One possibly silver-lining of the virus. It strikes me that there’s likely to be lots of opportunities for affordable production of full-cast unabridged audiobooks. This is because older actors are said to be set to be shunned by screen productions over the next two years, re: the risks posed to a production by the virus, and possibly the demands of insurers and producers. A major UK TV producer has already stated this will be the case on one of the nation’s leading soap operas.

Yet their voices are often fine, and they can sound far younger. You often hear podcasts where someone sounds 35 but turns out to be 65. Audio technicians can also do wonders with subtle pitch-shifting. If the predictions I’m hearing from the screen industries come true, then there may well be plenty of discarded older talent looking for work. And audio can of course be produced from a home-studio, which many such actors already have for their side-gigs.

Younger voice actors may also become far more available, at least for a while, until tourism and retail/restaurants and personal services are back on their feet. Similarly, audio FX guys may also become more affordable, so the full-cast unabridged production could also add a Phil Dragash-like weave of sound-effects. Music may be trickier to source at a relatively low cost of course, but there’s always the likes of SonicFire.

So, if you did have a big Lovecraftian or science-fiction audio production in mind, now might be the time to start polishing the reading script.