The Greatest Matter: A Victorian Gothic Audio Drama Podcast

HeadStuff Podcasts presents The Greatest Matter, an original full-cast audio drama podcast series launching on 24th September 2024. Trailer out now!

The Greatest Matter is a gothic crime tale set in Victorian Dublin, in which a visiting Italian criminologist gets caught up in a mysterious murder in Phoenix Park. The podcast will be released weekly for 12 episodes from September to December.

The show was written and directed by multi-award-winning podcast producer Conor Reid (creator of Words To That Effect), with a cast including Donncha O’Dea (The House, Druid; Somewhere Out There You, Abbey Theatre; Fair City, RTÉ), Margaret Mc Auliffe (Much Ado About Nothing, Rough Magic; Requiem for the Truth, Collapsing Horse, The Humours of Bandon, Fishamble), Amy O’Dwyer (Fair City, RTE; Making Dad’s Army, BBC; Peter Pan, Gaiety Theatre) and Darragh Smith (The Night Joe Dolan’s Car Broke Down, Olympia Theatre)

The Greatest Matter will be of interest to lovers of gothic and the supernatural, as well as fans of crime, mystery, and all things Victorian. Whether it’s audio dramas like Welcome to Nightvale, The Magnus Archives, or Victoriocity; TV shows such as Penny Dreadful, Sherlock, or Carnival Row; or classic fiction from Arthur Conan Doyle and Bram Stoker to the ghost stories of M.R. James and Sheridan LeFanu, the podcast is sure to appeal.

About the Writer

Conor Reid is a writer and podcast producer from Dublin. He is the host and producer of the award-winning podcast, Words To That Effect, a narrative storytelling show about the fiction that shapes popular culture.

He is the Head of Podcasts at The Podcast Studios in Dublin, where he draws on his background as a published author, with a PhD in English and a decade of teaching experience, to lead a team of producers helping individuals and organisations create and tell great audio stories.

The Greatest Matter is his first audiodrama, a project he wrote, directed, edited and sound designed.

About HeadStuff Podcasts

HeadStuff Podcasts is an award-winning podcast network (Best Network, Irish Podcast Awards, 2023) that has nearly two dozen shows, generating hundreds of thousands of monthly downloads, on topics from literature and film, to comedy, celebrity chats, and explainer shows with podcasts consistently ranking in the top charts on platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Podcasters include Tony Cantwell, Shane Daniel Byrne, Killian Sunderman, Deirdre O’Kane, Emma Doran, Stefanie Preissner, Gearóid Farrelly, Kevin McGahern, Justine Stafford and many other well-known names.

About The Greatest Matter

On a cold winter’s evening in Dublin in the late 1890s, Professor Cesare Lombroso, a renowned Italian criminologist, arrives in the city to give a public talk. In attendance are Frances, a novelist keen to learn more about the distinguished professor’s work, and Margaret, a hard-working Dublin journalist.

Meanwhile, a man has been gruesomely murdered in the nearby Phoenix Park, and the authorities appear to be covering it up. As the Dublin Metropolitan Police begin inquiries, a powerful English military commander leads a sinister parallel investigation, and Frances and Margaret become increasingly intent on solving the crime, and the wider coverup, no matter the cost. The murder, Frances and Margaret soon come to realise, may have disturbing connections with spiritualism.

Lombroso, with his expertise in crime, is reluctantly drawn into the investigation and soon realises there may be dangerous consequences for his career. In fact, this murder may have profound implications for the very nature of life and death. And the murderer may still be out there.