Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Louise Jameson, Annette Badland, Katy Wix, Alix Dunmore, Raymond Coulthard, David Ricardo-Pearce.

There is surely one place and one set of foes more terrifying than a fleet of Daleks rampaging from the torment that is Skaro, the Cybermen climbing out of their icy wombs, the spiders of Metabelis 3 or the arch devil himself himself The Master burnt to a crisp and finding the best way to groom a beard and that is the nightmare that would make them all quiver in fright, the suburban middle-class themed party, the fear that dominates the Suburban Hell.

The fourth incarnation of The Doctor and his savage companion are trapped in a Hell that for many is the perfect way to show one-upmanship, to be seen as being more up-worldly mobile and hip, as the new house, the new promotion or the possibility of just rubbing a few noses out of joint are shown to be nothing more than psychological warfare and reverse jealousy. It is a world that is alien to some, least not to the two time and space explorers ensnared at cross purposes and whose mode of transport is a long way from the kitsch of the 70s fondue set.

Alan Barnes’ Suburban Hell makes great play of the embarrassment and social inequality that surrounds this sometimes mystifying experience into which many are called but to whom few survive with their dignity intact. The feeling of the alien out of his depth as he faces a couple in which the wife’s harridan way of dealing with her husband’s perceived inabilities is almost black widow like as she continually feeds off his despair and belittles any accomplishment gained. It is a feeling that really hits home the way some couples are bought together, not by love but by mutual loathing for each other and the realisation of what suburbia can do to people.

The brilliance of Mr. Barnes’ observational writing is without question one of the highlights across Tom Baker’s four series for Big Finish Audio and it really brings out the sparkling wit associated with the fourth Doctor’s time in the Tardis. A genuine hour of enjoyment that it is set loose because of the supposed normality that surrounds the script and the dangers that lurk underneath as manipulation from the past and from beyond our own reason shows itself.

Hell may be many things, Hell may contain a great number of evils but the thought of the suburban dinner party was even too much for Dante to consider placing into the Inferno; with hosts and guest like these, who can blame him.

Doctor Who: Suburban Hell is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall