Audio and radio play reviews

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

Audio and radio play reviews

Review: The Companion Chronicles – Mother Russia

17 December 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Mother Russia, the first in the second season of Big Finish's Companion Chronicles

As we all know, the Companion Chronicles is Big Finish’s attempts at filling in the gaps in its Doctor Who range. With Doctors one to three now in the great big TARDIS in the sky, Doctor four fruitier than a wine gum and Doctor nine more likely to toast his manhood on an open fire than have anything to do with Doctor Who again, the chances of getting full cast productions of audio plays starring these particular Doctors is very small. Fortunately, many of the companions of these Doctors are alive and well and ready to get paid a reasonable sum of money for a day’s work reading a short book into a microphone.

The first series of Companion Chronicles featured Vicki, Zoe, Liz Shaw and Romana II, to varying effect. Some were good, some weren’t. Series two isn’t too different and I’ll be looking at some of the others over the next few days (the fourth’s not out until January, unfortunately). The first, though, I’ll be looking at right now. Ooh.

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The Mind's Eye
Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – The Mind’s Eye/Mission of the Viyrans

13 December 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

The Mind's EyeIt’s quite funny listening to the documentaries on the end of these Big Finish audio plays. Some guy who sounds almost exactly like Russell T Davies (but isn’t) tries to think up questions to ask the actors in the plays. Guest stars repeat like a mantra that their kids will love them for doing it and it’s given them much kudos; regulars will trot out – with all the enthusiasm you can imagine someone asked the same question for 25 years can muster – what it means to them.

And of course the directors, producers and writers all proclaim how absolutely super wonderful and lovely it was to work with X, Y and Z and how the latest effort is more or less the best thing written down on paper since cuneiform was first invented.

Peter Davison is always a bit more refreshing and candid when questioned (as anyone who’s ever listened to any of his DVD commentaries will know). Did you know, for example, that he almost never reads the script before coming into the Big Finish studios? Or that he’ll record three plays in three days?

Still, he can get away with it most of the time. The double-bill of The Mind’s Eye and Mission of the Viyrans is really very good – quite old school, clever and strong on characterisation for the regulars. Yes, it’s got Owen Teale hamming it up something chronic as an evil scientist and Rebecca Front as one of the most uncommitted baddies in recent history. But they both work pretty well.

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Review: Doctor Who – Absolution

27 November 2007 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

Doctor Who - Absolution

And so the chopping begins. C’rizz, all round irritant and obstacle to proper character development, is no more. He is an ex-companion. Woo hoo!

A holdover from the weirdy “Divergent Universe” era of eighth Doctor stories, it’s slightly fitting that his final story should be another weirdy alternate universe piece that explains at last the slightly uninteresting secret he’s been carrying with him ever since his exodus.

Trouble is it’s also a fittingly uninvolving story, full of interesting ideas that somehow fail to lift off thanks to the usual infusion of gobbledygook, poorly explained concepts and a resolution that’s somewhat incomprehensible.

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Review: Doctor Who – 100

26 November 2007 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Doctor Who: 100

Big Finish has been producing Doctor Who audio plays for quite some time now. In fact, it shouldn’t surprise too many people that 100 is in fact the 100th Big Finish release.

It’s an odd choice for such a numerically momentous occasion. Unlike the first play, The Sirens of Time, or the 40th anniversary play, Zagreus, this is no great gathering of Doctors, no massive continuity-wrangling extravaganza of story-telling.

In fact, it’s more of an internal congratulation, a gathering together of Big Finish writers from over the years, including Robert Shearman and Paul Cornell. Consisting of four short stories, it improbably stars just Colin Baker as the sixth Doctor and Maggie Stables as his Big Finish-only companion, Evelyn – seriously, that’s their A-team for their 100th release? Colin Baker maybe, but Maggie Stables?

As a bit of back-slapping, it’s fine. But as something you’d pay money for, it leaves a lot to be desired.

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Review: Doctor Who – Son of the Dragon

26 November 2007 Rob Buckley 2 Comments

Doctor Who - Son of the Dragon

With the companion “Night of the Long Knives” just around the corner at Big Finish productions, I imagine there must have been some trepidation on Caroline Morris’ part when approaching this play.

The Big Finish companions are being wiped out in favour of their on-screen counterparts – and she gets to be the Bride of Dracula.

Not the vampire Dracula, mind, but Vlad the Impaler, that lovely East European warlord and “son of the dragon” from whom Bram Stoker got his original inspiration.

Never going to last, is it?

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