Seventies monster hunting, undercut by puns and squabbling.
The Monster Hunters is scripted comedy horror with a full cast, and its spooky set-ups keep dissolving into squabbling and wordplay. Its heroes face a creature with a nose for a head, a slug psychically linked to a necromancer and a butler called Monsieur Knife, and few threats outlast the next gag.
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The Monster Hunters is a scripted comedy audio drama about a pair who deal with vampires, necromancers and whatever else crawls out of the fog. The pair are Roy Steel and Lorrimer Chesterfield. The show's creators, Matthew Woodcock and Peter Davis, write it and play them. Its home turf is the early 1970s, where flares get soaked and polyester itches, but the stories wander well beyond it. One strands the heroes in London in November 1891, and after a month of Victorian life one of them is angling to become the cream of London society. Another plays as a spy-film send-up. In 'The Funeral of Roy Steel', a man called Bryce Hunter is paid half up front to answer only to Roy's name, with the rest promised on completion, along with some glue for reassembly. A butler called Monsieur Knife then turns up with a speedboat and an invitation to an island that has its own volcano. When the horror arrives, it is set up with care. In 'The Vampire Tree', a narrator by the fire shows off a lithograph of a lonely spot some call the knee of the world. The heroes end up running uphill toward a burnt, lightning-struck tree whose knots look like eyes and a screaming mouth. Even there, someone protests that he is not a runologist. 'The Hell Shaped Room' follows the same pattern: a lodger named Shadwell Crake has not left his room in weeks, slugs creep across the wallpaper, and the plan to track him means asking a vampire to sniff one. Crake is more than a one-off. In 'The Eyes of Shadwell Crake', a fellowship is on the verge of restoring the necromancer in a new body when its leader stops to ask who is taking minutes. 'The Scent of Fear' announces itself as episode 4. It brings in Dr. Ladyface, a bookshelf that runs from the Demonomicon to the I Spy Book of British Beasts, and a monster with a nose for a head, which gets exactly the pun you would expect. The wordplay is cheerfully groan-inducing, and the characters are quick to complain about it themselves. The end credits name a supporting cast, composers, an engineer and editors. Not every episode is fiction. In 'Remembering Jade Allen', Woodcock and Davis set the characters aside to mark the death of a longtime friend, colleague and performer on the show, who died at the end of March 2024. They talk about early episodes recorded in a flat, take a detour into Moonraker, and point to a free live recording on the Wireless Theatre Company website. Some scripted episodes also close with out-of-character chat, which fits a show that never takes its monsters too seriously.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys performed audio fiction that borrows the trappings of vintage horror and spy films and then undercuts them with puns and bickering. A soft spot for groan-worthy wordplay helps.
What sets it apart: It is fully scripted, full-cast fiction rather than conversation, and it moves from a lightning-struck tree to 1891 London to a volcano island while keeping one necromancer, Shadwell Crake, in play. The scares are set up straight, then knocked over by the jokes.
Take a trip back to swinging London in the early 1970s and meet Roy Steel, ex-big game hunter, and Lorrimer Chesterfield, a brain in the shape of a man. Together they are The Monster Hunters. Their mission: to protect the country from vampires, werewolves and a whole pantheon of unmentionable terrors! Taking its cue from the classic period of British horror and adventure, the 1960s and 70s, The Monster Hunters is a comedy adventure series written by and starring Peter Davis and Matthew Woodcock. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
A vampire is asked to sniff a slug; you can probably guess how politely he declines.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A fireside horror tale where a burnt tree turns a winter outing into jokes, dread, and uncertainty.
The Vampire Tree follows Roy Steel and Lorimer Chester to Crags Head, a lonely place of scattered houses, an inlet, a beach, a cave, an old manor house, and a lightning-burnt tree.
A hungover Roy Steele reaches a cave where the joke turns sharply sinister.
The Funeral of Roy Steele sets its trap with a strange island summons: Roy is told to answer only to that name, takes half the money up front, and lets Monsieur Knife guide him toward a cave.
A vampire follows a psychic slug through a rotting Notting Hill as Shadwell Crake's squalid dispute turns stranger.
Shadwell Crake's return to bodily life turns a lodging dispute into a grimy pursuit through a world that seems to be rotting from the ground up.
A stranded monster hunt turns necromantic dread into a brisk, deadpan period mystery.
London, November 1891, leaves two stranded monster hunters chasing a lead into a cellar crowded with occult books, cabalistic icons, and one very suspect goose.
A fear-sniffing monster brings occult danger and dry comic timing to Lauren Asher's flat.
The Scent of Fear pushes The Monster Hunters into a pleasingly strange corner, as Lauren Asher reaches Dr. Ladyface after surviving a murderous mirror and finds herself pursued by a man-made nose creature keyed to psychic scent.
A sealed mountain door leads to Yeti law, poison, and a cravat offered up to comic timing.
A mountain climb becomes a locked-room comedy once Roy, Crisp, and Steel find heat beyond a 40-foot rock face and a talking Yeti on the other side.
Teen fan fiction, overexamined.
A ghoul, a ghost, and one badly behaved talk show.
Victorian sleuthing, gothic menace and impeccably dry jokes.
["The Monster Hunters' Christmas Special, The Vampire Tree, sends Roy Steele and Lorimer Chesterfield to Cairn House near Crag's Head, where a crumbling Highland manor sits above a lonely shore and an old tree on the hill.", "Roy Steele and Lorimer Chesterfield are the leads, and Annabel is the Cairn House owner whose hotel plan forces the investigation.", "The episode asks whether Crag's Head is only a windy local legend or a place where the tree and the land turn fear into something active.", "Annabel says staff will not stay, locals avoid the grounds, and the story keeps circling back to disappearances, local warnings, and the name 'The Vampire Tree'."]
["The Monster Hunters special \"The Funeral of Roy Steele\" sends Roy Steele from a half-paid island job to a funeral notice that is clearly not a mistake.", "Laura McChesterfield returns to the Professor's Club, where Professor Swellersley invites her back into teaching and the club's \"Thought Police\" team.", "Roy reports a zoo attack, dead bears, a clawed \"weird hairy gorilla thing,\" and a black envelope that invites him to his own funeral.", "The trail leads from H.
["The Monster Hunters' The Hell-Shaped Room opens with Shadwell Crake in a rented room, slugs on the wallpaper, and a landlady demanding he open the door and pay his arrears.", "Roy Steel wakes to Count Orloff on the sofa, a bath full of blood, and a living room turned into a vampire lair because the hunters need Orloff close if Crake is their next target.", "As London starts to rot, the hunters follow slime through squishy roads and abandoned streets until Mrs.
The Monster Hunters' 'The Eyes of Shadwell Crake' folds a London cellar chase, a Cambridge occult plot, and a missing-person case around a mirror tied to Shadwell Crake.
["The Monster Hunters episode \"The Scent of Fear\" follows Lauren Asher after the mirror case and the sniffing creature stalking Cambridge.", "D.I.
The Monster Hunters' Queen of the Yeti Men sends Roy Steel and Lorimer Chesterfield into a hidden mountain city where the Nalim forage, the Cantac guard Queen Lilab, and every visitor is judged by ancient law.
The Monster Hunters episode "Death on Hell Mountain" opens with Eric Shipton's twelve-inch yeti footprint photographs and sends Roy Steele and Lorimer Chesterfield up Everest with explorer George Crisp.
Jimmy Chevron corners Roy Steele and Lorimer Chesterfield at a Millwall Dock warehouse and reveals he is a werewolf.
In this episode, the Monster Hunters visit a wax museum where the proprietor reveals a mysterious new creation.
Two monster hunters travel to a castle in Switzerland to investigate a supernatural threat.
A scripted comedy adventure set in 1970s London, following two monster hunters as they protect the country from supernatural threats.
In this episode, monster hunters Roy Steel and Lorrimer Chesterfield investigate a club full of rabbits instead of women in Leeds.
In this episode, the Monster Hunters conduct a séance to contact spirits in a haunted house, with comedic mishaps.
In this episode, new recruit Mike joins Professor Chesterfield to investigate a nightclub where demon eggs are being incubated by dancers' kinetic energy.
In this episode, the Monster Hunters face the Beast of Albion as it emerges from a hole, forcing them to flee to a helicopter.