The Actor Speaks: Paul Darrow
Best known as the gravelly voice, stony face and acid wit of unscrupulous genius Kerr Avon from the cult favorite BBC SF series Blake’s 7, Paul Darrow talks about his career - both Blake-centric and otherwise - as well as reaching the age of 60, playing the role of Elvis Presley on stage, and performs several short dramatic scenes written especially for this presentation.
Review: Though it might seem, on the surface, to be a slightly silly idea to combine listener-submitted Q&A sessions with dramatic readings, this fourth entry in MJTV Productions’ The Actor Speaks CD series really, upon further reflection, gives you what you’d get from a really good convention appearance - except you can have that experience in your headphones rather than in a crowded convention center. As usual, Darrow is engaging and gracious when faced with the usual barrage of Blake’s 7-related questions, even though some of them have been asked before. (To give credit to the show’s producer and presenter, Mark Thompson, there did at least seem to be enough foresight to realize that the fans who would be this product’s target audience would be well-acquainted with the most frequently asked questions, so the Q&A material tends to venture further afield, or at least presents familiar questions with a twist.) As usual, Darrow demonstrates that he’s put an awful lot of thought into what made Avon tick - and what could continue to make him tick in any continuations of the story. (more…)
Busted out of the ranks of the Federation Space Command after his trial, Travis is on the run and out for revenge - on all of humanity, if necessary. He makes contact with an alien force from beyond Earth’s galaxy and offers to join them in an attempt to enter and conquer Federation space. To make that possible, however, Travis must track down a neurosurgeon named Docholli, the only man who is said to know where the Federation’s top secret central control is. During his attempts to track down Docholli, Travis runs afoul of a pair of bounty hunters out to collect the Federation’s price on his head. Only one of them, Kane, survives the ensuing firefight, and he promises to get his revenge on Travis, no matter how long it takes. Some years later, Kane joins another bounty hunter, who he doesn’t realize is former freedom fighter Roj Blake, on the lawless planet of Gauda Prime. Blake is looking for Lafayette, a pirate whose attack on an arms shipment resulted in the death of former Liberator crew member Jenna Stannis. Kane, however, is still hoping to catch up with Travis. And when he learns who Blake is, and that Blake got to Travis before he did, Kane will leave an indelible mark of his own.
He created the role of a freedom fighter whose name graced a series that he didn’t even star in for half its run. Gareth Thomas, the man behind Blake of Blake’s 7 fame, talks about his most famous role, as well as presenting a few gems of his own creation.
The Doctor lands his TARDIS just outside the office of the President of the Time Lords, and whisks President Romana and her K-9 unit away to Earth to see to unfinished business. At St. Cedd’s College, Cambridge, an elderly Time Lord refugee going by the name of Professor Chronotis has summoned the Doctor to help him return a book, “The Ancient and Worshipful Law of Ancient Gallifrey”, to the Time Lords themsevlves. His plan to have the Doctor do this for him, this preserving his anonymity, has one major snag: Chronotis appears to have accidentally loaned the book out to one of his students, Chris Parsons. Before the Doctor can locate the book, Parsons and his friend Clare Keightly have already figured out that there’s something strange and perhaps even dangerous about the book. And something dangerous is certainly on the trail of the book - a megalomanical criminal named Skagra, using his mind-draining sphere, will stop at nothing to find Chronotis and the book. He hopes to use the book to find the well-hidden Time Lord prison planet, Shada - and once there, he hopes to drain the mind of the Time Lords’ most dangerous criminal, Salyavin, using his knowledge to take over every sentient mind in the universe.
A radio broadcast unfolds live on the disant Colony 34, recounting the day’s events, including another in a string of terrorist bombings. The incumbent leader, Premier Leo Jaeger, denounces the violence, promises further crackdowns in the name of security, and openly accuses his opponents, the Freedom & Democracy Party, of being behind the attacks. The FDP’s new leader, known only as the Doctor, has a different story to tell: he criticizes the bombings, but also claims that Jaeger is trying to divert attention away from the upcoming elections that the FDP has forced through legal channels - elections that have been delayed for five years. Other news broadcasts profile the “Rebel Queen,” a young woman calling herself Ace who says she’s leading the resistance, and a bewildered paramedic named Hex who stumbles onto a secret during a live broadcast - a secret which could get Live 34 shut down by the government.