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Project:
Lazarus
(Cavan Scott Wright
and Mark Wright) |
|
 June 2003 sees two incarnations of The Doctors
joining forces to discover the secret of "Project: Lazarus".
This story is
a sequel to the previous year's "Project: Twilight" and
has been penned by Cavan Scott Wright and Mark Wright. According to Director
Gary Russell they have "come up with a very interesting way of splitting the
story between the Sixth and Seventh Doctors". Originally titled "Project:
Enigma" this story was recorded 17th and 19th January 2003.
"Project:
Lazarus" has the distinction of being the first story to feature more than one
Doctor since the inaugural Big Finish Productions audio release "The Sirens of
Time" back in 1999. Also unusually, this story features two separate covers,
each highlighting each of The Doctors.
It co-stars
Colin Baker, as the Sixth
Doctor, with Maggie Stables, as companion
Evelyn
Smythe, and Sylvester McCoy, as the Seventh Doctor.
For their
third Big Finish Doctor Who script Cavan Scott and Mark Wright revisit some of
the most interesting characters of their debut story "Project: Twilight"
including the return of villain Nimrod played by Stephen Chance and Cassie
played by Rosie Caviliero. Also staring are: Emma Collier, Ann Jenkins, Ingrid
Evans, Vidar Magnussen, Adam Woodroffe and Mark Wright.
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| Sixth Doctor |
|
There is a frightened girl being stalked in a land
of eternal night by a hunter who longs for recognition and power. But to her
rescue comes a traveller in time who is determined to correct the mistakes of
the past but in doing so he subjects himself to a danger that could rob him of
his future.
And in the shadows stands the brutal vampire hunter Nimrod, a
haunting presence lurking in the shadows, waiting for the moment to
strike...
Waiting to take The Doctor to the Forge, the mysterious
organisation he operated on behalf of, and to the location of "Project:
Lazarus".
At the end of "Project: Twilight" the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn
left the vampiric Cassie, who was blackmailed into spying upon the vampire
owners of the casino she worked, in self-imposed Scandinavian exile. The Doctor
promising to return with a cure for her condition when he was forced to leave
her to her fate to succumb to the Twilight virus and become the monster she
most feared.
 |
| Maggie Stables |
|
Meanwhile Nimrod,
the Forge's most enhanced agent, proved to be equally
undead. Unfinished business aplenty: but when The Doctor
at last finds a cure for Cassie the TARDIS
returns to Norway a couple of years later than when they
left her. There The Doctor and Evelyn find a very much
changed Cassie. A Cassie who is very unwelcoming. They
also meet Professor Harket, a paranormal hunter who very
much complicates the picture.
The
Doctor though soon deduces that Harket is not hunting
Cassie, but something very alien in origin. But which
myth is the Professor intent on proving? Using Cassie's
vampire instincts of being able to smell the blood of
death nearby leads them to discovery of a frozen body,
who seems to have died horribly, and so confirm for Harket
that the creatures he is hunting, the Huldran, are close
by.
What
is really going on in The Forge - a government backed
research facility hidden away on desolate Dartmoor? How
can The Doctor prevent its military experiments from backfiring
disastrously and will the horrific extent of its underground
work on alien technology ever come to light?
Within
the Forge and incoming message notifies the occupants
that their agent, Artemis, has confirmed contact with
Lazarus. But who is Artemis? There only seems one logical
candidate who could be sending encoded communications
to the Forge. The aggrieved vampire - Nimrod!
 |
Project:
Lazarus
(Cavan Scott Wright
and Mark Wright) |
|
When the captured Huldran is taken back to the
subterranean Forge, along with The Doctor and Evelyn, The Doctor eventually
finds that his own future is endangered by Nimrod's work and he also discovers
how active Nimrod has been of late and how successful they have been at
acquiring alien samples for their archive.
When it is
revealed of the true extent of Nimrod's plan for The Doctor and the monstrous
extremes he will go to in the name of scientific progress and the satisfaction
he gains from watching an individual die over and over again until he has the
secrets of what he wants. This revelation though comes at a price as The Doctor
is tortured until he is on the brink of regeneration…
While this is going on, Cassie has reluctantly
taken Evelyn to find some refreshment and it is then that Evelyn learns of
Cassie's true colours and how much harder and resentful person she has
become.
Thankfully Cassie's attitude change comes just in time for
her to save The Doctor, when she becomes aware that his life is in danger. But
in saving The Doctor he himself is unable to prevent the cruel death of his
saviour at the hands of Nimrod.
But what is
the true extent of Nimrod's plans and how much will they effect the next
incarnation of The Doctor when he too finds himself involved with Nimrod and
the Forge?
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| Seventh Doctor |
|
Several years have passed since The Doctor and
Evelyn's tragic trip to the Forge and the Seventh
Doctor finds himself
returning there after detecting it as the focus for a disturbance within the
vortex.
There he finds that despite the passage of time nothing much
has changed. There is one big surprise awaiting the Seventh Doctor the presence
of the Sixth Doctor.
But something is very wrong as the Seventh Doctor
has no memory of ever working for the Forge with Nimrod and then when the Sixth
Doctor is attacked by the captured Huldran it becomes clear that not everything
is what is seems.
As the truth of why the forge is so interested in the Huldran
and the secret of Project: Lazarus is revealed the Seventh Doctor needs to rely
on the help of the doppelganger that is The Sixth Doctor so as to defeat Nimrod
and to destroy the Forge.
But as The Doctor leaves in his TARDIS a computer
in the ruins of what was the Forge that the Forge Beta facility is now
active...
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| Notes: |
|
On the Back Cover:
"I'll survive
Doctor. I always do."
A frightened girl is stalked
in a land of eternal night.
A
hunter longs for recognition and power.
A
traveller in time returns to correct the mistakes of the
past and faces a danger that could rob him of his future.
Unless his future intervenes.
And
in the shadows stands Nimrod. Waiting...
Welcome
to the Forge.
|
| |
|
On the Inside Cover:
SOME PEOPLE
SAY YOU SHOULD never look back, and with Project: Lazarus
we almost didn't. Since the release of Project:
Twilight in August 2001, there's been a small
but vocal call across the internet for a sequel to the
gritty, vampire-fuelled adventures of the Sixth
Doctor and Evelyn in Bermondsey. After 52 months of battering
down the door of Big Finish Towers and a lunch with Gary
to discuss the lateness of The
Church and the Crown (and it was really late),
Project: Lazaras was born.
Project: Lazarus
was fun and scary to write in equal measure, not least
of all because we were writing for two Doctors. Hearing
Colin and Sylvester together was a real treat, and hopefully
you'll think so too. Now we just need to persuade Gary
to let us have a crack at Paul McGann, and we'll have
done the lot. (Gary? Gary, where did you go?)
However,
scarier than two Time Lords sharing the same microphone
was the return of Nimrod and Cassie from Project: Twilight.
Could we do them justice, would they be recognisable as
the characters we created? Being in the control room to
hear Stephen Chance's first line (like razor blades dragging
over vocal chords) sent a shiver down our spines. Nimrod
was back.
Now
Gary, what about Part Three?
|
Cavan Scott & Mark Wright,
March 2003 |
Cavan
Scott lives in Bath. Mark Wright lives in London. Thankfully
some bright spark invented railways, thus enabling these
two scary men to write this together, their third Big
Finish audio drama - their others being Project: Twilight
and The Church and the Crown. They also wrote
a Bernice Summerfield short story for the Dead Men
Diaries anthology, entitled Christmas Spirit.
These men are a bit weird and the public are advised to
run away as fast as possible. |
| |
|
Production Notes:
A
sequel to Project: Twilight was pretty much on
the cards before that play had even finished recording.
Producer Gary Russell felt that there was still stories
to be told of Amelia, Nimrod, Cassie et al, particularly
as the relevant actors bad been such fun to work with.
Cavan Scott
pitched the initial idea over a pub lunch during the writing
duo's drafts of The Church and the Crown - resulting
in possibly the speediest commission ever, If Gary could
have had contracts printed and ready, they'd have been
signed on the spot. Assembling the returning cast was
equally easy - both Stephen Chance and Rosie Cavaliero
were eager (the character of Amelia never featured in
plans for Project: Lazarus, but that doesn't rule
out a return one day) and the added incentive of putting
Doctors Six and Seven together for this celebratory year
was too good an opportunity to pass over. |
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Full Cast List:
| The Doctor |
Colin Baker |
| The Doctor |
Sylvester McCoy |
| Evelyn Smythe |
Maggie Stables |
| Cassie |
Rosie Cavaliero |
| Nimrod |
Stephen Chance |
| Oracle |
Emma Collier |
| Huldran |
Ann Jenkins |
| Doctor Crumpton |
Ingrid Evans |
| Professor Harket |
Vidar Magnusse |
| Sergeant Frith |
Adam Woodroffe |
| Solier |
Mark Wright |
The Production Team:
| Writer |
Cavan Scott Wright and Mark Wright |
| Director |
Gary Russell |
| Sound/Music |
Andy Hardwick (ERS) |
| Theme Music |
David Darlington |
| Producers |
Gary Russell and
Jason Haigh-Ellery |
| Executive Producer for the BBC |
Jaqueline Rayner |
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