Audio and radio plays

An archive of entries about audio and radio plays, including reviews

Audio and radio plays

Big Finish: Sapphire and Steel go Australian

21 March 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Second Sight‘Ang on. Something’s a bit fishy here. Big Finish, despite flagging audience figures, is bringing back Sapphire and Steel for a third season of audio plays. Thing is, the first one doesn’t star either David Warner or Susannah Harker. Instead, it stars Blair McDonough as Steel and Anna Skellern as Sapphire. And they’re Australian – you can tell from the trailer.

No doubt it’s an attempt to do something clever, in light of the fact Sapphire and Steel sort of get killed off at the end of the last story. Have Sapphire and Steel been recast to appeal to the overseas market (Australia being more or less the only country that ever showed Sapphire and Steel except the UK)? Do I care, given I never especially liked David Warner or Susannah Harker in the roles?

Trouble is, the Big Finish site sort of ruins the illusion the recasting might be permanent:

Sapphire and Steel Season 3 premiere

And the next story lists DW and SH as S&S, as do the others. Of course, that could be the elaborate double bluff.

Still, it’s nice to see Big Finish being experimental, taking chances, playing with formats, etc.

UK TV

Review: Torchwood 2×10 – From Out of the Rain

20 March 2008 Rob Buckley 17 Comments

 

Oh bugger. And they were doing so well. Okay, last week‘s was a bit arse, although fine as comedy. But this week’s was a bit dull really and just a touch silly. 

Which is odd, because it was a PJ Hammond script. I remember coming out of last year’s PJ Hammond episode wondering how they managed to balls up what should have been a classic and it’s happened again.

I’ve worked it out though. I know what’s wrong. 

They haven’t got Shaun O’Riordan.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Cuddlesome

17 March 2008 Rob Buckley 5 Comments

Cuddlesome

Cross-promotion is one of those little ideas that publishers have from time to time. "Why don’t we include some kind of free gift with our next issue? That way, people who want the gift will buy the magazine and be introduced to our high quality editorial content and then buy every issue from now until the end of time? And the free gift maker will get their product in the hands of our readers, who’ll then start buying their high quality merchandise. It’s a win-win situation."

Of course, it never quite works like that in practice. Apart from all the readers gradually becoming accustomed to getting free gifts and eventually refusing to buy a magazine that doesn’t include one, there’s the little issue of the quality of the free gift and whether the readers are the sort of people who’d end up buying more products from the free gift manufacturer. 

This month’s Doctor Who Magazine includes a brand new, exclusive Big Finish play, Cuddlesome. Starring Peter Davison, Roberta Taylor (off The Bill and EastEnders), Timothy West and David "Son of Patrick" Troughton, it’s the kind of play that makes you wonder exactly who it’s aimed at and whether you’d ever buy it.

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Max Warp

4 March 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Max Warp It’s a cracking show, looking at the latest, fastest, sleekest models. There’s three guys who present it: an old, politically incorrect guy who’s well known for his outspoken nature and his support of the armed forces; there’s the younger, cooler one, named after a a furry rodent; and there’s the older, duller mechanical spod who likes talking about mechanics.

It’s all going so well right up until that young cool one goes and crashes an experimental vehicle and dies.

Hang on. Dies? That can’t be right.

Did you think I was talking about Top Gear?

No, of course you didn’t. I wrote Doctor Who at the top for one thing. No, this is the spaceship show ‘Max Warp’, starring the vocal talents of Graeme Garden, James Fleet and Duncan James (who used to be a pop star or something). And you can hear it in the latest, and possibly the most tasteless Big Finish Doctor Who play so far.

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Review: iTunes – the Life on Mars download experience

28 February 2008 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

So downloads are all the rage now. Big Finish, which makes those Doctor Who audio plays, has set up a downloads service (they still haven’t got back to me about those missing extras, BTW, so I’m going to assume you don’t get the CD extras with the downloads, making them even less attractive).

The BBC, after doing ever so nicely with its iPlayer, has leapt onto the Apple bandwagon as well by putting various shows onto iTunes, including Ashes to Ashes, Life on Mars, Torchwood and more. I’ve had little interest in the iTunes TV service until now – cos it’s mostly been shows that are rubbish or aimed at kids. But with Stu_N suggesting I was wearing rose-tinted glasses in my recall of Life on Mars, I decided to give iTunes a try and download the first series.

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