We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
Log in / Sign in

Lost password ?

0 0
Shopping cart (0)
Subtotal: £0.00

Checkout

Free shipping over 49$
  • About
  • Team
  • Productions
  • Trailer Park
    • AUDIO
    • VIDEO PROMOS
    • TELEVISION
    • FILM
    • THEATRE
  • News
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Sign up to B7 Newsletter
Log in / Sign in
My Account

Lost password ?

0 0
0 Shopping Cart
Shopping cart (0)
Subtotal: £0.00

Checkout

Free shipping over 49$
Menu Categories
  • About
  • Team
  • Productions
  • Trailer Park
    • AUDIO
    • VIDEO PROMOS
    • TELEVISION
    • FILM
    • THEATRE
  • News
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Sign up to B7 Newsletter
  • Audiobooks
    • Audio Drama
    • Autobiography
    • Biography
    • Children’s
    • Fantasy
    • Fiction
    • Historical
    • Horror
    • Music
    • Romance
    • Science Fiction
    • Self-Help
    • Crime
    • Science
    • Ghosts
  • B69
  • Audible
  • Magazines
  • Coming Soon
  • Brands
    • Eleanor of Aquitaine
    • Blake's 7
      • Big Finish
      • The Audio Adventures
      • The Early Years
    • Once Upon a World
    • Dan Dare
    • The Martian Chronicles
  • Browse Releases
    • Featured
    • New Releases
    • Recent Releases
    • Special Offers
  • Categories
    • Children's
    • Documentary
    • Drama
    • Music
    • Science Fiction
  • Media
    • Books
    • CD
    • MP3 Downloads
  • Uncategorized
  • Amazon
    • Books
  • Dan Dare
  • iTUNES
Wishlist Please, install WooCommerce Wishlist plugin
Cart 0
Log in / Sign in
Michael Cochrane (Sir Hubert), Heida Reed (Professor Peabody), Ed Stoppard (Dan Dare)
News

Dan Dare Cast Revealed!

10th May 2016 / 3126

Inspired by the original Eagle comic strips the cast for B7 Media’s dramatic new audio version of DAN DARE has been announced.

Ed Stoppard – The Pianist, Joy Division, Brideshead Revisited and Youth – has been cast as the intrepid ‘pilot of the future’ Colonel Dan Dare. He’s joined by Geoff McGivern as Digby (McGivern is best known to science fiction fans as the original Ford Prefect in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Heida Reed as Professor Jocelyn Peabody; Reed currently plays Ross Poldark’s first love, Elizabeth, in the hit BBC drama Poldark.

“It’s very exciting to have been cast as Dan Dare,” says Ed Stoppard. “We’re having a ball. It’s very nice to be doing something that isn’t overly earnest, and is great fun at the same time – although I’m also learning a lot about cosmology, quantum mechanics, plasma drives and the like.”

As for his take on the classic British comic book character, Stoppard goes on to say, “Dan’s an intrinsically, morally upright man, the kind of man we could really do with in Number 10 or the White House. ‘Hero’ is too simple a term to describe him – he’s got a complexity to him.”

“It’s an effable delight to play Digby in Dan Dare,” says Geoff McGivern, who is convinced Douglas Adams was inspired by the Eagle comic strip the new audio adventures are based on. “I’m sure Hitch Hiker’s came out of Douglas reading Dan Dare, because he was the same age as me, and created his own take.”

“It’s a great challenge,” says Heida Reed of playing Professor Peabody, long-suffering foil to Dan Dare’s action man, “and very different to Poldark. It’s great to play a character like this – she’s both intelligent and challenging.”

“It’s been a long-held ambition of mine to bring Dan Dare back to the radio waves,” says producer/director Andrew Mark Sewell. “We’ve not only managed to bring together a superb cast, but in Ed Stoppard we’ve found a lead actor who embodies the spirit of the original Dan Dare and makes him feel utterly relevant today.”

Raad Rawi, known for roles in Spy (2015), The Devil’s Double (2011) and Traitor (2008) features as Dan Dare’s arch nemesis, the Mekon, an alien leader plagued by Dare’s loyal ally and Treen resistance fighter,  Sondar, voiced by Bijan Daneshmand.

“It’s extremely exciting to be in this show, given the people I’m working with,” says Raad Rawi. He insists the Mekon is “misunderstood”, not evil. Rawi is a fan of SF authors such as Frederick Pohl and Phillip K. Dick. “Doing audio completely frees the imagination; we don’t have to worry how we look – we can imagine it.”

As it is for many of the cast, science fiction is something of a departure for actor and abstract painter Bijan Daneshmand, but he’s finding it fun, especially playing an alien. “You can sound different to your normal human being voice!”

And does he think there is alien life out there? “Definitely,” he insists, echoing the views of many of the other actors in the cast, who are currently midway through recording the first of six all-new Dan Dare audio adventures.

Completing the regular cast as Space Fleet boss Sir Hubert Guest is Michael Cochrane, a familiar face, and voice, who has appeared in many popular television dramas, and most recently can be heard in Dan Dare guest star Nicholas Briggs’ acclaimed audio reboot of The Prisoner starring Mark Elstob.

B7 Media’s Dan Dare Audio Adventures offers a distinctly 21st century take on the space adventure hero first brought to life in Eagle comic in the 1950s. Other guest actors in this first season include Jake Maskall (EastEnders, The Royals), Hugh Fraser (Agatha Christie’s Poirot, Sharpe), Nicholas Briggs (Doctor Who, Torchwood), Noof McEwan (Vera, Leave to Remain), Jonathan Rhodes (M.I. High, Beacon 77, Deadpan Valentine), Kelly Burke (The Blind Man) and Dean Harris (The Fourth Arm, Howards’ Way, Bad Boyes).

Inspired by the original Eagle comic strips, the all-new Dan Dare audio adventures are being directed by Andrew Mark Sewell (The Martian Chronicles, Blake’s 7) and produced by Simon Moorhead (Luna, Mirrormask). Former Doctor Who Magazine and Marvel Comics editor, John Freeman, is attached as consultant to the series.

Tags: Andrew Mark Sewell, Bijan Daneshmand, Dan Dare, Dean Harris, Ed Stoppard, Geoff McGivern, Heida Reed, Hugh Fraser, Jake Maskall, John Freeman, Jonathan Rhodes, Kelly Burke, Michael Cochrane, Nicholas Briggs, Noof McEwan, Raad Rawi, Simon Moorhead
Share Post
Dan Dare Writers Announced!
Matt Turmaine as a future Prime Minister of Britain
Local Politician Becomes Prime...

Related posts

Greenborne_logo
News
Read more

John Altman, Louise Jameson, Raad Rawi and Corrinne Wicks lead cast in new post-COVID audio soap, GREENBORNE

9th February 2021 / 985
... Continue reading
marriage bureau
News
Read more

Mary Oliver’s MARRIAGE BUREAU updated and republished

30th November 2020 / 554
... Continue reading
A Game for Gentlemen
News
Read more

B7 Media to publish Ken Del Conte’s A GAME FOR GENTLEMEN

24th September 2020 / 746
... Continue reading
Vennas Planet
News
Read more

Robin Evans’ “VENNA’S PLANET” graphic novel series to be dramatised for audio

19th August 2020 / 939
... Continue reading
News
Read more

The Space Race wins top New York Festivals Radio Award

25th April 2020 / 771
... Continue reading

Search

B7 Media on Facebook

B7 Media on Twitter

Tweets by @B7Media

Dan Dare

Dan Dare

Tweets by SpaceshipAway

B7 Enterprises Ltd

UK Company Reg 4352509
Registered Office:

Unit 2, Whitegates
Berries Road
Cookham
Berkshire
SL6 9SD

Contact us
Privacy Policy 

T & Cs

RECENT AWARDS

Isaac Asimov’s I, ROBOT
BBC Radio 4
‘Best Director’ (Gold)
‘Best Drama Special’ (Silver)
NYC International Radio Program Awards (2017)
 
DAN DARE
BBC Radio 4 Extra
‘Best Digital Drama’ (Gold)
NYC International Radio Program Awards (2018)
‘Best Director’ (Silver)
‘Best Online Drama Program’ (Silver)
NYC International Radio Program Awards (2017)

Friends of B7

  • Big Finish
  • Boffin Media
  • Feel Design
  • Helen Quigley
  • James Swallow
  • Simon Guerrier

Subscribe to our newsletter

Web design and branding London & Yorkshire by Feel Design