Tag: Tripodscast

Here Lies Amicus & I Don’t Do Sci-Fi

Hope you are well. I’ve been lucky enough to be invited on to two more excellent podcasts recently – Here Lies Amicus and I Don’t Do Sci-Fi.

Here Lies Amicus is the brainchild of Cev Moore and is an in-depth review of the films of legendary Sixties and Seventies exploitation studio Amicus. Run by Milton Subotsky and Max J Rosenberg, Amicus were one of Hammer Films’ main rivals and often fished in the same pool of actors and filmmakers as the people at Bray Studios. Probably best remembered now for their horror anthology movies like Tales from the Crypt and Asylum, Amicus also made pop music vehicles, thrillers and also two low budget science fiction movies: The Terrornauts and They Came From Beyond Space. This double bill was the subject of the October 2022 episode Amicus in Outer Space!

Here is a link to the Spotify page. The podcast is also available on most popular platforms.

To be honest I thought I had mentioned this at the time but looking back through my blog I shamefully omitted to post about it. I know Cev through our mutual association with the Official Talking Pictures TV podcast, where he also has an interest in reviewing the channel’s fantasy output. He kindly provided some useful background info on the two films, in addition to us re-watching them. Whilst neither film is great, they both have a lot of interest in them. The Terrornauts is more ambitious, featuring scientists being abducted and taken to an ancient alien space station to defend the solar system from an invasion fleet, but consequently it falls so much further, betrayed by wooden dialogue and bargain basement model work. They Came from Beyond Space is another variant on the alien possession trope, set in the Home Counties and having more than a touch of The Avengers about it. Unfortunately, the thin plot is padded out with a lot of busywork about infiltrating the aliens’ base and has a dull lead in Robert Hutton. Nevertheless, I had an excellent time discussing both titles with Cev.

Moving bang up to the date with a podcast only released yesterday – I Don’t Do Sci-Fi is the spiritual sequel to last year’s impressive Tripodscast, from the same team of Dani Wray, Rebecca Wray, John Isles and Kevin Hiley. It’s a conversational podcast based on the concept that Dani is an SF novice who in the past has had little exposure to a lot of the genre. So her friends are showing her examples of futuristic fiction, starting with the cult BBC drama Star Cops. Most episodes will feature a special guest and kindly I was invited to be part of the debut. Recording in person is always fun and we had a lively time revisiting the series which I covered in my own podcast last year.

You can listen to the series here or on your favourite podcast app. Hope you enjoy both series.

Very British Futures – The Aliens

It’s been longer arriving than I hoped but Season Two of my podcast Very British Futures is finally taking flight. I’ve found a better way of planning my time, and so I’ve been able to invest some energy into editing my recordings from the last few months.

So first released blinking into the online world is our discussion of The Aliens, E4’s 2016 drama with blackly comic moments, set in a world of human and alien drug dealers, ghettoised resentful alien immigrants and one hapless protagonist who keeps trying to do the right thing but generally just digs himself deeper into trouble.

It has a marvellous cast of people who were just getting recognised for their talent, including Michaela Cole (I Will Destroy You), Jim Howick (Ghosts) and Michael Socha (Being Human) and Michael Smiley (Kill List) and was produced by a lot of the same team responsible for Misfits.

This is also best produced episode so far, thanks to the technical brilliance of Kevin Hiley (Tripodscast) and being the first to be recorded in an actual room instead of online. I was joined by two guests from Tripodscast: Rebecca Wray and Dani Wray. Both of them were excellent and had plenty of fascinating observations about the show and its characters. Look out for their forthcoming new series with John Isles I Don’t Do SF in the new year.

You can listen to the episode at Anchor FM or on all the major podcast platforms. You can also check its dedicated page at my new website for the podcast which also has links for further reading, including the original E4 website which contains a lot more background information about the fictional history of the aliens’ arrival in Britain. For the first season I also put the episode up on this blog as a downloadable MP3. I’ve decided to stop that for season two, partly to cut down on housekeeping, and also to hopefully encourage more listeners to the podcast platforms and build up the podcast’s official stats. If you would like to download a file to listen to offline, may I suggest checking out the episode’s page at Spreaker, which has a download option.

Hope you enjoy this episode. More coming soon, continuing with The Flipside of Dominick Hyde.

Tripodscast – The Saga Concludes

Last week, the tenth and final episode of The Tripodscast was released. It’s fittingly one of their best episodes, a lively discussion of some of Samuel Youd’s (aka John Christopher) other novels, interspersed with an interview with his children Nick and Rose. They now run The SYLE Press, a small imprint dedicated to putting their father’s work back into print. It’s an interesting conversation, not only for what it reveals of the author in his private life, but as a picture of what is involved in being an independent publisher. Samuel Youd wrote in great many genres over his career, from gothic romance and family sagas to more literary portraits of the time he was living in.

You can listen to this episode and the rest of the series on your favourite podcast app or at https://anchor.fm/the-tripodscast Of course I am biased but I think it’s a quality mini-series for anyone wanting to hear more about the books or the TV series.

It’s been fascinating to watch this podcast develop in confidence and ambition. Initially intended as discussion podcast between three friends looking at the SF series The Tripods Trilogy in books and TV, it has developed into an in-depth examination of Samuel Youd, the making of the television series and its ongoing fandom. It’s scored interviews with all four lead actors, some of whom have rarely been interviewed before, plus the series producer and television veteran Richard Bates, whose career includes script-editing or producing The Avengers, The Darling Buds of May and A Touch of Frost. Writer Will Hadcroft, was another excellent contributor, not only as a viewer but as someone who corresponded with and met Youd.

You’ll be hearing from John Isles, Rebecca Wray and Dani Wray in forthcoming episodes of Very British Futures.

Manchester Indie Filmmakers Group

Two photos of Gareth Preston

It’s not often I get to talk to a real live audience, but this coming Wednesday 6pm 17 November 2021 I’ll be at Manchester’s Central Library to talk to the Manchester Indie Filmmakers Group about my career to date, with an emphasis on my audio and podcasting work. It should be a fairly informal event and free to attend. If you are interested, please check out their Facebook page for more details.

Gareth Preston is our guest speaker for this weeks meeting. Gareth is a writer and blogger with his own podcast series and regularly contributes reviews for the “Talking Pictures TV” podcast. Gareth has been involved in a variety of films and Theatre productions. A fascinating evening for anyone interested in audio , social media or how to get your own series recognised in the vast arena of Social Network.

Of course my association with MIFG goes back quite a long way. I have starred in several of Nigel Anderson’s films, including Angel Snow and The Diary of Anne Frank. Nigel, and regular collaborator Brian Clark were also my guests for the first edition of Very British Futures and I looking forward to having them back next year in the podcast to talk about A for Andromeda.

Elsewhere, Tripodscast goes from strength to strength with episode 3, looking at the original book The Pool of Fire. I know Rebecca, John and Dani have some interesting ideas for later instalments, including some exclusive interviews.

Examples of the new Terror Trumps cards

The Kickstarter campaign for the second wave of Terror Trumps collectable playing cards has already off to a roaring start, already at 144% support. My friend Rik Hoskin writes:
“We’re roughly halfway through the funding period for these Terror Trumps cards, and, as I write these words, we’re about to unlock our first stretch goal–free art prints for everyone!  If we reach 100 funders we’ll unlock even more free prints which will also go to everyone, because we want everybody to get as much out of this as we have… and we are having the time of our lives!”

I’ve seen a preview set of the cards and they are if possible even better than the first wave. If you want your own packs, plus some exclusive extras, visit their campaign page today.

Hope you are having a great November. Thanks for looking in.

Tripodscast

It’s very flattering when someone credits you as an inspiration. John Isles and Rebecca Wray were inspired to create their own podcast, partially by my own Very British Futures podcast. Together with Dani Wray, the result is Tripodscast, a series discussing everything you could possibly want to know about John Christopher’s Tripods series. The books, the TV series, the comic strips and more. A good choice, because my episode on the BBC TV series is still my most downloaded instalment.

Episode one is out now and its excellent. A very entertaining 50+ minutes of conversation about the first novel The White Mountains, along with an charming interview with another friend of mine, author Will Hadcroft about his correspondence and eventual meeting with John Christopher, a pen-name of Samuel Youd. It is well produced too and reminds me that when I start season two of my podcast I want to do some in-person recordings as well as Skype chats.

You can listen to Tripodscast on Spotify and at Anchor.fm – https://anchor.fm/the-tripodscast

Wishing them the best of luck for future episodes.