Category Archives: Audio Drama/Radio Plays

Doctor Who: 1963: The Space Race. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish 179.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Karen Henson, David Shaw-Parker, Tom Alexander, Stuart Denman, Samantha Beart.

If the end of the 1960s was the supposed era of free love, enlightened thinking, ugly military intervention and the culmination of the space race between the Soviet Union and The United States then the beginning of the decade could be viewed as calculated insanity, a planet being taken to the absolute brink, musical genius, a steel nerve by undoubtedly the finest President in 20th Century America and the start of the sprint to be on the moon first.

Doctor Who: 1963: The Space Race. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish 179. full post

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

Doctor Who: The Light At The End. Big Finish Audio Drama.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Louise Jameson, Sarah Sutton, Nicola Bryant, Sophie Aldred, India Fisher, Geoffrey Beevers, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Frazer Hines, Peter Purves, Maureen O’Brien, Jean Marsh, Anneka Wills, Wendy Padbury, Katy Manning, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Benedict Briggs, Nicholas Briggs, Oliver Hume, John Dorney.

Doctor Who: The Light At The End. Big Finish Audio Drama. full post

(830 words, estimated 3:19 mins reading time)

Jago & Litefoot: Chronoclasm. Series Three, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Philip Bretherton, Duncan Wisbey, Joanna Munro, Wendy Padbury.

Some crimes, especially the ones involving the laws of time are either caused by a megalomaniac hell bent on destruction of a certain race of people or species or due to greed, the powerful and sickening so called aphrodisiac that prays on the weak and gluttonous. Sometimes these two overlap and then the devastation is even harder to bear. Occasionally though the reason is a lot more pure and it is just the way it was devised and carried out that makes the plan hard to stomach. Such is Elliot Payne’s reason to change time, to end his own misery and loss. It doesn’t make it right but it is a lot more understandable that selling out and destroying an entire species for a pot of gold.

Jago & Litefoot: Chronoclasm. Series Three, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(526 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Jago & Litefoot: Swan Song. Series Three, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Ration 9/10

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Abigail Hollick, Hywel Morgan, Andrew Westfield, Philip Bretherton.

The power of a performance, the emotional resonance that bleeds across the stage from the actor to the audience and out in the open world as word of mouth and newspaper columns declare the genius of the words spoken, not only get stuck in the minds of those that see it, they also bleed through the walls of the theatre as if being used as a storage device; feeding and growing until it can take no more. Such is the theory that a building can hold the echoes of the past; it is the premise that sees Jago and Litefoot’s latest adventure in series three take on the voices and images of a story that could be their Swan Song.

Jago & Litefoot: Swan Song. Series Three, Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(527 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

Jago & Litefoot: The Man At The End Of The Garden. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jameson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Joanna Bacon, Eden Monteath, Joanna Monro, Duncan Wisbey.

There are some tales, supposedly written for the benefit of children that are really for the attention of adult world. Red Riding Hood, a tale of heroism perhaps in the hands of a small child or really the precautionary story and veiled warning to a woman not to let any old wolf take her virtue. Whatever the fairy-tale, whatever its meaning, the chance for children to be told instructive tales by adults somehow slows down the learning of the moral in the story and makes adults forget the unseen world in which children’s fears are played out.

Jago & Litefoot: The Man At The End Of The Garden. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(421 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Jago & Litefoot, Dead Men’s Tales. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter, Louise Jamieson, Conrad Asquith, Lisa Bowerman, Warren Brown, Andrew Westfield, Alex Mallinson.

Series Three of Jago and Litefoot, the popular spin-off from Doctor Who and made by Big Finish, greets with open arms an old friend to the Victorian world of amateur detective detection as Leela, the fourth Doctor’s incarnation’s noble savage, appears to warn her old friends that the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

Jago & Litefoot, Dead Men’s Tales. Series Three. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(485 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: 1963: Fanfare For The Commen Men. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 178.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton, Mitch Benn, Andrew Knott, David Dobson, Ryan Sampson, Alison Thea- Skot, Jonty Stephens, Barnaby Edwards.

1963 will be remembered for many things, many moments in time which defined how the following 50 years has been looked upon, sometimes with great fondness, sometimes with the pit in the stomach which leaves those living today feeling sick and morally outraged that it was allowed to happen.

Doctor Who: 1963: Fanfare For The Commen Men. Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 178. full post

(460 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Daleks Among Us, Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 177.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Tracey Childs, Christian Edwards, Terry Malloy, Jonathan Forbes, Nicholas Briggs, Tim Delap, Jessica Brooks, Paul Chandi.

There is only one way to perhaps to finish off what has been an absorbing trilogy involving one of the best female additions to the Doctor Who audio range, a machine so powerful that even in the Doctor’s hands can cause the listener anxiety issues and a fine quirky new companion straight from U.N.I.T.  and that’s by having the revulsion of the Doctor’s most hated enemy make an appearance alongside their creator. If all that can happen in one great story then what hope is there for others following after.

Doctor Who: Daleks Among Us, Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 177. full post

(522 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Starlight Robbery, Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 176.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Sylvester McCoy, Tracey Childs, Christian Edwards, Stuart Milligan, Dan Starkey, Jo Woodcock, Lizzie Roper.

There are just so many excellent elements to Starlight Robbery that it is surely impossible to dislike. Aside from the sublime writing of Matt Fitton, who makes a welcome return after a few months away, you have the erstwhile Elizabeth Klein, portrayed as usual with great assurance and ease by Tracey Childs, the sublime Stuart Milligan reprising his role as Garundel and the inclusion of the great Dan Starkey playing every Sontaran under the sun, what more could you ever want in an audio C.D.?

Doctor Who: Starlight Robbery, Audio Drama Review, Big Finish 176. full post

(635 words, estimated 2:32 mins reading time)

Darkside. Radio Review. B.B.C. Radio 2.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Iwan Rheon, Amaka Okafor, Rufus Sewell, Bill Nighy, Adrian Scarborough, Peter Marinker, Robert Blythe, Ben Crowe, Philippa Stanton.

Tom Stoppard’s pedigree goes before him, he is arguably one of the most prolific and important playwrights of the latter half of the 20th Century and his work has continued to be a source of inspiration and keenly watched and listened to. The idea though that he would come up with an original play that delved deep into the mindset of British Progressive Rock Kings Pink Floyd and their seminal 1973 best-selling album Dark Side of the Moon could be seen by some, if not many, as a voyage of linguistic artistry too far. However if anyone can do justice to the opus that revolves around madness then Tom Stoppard perhaps is one of the finest to even attempt it the daunting process.

Darkside. Radio Review. B.B.C. Radio 2. full post

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