This is my first Big Finish Audio adventure in a while and listening to the voices of Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton reprise their role as The Fifth Doctor and Nyssa is what makes this whole adventure worthwhile for me.
It is 1963 and The Doctor has brought Nyssa to see The Beatles, only something is wrong, the popular Liverpudlian beat combo don’t actually exist and are in fact usurped by a three piece band call The Common Men. At the interjection of an unknown assassin, The Doctor and Nyssa jump to the rescue only for Nyssa to be transported a decade in time from The Doctor.
This is a nice adventure and certainly more so for any Who fan who shares a common interest in the music of Sixties.
But this is not an easy listen; certain characters appear in both the Doctors time and Nyssa’s making it difficult to follow exactly which time you are in. Add into that the plangent strumming of Sixties music [though, it should be noted, the songs are original numbers written for this piece, a pastiche of the decade's sounds - Ed.], crowds of screaming fans and the need for the listener to have a rudimentary knowledge of The Beatles (which I do not) [Tsk tsk! - Ed.] and you can be easily distanced.
But it is not all negative, if you strip away all the distractions you have a story that I would love to see produced into a TV episode; it is fast, exciting and spans time as opposed to just space. Hats off to every actor in this adventure as they all deliver a wonderful performance.
BLOGTOR RATING 7/10
Thanks to Big Finish