Doctor Who

As we all know, Paul McGann is technically the longest serving official Doctor Who. Although only having done one TV story, he graced the pages of books and comics and, of course, starred in the Big Finish audio plays for the best part of a decade.

During this time, the Eighth Doctor racked up a number of companions, including Bernice Summerfield and Fitz Kreiner in the books and Izzy Sinclair in the comics. He even, apparently, travelled with Mary Shelley for a while, if you believe an off-hand comment he made once. However, until now, we’ve never had actors playing these companions in any of the audio plays (okay, Benny I’ll give you, but she never appeared with the Eighth Doctor).

With a 4×25 minute play featuring the Eighth Doctor to write, it occurred to Big Finish that they could finally give these old companions voices, and flesh out the Eighth Doctor’s range of audio companions. So here comes The Company of Friends, featuring (as always) Lisa Bowerman as Benny, Matt di Angelo (off EastEnders) as Fitz, Jemima Rooper (Hex, Lost in Austen) as Izzy and Julie Cox (Dune, Children of Dune) as Mary Shelley.

What a fantastic opportunity. What a pity it’s mostly been wasted.

Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – 123 – The Company of Friends”

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”