Time to say 'thank you'...

Having spent a wonderful, exciting and joyful weekend at the Dr Who 50th Celebration, I really want to thank all those involved for making it such a fun and inclusive time. Our twice daily presentations were very well attended by knowledgeable and enthusiastic Whovians of all ages and we had some incredible 'guest actors' on-stage to help us out - thanks to all!

When not on-stage, I spent much of my time with the hard working Big Finish team, including Paul Spragg, Howard Carter, John Dorney, Matt Fitton, Ken Bentley, David Richardson and CEO Jason Haigh-Ellery, who were incredibly busy, meeting fans and introducing people to the amazing world of Big Finish audio drama. Over the three day period of the event, Dr Who and BF stars including Sarah Sutton, Louise Jemeson, Lalla Ward, Janet Fielding, Karen Gledhill, Lisa Bowerman, Lisa Greenwood, Beth Chalmers, writer Marc Platt and David Warner chatted to fans and gave free autographs, happily signing the CD covers of work they had been involved with and sometimes even work they hadn't; I was asked to sign several items which I hadn't contributed to at all!

Thanks indeed to fellow actors Beth Chalmers and Barnaby Edwards, with whom I performed our 'Day in the Studio with Big Finish' presentation along with Nick Briggs - the fantastic Nick Briggs, who is not only Executive Producer, but also writer, director, actor and in his spare time 'Voice of The Daleks' for the television series. Thanks for inviting me Nick, I loved every minute!

Here are some images from the weekend:

 

 Beth, me, Lisa G, Marc, Jason, Howard, David & Ken - photo by Lisa B

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...and a final 'thank you' to The Cult Den for their very generous review, from which this is an extract: 

"The original Holmes hardback can be a handful to read. For those without a basic knowledge of espionage, dates and times, and life as a Russian in the Cold War, it can be tedious and take an age to get through. However when converted to audiobook it comes alive. Spokenworld Audio's team have done a great job, and the narration by John Banks brings the factual to life, with large parts sounding like a Le Carre novel.

9 hours is a commitment to anything you may not have tried before, but this is seriously good. For the conspiracy nut it feeds fuel to an already large fire, for the history buff it has more dates, times, and names than a phonebook, and for people like me that are mixture of the two? It's perfect."

                                                                                                                                    10/10

                         Read by John Banks

                          Edited by Tanja Glittenberg

                           Produced by Neil Gardner

                                                                                                                           

 Listen to an extract from the audio book by scrolling down to the sound clips section of this site.

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We did all go to the ExCel screening of The Day of The Doctor, but now I'm going to treat myself to watching Mark Gatiss' An Adventure in Space and Time.

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But before I do that, I really want to say...

Many congratulations to my friend John Silke, who has just won a BaftaKids for his contribution to Kinect Sesame Street in the Children's Multiplatform category. 
                                                                                                                        

 More news just as soon as it happens!