The Van [Review]

Somewhere on the desert of America, a lonely van is traveling around. Nova-Scotia is the driver, and inside the van are the gifted kids that has been living under her mercy. Cola is the girl that could sense almost all about the human around her, yet constantly keep trying to escape her surroundings by reciting poems inside her mind. But she couldn't stay ignorant anymore when her older "sister", Rosaline, went missing. Cola is accompanied by Scotch, who has the ability to make people unconscious just by a hand touch, and Junebug, a 14 year old who, unlike Scotch, is more than happy to use her ability to scramble people's mind.

The Van is an audio drama produced by the podcast network Whale Bus, which also made the series Looking Back at Tomorrow, and Story Blocks. The voice of Cola is Leslie Gideon, Scotch is voiced by Jeff Ebner, Nova-Scotia is voiced by Dina Laura, and the voice of Junebug is Julia Rose Herman. 

From what I have read, these actors are fairly new, but their job is quite amazing, especially Junebug's and Nova's. The sound editing is passable. Well, almost. There's no problem with the environment/surrounding (sorry, don't know the technical term. don't bash me, o' lord sound editor); we can clearly know when the van is moving and or when the character is outside. But when it comes to narration, it's pretty messy. The audio drama is narrated from Cola's point-of-view, however some of the times there aren't a clear distinction between her narration and the actual dialogue. This then lead to some confusion, like when Scott asked a question and Cola's narration suddenly popped in. This is probably not just a technical stuff, a little bit neater dialogue editing could maybe also help a lot. However, the good thing is, this problem get significantly less worse, particularly near the later episodes.

Now let's talk about the writing, more specifically, the characters. They are definitely not the usual type you would find in audio drama. Not many of them are sympathetic, Junebug is an insufferable girl, and Nova, the only adult, is manipulative, enabling misconduct, and exploiting these children for her own sake. 

They are flawed. 
But they are flawed like a human being. 

All of the characters are written organically. There's no character that only acts as a token. 

Cola seems like the usual introvert-with-inexplicable-power tropes, but as the story goes, we would begin to notice some very troubling issues of her. But the story never blatantly points it out, not because of some oversight in the writing — but because these issues are never her identifier.

Another example is Junebug. She might be a girl with attitude that is enough to tax the patience of a saint, but remember that with her condition, is there anything that could make her knows better? Snatched from a very young age, constantly living on the road, and the only adult she knows never show or teach her any affection. And to add to that, she always been reminded that she is only good for her ability in hurting people. To say the least, her insufferability is the only way for surviving. 

This less than politically correct writing is actually what makes me fall in love with this audio drama. It's not something you find everyday, especially in this medium. For me, the boldness in it is promising something even more in their next seasons, which I hope will be many to come. 

Note:

• The Van could be found in the Whale Bus website, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, and your rolling podcatchers
• recommended if you like: strong and complex characters, simple sci-fi, great voice acting, good world-building, bloody good mystery, The Far Meridian, ArsParadoxica, Still Lives
• seriously caution for: strong words, violence, mention of death, domestic abuse, domestic violence, emotional and psychological abuse, mental illness, eating disorder, child abuse, child exploitation, disturbing voice.