STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS STORY TAKES

 PLACE AFTER THE BIG

 FINISH AUDIO DRAMA

 "INDUSTRIAL EVOL-

 UTION," AND SOME

 TIME PRIOR TO THE

 NOVEL "THE SHADOW

 IN THE GLASS."

 

 WRITTEN BY

 PAUL SUTTON

 

 DIRECTED BY

 LISA BOWERMAN

 

 RECOMMENDED 

 PURCHASE

 BIG FINISH 'COMPANION

 CHRONICLES' CD 5.05

 (ISBN 1-84435-487-0)

 RELEASED IN NOVEMBER

 2010.

 

 BLURB 

 Problems beset the

 Doctor and Evelyn

 as they travel by

 train to the Wild

 West town of Fortune.

 

 A young woman is

 investigating the

 murder of her father

 nine years earlier,

 and a wanted poster

 indicates that the

 Doctor is the killer!

 

 With the TARDIS lost

 to them and the law

 on their tail, can the

 travellers unravel

 the mystery – or will

 Rachel Ann Donovan 

 take her revenge?

 

 PREVIOUS                                                                                  NEXT

 

A Town

Called Fortune

NOVEMBER 2010

(2 EPISODES)

 

 

                                                       

 

 

Maggie Stables is enjoying something of a Big Finish renaissance at the moment. Having heard nothing from her character since May 2008’s Assassin in the Limelight, this autumn has seen her play a pivotal role in the seventh Doctor audio drama A Death in the Family, as well as carry her very own Wild West adventure: A Town Called Fortune.

 

It’s a joy to hear Evelyn telling her own version of a story here, as opposed to being swept

up in a rolling one. Paul Sutton does a wonderful job of nailing her character in her narrative dialogue, capturing both the intelligent academic and the warm, aunt-like figure. After having listened to so many productions that saw her spar with Colin Baker’s Old Sixy, it’s lovely to hear her recount such exchanges, loaded as they are with barbed - but nonetheless loving - jibes.

 

The story itself has the whiff of a Quick Read about it. Sutton makes no apologies for loading the piece with as many Western clichιs as he’d dare - there’s even an old goldmine! - yet at its heart sits one of his trademark twisted tales of love, and with all its twists and apparently timey-wimey turns, it’s one that keeps the listener guessing until right at the end. Exactly how he arrived at A Town Called Fortune from the brief “write a sequel to Robot”, however, I’ve no idea.

 

The post-production work, as

ever, is sumptuous. I get the

impression that Nigel Fairs

thoroughly enjoyed throwing

himself into a suitably stringy

spaghetti score, and the way

that his sound design brings

vibrant settings such as the saloon to life is marvellous. Kudos to director Lisa Bowerman

and guest voice Richard Cordery too – this production positively reeks of the genre.

 

In sum, A Town Called Fortune is hardly the most profound of Sutton’s works, but it’s almost certainly the most fun, and after the emotive weight of A Death in the Family, I dare say it’s just what the Doctor ordered. Auntie Evelyn always knows exactly what to give us.

 

Copyright © E.G. Wolverson 2010

 

E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

 

  

This story’s blurb places it between the Big Finish audio dramas Thicker than Water and Pier Pressure. How this can be puzzles the will, however, given that Pier Pressure takes place before even the flashback scenes featured in Thicker than Water.

 

Even if we were to assume that the blurb should have read “between Pier Pressure and Thicker than Water”, the suggested gap would still be terribly wide. We have therefore, rather arbitrarily, placed this adventure after the audio drama Industrial Evolution, which was the last sixth Doctor release prior to feature Evelyn. It could not really be placed any sooner as Evelyn refers to her “making a habit” of jumping off trains (something that she recalled doing with Brewster as she reminisced in A Death in the Family).

 

Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes.

‘Doctor Who’ is copyright © by the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.