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Title: Quail Seed (19 Nocturne Boulevard Anthology)
Producer: Julie Hoverson and Wheeality Productions
Type: Drama
Genre: Social Satire

Rating: AD-G*
Availability: Free – 19NocturneBoulevard.com

Greetings, Audionauts – Captain Radio here with a review of Saki’s Quail Seed, adapted and produced by Julie Hoverson and Wheeality Productions.

High-profile classic literary oracles, like H.G. Wells and George Orwell, have astounded readers with profound and often disturbing scientific and social insights into the future. However, audio drama producer Julie Hoverson holds that lesser-known but certainly competent writers, such as Edwardian era author H.H. Munro, known better by his pen name, Saki, could cleverly employ biting humor to reveal equally rare foresights into mundane matters:

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Struggling small businesses today could garner an insight or two from Quail Seed which opens with Mr. Scarrick, a small-town shop owner who, having just topped off his inventory, abruptly faces dismal Christmas sales:

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However, some local gossips, trying to be discrete as they surreptitiously browse Scarrick’s lowly local establishment before traveling to the big city to make their purchases, witness two bizarre visitations, first, that of an unusual boy:

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Even as the ladies cackle feverishly over the departed boy, a stranger and more imposing customer stalks in:

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In no time the entire exurban community is abuzz, both about the strange visitors and Scarrick’s puzzling perfidy. On subsequent days, shoppers mill about the store, draining the shelves of goods, at last gasping when the strange boy, the imposing man and Scarrick’s deceit all score an encore. With that, the rumor dam crumbles:

[SOUND BYTE]

And no one can resist shopping at Scarrick’s thereafter for fear of foregoing the finale of all this unfathomable intrigue, perhaps … not even you.

Saki’s engaging satire, minimalistically, tastefully, and warmly adapted by Hoverson, might well be served as a delicious after-dinner dessert with a sherry apéritif or Turkish coffee. Though Hoverson jests about making relatively casual casting decisions for her many works thus far, no character of Quail Seed seems truly out of place or unapproachable here. Enjoy.

You can also hear a podcast of Hoverson’s Mark Time Award-winning scifi drama, The Outpost, right here on Radio Drama Revival.

Until next time, Audionauts, this is Captain Radio, signing off!

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Captain Radio Reviews Quail Seed from Julie Hoverson and Wheeality Productions

* Rating based on the Audio Drama Directory Ratings System.