Big Finish Productions have released Bernice Summerfield: Dead and Buried, the animated adventure which leads the next series of audio adventures, first reported here.

Full details on the series and download links are available in the Big Finish Website.

Big Finish have released episode information for Series Two of Jago and Litefoot, the spin off series featuring two characters originally created by Robert Holmes for the fourth Doctor story, The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

The five disc box set is released in January 2011 and sees the return of Christopher Benjamin as Henry Gordon Jago and Trevor Baxter as Professor Litefoot, with the ensemble cast including Lisa Bowerman as Ellie, Conrad Asquith as Sergeant Quick and David Collings as Gabriel Sanders

The stories are as follows:

Series One was released in June.

Big Finish have announced that an online adventure featuring Bernice Summerfield will be available from September.

Bernice Summerfield or Benny, is a character originally created by author Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of original full-length Doctor Who novels. Since 1998 Big Finish Productions have been producing officially licensed audio dramas starring the character.

The latest adventure, Dead and Buried, is a 10-minute CGI animated adventure that will be available to view absolutely free of charge. Lisa Bowerman is back playing Benny, who is returning to her roots as an archaeologist – although it isn’t long before she’s being pursued through the ruins of an alien world by a deadly adversary.

Dead and Buried is animated by Alex Mallinson, who has been working on the project for months and says
There’s a glimpse of what’s to come in the teaser trailer, available at the Big Finish website.


The final animation will be available in September, completely free and will lead into the events of Bernice Summerfield 11.1 Resurrecting the Past.

Big Finish Productions is to hosting a one-day internet-based event on Saturday 3 July 2010, giving fans an opportunity to download a free episode of Doctor Who.

For one day only, episode one of Cobwebs will be available to download free of charge. The story is the start of the new trilogy that reunites the Fifth Doctor with Tegan, Turlough and Nyssa for the first time in 26 years.

Executive producer Nicholas Briggs said
Also during the day the first 50 Doctor Who main range titles will be available to buy for just £5 each, on CD or download.

Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery said
As well as additional sale items, the Big Finish website will be offering a selection of wallpapers for download, featuring some of Alex Mallinson’s most inspired artwork.

Big Finish Day is only at www.bigfinish.com.

The audio adventures of Doctor Who are set to continue, with Big Finish announcing that their licence to produce the stories has been extended to December 2012.

Says Executive Producer Jason Haigh-Ellery:

Producer David Richardson commented on the ranges:

Executive Producer Nick Briggs added:

The Doctor is to be reunited with Brigadier Winifred Bambera in a new audio adventure from Big Finish.

The character, reprised by actress Angela Bruce, will feature in the story Animal, which forms part of the second season of Lost Stories. It is written by former script editor Andrew Cartmel, and sees Bambera once again encountering the seventh Doctor, played by Sylvester McCoy.

Says series producer David Richardson:

Recording took place in April, and the story/series is available to pre-order.

Big Finish have announced the details for the Eleventh Season of the Bernice Summerfield Adventures.

Bernice Surprise Summerfield was originally created by Paul Cornell as a new companion of the Seventh Doctor in Virgin Publishing's range of Doctor Who Novels. Big Finish have been producing audio plays featuring the character since September 1998.

Four new audio adventures will be released this year, plus a new hardback collection of short stories. This eleventh season of stories, starring the archaeologist from the 26th Century, will begin with a two-part conclusion to the long-running ‘Braxiatel’ story arc. The season midpoint, starting with the third release, will mark a new beginning in a new setting.

Story producer John Ainsworth says:
The series kicks off with what is effectively a two-part adventure, Resurrecting the Past (August) and Escaping the Future (September), both by Eddie Robson and starring all the regular supporting characters from The Collection. Robson, who is also editor of this year’s hardback book, Present Danger, the events of which are set between his two audio plays, says Present Danger will be published in September and includes stories by Kate Orman, Lance Parkin, Mark Clapham and Simon Guerrier.

Summerfield gets a new start from the third audio release in October with Year Zero by Jonathan Clements. This is followed in November by Dead Man’s Switch by John Dorney and Richard Dinnick. Each is very much a self-contained tale but both fit into a new story arc that will continue and conclude in Season 12. This new beginning takes the character back to basics and once again focuses on her skills and experience as an archaeologist.

Lisa Bowerman, who plays Bernice Summerfield, is also excited about the new direction for the series:
Big Finish have also confirmed they have commissioned a second season of Jago and Litefoot.

The first season of adventures featuring the characters of Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot will be released next month. The duo first appeared as supporting characters in the classic Tom Baker story The Talons of Weng-Chiang.

Producer David Richardson said
Season Two, which will also be released in a five-disc box set, will be available in January 2011.

The Eighth Doctor returns to BBC Radio 7 next Sunday when the station begins airing selected stories from the third series of the Big Finish Eighth Doctor Adventures.

The series stars Paul McGann as the Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller. Four out of eight stories will be broadcast, from the series first released by Big Finish in 2009. Radio Seven has previously broadcast the first two series of the Eighth Doctor Adventures.

The series starts on BBC Radio 7 on Sunday 16th May at 6pm with a repeat at midnight BST.

Radio 7 can be heard around the world via the BBC Website.

Eight years after the last issue, the third edition of The Finished Product fanzine, looking behind the scenes of the Big Finish audio adventures, is now available.

The Fanzine concentrates on the first series of Eighth Doctor/Lucie adventures, with new interviews with actors, writers and members of the production team, as well as plenty of behind the scenes details.

It's 44 pages, with over 25,000 words, in the classic A5 black and white fanzine form.

It's £2.50 per copy UK, including first class postage, and £3.50 overseas.

For ordering details, send an email to editor Kenny Smith.

According to an interview that appeared in today's Rutherglen Reformer, Andrew Smith, author of the 1980 Doctor Who serial Full Circle, has been commissioned for a new script by Big Finish.

Smith wrote Full Circle at the age of 18. The story involved the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 entering the universe of E-Space. The story is notorious for introducing the character of Adric.

The new script, entitled Invasion of E-Space, has been written for the Companions Chronicles line with Lalla Ward as Romana telling the story, which features the Fourth Doctor and Adric.

Big Finish Producer David Richardson said: “I met Andrew at a convention in Glasgow last year. I was a fan of Full Circle, which was such a clever and inventive script, so I was delighted when he said he might be interesting in writing for Big Finish. It was an instant yes from me - and over the subsequent weeks we set about formulating ideas for a Companion Chronicle featuring the Fourth Doctor, Romana and Adric.”

Andrew told the Reformer: “I wanted the dialogue to sound naturalistic, as if it’s being spoken, not read off the page. You want it to sound like a normal conversation, not an unrealistic description of green and verdant hills, or whatever. I've done the first draft, and this is with (script editor) Jac Rayner now, while David at Big Finish is reading it. They will come back with notes and I'll do the next draft in the next two or three weeks."

To read the full interview, visit the Rutherglen Reformer website.