Is it possible that we fans of audio tales of a Doctor based nature have been by spoiled by our BFF’s? With their incredible soundscapes, rich scores and irrepressible casts it seems we could be gorging ourselves and forgetting the simpler things in life, like the audiobook. The BBC, like our aforementioned friends, pump out consistently good audio readings. With the right text and the right performer, they can make for the perfect companion to a traffic jam on the A6, or a winning distraction to the eyeball-melting tosh on telly in the other room. Sadly, in the case of The Day She Saved the Doctor, Auntie rather misses the mark somewhat.
This four-story anthology piece, released to coincide with International Women’s Day (March 8th, 2018), can best be described as disparate both in terms of text and performers.
We begin with an indeterminable tale of Sarah Jane and, well, what could be any of the Doctors. We hear writers blithely insist that they write for THE Doctor and not A Doctor, but surely we should be given a little something to indicate which incarnation we are getting, rather than a blank amalgam of all 13? This is not helped by Yasmin Paige’s reading, which sounds for all the world as though she skimmed through it on the train to the recording booth.
Unsurprisingly to some, Jenny T. Colgan’s Rose-based timey-wimey tale is the only one here that shows any real plot flair. Taking place between two converged timelines, it suffers from taking place in the shows’ time period when Rose and Ten were both painfully smug and unfunny.
First-timer Susan Calman eeks out the tension to a fair degree, but the plot is one we’ve all seen too many times before and with a resolution all too similar to that of Amy’s Choice. Again, the reading is limp and, for what is a two-hander, it can be hard to work out which of the leads is talking.
The fourth tale features Bill and a cameo from the Twelfth Doctor. What plays out is part Invasion of the Body Snatchers mixed with a soupcon of Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. The real star of this piece is performer Pippa Bennet-Walker, whose impersonation of Bill would have you forgiven for thinking it was the real thing. Not only that, but Bennet-Walker puts just the right Scots brogue on the Doctor and imbues the supporting characters with their own voices adding to the performance.
It is difficult to approach this audio release with anything more than mild interest as it lacks the flair of other great audiobooks. The same can be said of the short stories themselves which feel at times like they were knocked out in an afternoon between other writing projects. It might be interesting to compare this with the print version to see how they stack up against each other, but for now, probably go and check out what your BFF’s are doing.
THE DAY SHE SAVED THE DOCTOR / WRITERS: SUSAN CALMAN, JENNY T. COLGAN, JACQUELINE RAYNER, DOROTHY KOOMSON / LABEL: BBC CHILDRENS BOOK / STARRING: YASMIN PAIGE, PIPPA BENNETT-WARNER, RACHAEL STIRLING, CATRIN STREWART / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
