Synopsis: A U.S. Envoy is in danger from the Daleks, and the Doctor is (again) Earth's only hope.

• A Review by Stuart Gutteridge
• Doctor Who: The Musical by Jacob Licklider

A Review by Stuart Gutteridge 17/11/98

This review is based on a production with Colin Baker

The most recent foray for Doctor Who spin-offs would have to be when the show headed to the stage. Video spin-offs had begun with Wartime and radio continued this trend with Slipback. Written by Terrance Dicks, the stage seemed like an ideal continuation for Doctor Who, and The Ultimate Adventure was the fourth and most successful of them all.

Featuring both Colin Baker and Jon Pertwee as the Doctor (on seperate occasions), it is a mixture of classic Doctor Who and pantomimesque entertainment. Combining action/adventure and humour, Terrance Dicks manages to produce what was at best a workmanlike script, which recognised the limits of attempting to transfer Doctor Who to the stage. Fortunately, thanks to some clever lighting effects, it comes across as being something enjoyable in places.

However it also suffers from being cliched featuring the return of two old enemies, some wooden characterisation for the companions, and embarassing moments when characters burst into overlong songs. The one constant was the performance of Colin Baker in the lead role of the Doctor, whose character remained unchanged, despite the fact he`d left the role some years previously.

As family entertainment, The Ultimate Adventure works, but as Doctor Who, it fails dismally.

Doctor Who: The Musical by Jacob Licklider 26/1/22

Doctor Who did a musical once in the 1960s. That was The Gunfighters and it had only one song, "The Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon". The Gunfighters received mixed reception on initial airing and reviews post have stayed consistently mixed over the years. The same cannot be said for the second musical Doctor Who tried. The year was 1989 and Jon Pertwee debuted on the stage in Terrance Dicks' The Ultimate Adventure. The show had three songs, all diegetic and all despised by Terrance Dicks. You would think that he would have at least two of them cut as they really aren't necessary for the story, but his orders were clear that he wasn't allowed to cut them for the audio adaptation. Yes, the infamous Doctor Who stage plays were adapted by Big Finish in late 2008 as a precursor to see how that type of story would fare before rolling out their Lost Stories range beginning with what is the most famous, and most seen Doctor Who play.

The plot as Terrance Dicks describes it is a simple nostalgia-filled romp throughout the galaxy in a similar manner to The Chase while the TARDIS crew are chased by Daleks and try to hunt down the American envoy for a Peace Conference. Really, that's all there is and as a spectacle for the stage it really works as a plot: it is supposed to get us from one set piece to the next and to do it very quickly. On audio, however, it is a very lacking plot, even though there isn't much wrong with it, the story falls into a lot of the traps of show, don't tell. This is purely down to the adaption process forcing Terrance Dicks to add in things like "look at that, Doctor" and "Who's that coming out of the doors?" which you really shouldn't do when you're doing an audio drama as it takes the listener out of the story really easily. What makes this worse is that Terrance Dicks was aware of the problems he was writing in and did very little to change them.

Dicks, however, is very good at writing two of the three one off companions, Jason and Crystal. Jason is a Marquee from Revolutionary France, which is a great idea for a companion, even though he is a bit of a chauvinist, and Crystal is a nightclub singer who gets dragged along. They serve their purpose, which is really all you could do for a story like this. There is also a companion who is insufferable. Zog is a fluffy creature that the Doctor picks up on the travels and drags along with them for a bit of deus ex machina when it comes to the Daleks and the Cybermen. The Doctor is also great in this, as Colin Baker gives another one of his patented perfect performances as the Doctor, which is the standard for Colin Baker performances. The same cannot be said for the villains of the story who are the Daleks and the Cybermen voiced by Nicholas Briggs. They both suffer from "you can't have Doctor Who without them" syndrome. The Cybermen in particular don't do anything, even though David Banks is a part of the production.

To summarize, The Ultimate Adventure is a decent way to spend a couple of hours on a dreary afternoon. You won't have to know too much of what is going on to get the idea, as it emulates stories such as The Keys of Marinus and The Chase. 60/100