|
-
News
- Features
- Blogs
- Events
Calendar
- Editorials
- Monthly
Zine
- Offworld
Report
- Our Daily
RSS Feed
- Google Toolbar scifi
- Movie/TV
Reviews
> Recent movies
> Movies by year
> Movies by title
- Book
Reviews
> Recent books
> Books by year
> Books by title
- Home
- Worlds
- Biography
- Bibliography
- Appearances
- Reviews
- Blog
- Community
- Press
- Links
Become
an Advertiser
- Web
Site Directory
- Search
the Net
- StephenHunt.net
- WoodenRocket.com
- Check
your E-mail
- Non Sci-Fi
News
|
Doctor Who: Dead London by Pat Mills
01/04/2008 . Source: Sue Davies 
CD. pub: Big Finish ISBN: 978-1-84435-308-8. 50 minute CD. Price: £10.99 (UK). Non UK £10.99) voices: Paul McGann, Sheridan Smith, Rupert Vansittart, Clare Buckfield, Katarina Olsson and Richard Lang. Buy Doctor Who: Dead London in the USA - or Buy Doctor Who: Dead London in the UK  check out web sites www.BigFinish.com
The 'fop' Doctor and his companion the feisty Lucie Millar are in London. She's gone shopping and somehow he's ended up in court. Really, though, a death sentence for a few parking tickets does seem excessive, even by London mayor Ken Livingstone's standards.
The Doctor and Lucie have been split up. He finds that he can do no right, having rapidly been condemned to death in a seventeenth century court presided over by Judge Jeffreys things go from bad to worse. Along the way he keeps encountering characters that are starting to look familiar.
Happily, he also links up with Spring-Heeled Sophie, a cat burglar who doesn't believe in going gently into the good night. Lucie is lost seemingly in a maze of different time zones that all cross over each other. At the heart is a mysterious and dirty river which appears and disappears as it will. She meets Yellow Beryl who works in the munitions industry in the First World War. She literally is a bit of local colour as her face is a lurid yellow as a side-effect of packing TNT into shell casings.
There seems to be no logic to this collage of Londons teeming with life but the Doctor is quick to spot a pattern in this hotchpotch of humanity. He must act quickly though as the intelligence behind the mysterious world is unhappy with his interference.
Once again, Big Finish has secured a heavy-hitter guest star for this one-off drama. Rupert Vansittart lately of 'Heartbeat' and also an ex-Slitheen, who has battled Doctor number nine Chris Eccleston, plays a character who's more than he seems. We also have Clare Buckfield who appeared in 'The Horror Of Glam Rock' with Paul McGann in 2007 and has also co-starred with Colin Baker in 'The One Doctor'. In fact, these audios pride themselves on getting and keeping the cream of English talent over to their studios. Apparently, it's the lunches!
Once again, the audio packs in plenty of voice pictures into its running time. Every voice is part of the potent cocktail that seeps into your head. Anything that jars breaks the fragile fiction that the listener is able to create. This one is a jolly romp. It's not really scary but manages to have some funny, tricky cliff-hangers in the episode breaks. Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are at their best when they are together enjoying a sparkly dialogue that fairly zings along. The Clare Buckfield character adds an amusing dimension as she briefly becomes the Doctor's companion when Lucie is absent. These audios are consistently high quality and if the story proves to be insubstantial then there is always one that will more than make up for it.
Once again there are some good behind-the-scenes interviews that are always entertaining to listen to. They add another ingredient to the plays with occasionally back-room information that illuminates the reasoning behind the story. There are some reminiscences from the guest actors and always something amusing from the resident team. Overall, another engaging episode in the continuing drama that adds another dimension to the story of Doctor Who.
Sue Davies
|
|
