Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Volume 3: The Leisure Hive is the third in a series of compilations showcasing the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's work on the science-fiction programme Doctor Who. The album focused mainly on the Peter Howell synthesiser score for the 1980 serial The Leisure Hive, which received its first full release here. The compilation also collected some Dick Mills sound effects from the story as well as some effects from other 1980 serials Meglos and Full Circle, whose music would be the subject of the fourth volume in the series. The final track was a new remix of the original Delia Derbyshire version of the show's theme tune by series compiler Mark Ayres.

Background

The committee that oversaw the BBC Radiophonic Workshop limited the number of outside composers who were granted access to its equipment. Due to its close ties to dramatic productions rather than music, the workshop was basically closed to the contemporary musical community except those few "approved" composers, and these were admitted only after attending an orientation familiarizing the musicians with the equipment. One of those approved composers was Tristram Cary, who wrote music for Doctor Who, and their production team for the television series, "notoriously scraped by on the tiniest of budgets, and often relied on music to say what the visuals could not. Cary's abstract representations of desolate alien worlds says much more about their nature than cardboard sets ever could."

Track listing

Equipment

Equipment used on this compilation includes:

Reception

American author Louis Niebur wrote in Notes that "Doctor Who at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Volume Three: The Leisure Hive, presents in its entirety Peter Howell's score for The Leisure Hive, a synthesizer score that attempts the repeat on a smaller scale the grandeur of Jean-Michel Jarre or Vangelis's contemporary popular music. The warmth of Howell's analog synthesizers, in a studio comprisedof [sic] a Yamaha CS80, Roland Jupiter 4, 100M Modular, and an EMS Vocoder, radiates throughout the score, emulating the epic force of Gustav Holst's The Planets. Moving away from the alien dissonance of Malcom Clarke's Sea Devils sound, Howell's tonality nevertheless mirrors the 'science fiction' nature of the program through its use of 'futuristic' electronic timbres."