Blake's 7 on BBC 7 in June

Yes folks there will be 4 B7 Audio Episodes on BBC 7 this June, two of them written by me and two by inestimable Simon Guerrier. You can listen to them live or 'catch up', as those funky teenagers say, on iPlayer or direct from the BBC7 website.

I will, of course, be reminding you closer to broadcast time so there is no excuse. The transmission dates are as follows....

Blood and Earth by Meeeeeee! Tuesday 1st of June at 18:30
The Dust Run by Simon. Wednesday 2nd of June at 18:30
The Trial by Simon again. Thursday 3rd of June at 18:30
When Vila Met Gan by Meeeee...again! Friday 4th June 18:30

You owe it to your children's children to listen to these shows.

More Blake's 7

Amazon are already taking pre-orders for The Dust Run/The Trial, the latest addition to the Blake's 7: The Early Years audios. This one, featuring Carrie Dobro as Jenna and is written by the fighteningly fecund and swift Simon Guerrier.

As readers of our production blog can discover script editing is not the non-stop round of glamour and excitement that you might imagine it to be but it's always a thrill to see the covers out there in the world.

Jan Chappell is.......

...playing a Cally in Blood and Earth my latest epic from B7media. It's going to be on the same release as Flag and Flame, also featuring our favourite clone freedom fighter, written by Marc Platt who has been revived from cryogenic stasis purely for that purpose. It will be released on August 24th but you can preorder it now from the B7media Website.

In Studio Today

We're recording Blood and Soil today - the latest in B7's prequels it follows the adventures of one of Cally's predecessors in a time before the Auron came into conflict with the Federation.

And now......

The new Blake's 7 website is up and can be found at www.blakes7.com. Since I will be contributing a blog to that site as well it means I have a brand new excuse for not posting here. I know the three of you will be thrilled.

Altogether now - 'It's the eye of the....'

It is a day of joy because finally 'Blake's 7: The Early Years; Eye of the Machine/Point of No Return' is out. The CD is almost as long as its title and packed with Blake's 7 goodness. In addition to Eye of the Machine you also get, purely as a bonus, James Swallow's Point of No Return which deals with a critical point in Travis' career. I'm very pleased with the way both of them turned out.

So buy Eye of the Machine/Point of No Return (or Point of No Return/Eye of the Machine as James insists on calling it) it's got drama, excitement and some quite reasonable writing.

It's available from Amazon, play.com and the Blake's 7 Website

Down And Safe

BBC7 is broadcasting the following on Monday.

Down and Safe - A Celebration of Blake's 7
Mon 25 Aug, 20:00 - 23:00 180 mins

One ship. Seven freedom fighters. Some tetchy computers. Intrigued? The BBC 7 bank holiday rebellion starts with the history and rebirth of a sci-fi classic. Loyal fan Mitch Benn presents.

Featuring the episodes: The Syndeton Experiment (10/04/1999), Liberator (2007) and When Vila Met Gan (2008).

The last item on that list are written by yours truly. Now I know two of you already knew this but I thought the other one might be interested.

When Vila Met Gan

Just a quick note to let both of you know that my Blake's 7 audio prequel 'When Vila Met Gan' is now available from some good retailers or via the B7media website. I've finished writing the Avon prequel and I'm working on the last episode of the second trilogy.

In related news; Simon the Strange and James the Green have both finished their prequels - so there's plenty of B7 goodness being squeezed down the narrow pipe of production. Andrew the Happy is even now rounding up the usual suspects and writing budget sheets.

When Ben met Micheal

Just a note to let the two of you know that 'When Vila Met Gan' my latest contribution to the Blake's 7 canon has been recorded and is now in post production.

The recording session was especially fun for me because not only is Gan being played by my brother Owen but I got to meet Micheal Keating as well - cool.

I'm currently finishing up another prequel, this time centered around Kerr Avon, and other talented writers have either written, or are scheduled to write, stories about Jenna, Cally and Travis.

Which of us gets to write the Servalan story has yet to be decided - presumably by single combat.

A Joy Forever

A thing of beauty is a joy forever;
Keats

Marc Platt has delivered a wonderful first draft for the second episode of the second B7 Audio series. This follows on from an equally brilliant first episode by James Swallow leaving me with a tough act to follow for episode three.

The £25 Autograph

Call me backwards but I never knew you could sell your autograph for £25. Well obviously I couldn't sell mine for 50p but Patrick Stewart can, so can main characters from Heroes and Lost. I discovered this while pushing product at the London Film and Comic Con where the queues for the Heroes' characters went around the block.
We all ended up in the same rather overheated green room though. I draw no conclusion from the fact that Nana Visitor and I shared a table merely that every time I think I've got a handle on 'fan' culture some new aspect of it surprises me.

The Great Comic Con

Yes I, large fat man, genius writer and reformed geek, will be at the Blake's 7 stand at this year's London Film and Comic Con where I will be available for chat, celebrity photographs (particularly if you are a celebrity) and to push as many copies of the Blake's 7 Audio adventures as I can.

Remember if you buy a writer's CD he eats for a day but if you teach your friends to consume product I'll be able to replace my kitchen cabinets sometime next year.

Return of the return of Blake's 7

Blake's 7 is back and this time it's available on CD in all good music stores (well HMV anyway) and direct from the B7 Media online store here.

On behalf of my fellow writers, Marc Platt and poor crippled James Swallow I urge you to buy a copy now. Remember a mere 2,000 copies will keep an author on a coffee IV drip for a month and just 3,000 copies will allow Marc Platt to take the glory that is Wagnerian opera to the endangered orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra.

5,000 copies will allow us to find James Swallow, so cruelly neglected and then abandoned by his owners, a new family.

So buy a Blake 7 CD today, be entertained, be educated and above all do some real good in the world.

The Return of Blake's 7

Just a note to point out that the first free streamed chapters of the new audio adventures of Blake's 7 are available now at http://www.scifiuk.com/blakes7/.

The first 12 Chapters were written by me and I'm terribly proud of them.

Did I mention that they were free.