We need to talk about Mythos...

The "Lovecraft Investigations: Crowley" kickstarter launched on 1st May and hit the substantial £70K target in less than 24 hours. This was phenomenal and I am unspeakably grateful to every single person who pledged.

And so now, with 24 days to go, we need to talk about Mythos...

Before the Lovecraft Investigations, there was Mythos. I've had more fun writing this than pretty much anything else, and it spawned both the Lovecraft Investigations and the Aldrich Kemp seasons, gave a name to the Department of Works, provided the seed for the entire Pleasant Green universe, and created two characters who, alarmingly, became fan favourites. Mythos feels like one of those shows that should have run and run, but instead it ended just as it was finding its feet. And now it's back, nearly...

The first Mythos adventure was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April, 2017. A year earlier, my radio play "Fugue State" had introduced the character of Johnson (Tim McInnerny) and made reference to a "Department" that he headed up that investigated unusual, esoteric events. The particular event under investigation in "Fugue State" was a mysterious radio signal coming from an English village called Pleasant Green... The story was kind of a meta exploration of the idea of time and the nature of reality and blah blah blah. "Fugue State" got a lot of attention and a few awards, so the BBC asked me what I wanted to do next...

"I'm a ghost, Babes"

"Mythos" was officially conceived as a standalone radio play, but I always hoped to turn it into a series. The first episode introduced Mary Lairre (Nicola Walker) the ghost of a dead nun, given physical form by a complicated series of Enochian wards. Mary is an agent at the Department of Works, a shadowy government organisation whose job it is to prevent "Albion Events"; fragments of England's past that are awaking and attempting to attack the present.

The tone of Mythos was new; I was trying to imagine Douglas Adams partnering with Nigel Kneale to write folk horror (although this was never going to be as good as it would be if Adams and Kneale had written it).

The first episode partnered Mary Lairre with a podcaster called Hicks (Jonathan Bailey). But when the BBC asked for two more episodes, I couldn't figure a way for Hicks's skillset to continue to contribute. And so I killed Hicks off at the start of "Mythos: Glamis" (he went on to become Matthew Heawood in the Lovecraft Investigations) and introduced, in his place, a chaos witch called Parker (Phoebe Fox).

"We're the things that go bump in the night, Love."

"Mythos: Glamis" dealt with the hidden room in Glamis Castle and the legend of the Beast of Glamis. There was time travel, quantum physics, the mystical land of Avalon, a meta-plot about fictional worlds, and a monster-hunter called Libby Ward (Jana Carpenter).

"You really don't want to be the baddie in a Cinderella Parker story."

Parker and Lairre worked brilliantly together and the dynamic established in that adventure gave me the confidence to head into...

"Mythos: Albion". This is the adventure where the show really finds its feet. Parker has gone from channelling an elemental fire personality in "Glamis", to a woo-woo Earth element at the opening of "Albion", where she and Lairre take on Robin Hood and his Merry Men. She then sloughs off the Earth personality for the main storyline and adopts a Secret Agent character, inspired by Modesty Blaise.

"I'm going to be running a ballistic serendipity charm, the same one Elvis used to kill Kennedy".

By the time Parker appears again in the second season of the Lovecraft Investigations, she has ditched the secret agent thing, and has become a little more conspiratorial and mysterious. But the Modesty Blaise element resurfaces in the character of Clara Page, also played by Phoebe, in the Aldrich Kemp stories. (You can read Clara Page as an incarnation of Parker. She isn't, but you can choose to read her that way.)

For her part, Mary Lairre may or may not have become/possessed Eleanor Peck for the duration of The Lovecraft Investigations thus far. Certainly, she is alluded to by Parker at the end of The Shadow Over Innsmouth and then re-emerges to do battle with neo-Nazis at the climax of The Haunter of the Dark.

At the end of "Mythos: Albion", though, having gone back in time to save the day by assassinating Geoffrey of Monmouth, Lairre and Parker are instructed to head to the village of Midwich, which has apparently "gone offline". And that is where we left them...

I had three more adventures storylined and ready to go (and many more ideas beyond that). Alas, the BBC felt that the show had run its course. But now, thanks to the miracle of Kickstarter, we are very close to being able to take that next journey with Lairre and Parker...

New Mythos add-ons and rewards...

We've hit the target for "Lovecraft Investigations: Crowley" and are now heading towards our stretch goal: at £100,000 we will get to make a brand new Mythos episode. Nicola Walker and Phoebe Fox will reprise Lairre and Parker, and the original production team will be back on the project.

To help us get to that £100,000 within the next few days, and to therefore get us on the way to the last stretch goal, some new goodies have been added to the Kickstarter:

• High-Res Digital Downloads of all three Mythos episodes so far (these sound great!)
• A 3-CD box set of the original Mythos Episodes, with a 12-page booklet containing BTS photographs, new artwork and liner notes.
• A limited edition run of that CD box set, signed by me, Nicola Walker and Phoebe Fox.
• The digital "Banishment Box" - similar to the Crowley Beast Box, this will contain:
  • The Hi-Res downloads of the three episodes (so don't buy those separately if you're intending to get the box)
  • Behind the Scenes photographs and documentation– A PDF script book of all three scripts, with an introduction and supplemental materials.
  • The never-before-seen TV pilot script for Mythos, which reimagines Parker's origins and gives an alternate version of Lairre and Parker's first meeting.
  • Exclusive Mythos desktop and phone wallpaper.
  • IN ADDITION, should we reach the stretch goal, the box will remain open and will be filled with more photos, videos, recordings, scripts, notes and paraphernalia related to the NEW episode. As with the Beast Box; if we make it and it can be digitised, it's going in the Banishment box.

Some MYTHOS T-Shirts featuring quotes from the show and designed by Carl Pugh, will also be available within the next week or so.

When we hit the £100,000 stretch goal, "Fugue State", "Mythos", "Mythos: Glamis", and "Mythos: Albion" will be added to the private RSS feed that we're setting up for existing pledgers to be able to receive Crowley. These stories have been hard to come by outside of my this site, but they will now be accessible via your podcast app of choice.

The nature of Kickstarter is such that we can't offer rewards based on hitting a stretch goal - you would be billed for pledges whether we hit it or not (because we've already hit the main target). So Mythos-specific tiers and rewards (including a physical "Banishment Box" of Mythos merch and swag) will appear when we pass £100,000, and will help propel us towards a brand-new feature-length Pleasant Green audio adventure at £150,000.

Also, as of today, anyone who pledges, or has already pledged, on the Tillinghast or Cabal tiers will see their Associate/Executive producer privileges (livestream of recording/meet the writers/set visit) EXTENDED to include the new "Mythos" and "The Department", in the event that we hit those stretch goals.

This has been a LONG update. We're nearly done, just one more thing:

An Ecological Pledge

This pledge is mine, not yours. It would be incredibly easy to generate loads of plastic crap as part of these Kickstarter rewards, and to fly said crap all over the world at the expense of the environment that we're all trying to preserve. I'm therefore determined that, where possible, everything we make will be designed, created and packaged in as sustainable a way as possible. Obviously some items, like CDs, cannot be produced without some cost to the environment. But where we can do it, we will, and where we can move manufacture to local areas to avoid unnecessary flights, we will do that too.

And that wraps us up. Let's get to that stretch goal!! If you want to hear where Mythos has been, click the Audio link in the page header. If you want to know where it goes next, pledge whatever you can here: Lovecraft Investigations: Crowley.

Julian.