Halfway Through...

[fangrrl_squees]

My apologies to the pedestrians in downtown Oakland, whom I startled rather badly when I burst into guffaws during track 12 of Occam's Razor. I rolled my eyes so hard, I'm surprised I didn't fall into traffic.

I agree with the consensus of fandom, this is so PGP B7¹.

(What is it with fandom and all the abbreviations? Are we that lazy?)

How on Earth does an actor get by on a monotone performance for, hrm, 20+ years? I'm sure that Darrow had tonal variety at some point in his career, but I guess he's figured out what works and why put out an extra effort if one doesn't have to?

There was a comment someone made in response to vilakins wtf is Avon's appeal? entry, the gist of which boiled down to "A snarly baritone and I'm anybody's" - like I said, if it works. Still, if one of my larpers played a character like that, I'd feel obligated to talk to them about the appeal of emotional range.

OW! Another eye-spraining moment (track 16 - I'm listening as I type, obviously). Damn, that one hurt. Go figure, there's two female characters in the story, and one of them is predictably unable to resist Avon's Iago's manly charms. Ow, ow, ow. I think I pulled something.

But, eye-roling aside, the story's alright. The cast is entertaining, the production values are better than some Big Finishes I've listened to. I've heard worse than the theme tune on the Top 40, and the story's engaging enough. Aw, hell, that'll probably mean I'll feel obligated to buy the rest... That wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the exchange rate! I was lucky to get this first disk as part of a bundled special. Oh well, I'll cope. ;)

Postscript: hearing Darrow intone "I'm a rhubarb farmer" just now was worth the price, alone. I think I want to make that my computer's critical-stop noise.

¹ Addendum: The final track utterly confirms it. How was this even a matter of debate? "Well, now"? "Well, now"?? Why not just slap the B7 logo on the cover and be done with it? Oh yeah, lawyers.

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've never heard it, but I think it's generally assumed Iago is Avon. I did see a transcript once and wasn't impressed.

[fangrrl-squees.livejournal.com]

Oh, the dialogue ain't gonna win any awards, but that's par for the course with this material.

Maybe I went in with low expectations - I probably did - but I honestly enjoyed it more than I expected too. Cheezy dialogue and all.

The final track in the story all but shouts "Yes, this is Blakes 7 continuity!", imho.

I'm in the process of trying to DL the next two, but the source files look a bit dodgy.

If I can figure out how to zip the first disk down, I was thinking of uploading it on MegaUpload or something, if morbid curiosity gets the better of you. :)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I think the B7 radio plays scarred me for life. I'm not sure I can take much more PD doing sonorous.

[fangrrl-squees.livejournal.com]

Y'know, compared to "The Sevenfold Crown" PD in "Occam's Razor" is positively restrained. Then again, it's not like a person can get much campier than TSC. What where they *thinking*?

But still monotonal, alas. I think there were TWO moments when he showed a bit of variety and range. Two. I guess when you find a shtick that works...

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

He sounded like a caricature of himself in TSC. I'm not sure whether he was playing it for comedy or just being the strange and twisted Avon in his head.

BTW I did transcripts of both those radio plays. I alternate between giggling at the sheer silliness or being annoyed at the distortion of the characters we knew.

[fangrrl-squees.livejournal.com]

My gut feeling was that they were ALL playing it for comedy. Either they felt the script just couldn't be played seriously, or they realized the show's camp elements just couldn't be ignored. I suspect a mix of the two. :)