The Doctor and Ace arrive in Ibiza on the eve of an international broadcast from a recently-opened nightclub called The Rapture. The club’s two DJs, Gabriel and Jude, have established a reputation for throwing quite a party – and that suits Ace just fine, following her harrowing experiences in Nazi Germany. As Ace joins some other people her age for a night of clubbing, the Doctor meets his old friend Gustavo, who warns him that something sinister is afoot at The Rapture. When the Doctor goes to investigate, he finds that Jude and Gabriel’s trance music is living up to its name quite literally – the two DJs who claim to be angels are slowly exerting mind control over their club’s patrons…including Ace.
written by Joseph Lidster
directed by Jason Haigh-Ellery
music by Jim Mortimoreand Jane Elphinstone, with Simon Robinson and FeelCast: Sylvester McCoy (The Doctor), Sophie Aldred (Ace), David John (Liam), Anne Bird (Caitriona), Daniel Wilson (Brian), Carlos Riera (Gustavo), Matthew Brenher (Jude), Neil Henry (Gabriel), Tony Blackburn (himself), Jeremy James (Bouncer)
Timeline: after Colditz and before The Harvest
LogBook entry and TheatEar review by Earl Green
Review: An intriguing modern-day story, The Rapture may not really capture the clubbing culture, or even the music for that matter, but this Audio Adventure is worth buying for the club remix of the Doctor Who theme song alone. The intro to episode one is one of the better openings for a Doctor Who audio yet. I think I went back and listened to the theme song three times before I actually got any further into the story.
The build-up and slow revelation of Something Sinister Going On is very well-handled, but without going into further specifics that would spoil the surprise, I found the actual backstory for the suspicious DJs to be a letdown – and from that revelation on, the story takes a downhill turn. The Doctor even has an incredulous, disbelieving reaction to this information, and I have to say, I’m with him. Surely we could’ve thought of something more interesting than that.
Episode two also has some very interesting scene interpolations that are hard to describe; two or three different conversations are interweaved in a fascinating way that doesn’t diminish the impact or exposition of any one of them. The Rapture is full of such experiments – it’s just a pity that its story falls apart after episode three, because a ripping good story plus experimental storytelling techniques has added up to some of Doctor Who’s finest moments – and The Rapture could have been one of those.