Finn Family Moomintroll
by Tove Jansson, trans. Elizabeth Portch (BBC Audiobooks, 2002/2008) [first published by Hugo Gebers Förlag as “Trollkarlens hatt”, 1949]
Where England has The Wind in the Willows, Finland has the Moomins: anthropomorphised animals whose bucolic, lazy afternoon adventures offer the reader a contentedness beyond mere plot arcs and perils. Hugh Laurie is the perfect voice artist for bringing them to life.
Doctor Who: The Nemonite Invasion
by David Roden (BBC Audio, 2009)
Donna is afforded some romance but this WWII base under siege story is otherwise unremarkable; worse, its narrative throws off sparks of cliché and relies on the Doctor having wilfully unleashed an already contained menace (which he then — brainwave — seeks to re-contain).
Doctor Who: The Runaway Train
by Oli Smith (BBC Audio, 2010)
This pointless paradox in the Wild West plays cavalier with time (oh lord), the dunghill moment being when the runaway train, while outrunning a spaceship, is caught up to by horses that already have galloped for thirty minutes in the opposite direction.
Doctor Who: Dead Air
by James Goss (BBC Audio, 2010)
Doctor Who meets The Boat That Rocked: a creepy tale somewhat at odds with the drollness of its recounting – an extended Tenth Doctor monologue in which David Tennant (sublime and Scottish in other readings) sounds like Bill Nighy crossed with Arnold Rimmer.