For its fifth (!) series of monthly Fourth Doctor adventures, Big Finish has been trying to capture the tone of the 1979 season of Doctor Who. Season Seventeen is best remembered for having Douglas Adams was script editor and phenomenal viewing figures, thanks to the lengthy ITV strike. The parodic tone didn't always succeed and I found it tiresome as an earnest adolescent. As a middle-aged adult, I often prefer Season Seventeen to much that follows it in the 80s.
Gallery of Ghouls is written by Alan Barnes who wrote the Fourth Doctor and Leela into a parody of Abigail's Party last summer. Ah, haha. Er, yes.
But after the dull trudge of Jonathan Morris' two-part homage to Adams, this episode sees Tom at his most engaging. Celia Imrie heads the cast in this Brighton-based parody of Mystery of the Wax Museum.
BF's ability to cast big names is one of the reasons that The Trouble With Drax is as entertaining as its reviews make it out to be. A Cockney crime caper making creative and witty use of regeneration, it revives the character of the late Barry Jackson's Time Lord spiv from 1978. The cast is headed by the legendary Ray Brooks and John Challis but Miranda "Constance Clarke" Raison appears as a Scottish space cop too.
In what we think of as the "regular" monthly range (i.e. four part, rather than two-part stories), BF continue with themed trilogies; this summer, the Doctor's arch- indeed, often very arch- enemy features in all three.
And You Will Obey Me is a solo story for Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. His present day voice has a gravelly harshness that is appropriate to this dark story of children manipulated by the Master. Geoffrey Beevers balances the demented aspect of the corpse-like Time Lord with a sinister paternalism and this balance allows us to accept the juxtaposition of giant dragonflies and Russian mercenaries.
There's something of a side-step in Vampire of the Mind. Here, Colin Baker's bullish Sixth Doctor meets the fruity, flirty Master of the UNIT: Dominion and Dark Eyes box sets. Sixie investigates the Dominus Institute which is implicated in the disappearance of several scientists, with appealing one-off companion Heather Threadstone ( Kate Kennedy).
Drawing upon tv's The Mind of Evil and The Sea Devils, this is meat and potatoes DW that rises slightly above the usual plodding material penned by Justin Richards. There's an explanation of why the Doctor didn't recognise the Alexander Macqueen Master in Dominion and there's also a sinister twist at the end of the story, preparing the way for The Two Masters.
In the conclusion of the trilogy, an encounter with BF's Golden Age-styled pirates the Rocket Men leads the Seventh Doctor to discover reality itself is breaking down. Sylvester McCoy is largely off-stage in this story - which is probably wise, since he sounds like he hasn't looked at the script before the recording. The interplay between the two Masters is very effective, however; they sound gleefully malicious together. There's also a neat explanation as to why the Beevers Master is so bitchily verbose in the first episode. The Sixth Doc story is probably the most stand-alone but the tragedy of the "Scooby Gang" in the Davison story is the most involving.
Finally, for this post, I just finished listening to Big Finish's audio adaptation of Dracula starring Mark Gatiss, who will also reprise his performance as the Master before the summer's over.
I have to admit that I've never read the novel but of course, I've seen all the Lugosi, Chaney Jr. and Lee movies; the Louis Jourdan BBC version from the late 70s; and of course, read Marvel's Tomb of Dracula. The epistolary form of the novel makes it highly suitable for a variety of narrators.
It's not as nerve-shreddingly frightening as the original Hammer film but there is a real sense of mounting dread in the production. It was also nice to hear the American accent of the often-omitted American. Quincy P. Morris. There's a real sense also, in his character and that of Mina, of a vibrant, industrialised New World compelling Dracula to abandon his medieval Transylvanian milieu.
I wondered if Gatiss would chew the scenery but he's actually quite restrained: haughtily aristocratic and contemptuous of the vampire hunters. Over three discs, it's a pacy and atmospheric production.
It's nice to be able to say there was something to enjoy in the casting, writing and direction of all of these discs.
Coming soon: Conan and Ant-Man
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