THE AUDIO PLAY’S THE THING

Part One

Never let it be said, readers, that The Eye Shield is out of touch with its fellow Knightmare tribute projects. This new section of the fanzine will examine the past, present and future of the excellent Knightmare audio plays, which come from the imaginative minds of Martin “HStorm” Odoni and his dedicated crew of fellow voice actors.

So far, two audio plays have been recorded and uploaded onto the internet, and it is these that the first two instalments of this article will be dealing with. These two masterpieces – Famous For Retreating and the much shorter yet equally entertaining Knightmare Today – can both be downloaded at www.kmramdram.co.uk and if you’re curious as to my personal thoughts and opinions about them, keep reading this article and you should be well satisfied.

Martin and the gang hope to record two further audio plays in the near future, and The Audio Play’s the Thing will hopefully be playing host to a full write-up of the recording session. This issue, however, I share with you my own thoughts about the two current audio plays, before posing a few questions to Mr Martin Odoni himself, who came up with the idea for this section. (Although I myself claim full credit for the title – of course, I don’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing!)

FAMOUS FOR RETREATING (Released November 2006)

Written by Martin Odoni and Ricky Temple.

Featuring Martin Odoni as Lord Fear and Honesty Bartram, Russell Odoni as Treguard, Eleanor Booth-Davey as Stiletta and Salvania, Alex Downs as Skarkill and Merlin, Sue McPherson as Majida and Heggatty, Clare Speedie as Elita and Greystagg, and Vivienne Traill as Lady Brinkatore and Mellisandre.

Famous for Retreating is a compelling story and is very dramatic in parts, yet there is a good sprinkling of comedy too, particularly with the fond lampooning of popular Knightmare characters such as Majida, Honesty Bartram, Merlin and Heggatty.

It contains a lot of good elaboration on the concept of Witch Haven and Greystagg’s coven, specifically how they rely on fresh supplies of witch amber to maintain their magic powers, and how they are involved in a continuing struggle against Lord Fear to gain access to that amber. This builds nicely on much of the back-story from series 6.

Treguard has never before been presented as so enigmatic and shrewd, but this is how he comes across here thanks to a clever script and Russell Odoni’s skilful interpretation of it. Similarly, Lord Fear comes across as very sarcastic and witty, yet he is constantly a very real threat, thanks to the talents of Martin Odoni.

The hate-fulled banter between Lord Fear and Greystagg is very effective, and really draws upon and increases the significance of Julie’s level three spyglass sequence in series 7.

The idea of the Trial by Saga is very clever and compellingly unravelled, as Treguard really manipulates Lord Fear by enticing him to judge which story is the more disturbing, and of course on his own terms, Fear’s own story is not disturbing at all! This really shows where Treguard has a crucial advantage over Lord Fear – he can be shrewd and sneaky too, but in a far more effective way.

Lord Fear’s story is an interesting take on the Knightmare legend, and certainly attempts to fill in a lot of the gaps in the overall story, specifically what might have transpired between series 4 and 5 to facilitate the massive handover of power from Mogdred to Lord Fear. The presentation of Merlin as a doddery old fool is very funny and certainly in keeping with his character, if not exactly pleasing to diehard Merlin fans!

The idea that Lord Fear is actually a Saxon, like Treguard, is interesting. This part of the story allows us to see a glimpse of whatever remains of Lord Fear’s humanity, as he obviously feels betrayed and even upset by how he was treated by Merlin, which ultimately turned him to evil.

We also touch on an interesting back-story for the arrival of techno-magic in Knightmare, as it is revealed that Mogdred’s invention and utilisation of the Automatum was the first successful attempt at this brand of sorcery.

The telling of Stiletta’s back-story is obviously all part of Treguard’s shrewd and clever plan, and really shows the Dungeon Master to be in control of the whole situation in the most Machiavellian way.

This part of the play cleverly builds on Mellisandre’s throwaway comment from series 4 that she never seems to get any older, and with the inclusion of Lady Brinkatore and the origins of Dreadnort, it also builds further on the back-story of series 6.

The concluding portion of Stiletta’s story is a further insight into whatever little remains of Lord Fear’s humanity. By the end of the play, we can see that even Lord Fear possesses at least some sense of fair play and morality… in the end!

KNIGHTMARE TODAY (Released December 2007)

Written by Martin Odoni.

Featuring Martin Odoni as Dr Bert Merlin and Russell Odoni as Professor F J Hordriss.

The main focus of this funny little festive feature is Hordriss and Merlin exchanging insults under the pretence of discussing Knightmare’s transitional years (series 4/5), which establishes a clear rivalry between the two characters. This rivalry can be inferred from Knightmare itself on occasion, particularly during episode 13 of series 6, in which Hordriss is definitively put right about just who is the greatest magician of them all.

Hordriss’s unerring deadpan style in this is excellent – whatever Merlin throws at him, and whatever he himself throws back, he never seems to be anywhere near losing control of his temper, although he makes it perfectly clear that he is willing and able to exchange insults for as long as necessary. Again, your voice talents have impressed me, Russell Odoni.

Somewhere in amongst the insults, there are some very interesting points about Knightmare’s transitional years, which I myself had not picked up on at the time, as I did not really remember much about the early series after I’d watched series 4 and 5 on video a few times.

Let’s talk to Martin “HStorm” Odoni now about Knightmare in general, how the audio plays came into being, what he thinks of them, and his plans for the future.

THE EYE SHIELD: Do you have a favourite Knightmare series, team, puzzle, creature and/or character?

MARTIN ODONI: When I get asked which was my favourite series, I tend to give a slightly odd answer that sounds contradictory. I subscribe to the common view that season 3 was the best in terms of balance and atmosphere, but my favourite is season 2. It’s probably just because it was the only early season that I recorded on video back in the day, and so it’s the one I remember best from the time when Knightmare was what I felt it always should be.

My favourite team is probably team 7 from that year (Neil and co). They’re not well-remembered by many, and for sure they weren’t the sharpest knives in the kitchen drawer (oh how I hope adulthood has taught them the proper way to spell words beginning with S), but they did have a good sense of humour, and reaching the end of level two was a good achievement given their limitations.

Puzzle... well, I could be boring and predictable and say the Corridor of Blades, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it was one of the classics. But I’ll go instead for something less dramatic - the Stained Glass Window Chamber from seasons 2 and 3. It looked absolutely beautiful and ethereal, as did so many of the level three chambers in the hand-painted days. It was also spooky - those strange footsteps you could hear in the background coming from an unseen source would make my nerves jangle - and the tricks-with-light solution was always very neat.

My favourite creature was the catacombite. Why? Just look at it! My favourite character was Lord Fear, a terrific parody of the ‘80s/‘90s technocrats, as well as a wonderfully easy character to write for. He always had such a smart wit, which is a really accessible mindset for a writer.

How did the idea for the whole concept of Famous For Retreating (writing it, casting it and making it) come about?

The original idea lies with a set of prose fanfics I wrote back in 2002. One of them, The Chrysalis, which was almost as long as a Dave Morris novella, was my original idea for giving Lord Fear an origin story that spanned the gap between seasons 4 and 5. (I think you can still find it somewhere on www.fanfiction.net.) Sadly, the story worked far better in my head than it did on paper. It proved to be massively overlong, and failed to offer nearly enough insight into why Lord Fear would be interested in technology. The story also contained a dreadful cliché that I only noticed with hindsight - Lord Fear was effectively just Mogdred in a new body. Well, it was a bit more complex than that, but still... I can’t believe I ever thought that would work!

In mid-2004, I decided I wanted to abandon the old line of fanfics I’d written in favour of writing a completely new version of Lord Fear’s origin. I’d been reading through some historical books about obscure Saxon and Viking customs, and came across stories about how sagas would sometimes be told as a contest. That was where I got the idea about Treguard and Lord Fear having to do battle with stories, and I realised I could use that as a vehicle for Fear to explain his emergence retrospectively.

I was initially planning to write it as prose, but I’d been listening to some fan-made audio plays that were based on Blake’s 7 (another favourite series of mine) and I realised that if you could do Blake with sound alone, why not Knightmare? It would be a nice idea for a meet-up of fans, and it would also be far easier to release the finished product to the public than with the RPG.

Writing the original script was surprisingly easy. The first draft was done in a little over five weeks, if I remember rightly. I was struggling a little with Lord Fear’s origin story, so Ricky Temple stepped up to the plate to help with that, and together we got the draft finished in double-quick time.

The biggest difficulty was not the story itself, but the casting. The cast was originally far larger, and with more characters. For instance, Lissard was supposed to accompany Lord Fear and Skarkill in the tunnel scenes, while Hordriss, not Greystagg, was meant to give Salvania the emerald dagger as a present. Unfortunately, cast members kept having to drop out because of other commitments that simply had to take priority. We kept postponing the recording to try and suit everybody, but still the problem reared its head over and over. Sometimes we could bring in other cast members to replace the dropouts – although most of the new ones would also drop out – while at other times we’d simply get established cast to double up, as it were. Sometimes I could merge two roles - when Robin Barlow had to drop out, for example, I simply gave Hordriss’s scenes to Greystagg.

But we were close to breaking point by February 2005. We’d committed to recording the following month, and the cast had become so small that everyone except Eleanor was playing at least two characters. Then Az Sanders, Louise Brockhouse and Ricky Temple all had to drop out with two weeks to go until recording, and so I had to find a way to re-cast Treguard, Greystagg, Merlin, Skarkill and Honesty Bartram. Russell was on hand to take over Treguard, thankfully, and Greystagg I gave to Eleanor (who was already supposed to be playing Elita). In despair, I then cut Lissard from the story altogether and merged his role into Skarkill’s, which explains why the Opposition seems to be a little under-represented in the play. I gave Merlin’s and Skarkill’s roles to Alec, who had previously been cast as Lissard, and I took up the part of Bartram myself.

When it came to recording week, I met Eleanor in the flesh for the first time, and realised she had a good voice for Stiletta, so I swapped her roles with Clare’s. Clare, who arrived a day after everyone else, was alarmed when she realised she was going to be playing Elita and Greystagg instead of the character she’d been preparing for! But she still did wonderfully well, especially with Elita. For me, she even outdid Stephanie Hesp’s delivery of “Faceache!”

All the casting chaos in the previous few months meant that, after a while, re-drafting largely became a matter of adjusting to the ever-contracting cast, rather than making improvements to the story. This is why there are a few overcooked lines that I’d have liked to revise if I’d had time. (I’m especially unhappy with Lord Fear’s monologue about Mogdred’s theories, which I thought was overlong and very clunky.)

How did you decide which actors played which parts?

All in all, casting was more a matter of simply getting enough people in to do the job than fussing about who would be best in which role. The late switch of Eleanor and Clare was about the only time we had that luxury.

How did you prepare for your roles? Did you watch the characters’ appearances on Knightmare several times, practise into a tape recorder etc, or did you just turn up and say the lines?

We did watch recordings a bit, but for the most part, yeah, we just turned up and spoke into the mic. Most of the team gathered around the table in Alec’s flat the evening before recording began and talked in some depth about how to approach our performances. We concluded that the best way to go was to do our best portrayal of the characters as we understood them, rather than trying to do an impression of what we saw on TV, as that would just turn the play into a parody, which we absolutely wanted to avoid, hence Russell’s very sinister and cold version of Treguard, and Clare’s very Scottish-sounding Greystagg.

Also worth mentioning is Alec’s version of Merlin. He had seen very little of John Woodnutt’s portrayal, and so instead of homing in on that, we suggested he play the role as a more serious version of Slartibartfast from The Hitch Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, a character Alec was much more familiar with.

Which characters do you think were pulled off (for want of a better expression) most effectively in Famous For Retreating?

We were all particularly pleased with Alec’s portrayal of Skarkill. He was a little hesitant at times - not surprising given how little acting experience he has - but there were other times when he hit his stride very well. It’s not saying much, as I’m no fan of Rayner Bourton, but I thought Alec’s handling of the squabbles between Skarkill and Elita was at least as good as what happened on TV.

Do you have other acting interests apart from the audio plays?

No. Sue used to be in a drama group up in Stirling, and Ricky has dabbled quite a bit, especially when he was at college, but other than that, we’re all pretty green.

Knightmare Today hints strongly at a rivalry between Hordriss and Merlin, which manifests itself as an exchange of elaborate insults. Even though the two characters appeared in the show together for two years, it has often been noted (sometimes by me) that Hordriss took over Merlin’s role as “main goodie wizard” from series 5 onwards. Is the two characters’ possible rivalry for this role something that interests you?
You may be crediting Knightmare Today with slightly more depth than it really merits there, but yes, I have often wondered about it. The fact that there was no direct interaction between Merlin and Hordriss on-screen is frustrating, as they seemed an obvious combination to create friction, which always makes for a good plot. See the showdown between Hordriss and Grimaldine in season 7? Hordriss clearly has issues with being proven not to be above everyone else after all, especially by a fellow sorcerer. And as Merlin clearly outranked Hordriss in the realm of sorcery, there must have been some jealousy there, as intimated when Hordriss was giving magic lessons in season 6.

Tell us about your plans for future audio plays.

Two plays are in the pipeline, plus another sketch a little like Knightmare Today. The big priority, and by far the biggest project we’ve done to date, is the drama play that goes under the working title When Five Tribes Go To War. This is set in the same continuity as Famous For Retreating, and will feature all the “big four” villains. It’s a longer story than the first play, and has a darker, bleaker feel.

The second play is a comedy, which is therefore not part of the continuity at all. Like Knightmare Today, it fuses Knightmare with a comedy series from the past. As a clue to what that series is, I can tell you that the title of the play is Yes, Dungeon Master.

The sketch is written by Andy Marshall and is called Bolt To The Head. It’s putatively set immediately after When Five Tribes Go To War, although again, it’s not really part of continuity. It’s based on a radio sketch done by the Canadian comedy act The Frantics.

Hopefully that little lot will keep Knightmare fans happy for a while. If there’s sufficient demand for more, however, there are plans in place for a third play in the FFR series much further down the line. I can’t reveal much about those plans, but I can say it would definitely be the final instalment in that particular series.

However, other spin-off projects are under consideration. Ricky and Andy, with Liz Northcutt, are writing a series of prose stories set in the same continuity as Famous For Retreating called The Fire And Ice Chronicles. There are plans, not yet confirmed, to make a couple of these as audio plays rather than as prose.

Do you have any other comments you’d like to make or interesting/amusing stories you’d like to share about the audio plays, Knightmare or even The Eye Shield?

My memories of the week of recording are largely a blur three years on. I have very distinct memories of how I felt at every given point - nervous, then intrepid, then empowered, then exhilarated etc - but I remember very little of the detail of what we did. I do remember distinctly that it was really satisfying work to do, and that there was a tremendous camaraderie between the members of the team.

It was also a very valuable experience in terms of broadening our horizons, and I want to state now that I have learned four very important things from doing media projects like these:

1) These projects are great fun to do.

2) They’re hell to organise.

3) You should never promise a list of four very important things you’ve learned when you can only remember three of them.

4) Erm…

Cheers, Martin – I’m sure we can all find ways to apply that advice to our own lives.

Next Issue: Exclusive interviews with Famous For Retreating cast members Alec Downs, Clare Speedie and Sue McPherson.