Class will be remembered by most sci fi fans and BBC viewers as a short-lived 8 episode romp that was fleetingly available on BBC3 online before having late night showings on BBC1. Despite positive reviews, the show was undone by lacklustre viewing figures and an unwillingness by the higher ups at the BBC to provide another chance.

 

This album comes two years after the final transmission of Class on mainstream TV and is a veritable goldmine of musical atmosphere.

 

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Main CD

 

I can happily report that not only does this CD meet expectations, it also goes on to exceed them. From the rousing opening of The Shadow Kin, to the hauntingly chilling cliffhanger of Governors Revealed, the forty-plus collection of music forms a very compelling and re-playable primary CD in the set.

Along the way comes the 'weird but wonderful' Strands From The Rift, the crowd pleasing Here She Comes in a Ruddy Great Bus, and the especially exciting (and unsettling) Asteroid track - which would hold its head high in an X Files or Outer Limits soundtrack collection.

Furthermore, the final brace of audio wonderment for the season conclusion (and sadly the series proper) cover all the necessary emotions, thoughts, and attachments to the core characters one can hope for. The CD culminates in Fight till your Last Breath and Souls Released with the auditory skill of Blair Mowat living up to such notable titles. 

 

**

Many other tracks are worth the listener's time. These include:

Rhodia; with the use of the first modern 'Doctor's Theme' from the parent show that Murray Gold used to such striking effect.

Time Has Looked At Your Faces; containing good multiple instruments and vocals 'as instruments' in a manner reminiscent of Enya.

Chasing The Dragon; here be rock vibes that evoke many a teenager's choice of allegiance when it comes to musical taste.

Dragon Attack has a sense of real adventure and character growth, as Charlie, April, Ram and Tanya all come under threat.

April's Past; adding further emotive pull to a character of much good writing and acting (such that she is my personal favourite of the teenage gang.

Heavy Petal; a chilling and foreboding concoction, ma­de further memorable still by the pounding drum backbeat as it comes to its conclusion.

To Share A Heart; this fits the bizarre but brilliant premise of the show's mid-season two- parter.

(And Finally) Charlie's Angry, Charlie's Winning; a multilayered effort from Mowat that helped with Detained being so intense and compelling. 

 

The only drawback is the lack of opening credits music, especially as the closing riffs of Track 43 are there to round off the album. But any such disappointment is somewhat negated by the [Song For] The Lost , which would not be out of place at a mediaeval monarch's court, and easily is one of the top 3 tracks.

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Bonus CD

 

These tunes are not to be dismissed as mere 'best of the rest' but can be enjoyed repeatedly on their own, or even as part of a specific playlist to get the best possible reminder of given episodes.  The darkness and creepiness factor is ratcheted up to a great degree in many of these tracks, so for those that enjoyed Class for its horror aspects there is much to enjoy here.

At the same time a welcome change of pace comes in the form of several songs:

Nightvisitors – Tanya's Dad is a full-on song (as compared to the other CD's subtler vocals) that uses guitar and a male solo to intriguingly tell the 'point of view' of the alien visitors to various class mates in the show's third episode.

Black Is the Colour works as a good song in its own right, which also perfectly fit the overall feel of Class. It concerns fraught emotions, and unlike the track immediately analysed has a number of different singers to help give extra gravitas to the show's poignant endgame.

Previews of Episodes 3,4,5,6,7 and 8 form the tail end of this bonus disc and convincingly remind us how they added punch to viewers' initial desire to see further episodes.

 

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To recap then, this release provides a solid couple of hours of arrestingly emotive and memorable music, and reminds the listener that Class (while surviving on through Big Finish) should have been allowed a couple more 'terms' at school at the very least.

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!

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.

Like the preceding Douglas Adams adaptations, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen presents an unusual challenge for a reviewer. There are really three different bases on which it needs to be judged – Adams’ original story, the success of the adaptor in capturing that while perhaps finessing the rough, unfinished edges, and whether the final result is actually any good. In the audiobook version, a fourth element is thrown on top of even that.

In terms of Adams’ canon, there’s an inescapable sense of desperately sieving the dirt and rocks at the bottom of the well for any last drops of murky fluid that can reasonably be called ‘water’.

Shada was an epic hole in Doctor Who’s history filled with Gareth Roberts’ meticulous research and skilfully Adamsesque writing. It allowed us a best guess of what Adams might have done with all the time in the world. And The Pirate Planet was one of the last remaining un-novelized 20th century Doctor Who stories. Both were a bit of a holy grail. They offered up the chance to explore all the gags and insights Adams had scribbled into the margins in his typical ‘up to the last minute’ style. The Krikktmen was a story loosely sketched out, then rejected, then worked on some more, and then rejected again.

Its pedigree as a story deemed not worth making first or even second times around immediately makes it that little bit less of a glittering prize. Even in terms of Krikkitmen’s original afterlife as Life, the Universe and Everything (aka most people’s least favourite Hitchhiker’s novel), makes for a less auspicious start. The existence of Life, the Universe and Everything creates a unique problem for Goss in his adaptation too. Shada was a script brimming full of ideas and characters, and Adams cherry picked a couple for recycling in the otherwise original Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. But Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen and the third Hitchhiker’s novel as essentially the same plot, with the same villains, and most of the same gags, only with different characters as our heroes. It makes it less of an exercise is trying to spot the bits Adams would later recycle and more trying to spot the bits he didn’t.

 

Prior to this adaptor James Goss has shown himself one of the most talented and prolific authors of Doctor Who books and audios, with a keen ear for the style and tone of any piece. Here he tries to address the unique nature of the project by adding on a couple of extra layers to the plot, but not wholly successfully. Adams’ concept was always a villainous, universe shuddering plan that didn’t make any sense. There’s a villainous xenophobic race whose motivation and end goal don’t really make any sense, exposed as a front for motivations and goals that make less sense. In Goss’ version, then exposed as yet another front for even more nonsensical motivations and goals.And as for their methods -- the whole scheme is a basically a two million year plot to press a button, where simply walking up to it and pressing it in the first place would have done as well.

As part of the rearrangement of the furniture there are journeys to more planets than I recall in the original, and new elements of Adamseque parody and these sometimes fall flat or are tonally misplaced. The elongated quest takes the Doctor, Romana and K9, for instance, to a planet where people are addicted to being terminally offended by everything. They complain about rescue ships being agents of ‘the patriarchy’ and the Doctor winds up vilified for telling a woman she’d be prettier if she smiled more. It's an attempt at the type of skewering of social orthodoxy Adams did so well, but lands well wide of the target.

Possibly the greatest misstep is making this an adventure for the Fourth Doctor, Roman and K9 at all, rather than the originally intended Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane. It immediately makes it a less interesting proposition and increases the sense of being the poor relation to the other Adams adaptations. The notion of what an ‘Adamsesque’ Doctor/Romana/K9 adventure looks like has been codified and established across dozens of TV episodes, novels and audios and the writer and the team seem to go together perfectly. But that just makes it seem all the more exciting to explore the road not taken. How would Adams have written Sarah Jane’s character? What roads would the humour have gone down? It’s a shame to miss the chance to find out.

 

But how does this fare as an audiobook? Narration duties are taken on by Dan Starkey – most famous to TV viewers as Strax and several other Sontaran characters since 2008. There are no Sontarans on offer here, but he still marshals all the forces at his command in an effort that could only be called heroic. Adams’ prose has always featured an odd contradiction whereby it reads like it was designed to be spoken aloud, but when spoken aloud it sounds like it really needs to be seen written down. Goss’ text magnifies that effect even more. Starkey navigates the river of footnotes, parentheses, diversions, and sudden intrusions from text books with the skill of a white-water kayaker throwing himself off 150ft falls for fun.

He also deserves nothing short of a standing ovation for taking a book with literally dozens of characters and making them all distinct, recognizable, and memorable. Many of them appear for only a scene or two or – worse from the narrator and listener’s point of view – are introduced in one scene and then pop up again four or five hours later in the listening experience but must be immediately recognized and remembered.  At points he seems to be channelling the entire League of Gentlemen through one set of vocal cords. There are moments you could swear you listening to Reese Shearsmith’s angry old lady arguing with Mark Gatiss’ uncertainly plodding autocrat.  Other bits of Starkey’s mental casting are inspired, liked Hactar the evil (in principle) supercomputer sounding like nothing so much as a somewhat bored Welsh shopkeeper.

His Tom Baker is remarkable but takes a little getting used to. In essence, Starkey perfectly captures Baker’s louche, slightly ironic mode of delivery and tone of voice and then sticks with it. If his Fourth Doctor has a flaw is it that it doesn’t swoop around the full range of emotion and unpredictable acting choices Baker revelled in. But if this Doctor sails through the tale being ironically amused at everything, it’s no terrible thing. And with Baker’s voice being so rich and distinctive, being able to replicate it so well in any of its modes is worthy of great praise.

 

Overall then, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen is worth checking out more as a historical footnote than as an original work. Strangely enough, more so to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy fans than to Doctor Who fans. But it is worth checking out, especially in audio form, if only for Dan Starkey’s contribution.

 

As a televised serial, Delta and the Bannermen could have been a hilarious, delightful, Douglas Adams-esque romp with a dark side. Many of the elements are there. Completely alien beings transforming themselves into humanoids in order to visit Disneyland in the 1950s as part of a “Nostalgia Tour”, everyday people trying their best to work according to procedure in the face of utter strangeness, and intergalactic war taking place at a holiday camp in Wales. Unfortunately, it’s an uneven, overly violent, tonal mess, with delusions of depth.

As a novel, Delta and the Bannermen could have been an edgy sci-fi epic with fleshed out characters, deeply detailed mythology, real character motivations, high stakes, and humor. Where else but a novel would it be possible to explore Chimeron culture,  craft a romance between Delta and Billy that feels genuine, or uncover the psychology of why an assassin on vacation just can’t help but make a kill (there has to be more than his enjoyment of it)? Instead the novel adds very little to what was already an unbalanced story.

As an audiobook, Delta and the Bannermen has fun music, an effective soundtrack, and Bonnie Langford’s narration can be a delight when she’s really giving it her all and having a blast. However the weak story holds the entire production back. It is simply too difficult to separate the story from the audiobook to enjoy all the work that went into recording this otherwise pretty impressive audiobook.   

The setting of Delta and the Bannermen requires a soundtrack rich with popular music of the time. Characters openly reference songs like “Rock Around The Clock” and “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.” It would be hard to imagine the story without a few needle drops of those vintage hits. Somehow the producers were able to concoct generic, certainly royalty free, Rock & Roll tracks sufficient enough to capture that particular musical shade of the correct pop cultural tapestry.    

Not to say the music is all perfect. Perhaps the most entertaining piece of the score is what appears to be the main theme. A sweeping, swashbuckling suite that may have been more at home in a pirate story, but is equally thrilling here.

Telling a story about about genocide across the stars, especially when the antagonist is as murder-happy as Gavrok, gunfire and explosions are crucial. At no point does the artillery become a wall of pounding sound overpowering the music or narration. Every auditory element is layered to compliment each other, resulting in a sense of immersion.  

Of course the natural standout is Bonnie Langford as the storyteller. She is tasked with performing a variety of accents for more characters than necessary, and she does so superbly. While Mel may not be everyone’s favorite companion, Bonnie Langford is a first class talent, and she shines throughout the entirety of this book.  

Delta and the Bannermen, regardless of the form it takes, is a story with a lot of promise that never reaches its full potential. At least this version has a narrator who seems to be enjoying themself.

This review contains spoilers.

 

From its pre-credits sequence to its closing twist, this is an episode punctuated by moments of shock and character trauma. And by focusing once again on the Shadow Kin and the Cabinet, as well as revealing more about the Governors of Coal Hill Academy, it feels very much as if series one of Class has really been a single coherent story, a fantastic school serial, rather than a set of distinct adventures loosely connected by running threads. The story arc muscles its way to a kind of resolution, making me wonder whether any possible series two would need to focus on a largely different group of lead characters, somewhat in the spirit of Skins or other 'anthology' shows.

 

To begin with, though, what to make of that ending? I can't help but feel it'll prove contentious in some quarters, if not divisive. For me, it was reminiscent of the last-gasp development in Torchwood: Miracle Day, where a central character is similarly, and just as suddenly, gifted with a whole new way of being, and the show's format is irrevocably and instantaneously reconfigured. Could April feature as a lead character in her new guise? Perhaps so, but Class would never be quite the same. This concluding development feels like a gimmick of sorts: a provocation to get audiences talking and thinking about the connections between heroes and their shadows. In its world-changing potency, however, it also feels like a sign-off of sorts, as if April's new incarnation is being handed over to fan fiction writers, fresh for new extrapolations and re-imaginings.  

 

Class has featured many excellent actors, and the cameo appearance from Cyril Nri as the Chair of Governors is excellent. Urbane and creepy in equal measure, it left me wishing that we'd seen a lot more of his character. And the slogan 'Ever Upward Reach' has a crazed zeal that partly implies striving for academic excellence but also satirises the entire Academy system. It's just one note in the composition of Class, but it rings out nevertheless. The Governors' reveal contains another of this episode's shock moments, of course, as we witness the "benefactors" who have been spurring on their calcuations and activities. In another day and age this might have featured the Daleks, but their involvement calls for negotiations over rights, whereas the Doctor Who monsters featured here have a far more convenient ownership. Cementing Class as part of the Steven Moffat era, to find that the Weeping Angels have been at the heart of this tale all along is intriguing to say the least. And the "Arrival", which seems to gesture at a gigantic Angel towering over London's skyline of Shard and Gherkin, would certainly make for a strong series two story arc. Class has never felt overly reliant on Who for its identity, and book-ending series one with strong call-backs to the 'parent' show both feels right, in terms of making episodes one and eight 'event' instalments, and not at all excessive. 

 

Patrick Ness certainly likes to put his characters through the emotional wringer, and 'The Lost' is of a piece with 'Detained' in that respect. What seems like a peaceful character moment kicking off the story with Ram and Varun rapidly takes a devastating turn, with Tanya likewise suffering at the hands of the Shadow Kin. Fady Elsayed perhaps pitches his character's reaction at a higher emotional temperature than others, but it's an understandable response (for both the actor and the character), and helps to drive the key question of the story: will the Cabinet be used? Although my favourite character, Quill, has a little less to do than usual - hardly surprising given that this follows a Quill-focused episode - she does contribute to a gloriously eccentric sequence that encapsulates the Whoniverse's mash-up of prosaic and heightened realities, as the Cabinet, a genocidal weapon of massive destruction, is wheeled into school in a less-than-stylish shopping trolley. Pure class. And Quill experiences a moment of uneasy maternal tenderness as she unsuccessfully resists comforting Tanya. It's a character beat that Katherine Kelly has some fun with.        

 

Credit should also go to Blair Mowat for some outstanding synth tones swirling amid this episode's impressive incidental music. It helps sell the drama, and resonates with the importance that Class has given to music through April's hobby which, as with 'Nightvisiting', is again punched up in the mix by linking into the episode title. It's fortunate that April always alights on such thematically useful songs, but it's also an economical way of fusing character, show, and soundtrack into one coherent entity.

 

Class has whizzed by: surely the mark of a highly successful series. On the whole, its characters have gelled well, and its multi-generational focus has felt organic rather than forced, with its inclusive ethos carrying a passionate energy. Having said that, mocking media studies in episode one didn't seem at all in keeping with the character of the Doctor (who would surely want the media to be studied and criticised), nor with the show's overall tone, and there have been occasional weaknesses (for me, the Shadow Kin's realisation). But 'The Lost' shows off Class for all its strengths, conveying an emotional intensity and a continual questioning of whether self and other - antagonist and protagonist - can be neatly separated out. And in this sense, the final plot twist is perhaps less of a gimmick than it may at first seem. It is, after all, the logical culmination of April's connection with Corakinus, and it illustrates in one attention-grabbing incongruity what lies at the heart of Patrick Ness's vision. Heroes and villains, humans and monsters, don't belong in two distinct categories or classes, despite the fact that this is often the default setting for popular storytelling. Ambivalent, self-divided, for good and ill, may be we are all in one class.