Doctor Who And The Zarbi
BBC
Oct 2006 · BBC Digital Audio · Narrated by William Russell
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Audiobook
6 hr 18 min
Unabridged
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Eligible
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About this audiobook
Doctor Who lands his space-time machine TARDIS on the cold, craggy planet of Vortis. The Doctor and his companions, Ian and Vicki, are soon captured by the Zarbi, huge ant-like creatures with metallic bodies and pincer claws. Meanwhile, Barbara falls into the hands of the friendly Menoptera who have come to rid Vortis of the malevolent power of the Zarbi... William Russell, who played the role of Ian in the original television series, reads Bill Strutton's complete and unabridged novelisation, first published in hardback in 1965. The book went on to become part of the Target Books range of Doctor Who titles, and is one of the much-loved novelisations based on the programme. This release also features a bonus interview with William Russell, in which he recalls his memories of recording the original television serial The Web Planet, and of the time he spent on Doctor Who.
About the author
Bill Strutton was born on 23 February 1923, in South Australia. Although he was a highly intelligent student, he abandoned higher education to work as a clerk in Adelaide. He joined the Australian forces in 1939, at the start of the Second World War, but was captured by German soldiers during the fall of Crete. For the next four years he was a prisoner in Stalag VII; during this time he learnt a number of languages and edited the camp newspaper. Following his release at the end of the war, Strutton moved into journalism, working for the Australian Consolidated Press. His first novel, A Jury of Angels, was published in 1957 and this was followed by The Secret Invaders (1958) and The Island of Terrible Friends (1961). During this time he began to write for British television, contributing scripts to the film series Ivanhoe, Top Secret, The Avengers and The Saint. Until the early Seventies he also wrote for Dr Finlay's Casebook, The Man in Room 17, Strange Report and the TV version of Paul Temple. Strutton's six scripts for the Doctor Who serial 'The Web Planet' came in 1965. He claimed that his inspiration for the tale came from a childhood encounter with two bull-ants in Australia, and he credited his wife with inventing the name 'Zarbi'. In 1970 he was commissioned to write a four-part story for Doctor Who, entitled The Mega. The commission went no further and Bill Strutton retired from writing in the mid-1970s. Having lived for a time in Surrey, he suffered a heart attack in 1978, and later moved to Palafrugell, Catalonia. He died there, aged 80, on 23 November 2003, forty years to the day since the original transmission of Doctor Who.
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