"You're still awake too, huh?"
A six-part radio drama from Big Ear Radio, featuring Louise Darrow and a diverse cast drawn from across the world. Where the city keeps its secrets, and the night is always listening.
Hey there...
You're still awake too, huh?
Funny how the night keeps the honest ones up.
Pour yourself something strong, sweetheart. We've got time. The city's not going anywhere. Neither am I.
This is The Graveyard Shift. I'm Louise Darrow. And you're safe here… in the dark with me.
The Graveyard Shift is a six-episode radio drama set in the booth of a late-night call-in show. Louise Darrow hosts from midnight until the city exhales, taking calls from night workers, insomniacs, travellers and strangers who have nowhere else to put the things they're carrying.
Written for voices, performed by a diverse cast drawn from across the world, the drama unfolds one call at a time, intimate, atmospheric, and entirely made for the ears.
She'll tell you she came to the city running from something, or toward something, she can't remember which any more. What she knows is she stayed. And the city kept her, the way it keeps certain people: the ones who understand its hours, who know which diners are open at 3am and which alleys lead nowhere good.
She's world-weary but kind. Philosophical about heartbreak. She makes loneliness sound like something worth sitting with, and she's been doing the graveyard shift long enough to know what the dark does to people, the things it loosens, the things it holds.
"Every sentence sounds like a confidence. She's seen everything twice and she's still listening."
The Performer — Louise Darrow is brought to life by Sandra Murphy, an actress from Western Ireland who brings exactly the warmth, mystery and quiet authority the role demands. Sandra has described taking on the part as one of the most exciting things she's done, and it shows.
Each episode takes place over a single broadcast, the early hours of a random night. The city outside the window. Louise behind the glass. A phone line, open.
A cabbie who still believes in second chances, a woman sitting in her car unable to go inside, and a voice from the dark who may or may not be driving away from something they can't name.
A laundromat worker with a shoebox of strangers' forgotten things, a musician who finally plays three notes for the first time since his wife died, and a woman at a payphone with one bag and no destination.
A paramedic who saved four lives tonight and feels absolutely nothing, a baker making wedding cakes for a wedding that never happened, and a wrong number that turns out to be exactly the right call.
A poker dealer who watched a man lose everything with quiet dignity, a teenager who hung up twice before tonight, and an archivist who found a sealed letter from 1953 that was never meant to be found.
A florist who doesn't know why she's crying, a retired judge who can't stop seeing a face from thirty years ago, and a philosophy professor who has no idea who chose his life.
A hospital cleaner finds an unopened birthday card beside an empty bed, a security guard who brings coffee to the mannequins, and a bartender who discovers a wallet containing only a photograph and the words I'm sorry.
The Graveyard Shift features a diverse ensemble, performers of different ages, origins and backgrounds, each bringing a character who calls into Louise's show from their own corner of the night. Full cast to be announced.
The Graveyard Shift is currently in production. Six episodes, thirty minutes each, broadcast weekly. No air date has been confirmed, but the lines will open soon. Keep the night free.
"The city's not going anywhere.
Neither am I."
— Louise Darrow, The Graveyard Shift
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