Matthew G. Rees' Dreamcoat was published as an audio story at YouTube in May 2020.
About the audio version of Dreamcoat:
Simon Howells reads 'Dreamcoat', a short story by Matthew G. Rees, author of 'Keyhole', 'The Word' and 'The Tip'.
This story concerns traveller lore, friendship and loss.
Simon Howells is a Welsh actor with interests in fiction and script writing.
Click here to listen to the story.
About Matthew G. Rees:
Matthew G. Rees is a critically acclaimed British fiction writer and playwright in the fields of folk horror, fantasy, the supernatural and dark humour.
Click here to visit his official website.
Review: Dreamcoat by Matthew G. Rees
Matthew G. Rees' Dreamcoat, read by Simon Howells, is a beautifully written short story about William who receives a sudden visit from an old friend, Lizzie, whom he hasn't seen in many years. Lizzie needs William's help, because her brother, Mossie, has died. William agrees to help her and begins to reminisce his friendship with Mossie.
Simon Howells reads this story in an excellent and elegant way. I enjoyed listening to his voice and found it to be expressive and easy to listen to. There's something about his voice that reminds me of classically trained actors who have been trained to use their voices in various ways.
This story has a soft touch of gentle weirdness to it which makes it fascinating and special. The beginning of the story feels intriguingly Gothic, because William hears a knocking in the middle of the night and a voice calls out to him.
The author's approach to friendship and loss feels touching. He fluently explores what kind of a friendship William and Mossie had and how they drifted apart. As William reminisces about his friendship with Mossie, the listener is temporarily transported to another place and time when life was different, because the author and the narrator evoke strong images about the past in the reader's mind.
I enjoyed reading about what was mentioned about Lizzie and Mossie's grandmother who had a traditional wooden caravan, because the author doesn't fully reveal what kind of a woman she is, but hints at her possibly being a Gypsy Queen. I was also fascinated by what happened to this woman, because her death feels mysterious.
I think that this story will be of great interest to readers who love literary fiction and enjoy reading stories by such authors as Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Aickman and Joel Lane. This story is wholly different from what these authors have written and isn't exactly horror fiction or fantasy fiction, but there's something about the atmosphere and the author's prose that reminds me of their stories.
Based on this story, I can say that Matthew G. Rees is a talented author whose fiction is worth reading. Because I enjoyed this story, I'll soon read the author's short story collection Keyhole (published by Three Impostors).
If you're looking for something fascinating to listen to, please invest a bit of time into listening to this story, because it deserves to be listened to. I can guarantee that you'll find the story evocative and touching.
Highly recommended!