Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

Having thoroughly insulted Tony Lee the other week (by accident, I hasten to add; blame our Colonial cousins for making me stay up past my bedtime), I thought it only fair to make my next review not only a Big Finish one, but his Big Finish one. So, having batted my eyelashes at the Prof to download it for me, I settled back to listen to Tony’s first foray into Big Finish audio adventures: Rat Trap.

This is a Fifth Doctor adventure (yay!), with Nyssa (even bigger yay!), Tegan and Turlough along for the ride. As often happens to our favourite time-traveller and his friends, the TARDIS has deposited them in the right place but not the right time, leaving them stranded in the allegedly abandoned tunnels deep beneath Cadogan Castle. The Doctor’s been here before, but not everything is as it seems. And there’s something out there in the darkness…

If you suffer from murophobia, this is probably not a good story to listen to unless you fancy giving yourself a serious case of the heebee-geebees. The anti-vivisection message is a little over-played although amusingly done (for the most part) and is very in-keeping with the whole Doctor Who evil scientist ethos. As an ex-research scientist (who never did any animal experiments, I hasten to add) it’s always interesting to see how lay-people tackle the field and I wasn’t disappointed by the cod-science in this story; it really made me giggle. This is a Good Thing(TM), because I have been known to shout rude words at the telly in response to the sheer crappiness of the “science” on display in some purported sci-fi offerings. I get glared at in cinemas as well.

I was always a fan of Nyssa; she was a smart, pretty scientist who only suffered the odd bout of utter girliness. She even got to change her outfit occasionally. Because of the story arc, this isn’t that Nyssa exactly, but she’s still in scientist mode and of all of the actors, Sarah Sutton still sounds virtually the same as she did in the TV series. Davison once again turns in a well-pitched performance and, as with Colin Baker, his Doctor really comes into his own through the audios. Janet Fielding and Mark Strickson are both good, although Tegan just doesn’t sound the same vocally. I’m reasonably new to Turlough as a character because I’d stopped watching by the time he showed up originally and have only seen a few of his appearances on DVD, where he came off as a bit of a slappable whiny brat. He seems to have grown out of that (thankfully) and let's face it, it’s always nice to have a bit of trouser in the TARDIS.

There is ongoing continuity here, but its not overwhelming and I’m sure a quick check on the précis for other recent Fifth Doctor adventures would quickly get you up to speed if need be. My only real issue with Rat Trap wasn’t the story, but the voice effects on the villains. I have a minor hearing issue and the processing made it difficult at times to work out exactly what was being said. It was worse for some characters (particularly during the first episode) so it did make it a bit of a struggle to keep up in some places. Having said that, this is a fun Fifth Doctor romp, and even if everybody doesn’t end up dead in the end there’s just enough psychological damage for all concerned to make you feel like you just stepped back in time to the 1980s.

A Life on the Ocean (Radio) Wave

Despite the exceedingly large back catalogue the Prof has of Big Finish audios that I’ve promised to listen to, I’ve been taking a bit of a detour into Nu-Who lately, inspired by our rather fun freebie “The Hounds of Artemis”. Having received a £5-off voucher for Audio Go, I decided to once again investigate what else James Goss had been up to. Perusing the extensive Doctor Who collection, I stumbled across “Dead Air”, a Tenth Doctor story which had won a best audio-book of the year award from The Audiobook Store (who?) in 2010. The sample sounded interesting, despite apparently having been recorded a fraction too slow, and for 49p (after using the voucher, obviously) I figured I couldn’t be robbed.

There’s a reason why the sample is too slow, which I won’t spoil for you; it’s another example of Goss playing with the story-telling format to give this audio-only story a little twist. There are overtones of “Blink” and “Empty Child” (no bad thing) in a variation on the base under siege story so beloved by Doctor Who writers over the years, when the Doctor lands on a pirate radio ship in 60s Britain hunting for an escaped super-weapon. There are also touches of Big Finish’s Sapphire and Steel (again, no bad thing), which all helps to create a claustrophobic atmosphere and the certainty that, as with so many of Tennant’s episodes, its all going to end really badly for someone.

Goss has captured the Tenth’s over-confident manner and glibness to a tee, including his incessant habit of saying sorry without ever actually meaning it, making this feel like a proper Tenth Doctor story. Now Tennant may not always have been my favourite incumbent of the role, but given the right director and story he could and did turn in some great performances. Which is what he does here, giving each of the characters a genuine voice (unlike his replacement, who needs a bit more practice at that sort of thing). Having said that, I enjoyed “The Hounds of Artemis” more, even though “Dead Air” has a much more interesting premise (now there’s perversity for you). Maybe it’s because I find Liverpudlian accents hard to cope with, or because our lovely mate Dave Bulmer had done a superb skit on the resolution mechanism in his "Festive Books on Tape" (here or here) last Crimble (completely unintentionally, it must be said), but “Hounds” just has more charm.

Even if you don’t have a fiver off, it is worth listening to and you will get repeat plays out of it if you want to catch all of the subtle sound effects. As with “Hounds” it’s not very long (almost an hour and a quarter), but if you enjoy Goss’ work, then it’s definitely one to add to the collection.

What's Up, Doc?

As you dear, loyal reader know, I’ve listened to a fair few Big Finish audios over the last few years, but I’d never actually listened to any of the Beeb’s audio-books until “The Hounds of Artemis” came along. I’ll fess up, I got it free. Pixies love free stuff although, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I do draw the line at free Touchwood. I am fond of Matt Smith’s interpretation of the Doctor, so I was more than willing to give this a go, seeing as its read by him and Clare Corbett (who’s done some other audio book stuff with Tom Baker). I’m not quite sure why they didn’t get Karen Gillan in to help out, but Ms Corbett does a very good job in her stead.

Make no mistake, this is a good old rip-roaring period adventure involving archaeologists, aliens and ancient curses. There’s even a loving nod to “Pyramids of Mars” at the beginning, showing that writer James Goss knows his stuff. The narrative has been very sensibly divided between the two actors, Smith (obviously) reading from the Doctor’s point of view with Corbett filling in much of the detail via a series of Amy’s diary entries. I did wonder at one point if Smith would only be reading the first chapter or so as Corbett does make up most of the running. To be honest, this is actually a blessing in some ways, for as good as Smith is as the Doctor, his impersonation of Karen Gillan’s accent is pure Sylvester McCoy with a not-so-helpful dollop of Jamie on top. It’s all very hilarious in a frightening sort of way, but does detract from the story at times. Still, when he’s not strangling the Scottish vernacular, Smith is most definitely enjoying himself immensely. In fact, that would be my only criticism of this CD; Smith is a bit too rushed and over-enthusiastic in his reading at times, and really could have done with the director slowing him down a touch when dealing with the exposition sections. Other than that it’s a good production, set up very much like an actual episode, including the obligatory pre-credit sequence.

I say only criticism; I’d need to check with our lovely Emilly Ladybird about 1929 corset construction, but I’m fairly certain they weren’t made the way the author thinks they were. Seriously, its just common-or-garden wire in there is it and no stays? Okay, it makes for a light-hearted solution to a plot problem, but I’d still like to know exactly how the Doctor gets all the wire out of Amy’s corset without completely defrocking her…

This is not a long piece by any means; at about 70 minutes it comes in around the same length as one of the TV specials, so is just long enough to let the story develop without making it too long for younger listeners. James Goss has taken what could have been a real pot-boiler and given it a sparkling sense of humour with some beautifully observed lines. He has captured the main characters extremely well; even though it isn’t Gillan playing Amy, you can still hear that it is the same character (although Corbett’s Doctor impersonation is almost as challenging as Smith’s Pond).

So if you’ve listened to all of your Big Finishes and still need your audio Who fix, I’d definitely recommend “The Hounds of Artemis” to while away the time until the next episode.

Nothing Fishy Going On Here, Guv

As you know, myself and the Prof are fans of Big Finish. I have to say that the Prof is far more versed in their productions than am I, seeing as I am still very much a happy dabbler rather than an aficionado. Its something I keep meaning to rectify and now the weather’s improving, I have determined to listen to a few on the walk to work of a morning (and evening, obviously; it’s not like I sleep there or anything, despite what my students might think).


Having talked to Nev Fountain at Dimensions last year about his (then) upcoming Companion Chronicle, I decided to pick up “Peri and the Piscon Paradox”. For those of you interested in chronology, it takes place somewhere between Peri’s first meeting with the Fifth Doctor and also a bit after the mess commonly known as “Trial of a Timelord”. In it, Peri and both the Fifth and Sixth Doctors have to battle a fish-alien by the name of Zarl who, as you would expect, is up to no good on Earth in 2009. Problem is, there’s two Peris, one from the past and an older one who really shouldn’t be there at all…

Now I’m not a fan of Peri; originally I only saw her in “The Caves of Androzani” (having given up on the show somewhere around Omega’s search for happy flapjacks in Amsterdam) and was not impressed. She was whiny and annoying and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why everyone was determined to get themselves killed on her behalf. Nothing I’ve seen since has made me change my mind. So that makes this Companion Chronicle a bit of an odd choice then, really, doesn’t it?

If it hadn’t been for the fact that Nev had written it and I’m a big fan of “Kingmaker” (no matter what my illustrious podcast companions might say, its fab), I freely admit that I would never have looked at this. My dislike of the character did make the first disc difficult to get through despite the quality of the story, as Nev and Nicola Bryant have done far too good a job of catching young Peri’s voice. The Companion Chronicles rely on the person chosen to be able to pull off a reasonable impersonation of the Doctor they’re travelling with and even though there’s a joke about how rubbish she is at it in the script, Ms Bryant really doesn’t convey a sense of Davison at all well. That said, it’s the only misstep in an otherwise excellent production.

Things really get going in the second half of the story, told from old Peri’s point of view. It’s helped by the appearance of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor (quite unusual for a Companion Chronicle, I’m told), doing sterling work as ever in these things, and the fact that older Peri is a far more sympathetic character. You can hear in her voice that all of that irritating brashness has been knocked out of her the hard way. Parts of the story were very painful to listen to, and if you know us and you’ve heard this production you will know why, but they were handled superbly by both Nev and Ms Bryant (proving here that she really can act her socks off, given the right script). Nev may be known as a comedy writer, but his ability to deliver tragedy is heartbreaking; let’s just say, I was grateful that there weren’t any dog-walkers about that morning to see my trying not to cry all over my iPod.

The wrap up is cleverly timey-wimey; even though I haven’t seen the episodes to which it refers, I know enough about them to get and appreciate the way the denouement deals with a particularly thorny fan problem. Yes, the underlying story is a bit daft when you look at it closely, but then, aren’t a lot of Doctor Who stories? It’s what’s going on between the lines that makes it. I’m never going to be a big fan of Peri, but all in all, I went away glad that I hadn’t let my age-old prejudices stop me from listening.

You Always Get a Big Finish with Nick Briggs!

As we mentioned in the last podcast, Big Finish are having a special day at Barking Abbey School, Longbridge Road, Barking on Saturday 11th June from 10am - 4pm. There's lots of guests, ranging from stars to writers to the essential backroom staff without whom nothing would happen, including Dirty Whoers victims Mr Briggs, Mr Fountain, Mr Shearman and Ms Aldred (and a few others we've got our eye on for future stalking, sorry, interviews). Sadly David Warner will no longer be there, but there's always Katy Manning, Caroline Munro and Colin Baker. A new Doctor's assistant will also be revealed...

Tickets are £25 and available from the Tenth Planet website. Big Finish are a truly lovely, generous bunch, so it would be smashing if people could go along and support them

Me and My Shada...

Pixie's been doing her homework again.

Let's just say that my recommendation of "The Kingmaker" didn't go down too well with the rest of the team (Philistines) but they have graciously accorded me the opportunity to redeem my honour by recommending another Big Finish audio adventure. Oolon wants something more traditional, so I'm going to have to revoke "The Chimes of Midnight" as my next suggestion and go for "Shada" instead. You can't get much more traditional than this somewhat legendary unfinished Tom Baker adventure, now can you?

This is an adventure that Big Finish actually did for the BBC, rather than just being licenced to use the Beeb's characters. It was originally done for BBCi's Cult TV website (and the Prof seems to think there was Flash animation alongside it) where I missed it, so I've settled for the extended CD instead.

Shada was written by Douglas Adams and fell victim to strike action in 1979 (for the full story, see the Beeb's own take on it here). Bits of what was actually shot before the whole thing was abandoned eventually turned up in "The Five Doctors". The CD script has, by necessity, been tweaked to take into account that it's Paul McGann in the role and not Tom Baker, but that does lead to the excellent line of "...back when I was all curly hair and teeth". Yep, 'cos that wig in the TV movie was perfectly fine, apparently...

McGann is excellent as the Doctor. I'm not a huge fan of the TV movie, but he does a cracking audio. He works very well with Lalla Ward, who's back to being more of a useful Romana rather than the whimpering idiot one in "The Creature from the Pit". And most of the rest of the cast is pretty stellar: James Fox is wonderfully bumbling as Professor Chronotis (whilst supplying further evidence to support my argument that most Timelords really aren't cool), Hannah Gordon does a great line in sexy starships and Andrew Sachs does a funny voice (but then, I suppose we'd be disappointed if he didn't).

Susannah Harker also turns up (presumably having been let out of Sapphire and Steel's reality warping box specially for the occassion) and Melvin Hayes (a name which will mean nothing to anyone not old enough to remember "It Ain't 'Alf Hot, Mum") does an excellent impersonation of another gravelly voiced old-crotchett whose face I can visualise but can't remember what the hell he's called. Hopefully it'll come to me before I finish writing this; even the Prof can't remember his name, but he thinks he's in "The Vicar of Dibley" if that helps (I don't want to know how he knows that). The only really duff bit of voice-acting comes from the lad playing Chris Parsons, who doesn't quite realise in the first episode that he's supposed to be acting and not just reading out loud. Still, he seems to get the hang of it by the second act.

The story takes place over six parts, and like a lot of the original series could happily have been sorted out in four. Still, it doesn't feel quite as relentlessly padded as, say, "Inferno". There are some whacking great plot-holes, too. Now I know its probably not PC to say bad things about Douglas Adams, who by all accounts was a truly lovely bloke, but his writing was always a bit, well, wayward. "Shada" really flags up the problems inherent in being your own script editor, something RTD reinforced constantly throughout his own reign. Just let someone else do it, its far less painful in the long run.

I did enjoy listening to "Shada", and it is an interesting story in spite of the "WT*?" moments, but the one thought that kept coming back to haunt me was just how god-awful it would have looked if the BBC ever had got round to filming it all. In my mind's eye, the starship was pretty impressive, the Kraag were all nobbly and smouldering and Shada was grim and never-ending, but I just know that the Beeb's version would have been absolute tat. There would have been another of Matt Irving's washing-up liquid bottle and a pair of stabilisers space vehicles, some truly dreadful rubber suits and an "Ark in Space" set of pods, just sprayed black for the hell of it. And that's the real downfall for this audio; because it is a real script, from the real show you know exactly how it would look, rather than the rest of the audios, where you can dream about how it should look.

So, traditional? - yes; entertaining? - yes; flawed? - definitely; tainted by bad special effects association? - sadly; worth bothering with? - yes, as an interesting piece of ephemera that reminds us of the fact that no matter how ropey the effects, we still love the Doctor. Unless he's Sylvester McCoy.

Oh yes, and his name is Trevor Peacock, by the way. All hail IMDB!

My Kingdom for a Sound-a-Like

Big Finish carried the torch for Dr Who fans for many years before the show returned to TV, alongside the various Virgin and BBC novels. Nick Briggs, voice of pretty much every alien to appear so far under RTD (er, well, you know what I mean; gods, thats a mental image I could have done without), is now in charge and, by all accounts, doing a fine job in bringing past Doctor audio adventures to the slavering masses.

The quality overall has been a little variable over the years. David Tennant has also made numerous guest appearances, often as UNIT cannon fodder, sorry, soldiers. There have been some very experimental stories, such as the alternative timeline adventure with David Warner as the Doctor instead of Pertwee (Doctor Who Unbound: Sympathy for the Devil). And the one with Derek Jacobi as the writer (Doctor Who Unbound: Deadline) is superb. But then, it was written by Rob Shearman.

Now I'm not an expert on Big Finish audios; that's more the Prof's line (he's way more a Dr Who geek than I am, bless). But he does a sterling job of listening to the ones that take his fancy, then telling me which ones are really worth listening to.

Arguably amongst the best is "The Kingmaker" by Nev Fountain, most famous in Britain for being one of the writers on Dead Ringers. This topical impressions show started on BBC radio before moving onto the telly, as many do, and was possibly best known for the prank phonecalls John Culshaw used to make whilst pretending to be Tom Baker's Doctor. He was very good at it, too; the best was one he made to Sylvester McCoy, who part way through asks "Have you been drinking again, Tom?". The only unsettling part of it all was the suggestion that McCoy often got such rambling, incoherent phonecalls from the 4th Doctor and was actually quite used to it.

Culshaw gets to strut his stuff in this audio adventure with Peter Davison's Doctor, filling in for Mr Baker in possibly the worst impression he's ever done of him (which is a terrible shame, because he's usually spot on). And he's not the only sound-a-like present...

The plot centres around the 5th Doctor doing a spot of historical research for a series of books he's supposed to be writing. The thorny problem of the Princes in the Tower arises, so the Doctor, in his usual innocent-but-doomed way, decides to go back and find out first hand just what Richard III did with them. As you can imagine, things go very wrong, very quickly.

His companions on this adventure are Peri and Erimem, an ancient Egyptian princess. I always hated Peri as an assistant; she was dumb, got Peter Davison's Doctor killed and was dumb. Did I mention that she was also really dumb? I always wanted to give her a damn good slap. But in this audio, her thickness is played for wonderful, understated comic effect and despite myself I actually ended up quite liking her. Not as much as Erimem, but still.

Who-ever did the casting for this audio really does deserve a medal. Richard is played by Stephen Beckett, who does an absolutely sterling Eccleston-a-like. Make the most of it, its not as if we're ever going to get the real thing after the Beeb's cock-ups during his stint on the TV series. He delivers his lines with a dry wit, a job that is made very easy by the quality of the writing and the cleverness of the script.

Davison, as ever, is superb. Just like McGann, he's used the audio adventures to really develop the character of his Doctor, a world-weary innocent who can't do right for doing wrong. The jokes are funny and not over-done, the plot is clever (so much so that I can't really tell you any of it without ruining it for you) and the other vocal support is brilliant, including Arthur Smith at his gravelly best as Clarrie.

So, if you fancy supporting Big Finish and want an entertaining, historical adventure, "The Kingmaker" is a good place to start. And where else are you going to be able to pretend that you have three of the best Doctors vocally sparring with each other? Nowhere.