It’s time to listen to and discuss Colditz
Buy it online using the link above, or listen for free - you’ll find links where to listen free on the story page!
Once you’ve listened, talk about it below! Even if you listened to it before and just want to discuss it - dive right in! Just please use spoiler tags where appropriate.
Everyone who participates will get a coveted Audio Club badge! 
Just for fun, add your rating here:
‘Colditz’ sent alarm bells ringing in my head when I realised who was on post-production duties - Toby Richards and Emily Baker are notorious for their atrocious sound design and audio mixing, just listen to ‘Dragons’ Wrath’ from the Benny range - but they did a surprisingly good job here.
An excellent psuedo-historical romp where the Doctor comes face to face with the living embodiment of the Wolfenstein Paradox.
I reviewed this one a while back, but it remains a personal favourite.
Oh my, I could not disagree more - the sound design on this is utterly, utterly atrocious. Almost unlistenable in places. The story is okay but nothing to write home about and were it not for Klein and a decent guest cast, there would be hardly anything to recommend.
I really like Colditz, I think it’s a great little war story with Ace at her best.
Klein’s a fun antagonist and I love the utterly balls-to-the-wall reveal of the Doctor’s ridiculous, Machiavellian plot to deceive her.
Plus, we get a surprise performance from David Tennant.
Overall, really fun and well rounded audio - not spectacular but nonetheless great.
8/10
I honestly didn’t like this one.
I just don’t like the setting.
I thought it was pretty great, fun story with classic Seventh Doctor time travel shenanigans. Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred are excellent (as always) and Tracey Childs as Elizabeth Klein is intriguing. Looking forward to hearing more stories with her character
I think this is another one I need to relisten to so I can give it a fair opinion, especially now I’ve listened to the majority of Klein’s stories. But last time I listened, I really didn’t like this one. I think the sound design is grating and I’m not a huge war story person to begin with so I think a lot of elements didn’t really work for me
German David Tennant jumpscare.
We have a very fun 7 doing one of his ridiculously complicated manipulative schemings, and Ace being diet manipulative 7. Which at first I found pretty boring in comparison to the Doctor’s plot, but halfway through it started to get my sympathy a lot more, until the two storylines intertwined again nicely.
I find for me that most of the ‘emotional beats’ hit pretty well, except for that one at the end with “no, it’s dorothy mcshane now” which was completely ridiculous and honestly laughably emo.
‘t Will be interesting to see Klein come back! From the story itself i would not have been expecting her to become recurring.
Unfortunately for you this is not the end of the emo Ace shenanigans. I don’t understand why the writers feel the need to make her go by a different variant of her name ever time she gets ‘darker’ or ‘edgier’, but they do.
I love this story. It could probably use a bit of a revamp on the sound design but goodness me, it’s outstanding writing and performances really show how wonderful all there characters are,
not really my kind of story, this one. i felt a serious lack of shenanigans, though understandable for what they were going for. tonally, it’s just sort of grim, but in a boring way.
i didn’t notice too much by way of bad sound design, though i can say i was never especially immersed in the story, and that probably contributed.
there are things to like about it, though, like the characterization of all the side characters. they were well realized. i do like the whole paradox going on, too.
overall a decent story, but likely not one i’ll go back to.
I liked this one. Great setting and a fun villain. 4/5
This one is very underrated.
I loved every second of it. And I became really intrigued with Klein’s character.
I love the pure historicals, and this one is one of my favourites.
Because it is a great combo - intriguing character, David Tennant and Steve Lyons - what else do you need?!
Also, I’m learning German at the moment, and I’m considering visiting the Colditz castle…
Lots of good and lots of meh parts in this Story. The Story with Klein only works pretty well in hindsight. Both McCoy and Aldred gives us some of their best performance so far on Audio and overall for what’s worth, this Story does its job fairly well I will say! Admittedly I am going off from memories, so it’s more so a “Yeah I thought it was solid” than a proper Opinion, might need to give it another chance in the future. From what I can recall the sound design was definitely still figuring itself out sadly, but then again a lot of the early BF Plays suffer from it a bit
One of the first audios I ever listened to and a firm favorite ever since then
Now you see, this I don’t think is true at all. The early Bernice audios have better sound design than this.
Seriously though, I’m struggling to work out how the sound design on this doesn’t offend people as much as me. It’s sooo bad. There’s background chatter which literally cuts off the moment a character starts talking. People walking sound like they are clip clopping and interiors sound like characters are in a metal box. None of the previous audios are this bad - maybe Minuet in Hell comes a little close (it also has a bit of the background chatter cutting off).
No, I agree with this completely! It’s definitely the worst sound design I’ve ever heard on a Doctor Who play. The first time I listened I was convinced my headphones had broken! (Although the Benny story Dragons’ Wrath is much worse in my book. Funnily enough, it was by the same sound designers…)
I really like Colditz, but the sound design is what holds it back from being an all-time favourite of mine.
Can’t comment on those since I haven’t listened to them yet. I will say I am not remembering the Sound design being that bad compared to the others, but then again it’s been a while since I listened to the Audio and this is really one I struggle to remember all the details about (maybe because of the sound design itself). I will say the sound design varies in quality for the early plays (especially the ones I listened to so far), from the sounds of it this might be sadly on the very weak end, which is a shame since this story seems to be on a more solid side.
Oh no it’s Nazis again. Creepy, pervert Nazi played by David Tennant. No this is not what I want at all.
They keep trying to make the show edgy by having people creep over Ace and by having things like Nazis winning the war, can we just have fun adventures and character pieces please? Ace going by McShane now isn’t good character development it’s just bad.
The whole story was just a whole lot of nothing, weird paradox with bad accents bad sound design, really boring conclusion that made me think “is that it?”.
2/5 - almost as bad as Project Twilight, the only way it could have been worse is if they were vampire Nazis.
I listened to this one not too long ago, but I thought I’d add my thoughts too!
Sound design aside, I really like this audio. The plot could have been repetitive—Seven and Ace have literally done the Man in the High Castle ‘what if the Nazis won WWII?’ storyline in Timewyrm: Exodus (which for the record, I think is just fine). But by setting this story at the moment when that future becomes possible, and then having the world saved by a remarkable time-travel twist, via Klein, is genius. It’s genuinely a marvellous piece of plotting, a perfect loop. And the moment where it’s revealed: “You came here, to 1925, in my TARDIS…” stunned me on first listen.
Seven’s tempestuous relations with Klein are another highlight. The way he explodes in anger in episode 3 (“There is no excuse for genocide!”) is extremely powerful. It sets the groundwork for what is still my favourite MR trilogy, much further down the line.
Back in Colditz Castle, I’m less fond of Ace’s storyline—I think her characterisation suffers from the same problems as Dust Breeding, where she’s too juvenile and reactionary, despite the story trying to tell us she’s more mature. I don’t like the McShane thing at all! It’s frustrating because Ace was written so well in The Fearmonger—that story gave us a perfect balance of Ace’s anger, her headstrong nature, and her post-season 26 maturity.
Despite that—and the fact that I don’t really enjoy Kurtz—I really love the story of Flying Officer Gower and Haufmann Schaefer. They have this wonderful subplot, almost hidden behind the main action, of two old soldiers tired of war, on opposite sides, who learn to trust each other and form some kind of friendship by the end. I love their relationship.
It leads to what I think is a perfectly balanced ending—the characters Seven and Ace have antagonised (Kurtz and Klein) vs the combined forces of Gower and Haufmann allow the Doctor and Ace to escape, saving the world from Nazi rule in the process. (Not without some gruesome body horror along the way! The TARDIS is ruthless in this story.)
It’s a really solid 9/10 for me overall. A fantastic plot, let down by just a few elements. Even writing about it has made we want to listen to A Thousand Tiny Wings again!
