I don’t think I could possibly hype up Brokensea’s latest episode any more than their own description.
“Time has fallen. Olivia is in the garden. Amanda is in the void. And the Doctor… The Doctor does not exist.”
Download here: http://brokensea.com/drwho/2009/11/05/doctor-who-new-world-order/
Also, thanks to a comment by Chivani, I’ve added info and links for the ‘Leela: Land of Silver’ 5 part mini-series. It was released in early 2008 by Misfits Audio. You can find it under Audios E-Z.
BOTCHERBY’S IS ONE YEAR OLD!
Yup. A whole year. A whole bunch of posts. A whole load of audios. A whole lot of fun. A whole lotta love. A whole in the…
Just thought I’d mention it.
Also I’d like to say thanks to everyone out there that has been using the site, making comments, sending emails, given permission to put up audios, answered interviews, linked to the site, said something nice about Colin Baker. That sort of thing.
Before I get to the main news just a couple of quick points. Thanks to the help of some of you folks out there I’ve gotten a bit more info on old audios. So I’ve moved them out of ‘Queries’. Best Fishes and Solos have gone into the main database. Sadly, Zindignite has gone to the Graveyard. I’ve also started adding links to the audio groups wiki pages on Doctor Who Expanded, so that it’s quicker to get more info if you want. Now on with the re-release..
As part of the continued effort to catalogue and make available all of Doctor Who fandoms creative audio efforts, I’ve been in touch with Jo3hn Karp, formerly of Australian group Dogma Audio Productions. He was very helpful in providing old material and wrote some honest insights to the time they spent making audio stories. They are without doubt some of the most bizarre Who based stories produced, or more accurately parodies. There are two notably odd records. Firstly, the most regenerations to occur in a single episode. Second, the shortest ever episode within a full length story – at just over 2 minutes, including the theme music.
All four stories are available to stream or download on the Theatre page. Along with a few extras in the form of unproduced scripts and out-takes. I asked Jo3hn to put together a few recollections and here’s what he had to say.
“Dogma was a project I started in high school. I wanted to be a writer so much, and Dogma let me do writing and Doctor Who and computer geekery all at once. Arpit Thomas, a school friend I turned on to Doctor Who, had recorded one or two videos of himself, and we thought we could take that idea and turn them into some short video stories. You should have seen these videos. They were so awful I was helpless with laughter. He had one called “The Wrath of Omega” where he wrapped himself in a doona, stuck a tea towel on his head and called himself Omega. He wanted his dad to write him a name tag, but he misheard and wrote “Amiga” instead. So wrong and so very right. That’s the kind of insanity you can’t invent, it just has to flow naturally from a genius.
So we’d decided to do some real videos from start to finish. We had no props, but figured we could digitally edit in a TARDIS or whatever. I wrote Extermination of the Daleks with Arpit’s input, but pretty soon we realised a video production was way too ambitious and switched to audio. The project became more and more driven by me, though I still depended heavily on my friends for input. I press ganged Chris Hay to pick the music and some friends to come over and record it.
Our other stories followed on from there. ‘Wrath of Omega II’ was a follow-on from Arpit’s original. ‘Revenge of Morgoth’ was written by Chris Hay, based heavily on the Dead Ringers sketches. The idea was to string them into one story, the less realistic the better. I helped him out with the hardcore Doctor Who stuff, but the sense of humour is his. ‘My Son the Timelord’ is the best story we ever did – best audio quality, best script, and fantastic actors. Everything came together. I’d heard that there was some new rubbish bit of continuity in the Virgin books where Irving Braxiatel (of the Braxiatel Collection in City of Death) turns out to be the Doctor’s brother. So I wrote My Son the Timelord with the aim of making the most ridiculous leaps of continuity I could. Everyone turns out to be related to the Doctor, including Sutekh and the characters I crossed-over from an Aussie sci-fi TV show called Spellbinder.
We all acted in our stories. Some actors had me cracking up, while others were pretty appalling. I’m afraid I was more likely to be one of the latter. A lot of my friends weren’t into Doctor Who, but I’d lay on pizza and DVDs of Black Books and Red Dwarf, so there was always something geeky to enjoy. We recorded the stories on really knocked-up old hardware – bits and pieces I’d found on the side of the road, old tape decks, a reel-to-reel player, poor-quality microphones… We used to put a tea towel over the microphone to stop plosives sounding too loud, which caused more problems than it fixed. You can hear me ranting about it in one of the outtakes. When it was done, I’d digitise it and edit it together with music. They sounded pretty awful, but it was a huge amount of fun. The sound quality got better and better but, just when I was getting happy with our technique, we stopped making them.
There were one or two stories that just never got finished. My friend Julian, who acted in some stories, had plans to write a story. I’ve got some draft scenes, but it’s nowhere near finished. Then we recorded *all* of Shada, but some parts of the recording are so quiet it was impossible to edit it into a finished story. It’s a shame because it took a million years to record the damn thing. I wrote and recorded Quest for the Anniversary Special, which is a great story but missing Fitz’s part [the companion]. Kind of a vital part, that. By this stage I knew it was time to end things. We were all in university and it was too hard to get people in one place. I wanted a trilogy of stories to end things, but I only ever wrote the first one. I had wanted to go out with a bang, but it just never happened.”
Ed – I asked about a catchy sample repeatedly played in one of the stories…
“As for the “Boot to the Head” clip, you clearly have good taste! That’s from a novelty song called “Ti Kwan Leep” by the Frantics. You can listen to the whole skit and song here. Earlier on in Dogma I used to do a lot of references and used to borrow a lot of jokes from other places. Towards the end, though, I made an effort to focus on my own jokes and tried to make the scripts better on their own merits. I didn’t stop referencing stuff, just stopped stealing their jokes.”
And on that bombshell… thank you Mr Karp. Everyone else – go listen to them now.
This is a new wiki resource for Doctor Who fandom that shouldn’t be missed. It’s been slowly building up for the last few months, and is now beginning to take shape. As with all wikis the goal is quite simply information. As much as possible, on all aspects of fan projects. From film to audio to comic to game to anything. I’ve been adding articles on fan audio dramas for a while now, with help from some great contributers. Other sections are growing quickly too. Anyone who wants to help out is welcome. Like any wiki you can start editing quickly, with no obligations.
The Planet Skaro team have embraced the site and added lots about their audios. You can get an idea of what’s possible by browsing their section.
http://dwexpanded.wikia.com/wiki/Planet_Skaro_Audios
What does that mean for this site? Absolutely nothing! Whilst DWexpanded can provide a more detailed database (makes me happy), I’ll still be maintaining Botcherby’s streamlined database. I’ll have to call it the ‘at a glance’ database now. And of course there is still the blog, interviews and theatre aspects, which the wiki won’t be competing on at all. So fear not. It just means fandom gets another great site.
To visit click here or on the picture.
Whilst enjoying this flurry of releases, I’ve also been doing my best to add to the already packed database. Aside from the current releases here’s what’s been added.
>>In the Main Database:
I’ve added episode names for all the Audio Visuals and BBV releases. I’ve yet to complete all the no. episodes and running time info. That will come later.
Also one that was released, but now unavailable. Not sure about the extent of the production, but it appears FloorTen helped out.
Tardis Library [website]
1. Project W (aka Dream Terror)
Years Active: 2002
>>In the Queries section:
A comment prompted me to find what I could on an audio featuring Sarah Sutton that seems to have disappeared with little trace. Leading to this entry. There are links with more info in the comments of the queries page.
CiNEFFIGY
The Augury Commission / Augury:The Commission
Possibly featuring Sarah Sutton and Mark Strickson. (1999 (?))
More recently I’ve been reading a nicely designed site about the Tapezines of the 80s and 90s (The Tapezine Matrix). Amongst the interviews and exposition there appear to be a few things that could qualify as short audio dramas. Probably not very professional, but they sound well spirited.
The S.F.O.W. Express (Tapezine produced by the Salisbury Federation of Whovians)
Genesis of the Wogans
Sonic Waves 4 (oct 1985 tapezine)
The Doctor’s Schooldays [4 part playlet]
UNIT Tapezine
Produced 5 tapezines (1984-1986) some featuring audio stories.
If anyone has more info or even better recordings of these stories then please get in touch. Email is on the Queries page. Along with lots of other audios that need info.
>>In other news:
Before the year is out it we have numerous groups promising more stories: Dream Realm, Planet Skaro, DWAD, BrokenSea, and Time Tunnel. If we’re lucky a couple of others too.
Doctor who has long been associated with the BBC’s annual Children in Need appeal. Producing 5 – 10 minute stories or sketches like last years Time Crash, where 10th Doctor David Tennant met his 5th persona Peter Davison. But you all knew that.
The Doctor Who Audio Dramas team are planning their own short story in support of this years Children in Need, and have asked other producers to join in. A couple have already declared an interest, and if you’ve ever fancied the idea of making one yourself, this would be a good place to start.
All you need to do is make a short audio drama ready for release on 14th November 2008. Wherever you choose to release it, use the space to promote Children in Need (link to their website for donations). Or mention them in the audios spoken credits. Or even add a Children in Need theme to your story.
If you want to chat about this more, there is a thread in The Doctor Who Forum (http://www.doctorwhoforum.com/ fan audio and video section) – you’ll need to join. Or you could ask in the DWAD forum.
Good luck, and don’t forget to mention any releases to Botcherby’s (in advance) so they can all be mentioned together on release day. If you want any advice on hosting etc then ask away too. Contact me via botcherbys at googlemail dot com.
Things have been a little quiet on the audio front this last month. That’s often the way, but rest assured there are a few releases and features on the way soon.
Most exciting is the announcement from Planet Skaro of a new season of 6 stories to be released over the coming months. More on that when it happens.
Plus for fans of FANZ, they have now uploaded all their stories for download, with a promise of some juicy extra bits soon. Have a look around their site.
http://www.plasticgiraffe.co.uk/fanz.html
In the meantime, I’ve updated the DWAD entry of the database to show all of the 51 stories available from their website, with number of episodes and running times. Grouped by seasons. For info on the other 100+ stories you’d best go check out their website.
Also added to the graveyard is this oddity. A test scene for an audio that never was, featuring an impersonation of David Tennant’s Doctor.
Adams/Cooper Audios [link]
1. The Dalek Genome (one scene rough edit) [5 mins]
Episode 4 is available for download now.
http://www.dwad.net/channel1/channel1.html
Also, for regulars here, I will be without net access for a couple of weeks. So no updates until after that. Hopefully I’ll only miss one or two things at most, and will catch up asap.
There’s been a big update to the database. All entries now have information on each story’s number of episodes and total running times, where it is known (which is most of them thankfully).
I’ve also re-jigged the pages so that the main database only has groups with completed audios in it. A new Graveyard page has been added to list projects which unfortunately never finished a proper first story. I’ve had to use slightly subjective criteria for a couple, but as always if anyone disagrees get in touch.
Some of the queried audios have been researched and sadly moved to the graveyard. There’s one new entry to the database.
Munchai [website] [alt link]
1. Path of the Jagaroth [5 mins]
Years Active: 2007
Welcome to Botcherby’s. The Doctor Who fan audios database and blog. There are 3 basic goals for this site.
1. To maintain a full listing of all fan produced Doctor Who audio dramas, and some relevant spin-offs. Where possible providing links to the creators websites and downloads. The audios are listed by production group, with episode details below. Take a look at the pages above to see what’s listed so far.
2. To post details of newly released audio dramas. Occasionally they’ll be trailers for forthcoming releases too. You can use the RSS feed to easily keep up to date.
3. For those audios that have been lost in the winds of time, Botcherby’s will be contacting old producers for permission to host them for short periods, and hopefully get the authors comments too. You’ll find this on the Now Playing page, which is currently empty. Give me time. I’ll blog it when it happens.
At this point I’d like to say a big thank you to David Parker, who kindly provided the artwork for our header. I hope you agree it looks fantastic. There’s a link to his online portfolio in the blogroll.
Also in the blogroll are links to the currently active audio groups. It can be hard to define what active is, as some groups only make slow progress due to the nature of creating these freely distributed fan projects, and others may only be re-releasing old material. If you think I’ve missed someone off the list that deserves to be there, drop me a comment or send email to botcherbys at googlemail dot com.
Some groups also produce more than just Doctor Who audios, so do check out their other material. You’ll also notice Big Finish in there and the database. Quite a few people from there also worked in fan audios first, and being a professional fully licensed group they deserve a mention. None of the fan groups want to infringe on their or the BBC’s copyright, and I recommend you buy some of their releases and support the franchise. They really are very good.
The database itself should serve as a basic reference tool, also pooling together links for all the different production groups. The first incarnation is already pretty full, but will be under constant revision. I’ll post an announcement if there are any major updates.
I think that wraps up introductions. There’s a number of projects underway at the moment. Once they reach fruition, I’ll get posting.
