Behind the Scenes of the Merry Milkmaids

Giles Booth 10 Apr 2025

Here's a little post about some of the Easter eggs buried in various Listen with Other stories. First up: The Merry Milkmaids and the number three...

The bands Kate and Dave listen to in the car on the way to Somerset are Alt-J, Portishead, Massive Attack, Placebo, Public Service Broadcasting, Heaven 17, Saint Etienne, Placebo, the Thompson Twins and Fun Boy Three - all trios. Da da da. Damn, should have added that.

The storm they get caught up in is called Storm Arthur because of a certain legendary bizarre love triangle.

The third entry in the holiday rental's guest book, "the perfect escape. The romance of the stones entwined and embraced us all. Alice, Jon and Sarah" was inspired by a threesome described in an old Radio 4 programme about holiday home visitor's books called The Ice-cube Tray Needs Replacing.

The firefighter in episode 2 Dave recalls from his fire warden training was based on a real firefighter who did BBC fire training who himself must have been based on Keith Lard in Phoenix Nights who was, in turn, totally NOT based on a real fire fighter called &c &c.

Mark Gatiss and Lee Ingleby in Crooked House.

Kate being frequently woken at the same time, 3.43am, by a banging sound is, of course, a reference to the third episode of Mark Gatiss' splendid mini-series Crooked House. I'd do a bit more breaking and entering of that series later in Listen with Other, but we'll get to that later...

The village where they stay, Stanton Maltravers, is of course made up. Somerset place names are so mad and wonderful it's hard to invent a convincing one, so I did a cut and shut of two real ones. Stanton Maltravers would also reappear in series 9.

The cover photos of Stanton Drew were graciously donated by

@raynewman.bsky.social

The guidebook says the stone, er, triangle was a folly built in the late 1700s by Tertius Maltravers. Tertius, of course, means 'third' and a name given to the third son, who would normally, one assumes, be destined for the cloth. (Incidentally, I once taught an Octavia, who was, yes, child no. 8.)

Triangles remind me that Alt-J, mentioned earlier, is the Mac keyboard combination for a triangle: ∆

I think that’s pretty much all of the references in The Merry Milkmaids. It’s probably the most Easter eggy Listen with Other story because I wanted to do with the number 3 what Peter Cook did with 17 in Consequences...

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