The Real McCoy: The Doctor categorically states that Chris and Roz can handle the people side of their investigations and he will take care of everything. If there was ever a sentence that could sum up the nature of the New Adventures as far as the Doctor is concerned then that is it. Chris and Roz expect the Doctor to vanish into the ether and to operate in the shadows. He might be juggling empires, timelines and realities but this is still the Doctor and he always has a Jammie dodger in his pocket for an emergency. You just know that in a locked house horror story that the impish seventh Doctor will turn up in a cupboard at some point to scare the life out of everybody. McCoy aces the moment where he has to ask the nurse a terrible question to get at the heart of the mystery. Sometimes he is simply terrifying in the role, scarier than the monsters he faces. Listen to the way he asks Anabelle to join them for tea. Creepy bastard. He admits that he doesn’t belong anywhere. ‘Show me your true self…’ The Doctor agrees to give his grief to the creature, because he has watched planets burn and whole races fall, the screams of a civilisation, the sobbing of a tiny child. He has so much grief to feed on.
Moody Copper: Roz suspects that they will run into trouble…what on Earth gave her that idea? I enjoyed the fact that Roz has been at this long enough (and her career as an adjudicator must have helped fuel this) that she can spot and comment on the clichés a mile away. Imagine Roz in a frilly dress? No, I can’t either but I would pay to see it., It’s a shame there weren’t separate covers for these releases just so that could be mocked up. It’s a story that allows Roz to be an investigator, something she proves to be very good at indeed. Aliens she can fight but an imaginary friend requires more imagination than Roz is willing to give. Despite knowing the conventions of a horror story, she still finds menace in her own shadows. I would have thought the Roz would have had a stronger stomach than she does the moment they discover the bodies of the staff.
Puppy Dog Eyes: Chris states that he doesn’t need prying eyes watching him change but he is a blond muscle hunk so what does he expect? Chris delicately tries to bring up the matter of Roz’s family and goes on to touchingly admit that Roz and the Doctor are his family now. She cuts him down before he gets too schmaltzy (which is 100% Roz) and says that the bond between them doesn’t need to be spelt out.
Standout Performance: ‘There’s nothing simple about grief. I know how it can grasp the human heart’ – if Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor was pitched at the level he delivers this line at for 80% of the time I would be declaring him the ultimate audio Doctor. Sometimes he gives a line reading so utterly perfect you have to wonder why it is so rare.
Sparkling Dialogue: ‘He’s looking right at me.’
Great Ideas: You could build an entire story around the idea of conceptual co-ordinates. Take me somewhere happy/sad/intellectual/morally debatable, etc. A new century and era always brings about a certain apprehension, and here they are on the edge of the 20th Century. Strange, you would think it bring a sense of renewed optimism, that everything could be reinvented. But then these are based on the New Adventures after all, where cynicism is the order of the day. Sandy is Anabelle’s imaginary friend and she has come out to play. Isabelle Price is the not the new mistress of this household, she’s Annabel’s imaginary friend.
Audio Landscape: This is a creep fest and so all Joe Meniers tricks come out to play. For the most part he is very successful. I jumped out of my skin at least twice.
Isn’t it Odd: I suspected the nurse from the start but I suspect that is supposed to be the case. It’s a shame that all that carefully drawn atmosphere almost goes out the window once the culprit is revealed. The performance is a little too hysterical for my tastes. It’s the only weak spot in the story but it’s enough to drag it down from perfection.
Standout Scene: Chris and Roz confronting the creature for the first time. My hands were frozen above the keyboard, such was the intensity of the performances. And the first creature attack made me jump out of my skin.
Result: ‘For an imaginary friend…’ ‘It’s not that imaginary…or friendly!’ A crisp script, great performances and direction and a refreshing twist on a Doctor Who horror tale, The Dread of Night tops off a generally excellent box set. This reminded me a little of Night Terrors (imaginary creatures brought to life) and little of Night Thoughts (trapped in a creepy house in a domestic nightmare) but it has an atmosphere all of its own. I’ve seen the premise done before (The X-Files Scary Monsters for example) but this concentrates on a few characters, a claustrophobic location and sticks the Doctor, Chris and Roz in the mix. I’ve been genuinely impressed with their characterisation in the entire set. The first story highlighted the Doctor, the third Chris and now it’s Roz’s turn to take to the spotlight. I’ve been critical of Yasmin Bannermen’s performance but this was her most assured turn yet, thanks to some very strong material. I got a touch of the edgy space cop here that I haven’t before. Do these stories typify the New Adventures? Not really, despite some nice high concept ideas they are far too condensed and economically told to embrace the bloated, extreme nature of the books at their most experimental. But given I was never the biggest fan of those books in the first place that isn’t really a problem for me. I appreciate the merits of the NAs, and their influence on the new series (which I feel took their strengths and applied them to much tighter, less showy storytelling) but I found they strayed too far into graphic violence, emotional torture and convoluted plotting. The best of them are the best of Doctor Who but the worst of them…well. And the ratio of good/bad is probably 1/4. What this audio box set has proven is that New Adventures characters can be excised engagingly from the range and applied to economic story of the week audio adventures with a little more maturity and depth to them than your standard Big Finish output. I thought this set contained three extremely good tales and one disaster and that’s a much better average than your standard NA. I would be very happy to hear more. The Dread of Night polishes off the set on a high; it is genuinely creepy and after so many stabs at horror from this company that is no mean feat at all: 8/10
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