A Shape of Things to Come

BBC Radio 4's special audio Torchwood adventure, "Lost Souls", is now confirmed as airing on Wednesday September 10th, from 2:15pm. Broadcasting as part of the radio station's day long dedication to CERN's (European Organization for Nuclear Research) the piece features the vocal talents of John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Eve Myles (Gwen Cooper), Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones) and special guest Freema Agyeman (Martha Jones).

The official synopsis:

"Somewhere out there in that chaos of darkness and light, of science and protons, of gods and stars and death... somewhere there's an answer."

The Torchwood Institute was founded by Queen Victoria in 1879 to protect the British Empire against the threat of alien invasion. By 2008, all that remains of the organisation is a small team based in Cardiff. And now, following the tragic deaths of two of their colleagues, the remaining three – Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones – have to protect the human race against another unknown force from the darkness.

Martha Jones, ex-time traveller and now working as a doctor for a UN task force, has been called to CERN – the world's largest particle physics laboratory in Geneva – where they're about to activate the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

The LHC is a particle accelerator which has been built deep underground in a 27km tunnel under Switzerland and France. Once activated, the collider will fire beams of protons together, re-creating conditions a billionth of a second after the Big Bang – and potentially allowing the human race a greater insight into what the universe is made of.

But so much could go wrong – it could open a gateway to a parallel dimension, or create a black hole – and now voices from the past are calling out to people and scientists have started to disappear...

Where have the missing scientists gone? What is the secret of the glowing man? What is lurking in the underground tunnel? And do the dead ever really stay dead?

Written by Joseph Lidster, the story guests Lucy Montgomery and Stephen Critchlow. It's set after the climatic events of series two's finale, "Exit Wounds".

Meanwhile issue 8 of Torchwood Magazine, due for release tomorrow, confirms the title of series three's five episode long arc - it'll be called collectively "Torchwood: Children of Earth".

Russell T Davies confirms to the magazine's news team that principal photography is set to commence on August 18th. It'll continue in Cardiff until November - with Euros Lyn helming all five episodes. Davies comments that, more than ever before, the show will be "director-led" and "will look absolutely amazing."

As anybody who attended San Diego's Comic Con at the tailend of July will know, BBC America has aquired the rights to show Torchwood's third season - which will broadcast shortly after its UK debut sometime in Spring 2009.

In other news, wave one of Getretro/Scificollector's Torchwood action figure has seen its release date pushed back to September. It includes figures of Jack, Gwen, the Cyberwoman and a 'snarling' Weevil. Wave two is expected in November, and will include figures of John Hart, a Blowfish, Ianto - and possibly Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato.

Titan Books releases the first Torchwood Yearbook on August 22, and it features new stories from Joseph Lidster, Steven Saville, David Llewellyn, Andy Lane and Trevor Baxendale. It's 96 pages long, features archive material from previous issues of Torchwood Magazine, and will be priced £7.99.

Finally, confirmation that Eve Myles will be guest starring in BBC One's latest Saturday night filler... erm... sorry, drama "Merlin". She appears in the show's very first episode as a character called Mary Collins. Expect to see the show from next month onwards...

Toodles, noodles.