Radio 4’s new H.P. Lovecraft adaptation will give you the chills

Of all the many things I’ve learned from the radio so far this decade, the most deranging is that the universe is the dream of the god Azathoth. Not unreasonably, Azathoth yearns to wake up and visit his creation. In The Whisperer in Darkness (Radio 4), a crusty coven of drug-addled neopagans seek to realise this wish by summoning Azathoth through a mystic portal they’ve opened — just off the B1084 in Suffolk.

Fools! Don’t they realise that they risk unleashing forces they don’t understand? Waking Azathoth would mean there will be no dreamer to dream the dream and so not just Suffolk but all reality would be obliterated as a result.

When a former member of this neopagan coven disappears in mysterious circumstances, our heroes Matthew Heawood and Kennedy Fisher investigate, and find a conspiracy embroiling witches, drugs, secret government operations and, less surprisingly, tailbacks on the A12.