Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

The Avengers, The Lost Episodes. Brought To Book. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Lucy Briggs-Owen, Colin Baker, Adrian Lukis, Tim Bentinck, Alan Cox, Blake Ritson, George Rainsford, Camilla Power, Sophie Aldred, Philip Mulryne, Kieran Bew, Richard Franklin.

With the murder of his fiancé Peggy still haunting him, Doctor David Keel finds himself further embroiled in the plans of the mysterious John Steed and his attempt to bring down the latest in organised crime in London in the second story re-made by Big Finish’s The Avengers: The Lost Episodes.

The Avengers, The Lost Episodes. Brought To Book. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

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

Hot Snow. The Avengers: The Lost Episodes. Volume One. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Anthony Howell, Julian Wadham, Camilla Power, Colin Baker, Tim Bentnick, Adrian Lukis, Phil Mulryne, Blake Ritson, Anjella Mackintosh, Kieran Bew, John Banks, Richard Franklin.

Arguably The Avengers was one of I.T.V.’s flagship programmes that for its time possibly rivalled B.B.C.’s Doctor Who for its intrigue and audience adulation. Like the B.B.C. though, the television programme‘s early broadcasts were not as keenly looked after as they should have been.

Hot Snow. The Avengers: The Lost Episodes. Volume One. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(607 words, estimated 2:26 mins reading time)

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. Counterfeit. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow.

A story that didn’t involve the commanding tones of Gareth Thomas as the Captain of The Liberator, Rog Blake, would seem to be as surprising as leaving out the main character of the television series for virtually all of its final series. Thankfully the people behind Big Finish audio dramas are the best in the business when it comes to getting old favourites to reprise their renowned and celebrated roles and in the episode Counterfeit, audiences once again get the chance to sample the delights of Gareth Thomas as the determined rogue turned freedom fighter in the final story in the box set of Season One of Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles.

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. Counterfeit. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(494 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. Solitary, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Michael Keating, Anthony Howell.

Even amongst a tight band of renegades and misfits there will always be the one outcast who is different enough from the rest to make him a prime target for an introverted and perhaps self-contained lifestyle, even if that person deep down wants to be part of the group that he is associated with.

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. Solitary, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. The Turing Test. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul Darrow, Michael Keating.

With its distinctive theme tune and great stories, it is no wonder that Blake’s 7, like Sapphire and Steel and Space 1999 became interwoven into the fabric of British society in the 1970s. Televised Science Fiction was having its golden era, alongside the only programme of the day to carry on into the 21st Century, Doctor Who. This was a halcyon time for anybody who regarded the genre as essential viewing and who would make time into their busy lives to see what happened next to the likes of Johanna Lumley and David McCallum in Sapphire and Steel,  Space 1999’s Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Catherine Schell and Blake’s 7, Paul Darrow, Gareth Thomas, Michael Keating and Sally Knyvette.

Blake’s 7: The Liberator Chronicles. The Turing Test. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish. full post

(668 words, estimated 2:40 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Afterlife. Audio Drama 181, Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Philip Olivier, Amy Pemberton, Jean Boht, Mandi Symonds, Jonathan Forbes, Andrew Dickens.

It depends on your point of view, but what if there really is life after death? How could you be sure that whatever higher power, what god or demon has had you in their charge whilst your memory has begun to fade in the minds you left behind, that they won’t have cheated you in yet another cosmic joke.

Doctor Who: Afterlife. Audio Drama 181, Big Finish. full post

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

Doctor Who: 1963: The Assassination Games. Audio Drama 180. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred, Simon Williams, Pamela Salem, Karen Gledhill, Hugh Ross, Oliver Cotton, Gemma Saunders, Gerald Kyd, Alisdair Simpson.

No matter where The Doctor goes in time and space, it seems there is a small part of that is drawn like a moth to wibbly wobbly ball of flame to the events circulating around the year 1963. Of course it is a natural time period to write about as well as being the birth of the television programme that would go on to be a world-wide phenomenon.

Doctor Who: 1963: The Assassination Games. Audio Drama 180. Big Finish. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles. The Beginning. Big Finish Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Carole Ann Ford, Terry Molloy.

There is nothing like returning to the start of the story to realise just how much has been left unsaid and just how much more is there even before the commencement of the adventure actually began.

Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles. The Beginning. Big Finish Audio Drama Review. full post

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

Trail Of A Timelord: Volume 1, Audio Book Review. B.B.C.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Lynda Bellingham, Colin Baker.

In the wake of the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who which has seen the special programme being watched simultaneously around the world by the type of television audience normally reserved for F.A. Cup finals and Royal weddings, it seems almost ludicrous now that there was a time in which the very survival of the programme was in doubt as certain people at the B.B.C. finally saw the chance to take the long running science fiction programme off the air.

Trail Of A Timelord: Volume 1, Audio Book Review. B.B.C. full post

(477 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Solitaire, Companion Chronicles. Audio Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: India Fisher, David Ballie.

Of all the companions to have stepped foot inside the Tardis, arguably one of the most much loved is Charlotte Elspeth Pollard. Having travelled with Paul McGann’s eighth Doctor incarnation from their first meeting in the excellent Storm Warning, through adventures such as Invaders From Mars, the sublime The Chimes of Midnight and to the fitting finale with her time with eighth Doctor The Girl Who Never Was, fans of Big Finish recognised something in her make-up, the way she handled herself when times were grave that placed her with the likes of Jamie, Tegan and Sarah Jane in terms of most admired and valued companions.

Solitaire, Companion Chronicles. Audio Review. Big Finish. full post

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