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  • Writer's pictureAidan Nill

I Thought This Would Be Easier: Explained

WLTL's latest venture into the world of radio drama premieres December 30 at 10pm (and replays January 3 at 10pm). But before you listen (or after if you want to experience it first), let's hear from its creator and host Aidan Nill about what it all means.


Somewhere between audio-fiction and meditation tape, I Thought This Would Be Easier provides a gloomy, atmospheric twist on the standard radio play.


The story is muddled and repetitive, with characters repeating unnerving lines to themselves throughout. Each episode almost gains its own mantra, exploring topics ranging from marriage, to children, and to love -- the episodes fittingly named after these topics.


As far as we can discern, we follow the lives of a married couple, Finley and Harper, who are planning on getting a divorce. Harper is lazy, unappreciative and mean, while Finley is hardworking, humble and kind. However, we get to know very little about their lives outside of the play itself.


Speaking to the writer, narrator, and performer, Aidan Nill -- who also wrote the musical accompaniment -- we asked about his inspiration behind the unusual broadcast.


He visibly struggled to think it over. “You’d think it would be easier,” Aidan quipped.


“It was a few totally unconnected things,” he finally admitted, “But the core of it comes down to David Lynch. I wanted it to have that Lynchian ‘midnight circuit’ feel. I’d been watching Rabbits and On The Air, sitcoms Lynch directed in the late 90s and early 2000s, and there was a sort of levity to them, even with how dark they could get sometimes.”


He elaborated, “Because even if I wanted [I Thought This Would Be Easier] to be a little freaky, I didn’t want it to be depressing. I feel like the dreamy horror of it is enhanced by the fact that it all works out in the end. It’s very cynical, but there’s this flip at the end, and suddenly, there’s hope!”


Even with how cynical he purports the radio play can be, you’re in for an emotive trip into the nature of relationships and love.


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