Big Finish Update

The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine, due out officially next week, carries a new free CD, The Veiled Leopard. The audio stars Nicola Bryant (Peri), Caroline Morris (Erimem), Philip Olivier (Hex) and Sophie Aldred (Ace). Says the blurb: "Monte Carlo, 1966: Four time travellers. Two missions. One costumed ball. The Doctor has sent Peri and Erimem to prevent the fabulous Veiled Leopard diamond from being stolen. Which is odd, seeing at the Doctor has sent Ace and Hex to steal the diamond. How will the two teams cope with this contradictory task? Will Peri's asp slip? Why does Ace have to pretend to be a French maid? How will Erimem cope with Pharaoh Rammalamadingdong? And can Hex really 'do posh'?"

The new issue of DWM has details of Big Finish's plans for the second half of 2006. The monthly Doctor Who releases continue with The Nowhere Placeby Nicholas Briggs (Sixth Doctor, July), followed by Red by Stewart Sheargold (Seventh Doctor, August); The Reaping (Sixth Doctor, September, formerly "Dead Man Walking"), which features a trip to Baltimore to meet Peri's mother, and The Gathering (Fifth Doctor, September), both by Joseph Lidster; Memory Lane by Eddie Robson (Eighth Doctor, October); We Are the Dead by Martin Day (Seventh Doctor, November); andCircular Time, featuring four "seasonal tales" by Paul Cornell and Mike Maddox (Fifth Doctor, December). There will also be a subscribers-only single-CD release at the end of the year, Return of the Daleks by Nicholas Briggs, which will be "a crossover of sorts" with Briggs's earlier Dalek Empire series.

A few notes also came up at the recent Gallifrey 2006 convention about the year's earlier items: The Kingmaker by Nev Fountain is "a comedy".Something Inside was altered to use that title instead of the original "The Cube" because Trevor Baxendale decided he didn't want to have any associations with the cult film "Cube," which he hadn't heard of when he wrote the story. The next series of Gallifrey will be the last one, for creative reasons (producer Gary Russell says it will have reached its logical conclusion). Down the road, there will be eventually a story set in the trenches of WW1, a story based around the assassination of Lincoln and a pseudo-historical set around the British occupation of India.

Big Finish has just recorded two Bernice Summerfield audios. There are eight Benny Summerfield audios planned for release this year. Series star Lisa Bowerman will be directing an installment of Big Finish's other series, "The Tomorrow People".

(Thanks to DWM, Big Finish and John Hutton)