Tag Archives: John Banks

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2. Big Finish Audio Drama Boxset Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Alex Kingston, Nicola Walker, Hattie Moran, John Banks, Robert Bathurst, Kirsty Besterman, Mark Bonnar, Hamish Clark, Paul Marc Davis, Andrew Dickens, Cory English, Derek Ezenagu, Vincent Franklin.

Time to regroup and allow the mind peace after what amounts to a battle of survival is one that is denied to the vast majority of the world, for we inhabit a world run by mad men who insist that constantly been overrun is good for the heart, that we must be kept busy otherwise we are run the risk of being labelled and judged as feckless, insolent, or even cowardly.

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 2. Big Finish Audio Drama Boxset Review. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 1. Big Finish Audio Drama Box Set Review.

Liverpool Soun and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Hattie Moran, Nicola Walker, Mark Bonnar, Ewan Bailey, John Banks, Robert Bathurst, Gunnar Cauthery, Matthew Cottle, Esther Hall, Caroline Langrishi, Sylvester McCoy, Lizzie Mounter, Harry Myers, Ramon Tikaram, John Voce, Bethan Walker, John Woodvine, David Yelland.

Doctor Who: Doom Coalition 1. Big Finish Audio Drama Box Set Review. full post

(486 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Wave Of Destruction. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson, Phil Mulryne, Karl Theobald, Alex Wilton Regan, John Banks.

We take radio for granted now, in much the same way as television, as any device that allows us to hear the words of another several thousand miles away from home, and yet we must remember what it must have been like to experience that sensation for the first time, the moment that radio burst into the home and allowed, for example, cricket fans to enjoy a day at Old Trafford, the first outside broadcast from The Albert Hall, and allow old soldiers to hear The Last Post from fields in France as commemorations of World War One were held to honour the fallen…we take radio for granted, but in the hands of dark forces, that benevolence of human spirit and endeavour can be turned against us

Doctor Who: Wave Of Destruction. Audio Drama Review. full post

(439 words, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Charlotte Pollard: The Further Adventures. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: India Fisher, Paul McGann, Rakia Ayola, John Banks, Shiloh Coke, Mark Elstob, Chris Jarman, Lara Lemon, Michelle Livingstone, Yasmin Mwanza, Cyril Nri, Rhoda Ofori-Attah, Theo Solomon. Andrew James Spooner.

For the majority who don’t delve deep into the mythos and background of Doctor Who, the name Charley Pollard is possibly a whispered name only vaguely caught as reference when Paul McGann’s incarnation of the man in the blue box from Gallifrey lamented those he had lost along the way as he faced the unknown in a forced regeneration as the Time War raged, as the War Doctor waited in the shadows.

Charlotte Pollard: The Further Adventures. Audio Drama Review. full post

(508 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

Dalek Universe 2. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Tennant, Jane Slavin, Joe Sims, John Banks, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Nicholas Briggs, Barnaby Edwards, Avita Jay, Kevin McNally, Leighton Pugh, Blake Ritson, Nina Toussaint-White.

It is often a surprise that for all the talk of family in Doctor Who, the thought of blood relations meeting the Doctor in different incarnations has never been truly explored.

Dalek Universe 2. Audio Drama Review. full post

(510 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)

The Diary Of River Song: I Went To A Marvellous Party. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alex Kingston, Alexander Vlahos, Alexander Siddig, Imogen Stubbs, John Voce, Letty Butler, Samuel West, John Banks, Aaron Neil.

Murder has to be inventive to keep the interest of those who delight in such anarchy, however, the reasons for murder have become entangled in reasons to which have become ever murkier, more salient, less transparent as they have ever been. It is no longer enough to kill a character on the basis of greed, gain or for the love of someone, now there must be complexity, there must be retribution for the act in which the victim surely deserves to die. It is in this realm of vengeance that the merest sleight becomes weaponised, the act of ecocide is met with the fullest support of death to the perpetrator by all concerned. It is no longer enough to see someone brought to justice, tried by a jury, now there must be blood.

The Diary Of River Song: I Went To A Marvellous Party. Audio Drama Review. full post

(528 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

The Diary Of River Song: The Boundless Sea. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alex Kingston, John Banks, Charlotte Christie, Oliver Dimsdale, Gbemisola Ikumelo, Alexander Vlahos.

One of the peculiarities of long running television serials is that inevitably there will be a character thrust into the limelight to whom the viewers in their masses will take too and demand more of, even perhaps at the expense of the main person to whom the story revolves around.

The Diary Of River Song: The Boundless Sea. Audio Drama Review. full post

(536 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, John Benfield, Neville Watchurst, John Banks, Susan Brown, Toby Longworth, Alex Lowe.

One of the reasons Doctor Who worked in the classic series and continues to do so in the modern age, is because the people behind it were not afraid to be politically adventurous, to put in a story line that will rock the minds of certain bodies, institutions and Government to its core; it might not be as damning as television series as Death on the Rock, A Very British Coup, Hillsborough or Edge of Darkness but in its early evening television slot way it was just as hard hitting and made the viewer think about humanity’s place in the world and the political agenda it found itself in.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review. full post

(498 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Paradox Planet/Legacy Of Death. Audio Drama Reviews.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Baker, Lalla Ward, John Leeson, Simon Rouse, Tom Chadbon, Paul Panting, Emma Campbell-Jones, Laura Rees, Bryan Pilkington, Jane Slavin, John Banks.

The good old days of the multi-parter, where a story line could be really explored and taken beyond the realms of the expected 45 minutes, where the imagination not only gets fed, it is sated and not feeling as if it has been left out of the desert and wine list that inevitably follows a good dinner; all things are more possible in the land of the large and truly delved into story.

Doctor Who: The Paradox Planet/Legacy Of Death. Audio Drama Reviews. full post

(493 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Doctor Who: Doom Coalition. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Hattie Morahan, Mark Bonnar, John Woodville, Esther Hall, Harry Myers, Gunnar Cauthery, Lizzie Mounter, Ewan Bailey, John Banks.

The trouble with time travel for the novice is that it can lead to the most peculiar syndrome of just aimlessly walking about and staring at things as if they had come from another planet, let alone another period in time.

Doctor Who: Doctor Who: Doom Coalition. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(370 words, estimated 1:29 mins reading time)