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“PIER PRESSURE – BRIGHTON ROCKS, BUT THE STORY DOESN’T”

Pier Pressure kicks off in characterful fashion, with the Sixth Doctor in a foul mood and Evelyn determined to drag him out of the TARDIS for some fresh air and distraction. Their dynamic, as ever, is a joy—Evelyn’s mixture of warmth and exasperation is the perfect foil to Six’s bluster, and the story begins with one of their more grounded and intimate conversations. But this isn’t Blackpool in the 1980s as the Doctor assumes; it's actually Brighton in the 1930s, and something far more sinister than a malfunctioning time rotor is waiting in the wings.

GHOST STORIES AND STAGE LIGHTS

At first, things unfold with a familiar Doctor Who rhythm: strange voices in the night, vanishing people, and a spooky seaside atmosphere. There’s even a ghost—Professor Talbot, reportedly long dead, who appears very much alive (and conflicted) when the Doctor investigates. Talbot quickly becomes the central mystery, hosting within him an evil force that is beginning to awaken and extend its control across Brighton.

Part 1 and much of Part 2, however, are more interested in giving Max Miller the spotlight. Played by the legendary Roy Hudd—long-time fan and Max Miller aficionado—Miller is brought to life with gusto, warmth and energy. His rapport with Evelyn is delightful, and his scenes add a touch of variety to the narrative, though it becomes increasingly obvious that Big Finish cast Hudd primarily to showcase his talents rather than serve the story’s momentum.

POSSESSED PROFESSORS AND PLEASANT POLITENESS

Tension does finally begin to mount toward the end of Part 2, with Talbot’s split personality taking a darker turn. He warns the Doctor to leave while he still can, all the while struggling internally against the force that's consuming him. But the resulting possession sequences—especially when Emily falls under the same influence—don’t quite land. Despite the intended threat, the scenes mostly involve characters standing around discussing the situation while Talbot mumbles ominously to himself.

The story flirts with the tropes of a genteel zombie invasion but never fully embraces or develops them. It’s more talk than terror, and despite the solid atmosphere created by seagulls, crashing waves and Dudley-esque incidental music, it struggles to generate real suspense or stakes.

TO THE SEA! AND THEN... AN EXPOSITION DUMP

The end of Part 3 gives us a rare pulse of excitement, with the Doctor, Evelyn, and Max boarding a boat to track down the alien presence offshore. The atmosphere becomes tenser, especially as Evelyn and Max start to fall under the same corrupting influence. But just when things get going, Part 4 kills the pace with an extended monologue from Talbot, explaining everything we’ve already guessed in laborious detail.

It all wraps up in underwhelming fashion. The dual-voiced Talbot—channeling his inner Gollum—never escalates beyond vague menace. The final confrontation is oddly limp, with the evil presence being defeated without much resistance or consequence. There’s no emotional punch, no lasting impact. Just a polite, quiet fade into the audio equivalent of the end credits.

MAX MILLER STEALS THE SPOTLIGHT

Roy Hudd’s Max Miller is the highlight of the production. His enthusiasm is infectious, and he brings a genuine charisma to a story that too often flounders. His banter with the Doctor and Evelyn gives the piece its heart, and while he occasionally threatens to outstay his welcome, he remains an affable and valuable part of the team. It’s clear that Pier Pressure is a love letter to music hall comedy, even if the plot doesn’t always support the weight of its tribute.

VERDICT: 💙💙💙💙💙💙🤍🤍🤍🤍

PIER PRESSURE begins with promise, giving us a moody Sixth Doctor, a compassionate Evelyn, and a genuinely intriguing set-up. But despite its eerie setting and ambitious ideas, it never quite delivers. The central villain is all talk and no teeth, the pacing is uneven, and the final act is an exposition-heavy fizzle.

Roy Hudd’s spirited portrayal of Max Miller offers some sparkle, and the Doctor/Evelyn relationship is as strong as ever, but this seaside stroll turns out to be more of a damp squib than a ghost train ride. A curious diversion rather than a standout entry in the range.

Despite my reservations based on the average rating, and the fact the writer wrote Medicinal Purposes, I had hope this might be good. My hopes were quickly dashed because this really did not capture my attention whatsoever. Well, maybe for the first part but even still this story just dragged unnecessarily. I'm just so happy that this writer only has one more story to come, because I couldn't do much more. They really don't write 6 particularly accurate for the part of his life he's in I feel, and in general this story bored me far too much.

The Monthly Adventures #78 - "Pier Pressure" by Robert Ross

What makes a bad story? Is it a fatal flaw? A hamartia in the narrative? The dialogue or the characters or the morals? Is it a slow plot or bad style? Is it the result of completely subjective viewpoints and this whole “reviewing” business is actually pointless? Probably not that last one but for me, a bad story can be composed of three things: incompetence, boredom or amorality. Robert Ross’ previous effort - the painful Medicinal Purposes - was one of my absolute least favourite Monthly Adventures for hitting all three of my fatal flaws listed above and so seeing his next story was rated even lower, I expected something beyond my comprehension, an eldredge horror of pain and torment and shoddy scriptwriting. What I got just turned out to be a bad story, let’s talk about it.

There’s a presence on Brighton Beach. Teamed up with legendary comedian Max Miller, the Doctor and Evelyn find themselves fighting something very old and very patient, something rising from beneath the West Pier.

(CONTAINS SPOILERS)

I’m really going to struggle deciding if I place this above or below Medicinal Purposes because they’re both pretty similar in quality, if for different reasons. Robert Ross, in between stories, seems to have made a good few improvements to his writing - but traded them for a few extra kinks in his storytelling. The first thing that jumped out to me was that the dialogue was actually pretty alright; not spectacular but compared to the absolute dumpster fire that was Medicinal Purposes’ line readings, it was a godsend. I can confidently say that Pier Pressure’s characters feel like actual people and not words on a script. Doesn’t save them from being boring as sin though. There was one person here who did seem a little bit more intriguing than the rest, and that was good old Sixie. The last time Ross wrote for Six, our ever intrepid hero was walking a young man with a learning disability to his death with little more than a shrug but here, Six is presented in a more interesting and vulnerable way than he has been for a good long while. I honestly love the idea of the Doctor getting burnt out and for all the shade I can throw at the rest of this story, I can confidently say Six was a genuine diamond in the rough.

However I can throw so much shade at the rest of this script that it may as well be night. Let’s start with the other characters since we’re on the subject. Like I said before, the dialogue is a lot better here than it was in Ross’ last story and the performances are all around pretty decent but the trouble we really run into is that nobody’s particularly interesting. In fact, everybody here’s basically a walking bit of cardboard. We have a generic historical figure in the form of Max Miller, who honestly just feels like a discount Jago for most of the story, and the young couple of Albert and Emily. Now, Emily’s just there to be scared and then die but props to Ross for at least trying something with Albert, who slowly breaks over the course of the audio after Emily’s demise at the end of the second part. However, the rest of the time he’s just about the most generic side character you can get and this trauma only really shows when the script needs it to. I think the worst offender though is Evelyn, who Ross clearly misunderstands entirely. This whole audio, she’s sidelined and presented as generally feckless and doting, which are two words that should never be used to describe Evelyn. I don’t know whose choice it was to bring her back after Thicker than Water but I hope they got sacked.

But I can get past a bad cast, they’re a dime a dozen in Doctor Who and it’s not what makes Pier Pressure an absolute travesty. For all intents and purposes, this is about as simple as a Who story can get: there’s an evil alien in the waters around West Pier and it’s possessing people; painfully generic, sure, but not game breaking. But somehow, Ross takes what has to be the easiest possible plot to convey to the audience, and presents it in the most confoundingly strange way possible. This whole audio’s direction is wack man, it makes absolutely no sense. Character’s will just guess what’s happening and be right, scenes of peril will end and then cut to hours later when the dangers have been resolved offscreen, we’ll be told about things that outright didn’t happen. To give you an example of this, the story begins with the Doctor hearing about missing people in a newspaper and hearing a story about a weird noise on the beach. He then immediately surmises that an alien is Brighton and it has something to do with a psychic who is supposed to have been dead for fifteen years, all of this without any prompting. Twenty minutes in and already I have absolutely no clue what is happening or how we got there. It’s like the Doctor knows he’s in a story and knows something has to be happening. And things like this just keep repeating, it feels as if half the scenes have been cut out. Part three ends with Evelyn and Miller getting possessed - chanting “kill the Doctor” - and the sound of the Doctor falling into the sea; anybody would assume they pushed him, right? Well, Part Four begins with them all in the TARDIS, Evelyn and Miller suddenly unpossessed, the reveal that the Doctor apparently jumped in himself for seemingly little reason and he was pulled out by a character who has been nothing but antagonistic this whole audio and has suddenly turned good. Huh? It’s mind numbing how everything is presented, especially when the actual meat of the story is so generic and hollow. The direction of this story I can only describe as deranged because it’s often hard to work out where each scene is even set.

This really begins to derail the story the more it goes on, perhaps the worst when it’s trying to wrap itself up. Because of how vaguely and bizarrely everything’s conveyed, I found the whole thing to be pretty tensionless, and the antagonist really didn’t help. It’s a generic alien intelligence, with a generic “take over the world!” plan and a generic backstory. Their human conduit - the crazed Talbot - is a little more threatening, what with his insane double personality, but mainly because he’s played by the brilliant Doug Bradley, most famous for playing Pinhead in the Hellraiser franchise. But he’s not enough to save this story, we trundle along with next to no momentum or atmosphere. Medicinal Purposes, for all its faults, at least felt well realised in its historical setting but my home town of Brighton feels like a single pier and five people, there is absolutely no sense of scale or immersion to be found.

Pier Pressure can only be described as a bad story. Not atrocious, not terrible for any particular reason, it’s just like the distillation of a bad story. I think it’s a little better than Medicinal Purposes, if only because it lacks the blatant amorality of that trash fire, but Robert Ross is clearly not a talented writer. Why the guy was allowed three different Main Range stories is a complete mystery to me. Awful characters, a confusing plot that seems to be in spite of the listener and a distinctly generic air to it make this maybe the most skippable Doctor Who story ever created.

3/10

Pros:

+ Took an interesting direction with Six

+ It’s dialogue is a vast improvement from Medicinal Purposes

Cons:

- The side cast is made of cardboard

- Presented in the most confusing way possible

- The villain is incredibly underwhelming

- Evelyn continues to be mischaracterised

- Brighton is awfully realised

MR 078: Pier Pressure

I'm not mad, I'm disappointed. There's some interesting stuff going on here, but it's just way too long for what it is. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard like this author's previous story: Medicinal Purposes, but it's not really good either.

On the beach in the past, there was a pier. And on that pier there was a magician named Professor Talbot and his attraction. Only he'd been dead for a long time. But, of course, not really. He's been kept alive by this entity called Indo.

It's essentially a ghost story. The Indo kill and possess a girl named Emily just as they are trying to possess Professor Talbot, but it doesn't work out for them. That's all well and good. The problem is that the story is way too long.

Very little happens in this two hour drama, it definitely should have been an hour instead. There's a decent performance of the real life comedian Max Miller. But there is a funny section of the script where Evelyn and Max are just in the TARDIS playing I Spy, like the script has nothing to do with them. We spend like twenty minutes just sitting around with them. And while it's cute and all, it's time that could have been cut. This story is a great example of why the two hour classic format isn't necessarily a good thing.

The Doctor ultimately stops the Indo by blowing up the power source that keeps Talbot alive, thus dissipating the Indo into the pier where they will be until the pier collapses, apparently. But it's a long winding road to get there.

It's not offensive like Medicinal Purposes was, but there was some stuff that made me raise my eyebrows. The Doctor continually insists that there is some great "evil" under the pier over and over again, even before he knows what's actually happening. That is very odd to me. Doctor Who doesn't usually just assume something is evil out of pocket before knowing what it is. He tries to figure out what's happening and understand it first and then declares it to be malevolent if it turns out to be the case. Very strange. This writer, Robert Ross, has demonstrated a lack of understanding of Doctor Who already so I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case here as well.

Honestly, its worst crime is that it's just boring. And that's the worst thing that a Doctor Who story can be other than fundamentally undermine the entire reason why I like this franchise, like this author's last story. Give it a miss.

Pier Pressure is a somewhat meandering affair. Not a lot happens in the story and I found my mind wandering a bit in the middle two episodes, however I still enjoyed this release. Six and Evelyn have some lovely interactions together, they are always a delightful pairing. Certainly this is not one of their stronger stories but there is still joy to be found. Roy Hudd gives a strong performance as Max Miller and Doug Bradley too as antagonist Professor Talbot. The script could certainly have been refined to be more focused and eventful to improve its overall quality, but I found it a pleasant enough story to pass the time, which is sometimes what I want from a story, to just spend time with our beloved characters.

This is part of a series of reviews of Doctor Who in chronological timeline order.

Previous Story: The Nowhere Place

Robert Ross really doesn't seem to know how to write Doctor Who huh? First Medicinal Purposes and now Pier Pressure. At the very least this one isn't as outright offensive as the last but it's still got a lot of out of character moments and it's somehow even more boring. It feels like the writer didn't get the memo when it comes to 6's character growth that happened just a few stories ago, he behaves almost exactly like he does on TV if not worse, he acts completely cold towards a young boy whose girlfriend just died, along with another character in the story who even jokes about it.

There's a lot of weird hamfisted TV references in here like 6 giving a similar speech to the one 2 gave about "evils that must be fought", there is a funny joke about the BBC's treatment of Colin Baker but again it feels like an awkward attempt at referencing something either in the show or behind the scenes. Maybe the most egregious example of this is a character who seems to be supposed to be William Hartnell. Yes. That William Hartnell. I'm not sure exactly why as it's not relevant to the story and I wouldn't have even noticed it if it weren't for another review.

I would try to talk plot but this story was so mind numbingly dull that I zoned out for large swathes of it. Absolutely wouldn't recommend and I can't believe this same writer got an extra chance at writing after two of the direst stories I've had the displeasure of listening to in all of Doctor Who.

Next Story: 100 BC

The conceit of this marathon often throws up some interesting story orders that contrast with the original release order. Already in this marathon we have had two stories by Robert Ross: Medicinal Purposes and Assassin in the Limelight. Both featured Doctor Knox, as played by Leslie Philips and the latter saw him in league with the Indo – a parasitic alien race. In ‘real life’ Assassin in the Limelight was a return for the Indo after their debut appearance in this story, Pier Pressure. For the 6th Doctor and Evelyn it is the first time they have encountered them but for the Indo, unless they have time travel capabilities, this is the second time they have encountered the Doctor.

In Assassin in the Limelight we saw the Indo prolong Doctor Knox’s life through possession and this is exactly what we are presented with here. The ‘villain’ of the piece, Professor Talbot, is in a similar position to Knox: supposedly dead and being kept alive by the Indo. There is the vague suggestion that the Indo are aware of who the Doctor is. They are immediately concerned that he will disrupt their plans and there is definitely a throughline between the two stories which works in either order.

Unfortunately, this may be the most interesting thing about this story because the rest of it, excellent performances aside, is a terribly dull and meandering affair.

Pier Pressure has a lot going for it – possessed humans, a mysterious psychic at the end of the Pier, Brighton as a setting and, most importantly, Roy Hudd giving a brilliant performance as the real life comedian Max Miller.

But all of this is squandered on a four episode story where so little happens its almost embarrassing. Indicative of this is the part of the story where Evelyn and Max spend almost an entire episode sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy! The script literally takes two of its most interesting characters and puts them in the TARDIS to do nothing while the story – what there is of it – happens outside.

Another problem with the story is the underwhelming adversary. Professor Talbot and the Indo are both played by horror icon Doug Bradley (him of Pinhead from the Hellraiser films fame). Firstly the script doesn’t seem to know what Talbot’s situation is. For the first two episodes he seems completely possessed by the Indo, incapable of acting under his own volition and desperate for their help to achieve his aims – although these are never really explained.  Is it the return of his dead wife?  Is it fame and fortune. Later in the story, though, he is suddenly acting under his own agency and able to do things without the Indo being aware – such as inexplicably helping an incapacitated Doctor back to the TARDIS after both Max and Evelyn get possessed themselves.

As an adversary, Talbot just makes no sense at all and it isn’t helped by Bradley’s terrible performance. His ‘Indo’ voice is a vaguely raspy whisper which contrasts with the weak Talbot but later, the weakness disappears from his voice and it becomes harder to distinguish between the two ‘voices’. Talbot is easliy one of the worst written and worst performed villains in Big Finish Doctor Who.

Alongside an underwhelming adversary is the fact a lot of the story happens ‘off-screen’ and then characters tell us about it later. This happens multiple times and its incredibly frustrating.

There are, however, some positive. First and foremost is the 6th Doctor and Evelyn and how sublime they are. Maggie Stables is peerless as Evelyn and the relationship of mutual intelligence and affection – and the fact that Evelyn is one of those companions who gets to tell the Doctor to stop being an idiot – make for a very happy listen, even in a story that is frustrating on so many other levels.

The guest cast is headed up by Roy Hudd as Max Miller. Hudd is something of an aficionado of Miller, as I understand it, you can feel the admiration shining through his performance. It’s similar to the situation with Simon Callow playing Charles Dickens and having already played him in other productions outside of Doctor Who. Miller – and Hudd – is a wonderful foil for the Doctor and companion to Evelyn and, again, the fact that he hardly does anything plotwise is hugely frustrating. There is so much potential in a story featuring a stand up comedian fighting monsters with the Doctor that it beggars belief that it was wasted on this non-entity of a plot.

The rest of the cast ably support although there is one odd inclusion – a character called Billy. An actor working with Miller, apparently he is supposed to be a young William Hartnell (films he mentions appearing in are indeed films that Hartnell appeared in). However, Billy scarpers at the first sign of the strange, uncanny events and is never seen again in the story. It’s such an obscure inclusion (unless you know the films mentioned – and they aren’t well-known – there would be no reason for realising it was Hartnell) and, like much of this story, completely wasted as an idea.

Something went wrong with the production of Pier Pressure. Either a script editor never looked at it (I can’t believe they would let almost an entire episode go by with two main characters literally sitting in the TARDIS playing I Spy) or the team’s focus was elsewhere and it didn’t get the attention it needed. Baker, Stables and Hudd work with what they’re given and do at least make it a listenable experience even if it is incredibly frustrating as a story that has, on paper, a huge amount going for it.