Survivors: A World Away – news

Big Finish have today (2 December 2015) revealed that Zoë Tapper, who played the role of doctor Anya Raczynski in both series of the BBC’s TV remake of Survivors in 2008-2010 will be joining the cast of series four of Big Finish’s new Survivors audio adventures, set in the time and place of the original 1975 TV series.

Tapper will be taking on the role of new character government official Evelyn Piper “who listeners will first encounter in a flashback to the beginnings of the plague that decimated the globe”. At the time of the making of the first series of the Survivors remake, Tapper conceded that she was not particularly aware of the original TV incarnation of Survivors, but is delighted at being given the opportunity to return to the context of the original series and join new and original stories set in the world first devised by dramatist Terry Nation.

Recording on series four of Big Finish’s Survivors audio adventures will take place early in 2016, with the fourth series scheduled for release in June 2016 (with series five following in November 2016).

Series three of the Big Finish Survivors audios was released earlier this month, and was greeted with an immediately positive critical reception, and is available to buy in both CD and digital download formats. Series one and series two, and an unabridged audiobook of Terry Nation’s 1976 Survivors novel, are all available for purchase from Big Finish. The award-nominated first series opening episode Revelation is available as a free download from the Big Finish site.

In two exclusive new interviews, Richard Heffer (Jimmy Garland) and Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) discuss turning the clock back forty years to return to their shared Survivors storyline in series three of the new Survivors audio adventures from Big Finish.

Says Seymour of finding more and more of the original Survivors cast being reunited for the Big Finish audio dramas:

it’s wonderful to meet everybody who was in the series before – the original group. A lot of the acting peers in my age group have gone. So seeing the ones that are still alive, and connecting like we did – because we were so close – is heaven.

Heffer suggests that the character of Jimmy Garland has remained:

a person who was always in the back of my head. He was very like the character in The Mad Death. Obviously he was posher, and one of the things he represented in Survivors was that sort of paternalistic view of things from an earlier era. It was a really interesting part, and one of the sort of roles that did, I suppose, often come my way.

In a new and exclusive interview recorded at the Big Finish studios, Paul Thornley discusses his role as the chilling and ‘rage fuelled’ Vinnie Vincent, in series three of the Survivors audio adventures. Says Thornley of the character of Vinnie, the would-be governor of post-apocalyptic Britain:

He thinks of himself as a ‘great thinker’, and as an astute mind. He sees Abby as the same. He sees something in her, and he can’t quite understand why she can’t see it in him. “The two of us – we could be great together!” – he reckons.

In original interviews, recorded in the Big Finish studios earlier this year, Chase Masterson and Andrew French discuss their work on the third series of Survivors audio adventures from Big Finish. Says Masterson of the plight facing the character of Maddie Price:

one day in the future any of us could wake up and wish that we had back exactly the life we have today. And I think it’s a great lesson to take from the series: being grateful about what we have.

Andrew French says of the moral texture of the latest series of Survivors:

I think these stories are quite moral. If you were in this situation, what kind of leadership would you want? Would you want someone who would kill anybody else as long as you were safe? I think most people would probably say “yes”, in the final analysis. But what does that make you? I think that these are incredibly moral tales.

In a new and exclusive in-studio interview, John Banks discusses his work as journalist Daniel Connor in the third series of Survivors audio adventures from Big Finish. In the interview he reflects:

I talked with producer David Richardson about the character for quite a long time actually before even I saw a script, and the whole idea of him. We got very excited. David was already very excited with the notion of the series. When he told me about it I immediately latched onto it. I knew the TV series. And it was such an exciting thing to be involved with.

The new edition of Big Finish’s house magazine Vortex (No 81, November 2015) includes an two-page interview with actor John Banks (Daniel Connor) discussing his work on the third series of Survivors audio adventures. The issue also features some brief comments from Miranda Raison (who plays the role of Janet the new series of Survivors), who admits that: “Survivors was surprisingly dark”; and a photo showing Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) with fellow cast members of the new Jago, Litefoot & Strax story “The Haunting” (in which Seymour appears).

Earlier this week Big Finish released the much-anticipated third series of Survivors audio adventures! The new four-part series is available to buy in both digital download and CD formats.