THE SILVER ARCHIVE study of the classic series three Survivors episode Mad Dog is now available to buy through the Lulu platform.
This means that it will be much cheaper for readers in the United States, Canada and continental Europe to purchase print copies of the book.
This is because Lulu has print-on-demand facilities in all of these territories and only has to charge domestic (rather than international) postage rates to ship the book to local customers.
We have print facilities located in Australia, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Your order will be routed to the printer closest to the shipping destination to ensure speedy fulfillment and delivery.
Lulu, Where will my book be printed and shipped from?
The electronic version of the book, and the print version of the book for UK-based customers, can still be purchased direct from the web site of the publisher Obverse Books.
‘Saliva only has to make contact with the skin. Rabies doesn’t even need a scratch. If it’s in the bloodstream, it’s too late.’
Mad Dog (1977) is a standout instalment of the third and final series of the BBC’s post-apocalyptic series Survivors. A touchstone in the series’ switch to a tougher, bleaker sensibility, the episode is rightly remembered for its portrayal of rabies and its gripping chase sequences. But it’s also a story offering fascinating insights into the wider human predicament, which dramatize the tension between optimism and cynicism and between altruism and self-interest. Above all, it’s a story that foregrounds the complex relationship between humanity and the natural world in a fictional post-pandemic Britain.
A BID TO draw up plans to reinstate the rail connection between Bakewell and Buxton – which could have led to trains running across the Monsal Dale viaduct once again – has failed to attract government backing.
The Monsal Dale viaduct, and sites across the Monsal Valley, provided evocative locations for the third series Survivors episode Mad Dog – which was recorded entirely on location by the BBC’s Outside Broadcast (OB) camera in 1977 in Monsal Dale, above the Dovedale Valley near Ilam and on the Severn Valley Railway.
A proposal submitted by MEMRAP (the Manchester and East Midlands Rail Action Partnership) had hoped to win financial support from the Department of Transport’s Restoring Your Railway Fund to pay for a full feasibility study of reinstating what it is calling the ‘Peaks and Dales’ line.
Rail tracks and impacts
MEMRAP had argued that replacing the line, which had been removed during the 1960s as a result of the baleful ‘Beeching Cuts’ which decimated sections of the country’s rail network, would deliver economic and social benefits, and boost ‘greener’ public transport links in the Peak District.
While the Peak District National Park Authority, which is responsible for the area of the national park through which any rail line would run, remains fully committed to a “low-carbon and sustainable future for travel and access for all to the national park”, it does not support MEMRAP’s analysis or its proposal.
Because of the importance of the Monsal Trail as a tourist, leisure and recreational attraction, it insists that MEMRAP has not considered the negative impacts – and the loss of facility – that the return of rail to the Monsal Valley would impose.
The Park Authority also argues that MEMRAP has not met the threshold of proven need and that therefore it does “not accept that the reinstatement of the railway on the route of the Monsal Trail” would deliver the benefits that MEMRAP claims.
Unsuccessful bids
More than 80 proposals had been submitted for the most recent round of awards from the Restoring Your Railway Fund. In late June 2022, Rail minister Wendy Morton announced £15m in funding split between nine potential railway schemes.
MEMRAP’s proposal was unsuccessful and attracted no government support.
The nine approved bids were ones able to demonstrate they would “bring significant socio-economic benefits” and presented “a clear narrative around the proposed services and infrastructure requirements.”
Particularly disheartening for MEMRAP’s supporters was that the ‘Peaks and Dales’ proposal was relegated to the largest group of ‘Unsuccessful bids to the Ideas Fund’ – which is effectively the ‘reject pile’. Backers of a far shorter list of schemes were invited to develop a fuller Business Case for future government consideration.
Alternative funds
A MEMRAP spokesperson appeared on East Midlands Today on 26 June to confirm that the campaign would continue to explore alternative sources of funding. There’s still no disguising that, for supporters of the ‘Peaks and Dales’ rail plan, this news is an enormous blow.
Any hopes of trains running across the Monsal Viaduct at any point in the foreseeable future have suffered a serious setback.
A REVIEW OF the new original Survivors audiobook Crusade has been published today on the Survivors: A World Away site.
Written by Doris V Sutherland and narrated by Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) Crusade is set at The Grange settlement during the timeline of the first TV series shortly after the tragedies of the episode Law and Order. Big Finish summarise the story as follows:
The Grange residents are grief-stricken after an out-of-control party lead to a wrongful execution. When strangers turn up to cause chaos, the community is tested to its limit.
Seymour’s narration is, as everyone familiar with her work on audio would expect, exemplary – as perceptive and mellifluous as ever. Seymour is well known for her meticulous preparation ahead of studio sessions which, together with her evident talent and her love for the spoken word form, produce another stand-out performance.
Crusade succeeds as a very different Survivors’ audiobook experience to Nation’s rethought novelisation from 1976 and to 2021’s Ghosts and Demons. 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.
Survivors: Crusade is now available to own as a digital download for just £9.99, exclusively from the Big Finish website.
BIG FINISH HAVE today (30 May 2022) released the new Survivors audiobook Crusade, available for purchase as a digital download from the Big Finish site.
Written by Doris V Sutherland and narrated by Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) Crusade is set at The Grange settlement during the timeline of the first TV series shortly after the tragedies of the episode Law and Order.
Big Finish press release contains the full story behind this new Survivors audio adventure.
Survivors – Crusade is out now!
The Grange residents are grief-stricken after an out-of-control party lead to a wrongful execution. When strangers turn up to cause chaos, the community is tested to its limit.
Survivors originally aired between 1975 and 1977 — following a community of survivors in the midst of a global pandemic known as the Death. Now, in a five-hour tale, the grim aftermath of the TV episode, Law and Order, is explored.
Having played the legendary role of Abby Grant on TV and audio since 1975, Carolyn Seymour returns to read this epic audiobook.
The survivors are usually prepared to welcome strangers into their community. But when members of a dangerous sect turn up in a double-decker bus on a crusade, a tense power struggle with a cunning new opponent result in murder and betrayal.
Will Abby be forced to leave her friends and everything they have built in their community? Or can the residents of the Grange discover the importance of their own faith in each other?
NOTE: Survivors contains adult material and is not suitable for younger listeners.
Carolyn Seymour, who’s narrating Survivors: Crusade said: “This script is very different. It brings up some interesting questions for everyone to think about around vital things such as mortality, faith, and what’s right and wrong.
“This required a lot of prep time which was great fun to do – I’ve loved it and have worked really hard on this. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.
“This is a lovely follow-on from the audiobooks we’ve already done [in the Big Finish Survivors range] – we’ve done quite a few and they’re all interesting and fabulous. I hope you re-listen to them all and spend hours delving and submerging yourselves into the world of Survivors.”
Survivors: Crusade is now available to own as a digital download for just £9.99, exclusively from the Big Finish website.
IN TODAY’S ‘SURVIVORS Special’ Big Finish podcast (29 May 2022), executive producer Nicholas Briggs confirms that Survivors will be “carrying on” on audio. “There will be another series”, he says. “We had a gap for a while, and we brought it back with New Dawn, two boxsets of that.”
No further details of the forthcoming Survivors audios were revealed, but this news is confirmation thatBig Finish’s Survivors audio range will be continuing, and in full-cast series format.
Together with co-presenter Benji Clifford (who provided music and sound design for several Survivors audio boxsets) Nick Briggs discusses the enduring appeal of Survivors, pays tribute to creator Terry Nation, and reflects on Survivors‘ journey on audio to date.
“Honestly, it’s one of my favourite things that we have done at Big Finish,” says Clifford. “It’s such a unique property.”
The podcast includes a short preview of Survivors: Crusade, the new Survivors audiobook written by Doris V Sutherland and voiced by Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant), due for release this week.
The episode also revisits ‘Revelation‘, the first ever Big Finish Survivors story, written by Matt Fitton, and released as part of the first box set back in 2014.
The podcast closes with a fifteen minute drama tease of ‘Cabin Fever‘, the opening episode of Survivors third series on video – and Clifford’s personal favourite.
BIG FINISH HAVE confirmed the release of a new and original Survivors audiobook set in the timeline of the first TV series. Scheduled for release in May 2022, Survivors: Crusade will be narrated by Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant).
Written by Big Finish regular Doris V Sutherland, and produced by Peter Anghelides, Survivors: Crusade is set in and around The Grange community, shortly after the tragedies of the episode Law and Order, and will explore how the characters of Greg Preston, Jenny Richards, Abby Grant and the others respond to the arrival of a group of “religious fanatics” who are determined to distinguish “perceived sinners” from “would-be saints”.
Survivors: Crusade will be released as a digital download, and is available to pre-order from the Big Finish site.
The Survivors Are On a Crusade
Carolyn Seymour, famed for playing Survivors heroine Abby Grant on TV and audio since 1975, narrates this eerie post-apocalyptic tale following a community of survivors of a global plague.
This five-hour epic picks up after the intense TV episode, Law and Order, in which a wrongful execution transpired. The survivors are still reeling when a group of religious fanatics arrive, triggering a clash between perceived sinners and would-be saints.
The survivors are usually prepared to welcome strangers into their community. But when members of a dangerous sect turn up in a double-decker bus on a crusade, a tense power struggle with a cunning new opponent result in murder and betrayal.
Will Abby be forced to leave her friends and everything they have built in their community? Or can the residents of the Grange discover the importance of their own faith in each other?
NOTE: Survivors contains adult material and is not suitable for younger listeners.
Producer Peter Anghelides said: “Writer Doris V Sutherland is no stranger to Big Finish, and regular listeners will know her work from our Doctor Who, Bernice Summerfield, and Omega Factor ranges. So, I am delighted that she has written for Survivors, with this audiobook script that brings new danger right into the heart of the Grange.”
Doris V Sutherland added: “It was a true pleasure to write a new story for Abby, Greg, Jenny and the other characters from Survivors, and I’m particularly honoured to have Carolyn Seymour — Abby herself — reading Crusade. The fact that I was given the opportunity at all shows that Terry Nation‘s series still holds appeal for viewers (and listeners) nearly 45 years since it ended. My main hope is that I was able to recapture the feel of Survivors and stay true to the characters, while also telling a new story with a new set of challenges for this post-apocalyptic world.”
JUNE BROWN, WHO appeared in the opening episode of the third and final series of Survivors, has died at the age of 95.
Brown appears in the role of Susan in ‘Manhunt’, the only episode in the series written by producer Terry Dudley. Susan is a survivor who shares a small settlement with the blacksmith Seth (Dan Meaden) who finds the ill and delirious Jack after he narrowly escapes a wild dog pack on his return from Norway with Greg and Agnes. While Seth makes contact with Charles Vaughan at Challenor, Susan tends to the injured traveller as best she can. The pair then play host to Charles and Jenny, before their two visitors head off in pursuit of Greg Preston hoping to make sense of Jack’s confused account of what awaits them at Wellingham.
Born in Needham Market, Suffolk in 1927, Brown served with the Wrens during World War Two. After the war she was accepted at the Old Vic School in London and subsequently joined the Old Vic company, appearing in touring shows and in productions at Stratford-upon-Avon and the Birmingham Rep.
WAYMARKER
By the time she was cast in the small guest role in Survivors, Brown had already established a career on the small screen as well as on stage. On TV, she’d appeared in Armchair Mystery Theatre (1964), Z-Cars (1964-72), Dixon of Dock Green (1965-69), The Prince and the Pauper (1976) and many other series.
Amongst fans of genre TV of the period, Brown is especially well-known for playing the role of Lady Eleanor in the Doctor Who story ‘The Time Warrior’ (shown between December 1973 and January 1984).
In 1977, the same year that she featured in Survivors, she also secured guest roles in Crown Court and The Duchess of Duke Street and appeared in a television adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Her role in one episode of Survivors was a minor waymarker in her long career, and was not something that drew much attention (outside of the ranks of Survivors fans) in the years that followed.
Brown continued to win supporting and guest roles in TV series of all kinds, and appeared in numerous stage productions. But it was her audition in 1985 for the role of Dot Cotton in the BBC soap Eastenders that completely transformed Brown’s career.
PANTHEON
Dot was the “chainsmoking, hypochondriac launderette manager of Albert Square”, a role that presented Brown with “a great Dickensian character of detail, humanity and colour” that over time saw Dot secure her place in the “the long-running soap’s female pantheon” (Guardian, 4 April 2022).
Brown would go on to appear in more than 2,300 Eastenders episodes as her character became one of the most fondly-regarded of the show’s ensemble, featuring in any number of major soap storylines. The role won her several industry awards, and Brown was also awarded an MBE in 2008, and an OBE in 2022. Brown retired from the cast of Eastenders in early 2020 at the age of 93.
PETER BOWLES, who played the role of Abby Grant’s husband David in the very first Survivors episode The Fourth Horseman, has died of cancer at the age of 85.
“He was lovely,” Carolyn Seymour (Abby Grant) recalled on the episode commentary for the DD Video release of the first series of Survivors on DVD. “He was just wonderful as my husband.”
By the time he was casting for The Fourth Horseman, director Pennant Roberts had been aware of Bowles’ rising stage and screen career for many years. The pair had first met while Bowles had been working at the Bristol Vic in the early 1960s.
Audience expectation
By 1974, when Roberts was looking to cast the role of the home-counties businessman David Grant, he knew he needed an actor with real presence; someone that – despite his character’s privileged social status – TV audiences would identify with. By that time, Bowles “had established himself”, Roberts recalled in 2003. He was “not as established as he became subsequently” but he was an actor that, in 1975, many TV viewers would have recognised.
That was an important consideration, because Terry Nation’s script for The Fourth Horseman deliberately confounds audience expectation about David Grant’s likely fate. The plotline strongly suggests that the ailing Abby might die, while her as-yet unaffected husband could survive the outbreak.
What Bowles captures so well is the sense of displacement that David Grant feels
“To make the story work you had to feel that [he] was another lead actor” on a par with Seymour, Roberts explained. Someone who could become a series’ regular. So when David Grant subsequently dies, his unexpected death “has a real effect on the viewer,” Roberts reflected.
The character of David Grant only appears in a few pivotal scenes before he succumbs to the virus, but Bowles’ performance leaves a memorable impression. As the virus reaches his commuter-belt village, Bowles brilliantly captures David’s rising panic – as his world comes apart, and Abby falls ill. What begins as irritation at a difficult journey home from a disrupted office, ends with David’s desperate attempts to save Abby’s life and his recognition of the full, terrible reality of the pandemic.
INNER-ALARM
What Bowles captures so well is the sense of displacement that David Grant feels. In conversation with Abby at their dinner table, it’s clear he’s attempting to silence his inner-alarm about the worsening situation in the country through denial. By the time he races off into the night to find Doctor Gordon, the businessman – who’s used to being in charge of every aspect of his life – is now struggling in a world in which nothing is any longer under his control. The fact that David dies alone (and unseen) on his living room couch, while Abby battles through the virus upstairs, only adds to the poignancy – and indeed the shock – of his passing.
Born in London in 1936, Bowles would begin his sixty-year acting career by securing a scholarship for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), going on to join The Old Vic Company. It was the start of a lengthy and diverse stage career, which saw Bowles appear in more than 40 productions over the years.
Finely judged comedic performances were balanced by serious dramatic roles
His interest in theatre never diminished, even as he secured success and recognition for his TV roles. One of his final theatrical performances, at the age of 81, was as Father Merrin in a stage version of The Exorcist.
Whilst he enjoyed a low-key career as a movie actor, appearing in films such as The Offence (1972), Try This One For Size (1989) and The Steal (1995), it was his work in television that secured him the most attention.
Good life
Famously turning down the role of Jerry Leadbetter in The Good Life in favour of some more theatre work, Bowles later found fame in TV sit-coms including Only When I Laugh (1979-82), The Bounder (1982-83) and Executive Stress (1987-88). He drew most plaudits for his role as the self-made businessman Richard DeVere in To The Manor Born (1979-2007), alongside Penelope Keith. It remained a hugely popular show throughout its run, consistently attracting huge viewing figures.
But those finely judged comedic performances were also balanced by serious dramatic roles. Building on one-off appearances in a wide variety of TV series in the 1960s, including The Baron, Softly Softly and Take Three Girls (in which Seymour starred), Bowles would go on to take more substantive roles in series such as Rumpole of the Bailey (1979-82), The Irish R.M. (1983-85), Lytton’s Diary (1985-86) and many others. His last major small-screen role was as the Duke of Wellington in Victoria (2016-2019).
Bowles’ impressive acting career saw him take on a varied and contrasting roles over course of six decades, allowing him to showcase his talents in both comedy and straight drama. He was often cast in the guise of the dapper gentleman or the charming professional rogue, but he was always keen to avoid typecasting.
Without in any sense discounting his impressive corpus of work, for enthusiasts of Survivors Peter Bowles will always be indelibly associated with the role of the doomed David Grant. David’s abrupt death comes as a body-blow to Abby Grant, confirming that her former life has gone forever. Like the passing of Jenny Richards’ flatmate Pat, this intimate, personal loss is a potent on-screen metaphor for what is, by the closing credits of The Fourth Horseman, confirmed to be a global human catastrophe.
The final image of the episode shows Abby driving away from the flames consuming the Grants’ home – an improvised funeral pyre for David Grant- and towards whatever life now awaits her.
REVIEWS OF ALL three episodes in the Big Finish Survivors audio box set New Dawn 2 have today been published on the Survivors: A World Away site.
Individual reviews of each story in the concluding part of the New Dawn series, starring Carolyn Seymour and Lucy Fleming are available: Bad Blood, When First We Practice to Deceive and Last Stand. The final review concludes:
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.
Big Finish have yet to announce the company’s plans in relation to any future audio releases (box sets or audiobooks) in the Survivors range.
As things stand at the moment, the Survivors: A World Away Big Finish Survivors site (which was launched back in 2014) currently contains individual episode reviews of 36 stories in the first nine series run, six episode reviews from the New Dawnadventures, and reviews of the audiobooks of Survivors (Terry Nation’s 1976 novel) and Ghosts and Demons (2021) – along with interviews with cast and crew members, including Ian McCulloch, Carolyn Seymour and Lucy Fleming.
This site will, of course, continue to provide full coverage and reviews of any future Survivors content produced by Big Finish.
A NEW BOOK, offering an in-depth study of the classic third series Survivors episode Mad Dog, is published by Obverse Books today (17 February 2022).
Written by Survivors: A World Away site editor Rich Cross, this latest entry in Obverse Books’ Silver Archive imprint, turns a critical and analytical spotlight on one of the best remembered episodes from the show’s third and final series.
Silver Archive – Survivors: Mad Dog
“Saliva only has to make contact with the skin. Rabies doesn’t even need a scratch. If it’s in the bloodstream, it’s too late.”
Mad Dog (1977) is a standout instalment of the third and final series of the BBC’s post-apocalyptic series Survivors. A touchstone in the series’ switch to a tougher, bleaker sensibility, the episode is rightly remembered for its portrayal of rabies and its gripping chase sequences. But it’s also a story offering fascinating insights into the wider human predicament, which dramatise the tension between optimism and cynicism and between altruism and self-interest. Above all, it’s a story that foregrounds the complex relationship between humanity and the natural world in a fictional post-pandemic Britain.
Rich Cross has published widely about science fiction and genre TV and retains a singular fascination with post-apocalyptic and dystopian television drama.
“For long-standing, knowledgeable fans of Survivors, I’m sure that there will still be a great deal of new, and hopefully insightful, analysis about one of the best regarded episodes in the show’s entire run. And I’m confident that there is a wealth of new reflections which situates the story of Survivors and of Mad Dog in the cultural, political and social times in which it was made.”
“Even for those able to recite sections of dialogue from the script, and who know each and every location in which the episode was recorded, I’m hopeful that they’ll enjoy discussions about themes and ideas in the drama of Mad Dog that they may not have considered before. That’s something that should enhance their appreciation of the work of writer Don Shaw, director Tristan de Vere Cole, and their talented cast and crew, the next time they rewatch the episode.”
“There’s certainly no requirement to be a ‘Survivors expert’ to enjoy the book, and there’s a great deal in the book that should intrigue fans of 1970s genre television, as well as cultural and political historians of the UK in the 1970s.”
The Obverse Books’ Silver Archive entry Survivors: Mad Dog is available to buy direct from the Obverse Books site – in both print and electronic formats (and in a p&e combo).
