Tom Baker, Big Finish - the Big Announcement

BIG FINISH PRESS RELEASE:

We’re delighted to announce that Tom Baker will be playing the Fourth Doctor in a number of audio adventures for Big Finish, to be released from the beginning of 2012. Storylines and scripts are already at an advanced stage, and we plan to start recording early in the summer.

The first season of six single-disc releases will begin in January 2012, with a second season of seven single-disc releases to follow at a date to be confirmed. There will also be a five-disc box set entitled Doctor Who: The Lost Stories – The Fourth Doctor Box Set... The producers across the Fourth Doctor adventures are Nicholas Briggs and David Richardson.

“As many of you will know, we've been talking to Tom for a long time,” says Big Finish executive producer Nick Briggs. “David Richardson and I went to visit Tom at his home not long ago to chat about it all. We had a really great time. At that point, I sincerely felt that had we taken a microphone with us, Tom would have started there and then - but, of course, there are always finer details to sort out. Now that our plans are in place, and Tom has enthusiastically told the world that we're going ahead, we thought it best to follow-up with our own announcement. Rest assured that in the coming months we will be releasing news on this as soon as we are able.”

Executive producer Jason Haigh-Ellery says: "I am delighted that Tom will be joining the Big Finish audio adventures of Doctor Who. As a small child, I remember how charismatic and engaging his performance was each Saturday tea time - and we are all looking forward to recreating that era again."

We can confirm that the companions in these productions will be Louise Jameson as Leela and Mary Tamm as Romana, and some familiar monstrous faces from the past will be popping up too.

Sherlock Holmes and arbitary murders of East End prostitutes

Big Finish Productions are a producer of audio plays, best known for their all original Doctor Who plays. Indeed the company kept Doctor Who in the limelight for a great many years, when the TV series was off the air. They create full cast audio plays for CD and download and have been in business since 1998 and continue to produce quality work.

Their Doctor Who plays are highly regarded. They use the actual TV actors to play the role of the cosmic hobo - Peter Davidson, Paul McGann, Sylvester McCoy and Tom Baker are among the previous TV doctors who have recorded for the company. Big Finish began with a series of audio plays adapted from New Adventures. These were a series of novels from Virgin Books which had originally been licensed Doctor Who stories, but by then had become officially independent from the show and were based around the character of Bernice "Benny" Summerfield. Big Finish then obtained a (non-exclusive) license to produce official Doctor Who plays, beginning with the multi-Doctor story The Sirens of Time. Doctor Who and spin-offs have remained the main part of the company's output ever since, although they have since diversified. Until July 2006, Gary Russell served as producer of the Doctor Who audios. When Russell left the company, Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs took joint responsibility as Executive Producers.

Though it's not all Doctor Who - the company have done plays based on Sapphire and Steele, The Tomorrow's People, various 2000AD characters, Stargate and many more.

Sherlock Holmes and The Ripper is based on a stage play by stalwart TV scriptwriter Brian Clemens. The writer of course is best known for his work on The Avengers, The Protectors, The Professionals and his work with Hammer Films. He is also a distant relation of Mark Twain.

Brian Clemens

The play starts off with one of the Ripper's brutal  killings and finds Holmes drawn into the case because it presents a challenge for his ego. Right away we are transported to a London of some great Cockney accents and Gothic melodrama. Nick Briggs, who voices the DALEKS for the television series as well as the Big Finish productions, plays Sherlock Holmes and he does a damn fine job of giving us the classic Sherlock Holmes. Watson is played by Richard Earl in a semi-bumbling Nigel Bruce kind of way. We also get to see (well hear actually) Holmes falling in love with a character played by the always reliable India Fisher, who played the Dr Who companion Charley Pollard in the Big Finish eighth Doctor adventures. She also appeared in many audio plays with the sixth Doctor but how that came about is a rather complicated story.

It's an atmospheric tale with an audacious showdown in the PM's office.

Check out Big Finish HERE