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Klein's Story
FEBRUARY 2010
(1 EPISODE)
I was astounded
to learn that Klein’s Story came about purely as a result of the
decision to condense Survival of the Fittest into three episodes.
To me, its presence at the heart of this season of adventures is of
critical importance to the arc. Whilst the key events
in Klein’s history could be inferred from the events of Steve Lyons’
Colditz, there is a world
of difference between putting together the pieces of some distant puzzle
and enjoying a full-cast dramatisation drawn from them.
As
a huge fan of both Colditz and
temporally-twisting tales generally,
inevitably I was very excited about
this episode, particularly once it had
been announced that Paul McGann
would be playing a character by the
name of ‘Johann Schmidt’ in it. And
as wibbly-wobbly,
timey-wimey
tales go, they rarely get more complicated or rewarding than this one with
its alternative (but ultimately, not all that different) regeneration and
its longest
of long games. Indeed,
Klein’s Story
is
potentially the most intriguing half-hour story that Big
Finish have yet told.
And under Lyons’ watchful gaze, John Ainsworth and Lee Mansfield have done
a sterling job of fleshing out and dramatising those few telling lines of
dialogue in Colditz. The episode is framed much like a Companion
Chronicle is, with the in-character Tracey Childs narrating the events
that led to her Colditz Castle to the intrigued Doctor, whilst the
understated Paul McGann and the magnificently poised Rupert Wickham lend
voice to their respective char-acters.
The authors elaborate beautifully upon Lyons’ framework, introducing us to
the character
of Jonas Faber - Klein’s commander and, it seems, her lover. This small
but telling reveal helped me to look at Klein – at Elizabeth – in a
whole new light; in fact, I almost felt sorry
for her. The Doctor’s plan is so meticulous and his manipulation of her so
devious that he almost comes across as the heel here. In fact, were
Klein not a temporally-unscrupulous Nazi with a callous eye on getting her
feller into the recently-deceased Führer’s chair, then one might question
the Doctor’s methods. But she isn’t. And so we don’t.
Short and sweet, Klein’s Story does exactly what it says on the
tin, and it does so with great imagination and even greater relish.
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