India, 1932. Cynthia Coffin is propping up the bar at the Royal Simla Club, there’s a steaming train stopped on the tracks just outside the Himalayan town of Simla, and Academy Award winner Stephen Warbeck’s soundtrack is sinuously moving through the heat, the passion, and the secrets of Indian Summers. Reflecting the characters of Channel … >
What would the Star Wars franchise be without John Williams? 83 years young, and he’s still the musical Force of the Star Wars cinematic process, surrounding and binding together the galaxy of acting, dialogue, effects both practical and special, in a grand orchestral sound inspired by Erich Korngold and the Golden Age of adventure cinema; … >
Listen! Question: Why do we talk to ourselves when we know we’re alone? Answer: Because we haven’t had the Doctor Who Season 8 soundtrack to keep our pudding-brains busy. That, and there may be a race of unseeable entities watching our ever move. But mostly, y’know, the soundtrack thing. Always a treat for a Whovian’s … >
Here’s a nice reminder that one of the BBC’s best BAFTA-winning shows hasn’t been recommissioned: the soundtrack to that BAFTA-winning BBC show. Sorry. Sorry. That’s too jaundiced a way of looking at things, and certainly in respect to a fine soundtrack. All you Rotter fans, don’t think of this as a reminder of what you’ve … >
Channel 4 really went straight for the spoon when it came to Utopia‘s fate, didn’t they? Skipping the chilli or bleach, they just scooped Dennis Kelly’s dark dystopian drama right out of the future schedules, never to be seen again. Some torturers have no finesse. So while we don’t have a third season to look … >
Fans know that Doctor Who music is music that gets stuff done. For the best part of a decade Murray Gold has created an accessible rhythm to saving the universe, and it’s one that’s too energetic, too fizzy, to just sit in a chair and absorb. The tenth album of his work for the show … >
Now this is a real treat. Edmund Butt’s score to Mark Gatiss’ terrific Doctor Who drama. You all remember An Adventure in Space and Time, don’t you? It’s the 90 minutes last year that made several generations of Who fans get all moist-eyed and nostalgic, some for a time they weren’t even alive in.
Pass that popcorn-filled Deerstalker, would you? Because with that filmic running length, a principal duo of Hollywood stars, and the fact that each 90-minute feature is advertised with the hashtaggable anticipation of your average blockbuster, every episode of Sherlock is less a TV drama and more a movie that has escaped into your living room. So it stands to reason that it should be given a fittingly filmic score.
With a recent stash of missing episodes recovered, Doctor Who fans may feel their Christmas has come early. But the real thing hasn’t yet. So put down that cracker. Don’t let those advent calendars in the shops fool you: Noddy Holder won’t be defrosted from his regenerative slumber for at least another month.
Shhh! Lock the door, close the curtains. We’ve got to talk about the soundtrack to Channel 4’s violent cult conspiracy hit Utopia. Quietly.