SPANISH LADIES by Paul Magrs

Hammer Chillers, Download, £2.99

Reviewed by Chris Limb

Phil’s Mummy doesn’t have much in her life – just the occasional evening out at the Friday night bingo with her friend Reneé, looking after her socially awkward middle aged son and making her “Spanish Ladies” – cheap dolls she buys and customises to use as toilet roll covers. She has dreams of visiting Spain herself one day and has nightmares about her son being taken away from her by some cheap blonde bit…

Whilst there’s no sign of her dreams ever coming true, her nightmares might. Mummy begins to have her suspicions about what Phil’s been up to. If she’s right there’s no telling what she might do…

Whilst the Overbearing Mother and Awkward Single Son may be a familiar theme in darker fiction – from the Bates in Psycho to the Sowerbutts in Psychoville – Spanish Ladies is a refreshing and different take on it. One of the strengths of this play is Jacqueline King’s powerful performance as the deranged Mummy and the sinister conversations she has with her Spanish Ladies as she goes through her son’s possessions looking for evidence. Ewan Bailey’s Phil is suitably self-conscious and clumsy, at turns both sympathetic and sinister and Camile Coduri’s Reneé comes across as a naive innocent who nevertheless has secrets and an agenda of her own.

The 1976 setting of this play is perfect – evoking the stagnation of suburbia in the summer heat and the dreams of escape to the Costa Brava. There is a lot of humour inherent in the story, which makes the dark turns it takes all the more shocking when they leap out at the listener, the final chilling twist making this a genuine tale of the unexpected…

GODS AND MONSTERS by Mike Maddox and Alan Barnes

Big Finish Productions, CD £14.99, Download £12.99

Reviewed by Matthew Johns

This is the last of the Doctor Who series featuring the black and white Tardises (Tardii?), and brings the epic series to a satisfying conclusion.

Whilst on their mission to rescue The Doctor, Ace, Hex, Sally and Lysandra find themselves in a very strange place.  Surrounded by warriors dead and alive, they find themselves drawn deeper and deeper into a deadly game orchestrated by The Doctor’s old foe, Fenric, portrayed here by the excellent John Standing (known to many as Jon Arryn in HBO’s Game of Thrones series).

Big Finish have created yet another masterpiece for Doctor Who fans young and old alike.  Whether you’ve never seen an episode with Sylvester McCoy as The Doctor, or like this reviewer grew up glued to every episode of every incarnation available, this is a treat for the ears.

Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor finds himself at the borders of insanity, but then battles back to be the strong-willed, determined character that viewers will recognise.  His voice is music to the ears, with his dulcet tones and perfect enunciation bringing life to the script.  The companions are all strong players, with Philip Olivier’s performance deserving a special mention as Hex.

BLACK AND WHITE by Matt Fitton

Big Finish Productions, CD £14.99, Download £12.99

Reviewed by Matthew Johns

This continues on from Protect and Survive, where Ace and Hex escape from a nuclear nightmare, straight into another.  They find themselves in Denmark, where Beowolf is about to fight and defeat the monster Grendel, or at least that’s what the popular tale had you think happened…

As in the previous episode, Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor is reduced to a supporting part, while the very able Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier take the spotlight as Ace and Hex, respectively.  Both are accomplished actors, and along with the rest of the cast, including Maggie O’Neill as Lysandra Aristedes and Amy Pemberton as Sally Morgan, two alternate companions to The Doctor, make this compulsive listening.

All Big Finish audio dramas have the same, exacting standards and are easily some of the best produced, audio books I have enjoyed.  If you’re a fan of Doctor Who, these are an absolute must have – Big Finish do an incredible job of bringing everyone’s favourite Gallifreyan and his companions to life.

WAR AGAINST THE LAAN by Nicholas Briggs

Big Finish, CD £10.99, download £8.99,

Reviewed by Chris Limb

“Sorry, Doctor but it seems I don’t need you after all!”

Cuthbert, ruthless CEO of the ubiquitous Corporation, is determined to find out what the swarm of alien Laan are doing on Earth and whether he can make use of them – not to mention getting revenge on them for wrecking one of his precious experiments… Even allying themselves with Earth President Moorkurk is no guarantee that the Doctor and Romana will be able to stop him – Cuthbert has fingers in many important pies and is unafraid to do whatever it takes to succeed. Unfortunately if he does it may wipe out billions of innocent Laan – and spell the end of all life on Earth…

War Against the Laan continues directly on from the preceding story in the series, The Sands of Life, wasting no time in moving the story along from the cliff-hanger at the end of the latter and raising the stakes. There is a palpable sense of relief when the TARDIS crew gain the trust of President Moorkurk, a relief that is short-lived when it becomes clear just how little control she really has over the errant Cuthbert and his lackeys.

Hayley Atwell’s President is given more of a spotlight here than in the previous story and she gives a credible performance as the newly elected Head of State – vulnerable and unsure but intelligent and thoughtful, willing to make tough decisions when the situation demands it (even if they may sometimes be the wrong ones). David Warner’s Cuthbert is as magnificently callous as he was in the previous instalment – and the hints dropped that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the character are welcome. Mention should also be made of his obsequious sidekick Mr Dorrick who is skilfully portrayed by Toby Hadoke.

The regular cast also get their moments to shine – Tom Baker does what he does best taking his Fourth Doctor from humour to seriousness and then on to convincingly righteous fury in a heartsbeat, whilst Mary Tamm’s Romana is as calm and collected in a crisis as she ever was on screen, despite the wringer her character is put through in the story when she experiences the pain of a member of the Laan being experimented upon.

War Against the Laan does what Doctor Who often does best; using an alien protagonist (or in this case protagonists –Romana is from Gallifrey too) to illustrate that aside from being indomitable, Homo sapiens is often capable of giving the monsters a run for their money in the villainy stakes.

As with the previous story, the sound design and music is first class; strongly evoking the atmosphere of the TV show in 1979.

THE FIXATION by Mark Morris

Hammer Chillers, Download, £2.99

Reviewed by Chris Limb

Neurotic busybody Ian Hibbert is becoming increasingly frustrated by life in Darwell. When him and his family first moved there fourteen years ago it was a pleasant place to live but recently it has been turning into a slum, rubbish piling up uncollected in the streets and gangs of hooded youths running unchecked across the estates.

With a couple of like-minded neighbours he starts the Clean Up Darwell group and is determined to make the town once more a pleasant place to live even if they do have to collect all the rubbish themselves.

To Hibbert’s shock and surprise his initiative is met with outright hostility and after his daughter is attacked it becomes clear that someone wants Darwell left just as it is.

Is there no one to turn to?

The Fixation is a play that keeps the listener guessing right up until the last scene – and even then leaves some questions unanswered. The play starts out in a light hearted comic vein, Miles Jupp’s Ian Hibbert is just the kind of obsessive agitated character that an audience loves to loath and yet on some level sympathises with, a man driven to the brink of a coronary by the way the world appears stacked against him.

The comedy continues with the introduction of his fellow members of Clean Up Darwell (“We are not calling ourselves CUD!”) especially Ewan Bailey’s cheerful van owning Malcolm Beglin. It’s only when the group start to be frustrated in their ambitions at every turn and then threatened that the comedic atmosphere turns dark. Worse is the indifference of the local police, even when Hibbert’s daughter Samantha (Lauren Kellegher) is attacked. By the time it becomes clear just how isolated the Hibberts and their colleagues are the sense of claustrophobia and isolation is palpable.

The unanswered questions about Darwell leave the way open for Hammer Chillers to revisit this location in future, although as Hibbert learns, perhaps some places are best left well alone.

THE BOX by Stephen Gallagher

Hammer Chillers, Download, £2.99

Reviewed by Chris Limb

The Box – nickname for the device used in the final session of the helicopter safety training course at the maritime college after which participants will get the certificate they need to go and work out on the oilrigs. The principle is very simple. The Box is a reproduction helicopter cockpit that is dropped into a tank of water to simulate the conditions of a sea crash.

Given the calibre of the participants, this shouldn’t be a problem. However, once they emerge some of them are visibly shaken by the experience, refuse to talk about it and drop out before completing the course.

What is happening to them down there? What’s in the Box?

This is a highly effective spooky tale that should manage to unnerve even the most blasé of listeners without having to resort to shock tactics. A fully dramatized play, it relies on the skills of the actors involved to get the story across and does so very successfully, the sparse sound design enhancing rather than detracting from the story.

Throughout the play the menace is excellently implied without any of the characters ever having to state the obvious; the matter of fact attitude of the main protagonist Sean Dickens (Con O’Neill) doesn’t falter until he experiences the Box himself. At no point does anyone consider the supernatural and the refusal of any of the Box’s victims to talk about what happens makes it all the more frightening when we eventually hear it for ourselves.

Best listened to during daylight unless you enjoy disturbed sleep.

THE SANDS OF LIFE by Nicholas Briggs

Big Finish, CD £10.99, download £8.99

Reviewed by Chris Limb

“Why are humans always so aggressive?”
“Because they’re often so very afraid…”

Sheridan Moorkurk may very well have just been elected President of Earth, but soon discovers that even the President can finds it difficult to say no to Cuthbert, CEO of the all pervasive Corporation.  Nearby the Doctor, Romana and K9 are startled to discover a space-going swarm of aliens, the Laan who number in their billions, heading for the SaharaDesert, nearly destroying one of the Corporation’s space platforms on the way in and disrupting one of Cuthbert’s experiments.

What are the aliens’ intentions?  The TARDIS crew are caught in the crossfire of what could be the beginning of all out war between the Humans and the Laan…

Before the video recorder became commonplace the only way you could experience the show again was to place a tape recorder in front of the TV speaker and record the soundtrack. 1979, when this story slots into the real-world timeline of the programme, was a year in which portable tape recorders were commonplace. This lends the experience of listening to The Sands of Life without being able to see what’s going on a delicious extra kick of verisimilitude for Doctor Who fans of a certain generation, adding an extra layer of enjoyment to what is already a very fine recreation of the time.

This recreation is aided and abetted by a very fine incidental music score (by author Nicholas Briggs) which successfully generates the atmosphere and sound of the works of 70s Who composer Dudley Simpson.

The story itself plays to the strengths of the series in this era, with echoes of the late great Robert Holmes in its plotting and situations, although the medium of audio of course allows for far more impressive locations – such as a helicopter trip across the deserts of North Africa – than the production team in the late seventies would have been able to recreate.

The guest cast is impressive, especially David Warner whose genre credentials and excellent voice make his portrayal of Cuthbert a memorable one; a bluff, no-nonsense businessman (who can easily be imagined starring in this century’s version of the Apprentice) who is more dangerous than you might give him credit for. His arrogance makes him the perfect target for the Doctor’s scorn, a balance of anger and ridicule that Tom Baker recaptures in his performance.

Once more Mary Tamm’s Romana takes charge, holding her own in a story which once more sees her separated from the Doctor, and after an absence from the preceding story it’s good to hear John Leeson as K9 again.

The Sands of Life turns out to be the first part of a longer story, the cliff-hanger upon which it ends making the listener all the more eager for the next instalment.

THE AUNTIE MATTER by Jonathan Morris

Big Finish, CD £10.99, download £8.99,

Reviewed by Chris Limb

“He might at least have killed us before losing all interest!”

Having denied him the Key to Time, the Doctor and Romana are on the run from the Black Guardian. Sending the TARDIS off on remote control to flit around a couple of thousand worlds at random to throw their hunter off the scent, the two Time Lords take refuge in “one of the three great periods in Earth history” – London, England during the roaring twenties.

Leaving the Doctor tinkering with a home made etheric field disturbance detector, Romana pops out to browse bookshops in Bloomsbury. But each of them unbeknownst to the other is drawn into an investigation of the alien incursion in Hampshire. It appears that there is more to gormless toff Reggie Bassett’s Aunt Florence than might at first meet the eye…

This story is set during the period where on TV producer Graham Williams and script editor Douglas Adams put their own distinctive mark on the series, and as such the script is written with just the right balance of humour and action (plus a couple of mostly harmless references to Adams’s more notorious works).

The atmosphere of the story itself feels wonderfully like Douglas Adams’s spiritual predecessor, PG Wodehouse. The 1920s is an era little explored by Doctor Who on television but is one that suits Tom Baker’s fourth Doctor down to the ground and he recaptures perfectly the slightly defensive attitude the Doctor displayed at this time when dealing with a companion who graduated from Time LordAcademy with a far higher grade than he did.

Mary Tamm’s performance here is pitch-perfect, recollecting the confidence and poise of Romana’s first incarnation, a strong character who could fly the TARDIS better than the Doctor – it is good to hear more from her than the one season in which she appeared on TV. One of the cleverest parts of the story is the way that she and the Doctor are separated for most of the action and yet both have a hand in defeating Julia Mackenzie’s Aunt Florence in parallel, each of them picking up a human sidekick along the way.

The experience of listening to this play (and its successors in this second season of Fourth Doctor Adventures) is lent an unavoidable melancholic atmosphere by the knowledge that Mary Tamm died shortly after completing this series of audios. The tribute to her by Tom Baker in the additional material at the close of the disc is moving and appropriate.

CHOSEN OF KHORNE by Anthony Reynolds, Black Library, audio, £10, www.blacklibrary.com

Reviewed by Sandra Scholes

From the start of Chosen of Khorne, Sean Barrett sets the scene for the entire seventy minute production. You get to feel how old and weary some of The World Eaters are, and how they are supposed to fight even when their flesh and bones have already given up. You also get a feeling they have journeyed a long way to get where they are, and are tired as a result. As a listener, your mind fills in the blanks in the narrative perfectly, and each voice actor can convey their particular character well. Sean tells of the risks they take to become the best, and the competition they have with the other combatants.

There is no doubt that each scene from the ten chapters has an eerie presence, as well as evoking the pain and gore of their actions. The production is plagued by endless footsteps, dramatic action and screams of insanity fill the air. The cover art shows an arena filled with spectators and proud warriors who have been in several wars, all intending to fight for Khorne, hoping he will let them fight along with him, but in chaos’s heated plane, only a chosen few will be able to live to see their victory become a reality.

Two warriors unite hoping to gain a sure victory, but for Argus Brond, a berserker of The World Eaters. His joining with Khorne might cause more trouble than it is worth. These men are a unique group of warriors who bathe in the chaos from the days of the Horus Heresy and have the anger of berserkers. On following Angron, they have modified their brains with neural implants that make them more aggressive, making them invincible in battle.

Brond and Maven give the impression that they have been modified as their voices emit an almost sinister, animal tone which fits in well with the descriptions of those who have been exposed and taken in by chaos in the graphic novels. They can be defined as creepy and sinister, and that goes to create an even better atmosphere for the production. Brond has his own idea of what he wants to do, and so has Maven, and they try their best to tolerate each other’s company during the time they are together around Khorne. The narration alone is enough to remind some of the original War of the Worlds audio play, and has the same level of impact on the listener.

THE OSEIDON ADVENTURE by Alan Barnes

Big Finish, CD £10.99, download £8.99

Reviewed by Chris Limb

“Now there’s a face only a mother could love…”

Having been outwitted at the eleventh hour, the Doctor and Leela can only watch in horror as the Master’s scheme appears to succeed and his new allies – the Kraals – arrive through the wormhole to begin their invasion of Earth.

However, this turns out to be an uneasy alliance. Can the Master really trust Marshal Grinmal and the Second Kraal Army and can either of them trust their human ally, the “feeble minded reactionary” Colonel Spindleton? Things are not what they seem and when the Doctor is taken prisoner and locked up on the Krall’s home-planet Oseidon, it is up to Leela to take charge…

Following directly on from the cliff-hanger at the end of the previous audio adventure, Trail of the White Worm, The Oseidon Adventure feels more like the last two parts of a four part story, the change of gear and scene something common to the era of Doctor Who in which it is set.  Retaining the same central cast with the added threat of the Kraals allows Barnes to up the ante and leave the listener guessing right up until the end. Furthermore, the inclusion of three distinct camps on the villains’ side (counting Spindelton as having his own Rabid Right agenda) allows the Doctor and Leela to play them off against each other in a very satisfactory manner.

The decision to reuse the Kraals – one hit wonders from 1975’s The Android Invasion – seems odd at first but they do make perfect comedic villains for the Graham Williams era in which this story is nominally set and besides, their technological specialities established on TV provide this story with some of its more unexpected twists and turns.

The Master’s ultimate plan is once again very much within his familiar method of working, but such are the character’s strengths and Geoffrey Beevers’s performance that this doesn’t matter. As in Trail of the White Worm his interaction with Tom Baker’s Doctor is highly enjoyable, the humour with which it is injected a welcome contrast to the more sombre encounters between the Fourth Doctor and the Master on television. Louise Jameson puts in a fantastic performance as Leela takes charge, facing down enemies with both courage and passion.

This story brings the first “season” of Fourth Doctor adventures produced by Big Finish to a close. Given their quality the good news is that both a second (featuring the late Mary Tamm as Romana) and third season (once more featuring Louise Jameson as Leela) are on the way.