transcript
show notes
This radio drama uses AI-generated writing, voices, music, sound effects and artwork. All spoken performances in this edition use ElevenLabs V4.
A Burbank studio chief calls in Sherlock Holmes: a photographer half a world away has phoned her about expenses she was kindly promised on the telephone and never repaid, yet the chief swears she has never spoken to the woman in her life. Who has been telephoning a stranded photographer in a studio chief's voice?
🎧 Full episode of Holmes LA: a modern Sherlock Holmes audio drama, a radio mystery set in Los Angeles and performed by a full cast.
Listen as a podcast, with full transcripts: https://mono-noir.transistor.fm/
Stories, transcripts and the schedule: https://matezz.com
🎭 Directed Edition — every role cast for this story and every line performed with full voice direction.
Los Angeles, April 2022. On a Tuesday evening Dr. Watson is at war with a sprinkler timer that fires at dusk, not dawn, while Sherlock Holmes, plaster to the wrist, casts a coyote's paw print on the drive of their converted craftsman above Echo Park. His phone starts walking off the porch rail: Vivian Stroud, who runs a film studio in Burbank, says a photographer she has never met, Nora Lindgren, has just phoned her, stranded half a world away, and wants Holmes at her studio tonight. Holmes would sooner not cross the hills for someone else's bad evening (his last three weeks paid nothing and the rent on Watson's clinic falls due on Friday), but Watson points out that, of everyone a stranded photographer could have called, she chose a studio chief she has never met, and Holmes asks for the car keys. First they stop at a stucco walk-up four streets below their own house, where they are let into Nora's rooms: a cold darkroom with the fixer dried in its tray and a calendar that stops in September. She only packed for two weeks. On the dubbing stage Stroud insists she never spoke to the young woman in her life, and Holmes rings Nora and hears about a picture job offered in September, expenses promised and fifty-two thousand dollars of savings gone. Nobody at the studio has heard of any such picture. Stroud wants no police before her investors sign, and the person she sends Holmes to is Bridie Boyle, the dialect coach who has taught actors their accents for thirty-one pictures and never once seen her name in the credits. Next morning Lieutenant Quintero of homicide, who knows of nobody dead, comes to the dubbing stage as a favor to Holmes. Who is out there being Vivian Stroud, and kinder at it?
From the series Holmes LA: a real Los Angeles crime reimagined as a modern Sherlock Holmes radio mystery, performed by a full multi-voice AI cast with an original score and sound design.
Loosely inspired by a real Los Angeles case of recent years. All names, characters, dialogue and events are fictional; the words, actions, motives and private lives of every character — including a film-studio chief and her staff and investors, a freelance photographer and other film workers, a dialect coach, the police and the investigators, and anyone suspected or accused of the telephone calls — are invented for drama, and so is the solution of the mystery. Where a real city, street or public body is mentioned, its part in this story is invented; the studio, the lot and the places named in it are invented too. This is a work of fiction, not a factual account of any real person or institution. No real person is portrayed, and no real individual, company or organisation is accused of any act shown here.
Setting: Los Angeles — April 2022.
Writer v2.7 — the studio's newest writing process: the plot is planned and checked by an AI story editor, then each act is drafted with the whole story in view and edited before a word is voiced — and then cast and performed with our new casting and voice direction.
Chapters:
0:00 A Coyote's Paw Print and a Sprinkler Timer
2:41 A Stucco Walk-Up at the Foot of the Hill
4:16 An Actress Frozen Mid-Sob on the Dubbing Stage
5:43 Grey Felt and a Call Into Tomorrow Morning
7:43 A Corridor of Framed Posters
8:58 Blinds Drawn and No Chairs Offered
10:04 Mirrors and a Wall of Labelled Tape
11:47 A Lieutenant on the Dubbing Stage
13:36 A Plaster Paw on the Kitchen Table
14:33 Stopped Dead in Dusk Traffic
15:59 A Victory Cigarette in the Front Office
17:12 A Guard Walks Bridie Boyle Back Through the Gate
18:59 Down the Hill on Foot, Next Morning
20:10 Cardboard Takes Over the Coaching Room
22:06 An Ashtray Smoked Full by Afternoon
23:44 Shut in the Felt Once More
24:37 Evening in Nora's Rooms Down the Hill
26:35 The Last of It, from the Case Log
#MonoNoirRadioDrama #SherlockHolmes #AudioDrama
