The BF Time Warp 036: The Rapture

[SiHart]

Ibiza, 1997, and thousands of young people are acting like mindless zombies.

Which is to be expected. Ibiza, the island of dance music, sex, drugs and alcohol, is the ultimate hedonistic paradise.

God has sent help from on high to save the sinners of Ibiza. He has sent His angels to save their souls.

Which would be simple enough if these souls didn't include an alien time-traveller working in a bar, a woman who disappeared in 1987, a young man carrying a photograph of a girl he's never met and an Irish girl who doesn't even know who she is anymore.

So what do you think of the first BF by Joe Lidster?

[Anthony Williams]

To be honest, I recall REALLY enjoying this one! I know most of fandom hates it, but I thought that it was a lot of fun - there's a lot of scenery-chewing, and a lot of godawful lines ("I CAN'T STOP DANCING!"), but hey... as I said, above all else, it was fun.

And when Doctor Who is fun, I can forgive it a lot of it's faults.

Oh, and the cover is just fantastic

When I get round to buying more BF audios, I'll give this one another spin. But, based on what I can recall, 4/5

[Richard Brinck-Johnsen]

I've always had a soft spot for this one. There are some great ideas trying to get out and it's not hard to see that Joe would go on to write much bigger and better things.
It is unfortunate that this play was the first following the I'm not Ace any more call me McShane business at the end of Colditz. Not one of GR's better ideas.
I also found that I had a lot in common with Ace's long-lost brother Liam who sadly seems to have been conveniently forgotten about in all subsequent releases. That said it is questionable as to how far Ace should be retconned.
By no means the best of the 2002 plays but as Ant has already said a lot of fun so 4/5 from me as well.

[Si Hunt]

It's all substance and no style. Or rather, it sounds HIDEOUS and we still quote the forty year olds at the rave - "I can't stop dancing!", "Dig those cool tunes!" etc. today. But underneath what was remarkable was that there was a genuinely decent story, and this showed great promise from the future for this then-new writer.

Si.

[Paul Monk]

I agree with Si. A great little story with a wonderful concept but some dodgy, unconvincing acting let it down.
And don't forget it had Tony Blackburn in it!

[Dirk Gently]

This is in my bottom 3 I'm afraid.
I never really took to it after the 1st listening & it has never improved for me. May be its just the subject material but it does nothing for me & its always been down at the bottom of my list alongside "...ish".

[Anthony Williams]

Ten years ago, I loved this play. I really did. But I was only 14 back then. I wasn't cynical. I was a lot more forgiving of bad acting. Perhaps that allowed me to see through to the great idea at the centre of this story.

But listening to it now, it really is quite cringeworthy in places. The first thing that I think of wasn't really poor Joe Lidster's fault. And that's the whole "McShane" thing that he was lumbered with dealing with for the script. Honestly, I haven't heard many (if any) Seventh Doctor/Ace stories after this, so I don't know if it continues - but it just doesn't sound right. Clearly, what they're trying to do is have our favourite troubled teen grow up. But by this stage, Sophie Aldred was 39. She'd already grown up, and she just couldn't do a good job of representing someone twenty years younger than her growing up, too. It comes across as awkward and rather silly.

Next up, there's some of the acting. To an extent, this is tied into the script itself. Again, a lot of the problem comes across as the characters trying to seem "cool" and the dialogue being "with it" in the context of clubing in the 1990s. The result? Corny lines such as "I can't stop daaaaaaancing!" and "dig those cool tunes!" (both of which Si Hunt pointed out, too) Episode 2, with all the stuff between Ace and Liam just came across as a really dodgy episode of Eastenders, with acting and dialogue straight out of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace.

Then there's Catriona. Kudos to Lidster for trying to tackle the issue of depression. Hell, he does a much better job at it than Paul Cornell did in The Shadow of the Scourge - which was just insulting to people who do suffer with that illness. There's nothing wrong with lines that she says, and the character herself says and does things that people with depression often do. She should solicit sympathy from the listener. But the performance of Anne Bird just saps away all sympathy from the character. The acting is just atrocious.

The problem with this is that the central concept is pretty good - two aliens fleeing a war, one emotionally damaged by what happened. They seek vengeance, and so use hypnotic club music, taking control of immoral humans, tanked up on booze and drugs, to fight for their cause. It's a pretty good idea. But the failure is in the dialogue, it's in the acting and it's in the directing. And that's the thing that kills me about this - we now know that Joe Lidster is capable of some really incredible work. He wrote some fantastic stories later on for Big Finish. He wrote some fantastic stuff for Torchwood and the Sarah Jane Adventures. With the right cast, this could've even been good. Still, not everyone starts off with a blockbuster. It's nice to know that there are still good things to come from him in the main range.

The premise of the story isn't the only thing that I like about this. Some of the other things are pretty nifty little extras - the cover is just gorgeous and a really great idea. I love the club mix of the Doctor Who theme that's used. They went to town with this one, to try and make it a little different. And that's really good - I love it when Big Finish are imaginative with what they do, and at least they make a damned good try with this one.

While it can be fun at times, it's such a shame that this one just doesn't live up to how I remember it from all those years ago. It'd be nice if it had, in the same way that some of the plays earlier than this one did. These days, I can't bring myself to give it more than 2/5 - I don't think I'll be re-listening to this one again anytime soon!