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Welcome to The Doctor's Diary section of Doctor Who Online.
The Doctor's Diary is a weekly video blog, posted by renowned Doctor Who
fan, Dale Who. Each week, Dale with review a Doctor Who
episode, as well as allowing us a window into his life as a fan. |
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Sunday
23rd August
2009 |
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Last week we asked you for your thoughts on
the
10th Doctor Audios. |
Here is what you had to say about the story in the
DWO
Forums:
"Well, I haven't
heard any of the un novelised ones, but I have heard audio books read by
David Tennant. I listened to the Resurrection Casket, and man, David
Tennant knows how to play as a hyper young boy and 3 drunk robots!..."
finn789; Australia
"Well starting with the adaptations of the novels, the
first three read by David Tennant are all extremely great to listen to
for that exact reason. David Tennant. He is a great voice actor and
turns each book he does into a one man full cast play. His natural
Scottish lint makes for a good narration voice and therefore it's easy
to distinguish between it and The Doctor's lines.
As for the stories themselves well Stone Rose is one for the shippers
for sure, Ressurection Casket is a great Doctor Who meets Treasure
Island in Space story for younger listeners and Feast of The Drowned is
a slightly older pitched story (2 finger salutes and the like) that is
quite gripping.
In the next batch we get a great story and great reading from Anthony
Head in 'The Nightmare of Black Island' Oddly enough the only NSA so ar
to be based in Wales. (and a nice nod to Torchwood included as well).
The other two were not so good unfortunately, The Art of Destruction was
a poor story and the monotone reading from Don Warrington was a chore to
listen to. Although The Price of Paradise was a slightly better story,
it still wasn't brilliant and the Doctor voice that Shaun Dingwall
provided was face palm wrong wrong wrong, which was a shame because I
would have thought that Shaun would have been well able to impersonate
David Tennant.
Next batch, the first three Martha stories, First up Sting of The Zygons
read by Reggie Yates, there is a free interview with Reggie on
bbcaudiozone.com (by audible) where Reggie admits he's not really an
accomplished voice actor and sadly it shows here. This book would have
been better in the hands of any of the support cast from Human
Nature/Family of Blood seeing as it's set in early 20th century lakeland
district, Reggie London accent is out of place for most of the
characters.
Seeing as the book version of The Last Dodo was written in parts in
Martha's first person POV getting in Martha herself, Freema Agyeman, to
read the book was a master stroke, not only did she get across Martha's
mannerisms and behaviour in this story, she also did a cracking job with
The Doctor and every character in the story. Freema had never done voice
acting like this before and she turned out to be quite a revelation, so
much so that in the succeeding batches of Doctor/Martha audiobooks, it
was a given that Freema had to read one of them, and usually they kept
the best one for her. Last Dodo was a good story and certainly one of my
favourites.
The last of this batch was 'Wooden Heart' and it was read by Adjoa Andoh
(Francine Jones). Adjoa is already a seasoned actress in this form of
media and it really shone through, she really had the Doctor and Martha
down to a tee, her Martha voice at times really sounded like Freema
Agyeman herself had come in to read the lines, her eastern
European/Russian accents for the other people in the story was very good
as well. The story was engaging and held my attention well and this too
is one of my favourites.
The next three took an unusual direction in narrating casting, Firstly
Freema was back to read 'Wetworld' and indeed did her usual good job of
it, her Otter voices were particularly engaging although I reckon she
might have had some help voicing 'Pallister', if not then that's all the
more impressive. The story was great and again easy to listen to.
The other two shared the same narrator, Will Thorp, an unusual choice as
he had not starred opposite Freema Agyeman in any story having appeared
the year before when Rose was still in the Tardis. However it turns out
he is more then capable of churning out a good performance and has
become the actor of choice when the action turns stateside, as it does
in 'Forever Autumn' (Why not call it 'Forever Fall'?) I found the story
a bit slow TBH and not that engaging to the audio format, people keep
raving about it in book format and perhaps it works better that way.
The other story that Will reads in this batch was 'Sick Building' . Now
apparently the author of this story is known for his 'out there' stories
an this was certainly one of those, it was a decent 'not as childish as
it looks' stories and Will Thorp did a good job narrating it, but I
wasn't sold on him as a great narrator and when I saw that he was to do
another book in the next batch I was a bit sceptical as to how he would
do.
Oh How Wrong I Was.
Back to the states and this time to the Wild (Sorry, New) West we went
and had ourselves a ball, Peacemaker was a brilliant piece of Western
fun and frolics and Will Thorp went to town with the spaghetti western
characters, the story was fantastic and gripping and it remains one of
my favourite audiobooks in the range.
The other two were also decent stories, we had 'Wishing Well' which was
read by Debbie Chazen, again not someone who had acted opposite Freema
Agyeman having starred in the Christmas special after Series 3, Voyage
of The Damned. She put in a good performance none the less especially
with the towns folk of Crighton Meir, looks like lessons learnt from
Sting of The Zygons, the story was alright if nothing spectacular.
The Pirate Loop was this batches Freema Agyeman contribution and as
always she puts in a solid performance. The story was a great deal fun,
not one of my favourites but certainly far from one that I hate.
The next three were contraversial not nearly so far as they were meant
to be Donna novels, but as the book authors didn't want to write for
Runaway Bride Donna but Series 4 Donna, it was decided to stick with
Martha for three more novels, these were then placed into a 3 book pack
and sold together,
First up is 'Martha in the Mirror' read by 'Martha' Freema again and it
is a good story. Freema really excels with young child like characters
like the otters in Wetworld or the badgers in Pirate Loop and in this
it's the same with Jana in this story, not to say that she gives any
less to any of the other characters, like Bill and Bot for example.
Snowglobe 7 is read by a member of Series 4's cast namely Doctor's
Daughter, Jenny, Georgia Moffett. Georgia does very well in this, like
with Debbie Chazen before it's her voicing of the support characters
that shines in this. She does however do a very passable reading of the
Tardis crew.
Finally we have The Many Hands read by David Troughton he does alright
in this one, steady but not stand out, his Doctor is some what like
David Tennant but others have done better, it's particularly
dissapointing that David Tennant didn't come in for this one as there is
a sequence where yet again the Doctor must put on a Scottish accent. The
story was creepy but not one of my favourites.
David Troughton returns in the first of the next batch 'Ghosts of India'
and the first to feature Donna Noble (we will touch on the audio
exclusives later) still not convinced by his Doctor but his Donna and
his impressions of both the native Indians and the colonists are
impressive. Helped by the good writing of the characters no doubt. Story
was good but not great.
Next up we had a new voice to the range in our Alons-y hero from Voyage
of the Damned, Midshipman Alonso Frame actor Russell Tovey. The story
was dominated by the character Sebastiene and this was Good for Russell
as he characterises the part very well. Story was good, my favourite
from the batch, but not one of my overall favourites.
Lastly we had Shining Darkness read by another returnee Debbie Chazen,
well if you get in Will Thorp when David Tennant is unavailable, Adjoa
Andoh when Freema Agyeman is unavailable then you get in Debbie Chazen
when Catherine Tate is unavailable this is the closest to Donna's
charteristics we get in these versions of the novels, as I say I
prefered the story in 'The Doctor Trap' but I prefer the performance of
Debbie Chazen to Russell Tovey.
The final three are the new pieces, Beautiful Chaos is one of my
favourite adaptation of all, Bernard Cribbins really put something into
the audiobook that you can't get reading it off the page. The story,
though a bit like a recycled 'Lazarous Experiment' was engaging and easy
to read, some lovely insights into the Noble family and indeed, the Mott
family as well.
The Story of Martha, as told by Martha was also a decent listen, not one
of my favourite Freema readings mind, (not even the bonus short stories
on download) but nice listen none the less. They could have used some of
the sound effects from the TV series at the beginning and end.
Finally The Eyeless, perhaps a too dense story for audio, it may be more
suited to a slow read to digest, again I'm not sold on Russell Tovey, I
found his child voices irritating.
As for the four straight to audio releases to date, I found Pest Control
alright but a bit gory for a Doctor Who story. David Tennant again the
one man play that he is.
The Forever Trap remains one of my favourites, Catherine Tate is
fantastic at the range and the story is a great laugh to isten to.
The Nemonite is less so and while Catherine puts in a good performance I
get the impression that this could be any Doctor, any companion, It's
too formulaic to be specifically a Tenth Doctor story.
The Rising Night is a marked improvement and Michelle Ryans reading is
on par with that of Georgia Moffett's reading from earlier..."
dreamracer; Unspecified Location |
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Next time, we will be asking you for your thoughts on
the
Animated Doctor Who. Why not post your thoughts
on the Animated Doctor Who stories in the
DWO
Forums, and we may use them in next weeks
installment of The Doctor's Diary. |
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Page Last Updated: |
23/8/2009 |
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