Splendid Chaps Productions was born when Ben McKenzie and John Richards decided to make the live Doctor Who podcast Splendid Chaps in 2013. With the addition of Petra Elliott and David Ashton, they’ve gone on to write and produce theatre and audio comedy, most notably (with Lee Zachariah) the sci-fi comedy radio series Night Terrace. You can find out more about them below.
About The Chaps[ref]We realise chaps is traditionally a gendered term, but with a podcast titled Splendid Chaps, we don’t imagine we’d get away with calling ourselves anything else.[/ref]
Ben McKenzie (benmckenzie.com.au, @McKenzie_Ben; not the one on Gotham) is an actor, comedian, writer, game designer and independent producer who describes himself as “a nerd for all seasons”. He has written and performed stand-up, sketch and impro comedy for over a decade. He hosts and produces the podcasts Pratchat and re:Discovery, and has been a voice actor and narrator for video, apps and games, though he is best known for travelling through time and space with Jackie Woodburne (Susan from Neighbours) in the BBC radio series Night Terrace. His writing includes educational video scripts, articles on science and pop culture, and the Playstation VR game Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown (Tin Man Games). He has designed and produced dozens of live games, including Pop Up Playground’s hit bank heist puzzle room Small Time Criminals, and is currently writing and producing an alternate reality game (ARG) for a major university. His other production work includes the Freeplay Independent Games Festival, and events and workshops for 100 Story Building, a creative writing centre for young people based in Footscray. His favourite dinosaur is Stegosaurus, and his favourite element is Helium. He tweets at @McKenzie_Ben.
Ben can’t remember a time when he didn’t watch or read Doctor Who. If pressed, he used to say his top three Doctors were Two, Five and Eleven, or give the “splendid chaps” answer, but doing the podcast he realised he does have a favourite: Sylvester McCoy. They’re all brilliant, though.
John Richards (outlandinstitute.wordpress.com) is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. He is best known for co-creating and writing the ABC1 television series Outland, the best gay-and-lesbian-science-fiction-fan-club-comedy ever made. He was a presenter on the Boxcutters podcast for five years, where he won a Chronos Award for interviewing Doctor Who writers Paul Cornell and Rob Shearman, and he hosted the pop-culture jamboree The Outland Institute on Joy 94.9. He wrote the stage two-hander Not Of This Earth which toured Australia, and was part of the acclaimed radio comedy team The Third Ear who produced a regular sketch comedy show, a sitcom for ABC Radio National (based on Not Of This Earth) and wrote and performed material for the television series Something Hot Before Bed. He has a dim memory of once being a stand-up comedian. In 1995 he wrote a song that made JJJ’s Hottest 100. In 2013 he had theatrical pieces produced in London and Melbourne, including Songs for Europe: Two Short Plays About Eurovision. He is a regular contributor to publications including Cult, Encore and DNA, and his shoulder appears in the feature film The Extra. In 2019 his audio drama Dead Media – the first ever to feature Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor, albeit played by another actor – was released by Big Finish to much acclaim. He is currently director of the Bendigo International Short Film Festival and the Bendigo Pride Fesitval.
He was abandoned in the wilds of West Australia as a child and raised by a TV showing Doctor Who. His top three Doctors are Five, Three, Seven and Eleven, even though that’s four of them. But they are all splendid chaps.
Petra Elliott (petraelliott.com, @PetraElliott) is an actor, singer and presenter. She has performed theatre for children, including puppetry and an improvised theatre in education project for YWCA Scope. Theatre highlights include Sissy (then) in Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, Eve Ensler in The Vagina Monologues, Emilia in Othello, Belinda/Flavia in Noises Off, M’lynn in Steel Magnolias, musicals including Godspell, Cabaret and Les Miserablés, multiple roles in He Died With a Falafel In His Hand, the title role in Peter Pan, Inside Out at La Mama, and Who Killed John Bearington III? and the Melbourne Museum Comedy Tour as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. She debuted her first solo cabaret show, Petrasexual, in 2014 with return seasons at the Butterfly Club and Adelaide Fringe. In 2015 Petra played Joan Baez in The Road To Woodstock (Chapel Off Chapel) and filmed supernatural television drama Sonnigsburg, later nominated for Best Narrative and/or Fictional program at the 2019 Antenna Awards. As a puppeteer and improviser she was part of The Mighty Little Puppet Show, with multiple story formats at MICF, Adelaide and Melbourne Fringe festivals. The ABC invited her to appear on Whovians to discuss the Twelfth doctor’s performance in Oxygen, in an episode that aired on May 14, 2017.
David Ashton is founder of Sample and Hold Studios in Melbourne. He has extensive experience in broadcast audio production, including twelve years at SBS and three with the ABC. He’s produced live programs, pre-recorded productions and outside broadcasts for radio, recorded and produced local musicians including Mark Barrage, The Emergency and Minimum Chips, and recorded The Church, Regurgitator Michael Franti and many others for radio broadcast.