Slipback

Slipback
Doctor Who radio play
Cover of the CD release
Cast
Doctor Colin Baker (Sixth Doctor)
Companion Nicola Bryant (Peri Brown)
Others Computer/Inner Voice — Jane Carr Shellingbourne Grant — Jon Glover Bates/Snatch — Nick Revell Mutant/Stewart — Alan Thompson Slarn — Valentine Dyall Seedle — Ron Pember
Production
Written by	Eric Saward
Produced by	Paul Spencer
Executive producer(s)	Jonathan James-Moore
Production code	N/A
Series	N/A (aired between Series 22 and 23)
Running time	6 episodes, 10 minutes each
First broadcast	25 July–8 August 1985

Slipback is a radio audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced by the BBC and first broadcast in six episodes on BBC Radio 4 from 25 July to 8 August 1985, as part of a children's magazine show called Pirate Radio Four. It was later released on cassette and CD, most recently by BBC Audio and free with the 27 April 2010 edition of The Daily Telegraph newspaper via WHSmith.

Synopsis

The Sixth Doctor and Peri arrive on a mysterious space liner, where intergalactic policemen are investigating art thefts, a computer is suffering from a split personality and the Captain's disease threatens every living thing on the ship…

Production

Slipback was broadcast on BBC Radio 4, four months after the final episode of Doctor Who's twenty-second season, during the programme's enforced hiatus, the next season not airing for another a year and a half. It was the first Doctor Who serial produced as a radio play (an earlier audio production, The Pescatons, was released as a story record). No further radio productions were mounted until the mid-1990s when Jon Pertwee reprised his role as the Third Doctor in two productions, The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space.

Writing

The story was written by series script writer Eric Saward, whose writing credits include The Visitation, Earthshock, Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks.

Cast note

Valentine Dyall played the Black Guardian in the television series. Dyall died on 24 June 1985, just 14 days after Slipback was recorded, and a month before Slipback aired.

In print

Slipback

Author	Eric Saward
Cover artist	Paul Mark Tams
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	21 August 1986 (Hardback) 15 January 1987 (Paperback)
Pages	144
ISBN	0-426-20263-5

A novelisation by Eric Saward was published by Target Books in April 1986, the first novelisation of a non-televised Doctor Who story. Saward's novelisation expands on the radio play greatly, with an extensive prologue running about a third of the book before the Doctor appears and the adaptation of the radio play storyline begins.

Audio releases

Slipback was released on 7 November 1988 on a double audio cassette along with the 1978 LP version of Genesis of the Daleks.^[1] It was subsequently released as a standalone CD on 8 January 2001.^[2]

References

1. "Genesis of the Daleks & Slipback". Timelash - The TARDIS Library. Retrieved 11 April 2013.
2. "Slipback". Timelash - The TARDIS Library. Retrieved 11 April 2013.

External links

Target novelisation

• On Target — Slipback
• The Cloister Library - Slipback