Big Finish - The Best of 2019

Big Finish now represents perhaps the ultimate Doctor Who factory. I started collected Big Finish releases back in 1999 with The Sirens of Time and in twenty years have never looked back. Of the thousands of CDs to adorn my shelves, I can think of only one or two which haven’t quite hit the mark. The astonishing quality of the company’s output is even more incredible when one takes a step back to think about the astonishing quantity of the company’s output. By the end of December, 2019’s Doctor Who and Torchwood related releases will have amounted to an incredible 146 CDs.

So where does a newcomer start? I’m always advocating Big Finish and fans I meet who haven’t tried a dip in the audio pool, I feel obliged to push in headfirst. Over the last few years, I’m delighted to say I’ve made a few more loyal subscribers, one now a rampant Jago & Liteoot-phile, another an Eighth Doctor and Lucie aficionado! But with the ever-increasing nature of the collection, there’s a possibility it might seem a little imposing to even begin to start buying anew. Some of the ranges are of such a particular niche that some fans may feel a little excluded before they even begin, latecomers to the party, as it were. (The upcoming Robots series, for instance, is a spin-off from the first episode of the second boxset of Ravenous, itself an extension of the Dark Eyes and Doom Coalition boxsets and harking back originally to Robophobia and before that the TV classic: The Robots of Death. That’s a very particular niche! Incidentally, I expect it will be magnificent!)

And so, for the first time in a hopefully annual tradition, I’ll be looking back at 2019 and talking briefly about my personal highlights. Hopefully, it might encourage one or two new listeners to dive into the pool!

10. RAVENOUS 3

Specifically, Companion Piece by John Dorney: a story with an almost impossibly long cast list, considering its hour’s length. The adventures of the Eighth Doctor, Liv and Helen feel like a parallel, ongoing new series, Big Finish’s equivalent of the Jodie Whittaker series. McGann feels as fresh and new as he did back in Storm Warning and his boxsets feel like real event audio. Occasionally though, something as fan-pleasing and indulgent as Companion Piece comes along, reminding us that we’re still in the same universe as Tom Baker, William Hartnell and Peter Davison. Whilst the Eighth Doctor takes a back seat for the most part, this is the tale of the leading ladies to end all tales of leading ladies. To avoid spoilers, I won’t go into details but this is a particularly special story with some lovely winks to the past. It’s also worth picking up Ravenous 3 for Deeptime Frontier: a frightening showcase for a terrified Paul McGann with plenty of spine-tingling moments to excite fans of more horrific Doctor Who.

9. THE THIRD DOCTOR ADVENTURES Volume Five

Despite the sad passing of our heroes: Jon Pertwee, Caroline John and Nicholas Courtney, the series of Third Doctor Adventures feels utterly authentic to the era it emulates and here, with the addition of Jon Culshaw as a tremendous Brigadier, alongside Tim Treloar’s Third Doctor and Daisy Ashford’s Liz Shaw, Big Finish ramps up the nostalgia yet further. Primord is a sequel to Inferno and goes in unexpected directions. The end of Episode Three is stark and as the Twitter generation might have it, a real WTF moment. The Scream of Ghosts is similarly strong, with the Home Counties England of the Pertwee years as palpable as the era’s Chromakey fringing. There’s also a nice surprise for fans of another 70s tale but to say too much would invoke the ire of River Song. If you’re a lover of the Pertwee era, you’d do far worse than to pick up this set of brilliantly well-written, superbly performed and authentically sound-designed stories.

8. THE SYNDICATE MASTERPLAN

It might seem like a bit of a cheat to choose a two-boxset eight-story arc of an adventure in the ninth spot, but at only £45 per CD bundle, the tales of the Fourth Doctor and Ann Kelso are an absolute steal. For anyone who loves The Daleks’ Master Plan (And let’s be honest, who doesn’t? It’s brilliant!), this Syndicate sequel is essential. It includes all the planet and time-hopping shenanigans of the original, as well as a police-drama in some ways akin to the first half of The Feast of Steven, a trip back into history alongside Ada Lovelace, and a Jurassic Park style Drashigs adventure! For all the shocks and twists along the way, as well as the call-backs to the past, what is perhaps most surprising about The Syndicate Masterplan is that these eight stories form one, quite isolated adventure: that of new companion Ann. It starts and ends here and feels complete, satisfying and at every turn, thrilling.

7. NIGHTMARE COUNTRY

Steve Gallagher – the renowned 80s writer of Warriors’ Gate and Terminus produces his third idiosyncratic, high-concept sci-fi thriller for the Doctor Who world. Admittedly, after fifteen minutes, this felt a little heavy, the story setting out its stall across the first episode in such as way as to feel non-user friendly. But prog rock albums are non-user friendly and usually by the last few bars, the listener wants to go back to the beginning and hear it all over again, unpeel the layers and feast in the intricacies, unpick how it was put together. Here, at the close of the very last scene and in the sting of the theme tune, one feels the same. This was something clever, something rich and was always aiming for this precise moment. It’s a beautiful, haunting, strange ending, even for Doctor Who. Second time round, like Warriors’ Gate, like Terminus, it’s easier to appreciate the hand Steve Gallagher is dealing, and Nightmare Country is a royal flush: Gallagher’s best.

6. THE TENTH DOCTOR ADVENTURES Volume Three

This is the best David Tennant set yet. Although it seems to have been far less remarked upon than its immediate predecessors (understandably, it being Volume 3), for my money it’s streets ahead in terms of quality than the already strong boxsets before it. What makes these stories even stronger are the bolder, headline-grabbing concepts from which the three adventures springboards: DR WHO MEETS MOST HAUNTED; DR WHO IN THE UNDERWATER CITY; and DR WHO AND THE GREAT FOG OF ’52. The pace and mood of each of the stories is as breakneck and exciting as Tennant’s TV era. The narratives are neat and streamlined and end with a giant dinosaur skeleton rampaging through London. The lavish boxset too is a glorious thing: June Hudson costume designs, Mike Tucker storyboards and beautiful artwork and photograph make this a must-have!

5. TORCHWOOD: NIGHT OF THE FENDAHL

The Torchwood range is one of Big Finish’s best. Inventive, schizophrenic and on occasion delightfully distasteful, one never knows what to expect from the monthly releases. This year we’ve had an anthology horror story in Dead Man’s Switch, an X-Files (specifically the episode Arcadia) homage in Serenity and a murderous screwball in Sync. The Hope was bleak and disturbing. But the stand out of the year is Night of the Fendahl, as dark and nightmarish as it’s possible for Torchwood to get and that’s saying something. Deliberately provocative, Tim Foley perhaps proves himself as the most manipulative of Big Finish’s writers. Walking to work in the dark, this really got under my skin and I put it to anyone to try to listen cynically. This release, like the Fendahl itself, will fill you with dread. 

4. TARTARUS

Composed of two enormous episodes, Tartarus feels like a Ray Harryhausen movie through a Doctor Who lens: there seriously can’t be many better things than that! The two longer instalments give the story a feel of the epic and its channelling of Jason and the Argonauts makes the visuals easier to imagine. David Llewellyn conjures a vivid, rip-roaring world and even manages to stay true to his series Cicero, one of 2018’s crowning glories in the Big Finish gamut. On the surface, this might look like a straightforward, rollicking adventure but they’re harder to come by and harder to write than one imagines, and this eminently listenable yarn is a rare beast. 

3. WARZONE/CONVERSION

The conclusion to this year’s Fifth Doctor trilogy is a worthy sequel to Earthshock and finally, after all these years, the Doctor and his companions manage to properly discuss the shocking death of Adric. Even after almost 40 years, the scenes here feel raw, full of emotion. Janet Fielding does some of her finest work as Tegan and Peter Davison, even in the trailers, displays a near-mania when it comes to tackling his feelings towards the maths wizard. The conclusion to Warzone is nightmarish and springboards us into the events of Conversion. It looks as if the events of Conclusion is are about to push Big Finish listeners into even more unfamiliar and difficult territory: a Fifth Doctor TARDIS crew more at odds with one another than ever before.

2. DAUGHTER OF THE GODS

Billed as the fifth anniversary special that never was, Daughter of the Gods, is very definitely that: special. Easily the best single-story release of the year, David K Barnes comes up trumps again after delivering last year’s seminal Dalek Occupation of Winter and the best UNIT story of all the eight box sets, Breach of Trust. The greatness of Barnes’s writing is that is completely unshowy. There are no needless gags or structural gimmicks; just a confidence and brio that drags the listener along with it. The pitch for this unusual story, complete with its many leading regulars, must have been daunting but Barnes makes it look easy. Each piece of this jigsaw puzzle of a plot tessellates perfectly with those either side. It is neat, clever and eventually and rewardingly, heart-breaking. Just as Conversion deals with the death of Adric in as rich and powerful a way as is imaginable, here the death of Katarina proves the richest source material for an adventure which proves dangerously close to the Doctor’s hearts.

THE LEGACY OF TIME

The number one spot then. Of course, it seems obvious and easy, but The Legacy of Time, Big Finish’s biggest adventure of all time, is also one of its most successful. It is grand and important, Lies in Ruins featuring a Gallifrey in a state of planet-wide demolition, but each of the six episodes is focused on its own strong story. The Split Infinitive is a strong Counter-Measures tale with a callback to one of Big Finish’s most successful original villains. The Sacrifice of Jo Grant is possibly the apex of the set, its closing few minutes surely able to move the most stony-faced of long-term Who fans. There are surprises aplenty here. Those who have been with Big Finish for the last twenty years are amply rewarded here and the last twenty minutes feel like a true celebration in a way that The Light of the End strangely didn’t. Of all the Doctor Who that have ever been made, in any medium, The Legacy of Time seems to sum up the very essence of the programme. I’d put it up there with Steven Moffat’s definitive Day of the Doctor novelisation or the original transmitted version of The Five Doctors as one of the greatest celebrations of our show to ever see fruition. 

In celebration of its release, and as a failed entry in the recent Big Finish competition, I produced this piece of art. I hope it captures the wonder and excitement of such a terrific story!

JH

The Pride of the Collectors

Scanning through my embarrassingly large number of shelves this week, my brother asked me, “How many times have you actually bought Spearhead from Space?” He’d spotted a Blu Ray version and the Zavvi Steelbook within a few cases of one another. I had to count: the original VHS, the unedited VHS, the DVD, the second DVD in the Mannequin Mania box set, the original Blu Ray, the Steelbook Blu Ray, three editions of the Target book, one with the Russell T Davies introduction, and I’d most definitely buy the Season 7 Blu Ray set on its eventual release. That’s a few too many times buying a story that, hand on heart, I can’t say is a particular favourite. So why the hell have I done it?

Well, each new version does offer something better, a fresh perspective on a familiar story. From the original VHS to the Blu Ray edition, each illustrates the progressively stronger restoration techniques across the decades. The first edition was a dirty scan of a grotty, old film. The newest is in true HD. The special features for each subsequent DVD edition got better and better: from a 1999 advert and a 1993 UNIT recruitment film on the version released in 2000 to a terrific, HD-shot Jon Pertwee biopic. Truth be told, however, I bought all these versions simply because I wanted them. I wanted that Zavvi Steelbook because it is bloody gorgeous. I don’t think I’ve ever watched it but I’m a happier man with it sat there on the shelf and I’d be irritated if I’d missed it.

These days, I hear lots of internet talk of “The Legacy Brand.” Broadly speaking, it’s the idea that the modern iteration of Doctor Who has alienated the old-school fans (and admittedly, I know for a fact it certainly has one or two) so the emphasis in terms of merchandise has become not on the latest action figures or Doctor Who Adventures Magazine because the show isn’t down with the kids any longer. No, the great push is now to sell the old programme to the old fans again. This is partly given credence by sales figures of DVDs and Blu Rays last year which pointed to Classic Who selling more than New Who. Whether this is true or not, it has given rise to a very specialist kind of product, the kind of product fans of other shows would die for. In fact, they’re the sort of products that six weeks after their release are fetching £300 on eBay.

Take the beautifully-boxed Blu Ray Season sets. Lee Binding’s artwork is masterful, the layout and booklet design are attractive and upmarket. The extra filmed content and picture and sound restoration are frankly undeservingly wonderful. No other vintage show has had this sort of attention given to its curation, aside from possibly Red Dwarf. The overall packages are high-end, deluxe collectors’ products and after 30 years of Doctor Who merchandise accumulation, they are rapidly becoming the very pride of the collection and the only way to watch the Classic show.

Closely behind them are the Demon Record editions of lost 60s stories. Heavy and neatly stylised, the vinyls look gorgeous on Amazon but to hold them in your hands is a pure delight. Placed strategically, the covers form a jigsaw of digital paintings such as the Yeti reflected in a sphere like a snow-globe, or a Dalek edging its way through a fiery Kembel jungle. The LPs themselves are beautifully and individually patterned. I don’t need these - I have the CDs released at the turn of the millennium – but they are so distinctly different to other Who merchandise and so remarkably, efficiently exquisite that they easily earn their places on the shelves.

Next comes the epic Complete History, the ultimate collection of Andrew Pixley’s Archives, updated from their original publication in DWM and brought together to form the written encyclopaedia of the making of Doctor Who. My wife bought me this for my thirtieth birthday present before we were married. In recompense, I married her. I jest of course, but this is such a magnificent gamut of literature, chronicling the show since before its inception to the end of the Capaldi years that it represents nothing more than the definitive guide, each story illustrated with a new, gorgeous-looking poster design by Lee Johnson. Shelved alongside the ongoing Blu Ray collection, it is soon to be all a collector could even need.

But of course that’s never enough for the OCD Whovian collector. There are the aforementioned Steelbooks. I am beyond excited at the prospect of adding a Faceless Ones and a Fury from the Deep to The Power of the Daleks, Shada and The Macra Terror, as well as feeling incredibly lucky to have snapped up the Series 9 Capaldi set with the painted cover by Alice X Zhang. I’m hoping Series 5-8 finally arrive but the recent Specials Steelbook is a lovely purchase, Tom Webster’s artwork a match for his Spare Parts and Chimes of Midnight vinyls which also reside lovingly beside the Demon Records.

Big Finish have got in on the act too as a matter of course. Their lavish Tenth Doctor CD-books, most recently complete with June Hudson costume designs and Mike Tucker storyboards, are as gorgeous as anything produced by the BBC and their Novel Adaptations sets are to die for. The Sixth Doctor’s Last Adventure is a very special purchase and the 20-year anniversary story The Legacy of Time is a huge, robust treasure chest of adventure (and the first three stories contained therein are as magnificent as Doctor Who has ever been).

Character Options and B & M aren’t averse to the specific collectors’ market either: Harry Sullivan just appeared on the shelves with a couple of Classic Sontarans but perhaps the most special of their summer range were the Big Finish crossover Doctor-Dalek sets: a War Doctor and a Bronze and Silver Dalek, a Dark Eyes-coated Eighth Doctor and an Interrogator Prime. Yeah, these sit beautifully alongside the mud-spattered Androzani TARDIS set and the Shada, ambulance lamp-topped Tom variety. If these releases continue to be handled with such particular care and attention, I can see my bank balance being yet more reduced and worrying.

Whatever the reasons for this bent towards very specific and high-quality Classic Series merchandise, it’s difficult to deny that we are living in something of a renaissance when it comes to our Who collecting. I thought the days of being excited for the next ultimate DVD edition of a favourite story were over. Now, we have a Blu Ray box set every few months, an animation to look forward to at least twice a year, a Complete History to browse through, a growing vinyl collection to immerse ourselves in and above all else and like it or not, a new series on the television which, in years to come, can find itself being released and re-released in a cavalcade of similarly new, inventive and beautiful ways.

JH

Big Finish@20: An Interview with Hylton Collins

Hylton Collins is a Northern-based actor famous for roles in Emmerdale, The Bill, the latest incarnations of Porridge and The League of Gentlemen, and is associated with Big Finish in the very early days of their audio productions. He appeared in Whispers of Terror and Red Dawn, before helping to usher in the Eighth Doctor with performances in Storm Warning, Sword of Orion and Minuet in Hell and finally appearing with Sylvester McCoy in Return of the Daleks. He’s been a friend of mine for almost twenty years – we’ve produced shows together - and with Big Finish approaching their own 20^th anniversary, it felt like the opportune time to look back at those early days when the company were just starting out, the production factory that they were to become possibly only a Jason Haigh-Ellery pipe dream.

I meet Hylton at his home in Rochdale. I arrive at 10am thinking I’ll be home for lunch. Seven hours later, I apologetically text my wife to say I’m setting off. Hylton and I love to wax lyrical about Doctor Who. And a walk down memory lane only elicits more and more conversation. Enjoy!

JH: If we think about 1998, which is just before we met one another, what was it like being a Doctor Who fan?

HC: 1998. Gosh. Paul McGann’s movie had just been on. I had a circle of friends that were Doctor Who fans. The books were coming out a rate of knots. There were so many. We’d kind of accepted that that was it for TV Doctor Who.

JH: Was it a happier time than before the film?

HC: Mmmm. Gosh. Possibly in the fact that we’d come to accept it. Certainly, I’d come to accept it. They’d had a go at it: The McGann movie was a surprise. You know, a pleasant surprise that happened but came and went. And we’d already got around to the point of thinking it wasn’t coming back anyway. The film was a bonus. There was plenty of merchandise out there to keep us happy. They were coming to an end of the VHS range. The DVDs were about to start. There was a lot on the market. So I suppose so, in that respect yeah. [It was happier.]

JH: I started buying the magazine again when they released it with that cover-mounted CD.

HC: Talking ‘Bout My Regeneration? I’ve found that recently!

JH: That was the first regular issue that I’d bought with my own money. My Dad had bought them for me when I was younger. But the new logo was on the front: it was the first magazine with the McGann logo on it. And it had the announcement that Big Finish were making new Doctor Who inside. That was ’99 and that news, coming off an essential drought, was massive. That felt like: New Doctor Who is going to be made and it’s going to have the real Doctor Who in it! 

HC: Do you know what, I remember the announcement and the excitement and thinking, “Ooh, is there any chance of getting a job on this?” Because Doctor Who had just finished on TV the year I graduated! There’s timing for you! Ha! So I was wondering what the chances were and I was looking at it from a professional perspective and a fan perspective. There’d been a few audios on the market before that: Adventures in a Pocket Universe, K9, Bernice, Ghosts of N-Space, the BBV stuff. So from various sources there’d been audio Doctor Who.

JH: It felt to me essentially though as if fans were making it for themselves. The BBC weren’t gonna do it so we’d do it ourselves. 

HC: Yeah, and there’d been VHS projects as well, hadn’t there. 

JH: When Benny, Lisa Bowerman, tells us about going down to a damp cellar with a mic hanging from the ceiling, that supports the idea that this really was fans saying, “We’ve got a machine. We can make our own Doctor Who.” So when you recorded Whispers of Terror, did it have that sort of homegrown feel to it? We’re quite used to seeing Big Finish now recording actors in separate booths so they can be edited. Back then, we were seeing people grouped around an old-fashioned radio mic. 

HC: I’ve got to say, it didn’t actually feel like a fan production. It felt like a professional venture. I don’t think I could have envisaged how long it was going to go on but at the time it actually felt really professional. It was a job and it was a nice recording studio. It felt like the start of something new to be honest. It felt professional, you know. There were some old pros there and everyone had come to do a job. There was a green room and it felt more professional than simply a group of fans. 

JH: Well, you had Peter Miles, Colin and Nicola, Lisa Bowerman. What was the atmosphere like in the green room, it being only the third release, so early on?

HC: It was good, it was interesting. It was a Sunday and really sunny! It was really early days, wasn’t it! July or August at the latest. My agent had decided – she didn’t get me the job; it was a friend who got me the job! – that she was going to have a day out in London and drove me down! Madness, I know! She drove me down early on to the studio and I remember seeing Nick Briggs hovering outside. I didn’t know him at the time and I don’t think he stayed for too much of the recording but he was there.

JH: Gary Russell directed, right?

HC: I’d met Gary briefly. He was a friend of a friend. We’d said hello in passing. It was kind of straight in though. We’d spoken on the phone when he offered me the part and I arrived on the second day of recording. So most people had already got together. I was straight in. I went into the recording booth to say hello to Gary and let him know I was there and Colin was already sat there doing a bit. He asked how I’d got down and when I said my agent had given me a lift he said, “Oh, very grand!” But it was straight into the recording. There was a bit of green room chat. It was all very professional, very pleasant and lasted the one day. Peter Miles was very quiet at the time. We became good friends later on various other projects but he was quiet and focussed. Everyone wanted to do a good job. It’s held in quite high regard that story, isn’t it?

JH: I love it and I think it was the first one to get a really strong review in the magazine. It’s a Doctor Who story that can only be told on audio. It feels like it’s about sound. There’s a character in it who isn’t there because Peter Miles is blind and can only hear his voice. But it was tremendous, Whispers of Terror. Colin’s Doctor in it is very much the Doctor of Season 22 – abrasive, slightly irritating for the guest characters, correcting their grammar. He’s a slightly brasher Colin than the one we expect now from Big Finish. But I remember Gary Russell saying at the time that at the end of the recording, Colin said, “Right, we’ve done that now. Can we start fleshing out the Doctor I always wanted to play on television?” What was Colin like to work with?

HC: Great. I’ve always thought Colin had a really rough deal on Doctor Who. I’m a big fan of his era. I know that’s quite controversial. I do like his stories. I do like his era. I’d met Colin briefly in the past at various Doctor Who events cos we come from the same hometown – Rochdale – and he’d always been utterly charming. A very nice guy. And I wish he’d had more time on TV. It’s great that Big Finish have run with him. And with other characters like Bonnie Langford’s Mel. That was another great missed opportunity on television. There is the thing in the business where people, audiences, and the whole profession as well, cause actors to be typecast. I can’t remember who it was but I’ve just heard an interview with one of the directors of the Just William TV series who said Bonnie was amazing. She turned up to rehearsals knowing everything, her lines, her moves, and was distraught if she ever missed her mark or whatever. I was so pleased recently when she was cast in EastEnders. I’d been saying for years, “I wish some casting director would have the imagination to cast her in something really gritty and let people see that there is so much more to her than Just William.” Whoever cast her, all credit to them. I’ve never had the pleasure of working with her. It would be so nice! I’m just glad Big Finish have used her so much!

JH: So you finish Whispers of Terror and you’re cast as an Ice Warrior?

HC: That was the easiest job I ever got! We’d gone to the launch party for the CDs in London and I think they had Phantasmagoria out and they’d recorded The Land of the Dead. I’d not seen the cover for Whispers. But I’d heard they were doing an Ice Warrior story. And I thought they’d go for Sonny Caldinez, Alan Bennion or another big name for that part. Although someone told me it was Barry Letts who dubbed Sonny back in the 70s! But I asked Gary at the party. I said, “I’ve heard you’re doing an Ice Warrior story and I would love to be considered. I understand that you’ll be going for a name but I’d love to be considered.” And he said, “OK. The part’s yours.” I stopped and thought, “No, it doesn’t work like that. You’re supposed to tell me you’ll call me for an audition and let me know.” But he was like, “No, I know what you can do and what you’re capable of. I’ll call you nearer the time.” Matthew Brenher had been in Whispers of Terror and it was nice to see a familiar face because the rest of the cast, apart from Nicola Bryant, were all different.

JH: You had Peter Davison and Georgia Moffett, the Doctor and his fictional and real-life daughter! So how was working with Peter?

HC: Yeah, cool. It’s really heads down and get on with the work though. There were two days recording on Red Dawn but his wife was around and they went off for lunch together. But it was nice and very professional and we just got on with it. Any chat was in the green room. It was two days in November and there were some visitors from America who had come across to watch the recording. They were in the booth with the engineer. Obviously, there was pressure in playing such an iconic monster. You’re thinking, “Get it right! Get it right!” But we had these people in the booth saying, “Oh my God! The Ice Warriors are back!” And that was nice, thinking, “Ooh, we’ve obviously done it right,” because they sounded so excited. It was a really nice moment to be proud of. They were over the moon.

JH: So about the time that Red Dawn came out was probably about the time that the world learned that Paul McGann was coming back. But you already knew all about that!

HC: Yeah, that was funny. I’d rung Gary Russell around April to ask for work. He said they were well recorded up and Colin was on tour so there wouldn’t be anything for a while. But a week later, there was a message on my answer phone asking me to call him back. He asked if I could go down to Bristol the following week for the full seven days. I asked him what it was and he said, “You can’t tell anyone this but we’ve managed to secure Paul McGann!” No way! No way! That was big news back then. That was massive. 

JH: It felt to me, a teenage fan, like: This is it. This is New Doctor Who. In its own way, it was just as exciting as Rose. 

HC: Yeah, absolutely. Working on it, it felt like that. We had a full week. The first two scripts came through and it was so secretive. And I do have a lot of friends who were Doctor Who fans. I think I told my family - who wouldn’t have gone out telling everyone - and my agent. And that was it. I remember going down and recording it. I think Paul McGann had been doing a TV series at the time. A mate who was a Doctor Who fan said, “He’s back on telly! If we’re lucky he’ll end up doing Doctor Who with Big Finish!” And me and my agent looked at each other as if to say, “If only you knew where we’ve been!” When I said I’d been to Bristol, everyone just assumed I’d been doing Casualty. Ha!

JH: I think those first four scripts – Storm Warning, Sword of Orion, The Stones of Venice and Minuet in Hell – are massively under-rated. I think they’re great. All four are quite markedly different from one another and they tell big movie poster narratives. But they never seem to top polls. Sword of Orion got a scathing review in DWM, the last line being, “Get a script editor, lads!” The Stones of Venice gets forgotten about but it’s quite beautiful. Minuet in Hell is considered one of the very worst excesses of Big Finish but I think it’s great. It gets hauled over the coals for its American accents, I think.

HC: Well Robert Jezek is Canadian and it’s got Morgan Deare in it! 

JH: I know! It’s a really rich, weird and very new feeling Doctor Who. It’s as if the Brigadier is living in the modern age as it was then. He’s using the internet. He’s saying things like dot org. It feels very current.

HC: If they were to bring the series back on TV, it would have been a great starting point. If you didn’t know who the Doctor was, it would have been that thing of having to guess which of the two actors was playing the Doctor. They could reveal it at the very end of the episode! It would have been a great opening for a new Doctor. I remember the imagery, trying to get it in my head. It was recorded at the end of the week.

JH: I think it’s written in The Inside Story that Toby Longworth said suddenly, “Of course, you know I’m not here tomorrow.” And buggered off! Did you have to read in any lines?

HC: Yes I think I was only playing an orderley in that and maybe a demon. I remember doing a short demon monologue so as I had time on my hands, I suggested I could try out for the part that Toby had just vacated. I did a try out but just couldn't hit the right pitch and tone they wanted. They were looking for Sheriff J W Pepper from the Bond films and I just couldn’t reach that pitch. So I read in at the recording and they dubbed it. 

JH: Did you have a favourite? 

HC: I think probably because it’s so different to my own voice: Storm Warning. I remember having the voice in my head from reading the script for the first time but when I turned up, I heard how Gareth Thomas was playing Lord Tamworth and thought, “Oh, that’s how I was going to do the Chief Steward.” He had the same vocal tone. I thought, “I’m going to have to find something different now.” Gary said what I did reminded him of Barbara from The League of Gentlemen! One of the contemporary reviews said I had “rich, Derbyshire tones” but I didn’t realise I was doing Derbyshire! It was conjured up from thin air!

JH: Some time later, you came back for Return of the Daleks. 

HC: Yeah, Sylvester McCoy was in Manchester as part of a tour, so it was recorded up here. John Ainsworth who was directing came to a mate of mine and asked if he knew any regional actors and he put me forward. It was nice because I hadn’t seen Nick for ages; he’d directed some of the McGanns in Bristol. He’d started work on the TV show too because it was back. He had loads of on-set stories! It’s always nice to hear his backstage gossip! I wasn’t supposed to be doing the Ogrons but that morning, Nick said, “Oh, you know what an Ogron sounds like, don’t you, Hylton?” And I ended up doing them as well! As well as another monster, it was nice to tick off another Doctor, getting to work with Sylvester!

JH: Is it cheeky to ask if you have a favourite Doctor to work with?

HC: Ha! Now you know why Nick Courtney said, “Splendid chaps, all of them!” I’ve always thought Colin was a true gent and because we have that Rochdale thing and a lot in common, I’d have to say Colin. I do like his stuff and he’s always so charming. But I would love the chance to work with Tom! It would be a dream come true! And most of his stories involve John Leeson who I’ve worked with elsewhere on stage and in film. It’d be so nice to work with Tom and complete the set!

JH: This month, May 2019, Big Finish are releasing 4 episodes with Sylvester McCoy, 3 episodes with David Tennant, 8 episodes with the Third Doctor, a Sixth Doctor Short Trip, a Torchwood with Margaret Slitheen. Did you envisage that Big Finish would become such a juggernaut of audio drama production?

HC: No. And that’s no reflection on Doctor Who. I thought to produce one CD a month required such a large amount of work. And in the year 2000 it was great to receive a CD through the post once a month. 12 four-part adventures a year was better than anything we’d ever had before. And when the TV show was announced, I remember feeling quite sad, thinking, “This is the end. The TV show will probably overtake them.” I mean, it’s great that they’ve managed to continue for so long and I’m sure that’s thanks to Russell T Davies making sure they kept the license.

JH: Given the vast output, it’s incredible that the standards have not only been maintained but arguably improved!

HC: It’s great that they’re selling so vastly, and that new people are still coming to it. They decide that for whatever reason they want more Doctor Who and they’re coming along saying, “Where do I start?” It’s still really popular and they’re still getting loads of new listeners. I think - because there’s so, so much - that newcomers might have to search for some of the hidden gems. They might not necessarily know which ones feel like pure, unadulterated Doctor Who if they’re just going for famous monsters or whatever.

JH: If you were to recommend five then that new listeners could jump into, what would they be?

HC: I’d have to have them all spread out to choose! I dunno, one that immediately springs to mind is The Spectre of Lanyon Moor. I think it’s so atmospheric and it finally gets the Brig and the Sixth Doctor together. I suppose it’s rather obvious but The Chimes of Midnight is a great one. It’s Christmassy and just so frightening. Spare Parts is another predictable choice, but it’s Christmas again (Ha!), it’s horrible and the Cybermen voices work really well. It’s so easy to visualise. Oh, Holy Terror: Another classic I haven’t listened to for a while! That’s a great performance from Sam Kelly. There’s just so much! I really enjoyed recently the Tom Baker Comic Strips box set. There are so many Toms! His latest boxes: the Masterplan sequel. I like what they did with Ann Kelso. It would be nice to work with Jane Slavin at some point as we had the same drama teacher many years ago. The Virgin Missing Stories: The English Way of Death and The Romance of Crime. They were great. The Mary Tamm season – The Auntie Matter in particular. Any of the Lucie Millers: Brave New Town; the spiders ones! And I really enjoyed the Sarah Jane series. I thought they were really good. I don’t know why they changed the theme tune but I really liked those! The last one of Series 2 came out just as School Reunion went out and I remember thinking, “There’s Elisabeth Sladen: breaking our hearts on TV and on audio at the same time!”

JH

Ravenous 2

In a parallel universe, where Doctor Who was not reborn in 2005, Paul McGann is the current leading man. When Storm Warning arrived in January 2001, for many fans, myself included, it was as if the series had well and truly returned, the adventures continuing in audio form, brand new, unbound by continuity and with the ability once again to go anywhere and be anything. What’s more, they were some of the best adventures there had ever been, The Chimes of Midnight still regarded rightly as a zenith in Doctor Who storytelling. The Charlotte Pollard storyline was the audio equivalent of the Rose Tyler arc and this new Doctor was as sexy, appealing, different and modern as Christopher Eccleston would prove to be four years later. Nowadays, we know exactly how the Eighth Doctor meets his demise, thanks to Steven Moffat’s The Night of the Doctor, but I still think of the Paul McGann adventures as the ongoing series, running in parallel with the TV programme. Whenever an Eighth Doctor boxset falls through the letterbox, guiltily they feel just that little bit more exciting than any of the other incarnations’ releases. The story goes on…

Currently, we’re partway through Ravenous, a series of 16 CDs across 4 boxsets. The first set didn’t quite feel as grand and operatic as Dark Eyes or Doom Coalition but was a welcome return to the more freewheeling days of those early Charley adventures, unconnected and richly different stories. The Eighth Doctor, Liv and Helen make for a fine TARDIS contingent: fun, intelligent, vibrant and dynamic. 

Much has been made of Helen’s family background since she arrived aboard the time machine and so opener, Escape from Kaldor, instead mines Liv Chenka’s lineage for dramatic impact. We leave the story excitingly unsure of what Liv has been up to in her private time but on the whole, this is a pretty standard run-around. There are a few moments of exciting jeopardy, but no real new ground is covered. For a story seeking to warm our nostalgic cockles with Voc Robots, it’s almost criminal that they are all voiced by female actors, meaning they sound nothing like the Vocs of old. This is a world away from The Sons of Kaldor and its almost excessive respect for the soundscapes of the Hinchcliffe masterpiece and makes the robots’ re-appearance from an auditory perspective pretty superfluous.

Speaking of masterpieces, Ravenous 2 is worth buying if only for John Dorney’s utterly fabulous, terrifically clever and defiantly Christmassy Special, two-parter: Better Watch Out and Fairytale of Salzburg. If there were ever a story to rival the aforementioned Chimes of Midnight in the classic Big Finish Christmas adventure stakes, it’s this. The first part has a uniquely European Seasonal atmosphere, a first for Doctor Who and the happy team of the Doctor, Liv and Helen fit snugly into this warm world of bratwurst sausages, roast chestnuts and eggnog.

John Dorney has fun with narrators across the two episodes, the Doctor opening the story with a dark tale of yuletide horror, the Krampus arriving in a little girl’s living room one night to eat her father. Later, playful imps begin to spirit away “naughty” revellers in the streets of Salzburg before the legendary beast itself rears its head from beneath the nearby hills. This is not just Doctor Who riffing on folklore, this is Doctor Who creating a story of its own mythic proportions. The second narrator is seemingly divorced from the main narrative, but the Pilgrim is played by Siân Phillips which instantly grants her legendary status before she utters a word. The true identity of the Pilgrim is withheld until the very moment Dorney needs to show his cards and the revelation is truly shocking. It also allows for the only occasion when “wishes really do come true” to be played without feeling trite or schmaltzy. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that his two-parter really is an “instant classic” to use a Steven Moffat expression. Part Sound of Music, part Christmas Carol, part Hammer Horror, totally Doctor Who, this really is as good as it gets.

Following such magnificence, closer Seizure was always going to have difficulty making an impact but running at only 48 minutes and parading itself as a dark, horror story after such a fundamentally brilliant dark, horror story with Bonus Christmas, it has its work cut out. Seizure is such a slight tale that in contrast to Fairytale of Salzburg it feels even smaller and its villains, the eponymous Ravenous, make for second-rate baddies after the devil that was the Krampus. Seizure’s major problem seems to be that it wants to be a tight little atmospheric tale of terror, but it is resolutely not scary and hasn’t got any shape. The ending is signposted throughout in such large capital letters meaning that it feels patronising where Salzburg felt like an intricate jigsaw the reader had to piece together right up until its final scene. After such hard-hitting, ambitious story-telling, Guy Adams’s Seizure can only end up feeling like the damp squib after the bonfire. It’s still nice though to have a cliff-hanger ending to tide us over before Ravenous 3 with Only Charley Bloody Pollard making her return!

Overall, this set is all about that monolith at its centre. There’s a place for simpler, trad stories like Escape from Kaldor and it’s certainly strong meat and potatoes Doctor Who from Matt Fitton. Better Watch Out and Fairytale of Salzburg, on the other hand, push the boundaries of what Doctor Who can be and through their ambition point the way forward. This is vivid, bold story-telling and, just as those early tales of Charley and her Eighth Doctor felt modern and immediate, this too feels like the Doctor Who of tomorrow. Were the Christmas Special to have been released on its own, I’d shamelessly grant it a 10/10 review. With two lightweights either side of it, however, I’m going to have to regretfully lose a few points. I’d urge anyone who hasn’t tried an Eighth Doctor release though to give Ravenous 2 a shot though. If rumours are to be believed, Doctor Who may be without a Christmas Special this year; Big Finish have already come to the rescue. Try a day out in Salzburg with Paul McGann instead. I promise it’ll be rip-roaring.

8/10

JH

The Eighth Doctor: The Time War Volume 2

Generally, I have a problem with war stories. Quite often I feel writers treat stories of war as if they are already deeply emotional. They presume we care about the thousands, millions, of casualties and deaths without doing very much to make us care. They end up being as emotionally engaging as a newsreel: sad but distant. Simply saying “Millions will die,” is not enough to make us emote or indeed, increase the jeopardy. Look at The Parting of the Ways: Jack cries, “This is it, ladies and gentlemen, we are at war!” But Russell T Davies doesn’t show us the war on Earth, the continents being destroyed, homes being demolished. He focuses on a small outpost in space, full of people we know and we watch as their world is obliterated around them. It’s a canny move, because really, war is just a word. It’s the people who live through it we should focus on.

That said, it should be fairly easy to understand my disappointment with John Hurt’s War Doctor series. It felt loud and furious but uninvolving and samey. The stakes were high but the people to care about were few and far between. I was - as JNT would have it - surprised and delighted to find the Eighth Doctor Time War series so massively enjoyable. 

The first volume approached the idea of Time War very well indeed, from bootcamp training to worlds ravaged by time itself. It took the words Time and War and properly explored the ideas conceptually and dramatically. The only failing, I thought, was new companion Bliss, who was sketchily drawn, too quickly introduced and averagely performed. It has since come to light that Bliss was only conceived for the one box set but as storylines coalesced and the Time War saga rolled on, it became clear there were more stories to tell. On the evidence of the second volume, this is very true!

Here we have a wartime rebellion story, a fanservice-ing oddball tale, a prison-break drama and a submarine bottle story: all bar the second, traditional wartime staples. All, however, use the Time War twist well, to enlarge the playing field, slightly warp the rules and make these stories unquestionably Doctor Who, although Paul McGann sounds quite at home as Captain Jonah in the boxset’s fourth sojourn. 

The Lords of Terror is perhaps the weakest instalment and that only because it feels overly familiar. This is the entry most like a now-traditional Time War tale. (God, it has its own genre!) There’s the Doctor being appalled by Ollistra and a fleet of Daleks incoming. The story’s twist is sadly made hugely obvious by the title but the narrative is adroitly paced and thrilling. It’s such a shame though that this couldn’t be the story where we connect more strongly with Bliss. Her parents may never have existed thanks to the war, she and the Doctor learn. But it’s greeted with more of an “Ah well, let’s go somewhere else then” attitude rather than a human resonance. They even decide giving her a title like “An Orphan of the Time War” is perhaps the appropriate thing to do right now. Arguably, the scene in question is underwritten by Jonathan Morris but then Rakhee Thakrar does absolutely nothing to give her lines weight, no stiff-upper-lip brave face and Bliss resultantly ends up feeling as distant as those aforementioned newsreels. So she’s an orphan? So what?

Planet of the Ogrons is an instant tonal shift and insanely good fun. In short, an Ogron who believes himself to be the Doctor, dressed in velvet, arrives on Gallifrey in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Bliss meet The Twelve and head off to investigate… and hilarity ensues. Whilst not strictly a comedy, there are laughs aplenty here: the Ogron-Doctor’s uplifting rallying speech to his fellow Ogrons is a moment to treasure. Suddenly, the Doctor and Bliss feel as if they’ve been together forever and the addition of the Twelve and the Doctor-Ogron makes for a positive “gang” feel across the hour. Amidst all the laughs, Bliss - through her Ogron friend - learns more about the Doctor’s philosophy. Julia McKenzie is terrific as the Twelve, her sweet old lady act belying a subdued ferocity beneath. She’s a welcome change of pace from Mark Bonnar’s equally excellent but more manic Eleven. Even the ubiquitous Nick Briggs doesn’t sound like Nick Briggs in this a quite masterful and different turn. Special mention however, must go to Jon Culshaw’s cute Doctor-Ogron. For a series based amidst a devastating war, it’s bizarre that it ends up being this sad, funny, hybrid character who is the one, across the whole boxset, we end up feeling for the most.

In the Garden of Death has a delicious remit: how would the Doctor, Bliss and the Twelve escape from prison if they couldn’t remember who they were. Guy Adams, also author of Planet of the Ogrons, runs with this conceit and their memories remain missing for an enjoyably long time. The Daleks are used as they should be, a distant menace, and the dynamics within the prison inmates are realistic and dramatic. That the Doctor is in solitary means his reassurance is often missing where it ought to be a comfort. The only disappointment (SPOILER ALERT) is that the day is saved simply by tinkering with gadgets and not with some great cleverness more fitting for a couple of Time Lord genii.

Lastly, relative new-boy to Big Finish Timothy X Atack’s Jonah plummets the TARDIS team between the waves of an ocean planet. There is a definite sense of unease across this masterfully written finale. It is perhaps quieter and subtler than one might expect from the last of four tales but it’s no less excellent and still includes phrases like “depth charges.” The idea of Daleks falling through the depths towards a helpless submarine is a terrifying one and perhaps the best, most original use of the pepper pots for some time. The nature of the Twelve’s relationship with the Daleks is for the most part unclear and forms a tense narrative spine throughout the play’s entirety. It’s also a joy to hear Paul McGann enjoying himself so tangibly. Jonah ends this particular boxset with a very high bar for the next one to aspire to.

Overall, there are, perhaps unbelievably, more and more stories to tell of Russell T Davies’s once unimaginable Time War and these smaller skirmishes are proving far more effective than the brasher, harder War Doctor episodes. For a concept that once felt like it had nowhere left to go, the Eight Doctor’s Time War feels positively fresh with new ideas. 

8/10

Addendum: Just a quick word to celebrate the great Jacqueline Pearce who is, as ever, completely unassailable here. She will be truly missed, not just by the Doctor, but by Blake and Avon and all of us unworthy fans. Rest in Peace, Jacks.

JH

The First Doctor Adventures - Volume 2

I recently waxed lyrical about the merits of Big Finish’s first volume of stories featuring David Bradley’s TARDIS team. They presented a tangible flavour of the 1960s through a parallel world prism in which the original ship’s crew were replaced by other actors. Paradoxically, The Destination Wars and The Great White Hurricane typified the 60s story-telling style whilst breathing fresh life into the era for the 21^st century. The result was one of my very favourite releases of 2017. Could Big Finish bottle that lightning formula twice?

Sadly no, not quite. The intention is clearly there though. We have a “sideways” story in The Invention of Death and another “pure” historical in The Barbarians and the Samurai which sound and feel precisely like 1960s Who. The story The Invention of Death most closely resembles, however, is the second half of The Sensorites. It is slow and torpid, lacking in incident and with performances muffled not by face masks but by voice distortion. Howard Carter’s sound design on both stories is terrific actually and the performances of The Invention of Death’s Ashtallahns are both audible and ethereal; it’s just that there are no other human voices, aside from our regulars, to latch onto and so the story starts to feel distant in a Web Planet kind of way. The plot, as simple as it is, only kicks in during Part Three and even then, the murderer gives themself away by checking themselves mid-sentence: “But I didn’t… Oops.” It’s exactly the kind of moment relished by William Hartnell as only his Doctor could spot such a little mistake like that. Well, him and 8 million child viewers. Of course, the point of The Invention of Death is that it is a rumination, a philosophising on the nature of death; it’s not about plot at all. The trouble is, it hasn’t really got anything to say about it, other than death being necessary for a species to make progress, which in the end is as sterile a reason for the need for death as it possible. John Dorney has a very specific agenda in writing this story, and he succeeds on all counts. It does indeed end up feeling like a slow, slightly crap, none-Dalek Hartnell sci-fi story. Whilst Dorney is usually one of the truly great Big Finish writers whose scripts I hugely look forward to hearing, in The Invention of Death he has set out with a flawed set of aspirations and whilst meeting them, has delivered something he is demonstrably more than capable of bettering.

The Barbarians and the Samurai is far more successful. Why Andrew Smith never continued to write for the show in the 1980s is beyond me. Full Circle is a masterfully constructed story and almost every one of his Big Finish scripts proves him to be a great talent. This is no exception. The Barbarians and the Samurai sits somewhere between Marco Polo and The Crusade. It has the same educational bent and Eastern exoticism as Marco Polo and the 4-act structure and sub-plots for the regulars as The Crusade. This is a taut script with a strong narrative motor, propelling events forwards and boasting an exceptionally strong sense of place. It is incredibly difficult to create a plot the likes of this – mistaken identities, swordfights and emperors - but Smith makes it look easy. Whilst some poor performances (one almost incomprehensible) threaten to knock the tale down a peg or two, for the most part this is as typically enjoyable as those Hartnell historicals of yore. 

I remain as unconvinced by David Bradley’s performance as I was when reviewing the first volume – his dithering delivery feeling like a first reading - but Jamie Glover’s Ian Chesterton has the rich steadfastness of a dashing 60s hero and becomes the boxset’s leading man, his voice a reassuring presence across the two stories. I’m also quite taken by Claudia Grant’s impish Susan. All told, I’d happily listen to more of this TARDIS team and am hugely looking forward to finding out what Marc Platt has in store for us with his Phoenicians. 

With one poor story and one very strong, this boxset, ends up with an overall score of 6 out of 10. (3 for The Invention of Death, 8 for The Barbarians and the Samurai, for the record.)

JH

Jenny - The Doctor's Daughter

The Doctor’s Daughter is one of my very least favourite Doctor Who stories. It’s full of risible dialogue, drab set design, ridiculous monsters and its central conceit – that the Doctor has a daughter – is so underworked and blandly explored that the episode fails on almost every level. “Make the foundation of this society a man who never would” is far more embarrassing than any farting Slitheen or burping bin. So when Big Finish announced their spin-off series, I was underwhelmed to say the least. It’s surely due to the sheer impossible ingenuity of the writing talent at Big Finish that this series is hugely enjoyable and succeeds where other spin-off series fail in revealing a picture of the vast breadth of the universe.

We travel from a galactic garage to English suburbia to an alien planet (complete with fully-developed culture) and finally outside of space-time altogether. River Song, Charley, even Bernice – none of their box sets have quite managed to capture the expansiveness of the universe in quite the same way as The Doctor’s Daughter.

It helps that our universal tour guides, Jenny and Noah are so hugely charming. Georgia Tennant and Sean Biggerstaff make for youthful, energetic sparring partners, coming across almost like sister and brother. Noah’s origins are shrouded in mystery and answers do not seem to be forthcoming any time soon. Jenny has the same qualities as her fictional father, a great brain and lust for adventure, but a larger dose of naiveite and recklessness. The unlikely partners are enormous fun to travel with (although it is never quite clear how long Jenny has been on the block or precisely how much she does know about life, the universe and everything).

Matt Fitton’s opener, Stolen Goods, is a terrific caper of an adventure. Stuart Milligan returns as the dastardly Urodelian Garundel (of Starlight Robbery and Black and White) and gives a typically camp, scenery-chewing turn. Fitton ably demonstrates Jenny’s speed of thought as she turns the tables on her would-be conman and his associates in a Sherlock-style see-what-I-just-noticed-there set-piece moment, perfectly illustrating the cleverness of the part-Time Lord early on and promising more of the same later. With great economy, Fitton provides all we need to know about our series lead and the general tone of the stories to come. It’s a terrific introduction.

In Prisoner of the Ood, John Dorney wrong-foots the listener immediately, plunging Jenny sans Noah into Arabella Weir’s porch with a request for plasma lasers. The narrative is all the better for being told out of order and surprises come thick and fast in the second half of the story, after a rip-roaring and very funny first half. Dorney’s own character John Macguire enjoys an hilarious exchange on his doorstep regarding working from home which is worth the entry price alone. As is now only to be expected from the writer, this is a funny, inventive and very bright script, superbly performed by a tremendous cast.

Christian Brassington’s Neon Reign has a strong sense of atmosphere. It boasts superb sound design from Joe Kraemer & Josh Arakelian and there is a definite sense of otherworldliness about this production. It’s only a small thing but the incessant rain gives the place an edge, a dangerous quality, a lived-in feel. Brassington sketches in cultural details with skill to make the planet feel real. What doesn’t quite work, however, are the playground gender politics which have more in common with Galaxy 4 than Germaine Greer. Even a last-minute switch-aroo can’t disguise how simplistic the whole business feels, especially considering how in-vogue and complex the issues of gender identity have become. It’s a shame that such a richly developed planet boils down to the weak foundation of a leader who doesn’t much like women.

Zero Space by Adrian Poynton brings the series to a pacey conclusion, again, pulling lots of surprises out of the bag. This story of Schrodinger’s clones is a focused and efficient tale, with a great sci-fi concept at its heart, typifying the sort of generally brassy and bold ideas which have fuelled all four adventures. We’re left with a strong sense of fun, with two leads we’d love to spend more time with, and the promise of a second series more than just an appealing notion, more an urgent necessity. 

Special mention must also be given to Sian Phillips as the Colt 5000, an android assassin who recurs throughout the boxset. The role is frankly below her considerable talents but she plays it with such aplomb, she becomes just as memorable as Jenny and Noah.

All in all, Jenny – The Doctor’s Daughter is an unexpected triumph, truly spanning the variety of the universe and even a little outside of it. Hopefully, we can look forward to hearing more adventures with our odd couple, and the – surely obligatory – team-up with Jenny’s Pop. Now there’s a scene ripe for the writing! And with the standard of penmanship on display here, I’m sure it will be a wholly unexpected, wildly imaginative and definitely spectacular reunion.

8/10

Just a quick note to talk about Barnaby Edwards's comment on the Big Finish news page which I really cannot let pass. He always, always casts his stories superbly and this series proves no exception. However, I do take exception to his statement on The Doctor’s Daughter: “It is not a coincidence that the main protagonist (aside from Jenny) in each story is female. I purposely cast it that way, in order to pit our heroine against villains of her own gender.” Frankly, why? What bloody difference does it make? The series doesn’t feel particularly feminine. It’s written by four self-proclaimed geeky males for, I imagine (although I can’t prove it!), a self-proclaimed and geeky male fandom. Certainly, the folks I see talking about the Big Finish releases online are predominantly men. The letters in Vortex magazine are predominantly written by men. And above all else, the gender of the protagonist in a series doesn’t seem to be in any way an issue for any of these men. Christ, we started at Bernice Summerfield! Graham Williams gave tonnes of roles to women in late 1970s Doctor Who but he wasn’t as patronising or classless to even mention it. Surely, that’s how casting should work. Whilst Edwards directs splendidly and not one of his casting decisions can be classed as tokenistic so talented are the actors he employs, it’s a pretty feeble statement to make about a series, let alone a selling point. It just comes across as needlessly worthy and at worst positively discriminatory. There have been strong roles for women in Doctor Who for decades. It’s about time we stopped pretending that this is anything new.

JH