The Ultimate Adventure (2008)

Now the stage plays were something of a known unknown to quote a certain US Defence Secretary. I had heard there were some but nothing beyond that. The only questions that were in my mind were 1) Would a stage play work on radio and 2) Why did it take so long for someone to come up with the idea? The first release is The Ultimate Adventure and is quite unique for several reasons. First of all is that it has Colin Baker as the Doctor, now Baker starred in the stage version back in 1989 after he took over from Jon Pertwee. Secondly we have David Banks who played the Cyber Leader in a few of the classic stories but most notably we have both Dalek and Cybermen in the same adventure. It was like Army of Ghosts & Doomsday only 17 years earlier.

This play was written by former Script Editor Terrance Dicks who worked on the classic series from 1968 until 1974 and contributed as a writer afterwards and also worked on the majority of the Target Novels. I really didn’t know what to expect, I knew that it wasn’t going to be quite like a regular release. I downloaded The Ultimate Adventure from the Big Finish website and listened to it and as I did notice quite early on is how unlike normal plays it sounded like and by that I mean how it just didn’t have the same feel as The Reaping or Catch 1782 for example. The scene where the Doctor and Jason meet Margaret Thatcher at 10 Downing Street was quite possibly the strangest scene that I have ever heard from Big Finish.

Character wise it was all well constructed Colin Baker put in a solid performance as the Doctor. Despite it not being amongst his finest work, he doesn’t take things to seriously and treats it as a jolly adventure told in a different way. It’s a shame he doesn’t sing in this story as he can hold a tune which he showed in Doctor Who and the Pirates (release 43) back in 2003. Nadine Cox who did the voice of Margaret Thatcher did an OK job but I have heard better. I don’t know whether she is a proper impersonator but if not then I suppose she did an ok job considering. Noel Sullivan who I just discovered was in the pop band Hear’Say was good as Frenchman Jason. It was a slightly stereotypical accent from Sullivan but in the end it didn’t really matter as it wasn’t a story to be compared to a proper main range play. He played the character very well as fitted into the one-off companion role very well. Claire Huckle was also good as Crystal it was a good character which bordered on the annoying at times but managed to hold back. David Banks was very good as Karl, he played the Cyber-Leader in the 1980’s and so it was refreshing to see him play something else, quite like Terry Molloy not playing Davros in Kingdom of Silver. It was also nice that he played the same role he did on stage as it was a nice bit of continuity. The role of Karl was a nice strong one that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bond film. Other characters and actors that were very good in the role included Bryan Pilkington who played the Nightclub MC and Derek Carlyle who played the Envoy and also Zog. Also but by no means least there is of course Nicholas Briggs who did the voices of both the Cybermen and The Daleks (it’s a law which was passed in the House of Commons).

What I quite liked the most was the relationship between the Daleks and the Cybermen. What I was disappointed with in the 2006 two-parter TV series Army of Ghosts/Doomsday was how the Daleks and Cybermen didn’t try and forge an alliance but instead went against each other. It was a wasted opportunity that could have made those two episodes the benchmark for future series finale’s. In this story they were allies but there was still that underlying tension that you often feel when you hear of two rival political parties working together, you know that it’ll end in disaster which is really what you would want instead of them blowing the hell out of each other within seconds of meeting each other. The first act ends with a rather limp and weak ending but that’s not really a problem because its not a normal Doctor Who story and the normal rules of cliffhangers goes out of the TARDIS window in these sort of stories. Act 2 has a faster pace and that where the story really comes into its own. The moment where the Doctor reveals the conversation that he had with the Emperor Dalek to the Cybermen and the mercenaries was totally unexpected and yet turn the whole dynamic of the story. For those who saw the stage play it perhaps wasn’t such a surprise but for those like me who didn’t know anything about it then it was a nice twist.

The songs in this story were good, considering that with it being a musical stage play it was important for the songs to be enjoyable and they were on the whole. The first song was perhaps the best, it had a cheesy 80’s tune but it was still the best out of the three. The one with Crystal and Jason was also nice and it helped to create a positive view for a Crystal/Jason relationship. I think the tone that this play set was helped by with the songs. Overall, this was an enjoyable story and whilst it is not up to the same standard that the regular releases are it is still worth listening if you are ever feeling down and need pepping up.

Terrance Dicks wrote the original stage play and also wrote the audio version and that’s why it works so well. Even though Dicks has a limited contribution rate to the Big Finish series he manages to keep the story ticking over with enough going and seems to fit the action around the songs. Jason Haigh-Ellery did perhaps his best turn as Director for this story. He really kept the who thing interesting and it never became dull of lacklustre.

This is a gem of a story. Not to be taken seriously what it does do is give Doctor Who fans who want something a bit different from your run of the mill adventure that we all know and love and give us something that we could stick on the MP3 player on a Sunday afternoon and get lost in a battle with Daleks and Cybermen.

Top stuff.

Kingdom of Silver (2008)

There have been a large number of companionless stories as of late. There was Valhalla and then there was The Death Collectors and then there was Frozen Time and now there is this story. You may notice a pattern emerging and that is all the stories being mentioned are Seventh Doctor stories and this is largely because he works just as well with companions as he does without. Kingdom of Silver is a story is different because it features a familiar monster. In this story the Doctor travels to Tasak. The story is quite a good one as it tells of a civilisation that is progressing and using technology that is really evil. It turns out that the technology comes from Cybermen who have been in hibernation and have been woken up. It is a story that works well in a three part situation and I like three part stories because it means that you don’t have padding on the story which can at times be frustrating. Cybermen are the shows second most popular monster and perhaps they should be ahead of the Daleks because essentially the Cybermen are human but with just robotic parts instead of human parts like a heart and lungs etc. Whenever they appear in Big Finish plays they are always well used. The 2002 story Spare Parts in one of the best stories that they have ever done and whenever they appear they are always well used. The use of the Cybermen in this story was just right and they were used in a simple yet effective way. In many respects that is what makes this story work really well. Kingdom of Silver wasn’t complicated as I feared you knew what was happening and it was a simple solution to the conclusion of the story.

Slyvester McCoy was very good in this story. He seems to work better when he hasn’t got any companions. He does work well with Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier but I think when the Doctor hasn’t got a companion to worry about then he hasn’t got any complications or any emotional drama to have to deal with on top of what is going on. What has worked really well in this story, Valhalla, Frozen Time and The Death Collectors is how he quickly creates chemistry with his temporary companion in those stories. The biggest name apart from McCoy was Terry Molloy who most fans of classic who will know as the third actor to play Davros from 1983-1988. He is credited with giving Davros the maniacal aspect to his character that is clearly been carried over with Julian Bleech in 2008. He has appeared in several stories for Big Finish over the years but this is the only time that I recall he gets to play a character that isn’t Davros. In this story Malloy plays Magus Riga who I imagine is some sort of old professor who is coming to the end of his life. Neil Roberts plays Temeter in this story and is one of the most vital parts of this story. In this story it was Temeter who was reluctant to believe the Doctor but soon came on side but it was his relationship with Sara that was somewhat predictable but added something to the story. Another important member of the story is Sara as played by Kate Terrance and she forms a great relationship with Temeter which will be important in a certain spin-off which is being planned for late 2009. Other characters work really well in the story including James George as Merel, Bunny Reed as Ardith, Holly King as Etin and of course Nicholas Briggs as the voice of the Cybermen.

This story isn’t flawless. The cliffhangers in this story were really quite weak. The cliffhanger should really give you an incentive to carry on listening like you would get when watching the TV series. Of course we are going to carry on listening because we have it all in one package but imagine if we had to wait a week there would be no real incentive to tune in. Having said that it was the only real niggling thing about this story which is quite surprising. With single part stories in the past they have tended to be pointless. This is due to my opinion that 25 minute single part stories just don’t work cause you cant tell a story in such a short amount of time. The only exception to the rule is Urban Myths which was entertaining. Keepsake was actually quite good. The thing that I noticed straight away from that it didn’t really have anything to do with Kingdom of Silver except that it featured Temeter and Sara. Listening to the extras it was a prologue for the second series of the Cyberman spin-off. The story was well constructed and well acted. It looks like the second series is going to be very good if they are going to keep Temeter and Sara as they are because there is so much potential for they characters and it’ll be great to hear them again.

James Swallow has written several stories over the last few years including Singularity (2005) and the Companion Chronicles story Old Soldiers. Those stories were not what I would class as top stories but that is not to say that they are poor. With this story Swallow has produced his best script that had all the drama and enjoyment that you would expect from a Cybermen story. Ken Bentley & Nicholas Briggs took turns in directing these two plays and to be honest their just as good as the other. I suspect that Briggs directed Keepsake because of the ties with his spin-off series and so he knows what he wants from it. Overall this was a good release with a good plot and cast, it was nice to see a ‘three plus one’ release that worked together and does show to me that this works however this is only the second one since they did these that this has happened. What I think they should do is to make the single part story slightly longer, maybe 30 minutes or even 35 minutes.

The Doomwood Curse (2008)

Following on from the superb The Condemned, what we have in The Doomwood Curse is a story that is not as dark or serious as The Condemned but is bizarre. This story is written by Jacqueline Rayner who has written in the past one of the episodes in 100 (2007), Doctor Who and the Pirates (2003) and The Marian Conspiracy (2000). The big thing about this story is the inclusion of Dick Turpin. When I heard that they were going to use this character I thought ‘Oh Dear!’. You could tell that the tense atmosphere and drama that had been developed in the previous Sixth Doctor/Charley story was not going to be present in this story. Also included in this story were the Grel’s. Now I couldn’t quite place where I had heard of them but they had been use in the Bernice Summerfield story The Grel Escape (written by Jacqueline Rayner). I liked the idea that due to the Grel’s actions in the library that all the events in the Eighteenth Century were not what would be expected. I also quite liked the idea that the Grels are obsessed with changing bad facts to good facts. My issue with this story is that it just isn’t as good as The Condemned and whilst it would be difficult to replicate that enjoyment for two stories running the dip was quite surprising which isn’t really Jacqueline Rayner’s fault but in terms of the producers. The unusual story is intriguing to begin with but by part 3 it was just getting tiresome and perhaps should have been saved for a different combination or later in the Doctor/Charley storyline. This Charley issue is something that should take priority in the storytelling and they should find stories that are more suitable to this plot.

Colin Baker is good in this story. He is playing the not really figuring out Charley role quite well. Despite knowing that there is something not quite right with Charley he still strives to try and rescue her after she departs with Turpin. Baker is arguably the strongest Doctor out of the four and that is because despite what he is given, he is able to get something out of it. India Fisher puts in another good performance as Charley. She seems to revel in her new un-Charley like role with Turpin. It’s not very often that she gets to play anything other than a posh 1930’s adventuress.

Nicky Henson was very good as Turpin. Despite my reservations at the inclusion of the character, Henson put a lot of performance into the role and made it bearable. Nicky Henson can always be relied upon to put in a good performance and he managed to make me like Turpin which wasn’t easy. Hayley Atwell plays Eleanor very well. Atwell previously appeared in the BBC7 play Blood of the Daleks and she puts in another great performance. I now I am using the term great performance a lot but there’s nothing wrong with any of them. Trevor Cooper plays Sir Ralph which is an enjoyable and reliable performance. It certainly is below Nicky Henson in terms of hamming it up but still what Cooper gave wasn’t a poor performance and the character of Sir Ralph played its part in the course of the story. Geraldine Newman is a name that sounds familiar but doesn’t ring any bells. Anyway in this story she plays Lady Sybil in the sort of way that one would expect to hear a lady don’t you know! Daisy Douglas plays Susan and Suzie Chard plays Molly. Both I believe are making their first appearance in the Doctor Who world but hopefully it wont be their last because they contributed to the story and helped add some nice slant to the whole story.

Jacqueline Rayner has become one of the most interesting writers for the range. Whilst this story was certainly better than I thought it didn’t grab me in the way that I would have liked. There were some interesting elements in this story that made it a good story, not great but good. Barnaby Edwards did very well as the Director, he directs this with the sort of carefully crafted form of directing that I have come to enjoy and appreciate. I think that this quirky type of story would have probably being a massive failure if it had fallen into any other directors lap but with Edwards what we have is a well directed and well paced story.

Fact: Whilst this isn’t the best story of year neither is it the worst. There are some nice elements and I think that in this case its not the writers fault but the listeners fault for this one not quite hitting the back of the net. Hopefully with the next Sixth Doctor/Charley story we will go back to more serious stories. As a one off, this isn’t that bad.