April 29th, 2020
8 comments
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Big Finish – Shadow of the Sun – Recorded Entirely During Lockdown
Available to order from www.bigfinish.com
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun to be released in May
The first full-cast, full-length Doctor Who audio drama to have been recorded entirely during lockdown will be released on 12 May.
Tom Baker, Louise Jameson and John Leeson star in Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun, an exciting Fourth Doctor mystery adventure written by Rob Valentine. This is the first full-cast Doctor Who audio drama to have been produced using Big Finish’s remote recording techniques, and it boasts among its guest cast the brilliant Fenella Woolgar (Inside Number 9, Call the Midwife) as terminally bored socialite, Lady Malina Rigel-Smythe. She is one of many passengers on board a luxury liner with a difference.
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sunis now available to pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website, from just £8.99.
After an accident, the TARDIS lands on a luxury star-liner. Leaving their ship to repair itself, the Doctor, Leela and K9 find themselves facing a great terror: mingling at a cocktail party. Something seems awry behind the pleasantries however. Guests are going missing, and equipment is breaking down. When the Doctor investigates further he discovers that the star-liner is literally on course for disaster. But no-one seems surprised by this information, still less troubled. What’s going on? And can the Doctor and his friends save everyone… when nobody wants to be saved?
Director Nicholas Briggs said: “In Shadow of the Sun, we have a great, well-made script by Rob Valentine. A lovely slice of science fantasy. It has a great central idea and a cast of superb characters. At its core, there’s a fanatical belief in something that is patent nonsense, but the Doctor, Leela and K9 find themselves to be the only people who know the truth. That’s a great set-up! “And it also has a flavour of the often talked about ‘base under siege’ setting, which adds an appealing claustrophobia to the storytelling. It makes the situation more extreme and therefore more of an exciting ride for the audience.”
Writer Robert Valentine added: “This is a story inspired by the modern trend of giving the same value to opinion as fact –including everything from climate change denial to the anti-vaccination movement –but specifically the recent (and ultimately fatal) rocket launch experiments intended to prove that the Earth is flat.The Doctor is about to find himself in a situation where the true enemy is pseudo-scientific hubris, and for once it might be an enemy he hasn’t the tools to overcome.”
Doctor Who: Shadow of the Sun is now available to pre-order exclusively at the Big Finish website, as a collector’s edition CD (priced at £10.99) or digital download (price at £8.99). Please note that Big Finish is currently operating a digital-first release schedule.
The mailout of collector’s edition CDs will be delayed, but all purchases of this release unlock a digital copy that can be immediately downloaded or played on the Big Finish app from the release date.
Categorised under: Big Finish, CD, The 4th Doctor
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Doctor…Who?
April 29th, 2020 - 6:20pmCan literally imagine Leela saying- why do they not want to be saved doctor? they are idiots!
Anonymous
April 29th, 2020 - 5:12pmSo this is a special release and not part of the next series boxset?
SJF
April 29th, 2020 - 5:27pmBF record their Fourth Doctor audios years ahead. I think they’ve got series announced up until 2023 at the minute and there’s even more recorded that haven’t been announced yet.
It’s more than likely that this was originally meant to be in a later unannounced series but they’ve brought it forward and are releasing it now because of lockdown as they have years to write a new script and replace it.
Even if it does get included in a later series, it won’t be for years as all of the Fourth Doctor boxsets as I mentioned are announced up to 2023 and this isn’t in any of them.
BadgerLeopard
April 30th, 2020 - 1:58pmI don’t think this is from a later series – it’s probably a lockdown special release, like that Dorian Gray audio drama they released…
Timelord63
April 29th, 2020 - 4:45pmI’d love to know when the cds might get sent out again. Don’t really do digital releases so am spending a lot each month on the cds but who knows when I’ll get chance to listen to them. It also concerns me that there will be a massive backlog when they can send them out again
Deano
April 30th, 2020 - 2:29pmYes I’ve always been a cd collector of these audio dramas myself from day one and have always had the option of listening to them as a download but because of the memory space required for each release is heavy on data especially the box sets I’ve only done so when required like now as it’s the only way to still get to listen on release unless you wait for the CDs ?.
When they do start to manufacture the CDs again ? I only hope there send them all out as one rather than individually as manufactured which would mean a little longer to receive them but safer and less chance of them being lost or delayed in the postal system as it’s so behind on delivery’s at the moment and will probably continue to be so for some time after lockdown.
Nick
April 29th, 2020 - 4:06pmBrilliant!!! Can’t wait to listen to this production!! Fabulous team, fourth Doctor, Leela and K9!!! Hope we have some more Romana too. I wonder if we will have more adventures with the new fourth Doctor, Sarah and Harry team. Bring back the Zygons, Wirrn and Krynoids!!
Nick
April 29th, 2020 - 5:12pmI just wanted to say as well that I am so happy that this cast and Big Finish production team are OK during this really intense time. Lovely to see a picture of Tom Baker on the Big Finish website in his element!!