THE FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS LIST
By Gary Russell
(April 2005)

Hello to everyone who knows who we are, nice to see you again! Bigger hello to those of you new to us, who may have found us via Google or any other such search engine, whilst wondering what else is "out there" in the world of Doctor Who now that it's back in spiffing form on our tellyboxes!

1) What exactly is Big Finish Productions
The company was formed in 1996 by Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nancy Hine as a small production company, handling both audio and video productions. Jason invested heavily in the company which is why we, honestly, plead poverty so much. We have no multinational companies backing us, no injections of cash from well-meaning sponsors or generous relatives. Like a vast majority of small businesses in Britain, BFP gets by on luck, love and some rather special talent. In 1998, Jason was approached by myself and Nicholas Briggs to do some audio science-fiction. The two of us had been responsible for much of the elbow-grease in Audio Visuals, a fan group from the late eighties who made highly unlicensed Doctor Who audio plays. Jason had been a fan of ours and knew our work. We had secured the licence from Virgin Publishing to make audio dramas based upon their range of novels featuring one-time Doctor Who companion Professor Bernice Summerfield. Nick and I produced the Benny audios for Jason and Nancy's company. When we were offered the licence to make brand new Doctor Who by BBC Worldwide in 1999, we grabbed it, with Jason acting as producer for BFP, myself as artistic producer and initially BBC Books range editor Steve Cole as our Executive Producer on BBC Worldwide's behalf. After Steve's departure from the Beeb, that role was taken on by his former assistant, later Eighth Doctor desk editor herself, Jacqueline Rayner. With the new series in full-swing, Jac is joined in her efforts to oversee us by a variety of people within the BBC, including the new show's Executive Producer, Russell T Davies, a long-time Big Finish fan. Which is nice for us!

2) What does the BBC license entitle us to do?
Very basically, we are allowed to make brand new audio dramas based upon the "classic" version of the BBC Television series Doctor Who - ie anything between 1963 and 1996. We are not allowed to adapt books, unmade scripts, stage plays, comic strips, ancient texts from lost Atlantis etc. And nor would we want to. This is the first time such a license has been granted and it seems rather daft for us to waste it rehashing existing material when we have an opportunity, within the confines of that license, to keep Doctor Who alive and fresh well into this new century. Now, you may notice that despite the above, in 2003 we did Shada, Douglas Adams' old script, but that was a specific request from BBCi, who wanted a webcast for the 40th anniversary that was a bit special. Oh, and one other thing, we are not allowed to utilise any themes, storylines or characters created for the current run of the series with Ninth Doctor, Christopher Eccleston. Similarly, we stay away from any neat, but troublesome, "foreshadowing".

3) Okay, so you're using Paul McGann, Colin Baker, Peter Davison and Sylvester McCoy, but what about Tom Baker?
Well, we've talked informally to Tom both directly and via his agents many times. Tom has so far declined our offers, including Shada, and so I think we should take the hint - he's unlikely, at the moment, to return to the role of the Doctor. We have no intention of pressuring him into doing so - what would be the point? Why force someone to do something so important against their will. We're terribly happy to have the regular and enthusiastic support of the other four telly Docs and that will keep us going quite happily.

4) You've got the Doctors, but what about companions, villains etc?
Again, we have a nice variety of relevant actors to team up with the Doctors. With the 5th Doctor, thanks to Mark Strickson and Sarah Sutton, we have the option of adventures with Nyssa and Turlough. We have asked Janet Fielding if she would care to join us as Tegan, but she is, quite firmly and politely, of the opinion that it's not going to happen. Ever. Something to do with hell and shedloads of ice she tells us. But we love Janet anyway 'cos she's fab. We also have Nicola Bryant, whom we can pair up with either the 5th or 6th Doctors. And for the 7th Doctor, Sophie Aldred is always happy to return as Ace and Bonnie Langford is happy to come back as Mel with both the 6th and 7th Doctors. Besides that, and again bearing in mind the terms of our licence, I do believe in pushing the boat out a little now and again. The 6th Doctor's era in particular is a rich untapped source of possibilities. Already we have created the character of Evelyn Smythe to travel with the post-The Trial of a Time Lord 6th Doctor before his adventures began properly with Mel Bush. And we have The Holy Terror, teaming him up with Frobisher, the shape-changing Penguin from the old Doctor Who Magazine comic strips. Plus of course we have Charley Pollard and C'rizz the Eutermesan alongside the Eighth Doctor (we do not have the rights to use Grace Holloway, Chang Lee or any other elements specifically created for the 1996 TV Movie), and to keep the 5th Doctor happy, we now have the Egyptian pharaoh Erimem. Most recently, we've added the character of young Scouse nurse Hex to the 7th Doctor's TARDIS crew. We do believe that if the odd experiment isn't made once in a blue moon, the audios could become a bit repetitive and predictable. Although we can't further the Doctor Who mythos with a new incarnation, we feel it would be remiss of us not to add a bit of colour now and again where we can. And remember, we cannot do anything that BBC Worldwide and Russell T Davies don't approve of, so you're unlikely to find a rampaging, gun-totting, sex-maniac, swearing Doctor all of a sudden.

5) Why don't you get sound-alikes to play the first three Doctors. Maybe David Troughton could do the Second Doctor and Sean Pertwee the Third?
We will not recast those three Doctors under any circumstances - to do so would I believe be the height of bad taste. On TV they got away with it in The Five Doctors, and that should remain a unique event. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee were three great actors whose memory is better served by enjoying what we have rather than muddying it with sound-alikes. And to ask their family members to impersonate them would be insulting to them and their fathers. It's a definite no-no.

6) Does that therefore mean we won't see their companions returning, paired with other Doctors?
It's happened in a number of the novels, with varying degrees of success. Personally, I'm against it. It's been far more fun working with Deborah Watling, Anneke Wills, Wendy Padbury, William Russell, Katy Manning, Caroline John etc in totally different roles, and hopefully they won't be the last familiar faces we bring to unfamiliar parts. Recently we enjoyed working with Elisabeth Sladen on a new Sarah Jane Smith series, but I can't see how it would benefit Sarah to bring her back into a Doctor Who story. We've also done two mini-series called Gallifrey which opened up a number of interesting possibilities - as it meant we could team up Gallifreyan-resident Leela, played as always by Louise Jameson, alongside Lalla Ward as President Romana and their respective K9s, played as always by John Leeson.

7) Will we ever see/hear the Brigadier again, particularly alongside Colin Baker's Doctor as Dimensions in Time aside, they never properly met in the series?
Already sorted. The Brigadier meets up with the Sixth Doctor in The Spectre of Lanyon Moor and encounters the Eighth Doctor in Minuet in Hell and he sort of met up with all four in our 40th anniversary adventure Zagreus. Hopefully, he'll be back again...

8) For the early releases, why did you use the Seventies version of the Doctor Who theme?
Our preference, more than anything. Our licence with the BBC entitles us to use any of the theme variations created and used by the Radiophonic Workshop between 1963 and 1984. We initially commissioned four new versions and although they are all great reinterpretations, I still believe that to most people, the Pertwee/Baker theme is Doctor Who. When the Comic Relief team used it for The Curse of Fatal Death, that finally swung it for me. And we were fortunate to be aided by Mark Ayres who had prepared the special stereo short mixes for the charity special and that's the version we use. And for those who wonder why we use so little of it, well, that's straightforward, ugly old economics I'm afraid. We have to pay the copyright holders a percentage per second's worth used. It's not cheap and therefore we use what we can afford.

However, recently we had very constructive talks with Dominic Glynn and Keff McCulloch which has enabled us to secure the rights to using their versions on the relevant adventures. Thus our latest Fifth Doctor stories utilise the Peter Howell arrangement, stories set within the Sixth Doctor's first full season will use the Howell variation and then anything set during/post the Trial season will use Dominic's. And for the Seventh Doctor adventures we use Keff's. For the 8th Doctor series, it seemed a fun idea to create our own unique version and thus, thanks to Mark Gatiss, we were able to work with David Arnold in between Bond movies, to produce a quite exciting version that can be found, reworked by Alistair Lock on the first run of 8th Doctor plays, and re-edited by Davy Darlington on the subsequent seasons. David Arnold's full, untouched mix appears on the Music From The Eighth Doctor Audios double CD.

9) Do you intend to have big-name guest stars?
Doctor Who has a fine tradition of employing great actors to be in the series, and, budgetary considerations allowing, I think it's great if we can continue that. Already we've had familiar 'faces' such as Jacqueline Pearce, Simon Williams, Martin Jarvis, Derren Nesbitt, Michael Sheard, David Daker, Eleanor Bron and Hugh Walters as well as the type of actor we always thought should have done the show but never did like David Ryall, Anthony Head, Stephen Greif, Holly de Jong, James Bolam, Don Warrington, Charles Kay, Bill Oddie, Bruce Montague, Sally Knyvette, Michael Praed, Andrew Sachs, William Franklyn, Leslie Phillips and Gareth Thomas for instance. I have a list as long as my arms (legs as well) of people I'd kill to work with. But I don't believe in guest stars for the sake of it. Actors must be cast for what they bring to a part, not what they bring to publicity. Back in 2003, we were able to create a mini-series called Doctor Who Unbound which provided an opportunity to cast, as one-offs, six new actors to play the Doctor in "What if..." kind of tales. The actors chosen to play the Doctor in the Unbound plays were Sir Derek Jacobi, David Warner, David Collings, Michael Jayston, Geoffrey Bayldon and Arabella Weir. It was a fun and popular experiment and we've since done a second story with Geoffrey Bayldon and are planning another with David Warner. But we like to keep the Unbound adventures sporadic so that they become an "event" rather than the norm.

10) Have you considered enhancing your CDs with extra material, like a lot of singles and albums do with pop videos etc.
Unfortunately, our current contract with BBC Worldwide doesn't cover such a thing so no, we won't be doing enhanced CDs in the foreseeable future.

11) Many recent TV shows (Buffy, Enterprise, Babylon 5 etc) employed long-running story-arcs. Is this something Big Finish do?
Arcs are very difficult to do when you have a play with a different Doctor every month. Within their own eras, I think it can be fun to have running themes, as opposed to continuing arcs. For instance, in our early 5th Doctor/Nyssa stories there was a slight arc, starting in Land of the Dead concerning Nyssa that was eventually resolved in Primeval. But these are things that are very minor themes that people can spot and enjoy but if you miss them, they're of no great importance. Again it comes back to what I mentioned earlier about pushing out the boat a bit. It's fun, and necessary, to play around a bit with what we're doing, without altering or damaging the canonicity of the TV series that started it all. The status quo must always appear to be maintained, but that doesn't prevent us all having some fun along the way. The initial Eighth Doctor stories we recorded with Paul McGann offered us a greater opportunity to provide close links - one of the reasons we chose to release the plays sequentially, akin to seasons, was so that we could do this. Although those first fifteen stories are separate entities, listened to in order, they do possess an extra dimension, particularly in regard to Charley.

12) Have the BBC suggested doing novelisations of the audios as Virgin did with the two Jon Pertwee radio serials The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N Space?
No, they've never mentioned it, and it's not an avenue I'm that keen to go down yet. Getting people interested in listening to audio is hard enough as it is. It's not as immediate as TV, nor as convenient as a book. And Doctor Who fans these days are far more used to getting a new adventure in print than on audio. We believe that given the option of the story on audio or in a novelisation, a large percentage of our potential audience would plump for the book. Which would put us out of business rather rapidly! Hopefully everyone agrees with us that that'd not be a good thing. However, we have produced five Script Books which gave us the opportunity to put out there several of the scripts voted as some of the best by readers of Doctor Who Magazine, complete with bits that were cut out, odd notes and even the occasional alternate episode or unused ones! We also have a license to do a series of fiction books, called Short Trips. These are anthologies, often themed, featuring short prose fiction adventures featuring all of the first eight Doctors. We've even won an award or two for them!

13) Are you accepting submissions for scripts?
Not at the moment. As fans ourselves, we know what it's like to be part of creating new Doctor Who and decided right from the outset, it would be churlish to say an outright no to submissions. Doctor Who fans are amongst the most literate genre fans and we'd kick ourselves if a great story was out there but we never had a chance to see it. However, and this is important for would-be scribes to remember, the chances are actually slim - probably far slimmer than they are for getting a BBC Book accepted. This is not because we're ogres (well, I am, but that's a different kettle of fish...) but one of practicality. Writing audio is far harder than it at first seems, and to be brutally honest, I have provisionally filled all available slots until our current licence expires (second half of this decade). When the time comes and we, hopefully, get a further renewal, we may re-examine the policy.

14) Where can we actually get the audios?
Direct from us - to be honest, that's the best way to ensure we keep going simply because all the costs go back into subsequent productions. If mail-order/web-ordering isn't your thang, then in the UK, a majority of specialist shops and convention dealers (Forbidden Planet, Galaxy 4, 10th Planet, Burtons Books etc) carry the CDs, while some branches of HMV carry, or can order, them. In the US Ministry of Sound and Vision are our distributors and usually any little "gifts" we give to subscribers in the UK will find their way to MOSV's subscribers, too. We're always looking for ways to further our invasion of Australia and New Zealand although the Who market has suffered a notable contraction over there during the last couple of years, but fingers crossed we can find an economical way to reverse that...

Plug over.

15) What is in the future?
The newspages of this website carries our latest news, as of course do the many news sites on the internet, and the Gallifrey Guardian section of Doctor Who Magazine. And of course, other genre magazines regularly feature us. Which is nice and we appreciate it. But this page is always the best for accurate and, more importantly, up-to-date news.

16) How long will you be doing the New Audio Adventures for?
Our license with the BBC is not indefinite and needs to be renegotiated like all licenses do every few years. Hopefully by the time ours comes up you'll still want us to keep making the plays and the BBC will similarly want them to continue. If it were down to Jason, Nick, Ian, John and myself, our actors, writers and directors, we'd do them for as long as people want us to. As Doctor Who fans, our job is to give other fans new and exciting Doctor Who adventures and keep the show alive for a whole new generation, especially those coming to discover this very rich and exciting heritage due to the success of the brand new TV series.

Enjoy the audios, and thanks for reading this.

Disclaimer and Copyright: This FAQ V.5 document is Copyright © 2005 Big Finish Productions Ltd., and its contents, opinions or information may not be modified and/or distributed or used elsewhere without consent of the current maintainer. Please feel free to address further questions to bigfinish@easynet.co.uk, putting FAQ in the Subject header.