Doctor Who: Frazer Hines’s Second Doctor – A wonderful tribute to Patrick Troughton
By James Aggas
After celebrating Frazer Hines’s original character of Jamie McCrimmon, we take a look at his performance as the Second Doctor on audio, and why it’s a worthy tribute to Patrick Troughton.
Big Finish has given us so many wonderful performances, stories and moments with their Doctor Who audios over the years. But perhaps one of the greatest things they’ve given us is Frazer Hines’s amazing rendition of the Second Doctor.
Honestly, it really is just incredible. Over the years, we’ve had many former companions voice the role of the Doctor too, particularly in The Companion Chronicles. In fact, that’s when Big Finish listeners got to hear Hines’s dual performance as the Doctor and Jamie in an official story. (He sometimes does it at conventions, which naturally always gets a strong reaction.)
As great as other actors have been at voicing characters originally played by colleagues at the very least, (if not even close friends,) Hines’s rendition of Patrick Troughton’s iconic Doctor stands out as one of the very best. You can listen for yourself in the trailer below for volume one of The Companion Chronicles – The Second Doctor.
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An amazing dual performance
Along with getting the pitch and the tone of Troughton’s voice just right, Hines also gets the very rhythm of Troughton’s voice spot on. He often includes tiny little pauses that would’ve matched perfectly to the way Troughton performed as the Doctor in those classic Sixties stories, and gives us a strong sense of physicality in a purely non-visual medium. Overall, it’s an extremely energetic performance that captures a lot of what we enjoyed about the Second Doctor so much.
If that wasn’t impressive, Hines naturally continues to play his old role of iconic companion Jamie McCrimmon in the same stories. And, as he’s often revealed in interviews, he doesn’t record his lines separately. Instead of recording his lines as the Doctor first before recording his lines as Jamie, he will often instead perform his lines for both characters in the same take.
It’s considerably amazing to hear him switch back from one voice to the other, and when you hear the Doctor and Jamie having a conversation, it often becomes very easy to forget that you’re not listening to two different actors in the same scene.
This is naturally something that Big Finish has used to great effect, first with The Companion Chronicles before giving us full-cast stories with The Early Adventures. Both ranges have given us many excellent Doctor Who audios over the years that are extremely authentic to their eras, and Hines’s dual performance as the Doctor and Jamie has been a key reason for that. Honestly, even after celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday last weekend, I hope he continues to play both iconic roles for many years to come.
Next. Why Jamie McCrimmon is one of the greatest companions ever. dark
Have you listened to Hines’s performance as the Second Doctor? What do you think of it? Do you think it’s a worthy tribute to Patrick Troughton? Let us know in the comments below.