ISSUE: 139 • SEPTEMBER 2020 WWW.BIGFINISH.COM BIG FINISH AND THE MASSIVE DOCTOR WHO MULTIMEDIA EVENT! THE WAR MASTER THE MASTER OF WAR RETURNS FOR MORE JACOBEAN AUDIO DRAMA! BIG FINISH WE MAKE GREAT FULL-CAST 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 Summerfield, 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 DUE TO the wonders of time and its wibbly-wobbly nature, I’m writing this just a few hours after the Virtual Big Finish Day finished on YouTube. I’ve been lucky enough to attend three Big Finish Days in person – Barking in 2013, and Derby in 2018 and 2019 – and had the most wonderful time at them all. I love the social side that goes along with the events, getting to chat face to face with THE FIRST people I normally just speak to on the phone or through email, as well as saying hello to the stars of our favourite audio productions. This year of course was different as Big DOCTOR Finish Day moved online, but fantastically it meant that many Big Finish listeners MORE ADVENTURES IN who are normally unable to attend could also join in the fun. What I particularly SPACE AND TIME… enjoyed was seeing where viewers were in the world – places as far apart as THE FIFTH volume of famous playwright in British Germany, the USA, Canada, Australia and The First Doctor history – William Shakespeare. Brazil – and everyone had a good time. Adventures will For the Glory of Urth features The live comments section was great materialise in April next the TARDIS landing in an alien – so much love and affection – and I was year for two more stories sewer where a distant scream really pleased to be able to play a part featuring the An sends Susan racing to give aid in it as I loved producing the videos of Adventure in Space and Time and the team split up. Trying listeners talking about their first Big team of David Bradley, Jamie to reunite, the travellers find Finish story. The choices were so diverse! Glover, Jemma Powell and themselves in something And what can I say about our Claudia Grant. resembling a monastery led panels? Just… wow! The highlight The Doctor, Ian, Barbara by a man half-way between for me was Paul McGann and Alex and Susan will travel back an abbot and a warlord. They Kingston questioning chairman, Jason in Earth’s history and then discover that they are in ‘Urth’, Haigh-Ellery, when he was supposed venture into the future in a barbaric place clinging to be interviewing them! VORTEX The Hollow Crown by Sarah on to its former glory. If you missed any of the livestream, you Grochala and For the Glory Producer David Richardson can catch up now at the Big Finish of Urth by Guy Adams. tells us: “What’s so lovely about YouTube channel: bgfn.sh/bfd2020 The Hollow Crown sees the this team – and I see this in TARDIS land in Shoreditch, so many of the Doctor Who 1601, where the Doctor casts – is how this group of suggests going to see a play actors work well both on and at the Globe Theatre. But off mic. FilmingAn Adventure there is violence in the street, in Space and Time was clearly plots against the Queen and a very happy part of their lives, rebellion in the air. And at the and they’ve remained firm centre of it all stands the most friends ever since.” VORTEX and Lesser Evils by Simon Guerrier. BIG FINISH AND THE MULTIMEDIA EVENT November sees the release of The Enemy of My Enemy by Tracy Ann THAT IS TIME LORD VICTORIOUS… Baines, and December’s contributions include Mutually Assured Destruction by Lizzie Hopley, and Echoes EARLIER THIS year Time Lord cosmos dispensing mortality. They of Extinction by Alfie Shaw. Victorious was unveiled – a judge each and every species and Alfie is also the producer of these brand-new multi-platform decree its allotted time to live – but releases and he recalls: “I first became Doctor Who story told across now the Doctor is coming for them. aware of the Time Lord Victorious several media including novels, Big Finish is playing its part in project in late November when comics and audio. Time Lord the grand story with Paul McGann executive producer Nicholas Briggs Victorious is set within the Dark and David Tennant featuring as emailed asking if I’d be interested Times at the start of the universe, the Doctor. Various stories will be in producing them for Big Finish. and features the Eighth, Ninth and released starting in October with Literally the next day we were in a Tenth Doctors. He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not by Carrie meeting with [Time Lord Victorious The series features the Kotturuh Thompson, as well as a pair of Short producer] James Goss and all the – creatures who spread through the Trips: Master Thief by Sophie Iles other licensees, which is when I VORTEX | PAGE 4 JAMES [GOSS] SAID THE OPENING STORY HAD TO INVOLVE AN OOD ASSASSIN NAMED BRIAN… ALFIE SHAW first got a sense of the ambition slid into place, we were rolling!” to pair a newer Who writer with an of the whole enterprise.” The series features a number older-hand, and Simon Guerrier is Alfie’s immediate priority was to of newer writers to Big Finish. someone whose work I’ve admired get the stories for the Eighth Doctor Alfie says: “I was keen to get some for quite a while. Simon and Sophie ready. He explains: “The Eighth new voices for the Eighth Doctor, had actually worked together on Doctor trilogy needed to be pulled while keeping the experience a previous project, so that all just together quickly but because it all of veteran writers Matt Fitton came together beautifully.” had to tie into the larger story, there and John Dorney to help guide were a few more steps and checks the series as script editors. WHEN VORTEX asks Alfie than usual. It was an incredibly “Carrie Thompson has previously what he can say about the tight turnaround on these as we written a lovely Short Trips for ongoing story in the Big Finish wanted to get them all recorded me, and I’m familiar with her releases, he tells us: “Oh, very before they were announced. darkly-comedic stage work. So when little! Let’s see now... The “The vinyl record release, James said the opening story had Eighth Doctor notices that Echoes of Extinction, was probably to involve an Ood assassin named time has gone wrong – and so have the one that went back and Brian, Carrie’s name shot to the the Daleks. Wonders of the Universe forth the most. It went through top of the list. Tracy Ann Baines have disappeared, whole new several different iterations at was a recommendation by the civilisations have popped into the outline stage, a lot of them wonderful Roland Moore as he’d existence. They both have very involving alternative timelines. worked with her on the Chinese different approaches as to how to fix “With the Short Trips we had version of Humans. And I loved it, but they need each other and so a little more time in development Lizzie Hopley’s Torchwood: The form a very uneasy alliance.” as they are simpler to record than Dying Room and have been keen The series opens with He Kills Me, the full-cast productions. There to work with her for a while. He Kills Me Not by Carrie Thompson, was talk of possibly seeing the “For the Short Trips, Sophie Iles with the Doctor on the desert world earlier Doctors interacting with wrote a great Subscriber Short of Atharna. Looking to visit one the Kotturuh, but once the idea of Trip, and I knew that she was a of the Seven Hundred Wonders of pitting the Master against them massive fan of the Master. I wanted the Universe, the Doctor is quickly VORTEX | PAGE 5 DOCTOR WHO TIME LORD VICTORIOUS SOPHIE ILES WROTE A GREAT SUBSCRIBER SHORT TRIP, AND I KNEW THAT SHE WAS A MASSIVE FAN OF THE MASTER. ALFIE SHAW embroiled in a web of deceit. spot for the Ood, and writing Here, the Master wants to plunder Worse than that, this Wonder of his character was such fun.” one of the most secure vaults in the the Universe is missing – and he When asked by Vortex to sum up universe, the Repository.