Doctor Who actress spotlight: Jane Slavin – from countless voices to new companion

Today, we look at Big Finish regular Jane Slavin, who’s voiced a wide variety of characters across numerous Doctor Who audios – including Ann Kelso, the Fourth Doctor’s newest companion!

This year, we were introduced to a brand new companion to Tom Baker’s Doctor: WPC Ann Kelso. The character was a strong fit for the Fourth Doctor: very intelligent and eager for adventure, but also someone who enjoyed sharing banter with the Doctor from time to time. The brand new companion worked brilliantly, and that was in large part due to the performance of Jane Slavin.

The funny thing is that Ann Kelso isn’t Slavin’s first role for Doctor Who on audio. In fact, she had appeared in a large number of Fourth Doctor Adventures long before she got the part of Kelso.

However, with one or two exceptions, (such as the Laan in the second and fifth seasons of The Fourth Doctor Adventures,) she very rarely played the same role twice. Unsurprisingly, Big Finish have hired a number of talented people over the years that can create different voices and play a large number of characters, often in the same production. Slavin is one of these actors.

I think the best compliment that I can give to Slavin as a voice actress is that, originally, I didn’t even notice how often she had appeared in Doctor Who. It was only when she had been cast as the new companion for the Fourth Doctor that I found out just how regularly she had appeared in The Fourth Doctor Adventures already, as the voice of so many different characters.

So Slavin clearly has a talent for creating characters on the spot, which is considerably impressive. With that amount of talent, it’s perhaps not surprising that Big Finish eventually decided to give her a much larger role.

The new girl

Giving the Fourth Doctor a brand new companion was a bold move, but a welcome one. While the Doctor’s travels with Leela and Romana have been enjoyable, you do have the problem of knowing the beginning, middle and ending of these companions’ stories already.

It’s not that you can’t tell stories with these characters at all, or even give them some development that should have happened on-screen. But at the same time, it’s still considerably more limiting to tell stories with established companions than with original ones. One of the key reasons why the Eighth Doctor is one of the most exciting to listen to on audio is the huge amount of freedom that the writers have when it comes to his era.

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So when Big Finish announced that they had created a brand new companion for Tom Baker’s Doctor, I was instantly excited. A new companion meant a new relationship to build on and explore across the series. It also potentially meant getting to see a new side to the Fourth Doctor.

Ann Kelso

So how was the new companion of Ann Kelso? Overall, really great to listen to. It took a while for her character to really build up, but halfway through her season, she truly stood out as a fresh and very interesting companion, one who had a lot of sides to her character.

Jane Slavin was absolutely fantastic in the role. Not only did she play all the distinctive sides to Ann brilliantly, but she had excellent chemistry with Tom Baker, too. The Syndicate Master Plan – the grand storyline for this year’s season of The Fourth Doctor Adventures – was extremely enjoyable to listen to, and Slavin’s performance was a key reason for that.

While her ability to voice many characters is brilliant, I’m definitely glad that Big Finish gave her such a major role this year. (Or at least, a couple of years ago, as The Fourth Doctor Adventures are typically recorded way in advance.) I’ll be honest, it has made me take much more notice of her, and she stands out as a truly brilliant actress at Big Finish.

Have you listened to Jane Slavin as Ann Kelso in this year’s season of The Fourth Doctor Adventures? What did you make of her performance? Or have you listened to her perform in other stories? Let us know in the comments below.