Sorry I’ve been neglecting this blog. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your perspective – I’ve got quite a lot of work on at the moment. I’m not complaining, or even boasting, if anything I’m delighted and intimidated. So much that I’m already getting my deadline stress recurring nightmare. And on top of that I’ve got tendonitis in my left hand. And I did my homework, honestly Miss, but my dog ate it, because I made the elementary mistake of writing it all on dog biscuits instead of paper.
But I have something new to plug. Doctor Who: The Crimes Of Thomas Brewster was released about a week ago by Big Finish productions. I’ve listened to the first three episodes (albeit with some difficulty, as I’m currently deaf in my left ear) and it sounds amazing. Really fast-moving and with very immersive sound design and some strong, funny performances (particularly from Lisa Greenwood as Flip, I predict she will go on to great things).
What’s it about? Well, first and foremost it’s supposed to be big, bold, bonkers fun. There is an overt farce element to the plotline, a lot of comedy, a little horror, a little sci-fi, and if there is a theme, it’s about the fact that almost everyone in the story is pretending to be someone (or something) they’re not. It’s deceptively complicated. It’s my attempt to write something along the lines of one of Russell T Davies season-opening stories, silly, celebratory, spontaneous. I also wanted to write one of those stories where it starts off seeming to be one sort of story and ends up being something completely different, like The Hand Of Fear or The Stones Of Blood.
The other thing I wanted to do with the story goes all the way back to 1983 and the announcement that Colin Baker had been cast as Doctor Who. I remember thinking how great it would be to have a more ‘physical’ Doctor Who, someone who was a man of action, who would get into fights, who’d perform daring stunts and drive fast vehicles; like Jon Pertwee, I suppose, but even more dynamic. And that was a part of Colin Baker’s Doctor Who on the TV, but I always wished it could have been taken further. So The Crimes Of Thomas Brewster is me writing the sixth Doctor as a man of action, a guy who gets into speedboat chases, who jumps off high buildings, who can handle himself in a swordfight with a giant robotic mosquito. Quite a lot of the audios have re-invented the sixth Doctor as more thoughtful, compassionate figure, so I thought I’d try something different, to write him as a hero with a capital H.
To buy it, click here.
