Coming Soon – Camlann
Transcript created: 6th November 2023
Last updated: 10th January 2024
Camlann is written and directed by Ella Watts and produced by Amber Devereux at Tin Can Audio, with production management from Ross McFarlane. This transcript was written by Ella Watts.
[A dial tone - it’s a low, warm trilling beep which rings in sets of two, six times, before stopping abruptly.
The voice that follows is feminine and light, with a precise English accent. The character speaks with a sense of formality, and formal warmth - like you might find in a hospital.]
RECORDING 1: Please hold. Your call is very important to us and we will get to it as quickly as we can. The Cataclysm is frightening for everyone. Remember, in times like these we need to stick together more than ever. If you need emergency assistance, please call 999 -
[The dial tone returns, ringing three times. The voice that follows is light, masculine, with a Scottish accent.]
RECORDING 2: Your position in the queue is -
[The voice that follows is androgynous and light, a different Scottish accent to the one before.]
RECORDING 3: Three-hundred and thirty-three
[A long, continuous droning beep as the phone connects, which ends abruptly.]
[The voice that follows is feminine and Scottish, specifically Glaswegian. She sounds confident, but somewhat rushed - like an emergency phone operator. She is immediately authoritative and polite.]
PHONE OPERATOR: Hello, you’ve reached the Cataclysm Casualties Hotline. Can I take your name and date of birth?
[A very soft static begins to build in the background.]
[The first voice we hear is androgynous, English and precise.]
PERRY: Peredur Green
[The second voice is a low, feminine voice with a Welsh accent.]
MORGAN: Morgan Jones
[The third voice speaks with a Chinese accent, and is light and feminine.]
GWEN: Shújūn Liu
[The fourth voice is low and masculine, with a broad Scottish accent.]
GWAINE: Gwaine Turner
[The fifth voice is light and masculine, with a light Welsh accent.]
DAI: Just call me Dai
[The Phone Operator is business-like and professional.]
PHONE OPERATOR: Ok, and who are you calling for today?
[The static keeps building softly, getting slowly louder.]
[Dai sounds frustrated and anxious, and he speaks quickly.]
DAI: My Mum. Siân Thomas? She was in Aberystwyth.
[Gwaine speaks firmly and slowly. He falters when he clarifies Kirkwall, revealing his anxiety.]
GWAINE: Matthew and Louise Turner. In Kirkwall on Orkney.
[Gwen sounds audibly anxious, speaking with urgency and a slightly higher pitch.]
GWEN: My father, Kai Liu.
[Morgan says Ben’s name as if around a lump in her throat - she sounds sad, like she already knows something has happened to him.]
MORGAN: Ben. Ben Jones.
[A new drone builds alongside the softly building static - like a swarm of bees or string instruments being played vibrato. It slowly gets louder and louder, a low pitched sense of intensity and dread.]
[Gwaine sounds comfortably skeptical - as if what he’s referring to cannot possibly be true.]
GWAINE: I saw something on the news about a sea serpent?
[Morgan sounds like she’s going to be sick. She’s deadly serious, firm and clearly seriously worried.]
MORGAN: He’s fifteen years old.
[Perry is authoritative and comfortable with the bureaucracy, though they still speak with a sense of urgency.]
PERRY: Anna and Sophie Green, in Portsmouth.
[When Gwen speaks, there’s a sense of dread in her voice.]
GWEN: What’s happening in Kowloon?
[The droning bee swarm sound gets louder, it’s hard to tell if it’s musical or a sound effect, only that it’s building a sense of dread like a horror film.]
[Perry sounds incredulous and confused as they ask their question, full of disbelief.]
PERRY: Listen, is this real? I’ve been seeing news reports about dragons -
[The phone operator sounds guarded and distracted when she answers, clearly avoiding the questions.]
PHONE OPERATOR: Let me look that up for you. Where are you calling from today?
[Each of the following answers comes quickly and firmly. Gwen’s stands out.]
PERRY: Bristol
MORGAN: Bristol
GWAINE: Bristol
DAI: Bristol
GWEN: Leicester
[The phone operator sounds sincere and sympathetic in the way that a doctor might when delivering bad news to a patient.]
[A new sound effect joins the static and drone - background voices or muffled clanging metal, like the echoes you hear in a swimming pool. It sounds strange and surreal, contradicting the sensible pragmatism of the Phone Operator’s delivery.]
PHONE OPERATOR: I’m so sorry, it looks like we haven’t got anyone listed under that name on the database. This means they have’t been listed as a fatality. Call back tomorrow, and if you haven’t heard anything from us or your loved one in three days, try the online form.
[Very softly, music fades in - synthetic strings playing a warm, hopeful folk music kind of melody. The strings build.]
PHONE OPERATOR: I know this is scary, but it’s ok. We’re going to get through this…
[Everything pauses - the sound effects, the music, and the Phone Operator herself. There’s a beat of silence.]
PHONE OPERATOR: …together.
[The music resumes, louder than before, as everything else fades away. The tune builds from strings into a melodic keyboard like-tune on a synthetic instrument that sounds like fairy lights. The music is warm and hopeful.]
[It dips in volume under the following voiceover - delivered by a light, masculine voice with a Welsh accent, the same actor as Dai. His delivery is confident and formal.]
VOICEOVER: Camlann, a post-apocalyptic audio drama by Ella Watts, inspired by folklore and Arthurian legends. Coming January 2024. Produced by Tin Can Audio.
[The music builds - the synthetic keyboard and strings joined by a synth that sounds almost like an organ, building to a gentle, slow crescendo before dipping back down - each instrument falling away until only the strings are left playing the core melody of the tune, more and more quietly until the music fades and the trailer ends.]
