On the Terrace

On the Terrace: Implausible Denial

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In this episode of On the Terrace, host Vaya Pashos discusses series two episode “Full Steam” with writer and Night Terrace co-star and producer Ben McKenzie.

Night Terrace lands in the cargo hold of a steam ship…in space! What’s more, the crew have death rays and a clockwork- and steam-powered robot as a first officer – all of which should be impossible. Anastasia and Sue investigate the mystery, drawing on their DEPARTMENT know-how, while Eddie, feeling left out, tours the ship with acting chaplain Rosh. But with everyone including the Captain acting suspiciously, can they discover the truth? Well of course they can. It just might be more than they can handle…

Vaya and Ben talk about writing, casting and recording this episode, the influences that led to its creation, Dave Ashton’s audio wizardry, and working with brilliant guest stars comedian and superstar DJ Andrew McClelland, and television star Ming-Zhu Hii (The Ex-PM, Mad As Hell).

We’d love to hear what you thought of Full Steam – let us know via Twitter (use the hashtag #NightTerrace) or leave us a comment on Facebook.

Episode two of Night Terrace series two, “Full Steam”, is available on BBC Radio 4 Extra for 30 days after broadcast. You can listen to the very first episode, “Moving House”, and purchase both series and a variety of Night Terrace extras via nightterrace.com or the Splendid Chaps Bandcamp store. Find Vaya on Neighbuzz at neighbuzzpod.com.

Show Notes
  • Street Fighter is a highly successful series of fighting video games from Japanese company Capcom, in which characters from around the world fight in an international martial arts tournament. A live-action film, Street Fighter, was filmed in Queensland and released in 1994 starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Kylie Minogue and Raúl Juliá. It did pretty well at the box office, but like most adaptations of video games was not a hit with critics or fans of the game.
  • “Impostor syndrome” is the feeling about oneself that despite all evidence to the contrary, you’re not competent or successful and could be found out as an “impostor” at any moment. It can be a source of anxiety, stress and depression.
  • Castle stars Nathan Fillion as Richard Castle, a crime novelist who kills off a popular character and – after being brought in for questioning when a criminal copies a murder from one of his books – decides to base a new character on Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). It ran for eight seasons from 2009 to 2016.
  • Shane “Pufferfish” Rebecchi is the oldest of the three Rebecchi brothers (the others being Stonefish and Toadfish). He was originally the black sheep of the family, and the cause of most of them leaving Ramsey Street in shame after a spate of burglaries and a subsequent prison escape. When he first appeared in 1995 he was played by Greg O’Meara, but in 2017 returned as a regular character played by Nicholas Coghlan. The new Pufferfish is reformed, having served his sentence and moved for a time to Bourke, where he met his now-wife Deepika. He really did invent a “urine-to-water generator”, which sounds more like a water recycling device to us.
  • We previously talked about Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell in episode two of On the Terrace, which guest-starred long-time Micallef co-conspirator Francis Greenslade. Ten series have been produced between 2012 and 2019; keep an eye out for more Mad as Hell cast members later this season. Ming-Zhu previously worked with Micallef on his sit-com The Ex-PM.
  • A “post-scarcity” economy is one like that depicted in Star Trek, where the basic necessities of life can be created easily and without much human labour, making things like food, housing and water exceedingly cheap or free.
  • The corrections to clocks aboard GPS and other satellites is complicated, because while they run slower thanks to the speed at which they move, they also run faster because they are further away from Earth’s centre of gravity. In practice they run around 40 microseconds fast every day, which is way more than the level of accuracy needed for GPS, so they’re constantly correcting for these effects.
  • Primer was released in 2004, and is almost entirely the work of independent film-maker Shane Carruth. The Wikipedia article for the film is a good start if you need help understanding the time travel within.
  • The Time Traveler’s Wife was the debut novel from Audrey Niffenegger, published in 2003. The film adaptation was released in 2009 and starred Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. A television series is coming to HBO, written by ex-Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comic was first published in 1999, the creation of writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O’Neill. The 2003 film version starring Sean Connery as Alan Quartermain was…not well received.
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    On the TerraceBy Splendid Chaps Productions