Out of the Darkness

BBC Audio Short Trips Read by Sophie Aldred and Nicolas Courtney

Editor	Steve Cole
Produced	1998

Synopsis: An audio collection of short-stories.

• A Review by Stuart Gutteridge

A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 16/12/98

More often than not, the range of audio books from the BBC has proved to be just as, if not more, enjoyable than some of their novels. Having not read the Short Trips anthology in book form, I approached this with an open mind and was pleasantly surprised.

The tapes benefit immediately from being read by someone familiar to Doctor Who in the guises of Nicholas Courtney and Sophie Aldred. The first tape opens with Steve Lyons' "Freedom," with Courtney playing the Third Doctor and Aldred playing Jo Grant, something which they succeed in doing admirably. The exclusive story to the tape, not featured in the book, "Degrees of Truth" by David McIntee, is a different take on the UNIT era as the Brigadier has to tell a parent that his son was killed by an alien menace. Simplistic, yet moving, Short Trips is worth buying for this alone. "Stop the Pigeon" features the Seventh Doctor and Ace, but unfortunately Mike Tucker and Robert Perry's tale also suffers from too many old enemies and Sophie Aldreds terrible recreation of Sylvester McCoy`s accent.

The Short Trips audio is worth investing your money in. If only all eight Doctors were featured....