The Monthly Adventures #037 - “The Sandman" by Simon A. Forward

It’s really hard to talk about audios like The Sandman. I mean, what is there to say, it's a story with nothing to it. Frankly, I don’t know how this script even lasted two whole hours. Now Simon A. Forward is far from a popular writer - looking at his Doctor Who oeuvre, I see practically nothing unanimously considered at least passable - so I somewhat knew what I was getting into. I’d already listened to and failed to understand Dreamtime later on in The Monthly Adventures and it seems Mr. Forward’s problem persists even here. If you want a comprehensible story, then feel free to look elsewhere.

The Sandman: the boogeyman of the Galyari people, a multicoloured creature that steals the hides of young and kills those who look upon it. When the Doctor and Evelyn arrive, they find the Galyari’s home - The Clutch - in turmoil over a spate of recent deaths, but things are only going to get more complicated. For, you see, the Sandman is also known as the Doctor.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Simon A. Forward is a writer I’d describe on the whole as frustrating. He clearly is a talented world builder and his stories are often injected with this galactic mysticism fuelled by the bombastic stylings of the classic space opera. Central to The Sandman are what seems to be Forward’s crowning achievement - the Galyari - a reptilian race of nomadic traders that have returned a couple times again in the audios and make for a relatively interesting extraterrestrial species that lay the groundwork for some really enticing worldbuilding, mostly pertaining to the fascinating setting of the Clutch, a massive fleet of ships sort of bundled together into one big flying city. Unfortunately, due to the many issues with the script, we never really get to properly explore the Clutch and most of the other little bits of lore we’re drip-fed are mostly explained to the viewer poorly. However, I can not deny the innate brilliance of Forward’s greatest idea here, and that is the premise. The Doctor preventing a species’ warmongering efforts by becoming they’re generational boogeyman, an urban legend told to the children before bed, is f**king brilliant. Genuinely one of the most interesting ideas I’ve seen for a story in a while and it’s such a shame it had to be written into this one. Still a concept we should definitely return to, perhaps with some better writing. However, I don’t think I could wish for a better performance, Baker pretty much knocks it out of the park playing the Doctor pretending to be a fearsome creature of the night. I actually want to stop a moment to congratulate the whole cast, even when the story was at its slowest, they were the shining light in the darkness. Especially Robin Bowerman (Lisa Bowerman’s older brother as it happens), who plays the “space gypsy” Mordecan; not a particularly enthralling character but Bowerman makes him at least fun to listen to.

What is not fun to listen to, however, is the rest of the story. Something I find Forward really struggles with is that ever so pesky task of visualisation on audio. Perhaps the biggest problem an audio writer will face is conveying meaning aurally without resorting to characters just saying what they’re seeing. It’s a tough issue to overcome but a talented enough author can easily do it and, whilst I certainly hate the tell not show approach, you also do need to make it clear what’s happening half the time. Which is where we run into a problem with Forward, who has a plethora of grand, high-concept ideas to show us but with no actual means of, well, showing us. There are still so many little complexities of Galyari society I’m still unclear on because we never had a moment to understand what they were, things were just introduced without giving the audience any context clues. Maybe Forward is just suited better for novel writing but I found it really difficult to follow along with what was happening, which was also an issue I faced listening to his later story, Dreamtime. But what I find even more of a blatant sin is how utterly dull this script is. I’m not sure if there really was a plot here, this felt like 50% exposition and 50% wandering around until the plot wrapped up. It felt almost aimless, like every problem was just floating about the place until the climax. The entire second part of this story is a Galyari explaining the backstory of the Sandman and let me tell you that a full half hour of exposition followed up by another half-a-story where I was still lost by the plot was frankly insulting. And, whilst I praise the performances, most of the characters here are cookie-cutter role fillers, and most of them feel lacking in personality. And don’t even ask me to try telling the Galyaris apart.

The Sandman was a disappointment in my eyes, full of good ideas that are never fully realised by a seemingly blind script and a lack of explanation. It’s beyond me how a story that dedicates half its runtime to expositing lore dumps still manages to miscommunicate enough for the whole thing to feel undefined, but Simon A. Forward managed to do it. Much better in concept than in execution, The Sandman isn’t an audio I’ll be rushing back to any time soon.

4/10

Pros:

+ The core idea of the Doctor being the boogeyman for a whole species is genius

+ Has a lot of interesting but poorly conveyed ideas.

+ Boasts a cast of particularly great performers

Cons:

- A real lack of adequate description that makes The Sandman an unnecessarily confusing listen

- Almost plotless to the point where entire parts can just be pointless exposition

- Full of indistinguishable if well acted characters

- Devoid of motive or drive