PODCAST: Shadows on the Stage

From left, Big Finish's Matthew Waterhouse, Robert Dick and David Darlington.

By ROBERT DICK

Last month on the weekend of the Dark Shadows 50th Anniversary, hundreds of fans got together with original series cast members to celebrate the occasion.

Big Finish Productions Dark Shadows audio range Co-Producer David Darlington, Production Assistant Robert Dick (that’s me!) and range actor/writer Matthew Waterhouse were in attendance to promote the range, meet the fans, and launch the anniversary releases “Blood & Fire” and “Echoes of the Past.”

In the first of this week’s two podcasts from the event, we present the full panel from the Saturday afternoon - when Big Finish took center stage for half an hour.

Sound quality will vary due to the live recording.


Find Us Online:
Big Finish: www.bigfinish.com, @darkshadowsbfp and @bigfinish
David Darlington: @deejsaint
Robert Dick: @RobertDick
The Collinsport Historical Society: @cousinbarnabas

DARK SHADOWS: BLOOD & FIRE details

There's an interview over at the official Big Finish website that spills a bean or two about the company's upcoming DARK SHADOWS 50th anniversary special, BLOOD& FIRE. Lara Parker takes center stage in the two-hour special, which sends the witch Angelique back to the year 1767. Here's what producer Joseph Lidster has to say about the project:

"Blood & Fire is a standalone special that sees the witch Angelique travelling back in time to 1767. I don’t want to give too much away but she’s there on a mission. Long-term fans of the show will realize that the year is important as it features a wedding and the building of the Old House which will eventually become Barnabas’s home. For newer fans all you need to know is that it features two supernatural creatures fighting each other against a backdrop of weddings, deaths and very sexy pirates."

You can read the full interview with Lidster and producer David Darlington at Big Finish's news page HERE. (Note: BLOOD & FIRE is already available for pre-order.)

Alec Newman (and David Collins) return for BLOODLUST

Alec Newman as "David Collins."

Big Finish Productions has announce three more cast members for the upcoming serial 2015 serial, DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST.

The announcement includes two very familiar names: Alec Newman and "David Collins."

“Alec’s performance as David in 'Kingdom of the Dead' is fantastic,” says co-producer Joseph Lidster. “The character starts off as a lost innocent before heading down a much darker path. David has changed since we last met him though. No longer a doctor, he’s opened up a mine in the grounds of Collinwood.”

Marley Shelton and Alec Newman as Victoria Winters and Barnabas Collins, from the unproduced 2004 WB series.

Newman briefly played "Barnabas Collins" in a 2004 pilot for The WB. Co-starring with Marley Shelton,  Jessica Chastain and Blair Brown, the pilot was not picked up for series by the network. The uncompleted episode has been screened at the annual Dark Shadows Festival. A clip from the pilot is available on Youtube.

“We wanted to return to the core DARK SHADOWS idea of the Collins family owning a business that employed many of the townsfolk,” says co-producer David Darlington. “And of course mining was big news in the early 1980s... Whether David is a villain like J.R. Ewing or a good guy like Bobby Ewing is something we’ll discover throughout the series.” 

Benjamin Franklin and Kate Ripperton

Working in David's mine is Benjamin Franklin - known to his friends as Frankie. A new character to Dark Shadows, and played by Roger Carvalho, Frankie works hard and plays hard. He’s been a bit of a ladies' man in the past - but he  seems to have settled down. And his girlfriend is another returning character - Kate Ripperton (Asta Parry) from 2013’s Beyond The Grave.

“Kate’s now the editor of local newspaper, the Collinsport Star,” says Joseph Lidster. “And she and her reporter, Andrew Cunningham (Matthew Waterhouse) are going to be kept very busy when a murderer strikes. As the former host of a television show in the UK, the reasons for her being in Collinsport are a bit of a mystery. Could she be a killer?”

DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST is a 13-part miniseries released in January and February 2015. It's available to pre-order here.

DARK SHADOWS: THE FAVORITE FIVE

Last month, The Collinsport Historical Society asked you to name your five favorite DARK SHADOWS audio dramas from Big Finish. Every day this week we'll be revealing the results.

#2 The House by the Sea

Released in March 2012, “The House by the Sea” is one of the most recent DARK SHADOWS audio dramas to make “The Favorite Five,” it’s also the only episode not to feature any members of the original cast.

Former DOCTOR WHO Colin Baker played “Gerald Conway,” an Englishman attracted to Collinsport by an inexplicable compulsion. It’s almost a one-man show, a story told through Conway’s diary recordings as he meets the mysterious denizens of Collinsport, struggles with madness, and finally meets one of the town’s most notorious sorcerers.

“When James (Goss) and I took over the range, one of the first things he said he wanted to do was to write a single-hander for Colin Baker,” said Big Finish producer/writer Joe Lidster. “And so he did. And it’s brilliant. What I love about the script is how deceptively clever it is. James has a way of writing something that feels utterly simple.”

“‘The House by the Sea’ came up for three colliding reasons,” Goss said. “Colin Baker had expressed an interest in doing a DARK SHADOWS. The film was coming out and it seemed good to have a ‘Beginner's Guide To Collinsport.’ And finally, I was dying to write a one-man outsider's view of that crazy, crazy town.”

Colin Baker in DOCTOR WHO.

“You could mistake ‘The House by the Sea’ for just being all about atmosphere,” Lidster said. “It’s certainly got atmosphere. I remember how scary it was in the studio - thanks to James’s script and Colin’s amazing performance, but it’s not just a spooky ghost story. There are clues throughout as to where it’s going and the character of Gerald Conway is so nuanced and three-dimensional. When you add onto that David Darlington’s terrifying sound design, you get something really special. I genuinely think it’s one of the best pieces of drama I’ve ever heard.”

Because the character is recounting his experiences to the listener, it opened to door to allow for characters not usually depicted in the audio dramas. Big Finish has been resistant to recasting actors from the original series, which has meant characters played by actors and actress no longer with us - such as Grayson Hall, Joan Bennett and Joel Crothers - have not made appearances.

“The cameos just seemed a great way of introducing some characters we'd otherwise not get a chance to meet,” Goss said. “It was also a joy working with Colin Baker - he stormed through the script, barely needed a second take, stopped only for a quick bite of lunch and to check a YouTube clip to hone his version of someone's voice... just amazing.”

Because Baker was essentially “playing” all of the roles, it meant every character was fair game for ‘The House by the Sea.’ Including Barnabas Collins.

“That was the only bit that took some explaining to him, ’So, just to be clear, I'm NOT acting with Johnny Depp?’” Goss said.

DARK SHADOWS: THE FAVORITE FIVE

Last month, The Collinsport Historical Society asked you to name your five favorite DARK SHADOWS audio dramas from Big Finish. Every day this week we'll be revealing the results.

#5 BEYOND THE GRAVE
 

The first entry in THE FAVORITE FIVE is also the most recent release to make the list. The experimental “Beyond the Grave” was released in October, 2013. Unlike prior episodes in the DARK SHADOWS series, it was designed to function as a sort of “found footage” movie, telling the story of a fictional British television show investigating the ghostly goings-on at Collinsport.

Aaron Lamont, the episode’s writer, said “Beyond the Grave” was epistolary in nature from the very beginning. He pitched the idea as “DARK SHADOWS does DEATH OF A PRESIDENT,” referring to the 2006 fictional documentary about the “assassination” of Pres. George W. Bush and its aftermath. Producer Joseph Lidster had something a bit spookier in mind, though.

“Joe said ‘I want you to do GHOSTWATCH.’ Which is what I really wanted to do,” Lamont said.  “Maggie was the key - here's a woman who's been through hell, and she's still standing and still fighting.”

GHOSTWATCH was a television movie that first aired in the UK on Halloween, 1992. If you’ve listened to “Beyond the Grave,” the plot of GHOSTWATCH will sound familiar: The film followed BBC reporters conducting a live, on-air investigation of a haunted house.

GHOSTWATCH was just a jumping-off point for a much more personal tale, though. Lamont said his original proposal for “Beyond the Grave” was to take the one person in Collinsport with the least credibility and prove she was actually the sanest.

Kathryn Leigh Scott

“And, when I first heard Kathryn Leigh Scott deliver the line, 'I won't be mad for you,' I punched the air,” Lamont said. “She got it. And of course at the end, where Maggie has actually been driven insane, she was utterly devastating.”

“Aaron is a fantastic writer who really knows his stuff,” said Lidster. “It had elements of “The Crimson Pearl” in that we got actors who were already appearing in other stories that year to have cameo roles in it - either as the same characters or as someone new. So one minute Evelyn Adams is playing a terrifying ghost on a ship, the next she’s phoning a TV show to scream that her husband is coming after her with a knife.”

“Beyond the Grave” was the capstone in a yearlong event that loosely tied the previous stories into a single narrative. While it wasn’t necessary to listen to previous episodes to understand the latest releases, listeners who stayed with the series throughout 2013 had a richer experience than casual audiences.

“I love how we managed to set it all up in the earlier stories and how it managed to continue the serial elements and character arcs from throughout the series,” Lidster said. “But, mostly I love that it works perfectly as a standalone drama. And it’s just simply terrifying!”

Lamont said the atmosphere in the studio was “unbearably tense” during the record session.

“It was actually terrifying,” he said. “After one scene, everybody shuddered.  And I just sat in the control booth with Joe and (producer David Darlington) grinning from ear to ear. We did something really special with that batch of audios.”

"(It was) simply one of the creepiest stories I have ever heard on audio, tying together so many elements from that season's range," said CHS reader Joe Hart, who named "Beyond the Grave" as his favorite episode. "It's probably the scariest DARK SHADOWS story ever."

Big Finish announces cast of DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST

Matthew Waterhouse, Scott Haran and Stephanie Ellyne visit Collinwood.

Some describe it as the town at the edge of the world.

When Melody and Michael Devereux come to Collinsport on their honeymoon, they don't know the secrets that are hidden behind closed doors. But those secrets will be unearthed when an innocent is viciously murdered.

Collinsport will be a town divided. One woman's rise to power will lead to further death and destruction. Families will be ripped apart. Blood will be spilt.

And the dark forces that wait in the shadows will wait no more. For in Collinsport, death is never the end ...

That's the official plot synopsis of DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST, a 13-part serial coming from Big Finish in January. Earlier today, the company announced the cast of the serial, which will see the return of Stephanie Ellyne as "Amy Jennings." Joining her are DOCTOR WHO icon Matthew Waterhouse (previously heard in the DARK SHADOWS audio dramas "The Creeping Fog" and "The Crimson Pearl"), and Scott Haran, best known as the boy wizard "Tom Clarke" in CBBC's WIZARDS VS ALIENS.

DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST is an ambitious project, one modeled on the serialized nature of the original DARK SHADOWS television series. Episodes will be released twice weekly in January and February, 2015. The serial is available for pre-order HERE.

DARK SHADOWS: BLOODLUST takes place in the 1980s, following the events of "Kingdom of the Dead."

"One thing we wanted to do in BLOODLUST was to create a next generation of Collinsport residents," said co-producer Joseph Lidster. "Harry's something of a loner but he'll soon find himself making friends with other teenagers in the town."

"Like many of the residents," said co-producer David Darlington, "the Cunningham family are hiding secrets - both from the other townsfolk and from each other. But could one of them be a killer?"

The Big Finish press release raises more questions than it answers. First off, will any members of the original television cast make appearances in BLOODLUST? "Kingdom of the Dead" had one of the largest roster of characters to appear in any of the DARK SHADOWS audiodramas, and even included Andrew Collins as "Barnabas Collins." More importantly, I'd like to see these characters develop beyond their roles on the original television series (which has already happened, to a certain extent).

Which leads me to another question: Does Big Finish have the balls to launch a DARK SHADOWS serial without any original cast members? That would certainly be a bold move. It might even be an essential strategy if we're going to see DARK SHADOWS continue well into the future.

From a storytelling perspective, the plot summary also begs the question, "Why the hell is Amy Jennings back in Collinsport?" She vowed never to return in the last episode, "The Carriage of the Damned," set sometime in the early 1970s. Jennings appears to be at the center of the story in BLOODLUST, with Waterhouse playing her husband, "Andrew Cunningham," and Clarke playing her step-son, "Harry."

You can read the complete news release from Big Finish HERE.

And listen to Amy, Andrew and Harry introducing themselves at Big Finish's official Soundcloud page HERE.