John Dorney on Big Finish Tenth Doctor Classic Companions, Ninth & Cybermen, The Avengers & more

0:00 hi I'm Maureen O'Brien this is the Sirens of audio what are you doing my mondassian comrade I am listening to the Sirens of audio podcast listening yes Perhaps it is time you upgraded to the video version available on YouTube and Spotify I did not know it was available there my Earth Shockey and Cousin It Is and it is quite an excellent show I will keep listening until I have my visual receptors upgraded I have run out of spare parts

0:45 that is quite satisfactory just leave a five-star review for them on Apple podcasts I will do so and do not forget to like comment and subscribe to their video episodes I hear that helps more entities find out about them it does many thanks for the reminder now let's get on with this week's show I hear the content is excellent can I put briefly to knit to the lou I'm sorry not a problem let's cut you can cover this in some sort of point in the edit otherwise oh this bit might be fun in itself

1:39 [Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] g'day audio files this is the Sirens of audio the show that explores Doctor Who on audio believe it or not I'm Dwayne and I'm Philip get a train g'day audio files g'day Philip today on the show we are going to have a long overdue catch up with our friend John Dorney from Big finish indeed it's been I think two years since

2:25 we've had him on which I cannot believe where the time's gone yeah it just seemed like yesterday it does and I think that you were doing it from a strange place that I remember last time I was I was I was sitting on a cliff top on the air peninsula in South Australia well there you go I don't think you know where it is do you not really Adelaide it's right on the bottom of Australia Mainland Australia um and if you want to know any more detail Google it that's all I can say about that all right we are going to talk about a lot of the releases that John Dorney has been involved with that's going to be the bulk of our chat with him but before we get to that do you know what we need to do no what do we need to do Dwayne well first of all I

3:12 need to say that we had some backlash over the last couple of episodes where our sound effect for the rabbit hole was changed and we've had some listeners uh protesting the change I think that is probably a bit strong grade no I'm calling it backlash I want to make it more controversial than it actually is I want some some clicks all right um so but after talking with you you've convinced me to not change it back like I was going to so let's jump down the rabbit hole foreign [Music] here we are we're down the rabbit hole now we've had a a trailer for the next

3:58 episode of Doctor Who hit our uh socials and YouTube channels and wherever else it's uh come out this week I don't know if you've had a chance yeah I don't know if you've had a chance to see it yet Philip I should probably have a look at that but I haven't yet but it just got me thinking about big finish and the trailers that big finish produce because I love a good trailer it really wets my appetite uh if they do it right are there any trailers from the thousands of big finish releases that really stand out in your mind that have uh have wetted your appetite more than any other there's one particular trailer that is my all-time favorite trailer what about you Philip don't pick the same one I'm going to oh I don't know maybe it might I mean of course we do have an excellent episode

4:45 um speaking to Chris Thompson who makes trailers ah yes so um if you want to go back and have a look at that um so I mean I love Chris Thompson's trailers and I can always pick them because he's got certain tropes he uses um there's a really great one he did with a Dalek um being destroyed which I think was for Time Lord Victorious a preview for that um we'll see if it's the same one but the one the one that I really love is it's a Chris Eccleston that's coming with the Ninth Doctor does a an amazing little monologue very much like the TV series and there's a whole series of images that go with it and a big jump scare at the end so I think that was the one that made me really excited that Chris Michaelson was going back something else I mean I heard

5:30 the news as police was coming but when I heard and saw that trailer I was thinking oh it's it's really happening it's gonna be brilliant do you make a point to listen to the trailers when they're announced on social media if you see a big finish announcement says here's a trailer do you always click on it no it's time I have to be perfectly honest but yeah I usually I usually do whenever the new trailer comes out I'd go and have a look I'm always curious to see what they've done with us but I'm not a big you know I'm not big with spoilers I don't like to know too much of what's coming yeah you like to go in Coal don't you I like to go in cold so more often than not I tend to look for trailers after I've listened to the box set so then that can actually compare and see what did the trailer match up to what the stories were really about how how much was it was anything spoiled was

6:17 anything sort of um teased in a good way um did it actually match up with my expectations so I tend I probably tend to be more an after person than before because I do like to go in cold what about you Dwayne okay um I'm sort of 50 it depends on uh the time Factor as well for me but if you want to know my all-time favorite trailer it is the trailer for Doctor Who davros by Lance Parkin I don't know if you remember that there is a an opening scene before the credits start where Dev Ross is doing this monologue that builds up and up and up to the points where actually I used to use that as as the start of the Sirens of audio when it first uh started where Dev Ross screams

7:04 out this is not the end this is only the beginning and they Incorporated that into the trailer but they cut it in such a way as that they put in completely unique music for the trailer so it wasn't just cut from that monologue from the finished product it was it was redone especially uh that so they took Terry malloy's vocals and it's such a spine tingling moment uh I don't know if in my mind there's ever been a trailer to top that one been very good I think I've better track that one down have another listen to us yeah definitely definitely check it out when I press this switch I will die

7:50 it will be painless they say but if I survive then something stronger will emerge a new race but supreme power in the universe I will not pass this switch I will not cover I will not die I will not die this is not the Earth this is only [Music] how long before the radiation Cloud reaches the Dome I want to find the definitive biography of devils

8:40 if everyone had the equation then the whole collapse all right that'll just a little rabbit hole topic today what do you think we'll get back because I'm sure John's going to talk for a while yes we'll throw in a trailer for uh one of John dorney's stories and we'll be back in just a moment with the man himself from Big finish Productions Doctor Who shadow of the Daleks volume two what are you doing in my laboratory no no come on there's no need for that [Music] there he is look my darling son oh it

9:26 really is dead did you think it was a joke of some sort it wouldn't have surprised me you know how he likes to be the center of attention now I need to find out what I meant to each of you in order to determine the identity of the murderer you mean you plan to solve your own murder exactly you can step in and help at any time by the way be a while since I use the thoughts on oh look at that I'm better than I remember you're saying this is a little more complicated than just a crash yes you'll see this isn't the first time we've met I've recently encountered several people who look like you over and over again

10:12 spread out across the whole history of time and space that's amazing but weird perhaps I think there's more to it than that what's worrying you so much something called a Dalek stay where you are all right we're not going anywhere could you guess surely the voice is a clue robots no mutations there's organic life inside those shells not that you've noticed even if they're as violent as you say they can't be that much of a threat you'd be surprised that the shields are holding for now I'll boost them as much as possible lock the doors well somebody didn't pay their electricity bill still rebooting low on

10:58 power whatever the dialects are up to is the cause of all this I'm sure of it and speaking of dialects that's the door locked we can't get in Time Lord and free unknown humanites located destroy the time lord and the humanoids exterminate [Music] uh right so I think the idea is that I'm supposed to just get on with it now apologies then to those of you who are still listening I suppose there are some of you out there listening

11:43 it's really rather hard to tell from here big finish we love stories John Darley thank you for joining us again my pleasure thank you for having me again so it's been almost two years since last time we spoke to you now in there it is so yeah it's just flown and I've just been looking at what you've done in the last two years you survived covert and we'll talk about that in a bit in a second you just come back from tour after talking yep you've actually completed your mission of watching every oscar-winning film and taking the podcast in New Directions you have a book published yep and I think you've written 13 stories for big Finnish well they've been released four more before the year script edited around seven different

12:29 series and also acted in a number of things it's like it sounds like doesn't it what have you been up to what else have you been up to oh yeah I mean just you know uh visiting the family on occasion and playing some board games yeah that's the rest of the time how did you go to the Mr Coleman because we when we last chatted it was we thought towards the end of we thought as you know towards the end of 2020 we thought the worst was over it was all we're gonna be coming out soon uh it didn't end yet um no I mean I I don't know precisely when in 2020 we spoke uh but I I caught it twice in the interim so I got it once at the end of 2020 I think no was it the end of 2020 no it's end of 2021 I got it yeah and

13:14 and once again about two months ago um I I I'm very fortunate uh covid catcher because I I get quite a persistent cough for a few days and that's it I um I very much appreciate other people have a far far worse time of it than me um but um so yeah I I was being very much in the lucky side of it when I when I got it um yeah I I I I I I I think uh it sort of changed the world and change certainly but the way the big finish do things uh changed because of that um it was it was interesting a few weeks ago I got an email about potentially coming to a recording of a thing um and it was literally the first time I

14:00 think well I think that's the first time I've actually like been asked to attend the physical recording in at least two years I think the last time I did was uh early 2020 was probably palindrome I think um and yeah this would have been but I couldn't make it which was really frustrating I could have been in studio and seen people and had you know the lunch um which was just really disappointing I couldn't do that um and uh and it had a couple of mates of mine in it as well which is even more frustrating and annoying and anyway so that that is something coming out sooner rather than later so uh but I hasn't actually been announced yet even though you can buy it on the website and uh and the box set title is on the website which is something of a clue in itself but uh yeah anyway can't say any more about that no that's fine we get we're

14:46 so used to seeing that um yeah so as you say um it in terms of big Fitness Productions there's all sorts of advantages and disadvantages of course um so shadow of the dialects was the first thing to actually emerge um yes at a lockdown and you know a big rethink in terms of how the monthly range would work um and you had a large part in that and and the finals sort of bring it all together um how quickly did something like Shadow Of The Darlings have to come together oh um really quickly um I mean I I think going from the vague brief to having a completed first draft for me was about a week and a half and that's pretty quick um I've I've done quicker but that was quick um that was a question of doing about a thousand words a day and just making

15:32 some big bold decisions quite early on in the writing process and uh deciding what the story was going to be I think if I remember I must have had like the vague idea of what the the story was in the setup was at sort of Thursday Friday and then figured out what the plot was over the weekend and they could write it the next week I always also thought with that as well that it was potentially going to be very useful for the other people writing it um if I got the explanation and the ending locks at the beginning so I could then build everything to that and make it all work with that um so that is kind of important to go I mean at least one of the reasons it could be quick is because there was literally nowhere else to go you know I wrote it uh when uh my then partner uh and her son were isolated for two weeks and I went to join them and isolated for

16:19 two weeks and couldn't go out and when all you got to do is sit sit somewhere and just type that's all I could do and so I got through it quite speedily on that basis um uh as it happens she didn't have it at the time but we basically still had to isolate for two weeks because the sun had had the symptoms or had a cough again it was all the cough um yeah and then I sent it out to everyone else and kind of bounced it back and forth a bit over a couple of weeks I whilst we sort of you know figured out when it was all going to happen so there was eight stories eight authors yes um so you so did you how much influence and input did you have to each of the other seven stories um I mean pretty much not much at all as well I mean I I think I just emailed out everyone I think I think one or two I

17:06 think one idea I had was I think I suggested the body line series Cricket thing to James uh because that was something I always thought was interesting and thought it might be useful as a starting point for someone and and because it gave me a reason for the doctor to arrive um and because I'm half Australian half English I'm vaguely aware of you know not being a bone of contention between the countries at some point in in Cricket in terms felt like no that could be something to talk about which unfortunately meant that I kind of had to change change Simon's which was going to be a bit of something involving Cricket into something completely different so and again just playing around with it and tweaking it and changing it and then sometimes changing things retroactively I think a couple of bits in the first two episodes weed

17:51 written with straight regular dialects and then realized oh actually maybe they should be time Organics going back and something like I said an early bit of that so then there's a line dropped in about about the uh about them looking a bit more bronze I think something like that and figuring out those things if I didn't know I think that was dropped in before recording but after locking the scripts and things like that um but then that had inferences like trying to hit within Simon said it was it was it was a sort of a working progress thing as we went but um I'm still very proud of it something we've been sort of managed to pull together quite quickly and uh and turned out to be not bad I think it's quite a good release really yeah it's certainly one of the ones where you often see they're thinking one Earth's going on but it drives it drives the next one and it was a stunning Little cast for people just replaying over and over again in

18:36 different rules I think um it might prove uh spoilerific for anyone who's not heard it and wants to hear it skip ahead maybe about 30 seconds no you've had times yeah yeah but I'm telling you where the the thinking was I would occasionally go well I'd look around other art and things and Other Stories and the inspiration for that if I remember right it was Cloud Atlas uh the David Mitchell book and um also a film that I haven't seen in the film which I think I think is it the mokowski sisters dude I think it's them um and uh so yeah that idea of things about reincarnation or in this case pre-incarnation I kind of went with um as a sort of reach into what it could be the central premise of um the same act as playing different roles for some sort of reason it ends up

19:21 being vaguely about the Daleks was um and on their voices glitchy into dialogue every now and then was kind of David but he needed me to come up with a solution of what that actually was about and that's where I came from they're bit into this whole pandemic era was stranded um yes yeah so you'd finished some really um huge Mammoth storylines with both um the remedies which I think what it's called ravenous and do Coalition so those two Bob sets were Mighty big epic stories huge yes huge danger um what what made the decision to bring stranded back to Earth and was that was that pre-pandemic or just coincidental it was it was pre-pandemic um because we wrote most of the first

20:06 box set before the pandemic um I I think it was a sort of a Back to Basics thing really I I was very aware personally that um I I was a little bit thinking we kind of need to do something that doesn't involve time modes because I think the previous three it's a ravenous and Dean Coalition and dark eyes it had a lot of stuff about time Wars in them and I thought I just wouldn't think we need to get away from time Lords uh certainly some of the influence on day of the master as as an example it was I I thought I want to do this big finale I don't want to go to Gallifrey because we did we ended the previous series on Gallifrey and how do you deal with the time lord eating monster without going to Gallifrey which sort of inspired where they decided began about everyone in the universe getting regenerative Powers so it was all that all fed into that and I think we're all

20:53 a little bit Keen to do something different um I I I I don't think we necessarily realize quite how different it was going to be initially we're going to have this meeting in a Starbucks um in central London and me um Ken David Matt uh Dave David Barnes uh so David Richardson and David Barnes and Lisa McMullen and and I had this idea for years of wanting to do a sort of a non-science fiction story set contemporary and contemporaneously and is that right you said that might not be the right use of that anyway um and so I basically said this vague idea about what was going to be it turned out to be wild animals and uh and I remember Lisa saying do I have to not have science fiction

21:39 elements in it as with a bit of a kind of oh God do I have to like have it just like straight and just go no no we go no that's just mine that's just mine but then the more we went on with others we kind of realized oh we've all basically done very very limited science fiction elements in this haven't we and it just feeling very strange and very weird and very different than playing with the format of what Doctor Who Could Be which was exciting to do but then obviously as I said we we'd set it in the year it was going to be released in 2020 and didn't realize that that actually was not going to be quite the same as the way we'd pitched it um there was a sense that it was always going to be set in an alternative reality that was already there feeding into boxer one um but then by the time we came to do box set two it was in the middle of the pandemic it was something like the second or third script I wrote during the pandemic was was

22:26 um um the long way around and the inspiration for the long run around is me spending a lot of time thinking well what what sort of story would gain from being recorded in lockdown and lots of recordings and the things that could potentially sound a bit remote and it's a bit so I thought oh it's gonna be five interviews and that kind of plays to my sort of theatrical Origins a little bit or I think I can write just long scenes about stuff and see how that goes and that's quite fun um and uh in another teaser I've done something that's got another Rook of that where it's a really long scene anyway um the uh yeah but I think even then we were vaguely discussing this idea of being the alternative Direction it's why the opening scene is this weird Nether world Trafalgar Square that's probably

23:13 the real Universe which uh uh I was amazed people didn't pick up was the case until they got to the final story and realized that that's where it was it was based and came back from the scene of the curator was yes theoretically set in our actual covid 2020. um yeah then then I think it became a tiny bit business as usual but then we did the others um I think based in 2021 I think weirdly as I say when I got covered was pretty much the moment I sent or the moment I tested positive for covered it was pretty much the moment I sent through at least possibly the second draft which might be in the final draft of uh best year ever from Big finish Productions Doctor Who the eighth doctor Adventures stranded

23:59 four Randy we couldn't reach him in time everyone died the whole human race no that's what you went there to stop Robin he did this I did this I need to find him fix things we need to get off the ship it's about to crash into that space station now is not the time to nip to the Louvre he's a curator Helen saw him a few more times than me it was a very strange man if the doctor can't find a way to stop this come out come out wherever you are 10 seconds until impact everything will end all creation will blink from existence dancing wants to eat my soul yeah but don't panic why aren't we panicking because they only hunt at the dark

24:49 big finish for the love of stories you preached the voicemail of the doctor sorry I can't take your call but I'm probably out saving the universe please leave a message after the term you've really been playing around with form a bit with your writing so kind of started with palindrome where you did the story working backwards then forwards in terms of that twin theme in Time Warp box four um the wrong way wrong way around as you said was a series of two headers which just built slowly climate actually what just happened totally in reverse and even bestie ever which was I guess it was I think it's probably the first pandemic story script I've heard someone actually trying to deal with what we're dealing with with life

25:35 there were definitely a few I was sort of inspired by I don't know what it's called was it called together or something like that yeah a sort of TV drama with uh James McAvoy and Sharon Horgan which is excellent that's Sylvia I think it's called together but I can't remember entirely um but yeah I got very aware when I was writing particularly I said really when I was doing three because I already figured out what four was roughly going to be before writing so 4-4 was going to be before three four I'm feeling I'm aware that they're all going to be really weird Doctor Who stories so so the one without any science fiction the one that's just interviews the one that's the you know the pandemic and the one that's backwards I kind of thought they will have to have something that wasn't the usual way they're done um I mean I think I've been kind of playing around with form for a while

26:22 there are some which are kind of a bit weird and structured a bit oddly and I mean certainly something I mean Pandorum is a good example but also there's things like um it it takes not a Texas Thief long shot yeah the second lady Christina I did is you know four different perspectives uh yeah just because every now and then I find myself going oh I could be quite interested in doing something a little bit Matt if I if it's often if the question of going I can't I'm struggling to find something that grabs me about storyline and go well what if I mess with the form a bit what if I play uh change to do something about the structure and you know things like that um I think I did suggest a backwards story years ago um there was going to be somebody going forward towards the rest of the time to go back so he gets giving back okay so elements of what became palindra it's all fed into that and I think I was

27:07 turned up I think that's the story that eventually became life in the day actually right um and there are definitely some earlier ones where I've done it where people will just kind of go oh it's a job doing something weird with this form again he's doing some some odd structure stuff uh just let's just go with it it should be fun I still get a base that people still comment on ask questions about the fact that there's something wrong with my CD I'm looking forward to that happening again later in this year I will say in advance no Paradox of the Daleks is supposed to be like that okay it's supposed to be like that and and you'll know what I mean when it happens when you're and even though I've told you this you'll have a moment where you're kind of going oh well hold on is that oh no John said that yes now I remember it's supposed to be like this and you'll

27:53 figure out why like about I'm desperately looking forward to like the comments on Twitter when it happens I'm gonna have to go yeah no just give it another two minutes yeah give it two minutes you'll be fine you'll figure out the point this reminds me of the the first time you're speaking with us you were saying almost exactly the same thing about one of the Cliffhangers you put into Dalek Universe okay and you were hoping you were and and Twitter actually did melt down over that Cliffhanger at the time I think even when when actually released I I think I said on Twitter something like that they go oh I see Universe has come out now I expect to have Tweets in about one hour I think it was much less than that much less than that yeah um

28:38 yeah oh everything's exploded yeah is that what you plan to do you you like uh causing a bit of a stir online I mean I mean not not really I mean I like to kind of do sort of big moments and I I always thought I'm I'm sort of the same as I am as a writer as I'm a as an actor I quite I'm a bit of a tart I think that's always kind of the bit that um um the kind of Main in terms of I think Matt Fenton and I have a very very similar style and we write very similarly um I'm a massive tarty show off in a way that he just is really beautifully constructed in elegant things that does he doesn't feel he has to kind of show off going hey look how clever I've been in the way of isil did do

29:23 um he just was these elegant little beautiful constructions uh but yeah my tendency is I I will think of big Tatum that's really exciting let's do that um and obviously they don't have them all the time but um certainly for some stories it felt like uh it was out so certainly like you know the I remember I remember I think I I like stop the clock quite a bit I'm very happy to stop the quote but it's the one dude Collision story of I feel myself kind of go it's not my favorite and all the others I kind of feel have a big thing they're doing that's quite fun and exciting and stop the clock as the finale having to put the pieces in to finish it doesn't quite work so I was very determined when I was doing day of the master that I thought I want this to be a big sort of tati and a big fun thing and so some of that came from I seem to

30:11 remember like somebody talking to rossity Davis about this and Rusty Davis would think of like big moments big fun moments and so I think once I got this notion of what if everyone in the universe starts regenerating that led to what becomes the beginning of episode two and that led to like the massive Cliffhanger at the end of that which again was this bit of going this is just quite big and fun and I so I like those kind of moments but obviously they're all in service of the story and if you can't if you come up with a big tati moment and you can't find a way to make it fit naturally in the story you can't can't do with it um and certainly with something with um uh buying time in the wrong woman uh that was the result of I think ages of wandering around um the Imperial War Museum Gardens just trying to come up with something um and it had loads of different little

30:58 ideas and difficulties for one it was going to be I think called something like time pirates with an exclamation mark and people chasing the Monk um who I think was always going to be a nun um but uh never quite um it wasn't the same place as the one we've got and there were I think there was one time when I was going to suggest actually killing the doctor at the end of my episode and possibly regenerating someone else but like genuinely killing the doctor and then the next episode is that well I might have been killing Tom bacon regenerators on you who then had to travel back in time and fix the previous or something along those lines might still do that you never know um but all these weird things that like factored into it where all the bits of the process so I think certainly something like when I was thinking about time periods I came up with this notion of what if the what if the monks Tardis

31:44 is a is the is a Bible they carry with them and the moment I thought that I thought I'm keeping that because that's just and so that's why that transferred it and I think the one the moment where I thought this uh thought I'd had years ago um uh about about doing a fake Apple generation um and because I thought it'd be a great way to end the series like have have the doctor get shot and regenerate and then the whole of the next story is the new doctor and then the end of that story is is revealed that that isn't the doctor and the doctors you know I thought that'd be fun and um so the key thing for me was thinking of fake out regeneration that would be fun and the moment you've thought of that and you go oh that would break the internet um it's kind of irresistible to go with I think I think um I was more than anything I was worried that I wouldn't

32:29 be allowed to do it um because certainly when you've got some David Tennant in it I think everyone's very keen that they've done it's very upfront and Center so I think it's why I think that I factored that into so there's all these like you know the the Visions Anya has of him are just to mainly to make sure that people are ready to go no David Tennant is still in this and and we're not you know wasting our money like hiring him for the day um yeah that was um that was a great thing to do so I guess it's harking back to your theatrical background like you've mentioned before that you don't have that theatrical interaction with someone listening to audio but when you put in these little seeds um that you hope to explode uh that's kind of getting a reaction like you do in the theater yeah but I I always want to get a reaction yeah I think um I

33:15 think somebody might have said something at one point where they thought um my general uh desire is to sort of make the audience cry either with laughter or with you know sadness um and I think that's a reasonable point I kind of want people to feel something even if that's that's just thrilled you know they can't all be the big emotional pieces and they can't all be the wacky comedies but some you kind of want them to just be having and having a blast listening to it um and uh and and I and I think that kind of happens most of the time um it's you know it's not a precise science so there's somewhere kind of go oh you know what I'm not as keen on that one as necessary that one but they're very same way and I just feel you know what I feel I really did a good job of that one and there's a few of those got come up so um this is I think Paradox the dogs and

34:01 and here lies draxa uh both hopefully very entertaining and very different in style from Stranded and both very much sort of stand-alone stories and both kind of just focused on the audience audience having a good time really so another thing probably the best of the pandemic was Dark Universe three yes because David tennis became available was any of that being thought about before the pandemic or once it came about there had been vague ideas and I'd sort of nominally worked out the ark for the overall season um and and some of it was underway in different different degrees but a lot of the stuff that was underway in advance then wasn't really usable and had to be

34:47 sort of repurposed um but the majority of it yeah was kind of um there was a nominal plan then actually then kind of taking that to storylines and scripts um was trickier and I I think I I think I was quite late in the day um because I mine was the setup and it was a two-parter and I wrote and this is the setup and I thought about where everybody else's took place in the ark but I thought oh no this just is where it starts oh okay that's all I've got this is where it starts probably involves time because of the setup but that's all I got and then figuring out what the plot was became a little bit panicky um but then yeah when sort of David was on board and pulled the trigger in effect um yeah it became a bit of a kind of um

35:32 of a power throughout situation again as I say there's nothing else to be doing and uh uh so it never felt like it was a rush I was I just feel what you know I was feeling a bit bad when I talked about you know things being done quite quickly because I think people think you might rush and go no no I took exactly the right amount of time and I think certainly it's very easy to write tenant quickly because his dialogue is so but you kind of have to write it with a degree of energy and you're kind of powering through it and uh and also I'm because I'm quite attention deficit disorder I found that um you know if I'm enjoying it I get really hyper focused and I could you know I wrote I think I think I wrote culture like one entire quarter they said like 5 000 words I wrote in a single day um and that wasn't because I I that wasn't me rushing because my deadline basically was I had to do about 2 000

36:19 words a day which is fine very possible um but five hours a day was you know more than two times my amount of the day the reason I wrote five thousand words in a day was because I was having a blast there's most of the early stuff with the newcomer and yeah like the post regeneration stuff I know and you just go I'm just enjoying this I'm just not going to stop I've got what else am I going to do why would I stop why would I stop so whose decision was it to bring back any Kingdom and bring in Mark 7 oh that was um that was uh David I think um I can't remember this long after the time um uh but yeah that was always a definite part of the plan from I mean I think we always relatively Keen to bring andya back and then Mark uh was a great

37:06 character and Joe is a lovely human um so if you do like Joe then yeah Joey's amazing yeah so I know I killed him yeah but so what is the best male companions you've killed off Joe you killed off um Tom Price you killed off Harry Sullivan you just like going around killing off all the male companions uh I mean to be fair but they've all come back so um yeah I mean it yeah I know you mentioned that that's something of a Trope isn't it but I mean um I mean are you not originally intended to kill off Tom Bryce but that was a suggestion from Matt so I don't take any responsibility for that and yeah that was definitely a thing but that's just I think because obviously it was sort of right for the story

37:52 um and for the stories we did and I wasn't really supposed to be writing the episode where I killed them so um uh that was that was by the boy it was that was tough to do because they're really Fallen quite in love with the character he was he was a delight to write um but they're saying yeah then you go but really he has to be bumped off and um for the plot to work and I mean I was desperately Keen to do it in a way that was kind of shocking I mean I think that's one of my sort of my favorite bits in that specific script is um the Trojan dialect of like I I I wanted to lead the audience down there what the line of a cliche have you know this idea that he says her real name and then she kind of you know whatever or whatever their nickname whatever it is I can't remember and then she just killed him it was that's fun because that's always the

38:38 bit in any other story we go oh no that's when he breaks her which is suddenly fine no it's not um yeah so I I again I suppose that's the thing about wanting big moments of you so yeah shocks and surprises and um and things that people are going to remember in storytelling yeah you should get there I like mark seven I was very very distressed and I thought he'll be back in the next episode and he wasn't just going oh no I mean technically he is but he's not as actual mark seven he's still dead yes there he is from Big finish Productions Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor Adventures Dalek Universe two shuttle instruments say this is jansen's world not much else there's a top protocol initiated for

39:23 your safety uncoverman please proceed inside and you're pretty Advanced already aren't you Mariah six so advanced I reckon I've met your brother their other Androids here doctor dozens oh don't believe this let me out we heard someone chat what's going on there's the body of that trolley doctor what's happening something's wrong what's happening I'm not sure the dogs have devastated Earth the solar system the Galaxy countless worlds who's won this many dead someone [Music] who claims to be very familiar with McDonald's huh are you will be exterminated I wouldn't try threatening me major awful lot and it never ends well aim

40:10 your weapons if he tries to please shoot it's just this machine goodbye I was lost now that's not a Folly is it that is what we call in the architectural trade a palace well on your kingdom have you decided time to weigh up the pros and cons hold on tight oh I hope you know what you're doing yeah big finish we love stories one of my favorite things that you wrote recently was Calamity Jenny uh in these series just hilarious but why did they come up how did you decide to do this oh I mean well I think I I can't even remember the origins of that because again that started well before the

40:57 pandemic I remember like meeting um with Adrian and um Matt and what's his name what's his name Albert chappie wrote it the other chat um and uh us having a conversation in a bar in central London we did a lot of chatting in central London about when we developed by the sound of it yeah and I think I just got this idea in my head of I really wanted to have Jenny on a horse chasing down a train in the wild west and I didn't know anything more than that and and here's the weird thing because um I wrote that pretty much immediately after splinters uh so it's coming out in about a month when we're recording this um and Splinter is another relatively

41:42 quick one and Splitters is really quite good and I was very happy with that uh but then climate change because I suddenly had a bit of time I I think I took about two to three months figuring out the plot of that and just really struggling so it's kind of really weird when you can write something and like do a plot and boat and it's done it's great and then and maybe the next one afterwards is you go oh no this is takes me some time and I work for it and come on just get it make the plot work and it took me a long time to even get the concept of it but then weirdly um it was called Calamity journey in my head right from the get-go and it took me a long time to associate that with this other idea I had about a thing that steals luck being quite a fun idea and it took me a long time to come and go oh Father why don't I use that which is called clumsy Jenny for that reason and then um working through the logic of how the

42:29 plotting went and uh yeah I think I I occasionally go for long walks with headphones on listening to music that I'm quite familiar with so my brain is just about engaged with that but it could just to go so it's a little bit distracted so I'm not distracted by too much because there's a very attention deficit as you may have noticed from the conversation and uh just enough to kind of keep me distracted so that the brain can then go and then I just remember I got about halfway through and went ah what is that what if they're both the same Journey yeah that's it that'll do that so it's it's not an evil double story it's a story that looks like it's an evil double story and isn't so in terms of story plotting I mean it sounds to me like for you it's all about putting the plot in order making sure all the logic works is that step one yes yes so at what point do you know this is going to

43:15 be an outright comedy compared to this is going to be terrifying because you you can um you could do suspense you do Terror and then clapping Jane is just a laugh a second yeah it's usually it's usually quite early um it it I I tend to go into things even before I like come up when I'm thinking of an additional idea it I tend to be very aware of it was this a comedy or is this a scary or is this a thriller what is it um and yes I think usually quite an early stage in the process uh uh because I don't think you can even start plotting until you know the tone really um so yeah I think with Calamity I mean I think Clarity journey I was always very aware that it could turn a little it would have to be a little bit comic and

44:03 uh finding way to do that I think there are even things I realized way before I started the script like I thought this has to have a narrator and it has to be an unreliable narrator um I'm not even sure why I thought that but it felt Western it felt like it was a western thing and I'm delighted with Michael bradner who absolutely Nails the toad I wanted for that in the way too it's just you know gloriously rubbish at being a narrator um which yeah fun to do but yeah certainly that was a that was another said yeah you're going to write the synopsis and yeah from that point it has to be I have to be aware in order to to write the storyline I think there's a lot of very very funny one line I mean situational humor which happens throughout the whole thing there's just the progress in terms of the irony that happens which is hubris you also wrote a lot of very very funny lines do they just come at the time of

44:49 writing or do you go back and rework stuff so that it's no no usually they come at the time of writing um I I think I got told once by a sort of Comedy producer he said this thing that I feel seems to be true so the jokes kind of hang there in the air usually I mean to be fair not for everyone this is but but sort of you can just feel that they're sort of there and they feel natural and you go straight into the script um every now and then you read it and go oh there's a thing I've missed there there's a joke I could put in there um but usually it's just a natural association with the moment that's at least the way my brain works um I I think there is a certain degree to which I mean obviously that's not true of everyone but it's certainly a bit of writers and people who do a lot of comic stuff it just feels like

45:35 it sort of just happens uh because the brain trickles that kind of way um and and usually I think remember there's a lovely Richard Curtis quote where he talks about how he could tell if something's funny because he wanted to tell something because people often talk about like comedy writing teams or it's a double act where it's two people uh where they'll tell each other the jokes so they know it's funny and Rich Curtis obviously wrote a lot on his own and he'd say yeah he wanted to go and tell someone and I'll find myself doing that um yeah there's some there's some some fun stuff in there and um but yeah usually that's one of the things that's kind of I get excited about is also you know figuring out what the next joke is and it's also just largely sort of listening to the characters they kind of like volunteer it away I know that sounds insane uh but I I often don't take

46:21 responsibility jokes it just feels like what that character would say next in that circumstance and um occasionally you know you can try contrive it a little bit so um yeah I seem to remember there's like one in Dalek Universe which is um well I suppose the Dark Universe one is a good example uh where where I just needed to Anya to say but I still haven't found what I'm looking for or a version of that line and once you've written that just feels like well clearly David Tennant is going to make some sort of Bono reference he's got to that's just feels natural but it also meant that you're going and I have to work that first line specifically to get that set up to work uh but I haven't found what I'm looking for obviously doesn't do the joke so it has to be by

47:07 Stoneham what I'm looking for but it it's there's a so there's a certain contrivance but at the same time also it just kind of happens once you're thinking along those lines about and you're just trying to think what would that character say and just hearing their voice and most of the time I say they just volunteer the jokes to me but that which sounds weird um but that's just the way it happened they like there and then you just play from the air and put them in the script you want the story sure I'll tell you the story it's a good it's got it all good versus evil gunfights and jail cells a Race Against Time with a tragic ending like jump completed that was fun the

47:52 Jenny 8 is a very good shape not the name of the craft should we do it again from Big Finnish Productions Jenny the doctor's daughter still running so the best thing for us to do is to keep ourselves moving and therefore we're gonna need that reactor for the ship to get that we need to go inside the mold of Ariel seriously I'm just trying to keep it light the girl and the boy just entered the building monitor them I want to know everything they do and anyone they speak to I swear [Music] I wish we knew why it was trying to kill

48:38 us you know it's just a reason would be nice I'm sure it's nothing personal security Alert in audit room nine Noah grab Geraldine then grab me you will be detained for security oh no we won't big finish we love stories now hold tight everyone here we go hello Z I don't know why I said that I mean I guess the other place you do that a lot is The Avengers um oh yeah the um I mean they've just announced uh that this train terminates here where the villain is Paul O'Grady and I kind of made it my special mission to have as many train puns in that as I possibly could because they're alone you know yeah you know you know I think we might be on the wrong track and you know all

49:24 those kind of things um um but I think there's a certain wit needed for The Avengers in a certain style um it means we're always really specific about who writes them because um it's not necessarily a great fit for everyone but um yeah a lot of the a lot of the people we've um work with our you know great at these things what's the process in terms of being able to get a comic strip entering it into a story it's variable from time to time really um the way it tends to work um as well first up stage is going through the strips and figuring out which ones are kind of fun or interesting or got some potential for storytelling um and then uh and then figuring out who we think is a good fit for writing them I mean usually

50:11 because I'm making this election there is at least part of you guys I'd quite like to do that one because I've already got some ideas for it um and but then just figuring out who's available who's interested who's going to be good for writing specific ones um and and and sometimes that works in kind of unusual ways I remember so for example thomsoninsky and Robert Khan uh their first two they did I think we're both a bit sort of bit a bit mindful though um because one had a lot of um little people in it is that the right term I don't know anymore um and the other was um about an African nation that was a bit fictional so all these things were going I went for Tom and Robert on that because I knew that Tom does a lot of work with the guilty feminist he

50:57 produces that and he's very aware of of what you could say what you can do all that sort of stuff so I thought you know he'll be able to treat this absolutely the way it needs to be treated boom uh Tom and Robert and I meant that when they were coming up with a third I thought I kind of feel I need to give them one that's easy and because okay I've also tried very much um when we've been looking through the strips to kind of find one going well that one's going to be a tricky one to do so so but we'll use that because you're trying to like if anything I don't want to basically end up with the final box that we're going and this boxer is all the stories that we've struggled to not find ways to make work so now we're just doing that so occasionally it's almost like a run of time again let's put in one that's a bit a bit tricky to do that we have to come up with something some sort of angle

51:43 some sort of Edge and then that basically meant that um that I then figured out um well I probably need to do um one of those myself which is uh the the alien Story the alien project in the future so I can't remember what the type is that what is that called what happened next I'm not sure it did I can't remember what it is called but it's um yeah um aliens who can predict the future yeah um where the original story is insane and I remember reading it thinking okay well you definitely can't do like half of the original concert where they like travel into space and meet father time um and it's all taken quite straight and you just go but I feel that there's a germ of something I could turn into an Avengers story if I'm like channeling Miner Philip Levine and

52:29 um yeah so that was some of the challenge but then yeah the actual process is is different from Case Case um I think generally speaking the one of the rules of them is if we've asked if we've asked for a specific story I found this with one worked on quite recently you asked for a specific story that's because we kind of want that story and so there was one where somebody came in and then just like added something an entire extra element to it we go I mean that's kind of fun it was fun but um it we might have a story like that anyway in the park because I think in that case again there is another sort of sort it matches that no just do a version of this story but make it more Avengers or or fix the plot holes and all those sort of things but it can be

53:14 so certainly some of them um follow the strip quite closely I think this train terminates here is relatively close from almost like beginning to end uh but then something like this year with you won't believe your eyes um I think maybe about the first half of it is quite close then it begins to Veer away into its own territory um where the strips from and how long are they oh I mean the variable variable places I can't remember where they're from off the top of my head um things like TV comic or things like that those little sort of um short strips that can they can be as short as I think at least one of them I think the one that became the seven deadly assassins was from an annual and it was about five or six pages also included if you if you look it up it also includes one line that we were

54:00 absolutely never going to use um for the same reason because it references a references a poem that um that you you know is referenced quite famously uh in the title of Agatha Christie novel yeah which then now doesn't have that title No Stress For some reason um yeah that was yeah I remember like emailing Roman was going yeah see if you can spot what line you we're not going to use because I will try and use as much of the dialogue from the original strip as I can just for the sake of it not everyone does that uh and sometimes it's weirdly repurposed so something like one of the early ones uh the magnet what's it called the Deadly Six something like that um yeah it's not that it's something different but I feel yeah uh secret six Yeah the secret six and

54:45 um I think with that one that's again one where it's almost entirely the same story almost beginning to end but then the year before that the morse code um has all the same sort of beats in the same order but they're all kind of repurposed and recontextual at least um so it's whatever happens on any specific individual basis and I kind of try to leave lead to leave it to the original to the individual scriptwriters but most of the time the big sort of note I tend to have for people is just um as long as the basic storyline that you give me is broadly the same that'll be fine um so so if like if you do like a paragraph outline and it's basically the same give or take as the original strip synopsis it's fine do what you like with that but so yeah it's still got to be an adaptation of that strip but it's still

55:31 yeah why Mr Steed Mrs Pugh how good to see you again from Big finish Productions The Avengers the comic strip adaptations volume six Steed and Mrs peel our security as a nation depends entirely on the work that we will do over the next few days work that is disappointing breakfast in bed what a treat coffee thank you toast absolutely Stand and Deliver [Music] kill them

56:17 was not a tit on their head s totally good Heavens Man Overboard at my signal France kick down door well that seems awfully implied [Music] I think that Jimmy could be the double agent it had crossed my mind foreign [Music] counties apparently so they steal while I knock your block off rather not if it's all the same to you hang on tightness

57:08 time to die Mrs Fields we can't go up without getting shot and we can't go down without getting shot it's only a matter of time until I find you oh Steve watch out hang on can I help with your departure yeah sounds intriguing peel out big finish for the love of stories [Music] you can go now thank you so when you did Return of the Cybermen yeah how similar or different was that in terms of it oh that was very close that was very close because I think would certainly it's when like I was

57:54 doing with the Avengers uh TV adaptations I I felt that at least part of the reason for doing it is um is as an historical document um that people do not have access to this so you're getting I mean you can if you've got like the Blu-rays and some computer setup I I don't know how to access that but I I'm aware that you can do it that way but um this is a reasonably accessible way of experiencing the story and the scripts that you wouldn't necessarily find as easy to get um and hopefully it's fun and engaging way of doing it I mean there were changes made um I seem to remember bulking up Sarah's part because Sarah's barely in the original I mean she still was wasn't in it as much as she'd like to be but we wanted to make sure that when she's in

58:40 it she's in it and so that meant that a lot of the scripture stuff I tried to find ways of giving to her and making her a bit more present than she was um and and various other bits I think um I think the miners in the original script were Welsh um which um was I think for some reason I didn't seem like I can't remember who wasn't keen on that um but I suggested changing them to being ever being a bit more South African accented uh to match with the colonists in santara experiments that was a good fit um and I sort of came up with the names the new notes and so I think at least one of them was curtsy just on the basis of that being a reference to uh the the book of prize-winning novelist so

59:25 um uh double winning novice I think yeah um yeah so so other than that I felt you know you got to keep it relatively relatively close I think in terms of the comic strips uh there is no chance in hell you're going to get them you can't you can't just like read out the comic strip without taking it maybe that's 10 minutes and thank you give us your money you don't want that and it's also they're they're less authentic and you know a good chunk of them don't entirely feel like The Avengers so finding a way of making work on audio was key and also making them work as an episode of The Avengers was key really just so the rights issues in terms of minus things you can't do original Avengers yes you can do the comic strips why the

1:00:10 differentiation is that generally do not work no I have no idea how the clues work it's something labyrinthine involving I think possibly the movie um but um yeah I I know Sam is producing those kind of checking things out and things that we're kind of uh curious about seeing what's available um I'd love to do some more Kathy Gale stuff um because I think you know I remember there was a point when when we were like figuring out he was going to play an appeal where where Beth's best name came up when someone said so what do you think about the idea of Beth and I said I mean she'd be great but she's Kathy Gale yeah that that woman is on a black man you you could not cast anyone better for Kathy girl than Beth and I think that has absolutely proved the case in

1:00:58 too many targets um her voice was just amazing yeah she sort of sounds like um yeah but also also the fact that you know she's a bit like on a black one in the in that Beth could kick the [ __ ] out of you she's a boxer I don't know if she still does but you know that's the thing we're going no no she's she's got this amazing voice she's beautiful and she's thoroughly hard um so uh who else are you gonna cross the calculator if you're needing a cat a girl so it just succeed that the guy almost feels like we should keep her aside for cat we get and I'm so delighted that then went too many times to go we are casting we are casting barefoot because there's no one else that's the only choice yeah

1:01:43 but yeah so the reasoning behind the right Solutions I don't know I just sort of run with them I know Sam's kind of looking into things a bit but we we'd love to do more we'd love to do as many as we can really the Ninth Doctor adventure story that is still probably my favorite is one that you wrote called monsters in Metropolis and I when I first saw that title it made me think of Superman for some I don't know if that was oh yeah some kind of misdirection on your part but I was thinking yeah it's Metropolis so yeah yeah so so when I when I looked at the blurb and looked at what it was about it sort of my eyes widened because it's one of my favorite films of all time so to have that set on the actual set of metropolis I thought that was pretty pretty thrilling

1:02:29 um how important is Metropolis to you as a movie lover I mean weirdly I'd not seen it until 2020. uh I I had a copy um a sort of um years ago that's years ago a lot of newspapers in in the UK started giving things away for free like films DVDs and books uh until there was a court case when which basically stopped as a practice but I meant that you'd occasionally go to the the newspaper and go oh that is a free copy of metropolis with it so I get this and gone around to watching it um I I was getting to the point of watching it because uh with the podcast I do we're watching we watch all of the films that won best picture and I was just coming up to watch Wings which was in 1927 as the first film the one best

1:03:16 picture or the equivalent of it um and is the only silent to film The only is completely silent films are one it's also amazing it's really good thoroughly recommended to everyone though it's about three hours long so why work up to it um do some other short silence things before but at least one of the ones I watched in the front was Metropolis which was sort of in the ballpark but I think even before that uh was when I was asked being talking about developing the ideas for a first doctor story sorry not doctor story and and I got thinking about what happened in that season and I started thinking about celebrity historicals and thought who could it be and because I was aware I was about to watch Metropolis um I thought well what about Fritz Lang so it's like and my brain was thinking about other side of films and there's um

1:04:01 a film called shadow of the vampire which is not silent but it's based around um uh FW murnau casting a real vampire in nosferati and I thought oh what if it's what if it's Fritz Lang Castle real Cyberman in and at the moment I thought that went yeah that's it and um and I think initially when I sent it in everyone thought oh that might sound that might be a bit silly I was going no no no that is not where I want to go with this that is not what I want um I think it weirdly isn't it's one of the stories the other one I could think of being solitaire where a lot of the plot but not exactly a lot but some of the plot was derived after thinking of the title and because of the title um so Solitaire I figured out the solution to the game because of the title

1:04:47 um and when I realized what my way out the clip I got the cliff I figured out the way out of the cliff I'm going but it's called Solitaire I'm cheating I'm cheating I haven't figured out anyone that's it that will all fits all comes together would be a nice surprise monster Metropolis I remember it was again we'll go for a walk in a park which is where I think of a lot of the

…