Ghanaian Director Joewackle Kusi and writer Fui Can Tamakloe’s much-anticipated audio drama podcast, Gold Coast Darlings, had its live audio listening event at the Goethe Institute in Accra on Saturday, 28th March.
Hosted by Wackle and Tamakloe, along with the show’s cast, the event featured a preview of the series’ first two episodes, followed by a Q&A with the audience.
About The Series
After the initial debut of its first audio drama, Goodbye Gold Coast, Wackle’s production house Church of Stories has followed up with its second series, The Gold Coast Darlings.
The series is set in 1956 in the Gold Coast, a few weeks before the elections, which set the tone for independence a year later.
The six-part show follows a young, gifted singer, Sika, who is convinced by Bombay, a charismatic band manager, to leave Sunyani for the capital city, where she is promised a life of stardom.
After Sika runs afoul of the law in Accra, Eoin and Victoria, ambitious agents of the Crown, seize this opportunity to incite trouble for The Widow: the owner of the all-girl band, The Gold Coast Darlings. The Widow is a vengeful woman with a score to settle with Gold Coast’s political elites.
The series features a cast of actors and musicians, including Adomaa, Edinam Atatsi, Ayisi, Jasmine Baroudi, Kojo Boakye, Solomon Fixon-Owoo, Timothy Banks, and John Abeiku Sagoe.
The cast is completed by Gina Castel, Jessica Larny, Chiderah David, OB Black, Kwaku Sakyi, Mark Cofie Jnr., Mark Cofie Jnr., Miss Lankai, Sɛkyerewaa, and Joojo Addison.
Setting the Scene
At the event, audience members were handed wireless headphones to experience the first two episodes of The Gold Coast Darlings.
With music playing in the background throughout both episodes, the sound design was genuinely impressive — immersive in a way that made you feel like you were right inside the world of the show.
With a combination of highlife music and sounds that captured the mood of a bygone era, the audio production did a lot of heavy lifting here, making the preview very immersive.
The Episodes
Episode 1, running around 20 to 30 minutes, eased the audience into things. It took a little time to settle into the rhythm of the story, but once it found its footing, it was smooth sailing.
Episode 2, clocking in at about 30 minutes, picked up the energy considerably.
One of the more curious choices across the two episodes was a transition from a lawyer meeting straight into a funeral — jarring in a way that felt a bit abrupt, though maybe that’s the point.
What does land beautifully is how The Gold Coast Darlings captures Gold Coast culture — the exclusive parties, the social dynamics, the cost of it all — and translates it into something that feels contemporary and alive. There’s a real specificity to it that gives the podcast its personality.
The audio production again comes into play in helping to series come alive.
The Q&A
After the episodes, Wackle and Tamakloe, along with some of the cast members, took to the floor for a Q&A session. It was a candid and easy-going conversation.
One topic that kept surfacing was the challenge of archives and data in bringing this story to life.
Wackle was refreshingly honest about it: working with archives is still hard.
It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes reality that audiences don’t always think about, and it was good to hear the team speak openly about the process.
Final Thoughts
For a first podcast outing, The Gold Coast Darlings is a confident and compelling debut. The sound is good, the world is rich, and Wackle and Tamakloe clearly have a strong creative vision.
A few rough edges aside, this is a show worth keeping your headphones on for.
There was no timeline given for the overall release of the show on podcast platforms, but Wackle indicated that it would make its debut “soon”.
