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Of
all the narrators of the Companion Chronicles series
to date, Lalla Ward, alias the Second Romana, is the most
prolific in terms of her volume of previous work for Big Finish
Productions. She has already reprised her role in several
Doctor Who audios plus the entire Gallifrey
series. It thus comes as no surprise that she steps effortlessly
back into her Time Lady shoes to read this talking-book adventure,
which takes place after the television story Nightmare
of Eden during the notoriously light-hearted seventeenth
season.
The writer, Jonathan Morris (who, like Nigel Fairs, author
of The
Blue Tooth, was a childhood fan of the Doctor
in question), also has previous form. He penned the BBC Books
Who novel Festival
of Death, a book that's up there with Gareth
Roberts' celebrated Fourth Doctor/Romana Missing Adventures
in terms of capturing the best aspects of the era (while avoiding
the worst aspects of it: the often shoddy production values).
The
author achieves this once again (you can easily imagine Tom
Baker uttering "Ahhhhh"s and bursting through doors just as
Morris and Ward describe here) though the narrative does stray
beyond that era in a couple of respects. The health spa location
is deliberately reminiscent of the setting of the Bubbles
DeVere sketches in that more recent Tom Baker vehicle, Little
Britain. A more amiable equivalent of Bubbles is present
in the rotund form of Cibella Bing, who, like Bubbles, says
"Darling" a lot and ends up naked (albeit unwillingly). There's
also a thinner, more sinister and more orange version of Marjorie
Dawes, in the guise of resident fat-fighter Dame Karna (guest
voice Marcia Ashton).
The
Beautiful People also recalls an earlier period, in that
the Doctor is absent for two entire chapters in the middle
of the story, just like when William Hartnell and Patrick
Troughton used to go on holiday for an episode or two during
the 1960s. As in The
Horns of Nimon, Romana takes charge very effectively
in the Doctor's absence.
At one point, Romana recalls stopping her hearts in Destiny
of the Daleks, which would seem to contradict
Mark Michalowski's short story The Lying Old Witch in the
Wardrobe (from Big Finish's second Short Trips
anthology, Companions). The short story revealed that
Romana was actually replaced by a shapeshifter called Iraj,
a personification of the TARDIS itself, for the duration of
the Dalek serial. Perhaps the TARDIS subsequently convinced
Romana, telepathically, that she had experienced the adventure
herself. How perplexing - I'm retconning a retcon!
Such potential confusion aside, this talking book is terrific
fun. Please, Big Finish, can we have some more?
Richard
McGinlay
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