A quick test before I start. What do the following monsters have in common?

The Zygons

The Ice Warriors

The Daleks

The Sontarans

Hmm. You’re probably having a good old think about this one. They’re not all the same colour, they don’t all come from the same place, they aren’t all palindromes, they surely didn’t all go to the same school, they’ve not all been panellists on Have I Got News For You… you give up don’t you? Ha. I’ve out-Nick Pegged the Watcher I have. The answer is that they’ve all got great voices. Not in the sense of a Pavarotti, Aled Jones (pre-testicles) or kd lang but they’ve got great monster voices. I ummed and ahhed about including the Cyberpeople but they were very inconsistent. The Tenth Planet voices were silly but strangely effective (especially in Spare Parts) while the buzzy ones were crap.

So telly could do great voices for aliens and, almost without exception, Big Finish have managed to replicate those voices perfectly, both in technical terms with the special effects filters and the vocal inflections of the artists involved. Usually Nick Briggs. They can tweak a voice modulator until they hit the perfect Dalek despite absolutely no help from a BBC who were far more slap dash and often ended up with Welsh Daleks or voices which were painfully rubbish. You go and watch the first couple of episodes of Day of the Daleks. Then you’ll see how awful they could be.

So BF are skilled at copying other peoples voices (and let’s not ignore BBV’s similar successes in their audio range) but cannot produce original monster voices to save their lives. The Sandman presents us with a cast which is mostly Galyari and whose voices sound way too fake. Death in Master was another case of bad fake voice. As soon as [spoiler] was revealed as Death they took on an obviously computer enhanced voice. It is annoying because it isn’t in the least bit menacing.

I understand that they needed to do something to make the voices sound more alien. Otherwise it might as well have been humans instead of Galyari. But for an organic creature to sound like a synthesiser isn’t a good thing. It is distracting and often distorts the speech. Never mind paying for "name" actors like Ian Hogg and Anneke Wills only to distort their voices beyond all recognition. They might as well have cast from their rep company and saved a few quid.

So the Sandman belongs in the Colditz pile – a story more notable for technical failings than anything else. They’re also two audios which took a hell of a long time for me to listen to them. Colditz was about a year between arrival and CD player, Sandman at least twice that. I found it so hard to get past the first episode. It contains the afore mentioned annoying voices and incomprehensible dialogue. Much of it appears to be moaned too which isn’t enticing. I mean, moaning can be enticing but that’s for another time. It also introduces us to Mordecan – the Star Gypsy. Star Gypsy? Are we twelve? That’s right up there with "Sea Devil" as a term that no self respecting race would use to describe themselves.

The Sandman wants to be a clever and grown up story. Indeed, in places it IS a clever and grown up story but its faults are far more frequent and obvious and there is nothing the story can do to counteract them.