Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

The new drama White Witch of Devil’s End is the centrepiece of a new three-disc set Dæmons of Devil’s End, coming from Koch Media in November.

The first disc features the brand-new drama production starring Damaris Hayman reprising her role from the 1971 Doctor Who story The Dæmons as Olive Hawthorne. With a blend of dramatic monologue enhanced with visualisations and sound design to develop and tell the stories, the drama is an anthology of tales following the magical life of Olive Hawthorne, from childhood to her final days as the protector of Devil s End. Drawing on a rich heritage and appreciation of witchcraft and fokelore, the stories bring Olive’s history to life, pitting her against vampire, succubus, fae, daemonic influence and more – as Guardian of Devil’s End, she must do what she must to protect the village … but what happens when she reaches the end of her life? Who will protect the townsfolk then?

The second disc contains the long-awaited DVD release of the classic documentary Return to Devil’s End. Filmed around the village of Aldbourne in 1992 (the location for The Dæmons), it stars Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), Richard Franklin (Capt. Yates), John Levene (Sgt. Benton) and The Daemons’ director, Christopher Barry. Nicholas Briggs takes the cast and director on a trip around the locations, deftly gleaning stories and anecdotes about filming the highly regarded five part adventure. Including interviews with villagers and rare archive film and photos, this documentary is rightly considered one of the best behind-the-scenes look at the making of Doctor Who ever produced.

Both discs are packed with bonus features, and the third bonus disc contains video of conventions held in Aldbourne in The Dæmons Revisited.

Click here to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk

Those interested in more details of Olive Hawthorne’s adventures can also now pre-order the official tie-in novelisation from Telos, featuring a foreword by by actress Damaris Hayman and an afterword by producer/director Keith Barnfather.

Written by Suzanne Barbieri, Debbie Bennett, Raven Dane, Jan Edwards, David J Howe and Sam Stone, and edited by Sam Stone, The Dæmons of Devil’s End is the story of one woman’s exciting and emotional life. The book also features a special ‘Dossier’ section compiled by Andrew-Mark Thompson looking at some of the artefacts held in the UNIT vaults relating to the strange events that have happened in Devil’s End through the years.

There will be two different paperback editions: a limited edition A Format paperback, designed to look like the old Target Novelisations with art by Andrew-Mark Thompson; and a B format paperback, with cover to match the DVD release. Click here to order direct from Telos.