Audio and radio play reviews

An archive of the blog’s reviews of audio and radio plays.

Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×3 – The Doll of Death

30 October 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Doll of Death

It’s going to be interesting to see how the crop of companions from nu-Who are regarded in 30 or 40 years’ time. As much as Rose might be loved and Martha disliked now, will time swap them in future generations’ affections?

Take a look at Jo Grant, one of the third Doctor’s companions, for example. Brought in to appeal to kids in a way connoiseur’s companion Liz Shaw was unable to, Jo Grant was very popular during her stint on the show.

Now, she’s reviled as a brain-dead waste of space and a retrograde, anti-feminist step on the part of the producers, who had also wanted a companion who needed saving and had to have everything explained to her – and Liz Shaw is revered by anyone with any sense.

But Big Finish is here to save the unsaveable. It made Colin Baker and Bonnie Langford popular. Surely it can make Jo Grant interesting for one of its Companion Chronicles. Can’t it?

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Ultimate Adventure

17 October 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

The Ultimate Adventure Every so often, something dumb happens. In the world of Doctor Who, this usually equates to a stage play. Always a bad idea, since they’re usually sub-panto pieces of rubbish.

Now along comes another bad idea to the world of Doctor Who. Big Finish are going to adapt these stage plays and turn them into audio plays, trying to be as faithful as possible to the original productions, no matter how arse they were. They’re even hiring as much of the original cast as possible, no matter how appalling they were, too.

First up is The Ultimate Adventure, a stage play from the 80s that featured first Jon Pertwee then Colin Baker (and occasionally understudy David Banks) as the Doctor. Written by Terrence Dicks, it also features the Daleks, the Cybermen, mercenaries and – oh my God – songs.

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Review: Doctor Who – Time Reef

14 October 2008 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Time Reef

There’s always something more to look forward to with a fifth Doctor Big Finish play. Okay, so Colin Baker’s still the best audio Doctor and he’s usually partnered with India Fisher (best audio companion/actress), Nicola Bryant (ah, Peri…) or Bonnie Langford (nearly best audio companion/actress. Honest). But his stories tend to be considerably poorer than the ones Peter Davison ends up with.

Whether it’s the TV era itself that encourages the writers to come up with cleverer storylines or the editor of the fifth Doctor range (whoever that might be) simply commissioning better pieces, you can usually assume that a fifth Doctor piece is going to be good, with just the occasional minor fluff-up (such as The Boy That Time Forgot.

Here, though, we have Marc Platt, author of the Sylvester McCoy TV story Ghostlight, who can normally be guaranteed to over-write his audio plays something chronic. So we have a battle on our hands: the pretension of the seventh Doctor’s era versus the cold sci-fi of the fifth Doctor’s. Who will win? And should you spend money on the spoils of the war?

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Review: Doctor Who – Kingdom of Silver

8 October 2008 Rob Buckley 3 Comments


Kingdom of Silver

Two questions. First, do you think there’s a reason that the seventh Doctor has been particularly companion-bereft of late? The Big Finish-ies claim it’s because they want to explore the ‘vast’ time that he’s alone before the TV Movie. I’m wondering if so few people are buying the seventh Doctor audio stories, they can’t afford companions as well. Or maybe they don’t like Sophie Aldred.

Question two: why do writers bother trying to be clever with Big Finish? Here we have a cyberman story. We know this because there’s a great big cyberman on the front cover and because the story’s Kingdom of Silver. Mondas gets mentioned halfway through the first episode and one of the ‘houses’ in the play is called Argentum (sp?). So what’s the big cliffhanger at the end of episode one? OMG, it’s a cyberman! Who saw that coming?

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Doomwood Curse

26 September 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment


 

I imagine, if you’re a regular Big Finish actor, there is a range of reactions you experience when getting your latest script, depending on which of the various standard Big Finish categories it falls into. A lot of the time, you’re going to be wondering how you’re going to get all that jargon out. "Blimey, it’s a bit complicated. I don’t really understand a word of it. I must remember to be ever so serious."

Quite a lot of the time, you’re also going to be thinking, "Ooh, goody. This looks like fun. We’re going to have a laugh doing this, aren’t we?"

And then, just occasionally, you’ll get one through that not only makes you think, "Ooh goody, that’ll be fun," you’ll also be thinking. "Ah! I love the smell of ham in the morning."

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