Twice Upon a Time
secured David Bradley’s status as a bona-fide, real-deal First Doctor on
Christmas Day. An hour later, Big Finish released their First Doctor boxset in
which the cast of An Adventure in Space
and Time got together to record their own take on Doctor Who’s fledgling
years. And it’s a funny old thing. Whilst David Bradley can be
acknowledged as an in-universe Doctor Who, the same cannot really be said of
Jamie Glover, Gemma Powell and Claudia Grant as Ian, Barbara and Susan: The
actors played William Russell, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford respectively
in the BBC2 anniversary drama as opposed to their characters. If they had
appeared in a TV episode as Ian, Barbara and Susan, the stories on offer here
wouldn’t feel quite so Unbound.
Which brings me to why this boxset is such a fascinating
paradox. It does feel like an Unbound version of the First Doctor era: the
actors are all quite different to their TV counterparts and there is a definite
strangeness in hearing the regulars we know and love being performed in such an
off-kilter fashion. But ironically, writers Matt Fitton and Guy Adams don’t
make the most of this. They want the box set to feel authentic, with references
to Marco Polo in both stories to add
verisimilitude. In the end, once the oddness of the performances has bedded in,
this really does feel like the First
Doctor era: two lost stories brought back from the dead, such is the structural
mirroring, pacing and laudable earnestness of the tales. It’s like no other
Doctor Who ever produced, at once completely faithful and totally different.
The Destination Wars
begins with an attack on the senses. The first few moments scream The Sixties
at the listener who is instantly transported backwards in time as the TARDIS
travels forwards to the Space Year 2003. This is a very clever piece of dating
jiggery-pokery on the part of Matt Fitton and its in-text explanation warrants
applause. His sci-fi tale of a world at war is terrific. Whilst it seems almost
inconceivable to imagine a First Doctor Versus The Master story appearing on
TV, James Dreyfus as the Inventor makes the mischievous Time Lord’s appearance
seem like a missing link, giving David Bradley’s First Doctor a big ol’ villain
to stand up against. Can you imagine Hartnell rubbing shoulders with the
Master? It would have been to die for. “You Sir, are an abomination! An outrage! How dare you, Sir, how dare you?” Whilst The Destination Wars could be accused of
having a slower pace than is strictly necessary in 2017, the feeling of
listening to a story that could have been made in black and white is such a
thrill that I’ll allow the more languorous narrative moments and wallow in the
insanely good Master that is James Dreyfus. I’d love to hear him chewing a bit
more scenery in other ranges.
In a shamelessly fannish move, The Destination Wars ends with a typically naff cliff-hanger into the next story The Great White Hurricane. A big hand
for that title everyone and for the inspired choice to link the stories
seamlessly.
The Great White
Hurricane is a traditional historical tale. It has the earnest tone of The Aztecs or The Massacre and the regulars are split into
two factions as they are in Dennis Spooner’s The Romans. By the time we reach the TARDIS at the conclusion,
neither team really knows what the other has been up to. Ian and Barbara spend
time with Rosalita in the search for her missing son at the hands of an abusive
father. The Doctor and Susan become involved in the machinations of New York
street gangs. The content on offer here is pretty bleak and the story becomes
about light in the darkness. The way people stop to help each other in the face
of the hurricane mirrors and accentuates the way characters behave in the wake
of familial devastation. The civilians, helping each other from a train adrift
in the snow or the members of the public desperate to get home stopping to aid
those trapped on the frozen lake, are synonymous with a story about hope: a
drama which, too rarely in Doctor Who, is actually about something.
It is perhaps irritating that the complexity of the violent
characters gives way to two fairly easy endings. Spoiler alert: abusive father
is told he’ll see his son when mother says and he agrees to her terms because
Ian says he’s good with his fists. The gang members who are seeking revenge
against the death of one of their own simply decide to forgive and forget
because their target is from “the streets.” These somewhat twee resolutions
seem to worry the writer as just before the end of the tale, we find the dead
body of an old man in the snow, allowing Barbara to venture that “History can
be a cruel place to visit.” On everything but this evidence, history is, in the end, quite nice. Ultimately though, these minor details fail
to detract from a very strong story with some complex and interesting character
dynamics at play and a vivid feeling pf place and time.
If James Dreyfus was the star of The Destination Wars, then Jamie Glover is undoubtedly the star of The Great White Hurricane. His voice is
imbued with a comfortable “leading-man” quality and he drives through the narrative
like the hurricane itself. Sadly, the boxset’s lead actor is not quite the
William Hartnell we hoped he would be. In fact, most of the characters from Hurricane find him annoying and I’m
sadly inclined to agree. Like the very early Hartnell Doctor, Bradley's is
passive, the narrative happening around him. It is Ian and Barbara who find
their way back to him in The Destination
Wars and their journeys are granted equal air time in Hurricane. This is an ensemble show and Bradley makes up just one
member of the foursome. This passivity is also heightened by a weaker
performance than his co-stars. I’m not sure what he’s doing with his voice - in
that his speech patterns are all over the place - but he sounds nothing like
Hartnell, nor anybody else alive for that matter. The cliff-hanger to Part Two
of The Destination Wars falls flat
because of his delivery, coupled with some equally flat sound design. He sounds
weak and old. Hartnell never did. Hartnell was raging against the dying of the light all the time. There is simply no fire in Bradley. He just isn’t strong enough. (I’d like to
add the disclaimer that I usually love
David Bradley – have done since Our
Friends in the North, through True
Dare Kiss, Harry Potter and
Broadchurch. Here though, he’s all at sea.) It must be said though that his Doctor is consistently well-written across the two stories, and has a distinct and assured "voice."
Sound design here is definitely a mixed bag. There are some
terrific, Sixties seeming sound effects and the music is authentic: orchestral
with some BBC Special Sound thrown into the mix. In that respect, much of the sound
design is delightful. Elsewhere, though, it’s a mess. Track 3 of Disc 2 of Great White Hurricane includes an actor
fluff a line, then go back a couple of sentences and repeat it for the re-take!
The whole thing is there for us to hear. Maybe it’s an ode to the Hartnell era?
There are some poor fade-ups during cliff-hanger reprises and there’s a
half-finished feel to much of the second story. Even the hurricane doesn’t
sound remotely dangerous, amounting only to some wispy background wind effects. Now, though I love Howard Carter's music, he's never managed to orchestrate a decent cliff-hanger sting and perhaps, just perhaps, Mr Carter is being overstretched? It's a testament to the fine scripts that these problems don't detract too much from the overall enjoyment of this set.
The First Doctor Adventures are – on the whole - a resounding success. After almost 20 years of audio
production and almost 2000 Doctor Who episodes, Big Finish have managed to
create something quite magical: stories which look backwards but are also refreshingly,
inspiringly new. What a thrill.
8/10
JH
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