All-Consuming Fire was
always going to be a difficult one to adapt into an audio format. The book is one of the best Virgin New
Adventures but it’s definitely meant to be a novel and not an audio. There were also a lot of more adult scenes that
build up Victorian London as a very grim and gritty place to live in with
brothels for the rich and some brutal descriptions of the spontaneous
combustion in the novel that make it a novel not for kids. Now that would be less of a problem if this
was made in the early days of Big Finish when their audience was mainly adults
who could handle that sort of thing, but as their popularity grew their
audience’s ages slowly dropped to younger teenagers so some of the descriptions
are a bit too graphic for the audience. Yet
while Guy Adams did tone the sexual bits down quite a bit the graphic violence
in the story wasn’t shied away from. The
death of Mrs. Prendesly in Part One is even a bit more graphic as you can hear
the squelching of the skin as it burns and the way McCoy and Earl react just
adds to the disturbing imagery.
The audio also does a
great job with the background music getting you in the mood. The story opens with Big Finish’s masterful
Sherlock Holmes theme setting the mood in the pre-credits sequence and using
narration by Watson to keep the tone of the book intact. While yes the frame story with the Doctor,
Ace and Benny observing the First Doctor and Susan with Holmes’ father is cut
as it isn’t really necessary, narration keeps the idea that the story didn’t
happen as we have just heard it with details and names changed to protect the
innocent. The pre-credits sequence
almost acts like its own little trailer for the story as it introduces all the
main characters even though some of them don’t appear until the second half of
the story. Guy Adams also does a
wonderful job of converting some of the books more humorous scenes for audio,
especially when the Doctor meets Holmes and Watson for the first time. The banter between Nicholas Briggs and
Sylvester McCoy brings the prose to life much like what happened in Love and War.
Scott Handcock is once
again in the director’s chair in his third novel adaptation after marvelously directing
The Highest Science and Theatre of War. Handcock has a very distinct style with where
he decides to put the music in the stories. His flair as it were is that he will often let
scenes speak for themselves and of course have flowingly musical transitions
between scenes. Even though he hasn’t
directed a lot for Big Finish whenever he does direct it is a feast for the
ears.
I’d also have to point
out the stellar casting of the main villains of the piece. Sherringford is played by Hugh Fraser who is
most famous for playing Captain Hastings in Agatha
Christie’s Poirot and here he is pretty much an older version of Sherlock
which he is supposed to be. Anthony May
plays the secondary villain Baron Maupertuis who is much more big headed than
he was in the novel which almost works better as he is a power hungry character
who already has a lot of power. Adams
does however cut out the demise of Sherringford which is described in great
detail in the novel and while yes it may have been a bit much it doesn’t feel
nearly as fulfilling as it was in the novel.
While this is a nitpick with the novel it really bugs me whenever I’m
listening to the novel.
To summarize, All-Consuming Fire is a near perfect
adaptation of a novel with the acting, directing and music on point. The adaption process went better than it ever
could have gone with the only flaw being Guy Adams leaving out the fate of the
story’s villain. 99/100
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