Night Terrace Season One

Night Terrace is an audio drama produced by the Splendid Chaps team. I discovered it when it was being Kickstarted and just had to back it. The production was recently made available, both to backers and for purchase on their website. It is both hilarious and awesome.

Anastasia Black used to save the world for the government, but now she just wants a quiet life. So when her house abruptly starts travelling in time and space she’s understandably miffed. She’s also not exactly thrilled about Eddie Jones, who happened to be on her doorstep at the time and is now her unlikely fellow traveller. University hasn’t prepared Eddie to cope with other worlds or time paradoxes, but he still thinks they’re a step up from selling electricity plans door-to-door.

Together Anastasia and Eddie will face alien invasions, hideous monsters, and a shadowy figure known only as “Sue”. All the while hoping the house will eventually take them home…

Night Terrace Season One contains eight episodes, all just under half an hour long. After the initial set up in episode one, the remaining episodes are very, er, episodic. They reminded me ever so slightly of Doctor Who, except without the Doctor, and with a house instead of the TARDIS and Australian and funny... so OK, not that much like Doctor Who.

The underlying concept is pretty hilarious (see blurb above) and I was particularly amused by the door-to-door salesman who got caught up in the whole house turning into a spacetime conveyance thing. He is the classic useless sidekick (who majored in interpretive dance), always needing to be rescued by Anastasia, the more competent, jaded and generally annoyed time traveller.

Each episode is a self-contained story with the season rounding off with a sort of over-arching plot. The humour is distinctly Australian, which was nice to see, but I'm sure most of it will translate to international audiences. My favourite episode — the one which made me laugh the most — was the second, titled Starship Australis, which had the most topical jokes, I thought. That's not to say the rest weren't funny, that was just the one that stuck out to me.

I would really like them to make another series, which they've said will depend on the success of the first. And that means that if you didn't back the Kickstarter, you should go buy yourself a copy now. If you did back the Kickstarter and haven't listened to it yet, do yourself a favour and get on that.

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: October 2014, Splendid Chaps Productions
Series: Season one of ??? (hopefully many more)
Format read: It's an audio-drama, so listened to on my very old iPod
Source: Kickstarter