Audio and radio play reviews

Maybe I was a bit hasty in my declaration last review that the Companion Chronicles might be a better range than the Doctor Who range. For one thing, I keep forgetting about the fourth Doctor stories.

The Stealers from Saiph is by Nigel Robinson, one time doyen of the 80s Who books, but who hasn’t touched Who in over a decade. This is his first audio play, and it features Mary Tamm – by herself, rather than with another actor, in a break with Companion Chronicles tradition.

Tamm, of course, plays Romana I – not the alternative version from the Big Finish Gallifrey series but the Romana of the Key To Time season. This is the first problem: what happens if you’re going to try to write authentically to a particular time period of the show and you find yourself picking a sh*t one? Do you have to write badly, too?

The second is that Robinson has written the whole thing as a novella. In other words, Tamm is reading it out to us.

Drama? Who needs it?

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×12 – The Stealers From Saiph”

The controversy of over who exactly is a companion takes a new twist with this Companion Chronicle since it features Jago and Litefoot, the intrepid Victorian professor and music hall impresario who helped Tombo in classic fourth Doctor adventure The Talons of Weng Chiang.  

That’s right. They never travelled in the TARDIS, and they were only in it for one story. Are they technically companions?

Bah. Who cares?

They were, as it happens, popular enough at the time that a spin-off series was suggested – yes, they were the Captain Jacks of their day – although it never happened. The Mahogany Murders builds on that imagined series of adventures to show us a Jago and Litefoot still solving mysteries together.

In this case, the mysterious case of a life-sized, perfectly formed wooden mannequin that can walk.

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×11 – The Mahogany Murders”

There’s been a bit of a gap in my Companion Chronicles coverage. Sorry about that, but there’s far too many podcasts on my iPhone as it is, and the mainstream Doctor Who releases, which take priority anyway, seem to be getting longer and longer.

Anyway, I’ve listened to the last three of the third season and I’ll gradually be putting the reviews up over the next week. Woo hoo?

The Magician’s Oath features someone, like Sara Kingdom, who is only debatably a companion (the next one’s even more debatable but more on that next time). It’s Captain Mike Yates, the potential UNIT love interest for Jo Grant during the Jon Pertwee era, who went a bit looney after looking in a crystal and seeing some dinosaurs.

Here, though, he’s in fine form, telling us all how a PJ Hammond-esque magician was more than met the eye.

Continue reading “Review: The Companion Chronicles 3×10 – The Magician’s Oath”

Oh joy. Another Sylvester McCoy story. There’s another one out this month, too.

But wait. Just like the last one, Enemy of the Daleks isn’t bad at all. In fact, it’s pretty good and nips along at a decent pace thanks to writer David Bishop, former editor of 2000AD and writer of several Doctor Who novels.

In it, the Doctor and co land on ‘Bliss’, only to discover it’s anything but. The Daleks are coming yet there are dead bodies already. And an atrocity’s about to happen, but the Doctor’s the one who’s going to cause it.

If I’m not careful, I’m going to start looking forward to Sylvester McCoy plays and that will never do.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – 121 – Enemy of the Daleks”