Wooden Overcoats Season Four Wraps

We got the scripts in the microphone in the studio on time. Last week, Wooden Overcoats, the UK’s premiere podcast sitcom, completed its final recordings at the Octagon Studios in Brixton. As the schedule fell out, the final scene recorded was the very end of Season Four, Episode 10, the close of the entire programme. There were three takes (there would have been two, but someone’s phone made a noise on the second), and then it was all over.

It’s been related before many times, so I’ll be brief: once upon a time, Felix Trench suggested that he and I make a short film about two rival undertakers. I wasn’t sure about the budget demands but said it was a good premise. A while later, Serial came out and the whole world started listening to podcasts, so Felix suggested we make one of those instead. He mentioned the idea to his then-flatmate, playwright David K Barnes, who proceeded to plot the first season of such a show in the shower.

Many months of amassing ideas, writers, performers and producers later, we recorded our first season in those very same Brixton studios. We had no idea if anyone would ever listen to it, but we knew we wanted to make something, we knew we had the talent onboard to make it good and we knew we could release it to the world once it was made.

Since then we’ve been mentioned in almost every major British press outlet, run three successful Kickstarter campaigns to pay our collaborators and amassed millions of downloads from listeners all over the world. Taking my phenomenal bias into consideration, I’d still say that Wooden Overcoats is one of the best radio comedies produced in Britain in the last decade, and I’ve felt privileged to be part of it since Day One.

I'm going to miss the island of Piffling terribly. My time there has strengthened old friendships and, without fail, sparked new ones every time a stranger arrives on its shores. There are still many months of Overcoats activity to come, including the release of Season Four early next year and live performances of all the new episodes. There will even be some supplementary recording sessions of scattered moments which can't be covered until later for logistical reasons, so, technically, the recordings aren't even over yet. But last Thursday, 23rd September 2021, we left the studios where the village of Piffling Vale was conjured for the very last time.

You can hear Seasons One to Three of Wooden Overcoats wherever podcasts are found, or stream them from our website, woodenovercoats.com.