Domain of the Voord is out now!
This month sees the debut of the much anticipated The Early Adventures series from Big Finish, a replacement for the beloved Companion Chronicles and while the new range certainly has big shoes to fill, there is no lack of ambition from Big Finish to make the range stand out and offer something both familiar and at the same time new from the company.
Beginning at show’s earliest days, the first four Early Adventures will focus on the William Hartnell Years, having launched this month with the excellent Domain of the Voord by Andrew Smith. Domain will be followed in October by The Doctor’s Tale by Marc Platt, The Bounty of Geres by Ian Potter and finally An Ordinary Life by Matt Fitton. Speaking to Kenny Smith in the latest issue of Big Finish’s Vortex Magazine, Producer David Richardson comments on the ambition he has for the range:
“It was toward the end of the Lost Stories I began to realise how far we could push these stories towards being full cast productions, despite the fact we are missing key cast members. My ultimate aim was to create productions that sounded like the missing episode soundtracks, but while they were compensating for a lack of picture, we are compensating for the lack of the actor playing the Doctor (and sometimes a companion). But it’s amazing how effectively you can still create the world of Doctor Who and the period with the available actors and tools that we have. I’m listening to edits of Domain of the Voord right now, and it does sound like a season one story that we never had.”
Domain of the Voord writer Andrew Smith agrees that authenticity was high in the minds of cast and crew:
“John Dorney, script editor for this series, came up with the helpful pointer that these should sound like the BBC Audio soundtracks of the lost stories from the Sixties, where narration tends to set up a scene but is otherwise used fairly sparingly. We wanted it to have a feel to it, as if
it had been performed in the 1960s, so the director Ken Bentley had the actors speaking in RP (Received Pronunciation), rather than using regional accents as we would if it had been written for now. It really feels like a bit of Sixties Doctor Who. For instance you get the Doctor arguing with his companions, and Ian in particular getting annoyed with him. It’s good fun and I hope it takes listeners right back to those very earliest days of the show.”
And with the Voord, Big Finish step straight into quintessential Hartnell territory, Richardson is enthusiastic on their potential:
“They are a monster that have never been back since The Keys of Marinus, yet they have a huge amount of potential for new stories. I’d rather like to bring them back again actually – Andrew has filled in some fascinating backstory, and Terry Nation created a fantastic foe.”
Smith meanwhile had lots of backstory to fill for Terry’s less famous creations:
“It was great fun to do – the Voord look amazing, although there are a number of questions left unanswered, and some contradictions, about them in their TV story. For instance, what does a Voord look like? They have a very striking look, and you want to keep that, but one possibility in Keys of Marinus is that they are wearing protective suits in order to cross the acid sea. Of course, the look is great, and I wanted to keep that, but that meant coming up with a rationale for why they would look as they do having an acid sea to cross. So, together with my first pitches, I wrote up a few paragraphs on where I wanted to go with the Voord, whatever story idea David favoured. Listeners will learn what it means to be Voord…”
Domain of the Voord is available now from BigFinish.com and via the Amazon link below, a full review shall be published tomorrow.
The latest edition of Vortex Magazine can also be downloaded via BigFinish.com with comments from all four Early Adventures authors, an interview with Philip Hinchcliffe and much more besides.
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