About

Batten down the hatches for a full-emersion, knock-down, sonic tornado. In-scene, intensely personal adventures sourced from the minds, hearts and germinal writings of the global outdoor crowd.

Think modernized reboots of old-school radio dramas – dramatic narratives, voice actors, a fly musical score and cutting-edge sound design with noir styling.

Jill Fauntleroy avalanched off Mt. Fitzroy, Patagonia; Hugo Fontana lost in the Crocodile Caves, Borneo; Charmayne Alston’s first solo descent of the Blue Nile, Ethiopia.

Welcome to The LARGOCAST.

Episode Length: Approx. 30 minutes. Two episodes a month will allow us to build a library for increasingly popular “binge listening.”

THE LARGOCAST – Who would’a thunk it?

For some years producers and companies approached me about hosting a podcast, modern media’s saveur du jour. Problem was my personality and professional background wasn’t a match fit for talk-show formats, and what else was possible or worth pursuing? Then I stumbled across some old (c. 1939) recordings of Orson Wells’ legendary “Mercury Theater,” including the original “War of the Worlds” broadcast that, owing to the breaking news style reporting, led some to believe that aliens with ruby eyes and giant heads were invading America.

The Mercury Theater productions are nonpareil. There’s little chance of improving the basic style – but I was intrigued by the notion of modernizing the whole shebang with riveting adventure stories and a full-tilt sound design. That felt like too much work. Then Ted (LARGOCAST Producer) and I had to crank out a Lifetime Achievement Award video for Larry Burke, Publisher of Outside Magazine, and one of Burk’s PR people informed us that the gross revenue stream of the outdoor industry had recently surpassed oil and mining – combined. With that kind of built-in audience, numbering tens of millions in the U.S. alone, a theatrical, first-person, adventure-themed podcast felt right, as no such production currently existed. Instead of someone merely talking about skiing down K2, say, or cave diving in Sumatra, while not foist the listener straight onto the mountainside or into the cave – to see what that felt like for real. There’s no dearth of prodigious, real-life adventure stories. Two of the last six Pulitzer Prizes in Literature went to adventure-based accounts. So Ted and I gathered our most talented friends in production and after many false starts and wrong turns, arrived at a style and format we can build on.

The tone and texture of the LARGOCAST will evolve once we hit our stride, but the project was such a riot to make we trust it will light the lamp of others whose souls catch fire in the wild places. With the grave uncertainty of COVID 19, we have every right to draw inspiration from Shane Dorian surviving a three-wave hold-down in 50-foot Maverick’s surf, in Charmayne Lynch’s solo ascent of Hidden Peak. If even one listener is helped through these hard times by giving us a listen, then the LARGOCAST will be well worth all the sweat and blood required to make it.