A rare bloom, indeed...
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Really loved this. The whole series (a simple but inspired idea keeping so many thirtysomethings almost-happy on the daily commute) has been excellent, but a couple of titles really shine, and this is one - rather amazing, giving the low regard `enjoyed' by the TV serial it's based on.
Not that it's radically different in structure or plot, but that's the thing about the audiobooks: with a good reader at your elbow and the imagination in fifth, half-ideas that don't engage on the screen suddenly absorb. Black Orchid is 50 minutes or so on screen, five-or-so hours here, and yet it's the latter that flies by, instantly demanding another long, lazy soak in its warm tone, and texture, and the simple pleasure of the human voice. Michael Cochrane - Charles Cranleigh in the telly versh - does the honours here, and is a good fit for Terence Dudley almost overripe prose, adding fruitiness rasp, flint, clip and whatnot wherever needed, while well-judged effects provide the tock of willow on leather and the swish of the Rolls along the gravel drive.
And if some parts do take their time, well, then let them; every minute of the Doctor's stint at the wicket in the opening sequence is a pleasure, and where else in the Whoniverse would this stuff unfold like this, at this pace? The underrated fifth Doctor might not do that much in this adventure, but we get inside his young/old head, and it's good stuff, too, revealing him as a whimsical, childlike intelligence burdened with a sense of responsibility to the universe and an inescapable sense of duty.
Recommended, then in a word - so much so that, if it's a toss-up between this and the DVD edition (they're both around the £8.50 mark), invest here. Hours of leisurely pleasure lie ahead.
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BLACK ORCHID - "...absorbing, informative and entertaining..."
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There's nowt as queer as folk, and DOCTOR WHO fans are very queer.
That's queer that is more "strange" as opposed to "homosexual".
Fans have very obscure, extreme and opinionated views, and they are extreme vocal in disseminating their dissatisfaction.
With that said, recommending - yes, recommending - the latest BBC AUDIOBOOK release, Peter Davison's 1982 Terrence Dudley's DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID will be an uphill struggle. The original broadcast was lambasted as "padding" by THE DOCTOR WHO APPRECIATION SOCIETY members of which I was a part, and the most recently released BBC DVD version has hardly rushing of the shelves (and virtual shelves of online retailers).
There has been something of a MARMITE impasse, with fans either loving or loathing the two-parter. The story was not really science fiction and neither wholly historical. I wonder that if the story had been produced as part of the NEW SERIES it would be garnering such harsh comment (the nearest comparison is, and for not only being approximately based within the same historical period, SERIES 4's THE UNICORN AND THE WASP). I doubt it.
The resounding success of this DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID audiobook version is not only the base DNA of the novelisation (crafted by Dudley that purposefully extends the original 50-minute broadcast to a proud 90-minute presentation) but the aural masterpiece jointly painted by its reader, Michael Cochrane, and the additional music & effects (courtesy of Meon Productions).
Simply put, DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID is one the most absorbing (you want to feed the cat before settling down to listen as you will be suitably drawn into the storyline to a point of forgetting everything around you), informative (the mysteries of cricket are refreshingly explained through the character of Australian Air Hostess, Tegan Jovanka) and entertaining (the scenes describing naïve Adric's persistent mastication of either "vol-u-vents" or "sticky chicken" are wonderfully witty, as his is salivating comment aimed at a railway station advertisement for gravy granules).
Dudley's novel's expedition beyond the boundaries of the TV broadcast is key to it success, acutely questioning if the TV broadcast should be regarded as the "definitive" article. Not only does the author expounds on the hideous machinations within the secret cob-webbed "priest-holes" of Cranleigh Hall, but he delivers a unique & genuine back-story for George Beacham (aka Lord Cranleigh) that will have CLASSIC SERIES fans nodding in acquiescence as the jigsaw of memories are fitted sequentially into place.
In fact, so intelligent and thrilling as DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID is that if BBC RADIO 4 or, at a push, BBC RADIO 7 wanted to present a DOCTOR WHO series of "Book at Bedtime" then this would be an ideal initial broadcast. A mature, considered story that deserves a wider audience.
Michael Cochrane's reading is reassuringly enthused with his portly Sir Robert Muir and his slight antipodean accented Tegan being highlights of the recording.
Today, I have listened to both DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID and David Tennant's PEST CONTROL, and, to be honest, it is with the former that my appreciation lies. Even within the boundaries of DOCTOR WHO's science fiction fine pedigree, it is the more "realistic" and rewards the deficit of time (over five hours in length) it necessitates with a suitable sigh of satisfaction (and a disappointment that means Tom Baker's reading of DOCTOR WHO AND THE BRAIN OF MORBIUS will no longer be my favourite DOCTOR WHO audiobook).
DOCTOR WHO - BLACK ORCHID is obligingly infectious. Surprisingly so, and deserves not only a raid on your TARDIS money-bank but your time in being transported to Earth 1925 via BBC TV CENTRE West London recording studios 1982. You'll be glad you did.
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