and significant. That's the only thing I liked about it.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Very similar to you guys. It is again that a little bit of the disappointment is the frustration of you made some changes here that were interesting and big and they didn't develop in particular. Making him younger is like, that is a significant change. I wonder what they're going to do with that. And nothing was the answer right? Credit due for high quality sound engineering and choices they made with the sound. And I think she delivered an excellent performance and he delivered a mediocre one. Sorry to speak other actors.
[00:49:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I always feel bad about that. It's easier in this podcast when you speak about people and they're all dead.
And most people that knew him are dead. All right, Tim, tell him stuff.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Please go visit ghoulishlights.com, home of this podcast, and six other as of right now versions of the Signal man. You can listen to all performed by dead people.
[00:49:33] Speaker C: So have Adam.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: Which makes them scarier.
[00:49:39] Speaker B: You can leave comments, you can vote in polls. Let us know what you think about all these different versions of the Sigma man. You can also click on links to other things. There's links galore. Click away. You can link to our threadless store. Go buy yourself some swag. You can also link to our Patreon page.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: Sorry, I'm still stuck on actors being dead.
I wish we'd called this podcast listening to dead people.
[00:50:05] Speaker A: I hear dead people.
[00:50:07] Speaker C: There you go. We'll probably have more listeners with the 6th cents tie in. Damn it. Yes. Go to patreon.com. The morals. And if you have an idea for a new title for this podcast, if you give us money, who knows? We might even rename it after you. If you give us enough money, we'll.
[00:50:24] Speaker A: Name it anything for enough money. Poopy face.
[00:50:28] Speaker C: The Bob and Susan Memorial radio podcast.
Whatever. We'll do it. So, yeah, this podcast takes a lot of work from us, and so your support means a lot. But you're not just giving us money. No, it's mostly what you're doing. But in addition to that, we give you all sorts of things, extra podcasts. We have Zoom happy hours. I do a Zoom book club. We have a discord server channel. Noun thing.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: At some point, noun thing.
[00:51:03] Speaker C: We will explain to Eric, and he will join us on it.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Oh, we will. Okay.
[00:51:08] Speaker B: Oh, we haven't been promising Eric's Sid and Marty Croft watch along.
[00:51:12] Speaker C: Oh, yes, we forgot about that. That was from a different recording session.
[00:51:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll do it.
[00:51:19] Speaker C: We're very serious about this.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll watch all of Land of the lost with all you spend.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: We're not.
[00:51:26] Speaker C: No, no. We're. Oh, you this alone, buddy.
[00:51:30] Speaker A: Okay.
Hey, if you'd like to see us performing on stage, the mysterious old radio listening society theater group, which is us doing live on stage adaptations of classic old time radio shows and a lot of our own original work. Our audio theater company performs monthly somewhere, and so all you have to do is go to ghoulishdelights.com and see where we're performing each month, what we're performing, and how to get tickets. If you can't get tickets, we video all the shows, and we put them online for our patreons. So if you're a Patreon, you do get to see those shows, no matter where you are or how busy you are that at night. All right, what's coming up next in.
[00:52:10] Speaker C: Honor of the new year?
I don't know what we're doing.
[00:52:16] Speaker A: Can you just leave it like that?
Followed by there.
