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FEBRUARY 2011

(70-MINUTE EPISODE)

I was pleasantly surprised when this Saturday’s edition of The Guardian came with a free copy of The Hounds of Artemis – a BBC Audio release from the pen of James Goss that won’t be hitting the shops until some time in May. This is the second such freebie in short succession, meaning that keeping up with the eleventh Doctor’s exclusive audio adventures is proving to be far cheaper than it was collecting his predecessor’s.

This particular offering is a slow but atmospheric tale about an archaeological expedition that unearths an entombed psychological parasite. Drawing upon influences as diverse as the original Stargate movie, the final act of the first Ghostbusters film, and even – as the Doctor takes great delight in pointing out – Carry on Cleo, Goss’s story is as wacky as it is derivative. Listeners will no doubt appreciate the lighter moments that litter the script, such as a monster trying to use the Doctor’s fondness for “fish custard” to bend him to its will, or the Doctor having an oblivious rummage about inside Amy’s dress (and all for the cost of a Happy Meal), but they will probably despair at the author’s failure to expound on a number of alluring threads. At times, this story threatens to step outside the standard-fare sphere and explore interesting issues similar to those memorably broached in The Fires of Pompeii and The Waters of Mars, but sadly it never quite manages to.

The production is more remarkable than its storyline as it is the first in the range to boast more than a single narrator. Taking a leaf from Big Finish’s (audio) book, this free copy of The Hounds of Artemis sees current Doctor Matt Smith split the text with Scots actress Clare Corbett, injecting the production with a much livelier feel than is the norm. Even with performers as accomplished as Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, listening to just one voice for seventy minutes or so is rarely as engaging as listening to two or more is.

Smith’s performance is exactly as I’ve come to expect from him – flawless and exuberant when playing the Doctor, and inventive when it comes to breathing life into new characters. Once again he’s buoyed by a script populated with embroidered stereotypes, allowing him to effortlessly set apart his greedy-guts German archaeologist from his lecherous British toff. Corbett is very good too, but she does have a harder time of it as she is reading aloud extracts from Amy’s diary, and sounding very little like her when she does it. This is fine if you favour pragmatism – were I to stumble across a dust-coated diary from eighty years ago and start reading it aloud, then I doubt that my voice would suddenly sound exactly like its writer’s – but thanks to dramatic conventions I kept expecting to hear Karen Gillan take over the recounting of Amy’s prose, which she is slated to do in the commercial version.

However, for the cost of a broadsheet, The Hounds of Artemis is hard to fault. It kept me entertained for the whole of my daily commute, which is a lot more than I can say for most papers. What’s more, with Gillan on board for the upcoming commercial release, this one may even have the potential to become the first of an electrifying, Big Finish-style range of audio productions instead of just another use-once-and-then-discard giveaway. The only trouble is, now that the Guardian-reading nation has already listened to the story, I can’t see many queuing up to part with their cash just to listen to a more authentic recital of it.