Start to Finish - Curse of the Daleks

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

Wrapping up this short run of Start to Finish, we come to the earliest of the Doctor Who stage plays, and the only one to lack a certain something, a certain... how should I put it? Renegade Time Lord. That's right; 1965's Curse of the Daleks does feature everyone's favourite travel machine-bound mutants(1), but not a sign or mention of the Doctor.

Remember, remember the Dalek December,
With Paris in ruins and London an ember.
In times of the future, when fears are abating,
Don't try to forget them, the Daleks are waiting,
Silently plotting, and scheming, and waiting.
Remember.

Fifty years after the devastation of the human/Dalek wars, a series of accidents force the spaceship Starfinder, with a crew of three and carrying two passengers and two prisoners, to make an emergency landing on Skaro. The planet is ordinarily forbidden, but it's perfectly safe. After all, the Daleks were all destroyed or disabled, cut off from the static electricity that they need to bring them to life. Weren't they?

The Curse of the Daleks is a real oddity. In terms of plot is has more in common with drawing room murder mystery than science fiction adventure, with most of the first act devoted to the crew and passengers trying to work out who sabotaged the radio-pic transmitter on the Starfinder. The Daleks only really start putting in an appearance towards the end of the act, and do a lot of slipping in and out unseen, a feature which required adapter and voice of the Daleks Nicholas Briggs to add a substantial amount of narration to the play in order to stick to the mission statement of presenting the work as much as possible as written.

Most of the vanishingly small number of production stills for
the play feature their five Dalek models.

That mission is also the reason that the audio version retains quite so much of the intrinsic sexism of the original production. Of the nine characters (plus Daleks) two are female. One of these is a defrosting ice maiden, the other a scrappy Thal freedom fighter who goes all submissive every time her fiance - the gruffly heroic Ladiver - tells her to do something. The villain of the piece intends to use the Daleks to rule the galaxy, but also finds time to start work on a harem. There is even a painful exchange between Marion Clements and Rocket Smith - a character heavily inspired by Journey Into Space's Lemmy Barnett - on the wonders of twentieth century feminism and the brave new world of the 22nd century, where an unexplained ratio of one woman to every 7.5 men has led to women once again becoming a fragile 'weaker sex.'

The plot is almost insanely convoluted, and relies heavily on chance. As noted above, the first half is like a drawing room mystery, while the second has something of the James Bond about it, with its diabolical reveal and a denouement witha dashing hero rescuing captives from a massive industrial plant. The science is also bollocks, beginning with the Daleks' static electric power supply, to the retrofuturism of miniature tape drives and transistor-based radio-pics, to the claim that water can't boil at light speed, while a fire would rage out of control.

Which is not to say that there is nothing good here. The performances are excellent and the mystery element is intriguing, even if the solution relies on a scifi conceit which would disqualify it under the golden age rules. While flawed, there are also some interesting attempts at world building, including slave trafficking between Venus and Mars and left-hand thread screw tops. The sexism is distracting, not least because of the contrast with modern production values. It would barely have raised an eyebrow in 1965, I'm sure. More than either of the other stage play audios, this one is a curio; a post-facto record of a thing never recorded, notable more for its fidelity than its intrinsic excellence.

(1) And how rare is it that the results of radiation-induced mutation are depicted as hideous and debilitating?

Start to Finish - Seven Keys to Doomsday

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

As the Big Finish adaptations of the Doctor Who Stageplays were released in reverse chronological order, the next one up is 1974's spectacular and well-reviewed bomb, Doctor Who and the Daleks in Seven Keys to Doomsday.

Typical young seventies couple Jimmy and Jenny - she's idealistic, sensitive and compassionate; he's a complete and unapologetic doucheyacht - are about to enjoy an evening at the theatre(1) when a blue box appears on stage and a man staggers out and collapses(2). They help him back into the box, which is of course bigger on the inside, and he regenerates into Trevor Martin.

The Doctor introduces himself, and expains that the Time Lords are steering the TARDIS to the planet Karn, where he was lately shot after finding a shiny crystal. He has to see if he can find more of them, but Jimmy decides that he'd rather stand around in a sulk than either accompany him or wait in the TARDIS, and so would Jenny(3). They are captured by some sort of resistance, let go, run into monsters, escape, find more crystals and ultimately find their way into a series of tunnels under and ancient city. Jimmy gets hold of a gun and starts acting like Dirty Harry(4), but almost gets killed by not listening to the Doctor. Then they find a computer which sounds like Deep Thought and tries to kill them because they are looking for the segments of the Crystal of All Power. Then the Daleks turn up, there's a sort of ghost wizard thing, Jenny is disguised as a Dalek and seems to be blown up(5). At the end, everyone is captured, but the Doctor does a clever thing and it's home for tea and crumpets and Jimmy sneering at Jenny for wanting to go on another adventure with the Doctor(6).

Spectacular!

Overall, I think it's fair to say that Seven Keys to Doomsday (the Big Finish release cuts the title down a bit) is a better story than The Ultimate Adventure, with the only bizarre theatrical conceit foisted on writer Terrance Dicks being the companions planted in the audience, which is extra weird in an audio play, but so it goes. Where Seven Keys suffers thanks to the release order is in the 'Jenny disguised as a Dalek' scene, chunks of which were lifted whole cloth by Dicks into The Ultimate Adventure, only with Zog in the casing(7). The original show was a colossal spectacular which utterly failed to make back its money, thanks in part to overambitious design and in part to the loss of theatrical revenue during the '74 IRA campaign. For all of this, the conversion to audio is much better done here than in the previous release, with a minimum of 'look, the monster has him by the throat.'

Trevor Martin is an excellent alternate 4th Doctor in the role he first played in 1974, although it's interesting to hear people compare that original stage performance to Jon Pertwee. They always say that he seemed much older, but Martin is still performing and Pertwee would be approaching his century if he were still alive, so Martin must be the younger man(8). Jenny is a top-notch companion (played here by Charlie Hayes, daughter of Wendy Padbury who, as well as playing Zoe Heriot, was also the original stage Jenny,) but oh my is Jimmy a man of his time. All that chauvinism that Crystal complains of rather unfairly in The Ultimate Adventure is in full evidence with Jimmy, whose catchphrase appears to be: "Come on, Jenny; we're leaving."

Seven Keys to Doomsday is probably less fun than The Ultimate Adventure, but it makes for a more coherent audio play. Will this trend be continued with The Curse of the Daleks(9)? We'll find out next time.

(1) Exhibit A: Jimmy is delighted to have seats that allow maximum access to the intermission ice creams, because A Man does not like theatre.
(2) Exhibit B: Jimmy does not want to help out, and ridicules Jenny's impulse to do so when he can't talk her out of it.
(3) Exhibit C-J. He does this a lot.
(4) Exhibit K.
(5) Exhibit L: When he discovers that she escaped, Jimmy is more angry with her for scaring him than relieved that she's alive.
(6) Exhibit M.
(7) In addition, the whole crystal segment thing would later be recycled for The Key to Time (although some might say the quest format was reused here from The Keys of Marinus,) and the planet Karn would turn up as a completely different devastated hellhole in The Brain of Morbius.
(8) Wikipedia and the IMDb come up a blank.
(9) Spoilers: No.

Start to Finish - Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

With The Companion Chronicles all relistened to and reviewed for now, I'm going to take a crack at one of the weirder offshoots of Big Finish's audio empire: Doctor Who: The Stageplays, audio adaptations of the three attempts to bring the Doctor to the stage, beginning with the biggest and glitziest of them all, 1989's Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure.

As the Daleks, allied with the Cybermen and a force of space mercenaries(1) plot the destruction of the Earth, the Doctor and his companion Jason are summoned by the British PM, Mrs T, to protect a vital peace conference by safeguarding an American envoy on his visit to a nightclub. It is a mission that will take them and their new travelling companion Crystal across time and space, into and out of deadly danger, in the course of which they will face flying insect people, volcanos, lasers, romances, and songs!

Yes, songs. Buckle up, kids; it's Doctor Who! The Musical.

The Ultimate Adventure and its companions are in many ways a textbook example of why it's not a good idea to directly adapt a stage play to audio, and it's odd that a company so deeply steeped in the medium would include so many clunky 'look at that' lines as they do here. On the other hand, this was a play that was written with an eye to visual spectacle, and too great a concession to the transfer might have robbed it of some of its own charms, and for all its cheesy madness, it is very charming. The plot is bonkers: The Daleks' master plan (not to be confused of course with 'The Daleks' Master Plan',) is fundamentally broken and ultimately fails because the Emperor Dalek couldn't help gloating, and despite the attempts to make their mission feel time critical the whole thing takes a back seat for much of the second act while the story meanders through a series of set-pieces included to please the producer. The performances are mostly sound, although the American envoy couldn't sound less American if he were trying(3) and Noel Sullivan of Hear'Say is about as convincingly French as the cast of Allo Allo.

The original (apart from Colin Baker) stage cast, including Zog the Denebian.

The script was produced in a very short window by Terrance Dicks after then wunderkinds of the TV series Cartmel and Aaronovich turned in an offering that was possibly unfilmable and certainly unstageable. The Doctor was replaced part-way through the brief run due to Jon Pertwee's failing health, with Colin Baker stepping into a role heavier on action and gallantry than his usual metier. Baker reprises that performance here, committing to record a rare encounter with the sonic screwdriver between The Visitation and The TV Movie. As is the case with much of his audio work, he gets a much better crack of the whip than in his TV days.

The companions are a pretty weak pair, with Jason often reduced to comic relief, Crystal to strident fauxmenism (having your female supporting character attack the chauvinist assumptions of the male supporting character is all well and good, but less effective if the female character has been portrayed as entirely superficial, up to and including prioritising her singing career over the actual dead bodies in the room with her.) Both of them also spend a lot of time remarking in clear and specific terms about what everyone can see. The villains are a bit better, with the Daleks and the Cybermen butting heads and a couple of fun mercenary leaders in the gruff Carl and slinky Madame Delilah(4).

There are three songs in the show, of variable quality. Top of the pack is 'Business is Business', Madame Delilah's patter song, if for no other reason than the line 'we always maim to please.' Next is Crystal's nightclub number, 'Strange Attractor'. The first song in the show, it's got a catchy tune but the lyrics are terrible, a salutary warning of the perils of trying to adapt a scientific principle into a 1980s love song based only on its name. Finally, 'Sky High' is notable for being the only one not sung entirely diegetically, and is an eminently disposable not-in-love song about getting snuggly while high on lack of oxygen (I think.)

The Ultimate Adventure is a bizarre gem. I remain unsure if it's any good or not, but I've listened to it many times and it never fails to make me smile. It also comes bundled with a truly fascinating hour of behind the scenes documentaries.

(1) Spercenaries for short(2).
(2) Not really.
(3) He'll probably turn out to be a native Chicano whose accent was garbled through living in New England and France, but he doesn't sound convincing.
(4) A couple of fine, alien-sounding names there.

Start to Finish - 'The War to End All Wars'

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

Far, far from home, Steven Taylor has become a king and now, deposed, lives in a secluded cell. Asked by his sole carer why he allowed the throne to be taken from him, he explains by telling the story of another time, when he was caught up in The War to End all Wars.

The last of the Companion Chronicles to be written for the initial run, this one has a suitable sense of finality to it, as Steven muses on the nature of intervention, and the feeling that led him to leave the TARDIS in the end: The feeling that one could never affect lasting change so long as one were just visiting. His reminiscence of the planet Comfort, where an ancient system drove the innocent descendants of a penal colony to engage in endless, futile conflict with themselves, provides the impetus behind his decision to stay on in the TV story 'The Savages', and later to renounce the throne in favour of democracy.

The War to End All Wars feels a lot like the story that should have ended The Companion Chronicles, although we have two more to go. It's a story about moving on, about making a lasting place, as many of Steven's Chronicles have been. It also cleaves tightly to the original format of the series, a companion telling a story, and it makes a solid bookend opposite Frostfire.

Still, it's not the end, and indeed at the last it isn't even the end of this story, finishing on a cliffhanger picked up when the Chronicles restarted in 2015. Still, for my current purposes there are two more to go, and next week Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme meet an unexpected Doctor in The Elixir of Doom.

Start to Finish: 7.04 - 'Last Post'

Image (c) Big Finish Productions

So, this one's a bit of a downer. Not the play itself; just the fact that this is one more last for Big Finish; the last play recorded by Caroline John, published shortly after her death in 2012. It is called, aptly enough, The Last Post.

A series of deaths of important military and government personnel are found to be unconnected and not suspicious, except by UNIT scientific adviser Elizabeth Shaw. Liz discovers letters in the effects of many of the victims which foretell their deaths to the minute. With the Doctor and the Brigadier skeptical, Liz ropes her mother, influential academic Dame Emily Shaw, into the investigation, which all seems to lead back to one of Dame Emily's government committees, to margarine marketing, and to the Apocalypse Clock.

Although the loss of yet another classic Who actor lends an air of melancholy, the story itself in The Last Post is fairly upbeat, escaping from the usual pattern of Liz complaining about being a glorified lab assistant and contemplating leaving UNIT. While a perfectly valid approach, Big Finish have mined that vein pretty hard, so it's good to have something different, with Liz as the dynamic investigator, thwarting the villain with only tangential help with the Doctor, and the formidable Dame Emily along to carry the burden of menace, since we know Liz makes it. While it is sad that Caroline John is gone, I'm glad that she got this for her swansong.

Next, the Rocket Men return in Return of the Rocket Men.

Start to Finish: 7.01 - The Time Museum

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Way back in the summer of 2014, I set out to review the entire series of Big Finish Companion Chronicles, a task at which I singularly failed. In part, this was because my finances hit a point where I could no longer justify the cost of Big Finish CDs, leaving me without the last six plays to review. Thanks to a recent sale, I now have those last six plays, so let's take a punt at the final two seasons of The Companion Chronicles, beginning with the not-actually-a-First Doctor adventure, The Time Museum.

Ian Chesterton, one of the Doctor's very first human companions, wakes in a replica of his bedroom which connects to a replica of his old classroom, and so on through a series of tableaux of scenes from his experiences as a time traveler. He is met by Pendolin, the museum's curator, who explains that this is the Chesterton Exhibit, and that he was 'collected' to be a part of it, but now the exhibit and Ian himself are threatened by the approach of a whispering horde of 'them'; beings that feed on memory itself.

Less a stroll than a headlong flight along Memory Lane, The Time Museum eschews both framing narrative and recollection of a past adventure. Instead, the play is purely the story of Ian and his mysterious companion as they try to escape from the Museum, punctuated by brief recollections from earlier stories, including 'An Unearthly Child', the Companion Chronicle 'The Rocket Men' and that weird one where they got shrunk. It's a chance for Ian to be the hero one more time, and to show what he's learned from the Doctor; as well as what the Doctor learned from him.

William Russell is not only one of the oldest readers in the Chronicles, but audibly so, capturing the First Doctor better than he ever does his younger self. Despite that, he maintains the sense of pace and physicality needed for this story, and despite the nature of the story being all about memory and memorial, it's one of the less melancholic entries, because the action of the piece is now. It's kind of like a clip show, but a good clip show, rather than 'Shades of Gray'.

Next, we'll pick up the story of Zoe Herriot, in The Uncertainty Principle.

Start to Finish: The Revenants

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Remember Start to Finish? After a long break, I return to my epic review of the Big Finish spin-off series The Companion Chronicles, and another special release that I'd forgotten about in my initial summary: Ian Potter's The Revenants, which was released through Dr Who Magazine and then again as part of the 50th Anniversary package The Light at the End.

The Doctor believes that he can get his companions, Ian and Barbara, back to their own place and time at last, but something goes awry leaving the two teachers stranded on the island of Hoy. Mist and bog prove almost as deadly as any Dalek, but there is something else at work on the island. Marsh Wains stalk the night, and only the ancient spirit called the Wissfornjarl can stop them.

The Revenants is a bit of a throwback by the standards of the later Chronicles I've been reviewing, with a full framing narrative in addition to the main action. Guest actor Sharon Small plays both Jeannie, the woman to whom Ian is telling his story, and the spaywife Janet, who plays a major role in the main narrative. it is another reflective piece, although less melancholy than some.

Notably, it is a story in which the TARDIS crew essentially seem to have caused problems that they are then only incidental in solving. It also suffers a little from the fact that, confronted with anyone's religious beliefs, Ian tends to be a bit of a dick, although the framing narrative suggests some mellowing.

It's a slow story, and not a stand out in the series, but quite listenable.

Next, we crack on with series 7, beginning with more Ian Chesterton - indeed, more than you can shake a stick at - in The Time Museum.

Start to Finish: 6.12 - The Rings of Ikiria

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Mike Yates (Richard Franklin) ponders ironically the nature of loyalty and betrayal, in Richard Dinnick's The Rings of Ikiria.

An alien has landed on Sark, intent on sharing her art with the world. Is there something more sinister at work than an intergalactic jewelry franchise? Mike Yates thinks that there is, but no-one seems to believe him; not even his closest friends.

Mike Yates is an oddity, the companion - if such a term can be used of one who didn't travel in the TARDIS until the recent Hornet's Nest and Demon Quest audio series - who turned on the Doctor and the world from misguided idealism and psychological damage. To have him at the centre of a story about trust and loyalty is perhaps a little odd, therefore.

The play is mostly about mind control, with Ikiria (Felicity Duncan) trying to take over the world due to her own psychological damage, and juxtaposes rather tragically with Mike's future travails. Duncan also plays Yates' driver, whose relationship with the Captain is rampantly inappropriate for an officer and an enlisted woman, in a PG kind of way, even before she turns out to be a projection who apparently raised no eyebrows in a highly secret taskforce.

I am not entirely convinced by The Rings of Ikiria, although it has some good ideas. After my less than enthusiastic response to The Wanderer, it may be that I'm not on the same wavelength as Richard Dinnick.

There may be a bit of a break as I do some reading on the train, after which I'll be back with either the last special release, The Revenants, or the start of series 7, The Time Museum.

Start to Finish: 6.11 - The Jigsaw War

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Cementing the move away from the standard enhanced audio book format of the early Chronicles, Eddie Robson's The Jigsaw War is a four-man play with a cast of two.

Under arrest and interrogated by an officer of a harsh, military regime, Jamie is pressed to question his loyalty to the Doctor. When events begin to fall out of sequence, however, Jamie is given a chance to escape, but is he doomed to join the Doctor's enemies, or is it all a trick of the mind?

The Jigsaw War is a one room interrogation play, with Dominic Mafham as Moran, the man asking the questions. The twist is that the scenes of the play are out of order, as Jamie is thrown about in time by the mysterious Si and challenged to work out the correct sequence of events. Si only ever communicates by psychically possessing Moran, and allows the Doctor - his true opponent in the game - to speak through Jamie, thus doubling up the cast within the play as well as without.

The play works on the idea of trust; how far does Jamie trust the Doctor, and why? How far does the Doctor trust his own understanding of the state of affairs on an otherwise unknown planet? How far does the audience take it on trust that the Doctor is infallibly on the side of the angels? It's also fun to work out how the pieces fit together. The puzzle isn't perfect and there are a few rough edges, but overall it's a good listen.

Our final entry in series 6 will be a Third Doctor adventure for Mike Yates of UNIT, in The Rings of Ikiria.

Start to Finish: 6.10 - The Wanderer

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's back to pre-Revolutionary Russia for the First Doctor, a century after his encounter with Napoleon (but earlier in his personal timeline, as he is traveling with Susan, Ian and Barbara, rather than Steven and Dodo), for Richard Dinnick's pseudohistorical The Wanderer.

The TARDIS lands near a remote Siberian village in 1914, where a shooting star has the locals in a flap. When a mysterious illness strikes, only the travelling holy man Grigori seems willing and able to fly in the face of superstition to aid the travelers. But what else will Grigori's devotion to his sacred calling inspire him to risk?

The Wanderer pairs William Russell's Ian with Tim Chipping as one of Russia's most controversial figures (and reputedly its greatest love machine), although his actual identity is obfuscated for the first half of the play. The play is about isolation and the status and mindset of the perpetual outsider, comparing the Doctor and his fellow travelers, with their ongoing companionship, with Grigori's solitary wanderings.

In the end, this is not a story that really works for me, I think because the plot fails to create any significant stakes. As well as the TARDIS crew, the guest character's safety is guaranteed by his presence in chronologically later events, and no-one else is introduced in sufficient detail to give the story the necessary stakes. It also feels like a bit of a cop-out not to actually explore the nature of Rasputin's beliefs once you've got him there.

Next up, Jamie McCrimmon is trapped in The Jigsaw War.

Start to Finish: 6.09 - Binary

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

We now come to a rarity; a Chronicle that is presented as a small-cast play rather than an enhanced audio book with a framing narrative, and which is also a three-hander. Eddie Robson's Binary features Caroline John as Liz Shaw, aided and abetted by Joe Coen and Kyle Redmond-Jones as UNIT soldiers Childs and James Foster.

UNIT have captured an alien computer. Liz has disabled such a device before, but that was with the Doctor's help. This time, the Doctor isn't around, and Liz will have to solve the problem on her own, and from an unfamiliar perspective.

Binary takes the old 'inside the computer' trope and applies it with an interesting mechanical twist, with Liz shrunk and placed in a manual repair network, rather than digitised, which feels far more apt for the era of the story. It also allows the Doctor to appear, when he does, as a remote voice rather than an overriding presence, and gives Liz a chance to spread her wings a little.

Liz's supporting players have similar voices, but present quite distinct characters, both offering hints that neither of them is quite what they seem. Liz herself is able to shine without the Doctor's direct presence, even in a field which - as is made clear - she is not uncommonly knowledgeable.

If it suffers, Binary suffers from the fact that it is not significantly distinct from a regular Big Finish pay, save in the size of its cast, such that it feels more like a limited play than an expanded Chronicle.

Next up, we're back in Russia with the First Doctor for The Wanderer.

Start to Finish: 6.08 - The Selachian Gambit

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's giant sharks and bank jobs for the Second Doctor, in Steve Lyons' The Selachian Gambit.

The Doctor needs a loan to pay a parking fine. Unfortunately, the day he visits the Galactibank is the same day a team of Selachian soldiers decided to stage an audacious armed robbery.

The Selachian Gambit is a heist story, with plenty of action, daring ploys and desperate procrastinations, with just enough menace from the brutal, aqua-supremacist Selachians - adversaries from one of the novel lines, making their second appearance in audio after the main range sharks-vs-Nazis play The Architects of History - to maintain the stakes.

Oddly, this title is listed as 'Frazer Hines performs... with Anneke Wills', and yet this is one of Polly's more proactive roles to date. If Hines takes the meat of the play, it is because he is called on to do double duty as the Doctor, with his celebrated Patrick Troughton. The interplay between the three companions - Poly, Jamie, and Ben - is a highlight of this play, with their somewhat blundering attempts at heroics working at odds to the Doctor's subtle plans and caution.

Next up, UNIT secret squirrelry with Liz Shaw in Binary.

Start to Finish: 6.07 - The Anachronauts

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's a two-disc, two companion extravaganza this time out, with Jean Marsh and Peter Purves in Simon Guerrier's The Anachronauts.

It isn't possible for one time ship to crash into another in the vortex, so when it happens you can bet that it will be serious. With the TARDIS malfunctioning, Steven and Sara are thrown through time, from a desert island to Berlin in the 1960s. The Doctor knew what was going on, but the Doctor isn't with them any more, and there may be no way back.

The Anachronauts lacks a framing narrative, per se. Marsh and Purves alternate narrating duties in the four episodes, but there is no additional layer of text, just the two characters telling their story. The story itself falls broadly into two sections, the desert island and Cold War Berlin, with the transition at the end of part 2.

The story once more plays on the idea of a romance between two Companions, although in the end it comes down on the side of friendship, at least where Steven and Sara are concerned and primarily uses the romance element as a hint to the story's main twist. Overall, as with much of the Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom material, it's a bit of a downer, set shortly after the death of Bret Vyon, so don't expect wacky hijinks.

The Anachronauts has a lot to like, but it's not one of my personal favourites. Ultimately, I think I find it too bleak, especially coming on top of The First Wave.

Next up, squamous heist shenanigans in The Selachian Gambit.

Start to Finish: 6.06 - Beyond the Ultimate Adventure

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

One of Big Finish's more off the wall projects was the production of audio versions of three Doctor Who stage plays of times past. Curse of the Daleks was a Doctorless outing, loaded with unthinking chauvinism even as it tried to be progressive and Seven Keys to Doomsday was a pretty standard planet-crawl with Daleks and rebels and ancient super weapons. And then there was The Ultimate Adventure, a rollercoaster musical extravaganza featuring Colin Baker's Sixth Doctor.

And yes, I said musical. Some years later, the characters from the play return in Terrence 'The War Games' Dicks' Beyond the Ultimate Adventure.

Barely recovered from saving the world, the Doctor and his companions, Jason and Crystal, are plunged into a nightmare realm where fear is given form. Accompanying mercenary Karl on a good will search for hidden treasure and the peril of the universe, they find themselves in an otherworldly dimension, faced by an ancient and monstrous foe.

The framing device for this Chronicle is pretty straightforward, as Jason and Crystal (Noel Sullivan and Claire Huckle) record an account of the adventure for submission to a non-specific Time Lord oversight committee. The main narrative has shades of The Five Doctors, as the Doctor and his companions negotiate a parade of old enemies to reach a castle which holds a false reward, although this time it is explicitly a realm of the mind. It is also notable for transitioning between the two episodes of the play, not on a cliffhanger, but on a theatrical act break.

Sadly, or perhaps thankfully, there are no songs, despite the return of Sullivan (from Hear'Say) and his incredible French accent as Jason.

Beyond the Ultimate Adventure is a lighthearted romp, even when faced with deadly, ancient evil, and serves as a good palate cleanser between The First Wave and our next installment, The Anachronauts.

Start to Finish: 6.05 - The First Wave

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Note: This review contains major spoilers for the Oliver Harper arc

Yet more First Doctor, as The Companion Chronicles closes out one of its occasional linked trilogies with the third and final appearance of Tom Allen as 60s city gent Oliver Harper, in Simon Guerrier's The First Wave.

The Doctor, Steven Taylor and Oliver Harper will go to the planetoid Grace Alone. They know; they've seen the records. But what is it that will happen there, and can that fate be averted once revealed?

So, elephant in the room (and by the way, spoilers), The Eternal Bond and The Cold Equations introduced Big Finish's first officially gay companion, and The First Wave kills him off. It's a thing, but it isn't all that much of a thing. Harper's run was limited by the need to fit in between the death of Sara Kingdom and the introduction of Dodo Chaplet, which is barely a story break, and a heroic end is more fitting to the character than wandering off somewhere.

Allen portrays Harper as a bright, determined man, unwilling to give up without a fight, as a counterpoint to Steven's depression in the wake of the loss of Katarina, Brett Vyon and Sara Kingdom, and if the trilogy has a significant flaw it is that Harper's death seems almost enough to push Steven over the edge. The two companions have a good chemistry, however, vital in the absence of a separate Doctor, and their story has been involving. It's sad to see Harper go, but interesting to see his death worked into the Doctor's transformation from disinterested wanderer to benevolent interferer.

In a lighter mode, the next story follows from the plot of a certain stage production, with Dr Who uber-scribe Terrence Dicks' Beyond the Ultimate Adventure.

Start to Finish: 6.04 - The Many Deaths of Jo Grant

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

It's time for the Third Doctor, and we're back with Jo Grant, in a title that does not bode well for the pluckiest UNIT agent; Cavan Scott and Mark Wright's The Many Deaths of Jo Grant.

The Doctor is desperately striving to save the life of a wounded alien and UNIT HQ is under attack. As the attackers close in, time is running out. This is the day that Jo Grant dies... and dies, and dies.

Scott and Wright's slightly trippy entry in the series doesn't ever convince you that Jo is doomed, of course, but it presents its puzzle well, with the common elements which drift through the different scenarios. Nicholas Asbury provides one of those elements as the recurring Rowe, but presents a range of characters within that umbrella, and between just the two of them Katy Manning and Asbury provide a staggering number of characters.

The old melancholy is back a little, but overall this story is one of defiance and celebration of the third principle of sentient life. The saarlac-esque scene is a little grim, but overall it's a solid entry and a lot of fun.

Next time, we'll wrap up the Oliver Harper trilogy with The First Wave.

Start to Finish: 6.03 - The Memory Cheats

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

As the series progresses, not only do the formats of the Companion Chronicles get more varied, they also begin to build up complex post-travel histories for some of the Companions. Such is the case with Zoe Herriot, whose story picks up in The Memory Cheats, with a framing narrative that is a direct sequel to Echoes of Grey.

Zoe Herriot remembers everything, and she knows she never traveled with the Doctor. So why is she under arrest, charged with various crimes, and presented with a chance to save herself if only she can explain what happened in Uzbekistan in 1919?

Having denied the Company her help in Echoes of Grey, the framing narrative for Simon Guerrier's The Memory Cheats picks up Zoe's story in prison, with a court-appointed defender urging Zoe to recall the information she needs for a plea bargain. Unusually, this Chronicle plays very much with the idea of the Companion as an unreliable narrator, not as a result of forgetfulness, but deliberation. Zoe specifically claims that her story is false, and peppered with hints to manipulate her listener, although the audience is left unsure.

Wendy Padbury is joined by her daughter Charlie Hayes, no stranger to the Chronicles having played Gatlin in Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code, as Jen, and the interview room scenes click well. The story is somewhat strange and unsettling. In fact many of the Zoe Chronicles have an air of claustrophobic menace about them, but in this instance Zoe's attempts to manipulate Jen's perceptions lead to some distinctly odd character moments.

Next, more perceptual shenanigans in The Many Deaths of Jo Grant.

Start to Finish: 6.02 - The Rocket Men

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Back to the First Doctor, and another TARDIS 'holiday', in John Dorney's The Rocket Men.

Vacationing on the Platform 5 luxuy hotel on the gas giant Jobis, the TARDIS crew are enjoying the break from danger and adventure. Then the Rocket Men arrive, and the holiday is very much over.

The frame of The Rocket Men is a bit of an oddity, with William Russell as Ian skipping back and forth in the narrative and breaking off to muse on that perennial favourite of Chronicle writers, Ian and Barbara as the OTP of the First Doctor era. The frame also blends into the main story, and is ultimately overtaken and let behind.

Despite the art deco look and 50s pulp adventure name, the Rocket Men themselves are a brutal depiction of piracy, murderous and more than a little sadistic, as represented by Gus Brown as their gleefully vicious, scene chewing leader Ashman. The massacre of innocents is classic Who all over, and the look of the Rocket Men makes it easy to visualise them in Radio Serial style, while the descriptions are rather more sophisticated.

Despite the limitations of the form, The Rocket Men manages to generate a real sense of tension and peril, and the Rocket Men themselves were good enough to return in series 7's Return of the Rocket Men, as well as Requiem for the Rocket Men, a forthcoming full-cast adventure for the Fourth Doctor and Leela.

We'll catch up with them later then. For now, the next play is a Second Doctor outing which develops the story of the older Zoe Herriot in The Memory Cheats.

Start to Finish: 6.01 - Tales from the Vault

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

We open series 6 of The Companion Chronicles with a bit of an oddity, in Jonathan Morris's Tales from the Vault, starring Daphne Ashbrook and Yee Jee Tso, who played the 'almost' companion Dr Grace Holloway and the 'almost almost' companion Chang Lee in the Paul McGann TV movie.

It's Warrant Officer Charlie Sato's first day at a new job, as assistant curator of the UNIT archives under the supervision of Captain Ruth Matheson. It might also be his last, if he doesn't learn to respect the archive's contents.

Ashbrook and Tso provide the framing narrative for a quartet of short stories, each taking the form of the UNIT archive's record on a particular artefact. Katy Manning, Wendy Padbury, Mary Tamm and Peter Purves voice Jo, Zoe, Romana and Steven, describing the four items which become central to the plot of the arc story, which is itself really a two-handed play which, with its single (locked) room setting is most like Solitaire among the Chronicles.

Matheson and Sato are likable protagonists, and the accents are an interesting change (although a little head-scratching given that the Vault is apparently located under the Angel of the North in this instance). The portmanteau stories are brief snippets compared to the richness of a full chronicle, but the weaving together of the four is done well.

Next up, interstellar piracy with The Rocket Men.

Start to Finish: The Three Companions

Image (c) Big Finish Productions Ltd

Marc Platt's The Three Companions was part of an experimental phase when Big Finish were toying with the format of their monthly Doctor Who releases. One experiment was the 3 + 1 format (a three episode main story plus a single episode 'short', usually linked either to the main story and to a loosely thematic series of shorts); this was another. Inserted in place of the usual 'making of' featurettes, The Three Companions was released in a dozen 10-minute segments, and later compiled as part of the Specials boxed set.

London is flooded, the world is mired in mould. Polly and the Brigadier are put in mind of their past adventures with the Doctor, but it is another companion who knows what is actually happening. Victorian pickpocket Thomas Brewster has run into trouble, and now the fate of the world - and the Doctor's TARDIS - hang in the balance.

Parts 1 and 2 of this three part story use a framing narrative of an email conversation between Polly and the Brigadier, connected owing to Jo Jones nee Grant's careless blog post (in The Doll of Death). It establishes Polly as a senior civil servant, which provides a bit of background for her ability to address world leaders in The Forbidden Time, and picks up the Brigadier post-Battlefield.

Part 3 shifts to a play with four cast members. Nicholas Courtney and Anneke Wills are joined by John Pickard as Thomas Brewster (not a favourite of mine, here or elsewhere) and Russell Floyd as alien wheeler-dealer GL (using the aliases Gerry Lenz, Garry Lendler and Gerard Lander in the three parts). For my money, this part is less successful, as Brewster is not really engaging as a hero or as an anti-villain, although GL's role is interesting, as an alien presence offering to help the Earth in exchange for fiscal remuneration.

As a single play, the episodic nature of the piece is somewhat against it, as the pace rises and falls for a dozen chapter breaks instead of three, but the first two parts stand well as Companion Chronicles. The third is weakened (for me) by the presence of Brewster, who seems to be channelling all of the least likable traits of companions like Adric and Turlough, and the fact that the melding of play and Chronicle formats results in a slightly stilted four-hander.

I'm going to take a break for a bit, having finished series 5 and the specials, and having a holiday booked for next week. I'll pick up when I'm back home with series 6 and portmanteau episode Tales from the Vault.