Tom Baker is back, but I'm not sure who he's playing. Is he The Fourth Doctor or is he simply Tom Baker?
There are a number of time during the second part of the Hornet's Nest series that one wonders just what Graham Williams had to put up with back in that fateful season when the expression The Tom Baker Show was coined. Tommy B gets away with an awful lot here. An awful lot.
His voice is definitely The Doctor but his mannerisms are certainly focused on his more recent outings such as Little Britain and Have I Got News For You? - his regaling of stories in The Dead Shoes sounds like Baker, not our favourite Time Lord. Tom's reading of the line "now please, your stockings" was reminiscent of the time he held the Key to Time and his description of a choc ice dribbling felt it should have been accompanied by David Walliams in a nighty...
But, having said that, Hornet's Nest: The Dead Shoes is a mighty fine audio and keeps the listener enthralled throughout. Mike Yates is pretty much absent as The Doctor takes a trip down memory lane (but keen to avoid any repetition of over familiar tales) which scares and laughs in less than equal measure. The "empty faces" mentioned evoked the Ugly~Wugglies in the BBC's superb adaptation of The Enchanted Castle but that's really it for the 'scares' department.
Traditionalists may wonder what's going on but I encourage you to purchase purely for the joy of hearing Tom Baker do what he does best, be himself - "it's more effective than a label named drink me", classic!
BLOGTOR RATING: 8/10
Thanks to BBC Audio