Nocturne

The National Gallery, London, is one of the world's most prestigious art galleries. Every day, thousands of people pass through its doors to look at masterpieces by Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and many others.

2009 / Cathy FitzGerald / Neville Edwards / The National Gallery Podcast, UK

But what happens when the last visitor leaves? When the lights go out and the building falls quiet? Nocturne" explores the uncanny secret life of artworks, through conversations with cultural historian Marina Warner, author Tracy Chevalier, poets Aoife Mannix and Jacob Sam LaRose, and the staff whose job it is to patrol the silent galleries at night.

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Cathy FitzGerald (@cathyfitzg) is an award-winning writer and producer.

Neville Edwards is a sound designer for Antenna Audio who specialises in arts- and cultural-based audio and multimedia material. He has helped create audio and multimedia tours for many of the UK's leading cultural institutions, including Tate Modern, the British Museum, the Imperial War Museum, as well as many international clients. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a degree in media production and went onto work in radio. He likes twiddling with sound in his spare time as well as for his job.

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BEHIND THE SCENES with Neville Edwards and Cathy FitzGerald

Have you had many experiences in museums after dark? What were they like? Did those experiences inspire this story? Cathy FitzGerald: If only! No, the idea grew from a conversation with a friend about what that experience might be like and where we'd hide out if we could. There's a room full of clocks and astrolabes at the British Museum, which was always my favourite –- very cosy with a reassuring tick. And then I saw a short film by the Brothers Quay called The Phantom Museum , which is very strange and very beautiful –- a dream-like journey through the Henry Wellcome Collection in which the objects come to half-life and a floating pair of white cotton gloves opens cabinets and drawers. It composted away in my imagination for years, until I started work on the National Gallery Podcast and realised I had a chance to make something out of that fascination. That was when I finally got to wander around a museum after dark. We recorded all the interviews in the Gallery late at night. It's a maze of half-lit, high-ceilinged rooms, quite cold, and all you can hear is the low drone of the air-conditioner and the faint sound of traffic in Trafalgar Square. If you're there alone it doesn't take much to conjure a sense of inhabited emptiness. As Ben Stiller has shown us all

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