From the viaduct at Cullen
Yesterday, by contrast ,was warm and sunny at Grantown on Spey, the handsome planned town about 35 miles away ( and in Highland region). Scotland was at its greenest, hilliest and most Scottish. I finished listening to the third volume of the Tenth Doctor Adventures from Big Finish on this new bus route.
From the Dava Way, looking toward the Cromdale Hills
No Place by James Goss is the first reunion on audio for the entire Noble family. Sylvia has previously appeared in two Goss stories:Wild Pastures, in the Tenth Doctor Chronicles set, (which were narrated by Jake Dudman) last April and then in Skin Deep, part of the first Lady Christina set last August. It's an absolute delight to hear Bernard Cribbins as Wilf again. In fact an entire box set of Tennant and Cribbins would be molto bene. Unfortunately, this story didn't really work for me.
Its use of audio "found footage" was certainly innovative ( I was reminded a little of Student Bodies from Twelve Angels Weeping). However, I found No Place's parodic story of a haunted tv makeover show too episodic and not nearly spooky enough. The banter between newlyweds Donna and the Doctor seemed an out of character imposture- although the actors were clearly enjoying it. I was disappointed because Goss's Death and the Queen was probably my favourite in the first box set. (2/5 Talmars.
One Mile Down is written by Jenny T. Colgan, who also wrote Time Reaver in the first Tenth Doc box set. She also wrote about the Doctor and Donna in 2016's In the Blood. Her first original Who novel was 2012's Dark Horizons, coincidentally the 50th of the BBC hardbacks and she adapted The Christmas Invasion for Target last April. I haven't been a huge fan of her work, really, but I enjoyed this undersea fantasy.
Colgan satririses the negative impact of tourism on indigenous people with the holiday planet Vallarasee. Its domed city is policed by Judoon and Nick Briggs creates an appealing junior Judoon, Clo. Scenes were stolen, however by Robert Whitelock's Garth: the archetypal arrogant Brit Abroad. There's a uneasy menace as the seas reclaim the city and threaten to drown the tourists. The costume designs by DW legend June Hudson are an attractive extra. (3/5 Talmars)
The Creeping Death by Roy Gill is the first BF audio I've seen on vinyl ( in Asda) and having recently got a new vinyl turntable, I was very tempted to get it. But I knew I'd already bought it with this set, so I stopped myself. Might not be so resolute when Wave of Destruction comes out later this month.
Gill wrote The Light Keepers for the Eleventh Doctor Chronicles last August and the River/ Master story Animal Instinct this January.
At first, I thought this novel would be too much like 2002's Amorality Tale, David Bishop's grim tale of the Third Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. It, too, was, set in The Great Smog of December 1952 but Creeping Death is a much less gruesome and violent story, set partly in a cinema and a bus garage.
Where Bishop's alien Xhinn were a more traditional alien impostors, Gill's Fumifugium are a collective not dissimilar to the Vashta Nerada -but no less manipulative than the Xhinn, Smoke monsters are a visual threat and don't quite convince on audio for me. However, I was entertained by the guest cast: plucky usherette Ivy; hilarious actress and Terry, whom Donna notes is figuratively "on the other bus"- and then quite literally so.
Gill's likeable Polari-speaking characters present a perhaps-unrealistically sunny portrait of gay life in the 1950s - there's a nod to Summer Holiday in the script- but this trad "Base Under Siege" story was my favourite in the set. (4/5 Talmars)
Speaking of summer holidays, today I finally made a commitment and booked a couple of days in Sandhead near Stranraer for the end of this month. Over the next couple of posts, I'll be looking at the Third Doctor's fifth Big Finish outing on audio and some Steve Ditko comics; then in August, perhaps some Red Sonja and Ralph Bakshi.
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