EXCLUSIVE: If you know your Willy Wonkas from your BFGs, iHeartPodcasts and Imagine Entertainment have the podcast documentary for you.
The pair have created The Secret World of Roald Dahl, a doc podcast series that peels back the secret spy life of the beloved children’s author, revealing “a life far stranger than fiction.”
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The first episode is dropping on Monday (January 19). Created and hosted by Aaron Tracy, the story will explore how the author of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘The BFG’, ‘Matilda’ and many other classic children’s books spent a period of his life as a spy for MI6, along with his personal relationships, creative failures and other experiences that shaped him.
The podcast is the sixth to come out of a pact between iHeartPodcasts and Imagine, following Hello Isaac, Unf**ing the Future, Big Sugar, The Tao of Muhammad Ali and Obscurum. Another series will be unveiled shortly, we hear. Nathan Kloke exec produces The Secret World of Roald Dahl alongside Kara Welker for Imagine Audio. iHearPodcasts will distribute, with episodes dropping weekly.
Dahl was born during World War I in 1916 and died eight decades later in 1990, during which time he had become one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors. He was also married to The Day the Earth Stood Still actress Patricia Neal, having five children together before divorcing.
Many of Dahl’s books were adapted as films, with Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp both playing the chocolaltier Will Wonka in Hollywood versions of ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.’ Timothée Chalamet played the character in a 2023 film about the character’s life.
Other books, such as ‘The BFG’, ‘James and the Giant Peach’ and ‘Matilda’ were also adapted for screen. However, it’s his life away from the pen that Tracy will explore.
“Roald Dahl played a huge role in our childhoods, but most people have no idea he lived one of the noisiest lives of his century,” said Tracy. “He was a fighter pilot, a British spy for MI6, a struggling screenwriter, the husband of an Oscar winner, a writer for The New Yorker, and an amateur neuroscientist who saved thousands of lives before he finally found his voice as a children’s author at 45. iHeart and Imagine have been dream collaborators to help reveal these hidden chapters of Dahl’s life and explore the complicated, controversial person behind the stories.”
“We all grew up on Roald Dahl’s books over here, and the opportunity to work with Aaron Tracy in the podcast space to dig into Dahl’s life was just too good to be true,” added Kloke, executive producer for Imagine Audio. “Aaron connects with Dahl across his work, his humanity and his flaws. It is a wonderful piece of work from a very talented documentarian.”
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