Big Finish - Invaders from Mars

Big Finish have permanently lowered the price of their first fifty Doctor Who titles to just £2.99 a download. So there are bargains to be had and I picked up Invaders from Mars, written and directed by Mark Gatiss.

This one has it all. The Eighth Doctor, Charley Pollard, Orson Welles and a cast that includes Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson from Spaced. The story of the Mercury Theatre's infamous radio production of the War of the Worlds is fascinating enough, but throw in some real alien invaders, espionage and gangsters and how can you not get this story for a mere £3.

It's just fabulous all round. Paul McGann continue to vie for the top spot in best Big Finish Doctors. I love the character of Charley Pollard, and David Benson does a pretty good Orson Welles impression. The inevitable separation of the Doctor and his companion works quite well, especially when he teams up with a woman called Glory Bee. Clearly Mark Gatiss loves the source material and all the legends that have developed about that radio broadcast.

I have difficulty finding any faults with this production which was over too quickly for me. A short review but a great Big Finish story. 4.5 out of 5 tripod war machines.

Big Finish - Brotherhood of the Daleks

A recent Big Finish sale gave me the chance to pick up another Sixth Doctor and Charley Pollard adventure. Brotherhood of the Daleks, by Alan Barnes, directed by Nicholas Briggs.

The Doctor and Charley are expecting an ice planet but instead find themselves in a jungle, and in a war zone. The local resistance are fighting a losing battle against the Daleks, but there is something very strange about these Daleks, and about the whole situation.

So yes I bought this one just because it was cheap, and because Nicholas Briggs picked it as one of his favourite Dalek stories, and I didn't pay too much attention to the writer until I listened to the CD extra interviews. Alan Barnes is a Big Finish writer whose previous stories I have struggled with. I like what he does as the script editor for the main Doctor Who range, and I have to admire him as a former editor of The Judge Dredd Megazine but his writing has bothered me in the past. The only one I really liked was his parody of 2000AD in Izzy's story from The Company of Friends, and apparently I'm pretty much alone in liking that tale. In this take on the Daleks Barnes references the Vietnam war and draws heavily on the writings of Karl Marx and develops a branch of the Dalek empire that has adopted the principles of Communism. And the funny thing is it all kind of works, I quite liked it.

Admittedly this adventure does play with the dream within a dream, within a dream idea which has cropped up before and can be quite difficult to disentangle for the listener. It is never easy to work out exactly which reality we are in at any one point, but that didn't bother me here. India Fisher works wonders as Charley Pollard and Colin Baker is on infuriatingly accurate form as the Sixth Doctor. The rest of the cast were fine with no particular stand-outs, although there were a few problems when they are required to use the ring modulator to produce Dalek voices. Unless it is Nicholas Briggs doing them they just sound like children playing with something bought from a toy shop.

This Big Finish release is back to full price now and with their recent announcement that all of their earliest fifty stories are going to be available for £2.99 only on download it is difficult to recommend picking this up instead of a cheaper adventure. However it has restored my faith in Alan Barnes. Let me give it 3.5 out of 5 Dalek manifestos and move on to some invaders from Mars.

Big Finish - Persuasion

Number 175 in the Big Finish main range is Persuasion by Jonathan Barnes, directed by Ken Bentley.

Klein is back! Her story is getting a little complicated at this point. Let's just say she is the most interesting UNIT scientific advisor after the Doctor, and her love hate relationship with his seventh incarnation continues. And this time she has a young and enthusiastic but very inexperienced assistant along with her. Will Arrowsmith knows a lot about the mysterious Umbrella man and what UNIT refer to as "blue box incidents" but this is his first actual encounter.

The story concerns another set of powerful elder gods who the Seventh Doctor wants to deal with before his time his done. He senses that his next regeneration is approaching and is worried that his replacement may not be as resolute as he is. This sense that Sylvester McCoy's Doctor is ageing and trying to tie up loose ends before he finishes is very interesting and I wonder if Big Finish will continue with this. Also rather intriguing is the idea of the very powerful Persuasion machine which acts as the MacGuffin for this story. The machine's ability to persuade populations of whatever idea the controller programmes into it is obviously of interest to politicians of all ideologies. I presume this will also come back in the next two parts of this Klein trilogy.

I confess the elder gods stuff that cropped up in Protect and Survive and Gods and Monsters rather bores me. Here the characters of the Shepherd and Shepherdess speak in iambic pentameter which presumably was rather challenging for Jonathan Barnes to write, and it sounds impressive, but their storyline does nothing for me. Fortunately there is Klein and the idea of the Persuasion machine to keep me interested. Tracey Childs is right up there with Maggie Stables as a great Big Finish supporting actor and perfect foil for the Doctor. I was less convinced by Christian Edwards as Will Arrowsmith but maybe his character will grow on me.

Some interesting stuff in this one but let down by uninteresting bad guys. A middle of the road 3 out of 5 straw hats from me.

Big Finish - Jago & Litefoot series one

At Big Finish day I picked up the first box set of Jago & Litefoot, partly because it was cheap and so I would have something for Christopher Benjamin, Trevor Baxter and Lisa Bowerman to sign. I wasn't sure when I would get around to listening to it but after enjoying the recent Justice of Jalxar so much I pushed it to the top of my list.

There are four single disc stories with a connected developing story arc through the season that links back to the characters' first Big Finish appearance in a companion chronicles story called The Mahogany Murderers. First up is The Bloodless Soldier by Justin Richards, directed by Lisa Bowerman, which has our two reluctant heroes investigating what appears to be a case of Lycanthropy. It's fairly classically done but is all very enjoyable and allows Henry Gordon Jago to discover some undiscovered depths of character.

Next is The Bellova Devil by Alan Barnes, again directed by Lisa Bowerman with Jago & Litefoot on the trail of the walking dead, or a man who appears to have died twice. I confess I am still struggling with Alan Barnes' stories for Big Finish and this was probable the least enjoyable of the four tales but it does provide hints as to the true villain of the first season.

The Spirit Trap by Jonathan Morris is directed by John Ainsworth. What seems to be a straight forward investigation of a bogus spiritualist medium leads our heroes in to a much more sinister world where, in classic Whovian fashion, the paranormal is explained with some science fiction bad guys.

And finally the bad guy returns to haunt Jago and Litefoot in The Similarity Engine by Andy Lane, with Lisa Bowerman returning to directing duties. Possibly because it is the last and brings the developing plot threads together this was my favourite of the four. It also helps to have the multi-voiced talents of Toby Longworth on board.

To attempt the alliterative talents of Mr Henry Gordon Jago this set is fairly full of fantastic, phantasmagoria! The shorter stories really work well and Baxter and Benjamin are just a delight to listen to. I'm still committed to the main range of Doctor Who releases but Jago & Litefoot could possibly tempt me away. Some of the best stuff I have listened to recently. 4.5 out of 5 silver shillings for this set. And there's another four box sets in the series so far. Corks!

Big Finish - The Dalek Contract and

Two Big Finish stories from the Fourth Doctor Adventures range, The Dalek Contract and The Final Phase. Both written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

This is really a two part story for the Fourth Doctor and Romana as they deal with the consequences of a deal that the capitalist megalomaniac Cuthbert has made with the Daleks. And when have the Daleks ever kept their word?

There is something very nostalgic about the Big Finish Fourth Doctor adventures. They have deliberately set out to recreate the feel of the late 1970s in these stories and it is all rather charming. Alistair Lock's music seems to catch this mood perfectly and really stood out as a great example of what Big Finish do so well. Obviously Tom Baker is on cracking form and John Leeson is in there as K-9 as well. David Warner brings a robust Northern accent to the part of Cuthbert and is a delight, as is long time Doctor Who fan Toby Hadoke. But these stories really belong to the late Mary Tamm who plays Romana for the last time ever. She is so good and it is almost painfully sad to listen to them knowing that she was not very well at the time, and that this is her last work on Doctor Who.

I bought these stories because Nicholas Briggs recorded some crowd noise during a live podcast at Big Finish day 3 and my voice is in there somewhere in the background. The Dalek Contract part two, track five in case you're interested. But these are two terrific Dalek stories tinged with the melancholy that has affected the Who universe recently as we have lost so many of the companions from the classic series.

Four out of five mechanical Mutts and farewell to Romana One.

Big Finish - Judge Dredd: War Crimes

Next up in the Big Finish's 2000AD line is War Crimes by David Bishop, directed by John Ainsworth.

Dredd is a prisoner and facing some pretty gruesome interrogation techniques with electric wires connected straight into his nervous system. At first the identity of his questioner is concealed but it soon becomes clear that he is been held to task for his actions in The Apocalypse War when he pushed the button that wiped out East Meg One. However there are some twists and turns along the way, if Dredd can survive the torture long enough.

Interestingly there are some parallels between this story and current events in the comic book where Dredd is being held responsible for the latest disaster to strike Mega-City One, the Day of Chaos. In both cases blaming Dredd makes little sense, and certainly if the Council of Five has followed his advice early on then Chaos Day at least could have been avoided.

So this audio drama is basically a two hander between Toby Longworth and Caroline Burns Cooke as the interrogator, Isaacs, and they do a pretty good job of keeping the tension up and driving the story on. As we would expect Dredd is fairly tough in the torturer's chair. And once the twists start to be revealed it all moves along to a pretty nifty conclusion.

Having a Big Finish story that ties into so many of 2000AD's epic adventures is great fun and the two actors completely sold me on their characters. A very decent 4 out of 5 missile launch buttons. Next in the 2000AD line will be For King and Country.

Big Finish - The Justice of Jalxar

From the Fourth Doctor series here is The Justice of Jalxar by John Dorney, directed by Ken Bentley.

The Doctor and Romana arrive in Victorian London on the trail of a crashed alien spaceship but they need some local knowledge. And who better to turn to than the Doctor's acquaintances from a previous adventure, Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago. There are a number of strange murders to solve, and there is the mysterious figure of The Pugilist, who appears out of nowhere to fight his one man war on crime and wrong-doers.

Corks! This was simply splendid. With witty nods to superhero stories, the steampunk genre, a Victorian version of the X-Files and even a Taxi Driver joke, John Dorney has delivered a fantastic script which showcases Big Finish at its finest. The performances are top notch with the remarkable Christopher Benjamin stealing the show as Jago, although Tom Baker, Trevor Baxter and the late Mary Tamm give him a run for his money. The sound design, the music and special effects and even the cover art are fantastic, and this two part story really cracks along,

I may have a problem here. I'm trying to stick to the main range Doctor Who releases, but there's also the upcoming Sherlock Holmes stories, and now there's the Fourth Doctor series and the temptation of all the Jago & Litefoot material which I haven't even touched on. Balancing this budget could get tricky.

Anyway, leaving those purchasing dilemmas aside this was fantastic and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 5 out of 5 steam powered robots. Only the eighth Big Finish story to get that top score from me. Corks!