Surprise! To celebrate the announcement of the upcoming third season of Night Terrace, chaps Petra Elliott and John Richards have a look back at the Thirteenth Doctor’s first season.

How does Thirteen compare to our own time traveller, Dr. Anastasia Black? Was there too much focus on the male companions? Is Thirteen holding back, or displaying traditionally “feminine” traits? How does Night Terrace measure up by the same standards – is Anastasia as progressive a character as we’d like to think? And what about Petra’s character, “Sue”? Plus they chat about the wholesale changes to Doctor Who, their hopes and dreams for future seasons, how much they love Jodie Whitakker (and Night Terrace star Jackie Woodburne), and their own experiences as performers.

Night Terrace season three is scheduled for release in May 2020 – but only if it gets crowdfunded by November 22, 2019! Check out our Kickstarter campaign for more information.

If you’re new to Night Terrace, listen to the first episode for free at nightterrace.com/listen. You can also buy the first two seasons bundled together with the third as part of the Kickstarter campaign.

After nearly five years, and just before the debut of a new Thirteenth Doctor, hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott return to the original Splendid Chaps Doctor/Theme format to discuss Peter Capaldi and music in Doctor Who! They’re joined by guests Celeste Liddle, Adam Ford and Adam Rudegeair – who also perform music and poetry just for your ears! Join us for Twelve/Music, recorded live at Storyville in Melbourne on Australian “Doctor Eve” – October 7, 2018.

If you want to listen to some of the songs we mention this episode (and many more we didn’t have time to talk about), check out Petra’s Spotify playlist.

While this Splendid Chaps is just a one-off return, don’t forget Splendid Chaps Productions also makes Night Terrace, an award-winning time travel audio comedy, and Pratchat, a monthly Terry Pratchett book club podcast hosted by Elizabeth Flux and our own Ben McKenzie. You can find out more about them, and listen to all the old episodes of Splendid Chaps, at splendidchaps.com.

And do check out Lucas Testro’s great Doctor Who podcast Doctor Who and the Episodes of Death, where a variety of guests defend some of the most derided Doctor Who stories of all time! Chaps Ben McKenzie and David Ashton, plus previous guests Richard Watts, Thomas Caldwell, George Ivanoff and Avril Hannah-Jones have all gone into bat for everything from Time and the Rani to The Krotons.

It’s the final episode of our Doctor Who spin-offs mini-series! For part four, hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott talk about the history and mechanics of spin-offs and shared universes, delve into the audience’s questions and touch on some of the less well-known Doctor Who spin-offs, again with the help of our wonderful guests Dr Djoymi Baker and George Ivanoff. And of course, it wouldn’t be Splendid Chaps if we didn’t end with a song…

 

Thanks to everyone who came along to the original recording, and to the special podcast-only guests we talked to along the way: Richard Watts (Torchwood), Tansy Rayner-Roberts (The Sarah Jane Adventures) and Fury (Class). Big thanks to to our own Petra Elliott and guitarist Kam Stevens for their cover of Up All Night by Alex Clare.

The Chaps will return…though exactly when is, presently, unclear. In the meantime, for more Doctor Who discussion, check out Lucas Testro’s Doctor Who and the Episodes of Death, where guests – including some familiar voices from Splendid Chaps – defend some of the most maligned stories. And you can always check out the other audio treats from Splendid Chaps Productions – the time travel comedy series Night Terrace, and the Terry Pratchett book club podcast Pratchat.

We’re back! In this, the long-awaited part three of our Doctor Who spin-offs mini-series, we put on our ties and head back to school – specifically Coal Hill Academy. Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott talk all about Class with special guests Djoymi Baker, George Ivanoff and – for this podcast edition only – Fury!

We’ll be back soon (for real this time!) with episode four of this mini-series, in which we answer the audience’s questions and discuss other lesser-known spin-offs with our guests before ending in the Splendid Chaps tradition – with a song!

For part two of our Doctor Who spin-offs mini-series, we move in to Bannerman Road and see if we know where to look to find a whole universe of adventure, right here at home… Yes, hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott talk all about The Sarah Jane Adventures with special guests Djoymi Baker, George Ivanoff and – for this podcast edition only – Tansy Rayner Roberts!

Want to ask us questions about The Sarah Jane Adventures? Great – let us have them! As mentioned last episode, each of our spin-off episodes includes extra content, since we just couldn’t fit enough into the single live podcast to do all three shows justice – and for our final spin-off episode, we’ll be answering questions from you, our listeners, posed right here on the web site! Add your questions in the comments below.

And we’re having a good old fashioned Splendid Chaps giveaway, too. Our favourite questions will win a prize! Comment on any of our first three spin-off episodes to be in the running; we’ll give a final cut-off date when episode three (the next one) is released.

Yes, the chaps are back in part one of their Doctor Who spin-offs mini-series! This time we go outside the government and beyond the police – whatever that means – to talk about everyone’s favourite not-so-secret organisation which fights alien menaces in between all the sex and gore which makes it an “adult show”. That’s right – it’s time to talk Torchwood! Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott are joined by special guests Djoymi Baker, George Ivanoff and – for this podcast edition only – Richard Watts!

Got questions you want to ask us about Torchwood? We want to hear them! Each of our spin-off episodes will include special extra content, since we just couldn’t fit enough into the live show to do all three spin-offs justice – and our final spin-off episode will add in questions from you, our listeners, posed right here on the web site! So please add yours in the comments below.

Of course it wouldn’t be Splendid Chaps without a giveaway, so our favourite questions will win a prize! Comment on any of our first three spin-off episodes to be in the running; we’ll give a final cut-off date when episode three is released.

Surprise! It’s a new episode of Splendid Chaps!

This year – on the 26th of March – the modern era of Doctor Who had its tenth anniversary. We were hoping to put together a live show to celebrate this milestone, but alas that wasn’t to be. Instead, chaps Ben, John, Petra and Lee gathered on Sunday, April 12 – ten years and a bit since the original broadcast of The Unquiet Dead – to have a tea party with a few of our listeners and look back on the last ten years, driven by questions and comments from you! Plus there’s a musical surprise at the end…

So join us for a cup of tea, a few special biscuits (thanks Claudia’s Mum!) and a chat about the Who of the last decade. We promise to stay mostly on topic…even though Night Terrace, our sci-fi audio comedy, had just won an award the night before – and the Kickstarter campaign for the second season is currently in its last days! So we might mention that once or twice.

Also we’re giving away a prize – thanks to our friends at BBC on DVD, we’re giving away a DVD of Matt Smith’s swansong Time of the Doctor, which also includes his previous Christmas specials A Christmas Carol, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and The Snowmen! Just put a comment in by the 23rd of May! We’ll pick a winner and announce it…somehow.

Surprise! Just when you thought you’d got rid of us, we thought we’d pop up and tell you all about our new project, Night Terrace! Our Kickstarter campaign is now underway and you can find it here! But rather than just spam your ears, Ben and John thought they should at least record a mini-episode since so many of you have sent lovely messages hoping we’d be back. Since Night Terrace revolves around a mysterious house, we decided to discuss the notion of “home” in Doctor Who in the traditional Splendid Chaps cafe, Penny Farthing in Northcote.

Our new audio comedy series will follow the adventures of ex-world saving science adventurer Anastasia Black, played by Jackie Woodburne (Neighbours’ Susan Kennedy), as she tries to figure out why her house has started to travel through space and time – and how to get back home. It will also feature chaps Ben McKenzie as her sidekick Eddie, and Petra Elliott as the enigmatic “Sue”. The first series is written by John Richards, Lee Zachariah, Ben McKenzie and David Ashton, and you can find out more at nightterrace.com.

Well, here it is: the last released episode of Splendid Chaps. And what a suitable topic to go out on! John, Ben and Petra discuss what they’ve learned from Doctor Who over the years with guests comedian, actor and teacher Rob Lloyd (Who, Me.) and writer and editor Liz Barr (Chicks Unravel Time) in an episode recorded for the Stonnington Library Service’s [untitled] festival at Toorak/South Yarra Library on Saturday, November 16 2013. There were prizes, surprises, all the usual Splendid Stuff – and a wonderful spoken word performance from the one and only Emile Zoey Baker! (You can find her piece, “Dr Who’s Tom Baker is My Real Dad”, on her web site.)

We’re not gonna see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old podcast. And before we go, we just want to say you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

And you know what?

So were we!

Time for a bit of time travel: on Tuesday, November 19 2013, as part of Melbourne City Library’s week-long Doctor Who Festival, Ben, John and Petra were joined by writer, director and podcaster Lucas Testro  and broadcaster, documentary maker and podcaster Marian Blythe to talk about those other splendid chaps: the companions! Plus a live musical performance of a lost Doctor Who classic tune by Emma Heeney.