Tag Archives: Nicola Bryant

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, John Benfield, Neville Watchurst, John Banks, Susan Brown, Toby Longworth, Alex Lowe.

One of the reasons Doctor Who worked in the classic series and continues to do so in the modern age, is because the people behind it were not afraid to be politically adventurous, to put in a story line that will rock the minds of certain bodies, institutions and Government to its core; it might not be as damning as television series as Death on the Rock, A Very British Coup, Hillsborough or Edge of Darkness but in its early evening television slot way it was just as hard hitting and made the viewer think about humanity’s place in the world and the political agenda it found itself in.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. The Song of Megaptera. Audio Drama Review. full post

(498 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Alex Macqueen, James D’Arcy, Helen Goldwyn, Andree Bernard, Teddy Kempner, Claire Wyatt, Richard Earl.

You can always trust humanity to turn to the more unsavoury pursuits of existence, murder, slavery, greed, power, materialism and brutality, in the time it takes to say there is money to be made from people’s misery and where is the will; for in the vice of stone hearted souls nothing comes close to feeding damnation than the love of money.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories, Paradise 5. Audio Drama Review. full post

(416 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. Point Of Entry. Audio Drama Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Matt Addis, Luis Salo, Sean Connolly, Tam Williams, Gemma Wardle, Ian Brooker.

It can be a source of bemusement to those seek the literary inside the Doctor Who universe that the soul of Kit Marlowe has not made an appearance, let alone an impression on the world; for a man to whom English literature would be sorely poorer without having picked up a pen and to whom the world of early espionage and skulduggery would be infinitely more boring to read about, Christopher Marlowe remains intriguingly still persona non grata, not only in the world we inhabit but in the fictional tales that could be wrought.

Doctor Who: The Lost Stories. Point Of Entry. Audio Drama Review. full post

(483 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Rani Elite. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Siobhan Redmond, Andrew Bone, Becky Wright, Mike Noble, Charlie Morton.

In the saddest of circumstances comes lightness, it just may take a while for the listener to see it for what it truly is.

When a much loved actor from a television programme passes on it can be hard to imagine anyone playing their character again. In the world of soap-operas they could, if they so desired perhaps get away with an actor coming in a year or two later having had facial surgery or recovering from a major operation. In others, the character would just be allowed to be retired and thought of with ceremonial fondness every now and then. In science fiction though, the sheer possibilities are endless and enjoyable.

Doctor Who: The Rani Elite. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(677 words, estimated 2:42 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Masters Of Earth. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Tracy Wiles, Brian McCardie, Sean Biggerstaff, Hugh Ross, Damian Lynch, Nicholas Briggs.

It can be a staggering thought at times, that even after over 50 years of storytelling, filmed adventures and audio escapades, that there is still moments in which to find a large, near timeless thrill in a new tale set in the world of Doctor Who. Masters of Earth is one of those audio dramas so beloved of its makers Big Finish, that it allows the listener to sit back, relax, to a point and remember why they might have fallen in love with Doctor Who in the beginning.

Doctor Who: Masters Of Earth. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(620 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Widow’s Assassin. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Tim Chipping, John Banks, Andrew Dickens, Fiona Sheehan, Glynn Sweet.

A year seems far too long to wait for the dulcet, attention-grabbing tones of Colin Baker’s incarnation of The Doctor to play with the listener’s ears in a way that would have cat’s purring contentedly and theatre audience’s gripped. Even in the calmest moments, the time between time, the resonance of his delivery is nothing short of exquisite and somehow it still rankles that the B.B.C. at the time were so short sighted in their appraisal of his era in Doctor Who.

Doctor Who: The Widow’s Assassin. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(656 words, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Breaking Bubbles And Other Stories. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Jemma Churchill, Andy Secombe, Allison McKenzie, Janet Henfrey, Jessica Knappett, Paul Panting, Anjella Mackintosh, Phil Mulryne, Johnny Gibbon, Toby Fountain.

 

There are times when Big Finish pulls something rather terrific out of the bag and what the listener hears is the culmination of endeavour, love and devotion mixed with the art of excellent story telling. There are many full length stories that fall into the category, some with so much ease that they feel as though the writer has had the moment of divine interpretation placed between their ears. On the rarer occasion, it falls to four separate writers to bring out the special in the speciality in providing a voice for the much loved Time Lord.

Doctor Who: Breaking Bubbles And Other Stories. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish. full post

(655 words, estimated 2:37 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: 1963: The Space Race. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish 179.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Karen Henson, David Shaw-Parker, Tom Alexander, Stuart Denman, Samantha Beart.

If the end of the 1960s was the supposed era of free love, enlightened thinking, ugly military intervention and the culmination of the space race between the Soviet Union and The United States then the beginning of the decade could be viewed as calculated insanity, a planet being taken to the absolute brink, musical genius, a steel nerve by undoubtedly the finest President in 20th Century America and the start of the sprint to be on the moon first.

Doctor Who: 1963: The Space Race. Audio Drama Review. Big Finish 179. full post

(516 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Light At The End. Big Finish Audio Drama.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann, Louise Jameson, Sarah Sutton, Nicola Bryant, Sophie Aldred, India Fisher, Geoffrey Beevers, Carole Ann Ford, William Russell, Frazer Hines, Peter Purves, Maureen O’Brien, Jean Marsh, Anneka Wills, Wendy Padbury, Katy Manning, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Benedict Briggs, Nicholas Briggs, Oliver Hume, John Dorney.

Doctor Who: The Light At The End. Big Finish Audio Drama. full post

(830 words, estimated 3:19 mins reading time)