Audio Review: Doctor Who: The Empty House
(AudioGo)
IN a nutshell, this is Doctor Who does the haunted house story, with aliens.
Yes, despite the apparently supernatural goings-on in this adventure, as with all things Who the source of the weirdness is down to a crashed spaceship which has landed in rural Hampshire during the 1920s. But that’s only part of the story…
OK, let’s backtrack a bit now, before we get caught up in the timey-wimey nature of this tale. Events begin when the TARDIS is knocked off course and lands unexpectedly in the back of beyond, not far from the damaged Groog ship, shortly before Rory mysteriously disappears.
Seeking the missing Mr Williams in a creepy and deserted old house, the Doctor and Amy begin a nerve-shredding search of the premises, building up the tension in the process as Amy begins to hear disembodied noises lurking in the darkness…
Simon Guerrier’s tale works on several levels, and bears up to repeat listening to enjoy events from a different perspective, with a subtle twist at the end which you probably won’t see coming.
Raquel Cassidy (who starred in The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People) reads the narrative with a sense of underlying menace, laying on the atmosphere and spookiness throughout the adventure, and doing a fine job of capturing the nuances and personalities of the TARDIS crew.
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AudioGo seems to be churning out these audio exclusives with a great regularity these days, generally filling in the gaps for when the series is off-air, and it’s tantamount to the writers and readers that the quality is being kept at a very high standard despite the frequency. Long may they continue!
