Big Finish - Sontarans, Kisses and Rats!

Amplify’d from www.bigfinish.com

The Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa will be reunited again in a new series of audio adventures from Big Finish Productions. “It was wonderful that Janet Fielding decided to reprise the role of Tegan earlier this year for three very successful stories,” says executive producer Nicholas Briggs, “and it’s even more wonderful that she wants to do more! It’s all happened just before Christmas – Mark Strickson flew in from New Zealand, Peter Davison worked around his Legally Blonde and Law & Order schedule, and Janet and Sarah Sutton travelled up to London. Getting them all together is a massively complicated bit of scheduling – but it’s worth it!” The mini-series opens in April 2011 with Heroes of Sontar by Alan Barnes, which brings the Big Finish debut of The Sontarans. "We thought the obvious thing to do with the Sontarans would be a very ‘80s, Earthshock-style, 'capture the bridge' action piece,” Barnes tells DWM. “So rather than that, Heroes of Sontar is quite stripped-back – just the Doctor, his companions and a platoon of seven Sontarans trapped in a deserted alien citadel, fighting to survive." “Casting the Sontarans has been an interesting process,” adds Briggs. “We initially considered guest star names, but then realized that the most important thing was to make sure the voices were absolutely authentic. We wanted to hire people who would spend time watching The Time Warrior, and mastering those very distinctive rasping tones. In the end, we went for actors who we know very well and work with regularly: Duncan Wisbey, John Banks, Alex Lowe, Andrew Fettes and Derek Carlyle. And we started day one of recording with a ‘Sontaran Masterclass’ in the studio – just to make sure that everyone was on the same page.” Next up in May is Kiss of Death by Stephen Cole, who wrote for this team recently with The Whispering Forest. It’s set on an alien world that has a particular significance for young Vislor Turlough… "Kiss of Death came about because Steve Cole and I really rate Turlough,” says Barnes, who is also script editing the stories. ”We thought it'd be nice to give him a sort of romance – and expand on his origins, perhaps..." Finally June sees the release of Rat Trap by Tony Lee, who has previously written Doctor Who graphic novels for IDW Publishing. The guest star is none other than Terry (Davros) Molloy, who is playing Dr Wallace. "Rat Trap is set on Earth, in 1983,” says Barnes. “It's a bit Edge of Darkness-y. If Edge of Darkness had been all about a bunch of laboratory rats conducting experiments on humans in a top secret government complex, that is."