Sunday, April 6, 2014

Sci-Fi Radio Drama from Down Under



Welcome back to the Conversation!  Today I am joined by Ben McKenzie to talk to us about an interesting project from down under Night Terrace.  Thank you for joining us today Ben!

It's a pleasure to be here! Thanks for having me, James.

After watching your Kickstarter video it is obvious you’re a fun loving bunch of chaps, one might even call you a bunch of Splendid Chaps.  Would you be so kind as to give us an overview of Night Terrace?  

Of course! Night Terrace is a an eight-part audio series - like a radio serial, but you'll purchase and download the whole thing in one go, like a Netflix show. It's a sci-fi comedy about a scientist who used to save the world for a secretive government agency, but now wants to retire to the suburbs. It was all going well - until her house mysteriously starts travelling through time and space! Now she's stuck having adventures with a guy who was trying to sell her an electricity plan on her doorstep at the time, and they also keep encountering a strange woman known only as "Sue"...and all the while trying to figure out how to get home.

It grew out of our live podcast about Doctor Who, Splendid Chaps. The team really wanted to work together on something new, using the skills we had.


It sounds like you’ve created a female Doctor Who of sorts, was that the idea?  

It was part of it! We started with the idea of the show having things in common with Doctor Who - the broad scope of all of time and space, where each adventure could happen anywhere. And one of the early things we all agreed on was having a female lead. There just aren't enough of them, especially in action and adventure shows, and we all think it'd be great if the Doctor became a woman. This is our alternative!