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The Game Review The Game features the fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, and companion Nyssa as played by Sarah Sutton. Interestingly, these two never travelled alone together during the original television series as Nyssa was always one of at least two companions. That said, there is no reason why the new audio adventures have to follow the form of the original show, it's just that going against continuity can be a slippery slope. Fortunately, this is the extent of the issue and it can be forgotten when listening to the story. The Doctor takes Nyssa to the Planet Cray where he hopes to witness the great Darzil Carlisle negotiate a peace treaty between the Gora and Lineen. They find the war is actually a deadly game that sprang up from fan violence surrounding sport and became the spectator event in itself called Naxy, but not before the Doctor gets caught up in the violence himself. Out of the arena, there are plots and subterfuge, with the revelations of Carlisles future involvement with the Doctor causing some temporal headaches. Eventually, the situation is resloved though and peace does come to Cray. As a story, The Game is essentially a commentary on the onset of violence off the field of sport that seems to pervade the games that some of us love. It can be seen as a critique of football hooliganism and the way that was headed in the 1980's, as this is the most approptiate example of fan violence in human history that parrallels the story. In the 1980's football hooliganism boom, groups of people were using the sport as an excuse to have large gang fights with other gangs. Each gang would supposedly support one team or other, and basically have a riot with another teams hooligans. This didn't happen with every club, far from it, but there was far too much of this happening hence the great crack down on hooliganism. In a way, the story here also parrallels religious struggles, in that people use the pretext of religion to have wars, but it would be folly of me to label religious wars in this way so simplistically. Essentially, The Game is just one extrapolation of where football hooliganism could have gone if left unchecked. The regulars here are Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton, who play the Doctor and Nyssa respectively. I can categorise both performances in the same terms, good, but they really do seem to both be showing their ages in their voices. This is especially true of Sutton, who was always a fresh face girl in the classic TV series, but here sounds to be the woman she has become. Of the rest of the cast, the most striking members are Jonathan Pearce and Christopher Ellison, for very differing resons. Pearce plays Garny Diblick, a commentator and to be honest is just a noisy distraction in all his scenes. This is not his fault though, but more of a script issue as he should never have been cast in my opinion. For what its worth he does well in the role, but it's not a role I think should be there. Ellison on the other hand plays Morian, and although only enters the story late on, he shines through. Of other note is William Russell (who played Ian Chesterton in the classic series) as Darzil Carlisle. He is, as always, a true delight and opposite a strong performance of Ursula Burton as Faye Davis does a magnificent job. I actually wasn't sure whether or not I would like this story when I got it out of the CD case. What I found then was that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Sure, the production values are very high, as is the case with all the Big Finish audios I have listened to, but I was quite impressed overall with how much I got into the story. The only real distraction for me was the use of Jonathan Pierce. Sure, he can be an interesting commentator, but I think his inclusion here was more of a gimmick in a similar way that Alexei Sayle was shoved into Revelation of the Daleks. The dialogue surrounding the commentator too was a little too gimmicky, and I would have felt much happier if the rest of the story replaced the interludes from Mr Pierce. That aside though, The Game is a good piece of drama and well worth a listen. Overall, The Game is a decent audio adventure that does well because it takes the ideas of one aspect of human society and plays it out to the extreme, much like the new TV series did at the end of Ecclestons reign. There are some detractions though, mainly in Jonathan Pierce, but overall it is a good listen and well worth the purchase. Rating:  |