Tag: Justin Hamilton

Splendid Comedy, Festival Chaps

The Melbourne International Comedy Festival is about to start for 2016, and many of the guests who appeared on Splendid Chaps are featured in this year’s program – as well as two of our hosts!

Petra Elliott is one of the stars of the improvised puppet show, The Mighty Little Puppet Show! You won’t want to miss her performing as one of the “Ritas”, colourful puppets on which the audience will build their own characters. The show also features “What I Learned from Doctor Who” guest Rob Lloyd. The Mighty Little Puppet Show runs at 7:30 PM, upstairs @ Little Sista (next to the Town Hall). It’s a rotating ensemble cast, so if you want to see Petra make sure you book for March 25, 27, 29 or 31, or April 1.

Ben McKenzie has had a hand in Claire Hooper’s show this year, through his games company Pop Up Playground; together they present Being Claire Hooper, a whimsical, Claire Hooper-themed treasure hunt through the city. You might even see a familiar face or two… Being Claire Hooper begins at 6 PM each Saturday and Sunday at the statue of Burke and Wills at City Square (opposite the Town Hall). Tickets are very limited so be sure to book!

Here’s a round up of all our guests appearing in the festival! Check the listings linked via the title of each show for details (for example, most shows are an hour earlier on Sundays). We’ve also linked to the episodes they appeared in in case you’d like to revisit.

Justin Hamilton and Adam Richard also host The Shelf, 7:30 PM on Mondays at The Toff in Town.

Eleven/Future

It’s the big one! Our actually-released-on-the-anniversary spectacular features hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott discussing Matt Smith, the future, and plenty of other Doctor Who goodness with guests Stella Young and Justin Hamilton, plus music by house band The Time Lads and an original song by guest musical superstar, Casey Bennetto. Yes, our year nears its end with this, the final Doctor/Theme episode of Splendid Chaps, recorded at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne on November 21, 2013.

Big thanks to John, Petra and David for all the hard work they’ve done on post-production getting this massive episode ready in just two days!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:24:12 — 38.6MB)

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Don’t forget you can go into the draw to win the complete box set of season seven of Doctor Who (Matt Smith’s last! *sob*) on DVD, courtesy of our friends at BBC on DVD! To enter the draw, just comment on this episode at splendidchaps.com. How do you feel about Matt Smith? Does he make a good introductory Doctor? Do you love him but dislike his era, or do you think the Grand Moffat is the best thing to happen to Doctor Who in years? And what about the future in – and of – Doctor Who? Comment by December 14 to be in the running, and we’ll announce the winner at the recording of our Christmas Special on December 15.

Eleven/Future (live show)

The Doctor, the lonely god, last of the Time Lords, comes face to face with his own people and their most evil son, the Master, but manages to avert their disastrous return, seemingly avoiding his foretold death. But Wilf, an ordinary old man present for the final battle, taps on the radiation-filled booth in which he is trapped – fulfilling the prophecy that “he will knock four times”. The Doctor grudgingly saves Wilf, absorbing the fatal radiation, and leaves for a “victory lap” around the Universe, waving a silent goodbye to old friends. Having held back death for so long, his regeneration is explosive, severely damaging the TARDIS and sending it hurtling towards Earth. The new Doctor is youthful, eccentric, enthusiastic and affectionate, but rather more alien than his predecessor, out of touch with human culture and at times feeling all of his 900 plus years. He forms a bond with a young Scottish girl, Amelia Pond, and accidentally binds their entire lives together. 

Splendid Chaps is a year-long celebration of Doctor Who‘s fiftieth anniversary: eleven live performances recorded as podcasts in which your brains will be fed, your funny bones tickled, and your hearts opened (yes, both of them!). Our eleventh and final(ish) major episode brings us to the (still) current Doctor, Matt Smith. Splitting fan opinion on his announcement, in part because of his youth and obscurity, he soon won over audiences with a performance influenced by Patrick Troughton. This was also the biggest time of change in the revived show’s history, with not only a new Doctor, but a new production team, headed by fan favourite writer Steven Moffat, bringing a definite new feel to the show.

As Splendid Chaps draws to a close, we want to look forward as well as back, and so we take as our theme the future. The Doctor in the old series and the new has often looked forward in time, whether a few decades, a few centuries, or even millions or billions of years. How has the show depicted the future? Has it tried to be predictive, or to express our hopes and fears? And what of the future of the show itself? With Matt Smith leaving, and Moffat’s time surely also coming to an end, what does the future have in store for Doctor Who?

Hosts Ben McKenzie, John Richards and Petra Elliott are joined by comedians Justin Hamilton and Stella Young, plus a new song from Keating! composer Casey Bennetto, backed by our house band The Time Lads. Plus there will of course be prizes, surprises, jokes and more; it’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for! (We have a little something extra up our sleeves…)

Space: ACMI, Federation Square, Melbourne
Time: Thursday, November 21; recording starts 7 PM
Accessibility: This venue is wheelchair accessible.
Tickets: $15 full, $12 concession, $11 ACMI members (plus booking fee where applicable)
Bookings: via ACMI online, or at the ACMI box office (subject to availability)
Podcast: “Eleven/Future”, released 23rd of November, 2013.