Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

Smoke And Mirrors. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Rupert Everett, Reece Budin.

There are people to whom history has, if not forgotten, then slowly erased from public view. Some of these are heroes of war to which their services had to remain under the cover of secrecy and mystery to avoid a conflict of interests later down the line where governments change and public opinion may shift due to the response to falsehoods, allegations, and fear, and it is to the right of the researcher, the scribe, and the playwright that these almost fearless people are now underlined and shown to be for the heroes that they are; no matter what they did before or after the war.

Smoke And Mirrors. Radio Drama Review. full post

(532 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Happy Holidays. Radio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jane Slavin, Lizzy McInnerny, Greta Scacchi, David Menkin.

It is a nightmare of the modern world, to find yourself arrested and placed in the void of bureaucracy, becoming almost disappeared, because the logical systems and beliefs of freedom have been erased by paranoia, the uniforms of hate and distrust blocking access to leave a country, on the basis that you may have posted a thought online, overstayed your welcome by a day, or just been someone to whom a member of their ever-increasing numbers of officialdom took exception to; this is the trauma awaiting all in this brave new world.

Happy Holidays. Radio Drama Review. full post

(409 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

The Truth About Phyllis Twigg. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tamsin Greig, Rory Kinnear, Aja Dodd, Amit Shah, Will Harrison-Wallace, Haydn Watts, Flora Saner, Hannah Brine.

Names are unavoidably erased from history, some through the sheer fact that not everybody can be remembered, and some because they have found a way to work under the auspices of a nom de plume, of hiding in plain sight so that the creative can have autonomy over their work whilst also holding onto the privilege of privacy. For writers and artists, it can lead to a thought of losing out on the credit where it was due, the public only adoring the name, and not the person behind it, gripping hard on to concealment at the cost of recognition.

The Truth About Phyllis Twigg. Audio Drama Review. full post

(450 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Dare You. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Jack Ayres, Camille Coduri, Beverley Klein, Harry Myers, Dan Starkey.

The voices in our head are ones to which often guide us and steer us from trouble, they warn of the temptations, the moments that will knock us sideways, the ones that allow us to keep a clear conscious; it may be instinctive, it might be just common sense, but the voice of reason and respect is there to keep us from being foolish and a social pain.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Dare You. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review. full post

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

The Haunted Man. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Rosie Baker, Paterson Joseph, Jeff Rawle, Tim Speyer, Dan Starkey, Matthew Steer, Tilly Vosburgh.

The final novella from one of Britain’s finest ever writers, Charles Dickens, is the subject of a twin release from Average Romp this festive eve, and alongside The Cricket On The Hearth, the adaption of The Haunted Man is one that has been lovingly restored to the consciousness of the public thanks to the writing of Eddie Robson and Jonathan Morris, and their Big Finish colleagues Lisa Bowerman and Howard Carter.

The Haunted Man. Audio Drama Review. full post

(444 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

The Cricket On The Hearth. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tony Marshall, Bronté Barbé, Graham Fellows, Geoff Leesley, Jason Forbes, Katie Moore.

The Cricket On The Hearth may not be considered by many in today’s world as being a tale of dramatic substance, especially when set alongside the more weightier themes discussed and revealed in Charles Dickens’ major works, but for one of the sheer all time greats of English literature, one of the few to have an entire genre named after him, the short novella perhaps rings more true of the human need for the unexplained to hold significance than that which came before in the 1843 story, A Christmas Carol.

The Cricket On The Hearth. Audio Drama Review. full post

(472 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Ecclestone, Billie Piper, Harki Bhambra, Camille Coduri, Dan Starkey, Mandi Symonds.

Ghosts and legends are not just born in palaces and grand houses, hauntings are not confined to estates where a single dwelling lords over all it surveys, they are formed in the most modern of aspects, on council estates where the only horrors initially imagined was how it was acceptable to house people in such cramped quarters in such a small area; offering a sense of community, but of little value to their everyday lives.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: The Last Days of the Powell Estate. Big Finish. Audio Drama Review. full post

(456 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

High Cockalorum. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Monica Dolan, Goldie Crane.

The strangest of encounters often make for the finest stories to be told, the random, the most unexpected, the implausibly surprising, these intersecting stumbling’s into another’s orbit are to be cherished by all as they prove a truth of life, that those we meet in a one off moment in time have been placed before us to perhaps make an amends elsewhere in our lives; this truth is expanded when it comes to those we perceive as an idol, a hero maybe, someone to whom we look to as a star in our eyes and who we know so much about, but who might only be in our lives for less than a day.

High Cockalorum. Audio Drama Review. full post

(481 words, estimated 1:55 mins reading time)

V UK: Occupation. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Annabel Baldwin, Jon Culshaw, Jack Myers, Hannah Brown, Alan Cox, Abigail Cruttenden, Mark Elstob, Louise Faulkner, Jason Forbes, Harriet Kershaw, Tom Kiteley, George Naylor, Andrew James Spooner, Sam Stafford.

When the American Science Fiction series Vwas aired on British television, it caused a sensation for those with the foresight to sit down and take in the spectacle and dynamic of a storyline that is one of the finest examples of alien invasion to ever be part of television history.

V UK: Occupation. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Snare. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, Alex Austin, Hannah Brown, Camille Coduri.

The reunion many have actively awaited for, for one of the shortest runs that a companion had with a single Doctor that certainly deserved more than a single season, more than just 13 episodes, and yet from the revival episode of Rose through to The Parting Of The Waves, Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper captivated a nation of fans with their dynamic and emotional resonance as they fought Autons, The Gelth, members of family Slitheen, and Nanogenes that rewrite human physiology, and all the while, and despite the darkness of one of the biggest surprise endings to a series ever concocted, they faced the universe with humour and a friendship that arguably hadn’t been seen on screen in the Who Universe since Jon Pertwee’s incarnation of the mad man from Gallifrey and the marvellous Sarah Jane Smith.

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Adventures: Snare. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

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