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| Bang-Bang-a-Boom! by Gareth Roberts & Clayton Hickman |
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The problem, I think, is that parodies and performances
of grand bombast are best appreciated with something straight to contrast
them against. The Doctor and Mel seem the problem here, even if both are
as interesting as ever to listen to. There's clearly a wish somewhere that Doctor Who had
re-made "The Curse of Peladon" in Season 24. That's the TV serial that
this owes the largest debt to. Of course, strange alien delegates are
easier to conjure up on audio as we don't need to see them, and the
arbitrating Packer is here because the existence of Alpha Centurai in the
earlier story let's them get away with it. But the play is proof that time
often cannot be wound back, even taking into account audio's shielding of
graying hair and expanding waistlines. They may have winged it with
Colin's softer portrayal of the Sixth Doctor and Mark Strickson's
marginally more adult-sounding Turlough elsewhere, but for Sylv and Bonnie
1987 is sixteen very long years ago. The latter comes off best, although
when her scene at the swimming pool with Nicky recalls "Paradise Towers",
one cannot help but note how unbubbly and, well, unMelish she sounds in
comparison. Likewise when the woman who "would help anyone" shuns Nicky in
her next scene just because he got upset over his suffocating fame, I
genuinely wondered if she wasn't Angola in disguise! Sylvester on the other hand dances with senility in his
public's ear. I was once told by a Big Finish sound "engineer" that
McCoy's performances often have to be constructed by the syllable in
post-production, such is the erratic nature of his delivery. Not to mock
the afflicted of course, but maybe he should read the scripts through
first like Colin, the only Doctor who does? Not that an absent-minded,
word-chewing Doctor can't be fun (he's actually turning into our own
Hartnell) but we mustn't forget their striving for authenticity here, not
development. McCoy's Doctor shouldn't be any worse than he was in "The TV
Movie". Unbelievably, often here he actually is. And there lies the problem. It might work, had they set
the story during Season 26, when the grand manipulator dropped bricks on
his foot, or even better just before "Dimensions in Time", and allowed
McCoy's tramp-wizard portrayal more exposure. But I was left wondering how
much of the Seventh Doctor we see here is characterisation, and how much
is simply a mad forgetful old actor bridging the years. When the Doctor's
mixed-up proverbs of his first few stories are recalled with the line "it
takes two to foxtrot!", or when he fluffs the terminology of the Space
Station due to his adoption of an impostor Commander, I was left wondering
if mistakes had really been made and then left in. I also suspect the authors had ever so slightly more
fun writing this than is achievable from this end of things. A while ago I
wrote a Doctor Who story with a friend, called "Echoes of the Protii". I
know I laughed a lot more when writing it than most of the people that
read it, and now I know how they feel. There is a good story within
"Bang-Bang-A-Boom!". There's just so much other stuff going on - the guest
stars, the weight of the passing years since the time it's hoping to sound
a native of, the expectation culled from the brilliant "One Doctor" - that
the simplicity of the original idea gets irretrievably lost somewhere. A
good intention, you'll agree, only counts when you can grasp it. CD Facts Part 1 - Tracks 1-8 Part 2 - Tracks 9-18 Part 3 - Tracks 1-8 Part 4 - Tracks 9-19
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There's
a good intention buried in here somewhere. Beneath the staggering campness,
mock menace, Terry Wogan parody and Patricia Quinn and Graeme Garden,
there's a great idea. Setting it all on "Dark Space 8" is the clue, and
the basis for "Bang-Bang-A-Boom!" is a Star Trek parody that you don't
even need to have seen Star Trek to enjoy.