I've spent the last week or so listening to Caroline John's reading of Elisabeth Sladen's autobiography, billed as being unabridged (and at over 13 hours of talk time I can believe it). I liked it very much; Sladen comes across as a modest person, driven by her instinctive desire to be an actor, prepared to tell of her own bad experiences as well as the good - a run of difficult directors in the Pertwee era, health problems while filming both Dimensions in Time and School Reunion - but generally enjoying the process of recounting her career highlights and making the reader/listener enjoy the process as well. I have
noted one particular point on Who history which the autobiography illuminates a bit, and no doubt there are others. It's a shame that she doesn't find time to talk about her role in Big Finish's audios more than a couple of passing mentions, and of course it's a bigger shame that she wasn't able to finalise the text and see the book into print herself. There is a moving foreword by David Tennant (which he reads on the audio version) and an afterword by her husband and daughter Brian and Sadie Miller, read with understandable emotion by Brian Miller on the audio. Caroline John isn't of course the right voice for this - we won't hear that voice again - but makes a decent fist of it. Recommended for Who fans.