ISSUE: 140 • OCTOBER 2020 WWW.BIGFINISH.COM THE TENTH DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG TOGETHER AGAIN, BUT IN WHAT ORDER? PLUS: BLAKE’S 7 | TORCHWOOD DOCTOR WHO: WICKED SISTERS BIG FINISH WE MAKE GREAT FULLCAST AUDIO WE LOVE STORIES! DRAMAS AND AUDIOBOOKS THAT ARE AVAILABLE TO BUY ON CD AND OR ABOUT BIG FINISH DOWNLOAD Our audio productions are based on much-loved TV series like Doctor Who, Torchwood, WWW.BIGFINISH.COM Dark Shadows, Blake’s 7, The @BIGFINISH Avengers, The Prisoner, The THEBIGFINISH Omega Factor, Terrahawks, Captain Scarlet, Space: BIGFINISHPROD 1999 and Survivors, as well BIG-FINISH as classics such as HG Wells, BIGFINISHPROD Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the SUBSCRIPTIONS Opera and Dorian Gray. If you subscribe to our Doctor We also produce original BIG FINISH APP Who The Monthly Adventures creations such as Graceless, The majority of Big Finish range, you get free audiobooks, Charlotte Pollard and The releases can be accessed on- PDFs of scripts, extra behind- Adventures of Bernice the-go via the Big Finish App, the-scenes material, a bonus Summereld, plus the Big available for both Apple and release, downloadable audio Finish Originals range featuring Android devices. readings of new short stories seven great new series: ATA and discounts. Girl, Cicero, Jeremiah Bourne in Time, Shilling & Sixpence Secure online ordering and Investigate, Blind Terror, details of all our products can Transference and The Human be found at: bgfn.sh/aboutBF Frontier. BIG FINISH WELL, THIS is rather exciting, isn’t it, more fantastic THE DIARY OF adventures with the Tenth Doctor and River Song! For many years script editor Matt Fitton and I have both dreamed of RIVER SONG hearing stories like this. We know that River has met the Tenth Doctor before ALEX KINGSTON RETURNS AS RIVER SONG as we discovered on screen in Silence in WITH THE TENTH DOCTOR NEXT MONTH BUT the Library/The Forest of the Dead. And THAT ISN’T HER ONLY SET OF FORTHCOMING it’s clear when the Doctor meets River for the second time in The Time of NEW ADVENTURES FROM BIG FINISH. Angels/Flesh and Stone that the pair have had further encounters. I’m a daughter, Salome Haertel), huge fan of the Tenth Doctor and I love IN JANUARY 2021, 24th century war criminal River, and we’re in for a real treat with River is back in The Annam Henic (played by this new trio of tales all recorded Diary of River Song Derek Griffiths), K9 (John during lockdown. Series Eight, Leeson), robot cat FE-LINE The COVID-19 outbreak across affectionately dubbed (Tracy Wiles) and the the planet has been dreadful with ‘River and the Robots’. Mechonoids (played by so many losses and tragedies being In Slight Glimpses of Nicholas Briggs). felt. I lost my friend, Hamish Wilson Tomorrow by James Goss, A There’s also an (the other Jamie in The Mind Robber), Brave New World by Tracy appearance by Jane Slavin to it in the first few weeks. Ann Baines, A Forever who reprises her role of But out of this horrible situation, Home by Alfie Shaw and Anya Kingdom – the Space Big Finish has worked miracles to Queen of the Mechonoids by Security Service officer carry on functioning and creating Jonathan Morris, the from The Fourth Doctor audio adventures, keeping actors, archaeologist encounters Adventures – who is on writers, directors, cover artists, sound android Rachel from The a rescue mission with designers and musicians in work – as Diary of River Song Series a difference. VORTEX well as studio engineers. And, of Two (played by Alex’s course, writing Vortex has kept me sane during my furlough from the day job. Big Finish – reasons to be cheerful, DOCTOR WHO parts one, two and three! VORTEX THE DIARY OF RIVER SONG SERIES EIGHT z RELEASED: JANUARY 2021 z FORMAT: CDDOWNLOAD ORDER NOW AT: bgfn.sh/mechonoids FOR YEARS WE’VE HAD RIVER SONG SKIRTING love to do, and in the early days of lockdown we discovered that both AROUND THE DOCTOR SO THEY DIDN’T MEET David and Alex had availability and OUT OF ORDER, BUT NOW THEY CAN FULLY the means to record at home. So we pitched the idea of a box set to them EXPLORE SPACE AND TIME TOGETHER… and in an instant we were underway with storylines and scripts.” THE DOCTOR and River Song more about River Song, and to see Script editor Matt Fitton tells have a complex history. The more of Alex Kingston interacting Vortex: “It’s a thing I’ve always Tenth Doctor knows what her with David Tennant. But it wasn’t wanted to do and I’m gutted I didn’t fate is when he’s young, while to be – although we did of course have the time to write one of these she knows everything they are see her with Matt Smith and Peter myself, but we’ve got three exciting to go through when she meets Capaldi’s Doctors. Producer David adventures from James Goss, Lizzie him for the first time. Wibbly Richardson reveals: “A meeting Hopley and Jonathan Morris. wobbly, timey-wimey indeed. between the Tenth Doctor and River David continues: “I wanted James After the television episodes Song came along, as these things to write the first story because Silence in the Library/Forest of the should, a little by surprise. It had he’s done such lovely, effervescent Dead, we were left wanting to know long been on our list of things we’d work on two previous Tenth Doctor VORTEX | PAGE 4 THE TENTH DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG scripts and he’s written one of my fun to work with him. He came THE FIRST story in this set is favourite episodes in The Diary up with something very fitting Expiry Dating by James Goss. of River Song – Signs. Lizzie was for the era, appropriately in the The first time the Doctor met actually underway with a script for style of both Russell T Davies and River Song, he saw her die. And a different project but I loved it so Steven Moffat, with the Doctor now she’s asking him on a date. much that I instantly suggested we and River meeting ghosts. Well, not a date, exactly... more should switch it to a full-cast drama “And James has written for the of a mission. But the Doctor isn’t at and use it here. And Jonny should Tenth Doctor before, and came up anyone’s beck and call. Or so he really have written for the Tenth with something very clever. The thinks. With billions of lives hanging Doctor range before now, so this Doctor finds himself trying to find in the balance, can the Doctor afford was the chance to put that right!” out more about River but she won’t not to do whatever River wants? Matt says: “Lizzie wrote for The give him any spoilers. She’s got a job Whichever one of him she asks? Eighth of March set, which was she wants this Doctor to do, so if he Vortex asks James what his the first time I’d worked with won’t do it, she’s not above getting reaction was when asked to write her, and as I knew she could do other Doctors involved as well.” Expiry Dating: “Wheeeeeeeeee. (l–r): Alex Kingston and David Tennant IT’S A COP OUT TO HAVE really great work quite quickly, I Then realising there’s a gap between set her the challenge of the Tenth HIM FIND OUT their first and second meeting and Doctor and River meeting. Lizzie that it’s a carefully limited gap. The writes things that are fun with EVERYTHING Doctor still doesn’t entirely know an emotional heart to it all. In who this amazing woman is and Precious Annihilation we have ABOUT HER can’t find out, but it’s a cop-out 17th century jewels which are AND THEN to have him find out everything exploding and killing people, so about her and then get hit on the Doctor and River set off on GET HIT ON the head with a time spanner. the trail of a ship of mutineers. “I was scratching my head about “Jonny has written for so many THE HEAD what to do and Matt pointed out Doctors it seemed only fitting WITH A that he’d already asked me about that he should get to do the TIME it a couple of months before and Tenth as well! I’ve always been SPANNER. I’d suggested writing it as a tribute a fan of his writing, back to the to those glorious 18th century BBC Books days, and it’s always JAMES GOSS epistolary novels (like Jane Austen’s VORTEX | PAGE 5 THE TENTH DOCTOR AND RIVER SONG Lady Susan). I thanked my past self and got on with writing it. It’s a series of letters between two people who don’t know or trust each other, and it ends up being a heist movie told through love letters.” James, a regular scribe for The Diary of River Song and who has written for the Sixth Doctor and River before, told Vortex: “It was a great joy not having to wipe the Doctor’s memory combined with the fun challenge of not moving things along – the Doctor has to end up stunned and entranced by River but also intrigued. “Matt (who is the king of River continuity) pointed out there’s one fact about River that the Doctor has learned by the TV episode The Time of Angels, so we put it in here.” The story also features other Doctors, which was a highlight for James.