By David Solomons!
Available from Amazon UK

An ancient artefact buried deep within the TARDIS leads the Doctor back to London, where a deadly predator prowls the tunnels beneath the city. As the Time Lord and her friends investigate, they uncover a mystery that will take them from a secret mountain base to the depths of the ocean - and if they cannot solve it, one of them will perish.

In order to save her friend, the Doctor must solve the riddle of ... the Maze of Doom!

Written By: James Goss
Directed By: Scott Handcock
Featuring: Rowena Cooper (Queen Victoria); Paul Bazely (Maharaja Duleep Singh); David Sterne (Colonel Crackenthorpe)

Released by Big Finish Productions – January 2020
Order from Amazon UK

“Just remember she’s behind all this. Even free, we’re her slaves.”

Now there’s a statement which you don’t hear uttered in every pulp sci-fi audio drama. Indeed, whilst Big Finish’s Doctor Who franchise output oft comes under scrutiny for its depiction of controversial real-world figures such as Winston Churchill, in Torchwood: Fortitude lies a marked rebuttal to any accusations of political archaism, along with a confident mission statement for future such works. If you’ve long craved an entry in the Main Range which builds upon God Among Us’ disturbing odyssey into homelessness and Children of Earth’s harrowing satire on global crises and the leaders forced to tackle them –  rather than simply dipping its toe into political waters as Who does sometimes with episodes like “Arachnids in the UK” – then you’ve definitely come to the right place.

Ever the master of misdirection and deception, Torchwood range producer James Goss, has cunningly seeded this philosophically-charged storyline within an otherwise quintessential premise for the TV show-turned-audio saga; the good Queen Victoria, accompanied by one of her completely devout servants, finds herself trapped aboard a seemingly haunted prison, prompting no shortage of supernatural hijinks as she, her aide as well as the prison’s increasingly-unhinged warden battle demons both internal and external. So just another day at the office for our 19th-century monarch in other words, especially seeing as the play takes place after Who’s 2006 period outing “Tooth & Claw” and thus after her establishment of the Torchwood Institute to investigate unearthly incursions precisely along these lines.

Unfortunately for the British Empire’s leading lady, and fortunately for us listeners in contrast, her troubles here extend far beyond any run-of-the-mill alien encounter, with her truly greatest threats potentially lying closer to home. In fact, Goss’ gripping chamber piece of a tale delights in playing with our expectations. Mysterious locked rooms house less in the way of predictable jump-scares and more in the way of psychological insight into Colonel Crackenthorpe after guarding the prison for untold decades; said military veteran’s covert machinations might speak to alien possession or to far more human goals and regrets; while the traditional third-act confrontation takes a wholly different form as Indian Maharaja-turned-servant Duleep Singh finds a potential answer to his plight in another tormented soul. No accomplished script should present a completely shock-free storyline, of course, but it’s genuinely humbling to see Fortitude’s wright so gracefully subvert ghost story (and his franchise’s) tenets in order to explore Victoria’s moral spectres – namely those countless victims who suffered grievously under her Empire’s ruthless global expansion.

Just as Big Finish evidently realised this multi-faceted yarn’s huge promise upon Goss’ original pitch, so too must the piece’s Three Performing Musketeers have been all too aware of the potential for a distinguished gem to emerge provided that their own contributions delivered. And deliver they most certainly do: the tonally-understated egotism, ferocious stubbornness and dryly-pitched biting wit which Rowena Cooper has brought to Alexandrina Victoria of Kent ever since her rambunctious debut in The Victorian Age remains just as entertaining here, albeit lying in stark contrast to Paul Bazely’s part-tragic, part-inspiring take on Singh. His effortless progression through time-worn heartbreak, bubbling resentment and passionate cultural defiance as the character gathers long-lost confidence will – in combination with the script’s no-holds-barred interrogation of those responsible for his torture – surely evoke poignant emotions aplenty for any listeners whose ancestors endured the Empirical era. Arguably Fortitude’s finest actorial feat, though, comes in David Sterne’s more concise but no less impactful work as Crackenthorpe, the heartfelt pathos which he inspires in the Colonel’s sorrowful contemplations of past mistakes doubly praiseworthy considering that Cooper and Bazely share far more airtime in comparison.

Similarly instrumental to Fortitude’s success while immersing us in its seabound escapades are, well, the instruments involved with bringing said escapes to aural life. Through a combination of hauntingly atmospheric oceanic noises ever-present in the background, painfully jarring door creaks or ill-disguised footsteps as Queen Vic and Singh attempt to traverse the gaol unnoticed and vividly-rendered images like a Woman in Black-esque rocking chair moving of its own hostless accord, the sound design team work tirelessly to ensure that we’re every inch as unsettled as the fictitious constructs whom we’re following via headphones, laptop speakers or other means. What’s more, this superb sensory barrage has a vital role to play from a genre storytelling perspective, ultimately furthering our disbelief-suspending capabilities to the point that we’re no less invested once events take a turn for the Lovecraftian come Act 3 than we were in exploring the prison’s more tangible corridors beforehand – not something to which many of Fortitude’s sci-fi counterparts on audio or TV can always attest.

With all of that being said, one comparatively minor but still noticeable blemish may rob Fortitude of its otherwise undisputed place amongst the Crown Jewels of the Torchwood franchise. Sherlock’s Jim Moriarty once famously professed that “every fairy-tale needs a good old-fashioned villain” and indeed, this fantastical-esque romp to the high seas comes equipped with a fittingly overblown foil for our already-conflicted ‘heroes’ to reckon with in varying ways. Yet despite Goss’ remarkable efforts to seamlessly weave said foe into the piece’s thematic path-web of slavery-induced trauma, so much time passes before we’re properly introduced that it can’t help but resemble an afterthought versus the fascinating moral voyages taken by each of the other key players involved. Perhaps that comes down to the oft-discussed Main Range limitation of a one-hour narrative format, perhaps Goss consciously upheld the classic horror trope of leaving the relentless monstrosity up to our imagination; either way, the piece’s Big Bad remains in hindsight a somewhat untapped reservoir which his successors should seriously consider revisiting in greater detail.

Admittedly when the only real caveats levelled at your latest production represent but minor nitpicks in context, that’s a surefire sign of the piece’s success in virtually every other aspect. In no way did the above-mentioned gripe impinge upon Fortitude’s phenomenal performances, crucially-immersive sound effects or its script’s rarely-matched juggling act of classic Torchwood elements with challenging philosophical debates for listeners to contemplate; quite to the contrary, it only served to highlight the staggering extent to which the play’s strengths outweigh any such trivial shortcomings. As modern civilisation shelters from you-know-which crisis and shows its true colours, there has seldom been a better time for James Goss’ scathing, brilliant warning against choosing greed over human compassion – all the more reason to give his latest winning effort a try ASAP.

Written by Terrance Dicks
Read By Louise Jamesona

Released by BBC Worldwide - February 2020
Available from Amazon UK

To be totally honest, I barely remember the TV version of Image of the Fendahl.  I remembered the image of the golden priestess at the end of the story, but the bulk of it has faded completely from my memory.  So as I entered this Target Audiobook, I was very much like the fans who originally picked up these Target Novelizations.  Repeats were uncommon and chances are the book was going to be your main source for re-living a story.  As a book, I enjoyed it. I think I actually enjoyed it more now than the TV version, even though my memory is definitely vague.

Apparently, this is a story that involves a small village, witchcraft, and an ancient evil alien.  Yep, seems like a Tom Baker adventure. His era, particularly in the first half of his run, was filled with gothic horror elements...so a small village with a Witch and ancient evil seems just about right. 

As expected, Terrence Dicks' writing is easy and engaging.  Louise Jameson does a solid reading, and the production value for the audiobook (featuring some music and sound effects to add to the drama), are excellent.  If you, like so many of us, are now trapped at home looking for something to fill the air as you work from home,  why not pass some of the time with one of these Target Audiobooks?

Written by Lisa McMullin, Lizzie Hopley,
Gemma Langford and Sarah Grochala
Directed by Helen Goldwyn
Stars: Alex Kingston, Louise Jameson, Sophie Aldred,
Lisa Bowerman, Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart,
Dan Starkey, Jemma Redgrave,
Ingrid Oliver, Sylvester McCoy
Big Finish Productions, 2019

In 2019, to mark International Women’s Day, Big Finish launched an anthology – The Eighth of March – that celebrated the diversity of its stable and highlighted the exploits, courage and ingenuity of some of the women the Doctor has travelled with or encountered in his/her long lives. In addition, the four 60-minute-long serials were written, produced and directed by women, some of whom have been long-standing contributors to Big Finish over its 20-plus years.

BF’s decision to do an International Women’s Day release was a curious one, given its track record in the portrayal of women and in promoting opportunities for female actors and directors is pretty rock solid. It has given many former Doctor Who companions who weren’t necessarily served well on TV new leases of life – eg Nicola Bryant, Bonnie Langford, Maureen O’Brien, the late Deborah Watling – and its Bernice Summerfield range is the longest-running audio SF series with a female lead. Add to that other output featuring female leads – such as Torchwood, The Diary of River Song, Gallifrey, Missy, UNIT, Counter-Measures and new series spin-offs for Rose Tyler and Donna Noble – and the opportunities the company has given to many other women to work behind the scenes as well – Bryant, Louise Jameson, Bernice actor Lisa Bowerman and Helen Goldwyn are directors as much as they are actors – it could be argued there is little cause for an anthology release that celebrates the work of its women. Nonetheless, The Eighth of March is a decent primer for showcasing the wonderful work that women are doing across the Doctor Who audio range and in Big Finish’s other output.

The anthology consists of four serials, some of which tie in with other spin-offs in the Doctor Who range. Emancipation pairs the Doctor’s wife River Song (Alex Kingston) with former companion Leela (Jameson), while The Big Blue Book is effectively a Nineties 'New Adventures' reunion of Ace (Sophie Aldred) and Professor Bernice Summerfield (Bowerman). Inside Every Warrior is effectively a pilot episode for The Paternoster Gang audio series, while Narcissus is a modern UNIT story with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) and the two Osgoods (Ingrid Oliver) post-The Zygon Invasion/Inversion two-parter.

In Emancipation, River attends a Galactic Heritage convention on a primitive planet under the guise of former Gallifreyan President Romanadvoratrelundar. Enter Leela, who is despatched by the real Romana to expose the impostor, only to find herself (in her own words) “jumping through time to rescue princesses”, as she and River uncover an age-old conspiracy by that world’s royal personage to appease her people’s gods.

Kingston and Jameson make a great team, with the usually feisty Leela being the more level-headed and soothing influence, and River the more emotional, flamboyant tearaway (a reversal of the Fourth Doctor/Leela partnership). There are, of course, moments where Leela’s inner warrior seeps through this more restrained exterior – “Get up – or I will scalp those unnecessary curls from your head!” – but it is River’s recklessness and throwing of caution to the wind (much like her final TV appearance in The Husbands of River Song) that more often than not endangers their mission. This not only occurs over the course of the episode but in the conclusion when River quite unashamedly begins to meddle with time itself, at potentially great cost to many lives (something that the Doctor would rarely, if ever, do).

Pitted against the charismatic Kingston and Jameson is Julie Teal (Luther, Doctors, Waking the Dead) as the villainous and flamboyant Royal Magnificat. Teal almost steals the show from the two leads as the deliciously wicked and calculating evil queen mother. It’s an “arch” performance which Goldwyn admits she encouraged Teal to “revel” in, and it’s no doubt assisted by some great dialogue by scribe Lisa McMullin, whose script also borrows from the Steven Moffat playbook of witty discourse. As McMullin herself admits in the CD extras, it was “hard to pull back from the jokes. Because the characters are so brilliant, you want to make every line a standout line, so you start trying to one-up yourself while you’re writing it”. The episode is indeed very entertaining listening as a result, although it doesn’t surpass another River Song instalment – The Bekdel Test – which had the advantage of pairing River with Michelle Gomez’s maniacal Missy.

The second instalment – The Big Blue Book – is perhaps the most “traditional” of the four serials, given it features popular companions Ace and Bernice (aka Benny), minus Sylvester McCoy’s Doctor. Benny is drawn into an elaborate extra-terrestrial library-cum-dimension ship, and Ace has to rescue her before Benny is lost forever within a matrix of twisted and dying souls. Lizzie Hopley’s script is the most macabre of the four scripts – the manner in which an alien race imprisons and effectively damns its criminals for eternity brings a whole new meaning to the term “body horror”. It would have perfectly suited the style of the New Adventures (NA) that have clearly inspired it.

Ace and Benny are matched against another female antagonist in Vassa, played by Rosemary Ashe, who describes her character as a “kleptomaniac serial killer”, and her emasculated partner in crime Lycurgus (Robert Gill). With Benny sidelined for some of the story, it is the streetwise Ace who steps up to thwart this bizarre, villainous couple and free the trapped souls within the dimension ship. There is an assumption (particularly on the part of the villainous Vassa) that because Ace isn’t academically minded, she is no real threat and therefore not worthy of induction into the ship’s library. Of course, anyone familiar with Ace from the TV series – or her NA persona – will know that she is very smart; she may lack certified qualifications but she is by no means simple-minded (she’s a non-qualified chemist, given her affinity for making Nitro-9 bombs) nor is she completely science-phobic either. Hopley shows in her script how resourceful any informally educated person can be – yet another appreciation of the diversity this set is promoting – and Aldred (as expected) does an outstanding job of recreating her signature role (even down to recapturing Ace’s youthful verve) and its knack for ingenuity.

It is easy to forget that the TARDIS is also ostensibly female and sometimes can be as much of a character in 'her' own right as the cast of whichever era a story is set. 'She' also becomes a worthy plot device and instrumental to the conclusion in the Doctor’s absence.

Inside Every Warrior, the third script by Gemma Langford, takes us back to 8 March, 1894, when the Paternoster Gang – comprising Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh), her wife/housemaid Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart) and their Sontaran butler Strax (Dan Starkey) – are called upon by a conceited, misogynistic Victorian scientist Cornelius Pinch (Nigel Fairs) to investigate werewolf sightings in London. Pinch does little to enamour himself to the Victorian detective trio, while Jenny befriends Pinch’s ill-treated maid Daisy Hodge (Julie Atherton). However, when Strax is kidnapped by a werewolf and interned in an extra-terrestrial menagerie – in which the alien prisoners’ life essences are being drained by London’s upper classes – Vastra and Jenny realise the antagonist is not quite whom they were expecting.

As a primer for The Paternoster Gang series, Inside Every Warrior provides a “taste” of the Victorian-style adventures of the assorted trio. McIntosh and Stewart effortlessly recapture the love, affection and flirtatiousness their duo shared on-screen, while Stewart also gets to display her compassionate side in scenes with her counterpart Hodge. Starkey has less air time as Strax but his larger than life presence is certainly felt when he features, especially in the opening and climactic scenes of the story, underlined by the unmissable 'Sontar-ha' baritone.

The other performers in this play are also very strong. Tom Bell does an outstanding job of portraying two different characters – the downtrodden alien Prog and the foppish upper class 'gentleman' Percy – while BF veteran Louise Faulkner is both equally eccentric and deliciously sinister as Percy’s wife Laeticia. Atherton also shines in her role as she eschews the demoralised, browbeaten maid in the second half of the play. “Whatever we do, we’re always the vessel taking others to fairer lands. For once, don’t you want to be master of your own destiny?” Hodge poetically asks of Jenny, reinforcing the very solid writing that Langford brings to this entry and the sympathy it engenders for the central antagonist.

The final play – Sarah Grochala’s Narcissus – brings us squarely back to the 21st century as the modern day UNIT team encounter an internet dating site that is a cover for extra-terrestrial activity in London. This serial (as the title strongly implies) focuses on the concepts of beauty and self-image in both women and men, particularly in this age of social media, ‘selfies’, online personas and self-gratification.The interesting contrast with these notions is the character(s) of Osgood. Not only do the twin Osgoods not always get along (implying that having a physical duplicate of yourself is not guaranteed to make you faster, more efficient and more productive) but Osgood’s more modest sense of self is equally important in countering the extra-terrestrial threat in the androgynous Jordan (played by both Alix Dunmore and Dan Blaskey).

Ingrid Oliver delivers a fantastic performance as the two Osgoods. The actor admits in the CD extras that trying to convey the different moods and tones of each Osgood in the booth at the same time proved problematic . Therefore, Oliver would perform as one Osgood, with her other dialogue being read to her, and then perform her counterpart’s lines, leaving the editing suite to marry the two performances. The end result is a plausible conflict between two very alike individuals. And when they do get along, they are quite enterprising – one of them goes ‘undercover’ at one point to try to uncover the truth – to the horror of feisty Scots journalist Jacqui Magee (Tracey Wiles). The only downside with the Osgoods is that there is a strong implication in the climax that one of them is indeed human, whereas in The Zygon Invasion/Inversion, Steven Moffat went to great lengths to hide exactly whether the surviving Osgood was the original human or her Zygon copy. The question is whether a Zygon could convincingly outwit and confuse the serial’s antagonist in the almost oblivious, and selfless, manner that Osgood demonstrates.

Jemma Redgrave is also excellent throughout the serial as Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, her calming, diplomatic tones providing her with the scope to mediate some very difficult and challenging personalities, whether that be the Osgoods, Jackie or the villainous Jordan. Her calm, matter of fact demeanour also plays a significant role in her being able to resist the villain’s mindwashing techniques and overtures in the serial’s climactic stages.

So did Big Finish really need to do an International Women’s Day release with such a smorgasbord of tales? Probably not, as again the company’s record of hiring women as directors, producers, writers and actors is outstanding. Nonetheless, listeners will still be grateful for what is an excellent anthology set. Each tale is extremely entertaining, exploring the full gamut of emotions – from dark humour right through to self-deprecation – and there are morals from each of the tales that will appeal to both women and men alike.

Should there be another boxset in the future as a companion to this release? Perhaps it will depend on the theme and the types of stories that can be told, eg it may honour women and men of colour, LGBTIQ status or ethnicity. Regardless, you can be assured Big Finish will deliver an outstanding product. 

Written by Matt Fitton, John Dorney,
Guy Adams and Paul Morris
Directed by Ken Bentley
Stars: Alex Kingston, Jamie Glover, Jemma Powell,
Claudia Grant, Ralph Watson, Clive Wood,
Christopher Benjamin, Angus Wright, Nicholas Goh
Big Finish Productions, 2019

“So you know what happens to us?”

“No, I know what happens to everything else. I know what happens to the Miniscope and everything outside our personal experience. Think of it as an old story we’re walking around in!”

Dibbsworth and River Song, Peepshow

It’s been strongly hinted in the Doctor Who TV series - particularly in the 2015 episode The Husbands of River Song - and in prior Diary of River Song instalments that the Doctor’s wife is more than happy to engage with her husband’s past incarnations and 'borrow' the TARDIS from time to time for her own escapades while he is preoccupied.

Volume 6 of The Diary of River Song gives us an insight into the form those adventures take. It takes four serials from the first four Doctors in the classic era of the TV series – An Unearthly Child, The Web of Fear, Carnival of Monsters and The Talons of Weng-Chiang – and provides the listener with three prequels and a ‘midquel’ (a story running simultaneously with events in the original).

The first serial – An Unearthly Woman – takes us right back to the beginning, as River (Alex Kingston) goes undercover as a relief teacher at Coal Hill School, a few months before the fateful events of the very first episode. What’s fun about this episode is that it pairs River with teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, and their pupil Susan Foreman, all oblivious of the great adventure that awaits them. What is also neat is that these are the ‘contemporary’ versions of the characters, as originally played on TV in 2013’s An Adventure in Space and Time and subsequently in Big Finish’s own First Doctor Adventures audios – Jamie Glover (Ian), Jemma Powell (Barbara) and Claudia Grant (Susan).

The engagement between River and these ‘modern’ iterations of the original characters is one of the highlights of the box set. Kingston, Glover, Powell and Grant all interact naturally (which would not necessarily have been the case if Kingston had been paired with original cast members William Russell and Carol Anne Ford). Kingston also particularly relishes some of River’s moments with the trio – flirting with Glover’s Ian, providing counsel to Powell’s Barbara and lending a sympathetic ear to Grant’s Susan. These interactions are also capped off by two riotous encounters with the First Doctor (David Bradley), who is oblivious (rather than immune) to River’s charms!

The story itself bears some superficial similarity to another Coal Hill escapade in 2014’s Peter Capaldi episode The Caretaker, in which the streets of Shoreditch are being stalked by an extra-terrestrial hunter. In this instance, the antagonist is far more sinister than the quite comical Skovox Blitzer and (unintentionally) shares some vague similarities to the Kasaavaan of Jodie Whittaker’s second series opener Spyfall. Long-term, owl-eared listeners of Big Finish’s Doctor Who range will no doubt also pick up on a subtle ‘Easter egg’ that ties into the Eighth Doctor’s recent audio adventures.

The Web of Time takes River back to late 1960s (or is that mid-1970s?) London in the thrall of the Great Intelligence and its robot Yeti a few days before the Second Doctor and his companions arrive in The Web of Fear. River is on the trail of a rare extra-terrestrial artwork that has somehow found its way to the National Gallery but then finds herself in pursuit of a mother-and-daughter duo of looters who ‘nick’ her prize before she can. To add to her woes, River is forced to rescue the ill-fated Captain Ben Knight (who is destined to meet a grisly end at the tendrils of the Intelligence in the TV story) and drag him along for the ride throughout the abandoned capital. And as if having Knight questioning her altruism throughout the story isn’t aggravating enough, River subsequently finds herself being drawn into the Intelligence’s ‘web’, its curiosity in the time traveller having been piqued by her insertion into events.

John Dorney has a penchant for writing for characters with tragic histories and/or fates, so Captain Knight fits that bill quite neatly. While it is also quite poetic that the original actor in Ralph Watson reprises the part of Knight almost 50 years on from the original Web of Fear serial, the romance of this rather novel casting is somewhat shaded by the reality of it. Knight is presumably in his late twenties but Watson’s voice sounds considerably older and deeper, conjuring images in the listener’s mind of a much older man. Watson is unarguably great, and he puts his all back into the character but even the best of Big Finish’s sound wizards cannot disguise the age discrepancy in his voice. It perhaps would have been better had the captain been recast, and maybe Watson cast in another role (even as the Intelligence) as a nod to his involvement in the original serial. Nonetheless, Watson and Kingston have some great moments as the no-nonsense, compassionate soldier and the wise-cracking, opportunistic and sometimes ruthless archaeologist. Knight is very much the moral compass of this story; he is the one who lectures River about her duty and responsibilities, especially as she is armed with foreknowledge of the Yeti threat.

Knight may be River’s conscience in The Web of Time but her next sidekick – Dibbsworth – in The Carnival of Monsters midquel Peepshow pales by comparison (particularly in the courage stakes). Clive Wood’s hapless security guard starts off as quite obtuse but, thanks to Guy Adams’ character development and the dialogue between Dibbsworth and River, becomes quite likeable and sympathetic by the end. (Dibbsworth has an entertaining anecdote about riding a donkey in Blackpool which most individuals who meet River or the Doctor would very likely relate to!)

Wood has to compete for airtime with photocopier-eating sabretooth tigers, bemused yet stoic Sontarans, clueless Ogrons and marauding Drashigs. Nevertheless, even with Dan Starkey standing in for the Sontarans and Adams as the Ogrons, Wood eclipses them all as the comic relief – especially when he stands up to a Drashig with a banana!

Starkey has played numerous Sontarans for Big Finish over the years and once again excels as he channels the original actor Kevin Lindsay in his portrayal of Commander Sturmm and the other Sontarans in his unit.  Adams also puts on a very ‘simian’ performance as the Ogrons – although being an audio tale, the characters, even with their limited vocabulary, probably have more dialogue in this than they ever had on television!

In all, Peepshow is a fun, laugh a minute romp around the edges of another classic Doctor Who tale. The story only really reaches emotional heights when River briefly crosses paths with Tim Treloar’s Third Doctor in the closing moments of the play. It’s a touching, bittersweet meeting that foreshadows the conclusion of The Green Death – but it shows just how much River cares for the Doctor in all of his incarnations and why she can never stomach seeing him heartbroken.

Heartbreak is another theme of the final serial in this set – The Talents of Greel, a prequel to the timeless Tom Baker epic The Talons of Weng-Chiang and an unlikely romance story. Given Talons was only ever intended as a one-off tale by Robert Holmes in the late 1970s, the serial has spawned a number of sequels and spin-offs, both in print and on audio – most notably in the Jago & Litefoot series. With Trevor Baxter (Litefoot) having passed away, Christopher Benjamin (Jago) gets to rub shoulders with Alex Kingston, as River infiltrates the Palace Theatre a mere week before the Fourth Doctor and Leela arrive, and foils an earlier scheme of Li H’Sen Chang (Nicholas Goh, recreating the late John Bennett’s part on TV) and his deformed master Magnus Greel (Angus Wright, who reprises the role he first played in the Peter Davison tale The Butcher of Brisbane).

Paul Morris’s script ties quite cleverly into Talons, as he builds on a random piece of dialogue of Greel’s (Michael Spice on TV) about time agents in the original teleplay (this notion, little more than paranoia on Greel’s part, has been further developed in the modern TV series as the Time Agency, to which Captains Jack Harkness and John Hart belong). However, Morris also manages to add a human dimension to the story by introducing us to former Moulin Rouge starlet Celestine (Milly Thomas), who it transpires has an unexpected connection with Goh’s Chinese magician. Morris’s writing, coupled with Goh’s performance, consequently gives Chang a far more sympathetic characterisation than he had on TV and makes him far less of a villain and a caricature. While Goh is excellent in the part, his characterisation sadly (at least from a continuity perspective) doesn’t quite marry with the original Robert Holmes portrayal, which is more evocative of Saxon Rohmer’s Fu Manchu, and Bennett's subtly menacing performance.

Wright, however, more successfully captures the madness, anger and frustration in Spice’s original portrayal of Greel. This is no doubt helped by his earlier turn in The Butcher of Brisbane, and indeed in the CD extras, Wright remarks that while he worried he had forgotten how to play the part, the script was so well written that five minutes into the recording booth he had effortlessly slipped back into the role.

The other highlight of this tale is the duet between River and Jago on the stage of the Palace Theatre. Both Kingston and Benjamin clearly enjoy performing a bawdy song which will invite plenty of laughs from long-time Whovians. It may not be as accomplished as some of the clever musical numbers that were performed in the Sixth Doctor tale Doctor Who and the Pirates (2003) but it’s nevertheless a fun romp, particularly as River tunelessly attempts to raise her voice to the right keys in the course of the song and Jago chips in with his own helpful merry gems.

Long-term fans may be disappointed that River’s relationship with Jago is not as flirtatious and mischievous as it so often is with the Doctor and other incidental characters. However, as Morris and Benjamin explain in the CD extras, this would simply not be consistent with the hard-edged showman and businessman that is portrayed early in The Talons of Weng-Chiang and would be much too close to the more mellowed, experienced infernal investigator of the Jago & Litefoot series. Nonetheless, Morris finds a use for Jago that fits the plot and Benjamin’s wonderfully fruity tone and knack for using encyclopaediac dialogue – all while sounding bemused by events that occur around him – is as entertaining as ever! It’s great that while J&L may have come to an end, BF is still finding avenues for Benjamin’s character in other spin-offs, notably this story and a future Paternoster Gang instalment. I’m sure future forays in the Doctor Who main range (alongside Tom Baker or Colin Baker) aren’t out of the question – and it would be great to see the character interact with even Captain Jack in a period Torchwood tale!

The Talents of Greel is, by far, possibly the strongest of the four tales in this boxset, with The Web of Time also a major highlight, given that prequels to any classic Doctor Who stories in the past would have been suspiciously viewed by some quarters of fandom as utter heresy or ‘fanwank’! Nevertheless, BF manages to make all of the tales work quite plausibly – for the most part. At a time when some fans have been rattled by the recent revelations of recent series finale The Timeless Children (which have potentially rewritten the lore of the TV series as we know it), The Diary of River Song Vol 6 might be a reassuring journey back down ‘memory lane’ - albeit with its own modern twists and iterations

It will be interesting to see if this experiment of River dancing around other Doctor Who tales might be repeated for Doctors Five through Eight. Perhaps there’s more mileage to be had out of obscure classic era tales like Terminus, Vengeance on Varos, and Paradise Towers and Paul McGann audio Seasons of Fear. As I’ve written before in my previous reviews of the River series, I would still prefer that our heroine engages in her own escapades that aren’t so heavily anchored to the Doctor, the Master or the Doctor’s past. Nonetheless, it’s a fun romp through the TV series’ history and Alex Kingston continues to be outstanding as the Doctor’s rogue archaeologist wife. 

Written By: Xanna Eve Chown
Directed By: Scott Handcock
Featuring: John Barrowman (Captain Jack Harkness); Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones); Aaron Anthony (Jonty); Catherine Ayers (Paula); Meryn Davies (Resident); Jessica Hayles (Brigadier); Emily John (Resident)

Released by Big Finish Productions – December 2019
Order from Amazon UK

“I’ve gotta be honest – I’m really struggling with this.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Because two of our friends die and Jack goes off and I think he’s coming to terms with it but oh no, suddenly he’s pregnant!”

Were we to have compiled a checklist of unseen Torchwood moments craved by fans as of the show’s audio resurrection in 2015, then by now, Big Finish would’ve already ticked a remarkable number of those boxes. From the truth behind Jack’s predecessor at Torchwood Three taking his entire team’s lives in 1999 (The Torchwood Archive) to the conspirators behind the Miracle (ditto), from the inception of Jack and Ianto’s romance (Broken) to the agency’s international branches (The Dollhouse, The Dying Room), at this rate the studio will soon have plugged more holes than the good Captain has bullet wounds in his immortal body. And yet amongst the most obvious remaining gaps for many fans still has to be the show’s most ‘shipped’ coupling never raising any offspring before Ianto’s Shakespeare-calibre tragic downfall.

Until now, that is. For in honour of the festive season last December, Main Range freshwoman (and Doctor Who: Short Trips regular contributor) Xanna Eve Chown delivered the ultimate Christmas gift to the doomed lovers’ followers – but, to paraphrase the Eighth Doctor somewhat, “probably not the one that they were expecting”. On the bright side: Expectant affords the pair new purpose after the harrowing death toll of “Exit Wounds”, specifically in the form of a youngling to protect and nurture in its formative days. On the downside: said youngling is an extraterrestrial royal-to-be to whom Jack might give birth at any moment…so long as they’re not all slaughtered by alien bounty hunters or overzealous UNIT troopers beforehand. Cue a relentlessly zany, eclectic hour of audio drama which – much like October’s Smashed did for Eve Myles – lets its stars showcase dynamic new shades of their long-established characters, all the while providing ample chuckle-worthy moments for their listeners too.

This reviewer initially couldn’t help but fear the worst upon hearing of such a wish-fulfilling yet equally bonkers premise as that described above; what if the inevitably comic relief-fuelled concept failed to yield more than 15 minutes of half-hearted chortles, let alone sustain the usual 50-60 minute running time afforded to Big Finish dramas? And might the challenge only prove exacerbated by its scribe’s newcomer status on the Torchwood audio scene? Thankfully it took merely a few minutes for Eve Chown to lay those concerns to rest with some downright hilarious overblown action and comedic set-pieces, then another 10-20 minutes tops for her to confirm that – as per the quote which opened our review – there’s far more on her mind than cheap guffaws. Indeed, Expectant plays marvellously as both a sitcom pregnancy romp – hunger pangs, self-body-shaming, mood swings, frantic spouses and midwives, the works – and admirably intricate meditation on grief, Jack’s struggle to reconcile his supposed victories at the agency’s helm with his recent losses often bubbling to the surface at the most inopportune but poignant moments. It’d be a truly tough tonal line for any author to straddle regardless of their chosen medium so that our resident scribe achieves as much despite this outing marking her first Main Range ‘baby’ is all the more astounding a feat.

The same unsurprisingly goes for John Barrowman too, who’s clearly having just as riotous a whale of a time here as he did with his headline-grabbing Doctor Who return last month, yet likewise manages to inject further layers beyond mere farce. On the one hand, his uncharacteristically emotionally distraught and oft-irritable take on the knocked-up Jack represents a welcome breath of fresh air, especially when compared to the Time Agent’s usual endless array of raunchy one-liners and / or stoic attempts at leadership; on the other, having Barrowman poignantly reveal the cracks in his long-running antihero’s exterior, the newfound hormones prompting distraught outbursts over Owen and Toshiko’s deaths with Ianto’s encouragement, proves equally effective in depicting yet more shades for this oft-comic relief-driven protagonist. A lot of actors would doubtless feel content to simply phone their performances in once a role has been as well-established as Jack, so it’s reassuring to know that Barrowman (amidst all his other work on pantos, Holby City, the Arrow-verse and the like) shows no sign of following suit – quite the opposite based on his remarkably versatile contribution here.

As ever, though, virtually no audio drama (one-handers aside perhaps) can survive solely on the basis of its leading thespian’s performance. Luckily Gareth David-Lloyd (whose role essentially amounts to an extended cameo this time around) and Aaron Anthony seem to wholly recognise as much, their respective takes on an increasingly infuriated Ianto as well as Jack’s bewildered midwife Jonty inducing ample laughs along the way as the pair react desperately to their knocked-up friend’s pleas for food, aesthetic compliments and hugs alike. There’s inevitably not quite as much attention paid to each player’s individual character development in Expectant as, say, more personal drama-heavy affairs like Broken and The Last Beacon have afforded Ianto in recent years, but the intentionally comedy-thriller-style tone of the piece moreso demands a balance of gung-ho resilience and gags which the two undoubtedly strike in good measure throughout.

By now you’re probably wondering who our heroes must face off against before reaching the play’s metaphorical finishing line. Well, there’s a reason why we hadn’t mentioned as much up until now – whereas Torchwood audio dramas (and indeed action dramas generally) usually feature a pretty transparent antagonist for the agent at hand to best, in Eve Chown’s script the threat moreso lies in the overall challenge at hand than any of the foes revealed as events progress as a conspicuous food clinic hotel in Act 3. It’s an approach which pays off for the most part in terms of allowing the heightened yet ever-developing core character dynamics breathe in a 1-hour runtime, albeit with the trade-off of the ‘true’ villains’ outing and motivations feeling somewhat rushed come the last 20 minutes or so as a result. How detrimental that aspect feels to your overall satisfaction with the play will, at the end of the day, largely depend on whether its storyline’s / performances’ banter-driven nature start to grate for you as a listener beforehand.

Regardless, the further that we move into the Torchwood Main Range’s more standalone, arc-detached output (notably the Committee don’t even get a mention here, perhaps signalling their end of days seeing as God Among Us wrapped up their ongoing story arc), the more confidences its wrights instil in leaving the show’s interconnected storylines to its yearly three-part ‘season’ boxsets. Releases as gloriously bonkers as Expectant continue to uphold the wide breadth of storylines which the TV series always offered on a weekly basis (contrast this with the haunting circus affair From Out of the Rain and it’s night and day), thereby demonstrating their sustained potency in the franchise’s audio-resurrected form. Would we necessarily want every instalment produced at Big Finish to take such an outrageous and laugh-laden direction? Probably not, but so long as Eve Chown’s back at the helm whenever the studio next opts for such a refreshing narrative approach, this reviewer will have no qualms whatsoever about coming along for the ride.