Rounding off Gareth David-Lloyd‘s ‘Ianthology’, a trilogy of Torchwood tales featuring his beloved character, is Disco, which sees Ianto Jones uncover the life of his father. Alex Hewitt spoke to writer/star Gareth as well as director Lisa Bowerman to preview this release, exclusively for Who Review.

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Disco was an idea that Gareth had been sitting on for a while. He explains, “it’s since I wrote Blind Summit for Torchwood One. Ianto’s dad features in that. He’s an unnamed dark entity in Ianto’s life that’s the cause of a lot of his troubles and anxiety and self-doubt. I felt like he needed a bit more building.”

Gareth points out that the perception we have of Ianto’s father from the Torchwood TV show could be varied: “I felt a bit sorry for him, just this bastard in the background that gets all this bad press. There’s a few moments where Ianto talks about him fondly, about taking him to the cinema and stuff, so there is a good man there as well. He’s not just this bastard, but how does that all fit together? How does he have this effect on Ianto and who was he before? What genes of his has Ianto taken? He’s his dad, so there’s got to be similarities or personality traits. Not everyone’s wholly good and not everyone’s wholly bad, so I wanted to explore what he meant to Ianto and why he has the effect that he does on him. It’s something that’s built and been swishing around my mind for a few years. By the time it felt ready to go I thought, ‘there’s enough here now. I know who this guy is!’”

Lisa Bowerman explains, “Disco is a redemptive story about Ianto and his father. Ianto had only ever known him as one kind of character and he goes back to earlier in his life and sees this partier. He tries to make him care more for his family in terms of Ianto’s memories of how his father treated him. It’s a great human drama.” Gareth continues, “Ianto gets to meet the version of his dad that he didn’t know. I thought, what if Ianto’s presented with this version of his dad who’s very likeable, life and soul of the party, before everything takes a turn? He gets the opportunity to go back and meet him in the ’80s and build a fence with him. One of James [Goss, producer]’s notes was, ‘It’s so refreshing to get a script about two guys building a fence!’ But it’s obviously more than that. Ianto sees the opportunity to maybe fix and change his dad, and change the negative things that happen later in his life by nudging him in the right direction.”

Like last month’s Missing Molly, this story seems to have less of a focus on the sci-fi elements that listeners will be familiar with. Lisa explains, “it’s a domestic drama. More than any of the other scripts I’ve done, it feels very personal. When I got the scripts I said, ‘James, these are really good,’ and he said, ‘I know, there’s hardly any science-fiction in them at all!’ He’s a fan really, but he pretends not to be!” For Gareth, using sci-fi as a method to explore character is what interests him: “I love sci-fi. I was a massive Star Trek fan when I was younger, but I find the characters are always where I live when I’m listening to a story. Certainly with Disco the sci-fi elements are there in the background, but they’re never fully explained. They don’t need to be. We know things are possible in this world, and it’s more important for me to explore the relationships and the characters. Also, I’m not very good at sci-fi jargon! I’ve had to Google how things work in the Doctor Who world, I’m not a good encyclopaedia!”

Lisa continues, “as far as I’m concerned, if you get a cracking bit of drama then the job’s almost done once you’ve got the cast up. Most good actors are instinctive.” Gareth is obviously used to playing this part, and Lisa thinks that this experience can help add to the performance. She explains, “Gareth has this spontaneity as an actor where everything sounds completely natural. There’s no artifice to his performance at all. It’s to the advantage to the characters who are written and the actors that you have a certain possession of the characters after a while. Radio drama gives spontaneous actors the best opportunity to do their work because you haven’t got time to overanalyse things. You have to do things in the moment.”

Alongside Missing Molly, Disco was recorded in Newport, where the story is set. Gareth describes the joys of recording ‘on location’: “the usual studio wasn’t available so we actually recorded in my old stomping ground in the industrial estate where I used to rehearse with my band! Some of the locations in Disco, like the pub called the Boilermakers, were literally a stone’s throw from where we were recording! It was great to do a Newport-based story in Newport in an environment that was familiar to me.”

18 years after Ianto Jones first appeared on TV, he’s still going strong. Gareth concludes, “when I first started playing him it was such a thrill to be part of that show. To be able to step back into his skin and still be writing about him now is really, really lovely. The fact that it’s gone this far is brilliant.”

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Torchwood: Disco is available now from bigfinish.com, alongside the rest of the ‘Ianthology’. This episode also ties into the latest Torchwood One boxset, I Hate Mondays, which can also be found on Big Finish’s website. Many thanks to Gareth and Lisa for their time and to Sean Longmore for providing this story’s glorious cover art which heads up this interview.