Big Finish Day 3

With just over a month to go before Big Finish Day 3, I thought it about time to 'post the poster'. By coincidence, the convention falls on the final weekend performances of Port and there's a matinee on the day itself, which means unfortunately, I'll only be there for the morning activities. A shame to miss any of the day's events, I'll just have to make the most of the time I am able to be there - really looking forward to it!

For the latest information on who will be attending BFD3, follow this link: tenthplanetevents

 

PS:  I notice that Kim Hartman and Richard Gibson are due to appear. Hope we get the chance to say 'Allo 'Allo! - I haven't seen Kim or Richard since my last episode in 1989!

Vienna & Spaceport Fear

...but which one to start with?

I'm going with The Memory Box, the first ever story in the brand spanking new series Vienna, starring the fantastic Chase Masterson. Here are some details:

Berkeley Silver, one of the richest men in the Earth empire, lies dead in the Penthouse Suite of the Galileo space-hotel. Law Enforcement Officers Detective Captain McGinnis and Detective Sergeant Mead are called in to investigate – but it seems to have been the perfect crime. Even when subjected to a memory scan, everybody in the space-hotel has an alibi for the murder.

 

Which means it can only have been the work of one woman. The most accomplished – and the most glamorous – bounty hunter in the galaxy. 

Her name is Vienna Salvatori. And she has a little rule; nobody gets to hear her name and live...

The Memory Box is the second time I've had the great pleasure of working with Chase and very much hope we'll work together again soon. Just in case you're wondering where you might have seen her before, amongst her many film and television appearances, Chase is possibly best known for her role as Leeta in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.


Chase Masterson Vienna Salvatori  

John Banks McGinnis               
Gemma Whelan Mead         
Tom Price Norvelle Spraggott

Written By: Jonathan Morris
Directed By: Ken Bentley

Both Tom and Gemma were also a delight to work with and again, hopefully, our professional paths will cross again before long. Great thanks too to Jonathan Morris for such a fantastic script and to Ken Bentley for his inspirational direction.

Chase Masterson says:

"The Memory Box is a great romp. As with The Shadow Heart, writer Jonathan Morris takes us on a ride packed with twists and turns and farce - it's big fun. And Vienna is one of my favourite characters ever: the endearingly incorrigible killer we loved to hate in The Shadow Heart - completely unapologetic, even charming about her day job as a mercenary assassin. Plus, she usually manages to land on the side of justice. Vienna's quite a turn-on - I think you'll like her as much as I do."

...and finally, a tweet from Chase:

"Congrats, bigfinish & team #VIENNA! BriggsNicholas David Richardson KenBentley MarkWright PriceTom WhelanGemma John Banks! We ROCKED."

 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The second Big Finish release this month, is a very strange and interesting story; Doctor Who: Spaceport Fear, in which I used the most extreme vocal sound I've ever come up with for The Wailers - can't wait to hear what might have happened to it during post-production! 

Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where the tribes of Business and Economy have been at war for all of four hundred years...
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where a terrible creature called the Wailer prowls the corridors around the Control Tower, looking to eat the unwary...
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there is one Arrival: a battered blue Police Box containing the time-travelling Doctor and his companion, Mel...
Welcome to Tantane Spaceport – where there are no Departures. Ever.

 Colin Baker The Doctor   Bonnie Langford Melanie Bush   Ronald Pickup Elder Bones 

Isabel Fay Naysmith   Gwilym Lee Pretty Swanson   Beth Chalmers Galpan - Beauty Swanson  

Adrian MacKinder Rogers - Game Voice   John Banks Wailers - Announcement - Mad Passenger

Written By: William Gallagher
Directed By: Barnaby Edwards 

* * * * * * * * *

Other news this month is that the National Theatre production of Port by Simon Stephens has now opened and is in rep at The Lyttleton Theatre until March 24th and I'm also very much looking forward to getting back into the studio later this month, and again in March, to work on some fabulous upcoming Big Finish stories. By the way, further to my last mention of it, unfortunately my character name in Doctor Who: The Wrong Doctors, which I've just been listening to, has been published on the CD sleeve as 'Ksllak' rather than 'Kallak' - I wonder if that makes them especially valuable somehow?

All for now, more as soon as it happens!

Stargate SG-1 Series 3 Part 2

Just a brief update to December's posting on the release of the three stories that make up this second Stargate trilogy. I've finally managed to track down all the artwork associated with the new series which now appears here and in the original posting. I think the cover art looks amazing and really can't wait for my Box Set CD copy to arrive so that I can listen to the recordings I started working on back in June 2011 - they say 'everything comes to he who waits'...
 

Michael Shanks Daniel Jackson   Claudia Black Vala Mal Doran  

John Banks Surtr - Vey - Lop - Mansu   Regina Reagan Wellan - Skadi - Ratatosk 

Andrew Collins Keto    Andrew Whipp Zoder   Stephen Hogan Olssen    

Harry Myers Soric  Ken Bones Lerat   Lisa Bowerman Ranne  

Paul Hyu Lt Colonel Yin   Anna Tolputt Geror

 Written By: Richard Dinnick, Peter Evans and Sharon Gosling
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman and Jason Haigh-Ellery

Recorded in Los Angeles, London and Vancouver.

BBC Radio 4 Extra: Eighth Doctor Stories

BBC Radio 4 Extra continues to broadcast Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor stories from 7th to 11th January at 6pm and midnight. I'm involved in Wednesday's story, Nevermore, originally released by Big Finish in August 2010. Here are the details:

A bizarre manifestation in the Control Room forces the TARDIS onto the Plutonian shores of the irradiated world Nevermore, whose sole inhabitant is the war criminal Morella Wendigo – a prisoner of this devastated planet. But the Doctor and his new companion aren’t Morella’s only visitors. Senior Prosecutor Uglosi fears the arrival of an assassin, after the blood of his prize prisoner. An assassin with claws…

There’s no escape from Nevermore, whose raven-like robot jailers serve to demonstrate Uglosi’s macabre obsession with the works of the 19th century horror writer Edgar Allan Poe. An obsession that might yet lead to the premature burial of everyone on the planet’s surface – wreathed in the mist they call the Red Death!

  

Paul McGann   The Doctor

Niky Wardley   Tamsin Drew

Fenella Woolgar   Morella Wendigo 

Michael J Shannon   Senior Prosecutor Uglosi 

Emilia Fox   Berenice

 Eric Loren   Pilot 

John Banks   Ravens

Written By: Alan Barnes
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs 

Nevermore will be broadcast on 9th January 2013 at 6pm & midnight

The Horus Heresy

As I mentioned in the last posting, I'm currently listening to Garro: Sword of Truth from The Black Library. There's a huge amount of on-line information about the entire history of The Imperium and it's Legions of Space Marines - all fascinating stuff and often, beautifully illustrated. I've noticed however, that in the three recent Horus Heresy releases featured previously on this site, it might be a bit confusing and tricky to work out which characters each of us is playing.





Some may prefer not to know, but for anyone who is still in the dark and would like to know, the details are outlined below. Apart from clearing up that query, it also gives me an excuse to post more great artwork.

  

                        Grey Angel                                     Burden of Duty                        Sword of Truth

 Toby:                  Loken                                          Narrator - Garro               Narrator - Garro - Malcador

 Ramon:          Narrator - Qruze                              Dorn - Servitor                       Varren - Khorarin

 John:            Luther - Cypher - Watcher                       Masak                         Rubio - Rakishio - Hakeem

If you'd like to know more - much, much more, try these links:

The Horus Heresy                                           Lexicanum                                                The Black Library

Dr Who: The Wrong Doctors

And so, here we go with 2013. A very Happy New Year to you and thanks as ever for visiting the website. Always optimistic, especially at this time of year, I have a feeling that there's quite a lot of good stuff to come in the next twelve months and in its own small way, the first of the 'good stuff' can be found in the form of   
Dr Who: The Wrong Doctors, released on CD and download from Big Finish. Here are the details:

With Evelyn gone, the Doctor sets course for his destiny... in the form of his first meeting with Miss Melanie Bush, a computer programmer from the village of Pease Pottage, currently busy rehearsing with the local Amateur Dramatic Society – and blissfully unaware that her future is on its way, in his TARDIS.
Make that two TARDISes. Because at that very moment, a slightly younger Doctor is flying into Pease Pottage, too – returning his future companion Melanie Bush to her rightful place and time, after they were flung together during the course of his Time Lord trial.

Time travel is a complicated business – the iguanadon terrorising Pease Pottage being a case in point. But how much more complicated could things possibly become, if the wrong Doctor were to bump into the wrong Mel?




Colin Baker               The Doctor  
Bonnie Langford        Mel    
Tony Gardner            Stapleton Petherbridge 

James Joyce              Jedediah Thurwell  
Patricia Leventon      Mrs Wilberforce                
Beth Chalmers          Vaneesh     
John Banks                Kallak

Written By: Matt Fitton  
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs  

Entirely predictable I know, but I'm going to say it anyway; this story was great fun to work on - cleverly written, with interesting characters and a really fabulous company of actors, including Bonnie Langford, who was professional down to her finger-tips, who worked at a cracking pace and who was very down to earth and good fun. By my reckoning, such a tally of attributes ticks a lot of boxes; she was and is fantastic in this and I was truly delighted to work with her.

I do hope you enjoy listening to The Wrong Doctors; I'm still eagerly awaiting delivery of the Stargate SG-1 Box Set and currently enjoying listening to Garro: Sword of Truth. A busy month ahead with rehearsals for Port scheduled to resume later this week - what a great way to start the new year!

By the way, the keen observer will have noticed the 'new' Doctor Who logo in the above CD artwork. I like it very much as it reminds me of the original title sequence to the television series; others may prefer the 'old' logo design which can be seen on the Soundcloud audio-clip. Perhaps also worth a mention is that the character I'm playing in this story appears to be the victim of an ongoing 'typo'; instead of the tricky to pronounce 'Ksllak', the name is actually 'Kallak' - I wonder which one will make it onto the CD sleeve-note credits???

Dr Who: Short Trips

Just to give you an idea of how generous those good folks at Big Finish really are, I've noticed, as perhaps you have too, that there are some free 'stocking fillers' for those who have taken out a regular BF subscription. Two of these recent releases are Dr Who: Short Trips Audiobooks that I had the great honour and pleasure of recording a little while ago. I haven't yet heard the finished recordings and so, as you can imagine, I'm very much hoping that I haven't made a complete hash of the whole thing....

Here's how Big Finish broke the news:

"As if you needed reminding that 'subscribers get more at bigfinish.com'... 

Many main range Doctor Who subscribers may have noticed that there have been three, free Doctor Who downloads this Christmas.

There are no strings attached. These are just honest-to-goodness free downloads exclusive to our subscribers. Please consider them a thank you for your loyal support for Big Finish.

The three releases are as follows...

Short Trips Audiobook: Only Connect
Written by Andy Lane                                               
Read by John Banks

Short Trips Audiobook: Breadcrumbs
Written by James Moran
Read by John Banks

For both of these releases, post-production editing and sound design is by Robbie Dunlop.

They are directed by Ken Bentley and produced by David Richardson.




Additionally, you'll find...

The Fourth Doctor Adventures Retrospective Part 1 - A special documentary by regular Big Finish sound designer Martin Montague, packed with star and behind-the-scenes interviews and clips. It's Martin's Christmas gift to us and to all of you."

If you do get a chance to listen to these stories, I really hope you enjoy them. In the meantime, many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to visit this website over the last year; a very happy 2013 to all and fingers crossed that there'll be more to post as the new year gets under way  -  not long now... !

Stargate SG-1

Breaking news from Big Finish is that after many months of keen anticipation, the box-set of the second series of Stargate SG-1 has now been released and is available for download. I'm guessing that the CD version of this release will be available very soon - that's what I'm now waiting for. At the moment, there's no further art work from BF, episode synopses or trailer, however I'm posting all I currently have.

Abducted by some less than savoury characters, Daniel Jackson and Vala Mal Doran are caught up in the investigation of a strange object in space. What does it do, who created it and why does it seem so familiar?

As they discover more about the object, Daniel and Vala realise that they’re taking on an enormously technologically advanced threat bent on rewriting the very foundations of the universe. Can they stop the disaster that’s about to occur, or is life as they know it about to change forever?

                                                          Michael Shanks Daniel Jackson           

Claudia Black Vala Mal Doran  

John Banks Surtr - Vey - Lop - Mansu         
Regina Reagan Wellan - Skadi - Ratatosk 

Andrew Collins Keto    

Andrew Whipp Zoder   

Stephen Hogan Olssen    

Harry Myers Soric 

Ken Bones Lerat   

Lisa Bowerman Ranne  

Paul Hyu Lt Colonel Yin   

Anna Tolputt Geror

 Written By: Peter Evans, Richard Dinnick and Sharon Gosling
Directed By: Lisa Bowerman and Jason Haigh-Ellery

Recorded in Los Angeles, London and Vancouver.

 The release features three stories, Duplicity, Excision and Time's Wheel.

Counter Measures: Series 2

An update today from BF with news of the second series of Counter Measures:

Counter-Measures, the audio series centred upon an elite group that investigates dangerous technologies and alien incursions, will return in July 2013 for a second series of four brand new hour-long episodes. The spin-off from the Seventh Doctor TV tale Remembrance of the Daleks stars Pamela Salem as Rachel Jensen, Karen Gledhill as Allison Williams and Simon Williams as Group Captain Gilmore while Hugh Ross is the organization’s shady boss, Sir Toby Kinsella.

Episode one is Manhunt by Matt Fitton, in which Group Captain Gilmore is on the run and suspected of murder. The guest cast includes Lucy Fleming as Lady Waverly, as Captain Astor and Gemma Whelan as Emma Waverly.

The team heads underground for episode two, The Fifth Citadel by James Goss, investigating a hidden wartime bunker beneath London.
Celia Imrie plays Dr Elizabeth Bradley, whose long-standing friendship with Sir Toby might not be enough to save the country from disaster…

The third episode, Peshka by Mark Wright and Cavan Scott, takes Counter-Measures to Holland for an international chess championship, where the contest takes on a deadly significance.

 
The series ends with Sins of the Fathers by John Dorney, which follows the consequences of a tragic death at a funeral… one that will have major repercussions for Counter-Measures. Tom Price plays Father Ellard, while Philip Pope is Templeton, Sir Toby’s trusty assistant.

The five-disc box set includes an hour-long behind the scenes documentary, including interviews with cast and crew.

July 2013 does seem quite a way off at the moment, although I'm already allowing myself an early glimmer of anticipation for this second series, having thoroughly enjoyed the first. I'm sure there'll be much more to mention nearer the time of release, including details of my own involvement in the production.

'tis the season to be jolly!

...and for good reason.

This has been quite a week; Monday was taken up with the first day of rehearsals for Port at the NT (see last month for details) and what fun it was. It's been a while since I did any 'building based' theatre, for want of a better term; recent stage activity has been with independent companies essentially renting a theatre space. The contrast between my last theatre job at The Old Red Lion (a small, yet highly respected 'pub theatre' in Islington, London) and this one at The Royal National Theatre couldn't really be more extreme in terms of facilities, budget and sheer scale. Having said that, of course, the essential process is exactly the same; a bunch of people in a rehearsal room, willing to make utter fools of themselves when required, in order to serve the needs of a script and hoping that they can deliver a piece of work which will entertain and stimulate an audience.

So, on Monday, we gathered in a rehearsal room deep in the bowels of the NT to play games, get to know each other a bit, read the play together, look at a model of the set, meet other members of the production team, of whom there are something like seventy or eighty, all geared to getting our play from page to stage and began the paradoxically familiar yet uniquely new process of rehearsing a play.

I've spent most of my adult life in the theatre, most of my teenage life too come to think of it, and being in a theatre never fails to feel very special indeed; Jack Lemmon always referred to it as "magic time". Whether at The Old Red Lion or the NT, the sense of expectation, adventure, joy, fulfilment, challenge, triumph and impending disaster is the same intoxicating brew. Acting is a 'drug' so powerful, that one's senses can feel heightened and enhanced to an extraordinary degree. By comparison, much of what constitutes normal, regular every day activity feels like a waste of time. As The Great Wallenda* was quoted as saying: "Life is on the wire, the rest is just waiting".

Neatly seguing into the next part of the posting; hopefully, this month will see the end of waiting for the release of a new set of Stargate SG-1 adventures, which have been previously postponed a number of times. At some time or other, over a period of several months, I think I've played or 'read-in' every character in these stories and therefore feel like I've made quite an investment in them. Consequently, I'm looking forward to hearing the finished recordings very keenly indeed. There may be more to come, but until then, here's the existing artwork:

Next up this month is the CD release of Garro: Sword of Truth from The Black Library. Here are the details:

Nathaniel Garro, knight errant and agent of the Sigillite, returns from the battlefields of Calth to find a new mission already waiting for him – a ragged fleet of Space Marines from several Legions lingers at the edge of the Terran system. With the presence of World Eaters and Emperor’s Children causing concern among the loyalist defenders and drawing a grim parallel with his own frantic flight, Garro must look beneath the obvious if he is to determine friend from foe...

Online reviews & comments:

Fantastic production
Rated 5 out of 5 by Travis

This was the best drama I have heard so far, the story intense and the voice acting phenomenal. The sound effects were also very fitting, it was like listening to a Hollywood movie!
 

Garro: Sword of awesomesauce
Rated 5 out of 5 by John

Bloody marvellous. Wonderful set-up, good twists, amazing little fluff-bomb that drops towards the end.

Amazing
Rated 5 out of 5 by Aleksi 

Words have a hard time describing how awesome Sword of Truth was. I cant praise it highly enough.



Theater of the mind, and artistic story telling for the ages. This audio drama does not disappoint.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Douglas

Simply put this is another outstanding audio drama in the Garro mini-series. The story is a wonderful tale that keeps the listener at the edge of their seat and thoroughly enthralled with the drama being played out as our hero Garro and his companion Rubio must decide the fate of would-be refugees of the Warmaster's heresy and betrayal. 



Fantastic
Rated 5 out of 5 by Duncan

Everything works about this audio-drama, the characters, the sound effects, the narration and the plot. I didn't want it to end. BL are onto a winner with Garro and co. More please!

Performed by John Banks, Toby Longworth and Ramon Tikaram. 

Written by: James Swallow

Directed by: Ken Bentley

Produced by Black Library & Big Finish.

Also during the very busy week just gone was the recording of a new Big Finish story in a series I haven't previously worked on, details of which are to follow. Next week, in addition to everything else, I'm back in the studio for a couple of days to work on a fascinating and very exciting new Dr Who story** - again, details to follow when BF release them. Frustrating I know; what was I saying a few months ago about the joys of deferred gratification? Just to crank up the teasing nature of all this, I have the script here in front of me and I'll be spending a large part of this sunny Saturday afternoon working my way through it - what fun!

All for now, but there may well be more to come this month, so do check in for further updates.

* Karl Wallenda (January 21, 1905 – March 22, 1978) was the founder of The Flying Wallendas, an internationally known circus act, remembered for performing death-defying stunts, often without a safety net.

** At the moment, the most I can say about next week's Dr Who story is that it's a 'Companion Chronicle'.

Port

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy and so I thought a quick update would be timely on this wet and windy Saturday afternoon.

I've just completed work on a hugely enjoyable Big Finish story with a fabulous company of actors; we really did have great fun and our time together flashed by all too quickly. Over the next two weeks, I'm looking forward to being back in the recording studio to work on other stories, each quite different from the other and offering unique challenges. For the time being, all must remain teasingly secret but of course, I'll be posting updates just as soon as details are made available.

In addition to having a very festive time in the recording studio, this last week has also been deeply pleasing because of some other work which has come my way. On Monday, I auditioned for a production of Port, a play written by Simon Stephens and directed by Marianne Elliott. Having convinced myself that I hadn't got it, to my great surprise, the job was offered on Thursday and the read-through is on Monday. The play opens at the Lyttleton Theatre (image below) in late January and runs until late March with the possibility of a short extension into April.

It's amazing how quickly things can happen sometimes. In this instance, from audition to read-through in eight days! Equally amazing is that rehearsals and prior BF commitments fit together perfectly. Anyway, the National Theatre have published the following details:

Port

Stockport, 1988. It’s midnight. Rachel, eleven, and Billy, six, wait in the car in agitated excitement. Their mother is at her wits’ end with all their chatter and fighting and dreams of Disneyland. She is about to leave them for good. Their father, drunk in the flat above, has locked the door. It’s a pivotal moment, the beginning of a thirteen-year odyssey for two kids, largely abandoned and growing up in the deprived suburban shadows of Manchester, a city that felt itself to be the most exciting in the world.

I see you in the morning, on the first morning I stayed over at your house. Waking up. Watching you lying asleep next to me. You looked, you looked. It was like. I think about that more than you probably think I do.

A richly colourful portrait of a town with the everyday writ large, Simon Stephens’ Port is a celebration of the human spirit as Rachel, through sheer courage and despite an economic and political climate that pushes her into the very margins, looks to the future and opts for love and life and for something better.

He don’t do drugs. Nowt like that. He just. He really tries. I hope… This is a very big chance for him. I hope he doesn’t fuck things up this time. I hope he’ll be alright.

             There are some long anticipated audio releases next month and much more to come...
                                                  

Dark Eyes - Synopses

In a further update on this month's Eighth Doctor Box Set release, Dark Eyes, here's a synopsis of each story, illustrated by Alex Mallinson's quite stunning artwork:

‘I really hoped it would be a wonderful view... to look back from the end of everything... to see how things finally turned out.’

The Doctor is looking for hope. But instead, he finds himself on a mission. The Time Lords have uncovered terrifying fragments of an insane plot to destroy the universe. And somehow, at the centre of that plot is one, random female in Earth’s history, Molly O’Sullivan.

Soon, the Doctor and Molly find themselves thrown headlong into a series of dangerous and terrifying adventures, with the dreaded Daleks never far behind them.



 Part One. The Great War

Voluntary Aid Detachment nursing assistant Molly O’Sullivan spends her days facing the horrors of the Great War. Little does she know that a man from another world has arrived, looking for her.

But what are the strange sounds coming from the battlefield at night? Where is the glowing gas coming from? And is everyone who they claim to be?







Part Two. Fugitives

With the first objective of his mission reached, almost nothing is going to plan for the Doctor. He finds he cannot contact or return to the Time Lord’s home planet, Gallifrey. And just when Molly O’Sullivan thinks she’s escaped one conflict, she finds herself in the thick of another one.

What is it that connects the Doctor, the Daleks and the mysterious Ides Scientific Institute?









Part Three. Tangled Web

Something happened when Molly O’Sullivan was just two years old, and the Doctor thinks it’s high time they found out exactly what it was.

Meanwhile, the Daleks are fully activating their Temporal Chamber. And while the Doctor and Molly get closer and closer to the terrible truth, the nature of reality itself seems to be in question.





Part Four.
'X' and the Daleks

‘Subject is called Molly O’Sullivan. An inhabitant of Earth. Born Earth year 1891. Has travelled in space and time with Time Lord known as the Doctor.’

With Straxus and his TARDIS destroyed, the Doctor and Molly have tracked the mysterious ‘X’ to the planet Srangor. It is here that the truth of the threat to the universe will finally be revealed.

What is the Dalek Time Controller’s ultimate plan? What exactly is the space-time projector? Who will survive this epic battle for survival?

The company of actors for the whole series*  includes:

Paul McGann The Doctor             Ruth Bradley Molly O'Sullivan  

                                     Peter Egan Straxus                         Toby Jones Kotris 

Laura Molyneaux Isabel Stanford   Jonathan Forbes Dr Sturgiss   Natalie Burt Sally Armstrong  

Ian Cullen Nadeyan   Alex Mallinson Private Tucker   Tim Treloar Lord President

Beth Chalmers Matron - Kitty Donaldson - Nurse Harriet  

  John Banks Private Hodgeson - Dunkirk Sergeant - Thelus - Mezcoranis - Srangor Herder

 Nicholas Briggs The Daleks

Written & Directed by

 Nicholas Briggs

* NB: not all cast members feature in all stories.

Dr Who: Dark Eyes... coming soon

In a brief update yesterday, I mentioned the release this month of  The Big Finish Companion Volume 2. Unfortunately, the publication date has just been revised to February 2013, so I've deleted the post and will give an update when there's more news.

So, slightly earlier than I'd planned, here's a taster for the first of November's box-set releases: an Eighth Doctor adventure with new companion 'Molly O'Sullivan': Dark Eyes...

The box-set consists of  four linked stories:

                        The Great War, Fugitives, Tangled Web & 'X' and The Daleks 

Written & Directed by Nicholas Briggs 

Remember, remember - there's lots more to come in November!

 

The Shadow Heart

Remember , remember the fifth of November... 

gunpowder, treason and plot!

With a plethora of audio-drama releases from Big Finish this month, I'm fairly sure that there'll be plenty of audio fireworks and lots of plot to get stuck into - and perhaps, even a smattering of treason...

 In the first of this month's postings, the plot centres around the release of Dr Who: The Shadow Heart

One empire has fallen and another has taken its place. The race known as The Wrath are expanding into new territory. Only the Earth Empire stands in their way.

It's been fifty years since the Doctor last visited this sector of space. And one man in particular has been awaiting his return. As the mistakes of his past come back to haunt him, and with a price on his head and bounty hunters on his tail, the Doctor is heading for a last reckoning.

The pieces are finally coming together. Somewhere deep within The Shadow Heart.

Sylvester McCoy The Doctor    James Wilby Tenebris    Chase Masterson Vienna Salvatori               Eve Karpf Talbar             Alex Mallinson Horval  

John Banks Captain Webster - Starbaff -Wrath Emperor           Jaimi Barbakoff Lt Dervish
Kirsty Besterman Aliona

Written By: Jonathan Morris
Directed By: Ken Bentley  

This was such a great story to work on and a fabulous cast to work with - a privilege indeed!

   

                   Chase Masterson                                                                         James Wilby      

                                                        John Banks & Sylvester McCoy
                                                                                                         

Just to remind you that The Shadow Heart is the final episode in a trilogy of stories which begins with  
The Burning Prince, followed by last month's The Acheron Pulse.

Jaimie Barbakoff       Sylvester McCoy      Kirsty Besterman


There's much more to come this month, so do check in again soon for the latest updates...

Oh Vienna !

A few days ago, I posted an update about next month's Dr Who story, The Shadow Heart, in which Chase Masterson plays a character by the name of Vienna Salvatori - and in which I play a variety of diverse and (hopefully) interesting characters. As previously mentioned, there will be much more on that release in November.

However, in the meantime, Big Finish have just announced that Chase and Vienna are to have a story line of their own, which I must say, I find incredibly exciting and very good news indeed. Here's the gist of this morning's breaking news...

' Big Finish is delighted to announce that Chase Masterson, best known to science fiction fans for her role as Leeta in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, will be getting her own audio series as the impossibly glamorous bounty hunter Vienna Salvatori.'

Vienna makes her first appearance in the upcoming Doctor Who full cast audiobook The Shadow Heart, which stars Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.

Titled simply Vienna, the new series launches with a pilot episode in February 2013 called The Memory Box, in which Vienna is on the run from the law, standing accused of murdering a rich industrialist – a crime she may or may not have committed. But is anything quite what it seems?

Chase Masterson says: "The Memory Box is a great romp. As with The Shadow Heart, writer Jonathan Morris takes us on a ride packed with twists and turns and farce - it's big fun.

“And Vienna is one of my favourite characters ever: the endearingly incorrigible killer we loved to hate in The Shadow Heart - completely unapologetic, even charming about her day job as a mercenary assassin. Plus, she usually manages to land on the side of justice. Vienna's quite a turn-on - I think you'll like her as much as I do."

So there we have it - more on this and other stories just as soon as they happen!