Tag Archives: James Joyce

Doctor Who: Planet Of The Rani. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Miranda Raison, Siobhan Redmond, James Joyce, Olivia Poulet, Dominic Thorburn, Tim Bentinck, Chris Porter.

There are characters so underused within the whole of the Doctor Who world that when they come along in a story that is just right for them, the heart feels the pressure of sadness that they have been ignored for so long. The Rani, one of the great members of The Doctor’s own celestial race, is one such character and whilst she has appeared on television, portrayed by the wonderful and much missed Kate O’ Mara, the link between the screen and Big Finish audio has perhaps been short, even if it has been sweet.

The Musketeers: A Marriage Of Inconvenience. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Burke, Santiago Cabrera, Howard Charles, Luke Pasqualino, Alexandra Dowling, Ryan Gage, Maimie McCoy, Tamla Kari, Marc Warren, Hugo Speer, Perdita Weeks, Nicholas Blane, Laurence Kennedy, Charlotte Salt, Bo Poraj, Andrew Westfield, Ed Stoppard, James Joyce, Tony Guilfoyle.

It seems funny in some ways that there is so much made of the destabilising forces that seek to infiltrate the countries of the world and the modern techniques used in the world of espionage and spying, that people forget just how long spying has been used as a precursor to war, whether on a nation or on a person, spying is always the name of the game.

Charlotte Pollard, The Viyran Solution. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: India Fisher, Michael Maloney, James Joyce, Nicholas Briggs, Louise Bradley, Nadia Kamil.

The solution is always part of the problem it seems. No matter how grand the answer, another dilemma will pop up in its place. Just as The Doctor faced being able to eradicate the Daleks from all time and space by placing two wires together, the quandary appeared that he would be as evil as them for not letting nature take its course. The solution is never the utter final truth. For the Viyrans and Charley Pollard, the solution is even more complex and for Charlotte Pollard the stakes have never been higher.

Charlotte Pollard, The Shadow At The End Of The World. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: India Fisher, Jacqueline King, Abigail McKern, Nicola Weeks, Lucy May Barker, Nicholas Briggs, Michael Maloney, James Joyce.

Charlotte Pollard, adventuress, traveller in space and time and once close friend and confident of The Doctor, a woman born on the day that the S.S. Titanic sank and who, as history will have it, died on the Airship 101, a woman who it seems was born to be a magnet for trouble and exploits, especially when cornered at The Shadow at the End of the World.

Charlotte Pollard, The Lamentation Cipher. Series One. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: India Fisher, Michael Maloney, James Joyce, Nicholas Briggs.

The feeling of rarity is quite uncommon when it comes to listening to the return of Charlotte Pollard.

Arguably the finest of all the audio companions introduced since Big Finish took the job on of bringing The Doctor back into the main stream consciousness of the British public, and before the B.B.C. finally saw sense in the folly of having let one of their most loved programmes go to waste, Charlotte Pollard, Charley to her friends, has travelled with two Doctors, been in an abundance of adventures with both and has captured the ideal of what it means to be a companion in the Tardis. To question, to investigate and not get become a quivering wreck in the face of adversity or under the sometimes withering gaze of The Doctor.

Doctor Who: White Ghosts. Big Finish Audio Review. 3.02.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Virginia Hey, Bethan Walker, Gbemisola Ikumelo, James Joyce.

What terrors are there in the dark? The imagination seizes upon the sparks of the obscured, the unseen threat waiting in the shadows to maim or do injury to and whilst we can turn on a light, make our way to a bright area in which to calm the nerves, what if the light brings the terror closer to your door? What if the light actually accelerates the peril and causes more destruction

Doctor Who, The Wrong Doctors. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish 169

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford, Tony Gardner, James Joyce, Patricia Leventon, Beth Chalmers, John Banks.

Although The Trail of a Timelord, shown on the B.B.C. in 1986 introduced the future companion Melanie Bush, portrayed by Bonnie Langford, to Colin Baker’s incarnation of the Doctor, there really has never been any reconciliation to answer how they first met. For viewers of the new series, which now strides confidently towards its 50th anniversary, it would be like trying to explain how Rose ended up travelling on the Tardis without ever showing the moment she stepped on board. It is a tricky and puzzling conundrum that has never been revealed…until now and the long sighted people at Big Finish and the new audiobook release of The Wrong Doctors.