ISSUE: 122 • APRIL 2019 WWW.BIGFINISH.COM DARK SHADOWS BLOODLINE WE RETURN TO THE TOWN OF COLLINSPORT! UNIT: THE NEW SERIES INCURSIONS A RIVER RUNS THROUGH THE NEW UNIT BOX SET! DOCTOR WHO NEW VOICES THE BRIGADIER AND LIZ SHAW RETURN! WIBBLY WOBBLY THE TENTH DOCTOR ADVENTURESVOLUME THREE We make great full-cast audio dramas and audiobooks that are available to buy on CD and/or download WE LOVE STORIES! SUBSCRIBERS GET Our audio productions are based on much-loved MORE! TV series like Doctor Who, Torchwood, Dark If you subscribe, depending on the Shadows, Blake’s 7, The Avengers, The Prisoner, range you subscribe to, you get free The Omega Factor, Terrahawks, Captain audiobooks, PDFs of scripts, extra Scarlet and Survivors, as well as classics such as behind-the-scenes material, a HG Wells, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, The bonus release, downloadable audio Phantom of the Opera and Dorian Gray. We also readings of new short stories and produce original creations such as Graceless, discounts. Charlotte Pollard and The Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, plus the Big Finish Originals range featuring seven great new series including ATA Secure online ordering and details of Girl, Cicero, Jeremiah Bourne in Time, Shilling & all our products can be found at: Sixpence Investigate and Blind Terror. www.bigfinish.com WWW.BIGFINISH.COM @ BIGFINISH THEBIGFINISH HIS MONTH’S edition has proved to be one of the T biggest challenges I’ve had COMING SOON since I started writing Vortex – there was so much to fit in! (Especially when I realised I’d submitted 350 DORIAN GRAY extra words for two features!). We’ve got a preview of the Tenth Doctor’s third run of adventures THE LOST CONFESSIONS with Big Finish – and I cannot wait to hear more from David EADING ACTOR Confessions of Dorian Gray Tennant and Catherine Tate. I Alexander Vlahos we said the story had ended... love this pair, and after having L reprises his role in a and it had. However, fast written the production notes for brand new set of The forward a couple of years the special edition box set, I know Confessions of Dorian Gray and we remembered some these are going to be just brilliant. later this year. Created by scripts we’d written but never There’s a fantastic booklet to go producer, director and writer recorded: two from before with it and having read it over it’s Scott Handcock, the Big Finish commissioned worth getting – especially as it’s Confessions range follows the the series and an alternate beautifully illustrated with extras life of Oscar Wilde’s hedonistic finale to Series Five.” by Mike Tucker and June Hudson. and immortal Dorian Gray. Due for release in August, We’ve got two doses of UNIT past But these new adventures The Lost Confessions will and present with The Third Doctor are not a continuation nor a be narrated by Alexander Adventures and UNIT: Incursions sequel to the fifth series of Vlahos. The first episode, – the eighth box set of UNIT: The The Confessions of Dorian Last Man Standing is set in New Series. I particularly can’t Gray, but ‘lost’ stories from France, 1915; the second, wait to hear more of Jon Culshaw’s earlier in Dorian’s timeline. There Are Such Things… set in Brigadier as, having spoken to him Dorian Gray – The Lost England, 1930; and the third for this issue, he slipped into the Confessions contains three episode, The Last Confession voice with ease. Jon understands brand-new readings of is set in the future. the Brig and brings him to life with unmade scripts written by such affection. And with Caroline Scott Handcock and adapted Please note: The Confessions John’s daughter Daisy Ashford by Scott Harrison. Scott of Dorian Gray contains taking over as Liz Shaw, we’re Handcock explains: “When adult material and is not going to be in really safe hands. Alex and I wrapped up The suitable for younger listeners. And then we’ve got Dark Shadows – Bloodline. I recently re-listened to Bloodlust to get ready for the new series, and wow, it’s fantastic! Managing Editor: Jason Haigh-Ellery Design: Mark Plastow If you enjoy a bit of horror and Executive Producer: Nicholas Briggs Copy Editor: Stephanie Hornett fantasy it’s a great range to get into, Senior Producer: David Richardson Marketing: Kris Griffin especially if you’re a newcomer to Editor: Kenny Smith and Paddy Freeland Collinsport like me. And Bloodlust The Big Finish Team: Ian Atkins, BFP Administration: Cheryl Bly, is a great introduction – what Sue Cowley, Emily de Fraine, Karen Parks, Brenda Smith, Alison Taylor are you waiting for? Go and Hannah Peel, Alfie Shaw, Paul Spragg Publisher: Big Finish Productions Ltd. buy it immediately! VORTEX | PAGE 3 AT LAST! THE DOCTOR AND DONNA ARE BACK! HE DOCTOR and Donna are going to be working with get on with everyone. When Noble are arguably one of two of the biggest stars in this you’re sitting having a cup of T the most popular Doctor country, and you want them to tea with David Tennant talking and companion pairings ever, and have a brilliant time and for the about The Avengers or whatever, their adventures in space and time whole thing to run smoothly. you’re really just chatting to continue in The Tenth Doctor “The night before recording I a lovely human being.” Adventures Volume Three. David just told myself, forget the nerves, It was director Ken Bentley’s Tennant and Catherine Tate reprise treat it like any other production first time directing David and their TV roles for a second run of and it will be great. And actually Catherine, and before recording audio adventures from Big Finish. by the time David and Catherine began he admitted to Vortex: “I’ve Producer David Richardson arrived at Moat Studios, the not had much time to think about says: “I actually got very nervous nerves had totally evaporated. it as we’ve been extremely busy in the weeks before recording, as “David and Catherine don’t through August and September. I did on their previous box set. behave like stars – they walked I only just managed to squeeze You are just so aware that you in as two normal people who in the time to schedule it! VORTEX | PAGE 4 DOCTOR WHO THE TENTH DOCTOR “I’M LIKE ANY FAN, DYING TO HEAR WHAT THE NOBLES, WILF AND THE DOCTOR GET UP TO. WHAT A DREAM CAST!” RUSSELL T DAVIES Above (l–r): David Tennant and Catherine Tate “I always get excited about could bring the Bernard because working on a new range. The bit wider Noble family he’s so gorgeous! I love the most about directing is into it by having He and I did the working with actors, and to work Donna and Sylvia quiz show Pointless. with actors new to me is always together, so we gave James And Catherine was in something I look forward to. that brief. It meant it had to be a play which Bernard and I “In my line of work it’s set on Donna’s contemporary went to see together, so that was the rehearsal room and the Earth, since her mum isn’t aware lovely. We’ve just not been all recording studio where the of her space and time travel yet.” together so there was so much magic happens, and it’s always Former Doctor Who to catch up on. I felt desperately a treat to watch professionals showrunner Russell T Davies, maternal towards Catherine, bringing roles to life. creator of Donna, Sylvia and wanting to know how she was! “All actors work and respond Wilf, tells Vortex: “I’m so excited “I was very jealous that David differently. Part of my job is to about the return of the Noble and Catherine were going on to quickly figure out how an actor family. I put in a request to Big do more stories over the next likes to work so I can help make Finish never thinking they’d couple of days without Bernard the recording go as smoothly actually pull it off. But, I might and myself. Bernard and I were as possible for them – and for have known, they’re unstoppable! joking, asking, How can you everybody else. It’s a challenge Marvellously, I haven’t heard do that? That’s just disloyal! I enjoy and I like to get it right. the adventure myself yet, so I’m “It was lovely, and if we could So it’s exciting for me to work like any fan, dying to hear what have carried on I would have but with an entirely new team and to the Nobles, Wilf and the Doctor it was just one day. It would be figure out what makes them tick.” get up to. What a dream cast!” heaven if we could do more!” Jacqueline King was delighted Matt continues: “James HE FIRST story in the set to be back as Sylvia. came back with this ‘haunted is No Place by James Goss. She says: “Since we finished makeovers’ idea which was great, T Script editor Matt Fitton on TV I’ve seen David a couple of and as it was being developed we says: “We knew straightaway we times, and I keep in touch with asked James to keep in mind a VORTEX | PAGE 5 DOCTOR WHO THE TENTH DOCTOR role for Wilf in case we were able to get Bernard Cribbins – perhaps “IF YOU’RE A just a cameo role. As it turned out FAN OF EITHER we learned fairly early on that we could have Bernard for the whole BUZZFEED day, so it all worked out perfectly and Wilf was fully included in the UNSOLVED OR episode at the storyline stage.” HOMES UNDER In a similar vein to what the TV show did at the time, No THE HAMMER Place taps into the zeitgeist of YOU’LL FIND what is currently popular on TV, which in this case brings LOTS TO LOVE in the feed of ghost and home makeover reality TV shows.