(AudioGo)

THERE can be few Doctor Who stories as universally derided as The Twin Dilemma. Regularly scraping the bottom of polls of the series’ entire output, the opening adventure of the Sixth Doctor probably suffered even more by coming directly after all-time classic The Caves of Androzani.

Pity too, poor Colin Baker, whose debut in the role of the Doctor was a muddled tale which saw him forced to portray the Time Lord in the aftermath of a difficult regeneration that left him violent and unstable, only to be then made to don a multi-coloured costume which nobody in their right mind should have considered a viable option.

Cardboard performances from some of the guest cast and a laughable monster costume also cemented this story’s terrible reputation as a Who nadir, which coupled with a weak script, pedestrian direction and unlikeable main character in the form of the Sixth Doctor should leave nobody expecting much from this audio version of the novelisation by Eric Saward.

In fact, if the listener is able to separate the original TV version from what unfolds in this reading by none other than Colin Baker himself, then it is just about possible to save The Twin Dilemma from ending up as a complete disaster.

Baker does his best with what he has to work with, including Saward’s complex attempt at explaining the regeneration process, and you can tell he’s desperately trying to redeem this story from the reputation it has acquired.

The tone of the book veers between wit and sarcasm, and Baker tries hard to plough through long passages of plot exposition and in portraying characters not even their mothers could love. Ultimately even he cannot do much to save this story from itself.

A valiant exercise by AudioGo to breathe fresh life into a simple awful Who story, which unfortunately fails to do much with the material available.