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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Year Of The Pig

Doctor WhoThe Doctor and Peri arrive at a pleasant resort in 1913, meeting an assortment of fellow vacationers, few of whom are actually on vacation. Inspector Chardalot is pursuing a quarry he considers very dangerous, and Nurse Albertine is visiting in the company of a fellow vacationer who prefers not to show his face. That face is exactly what Miss Bultitude, a movie buff, would like to see. And the reason one of the vacationers isn’t showing his face? He’s Toby the Sapient Pig, a reclusive film star who is, in actuality, a sentient pig. But Toby’s not the only pig present, and his pursuers (whether adversaries or admirers) will stop at nothing to find him. Caught up in this collision of personalities and motives, the Doctor and Peri can do little but try to keep themselves, and anyone nearby, from coming to harm.

Order this CDwritten by Matthew Sweet
directed by Gary Russell
music by ERS

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Adjoa Andoh (Nurse Albertine), Paul Brooke (Toby the Sapient Pig), Michael Keating (Inspector Chardalot), Maureen O’Brien (Miss Alice Bultitude)

Timeline: after Timelash and before Revelation Of The Daleks

Notes: Actress Maureen O’Brien played TARDIS traveler Vicki, the first-ever “new companion” in the history of Doctor Who, during the William Hartnell years; she went on to star in Big Finish’s series Dalek Empire IV: The Fearless before returning to the role of Vicki in the Companion Chronicles. Michael Keating, who had already appeared in such Big Finish audios as The Twiligiht Kingdom, was the only original Blake’s 7 cast member to appear in all 52 episodes of that series; he later resumed the role of Vila when Big Finish picked up the license to produce classic Blake’s 7 audio dramas. Adjoa Andoh had made her first appearance in the newly revived TV series earlier in 2006 (as Nurse Jatt in New Earth), but would become a semi-regular for the 2007 and 2008 seasons as Martha Jones’ mother.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Cryptobiosis

Doctor Who: CryptobiosisAboard a cargo ship buffeted by the high seas during a storm, the Doctor and Peri go from being cautiously welcomed guests to murder suspects when a member of the crew is killed. The ship’s captain orders the Doctor locked up pending his court-martial…but when his own chief mate protests that the Doctor isn’t even a member of the ship’s company and crew, the captain drafts him into service to replace the ship’s missing doctor (reasoning that now the Doctor can undergo a court-martial and subsequent execution). Peri tends to a wheelchair-bound girl who receives periodic “treatments” from the chief mate, discovering that the girl is a captive specimen of a species thought to exist only in myths. Her people will be coming to rescue her soon…but will they make the distinction between the girl’s corrupt captor and everyone else on board the ship?

Order this CDwritten by Elliot Thorpe
directed by Gary Russell
music by David Darlington

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), Tony Beck (Chief Mate De Requin), Michael Cuckson (Captain Callany), Billy Miller (Nereus), Naomi Paxton (Amy)

Timeline: after Davros and before The Trial Of A Time Lord

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

I.D. / Urgent Calls

Doctor WhoI.D.: Something has gone horribly wrong among a spacefaring human community. “Scandroids” have systematically eliminated anyone with the knowledge to shut them down, and the populace lives in fear at the machines’ mercy – at least until the Doctor arrives to tip the balance back in the favor of the humans. But the Doctor’s own arrival may have set the scandroids’ mysterious, murderous plans into high gear – and somewhere, among the humans, is one person who knows more about those plans than they’re saying.

Urgent Calls: The Doctor contacts a telephone operator, who he claims has contracted a potentially fatal disease. Through repeated calls, he discovers that one side-effect of this illness has been a run of the most extraordinary luck, and his newfound friend is eager to share that with him, but once she learns that she’s talking to an alien, she seems to develop a few hang-ups about her benefactor.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Steve Foxon

I.D. Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Sara Griffiths (Claudia Bridge), Gyles Brandreth (Doctor Marriott), Helen Atkinson Wood (Ms. Tevez), David Dobson (Scandroids), Kerry Skinner (Lake), Joe Thompson (Gabe Stillinger), Natasha Pyne (Denise Stillinger)

Urgent Calls Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Kate Brown (Lauren), David Dobson (D.J.), Kerry Skinner (Connie)

Timeline: it is unknown if this takes place before or after the Doctor’s travels with Evelyn, so we’re left with “between The Trial Of A Time Lord and Time And The Rani“.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Wishing Beast / The Vanity Box

Doctor WhoThe Wishing Beast: The TARDIS brings the Doctor and Melanie to an isolated asteroid, home of the elderly Applewhite sisters. Oddly, they seem more eager to meet Mel than the Doctor, offering her a reward beyond imagining – an appointment with the Wishing Beast, who they claim can bring Mel’s fondest wishes to life. Indeed, not only are the sisters unimpressed by the Doctor, they begin to make little secret of the fact that they regard their colorful, inquisitive visitor as an obstacle to their plans. Ghostly spirits appear in opposittion to the sisters and the Wishing Beast, spirits which the Applewhites capture with what appears to be a specially equipped vacuum cleaner. The Doctor sets out to encounter some of these spirits on his own, suspecting that they can tell him the part of the story that the Applewhites aren’t sharing with him – and learning, along the way, of the horrible fate that awaits Melanie if she is introduced to the Wishing Beast.

The Vanity Box: Promising to take Mel someplace “fabulous” after the ordeal with the Applewhite family, the Doctor brings her to London in 1965, where a beautician with an unusual device, which he calls the Vanity Box, can literally take years off of a person’s face. Suspecting that dangerous alien technology is involved, the Doctor “drags it up” to find out what’s really inside the box, where he finds an old enemy.

Order this CDwritten by Paul Magrs
directed by John Ainsworth
music by ERS

The Wishing Beast Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie); Jean Marsh (Maria); Geraldine Newman (Eliza); Sean Connolly (Ghost/Mildew); Toby Sawyer (Daniel/Ghost Brother); Toby Longworth (The Wishing Beast); Rachel Laurence (Female Ghost)

The Vanity Box Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Bonnie Langford (Melanie); Diana Flacks (Nesta); Christine Moore (Winnie); Rachel Laurence (Bessy/Barmaid); Toby Longworth (Monsieur Coiffure)

Notes: Jean Marsh appeared as Joanna in the 1965 story The Crusade on TV, before joining the first Doctor and Steven as Space Security Agent Sara Kingdom on their time travels for the duration of the 12-part The Daleks’ Masterplan. Marsh returned much later to play Morgaine in Battlefield, the opening story of the final season of the original series in 1989. She has since reprised the role of Space Security Agent Sara Kingdom (deceased) in Big Finish’s Companion Chronicles audiobooks.

Timeline: after The Seeds Of War and before Time And The Rani

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

100

Doctor Who: 100The Doctor and Evelyn inadvertently interrupt a key moment in history – or so they think – when they meet the parents of Julius Caesar. When Evelyn insists that they jump forward to find out if Caesar really was born via caesarian section, the time travelers think they’ve found evidence that they’ve really changed history. Later, the Doctor and Evelyn encounter Mozart on his 100th birthday, but wind up meeting someone who wishes the great musician had died young, and then go to pay their respects to a former student of Evelyn’s whose father has just died, discovering that something has planted a deadly seed in the family tree. Finally, the Doctor discovers that he has been infected with a genetically-engineered virus by an assassin, and has only 100 days to live – and he and Evelyn proceed to spend those days trying to find the moment in the Doctor’s history when he was infected, and prevent it from happening.

Order this CDwritten by Jacqueline Rayner (100 B.C.), Robert Shearman (My Own Private Wolfgang), Joseph Lidster (Bedtime Stories) and Paul Cornell (The 100 Days Of The Doctor)
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by ERS

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn Smythe)

  • 100 BC: Will Thorp (Gaius Julius Caesar), Lucy Paterson (Aurelia), Susan Brown (Midwife)
  • My Own Private Wolfgang: John Sessions (Mozart)
  • Bedtime Story: Will Thorp (Jacob), Frank Finlay (Old Jacob), Martha Cope (Talia), Susan Brown (Mary), Lucy Paterson (Julia), Alex Mallinson (Patrick)
  • The 100 Days Of The Doctor: Nicholas Briggs (The Assassin)

Notes: 100 was added to Big Finish’s Doctor Who schedule late in the proceedings, replacing a six-part story, Earthstorm by SF novelist Stephen Baxter, which was originally slated to be the 100th release. Earthstorm was suddenly withdrawn from the schedule with no explanation offered, and has yet to be rescheduled for a later release date at the time of this writing.

Timeline: After The Nowhere Place and before Assassin In The Limelight

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Condemned

Doctor Who: The CondemnedStranded after the crash of the Cybership she helped to sabotage, Charley is cut off from the Doctor, and sets about building a crude crystal radio set to signal S.O.S. into the ether. She’s relieved when the TARDIS appears, but when she steps through the doors, she’s left speechless when she meets its occupant – the sixth Doctor, not the eighth. She’s very evasive about her origins and how she got to the future, which immediately raises the Doctor’s suspicions. The TARDIS next lands in Ackley House, an apartment block in Manchester in 2008 – in the apartment of a man who appears to have been murdered. Charley goes to find help, but never makes it back to the Doctor; instead, he’s found by the police and charged with murder. Charley has been abducted by a woman who lives in one of the other flats, and is held captive there until she manages to break free. When the body of the murder victim vanishes, the Doctor is off the hook, but he’s found a receptive ear in D.I. Menzies and continues to enlist her help in an investigation that involves aliens, money, and – despite appearances to the contrary – murder. Along the way, however, the Doctor begins to suspect that the girl he rescued from the future isn’t who she claims to be.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by David Darlington

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Anna Hope (D.I. Patricia Menzies), Will Ash (Sam), Sara De Freitas (Maxine), Lennox Greaves (Dr. Aldrich), James George (Slater), Diana Morrison (Antonia Bailey / Jane), Sephen Aintree (D.C.I. Turnbull / Goon / Police Officer / Guy in Gym), Steve Hansell (P.C. Blackstock / Police Officer / Guy in Gym)

Timeline: for the sixth Doctor, it is unknown if this takes place before or after his travels with Evelyn; for Charley, this story takes place immediately after The Girl Who Never Was

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Assassin In The Limelight

Doctor Who: Assassin In The LimelightThe TARDIS unceremoniously deposits the Doctor and Evelyn in Ford’s Theatre in Washington D.C. on the eve of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Upon being told by the theatre’s manager that one Oscar Wilde is rehearsing a performance of “The Importance Of Being Earnest” – a play that hasn’t been written since the real Wilde is still a child – the Doctor barges in on that rehearsal to find an old enemy at work. The man he and Evelyn battled in Edinborough, “Dr. Robert Knox,” is at it again, changing history to suit his own agenda – and in this case, it seems that Knox has murdered John Wilkes Booth, just hours away from Booth’s date with destiny as Lincoln’s assassin. Though the Doctor feels certain that time itself will offer a mid-course correction – as there are certainly other armed men angry enough to take a shot at the President – he leaves nothing to chance and tries to discover what Knox is doing here. He’s horrified to discover that Knox has inadvertently left Earth vulnerable to an alien invasion in the 1800s.

Order this CDwritten by Robert Ross
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Maggie Stables (Evelyn Smythe), Leslie Phillips (Dr. Robert Knox), Lysette Anthony (Clara Harris), Eric Loren (John Parker), Madeleine Potter (Lizzie Williams), Alan Marriott (Henry Clay Ford), Paul DuBois (John Wilkes Booth), Mikey O’Connor (Thomas Eckert)

Timeline: After 100 and before

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

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6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Doomwood Curse

Doctor Who: The CondemnedThe Doctor’s travels through time are interrupted by an unwelcome guest – not Charley, his strange new traveling companion who seems to know more than she’s saying (and claims to have amnesia), but rather a small ‘bot which arrives to tell the Doctor that a library book he checked out is long overdue. The book in question, a rather paint-by-numbers 18th century romance which makes a romantic hero out of notorious highwayman Dick Turpin, captures Charley’s imagination, but now she’ll have to help the Doctor return it before she can finish it. At the library, the Doctor and Charley discover a group of Grell arguing over the merits (or lack thereof) of fiction. Unable to grasp anything but the truth, the Grell have little tolerance for fiction, and it looks as though they’re about to put literary masterpieces into a bonfire. Charley interrupts their plans, but the book she was trying to return to the library is charred almost beyond recognition. The TARDIS next destination is the 18th century itself, but when events begin to unfold that parallel the plot of the damaged book, the Doctor grows suspicious. The plot developments spiral out of control, and Charley lterally loses herself in the story, becoming first the heroine of the piece, and then Dick Turpin’s deadly sidekick. Can the Doctor bring this land of fiction back to reality before Charley has a fatal date with destiny?

Order this CDwritten by Jacqueline Rayer
directed by Barnaby Edwards
music by Martin Johnson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Nicky Henson (Dick Turpin), Jonathan Firth (John), Hayley Atwell (Eleanor), Trevor Cooper (Sir Ralph), Geraldine Newman (Lady Sybil), Daisy Douglas (Susan), Suzie Chard (Molly)

Timeline: after The Condemned and before Brotherhood Of The Daleks

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Brotherhood Of The Daleks

Doctor Who: Brotherhood Of The DaleksThe Doctor is convinced that the TARDIS has returned him to Spiridon, the jungle planet where he’s done battle with the Daleks on more than one occasion. But despite the presence of the planet’s disctinctively deadly foliage, and a desperate band of outnumbered Thals who claim to be fighting a larger force of Daleks, something doesn’t add up – and finally the Doctor discovers that it isn’t Spiridon at all. Worse yet, in this artificial environment, even the beleaguered Thals are not who they appear to be…but who’s behind the deception? Daleks? Thals? Or someone else? Whoever it turns out to be, chances are that they won’t allow the Doctor to escape alive with whatever secrets he learns.

Order this CDwritten by Alan Barnes
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Michael Cochrane (Murgat), Harriet Kershaw (Tamarus), Derek Carlyle (Valion), Jo Casatleton (Nyaiad), Alison Thea-Skot (Jesic), Steve Hansell (Septal), Nicholas Briggs (The Daleks)

Notes: The Doctor visited Spiridon during his third incarnation in Planet Of The Daleks (1973), though in Big Finish’s universe, the seventh Doctor underwent a more extensive ordeal there at the mercy of the Daleks in Return Of The Daleks (2006). The Daleks mention having met Charley before, a reference to the eighth Doctor story The Time Of The Daleks (2002). The hallucinogenic plants were encountered by the Doctor in his fifth incarnation in the audio story The Mind’s Eye (2007).

Timeline: after The Doomwood Curse and before Return Of The Krotons

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

Return Of The Krotons

Doctor Who: Return Of The KrotonsThe Doctor and Charley arrive in the far future, on a far-flung human colony world. What they find there is troubling: the colony’s command structure is breaking down, and the colony’s leader is directing all of his attention toward the hunt for an elusive but valuable mineral called K7…even to the point of disposing of those who question his all-consuming obsession. When the Doctor and Charley show up asking questions, they find themselves at the top of the shortlist of people likely to disappear without a trace. An attempt to dispose of them via a convenient (but, of course, regrettable) underground explosion doesn’t kill them, but instead reveals a spacecraft that’s been buried on this planet for centuries. The spacecraft’s technology is crystalline, much like K7, and only then does the Doctor realize that he’s up against not only a despotic colony leader, but a very old enemy indeed.

written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas Briggs

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Philip Madoc (Rag Cobden), Matthew Burgess (Ned Gillespie), Susan Brown (Eleanor Harvey), Glynn Sweet (Professor Lyle Woodruff), Ian Brooker (Romilly), Andrew Dickens (Security), Nicholas Briggs (The Krotons)

Timeline: after Brotherhood Of The Daleks and before The Raincloud Man

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who The Audio Dramas

The Raincloud Man

Doctor Who: The Raincloud ManThe Doctor abruptly whisks Charley away from an otherwise pleasant breakfast on urgent business: he’s just read about incidents in Manchester that he suspects are caused by alien activity. A reunion with D.I. Menzies proves to be uneasy for all involved: despite the fact that he helped her solve (and indeed survive) her last brush with alien activity, the Doctor isn’t a welcome sight for Menzies, since trouble seems to follow him. For her part, Menzies seems to have become the go-to investigator for any crimes that have a whiff of paranormal or alien activity about them, and she’s developed a few contacts to help her, including a time-sensitive who can instantly detect the twisted timeline of one Charlotte Pollard. Her secret is out – at least to Menzies – and even though the detective inspector isn’t certain what the implications are for the time-traveling duo, she considers Charley a murder suspect when her time-sensitive informant turns up dead. All leads point the Doctor and friends to a riverboat casino – one which has apparently traveled much further than just downriver. Two alien races converge on this location, prepared to wage the latest battle in a seemingly unresolvable war, and the stakes of the betting have never been higher. The Doctor has to rally his allies around him to save Earth from the carnage and try to stop the bloodshed – but he finds himself increasingly suspicious of his own traveling companion.

Order this CDwritten by Eddie Robson
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Andy Hardwick

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Anna Hope (D. I. Menzies), Michael Fenton Stevens (Brooks), Aidan J. David (Lish), Octavia Walters (Carmen), Simon Sherlock (Kelsa), Jeremy James (Tabbalac Leader), Steven Hansell (The Bouncers), Andrew Dickens (The Cyrox)

Timeline: after Return Of The Krotons and before Patient Zero

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who

Patient Zero

Doctor Who: Patient ZeroIn the aftermath of their fateful visit to near-future Manchester, the Doctor and Charley are at odds – the Time Lord doesn’t trust his companion’s story about not remembering her past, and she remains frustratingly tight-lipped. But before they can continue their conversation any further, Charley falls ill, and the Doctor is forced to take her to the TARDIS’ Zero Room to stabilize her. She has contracted some kind of virus, and the Doctor sets the TARDIS on a course for the Amethyst Viral Containment Station, a massive space station devoted to preserving – in complete isolation – samples of every virus known to exist; if the cure for Charley’s illness can be found anywhere, it will be here. But shortly after the time travelers arrive at Amethyst, each of them faces a dilemma. Charley isn’t alone in her own mind, which is now being shared with a chatty being named Mila, who claims that she has been with the Doctor, in noncorporeal form, since his first incarnation. And the Doctor is horrified to discover that two invasion forces are converging on Amethyst: a Dalek strike force seeking ammunition for viral warfare, and a Viyran ship whose crew will stop at nothing to stop the Daleks’ mission. Anyone caught in the crossfire is unlikely to find mercy. And Charley is losing the battle for control of her own mind and body…

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Howard Carter

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Michael Maloney (Fratalin), Jess Robinson (Mila), Nicholas Briggs (Etheron / Daleks)

Notes: Mila claims to have escaped from the Daleks and fled into the safety of the TARDIS during the events of The Chase, the third Dalek story in Doctor Who’s televised history. She also references events from The Daleks’ Master Plan and Power Of The Daleks.

Timeline: after The Raincloud Man and before Paper Cuts

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who

Paper Cuts

Doctor Who: Paper CutsThe Doctor receives a summons from the Red Emperor of Draconia for an important state event; the TARDIS materializes and the Doctor discovers that the occasion is the Emperor’s own funeral and a vigil held in advance of the announcement of his successor. The time travelers haven’t even arrived on Draconia itself, but rather in the spaceborne tomb of the late Emperor, floating alongside the tombs of previous rulers of Draconia in deep space. Others are in the Emperor’s tomb as well: his late wife (and high priestess), his son (presumably heir to the throne), a lowly fisherman, a mercenary, and most alarmingly, the recently-murdered prefect who had come to deliver the decree of succession which would reveal the identity of the next Emperor. With aliens and commoners at odds with the nobles and their usual court intrigue, nerves are frayed and tempers flare. But elsewhere in this tomb lies an even deadlier threat – a dark secret that has outlived every Emperor of Draconia, and may now outlive everyone aboard the Emperor’s tomb, including the Doctor and Charley.

Order this CDwritten by Marc Platt
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Steve Foxon

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charlotte Pollard), Anthony Glennon (Prince / Young Red Emperor), Sara Crowe (Queen Mother), Paul Thornley (Gomori / Steward), John Banks (Soldier), Nicholas Briggs (Prefect / Red Emperor)

Notes: The Draconians’ sole TV appearance in Doctor Who came in the form of the 1973 Jon Pertwee six-parter Frontier In Space. However, the stylishly designed aliens with their intricate (even for the early ’70s) makeup and well-defined, honor-bound society captured fans’ collective imagination, and the Draconians have featured in novels and fan-made video productions such as Mindgame ever since. This is the Draconians’ first Big Finish appearance.

Timeline: after Patient Zero and before Blue Forgotten Planet

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who

Blue Forgotten Planet

Doctor Who: Blue Forgotten PlanetThe TARDIS brings the Doctor and Charley – actually Mila in Charley’s body – to future Earth, where the human race is divided into a technologically and scientifically competent caste and a larger tribe of vicious nomads. Infected with something that both sides simply know as “the madness,” the nomadic humans have regressed to a feral state. The only thing keeping the madness at bay for the more civilized pockets of humanity is a vaccine provided by the Viyrans. When the Doctor and Mila/Charley are scanned by the humans for traces of the madness, the Viyrans are very interested in Mila and send a ship to Earth – a ship that also happens to contain the real Charley, alive and well. Now a number of truths must come out: that the Viyrans are terminating their support of the human race and will soon terminate the entire species, that Mila is not really Charley, and that Charley is from the Doctor’s own future – and traveling with him his created a potentially deadly paradox with implications that reach far beyond the TARDIS.

Order this CDwritten by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), India Fisher (Charley Pollard), Michael Maloney (Viyrans / Alien), J.J. Feild (David McCallister), Andree Bernard (Ellen Green), Alec Newman (Ed Driscoll), Sam Clemens (Sgt. James Atherton), Alex Mallinson (Soldier Clive), Jess Robinson (Mila)

Notes: Apart from the Companion Chronicles release Solitaire, this is India Fisher’s final appearance to date as Charley Pollard in audio Doctor Who, after playing the character since Paul McGann’s first Big Finish story in 2001. She continues her work for Big Finish in other capacities, including an appearance in one of the company’s Sherlock Holmes audio plays.

Timeline: after Paper Cuts and before City Of Spires

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green

Categories
6th Doctor Doctor Who Lost Stories

The Nightmare Fair

Doctor Who: The Nightmare FairThe Doctor brings the TARDIS to a landing at Blackpool in 1986, promising Peri a relaxing getaway for once. But other alien forces have different plans for Blackpool: the Celestial Toymaker is play-testing a new arcade game there, one which burns out the minds of those players who prove to be very good at it. The two time-travelers are separated, and the Toymaker intends to use Peri as a pawn to secure the Doctor’s cooperation in his scheme to take over the world.

Order this CDoriginal script by Graham Williams
adapted for audio by John Ainsworth
directed by John Ainsworth
music by Jamie Robertson

Cast: Colin Baker (The Doctor), Nicola Bryant (Peri), David Bailie (Celestial Toymaker), Matthew Noble (Kevin), Andrew Fettes (Stefan), Louise Faulkner (Woman), William Whymper (Shardlow / Attendant), Toby Longworth (Yatsumoto/Truscott/Manager/Man), Duncan Wisbey (Humandroid/Security Man/Geoff/Guard)

Notes: This first entry in the Lost Stories range of sixth Doctor audios was originally written by former Doctor Who producer Graham Williams as the opening story of season 23; the last TV story of season 22, Revelation Of The Daleks, was actually intended to end with the Doctor promising to take Peri to Blackpool, as a lead-in to The Nightmare Fair. Of course, Doctor Who was taken off the air after season 22 by the then-controller of BBC1, Michael Grade, leading to one of the most controversial periods in the show’s history. The existing scripts for season 23 were scrapped and replaced by the Trial Of A Time Lord season. The Nightmare Fair joined two other abandoned season 23 scripts as novelizations, and was also adapted for audio as a charity fan-made project. David Bailie, who appeared in the classic Doctor Who story Robots Of Death, also plays the part of the Celestial Toymaker (originally played by the late Michael Gough) in the seventh Doctor audio story The Magic Mousetrap, as well as in a Companion Chronicles story featuring the eighth Doctor and Charley, Solitaire. The Nightmare Fair would have been a timely story in 1986, dealing with video games as a plot element, and several classic (if rather dated by 1986 standards) video game sounds are heard in the background of this story, most notably various Atari 2600 sound samples and, most prominently, the opening fanfare of Namco‘s Galaxian arcade game (1979). (The Doctor professes a liking for an even older game, Space Invaders, and who are we to argue?)

Timeline: after Revelation Of The Daleks and before Mission To Magnus

LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green