Product Description

The Doctor arrives in a bleak English midwinter of long ago. Plunging into the snowy landscape of the Dark Ages, he learns that wild dogs besiege the local Tilling Abbey every night. When he is given shelter by the sisters of the abbey, the Doctor begs an audience with the Mother Superior they fiercely protect. Something unearthly has already happened here - and if the Doctor is right, it's connected to his recent encounters with an ancient enemy. As night falls again, the dogs can be held off no longer - and the sisters' secret is about to be revealed. Forced to draw his enemy off into the depths of the TARDIS, the Doctor finds himself in a nightmarish chase through his own ship - but is he the pursuer, or the pursued? As they fight him on his own ground, the hornets are determined to possess his mind...With Tom Baker as the Doctor, Richard Franklin as Mike Yates, Clare Corbett as the Nun, Susie Riddell as the Sister, Rula Lenska as the Swarm and Susan Jameson as Mrs Wibbsey, "A Sting in the Tale" is the fourth of five linked stories written by the acclaimed Paul Magrs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5858 in Books
• Published on: 2009-12-03
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Binding: Audio CD

Customer Reviews

The best episode so far
Happily, this fourth episode of the saga is as good as the excellent second part, The Dead Shoes. It also features Clare Corbett who paired so brilliantly with Tom Baker as the ballerina, Ernestina Stott. This time she appears in the Middle Ages as a Northumbrian nun.

The tone of The Tale is serious throughout. Unlike the disappointing Circus of Doom, though, the lack of jokes doesn't detract. Like The Dead Shoes, A Sting in the Tale is effectively a 2-part story and it doesn't therefore need the cast to try to 'pump it up' to compensate for the lack of variety.

This episode also has Tom Baker giving by far his most Doctor-ly performance yet - with little or none of the vocal mannerisms of the Little Britain narrator. It really feels as though he's recaptured his performance from the mid-1970s. The audio-only story The Pescatons is mentioned in an aside and Sting in the Tale really does have the tone of something that might have been made in 1976. Imagine one of the more intense episodes from Baker's early seasons as the Doctor and this would fit in fairly well.

The guest parts are all purposeful and nicely played. Many of the characters from previous episodes put in an appearance; Mrs Wibesy returns for a proper cliffhanger (which will lead clearly straight into the final episode). We also see the fateful meeting between the Hornets and Antonio the possessed dwarf from Circus of Doom. Richard Franklin's delightfully puzzled Mike Yates remains welcome if disappointingly peripheral. Rula Lenska's heavily modulated voice is used as The Swarm. Nice though her performance is, her casting is a slight distraction. It's hard quite to see the need for a 'name' actress for such a part when she is unrecognisable in it.

Comparisons are odious, I admit, but I continue to feel that more might actually happen in these stories. I'm enough of a fan to know and love all of Tom Baker's 1970s Doctor Who episodes. Each one of the Hornet's Nest discs is roughly the length of a 3 part TV adventure and yet the TV stories are magnificently more full of personality and incident, are more diverse. If there's to be a second series, I'd like to see another writer take a crack at them and a writer with a wider range than Paul Magrs.

Still, this is the first of the 4 installments that I'd recommend unhesitatingly to anyone who enjoys Doctor Who. It's a strong and odd and compelling tale. Just what was wanted. Bravo!

Tom's best audio outing yet
The Hornet's Nest saga hits new heights with this fourth installment, which is easily the best one so far. Tom Baker has improved in leaps and bounds as the stories have progressed, and is at his gloriously eccentric, Doctorish best here. He's totally got back into the role now, and sounds exactly like the fourth Doctor of old. The story has a great setting and the visual descriptions are very evocative, while the plot is sinister and bizarre as usual but easy to follow. An added bonus is that the TARDIS features strongly in this adventure, having been all but absent till now, and the excellent use of authentic TARDIS sound effects really give it that genuine 'Who' feel. Guest star Rula Lenska is excellent as the Hive Queen and all the threads and plot arcs that have been developing all come neatly together at the end and lead nicely into the set up for the final confrontation. I can't wait for the final episode, which thankfully has been released simultaneoulsy with this part. Onwards to the Hive of Horror!

The penultimate episode
I think I am one of the few people who loved 'Stuff of Nightmares' and have been increasingly disappointed with each additional installement, (everyone else seems to have been becoming increasingly impressed. . .).
This is certainly an improvement on 'Circus of Doom', (in which nothing of note happened and the story barely moved forward), but again Richard Franklin is given next to nothing to do and very little actually happens.
The cliff-hanger for the final episode seems more promising.

I sincerely hope that the BBC commission a further series with Tom Baker and Richard Franklin - this was a so-so first effort and I am sure that much more could be achieved.

Fingers crossed for a second series!