1963: Fanfare for the Common Men (#178)

   Big Finish Main Range

 

Spaceships over Liverpool? Imagine that. And the Doctor piloting a ship out of harm’s way. Hehehe. The Doctor saves the day again! There are three “blokes” that Lennie brings from another planet in order to gain the adulation that the Beatles had in order to make the aliens into a superpowered triumvirate. With Lennie in charge. Good stuff!

I have to make one comment about the ending – Big Finish very cleverly doesn’t have to pay any money to the Beatles for music as they fade out into the theme song when they “start” to play. It made me laugh. This is the first of the three 1963-based stories and it’s quite the overarching story! Lennie took the long view, that’s for sure, changing history back and forth as he wants to.

This story is pretty fun to listen to. I wasn’t looking forward to listening to it but I was really pleasantly surprised. How can you mess with the history of the Beatles and not seem cheesy or goofy? Well, you get Eddie Robson to write the script. It’s fun to listen to this story as the Doctor and Nyssa get split up, do their investigating separately, and they’re bringing us along for the ride, trying to figure out the mystery of what’s going on. So it ends up being a fun story! And I love the cover shot for this audio. Might just have to buy the CD for this one for once…


Peter Davison, Sarah Sutton

Writers: Eddie Robson

Director: Barnaby Edwards

Release: September 2013

© Laura Vilensky 2019