Rory returns! While the announcement of Arthur Darvill’s return to the role of Rory Williams for Big Finish Productions may seem like it was a long time ago, the much-loved companion will be making his return in April (a little less than two months from now!) in the first volume of  “The Lone Centurion.” Ahead of volume one’s release, Arthur has been interviewed by Big Finish’s in-house magazine Vortex. He had some fun news to add to what we already know about the upcoming release.

What to expect from “The Lone Centurion”

In this series, we are going to follow along with Rory during his time as a Nestene duplicate guarding the Pandorica with his not-yet-wife (as of theses stories) Amy Pond inside, waiting for history to catch up so that her younger self can bring her back to life. However, in this first volume of stories, Rory has a bit of a problem…. He’s lost his fiancée despite her being in a large, alien, box-shaped prison that’s keeping her alive! So, to Rome the Lone Centurion must go.

While Arthur has worked with Big Finish before in productions such as Frankenstein and Doctor Who spin-off Bernice Summerfield, this does mark his first return to the role as Rory for the company (though he did return to his role briefly for a Doctor Who: LOCKDOWN video in 2020 penned by Neil Gaiman).

He explains:

“I’ve always been really hesitant to come back as Rory. I felt the work we had done was quite sacred and that story was very precious to me. I didn’t want to do anything that interfered with it at that point.”

However, after a discussion with Big Finish director and writer Scott Handcock about the idea of exploring this era of Rory’s life, he agreed. Now, we’ll get to learn more about what Rory went through while guarding the Pandorica!

While some of the cast has already been announced in previous updates about the series, Arthur also revealed that he will be joined by his wife, actress Inès De Clercq (Broadchurch, My White Best Friend), as well as his friend Hugh Skinner (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, Fleabag)! Given the nature of already recording stories remotely due to the pandemic, Arthur explained, “We were all at home and people were all over the country, so no one had to travel and it was great. [Scott Handcock] could get people that wouldn’t normally come down for a day.” Inès and Hugh will both appear in one story of the box set each as characters Marcella and Lancelot respectively. 

Thoughts on what is to come of this audio adventure

Personally, I am very much looking forward to this release, especially as Arthur notes in his interview that there is very much a comedic side to these stories. He says, “If it was dark and moody, I wouldn’t have been interested. The amusing comedy side of it really appealed to me and I just saw it as such a good opportunity for the writers to have a field day with the material.” Rory has always been one of my favorite companions. He brings humor to the show with how he deals with all the bizarre and alien things that the Doctor brought into his life. Rory is usually in utter disbelief that he eventually turned into a roll-with-the-punches “well, I guess this is my life now” attitude that was always so much fun in the show.

Not much has been said about this yet, but I am also interested to see how this series will deal and interact with the nature of what is going on with the universe and history during Rory’s time guarding the Pandorica. While it’s not quite on the level of timey-wimey collapse as “The Wedding of River Song,” there is still the matter of a star-less sky and history collapsing around the explosion of the Doctor’s TARDIS. Sure, things are normal enough that Amelia Pond is still born and around to revive her older self, but who knows what else has happened in those 2,000 years? I guess we’ll be finding out soon!

The Lone Centurion –Volume One: Rome is now available to pre-order as a collector’s edition CD (at £19.99) or digital download (at £16.99), at the Big Finish website.

For more geek news:

The Legend of Vox Machina: Crew and A, a digital series from Critical Role

Disney’s Cruella stars Emma Stone as iconic villain Cruella de Vil