This reviewer confesses to have been pleasantly surprised as to how well the four stories in the box set all work to complement each other and the respective Doctors they feature. When this set was first announced there was a certain amount of scepticism about whether some of the visual gimmicks of the post 2005 creations would translate well to audio. Also, as the behind-the-scenes disc indicates there are only a finite number of “new” monsters which can be included without breaking continuity, as indicated by the presence in the fourth story of the Sontarans which do not seem much different to how they have already appeared in previous Big Finish outings and by the revelation that next year’s volume 2 will only be featuring three “new” monsters across four plays.

This collection gets off to a strong start with 14772’s Fallen Angels which uses the Weeping Angels ability to send their victims back through time to excellent effect as the Fifth Doctor encounters a twenty first century married couple who have fallen foul of an angel in the crypt of a church in Rome and ended up in the fifteenth century where they soon encounter Matthew Kelly’s wonderfully temperamental Michelangelo. Newlyweds Joel and Gabby are well played by Sacha Dhawan and Diane Morgan (unfortunately this reviewer found the latter’s presence reminded him of annoying alter-ego Philomena Cunk) and are clearly intended to remind listeners of Rory and Amy and there are some clear parallels to The Angels Take Manhattan. Overall, the story is very much an homage to Blink and the silent presence of the angels is well-realised through clever use of music and sound-design. None of these stories attempts to offer a genesis account for any of the monsters featured and this is very much to their benefit especially here where the Fifth Doctor is shown very much in parallel to the similarly youthful Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, a role which Peter Davison responds particularly well to.

Colin Baker’s Sixth Doctor is equally well suited to the second story of this set, particularly in the scenes with a courtroom setting. Simon Barnard and Paul Morris’ Judoon in Chains is a clever tale which owes a debt to a number of well-known sources such as The Elephant Man and Pygmalion with one of the proto-companions even being called Eliza. Nicholas Briggs shows that the Judoon are capable of being much more than just space rhinos with a funny voice and the central character of Captain Kybo being a wonderfully nuanced performance. There is also a scene-stealing performance to enjoy from another Big Finish regular Nicholas Pegg as the wonderfully arch Meretricious Gedge.

The inclusion of one-off monsters the Sycorax for the third story of this set was initially suprising but James Goss’ Harvest of the Sycorax proves that they have plenty of mileage left. Sylvester McCoy is reunited with former Red Kang Nisha Nayar who gives a great performance as Zanzibar, another great one-off in a collection full of similarly strong characters. There is also great support the rest of the cast, with particular mentions due to Giles Watling as the Sycorax Chief and Jonathan Firth as Cadwallader. This script has a great fast pace which definitely feels as if it could sit comfortably in a post-2005 series.

The set concludes in style with Andrew Smith’s The Sontaran Ordeal, which sits very much at the end of the Eighth Doctor’s life with the Time War beginning to make its presence felt. This is a solid final story which teams up Paul McGann with Josette Simon as Sarana Teel, an unlikely companion who just wants to bring peace to her planet. Her horror as she realises that the impact of the Time War means that there can never be lasting peace is wonderfully portrayed and her final confrontation with the Doctor gives a clear nod towards the inevitable events of The Night of the Doctor. Christopher Ryan and Dan Starkey also give excellent performances as variations on their new series Sontarans. Above all, this final story provides a hint of exciting things to come in next year’s much anticipated prequel to Big Finish’s War Doctor series, The Eighth Doctor: The Time War.

Overall, this is a set of four very different but equally enjoyable stories with too many highlights to mention individually. Based on the form of this collection and most of Big Finish’s other new series titles, the second volume also promises to be something special.

 

Every once in a while, Big Finish release a play which stands out from their large catalogue of Doctor Who releases as being something rather special. ThePeterlooMassacre, based on one of the darkest episodes of early nineteenth century British history, is the most recent example of such a play. Paul Magrs, who is better known for slightly less serious offerings to TheWorldsofDoctorWho, has produced a script which brilliantly captures the atmosphere of the tragic events of 16th August 1819. The massacre itself, a mass demonstration for reform by more than 60,000 people in St Peter’s Square, Manchester which was attacked by local militia, resulting in 15 fatalities and 654 casualties, is not a subject which would automatically lend itself to a Doctor Who story. However, sometimes it is worth remembering that events like the Peterloo Massacre actually happened and that real people were caught up in them.

By concentrating on a small number of fictionalised characters caught up in the massacre, Magrs is able to do what a pure historical story does best and concentrate on the human aspect. At the centre of this story is Nyssa’s relationship with Cathy, a maid who wants to speak up for workers’ rights only to find herself directly affected by the tragedy. Sarah Sutton is able to give Nyssa genuine compassion which particularly shines through in her scenes alongside Hayley Jayne Standing as Cathy, particularly when the human cost of the massacre becomes horrifically apparent. Peter Davison, meanwhile, gives one of his strongest performances to date as the Doctor realises far too late that he and his companions have arrived in Manchester on the eve of one of the darkest days in the city’s history. His growing anger as he seeks to protect his companions from the inevitability of the unfolding events is truly something to behold. This story really showcases the Fifth Doctor’s full performance range. Even Janet Fielding’s Tegan manages to be less abrasive than usual even when experiencing nineteenth century inequality towards women at first hand.

The only slight incongruity is that Nigel Fairs’ music score is occasionally a little intrusive but this really is a minor quibble in a story which otherwise delivers for its listeners in spades. Undoubtedly, ThePeterlooMassacre will be considered as one of the best audio releases of recent times and is certainly the highlight of the opening trilogy of plays for 2016. Echoing my concluding comment on February’s Aquitaine, we can hopefully look forward to many more stories featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan. This reviewer is delighted by the confirmation at the time of writing that these three will be returning for next year’s opening trilogy of main range releases alongside Matthew Waterhouse as Adric. On the strength of these plays, roll on 2017!

We’re told that there is a fashion for slow television now, the latest Nordic trend to be picked up by BBC Four. Terence Dudley’s novelization of The King’s Demons is perhaps best appreciated as slow Doctor Who. However, this is no sleigh ride or canal journey. Listening to the audiobook of the story, it feels that every incident is subjected to multiple assessments and every epithet is sent in search of a synonym and in due course an antonym.

Terence Dudley’s practice as a drama series producer was often to emphasise his guest cast at the expense of his regulars. Something similar happens in the book of The King’s Demons where Dudley seems to feel his audience should be more interested in his own creations than they are in the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough. This would be less of a problem were Ranulf Fitzwilliam, Geoffrey de Lacey and the rest better-developed, but instead the listener learns little more about their backgrounds than was disclosed on television. One isn’t actually sure whether Dudley likes the Doctor and Tegan all that much. The Doctor is often priggish, smug and prone to supercilious disclosure of information. More uncomfortable is the characterization of Tegan: to be Australian and female is enough. Once Ranulf has decided that she must be a succubus – a demon who seduced men and weakened and killed them through sexual activity – Dudley likes to return to this as often as he can.

The King’s Demons has less plot than it has situation, and Dudley seems more interested in this than in story. Dudley likes to play a little with the vocabulary of material culture – he’s fond of people drinking from stoups, for example – and there is more in the text to correct the idea that Pip and Jane Baker had a monopoly on arcane and archaic wordplay in 1980s Doctor Who. The King’s Demons is painted on a small canvas but at least it has detail. Sadly a lot of that detail undermines its effectiveness. Archaic vocabulary if not used well can make an author seem self-satisfied. As for its sense of political history, Dudley seems to have read a book on King John which sought to revise conventional assumptions about his reputation, but then misunderstood it. In the novelization, Dudley not only repeats his dubious assessment that Magna Carta should be seen not as a baronial victory over the king but as an expression of enlightened royal policy, but then suggests that the charter King John signed in 1215 wasn’t as important as a later revised reissue under his son Henry III anyway. This may have something to it, but it only emphasises the oddness of the Master’s quest to prevent Magna Carta from being signed.

The source novelisation might be problematic, but this production does its best to overcome the material. Mark Strickson is a polished and sensitive narrator and the music cues are used with restraint and to good effect, though this version misses the lute playing and Strickson doesn’t attempt to sing King John’s song. His Tegan makes one wince but this accurately reflects how badly she is served by the book. Strickson does handle the many two-handed scenes of confinement well, especially the interrogation of Turlough by Sir Gilles Estram. The latter is one of the stronger characters in the book, despite his being a performance by another character, the Master. Strickson’s French accent is more thoughtful even if just as theatrical as Anthony Ainley’s was on television. The story, such as it is, is full of outsiders being cast as other people – the TARDIS travellers as demons, the Master as Sir Gilles, Kamelion as King John – but it ends with their Fitzwilliam hosts and the audience wondering what it was all about.

Sadly this is an audio adaptation for completists and the especially curious only. Terence Dudley’s grasp of what made Doctor Who work doesn’t seem to have been strong, and his belief that Tegan was still at this stage seeking to return to ‘London Airport’ (itself an anachronism in the 1980s) speaks of his detachment from the series’ continuing storylines. The effort of BBC Audio in bringing this to release is appreciated, but it’s a good thing that there remain better books than this to adapt in the novelization range.

When the title of this release was first announced it might’ve been assumed that this release was referring to the Duchy of Aquitaine once ruled over by Henry II’s famous Queen Eleanor. Alas, the idea of a historical cross-over between Doctor Who and The Lion in Winter will have to wait for another day as the title of this story refers to a space ship called HMS Aquitaine. The story opens with the ship’s artificial intelligence Hargreaves left look after things on his own in a scene which put this reviewer in mind of the Red Dwarf episode ‘Kryten’. Further similarities between the Aquitaine and the small rouge one follow as after responding to Hargreaves’ distress signal the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan learn that the ship is in the vicinity of a black hole. Any listeners with a smattering of sci-fi knowledge will soon realise that the ‘ghosts’ which start appearing are a result of the black hole causing temporal disturbance which surprisingly seems to take the Doctor a long time to work out. However, the eventual explanation for what is really going on and the gradual re-introduction of the missing crew characters leads to worthwhile developments in the story particularly during the second half of the play.

Of the supporting cast, particular mention must go to Matthew Cottle who is kept extremely busy throughout the play as the voice of the AI which controls the ship and the various service robots. His performance is constantly charming throughout and a joy to listen to. It is also a joy to hear Nina Sosanya as Captain Maynard, a role which seems much more rewarding than her TV appearance as Trish in the 2006 TV episode Fear Her. A final mention should go to Big Finish regular Harry Myers, whose Russian accent renders him almost unrecognisable, giving an enjoyable performance as Dr Akunin.

Even though the plot necessitates that the Doctor become separated from his companions the camaraderie between Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, and Janet Fielding still shines through as strongly as ever. It is also to recommended that this story is very much a standalone from previous adventures and sits comfortably within the TV canon of season 20. This stands in direct opposition to the previous releases featuring Tegan, Turlough and the older Nyssa which were much more reliant on the continuity of previous releases and as such not as accessible to new listeners.

Overall, this story’s enjoyment is largely to be found in its simplicity as it stands neatly on its own. Whilst not being the most entirely original or memorable play ever to emerge from the Big Finish stables, this is still a worthwhile addition to the audio canon. On this form, it can only be hoped that the trio of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan will go on to have many more such adventures.

Following hot on the heels of the highly acclaimed The Peterloo Massacre, this is the start of a trilogy of adventures which will pitch three different Doctors against two incarnations of his long-running Time Lord nemesis, the Master, who first appeared on TV 45 years ago.

This play feels very much like a standalone story and it is a rare occasion that finds the Fifth Doctor unaccompanied by any of his usual companions (continuity is satisfied by a fleeting reference to Tegan, presumably accompanied by either Nyssa or Turlough, having been sent off to a garden centre in 1984). It is also the first time that there has been a direct confrontation on audio between just the Fifth Doctor and the Master (leaving aside the multi-Doctor confrontation with Geoffrey Beevers’ Master in the 2013 special The Light at the End and an encounter with the Anthony Ainley incarnation in the 2013 Destiny of the Doctor story Smoke and Mirrors, narrated by Janet Fielding). Leaving aside the obvious reasons for the Fifth Doctor having not met the Master since his TV era, writer Alan Barnes includes a seemingly obligatory reference to the Beevers’ incarnation having crossed his own timeline as the Doctor has already met his future self. Although long-time listeners will know that Beevers’ Master has a rather more complicated timeline than the Fifth Doctor realises and may just as easily have crossed his own past timeline from after the loss of his Trakenite body.

The story opens in the present day in the village of Hexford (whether this is intended to be one and the same as the Hexford which featured in the BBC Audio ‘Nest Cottage’ series which featured Tom Baker is unclear) and finds the Doctor accidentally starting a bidding war at a local auction from suspiciously familiar sounding grandfather clock. There is also a local mystery over a newly dug grave which purports to contain the mortal remains of a certain Michael Masterson which the Doctor assumes may be a rather obvious pseudonym. During the first half of the play, the Master remains very much a shadowy figure in the background although it is clear that his influence has been felt by several of the characters. Geoffrey Beevers finally arrives properly in the story for the start of Part Three which details a flashback to 1984 of how the Master originally arrived in Hexford, apparently on the run because there is a price on his head. Beevers clearly relishes playing the more manipulative side of the Master’s narture as he suborns some local teenagers into helping him survive by increasingly illegal means. The play reaches a suitably dramatic if not entirely unpredictable conclusion as the actions of the 1980s teenagers come back to haunt them in the present day and finally bringing the Doctor and the Master together. Peter Davison gives a convincing performance throughout the play which ultimately is rather standard Big Finish fare. He certainly seems to enjoy his scenes with Beevers. Some mention should also go to Sheena Bhattessa as Annie whose character proves to be the most interesting during the first half of the play but unfortunately undergoes a not entirely convincing development during the second half.

The play may at first seem a little unremarkable and stands very much on its own with no major plot threads left dangling at the end. There is however, one unanswered question relating to why the Master is suddenly on the run from bounty hunters which will presumably become apparent later in the trilogy. Possibly not the best audio play ever but still an enjoyable character piece. The next two plays will have to work a lot harder though to reach the high bar set by the 2003 play Master to which this trilogy will inevitably bear comparison.