Category: Drama

AD | Extant – Unseen Interviews

Content Warning: Domestic abuse. There is support information at the end.

Unseen is an important and powerful audio drama about the impact of domestic abuse on visually impaired people. The free 45-minute production has been created by Extant, the UK’s leading performing arts company of blind and visually impaired actors and practitioners, and is inspired by the findings in the Unseen Report from the Vision Foundation.

I recently reviewed the drama in advance of its online premiere on Monday 4th March. But in addition to that, I was also invited to send in some questions to members of the team to find out more about how it was made.

So I’m delighted to share some interesting insights from sound designer Ian Rattray, director Ben Wilson and actor Georgie Morrell. Many thanks to all of them for putting aside some of their valuable time to answer my questions!

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AD | Extant – Unseen Review

Content Warning: Domestic abuse. There is support information at the end. I had early access to Unseen for review purposes, but all opinions are my own.

It can be easy to take dramas for granted, as just another form of entertainment. But recently we’ve all been reminded just how emotionally powerful the medium can be, for raising awareness and generating action around serious and devastating real-life issues. The Mr Bates series about the Post Office scandal, and Breathtaking about the NHS during the pandemic, pulled back the curtain to reveal shocking details about events that many people had little to no knowledge of.

The stories were told in a way that was realistic, relatable and accessible, without being sensationalised, so they were compelling and stuck in the mind very effectively.

Now a new audio drama by Extant, the UK’s leading performing arts company of blind and visually impaired actors and practitioners, takes a similar approach to another very difficult issue, in a uniquely creative way.

Unseen, a 45-minute drama which will be available to stream for free on Monday 4th March, shines a light on one of society’s most hidden and disturbing crimes – domestic abuse against visually impaired people (the lessons from which are applicable and adaptable to victims of all disabilities).

Did you know, for example, that at least 1 in 12 visually impaired people in the UK (around 188,000) are a victim or survivor of domestic abuse? Or that less than 1 in 5 domestic abuse professionals have had specialist training to support visually impaired victims or survivors?

No, me neither. These are just two of the alarming and sobering statistics in the Unseen Report by the Vision Foundation (using research commissioned from SafeLives), that are incorporated into this new production. It’s being released to coincide with No More Week (3rd-9th March), an annual event that raises awareness of domestic abuse and sexual violence, and educates individuals and organisations about how to take a stand against it.

Therefore, having reviewed some previous Extant productions, I was kindly invited to listen to Unseen this week, in advance of its public release, in order to share my thoughts on it.

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Christmas 2023 Favourites – Part 2

Happy New Year! I hope you had a great Christmas, and that you have a prosperous year ahead as well.

This is the second, bumper part of my festive Favourites, as the first part covered the month of November, where I had a free Christmas meal, explored a trail of snowmen sculptures and saw some of London’s displays, among other activities.

Since then, in December and early January, I’ve met friends in both London and Devon, seen four incredible theatre shows, explored a museum I hadn’t been to before, had some lovely meals in restaurants, ate far too much food at home, celebrated the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, watched lots of comedies on TV, and enjoyed some music as well.

So once again, as with every Christmas, this is a bumper post and video. One of the meals was a free PR invite for my journalist friend Emily to review, but as usual I’m not sponsored or affiliated to write anything here, and all opinions are my own. I hope you enjoy!

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Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Whoniverse

For the final part of my trilogy celebrating the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who – following on from my reviews of the specials and radio shows – I’m diving into The Whoniverse on BBC iPlayer.

This treasure trove of televised time-travelling treats came as quite the surprise when it was launched by the BBC at the beginning of November. At its heart are over 800 episodes from the series, accompanied by several spin-offs, documentaries, other programmes and accessibility features, all for free (well, with no subscription required on top of your TV licence anyway).

So there’s a lot on offer, and I hope you enjoy my trawl through the various special programmes I’ve been watching. As always, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and all opinions are my own.

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Doctor Who At 60 Review – Radio Celebrations

Welcome to the second part of my trilogy celebrating 60 years of Doctor Who. Having reviewed the specials and the Blu-ray steelbook, I’m now going to talk about the various radio programmes I’ve been listening to on BBC Sounds, which have been a great mixture of documentaries, interviews and music. Then next time I’ll conclude with the various TV shows I’ve been watching in the Whoniverse on iPlayer.

As usual, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and these are just my opinions as a big fan, so I hope you enjoy!

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Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Specials

Updated in November 2024 to include the newly released deleted scenes.

Happy 60th anniversary to Doctor Who! The BBC have quite rightly been celebrating one of their biggest, best and longest-running shows in style recently, and I’ve been very much enjoying the various ways they’ve marked the occasion.

In particular, we’ve had a new trilogy of hour-long specials, featuring the wonderful return of David Tennant as the Doctor (designated Number 14 rather than 10 this time), Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, the late great Bernard Cribbins in his final appearance as grandfather Wilfred Mott, and some other important characters, plus the introduction of Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor. And behind the scenes we also warmly welcome back composer Murray Gold, executive producers Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter & Phil Collinson (along with new arrival Joel Collins), and showrunner Russell T Davies.

It really is wonderful that the old team have been reunited, and that they’ve been given a bigger budget too, partly thanks to the BBC’s new global streaming deal with Disney+, so the show looks even more impressive than it already did. And there’s greater representation of diversity, in ways that are genuinely inclusive rather than just ticking boxes, which is fantastic.

So it does feel like we’re entering a fresh new era, which has been given its own section on BBC iPlayer (alongside others for the earlier Classic and Modern eras as part of the wider Whoniverse). It is rather a shame that Disney+ viewers won’t have access to older episodes – hence the numbering is being reset to Season 1 for Ncuti Gatwa’s debut, instead of confusing their users by calling it Series 14 – but hopefully these latest episodes will tempt new Whovians overseas to find ways of looking back at previous adventures.

So, much like my deep dives into the TV adventures of the 9th and 10th Doctors (in Series 1, 2, 3 & 4 and the specials), in this post I’m going to review the 60th anniversary episodes and the extras in the latest Blu-ray steelbook. Unlike my older reviews however, of episodes that I’ve seen countless times before, these are my first reactions to seeing these new adventures.

Later on there will then be additional posts to review some of the other goodies I’ve been enjoying on the BBC website, that have been generously made available for free. It really does feel like they recognise what a valuable and significant asset they have in this show, given the attention they’re lavishing upon it – which sounds obvious, but that hasn’t always been the case.

As with all of my Doctor Who reviews, this isn’t sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else involved with the show. I’m just a keen fan who enjoys exploring the series and writing about it, and as a result there will be lots of spoilers ahead as well. So I hope you enjoy!

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Christmas 2023 Favourites – Part 1

Seasons greetings, I hope your preparations for Christmas are going well, November always feels a little bit festive, but for me it was even more so than normal this year, because I’ve already explored a variety of London’s displays, seen a bunch of snowmen on a sculpture trail, and had a free Christmas dinner courtesy of a PR invite. On top of that I’ve also seen a couple of theatre shows, while at home I’ve been enjoying some more TV and music as always.

Consequently it makes sense to treat this as a festive Favourites post and video, and spread the joy over 2 months. It’s not too early as far as I’m concerned. So with the usual disclaimer that all opinions are my own, including for the free food, let’s crack on with it, and I hope you enjoy!

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Doctor Who Review – 2008-10 Specials

The 60th anniversary of Doctor Who is finally upon us, with an exciting trilogy of specials about to air, and a wealth of goodies to watch in the Whoniverse and peruse in the archives on the BBC website. It’s a great time to be a Whovian, that’s for sure.

But before I delve into all of that, I just need to squeeze in one more of my extensive review posts for the modern era. In recent months I’ve written at far too much length about Series 1, 2, 3 & 4, so it’s only right to wrap up this first batch of reviews with the specials from 2008 to 2010 that concluded David Tennant’s run as the 10th Doctor and Russell T Davies’ role as showrunner. Like many people, I was very sad when David left, so it was great to see him return for the 50th anniversary later on, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again in the imminent new trilogy for the 60th.

So in these 5 episodes, David gets a big send-off, alongside some great guest stars and the return of some familiar faces. I have the Blu-ray steelbook edition of this mini-series, so that’s what I’ll be going through here, including all of the extra features. I hope you enjoy!

[Note: This post was edited on 30 November 2023 to mention the new Whoniverse collection on iPlayer and the Series 1-4 & Specials box set.]

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October 2023 Favourites

Hello again, and welcome to my latest little roundup, at a time when I know that things are far from cheerful news-wise. The war in Israel and Gaza is horrific to say the least, and like everyone else I can only pray for peace and express my solidarity with the innocent civilians affected on all sides, just as I do for the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Then there’s the Covid Inquiry, stormy weather and other stuff. But on the plus side, the plans to close railway ticket offices have just been scrapped (for now at least), which I had a little rant about in my July post, so well done to everyone who campaigned against it.

So as always I hope my posts are a pleasant distraction from things like that. And for me this has been a pretty relaxing month really. I didn’t go to any theatre shows this time, but I did revisit a couple of my favourite museums, explored a couple of sculpture trails, and had a nice Halloween tour with my friend and colleague Emily. Plus I got my Covid booster, had a few other nice walks, and went to a retirement party (all the best Pauline if you’re reading this!), but I don’t need to write about those little bits here.

So let’s crack on with this month’s post and video, in which nothing is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy!

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Doctor Who Review – Series 4

Here we go again, on what is proving to be a very special day. As part of their celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, the BBC have just launched a massive Whoniverse collection of episodes and extras on iPlayer – including audio description, subtitles and sign language for the Classic series, New era and spin-offs, which is a huge win for accessibility. The extra features include the full-length episodes of Doctor Who Confidential and other documentaries, plus there’s an extensive archive of behind the scenes material as well. So I’m really looking forward to digging through all of that.

And with the anniversary specials now fast approaching, here’s the latest in my personal series of lengthy reviews about the modern era of the show. This time I’m looking through Series 4, using the Blu-ray steelbook edition that I own, following on from my previous deep dives into Series 1, 2 & 3. All opinions are my own of course, none of these posts are sponsored by the BBC, I’m just a big fan.

Russell T Davies is still showrunner and David Tennant is still the Doctor for this series, which is great news of course. And this time the companion is Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, returning after her guest role in The Runaway Bride. I’m not a fan of her sketch show, but her appearance in that previous Christmas special of Doctor Who had swayed my opinion a bit more in her favour. And now, in this fourth series, she gets a proper chance to demonstrate what she’s really capable of, both comedically and dramatically, doing a superb job in the process.

Donna is down to earth and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself or others, even if that means putting the Doctor in his place occasionally. But she still has fears and vulnerabilities like every human being, she’s keen to learn, and she also loves to have a good laugh. And she doesn’t fall in love with the Doctor, unlike Rose and Martha before her (who reappear in this series, along with a couple of other companions), so she has a much more relaxed connection with him. They’re just good friends exploring the universe together, and it works really well that way, especially as actors David and Catherine have such great chemistry too. So Donna’s a very well-developed character, who goes on a big personal journey throughout this series, in addition to her trips across time and space, until it all comes to a shocking conclusion.

We’re therefore treated to another fantastic set of stories in this series, with all the usual action, drama, humour, emotions, visual effects, music and everything else it throws at you. And so here’s my lengthy review of it all!

[Note: This post was edited in November 2023 to mention the new Whoniverse collection on iPlayer and the Series 1-4 & Specials box set.]

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