David Richardson (Producer)
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Updated: December 23 2020 09:43
What I found most flattering was the fact that Ian McCulloch (Greg Preston), at several times during recording, said he felt our episodes were the equal of the very best Terry Nation scripts.
INTERVIEW
Is it fair to say that Survivors is something of a departure from the norm for Big Finish? It's a high concept series, but it's terrestrial, it's set in a real time and place, and there are no signature science fiction elements.
No, it's a fair point. Survivors isn't the kind of science fantasy that we usually make. It's a real departure into a more reality-based storytelling. Having said that, I think the contrast with the other stuff that we make actually makes it a very good choice for Big Finish to be doing. Everything that we do at Big Finish is made out of love. We have a passion for these shows. I love Survivors, and I wanted to make it with love. It's very much in keeping with the first series of the TV show and it's very much 'Terry Nation's Survivors'. Our logo says 'Terry Nation's Survivors', and that’s what it'll be. This is very much a thriller. To me, Survivors is about the best and the worst of human nature in extreme circumstances – and that's the kind of stories we're telling.
Has the idea of bringing Survivors into the Big Finish fold been long in genesis?
I've wanted to do Survivors for ages. It's a showed that I absolutely loved, back in the 1970s. I watched every episode as it went out. It was one of the series, along with Blake's 7 and The Avengers that I really wanted to bring to our catalogue. Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs, executive producers here at Big Finish, were very supportive of the idea when I suggested it to them. We then negotiated the rights with the Terry Nation estate, who were lovely and supportive, as they always are.
To me, Survivors is about the best and the worst of human nature in extreme circumstances – and that's the kind of stories we're telling.
David Richardson
Did the television remake of Survivors, in 2008-2010, impact on or influence your plans at all?
No. We didn’t get going until long after that had finished production. And I do feel very strongly that a big part of the appeal of what we do at Big Finish is nostalgia, so I didn’t want our Survivors to continue the recent incarnation of the story. I thought that we should go back to the original, the one that meant so much to me when I was younger. I’d also worked with Lucy Fleming before and I'd met Ian McCulloch and Carolyn Seymour, when I was doing interviews for different magazines, and they were all lovely people. So I was keen to work with the actors from that generation of the show.
Once you'd settled on your brief for the series, did you insist that the writing team all familiarise themselves with the original source material?
The only brief was to sit down and watch the original series again – which script editor Matt Fitton did multiple times. He checked out continuity in astonishing detail, so it does fit in very closely with what was done on TV. The events of episode three see Lucy (Jenny) and Ian (Greg) coming into a story as a repercussion of something that happens on the TV show; so narratively, it works beautifully. All the writers were fans of the show. When I had the first conversation with John Dorney about writing he'd been watching the DVDs so was very keen to leap in and get on with it. One thing that I love about Big Finish is that we have very close, collaborative teams, and certainly director Ken Bentley, writer John Dorney and script editor Matt Fitton work very tightly as a group. We're good mates, as well as a good fit creatively. We've worked on other projects together, we know each other’s sensibilities, so it’s very easy to work out how we'd all fit together on this.
How close is the scale of Big Finish's Survivors to that of the original TV series?
We've remained true to the original TV show. It remains a drama about characters. What is so fascinating to me, and I think that the writers have really tuned into it, is what human nature becomes when civilisation is stripped away; and what happens when the technological world suddenly stops working. There are some fantastic lines in "The Fourth Horseman" which have stayed with me all of my life, actually, like the question one survivors poses – 'how do you make a candle?' We've got elements of that in this. Chase Masterson’s character has a lovely observation – we've made the world so small, but what happens if it becomes a big place once again? In this new world somewhere that's only ten miles distant is suddenly a long way away. We stay true to the original series. We’ve kept it about characters, but there are some unexpected 'shock' moments along the way, which enable us to make the drama just a little bit 'bigger'.
Survivors: New Dawn 4
The final series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy on CD and as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Abby and Jenny begin a new phase in their own journey as listeners, many of whom have followed the series from series one released back in 2014, come to the end of theirs. It’s been a remarkable, often unsettling, and always compelling series made by a creative team who have shown time and again their determination to grasp the full dramatic potential of Terry Nation’s inspired original premise."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 3
The third and penultimate series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy on CD and as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Big Finish's Survivors stories have always distinguished themselves by their ability to surprise and to shock... Together with the decline and fall of the New Federal Government, Tate's fate is a salutory reminder that there are no guarantees that the next generation of survivors will face a brighter future - even as the horrors of the pandemic fade into memory."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: Crusade
An original Survivors audiobook, narrated by Carolyn Seymour, is available to buy as a digital download from Big Finish.
"This astute, cautionary tale of the threat that distorted religious certainty can pose to the survivors of The Death is the kind of grown-up and probing storytelling for which the series' setting is so conducive... Seymour's narration is... as perceptive and mellifluous as ever."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 2
The second series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"The New Dawn series has been a compelling, well-executed foray into a 'future' post-pandemic Britain never before attempted in the Survivors universe. Big Finish regularly jumps around within and beyond the established canon of TV series in its range, and that option would remain open in the world of Survivors. Who knows what will come next? If New Dawn 2 marks the end of Survivors journey on audio, then that will mean that an accomplished, inventive and assured series concludes with a remarkable and satisfying endpoint."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: Ghosts and Demons
This original Survivors audiobook, narrated by Carolyn Seymour, is available to buy as a digital download from Big Finish.
"Ghosts and Demons is a fantastic addition to the audio literature of Survivors. Author Ethan Milsea uses the cautionary tale of the predatory Tommy as a means to explore the different fears and nightmares that haunt those who have experienced the trauma of The Death and survived. This story, which locks itself in to the first TV series' timeline, delivers admirably on what can often be an elusive ambition: to be both in-keeping with the existing dramatic terrain and to break open new and fertile ground."
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: New Dawn 1
The first series of this new Survivors audio adventure is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"The first series of New Dawn retains the core sense of jeopardy that made the original post-Death context of Survivors so compelling. Yet it does in a way that is original and genuinely exhilarating. Imagining how the country might have moved on more than two decades after the pandemic provides Survivors with a new 'what if' premise that crackles with potential"
Survivors: A World Away
Survivors: series nine
The ninth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"There's still great potential here, as the UK begins to emerge from the dark ages of The Death, for more stories set in this uniquely realised dystopia, should sufficient numbers of those who have yet to purchase copies of this extraordinary audio series belatedly recognise the error of their ways. If that doesn't happen, this will remain a stunning finale for what must be celebrated as a consistently compelling audio drama, 5/5"
Cultbox
Survivors: series eight
The eight series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"This latest boxset delivers an impressive mix of large scale, high stakes and small scale, intimate stories which set in motion the events which will come to an explosive conclusion in the final set in this current run of post-apocalyptic dramas, 5/5 "
Cultbox
Survivors: series seven
The seventh series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"At times harrowing, at other moments uplifting, and never anything other than completely riveting listening, this latest series of Survivors audios delivers drama that is simply unmissable. As the series leaves behind the timeline of the TV incarnation of the show, Big Finish's writers, cast and crew are all clearly brimming with fully deserved confidence. The two series of new Survivors audios coming in 2018 could scarcely be a more exciting or (in the best sense of the word) a more unpredictable prospect, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series six
The sixth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"After five extraordinarily well-received box sets, each of which offered a self-contained and themed collection of four episodes, the sixth series of Survivors audio adventures confidently takes a fresh approach... It's a liberating shift in format and, under the keenly judged direction of Ken Bentley, these scripts make exceptional use of the opportunity to tell diverse, if equally compelling, standalone stories, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series five
The fifth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to buy (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"As it explores the highest stakes possible, this develops into the most thrilling and compelling set of stories in Big Finish's Survivors series to date: which, considering the exceptional quality of the drama in the preceding four instalments, is quite some achievement. This is extraordinary, exemplary human drama; by any standard, 10/10"
Starburst
Survivors: series four
The fourth series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
"Intelligent, literate and superbly scripted and performed, this is a post-apocalyptic drama of the highest possible calibre. Determined to avoid the predictable tropes of that genre, it invites its listeners to navigate a moral minefield in a way that few other dramas of this type would attempt. This comes recommended without reservation"
Starburst
Survivors: series three
The third series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Survivors: series two
The second series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Survivors: audio-book
A full-length audiobook of Terry Nation's Survivors novel (in CD and download formats) read by Carolyn Seymour.
Survivors: series one
The first series of new Survivors audio adventures is available to purchase (in CD and download formats) from Big Finish.
Latest updates
New Dawn 3 reviews added
Added: 17 May 2023
Review of Crusade audiobook added
Added: 21 June 2022
New Dawn 2 reviews added
Added: 02 March 2022
New Dawn 1 and Ghosts and Demons reviews added
Added: 03 January 2022
Links
Original TV series (1975-1977)
- Survivors: A World Away (main site)
- Survivors: A World Away (news blog)
- Survivors: Mad Dog (special episode site)