‘THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES’
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Mike Yates reunites with the Fourth Doctor and meets Mrs. Wibbsey
Before Tom Baker did the Big Finish audios of ‘Doctor Who’, he did ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’!
In 2009, BBC Audio announced the release of a brand-new series of ‘Doctor Who’ audio adventures featuring the return of Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor. He would be paired with Richard Franklin as Mike Yates and there would be five audio instalments by Paul Magrs under the title ‘Hornets’ Nest’.
When I heard the news that Tom Baker was coming back to play the Fourth Doctor in ‘Doctor Who’ after such a long time (apparently the last time he played the role was in the ‘Destiny of the Doctors’ video game in 1997), I was quite excited. 🙂 I was looking forward to the stories in this audio series. 🙂
I recall purchasing ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’, the first story of ‘Hornets’ Nest’ on CD when it was released back in August 2009. I’m sure I purchased the story from a shop in Bath somewhere – my parents and I must have been on holiday at the time. I enjoyed listening to the audio story in the car.
With that said, I can’t say ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ and the rest of ‘Hornets’ Nest’ is what I hoped for. You see, I came to realise that these weren’t Big Finish audios that Tom was doing. These were BBC audio stories. Quite often, the BBC audio stories tended to be audiobooks than audio dramas. 😐
You might think that’s a strange thing to say considering that the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ audios and the rest of ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ are multi-voice adventures compared to standard audiobook readings. But you see, ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ feature a lot of narration and not a lot of action.
From ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ onwards, we have the story told to us through narration, first by Mike Yates on his arrival at Nest Cottage to the Fourth Doctor recounting to Mike what happened to him in ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ story. This wasn’t really what I hoped for in a Tom Baker audio story.
Thank goodness that Tom Baker did the Big Finish audios in 2012 after doing ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’. I purchased the entire ‘Hornets’ Nest’ audio series in a CD box set, but I lost interest from hearing those audios. Therefore, I didn’t purchase the ‘Demon Quest’ and ‘Serpent Crest’ sets.
You’d think that BBC Audio would be capable of producing full-cast audio dramas like Big Finish does compared to multi-voice audiobook readings. ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ do seem to match in style to how ‘Doctor Who and the Pescatons’ and ‘Exploration Earth: The Time Machine’ were made.
Granted ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ are better than those two aforementioned Fourth Doctor audio stories, but I would have expected BBC Audio to make these stories in a similar manner to the ‘Torchwood’ radio plays as well as certain radio shows like ‘Dad’s Army’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
I’ve not heard the ‘Redacted’ audio series in ‘Doctor Who’ yet, but I’m sure they’re full-cast audio productions as opposed to multi-voice audio readings. Maybe I’m being too harsh regarding this, but I couldn’t help feel underwhelmed from hearing the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ audios back in 2009 and 2010. 🙁
Anyway, let’s talk about ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ itself. As established, Mike Yates reunites with the Fourth Doctor at Nest Cottage after discovering an advert in a newspaper specifically aimed at him. I found it very intriguing that Mike Yates was chosen to team up with the Fourth Doctor in this series.
Not that I have anything against Mike Yates being with the Fourth Doctor, but he didn’t have any interaction with Tom Baker, despite claiming so in the audio episode. Mike left at the end of the Jon Pertwee era in ‘Planet of the Spiders’. Why weren’t Sarah Jane, Leela or the Brigadier chosen for this audio series?
Daniel Hill and Tom Baker in ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’.
It seems for Tom Baker’s Doctor, ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ as well as the rest of ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ take place between the end of Season 15 (‘The Invasion of Time’) and the start of Season 16 (‘The Ribos Operation’). This is especially since a skull from ‘Image of the Fendahl’ gets mentioned. 🙂
Tom Baker’s Doctor also happens to have a dog called Captain in the story. I was surprised, since shouldn’t Tom’s Doctor have K-9 Mark II by this point from the end of ‘The Invasion of Time’? Then again, K-9 might be busy somewhere. Who knows how long Tom’s Doctor has been at Nest Cottage?
Mike Yates also meets Susan Jameson as Mrs. Wibbsey, the Doctor’s housekeeper at Nest Cottage. She doesn’t seem to be very friendly when Mike meets her and isn’t nice to Tom’s Doctor, though he doesn’t seem to take much notice. I wondered why Mrs. Wibbsey wasn’t very friendly in this tale. 😐
I’ve come across Susan Jameson in another role after checking out the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ series. She played Richard Briers’ wife in the sitcom series ‘All in Good Faith’ where he played a vicar. Recently, I’ve seen her in the third Series 1 episode of the new ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ on Channel 5. 🙂
On a side note, Tom Baker’s Doctor makes a reference to ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ in the episode. I don’t know if that’s a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the original ‘All Creatures’ TV series occurred at the same time as Tom Baker’s era of ‘Doctor Who’, but it’s open to interpretation. 🙂
And yes, Paul Magrs is the writer of all the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ episodes as well as the rest of ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’. Paul Magrs can sometimes be a mixed bag of a ‘Doctor Who’ writer to some fans, but he’s done some decent efforts such as ‘The Lady of Mercia’ and ‘The Peterloo Massacre’. 🙂
I did enjoy ‘The Boy That Time Forgot’, even if a lot of ‘Doctor Who’ fans don’t. I can’t say I’ve been enamoured with Paul Magrs’ writing in the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ series so far, especially in ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’, but then, this is me having to contend with multi-voice narration in the audio series. 😐
In the actual ‘Stuff of Nightmares’ story, the Doctor relates to Mike about discovering stuffed animals coming to life at night. He shares his adventure of investigating a company that have bought stuffed animals from a museum. The stuffed animals are being animated by a swarm of alien insects.
These happens to be hornets rather than bees. Not sure if there’s a difference between a hornet and a bee. Perhaps a hornet is bigger than a bee or a wasp. Either way, I’m surprised Paul Magrs didn’t refer to ‘bees disappearing’, as established by Donna Noble lots of times in Series 4 of the new TV series. 😀
Tom Baker’s Doctor meets up with the company’s director – Percy Noggins, who’s played by a familiar person that Tom Baker has encountered before during the making of his era in ‘Doctor Who’. Daniel Hill, who played Chris Parsons in the original ‘Shada’, plays Percy Noggins in the audio story. 🙂
At that point, I hadn’t seen or heard ‘Shada’ is any form at all before, so it was interesting to hear Daniel Hill work opposite Tom Baker in an officially released audio story. Possibly, the first ‘Doctor Who’ story Daniel Hill has been in before the BBC decided to release ‘Shada’ properly in late 2017. 🙂
Daniel Hill and Tom Baker in ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’.
Yeah, I know ‘Shada’ was released on VHS in 1992, but that was incomplete and even then, the story wasn’t actually transmitted in 1979. With that said, Daniel Hill’s appearance in the original ‘Shada’ is more impressive than ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’, as Daniel Hill just has a few scenes playing Noggins.
Of course, Noggins is possessed by the swarm of alien hornets that bring the stuffed animals to life, and it is quite scary when Daniel Hill is speaking with a deeper, creepy voice. But I wouldn’t consider Daniel Hill’s appearance in ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ to be really standout compared to 1979’s ‘Shada’.
There is a creepy atmosphere about this story, especially with the stuffed animals attacking Tom Baker’s Doctor at times in the story. Mind you, there were times when I drifted from listening to this story, especially when there’s a lot of narration, despite Tom Baker having a very good reading voice.
Also, going back to Mike Yates as a character, he doesn’t do much apart from listening to the Doctor telling him ‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ story. I know Mike Yates fares better in this story compared to ‘The Doll of Death’, but I would like ‘Hornets’ Nest’ to have him be more active than just a listener. 😐
This audio episode concludes on a cliffhanger. The Fourth Doctor and Mike end up going downstairs into the cellar of Nest Cottage, as the stuffed animals controlled by the hornets come to life again. Mike finds a pair of ballet shoes and the Doctor is about to tell him ‘the mystery of the Dead Shoes’.
‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ is a decent start to the ‘Hornets’ Nest’ audio series, and it sets up Mike Yates reuniting with Tom Baker’s Doctor well. But I can’t say this is an exciting audio tale to listen to, especially with Tom Baker and Richard Franklin providing narration, no matter how good they are. 🙁
I should give these Fourth Doctor audios a fair chance though and plod on to find out whether the rest of ‘Hornets’ Nest’ and ‘The Nest Cottage Chronicles’ are worthy to be listened to. There are still some unanswered questions about why the Doctor is tackling a swarm of alien hornets in this series. 🙂
Incidentally, you can tell this is a BBC audio story and not a Big Finish audio story with Tom Baker reading the opening and closing credits. I know the ‘Destiny of the Doctor’ audio stories did the same thing, but that’s the combined effort of Big Finish and AudioGo working together back in 2013.
‘The Stuff of Nightmares’ rating – 7/10
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