The Sarah Jane Adventures Collection review

This box set of ten stand alone Sarah Jane Adventures adventures is, with the exception of the final two stories, narrated by the late Liz Sladen. And when listening, I couldn’t help but think that there may never come a time when the Who fan isn’t a little bit sad at hearing her voice.
As you would expect with a collection of this size, the stories vary somewhat in quality, but are, as a rule, always worth a listen.
There is a problem with the series as a whole though, that would not be apparent if listening to these, say, one a month or whatever their original release schedule was, but when listening to the back to back, this problem is easier to spot.
And it is this: far too many of these stories revolve around a plot that has one of the main characters either being hypnotised or taken over by some alien intelligence.
A lot of them are structured very similarly too, opening with an action scene then flashing back to show how the characters got there. This is not a bad way to build a story, but if used too often, it becomes weary.
As I said, the quality is generally very good. I won’t got into each of the tales individually, but my favourite was probably 'The White Wolf', which built a lovely atmosphere and had a genuinely intriguing plot.
Naturally, Sladen is superb at reading the tales and her enthusiasm and her love for the role, for the character of Sarah Jane Smith, comes through with every word.
The final two are narrated by Anjli Mohindra and Daniel Anthony, and they too make excellent work of the stories, and leave the listener with some hope that this series can perhaps find continued life here on CD and download with AudioGo.

Elisabeth Sladen the Autobiography audiobook review

It is difficult to review this Audiogo audiobook as ‘just’ a book.
From the beginning, with the genuinely moving forward written and read by David Tennant, to the after word, written by Liz’s husband and daughter Brian and Sadie Miller, which is nothing short of heart breaking, this is a book that is nigh on impossible to listen to without constantly thinking about Liz and her sudden death.
Another former Who assistant,Caroline John, has the unenviable task of reading the book, although to be totally fair, she does so brilliantly.
But what of the book itself?
Obviously, the bulk of the book is taken up with memories of her time on Who, and this makes for some interesting listening.
Sladen paints a vivid picture of the BBC in the early 70s, and while things sometime slide close to the ‘luvvie’, with many people being ‘wonderful’, she is pleasingly direct when talking about those who were less than wonderful.
This is one of a few things in the book that I found surprising. I suppose the image of Sarah Jane and her all round niceness as a character. And it’s not just directors, Liz is honest about Third Doctor Jon Pertwee. While she clearly loved him dearly, she is honest enough to recognise him for his faults, but still making him come across as a thoroughly nice man.
Outside Who, there are some equally interesting tales told. Her stories of her early life and family are fascinating, and I wish that she had spent more time on them. Likewise, stories of early theatre jobs and her fledgling acting career are great.
The final section of the book, dealing with her ‘renaissance’ as an actor as she came out of retirement for School Reunion and then The Sarah Jane Adventures, seems disappointingly slight after the detail of the Who years. I’d liked to have heard more about the Sarah Jane tales and perhaps the Big Finish adventures and the like.
Still, apart from these minor quibbles, I can say that this is a very good memoir, and one that any Who fan will want on their shelf.
Still can’t believe she’s gone though…

Doctor Who The BBC Radio Episodes pt4

Over the years, the BBC have produced a number of their own Doctor Who audio adventures.Audio Go have just released them in a box set, here we review the final two discs in the set.

I should add that these reviews where written before the tragic death of Elizabeth Sladen, so reading it back now is a bit weird...

First up: Expedition Earth

This one is a bit of a curio- in fact both of the adventures on this disc are.

This first one is from the olden days when the BBC used to broadcast educational programs for schools during the day on television and radio rather than shows about houses and cooking. This particular one is a Who story featuring Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen. The story, what there is of it, is slight. It involves the Doctor and Sarah Jane flitting through time from the very birth of the solar system to when the Earth was fully formed and populated by animals. While doing this, they repeatedly encounter an alien intelligence who seems to do nothing other that hang around in space and shout about things.  

As I said, the story is largely irrelevant. It is really just a hook to hang descriptions of the various states of the Earth upon as Baker explains them to Sladen (and in turn to the listening child).

It’s not going to win any awards, but this was surprisingly fun- I suspect mainly because of the nostalgia element of listening to an schools broadcast for the first time in decades!

Whatever happened to..?

Carole Anne Ford doesn't actually play Susan in this, but y'know...

This was originally recorded as part of a series of radio plays focusing on different fictional characters and what they did after their story finished and broadcast on Radio 4.

It has an impressive cast, lead by Jane Asher in the role of Susan Foreman, and even features a lovely cameo from the mighty Claire Rainer. It is not without its problems though- mainly for the more… ‘dedicated’ Doctor Who fan. Some are pretty big howlers. Claiming the Doctor to be a travelling salesman, for example, which flies in the face of everything that had went before. There are factual errors- the play states that Ian and Barbara were left back seconds after they left with the Doctor, when in actual fact he left them back two years later.

Susan’s character largely contradicts everything we have seen since, but as this was well before the range of Virgin and BBC novels and Big Finish studios, this can be excused.

The comedy in the play is rather hit and miss too, but some of the jokes are absolute corkers. I also liked hearing what Ian and Barbara got up to when they returned. Barbara’s story in particular rings tragically true in that I suspect her reaction would be what most people’s would be.

Again, as with Expedition Earth, this is worth it for the curiosity factor.

Elisabeth Sladen RIP

It is quite difficult to summon up the words to write this.
I'm currently in the middle of reviewing the BBC audio adventures that Liz has done, and it's an odd feeling to realise that the three stars of some of them, Liz, Jon and Nick Courtney, have all passed away.
With Liz it is a particularly shocking blow- she was still what we could consider quite young- merely 63 (although she looked much younger).
As with a lot of you reading this, Liz was my first companion- my first guide through the universe of Doctor Who. She was probably my first crush, too...
It was also wonderful to see her and her character get something of a renaissance in recent years as she was rewarded with her own series.
Can't say much more, other than this is terribly, terribly sad and she will be sorely missed.

Doctor Who The BBC Radio Episodes pt2

Over the years, the BBC have produced a number of their own Doctor Who audio adventures.Audio Go 
have just released them in a box set, and we’ll be reviewing the stories included in the collection individually.

Next up is The Ghosts of N-Space.

As with Paradise of Death, this adventure was originally broadcast on Radio 4. I remember this going out, and I’m sure that I listened to it at the time, but for the life of me I could not remember any of it as I listened again on this release.

The more cruel part of my may suggest that I have blocked it from my memory, because there was a lot in here that was ‘wrong’.

The balance of the story seems way off. There are comedy foreign accents and sterotypes alongside real life swear words and scenes of torture and murder, for example. There is also the return of the annoying sidekick they gave Sarah Jane in Paradise of Death, but in fairness, he is slightly less annoying here.

It also has a bizarre running gag with one of the characters who talks in a ‘funny’ Elvis Presley voice which sits uncomfortably alongside some real human tragedy in the narrative. And one of the characters behaves in a wildly inconsistent way when it is required by the plot.

Like I say- it’s unbalanced.

There is also the central idea of the plot- N-Space itself. I don’t want to go into it here, as I think to describe it too much would count as a spoiler, but I feel that the concept of N-Space and who the writer here deals with death and more specifically, life after death, flies in the face of one of the central tenants of the Who Universe. That being that there are no such thing as ghosts.

But it is not all complaints!

The cast are great- Sladen is good as always and Nic Courtney as the Brigadier is clearly enjoying himself. There is also the added delight of hearing Harry Towb doing a cod-Italian accent in his Larne brogue.

I’m also happy to report that, in this adventure, Pertwee is on terrific form. He sounds like he’s having the time of his life, and this was made all the more poignant when I read on the liner notes that this was his last performance as the Doctor- I’m glad he went out on a good one.

Doctor Who The BBC Radio Episodes pt1

Over the years, the BBC have produced a number of their own Doctor Who audio adventures. Audio Go have just released them in a box set, and we’ll be reviewing the stories included in the collection individually.

We start with:

The Paradise of Death

Getting the dream team of Pertwee, Courtney and Sladen together must have seemed like a dream come true to Who fans in the dark old days of the 1980s.

And while the three leads work well- no not just well, they work brilliantly- together, this adventure is very much a mixed bag.

The storyline is, especially for a story of this length, a slight one. There is a lot of obvious padding going on with many scenes of characters chatting that do not forward the plot in any way. Practically speaking, and with my editors hat on, I would suggest that this would have been a much better story if they had dropped two episodes. "But they didn't", you may rightly answer, "so what do you know, eh?"

My other problem with this was, surprisingly, Jon Pertwee. For most of the story he sounded rather bored with the proceedings, which is all the more surprising when I read that this was his idea.

And while I’m here- the decision to give Sarah Jane a comedy sidekick is not a good one. The character of Jeremy Fitzoliver is just plain irritating and adds nothing to the proceedings.

There are good things about it though!

The plot itself is a good one, and pretty original too. It is anchored nicely in continuity early on in the first episode and also has a couple of delightful in jokes for the attentive fan/nerd. It is rooted in a strong sci-fi idea and also delivers a powerful message along with the adventuring.

And there is a lot of adventuring going on too. One of the great thing about the audios is that they can have widescreen action scenes that defy television budgets, and this story is no different.

The best thing about this though, and something that is almost with the price in itself, is the performance from Elizabeth Sladen. She is a hell of an actor, and the range she gets to show here impressive.