PSAudios 4.2. Once Upon a Time Lord

Once upon a time, in a kingdom long ago there was brave Knight called Edward Bradley. Like all good knights he had a quest, to rescue a beautiful princess from the clutches of an evil Queen. Unlike all good knights, Edward didn't belong in this world and did not want to go on a quest. He just wanted to find his friend The Doctor and leave this world to go off on adventures in time and space.

Would Ed find the Doctor and live happily ever after or was he trapped on this world forever?

Paul Monk started writing for this story around November 2009. He wanted to write something with a completely different atmosphere to the Dalek story Eye of the Daleks, as he didn't want to be known as PS's miserable war story person.

As a bonus, Si Hunt asked Andrew Clancy to prepare some music so that Once Upon A Time Lord would be the first PS Audio to have its very own custom-written score. Andrew was really thrilled to be helping out with the project.

Original scores are something which Si had always wanted to attempt with the plays, not least because sourcing cues and bits of music that aren't over familiar is always one of the worst parts of production. It was hoped that this would give the play a fresh, unique sound of its own.

A recording date was fixed for the 27th March 2010, but as "Real Life" kept getting in the way of the script writing, it was moved back to 11th June.

"Once Upon A Time Lord" features Martin Penny as Sir Edward of Bradley, with his faithful friend/annoyance Buttercup the Fairy being played by Ashley Culley. The Narrator is played by Simon Hart, the Wizard is played by Paul Monk and the versatile Brendan Jones plays both the part of the Mirror and the Woodsman, not to mention a Tree of Despair! Si Hunt is a wolf.

It's a tale of Two Sisters! The evil Queen Pulcreena is played by Susan Alexander (and believe me, that's a performance not to miss!) while the Princess is played by Katie Homewood, aka my own sister. We felt that this close-to-home casting produced two performances worthy of the roles in question.

The story also features our youngest ever performers - listen out for the Next Generation! William Monk and Daisy Homewood (with a combined age of less than eight years between them) make their audio debuts here!

Having been through the production of well over a dozen plays, Si Hunt was starting to feel a bit tired. It was decided that things would be wrapped up with The Next Universe, although there were still a few productions in the pipeline. The effort that goes in to these Audios is immense and they can take up a great deal of time. One particular issue with Once Upon A Time Lord was that a few lines that Si Hart had recorded were affected by a humming noise in the background. As these had to be re-recorded, it was found that a few lines prevented whole scenes from being finished, which dragged out the production time.

It was also round about this time that it was decided that any future audios would be online only. Again, printing covers, cutting them out to size and burning CDs was a heroic effort.

Si Hunt:
For this story, being a fairytale adventure, a wild and wacky idea was hatched to make it a cartoon adventure rather than just an audio play. The somehow ambitious notion was to unveil the audio of Episode 1... with a Youtube link to accompanying pictures!

I downloaded a free program called Stickman and began to see what was possible. Sprites could be designed, and I experimented with 'cartoonising' a photo of Martin Penny and putting him in a suit of armour. I then found a Cartoon pig and got it to romp around the screen. Meanwhile, a few seconds of animation were completed of Jon Master's artwork for the Mirror pulsing into existence and blinking/mouthing to dialogue.

Unfortunately of course, these hours of work were a few drops in the ocean of what would have been required to satisfactorily animate an entire episode, let alone the whole story, and the idea had to be dropped. It would be nice one day though, wouldn't it?

Lovely episode, full of magnificent performances, but none more so than Steve's sister, Susan who is stealing the show as Pulcreena. Her cackles are absolutely superb!

Well done to Martin who carries this episode- and it's good to hear Ed back in a muddy field again. That's good continuity! I enjoyed Paul's cameo too. Channelling the spirit of William Hartnell for all he's worth. As I only really knew my lines, I was quite intrigued to hear this one as I didn't know what was going to happen and I really liked the way it's very, very different to all the other PS Audios.
Si Hart

The performances were all superb, with Martin and Ashley making for a great double act, and Si's deliciously disturbing Wolf was brilliant too. As were all the female actresses, and it's great to have a wider variety of them available to us now as well. But for me it was the genuinely very funny and inventive script that made it such a delight. There were some superb lines throughout (the Primark gag, the casual chatting between the Wolf and Woodsman, Ed's pithy dialogue in general, and the wonderfully sycophantic magic mirror too). And I love how the plot kept me guessing throughout - what is going on in this seemingly fairytale based world? Why is it physically changing around them? How does a Wolf have electricity in it's stomach? And why are they repeating the same events over and over again?

Special mention has to go to the music - I've always been impressed with how the soundtracks have been pieced together using already available music, but this really lifted it to a different level. I loved the old school Who feel it had at the beginning, but also many of the different themes for the various parts of the story, so huge kudos to Mr Clancy for putting in so much work.

I always try to be honest when it comes to PS Audios, which can be hard as they're made by good friends and you never want to upset anyone, but as with any long running series (be it tv, radio or film) not everything released is going to work for you. And I was dreading this one a bit as Paul's a very close friend who I've known for over 20 years, so I'd especially never want to upset him. And he'd know if I was 'faking it'. So I'm so glad I can say that this was an incredibly enjoyable production, one which could (should!) be released commercially, and one I'll enjoy revisiting over time.
Alex Finch

I thoroughly enjoyed that! As already mentioned, I loved how it turned into a Doctor episode in the second half (frankly, I was getting sick of the sound of my own voice!). Paul was great as well, clearly very much enjoying acting out his script!

Steve's sister reached amazing levels of insanity in this episode! I continued to enjoy her interaction with the magic mirror, and quite enjoyed how the story didn't just end with her being defeated/killed.

The Doctor/Ed swordfight, complete with back and forth insulting, is one of my favourite scene we've done. I very much enjoyed playing the 'evil' Ed, and delivering 'KNEEL BEFORE ED!'. It actually took a while to get the voice right, as the first few attempts just had Ed turning into Tor Garane. The supporting cast were great too, the children especially! I particularly enjoyed Si Hunt's wolf, and the very well spoken woodsman.
Martin Penny