WWW.BIGFINISH.COM • NEW AUDIO ADVENTURES ISSUE 87 • MAY 2016 2016 MAY • 87 ISSUE DOCTOR WHO: THE TENTH DOCTOR ALLONS-Y! DAVID TENNANT AND CATHERINE TATE RETURN TO THE TARDIS FOR THREE NEW ADVENTURES! JOURNEYS IN SPACE AND TIME! PLUS! CLASSIC HORROR GALLIFREY BIG FINISH’S DRACULA ENEMY LINES BIG GUIDE! MARK GATISS BARES HIS FANGS ROMANA, LEELA AND ACE PREPARE 21 ESSENTIAL RELEASES FOR IN OUR NEW ADAPTATION! THE TIME LORDS FOR WAR! NEWCOMERS TO LISTEN TO! WELCOME TO BIG FINISH! We love stories and we make great full-cast audio dramas and audiobooks you can buy on CD and/or download Big Finish… Subscribers get more We love stories! at bigfinish.com! Our audio productions are based on much- If you subscribe, depending on the range you loved TV series like Doctor Who, Torchwood, subscribe to, you get free audiobooks, PDFs Dark Shadows, Blake’s 7, The Avengers and of scripts, extra behind-the-scenes material, a Survivors as well as classic characters such as bonus release, downloadable audio readings of Sherlock Holmes, The Phantom of the Opera new short stories and discounts. and Dorian Gray, plus original creations such as Graceless, Charlotte Pollard and The You can access a video guide to the site at Adventures of Bernice Summerfield. www.bigfinish.com/news/v/website-guide-1 WWW.BIGFINISH.COM @ BIGFINISH THEBIGFINISH Sneak Previews & Whispers Editorial ELL, this is all rather exciting, isn’t it? David Tennant is back as the Doctor! W For those of us who are long-standing Big Finish fans, we knew of David’s work long before he was given the key to the TARDIS, and when we heard he had been cast, we were already hoping that one day he’d be back in the Big Finish studio to play the Doctor. And now, over a decade after he was cast by Russell T Davies, it’s happened. IVER Song’s long and complicated When you think of how big a star David is – internationally – and life begins (for the Doctor) in Silence the fact he’s always in demand, it’s fantastic to know that returning to R in the Library, and ends (for her) in play the Doctor again means a lot to him. the same adventure. What’s particularly pleasing is the amount of coverage David’s return Since then, River has met both the Eleventh to the TARDIS got in the media, both in the UK and abroad, raising and Twelfth Doctors on television, and had Big Finish’s profile in the process, so if this is your first experience a meeting with the Eighth Doctor on audio of audio Doctor Who, then welcome! The adventures of the Tenth (although he doesn’t know it), in the first Doctor are just the starting point, as there’s plenty more Doctor Who volume of The Diary of River Song. to discover... River will cross encounters with another two I love David’s Doctor – even my wife, who’s not a Doctor Who fan – incarnations off her list in the second series, happily watches his episodes! I watched David regenerate into Matt to be released in January next year, when she Smith with my daughter, who was nearly four at the time, and the meets the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. Tenth Doctor will always be her Doctor too. David’s the Doctor who Script editor Matt Fitton says: “We’ve got four we all love unequivocally in our household. stories again, written by Guy Adams, John Dorney, Better get the girls listening to these new plays, then! James Goss and myself. This time, we’ve got River alongside the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. KENNY “There’s a mystery to be solved, which runs across the whole series. It begins as River PS David, if you’re reading, can you answer a investigates a strange phenomenon in Earth’s quick question? I and a couple of fan friends solar system – and ends with the two Doctors, were chatting recently, and together. wondered if you went to either “I really enjoyed taking the last episode as I of the Doctor Who events have to bring it all together, with a resolution organised by John Nathan- to this space-time mystery. Turner in 1992 and 1993? “We’ve got four very exciting, very different They were held on your stories: with a scary sci-fi tale from Guy, a doorstep in Paisley and rather lovely one from John and some madness we were wondering from James. We have Sylvester in the first one if you were there! and Colin in the third, and it all comes together If so, please do let in the fourth. Nick know... “Another interesting element we’ve got is in the second story, where we have Alex Kingston’s daughter Salome Haertel acting in a pivotal role. She’s really, really good, in a part that was specifically made for her.” ISSUE 87 • MAY 2016 Matt adds: “It’s one of those things where we had a couple of months’ notice that Alex was Managing Editor: Jason Haigh-Ellery Marketing Consultant: Kris Griffin going to be coming over for a few days and we went all hands to the pumps and powered Editor: Kenny Smith Web Services: Hughes Media through it, to make it happen. I’m really chuffed Executive Producer: Nicholas Briggs BFP Administration: with the result – it sounded brilliant in studio. Miles Haigh-Ellery, Cheryl Bly “To be honest, one of my highlights in writing Line Producer: David Richardson & Alison Taylor my episode was having scenes with the two Design: Grant Kempster Publisher: Big Finish Productions Ltd. Doctors together with River.” VORTEX VORTEX MAGAZINE PAGE 5 TIME FOR TEN Kenny Smith goes behind the scenes on Big Finish’s most high-profile release yet VORTEX MAGAZINE PAGE 6 The Tenth Doctor Adventures ET’S BE honest – we’ve all However, the process of getting stuff in 21st century Doctor Who, as been wanting David Tennant them back together hasn’t been an a favourite combination of Doctor L to play the Doctor for Big easy one. and companion. Seeing them work Finish since, well, the first day he got Big Finish executive producer and together, you can tell it’s obvious the the job. Newspapers at the time of his company chairman Jason Haigh-Ellery two of them love working together casting as the Tenth Doctor made says: “We’ve had a lot of support in and enjoy it. mention of the fact he’d already worked getting series based around the New “It was well worth waiting a year for, on the Doctor Who audios alongside Legacy Doctors. When the time was to have them together.” Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. right, the BBC gave us the rights and Nick continues: “Once the BBC Of course, Big Finish have wanted helped us to get these productions up accepted the proposal, David him to return to the part and bring the and running as soon as possible. Richardson and script editor Matt Tenth Doctor back to life on audio. “We’re really pleased to have got Fitton started working on story ideas, And executive producer Nicholas David and Catherine back together. and kept me informed all along the Briggs – a friend of David’s for years way. It looked like we might get – reveals the man himself has been David and Catherine into studio fairly just as keen as everyone else to get “I FIRST DID BIG imminently then, so the scripts were back into the studio with Big Finish. worked on quite quickly. Then, when Nick says: “David and I had a FINISH WITH they were ready and tentative studio conversation about his doing Big Finish SYLVESTER MCCOY bookings made, David and Catherine – long, long before we got a licence to very busy people! – suddenly became do plays based in his era. He actually, AND SOPHIE ALDRED unavailable. So we had to wait quite light-heartedly, encouraged me to go a while. So it’s true to say those out and get the licence. At one stage, MANY YEARS AGO, scripts were then waiting for the final Michael Stevens and I had plans for CERTAINLY BEFORE bookings to be made. So that’s why, Big Finish and Audiogo to do a co- when the information was leaked on production of audio drama featuring DOCTOR WHO WAS the internet, we couldn’t comment, the Tenth Doctor. But David’s schedule because we weren’t one hundred and Audiogo’s demise meant that plan AS CENTRAL A PART per cent sure it was actually going to didn’t materialise. But when we finally OF MY LIFE AS IT HAS happen. We had everything crossed! got the licence, I did chat to David on David Richardson adds: “We certainly the phone. He eventually came up with BECOME SINCE.” began story lining back in the the idea of a special, three-CD release.” summer of 2014, and the scripts David Tennant Line producer David Richardson were all signed off by May 2015. adds: “The pitch for the Big Finish/ So they sat on the shelf for several AudioGO co-production still exists “Someone said to me, ‘Why did you months before we were able to get – although none of the stories made announce John Hurt and David Tennant David and Catherine together in it into this collection. The plan back just a few weeks apart?’ The thing is, October.” then was to have episodes with a it took about two weeks to sort John running theme, one that would climax out and get him into studio.