Doctor Who: Goth Opera from Big Finish Review

Originally released between 2012 -2016, Big Finish revived several popular novels from the Virgin New Adventures and Missing Adventures ranges and while popular, they never seemed to sell enough copies to warrant keeping the range going.

However, to celebrate the anniversary of The Missing Adventures range Big Finish have decided to release a new addition to the Novels Range. Goth Opera is a Fifth Doctor novel originally written by Paul Cornell.

And listening to Goth Opera they couldn’t have picked a better novel to adapt, Goth Opera is perhaps the most iconic of all the novels in the range, not only delivering a deliciously gothic tale set in the modern day with vampires but also because of the controversy surrounding the original design of the cover which saw Nyssa covered in blood. Also, it’s a blooming good story!

And that trend continues on audio, with the new adaptation from Lizbeth Myles, seeing an opening monologue delivered by Richard Armitage as Rassilon it feels a lot different from anything we’ve heard before, lending it a weighty gravitas that it keeps up till the closing moments, this audio feels deep and dark and as important as the great vampires who terrorise the people of Manchester.

And Myles makes sure it isn’t long before we’re thrust into the shameful great gothic tale that original author Paul Cornell crafted, one darker than any of the Hinchcliffe stories that had come before.

The main cast is having a ball and due to the nature of the story, it’s great to hear Peter Davison and Janet Fielding deliver such powerful performances which sell the horrific situations they find themselves in and Sarah Sutton delivers one of the best performances ever as Nyssa who finds herself turned into a vampire, trying desperately but failing to stop her transformation.

A lot of the appeal of the original novel was the relationships the Doctor shares with the vampires around him, there’s a history with Time Lady Ruath and that history is performed brilliantly even, if it isn’t explored here, by Natalie Gumede. Equally brilliant is Micah Balfour as the evil Vampire Messiah Yarvin, who is a brilliant threat lurking in the shadows before finally stepping out to face the Doctor in the final episode, he sells Yarvin as a threat. The other characters do get lost somewhat in the background as the story goes on though, with the script taking characters from place to place and even planet to planet it’s inevitable.

However, the changing of locations never gets overly confusing and Myles deserves a lot of credit for making sure things stay coherent. My only gripe is how much time is spent in the TARDIS and the seemingly wrong sounds for all the doors in the TARDIS opening which seems to happen a lot throughout the story. A lot of the original story is set in the TARDIS too but the sound effects did get a little much. But that is only a minor gripe and I’m sure on another listen won’t bother me as much.

Dark and sometimes disturbing Goth Opera will easily stand as one of the best Big Finish releases of the last few years, boasting a tremendous script and terrific performances from everyone involved. There is a grit and gravitas to this tale that has been missing from any Doctor Who tale in any medium for quite a few years and Goth Opera feels like a story with some impact on the lives of its characters.

It’s a story I’d urge anyone to pick up, the horror aspects might not be for everyone but it marries horror and humanity in a way Doctor Who has never done before.

You can purchase Torchwood: Goth Opera from Big Finish now.