All posts by John Richards

Season two update!

Recording for season two of Night Terrace is well underway, with six of our eight episodes recorded! Well, mostly recorded. Night Terrace production can be quite timey-wimey, as actor availability leads to gaps to be filled later, but our company actors Dave Lamb and Amanda Buckley are always on hand to fill in a missing voice. Hearing Dave Lamb play a 1950s Tea Lady is… interesting.

Our first recording day saw Lawrence Leung and Mad As Hell’s Emily Taheny joining us, while the second brought us Gary Russell, Jane Badler and Ian Smith. Yes, Harold From Neighbours joined Susan From Neighbours for the time-traveling adventure you’ve always hoped for. And they were all brilliant.
Ben McKenzie, Petra Elliott, Jackie Woodburne and guest star Lawrence Leung in the studio.

One of our other welcome visitors this year has been Madame Fromage, our caterer! Plates of sandwiches, fruit, cheese and cake from Madame Fromage catering.We always stress we can’t make this show without the generosity of our listeners, but Madame Fromage brought crowdfunding to a new level by graciously donating lunch! Not only did this free up our budget to put more money toward hiring actors and studio time, it also gave us more time, since we no longer had to be up late making sandwiches the night before a studio day. (Yes, that’s the glamour of audio comedy production.) We heartily recommend you hire her for your next crowd-funded audio production recording/historical banquet/event.

Our main studio this year has been Bakehouse Studios in Richmond, a massive warren of rooms mostly used as a rehearsal studio. Most musicians in Melbourne have been to Bakehouse at some point, with John and David realising on arrival that they had recorded there 20 years ago when it was Stable Sound. An enormous image of Nick Cave (and The Boys Next Door) greets you as you enter, and by the evening the huge beer-garden-like central courtyard is full of tattooed and pierced musicians. At one point we discovered Frenzal Rhomb were rehearsing in the next studio. We could hear them through the wall of the control room, but we’re confident you won’t in the finished episode!

We then spent some more intimate days at the Sample And Hold studio, with Andrew McClelland and Ming-Zhu Hii joining us for an afternoon of space travel. And then The Chaser’s Andrew Hansen came down from Sydney to record a couple of episodes with us. And a prequel scene. And some webisodes. We may have been out of control. We also made him tell us how great it was to work with us while we recorded him. At that point it had become more of a hostage situation. Andrew Hansen (with a moustache) in the sound booth recording his guest role for Night Terrace

We have one more major studio day left, as well at least two smaller sessions and our live show (September 12! Book those tickets now!), but we have great stuff in the can and we’re looking forward to sharing it with you.

RELEASE THE TERRACE!

Today is the day the Terrace is launched! All the digital files have been polished and doilies placed on the download codes… we’re ready to go!

We’re having a party tonight in Melbourne for some of our fabulous Kickstarter backers and we’d like to thank everyone who has made Night Terrace happen, from the fantastic backers to our brilliant cast and everyone who helped us on the way.

So thank you! And feel free to help us spread the word. Blogs, podcasts, forums, facebook pages – if you know people who would enjoy Night Terrace please tell them. If you’d like to interview any of the crew you can contact us at media@nightterrace.com .

And if you’d like to buy a copy of the series simply click here.

Enjoy the trip!

Recording is complete!

We’ve just completed our third (and final) studio day on Night Terrace so it’s a perfect time to tell you what we’ve been up to.

Our third day included all the Kickstarter backers who chose to record a line and we were thrilled with their performances. We also had our first chance to work with Eryn Saunders who we’re certain you’ll be hearing more of in the future, Aamer Rahman brought his talent to the role of “Tony”, and the gloriously talented Dave Lamb and Amanda Buckley came in to provide a range of voices.

Our wizard of sound David Ashton has been putting the first mixes together and it’s all sounding fantastic. Curiously David is unflappable when the script calls for “the sound of the universe being torn to shreds in an explosion, then sucked into a single tiny point, then thrown out again in a new and exciting way”, but gets deeply annoyed when we ask for footsteps.

We’d also like to thank the wonderful people at Big Finish – especially Kris Griffin and Nick Briggs – who have been extremely generous with their advice and help.

We’re hoping to have the show finished and in your ears in September and our public launch party for Kickstarter backers will be in October, but we’ll tell you more about that soon.

Final cast update!

We’re pleased to announce the remaining guest stars for series one of Night Terrace!

Joining our amazing line-up of actors are Aamer Rahman, Virginia Gay, Andrew McClelland, Naomi Rukavina, Jason Tamiru, Eryn Saunders and Gnarnayarrahe Waitairie!

Gnarnayarrahe Waitairie is a musician, actor and street performer who has appeared in the feature films Dead Heart and Quigley Down Under. He started out in the band Stony Broke and the Hi-Spenders and has recorded with Not Drowning Waving, Joe Dolce and Alies Sluiter. He co-founded the Indjibundji Tribal Aboriginal Cultural Dance School in 1985, and was the lead in Ray Mooney’s play Black Rabbit at the Victorian Arts Centre. He won the title of ‘World’s Best Busker’ at a competition in Coff’s Harbour in 1992, and is famous for his Elvis impersonation. He’s not playing Elvis in Night Terrace but you will find him in episode six, The Last Hunt.

Also in episode six is Jason Tamiru. Jason is an actor, musician and producer and currently the indigenous audience development consultant for the Malthouse Theatre. He’s been the producer of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival’s Deadly Funny competition and Blak Cabaret for the Melbourne Indigenous Arts Festival. You’ll also find him in the feature film comedy 10Terrorists, and we’re thrilled to have him onboard.

Virginia Gay is best known to Australian audiences as registered nurse Gabrielle Jaeger in the television series All Saints and Frances James (“the sensible one”) on Winners and Losers. Virginia is a WAAPA grad and alongside her TV work has a stellar theatre career, including playing Julia Gillard in The Wharf Revue, a “prize bitch” in Eddie Perfect’s The Beast for MTC, and a transgendered actor auditioning for the role of Hitler in The Production Company’s The Producers. Despite that last qualification, she doesn’t appear in episode five, Sound & Führer, but rather plays the central role in episode three, Time of Death.

Which is where you’ll also find Andrew McClelland. He’s best known as a comedian, having toured four times to the Edinburgh Fringe, appeared in 15 consecutive Melbourne International Comedy Festivals and has won the coveted “Piece of Wood” Comedian’s Choice award. He’s also an in-demand DJ, both at his own hugely successful club night Mr McClelland’s Finishing School and at special events around Australia. His television appearances include Spicks & Specks, In Siberia Tonight, The Chaser’s War on Everything and Slideshow. Night Terrace is hardly Andrew’s first foray into voice acting; he provides the voice of every character in ABC3’s The Dukes of Broxtonia.

Naomi Rukavina works mainly in the theatre, where you may have seen her in Yellow Moon or The Crucible (both for the Melbourne Theatre Company), The Seizure for The Hayloft Project, or as both Tybalt and Romeo in The Most Excellent and Lamentable Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet for the Zoey Louise Moonbeam Dawson Shakespeare Company. She’s also been on the telly in Offspring. She’s in episodes six and seven of Night Terrace playing two very different characters, and she’s fab.

Eryn Saunders is probably the most professional actor we’ve worked with on Night Terrace…and she’s only ten! As well as appearing in episodes six and eight, Eryn also stars in the upcoming supernatural drama television series Sonnigsburg (alongside Night Terrace’s own Petra Elliott), and will soon be on stage with the Australian Ballet in The Nutcracker. We think she’s a performer with a big future in front of her.

Aamer Rahman rose to fame as half of comedy duo Fear of a Brown Planet with Nazeem Hussain, winning the Best Newcomer award at the 2010 Melbourne International Comedy Festival. As well as playing to sell-out crowds around Australia, Aamer has toured overseas and in 2014 opened for Dave Chappelle on the Melbourne leg of his tour. His debt solo stand-up show, The Truth Hurts, has played in Melbourne and London, and he recently successfully crowdfunded the making of his first comedy DVD. In Night Terrace, Aamer’s confident attitude serves him well in an important role in episode four, but he also got to live out his Star Trek dreams with a bit part in episode two.

Plus there’s some cameo surprises – but we’ll let you discover them for yourself!

We’ve been having a great time putting Night Terrace together and we’re really hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we do! The show will be coming very soon to some ears near you.

Coming Soon To Ears Near You

And we’re done! Thanks to nearly 300 backers on Kickstarter we have funded season one of Night Terrace. The Kickstarter funds will immediately be used to hire the studio, pay for our actors’ time and cover other costs of production, so  a huge thank you from the Night Terrace team for making this possible. We have our first readthrough this week and our first recording session next week, so it’s full steam  ahead for Anastasia and friends.

We’re also thrilled to announce four more cast for the first series of Night Terrace!

 

Chris Taylor is a comedian and writer, most famous for his work as part of The Chaser comedy team. He has co-written and appeared on CNNNN, The Chaser Decides, The Chaser’s War on Everything, Yes We Canberra and The Hamster Wheel. He is also the writer of the musical comedy Dead Caesar which premiered at the Sydney Theatre Company in 2007, hosted the documentary series Australia’s Heritage: National Treasures and his JJJ mockumentary The Blow Parade won the 2010 ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release.

Chris will play a guest role in the second episode, where he may or may not be in control of a spaceship.

Dave Lamb is a genuine Shakespearian actor, having toured versions of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth to Australian high schools with both Complete Works Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare. He has played Orlando in As You Like It and Prince Hal in Henry IV Part I, and recently directed a minimalist cut of Julius Caesar for the Melbourne Fringe Festival. His non-Barded work includes Yasha in The Cherry Orchard, a mad museum tour guide in the 2012 Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, a traffic cop on ABC’s Time of Our Lives and various crazy roles in ABC2’s The Bazura Project, including a futuristic robot with the voice of Shaun Micallef.

Amanda Buckley is about to reach her second decade of performing for theatre, corporate and festival audiences both in Australia and overseas, including the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Sydney Comedy Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe Festivals and the UCB Del Close Marathon (NY). Notable show credits include: Impromptunes: The Completely Improvised Musical (currently playing in the comedy festival), The Increasingly Handsome Adventures of Earl Bircher and other tales of Adventure, Spontaneous Broadway, Beaconsfield the Musical, Dungeon Crawl, Scrabble Unscripted, Blank! The Musical, iMPro3 Shuffle and Late Night Impro (also playing in the comedy festival).

Dave and Amanda come on board Night Terrace as part of our ensemble cast, playing various roles in multiple episodes.

Phil Zachariah is a graduate of the National Theatre, with a background in science including three years performing for the CSIRO Science Education Centre. He’s famous for playing high-profile individuals, including John Ruskin and George Bernard Shaw for ABC Radio National, H. G. Wells in ABC2’s The Bazura Project and since 2003 he has been performing a highly successful one-man show based on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. His Dickens has taken him across Europe, the UK, New Zealand and Asia and the show is a regular fixture each December at Melbourne’s Athenaeum Theatre. He has also sung for the Victoria State Opera and played Scruff in the oft-forgotten 1984 science fiction feature Future Schlock.

Phil plays a critical role in episode five…but beyond that there shall be no spoilers!

We hope to have some more casting and production news soon, so stay tuned.

Toby Truslove joins Night Terrace

We’re thrilled to announce another member of the guest cast – not just one of our favourite actors but one of our favourite people, Toby Truslove!

toby truslove

Toby is well known to viewers of ABC comedy, with leads in Outland, Laid and The Strange Calls. He starred in the feature film Scumbus, and his TV drama credits include All Saints, McLeod’s Daughters, The Strip and Tangle. He has extensive experience on the stage including Belvoir St’s production of Private Lives, Melbourne Theatre Company’s The Cherry Orchard and Bell Shakespeare’s Troilus & Cressida. He’s also been a regular on celebrity game shows including Thank God You’re Here, Randling, Slideshow and the TV adaptation of popular radio show The Unbelievable Truth. He was even a guest on an episode of Splendid Chaps!

He’ll be playing an alien in an episode of Night Terrace, a role he was born to play. In real life Toby’s a big fan of science fiction, but Night Terrace isn’t his first role involving a spaceship…

You can get involved too! Click here for details on how you can help make Night Terrace.

 

Jane Badler joins the cast of Night Terrace

jane-badler-silver-sweater

We’re excited to announce another TV veteran has joined the cast of Night Terrace – Jane Badler, best known as the huge-haired, hamster-eating reptilian overlord Diana in the classic 1980s TV series V!

Jane will appear as the only person who knows how and why Anastasia’s house is travelling in space and time. But is she a hero or a villain?

In a prolific television career, Jane was a lead in the late 80s version of Mission: Impossible, returned to V for the second series of the 2009 remake, and has appeared on numerous shows including The Highwayman, Fantasy Island, Falcon Crest (where she squared off against Vertigo star Kim Novak), Murder She Wrote, Sky Trackers, Cluedo, Blue Heelers, Spicks and Specks and Offspring.

Night Terrace will be the second time she’s been head to head with Jackie Woodburne, as Jane had a four-month run in Neighbours in 2010 playing a femme fatale named (surprise!) Diana.

Jane also has a successful singing career, with albums including The Devil Has My Double and Tears Again, and she’s currently recording in LA. Her latest single, “Volcano Boy”, is released on March 31st. You can find out more via her web site, janebadler.com.

Night Terrace has reached 80% of it’s budget but we still need to cross that line to produce the show! Become a backer now!

The Journey Begins!

Night Terrace house and logo

Only 6 hours in to our crowd-funding campaign we’ve raised 25% of our target. Thank you to everyone who’s joined us so far, we’re thrilled to have you onboard!

We’re also pleased to see so much interest in Night Terrace, with pieces by everyone from TV Tonight to Tansy Rayner Roberts, from cnet to DNA. Click those names to see what they said – and our thanks to all of them for getting the word out!

You can find our kickstarter campaign here and see the great rewards on offer. We can’t make Night Terrace without you, so tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Lean out of a window and shout about it like you’re Peter Finch in Network! Actually, don’t do that (but it is a great film). Come join us! JOIN USSSSSS!