Host Vaya Pashos and Night Terrace co-producer Ben McKenzie are back to talk about episode six, “The Edification of Anastasia Black”, written by Lee Zachariah and starring Jackie Woodburne, Petra Elliott, Emily Taheny, Celia Pacquola and Laura Hughes…but not Ben McKenzie!

Anastasia and Sue have escaped the Gauls, but they can’t take off yet – Eddie isn’t in the house! Clues point to a mystery from Anastasia’s days back in the DEPARTMENT, but before their investigation gets very far they are whisked away to a distant planet where a human scout ship is threatened by an alien blob. How did they get here? Where’s Eddie? And what do the Cosmic Immortals have to do with it? It’s a brain-bending adventure in destiny…

Vaya and Ben discuss everything from Star Trek to Xanadu to My Little Pony as they talk about the story, cast and recording of this space epic. Plus some insight from sound designer David Ashton, and a couple of clips from behind the scenes of the making of this episode.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:08 — 15.6MB)

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Episode six of Night Terrace series two, “The Edification of Anastasia Black”, 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

• Pluto was famously “demoted” in status from planet to “dwarf planet” in 2006 after the discovery of Eris, an asteroid bigger than Pluto, prompted astronomers to formally define the term “planet”. “Planetoid” is not a defined scientific term, but is generally synonymous with “minor planet”, a broad definition that includes dwarf planets and asteroids.
• Lynx – known in the US and some other countries as “Axe” – is a Unilever-owned brand of male grooming products best known for its deodorants, shower gels and unsubtly sexist advertising. There have been many different scents over the years, but “Africa”, introduced in 1995, is the most popular. It’s known as “Kilo” in the US and “Native” in Brazil. Other less-than-sensitive scent names have included “Oriental”, “Inca” (or “Aztec”) and “Voodoo”.
• “Cooee” – sometimes spelled “coo-ee” or “cooey” – comes from the Dharug language group of the area now known as Sydney. Dialects of Dharug are spoken by Darug and Eora people, though the language was classified as extinct and has had to be reconstructed in the twenty-first century. English contains several words derived from Dharug, including corroboree, dingo, koala, wallaby, wombat and boomerang.
• Ben was pretty on the mark with his guess as how many companions have sprained or twisted their ankle in Doctor Who; if we restrict ourselves to the television show, it seems to be about six.
• The Anarchist Guild Social Committee was a live comedy group who put on monthly performances of all-new sketches in 2009, with a smaller number of special event shows in 2010 and a few reunions since. Hosted by Nick Caddaye, it starred Courtney Hocking, Dave Bushell, Tegan Higginbotham, Richard McKenzie, Celia Pacquola and Andrew McClelland, with Ben McKenzie (and later Kelly Fastuca) as more or less company players, filling in gaps where needed.
• Celia Pacquola’s breakout acting roles for television were in the political satire sit-com Utopia and dark comedy Laid, both for the ABC.
• Laura Hughes has a long list of writing and acting credits both in Australia and the US, including Open Slather, a 2015 sketch comedy show for The Comedy Channel on Australia’s Foxtel pay-television service. Aside from Laura the cast also featured Emily Taheny and Ben Gerrard, who starred in John Richards’ sit-com Outland.
• The Detour is a sit-com created by Samantha Bee and star Jason Jones which follows a family as they drive from New York state to Florida. Each subsequent season sees the family moving on in one way or another. Laura Hughes appears in two episodes as a character named, er…”Laura”.
• Preacher, based on the comics by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, follows Jesse Custer, a Texan preacher with a shady past who is possessed by a being who lets him command anyone who hears his voice. He goes on a search for God with his ex-partner Tulip and vampire Cassidy. The fourth and final season was shot in and around Melbourne, Victoria.
• Star Trek has a long history of seemingly omnipotent aliens with god-like powers that goes way back before Q. A prime example is Apollo in the original 1967 Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”. Lee sent this clip to Laura and Celia to demonstrate what we were sending up.
• The late screenwriter Blake Snyder wrote a series of books titled Save the Cat! in which he gave advice on adding personal stakes to stories, and identified examples in various films. The title is primarily a reference to Jonesy, the cat in the film Alien. Snyder is also famous for the “beat sheet”, a specific structure for breaking down a three-act story into smaller parts.
• Rosehaven is an ABC sit-com written by and starring Celia Pacquola and Luke McGregor. It follows Daniel (McGregor) as he returns to his rural Tasmanian hometown of Rosehaven to run the family real estate business, aided by his best friend Emma (Pacquola), who turns up unannounced having fled her honeymoon. It’s run for three seasons from 2016 to 2019, and is available via SundanceTV in the US.
• Wine is a four-episode web series co-created by Emily Taheny and Jess Harris, and published on Facebook.
• Q, as played by John de Lancie, appears in many episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but the ones Ben mentioned are Hide and Q (where he gives Will Riker the power of the Q), Q Who (Q flings the Enterprise across the universe) and Déjà Q (Q loses his powers). Q later appears in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as spin-off comics, novels and videogames.
• Discord is a “dragon horse” character in the cartoon series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Voiced by de Lancie, Discord has reality-bending powers and a penchant for mischief that are rather reminiscent of Q. The “interesting” fan-base Ben mentions are “bronies”, a community of adult (and mostly male) fans of My Little Pony which convened on the message board web site 4chan. Most of them just enjoy , but some exhibit the kind of demanding and entitled fan behaviour seen in fandoms of adult shows.