On their Facebook page, Big Finish have today (16 May 2015) posted the first publicity shot showing the reuniting of Carolyn Seymour and Richard Heffer.
This week in the studio – Survivors: Series 3!
Ahead of next months second series, recording has just finished on the third instalment of Big Finish’s revival of the classic post-apocalyptic series – featuring a reunion between two classic characters!
Abby Grant (Carolyn Seymour) is reunited with Jimmy Garland (Richard Heffer). Both characters left the Grange at the end of the first TV series. But where will their struggle for survival take them now?
Recording of the third series of Survivors audio adventures, scheduled for release in November 2015, has completed today at Big Finish’s London studios. Producer David Richardson, actors Chase Masterston, Andrew French and John Banks and scriptwriter Andrew Smith all took to Twitter in the last couple of days whilst working in the studio.
That's #TerryNationsSurvivors Series 3 recorded. Searingly intense on microphone; shamelessly outrageous fun in the green room.
I was fortunate enough to visit the studios on Thursday (14 May), the penultimate day of recording on the series to interview cast and crew (and be mightily impressed by hearing just a glimpse of what’s in store for series three). I’ll be publishing lots of information, insight and opinion from those interviews in the week and months ahead.
In the meantime, if you’ve not already done so – a reminder that series two (scheduled for release in June 2015) is still available for pre-order from the Big Finish site, as is series three (November 2015), series four (June 2016) and series five (November 2016).
Lucy Fleming (Jenny, Survivors) appears in a new play As Good A Time As Any, written and directed by Peter Gill. The play is described as:
a witty and ironic portrait of eight women on a spring morning in London. The play is divided into five choruses. The eight women are the ordinary, unheroic inhabitants of the city, who speak for the continuity of everyday life, and its inexhaustibility. The world of As Good A Time As Any is on the face of it a small one, yet it has an intensity and depth of emotion which make it feel transcendent and universal.
Fleming plays the role of Slyvia, a character described in The Guardian review (5 May 2015) of the production as ‘an upper-middle-class scatterbrain ruefully dwelling on the amorous path not taken.’ She is joined in the production by Roberta Taylor, Tessa Bell Briggs, Indira Joshi, Olivia Llewellyn, Eileen Pollock, Hayley Squires, and Sharlene Whyte.
THE ACTOR HUGH Walters (Vic Thatcher, series one Survivors, “Revenge”- “A Beginning”) has died at the age of 75. Walters, who was was born in Mexborough, Yorkshire, on 2 March 1939, passed away in London on 13 February 2015.
Walters enjoyed a long and successful career as a TV actor, appearing in numerous series including the 1970 version of Ivanhoe, Sentimental Education and Never Say Die. He also appeared in The Fenn Street Gang, The Train Now Standing and three Doctor Who stories: “The Chase” (William Hartnell, 1965), “The Deadly Assassin” (Tom Baker, 1976) and “Revelation of the Daleks” (Colin Baker, 1985).
Walters took over the role of Vic Thatcher part way through the first series of Survivors after the original actor Terry Scully was taken ill and unable to perform in the upcoming episode “Revenge”: the pivotal story for his character. Walters’ introduction in to the role was, at producer Terry Dudley’s insistence, ‘disguised’ by Thatcher’s facial disfigurement in a cry-for-help suicide bid.
Walters excelled in the role, bringing out the vulnerability and warmth in the character of Thatcher (abandoned to his fate by the ruthless Anne Tranter at their quarry hideaway when he is injured in a tractor accident). Walters also captured Thatcher’s devious and deeply driven nature, as he pursues his bid for vengeance against the woman who left him for dead. Thatcher’s eventual acceptance of Tranter’s nature (and her desire for life at any cost) is also sensitively and convincing played by Walters.
By the time of “A Beginning”, Walters’ Thatcher is a more reconciled and enaged figure within the Grange community, contributing to plans to form a new defensive alliance between communities. The character of Thatcher is killed off, along with many others, in the devastating fire which engulfs the Grange at the start of series two. (Vic Thatcher is briefly glimpsed attempting to escape the fire – but Walters did not return to perform this fleeting farewell cameo).
Hugh Thornton Walters (2 March 1939 – 13 February 2015).
LONDON, ENGLAND – JANUARY 26: Lucy Fleming (L) and Simon Williams attend an after party following the press night performance of ‘Taken At Midnight‘ at The Institute of Directors on January 26, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by David M. Benett/Getty Images)
Bernard Kay (who memorably played the role of Sanders in the third series Survivors episode Mad Dog) has died at the age of 86.
Kay was found deceased at his home on 29 December 2014, though details of his passing have only been published today.
In 1977, Kay arrived on location in Derbyshire to record his role in Mad Dog only days after the death of his wife Patricia Haines, who passed away aged 45. Mad Dog director Tristan de Vere Cole later recalled: “She had literally just died the week before shooting. And he arrived.. and I had said to him ‘look Bernard, we can leave your scenes.’ He said ‘no, no — I want to work.’ So we stayed up, when he’d arrived that first night at the hotel, until three o’clock playing backgammon.” Come the next morning: “he did his job, he was so professional.”
Kay enjoyed a long and varied career on the small screen, in film and on stage. On TV, he appeared in Z Cars, Doctor Who, The Professionals, Coronation Street and Foyle’s War amongst many other productions.
Toby Hadoke recalls of Kay’s work: “He was one of those superb understated but versatile actors that we don’t seem to have any more. He never gave a bad performance. He was greatly admired by his peers. His sense of humour was combative but there wasn’t any meanness in him.”
Today (11 December 2014) Big Finish release the audio-book version of Terry Nation’s 1976 Survivors novel, voiced by none other than Carolyn Seymour (the original series’ Abby Grant). The audio is available to buy in both digital download and CD formats.
Carolyn Seymour’s chilling reading of Terry Nation’s Survivors novel is out today…
Big Finish are delighted to announce today’s release of Survivors by Terry Nation, a reading by TV series star Carolyn Seymour:
A deadly virus spreads across the world as quickly as the passenger jets that encircle it. Within weeks, most of the global population is dead.
The human race is thrown back into the dark ages. The few left alive must rely on the most basic skills to survive one day to the next.
Abby Grant ventures out into a strange new England, her husband dead, the fate of her son unknown. Jenny Richards flees London. Engineer Greg Preston arrives from abroad. Desperate lone travellers come together, their instinct to form a community, even if that means rebuilding civilisation from scratch. But not all who are left have such high ideals…
And while she has the chance of a new beginning, Abby cannot settle until she knows the truth. Has her son survived?
Full casting has been announced for the 2015 UK Tour of Twelve Angry Men. Seven actors who recently appeared in the West End revival will reprise their performances for the tour.
Joining the previously announced Tom Conti is: Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street), Robert Duncan (Drop The Dead Donkey), Andrew Frame (EastEnders), David Calvitto (These Shining Lives, The Odd Couple), Mark Carter (Hollyoaks, Utopia) and Sean Power (Secret Diary of a Call Girl). Jon Carver (Doctors) returns to play The Guard.
The cast is completed by: Denis Lill (The Royal, Only Fools And Horses), Paul Beech (King Lear, A Tale of Two Cities), Alexander Forsyth (Porcelain, It Never Ends), Edward Halsted (Holby City, Jonathan Creek) and Gareth David-Lloyd (Torchwood).
Twelve Angry Men opens on 27 January 2015 at the Theatre Royal Windsor with the current cast initially confirmed to play until 2 May 2015.
Twelve Angry Men is produced by Bill Kenwright and directed by Christopher Haydon, with design by Michael Pavelka. Originally written, by Reginald Rose, as a television play in 1954, Twelve Angry Men was adapted for the stage in 1955 and as an Oscar-nominated Hollywood film, produced by and starring Henry Fonda in 1957. The production was first seen in the West End last November, when it opened at the Garrick Theatre, London starring Robert Vaughn and Jeff Fahey.
UPDATE, 20 April 2015: The tour has now been extended until 27 June, with additional runs at theatres in Southend, Wolverhampton, Barnstable, Croydon, Newcastle and Glasgow. Tom Conti will not appear at the Southend or Wolverhampton runs; with the part of Juror No. 8 being taken on by Jason Merrells.
The interview, in the latest issue (No. 70) of the free-to-download Vortex magazine, comes ahead of the imminent release of the Survivors audiobook (which is still available for pre-order on both CD and through digital download).
In the interview Seymour reflects on the continuing relevance of the themes of Survivors:
Nowadays, it’s so relevant, and very apt when you think of the danger that we’re facing today with the threat of Ebola. Survivors has never lost its appeal, as it’s so possible, and it’s not too difficult to imagine that something like that could really happen.
Ian McCulloch’s (Greg Preston) participation in the recent Abertoir 2014 horror film festival is documented in some of the video, photo and Twitter commentary from The Ghostface Girls.
Luigi Cozzi and Ian McCulloch in the Contamination Q&A session at Abertoir 2014
The Ghostface Girls produced daily video diaries from the festival. The screening of Contamination, and the question and answer session which followed, is discussed at 2ms 50s. One of the Ghostface Girls comments: “The Q&A was fantastic. It’s like one of those things that you only get from festivals; to get these people who’ve probably not seen each other for a long, long time, to suddenly sit down and talk about what they did, like, thirty years ago.”
‘An Evening with Ian McCulloch’ is discussed, and briefly illustrated at 2ms in, in this video log from the event.
