Doctor Who The War Games audiobook review

The War Games is a notable Doctor Who adventure for a couple of reasons. The most obvious one being that it was Patrick Troughton’s swan song as the Second Doctor.
The other is the length of the story. At ten episodes, it is the longest televised Who adventure to date. This, as you may know, came about during production when what was originally a four part story became six parts when another script fell through, and was then increased to ten parts as they lost a second script. It is a testament to the professionalism of writers Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke that this story ended up being as strong as it is. Yes, it is way way too long with far too many capture and escape scenes, but the writers manage to keep everything rolling along nicely.

This then, is an audio book of Malcolm Hulke’s novelisation. The story itself differs somewhat from the television script. I recently rewatched the story, and Hulke has wisely ejected a lot of the aforementioned repetitive sections and has juggled with the plot somewhat, adding additional scenes and more depth to the characters.
The production itself is very good, and the sparse use of sound effects and music adds atmosphere without detracting from the narrative. But very special mention must be made of the narrator of this audiobook- David Troughton. David is, of course, the son of Patrick and was even an actor in the televised version.

As you would expect from an actor of his calibre, the reading he gives is excellent, with each character getting a distinctive voice. Some of his accents are a little bit off, but I think it’s fair to say they’re probably better than those of the original actors. However, it’s when he’s doing the Doctor- his father’s voice- that things get startling. He has Patrick’s inflections and voice to a ‘T’. Every few minutes I had to remind myself that this was not a recording of the soundtrack, but another actor. Surely having David Troughton do more of this with the lost Second Doctor adventures is a no-brainer? Please, AudioGo- do it!

Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks audio review

A quick history lesson for all you young people out there before we begin. You know before these new fangled DVDs that you have? Well there was a thing called ‘video tape.’ Imagine that! Films on a big clunky tape! And before that, do you know what we had? Nothing.
That’s right- once a film or TV show was finished that was it- we’d never see it again, unless it was repeated sometime at a later date.
For something like Doctor Who, this was a terrible thing for the fans- sci-fi fans are a strange bunch and we like to watch the things we love again and again. But for Who, what we had were the Target novelizations. They were adaptations of the television scripts, and almost always seemed to be written by Terrance Dicks.

Now, why am I telling you all this?
Because in 1979 the BBC released a version of the classic tale Genesis of the Daleks on vinyl LP. By the way, for those too young to know- vinyl was what we had before CDs. What this release was, was abridged version of the episodes of the story with bridging narration read by the then Doctor Tom Baker.
Now Audio Go have rereleased it on CD, so a whole new generation can get to hear it.
First up, I should mention the packaging, which is a reproduction of the original LP sleeve. And then there is the CD itself, which is a thing of beauty as you can see:

The recording itself is a marvellous artefact, and an interesting piece of old merchandising. But as well as that, it is also very entertaining indeed. For all that we love the story, I doubt there are many fans out there who would deny that it is very flabby around the middle with a series of pointless capture/escape scenes padding things out. Shorn of all that, what you get here is an hour long version which amounts to all the best scenes, including the classic one where Davros and the Doctor speak “Not as prisoner and captor, but as men of science,” held together by some nice narration by Baker.

While I’m a big fan of most of the Who audio stuff, I’d go further with this one and say that it is pretty much essential.

Doctor Who The Jade Pyramid review

Big Finish are not the only folks to release Doctor Who audio adventures. This one comes from Audio Go and has the distinction of being read by the Eleventh Doctor himself- Matt Smith.

Now, I’ve made no secret in the past of my opinion of Smith. I honestly think he’s the best Doctor yet.

I’m happy to report that he doesn’t let me down here. It’s fascinating to hear him read this tale, and to hear the subtle change in his voice between the narrator and The Doctor. That, my friends, is acting! Although in the interest of full disclosure, his Scottish accent when he’s reading Amy Pond is… not the best!

As for the story- it’s a pretty good one. We’ve got a brilliant setting- feudal Japan- and an interesting cast of characters in a well written and complex but not overly complicated plot. There are also some lovely character beats in it- the writer clearly understands the Doctor and the dialogue both he and Amy get sounds authentic. This may sound like an obvious thing, but you’d be surprised how hard it is for some writers to get it right.

The only problem is that the Big Secret behind what’s going on is a bit obvious and bordering on a sci-fi cliché. It could be argued, of course, that younger listeners- at which I suspect this is squarely aimed (which is good- it should keep them quiet on a long car journey!) won’t be aware of this, which is fair enough.

Like the Big Finish range, this also manages to convey a nice period atmosphere with use of sound effects and music, and it’s well worth an hour and a bit of your time.

Oh, and another thing... the sleeve notes credit the Doctor Who theme to Murray Gold. Arrangement by, maybe- but the Doctor Who theme was composed by, as we all know, Rob Grainer.