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Later this year, the First Doctor and his companions return for a set of four full-cast audio adventures… one of which features a future regular enemy!
Big Finish’s Doctor Who: The Early Adventures comes back this September, with new tales starring Carole Ann Ford as Susan, William Russell as Ian Chesterton, Maureen O’Brien as Vicki, Peter Purves as Steven Taylor, and Jean Marsh as Sara Kingdom. And rather excitingly, Jemma Powell will play Barbara Wright, a role she also undertook in the 2013 anniversary docu-drama, An Adventure in Space and Time! Producer, David Richardson says:
“I’ve always needed a great deal of convincing to recast the Doctor and companions on audio, but after our success with Tim Treloar as the Third Doctor and Elliot Chapman as Ben Jackson, I became more open to recasting Barbara, who was played so wonderfully by Jacqueline Hill. Really there was only one choice – Jemma Powell, who had played Jacqueline (and played Jacqueline playing Barbara) in An Adventure in Space and Time. Her arrival at our studio was enthusiastically embraced by her co-stars, who were so admiring of her performance in Mark Gatiss’s brilliant special.”
The first series of The Early Adventures featured stories involving the First Doctor, while the second series revolved around the Second Doctor. This third series returns its focus to the Time Lord portrayed by William Hartnell, kicking off with The Age of Endurance by Nick Wallace, in which the TARDIS lands aboard the Vangard, a deep space vessel which in turn is boarded by the forces of the military dreadnought Endurance. The crew are fleeing a race known as the Shifts – and the travellers become embroiled in this battle for survival. The guest cast include Gethin Anthony (Game of Thrones, Aquarius), Andy Secombe (Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) and Rachel Atkins (The Archers).
Then, in Philip Lawrence’s The Fifth Traveller, there’s a new addition to the TARDIS team in the form of Jospa, played by James Joyce – who listeners will recognise from UNIT: Extinction. The cast also includes Elliot Cowan (Beowolf: Return to the Shieldlands) and Orlando James, who played Lord Bentham in The Day of the Doctor.
Next comes The Ravelli Conspiracy, an historical story set in Florence in the year 1514, in which the First Doctor encounters Renaissance writer, politician, and diplomat, Niccolo Machiavelli (Mark Frost). Written by playwrights, Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky, the tale also stars Olivia Poulet (The Thick of It), and Robert Hands, who fans will know as Algy from The Empty Child/ The Doctor Dances (2005).
And to round off the series: The Sontarans by Simon Guerrier, starring Dan Starkey as… well, you can probably guess! Richardson further teases:
“It’s established in The Time Warrior in 1974 that the Third Doctor has encountered the Sontarans before. One line of dialogue fired up our imaginations, and Simon’s thrilling script is the result – a full-blooded war story set in deep space.”
We’ll have to wait until December for that – and after that, Series 4 is expected to revert to stories with the Second Doctor!
You can pre-order the entire Early Adventures’ Third Series from the Big Finish website today.
The post Jemma Powell Stars as Barbara Wright in Big Finish’s Early Adventures! appeared first on Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews.
