Thunderbirds Audiobooks
4 x 2 Cassettes - Penguin Audiobooks
Vol 1: Trapped In The Sky / Pit Of Peril - 86 mins
Vol 2: Martian Invasion / Brink Of Disaster - 88 mins
Vol 3: Desperate Intruder / The Impostors - 84 mins
Vol 4: Attack Of The Alligators! / Atlantic Inferno - 89 mins

Audio versions of the Thunderbirds stories have been with us as long as the television series has, but apart from the two dreadful Kidstuff cassettes issued in 1981, they have all been re-issues or re-workings of the original truncated Century 21 Mini-Album productions. Until now, that is, as Penguin Audiobooks have taken the brave step of producing brand new audio editions of eight Thunderbirds episodes.

Starting out with the digitally remastered and enhanced soundtracks from the recent DVD releases, the experienced production team at Audio Movies have remixed the soundtrack for audio in Dolby Pro Logic Surround Sound, adding a narration by William Roberts to cover the sequences where there is no dialogue. Apart from slight trims here and there (mainly to retain the narrative flow at the commercial break points), the episodes themselves are complete and generally run to around 46 minutes each.

After the disappointing Kidstuff effort, fans may be understandably wary of these new audio versions, but I was pleasantly surprised: the quality of sound is marvellous - not only on explosions, vehicle launches, aircraft fly-bys and storm thunderclaps, but also on the quieter moments of dialogue where the voices are so clear you can imagine yourself right there with the International Rescue team - and Roberts is an ideal choice as narrator, being authoritative but not intrusive, allowing the soundtrack to heighten the excitement of the action sequences rather than trying to inject it falsely with his delivery. His voice has a quality which sounds like a natural addition to the original cast while lending an impartial air to the proceedings, rather than taking part in them as the voice artists did on the Mini-Album productions.

The narrative is delivered in the present tense rather than past, so the whole comes across rather like an episode guide synopsis than a narration, but this works fine and you soon get used to it. Descriptive passages repeated word for word in separate installments (over the opening titles, Thunderbird launches and scenes of The Hood's temple, for example) are used to great effect as a clever means of mirroring the series' visual repetition - a sort of audio version of stock footage. Indeed, after a couple of episodes, I began to anticipate and look forward to these sequences and was then disappointed if they didn't appear - notably on Brink Of Disaster where, oddly, the title sequence plays without dialogue.

Although the majority of the episodes in this selection were previously adapted for audio on the Mini-Albums, it is particularly interesting to hear Pit Of Peril, Martian Invasion and Attack Of The Alligators! making their audio-only debut. Divorced from the pictures, the scripts take on a life of their own and one comes to really appreciate the brilliance of the writers and the voice artists, as well as the skill of the sound engineers and, of course, Barry Gray. The stand-out episode is Attack Of The Alligators!, a story that is so well served by the audio production that it becomes even more atmospheric and exciting than the television episode - and who would have thought that would be possible? The sound of the alligators beating against the walls of the house is truly terrifying, and audio director Wilfredo Acosta has taken a small liberty with the end of the episode which is so cool it makes you wish it appeared in the TV version too.

In short, these tapes make ideal listening for any long car, train, air or space journeys. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that sales are encouraging enough for Penguin to publish additional episodes as I would love to hear City Of Fire, The Man From MI.5, The Duchess Assignment and Path Of Destruction told in this way.
Russell Weller


FAB Magazine - Issue 43 (November 2001)