Big Finish Reviews+ An Alien Werewolf in London by Matt Rabjohns

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What I always love about Alan Barnes's writing is every single character he writes is so much larger than life. You can trawl back through his many audio scripts for Big Finish and always locate really rich and funny characters, even in his darker edged stories. This story is not one of them! This story is just packed full of good fun and some amusing light relief. A chance to have a breather and a few good laughs. ​

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It sounds to me that every one of the cast is really enjoying being in this story. It’s actually quite a relief for one every now and then to get a release from the overall far darker and more mysterious Seventh Doctor stories. Some of Big Finish's more recent seventh Doctor plays have been very thickly laid with doom and universal peril that it can start to drag if done continuously without a break every now and then.

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In fact, every single story of the Mags trilogy has been a welcome break from the norm with Big Finish. It’s great to just relax and listen to a genuinely fun tale, but still with enough good action and peril so as not to make it a farce. ​

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Samuel Clemens direction is slick and the sound design and score of this story is also different, but good different. You end up with a story that is extremely easy to get into, whereas some of the deeper stories can be at times hard to take all at once. ​

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Sylvester McCoy does his usual thing of just being fantastic as the Doctor. His interacting with Ace and Mags instantly lifts the story too. It is also great whenever one gets to hear alien races or creatures that aren't necessarily evil used well within a story too. ​

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Sophie Aldred gets to have some good scenes where she deals with the fallout of falling in with a pair of Feratus. The Feratus are a wonderfully comically written pair of vampires, and particularly good is how Ace just seems to take what happens to her in her stride and doesn't become flustered. One is always happy to hear her consistent guts and ballsy attitude. It’s what has made Ace one of the most enduring companions ever in the show.

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It could easily become gratingly silly to always just have baddy aliens running amok in every story. The Sin Eater is a perfect example of this trait. The Sin Eater is a very interesting and engaging character. Shiloh Coke is really decent in the role.

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Jacob Collins Levy's performance as Rufus has to be applauded in this story. His character is definitely a bad un, but he's a really excruciatingly enjoyable bad un. His Australian accent is commendable and his villain is saturated with good humour and wit. He judges the role perfectly, so that he never once goes overboard into caricature or pantomime. And his demise is very stark and rather unpleasant to visualise at the story's climax.

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There may not be a hugely abundant level of original material within this story. One has heard or seen countless Werewolf movies that all share the same repetitive strains. What Alan Barnes does with his story though that most film writers don't do these days is at least makes his story massively listenable and plain good old fashioned cool. The story works so brilliantly as a light hearted reprieve in the midst of the darker stories as I’ve already said. ​

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In fact, yes, I would say this story's plot is very, very like a comic strip. Outlandish and knavish interactions with great characters. ​

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The other good point is in film and TV werewolf transformations always seem to look naff. So, the audio medium is a far better kind of medium to have where you can imagine the visuals and not be disappointed by weak effects. That's always going to be a favourable addition to the mix when an audio leaves you free to make your own pictures of the places where the story is set. And in this story, there are no dull characters and no over excessive re-use of all the dull as ditch water werewolf and vampire traits we get so bored with seeing in the movies and remakes of movies. Sometimes the B Movies are more fun and good to watch than the multimillion-pound mega films too. And that's exactly the category this story falls into too. The lovable B Movie type that is still ripe with so much going for it! ​

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But of all the elements on display within the story, my favourite thing of all from this is Mags. Jessica Martin really gets to shine as the Vulpanan. There are some great character moments for her along the way in this story which does nothing but make me like and root for her character more as the story progresses. I have thoroughly enjoyed this Mags trilogy that begun with The Monsters of Gokroth and The Moons of Vulpana. I must send out a hearty clap to Jessica for coming back to the role and showing us what superb extra life there is in her amazing character. And she does kind of achieve her mission at the last hurdle here. She has been seeking to overcome her monster side, and the climax comes as a satisfying outcome, if leaving just maybe the hint of chance that maybe her monster could come back if she’s not careful.

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Re-iterating: Sometimes every now and then having a story that doesn't take itself too seriously is good to flow away with. One is OK with universal impending doom but in between some of us revel in the chance for some comic relief. Yeah, the title of the story is tacky and corny but why not? Surely you can have a bit of good humour in every aspect of the story.

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 An Alien Werewolf in London is never ever going to be the most brilliant or world changing story in the whole universe, but its consistently entertaining and amusing in equal measure. And, at the end of the day, what more can one ask from a Doctor Who tale than that?!​

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Big Finish Reviews+ The Moons of Vulpana by Matt Rabjohns

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Big Finish always seem to never run out of awesome ideas. As a huge fan of Mags and The Greatest Show in the galaxy it is a real treat indeed to be given a brand new audio trilogy where we can discover more about Mags as a character. Jessica Martin was absolutely brilliant as Mags in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, and for a fan of the character such as I this trilogy is a bit of a dream come true really. It is made even the more pleasurable by the fact that Jessica herself is willing to come back and make the character hers again after all these years! ​

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So, after the events of "The Monsters of Gokroth", which I felt brilliantly gave Mags a great intro into the audio medium, we come to what I think is a far meatier story for her character. One is instantly hooked by the way her character wants to so find a cure for the wolf side of her nature, and that the Doctor decides to take her back to her own planet, but in an earlier timeline than the one she grew up in. It’s just the kind of thing we come to expect from the devious and manipulative Seventh Persona of the Doctor. One which Sylvester McCoy of course as usual delivers with mesmeric zeal of the highest order. Mags need to find a cure for her condition makes her at once so likeable and relatable too. Indeed, there are many sides of my persona I wish I could kill and get help for but never seem to really find.

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This story truly at once feels like it belongs in the Sylvester McCoy era. The sound design and score suit the drama of the piece well. The werewolf clan of characters is utilised well and all the characters are well defined. The two squabbling brothers are rather human like in their backbiting and gnashing at each other. The Matriarch is given her own devious thread of storyline, and in the end, one feels little sympathy for her character's final demise after what she has done to her sons in the story. ​

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Mags is given some superb scenes in this one. Her constant fears of being left stranded every time the Doctor appears to have abandoned her in this story give her character a feel of frailty despite her werewolf side always threatening to take her over. She is wonderfully written, and this just adds layers and layers to my great love for the character. Jessica and no one else could play Mags with such zeal and conviction and make her character sound truly believable. ​

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The old ancestral seat setting and the aloof and fractious wolf clan are superbly realised. And their hunting of other lifeforms is also conveyed well. There are plenty of taught and political mincing and slanging matches of the highest order. The characters are all 3D, and drag you well and truly into the story. And this story is not overburdened with so many subplots so as to make one’s eyes water, so that is also a huge plus point. Several modern era TV stories do tend to be awash with subplots galore and one is always left gagging for the slightly simpler and easier to grasp stories. The Moons of Vulpana is definitely easy to follow, and is all the better for it. None of the other wolf characters in this story are very likeable either. They are politically motivated and snobbish so that the only character who you care for really is Mags. Its harrowing a little to see her thrust into a feudal and bombastic era of her own past and even blackmailed into marriage with a pious and odious and wicked wolf man. But its superb to hear her cope with these insults and for her to emerge at the end on the winning team.

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The Golden Millennium is upon Vulpana, and the Four great Wolf packs come together for their usual hunt. The themes of racial purity and acceptance are at the core of this story too. Mags embodies this totally. She is at once needing to release herself from her darker and fiercer nature, and yet she wants to be herself. And when the wolf is part of one’s nature, how can one keep it forever at bay? It’s a paradoxical notion and one that Emma Reeves's script delves into superbly well in this story. ​

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And of course, Emma has a totally firm grip on the characterisation of the Seventh Doctor. Just as Ace found out before her, she is left angry and confused about how this Doctor never informs her of his plans, and she is left upset as she has to weather his plans through and only knows what they were after she's already been forced through them like a cheese grater! This aspect of the Seventh Doctor is one of those aspects that makes his Doctor so much darker and mysterious. Why is he always so afraid to tell others his plans?! ​

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Irfan Sanji is excellent as the runt of the litter Jaks. His resentment at his brothers and his callous plan of controlling the populace with a false moon makes him a meaty and brilliant yet layered villain. The baddie role always has to be dealt with by great actors, otherwise the role won’t succeed. But here Irfan is excellent at making Jaks really unpleasant company and a worthy foe of the Doctor and even more so for Mags.

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Nimmy March is excellent too as his devious and murderous Mother too. But she does get to be more than a caricature villain in that she does at least get to redeem herself at the end of the story. Although with her actions in the story it is still very hard for one to feel sorry for her character. She plays the Matriarch to perfection.

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Issak and Tob are the Alpha Males. But their childish banter and tearing and trying to outdo each other makes them rather funny. But maybe one of the stories only judders is that they are suddenly just written out of the story and it does jar one somewhat. I think perhaps a scene actually showing their deaths may have helped here, but we are left bereft of one for these characters. But with the little story they do have Peter Bankole and Sean Knopp definitely deliver the goods and make their characters spoilt brats of the best and most delightful order. ​

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Perhaps the only other likeable character of the piece is Beth Goddard's Doctor Barton. She delivers a great performance of the Doctor, and copes brilliantly when her hidden nature is suddenly brought about fiercely by the manipulations of Jaks as he attempts to make himself the king of Vulpana. She injects the role with true pathos and therefore one is sympathetic to her character. I am always a fan of the decent characters in stories, who have to cope with matters forced on them by others.

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So, in summation, this story succeeds well in all that it set out to do. Jessica Mags gets given centre stage, and is so ripely brilliant that I just want to hear more and more of her character. She is such a good fit for the Seventh Doctor. Stephen Wyatt created a brilliant character in Mags and it’s so great that Big Finish saw the potential in her character and chose to expand and build upon the wonderful bones of the character Stephen gave us The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Emma Reeves gives us a confident and ripely characterised story that is very entertaining and very medieval in its feel. ​

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Decidedly gothic and yet with some dashes of good humour. A very good and stolid Werewolf tale. Perhaps maybe not totally mind-blowingly original or different, but very very very entertaining and diverting anyway. I may be very easy to please but for me "The Moons of Vulpana" delivers on every front. ​

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It’s also good to see the seventh Doctor having Mags put him in his place with a little bit of her own deviousness too at one point! It makes for a great scene in a roundly satisfying and so yes, this story will definitely be worthy of yet another listen. The story ends with Mags telling the Doctor to take her somewhere new...one cannot wait to see where she takes the character in future adventures. I seriously hope we don't just get given one trilogy with Mags!!