Big Finish - November Round-up

After unfortunately missing a couple of months due to unforeseen circumstances, our monthly round-up of all Big Finish's productions is back, with November's crop including a nightmarish trip to Blackpool for the Sixth Doctor and Peri, a city-wide cover-up for Judge Dredd to investigate, and a rather melancholic Sherlock Holmes.

Doctor Who

The Eternal Summer by Jonathan Morris
Number: 128
TARDIS Team: The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa
Running Time: 120 mins approx
Directed By: Barnaby Edwards
Released: November 2009
Buy: Here

One of the things that Big Finish has always been almost uncannily good at is in successfully casting pre-existing literary characters for their plays. It's always very tricky to find an actor who can live up to an audience's pre-conceived ideas of whoever they're playing, but time and again, from the very start of the company's life with Lisa Bowerman as Benny Summerfield, through to Toby Longworth as Judge Dredd and up to Jemima Rooper as comic strip character Izzy in this year's The Company of Friends they've managed to get it right far more often than not, and this run continues with this month's main range play, the second in the current Peter Davison trilogy. As soon as it was announced this mini-series was to be set in Stockbridge, the traditional English village where the Doctor's comic strip incarnation has visited countless times in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine, all anyone wanted to know was "Who was going to play Max Edison?" There was no question that the trainspotterish UFO spotter would pop up at some point - to paraphrase someone else, Stockbridge without Max Edison scarcely bears thinking about - but finding someone to play one of the most beloved of all the strip's recurring characters might have been a tricky proposition. Thankfully, they've come up trumps once more with the now-you-say-his-name-it's-obvious casting of Mark Williams, bringing all his most endearing, bumbling Arthur Weasley charm to the character. On first hearing his voice I wasn't quite sure if that's how I'd imagined Max to speak - you couldn't help feeling, to fit his anorak-ish look, he'd have more of a high-pitched, nasal tone - but by the play's end Williams had won me over, and the pleasure of hearing Edison come to life so successfully - and even, in one magical moment, recreating a scene from one of the comic's most memorable stories - is the definite highlight of Morris's play.

Following last month's Monty Python-esque opener to the Davison trilogy, this month's starts off a lot like Morris's Eighth Doctor Adventure Brave New Town, both starting with the Doctor and companion finding themselves in a small town seemingly cut off from the outside world and caught in some kind of temporal loop. However, by the end of episode two The Eternal Summer has gone off in a completely different, very surprising direction. I'm not sure I entirely buy the central idea of who the villains of the piece are, but it's admittedly a very amusing premise and gives Davison and Sutton the chance to really chew the scenery. A strong guest cast, including Pam Ferris and Roger Hammond in addition to Williams, help to carry along some of the play's longer moments, and if the final episode goes on a bit, it still adds up to a solid, fun piece which, most importantly, manages to capture the quirky feel of the comic strips - if you like, this comes across as an archetypal Stockbridge tale and thus fulfils its brief perfectly. Stronger than last month's opening, and with some hints as to what's to come in next month's final chapter Plague of the Daleks this play manages to justify the whole idea of bringing Stockbridge to the world of audio drama even if it doesn't quite end as strongly as it began. 7/10.



Ringpullworld by Paul Magrs
Number: 4.05
Starring: Mark Strickson as Turlough, with Alex Lowe as Huxley
Running Time: 60 mins approx
Released: November, 2009
Buy Here

It's an odd thing about Turlough. On screen he was never a completely successful character, neither menacing enough when he was plotting to kill the Doctor nor ever quite finding his niche in a more traditional companion role following the defeat of the Black Guardian in Enlightenment. On audio, however, he shines, and although his appearances have been extremely rare - only three main range audios in ten years - in each he has made for a perfectly fine foil for the Fifth Doctor, with Loups-Garoux almost certainly his finest two hours in any medium. His first appearance in The Companion Chronicles is another strong addition to his BF CV, with Paul Magrs, who has turned in a few mediocre scripts recently, providing his wittiest work for the company in quite some time.

The story, which follows the Doctor, Tegan and Turlough as they enter the titular pocket universe, has great fun playing with the conventions of narrative, in particular Doctor Who narrative, with Lowe's character, a "Noveliser", attaching himself to Turlough's side and insisting on narrating, in real time, everything Turlough is doing. Affectionately mocking some of the more famous tropes of Target's novelisations, as well as the cliches attached to this particular TARDIS team (there are plenty of "Kind heart, Tegan!"s and references to the Aussie's endless whining), you can almost hear Magrs chuckling as he was writing this, the story coming to a metatextural climax when, in theory, it doesn't actually end at all but instead leaves Turlough on a cliffhanger. It would be wrong to say that Strickson gives his finest performance in the role - his narration is sometimes a little flat, and he's far better when he's paying off Lowe - but we can put that down to not having been in front of a mike since 2005's Singularity while Lowe gives a good account of himself in what would be an otherwise tiresome character. It's probably best not to let Janet Fielding hear their impressions of Tegan, mind... 8/10.


The Nightmare Fair by Graham Williams, adapted by John Ainsworth
Number: 1.01
TARDIS Team: The Sixth Doctor and Peri
Running Time: 95 mins approx
Directed By: John Ainsworth
Released: November, 2009
Buy: Here

The first of Big Finish's new "Lost Stories" range is easily one of their most anticipated releases of the year. When it was first announced that the company were adapting a number of abandoned scripts from Colin Baker's era, most notably some intended for the original Season Twenty-Three before everything went the way of Rassilon, it was The Nightmare Fair most wanted to hear. Former producer Williams's script featured the Doctor once more battling the eponymous villain from the Hartnell story The Celestial Toymaker in a Blackpool fun fair and was only weeks away from production when the hiatus was called, leaving fandom mourning what some considered could have been a lost classic, complete with Michael Gough reprising his role from 1966. Subsequently Williams novelised his scripts for Target, and in 2003 a fan production gave a flavour of what it might have been like, but only now, twenty-three years late, do we finally get to hear the real Sixth Doctor fulfilling his promise at the end of Revelation of the Daleks to take Peri to Blackpool (or "Bla-" as the hastily edited version would have it) to show her the sights.

The good news is that the result manages to replicate brilliantly the Baker television era, right down to composer Jamie Robertson's superbly realised pastiche of Dominic Glynn's original synth-heavy music scores. The bad news is that the result manages to replicate painfully well the Baker television era, right down to its languid pacing and under-developed stories. Adaptor Ainsworth has very wisely kept as close to possible to Williams's original script, filling in some gaps with extra material culled from the novel and making some minor modifications to make the play more listener-friendly. Unfortunately, it's clearly a story intended to be seen rather than heard. Several key sequences, such as Peri and her new friend's exploration of the fair and the Doctor's battle with one of those new-fangled "video games" the young people all seem to be playing, are very visual and fall completely flat in the audio medium, although on the plus side Robertson's sound design does manage to successfully capture Blackpool's gaudy atmosphere. The story itself is rather thin, and often feels like a remake rather than true sequel to the Hartnell story: the Toymaker imprisons the Doctor and makes him play games while his companion runs round fruitlessly for a great length of time, while the pacing of the episodes is a bit off as well - even after a year's experience, it seems Script Editor Eric Saward had failed to get to grips with the forty-five minute format.

But to counter these problems is the sheer joy of hearing Baker and Bryant finally getting their holiday by the sea. Recalling their more prickly on-screen relationship, but tempered somewhat ala Trial of the Time Lord, both give enthusiastic performances, with Baker in particular relishing some of the Sixth Doctor's typically verbose speech-making which was one of his incarnation's defining characteristics. They are helped along by David Bailie's Toymaker. This is Bailie's second appearance in the role, following last year's splendid The Magic Mousetrap, and he has already almost completely wiped out the memories of Gough's version, as heretical as that might be to say. Ultimately, though, and while it's very regrettable to say, this is a far inferior production to his debut. It's sadly fitting that the Hartnell story, almost completely missing from the archives, is one of the relatively few Sixties stories which refused to work as a Missing Story audio release, and now again its follow-up finds itself in the same boat - the bizarre world of the Toymaker is just too reliant on its visuals to ever truly satisfy here, despite everyone's best efforts. The paradoxical thing is that in the end this adaptation is just too authentic. In beautifully recapturing the period feel of Baker's era, BF have also managed to remind of us of its many, many flaws. A brilliant pastiche, but not a satisfying audio. 5/10.

Judge Dredd: Crime Chronicles

Blood Will Tell by James Swallow
Number: 1.02
Starring: Tony Longworth, Paul David-Gough
Running Time: 60 mins approx
Directed By: John Ainsworth
Released: November 2009
Buy: Here

Judge Dredd finds himself up in front of a tribunal and explaining his actions in this second of the new series of "Crime Chronicles," which are told ala the Doctor Who Companion Chronicles with one main narrator and a second actor to spar with. Of this initial season of four, this is the only one to be told directly by Dredd himself, as he relates his efforts to hunt down Garris Hale (David-Gough), an ex-Judge cast into the Cursed Earth eight years previously following the discovery that he was in fact a mutant. Now Harris has returned, determined to broadcast to the denizens of Mega-City One a secret the authorities would rather keep under wraps.

Not that Dredd knows this: he just thinks Harris is out for revenge. Swallow's story follows the well-worn path of authority figure uncovering some big conspiracy during the course of his duties, making one wonder whether this is a strand that is going to be picked up in later stories. The writer sprinkles his story lightly with the hot topics of immigration and discrimination, but not to any great degree, while the main body of the story, Dredd's pursuit of Harris, is engaging enough but never especially gripping. Longworth is his usual reliable self (and actually belies the idea that Dredd narrating his own stories is a bit of a risky move) but David-Gough doesn't do anything memorable as the ostensible villain of the piece. It's all entertaining enough, but instantly forgettable, and is not nearly as strong as last month's amusing opener Stranger Than Truth. 5/10

Sherlock Holmes

The Last Act by David Stuart Davies
Number: 1.01
Starring: Roger Llewellyn
Running Time: 120 mins approx
Directed By: Nicholas Briggs
Released: November 2009
Buy: Here

It's a brave Sherlockian production which dares to trespass on the hallowed turf of Merrison and Coules. For two decades now, those two names have been synonymous with Holmes on audio, Clive Merrison's justifiably lauded portrayal of the great detective having featured in the BBC's unique project to adapt the complete Canon which was masterminded by chief scripter Bert Coules. Following its successful completion in 1998, Coules has gone on to pen his own "Further Adventures" for Merrison, two series having already aired and a further coming up at the end of this year. Considered by many aficionados as the finest, most faithful, adaptation of Conan Doyle's work, and Merrison amongst the greatest of all Holmeses, it would seem at the very least foolhardy for any third party to try their hand at bringing the world of 221B Baker Street to audio.

However, those audios are very much traditional, straight-down-the-line versions of Conan Doyle's stories, never trying anything more revolutionary than suggesting that Holmes has a distinctly irritating laugh or quietly solving the mystery of Watson's missing dog. The three titles in Big Finish's new range are rather different. Although Doyle himself would have found the whole idea absurd, the past hundred years have seen countless academic studies of his creation, investing in the fifty-sixty short stories and four novels far, far more gravitas and intellect than their writer ever intended for them. Much of it is utter codswallop, but equally there have been many valuable contributions to the "extended universe" canon, including a number of feted plays.

It is to this area of Holmesian study that Big Finish have turned, adapting three stage plays, the first two of which have been widely critically acclaimed by the great detective's many admirers. Both The Last Act and The Death and Life were written by David Stuart Davies, an eminent name amongst Sherlockians, in which he dug deep into the psyche of the world's greatest consulting detective. Next month's The Death and Life has Holmes rubbing shoulders with his creator, while this month's features Holmes casting his mind back over his career following the death of Watson.

Both are one-man shows, and both were written for Roger Llewellyn. What Merrison and Coules are to radio Holmes, Llewellyn and Davies are to the stage version, Llewellyn having performed The Last Act some 600 times. Such familiarity with the piece means that this is the most rehearsed play BF have ever produced by far (some actors, who shall remain nameless, not having even read their latest script before pitching up at the studios) and as such he gives a consummate performance. His melancholic Holmes finds the aloof intellectualism of his life gradually crumbling under the weight of a lifetime of suppressed emotions and self-denial, his mental state not deteriorating but rather the opposite, finally revealing his innermost thoughts that he has kept concealed even from himself his entire life. Talking aloud to his dead friend, he reveals thoughts and actions and incidents that he never would have done had Watson still been alive.

Conan Doyle would have thought it was a load of old guff, but, while its portrait of Holmes is uncomfortable for a tradionalist such as myself, it's difficult to argue with the case it makes. Davies cleverly layers his insights into the detective's persona through some of his most famous cases, with The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Speckled Band making their almost obligatory appearances. I don't particularly like the scenes set in Holmes's childhood - they tend towards the melodramatic, whereas a simple remote father would have certainly had the same result on the growing boy - and there is the odd moment when Llewellyn slips into caricature (something it is admittedly almost impossible to avoid when playing Holmes) but otherwise this is an absorbing production, quite exhausting to listen to all in one go, but a valuable record none the less of this fine meeting of author and performer. The translation to audio works well - you don't get the benefit of the actor's appearance, of course, which undoubtedly means the production loses a certain dimension, but this is almost compensated by his intense, intelligent performance elsewhere. A fine companion to the BBC's output. 9/10.

Also released this month, but not available for review, is Rob Shearman's book Love Songs For the Shy and Cynical which is also discussed in this podcast. Many thanks to Big Finish for their help in this review.