Thursday, June 16, 2016

LIVE 34 by: James Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown directed by: Gary Russell: Good Night, And Good Luck

LIVE 34 stars Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor with Sophie Aldred as Ace and Philip Olivier as Hex.  It was written by Andrew Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown, directed by Gary Russell and released in September 2005 by Big Finish Productions.

 

Making a Doctor Who audio story with the framing device of a news broadcast is such a great idea that is done perfectly in LIVE 34 which in essence is the gimmick that makes this story stand out from the crowd.  This becomes especially apparent when you notice that the plot of the story is the basic plot of The Happiness Patrol but told from the perspective of the citizens of Colony 34 as events are unfolding.  As a listener it gives a unique participation factor as you are a citizen living through these events as they play out which I think elevates this story to an almost classic status for just how out there the styling it is.

 

The main characters of the Doctor, Ace and Hex don’t actually feature heavily in the story as it is the supporting characters taking the foreground of the story and telling us what is going on in the colony’s government and behind the scenes.  These supporting characters take the form of three journalists working for the radio station, LIVE 34.  There is the main anchor Drew Shahan played by Andrew Collins who is naïve to what is going on in the colony, having his associates do a lot of the work for him, Charlotte Singh played by Zehra Naqvi who is the proactive reporter wanting to actually report the news no matter what it will reveal about the government or make the station look bad and finally there is Ryan Wareing played by Duncan Wiseby who is the weakest link.  Wareing is just your standard reporter who reports on events and he isn’t as memorable as the other two characters.  This doesn’t mean that he is a bad character, he just doesn’t come across as interesting as the other two characters.

 

The news show format of the story allows the villain of the story to be described in the background of the story.  The villain in Premier Jaeger who is the evil totalitarian dictator who promises elections but is secretly working behind the people’s back for his own greedy purposes.  He’s been hiding mountains of dead bodies which only come across as the news stories develop over the course of the broadcast.  When he does show up the actor playing him, William Hoyland, gives a great performance as he feels like your standard politician who has his own interests in mind whenever he is making decisions and is motivated by greed.  His downfall at the climax of the story isn’t done very well however as it acts more like an anti-climax with a mob turning against him and the story just ending abruptly with the Doctor and company leaving the planet with Charlotte in charge of getting elections going.

 

That brings us to the main characters who are shoved into the background in their own story, but Parsons and Stirling-Brown do a great job whenever they use them.  Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor just comes across as a politician whenever he is brought on to comment on events or make speeches and there are even some moments where he is using the radio to give out messages to Ace and Hex commenting on their actions in the story which is a great idea.  Sophie Aldred and Philip Olivier in turn are great whenever they are on but that is very little with Aldred getting a very powerful scene near the end and Part Three devoted solely to Hex’s discovery of mass graves which is great and morbid.

 

To summarize, LIVE 34 is a classic without really much to discuss as the untraditional storytelling has a lot of the story without the main characters.  This is not a bad thing for the story to have as it reflects what it is trying to do, but is actually flawed in the ending of the story which acts very much of an anti-climax which destroys a lot of the tension seen in the earlier portions of this story.  95/100

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