Doctor Who news: Arthur Darvill returns as Rory in new audio spin-off next year!
By James Aggas
For the first time ever, the story of the Lone Centurion will be revealed, in an upcoming Doctor Who audio spin-off from Big Finish!
Way back in 2010, Matt Smith’s first series of Doctor Who was concluding with The Pandorica Opens – the first half of Series 5’s epic finale. As I’m sure many of you remember, the episode featured plenty of major twists – including the apparent resurrection of Rory Williams, who had been killed off just weeks earlier in Cold Blood. Almost right after being reunited with his fiancé Amy Pond, he was revealed to be a Nestene duplicate and shot her.
However, the following episode The Big Bang gave the Doctor a way of resurrecting Amy by sealing her in the Pandorica for nearly two thousand years. While the Doctor jumped ahead to when Amy eventually woke up, Rory decided to live out the entire two thousand years and protect the Pandorica during that time. But what kind of adventures did he have along the way?
Next year, we’ll finally get to find out. In May 2021, the first volume of The Lone Centurion will be released. Starring Arthur Darvill as Rory, the new audio series will tell stories set across his long vigil over the Pandorica. Here’s what we can expect from Volume One:
"Travelling to Rome in search of the Pandorica, Rory finds himself forced to perform as a gladiator in the Colosseum… where he attracts the attention of the Imperial household."
The Lone Centurion will be set during the timeline of The Big Bang, when Rory waited almost 2,000 years for Amy. (Picture shows: Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Matt Smith as The Doctor.)
Image Courtesy BBC
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Rory returns
This is a huge release for Big Finish. While we’ve had plenty of audio stories focusing on his daughter River, this will be Rory’s first appearance in a Big Finish audio. In fact, it’s the first time any story has starred one of the regulars from Moffat’s first couple of years as showrunner.
This isn’t Arthur Darvill’s first time featuring in a Big Finish audio, though. In their adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein, Darvill played the titular role himself, while in Torchwood: Believe, he played the rather unpleasant character, Frank Layton. Picture the exact opposite of Rory, and you’re pretty much there.
However, when it came to returning to his first role in the Doctor Who universe, he needed to be convinced it would be worth it, as producer Scott Handcock reveals.
"I’ve worked with Arthur on a few Big Finish projects before now, so I know first-hand how much he loves the audio medium… It’s lovely when an actor wants to do more, but I knew he was nervous about revisiting Rory and upsetting established story arcs, which is how The Lone Centurion came about."
Arthur Darvill himself seems especially happy with how Rory’s story has been expanded on.
"It seemed like an offer I couldn’t refuse. As soon as I read the scripts, I was like, ‘Oh well, they totally get it, they’ve really nailed his voice’. It’s been a lovely way to revisit it in a very different way to what it was, but to do something more with this character. It’s funny but also quite epic, which is so lovely with what you can do on audio: to have these huge stories which in another medium would break the budget!"
The first volume of The Lone Centurion will be released on CD and download in May 2021. Volume Two will be released in Jul 2022. You can pre-order both right now from Big Finish’s website.
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Are you happy to know that we’ll be getting more stories of Rory? Do you think his time spent as the Last Centurion will be worth exploring? Let us know in the comments below.