I’ve Blogged
about Gareth Roberts’ three 1990s Fourth Doctor Virgin ‘Missing Adventures’
novels in the past (see http://viewsfromthesecondfloor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/shada-prep-gareth-roberts-and-season-17.html and http://viewsfromthesecondfloor.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/death-and-war-post-shada-come-down.html), but recently they’ve been adapted by Big Finish and
released as four part audio dramas bringing together once again Tom Baker,
Lalla Ward and John Leeson. The five year old in me couldn’t help but squeal.
It’s taken me a
little while to be in a position to treat myself to these stories – and they
are a treat, I will lay that down from the start. Tom Baker’s Doctor, now in
his 80s, is less frenetic but that’s as much down to the fact that he’s not
moving all over the place while he speaks, and a calmer delivery doesn’t spoil
the ‘Season 17’ effect particularly. He sounds more comfortable in his vocal
delivery now than in the early recordings with Louise Jameson that I’ve heard:
there’s less baggy jowl and he’s adopting a deeper base range that he can
maintain without his voice breaking. Lalla Ward’s Romana still sounds fresh,
thanks to regular appearances for Big Finish over the years, and she and the
Doctor play off each other so effortlessly (even if the chances are the actors
weren’t recorded together). John Leeson gets to play a K-9 that’s probably
never been better utilised or written for. These are stories about a wonderful
TARDIS team by a writer who knows and appreciates the team’s strengths, who has
bold, imaginative stories to tell, and has worked out how best to use the
characters to tell those stories in a witty and dramatic way.
Big Finish have
gathered some great guest actors for these three stories. The material warrants
strong casts and on the whole they deliver perfectly: Tim MacInnerny, Graham
Seed, Miranda Raison, Terrence Hardiman, Jon Glover, Michael Troughton, Jane Slavin, David
Troughton – all on top form and clearly relishing the material. The only gripe
I have is with Marcus Garvey as Frank Spiggot in The Romance of Crime. The performance just doesn’t feel broad
enough for me. It sounds like an attempt at naturalism within a melodramatic
setting, surrounded by larger-than-life characters and as a consequence I feel
the energy levels drop when the ball is passed to him. If Garvey had tweaked
the dial up a bit, with a bit more volume and bluster, it would have maintained
the character’s integrity and kept the energy levels up as the dialogue whipped
around. Look at the character of Duggan in City
of Death, for example: Tom Chadbon’s face is always performing, and his
expressions do as much as his words to sell the character and keep him at the
same energised level as everyone else. Without that visual reference in these
audio dramas the actors have to sell it all through their voices. I don’t think
Marcus Garvey sells us enough through his voice as Spiggot; I can’t hear grizzled,
over-worked middle-aged Northern, I can’t hear his sweat-stained clothes, his posture,
his hair. I can’t hear his face drop when he remembers Angie and the kids. But
I want to, and I should do. It may sound silly but a well-rounded vocal
performance will automatically fill in a lot of gaps like these in the
listener’s head. Spiggot to me just feels a bit out of place as a consequence.
But that’s only a minor gripe as there was so much else to enjoy.
The Romance of Crime feels a bit like Season 17’s Greatest
Hits – a female villain, an unexpected villain, lumbering monsters, a space
station, a detective, plenty of sizzling wit, larger than life characters and a
strong central story with challenging scientific concepts. That’s not a
criticism, it’s a great appreciation of the era it represents. It’s an
infinitely readable book and it works perfectly as one of the more faithful
‘Missing Adventures’. The English Way of
Death is probably the book I’ve struggled to enjoy the most out of the
three, but it’s a bold attempt to tell a more gruesome and horror-inspired story
within the context of the wit and whimsicality of Season 17. And it works. The Well-Mannered War is very much the
season finale that we never had. The story is multi-layered, convoluted and
engaging, with some great twists, and again it manages to work perfectly and
produce strong drama within what many consider to be the light-hearted
theatricality of Season 17. It has a sense of achievement about it, a
self-confidence, as if it’s a culmination of many things but particularly
rounding off a triumvirate of strong novels the quality of which you’d be hard
pressed to find an equal to within Doctor
Who’s oeuvre.
The Romance of Crime is the most openly amusing of the three
in my view. Menlove Stokes, the Nisbett Brothers and the wonderful Ogrons are
all very funny but they maintain a consistency which gives them an integrity within
the context of the universe created for the story. The Ogrons in particular
lend themselves very easily to humour without losing their sense of danger. The English Way of Death has a more
whimsical humour to it, in keeping with the 1930s setting. There’s also quite a
few moments that raise a smile but which on reflection are actually more
horrifying. By The Well-Mannered War
we’re accustomed to how these stories are working. Again there are some
wonderful moments of authentic wit and humour but the dark sense of underlying jeopardy
running through tempers everything: we don’t always trust the humour enough to
allow it to indulge us. Douglas Adams always said he thought humour worked best
in Doctor Who when it was used to
counterpoint and underpin the very real drama and danger of a situation. I
think these three stories exhibit that very clearly.
Just as Gareth
Roberts found novelising Douglas Adam’s Shada
a daunting task no doubt John Dorney felt similar about adapting these three
books for audio; they are generally held in very high esteem. He’s done a
superb job. I noticed a few nips and tucks along the way, naturally, but that’s
par for the course when adapting and the episodes are better for being an even
length and still having space for the characters to breathe. Roberts wrote the
books in ‘episodes’ which no doubt assisted Dorney, and there are some great
cliff hangers between the three stories, not always obvious cliff hangers
either – in keeping with the Season 17 ethos. From an audio perspective I adore
The Romance of Crime episode two
cliff hanger:
The Doctor:
OGRONS!!!
The way Tom
Baker’s deep voice reverberates around your head and the theme screams in –
perfect. Baker always did very good ‘talky’ cliff hangers. Horror of Fang Rock episode three is probably my all-time
favourite, as the Doctor realises he’s locked the Rutan in the lighthouse with
them...
At the end of
the day these audios shouldn’t be thought of as replacing or superseding the
novels in any way, so you don’t want them to be identical in all respects. But
they all exude charm and wit; they zip along with pace and energy as they
engage, delight, amuse and shock the audience. That, for me, is pretty much a
recipe for perfect Doctor Who. And
I’d say that’s what The Well-Mannered War
is in particular, perfect Doctor Who.
They are all great stories that carry you along and make you think, but there’s
a feeling that each one gets a bit better than the previous. The last ten
minutes or so of The Well-Mannered War,
in particular, are simply extraordinary: even for one who knew what was going
on the level of tension and drama was pitch-perfect as the shocking realisation
of events fell into place. I was enraptured. And what a brilliant ‘season’
cliff hanger end: I can imagine how utterly thrilled I would have been as a
five or six year old watching this on TV – it thrilled me enough as a forty-one
year old walking to work!
Have Big Finish
been putting music suites at the end of releases for a while now? I’ve become pretty
out of touch with much of their output over the last ten years but as someone
who enjoys listening to film scores and incidental music I found these music
suites to be a welcome and delightful extra at the end of each story. The incidental
music for these stories is very in keeping with Dudley Simpson’s style of the
time, to my uneducated ears at least, and it all adds to the authenticity of
the final product.
Additional note:
Listening to the interview extras last night I was surprised to hear John Dorney say they'd considered doing The Well-Mannered War as a six-parter instead, because there was so much material in the book. It's difficult to judge, of course, without the six-part version to compare against, but my worry would be that the story would relax a bit too much in six parts and come across as more 'talky' and possibly even self-indulgent. The four part version we have is SO good and doesn't feel unnecessarily brief or condensed to my ears, so I am firmly of the belief that the right choice was made.
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