Kaldor City (audio series)

Kaldor City is the setting and title of a series of audio plays produced by Magic Bullet Productions. It previously featured in TV: The Robots of Death and PROSE: Corpse Marker. In addition to using characters, concepts and situations that feature in those stories, some of the plays also feature the Fendahl, a race of creatures previously featured in TV: Image of the Fendahl. The writer of those productions Chris Boucher is credited as creative consultant for the series. Boucher also wrote the second release AUDIO: Death's Head.

Origins

Alan Stevens had the idea for an audio series loosely based on a film called Yojimbo by Akira Kurosawa. The film is about a Samurai who plays two powerful families off against one another in order to benefit himself.

Around this time, BBC Books published a Doctor Who novel titled Corpse Marker as part of its line of Past Doctor Adventures. Written Chris Boucher it served as a sequel to his 1977 Doctor Who story The Robots of Death and was also a crossover with Blake's 7 due to the inclusion of Carnell, a character originating from that series. Stevens contacted Boucher and proposed the idea of an audio drama using the setting established in Corpse Marker named Kaldor City. Boucher encouraged Stevens to write the script, which he wrote the script in collaboration with Jim Smith. Pleased with it, Boucher gave his full approval to proceed with the concept.

Stevens initially approached BBV, an audio and video production company specializing in Doctor Who related productions, with the script but weren’t interested in the idea. Big Finish, a prodcution company licensed by the BBC to produce Doctor Who audio drama, also showed interest the idea. However, Stevens decided to produce it himself and so set up a company called Magic Bullet.

In assembling the key players, Stevens hired sound designer Alistair Lock whom he previously worked with on a series of Blake's 7 audio productions; Travis: The Final Act, The Mark of Kane, and The Logic of Empire. Stevens created the character of Kaston Iago specifically for Paul Darrow, best for the role of 'Kerr Avon' in Blake's 7. Alexis Kanner from the ITC television series The Prisoner was also considered for the role should Darrow prove unavailable.

Using his casting connections from the Blake’s 7 audios, Stevens contacted Darrow who agreed to play the role. Series regulars Trevor Cooper, Brian Croucher and Peter Miles were also known to Stevens from those audio productions. Russell Hunter was contacted through a friend of Stevens and agreed to reprise the role of Uvanov from The Robots of Death. Scott Fredericks who originally played the role of Carnell in the Blake’s 7 episode Weapon proved more difficult to track down as he resided in Ireland. Stevens eventually got in touch through BBC Residuals, who kindly forwarded a copy of the script. Stevens later recalled: "I’d written a script with Carnell in before I’d even contacted the actor. It would have been a terrible mess if he’d decided not to do it."

Audio plays

#	Title	Image	Author	Released
1		Occam's Razor	Alan Stevens Jim Smith	September 2001
2		Death's Head	Chris Boucher	April 2002
3		Hidden Persuaders	Jim Smith Fiona Moore	November 2002
4		Taren Capel	Alan Stevens	March 2003
5		Checkmate	Alan Stevens	September 2003
		The Prisoner	Alan Stevens Fiona Moore	June 2004
6		Storm Mine	Daniel O'Mahony	December 2004
	File:Metafiction.jpg	Metafiction	Alan Stevens Fiona Moore	July 2012

Main cast

• Kaston Iago - Paul Darrow
• Kiy Uvanov - Russell Hunter
• Carnell - Scott Fredericks
• Landerchild - Peter Miles
• Justina Kessel - Patricia Merrick
• Elska Blayes - Tracy Russell
• Stenton Rull - Trevor Cooper
• Cotton - Brian Croucher

Guest starring

• Taren Capel - David Bailie
• Zala Vance - Jasmine Breaks
• Paullus - David Collings
• Danl Packard - Nicholas Courtney
• Derhaven - Peter Halliday
• Strecker - Peter Tuddenham

Notes

• Uvanov, Poul and Taren Capel are the only characters from the classic series to appear in Kaldor City.
• The character of Kaston Iago is named after the manipulative character from Shakespeare's Othello and the noted Shakespeare editor David Kastan.
• AUDIO: The Prisoner, is a twenty minute play released as part of an MJTV Productions CD, The Actor Speaks: Paul Darrow, which featured an interview and several short stories unrelated to the Kaldor City series.
• PROSE: Skulduggery is a short story written by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore, that appeared in the 2006 charity anthology Shelf Life.
• In 2012, two stage plays were performed that linked in the contuity established by the series: Robots of Death and Storm Mine. These were adapted by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore from the TV and audio stories of the same name. In the case of Robots of Death all the BBC owned elements were removed, notably The Doctor and Leela replaced by Kaston Iago and Elska Blayes.
• Kaldor City was written as a six-part audio series. Since the release of AUDIO: Storm Mine there have been four attempts to develop a new 'Kaldor City' story by established Doctor Who and/or spinoff writers, none of which have, to date, managed to progress beyond the draft stage. Series producer Alan Stevens maintains, "if there's an interesting enough idea out there, the series will continue, but at the moment we're waiting for that idea to come along.In fact, Fiona and I even wrote 'Kaldor City 7' ourselves, and then threw it away, because it just proved to us that the series had come to a natural end with Storm Mine."

External links

• Magic Bullet Productions website
• Kaldor City at the Doctor Who Reference Guide