Amazon’s Audible is releasing original audio drama “Crush Hour,” a Christmas musical podcast series headlined by Ellie Goulding and Douglas Booth.
The podcast, available starting Nov. 17 exclusively on Audible worldwide, follows the stories of unknowingly connected strangers in London as they navigate love during rush hour. Various chance encounters on “tubes, taxis, trains and bikes result in hilarious outcomes in this festive musical drama,” according to Audible. “Crush Hour” is a collaboration with Mercury Studios, a division of Universal Music Group, with the full soundtrack to the podcast being released by Decca Records.
In “Crush Hour,” Grammy-nominated and two-time Brit award-winning singer Goulding plays Ash, who every day sees her dream man, played by Booth (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”), on the train. After she reads an anonymous reference to “the girl with the green coat” in the newspaper’s Crush Hour feature, she is determined to see if he’s written it about her.
Also starring in the series is West End star Samantha Barks (“Les Misérables”) as Lola who, having just left her leaving party after being made redundant from work, finds herself on the night Tube desperately trying to place the man in front of her, played by Aneurin Barnard (“Dunkirk”). But this is London, and she knows the cardinal rule of not speaking to people on the Tube. Elsewhere, a hapless Jay (played by Layton Williams, “Bad Education Movie”) is lost somewhere between Kings Cross and Bloomsbury, and finds himself taking an Uber with a tipsy Jonny (Omari Douglas, “It’s a Sin”) who does little to calm his nerves.
The musical’s finale sees the impromptu retaking of vows by Martin and Debbie, played by Rory Kinnear (“Skyfall,” “The Imitation Game”) and Julia Davies (“Gavin and Stacey”) respectively, who try to gather an audience to watch their ceremony on Christmas Eve in Kings Cross station. Soon, it becomes clear that the characters are all entwined in one way or another, just in time for Christmas Day.
The “Crush Hour” original soundtrack with the full cast ensemble also includes Nick Collier, aka Ella Vaday (“RuPaul’s Drag Race UK”), Paul Kaye (“Game of Thrones”), Keil Smith-Bynoe (“Ghosts”) and Ben Bailey-Smith (“The Split”).
“Crush Hour” was created and written by Freya Slipper, directed by Chris Foggin (“Fisherman’s Friends,” “Traces”), composed by Chris Read with an original score performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. The series features episodes written by Doug Crossley, Spring Day and Leila Navabi. “Crush Hour” was produced by Marc Robinson, Mark Hopkins and Claire Rhodes, and developed in association with Twenty Thirteen Films.
Pictured above: Ellie Goulding, Douglas Booth
