Doctor Who: Horror Of Glam Rock Review

Released in March 2007, Horror of Glam Rock was the third Doctor Who audio in Big Finish's Eighth Doctor Adventures range. It stars Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and Sheridan Smith as Lucie Miller. It is written by Paul Magrs and directed by Barnaby Edwards.

Big Finish's synopsis:

"The Doctor and Lucie go glam when the TARDIS makes an unexpected landing in 1974. Slade, The Sweet and Suzi Quatro are Top of the Pops - and brother-and-sister duo The Tomorrow Twins will soon be joining them, if the starmaking Svengali Arnold Korns has his way. But will their dreams turn to dust at a service station somewhere on the M62, besieged by a pack of alien monsters?"

As soon as I saw the title and the writer, I was 99% sure this was going to be good. Well, it's not really what I expected, but I'm certainly not disappointed.

The story starts with The Doctor and Lucie landing in 1974... Then all of a sudden, they find themselves staring at a corpse. Excellent way to start a story!

The entire cast is great. Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith are good as ever, it's fantastic to see Bernard Cribbins - one of my favourite actors, the late Stephen Gately does a great and almost creepy job as Tommy and he reminds me of the kid from Planet of the Spiders, Claire Buckfield plays Trisha very well and Lynsey Hardwick does an excellent job with auntie Pat although she sounds very similar to Sheridan Smith making it a little confusing at times.

Horror of Glam Rock features what is probably the best possible Earth-based setting. Absolutely fantastic.

Some things I found out from listening to this story are that Lucie thinks the Doctor 'Always takes over' and that 1974 is as close as the TARDIS can get to Lucie's time.

I really like what they did with the ending music. Great stuff.

My favourite non-main character in this story is Arnold Korns, mainly because of Bernard Cribbins but hey. That said, it does feel kind of strange to hear him being such a bastard after watching him play Wilfred.

My favourite line is "Torn apart, just like my Bentley. Only less expensive to replace" from Arnorld. How horrible can a human being get? Another line I like is The Doctor's "Magnificent, aren't they?" - reminds me of the Tenth Doctor in Tooth and Claw.

Overall, a great story - recommended. Not exactly top notch, but still of a very high quality. Great stuff and certainly worth the money. I wouldn't recommend it as your first audio though, because I recommend you listen to the Eighth Doctor Adventures in order.

Overall Rating: 8/10

You can buy Horror of Glam Rock for £8.99 download or £10.99 CD here.