Британдық аудио драмалар мен кітаптар өндіруші компаниясы

British company producing books and audio dramas
the audio play producer

Big Finish Productions is a British company that produces books and audio plays (released straight to compact disc and for download in MP3 and m4b format) based, primarily, on science fiction properties. These include Doctor Who, the characters Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog from 2000 AD, Blake's 7, Dark Shadows, Dracula, Terrahawks, Sapphire & Steel, Sherlock Holmes, Stargate, The Avengers, The Prisoner, Timeslip, and Torchwood.

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.

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 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.

In February 2008, Big Finish launched a new download service through their website, which would provide audio plays in MP3 format, free of any DRM. 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.

The Doctor Who audio plays have, to date, featured seven of the ten living actors to play the character of the Doctor in the series (Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Christopher Eccleston, and David Tennant), 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 (John Barrowman). 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 (Sophie Aldred). 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 (Ian McNeice) and his interactions with the Doctor. Further it was announced that a special set would be released featuring classic Doctors (in this case, the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Doctors), with new series monsters (The Weeping Angels, the Judoon, the Sycorax, and the Sontarans). 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 (January 2012). 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 (forcing the cancellation of an ongoing Sarah Jane Smith audio series). 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 (and actress Elisabeth Sladen) 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. 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 (featuring almost all Eighth Doctor companions); fourth series of Ravenous (featuring multiple incarnations of the Master; the sixth Series of the Early Adventures (in which the First Doctor encountered the Second Doctor, as well as using the character of Katerina for the first time); The Diary of River Song series 5 (the first appearance of Eric Roberts' Master since the 1996 film and the return of Missy). 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 (for the first time since his departure from the series in 2005). 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.

Other spin offs include the Gallifrey series (with Lalla Ward as Romana, Louise Jameson as Leela and John Leeson as K 9); 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 (for example, what if the Doctor had never left Gallifrey, or had been a woman), 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 (Christopher Benjamin) and Professor George Litefoot (Trevor Baxter), 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 (played by former Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actress Chase Masterson) 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 (Sylvester McCoy) and Elizabeth Klein (Tracey Childs, who first appeared in Colditz) and later became focused on UNIT from the revived series, featuring Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave and Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), as well as guest characters Jo Grant, River Song (Alex Kingston) and Doctor Chin Lee (Pik Sen Lim, who first appeared in the Ambassadors of Death). 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 (Eve Myles), Owen Harper (Burn Gorman), Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori), Ianto Jones (Gareth David Lloyd), Rhys Williams (Kai Owen), Andy Davidson (Tom Price), Suzie Costello (Indira Varma), Captain John Hart (James Marsters) and Bilis Manger (Murray Melvin) have all reprised their roles in Torchwood. Characters from Doctor Who have also appeared in Torchwood audios, including Yvonne Hartman (Tracy Ann Oberman) 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 (Jonny Green). Starting with January 2017, Big Finish also began releasing the "Torchwood One" series set before the events of Doomsday (Doctor Who). 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.

+Name of the award ceremony, year presented, category, nominee(s) of the award, and the result of the nomination Award ceremony Year Category Work(s) Result Ref. (Reference(s)) Audio and Radio Industry Awards 2021 Best Fictional Storytelling Doctor Who: Out of Time The Human Frontier 1 Audie Awards 2015 Best Package Design Doctor Who: The Light at the End Best Audio Drama The Avengers, Lost Episodes Vol 1: Hot Snow 2017 Doctor Who: Death and the Queen Doctor Who: The War Doctor: Only The Monstrous 2018 Cicero 2019 The Martian Invasion of Earth 2021 Doctor Who: Stranded 1 ATA Girl 2 BBC Audio Drama Awards 2014 Best Online or Non Broadcast Drama Doctor Who: Dark Eyes 2015 Survivors: Revelation Doctor Who: The Light at the End Jago & Litefoot: Encore of the Scorchies Best Debut Performance Alex Jordan (Frankenstein) Dark Shadows: Bloodlust Survivors: The Hunted The Judgement of Sherlock Holmes 2017 Doctor Who: Absent Friends Torchwood: More Than This Doctor Who: Death and the Queen 2018 Best Actor John Hurt (The Invisible Man Chapter 1) Best Podcast or Online Audio Drama King Lear The Prisoner: I Met a Man Today 2019 ATA Girl Blind Terror: The Gods of Frost Best Actor Derek Jacobi (The War Master: Beneath the Viscoid) 2023 Best Podcast Audio Drama Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures Scribe Awards 2012 Best Audio Doctor Who: The Many Deaths of Jo Grant 2013 Dark Shadows: The Eternal Actress Dark Shadows: Dress Me Doctor Who: Project: Nirvana 2014 Blake's 7: The Armageddon Storm Dark Shadows: The Phantom Bride Dark Shadows: The Flip Side 2015 Doctor Who: Iterations of I Dark Shadows: The Darkest Shadow Dark Shadows: The Devil Cat Blake's 7: Fortuitas Pathfinder Legends: The Skinsaw Murders 2016 Doctor Who: The Red Lady Dark Shadows: Bloodlust Dark Shadows: In the Twinkling of an Eye Doctor Who: Damaged Goods Pathfinder Legends: Mummy's Mask: Empty Graves 2017 Dark Shadows: Blood & Fire Doctor Who: The Mouthless Dead Torchwood: Broken Torchwood: Uncanny Valley 2018 Doctor Who: Across the Darkened City Doctor Who: Cold Vengeance Torchwood: torchwood cascade CDrip. tor Torchwood: The Dying Room 2019 Doctor Who: The Calendar Man Doctor Who: The Invention of Death Blake's 7: The Way Ahead Dark Shadows: The Girl Beneath the Water The War Master: The Master of Callous 2020 Doctor Who: The Creeping Death Doctor Who: Daybreak The Diary of River Song: Concealed Weapon Torchwood: Sargasso 2021 Doctor Who: Out of Time Torchwood: Tropical Beach Sounds and Other Relaxing Seascapes #4 Doctor Who: The Enemy of My Enemy Doctor Who: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Torchwood: Save Our Souls 2022 Doctor Who: The Curse of Lady Macbeth Doctor Who: The Lost Resort Doctor Who: Girl Deconstructed Doctor Who: Monsters in Metropolis Doctor Who: The Truth of Peladon Doctor Who: The Annihilators

+Name of record body, year the record was awarded, name of the record, and the name of the record holder Publication Year World record Record holder Ref. (Reference(s)) Guinness World Records 2021 Longest running science fiction audio play series Doctor Who: The Monthly Adventures