Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

The Avengers: The Lost Episodes Volume 4 Box Set, A Change Of Bait. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Oliver Cotton, Philip Bretherton, Andrew Dickens, Daniel O’Meara, Dan Starkey, Karina Fernandez, Michael Chance.

The insurance business, like any other involving risk and money, is always one that has both its admirers and its detractors. To some who feel as though they have been placed into a corner and had their livelihoods threatened by such practices, the steepness of premiums, of the loss that could be potentially involved is something that rankles with the fury of a volcano but to which hardly can ever be done; after all everybody needs insuring for something.

The Avengers: The Lost Episodes Volume 4 Box Set, A Change Of Bait. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(411 words, estimated 1:39 mins reading time)

The Avengers: The Lost Episodes Volume 4. Kill The King. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Julian Wadham, Anthony Howell, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Dan Starkey. Lobo Chan, Richard Cordery, Ozzie Yue, Lourdes Faberes, Karina Fernandez, Adrian Lukis, Elizabeth Morton, Matthew Cottle.

 

Heavy is the head that wears the crown, especially when it is the prime target for an assassination attempt on British soil of a foreign head of state.

The fourth box set of the highly popular adaptations of The Avengers lost episodes series sees both Dr. Keel and John Steed take a bit of a back seat in the opening chapter and one that with all the best will in the world feels as though it is still feeling the after effects of the falling out between the two characters at the end of Volume Three.

The Avengers: The Lost Episodes Volume 4. Kill The King. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

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

Doctor Who: Suburban Hell. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish Audio.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Annette Badland, Katy Wix, Alix Dunmore, Raymond Coulthard, David Ricardo-Pearce.

 

There is surely one place and one set of foes more terrifying than a fleet of Daleks rampaging from the torment that is Skaro, the Cybermen climbing out of their icy wombs, the spiders of Metabelis 3 or the arch devil himself himself The Master burnt to a crisp and finding the best way to groom a beard and that is the nightmare that would make them all quiver in fright, the suburban middle-class themed party, the fear that dominates the Suburban Hell.

Doctor Who: Suburban Hell. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish Audio. full post

(463 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Last Of The Cybermen. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury, Lucy Liemann, Kieran Hodgson, Nicholas Farrell, Nicholas Briggs.

The Cybermen are never more dangerous than when completely and utterly defeated. Time and Time again from the edge of extinction, from the void between realities and the darkness of space they have survived, regrouped and in some cases have even nearly rivalled the Daleks for their natural predisposition to conquer and enslave; for they are a monster that never quite knows when to finally give up.

Doctor Who: Last Of The Cybermen. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(570 words, estimated 2:17 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Secret History, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Peter Davison, Maureen O’Brien, Peter Purves, Graeme Garden, Lysette Anthony, Tony Millan, Giles Watling, Tim Wallers, Sarah Woodward, Nicolas Briggs, Elizabeth Morton, John Banks, Barnaby Edwards.

 

Doctor Who: The Secret History, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(575 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Dark Eyes 4. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul McGann, Nicola Walker, Barnaby Kay, Beth Chalmers, Charlie Norfolk, Derek Hutchinson, Dan Starkey, Camilla Power, John Dorney, Rachael Stirling, Alex Wyndham, Blake Ritson, Nicholas Briggs, Alex MacQueen, Sorcha Cusack, Susannah Harker, David Sibley.

Arguably one of the most involved, most deliberately, and it has to be said wonderfully elaborately written endeavours undertaken by Big Finish finally comes to an end as the saga of Dark Eyes sees the Eighth incarnation battle not only the Eminence, The Master and the Daleks but also Time itself. It is a battle that sees the foreshadowing of what is to come, of the ache that will grip the Doctor as the Time War sets out to destroy all and in which the very soul of the Time Lord is challenged.

Doctor Who: Dark Eyes 4. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish. full post

(464 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Defectors. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Katy Manning, Richard Franklin, Neil Roberts, Barnaby Edwards, David Graham, Rachel Bavidge, Jez Fielder.

One of the more interesting factors about Doctor Who is the ability to mix things up once in a while and play a different type of game, a game in which nobody except the writer really knows what’s going on and in which the vagueness, the small hints, of it all can be tantalising and fruitful. It can of course go horribly wrong or at best come out of the Tardis like a mixed blessing.

Doctor Who: The Defectors. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(564 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Death Match. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Geoffrey Beevers, Susan Brown, Damien Lynch, Andy Secombe, Chris Porter.

Death has always walked side by side with The Doctor that at times its hard to see where the join might be. One such clue is where the rotting shell of The Master is, Death surely is playing a more dangerous game with him than with the Doctor.

Following on directly from John Dorney’s Requiem For The Space Men, Death Match is a suitable sequel in which Big Finish asks the pertinent questions of what it means to be entertained.

Doctor Who: Death Match. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Entropy Plague, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Davison, Janet Fielding, Sarah Sutton, Mark Strickson, Alastair Mackenzie, Catherine Skinner, Robert Duncan, John Voce, Chris Finney.

Decay is a state of mind for which even The Doctor struggles to hold back at times, the sheer weight of history acting as a melancholic anchor for him to grasp hold of when all is against him. His collection of travellers past and present, those he has lost, those he has loved, all acting as the living embodiments of the Memento Mori he carries around with him in his little blue box; decay is something he runs from, never looking back, never going back for old companions in case he sees the futility of life. Entropy in the end is the toughest enemy The Doctor has and one that he cannot hope to defeat forever.

Doctor Who: The Entropy Plague, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(574 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Requiem For The Rocket Men. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, John Leeson, Geoffrey Beevers, Mark Frost, Olivia Poulet, Damian Lynch, Pat Ruins.

The renegade Timelord from Gallifrey is fighting for his life in a trap. Considered to be lethal, dangerous and with a personality that can be abrasive and charming, the Universe’s greatest bounty hunters are in for a slice of the reward money placed temptingly before them, for after all would rank so high in the list of most wanted criminals than The Master.

Doctor Who: Requiem For The Rocket Men. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

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