Host Vaya Pashos is once again joined by Night Terrace producer and co-star Ben McKenzie as they delve into the labyrinthine schemes of episode three, “A Verb of Nouns” by John Richards.

The house appears in a seemingly green and pleasant land – but almost immediate Eddie is kidnapped! Looking for help, Anastasia and Sue discover a web of infuriating intrigue and perilous plotting, where everyone lives in fear of a tyrannical Queen – and also seem to be planning her downfall. Even weirder, there’s something about Anastasia that seems to enthrall the palace Scribe – and a new mystery lies in wait for them all in the heart of the palace…

Vaya and Ben talk about the ideas behind “A Verb of Nouns”, which lovingly parodies everything from rubbish Doctor Who monsters to A Game of Thrones and The Prisoner of Zenda. They also reveal a few secrets from the production and get excited about the regular and guest cast, because that’s what after shows are all about, dammit! Plus you won’t want to miss the Night Terrace news revealed at the end of the episode!

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

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Episode three of Night Terrace series two, “A Verb of Nouns”, 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

• “Be alert but not alarmed” was the slogan of a fairly blatantly scaremongering Australian government anti-terrorism awareness campaign, asking
• Game of Thrones author George R R Martin has said that he was directly influenced by the historical Wars of the Roses, between the Houses of Lancaster and York.
• “Saint Kylie” is, of course, a reference to Kylie. You know who she is.
• Auckland is one of the biggest cities in the north island of New Zealand.
• “The Red Wedding” is a famous sequence in Game of Thrones and the novels on which its based, in which…well…let’s just say it goes about as badly as a wedding can possibly go.
• “Stan” is a slang term used, appropriately enough, as both a verb and a noun to mean a fan who goes to extreme lengths for the object of their obsession. It is often used pejoratively, but loyal fans on the Internet have adopted it. The term comes from Eminem’s song “Stan” about an obsessive fan named…er…Stan.
• The Susan Kennedy amnesia storyline is from the 2002 season of Neighbours. Susan slips on some spilt milk, bangs her head, falls unconscious, and when she wakes up thinks it’s the morning after her sixteenth birthday in 1972. It…was not a hit with fans. We parodied this storyline in a brief clip filmed for our second season Kickstarter video.
• The clip of Aggedor comes from his second appearance, in 1976’s The Monster of Peladon. You can find the whole scene on YouTube, as well as a similar scene from the earlier story The Curse of Peladon, in which the Doctor first hypnotises the beast by singing a Venusian lullaby.
• As well as Audrey the dog and Dahl the galah, Karl has also owned a ceramic pig and, according to one account, an axolotl – which he gave away after it “spooked” him. Neighbours is weird. The ceramic pig storyline was so ridiculous it’s become the preferred term at Neighbuzz for stupid C-storylines! You can hear about it way back on episode 9 of Neighbuzz, “Who the Heck is Lenny?”, which you can find in Overcast or Spotify.
• The Smurfs are tiny blue creatures created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo. There were originally exactly 100 of them and each has a name describing their personality; Brainy is an insufferable know-it-all who consistently irritates the other Smurfs to the point of being physically thrown out of their village. Vanity Smurf is obsessed with his own appearance. They are hunted by Gagamel, an evil but poor wizard who believes they are the secret ingredient required to turn lead into gold.
• George Ivanoff has written more than 100 books, mostly for middle grade and younger readers. His latest is The Australia Survival Guide. The You Choose series, in which the reader makes decisions and follows different paths through the story, includes thirteen books. You can find out more on George’s web site.
• The “like listening into a mirror” joke was, in fact, written by Lee Zachariah.
• T-Bag was a British children’s adventure series which ran for nine series over seven years on ITV. The title character was a scheming witch who gained her magical powers from a special tea, and was thwarted by a resourceful young girl who had to travel between realms collecting special magical objects. Both the protagonist and the witch changed actors and characters over the years, but the one constant was T-Shirt, T-Bag’s servant and apprentice.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is available internationally on Netflix, and is a prequel to Jim Henson’s 1982 fantasy film. Both use puppets to portray all the characters and creatures of the world of Thra, in the “Age of Wonder”.
• You can find out more about the Rex Factor podcast at its web site. The podcast is currently on a break, but they’re making animated episodes now too!
• The episode of the Sordid Details podcast mentioned by Vaya is “Perfect Leg Muscles”, featuring guest Danielle Henderson.