Iain: Tigerheart being the variant of cabbage which inadvertently leads to an accidental bank robbery in the seaside town of Skegness. I was proof-listening to the audiobook of Tigerheart not long ago and I have to say that those audiobooks are amazing.

Heide: Blow your own trumpet much, Iain?

Iain: Only on weekends. But, no, I meant that the audiobook narration on those is really something else. We’ve been very lucky to work with Matthew Lloyd Davies on a number of projects over the years.

Heide: Let’s see. He narrated Clovenhoof, Pigeonwings, in fact, all the Clovenhoof novels. All the Oddjobs novels too.

Iain: He really threw himself into those weird alien words.

Heide: He recorded the audiobook for our little werewolf comedy horror, Heart in the Right Place. And he’s now recorded five out of the six Sam Applewhite novels.

Iain: The audiobook for book 5, Bountyhunter, isn’t out yet though. But it will be soon. I can’t recall how we first started working with Matthew Lloyd Davies.

Heide: I do. He’d recorded the audiobook for Carpet Diem by Justin Lee Anderson, a funny supernatural comedy about devils, angels and carpets. And he won a prize for it too!

Iain: Oh, that’s right. The Audie Awards. He won that in 2018. 

Heide: And he was awarded an Earphones Award by Audiofile Magazine for his work on our book Oddjobs 2.

Iain:  I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I think there are lots of different approaches to narration. Some narrators just read the book, professionally sure but without emotion and character. And then there are those who read deliver a strong reading, bringing characters to life. I listened to an excellent audiobook of Sherlock Holmes stories recently, read by Derek Jacobi. Really engaging.

Heide: And then there are some — and I think Matthew Lloyd Davies is in this category — who almost turn the story into a one-person radio drama, acting out the book through the text.

Iain: And that’s what I get to enjoy, I think. Hearing characters we’ve been writing for years and years brought to life in new ways.

Heide: Favourites?

Iain: Clovenhoof would obviously be one. Matthew’s delivery of Clovenhoof is arrogant and manic in just the right way. I think he has an especial knack for bringing to life men who aren’t half as clever as they think they are. His rendition of Marvin Applewhite from the Sam books is sublime too, touching and ridiculous.

Heide: I think I was most impressed by that scene in Oddjobs 3.

Iain: Which scene? Oh! That scene.

Heide: It’s a rare narrator who can pull off the dialogue accompanying a comedy sex scene featuring slime monsters, science labs and the Dam Busters March.

Iain: It’s a rare narrator who gets asked to!

You can start listening to the Sam Applewhite books here!

You can start listening to the Oddjobs books here!

The latest Clovenhoof book, Alpacalypse, is available to pre-order on Kindle here!