Hello everyone! 🙂
Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!
Well, it’s finally happened! ‘Goth Opera’ is going to be adapted into a Big Finish audio drama and will be released in July this year! I’m so excited by the news! I hoped something like this would happen, but didn’t think it would actually happen, especially when the ‘Novel Adaptations’ range seemed to stop.
But then, on the 7th of February 2024 (the 14th anniversary of me meeting Sarah Sutton for the first time at ‘Fifth Element’ in February 2010), Big Finish dropped the news that it was actually happening. I hoped that Big Finish would get around to it someday and I’m pleased it’s come true. 🙂
‘Goth Opera’ is one of my favourite ‘Doctor Who’ novels, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan. I’ve read the book a few times over the years and I’m greatly looking forward to how Lizbeth Myles will adapt Paul Cornell’s 1994 novel into audio, and all in time for the book’s 30th anniversary.
It’s so exciting that Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding will be playing their roles of the Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan in this particular ‘Doctor Who’ story I know very well for featuring vampires and such. There also seems to be a good guest cast featured in this upcoming audio drama.
There’s Richard Armitage as Rassilon, Micah Balfour as Yarven and Natalie Gumede as Ruath. I don’t know who will be playing Jake and Madelaine yet, but hopefully we’ll know soon enough. I hope that Lalla Ward will get reprise her role of Romana in the story. It looks to be a thrilling audio production.
The story also happen to be getting a 3-disc audio treatment, both on CD and download. I don’t know if this means it’ll be a 3 x 60-minute episode story or if it’ll be a six-part story like ‘Cold Fusion’. It’s likely it’ll be the former than the latter, but I’m looking forward to how this audio adaptation will turn out.
There’s no doubt I’ll be reviewing the audio adaptation of ‘Goth Opera’ for a future ‘Nyssa Challenge’ mini-review season, and hopefully in time for Christmas 2024. I also hope to revisit and re-review the original book simultaneously. Meanwhile, let’s brace ourselves for what’s to come in July.
Check out the Big Finish news item about the audio adaptation of ‘Goth Opera’ here. Also, check out my current review on the ‘Goth Opera’ book by clicking on the link for it.
Thanks for reading!
Bye for now!
Tim 🙂
Bradley's Basement 
The Novel Adaptations stopped rather abruptly from memory, too. Eight years is quite the gap, but Goth Opera feels like an ideal place to pick it all back up again. It’s a stand-alone story — even as a prequel to Blood Harvest — and has a style that Big Finish would echo themselves with Project: Twilight and similar releases.
There’s a lovely poetry to Richard Armitage reprising his role as Rassilon after his other work on Castlevania as Trevor Belmont. A vampire slayer. Two for two. And it’s rather marvellous where we’re at a stage where Janet Fielding’s involvement isn’t even a gentle query anymore. She’s been a consistent part of Big Finish for nearly 15 years now.
Makes me wonder what’s next for the Novel Adaptations. Will this be a one-off? Or will they try for more Missing Adventures in the foreseeable future?
Millennial Rites would have to go through Candy Jar’s licencing for the Yeti, but it isn’t impossible. State of Change would be roaringly good fun and a test of their audible mettle. They’re perfectly placed now for an adaptation of The Scales of Injustice. And I’m a bit surprised that with their own Braxiatel in Miles Richardson that Big Finish haven’t done an adaptation of The Empire of Glass.
Lots of candidates to choose from…
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Hi Wolfie,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about ‘Goth Opera’ being adapted into audio. I’m looking forward to checking out what it’ll be like with Peter, Sarah, Janet and the rest of the cast saying the lines of the characters featured in the book on audio. It would be nice to have ‘Blood Harvest’ adapted into audio, especially with Sylvester, Sophie and Lisa as their characters. How Big Finish will go about it is another matter. Also, Romana is in both the ‘Goth Opera’ and ‘Blood Harvest’ books, so it would be an ideal opportunity for Lalla Ward to return as her character in both stories to establish where it all began for her from leaving E-Space in the build-up to her presidency on Gallifrey.
I’ve not seen ‘Castlevania’ with Richard Armitage, nor have I heard him as Rassilon in the recent ‘Gallifrey’ audios. I’m looking forward to hearing him in the audio adaptation of ‘Goth Opera’ and how he’ll play Rassilon as a vampire slayer in the story. Yes, it’s amazing that Janet Fielding has contributed so much to Big Finish in her audio appearances as Tegan in ‘Doctor Who’ since her debut in 2006 with ‘The Gathering’. I’m glad she continues to enjoy doing the Big Finish audios with Peter, Sarah, Matthew, Mark and everyone else.
I hope there will be more Big Finish audio adaptations of ‘Doctor Who’ novels. I hope ‘Goth Opera’ won’t be just a one-off (as I said, I would like to hear ‘Blood Harvest’ as an audio adaptation. I did a blog post many years ago about which ‘Doctor Who’ novels l’d like to hear as audios, including ‘Cold Fusion’, ‘Blood Harvest’, ‘Goth Opera’, ‘Empire of Death’ and ‘Festival of Death’. So far, two out of five of those books have received audio adaptations. I’m not sure if Big Finish is allowed to adapt the BBC books compared to the Virgin books, especially as ‘Festival of Death’ was reprinted in 2013, but I still would like ‘Empire of Death’ to be a full-cast audio drama and feature Peter Davison as the Doctor and Sarah Sutton as Nyssa.
I look forward to what’s in store for the future regarding the ‘Novel Adaptations’ range of ‘Doctor Who’ audios by Big Finish. Hopefully more will be on their way and ‘Goth Opera’ won’t be considered a one-off.
Many thanks for your comments.
Tim 🙂
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