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Reunited with his former companions Romana and K9, the
Doctor answers a summons from Professor Chronotis, a retired
Time Lord now living in a Cambridge college. But someone else
is also looking for the Professor: a sinister alien called
Skagra...
I have to admit that I wasn't too keen on the notion of recasting
and restaging Shada, the famous unfinished story from
the Tom Baker era. I had always considered this a Fourth Doctor
story, and I didn't like the idea of invalidating the footage
that had already been released on BBC Video.
But you may have noticed my use of the past tense. The Big
Finish team (I'm not sure who exactly performed the necessary
rewrites) have found an ingenious way to imply that, although
the Eighth Doctor (Paul McGann) experiences this adventure,
the Fourth Doctor would have fulfilled the role had he not
been distracted when he was taken out of time in The Five
Doctors. Therefore, what we saw on video could represent
what would have happened had Tom Baker's Doctor not been so
rudely interrupted.
I
have to say that Douglas Adams' script works surprisingly
well with relatively few modifications to accommodate Paul
McGann's incarnation. The Eighth Doctor's flippancy had been
turning fairly "Bakeresque" over recent Big Finish dramas
anyway, and Adams' witticisms trip off his tongue quite easily.
Meanwhile Lalla Ward (as Romana) and John Leeson (as K9) step
back into their roles as if they had never left them. It makes
sense to temporarily write these characters back into the
Doctor's life rather than to try and shoehorn some other companions
into their roles. (OK, pedants might argue that the actor
originally intended to play K9 in Shada was David Brierley,
but you know what I'm getting at!)
Most
of the rest of the cast are at least as good as the actors
who appeared in the partially recorded original. Andrew Sachs
is actually better as Skagra than the rather bored-sounding
Christopher Neame was, injecting an appropriately OTT degree
of villainy into the role, not unlike John Sessions' portrayal
of Tannis in Death Comes to Time. Hannah Gordon is
also excellent as the voice of Skagra's ship, whose dialogue
gets rather lascivious towards the end. The only slight disappointment
is Professor Chronotis. James Fox is OK in the role (though
he does sound a bit like Victor Meldrew at times), but no
one can replace Denis Carey.
Inevitably,
some of the story doesn't translate too well to the audio-only
medium. The opening sequence on board the Think Tank research
station necessitates the addition of some dialogue, and the
Doctor's lengthy bicycle race through the streets of Cambridge
is understandably truncated.
However,
the main strength of Adams' tale was and is his witty dialogue,
and it's great to hear the whole thing performed in full at
last.
Richard
McGinlay
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