Review Category: Audio

There is a lot to recommend about Demon Records’ Doctor Who: The Tom Baker Record Collection four-LP box set. It comes with an autographed Tom Baker photo, which reproduces the absolutely ace artwork from the collection’s O-card, for one. Each LP is a different colour – orange, green, blue, and red – with matching printed inner sleeves which look like they stepped right out of the graphic design department of a ’70s library music label. The cover of the ‘Dalek-fronted quadpack design’ features a different image than the O-card, and the book-like design of the quadpack is quite conducive to digging into this collection again and again.

Those are just the design elements, too. The actual recordings make for a delightful cross-section of Baker’s work as the Fourth Doctor. Genesis of the Daleks has been reissued quite a few times, including a version from Demon Records themselves as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2016, but the 1979 album version of the TV serial is one of the finest audio edits of the series and well worth revisiting.

Doctor Who and the Pescatons is a made-for-vinyl audio drama first released in 1976, and by dint of the fact that it’s an original tale produced as an audio drama rather than an edited version of the television program with added narration, it stands head and shoulders above most Doctor Who records. It makes marvellous use of the audio format, and the story itself is top-notch. It’s really the gem of this collection, and as it’s making its first vinyl appearance since the ’70s, a wonderfully rare inclusion.

Exploration Earth: The Time Machine, the first side of the third LP, is an adventure produced by BBC Schools Radio in 1976, and while it’s made an appearance on compact disc, this is its vinyl debut. It’s rather charming in a very dated way, and while the audio is a bit murky, said dated charm manages to carry it through. The second side of the same LP, Tom Baker In His Own Words, features a selection of BBC radio interviews with Tom Baker made in the ’70s and ’80s, along with an appearance on Dead Ringers from 2001. They’re utterly wonderful, and hearing contemporaneous explanations of that legendary scarf and how it came to be will fill the heart of any longtime fan with joy.

The State of Decay is an audiobook from 1982 and is basically just Baker reading a story with a few bits of music and sound effects. The story’s all right, and Baker’s voice is never a tiresome listen, but it’s pretty bog standard audiobook fare, and after the excitement of Baker and Elisabeth Sladen declaiming lines with enthusiasm, having someone read you a story is a bit of a letdown.

That said, these four LPs are the perfect primer for anyone interested in vintage Doctor Who adventures in a variety of flavours. Even those out there who might only be familiar with Matt Smith or David Tennant’s more recent interpretations will be able to hear just why the Whovians kept interest and fandom alive around this series for well over half a century.

DOCTOR WHO: THE TOM BAKER RECORD COLLECTION is out now from Demon Records.

by Paul Mount

Over the decades, Doctor Who fans have demonstrated the most remarkable capacity for embracing and devouring the most peculiar, arcane pieces of merchandise.  This admittedly-impressive new vinyl package from Demon Records is absolutely a case in point. In 1976 publishers World Distributors, responsible for the official Doctor Who Annuals since 1964, published a special slim hardback book to coincide with a Typhoo Tea picture card promotion. The book was comprised of a selection of Tom Baker stories from their 1976 Annual, plus a few new photo features recounting the history of the Doctor and his most famous adversaries. Nearly five decades later, the book has been brought back to life in audio form with familiar names from the world of Doctor Who’s current audio spin-off life – Dalek voice artist Nicholas Briggs, actors Louise Jameson (Leela in the TV series in the 1970s), Geoffrey Beevers (the withered Master in 1976’s Deadly Assassin) and erstwhile latter day Sontaran actor Dan Starkey – doing their best to make stories that in written form bore little resemblance to TV Doctor Who sound a little bit more palatable.

It’s a very odd listening experience indeed. Supported by an excellent sound design, the actors work hard to infuse these often silly stories with some proper drama; this tends to involve spirited impersonations of Tom Baker (and let’s face it, anyone trying to capture Baker’s rich tones is on to a bit of a loser from the start) and his then-TV companions Sarah Janer Smith and Harry Sullivan. The problem is with the original writing, as the stories are all over the place. Baker’s Doctor is hard to recreate on the page, and the anonymous writers of these stories don’t come anywhere near. The stories themselves are a mixed bunch, but The Vampires of Crellium and The Sinister Sponge have a certain narrative pace that keeps them interesting, if nothing else. The text ‘features’ are charmingly naïve, breathless canters through the life and times of the Doctor and his most persistent and memorable foes.

The Amazing World of Doctor Who is almost certainly a one-time listen, two vivid red/orange vinyl discs (it’s also available on CD) presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve opening out to display reprinted illustrations from the original book. Charmingly quirky and surely as niche as Doctor Who merchandise is likely to get, The Amazing World of Doctor Who is destined to become an odd little collector’s item.

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN AUDIO AND REBELLION PUBLISHING| RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Thirty years after the character’s debut in the pages of 2000AD, Judge Dredd’s world got its extensive history, in John Wagner and Carlos Ezquerra’s aptly-named Origins. Published between 2006 and 2007, this mega-epic is one of the longest and most important Judge Dredd stories ever told. Positioning itself as an in-depth history of the Judicial System, it sends Dredd to the Cursed Earth, where he makes a world-shattering discovery.

This audio drama adapts the story by Wagner and Ezquerra, and Kev Walker, from its procedural episode beginnings to high-octane Cursed Earth action. Adam Basil stars as Dredd, adopting a gruffer tone than his Dredd vs Death performance (where he plays a much younger version of the character). Doug Cockle narrates, cutting down on a lot of the silly expository dialogue which tends to proliferate many audio dramas. The efficiency of Wagner’s writing keeps things ticking along at a rapid pace, ensuring that the action never gets dull or bogged down in the details. Colin Salmon, meanwhile, is dream casting as Dredd’s own clonefather, Eustace Fargo.

As with Penguin and 2000AD’s previous audio adaptations, this is a faithful take on a classic story, and almost as exciting as it was in the original format. While the ambient noise and sound effects are more restrained than one might have expected (the BBC’s The Day the Law Died remains King), this production does a good job in translating the Big Meg and Cursed Earth to a different format. Essential listening for those unaware of the story – a treat for long-standing fans of the character and his world.

A lengthy quest across Dredd’s world, packed with history, callbacks and flashbacks, Origins is an ambitious undertaking, done justice.

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN AUDIO AND REBELLION PUBLISHING| RELEASE DATE:  OUT NOW

Perma-grinning corpse Judge Death and his undead colleagues Fire, Fear and Mortis are immortalised in this audio drama from Penguin Random House and 2000AD. Adapting the early Death stories as written by John Wagner and Alan Grant, and illustrated by Brian Bolland, Brett Ewins, Cliff Robinson and Robin Smith, Dredd vs Death tells of the titular Dark Judge’s first visit to Mega City One, before subsequent return trips with his fellow cohorts.

Peter Serafinowicz is perfectly cast as the voice of Death, up against Adam Basil as Dredd, and Amber Rose Revah as Psi Judge Anderson. Basil’s Dredd may not be what most readers imagine the lawman might sound like – think Brando meets Stallone – but he’s a cut above the softly-spoken Joseph Fiennes, who voiced last year’s crop of audio adventures. It’s also worth remembering that this is a younger Dredd, which comes across in performance and dialogue. Still, we might have liked just a touch more bombast behind the iconic “gaze into the fist of Dredd” line.

The understated approach continues extends to Revah’s Anderson (not quite the spunky, punky type of the comics) and even Serafinowicz’s growling Death. The sombre mood is heightened with a throbbing score by Kate McDonald and sparing use of ambient sound, making Dredd vs Death a far more restrained experience than one might have expected.  Still, these are great stories, faithfully and lovingly translated. A fine introduction to four of comics’ all-time greatest villains, and a stylish, moody use of the medium.

Broadcast towards the end of 1965 during Doctor Who’s third series, The Myth Makers, written by Donald Cotton, has long been missing from the TV Archive. This new beautifully presented two-disc vinyl release of the soundtrack from Demon Records might seem a curious choice bearing in mind that it’s a wordy historical piece with none of the show’s signature monsters and aliens, but it’s actually an interesting and timely choice as it casts some much-needed light on a story that is often overlooked and lost in the shadow of its more infamous contemporaries – the exhausting twelve-episode ‘Daleks’ Masterplan’ (already released on vinyl) was just around the corner – and a reminder of the show’s original remit to educate its young audience as well as entertain them.

The TARDIS materialises on a plain outside the besieged city of Troy where Priam’s son Hector is battling with the Greek warrior Achilles. The Doctor (William Hartnell) emerges from the TARDIS – the distraction allows Achilles to kill Hector.  Achilles believes that the Doctor is a disguised Zeus – “it is well-known that when you come amongst us you adopt different forms” he says, entirely inadvertently prefiguring the show’s ultimate USP in relation to its regenerating lead character. The Doctor is taken to the Greek encampment where Agamemnon insists that the Doctor helps the Greeks in their endless battle with the Trojans. The Doctor’s companions Steven (Peter Purves) and Vicki (Maureen O’Brien) are, in best Who tradition, separated when Steven sets off to find the Doctor and Vicki remains in the TARDIS which is taken into Troy by Priam’s other son Paris. When she finally steps out of the TARDIS Vicki too is assumed to be a God and is renamed Cressida, setting in motion a chain of events which will lead to her own surprisingly poignant exit from the TARDIS crew at the end of a hugely listenable four-episode romp which puts its own very special Doctor Who spin on the legend of the siege of Troy and the Trojan Horse…

The Myth Makers is very much a product of its era, a stagey, talky, clumpy cod-Shakespearean drama (although it often dips heavily into broad comedy) boasting a breezy, squawky score by Humphrey Searle and packed with ripe performances from guest actors Max Adrian, Francis de Wolff and Barrie Ingham (fresh from his turn in the colour Doctor Who and the Daleks feature film earlier in the year) and with William Hartnell clearly on surer ground in a historical setting that doesn’t require him to fumble his way through dense sci-fi jargon. Cotton’s script is witty, sophisticated, and even oddly touching at times and, even shorn of its visuals, it works well as an audio drama as the soundscape and the dialogue paint pictures – along with Peter Purves’s narration filling in the visual gaps – that the low budget TV version probably couldn’t have matched.

Aiming squarely at the collectors market, Demon has once again done the serial’s presentation proud with a glorious gatefold sleeve depicting the Trojan Horse against a fiery Troy cityscape background with the two discs themselves on irresistibly lurid orange ‘Trojan sunset’ vinyl. Another winner for a Doctor Who merchandise line that should be hugely anachronistic in the disposal digital age, but which fits beautifully with the archive nature of the material itself. Terrific.