Big Finish has  confirmed that actor Mark Elstob has been cast in the leading role of Number Six in its brand new audio revival of The Prisoner.

The new production is based on the highly influential 1967-’68 ITV series, which starred Patrick McGoohan as a former spy imprisoned in the mysterious ‘Village’. Desperate to learn his secrets, the Village’s authorities used ever more ingenious methods to bend Number Six to their will — including the iconic ‘Rover’, a menacing, howling ball-like object.

Elstob  is known for his many stage appearances, including Present Laughter, Neville’s Island, The Importance of Being Earnest, Sir Peter Hall’s Hamlet and Steven Berkoff’s Salome, as well as for his year in Emmerdale as Andrew Fraser. He was chosen for the part of Number Six after an extensive search by writer/director and producer Nicholas Briggs.

Mark Elstob said 

The administrative head of ‘The Village’ is Number Two, and throughout the original series Number Six found himself pitted against a series of different authority figures in this role. The audio series follows the same template, with different actors appearing in the part. John Standing (V for Vendetta, The Elephant Man, 8 ½ Women), Celia Imrie (Bridget Jones, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Highlander), Ramon Tikaram (This Life, Fortitude, Stella, Man Down) and Michael Cochrane (Sharpe, The Archers, The Iron Lady) will each appear as Number Two, subjecting Number Six to a variety of ordeals.

Nicholas Briggs said

Other inhabitants of the Village include Sara Powell as Number Nine, Kristina Buikaite as Number Eight and Jez Fielder as Number 17 — with Helen Goldwyn as the Village Voice, Jim Barclay as Control and Barnaby Edwards as Number Two’s diminutive Butler. Sarah Mowat plays the role of Zero-Six-Two, a former accomplice of Number Six.

The Prisoner: Volume 1 is released in January 2016.

Big Finish Productions has signed an extended licence with STUDIOCANAL to produce full cast audio productions of the entire first season of the classic TV series The Avengers.

The Avengers first launched in 1961, and starred Ian Hendry as Dr David Keel and Patrick Macnee as the elusive and suave John Steed. Beginning with the murder of Keel’s fiancée, and his sworn intent to avenge her death, that first year comprised 26 episodes. Sadly, only two of them exist in their entirety as film prints (Girl on the Trapeze and The Frighteners), while just the first act remains of the opening episode, Hot Snow.

Box Set One of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes, starring Anthony Howell as Dr Keel and Julian Wadham as Steed, is available now and has received much acclaim. It comprises the episodes Hot Snow, Brought to Book, Square Root of Evil and One for the Mortuary.

In total, seven box sets of The Avengers: The Lost Episodes will now be released at six monthly intervals until January 2017. All of the 24 missing episodes will now be recreated from surviving scripts and storylines, while both Girl on the Trapeze and The Frighteners will be remade on audio to complete the series.

The director is Ken Bentley, the script editor is John Dorney and the producer is David Richardson. The executive producers are Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery.

All surviving episodes of The Avengers Series 1-6 are available on DVD from STUDIOCANAL.

Big Finish are running a number of special offers over the next twelve days as part of the festive celebrations, selected from a many of their range of series.

Today's offering is the Dark Shadows story, A Collinwood Christmas, which is available to download at a special price.

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.