Big Finish Productions
Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays based, primarily, on science fiction properties. These include Doctor Who, the characters Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog from 2000 AD, Blake's 7, Thunderbirds, Dark Shadows, Dracula, Terrahawks, Sapphire & Steel, Sherlock Holmes, Stargate, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Timeslip, and Torchwood.
History
Founded in 1996, Big Finish in late 1998 began releasing audio plays adapted from the New Adventures, 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. In 1999, Big Finish obtained a non-exclusive licence 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. Many of those initially involved in Big Finish had worked on the Audio Visuals fan series of unlicensed Doctor Who audio plays.The name of the company was taken from the episode "The Big Finish" of the 1989-1993 ITV series Press Gang.
On 25 July 2019, Big Finish made a statement about equality and diversity in response to requests from fans wishing the company to make a statement on the views expressed by a few individuals that Big Finish have worked with. The company stated that it is committed to ensuring that those working for the company are protected from discrimination due to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage, pregnancy or maternity leave, race, religion, sex and sexual orientation.
Organisation
Until July 2006, Gary Russell served as producer of the Doctor Who audios. When Russell left the company, Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs took joint responsibility as Co-Executive Producers. Briggs now bears creative responsibility for Big Finish's Doctor Who range, along with script editor Alan Barnes. David Richardson holds the title of senior producer across all ranges, organising the schedules across the company's output, as well as having creative producer responsibility for The Companion Chronicles, Lost Stories, and the spin-off Jago & Litefoot. The Chairman and co-executive producer of the company is Jason Haigh-Ellery.Big Finish Day
Big Finish Day is a fan convention featuring guest appearances by Big Finish actors. On 11 June 2011, Tenth Planet Events hosted the first Big Finish Day in Barking. On 11 February 2012, a second one was held. As of September 2015, there have been seven Big Finish Days, with more planned.Downloads
In February 2008, Big Finish launched a new download service through their website, which would provide audio plays in MP3 format, free of any digital rights management. They currently provide the large majority of their catalogue in MP3 and M4B format, with very few outstanding exceptions.In late April 2008, Big Finish released a download subscription service that mirrors its physical CD service. In addition, those who purchase Big Finish productions on CD through the company's website receive access to a complimentary download of the story.
In September 2008, they released their first free downloadable play. UNIT: The Coup had previously been given away with an issue of Doctor Who Magazine.
On February 8, 2017 they announced the Big Finish app.
On July 25, 2024 they announced a new Big Finish app and website overhaul. This was met with backlash from customers and the website was reverted back to its previous state on August 15 2024, whilst the original app was restored on October 17 2024, following a series of apologies from Jason Haigh-Ellery.
Available releases
''Doctor Who''
The Doctor Who audio plays have, to date, featured nine of the thirteen living actors to play the character of the Doctor in the series, as well as many of the regular supporting actors over the many years of the programme. The late Jon Pertwee's voice is featured in the 40th-anniversary story Zagreus. His part in the story was pieced together from snippets of Pertwee's dialogue from the fan-produced Doctor Who video "Devious". The actor John Hurt also recorded appearances as the War Doctor for Big Finish prior to his death in 2017.Destiny of the Doctor, produced in conjunction with AudioGO, who were rights holders to the 2005–present series, marked the first time Big Finish produced storylines featuring the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors to mark the 50th anniversary of the franchise. In February 2015, Big Finish announced that following a licensing deal with BBC Worldwide, they had been permitted to produce an audio series entitled UNIT: Extinction, starring Kate Stewart played by Jemma Redgrave. The debut of the character on audio marks the second time Big Finish have been actively permitted to utilise material introduced in the 2005 revival.
In May 2015, Big Finish announced a new series of Torchwood, featuring Captain Jack Harkness. Since this announcement. In 2017, Big Finish announced six new stories of Class featuring original members of the class, as well as a story starring Ace.
On 27 June 2015, it was announced that Big Finish would produce a line of stories featuring River Song and the Eighth Doctor, as well as stories from Winston Churchill and his interactions with the Doctor. Further it was announced that a special set would be released featuring classic Doctors, with new series monsters. The latter story will also connect into the Time War. According to Big Finish's website in May 2018, their license was expanded to feature properties set during the Twelfth Doctor's era up until Twice Upon a Time. This has allowed Big Finish to explore more recent characters and areas from Doctor Who, as seen in Paternoster Gang; Jenny, The Doctor's Daughter; and Tales from New Earth.
Developments in the 2005 revival TV series also impacted the availability of certain characters. For example, Big Finish was no longer allowed to use the character of Davros, following his return to the series in 2008, although this restriction has since been lifted and Davros returned to Big Finish in The Curse of Davros. Prior to the character's being featured in the new series, he had been used in several plays, portrayed by Terry Molloy, who played Davros in three TV serials in the 1980s. In a 2008 podcast, Nicholas Briggs explained that all scripts are sent through the TV show's offices in Cardiff to prevent any potential conflicts in continuity.
The return of Sarah Jane Smith to the continuity of the TV series, and subsequent The Sarah Jane Adventures spin-off, resulted in the character's no longer being available to Big Finish. According to Briggs, permission from Russell T Davies, producer and creator of The Sarah Jane Adventures, had been secured that would have allowed the character to return to Big Finish for a series of stories alongside Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, but Sladen's illness and death in April 2011 put an end to those plans, until 2020, when it was announced that Sladen's daughter, Sadie Miller would take over her mother's role as Sarah Jane, starting in 2021, with the release of Return of the Cybermen.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in 2013, Big Finish created a series in the style of The Companion Chronicles range titled Destiny of the Doctor narrated by companions throughout the show's history. In addition to this, Big Finish released a multi-doctor story featuring all surviving Doctors of the classic series and almost every companion in The Light at the End.
Big Finish also published a series of short story anthologies taking place in the Doctor Who universe under the overall title of Short Trips. Three Short Trips collections were published by BBC Books in the late 1990s, before a hardback short story anthology licence was granted to Big Finish, who took over the name and produced them until their licence to publish such stories was revoked in the spring of 2009. Big Finish currently continues to produce audio-only Short Trips productions.
In 2016, Big Finish's licence to produce Doctor Who audios was extended to 20 June 2025.
In 2019, Big Finish reached its 20th anniversary of producing Doctor Who audios and released a special: The Legacy of Time which combined several spin-offs, including UNIT, The Diary of River Song, Bernice Summerfield and Counter-Measures. Other celebratory releases included the third series of Ravenous ; fourth series of Ravenous ; The Diary of River Song series 5.
In August 2020, Big Finish announced a new series of audios beginning release in May 2021, featuring Christopher Eccleston reprising his role as the Ninth Doctor.
In December 2021, Big Finish announced that their license to produce Doctor Who audios was extended until the 31st of March 2030.
In June 2022, Big Finish announced that in November of the same year, the prices of all unreleased boxsets as of that month would see an increase in price due to the rising costs of production and supply costs. These new prices are yet to be announced as of the 15th of September 2022.
In July 2024, it was announced that Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill would be reprising their roles as the Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan respectively for a new series of audio plays titled The Thirteenth Doctor Adventures. The first of these plays is due to be released in July 2025.
Doctor Who spin-offs
Other spin-offs include the Gallifrey series ; the Dalek Empire series; the UNIT series; the Iris Wildthyme series starring Katy Manning; the Sarah Jane Smith series and the I, Davros series. Big Finish have also produced a series of Doctor Who plays based on alternative scenarios, collectively titled Doctor Who Unbound. This has allowed them to cast other actors in the role of the Doctor, including Sir Derek Jacobi, Arabella Weir and David Warner. In 2013, following the death of original Romana actress Mary Tamm, Big Finish introduced a previously unknown third incarnation of Romana, played by American actress Juliet Landau.Other spin-off series include Jago & Litefoot, featuring Henry Gordon Jago and Professor George Litefoot, characters from the 1970s storyline The Talons of Weng-Chiang; Counter-Measures, featuring a group of scientists featured in 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks; Vienna, focusing on an assassin named Vienna Salvatori who was introduced in the Seventh Doctor audio drama The Shadow Heart; UNIT, originally focused around the UNIT during the hiatus years of Doctor Who, starring the Seventh Doctor and Elizabeth Klein and later became focused on UNIT from the revived series, featuring Kate Stewart and Osgood, as well as guest characters Jo Grant, River Song and Doctor Chin Lee.
Two TV spin-offs from the Doctor Who universe have been continued in audio form by Big Finish: Torchwood and Class which has featured the return of several characters from the original cast: Gwen Cooper, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, Ianto Jones, Rhys Williams, Andy Davidson, Suzie Costello, Captain John Hart and Bilis Manger have all reprised their roles in Torchwood. Characters from Doctor Who have also appeared in Torchwood audios, including Yvonne Hartman and Jo Grant. Big Finish have also created several new characters of Torchwood in their continuation of the series from Miracle Day, most notably Tyler Steele. Starting with January 2017, Big Finish also began releasing the "Torchwood One" series set before the events of Doomsday.
Other writers for Big Finish include Rob Shearman and The League of Gentlemen's Mark Gatiss, who have also written for the 2005 relaunch of the Doctor Who television series. Shearman's 2005 TV episode "Dalek" has been acknowledged as being based upon his Big Finish storyline Jubilee.