Plug time again. But no, you don’t have to spend any money. This is a free thing. Gratis. Involving no outlay whatsoever.
This week BBC 7 are broadcasting my Doctor Who audio play from last year, ‘The Cannibalists’. I’ve never actually listened to BBC 7 myself, I don’t own a digital radio, but that doesn’t matter because you can listen to selected highlights on the BBC iPlayer. So why not give it a listen? It features Paul McGann as Doctor Who, Sheridan Smith, Phill Jupitus, Phil Davis and Nigel Lambert. You don’t need to have listened to any of the other adventures to understand it. It’s extremely violent, in a way that you can only really get away with on radio.
But on top of that, this Saturday, the 3rd July, has been designation ‘Big Finish Day’. They’re selling copies of their first 50 Doctor Who plays at a mere £5 pounds each, which includes, by yours truly, the rather marvellous ‘Bloodtide’ and the rather bitter and misanthropic ‘Flip-Flop’. I say ‘bitter and misanthropic’ by way of recommendation. Why not add it to your shopping trolley alongside ‘The One Doctor’, ‘The Chimes Of Midnight’, ‘Master’ and ‘Spare Parts’?
But on top of that, the cherry quite figuratively on the cake, they’re making the first part of my new Doctor Who audio play ‘Cobwebs’ available for download for free. Yes, that’s right. For download. It features Peter Davison as Doctor Who, plus his companions Nyssa, Turlough, and for the first time in goodness-knows-how-long, Tegan. An absolute pleasure and an honour to write for and it’s rather flattering that it’s being used for a promotional thing. It’s a sort of ‘Aliens’-y piece, claustrophobic, hopefully quite atmospheric and scary, and with a time-travel paradox which has been Worked Out Properly. Episode one also features Raymond Coulthard, who has been in things like Casualty and Hotel Babylon and Extras but who is probably best known in this house as Young Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol.
