Writer: Guy Adams, Tim Leng,  Tim Foley
Director: Scott Handcock

Featuring: Katherine Kelly, Greg Austin, Fady Elsayed,
Sophie Hopkins, Vivian Oparah, Jordan Renzo,
Sophie Aldred, Nicholas Briggs

Big Finish
 

First Released:  August 2018
 

Running Time: 3 hours

Like the first volume, Class vol 2 contains three stories each concentrating on a small number of the leads from the series, again set during the original television run.

Everybody Loves Reagan

Unfortunately this opening story I found to be the weakest in the set. Now it’s worth saying that every single one of these Class audios is a GEM and even a slightly weaker story such as this one is still of an incredibly high quality. In this particular tale, it’s Sophie Hopkins and her character of April who really gets to shine. The story tackles a lot of the traits of her character, introducing a figure who essentially usurps what April feels her position is, but seemingly more successfully. Whilst April believes this ‘Reagan’ is a genuine threat, the others think that she’s just being jealous. The problem with this story is that it falls victim to a lot of the pitfalls stories in this mold usually do. Namely, there’s a lot of people denying anything strange whilst April insists. After a while, it does admittedly get a little dull, though the resolution is interesting.

Now You Know…

Once again it is the second story that wins my affections. Now you Know is an incredibly touching little story that chooses to tackle, in some depth I might add, the issue of bullying. Tim Lengs script is incredibly powerful, mostly putting the alien machinations in the background, though not to the point that it no longer feels like an episode of class. His character of Peter Dillard (brought perfectly to life in a show-stealing performance by Anson Boon) is an incredibly touching piece of script writing and a wonderful piece of tragedy.  The two leads in this one are Tanya and Matteusz, an excellent choice to lead such a powerful tale given that they are arguably the two most underdeveloped in the entire series (not at all due to the excellent performances of Vivian Oparah and Jordan Renzo) and the characters interactions are a highlight.

In Remembrance

The third story is eagerly the most highly awaited being, as the name suggests, a sequel to Remembrance of the Daleks. For the most part, this is an adventurous romp, with plenty of Dalek action and lots of nods to the classic 1988 story that inspired it. On the other hand, this (far more than the previous sets Don’t Tell me you Love Me) is Quills story, and explores her character in a number of interesting dialogue sequences with the Dalek. Katherine Kelley is superb in these sequences, utilising the wonderful dialogue by Guy Adams to really get to the heart of who Quill is and what makes her tick. At the end, she still remains a mystery, but we’ve had one more privileged scratch beneath the surface. Greg Austin, on the other hand, is given far less to do, a shame, primarily as I thought he was astounding in the original series and without a doubt the highlight. Here he’s given a few amusing interactions but is mostly left to running up and down Coal Hill corridors. What of the stories two guest stars? Sophie Aldred and Nicholas Briggs? Well as always they are excellent, Aldred, in particular, relishing exploring her character a little more it seems. The score is also excellent, evoking the score of Remembrance at appropriate points. Unfortunately, the story itself is a little sluggish at points with a bit too much running around, though on the whole this is an excellent finale.

Following on from an excellent first box set, this second series has been another al round success. Featuring clever and inventive scripts, Class must rank among the best BF releases this year. Not only that but these new Class audios have demonstrated without a doubt that the show still has a lot of life left in it, bring on a BF continuation series is all I say!

 

Written By: Roy Gill, Jenny T Colgan, Scott HandcockDirected By: Scott Handcock

Cast

Katherine Kelly (Miss Quill), Greg Austin (Charlie Smith), Fady Elsayed (Ram Singh), Sophie Hopkins (April MacLean), Vivian Oparah (Tanya Adeola), Jordan Renzo (Matteusz Andrzejewski), Rhys Isaac-Jones (Thomas Laneford), Deirdre Mullins (Mab), Lu Corfield (Marta Vanderburgh), Scott Haran (Jason Campbell), Joe Shire (Aubrey Khan), Jasmine M Stewart (The Mayor), Liz Sutherland-Lim (Alicia Yan), Gavin Swift (Boris). Other parts played by members of the cast.

Producer Scott HandcockScript Editor Scott Handcock, James GossExecutive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

The brainchild of celebrated young-adult author, Patrick Ness; Class is certainly one of the more unfortunate Doctor Who spin-offs. Something which I found to be a great shame as the series was full of solid ideas and the potential was clearly evident from the start. When Big Finish got the rights to do Class, I’m not sure if anyone was actually surprised but this reviewer was certainly pleased. I enjoyed Class upon first viewing it and although it was certainly flawed, the cast, characters and general aesthetic clearly had a lot more to give. This first series of two-box sets features individual stories, each concentrating on 2 or 3 characters. It’s an interesting but ultimately fruitful technique that results in some highly interesting character based material. 

Gifted

The opener sets the tone for the series in style, concentrating on the characters of Ram Singh and April Maclean and taking many of its story beats from their character traits. So, the threat in this story is drawn from folk legends and stories (a particular passion of Aprils) but one that preys on a character’s ambition and manipulates them (Ram and his desire to be a football star). It’s clearly a well thought through story that manages to emphasise both of these characters weak spots and ambitions. Wonderfully it gives expansion to elements in the series, Ram and his robotic leg and his and Aprils relationship as a whole. The latter felt a little too quick in series and an element that perhaps more than any other needed a little bit more air-time. The two leads (Fady Elsayed and Sophie Hopkins) are wonderful here and recapture their characters as if they’d never been away. It also captures the same level of darkness as the show, namely in the character of Thomas Lainford played wonderfully Ryhs Isaac-Jones, who is as tragic as they come.

Life Experience

Easily the highlight of the series, Life Experience is a non-stop romp. Taking the scenario of a secret lab experimenting on creatures falling from the ‘tears’, when one gets loose and Ram and Tanya are amongst those trapped inside. There’s plenty of laughs and plenty of wonderful horror moments with dashing’s of gore and nastiness.  It may not provide the same level of character depth and exploration as the first and third story in this set but it’s a welcome break that demonstrates the versatility of the series. This story also features the largest guest cast in the entire set and it’s a superb collection of characters, all likable and amusing. I do hope that those who are able to return do in future installments, it would be a shame to waste such excellent characters and performers. A highlight was the performance of Lu Corfield, who puts in a wonderful guest appearance as the villainous Marta Vanderburgh. Her character makes an imposing but incredibly funny antagonist, delivering many of the wonderful moments of black humour that assist in making this story so enjoyable.

Don’t Tell me you Love me

Concentrating on the characters of Charlie, Matteusz and Miss Quill, Don’t Tell me you love me is easily the darkest and deepest story in the set. Scott Hancock has managed to create a multi-layered tale built around the simple premise of a parasite that enters a person’s mind and makes them unable to stop talking. The parasite then gets them to say things which may or may not be truths, resulting in interesting dynamics between Charlie and Matteusz when they start discussing aspects of their relationship. Throw into this mix the in dominatable Miss Quill played as always by Katherine Kelly and the result is a story that manages to explore all three characters, treat them equally and deliver an emotional packed punch in its ending. Unfortunately, the idea of a creature that makes its victims unable to stop talking does have…. some problems in the audio medium with characters talking on top of each other or without a break for minutes at a time sometimes getting a bit much through the headphones. Katherine Kelley, Greg Austin and Jordan Renzo are all excellent in this story and I’m intrigued to see more of them in vol 02.

The first volume of Class manages to be incredibly successful at telling one-off individual stories within the run of the original series. In choosing to do this by concentrating on only a small number of the leads at a time, they have been able to further these characters in a way the television series was never able too. What’s more, the stories chosen wonderfully exploit character traits and expand series plot points further. Not only this but the atmosphere of the television series is captured seamlessly. Highly recommended.

Writer: Donald McLeary, Tim Dawson, John Dorney, James Goss

Director: Helen Goldwyn

 

Featuring: Michelle Ryan, Jacqueline King, Warren Brown

Big Finish

First Released: August 2018
Running Time: 5 hours

I've always been indifferent about the character of Lady Christina De Souza, the one-off guest star from Planet of the Dead (the 2009 Easter Special) starring David Tennant.  I was never fond of that story, which to me always came off as a run of the mill average episode being touted as a big special in a year with a lot less Who.  I am often more forgiving of average Who stories when they are in the middle of a full year...but if you only get a few in a year, they all have to up their game.  The character of Lady Christina was definitely tied to this.  Michelle Ryan is charming, but the character always felt like someone overwritten to be the coolest person in town. Flawless and fun and witty and can do all sorts of cool things.  She is the thief with a heart of gold...but it always felt very forced. I failed to connect with the character.  But that didn't matter in the long run. It was just one episode.

But with Big Finish no having the rights to almost all things New Series, every one off character and their mother can get their own series! So Lady Christina gets her very on Audio Spin-off series.  It isn't a bad series, in fact, it has plenty of moments of fun, but it didn't really move the needle on this character for me.  The character only got one shot on TV, so if you are going to build a series around her, you need to flesh out her character.  Beyond the all too fleeting moments with her father in one episode, this set definitely failed to do that. 

So she ends up being written as a bargain bin version of River Song, a sassy witty adventurer with a bad girl side. That's the biggest flaw for me.  I didn't hear anything in this character that didn't end up sounding like it could've been just as well coming from River. The difference being River had a ton of on screen adventures that fleshed out her character, and the boxsets I've so far heard from her also added onto her character.  This is just some light adventures featuring a character that lacks much depth.  Again, Michelle Ryan is charming and she is playing the part with some gusto...but the lack of any real character development hurts this set immensely for me. 

The opening story is actually fun and showed promise.  It weaved a fun tale of adventure, robbery, and a hint of alien tech, and made me think that maybe this series could work, despite my utter indifference to the lead character.  A bit of light Doctor Who alien stuff mixed in with some crimes?  Sure!  But then the second story felt like it was a riff on the plot of Partners in Crime...right down to the involvement of Sylvia Noble (which ends up being a practically random guest star).  Other than the involvement of Christina's father, which is too underwritten, the story left me somewhat cold.  I would've enjoyed it as a Tenth Doctor tale, but I was feeling that this series had the potential to do something new...a thief as the lead.  It should be a show about a thief stealing alien artifacts...and that should be the focus of the stories!

Though the third episode returns to that premise, I have to say it was sadly a bit of a mess. There were good ideas floating around, but it was too unfocused. The finale of the set also felt unfocused, though not nearly as muddled as the third episode.  The set just limps to a conclusion, and it didn't leave me frothing at the mouth for more adventures with Lady Christina.

Ultimately, the set didn't grab me. It is mostly serviceable light fun, but nothing I will remember a week from now.  I went into this with a total neutral feelings on the character and the whole idea of her getting her own series.  Sadly, the set has me walking away feeling exactly the same.  I am no offended by it's existence, now do I care if it continues or dies right here.  There were nuggets of fun, and certainly, some will find it a good time. Give me River Song any day. 

Writer: Una McCormack
Director: Jamie Anderson
Featuring: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Bonnie Langford

Big Finish Release (United Kingdom):

Released August 2018
 

Running Time: 2 hours

Now let’s make something clear first. I love spy stories. Le Carre, Fleming, Deighton; all three are in my favourite authors and the cold war period of espionage certainly seems like an excellent setting for a Doctor Who story. The first story in this years, Seventh Doctor Trilogy (though in matter of fact the first of a pentalogy), Red Planets continues the pairing of the Doctor, Mel and Ace. Taking it’s ques from Cold War spy thrillers in the vein of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Quiller Memorandum, Red Planets is an evocative, thrill a minute story that packs its punches but keeps its secrets close to its chest until its final moments.  Written by Una McCormack, this is an impressive high concept tale that weaves intriguing espionage, with time-bending mishaps-even if the impressive ideas aren’t always given enough room to breathe.

The story opens with the Doctor and Mel in a strange parallel future, in the socialist republic of Mokoshia and Ace in Berlin in 1961. Already even here there are a few problems as why the three are split into two groups is never adequately explained. At first, I thought that it could perhaps be another example of one of the more manipulative and darker Seventh Doctor’s masterplans, though this turns out not to be the case. The only other possibility is that it’s a hangover from a previous adventure, that’s all well and good if so but giving us a little bit more info would have been appreciated. In fact, even the story doesn’t seem to know, with at points it feeling that Ace’s presence in 1961 one is intentional and at others, it’s explicitly stated that it is not. Anyway, whilst the Doctor and Mel become embroiled in the politics of the shady new republic, Ace befriends a British spy. Up in space, the first mission to Mars is about to get a nasty surprise…

If that sounds like there’s a lot going on you’d be damn right. Unfortunately, this means that some of the ideas whilst ingenuous, need just a little bit more room to breathe. The revelation of what is up on Mars in particular. This idea is one of Una’s most captivating but unfortunately, it’s reduced to an exposition-heavy explanation by the Doctor in a story that has one too many of them. The result was I often found myself having to pause and skip back a little just to make sure I was taking everything in.

However, in terms of atmosphere and thrills, the story succeeds massively. The paranoia of a lot of the aforementioned Spy fiction is captured beautifully and Mokoshia really does feel like a threatening place, reminiscent of many of our darker Socialist dictatorships. The fact that the individual who will eventually cause all of this never makes an appearance is also a wonderful decision. This is a story about consequences and the characters who have to suffer because of his actions, not about him.

Sylvester McCoy, Bonnie Langford and Sophie Aldred are all wonderful as usual. Sophie Aldred in particular always works incredibly well alone and the character of Ace works wonderfully well in the world of 1960’s Berlin. Bonnie Langford gets some great moments taking further swipes at the Doctors character and in particular his moral stance on the rewriting of history- no matter how many individuals from the parallel world will be lost. Likewise, Sylvester gives his own in these scenes, giving a sense of a Doctor who is tired of trying to explain, knowing she’ll never understand. The supporting cast are all great, though admittedly I didn’t feel like they were really given much to play with, the emphasis being more on the ideas than supporting characters.

Red Planets is a great Doctor Who story with some great ideas. To really of been a classic it needed perhaps one more rewrite just to sort the pacing out. However, the result is none the less entertaining and comes recommended.

Producer Ian Atkins, Script Editor Ian Atkins
Executive Producers Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs

Written By: Joseph Lidster, Directed By: Lisa Bowerman

Cast

Camille Coduri (Jackie Tyler)

"Oh great, TWO Jackie Tylers....isn't that just wizard!"

Jackie Tyler's lost a close friend, and this new Doctor is only a half-hearted replacement for him.

But as she tries to put the events of Big Ben behind her and take a well-earned break, others have spotted an opportunity. A well-intentioned, far-reaching plan is underway. But Jackie Tyler isn't the woman she was...

So - first The Siege of Big Ban, and now Flight into Hull! Big Finish are positively spoiling us with tales of the meta-crisis Doctor and Jackie Tyler. 

After the events in Big Ben, and in an effort to have Jackie and the Doctor get on more, Pete and Rose arrange a private zeppelin flight for the pair, to the 'famous' spa city of Hull, to see it's great glass pyramid, and sparkling blue waters  (obviously this parallel world has some very big differences to ours!).

However things don't go as planned (do they ever?), thanks to a new Jackie Tyler, crashing into this dimension, and our party. The difference in this new Jackie though is that she is sharp, intelligent, cunning...and desperate to save her own children from her dying world, which is suffering from severe global cooling.

As with The Siege of Big Ben, Joseph Lidster delivers a smart and very witty, story for the Short Trips range. This is a perfect ship in a bottle story, which at first is quite light hearted and breezy, but quickly takes quite a dark turn, not only through the desperation of this new, second Jackie, but also exploring this Doctor's humanity, and the realisation that if he dies - he won't regenerate.

Camille Coduri again excels at not just our Jackie, but this new Jackie as well, and obviously has fun playing the new characterisation of what must be by now a very familiar role.

Flight Into Hull! is a truly great follow up to The Siege of Big Ben, and left me wanting to hear more stories from this parallel Universe. I'm quietly hoping that Big Finish are thinking the same....

You can buy Flight Into Hull here.

Writer: James Goss
Director: Scott Handcock
Featuring: Murray Melvin, Gareth Pierce, Cara Chase
Big Finish Release (United Kingdom)
Running Time: 1 hour

Released by Big Finish Productions - August 2018
Order from Amazon UK

“What is this place?”
“I would’ve thought that was abundantly clear by now – it’s a trap.”

One of the first unspoken laws that critics learn, while blissfully perched upon their infinitely extravagant ivory towers, is to keep an open mind. No matter whether you’re consuming a miraculously uncovered tome from literary royalty such as Shakespeare or the twentieth instalment in the most monotonous TV show known to man (our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone still recovering from Australia’s traumatic take on K-9), casting past biases and – if possible – contextual controversies to the wind usually offers the best opportunity to consume and evaluate the work in question as objectively as possible. Who knows? The end product could rank among your most hallowed viewing, reading or listening experiences of the year come its final shot, page or track.

It’s with this fundamental professional goal in mind that we’ve got an admission to make; after More Than This, Made You Look and The Dying Room each wrapped up Big Finish’s first three monthly Torchwood runs with predictable thrillers, devoid of their predecessors’ thematic weight or profound character development, we couldn’t help but worry that this year’s mini-season would follow suit with its final chapter. But if Goodbye Piccadilly defied this reviewer’s expectations in July with a thoroughly entertaining hour for our most maligned protagonist paring, then the frankly magnificent Deadbeat Escape blows them out of the water – we’ve no reason to ever doubt productions in the range again after this unforgettable denouement.

Think Torchwood meets Psycho and you’ll only scratch the surface of the glory that awaits. Delivering a devilishly chilling chamber piece brimming with gothic suspense and disturbing sci-fi conceits, James Goss reintroduces one of the original TV show’s finest antagonists, Bilis Manger, as our Norman Bates, his concealed intentions every inch as terrifying to unravel, his self-centred but far from self-deifying worldview just as thought-provoking and his history no less deliciously open to interpretation than in “Captain Jack Harkness” or “End of Days”. As with Marion Crane and her post-mortem entourage, the further that the Traveller Halt’s latest misfortunate occupant, Hywel Roberts, delves into the hotel’s temporal mysteries, the greater our understanding of its enigmatic new manager – and the oncoming emotional turmoil that awaits Hywel – deepens with tragic gravity. Few scribes could truly claim to match the careful precision with which Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece gradually stokes our curiosity while still leaving us dreading the consequences, yet Goss’ perfectly-paced script undoubtedly manages this structural flourish with spectacular aplomb.

And yet where lesser writers might’ve been content with prioritising these archetypal horror  elements of intrigue, morally indecipherable foils and deadly foreshadowing above all else, it’s the unashamedly equal weighting afforded to Bilis and Hywel’s intertwined journeys that truly separates Goss from the pack. Naturally any innocent bystanders unlucky enough to find themselves in the former’s deceptively kindly crosshairs mark themselves out as lambs to the slaughter, but there’s so much more to Mr. Roberts than that – his effortlessly moving familial plight regularly thrusts the narrative into unexpected but no less riveting territory, with Bilis’ subtle interrogations and infrequent appearances by a haunting third player bringing his raw insecurities to the fore in heartrending fashion. It’s not often that one-off newcomers to the Torchwood franchise simply beg further appearances down the line, but just as The Dollhouse’s electrifying Los Angeles agents and Bilis himself were crying out for reprisals from the moment of their conception, so too would this reviewer leap at the chance to discover Hywel’s next steps – however inevitably morbid – beyond Escape’s end credits.

Of course, as much as it’s hugely welcome to see all of these constituent components ensuring that Escape bests previous Torchwood audio finales, not every trend needed bucking; regular readers of our range reviews will hopefully recall our continual praise for virtually every voice actor tasked with leading the plays, an enduring tradition which Murray Melvin and Gareth Pierce uphold via their superb two-hand act. In rendering Hywel’s escalating paranoia so hauntingly, yet still finding time to layer in emotional subtleties during his tender exchanges with Bilis’ other victim, Pierce offers up the perfect audition tape for the future Big Finish roles which he’s surely guaranteed to acquire going forward. Indeed, given that Melvin apparently departed his recording booth bellowing “revenge, revenge, I shall have my revenge!” and given how his gleefully malicious portrayal as Bilis takes on new dramatic layers as the pair’s tempestuous dynamic evolves, Big Finish could do far worse than to re-unite their talents at the earliest convenient opportunity.

Scratch that last sentence, actually – Big Finish could do far worse than to re-unite the talents of everyone involved with Deadbeat Escape at the earliest possible opportunity, convenient or otherwise. Such are the play’s myriad strengths that we could easily dedicate just as many words to the matter as you’d find contained in its script, but whether you’re examining broader elements such as Goss’ stunningly-structured storyline and the Peabody-worthy two-hander powering proceedings, or (still vital) minutiae like the sound design’s unsettling manipulation of background ambience to induce near-constant tension, even the most sceptical listeners would be hard pressed to come away with any points of contention. Our advice? Dive in with an open mind, then allow Bilis to expand your mind to the vast possibilities of time travel with no ill intent whatsoever – why, he wouldn’t even hurt a fly…

Next Time on Torchwood – Chances are that our paths will cross with Bilis again before too long, particularly given the apocalyptic note on which Aliens Among Us concluded earlier this year and the impending arrival of God Among Us from this October onwards. Whatever happens, though, we know for certain that Torchwood’s monthly adventures will resume in March 2019 for twelve months on end – join us then for prison escapes with Owen, domestic drama with Jack and Ianto, underground excursions with Cardiff celebs and plenty more of the globe-trotting hysteria that we’ve come to expect from the century where everything changes!