Written by David Llewellyn
Directed by Scott Handcock
Starring: Naoko Mori (Toshiko Sato), Krystian Godlewski (Maxim Ivanov), Ella Garland (Anna Volokova), Geoffrey Breton (FSB Agent)
Released by Big Finish Productions - April 2016

If March’s Torchwood: The Victorian Age did exactly what it said on the metaphorical tin, then its immediate successor achieves precisely the opposite ambition, subverting the listener’s expectations at every turn, albeit to an even greater degree of success.

Set sometime before the events of the TV show’s 2007 season finale, Exit Wounds, Torchwood: Zone 10 not only develops the Committee arc which has tied each instalment of Big Finish’s licenced range so far together, but also reintroduces one of the original programme’s most beloved players back into the fold in the form of Naoko Mori as the ever-intrepid Toshiko Sato. Like Ianto before her in last October’s high-octane air-bound thriller Fall to Earth, Toshiko’s latest mission revolves as much around her hopes of proving her capabilities as a solo agent to the rest of her team in their absence as it does her investigation into a previously unexplained signal which takes her deep into Russia’s mountainous regions. It’s a shrewd decision on David Llewellyn’s part, one which lets Mori sink her teeth into a tale that expands her character’s occasionally insecure personality as well as offering a meaty mystery to be resolved along the way.

Better yet, far from resting on her laurels, Mori goes out of her way to confirm why fans so fervently called for her return in one of Big Finish’s releases, mirroring John Barrowman, Gareth David Lloyd, Eve Myles and the rest of her televised co-stars’ accomplished reprisals of their respective roles by rendering Toshiko as just as compelling a lead character in aural form as she was on-screen. Whether she’s trading wits with Krystian Godlewski’s secret agent Maxim Ivanov on the Russian slopes or defending the wayward astronaut Anna Volokova’s right to leave the dangerous territory known as Zone 10 as the storyline progresses, Mori shines regardless in capturing the character’s capacity for understated jokes, personal engagement with her cohorts and adversaries, unlikely leadership and willingness to put her life. If anything, over the course of the hour, her sublime performance – coupled with Llewellyn’s accomplished characterisation – only serves to strengthen Tosh’s status as one of her organisation’s most renowned employees.

Neither of Mori’s leading co-stars let her down in this regard, either: thanks to Llewellyn’s narrative casting Godlewski’s Ivanov as an old friend of sorts to Toshiko who nevertheless finds his loyalties tested by his own agency – the KVI, Torchwood’s Russian counterpart – the construct doesn’t so much come off as a clichéd obstacle for our heroine to overcome as a realistically morally conflicted individual whose hands become increasingly tied as more of the KVI’s connections to the Committee come to light, an internal battle which Godlewski portrays with brilliant subtlety. As for Ella Garland, who plays the aforementioned outer space explorer, her character doesn’t factor into proceedings until around the halfway point, yet such is the poignant, immediately sympathetic nature of Garland’s contribution that by the moment Volokova utters her final words in the play, the audience will be just as attached to her as they’ve grown to Mori’s returning Tosh and Godlewski’s expertly-handled Ivanov, if not more-so, which speaks to the raw power of her voice-work. Even Geoffrey Breton intimidates the audience to an impressive as one would hope from the piece's solitary minor antagonist, a KSB agent pursuing Tosh on her quest for the truth, although his airtime admittedly gets limited to but a few minutes at most.

If it seems as if this critique has stopped short of highlighting any chinks in Zone 10’s armour so far, then there’s a good reason for that: virtually all of its contributory elements stand up magnificently to scrutiny, with Scott Handcock’s direction in particular far outdoing his work on April’s The Victorian Age thanks to his decision to sparingly use weather- and firearm-based sound effects so as to aurally create a backdrop for the aforementioned cast members that’s positively dripping with atmosphere. Perhaps Llewellyn could have done a little more to make his latest contribution to the Torchwood range accessible to newcomers, since he seemingly assumes – perhaps rightly – that most listeners will be familiar enough with the Committee from previous releases to understand their impact this time around, yet at the same time, considering that both March’s More Than This and The Victorian Age kept irritatingly clear of this fascinating plot arc, maligning the scribe’s efforts to shed further light on the joint history of this elusive extra-terrestrial body and the newly-introduced KVI would be a hypocritical move to say the least. Suffice to say that anyone who’s shared this reviewer’s desire for the arc in question to kick itself into gear won’t come away underwhelmed in this instance; instead, such listeners will find themselves left enamoured by the now greatly increased likelihood of us finally gaining some closure in the remaining chapters of Season Two.

Even if the Committee arc appears to be moving rapidly towards its denouement at this point in time, however, the same certainly can’t be said of Big Finish’s Torchwood franchise as a whole; quite to the contrary, in light of the ease with which both Season Two’s opener, The Victorian Age, and now its sophomore instalment – Zone 10 – have reinvigorated the series after Season One ended on something of a rough note, the show’s immediate prospects in the realms of audio couldn’t appear more promising if Russell T. Davies were to be writing the remainder of the run. That sentiment in itself speaks wonders for how far producer James Goss as well as his masterfully selected team of writers have brought the range in the space of just eight months. Indeed, if future monthly releases continue to build upon the superb performances, atmospheric directorial work and tight scripting employed by Llewellyn for Tosh’s spectacular comeback, then chances are that by the time Outbreak rears its long-awaited head in the closing months of the year, we’ll be left in no doubt as to why BBC Worldwide chose to resurrect one of Doctor Who’s most popular spin-offs in audio form rather than on TV. We might be no closer to seeing Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper and the gang return to our screens ten years on from their debut in 2006’s Everybody Changes, but between releases like these and Titan Comics’ just-announced dedicated Torchwood strip – set to launch this Summer – there’s no denying that the show remains in as rude health as ever regardless.

Directed by Scott Handcock
Starring: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness), Rowena Cooper (Queen Victoria), with Youssef Kerkour, Louise Jameson and Aaron Neil
Released by Big Finish Productions - March 2016​

Believe it or not, there’s something inherently satisfying about experiencing a work of fiction which successfully does precisely what it says on the tin.

Torchwood: The Victorian Age mightn’t come packaged in a tin – depending on whether one opts for the physical or digital edition, it’ll either be encased in plastic or megabytes – but the point certainly still stands; for better or for worse, it’s an audio drama which makes little pretence regarding its goal of standing as a light-hearted, structurally fast-paced thriller that effortlessly keeps its audience entertained. If the second season of Big Finish’s ever-increasingly accomplished continuation of the titular Doctor Who spin-off were to comprise completely of such thematically lightweight escapades, then there’d of course be cause for concern, but in terms of reminding fans of the original TV series how much fun the show’s characters – regular and supporting alike – can have when the writing team allows them a moment to let their hair down, it’s as fine a freshman outing as any to be sure.

As its sub-title suggests, rather than pursuing the Torchwood Three team’s non-linear quest to trace and apprehend the enigmatic Committee in present day Cardiff, The Victorian Age takes both Jack Harkness and Wales’ aforementioned capital city back a couple of centuries to the days of Queen Victoria, pitting both the good captain and indeed the monarch herself against an alien menace intent on stealing the youths of as many victims as possible. Naturally, these efforts to prolong life on the part of the piece’s antagonist enable writer AK Benedict to delve into the well-worn realms of Jack’s inability to shed his mortal coil, albeit via an unexpectedly layered commentary on why the relative brevity of the reigns of rulers like Victoria can in fact prove to be far more of a blessing than a curse. Whereas Pauline Collins took on the role of one of Britain’s longest-serving queens back in 2006’s Tooth and Claw, it’s Rowena Cooper – who also appeared in The Sarah Jane Adventures serial Lost in Time, incidentally – who takes the character’s reins here to glorious effect, adding a further layer of pathos to Victoria’s emotionally sympathetic discussion of how she lacks the necessary time to fulfil all of the ambitions she set out for herself when her reign began.

If that all sounds rather maudlin, then as we mentioned above, rest assured that it’s hardly representation of the rollercoaster-esque tone of the overall storyline: Cooper and especially John Barrowman must have had a riot of a time recording their dialogue, at least if the constantly chuckle-worthy, surprisingly multi-faceted rapport their characters strike up through their conversations over the course of the hour is any indication. In stark contrast to his more sombre performances in the far darker The Conspiracy or Uncanny Valley, Barrowman unsurprisingly relishes the opportunity to showcase the sassier, raunchier ex-Time Agent with whom many viewers fell instantly in love in 2005’s hit Doctor Who two-parter The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, giving as good as he gets whenever Cooper’s Victoria attempts to gain the upper hand in terms of authority or general wit. There will most likely be some members of the listenership who find themselves at first a tad disappointed by Benedict’s election not to venture in the morally murkier waters we saw Torchwood’s most loyal recruit enter over the course of the show’s first season of audio adventures, yet Barrowman’s relentless zest and energy are all but guaranteed to win them over once more within minutes of proceedings getting underway.

Nevertheless, it’s worth noting that The Victorian Age’s admirable commitment to producing a caper-style narrative which only rarely delves beyond the surface of its characters’ psyches doesn’t come without a few minor faults. Much as it’s something of a welcome relief to see Big Finish’s Torchwood range take a turn for the more whimsical given how adult – to say the very least – Season One’s tone became on occasion, there’s an inevitable lack of true emotional or philosophical depth which sets the release apart from some of the TV show’s finest hours like Captain Jack Harkness, Adam, Exit Wounds and Children of Earth, though mercifully that doesn’t mean the listening experience feels anywhere near as close to a chore as was the case with Yvonne Hartman’s alcohol-laden trip through the streets of Cardiff in last year’s One Rule. Add in a few technical blemishes – despite a great play on Murray Gold’s classic “Captain Jack’s Theme” and some convincing sound effects involving the footsteps of the horses Jack and Victoria mount in pursuit of their foe, the score itself leaves something to be desired, rarely hitting the rousing notes one would expect of an on-screen thriller of the same ilk – and another disappointing refusal on Benedict or perhaps producer James Goss’ part to acknowledge the overarching Committee plot threads which have been left obtusely hanging since Uncanny Valley launched earlier this year, and it’s fair to say that for all of the piece’s achievements, there’s still absolutely room for improvement by its successors in the months to come.

Yet if Big Finish’s take on Torchwood over the past six releases can be seen as just a hint at what lies around the corner for the range, then by this point, little doubt should really remain in our minds as to the studio’s capability to ensure that future releases continue to evolve and adapt to combat their predecessors’ flaws – Uncanny Valley provided Barrowman with a more well-rounded storyline than the still accomplished The Conspiracy, while this November’s three-part Outbreak looks set to remedy fans’ gripes with the lack of full-cast audio dramas commissioned to date, all of which only serves to confirm that the licence couldn’t be in better hands. Better yet, given the success with which they’ve had here at providing a thrilling historical outing complete with superb performances and a delightfully unexpected – if fleeting – thematic insight into both an esteemed fictitious character and a renowned real-world leader, it seems that Torchwood Three – or Torchwood Cardiff, as it was once evidently known – has not only a bright future to look forward to in the years between now and 2025, but a similarly bright past to boot.

Written By: George Mann
Read By: Jemma Redgrave
Released by BBC Audio, 7 April 2016

Back in November 2013, as Doctor Who’s much-anticipated fiftieth anniversary dawned, the team at the now-late AudioGO were faced with a dilemma – how could they best honour the event with a nostalgia-infused audiobook that still worked as a standalone narrative?

The result, for those who don’t remember it, was The Time Machine, the final instalment of the year-spanning Destiny of the Doctor saga which saw thespians who’d played companions return to voice an original audio adventure set in ‘their’ era of the programme. Much like its predecessors, this eleventh release conveyed a tale which could largely be heard without any prior knowledge of the previous ten storylines, but at the same time, it had the rather unfortunate job of attempting to resolve some of the overarching plot threads that AudioGO had set up over the course of 2013, leading to a rather structurally uneven release that could wholly satisfy neither franchise followers nor newcomers who were just hoping for an engaging standalone dosage of Who.

Rather than taking notes from this somewhat botched attempt at tackling a season finale of this ambitious ilk, however, George Mann – despite having more than confirmed his strengths in the realms of printed literature via his War Doctor novel Engines of War and his successive contribution to BBC Books’ short story-oriented Heroes and Monsters Collection last Summer – seems to have fallen prey to much the same pit-falls in penning the fourth chapter of BBC Audio’s Family of Winter series. Entitled The Memory of Winter, this 70-minute climactic instalment shouldn’t be regarded as a complete failure under any circumstances, but equally, it’s far from a prime example of science-fiction drama at its finest.

That’s not to say that Memory shows no signs of initial promise, nor that its narrative falls wholly flat – in fact, for the first 20 minutes or so, this reviewer couldn’t help but be convinced that the opposite would prove to be true come the credits rolling. In having the Twelfth Doctor and Clara – both of whom he manages to capture the essences of with remarkable accuracy from the outset – summoned to 15th Century France by a complacent time traveller – the last of the titular Winters, who once again summons the Doctor for help – who’s masquerading as a contemporary ambassador in the Hundred Years War, Mann instantly starts to build intrigue as to where the plot will head, particularly when he throws Joan of Arc into the mix and reveals her discourse with the mysterious “Saint of Gallifrey” in the process. Indeed, the latter mention should be more than enough to prompt any fan’s ears to perk up, as should the prospect of us finally discovering how the Winters came to secure the calling cards which Capaldi’s incarnation has so begrudgingly heeded over the course of the series to date.

Yet in spite of the inherent potential of the esteemed scribe’s premise – as well as his introduction of a similarly compelling extra-terrestrial antagonist plucked from previously uncharted realms of Time Lord mythology – this concluding part of the Family of Winter quadrilogy appears more constrained by the show’s present on-screen continuity than any of the preceding three outings were, ironically as a direct result of Mann’s ambition in dealing with the Doctor’s species at a point when he and Clara have yet to experience the events of Face the Raven, Heaven Sent or thus Hell Bent. This in turns renders the final revelations surrounding the nature of Joan’s ‘visions’, the “demon” plaguing Julius Winter’s platoon and the manner of the Doctor’s inevitable triumph against the latter antagonist that much less satisfying to the listener, a shortcoming not helped in the slightest by the struggle Mann seems to have in balancing these numerous plot threads in the space of just over a single hour of airtime.

Usually this would be the point in the review where one would hope to assert that the actor behind the microphone redeems most of the release’s faults – certainly, Clare Higgins’ enthusiastic, unpredictable approach to narrating the series’ opening chapter, The Gods of Winter, ensured that even its somewhat underdeveloped secondary characters still came off as engaging constructs for the Doctor and his Impossible Girl to interact with. In a surprising turn of events, though, Jemma Redgrave’s voice work leaves plenty to be desired, lacking the vigour she previously brought to her portrayal of Kate in both the TV show and Big Finish’s UNIT: Extinction as well as the impressively accurate differentiation of tones which Higgins employed in order to distinguish Capaldi’s oft-brash Time Lord from Coleman’s feisty but compassionate companion, with the result being that it’s not entirely difficult for one’s immersion in the storyline to be broken at times here. Perhaps it’s just a case of Redgrave not having much experience in the realm of audiobooks – finding voices for a wide ensemble of characters can’t be a walk in the park, after all – or perhaps the material simply didn’t inspire her to the same extent as Big Finish’s scripts, but either way, it’s a shame that barring a decent stab at a French accent for Joan and the soldiers, her contribution to proceedings does more to detract from Mann’s tale than to add any much-needed depth.

Not unlike November 2013’s The Time Machine, then, The Memory of Winter doesn’t so much end The Family of Winter with an impressive bang as – to paraphrase T.S. Eliot’s 1925 poem “The Hollow Men” – with an underwhelming whimper. Keen fans of Doctor Who’s occasional historical romp-style episodes like The Romans, The Unquiet Dead or The Fires of Pompeii might well find themselves interested enough in discovering Mann’s take on the Hundred Years War to warrant a purchase in this instance, but given the vastly superior manner in which Mann manages the various plot threads, continuity connections and overall structure of the previously-mentioned Engines of War, venturing to recommend Memory over that novel seems dishonest at best and downright counterproductive at worst. Those desperate for more Twelfth Doctor action will surely find elements to like here, but those wanting their dosages of Who to maintain their faith in the show in the midst of its year-long absence from our screens would be best advised to look elsewhere.

Written By: Eddie Robson
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs

Cast

Tom Baker (The Doctor), Lalla Ward (Romana), Kate Bracken (Celia Soames), Mark Bonnar (Zoltán Frid), Peter Barrett (Guard-Major Priskin), John Dorney (Ensign Kanta), Anjella Mackintosh (Anita Kereki)

Other parts played by members of the cast

Producer David Richardson
Script Editor John Dorney
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and
Nicholas Briggs

Released by Big Finish February 2016
(order from Amazon UK)

 

Well, it had to happen, a Big Finish tale that really didn't grab me. 

In The Labyrinth Of Buda Castle, we find the Doctor and Romana in Budapest, enjoying some time off from saving the Universe. Here they stumble across a man who, it would appear, has been bitten by a vampire - which they discover as the story unfolds, is just the latest in a series of similarly nasty and gruesome attacks. As well as possible vampirism, the Doctor and Romana also discover an army up to no good, rampaging monsters, creepy caves under the city and a young vampire hunter who believes that she is on the trail of one Count Dracula. 

The story sounds exciting enough on the page, but unfortunately it is more or less a rehash of the US television series The Strain. The main villain Zoltán Frid  (Mark Bonnar) is for the most part, so underplayed and dull, that I almost expected him to fall asleep part of the way through. I also had a
problem with a chase scene that seemed to go on forever...and the ending....please don't talk to me about the ending!

On the plus side Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are still a joy to listen to. Tom has some great lines, my favourite being "You've made the common mistake of finding me kneeling by a body, and presuming I'm the killer." which made me chuckle. The supporting cast are good, with Kate Braken (Misfits, Being Human) standing out and having a lot of fun as the over-eager would be vampire killer Celia.

TheLabyrinthofBudaCastle is for the Big Finish die hards. It is unfortunately let down by a poor, very unoriginal story, a not too compelling villain and a let down of an ending - but saying that, there are still a few moments for a fan to enjoy.