The escape continues—but freedom is far from guaranteed. In this second chapter of The Great Escape, Wilde and Houdini descend deeper into the heart of Vármegye Tower, where reality fractures and science curdles into something far stranger. Inspired by the cosmic dread of H.P. Lovecraft, this episode blends hallucinatory peril, mythic ambition, and the slow unraveling of reason. What begins as a jailbreak becomes a confrontation with forces that defy nature—and sanity.

Part 2 of a two-part arc. Best enjoyed with the lights low and ear phones.

The Midnight Dispatch is a historical fiction anthology podcast blending real people, places and events with the strange and supernatural. Season 1 reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of famous figures who may be more than they seem.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]

When Oscar Wilde receives two letters—one from P.T. Barnum pleading for help, the other from Arthur Conan Doyle accepting an invitation to hunt a killer—he knows the world is ending twice. Wilde sets off for Budapest to rescue Harry Houdini, imprisoned after a séance gone violently wrong. But this is no ordinary scandal. Beneath the velvet charm and gaslit glamour lies a conspiracy cloaked in green scarves, mind-altering incense, and vanishing prisoners.

In this episode, Wilde and British intelligence officer William Melville unravel a mystery that begins with masked men and ends in whispers of Rasputin, secret corridors, and experiments that defy explanation. As Budapest watches in silence, Wilde prepares to walk into Vármegye Tower—not as a magician, but as bait.

A city of shadows. A magician in chains. The escape begins now.

The Midnight Dispatch is a historical fiction anthology podcast blending real people, places and events with the strange and supernatural. Season 1 reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of famous figures who may be more than they seem.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]

Before the alleyways whispered of blood and symbols, the city pulsed with spectacle. In this episode, Oscar Wilde receives a lavish invitation from P.T. Barnum, summoning him to a circus of marvels, illusions, and philosophical elephants. What begins as a flirtation with theatrical excess soon spirals into something darker: a blindfolded swordsman, a fortune teller who sees too clearly, and Houdini himself—chained, submerged, and gasping for more than air.

As Wilde navigates the phantasmagoria, wit becomes weapon, and wonder a trap. Is the showman selling dreams—or disguising truths too dangerous to name? And when escape becomes performance, who is truly free?

A tale of masks, mirrors, and men who dare the impossible—this is The Showman’s Gambit.

The Midnight Dispatch is a historical fiction anthology podcast blending real people, places and events with the strange and supernatural. Season 1 reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of famous figures who may be more than they seem.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]

The Midnight Dispatch presents Season 1: The Ripper & The Rift — a 12-part historical fiction thriller set in the gaslit shadows of Victorian London.

It’s 1890. The city is modernizing, but something ancient is stirring beneath the cobblestones. When a terrified woman collides with Oscar Wilde outside a theater, she sets off a chain of events that draws Wilde and his companions into a mystery far stranger than scandal or murder. As bodies begin to appear — marked with symbols no one can explain — Wilde finds himself entangled with British Intelligence, occult secrets, and a darkness that predates the Empire itself.

Blending real historical figures with supernatural intrigue, The Ripper & The Rift reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of artists, spies, and skeptics caught in a widening breach between reason and ritual.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson, The Midnight Dispatch is an anthology podcast where each season explores a different time, place, and mystery — all rooted in the strange intersections of history and imagination.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]

The fog thickens, the murders escalate, and Oscar Wilde suspects something far older than Jack the Ripper is stalking the streets. When a letter addressed to Arthur Conan Doyle surfaces—written by a terrified woman days before her death—the line between fiction and fate begins to blur. Wilde and Doyle spar over logic, legend, and the lure of the occult, while a cursed pen begins to write its own story.

Meanwhile, in a shadowed cellar in Budapest, Grigori Rasputin spins a web of prophecy and manipulation, summoning his masked disciples and setting a trap for a magician who doesn’t yet know he’s been chosen.

This episode blends historical fact with mythic dread: Wilde’s wit, Doyle’s grief, and Rasputin’s rising influence converge in a tale of haunted ink, spectral symbols, and the cost of ignoring a summons from fate.

The Midnight Dispatch is a historical fiction anthology podcast blending real people, places and events with the strange and supernatural. Season 1 reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of famous figures who may be more than they seem.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]

London, 1890. Gaslamps flicker, fog thickens and something ancient stirs beneath the cobblestones. In this premiere episode, Oscar Wilde and artist Frank Miles navigate the quiet decadence of Victorian society — until a terrified woman crashes into Wilde outside a theater, claiming she’s being watched. The encounter sets off a chain of events that leads Wilde through the heart of London's alleyways and into a mystery far darker than any review or scandal.

The Midnight Dispatch is a historical fiction anthology podcast blending real people, places and events with the strange and supernatural. Season 1 reimagines the Jack the Ripper murders through the eyes of famous figures who may be more than they seem.

Written and produced by Joe Ferguson.

Send your theories, questions and comments to: [email protected]