Ben Crisp is the author of the hilarious romp through Adelaide’s history, The Adelaide Time-Travel Caper, available free on the the Story City app. Learn about Ben, the inspiration for the story, and a bit of Adelaide’s history below. Then if you’re in Adelaide, grab your phone and take this adventure through the Adelaide streets!
*DISCLAIMER- includes dinosaur references. Sorry (not sorry).*
First, the important questions. Considering the sort of day you’ve had, what dinosaur would you be?
I just found out there’s a real dinosaur called a ‘Technosaurus’. It sounds like it could drop a phat beat.
Movie makers tend to describe a movie as ‘something meets something’, like Matrix meets X-Men, Matthew Reilly meets the Time Traveller’s Wife, the Walking Dead meets My Little Ponies. What would you use to describe your story?
Back to the Future meets Horrible Histories!
Tells us about your Story City story?
In The Adelaide Time-Travel Caper you get flung back in time with a hapless Professor and have to muddle your way through Adelaide’s past, with the help of some amazing people along the way: including camel-drivers, actors, scientists, and the world’s first ever policewomen.
Did you know much about Adelaide before you started? What’s your favourite place to show people now?
I grew up in Adelaide, and worked there for several years as a historical researcher and writer, and I love it! It’s a beautiful city, and will always be a favourite place to show people around: beautiful surroundings, awesome history and absolutely lovely people.
What is it about Adelaide that lends itself to a time-travel type story?
Adelaide has so many exciting historical connections to culture, science and politics: some of the earliest female police officers and politicians, father-and-son Nobel-prize-winning physicists, and a rich record of diverse settlers and immigrants who built the industries and infrastructure of the state.
We meet several interesting characters on your adventure. What Hollywood actors do you imagine would play them in a movie adaption?
Well the movie adaptation is obviously coming! So, let’s campaign some great Aussie actors for it: Hunter Page-Lochard is very cool, so he’s in; wouldn’t Emily Browning make a great young Catherine Helen Spence? And Anh Do is hilarious, got to get him too. How about Cate Blanchett as a cop?
You know all the different paths through your story, and all the great and horrible ways it can end. Which location do you hope the player will end up in? (Players, it’s your aim to make it here!)
Hopefully you make it back to the present! There’s a few different ways, but if you get stuck in the past, at least you’ll become a part of history!
If your characters were real people, and you were single, would you date them?
Well, my wife’s name is Kate which is the same name as the first policewoman in Adelaide, and one of the first in the world: Officer Kate was a tough, compassionate and courageous lady with a fiery sense of justice, just like my wife, so she’d have to be my pick!
What was the hardest thing about the project? Do you have any advice for others?
The hardest part was picking which of the amazing moments in history to explore in this adventure! There are so many fantastic things that happened in Adelaide’s past, this story only scratches the surface! My advice would be to start digging into history, you never know what kinds of interesting treasures you might find.
Where can people find out more about you?
I guess Google my name ‘Ben Crisp’, and all sorts of bits and pieces will probably come up.
The Adelaide Time-Travel Caper is thanks to the funding of Adelaide City Council.
