Thread by @scribblesscript

Writing for audio with Matt Fitton, Lisa McMullin, Liz Myles, Joe Lidster, Rossa McPhillips, Alfie Shaw, and Kenny Smith from Big Finish! #gally1

Majority of panelists got in to Big Finish through Matt.

"What we've learned so far is Matt Fitton. He even script edits."
"Because no one else will."

"That was a real lesson in terms of what you can and can't do. You can't have access to everyone... check who you can use before you start" says Alfie Shaw on how he wanted to include Clara as a source of tension between 11 and 12 in Regeneration Impossible. #gally1

"People might not like the work. Deal with it... you are going to be discussed and not liked," says Joe Lidster #gally1

"You can always cut. You can write long, just make sure you get the whole story in but you can keep cutting it down," says Matt Fitton. #gally1

"I've got this running joke, I've been asked to write Doctor Who... the Experience. Doctor Who... the MySpace blog," laughs Joe Lidster.

Matt Fitton points out, the lucky thing is that they're getting things made, and you can rely on that quickly with Big Finish #gally1

"I now have three Big Finishes with trebuchets" Liz Myles declares with pride

"My first one was about going clubbing. I like going clubbing a lot." Joe Lidster says about The Rapture #gally1

"When you're over there, you kinda really don't want to be there, and when you're not there, you kinda want to be in Afghanistan or whatever" says Rossa McPhillips about the complex mental health experience of him being a soldier and writing that into the War Doctor #gally1

"I try to write dark and gritty and it comes out funny and a joke a minute," says Lisa McMullin

"No matter what issues you're exploring you have to like following the characters so they have to be funny," says Joe Lidster. #gally1

"He does human emotion really, really, really well and I really envy that," the brilliant Lisa McMullin says shouting out the equally brilliant @roy_gill #gally1

"I was going to bring my laptop along and then you could see writing for audio live in action," Lisa McMullin jokes about the script she's been racing to finish #gally1

"I love when I'm writing soldiers and I write in the stage directions 'he cocks his gun' as though I have any idea what that means" jokes Joe Lidster. #gally1

"I did horrible things about where cybermats came from which fortunately nobody has ever done anything else with because it's disgusting," says Joe Lidster about The Crystal of Cantus #gally1

"The BBC are very firm about what you can or can't do, weirdly, in terms of violence. For example, you can't stab someone, but you can psychologically break someone for an hour as long as you don't stab them," says Alfie Shaw.

"Because you can't do the obvious dark things, it does push you to come up with the new weird dark things" says Alfie Shaw

"Echoes of Extinction I have basically scripts for that story with every single Doctor because people who were available suddenly became not available", says Shaw. The guest stars were already recorded so he had to write it ambiguously so they could be responding to any Doctor.

"Occasionally I've had to write some things before I've even got a storyline because of availability," says Matt Fitton #gally1

"This is why I like doing historicals, because THEY'RE ALREADY NAMED," says Liz on how much naming characters sucks. #gally1

Joe Lidster recommends characters whose names can be shortened so that different characters can call them different things. And he tries to always give a first name and a surname so the actor can put that on their spotlight CV which makes it look better. #gally1

"Are you worried about AI stealing your jobs?" Audience member.
"No, I tried, the script it gave me back was SO BAD, I was so happy." Alfie Shaw. #gally1