The actors playing the characters of Dr David Keel and John Steed in an audio re-creation of missing episodes from the first season of The Avengers were revealed today.

Anthony Howell has been cast as Keel while Julian Wadham will play his sidekick Steed for the three volumes comprising 12 episodes. Only two of the season's 26 episodes exist in their entirety, with just 20 minutes of the first episode - Hot Snow - having survived as well.

Big Finish has signed a licensing deal with Studio Canal to produce full-cast audio dramas of a dozen of the missing episodes, including a full re-creation of Hot Snow.

Howell is probably best-known for his role as Sgt Paul Milner in 21 episodes of the ITV detective drama series Foyle's War, and he has recently filmed for the American series Dracula. His other work includes Dirk Gently - based on the books by Douglas Adams - and Dungeons and Dragons: The Book of Vile Darkness.

Wadham, meanwhile, can count Downton Abbey, Midsomer Murders, Middlemarch, and Blind Justice among his TV pedigree. He has also appeared in the films The Iron Lady (as Francis Pym), War Horse, Maurice, The English Patient, The Madness of King George, and Exorcist: The Beginning.

Volume 1 of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes will be released in January 2014, with Volumes 2 and 3 following in July 2014 and January 2015 respectively.

Big Finish have announced an audio series based upon the classic television series Survivors, originally devised and written by Terry Nation.

The surviving original TV cast of Blake's 7 are being brought back together again in six new audio plays.

The Big Finish dramas will launch in January 2014 with Fractures by Justin Richards, in which an escape from a Federation pursuit ship leaves the crew of the Liberator licking their wounds. As the dust settles, realisation gradually dawns that the trust and camaraderie that has built up between them is dissolving - and one of the crew is working against the rest.

The audios see the return of Gareth Thomas as Roj Blake, Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon, Michael Keating as Vila Restal, Sally Knyvette as Jenna Stannis, Jan Chappell as Cally, and Brian Croucher as Travis, while Alistair Lock voices the computers Zen and Orac.

The writers for the rest of the season are Andrew Smith, Marc Platt, Peter Anghelides, Mark Wright, and Cavan Scott.

The news follows the release earlier this year of Anghelides' audio drama Warship, which first saw the original surviving Liberator team reunited. David Jackson, who played crew member Olag Gan, died in 2005, while Peter Tuddenham - the voice of Zen and Orac on TV - died two years later.

Producer David Richardson said: The series is being released in a licence deal with B7 Media, and Andrew Mark Sewell, the executive producer of B7 Media, said: After Fractures comes out, the other stories - whose titles are yet to be revealed - will be released monthly until June.

The TV series, created by Terry Nation, ran on BBC1 between 1978 and 1981.

Twelve of the missing episodes from the first series of classic TV show The Avengers are to be turned into full-cast audio productions by Big Finish, it was announced today.

Created by Sydney Newman and starring Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel and Patrick Macnee as John Steed, the show began airing on Saturday 7th January 1961 with the episode Hot Snow. However, only the first 20 minutes of that story plus two full instalments from the rest of the 26-episode run - Girl on the Trapeze (which did not feature Steed) and The Frighteners - have survived.

But now, after signing a licensing deal with Studio Canal, Big Finish is to work from the surviving scripts to present adaptations of a dozen of those lost episodes in three four-disc box sets. The scripts will be adapted, with minimal changes, by John Dorney. The director will be Ken Bentley, with executive producer duties going to Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery.

Producer David Richardson said: The roles of Keel and Steed have already been cast, with "two brilliant, high-profile actors" playing them, he added. A casting announcement will be made once recording begins next month.

John Rodden, the general manager for home entertainment at Studio Canal, said: Volume 1 of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes, which will include a full re-creation of Hot Snow, will be released in January 2014, with Volumes 2 and 3 following in July 2014 and January 2015 respectively.

The titles of the episodes selected for recording are yet to be announced.

An audio drama that reunites the original surviving Blake's 7 TV cast members has been released by Big Finish - a month ahead of schedule.

Set during the Galactic War, Warship - written by Peter Anghelides and directed by Ken Bentley - is a two-disc special, with the adventure on one disc and a behind-the-scenes documentary on the other.

It brings together Gareth Thomas as Roj Blake, Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon, Michael Keating as Vila Restal, Jan Chappell as Cally, Sally Knyvette as Jenna Stannis, and Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan, with Alistair Lock as Zen and Orac.

Peter Tuddenham, who originally provided the voices of Zen and Orac, died in 2007 and David Jackson, who played crew member Gan in the first two seasons of the TV show, died in 2005.


It can be bought as a CD and download. The tie-in novelisation, expanding on the story's events and developments, will be published next month as planned as an e-book.

The original cast of Terry Nation’s acclaimed series Blake’s 7 are reuniting for a special audio episode that will be released in February 2013.

The audio is being released by Big Finish in a licence deal with B7 Enterprises.

Written by Peter Anghelides, Warship finds the spaceship Liberator acting as the sole line of defence against a massive alien invasion fleet, while Blake and his crew desperately await the arrival of help from the most unlikely of sources – President Servalan and her Federation forces…

“This is the Blake’s 7 episode that we’ve always wanted to hear,” says producer David Richardson. “It fills in the missing gap in the mythology, following the Galactic War, and ultimately to Blake and Jenna’s departure as members of the Liberator crew. And it tells a whole lot more too – that alien attack force is actually far more destructive than expected, but the Federation may just have a surprise line of defence…”

“I’m delighted to see Big Finish tackle their first full cast Blake’s 7 story,” says Andrew Mark Sewell, Executive Producer of B7 Media, “and it’s great that Peter’s script so perfectly captures the spirit of the original to tell (and complete) such a significant – but previously unseen – part of the whole mythos.”

Warship stars Gareth Thomas as Roj Blake, Paul Darrow as Kerr Avon, Michael Keating as Vila Restal, Sally Knyvette as Jenna Stannis, Jan Chappell as Cally, Jacqueline Pearce as Servalan and Alistair Lock as Zen and Orac.

The hour-long story will be released in February 2013 as a double disc set, with the second disc comprising interviews and behind the scenes material from the historic cast reunion at the recording session. It will retail for £12.99 on CD and £9.99 on download from bigfinish.com.

A novelization of the episode will also be released in February 2013, in ebook form only. The book will retail at £4.99, and expand upon the cataclysmic events and key developments in the story.