Tuesday, 1 October 2013

Blake's 7, Radio 4 & The Father of English Football

October, autumn proper; "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"; thanks JK, well said.

Before we dive headlong into the good stuff, I must just mention the various technical problems which have blighted this and other websites during September. It began with a bizarre and seemingly random change to the size of posted images, some of which became so big, they obscured the main body of the page. After much on-line forum trawling for help, I think the image problem has now been rectified, although the 'slideshow' element had a final flurry of misbehaviour a few days ago and as I tried to update the 'My audio releases' section of the blog this morning, it was refusing to save new text*. Apologies if these various gremlins have affected your visits to the site.

So, here we go: This month sees the release of Blake's 7: The Liberator Chronicles; Volume 6.
Here are some details of what's in the box:


Three enhanced audio books performed by the stars of the classic BBC television series. 
These stories are set during Series 3.

Incentive by Peter Anghelides

Paul Darrow as Avon, Steven Pacey as Tarrant and Adrian Lukis as Bracheeni The Liberator crew are recovering from a Galactic War and searching for their lost members Blake and Jenna. But it’s a search that leads them into terrible danger…

 
Jenna's Story by Steve Lyons

Sally Knyvette as Jenna and John Banks as Correl
Jenna's story is finally told - from her escape from the Liberator during the Galactia War, to her determination to continue the fight against the Federation alone… with the odds stacked against her.


Blake's Story by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

Gareth Thomas as Blake and Paul Darrow as Avon
Blake's story is finally told - from his escape from the Liberator during the Galactic War, to his new life as a troubled, scarred man on a distant rebel world…

Directed By: Ken Bentley 


I must confess, that I don't know too much about the original B7 television series, so these stories are of particular interest. My lack of fore-knowledge and context in some ways feels like an advantage in terms of being able to appreciate these stories entirely on their own merits and therefore, I'm very much looking forward to giving them a thorough listen. Incidentally, I don't know about you, but my journey through last month's release, Dr Who: The Dark Planet has so far been hugely enjoyable. I quite like the format of dialogue combined with direct story telling; I find there's something fundamentally pleasing about being told a story.

Moving on. This 'business' we call 'show' is a strange one to be sure. It sometimes feels like playing the Lottery for a living; and sometimes, out of the blue, you win. I had a very pleasing 'win' a few days ago when I was offered a job on a BBC Radio 4 dramatised documentary about the formation of the Football Association. The program, called The Father of English Football is to be broadcast on Radio 4 at 11 am on 25th October and in it, I'm playing Arthur Pember, the first President of the FA (Link: Arthur Pember on Wikipedia). Directed by Richard Bannerman, I had the great pleasure of also working with fellow actors Barnaby Edwards and Michael Maloney. And thanks in no small measure to producer Neil Gardner at Ladbroke Audio, whose personal recommendation actually got me the job.

So there we are; first post of the month. In fact there's quite a lot happening over the next several weeks, but as usual, I'll have to mention specific events nearer the time of release. 

More news just as soon as it happens!


*Apparently, this is a 'known issue' and a fix should soon be available. In the meantime, I've used a suggested display work around to list my audio releases.  
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