My 2002 Doctor Who audio Flip-Flop is on sale today for £5 only. Click here to buy it. (Other excellent Doctor Who audios by Jac Rayner, Nev Fountain, Joe Lidster and others are also available). As a preview-type "taster", here are the first two pages of the 'black' episode (Flip-Flop is a story told over two discs, one black, one white, which can be listened to in either order, neither one definitive.)
SCENE 1
[OUTDOORS. WE ARE IN A BUSY CITY LATE AT NIGHT. THERE ARE DISTANT SIRENS, CREAKING BUILDINGS, CURFEW BELL, DIESEL TRAINS, STEAM VENTS, RUMBLING ENGINES AND FACTORIES. A HARSH, ICY WIND BLOWS. WE HEAR APPROACHING FEET CRUNCHING THROUGH SNOW AND SOMETHING SLITHERING. AN ALARM WAILS IN THE DISTANCE.]
R.MITCHELL: [VIA RADIO] Attention all Slithergee patrols. Two dissidents are at large and must be captured at once! They were last seen approaching Ghetto Delta-Delta. I repeat [UNDER FOLLOWING DIALOGUE] last seen approaching Ghetto Delta-Delta.
[FX: APPROACHING FEET AND SLITHERING HALT]
SLITHERGEE: That’s where we are, isn’t it? Guide - be my eyes for me, seek where I cannot...
R.POTTER: Yes, humble master. Ghetto Delta-Delta.
R.MITCHELL: [VIA RADIO] The dissidents are a human female, twenty plus, and a human male, forty plus, called... ‘Mel’ and ‘The Doctor’.
[FX: RADIO CUTS OFF]
SLITHERGEE: So, they’ve decided to scurry amongst their own, have they? They think their trail will be lost amongst the squalor! But I will sniff them out!
[FX: NEARBY, A FAMILIAR ‘WHEEZING AND GROANING’ SOUND]
SLITHERGEE: Hold still - what’s that?
R.POTTER: It appears to be something appearing...
[FX: THE TARDIS LANDS WITH A CRUMP.]
SLITHERGEE: I scent something strange and peculiarness. We shall investigate! Lead me to it, sight-guide Potter, lead me!
R.POTTER: Yes, humble master.
[FX: THE PATROL MOVES AWAY THROUGH THE SNOW]
CUT IMMEDIATELY TO:
SCENE 2
[INSIDE THE TARDIS. THE ENGINES ARE GRUMBLING AND SHUDDERING. VARIOUS WARNING SOUNDS. BUTTONS ARE BEING PRESSED RAPIDLY.]
MEL: [SHOUTING] Doctor! What’s happening!
[FX: THE DIN ABRUPTLY STOPS HALF WAY THROUGH ‘HAPPENING’.]
DOCTOR: Just some... turbulence in the vortex, Mel.
MEL: I thought the ship was going to shake itself to pieces! And us with it!
DOCTOR: I grant you the landing may have been a little on the bumpy side...
MEL: Bumpy? I’m not included to use rude words, Doctor, but if I was I’d use several to describe how “bumpy” that landing was.
DOCTOR: We’ve arrived slap-bang [PAUSES AT POOR CHOICE OF WORDS] on target. The Earth colony on the planet Puxatornee in the year three thousand and ninety. December the twenty-fourth.
[FX: SCANNER HUMS ON.]
MEL: So what are we doing here - and why did we leave the Space Yacht Pinto in such a hurry?
DOCTOR: It’s quite simple. This is the only planet in the galaxy where you can find Leptonite crystals.
MEL: Leptonite?
DOCTOR: Quarks are highly allergic to Leptonite, Mel. It makes them go berserk and explode.
MEL: Oh, I see. So we get the crystals, nip back to the Pinto, and quell the Quarks?
DOCTOR: Hopefully violence won’t be necessary. But yes.
MEL: [SCEPTICAL] You’re sure this is the right place? It’s all... slums and workhouses.
DOCTOR: It’s very odd. The last time I visited here it was brimming with prosperity.
MEL: When was that?
DOCTOR: It was the year the Proxima Centuari All-Blacks did the double... three thousand and twelve.
