Tom's Beef Pie Is Served

THE BEEF AND DAIRY NETWORK PODCAST
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 2025:
BEEF PIE

WRITTEN BY TOM CROWLEY

DIRECTED AND DESIGNED BY BENJAMIN PARTRIDGE

STARRING ANNA LEONG BROPHY, CODY DAHLER, GEMMA ARROWSMITH, TOM CROWLEY AND SAMMY DOBSON

WITH GARETH GWYNN AND BENJAMIN PARTRIDGE

LISTEN HERE

Yes, it’s true, this year’s Beef and Dairy Network Podcast Halloween Special was not written by the show’s creator, Benjamin Partridge, nor by last year’s Halloween guest writer, Natasha Hodgson, but by me, yes, me, Tom Crowley, me! I’m over the moon to have been able to contribute something this involved to the Mitchell’s Cinematic Universe and I hope that it makes the Network members happy.

Tidbits about this exciting episode:

  • This was my first chance to write something in collaboration with Ben Partridge himself and it was lovely. I wrote a draft and then we went back and forth punching up various little jokes and streamlining a few sections. It was entirely lovely and a very speedy process. I would strongly recommend Ben as a writing partner or script editor for lucrative projects, on second thought, hire me instead.

  • Beef Pie was recorded in the sound studio in the basement of the National Theatre. I was last there eleven years ago recording Zut Alors Theatre’s production of David K Barnes’s pre-Wooden Overcoats audio comedy Drayton Trench: Great Caesar’s Ghost, which you can still listen to HERE. While I was there, someone at some point told me that the whole studio was suspended in a thin layer of oil to improve the soundproofing, which I have believed and repeated to people ever since then. While we were recording Beef Pie I asked the engineer if that was true and he said he didn’t know.

  • I play several roles in Beef Pie including the demonic voice of the Beef Pie itself.

  • The fantastic Sammy Dobson plays Danni Grobert, a mostly-murdered victim of violence, because she was in town anyway and wanted to check out the studio.

  • DCI Barry Plod wasn’t initially going to make so many grotesque bodily noises but Ben thought it was necessary.

  • My idea that Beef Pie had been a mail-order cassette tape audio drama was inspired by Alan Jefferson’s fantastic 1984 opus Galactic Nightmare.

And that’s all I can think of. I hope you enjoy this grotesque Crowleybeef hybrid and that it makes your Halloween a little bit freakier and a lot bit stupider!

Beef out,
- Tom

Tom CrowleyComment