Dinner and a Show (audio story)

Dinner and a Show
Main character(s):	Ianto, Tosh
Main enemy:	Ilmatar
Main setting:	Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall, 14 February 2008
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Gareth David-Lloyd
Director:	Scott Handcock
Producer:	James Goss
Music:	Blair Mowat
Sound:	Steve Foxon
Cover by:	Lee Binding
Release details
Story number:	6.3
Number of parts:	1
Release number:	39
Release date:	12 June 2020
Production code:	BFPTWCD39
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-83868-100-5 (physical) ISBN 978-1-83868-103-6 (digital)
Official trailer
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Torchwood - Monthly Range
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Dinner and a Show was the thirty-ninth story in the Torchwood - Monthly Range by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Gareth David-Lloyd and featured Naoko Mori as Toshiko Sato and David-Lloyd as Ianto Jones.

Publisher's summary

It's February 14th and Owen is a no-show for Toshiko's not-Valentine's-Valentine's Night at the opera.

Worse, when Ianto turns up, he has bad news for Toshiko, for Cardiff and for fans of classical music – the opera is full of aliens. The doors are bolted, there's no way out, and this could be the final curtain...

Plot

In the Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall on Valentine's Day, Ianto meets with an intoxicated Tosh, having taken Owen's ticket for the opera out of the bin. He warns Tosh that the opera is infested with aliens and she leads him backstage where her PDA identifies some of the aliens as Grosche. They enter Ilmatar's dressing room and meet a Pansian Eargrub, who tells them that the aliens are all there to hear Ilmatar's voice and experience his khalia. When Ianto and Tosh leave, he screams.

Ianto and Tosh find that the fire escape is chained and padlocked and Ianto realises that Ilmatar reminds him of the lead singer of Zeal, a band who were burnt to death. Tosh tries to contact Owen and Gwen without success and come across two Grosche who are eating the Eargrub and flee. They capture Tosh, who tells Ianto to run. He escapes to the roof and pretends to jump off when Tosh arrives and kills the Grosche, driving her heel into its eye. He tends to Tosh's wounds and the two discuss Owen, whom Tosh is beginning to give up on, and the missing Jack, whom Ianto has been continuing to try with despite his better judgement.

Worried that the opera house will be burnt down with 800 people inside, Ianto and Tosh decide to evacuate everyone. Ianto takes a demon costume from Wallfisch's dressing room and learn from him that Ilmatar has been receiving death threats. Ianto concludes that Ilmatar is an alien, the former lead singer of Zeal and the target of the Grosche. He goes onstage and attempts to evacuate the audience, but Ilmatar kills Wallfisch with his singing and reveals that he is able to burn people with a note, after which he feeds them to the Grosche. Ilmatar disappears afterwards.

Ianto and Tosh share the last of the Proseccio and say that they will catch Ilmatar in the future. Tosh apologises for forgetting that she was not the only one spending Valentine's Day alone. Owen finally receives their messages and Ianto says that they should go to the Hub to alleviate his worries, but Tosh says that they should stay and enjoy the view.

Cast

• Toshiko Sato - Naoko Mori
• Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Ilmatar - Rhys ap William
• Wallfisch - John Rutledge

Crew

• Senior Producer - David Richardson
• Additional Themes - Ben Foster
• Cover Art - Lee Binding
• Director - Scott Handcock
• Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
• Music - Blair Mowat
• Producer and Script Editor - James Goss
• Sound Design - Steve Foxon
• Writer - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Theme Music - Murray Gold

Worldbuilding

• The opera is held at the Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall.
• Ianto wears a tux.
• Tosh bought twelve bottles of Proseccio for £20.
• Tosh has a PDA. She jokingly calls it her PDTTPDA, standing for "Please Don't Touch Tosh's PDA".
• Ianto suggests that Tosh have an espresso.
• Ianto has a digital codebreaker and an alien pick-me-up which he describes as alien amphetamine.
• Tosh mentions Jethro and When I Was Famous, the latter being a musical attempting to connect songs by Bros with a "pithy narrative". Ianto connects it to Mamma Mia!
• Tosh and Ianto attend an Ilmatar and European Contemporary Opera Company production of Faust.
• According to the Eargrub, khalia is the food of love and a source of joy.
• The Grosche use soft-light disguises.
• Zeal was a Finnish black metal band who presented themselves as genderless dark angels. In the 1990s, the band and their audience of 350 were burnt to death.
• Tosh tries to tell Owen that there is a Code Black.
• Gwen is out with Rhys for Valentine's Day.
• Tosh sarcastically asks if Ianto got his codebreaker from Wow!
• Tosh mentions metal, heavy rock and thrashcore, none of which she believes constitute music. She also mentions grunge.
• Ianto mentions gabber and techno.
• Ianto makes a tourniquet for Tosh out of his tux.
• Owen gave his fellow Torchwood members a medical course.
• Wallfisch mentions Hannah and Bill.
• Wallfisch assumes that Tosh is from China.
• Wallfisch mentions The Echo.
• Ilmatar can kill people with sympathetic vibrations.

Notes

• Ianto describes the Cardiff Bay Millennium Hall's roof as an armadillo's back. This is a description true to the real-world Millennium Centre. Additionally, Ianto and Tosh wonder if everybody else was taken to its roof like they were on their first days. Gwen and Jack stood on the Millennium Centre's roof at the end of Everything Changes. However, unlike the Millennium Centre, the Millennium Hall is some distance from the Hub.
• The story was recorded at Bang Post Production.

Continuity

• Tosh gets drunk. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)
• Ianto mentions that he spent time getting to know Owen a few months back. (AUDIO: The Last Beacon)
• Jack is still missing, and the team is running missions without him. (TV: End of Days, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

External links

• Official Dinner and a Show page at bigfinish.com