WWW.BIGFINISH.COM • NEW AUDIO ADVENTURES ISSUE 93 • NOVEMBER 2016 UNIT: THE NEW SERIES SILENCED! THE SILENCE PREPARES TO RISE AGAINST HUMANITY… PLUS! TORCHWOOD! DOCTOR WHO! THE AVENGERS! OUTBREAK! THE THIRD DOCTOR! COMIC STRIPS! FULL CAST ACTION! BRAND NEW ADVENTURES! STEED AND MRS PEEL ARE NEEDED! HEADING 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 WELCOME TO VORTEX EDITORIAL SNEAK PREVIEW I AM NOT A NUMBER! Nicholas Briggs previews volume two of The Prisoner… OMETHING THAT'S informing volume two is Mark Elstob's remarkable performance. Now I know how S he's doing it, I'm writing for him this time. His performance is very difficult to define. In many ways it's very reminiscent of Patrick McGoohan's performance in the original TV series, but if you actually study it and break it down, as I have done – endlessly – it's very much its own thing. The original TV series was, very often, about hard stares 'VE REALLY enjoyed the UNIT releases so and flickers of expression passing over Number Six's face. far. Extinction was a fantastic set of four That can't happen on audio, so you have to find ways of I adventures, giving Kate Stewart and communicating all that in conversations. That's one reason Osgood the chance to take centre stage, without a why I created Number Nine. So he'd have someone to talk certain Time Lord to help save the day. I've always to. I'm not too keen on monologues. I'm rather ruthless in my loved the Autons – Spearhead From Space was my views on them when other writers do them. People talking to first BBC Video, bought at the Glasgow Garden themselves for no reason is… a bit lazy, sometimes. On audio, Festival back in 1988 – and this set really showed it's occasionally unavoidable. So if you really need to do it, why they're one of my favourite baddies. it's best to have a great, realistic reason for it. And it also contained one of the most scary And I can exclusively reveal the episodes I'm writing. scenes Big Finish has ever done – when Josh Carter Yes, this is a Vortex exclusive! All the storylines have been undergoes THAT ordeal… oh, it made me shiver. approved by the lovely people at ITV. And it's not quite what Series two, Shutdown, was just as exciting, I'd planned initially. introducing an excellent new adversary in the The first episode, episode five is entitled I Met A Man Tengobushi, with Alice Krige fantastic as Felicity Today and is a very loose adaptation of Many Happy Returns. Lime (Alice Krige! The Borg Queen! She's brilliant Episode six is entitled Project Six and is an extremely loose in everything she does). It's a great series, set in a adaptation of A, B and C. Episode seven is Hammer Into Anvil, very modern setting – public private partnerships based on the TV episode of the same title, but extremely between governments and business, and it's not different. And finally, Living In Harmony borrows a title too hard to imagine this would happen. from the original series, but is, frankly, nothing to do with And now we've reached the third box set with the original episode. It's not, for example, set in a Western Silenced. The Silence were such a clever creation frontier town where Number Six is the Sheriff. It's very… out on TV – a monster you forget about as soon as you there. I can't wait to write the script. don't see it? Genius! But how can they work on And talking of waiting, the horrible truth is that The audio? I can't wait to find out… Prisoner Volume Two is going to be delayed a bit. We're KENNY not sure how by how long. But this time last year, all the recording was in the can. This time this year, I've only just started writing episode five… so, I'm behind. The weight of ISSUE 93 • NOVEMBER 2016 other work I'm doing has pushed it further and further away. I've been dealing with all sorts of executive producer-ish Managing Editor: Jason Haigh-Ellery Marketing Consultant: Kris Griffin stuff – there's a new website on the way! And Jason and Editor: Kenny Smith Web Services: Hughes Media I agreed that the best way to do podcasts is to do a new one every week. I love it, but it's a brand new hour-long Executive Producer: Nicholas Briggs BFP Administration: Miles Haigh-Ellery, Cheryl Bly programme every week that I'm writing, recording and Line Producer: David Richardson & Alison Taylor editing. Frankly, I'm doing too much and there are times when it seems to be crushing me. But the truth is that I love it Design: Mark Plastow Publisher: Big Finish Productions Ltd. all and love all the people I work with. VORTEX MAGAZINE • PAGE 5 IT'S OH, SO QUIET... KENNY SMITH CHECKS THE TALLY MARKS ON HIS ARMS, AS UNIT PREPARE TO FACE THE SILENCE... LOVE the Silence," says line UNIT are facing an enemy that they Colonel Shindi. Director Ken Bentley " producer David Richardson. keep forgetting are there – and Matt says: "The main strength of UNIT is I "I think they're an ingenious Fitton and John Dorney have used our core cast. We'd worked with Ingrid creation by Steven Moffat, and they them beautifully. I think these scripts before, and we made sure we worked were high on my list of monsters I contain real 'punch the air' moments." with Jemma before we knew for sure wanted to work with when we got the Established UNIT TV stars Jemma we had the chance to make UNIT on new series licence. Redgrave and Ingrid Oliver are back audio. Then we made sure to cast the "And they were such a good fit as Kate Stewart and Osgood, along rest of our UNIT team from actors we for UNIT – not only did it allow us to with Big Finish's own series regulars, knew well. explore some of the fallout from Day with Warren Brown as Lieutenant "This was a conscious decision of the Moon, it also meant we could Sam Bishop, James Joyce as Captain since we wanted everybody to feel tell a very different kind of story. Josh Carter and Ramon Tikaram as familiar with Big Finish, so they could VORTEX MAGAZINE • PAGE 6 UNIT: SILENCED you need two people in a room, having a conversation, and if one of them turns, they see it and that's where it gets interesting. I saw this as an opportunity to have a lot of fun." ATT, WHO has written the first and fourth parts of this M set, enjoyed working with John Dorney on the latest adventures, having previously written the first two UNIT box sets with Andrew Smith. AT FIRST, THE IDEA OF WRITING FOR THE SILENCE ON AUDIO SOUNDS LIKE A Above: Ingrid Oliver TRICKY ONE. all hit the ground running and enjoy to kick it off and have a look at the Matt says: "I've worked with bringing these action-packed stories way the Silence are, as well as their Dorney before on a lot of stuff, where to life. The result is everyone gets on whole ethos. we've script edited each other or like a house on fire. Three box sets "Something I was keen to do was been writing things. There are big, in and I know everybody's happy and have a haunted house story, which action, battle stories, which Andrew confident because they're taking the would suit their scariness! We knew Smith excels at, but Dorney's good at mickey out of me more and more!" we were bringing Colonel Shindi back, bringing in a new angle. with slightly so I thought we could do a bit of a odd things, and it's ideal when he's HIS BOX set sees Matt Fitton Rear Window homage, where no one got these slightly off-kilter ideas – who has written two quite believes what he's saying." which worked for the Silence. T stories in each of the first But John feels differently. "As I'm doing the opener and two UNIT series – joined by John He explains: "One of the things closing story, it meant he could do Dorney. At first, the idea of writing people forget about is how much whatever he wanted with the middle for the Silence on audio sounds like a the Silence talk. In terms of people two. The logic we came up with was tricky one. Matt says: "It was a looking away, all you need is a quick that the human race had been sent to challenge when David gave us the musical sting.